Ideas
- Human beings are more inclined to do wrong than right because they are motivated entirely by self-interest
- Human behavior must be controlled by strict laws and incentives.
- Ancient incentive: “Bring in 10 heads or grow 10x grain - get rewarded!”
- Unswerving loyalty to the ruler of the state is a top priority.
- Whatever contributes to the states power and orderliness should be deemed right.
- Rejection of inherited official position. Rely on military-style merit instead.
- Rejection of Confician ethics to which even monarchs must adhere.
Veneers
- Bland legalism can invite rebellion and dissatisfaction against Legalist incentives. So, with effort, common people are kept away from understanding legalist philosophy.
- Example - Late Qing period.
- So, the legalist state often adapts veneers - “Fads for people”.
Rújiā
- “From the time of the Han dynasty this amalgamation was known as Yangru, Yinfa- 阳儒阴法 - which could be translated as Confucianism as the bright yang outside, and Legalism as the dark yin inside. Ignore the moral demands of Confucianism, but happily adapt emphasis on authority and hierarchy.”
- Distinction from confucianism: Mao1.
Other veneers
- Turkism of the Tang
- Buddhism
- Materialism in post-liberalization CCP-rule in China (1990-).
Strengthening the state and centralization
- Focus on food production and military buildup.
- A major theme one observes is deep distrust of ministers. Often there are purges, concentration of power. Eg. Qin. Xi in 2000-s.
Implementations
- Chin Shi Huang-di who built the wall and combined it with the terror of genocidal slaughters [a fact much admired by Mao in recent times]; the rulers of the Han dynasty thereafter built huge infantry forces and fortified settlements.
- Tang Taizong / Taitsung
- Mao
People always condemn Emperor Qin Shihuang for burning books and burying alive Confucian scholars, and list these as his greatest crimes. However, I think he killed too few Confucians. That is why his successor Emperor Qin The Second lost the rule of the world. Those Confucian scholars were indeed counterrevolutionaries.
- Mao, 1969
Please, Sir, don’t you slander Emperor Qin Shihuang
The event of burning books should be reevaluated.
The Ancestral dragon though dead his spirit lives on
Confucius though renowned was really garbage.
Qin’s political institutions were implemented for hundreds of generations
- Mao, 1966