Two Theories of Governmental Legitimacy

Does Government rely on the Mandate of Heaven or the Mandate of the People?

The concept of the "legitimacy of government" revolves around the right and acceptance of an authority, typically a ruler or ruling body or a ruler, to hold power over a group of people or geographic area. It’s the foundational principle that underlies the structure and operation of any political system. A government cannot long maintain stability, nor easily ensure the willingness of the populace to comply with its directives, if it is not perceived as legitimate.

Now, the legitimacy of a government is not just about the “legal” or “formal” right to govern, but also about the moral and ethical justification for the wielding of power over subjects or citizens. As such, the particular justification chosen always carries a lot of implications for the structure of the society.

Historically, the justifications for governmental legitimacy have varied widely across in space and time. Two theories, however, have consistently re-appeared: the mandate of heaven and the mandate of the people.

As dissidents seeking freedom and order in an unfree and disordered world, and potentially faced with the horrible necessity of asserting the ancient “right of revolution,” to which theory ought we subscribe?

The Mandate of Heaven

The mandate of heaven is the principle that the authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by divine support for a virtuous ruler.

It is an ancient Chinese political and religious doctrine used for thousands of years to justify the rule of the emperors over China. According to the theory, heaven granted an imperial dynasty its right to rule based on its ability to govern well and fairly. The loss of the mandate meant the loss of the right to rule, and justified the overthrow of the existing dynasty and its replacement with a new one.

However, while China’s mandate of heaven is the one most frequently referenced, the concept of a heavenly mandate is by no means exclusively Sinic. As I explained in Virtus Heroica, Aristotle supported a sort of heavenly mandate in Book III, Chapter 13 of Politics:

[I]f there is any one man so greatly distinguished in outstanding virtue, or more than one but not enough to be able to make up a complete state, so that the virtue of all the rest and their political ability is not comparable with that of the men mentioned, it is no longer proper to count these exceptional men a part of the state; for they will be treated unjustly if deemed worthy of equal status, being so widely unequal in virtue and in their political ability: since such a man will naturally be as a god among men…

[T]here can be no law dealing with such men as those described, for they are themselves a law; indeed a man would be ridiculous if he tried to legislate for them, for probably they would say what in the story of Antisthenes the lions said when the hares made speeches in the assembly and demanded that all should have equality…

[I]n the case of the best constitution there is much doubt as to what ought to be done, not as regards superiority in the other things of value, such as strength and wealth and popularity, but in the case of a person becoming exceptionally distinguished for virtue. It certainly would not be said that such a man must be banished and got out of the way; yet nevertheless no doubt men would not think that they ought to rule over such a man, for that would be the same as if they claimed to rule over Zeus, dividing up his spheres of government. It remains therefore, and this seems to be the natural course, for all to obey such a man gladly, so that men of this sort may be kings in the cities for all time. (emphasis added)

A number of other civilizations also had variants of a heavenly mandate:

• In ancient Egypt, pharaohs were considered divine or semi-divine beings, chosen by the gods to serve as their representatives on Earth. The concept of Ma'at, embodying truth, balance, order, and cosmic harmony, was central to ancient Egyptian religion and governance. Pharaohs were seen as responsible for maintaining Ma'at, and their ability to do so was considered indicative of their legitimacy to rule.

• In ancient Mesopotamian societies (such as Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylon), kings were often seen as chosen by the gods to rule. Inscriptions and texts frequently depicted kings receiving their mandate to govern directly from the gods, with the approval and support of the divine being essential for their legitimacy. The concept of kingship in Mesopotamia was intertwined with religion, and the prosperity of the land was attributed to the king's righteous rule under the auspices of the gods.

• The Roman Empire also developed a concept where the emperor was seen as chosen by the divine, especially in the later empire when Christianity became the state religion. Initially, emperors were deified after their death, but with the Christianization of the empire, the emperor's legitimacy came to be seen as sanctioned by the Christian God. This divine approval was essential for maintaining the social and political order, similar to how the Mandate of Heaven justified the emperor's rule in China.

• The divine right of kings became a prevalent concept in medieval Europe, asserting that monarchs were directly chosen by God to rule. This belief was used to justify and legitimize the authority of kings and queens, suggesting that their power was not just temporal but also sanctioned by a divine order. Like the Mandate of Heaven, this concept also implied that rebellion against the monarch was tantamount to rebellion against God.

• The Byzantine Empire developed, perhaps, the most interesting implementation of the heavenly mandate, in which physical mutilation could signal the loss of the right to rule! The foundation of the Byzantine Empire's constitution was rooted in the belief that it served as the terrestrial counterpart to God’s Heavenly Kingdom. In the same way that God held dominion in Heaven, the emperor, created in His likeness, was destined to govern on Earth and enact His decrees. The emperor was thus seen as an earthly mirror of divine sovereignty. Given that God was perceived as flawless, it was imperative for the emperor to also appear physically flawless. Consequently, any form of mutilation, particularly those affecting the face, would render a person ineligible for heaven’s mandate.

In more recent times, the heavenly mandate has been defended by paleo-reactionary Julius Evola as well as neo-reactionary Curtis Yarvin / Mencius Moldbug. I haven’t written much on Yarvin’s thought (how could I write about Yarvin better than Yarvin?) but I have written a lot on Evola. Notable is this section in Nerd Among the Ruins:

Let us imagine, as Evola does, that… some men might be able… to transcend the merely human and become regal and Olympian kings and heroes, great-souled and charismatic, capable of overcoming petty materialism and vulgarity in order to lead us into higher orders of life. Imagine that there are men who possess what the Romans called auctoritas, the numinous power to command. Certainly our ancient ancestors believed in such men.

If we can imagine that being reality… then we can begin to understand why Evola rejected modernity, egalitarianism and democracy, and favored tradition, hierarchy, and monarchy. We can understand why he believed kings ruled by divine right and the masses were rightly ruled by the divine.

Obviously, acceptance of a theory of heavenly mandate requires a belief in (1) a normative cosmic or divine order which judges the ruler’s legitimacy; and (2) rulers capable of being worthy of a divine mandate.

The Mandate of the People

The primary alternative to the mandate of heaven is the mandate of the people. Sometimes also called popular sovereignty, it is the principle that the authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by the consent of the governed.

While notions of popular sovereignty are commonly attributed to the Enlightenment, the concept has ancient roots:

• Before the rise of monarchies in ancient India, there were several republics or ganarajya where the governance was based on the consent of the governed, through assemblies of the free men of the community.

• Ancient Athens is often cited as the earliest Western example of a society attempting to implement the principles of popular sovereignty. Although not all residents were allowed to participate in the democratic process, the Athenian system did allow for a significant portion of the free male population to engage in decision-making processes and hold public office.

• While no one could accuse the Romans of being democrats, the Roman concept of res publica (the public thing) could be understood as reflecting, at least in principle, an understanding that the state was a matter for the people.

• The practices of the Ancient Germanic tribes documented by Tacitus represent an early form of legal and social organization that, in various ways, incorporated elements of what we would recognize as "the consent of the governed."

• During the High Middle Ages and Renaissance, thinkers ranging from Duns Scotus to Nicholas of Cusa and political groups including the Huguenots and Levellers argued that a ruler’s power is delegated by the people and legitimate only with their consent.

That said, it was not until the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries that the mandate of the people truly topped the mandate of heaven. As the Enlightenment gradually deconstructed traditional metaphysical notions of God, cosmic order, and divine right, the theoretical basis of legitimacy had to shift.

The mandate of the people is ably expressed by John Milton:

The power of kings and magistrates is nothing else, but what is only derivative, transferred and committed to them in trust from the people, to the common good of them all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them, without a violation of their natural birthright.

And by John Locke:

[State power] can have no right except as this is derived from the individual right of each man to protect himself and his property. The legislative and executive power used by government to protect property is nothing except the natural power of each man resigned into the hands of the community

Milton and Locke’s doctrines, however, carried with them an inherent contradiction. From whom or what do the people inherit their “natural birthright?” What is the source of the “natural power of each man”? For the early Enlightenment thinkers, the answer was, of course, God. The Founding Fathers the nascent United States, in the Declaration of Independence, were explicit in regarding God’s order as the foundation for popular sovereignty:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

But God was the same source of legitimacy that the mandate of heaven asserted! And if God created inalienable rights, and the purpose of government was to secure those rights, then a virtuous ruler would be one who secured those rights; such a ruler would therefore - by definition - have heaven’s mandate. Conversely, if a people did not consent to rule by someone who secured their rights, then the people would be acting immorally in refusing this consent. None of the early theorists of popular sovereignty would have countenanced the idea of rebelling against a virtuous government!

Thus, to the extent that the consent of the governed is founded on religious belief, the functional difference between the mandate of heaven and the consent of the governed is extremely narrow. Now, this is not to say that there is no distinction; but it turns out to be little more than the distinction we find between republicanism and liberalism, where notions of “the general welfare” are pitted against notions of “individual rights”.

It was not until 1762, when Jean-Jacques Rousseau (cursed be his name) wrote The Social Contract, that the concept of popular sovereignty could be said to stand independent of a divine metaphysical framework.

In describing his concept of popular sovereignty, Rousseau distinguished between what he called the "will of all" and the "general will." The will of all was the sum total of individual preferences and interests within society, often conflicting and self-serving. Rousseau saw the will of all as essentially problematic. (Ironically, our own society frequently reifies the will of all as the proper outcome of a free market guarded by the invisible hand.)

In contrast to the will of all, the general will represented the common good or collective interest of the people as a whole, transcending individual desires. Rousseau argued that the general will was always right and always led to public utility. The general will is that collective outcome that is best for everyone overall, even if it may not align with personal preferences of particular individuals. The general will could potentially justify the suppression of the God-given individual rights so prioritized by the earlier thinkers, provided the general will pursued such suppression for the common good.

Unfortunately, Rousseau offered little in the way of practical guidance for rulers to be able to distinguish between the “will of all” and the “general will.” To say that this had disastrous consequences would be an understatement. Rousseau’s doctrines first inspired the bloody-handed French Revolution and ever since have consistently led to tyrannical outcomes. Rousseau’s popular sovereignty always reveals itself to be the “Real Democracy” of Communist Cuba: He who commands the most machetes determines the general will.

The Right of Revolution

The right of revolution is a fundamental aspect of both frameworks, the mandate of the people and the mandate of heaven, though it is conceptualized and justified differently within each framework.

The mandate of heaven allows for the right of revolution within a cosmic and moral framework. The ruler's legitimacy depends on his moral righteousness and ability to maintain harmony and prosperity in the realm. If the ruler fails in these duties, he has lost the mandate of heaven, and that justifies the overthrow of the ruler or dynasty.

The right of revolution is thus justified by heaven's will, and will be evidenced by natural disasters, famine, social unrest, and other signs that indicate the current ruler has lost the divine favor necessary to govern. Revolution here is not expected to depend on collective action initiated by the common will of the people but rather on a sort of divinely-enforced destiny.

The mandate of the people allows for the right of revolution within a contractual framework. The government’s legitimacy derives from a social contract (implicit or explicit) by which its powers are delegated from the people. When the government breaches the social contract, that is, when it acts against the interests, rights, and will of the people, the government then loses its legitimacy, and the people have the right to alter or abolish it and institute a new government that will secure their future safety and happiness.

The right of revolution is thus justified by the people’s withdrawal of their consent due to government’s violation of the social contract. The revolution here is envisioned as a democratic and collective action which might encompass anything from peaceful protests and civil disobedience to armed rebellion, depending on the extent of governmental tyranny and oppression.

In asserting the right to revolution, then, there are two questions we could ask:

1. Has the government failed to maintain harmony and prosperity for the people?

2. Have the people withdrawn their consent from the government (implicitly or explicitly)?

Clearly, if the answer to both question is “no,” then no right to revolution exists under either theory of legitimacy.

Equally clearly, if the answer to both questions is “yes,” then the right to revolution exists under both theories of legitimacy.

But what about the mixed cases? Let’s consider them in order. First, what if government fails to maintain harmony and prosperity, but the people do not withdraw their consent?

Under the mandate of heaven, a would-be rebel need not care (except pragmatically) whether the people are consenting to be governed. He could and should rise up simply because the ruler seems to have lost heaven’s mandate. Whether or not the mandate has in fact been lost by the old regime and claimed by the revolutionary regime will be decided on the battlefield. For the revolutionary seeking heaven’s mandate, it’s only treason if you lose. If you win, the victory itself demonstrates the mandate of heaven.

Under the mandate of the people, however, a would-be rebel cannot revolt if the people still consent to their government. If the revolution is not collective, it is not legitimate. Even if a formerly democratic country were to become tyrannical in its state power, fascist in all but name, no individual could be justified in toppling it — only the people as a whole possess the right.

On the other hand, what if government does maintain harmony and prosperity, but the people withdraw their consent anyway?

Under the mandate of heaven, the anger of the people might be seen as evidence of the loss of the mandate; but more likely, it would be seen as an unjust uprising or rebellion and put down in the name of order and justice.

Under the mandate of the people, the people would be in the wrong. The government has not breached the social contract — therefore there is no justification for the rebellion. Consent can only be withdrawn when the social contract is breached. (This is why the Founding Fathers took such pains to lay out their list of complaints against England.)

If this analysis is correct, then the theory of heaven’s mandate is far more supportive of the right of revolution than is the theory of the people’s mandate. A revolutionary against heaven’s mandate is justified if the ruler has failed to maintain the people’s welfare. A revolutionary against the people’s mandate must show that the ruler has failed to maintain the people’s welfare and that they have withdrawn their consent collectively. The latter is far harder.

In fact, I would argue that the concept of the mandate of the people, e.g. of popular sovereignty, is functionally a counter-revolutionary doctrine. Yes, in its inception it had a revolutionary role to play, in toppling the thrones and altars of old Europe; but having done so, government of the people and by the people has quietly transformed itself into a tyrannical managerial state. Asserting the mandate of the people is easy if you’re rebelling against a king; it’s essentially impossible if you’re rebelling against a democracy, no matter how badly the ruling class is failing the people.

Put another way: The right to revolution is objective under heaven’s mandate, but subjective under the people’s mandate. As with everything in the Enlightenment, it served merely to pave the way towards subjectivity in all things: postmodernism uber alles.

My answer to this, of course, is my philosophy of physiocracy. Physiocracy would tell would-be rebels that the people’s mandate is irrelevant: The managing that the global managerial regime does is the managing of consent. A government practicing psychological and chemical control over its people will never lose the people’s consent, but it very likely will lose heaven’s. And that’s what matters.

Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe.