Liu Ze(柳泽): The Censor Who Used Laozi to Fight Imperial Luxury
Paul Peng
The princes and princesses of the Tang court lived like gods. Their mansions covered acres. Their banquets lasted days. Their servants numbered in the thousands. Their robes were embroidered with gold thread, their carriages inlaid with ivory, their gardens stocked with rare beasts from every corner of the empire.
And one mid-ranking official—a man with no army, no faction, no family connections to the throne—stood up and told the emperor to cut their salaries. His name was Liu Ze (柳泽). His weapon was the Tao Te Ching. His argument was that Laozi had predicted exactly what would happen to a ruling class that lived like this—and that the prediction was already coming true.
He did not succeed in changing the court. But his memorials survive as the most concentrated application of Laozi’s social philosophy to real political problems ever produced by a Tang dynasty official. He was not a philosopher. He was not a poet. He was a man who read the Laozi and then tried, with stubborn literalness, to make the government follow it.
The Censor from Puzhou
Liu Ze was born in Jie, Puzhou—near present-day Yuncheng in Shanxi. He passed the examinations and entered the bureaucracy during the reign of Emperor Ruizong, one of the most politically turbulent periods in Tang history. He served as a low-ranking Armoury Clerk in the Right Rate Mansion, then became a Censor—one of the officials charged with investigating and impeaching corrupt behaviour. Most censors contented themselves with prosecuting minor functionaries. Liu Ze aimed higher.
The First Memorial: The Laozi Argument Against Luxury
Liu Ze’s first major memorial was addressed to Emperor Ruizong. It took as its text two passages from the Laozi and applied them with devastating specificity to the conduct of the imperial clan. The first passage is from chapter nine—the same chapter Shu Guang had quoted when he retired:
“When those in high positions are not arrogant, being lofty yet not in danger—this is how they can long maintain their nobility. By regulating expenditures and being cautious about norms, being full yet not overflowing—this is how they can long maintain their wealth. Only when wealth and nobility do not leave them can they then safeguard the state.”
Every clause is a paraphrase of Laozi. “Full yet not overflowing” comes from “Better to stop in time than to fill to the brim.” Liu Ze was telling the emperor: the way to preserve the aristocracy is not to give them more, but to restrain them before they destroy themselves. Then he developed the second argument, from Laozi’s warning that “wealth and nobility leading to arrogance bring self-inflicted misfortune”:
“Wealth and nobility easily lead to arrogance. Arrogance easily leads to committing crimes. Those who commit crimes without realising it often meet with an untimely death.”
His practical proposal was radical: “For those who are extravagant, overstepping, arrogant, and idle—reduce their salaries and fiefs.” He was proposing to cut the income of the imperial princes. The most powerful people in the empire. And he submitted this proposal in writing, to the emperor, with his name attached.
The Second Memorial: The War on Exquisite Objects
Liu Ze’s second major memorial took aim at the culture of luxury objects that pervaded the court. The Tang elite was obsessed with rare and beautiful things—Persian glass, Indian ivory, Central Asian jade. Local officials competed to present the emperor with exquisite objects. Liu Ze saw this economy of luxury and quoted Laozi, chapter twelve:
“Carving and making strange objects, manufacturing curious utensils, using flashy and clever things as rare playthings, and regarding abnormal and strange items as rare treasures—these are huge pests to governing the state, and are what wise emperors severely punish.”
His argument was structural, not aesthetic. The problem with exquisite objects is not that they are ugly. It is that they create desire. The emperor sees a beautiful jade carving and wants more. The courtiers see the emperor’s desire and compete to satisfy it. The competition drives demand, which drives exploitation, which drives the peasants further into poverty. Laozi had said: “The five colours blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. Rare goods lead people astray.” Liu Ze was applying this to the political economy of the Tang empire. His solution was characteristically blunt: “For those who present extravagant and clever things to Your Majesty, dismiss them quickly. Then the practice of making extravagant and clever things will cease.”
The Laozi as Policy Manual
What makes Liu Ze distinctive in the history of Taoist political thought is his thoroughgoing literalism. Yang Gu quoted Laozi to argue against Buddhist temple spending but accepted the limits of his position. Cen Wenben quoted Laozi to argue for the abolition of money but accepted that the argument would not be implemented. Liu Ze quoted Laozi and then proposed specific, enforceable policies: cut the princes’ salaries, fire the luxury-goods suppliers. He treated the Tao Te Ching not as a source of personal wisdom but as a manual of government.
This literalism did not succeed. The princes kept their salaries. The luxury goods kept coming. But Liu Ze survived—promoted during the Kaiyuan era to Right Aide to the Crown Prince, and later appointed Prefect of Zhengzhou. He died before taking up the post and was posthumously awarded the title of Vice Minister of the Ministry of War. He had spoken, he had been heard, and he had not been killed. In the context of Tang court politics, that was a kind of victory.
Why This Matters for the Living Tradition
From a Zhengyi perspective, Liu Ze represents the prophetic dimension of Taoist political thought. The Zhengyi tradition has always included a critical function—a willingness to speak truth to power, grounded in the conviction that the Tao’s principles are not merely personal advice but cosmic law. His argument against “curious utensils” may seem conservative to modern readers. But the underlying principle—that an economy driven by the production of unnecessary desires harms both producers and consumers—is entirely contemporary. The Zhengyi emphasis on simplicity, on the sufficiency of what is natural, on the danger of objects that promise happiness and deliver only craving, is a direct inheritor of the tradition Liu Ze articulated in the Tang court.
What the Censor Left Behind
Liu Ze’s works are preserved in volume 277 of the Complete Prose of the Tang. They are not poems. They are not philosophical treatises. They are policy documents—memorials to the throne, written for a specific purpose, by a man who believed that the Laozi was not a book of ancient wisdom but an active, binding instruction for how to run a state. He was the censor who used Laozi as a weapon. And while he did not win the war he was fighting, the memorials survive as proof that someone, at the height of the Tang dynasty’s power and splendour, stood up and said: enough.
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