Daniel Bell and Wang Pei’s Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World provides a comprehensive and thought-provoking justification for hierarchy, a concept that has been given virtually no attention in recent political science and political theory. At the heart of Bell and Wang’s argument is that there can be “just and unjust forms of hierarchy and [it is important to] think of ways to promote the good forms and minimize the influence of the bad forms” (p. 8). Bell and Wang admit that many traditional forms of hierarchy are often androcentric, (explicitly) antiegalitarian, and thus unjust, underscoring “racism, sexism, and caste-like distinctions between people” (p. 11). According to Bell and Wang, however, it is a critical mistake to jump from our justified desire to overcome unjust forms of hierarchy to an uncritical valorization of equality, especially of the version developed in the modern liberal West that tends to regard hierarchy as categorically incompatible with rights-based individualism and a progressive social agenda. Rejecting this conventional dichotomy between hierarchy and justice, which is commonly equated in the liberal political discourse with equality, Bell and Wang explore various modes of hierarchy that are at once progressive, in the sense of being sympathetic to “the traditional egalitarian causes of the political left,” and conservative, in the sense of paying renewed attention to the morally attractive aspects of some traditional forms of hierarchy (p. 12).

In their search for just hierarchy, Bell and Wang focus on five forms of social relations with five corresponding principles of hierarchy; each chapter of the book is devoted to one specific set of social relations—relations between intimates, regulated by love and care and marked by shifting roles (chapter 1); relations between citizens, based on merit or the ability to benefit other citizens (chapter 2); relations between states, governed by mutual benefits between powerful and weak states (chapter 3); relations between humans and nonhuman animals, regulated by the principle of “subordination without cruelty” (chapter 4); and relations between humans and intelligent machines, based on the domination of the latter by the former (chapter 5). In general, in the first three chapters Bell and Wang defend modes of hierarchy that, despite endorsing unequal relations, enhance the well-being of those who are subject to it, whereas in the last two chapters their defense of hierarchy draws guiding inspiration from Confucian anthropocentrism.

Although I agree that there can be just hierarchy and traditional forms of hierarchy can be creatively reappropriated in a way consistent with the promotion of the well-being of the people and social progressivism, Bell and Wang’s defense of hierarchy in political relations raises several questions.

First, it is unclear precisely what makes hierarchy “just” in political relations. Bell and Wang claim that, in governing a large political community, efficiency must be the central concern and it can be best achieved by “centralized, hierarchical rule in the hands of the few” (p. 68). They further argue that political hierarchy, thus motivated, can be morally justified if it is institutionalized as rule by the virtuous and capable few dedicated to the promotion of the well-being of the people (p. 71). In Bell and Wang’s view, a combination of the legalistic concern with institutional efficiency and the Confucian commitment to the well-being of the people, which undergirded political meritocracy in ancient China, still has strong public support; therefore, it should be in light of this particular ideal of political meritocracy that Chinese political institutions and practices must be evaluated. However, if justice is attained by balancing efficiency and service, who gets to determine what the right balance is in Bell and Wang’s ideal political meritocracy? Bell and Wang may contend that nonelected political leaders who have proven records of public service can do the job of balancing efficiency and service well without generating any (serious) political controversy, precisely because they possess superior knowledge, virtue, and ability. They can be safely entrusted with “problems [that are] complex and often impact many sectors of society, the rest of the world, and future generations” (p. 73). But how can the very political agents who make public policy simultaneously be its objective judges?

This is not to say that we cannot have public-spirited political elites. The problem is that, even if they are indeed committed to the well-being of the people, including those of the neighboring states and future generations, there is no morally noncontroversial way to determine that their otherwise public-spirited decision is objectively good for all who are affected by it. Modern China is increasingly a pluralist society, and the defining characteristic of social and value pluralism is moral disagreement, which can be on, among other things, where the right balance between efficiency and the people’s well-being should lie. Under the circumstances of pluralism and disagreement, efficiency and service, however important, cannot furnish the sufficient condition for a just and legitimate government. Unless there are robust and constitutionally protected civil and political rights, including the right to political participation, based on which people who are subject to public policy can raise their voice equally and without fear, political meritocracy can hardly sustain itself.

This leads to my second question. Bell and Wang assert that representative democracy based on the one-person-one-vote (OPOV) principle is simply incompatible with political meritocracy. To be sure, there is no denying that existing representative democracies in the West (and elsewhere) are currently undergoing a serious legitimacy crisis, and voter incompetence has been identified as one of the important factors exacerbating this ongoing crisis. This misgiving, however, does not automatically vindicate the normative appeal of a nondemocratic form of political meritocracy. As the modern history of Western political thought amply shows, early democratic critics of representative democracy objected to it precisely because of its aristocratic nature, or, in other words, because of its nondemocratic emphasis on merit (see, most notably, Bernard Manin’s The Principles of Representative Government, 1995). Therefore, it is ahistorical and unreasonable to pit representative democracy against political meritocracy. Moreover, most representative democracies are constitutional democracies predicated on the principle of the separation of powers, thereby realizing political meritocracy (understood as enacting good public policy) mainly through effective bureaucracy, and, increasingly, through constitutional review. Bell and Wang simply dismiss the complex constitutional structures of liberal representative democracy by attributing many of the problems that real democracies suffer solely to OPOV or the principles of representation as such. What is lacking is a rigorous philosophical argument that demonstrates why representative democracy is critically limited in effectively and legitimately balancing efficiency and well-being.

My final question has to do with Bell and Wang’s justification of unequal relations between the powerful and weak countries in terms of mutual benefits and reciprocity. Their argument about international political hierarchy is the logical extension of their idea of political meritocracy in a national setting, as they write, “If we agree that justice requires political leaders to take into account the interest of all those affected by their policies, then political leaders in powerful countries have a responsibility to consider how their policies affect not just the current generation of people in the home country, but also the effect on future generations, people in other countries, and the natural world” (p. 131). This appears to be an innocuous argument—more responsibilities, not more rights, for the powerful countries when it comes to global public affairs! The worry arises, however, when Bell and Wang translate this abstract statement into a concrete political proposal: “an institutional meaning in the sense of a hierarchical East Asian political order led by China that pays lip service to the ideal of the equal sovereignty of states. On this modernized account of tianxia [‘all under heaven’], China is the center of East Asia by virtue of its dominant economic status and increasing ability to project military power, and it has both extra powers and extra responsibilities in the East Asian region” (p. 136).

Bell and Wang stress that this new China-centered East Asian regional order is different from the tributary system that had long regulated the Confucian world order before the collapse of the Qing dynasty. This may be true. But as their otherwise insightful analysis of Xunzi’s ritual system reveals, both the traditional ritual-based tributary system and the new regional order that Bell and Wang advocate are equally justified by the service conception of authority, which stipulates that inasmuch as the powerful state takes care of the weak states, the latter’s subservience to the former is morally justified. It is not hard to imagine that China would gladly welcome this proposal. But why would Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea subscribe to this hierarchical order? Surprisingly, Bell and Wang never investigate how the people of China’s neighboring countries (would) view a China-centered regional hierarchy, nor do they articulate what the common good in the East Asian region consists of in the face of ongoing territorial, economic, and political conflicts in the region, how the East Asian common good would be identified, whether a new regional order can promote the common good more effectively than the current international order based on the right to national self-determination, and what remedies are available for the so-called weak states when things go wrong. As their argument stands, everything hangs on China’s goodwill, but this way of formulating international political theory seems to go directly against Bell and Wang’s pronounced political realism.

Bell and Wang’s Just Hierarchy provides important insight into why the Chinese political system remains undemocratic, what the political ideal looks like for the Chinese people, and on what reasoning China may justify its (regional) hegemonic status. As Bell and Wang confess, their ideas “originate from China” and they “write for China” (p. 25). However, according to the book’s subtitle, if the book is also intended for “the rest of the world,” it would also have to be for Korea, Japan, and Vietnam (and other countries) that would be subject to a China-centered international hierarchy. I hope this critique will encourage Bell and Wang to write another book that truly speaks for the universal moral appeal of just hierarchy.