‘International Shanghai’ (1863–1931): Imperialism and private authority in the Global City

At the intersection of imperial rule and private power, Shanghai rose to international prominence in the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. It did so by taking advantage of the extraterritorial status and the dynamic, cosmopolitan population of the International Settlement. In evaluating the fate of the Shanghai Municipal Council, we seek to ascertain how private authority could have been constituted on a transnational basis within the framework of a treaty port. The rise of Shanghai was linked to some of the ambiguities of overlapping imperial rule and the possibilities it created for legal and governance experimentation. This is particularly clear in realms most associated with sovereign power, namely the International Settlement’s attempts to claim some taxation power and maintain law and order. That power, however, was interstitial at best and the product of fragile balances, as shown by the Council’s ultimate failure to secure a full international legal status for Shanghai. Nonetheless, the rise and fall of the International Settlement at Shanghai are worth reflecting upon, not only in relation to the history of China, imperialism and international law, but also as a way of thinking how the authority of large metropolitan centres might be constituted.

Liberal States, Authoritarian Families

How can liberals justify adult authority over children? Children are born requiring both subordination to adults and education to equip them for citizenship. These requirements are especially vexing for liberal democracies, for whom the exercise of authority is at odds with the natural liberty and equality of citizens. This difficulty has led some liberal theorists to appeal to the liberal state as a model for familial relations and reject parental authority. My book shows that this effort is misguided, and that early liberals understood parental authority as a necessary protection for children’s own future liberty. It was early modern absolutist theorists—Bodin, Filmer, and Hobbes—who sought congruence between the family and the state, arguing that absolute paternal authority was a salutary education for absolutism’s subjects. But early liberals like Locke and Rousseau opposed congruence. Even as they sought to restrict public authority and limit the formal power of parents, they nonetheless sought to strengthen their private authority over children. They saw that undermining traditional authorities would not issue straightforwardly in freedom but would instead elevate the authority of public opinion to new heights and subject citizens to a new tyranny of opinion. To counteract this threat, they buttressed the pedagogical authority of the family to protect children’s future intellectual liberty and defend liberal citizenship. Their educational writings reveal an important corrective insight for modern liberalism: authority is not only not the enemy of liberty, but actually a necessary prerequisite for it.

Rousseau and the Authority of Opinion

This chapter considers how Rousseau’s thinking about authority differs from Locke’s. Rousseau did not reject the possibility of sovereignty, but like Locke, he concluded that sovereign power could never extend to the government of public opinion, which could not be controlled by the impersonal, indirect form of government necessary to preserve liberty and equality. Even in virtuous republics, only highly personal authorities like the Lawgiver, the censors, and public educators can regulate opinion. But in modern, commercial societies, such public authorities are impotent or even dangerous. Under such conditions, the private authority of parents and especially mothers was the last hope for fortifying children against the social and intellectual corruption that modern political arrangements had created.

Rousseau’s Authoritarian Education

Rousseau’s account of authority over children in Emile brings to light his quarrel but also his agreement with Locke on the question of private authority. The education of Emile is a direct objection to Locke’s characterization of the will and the nature of adolescence. However, while Emile has mainly been read by scholars as a rejoinder to Locke’s Education, this chapter uncovers the extent to which Rousseau’s account of Sophie’s education is actually Lockean, and it demonstrates that even Emile’s education culminates in Lockean conclusions about the use of the private, inward-oriented family as an antidote to the predations of fashion and opinion. It explores why Rousseau presents both anti- and pro-Lockean arguments about the role of authority in education and concludes by emphasizing the previously unnoticed agreement between Rousseau and Locke on these questions in the context of modern, liberal societies.

Authority

Who has the authority to give brotherly advice and what kind of authority does such advice come with? In order to answer these questions, one must reconstruct Spinoza’s understanding of authoritas which takes many forms, including prophetic, Scriptural, private, public, divine, and priestly authority. The specific authority associated with free philosophizing is, however, an “authority to teach and advise.” This authority belongs to all human beings as an inalienable natural right. It is, moreover, a private authority which is exercised in relation to others and therefore also has a public dimension. It is shown how the association of free philosophizing with such natural authority to teach and advise sets it apart from a mere legal permission to speak one’s mind. Finally, the chapter discusses Spinoza’s conception of “violent rule,” defined as any political attempt to deprive citizens of their inalienable natural right to teach and advise.