Tao Te Ching · 57 of 81

Chapter 57

A state may be ruled by (measures of) correction; weapons of war may be used with crafty dexterity; (but) the kingdom is made one's own (only) by freedom from action and purpose.

How do I know that it is so? By these facts:--In the kingdom the multiplication of prohibitive enactments increases the poverty of the people; the more implements to add to their profit that the people have, the greater disorder is there in the state and clan; the more acts of crafty dexterity that men possess, the more do strange contrivances appear; the more display there is of legislation, the more thieves and robbers there are.

Insight

The more prohibitions, the poorer the people; the more weapons, the more strife; the more cleverness, the stranger the times; the more laws, the more thieves. Each of these is a mechanism Lao Tzu has watched working. Adding rules doesn't reduce wrongdoing — it generates new categories of wrongdoing, new opportunities for enforcement, new resentments. Modernity has multiplied what he was warning about: every new regulation creates a new industry of evasion. The Apostle Paul made a structurally similar observation: 'I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, do not covet' (Romans 7:7). Naming something forbidden often calls into being the very desire it forbids.Romans 7:7-13. Paul's argument about Law-as-amplifier-of-sin parallels TTC's regulation-as-amplifier-of-disorder. Comparative theology: N.T. Wright, 'Paul and the Faithfulness of God,' on Pauline anti-nomism.

Therefore a sage has said, 'I will do nothing (of purpose), and the people will be transformed of themselves; I will be fond of keeping still, and the people will of themselves become correct. I will take no trouble about it, and the people will of themselves become rich; I will manifest no ambition, and the people will of themselves attain to the primitive simplicity.'