Rising Together to the Ranks of Lords: Innate Equality and the Pre-Qin Vision of Self-Cultivation, Compared with Western Freedom and Equality
Starting from a brief episode in the Analects, in which the noble Wenzi of Wei promotes his own household steward, Zhuan, to stand alongside him among the lords, this essay reads that small event against the great declarations of freedom and equality since the Renaissance: the West places its ideal at the starting line, while the pre-Qin thinkers built the ideal into lived reality.
II. Interpreting "Reality": Difference of Position Is Not Darkness, but the Ordinary Condition of Human Groups
2.1 The Ministerial-Steward System of the Spring and Autumn Period: The "Company and Employee" of Its Day
In the political life of the Spring and Autumn period, a great minister held his own fief, lineage, and household stewards. Stewards handled governance, finance, diplomacy, and military affairs on their master's behalf; they were supported by him, and in turn bore responsibility through loyalty, trustworthiness, and ability. The relationship between Wenzi of Wei and Zhuan was embedded precisely in this institutional fabric. To describe it simply as a relation of master and slave would obscure the complexity that the term "steward" carried at the time: a steward truly occupied a lower position and served under a particular household, yet he might well possess his own learning, reputation, and political prospects; and the master, for his part, was not free merely to command — he also had to recognize talent, promote it, and answer for the steward's conduct.
"Rising together to the ranks of lords" deserves to be recorded not because the Spring and Autumn period suddenly discovered that all people are without difference, but because an order built on difference nonetheless allowed talent and virtue to break through its existing boundaries. That Zhuan first served as a steward and later became a grand master shows that public office was not locked shut by origin alone. Had Wenzi cared only for his household's standing, he could easily have suppressed Zhuan's reputation; instead he recommended him to a place standing alongside his own, accepting the risk of ceding prestige and sharing power. The steward system had its limits, yet it also left behind one crucial fact: difference of position and social mobility can coexist.
This bears comparison with today's companies. A chairman, a department head, and a project member do not hold equal authority, pay, or responsibility; without hierarchy, no one would approve budgets, no one would bear risk, and complex cooperation would collapse into dispute. Hierarchy itself is not what constitutes darkness. Darkness lies in a superior treating hierarchy as private property, treating subordinates as replaceable hands and feet — or in an organization treating lineage, connections, and silent obedience as the sole criteria for promotion. A normal organization ought to give those in lower positions a path to learn and to demonstrate their ability, and place on those in higher positions a duty to recognize talent and yield precedence to the worthy. This is precisely the edge of the Spring and Autumn story: it does not abolish order, but tests whether order can accommodate human growth.
It should also be noted that the steward relationship was not a cold, one-page contract of employment. It bound together stipend, reputation, lineage, and shared risk, and was therefore heavier — and demanded more mutual good faith — than modern employment. If a master lost his virtue, a steward could leave, remonstrate, or even go on to serve someone else; if a steward failed in his duty, the master likewise had the power to dismiss and punish him. Precisely because the relationship was long-term and concrete, recognizing talent and recommending the worthy was never mere "personnel allocation" — it was an investment in a shared reputation. That Wenzi was willing to advance Zhuan into public office amounted to a public admission: what made his own household worthy of respect lay precisely in its ability to nurture and release talent, not to hoard it as private possession.
2.2 Xunzi's "Distinguishing Roles to Form a Group": Division of Labor as Order, Order as Survival
Master Xun (Xunzi), observing human groups, begins with a plain question: what allows people to gather into a group, rather than each one struggling and scattering apart$4 The Xunzi, in its chapter "The Regulations of a King," says: "How is it that people are able to form groups$5 I say: through distinction fen. How can distinction be put into practice$6 I say: through rightness yi." What is called "distinction" is not merely a matter of cutting people into ranks of high and low — it is above all the clear apportioning of affairs, responsibility, and resources. What is called "rightness" is what makes such apportionment fitting, so that each party knows the boundary and also knows what it owes to the others. Later readers often sum up this idea as "distinguishing roles to form a group": only by first making differences clear does cooperation become possible.
A village needs some to farm, some to manage water, some to stand guard; an army needs generals, soldiers, messengers, and quartermasters; a school needs those who teach, those who learn, and those who administer. If everyone demanded the identical duty and the identical authority, then on the surface there would be no distinction of high and low, but in practice no one would be answerable for the result. Division of labor produces difference of position, and difference of position in turn brings mutual dependence: the one who steers cannot do without the one who rows, the one who makes the rules cannot do without the one who carries them out, and the one who holds resources cannot do without those who supply knowledge and labor. Order does not flatten people — it lets different abilities work together toward a shared goal.
Nor does Master Xun therefore enshrine any established hierarchy as eternal. He repeatedly speaks of "rightness" and of "fittingness" (cheng), demanding that title, authority and responsibility, and actual effect correspond to one another; if a superior cannot bear the responsibility his position demands, then his name and his substance have parted ways. If a difference of rank serves no legitimate purpose, it degenerates into plunder; if power is not bound by rightness, it cannot hold a group together. Seen in this light, this realism is not flattery toward the strong — it is the acknowledgment that human groups must divide labor, joined to the constant question of whether that division lets the common people each find their proper place. Difference of position is a starting point, not a conclusion exempt from scrutiny.
"Distinction" also means recognizing that people's abilities each incline in different directions. Some are skilled at planning, some excel at execution, some can shoulder responsibility in a crisis, and some are suited to meticulous, sustained work. If, for the sake of superficial uniformity, everyone were forced into the same kind of work, this would waste ability while also breeding resentment. The order that Master Xun describes is therefore not one that nails people down by their origin, but one that assigns tasks according to ability, and then tests fitness through learning and examination. Rank can be adjusted; duties must be clear. Lacking either of these two, a group is not cooperation but mere clamor.
2.3 The Book of Changes: "Heaven Is Honored, Earth Is Lowly," and Laozi: "The Honored Take the Lowly as Their Root" — Mutual Nourishment Within Difference of Position
The "Great Treatise" (Xici zhuan) of the Book of Changes (Zhouyi) says: "Heaven is honored, Earth is lowly; thus Qian and Kun are fixed. Once lowly and high are arrayed, honored and base take their positions." This line is often misread as blind praise of the honored over the base. In fact it is, first of all, a description of the layered structure and positions of the world: Heaven above, Earth below, low and high arrayed in order, so that the myriad things each have their place. Position here is not an isolated glory but a function within a relationship: if Heaven only hung on high without generating life, or if Earth only received without nurturing, then Qian and Kun would lose their operation.
Chapter 39 of the Laozi (Daodejing) further says: "The honored take the lowly as their root; the high take the low as their foundation. This is why lords and kings call themselves 'orphaned,' 'the widowed,' and 'the unworthy.' Is this not taking the lowly as the root$7 Indeed it is!" That the honored are rooted in the lowly, and the high founded on the low, is precisely a reminder to those in high position not to forget the very conditions on which they depend. When lords and kings call themselves "orphaned" or "the unworthy," this is not false humility for show — it is an acknowledgment that an exalted position is never self-sufficient. The head of an organization cannot do without the labor of the rank and file; a scholar cannot do without the questions of students; a state cannot do without the daily toil of ordinary people. A so-called high place, once it loses the support of the low place beneath it, is nothing but a title suspended in mid-air.
Difference of position can therefore become a structure of mutual nourishment: those below support the whole through their labor, opinion, and expertise, while those above give back through resources, judgment, and protection. The distinction remains, and the titles of "honored" and "base" may remain as well, but both sides are bound together by a single relationship. What is truly dangerous is not that some stand above and some below, but that those above refuse to acknowledge the ground on which they stand, while those below can see no possibility of ever being heard, cultivated, or advanced. Only once difference of position loses its mutual nourishment does it slide from order into tyranny; where mutual nourishment remains, difference can instead become the very condition under which shared tasks are accomplished.
Nor does the "honored and lowly" of the Book of Changes mean that human souls themselves divide into two ranks, noble and base. "Heaven honored, Earth lowly" is a distinction of position, not a claim that Earth may therefore be despised by Heaven — quite the opposite: it is Earth, thick and bearing all things, whose merit lies not in height but in its capacity to carry. Viewed through this lens, those in lower positions are not necessarily of lesser character, nor are those in higher positions necessarily of greater virtue; office is only the allocation of public tasks, while virtue must be proven through daily conduct. To mistake the height of an office for the height of a person's character is precisely a misreading of "position" — and it is the beginning of the corruption of every hierarchy.
2.4 Bureaucratic Layers Exist in Every Age and Every Civilization: The Real Question Is Mutual Treatment and Mobility
From the deliberative assemblies of the city-states to the organization of the church, from the bureaus of royal government to the modern corporation, every age and every civilization has had to deal with layers of authority and responsibility. A hospital has attending physicians, resident physicians, and nursing teams; a laboratory has a principal investigator, researchers, and technicians; an internet company has a board of directors, product lines, and specific projects. Even the community most devoted to equality will form temporary or stable hierarchies around decision-making, expertise, and the bearing of risk. Once a human group grows large enough, purely horizontal relations no longer suffice to coordinate complex action; bureaucratic layering is not the shadow peculiar to any one civilization, but the normal condition of cooperation at scale.
Discussing reality, then, cannot stop at the question of "whether difference of position exists." Three questions matter more: how does a superior treat a subordinate — as a partner endowed with judgment, or not$8 Can a subordinate voice dissent through legitimate means, and does he have any room to refuse an unjust command$9 And between ranks, is there a channel for learning, evaluation, recommendation, and exit$10 Without an ethic of mutual treatment, the slogan of equality will only conceal the strong's hidden domination; without a mechanism for mobility, order will congeal into a rigid wall.
Modern organizations bear an additional pressure of speed: positions turn over frequently, a project may be reorganized within months, and any individual's expertise keeps being renewed. With only static top-down command, hierarchy will slow the response; with only horizontal, free negotiation, responsibility again finds no one to bear it. The better approach is to let authority concentrate temporarily around the task at hand, to let information flow back upward, and to let whoever completes a task earn the chance to bear still greater responsibility next time. Such mobility does not flatten everyone to the same level — it makes every act of commitment a potential occasion for changing one's position.
The significance of "rising together to the ranks of lords" lies precisely in answering part of all three questions at once: Wenzi treated Zhuan with ritual courtesy and recommendation; Zhuan advanced himself through talent and virtue; and public office became the outlet for mobility. It did not deny the difference between steward and grand minister, yet it proved that difference is not an iron gate of fate. The pre-Qin view of the human person, which we take up next, unfolds from exactly this point: a person is not wholly defined by the starting point of birth, but continually rewrites his own position through learning and self-cultivation.