Mark Coyle and Patricia Ebrey. New York: The Free Press, Wadsworth: Cengage Leanring, Goldin, Paul Rakita. Kenneth J. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resource Inc. Qian, Sima. London and New York: Routledge, Tao, Mao. Tzu, Han Fei. Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings , trans.
Burton Watson. John Knoblock, vol. II, books Stanford: Stanford University Press, Yi, Jia. A, trans. Lau Penguin Books, , Wadsworth: Cengage Leanring, , Gideon Fujiwara Date written: November Before you download your free e-book, please consider donating to support open access publishing.
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Image by Steve Webel via Flickr. According to Mencius: In antiquity, the market was for exchange of what one had for what one lacked. Human products refers to what people acquire through study and effort… [8] The belief that human nature is inherently evil led to the belief that human nature and the anarchy that results from it needed to be controlled. According to Han Fei Tzu: An enlightened ruler will administer his state in such a way as to decrease the number of merchants, artisans, and other men who make their living by wandering from place to place, and will see to it that such men are looked down upon….
According to Xunzi: If one taxes lightly the cultivated fields and outlying districts, imposes excises uniformly at the border stations and in the market places, keeps statistical records to reduce the number of merchants and traders, initiates only rarely projects requiring the labor of people, and does not take the farmers from their fields except in the off-season, the state will be wealthy. Duyvendak, J.
Eventually, harsh punishments will eliminate the very need for punishments:. To prevent wrongdoing and stop transgressions, nothing is better than making punishments heavy. When punishments are heavy and [criminals] are inevitably captured, then the people dare not try [to break the law]. Hence, there are no penalized people in the state. Due to above pronouncements, Shang Yang gained notoriety as an advocate of oppression; but actually his attitude toward the people is much more balanced than is often imagined.
The people are not just the potential enemy of the ruler: they are his major asset. Without their hard labor in the fields or their bravery on the battlefield, the state is doomed. Yet the people will not embrace tilling and waging war just out of fear of coercion. A more complex system is needed: one that will introduce attractive positive incentives along with awe-inspiring negative ones. Shang Yang explains:. Human beings have likes and dislikes; hence, the people can be ruled.
The ruler must investigate likes and dislikes. Likes and dislikes are the root of rewards and penalties. The disposition of the people is to like ranks and emoluments and to dislike punishments and penalties.
Shang jun shu 9: 65; Book of Lord Shang 9. This system became the cornerstone of social life in Qin. The lowest ranks were distributed for military achievements, particularly decapitating enemy soldiers, or could be purchased in exchange for extra grain yields; successful rank-holders could be incorporated into the military or civilian administration and thereafter be promoted up the social ladder.
Each rank granted its holder economic, social, and legal privileges; and since the ranks were not fully inheritable, the system generated considerable social mobility see details in Loewe and ; Pines et al. This latter concern is strongly pronounced throughout the Book of Lord Shang :. The means whereby the sovereign encourages the people are offices and ranks; the means by which the state prospers are agriculture and warfare.
Today the people seek offices and ranks, yet they are attainable not through agriculture and warfare but through crafty words and empty ways: this is called to exhaust the people. Shang jun shu 3: 20; Book of Lord Shang 3. The text insists repeatedly that the only way to make agriculture and warfare attractive is to prevent any alternative route toward enrichment and empowerment. Any group which tries to bypass engagement in agriculture and warfare—be these merchants who amass riches without tilling or talkative intellectuals who seek promotion without contributing to the state economically or militarily—should be suppressed or at least squeezed out of profits.
Nothing—neither learning, nor commerce, nor even artisanship—should distract the people from farming and making war. The text summarizes:. Hence, my teaching causes those among the people who seek benefits to gain them nowhere else but in tilling and those who want to avoid harm to escape nowhere but to war. Within the borders, everyone among the people first devotes himself to tilling and warfare and only then obtains whatever pleases him. Hence, though the territory is small, grain is plenty, and though the people are few, the army is powerful.
He who is able to implement these two within the borders will accomplish the way of Hegemon and Monarch. To rule and control the people effectively, the government should rely on an extensive bureaucracy; but this bureaucracy in turn should be properly staffed and tightly monitored. Their strongly pronounced suspicion of scheming ministers and selfish officials was conducive to the promulgation of impersonal means of recruitment, promotion, demotion, and performance control. One of the primary issues that the rulers of the Warring States faced was that of recruitment into government service.
During the aristocratic Springs-and-Autumns period, the overwhelming majority of officials were scions of hereditary ministerial lineages; only exceptionally could outsiders join the government. This widespread practice was deeply resented by the Legalists. When you hear his words, you consider him able; when you ask his partisans, they approve it.
Hence, one is ennobled before one has any merits; one is punished before one has committed a crime. Shang jun shu —; Book of Lord Shang Shen Dao further warns the ruler that if he decides on promotions and demotions on the basis of his personal impression, this will cause inflated expectations or excessive resentment among his servants:.
If this is the case, then even if rewards are appropriate, the expectations are insatiable; even if the punishments are appropriate, lenience is sought ceaselessly.
If the ruler abandons the standard and relies on his heart to decide upon the degree [of awards and punishments], then identical merits will be rewarded differently, and identical crimes will be punished differently.
It is from this that resentment arises. Shenzi , 52; Harris An alternative will be a set of clear impersonal rules that will regulate recruitment and promotion of officials. For Shang Yang, recruitment will be based on the ranks of merit. Han Fei remains doubtful about these: after all, why should valiant soldiers who gained ranks of merit become good officials?
Han Fei himself does not solve the problem of initial recruitment but develops ways to monitor subsequent promotion of an official:. Thus, as for the officials of an enlightened ruler: chief ministers and chancellors must rise from among local officials; valiant generals must rise from among the ranks. One who has merit should be awarded: then ranks and emoluments are bountiful and they are ever more encouraging; one who is promoted and ascends to higher positions, his official responsibilities increase, and he performs his tasks ever more orderly.
When ranks and emoluments are great, while official responsibilities are dealt with in an orderly way—this is the Way of the Monarch. Han Feizi This objective process of promotion according to measurable and objective merits became one of the hallmarks of the Chinese administrative system throughout the imperial era and beyond. Rewards and punishments primarily promotion and demotion are the major handles through which the ruler has to control his officials. But how to judge their performance?
Performance and title refers to statements and tasks. The minister presents his statement; the ruler assigns him tasks according to his statement, and evaluates his merits exclusively according to the task. When the merit is in accordance with the task, and the task is in accordance with the statement, then [the minister] is awarded; when the merit is not in accordance with the task, and the task is not in accordance with the statement, then he is punished.
Han Feizi 7: 40— This latter point is of particular importance to the Legalists. Both terms are similar to fa but are narrower in their meaning, referring primarily to a variety of means through which the ruler controls his officials.
This is what the ruler should hold. Yet amid the strong emphasis on the power of techniques, rules, laws, and regulations, we can discover the sober realization that even these are not always enough, and that a perfect administrative system simply cannot come into existence.
Thus, in one of the later chapters of the Book of Lord Shang it is said:. Nowadays, [the ruler] relies on many officials and numerous clerks; to monitor them he establishes assistants and supervisors. Assistants are installed and supervisors are established to prohibit [officials] from pursuing [personal] profit; yet assistants and supervisors also seek profit, so how they will able to prohibit each other?
Insofar as techniques and rules are implemented by self-interested—or simply erring—human beings, the question remains: to what extent can the impersonal mode of rule cure the intrinsic maladies of the bureaucratic system cf. Van Norden ? This evaluation should be qualified, though.
Rather, their distinctiveness was in their pronounced anti-ministerial stance. This stance is exemplified by the following saying of Shen Buhai:. Now the reason why a ruler builds lofty inner walls and outer walls, looks carefully to the barring of doors and gates, is [to prepare against] the coming of invaders and bandits.
But one who murders the ruler and takes his state does not necessarily climb over difficult walls and batter in barred doors and gates. Creel , translation modified. This warning epitomizes what may be considered the major dividing line between Legalists and their opponents. Despite their pronounced belief in monarchic form of rule, most thinkers of the Warring States period insisted that the monarch would never succeed without a worthy aide.
Their common desideratum was attaining harmonious relations between the ministers and the rulers; not coincidentally, the common simile of these relations was that of friends, i. One of the most radical manifestations of this pro-ministerial mindset of the Warring States era was the idea of abdication, according to which a good ruler may consider yielding the throne to his meritorious aide Allan ; Pines For Legalists, in contrast, this very idea proved that the pro-ministerial discourse of their rivals was usurpation in disguise.
They added a few new dimensions to this overarching monarchistic discourse. Goldin 3—4. As such, his power is conceived not as the means of personal enjoyment but as the common interest of his subjects. Shen Dao elaborates:. In antiquity, the Son of Heaven was established and esteemed not in order to benefit the single person. Hence the Son of Heaven is established for the sake of All under Heaven, it is not that All under Heaven is established for the sake of the Son of Heaven….
Even if the law is bad, it is better than absence of laws; thereby the hearts of the people are unified. Shenzi , 16; Harris Shen Dao presents his political credo with rare clarity. A ruler is crucial for the proper functioning of the political system; he is the real foundation of political order, not a beneficiary but rather a servant of humankind.
Significantly, the ruler attains these blessed results by the sheer fact of his existence and not due to his morality or intelligence. As Shen Dao clearly states, bad laws are better than a lawless situation, and we may infer that a bad ruler is better than anarchy. As long as the ruler preserves his power intact, i. Otherwise, turmoil is inevitable. Shen Dao warns:. When the Son of Heaven is established, he should not let the regional lords doubt [his position]; when a lord is established, he should not let nobles doubt [his position]; … Doubts bring commotion; doubleness [of the sources of authority] brings contention, intermingling brings mutual injury; harm is from sharing, not from singularity Shenzi , 47—48; Harris It is because by the sheer fact of his exclusive authority, the ruler is able to arbitrate conflicts among his ministers and to preserve the chain of command in his state, without which the state may collapse.
The very fact that the monarch—unlike his officials—owed his position to pedigree alone meant that this position would more often than not be occupied by a mediocrity. The intrinsic contradiction between an institutionally infallible and humanly erring sovereign is the major source of tension in the Han Feizi Pines b. Thinkers of different ideological inclinations shared the sober realization that a sovereign may be a mediocrity; yet for them this problem was easily resolvable. Insofar as the ruler would be prudent enough to entrust everyday affairs to a meritorious aide, he would be able to continue enjoying absolute prestige, while practical matters would be decided by worthy ministers see, e.
For Han Fei, though, this solution is unacceptable. Every single person around the throne should be suspected; and minimal negligence can cost a ruler his life and his power. Han Fei compares them to hungry tigers ready to devour the sovereign whenever the opportunity arrives:. If the minister does not murder his ruler, it is because the cliques and cabals are not formed. Han Feizi 8: This is an amazing saying: the minister is, by his nature, deceitful and murderous, and his failure to eliminate the sovereign is simply a sign of insufficient preparations, not of unwillingness to do so.
But going beyond this personal tragedy there is a more general question: how can the ruler maintain his functions in the situation of permanent danger and absolute mistrust between him and his aides? But this supposedly neat solution is problematic. Second, it remains unclear how the ruler will gain access to reliable information if each of his close aides—as Han Fei reminds him—is a potential cheater Han Feizi 6: 36— The monarch is the most revered individual, but also the weakest chain in the government apparatus.
He can be duped by his underlings, is prone to misjudge them, and his actions may frequently endanger the very foundations of political order that he is supposed to safeguard. Hence, the thinker repeatedly urges the ruler to refrain from any personal activities, any reliance on personal knowledge, and any manifestation of personal likes and dislikes.
The thinker summarizes his recommendations:. The ruler does not reveal his desires; should he do so, the minister will carve and embellish them. Who is the emperor of the Qin Dynasty? Who founded the Qin Dynasty? When did the Qin Dynasty start and end? What was before the Qin Dynasty? How did the Qing Dynasty fall? Why is Qin Shihuang significant? Why was Qin Shi Huangdi feared as a leader? Why is the Great Wall one of the most well known symbols of Chinese culture and history?
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