This semester I’m teaching Art of Asia.  I had just started the unit on China when we went out for Spring Break and never came back.

So, I’ve been lecturing and posting my lectures online to my students.  As I was doing so, I couldn’t help but think of our recent administration’s abject failure in understanding how government works, and how their attempts to cripple government has resulted in the death of US citizens.

China was a remarkably successful civilization for most of its 5000 year history.  Why?  Because it had a great bureaucracy.  We know bureaucracy as a dirty work, but really, it is a necessary evil.  If you want a government that works, you have to have a functioning bureaucracy.

The Chinese figured this out early and used it to great effect during most of its history.  Their secret?  The Chinese Civil Service Exam.

If you wanted to work in government, you had to pass the civil service exam.  And believe me, not just anyone could pass this thing.  Picture an exam that encompasses the Bar for lawyers, the CPA for accountants, and then several Ph.D. level comps on history, military matters, cultural subjects, and religion.  It was quite the gatekeeper!

As a result, only the very best and brightest Chinese men held government jobs (the system excluded women).  It didn’t matter your background:  anyone could sit for the exam (except women).  If you didn’t pass, no government job for you.  It didn’t matter if your family was rich, or titled, you had to pass.  Villages would often pool their resources to educate a few of their brightest boys to sit for the exam.

What resulted was a true meritocracy.  Of course it wasn’t perfect, no human system is.  There certainly was the occasional bribery scandal, cheating, etc.  But for the most part, it was a system that worked very well.

China was a huge country (and remains so), it was always multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, multi-religious.  What tied them all together was their strong and well-functioning government that existed outside of any particular emperor.   I suppose you could call them the “deep state.”  They kept things going, getting taxes collected, building roads, canals, and the Great Wall, feeding their huge population, and enjoying the highest level of technological development on the earth.

Tellingly, when the Mongols invaded and eventually conquered China, they did away with the civil service exam. preferring to give out government positions based on the old standbys of bribery and nepotism.   It didn’t work out so well.  The system broke down and people starved.  And rose up in rebellion.

After toppling the Mongols, the Ming dynasty quickly reinstated the civil service exam.

Am I advocating for such a system?  Of course not.  But I think there is something to be said about investing in the needed infrastructure to keep a great government working.  If you want a great country, you have to have a great bureaucracy.  The Chinese learned this very early.  I thought the USA had learned it, but I guess not.

We are rapidly finding out the cost of a government that is gutted and incapable of responding to a crisis.  The cost is the lives of our fellow citizens.

(This is NOT meant as a support to the current government of the People’s Republic of China!  They are totalitarian bullies and Chinese scholars educated for the Civil Service Exam would weep to see what their country has become.)

Since I’m making a post, I’ll include another piece from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack.  This is the soundtrack to the first encounter with the Nazgul.