China's Legalists: The Early Totalitarians

The Early Totalitarians

Zhengyuan Fu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781563247798
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315285238
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Chinese History

This text discusses the Chinese Legalists, an ancient school of Chinese philosophy which flourished during the Period of the Hundred Contending Schools (6th-3rd century B.C.E.) The school perfected the science of government and art of statecraft to a level that would have greatly impressed Machiavelli. This period and its personalities, as well as a taste of the style and spirit of the Legalists' discourse, are made accessible to the student and general reader, placing into focus the roots of the great Chinese philosophy-as-statecraft tradition. The Legalists - most famously Li Kui, Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, Shen Dao, and Han Fei - had a great impact not only on the institutions and practices of Chinese imperial tradition but also on the Maoist totalitarianism of the People's Republic of China.

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Introduction

 

 

In ancient China, discourse and speculation on politics began to flourish in the sixth century B.C. The more than three hundred years known as the Period of the Hundred Contending Schools (551–233 B.C.) in Chinese history ran parallel with the Hellenic Age in the West. This was the memorable time when the most important Chinese philosophers produced their creative works. The galaxy of eminent personages who flourished during this golden era of Chinese intellectual development includes Confucius, Mencius, Mo Di, Lao Zi, Zhuang Zhou, Xun Kuan, Sun Wu, Han Fei, and scores of others. It was also a time of political chaos and constant warfare among various contending states. This era, which witnessed the flourishing of Chinese philosophy, overlapped with the Spring and Autumn periods (772–481 B.C.) and the Warring States period (480–221 B.C.) before the unification of China by the Qin empire.

The name “Spring and Autumn period” came from the document Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals), which concisely recorded events of the Lu state from 772 to 480 B.C. The term Warring States (zhanguo), which aptly describes the prevalent political condition of that era, was borrowed from the title of the ancient document Zhanguo ce (Strategies of the Warring States), which records the strategies employed by the generals during incessant interstate wars, and the statecraft of rulers in intrastate political intrigues during that time of social upheaval. The various schools of Chinese philosophy that emerged during this age are referred to as the hundred contending schools of pre-Qin philosophy.

When the Zhou (Chou) dynasty was established in about the eleventh century B.C., its feudal system consisted of some 172 states under the nominal central authority of a single king, the Son of Heaven. As time went by, probably due to the unwieldy size of the kingdom and primitive form of communication technology, the various states became increasingly independent of the political center. With the gradual decline of the authority of the king, conflicts erupted among the various states with growing intensity. Since the eighth century B.C. it became more common for stronger states to conquer and annex smaller and weaker states. Then the political order gradually deteriorated into a condition of “international” anarchy, a war of all states against all states. By the end of the Spring and Autumn period there were only some twenty-two states left. During the subsequent Warring States period, incessant wars and annexations were conducted among the remaining states until the unification of China under the domination of the sole surviving Qin state in 221 B.C.

Paradoxically, the flourishing of Chinese philosophy during this chaotic time might have been one of the unintended consequences of the social unrest of that era. During that erratic time of “international” anarchy the survival of a ruler and his state depended wholly on his military strength, diplomatic maneuvering, and material wealth. Each ruler sought to defend his state against the aggression of other states, extend his territory at the expense of other rulers, consolidate his governance over his subjects, and protect himself against the plots of the conniving aristocratic ministers within his own state.

This was also a time of social change and political upheaval, when China was transforming from feudalism to a unified bureaucratic empire. This period witnessed fundamental and farreaching structural transformations due to intended social engineering from above. During the constant interstate wars, the rulers reformed and improved the state bureaucracy.¹ To improve the efficiency of his state administration and to consolidate his personal power, each surviving ruler initiated planned political changes. A major change was the recruitment of senior officials. Now the incumbent state officials began to be directly appointed by the sovereigns instead of inheriting their fathers’ offices. This deliberate institutional change led directly to the decline of the aristocracy, whose inherited privileges and official tenure were displaced by gentry-scholars (shi) on the basis of merit. In every surviving hegemonic state (ba) the ruler succeeded, with the advice of the gentry-scholars, in stripping the aristocracy of their inherited privileges.

In the struggle for survival some ineffective rulers who failed to implement this measure were either conquered by stronger states or deposed by prominent ministers of noble lineage. The new usurping rulers, once their power was consolidated, would adopt the same tactics against the aristocracy to deprive it of its special status. In the quest for power, common interests among the dominant class were never strong enough to alleviate the cruelty of struggle among its members. With the decline of feudalism the nobility could no longer enjoy their monopoly on senior government offices. There was increased social mobility. The new norm of meritocracy provided more of an opportunity for gentry-scholars with low social status because elevation to office now began to be based on achieved professional qualifications rather than on noble lineage. The declining status of the privileged nobles and the sudden rise of the more fortunate plebeians were best captured by a passage in a poem quoted in 511 B.C.: “While high banks turn into valleys, deep valleys become high mounts” (Chunqiu Zuozhuan, thirty-second year of Zhaogong).

To ensure their survival, the sovereigns of various states competed to recruit talented scholars who were expected to provide advice and management for the administrative bureaucracy. Many plebeian scholars were promoted into the ranks of senior ministers, and some even became chancellors. Many rulers were lavish patrons of scholars. In the Qi state, Prince Qi Xuanwang (r. 319–301 B.C.) provided accommodation for some one thousand scholars in his palace (Shi ji, ch. 46). Other princes of various states who were renowned for their patronage of scholars include Duke Lu Mugong, Marquis Wei Wenhou, Prince Qi Weiwang, and Prince Liang Huiwang. Some prominent ministers of large states also offered accommodation and support to freelance scholars; the most famous was Meng Chanjung, who reputedly provided board and lodging for three thousand scholars (Shi ji, ch. 75).

All these changed conditions, in turn, further encouraged the growth of political knowledge and speculation. Hence constant interstate wars and intrastate political conflicts stimulated the intellectual activity of the plebeian scholars and channeled the attention of the rulers of various states toward the struggle for their own survival rather than the imposition of ideological orthodoxy. Such political conditions encouraged almost unfettered intellectual expression, which became virtually extinct during the succeeding imperial period.²

The pre-Qin political philosophers, especially the Legalist school, provided intellectual orientation and political guidance to the state-building process during the late Warring States period, which culminated in the establishment of the Chinese bureaucratic empire. The Legalist school was, in large measure, intellectually responsible for inspiring the fundamental political transformation of that era. The most significant historic change was the expansion and consolidation of the power of the rulers in all states, which ultimately led to the institution of the supremacy of the emperorship with the establishment of the Qin empire. Imperial autocracy became firmly entrenched. The Legalist political philosophy that emerged in this period exerted a determining impact on political development and institution building during this most crucial period of empire formation in Chinese history and left an indelible imprint on subsequent political development. In fact, its influence on China has lasted for more than twenty-three hundred years and is still evident in the last decade of the twentieth century.

Fa jia (the Legalist school) is the name of the latest Chinese classical school of political philosophy of the Warring States period. (Among all major pre-Qin Legalists, Guan Zhong was the only one who flourished during the seventh century B.C., well before the Warring States period. However, the work Guan Zi, which designates him as the author, is believed to have been written by later scholars during the Warring States period.) Although the name of the Legalist school is associated with law and they did advocate the use of a penal code as an instrument of political control, their discourse did not deal exclusively or even mainly with jurisprudence per se. The writings of the Legalists offered astute advice to the ruling princes for the consolidation of their rule. The ancient Legalists are of great significance in Chinese intellectual history because of their insistence on the absolute supremacy and domination of the ruler over the subjects. These ancient Legalists proposed that the political action of the ruler should not be constrained by moral concerns and that the political power of the state must never be restricted by law. They advised the ruler to utilize law as a tool to control his subjects and reminded the princes that social order can be maintained only by employing harsh penal punishment. They also advocated a sophisticated version of statecraft.

Some eighteen hundred years before Machiavelli, ancient China’s Legalists had already produced a body of writings that are still quite contemporary in tone and more Machiavellian than the works of the celebrated Renaissance Italian scholar. Although they lived more than two hundred years before the advent of the Christian era, the Legalists’ level of refinement and subtlety of statecraft, as expressed in their works, surpassed in many respects that of most eminent latter-day Western writers. The Legalists were of practical importance due to their crucial role in laying the intellectual and ideological foundation of the traditional Chinese bureaucratic empire, which lasted more than two thousand years and was the prototype of the modern totalitarian state.

The political control and institutions the Legalists advocated are all-encompassing. Their goal was to create a totalitarian social order in which the ruler and his state have unconstrained power to control almost all aspects of social life. In this book the term “totalitarianism” denotes a stage of political development in which society is under the almost total domination of the state.

Although the Legalists left their indelible imprint on the historical development of China, this fact is not commonly acknowledged. Most popular texts on China characterize its cultural tradition as “Confucian.” Undoubtedly, Confucius and classical Confucianism did, and still do, exert great influence on the cultures of China and even those of other Asian nations. But in terms of Chinese traditional political institutions and practices, the impact of the Legalists was at least as important as that of the Confucians, if not more so. In fact, the Chinese imperial political tradition is described by most Chinese historians as “outside Confucian, inside Legalist” (wairu neifa). Chinese traditional official orthodox Confucianism was actually an amalgam of classical Confucian rhetoric and Legalist reinterpretation. Although the Chinese imperial dynastic era ended in 1911, the influence of the Legalist tradition on Chinese political development can still be felt today.

The Legalists’ influence on China proved to be everlasting. Its importance in Chinese politics far exceeds that of Machiavelli’s influence on Western political discourse. In fact, many of the institutions and political practices of the contemporary People’s Republic of China (PRC) can trace their intellectual roots to this school of political philosophy. In late 1973 the Chinese Communist Party, with the endorsement of Mao Zedong, launched a nationwide campaign to popularize the teaching of the Legalists and to criticize the Confucians. This nationwide ideological movement was conducted on a gigantic scale, reaching all corners of society, and lasted more than three years. It only ended with the official termination of the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1976. This campaign was an open official acknowledgment that Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party considered themselves to be the true successors of the Legalist heritage.

This short volume presents both the ideas and tenets of the Legalists and a concise delineation of their practical impact in terms of institution building and state building during the imperial period of China. It also briefly traces the intellectual influence of the Legalists on the institutions, policies, and political praxis of the Chinese Communist Party and the PRC. The inherent intellectual and political affinities between the Legalists and orthodox Marxist-Leninists, who would seem to be strange bedfellows, are also traced.

As presented in this volume, the major tenets of the Legalists are primarily based on the extant works of the eminent pre-Qin Legalists: Guan Zi (Works of Master Guan), Shen Zi (Works of Master Shen [Dao]), Shen Buhai (“Fragments of Shen Pu-Hai,” in Creel 1974), Shangjun shu (Book of Lord Shang), Han Fei Zi (Works of Master Han Fei), three short essays of Li Si in Shi ji (Records of History), and other ancient Chinese documents. These are allegedly the writings of Guan Zhong, Shen Dao, Shen Buhai, Shang Yang, Han Fei, and Li Si, respectively. The works of Li Kui and Wu Qi are long lost.³ Although many essays in the above collections are believed to have been written by later scholars during the late Warring States period, these can still be regarded as truly representative of the tenets advocated by the pre-Qin philosophers. Whatever their original sources, these works were the product of the Legalist thought that flourished during the Warring States period and exerted great intellectual influence in later Chinese political development.

This volume is intended to introduce the reader to the discourse of the Legalists. It is about the Legalists but not about the scholarship on the Legalists. Therefore, this book does not deal with all the controversies about the authenticity of the various editions of the Legalists’ writings, and differences in finer points of interpretation by different scholars. Not many comparisons with other major ancient Chinese schools of philosophy are presented because this volume is not a survey of Chinese philosophy. These tasks cannot be taken on within the modest confines of this book.

Chapter 2 provides more historical context and biographical information. Since most books on Chinese philosophy stress differences among various schools of thought, this volume offers instead a section on the intellectual debt that the Legalists owed to the older schools. To explore the affinities between the Legalists and other pre-Qin philosophical schools does not imply that the latter were all proto-Legalists. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 present the major doctrines of the Legalist school, including its art of statecraft. If this is the focus of the reader’s interest, she or he may go directly to these three chapters. Chapter 6 deals with the impact of the Legalists on China’s imperial political institutions and practices. Chapter 7 deals with the affinity of the Legalist tenets and contemporary orthodox Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, and Mao Zedong Thought. This is a subject that has not received due attention.

Although there are English texts, I have chosen to use my own translations. I have used the standard pinyin system in the rendering of Chinese words in the Roman alphabet.

Notes

1. In China the state-building process preceded a similar process in Westera Europe by some two thousand years. China also produced its bureaucratic organization much earlier and at a relatively lower stage of socioeconomic development (Fu 1993).

2. During the imperial period the state was the most important agent inhibiting intellectual development in China by imposing official orthodoxy and suppressing heresy.

3. The text Wu Zi Bingfa (The Military Strategy of Master Wu) is attributed to Wu Qi. But this text has little to do with Legalist doctrines, and there is still dispute about its authorship.

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The Legalist School

Most of the major tenets of the Legalists were fully deve...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Legalist School
• 3. The Primacy of Power
• 4. Law as the Penal Tool of the Ruler
• 5. Statecraft
• 6. The Impact of the Legalists on the Imperial State
• 7. The Congruence of Legalist Tenets and Orthodox Marxism-Leninism
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index