The Best Ruler Is One the People Barely Know Exists
Ranks types of leadership by how visible the leader's hand is, placing invisible, trusted governance above governance that relies on love, fear, or contempt to hold power.
Chapter 17 lays out a rare, explicit hierarchy: the best rulers are those the people barely know exist; next best are those the people love and praise; next are those the people fear; and worst are those the people despise. What separates the top tier from the rest is that a ruler who governs so unobtrusively that credit never attaches to them leaves the people feeling, when things go well, that "we did it ourselves." The chapter attributes this to a scarcity of speech and self-promotion on the ruler's part: "when the ruler's work is done and their task accomplished, the people all say, we did it ourselves," meaning the highest political achievement leaves no visible author. This is the clearest statement in the whole text of wu wei applied specifically to power: rule so unforced that people experience the results as their own doing, not as something imposed from above.
When the ruler's work is done, the people all say: we did it ourselves.
Tao Te Ching
Written about in
- What Taoism says about leading others
Chapter 17 ranks rulers in four explicit tiers: barely known, then loved and praised, then feared, then despised. Being loved is only second best, because the top tier is the leader whose people say, when the work is done, that they did it themselves.