Legalism in China

In ancient China, the legalists were pragmatic people for whom the rule of law was above everything else. They were called  “men of method” (fangshu zhishi) and they made the laws that subjected individual rights to the needs of the country. The ruler, namely the emperor made the laws, therefore the needs of the country were in essence the needs of the ruler. Practically what was good for the ruler was good for the country but what was good for the country was not necessarily good for the rulers. Therefore the laws were fixed and ordinary people were not permitted to question or even interpret the rules. To facilitate the spread of the laws, they were written in simple terms that everyone could understand.  No need for further explanation. It followed that the legalists were against reading any outside literature. Books like the Liji (equal to the Bible) were burned, public debates forbidden, and questioning the laws were severely punishable. The rules were so strict that they often bordered on the absurd.

“A man in the state of Zheng wanted to buy a pair of shoes. He carefully measured his foot with a ruler then placed the ruler on the chair. Next day he went to the market, and picked up a pair of shoes. Suddenly he remembered that he forgot to bring the ruler. He hurriedly returned home, got the ruler, and returned to the market. But by the time he got back, the market was closed. He did not get the shoes. Afterwards when people asked him “why did you not try the shoes on your feet?” he replied ‘I rather trust the ruler than my feet.’”  (Han Feizi)

While it is true that the legalist school of thought unified the country politically, economically and culturally, yet socially they alienated the people.  Politically they introduced the way of governing, headed by a strong ruler with unlimited and often unchecked powers. Economically, they standardized the units of measurements; introduced market oriented enterprises and demanded that each person should work for a living. That was a novel idea for the times. A farmer was a farmer, an artisan an artisan and a merchant a merchant, a scholar a scholar… Only people with education worked with their mind, others with their labor. Culturally, the writing system was standardized while artifacts and books were outlawed. Books of Confucius and the classic Liji were burned. Only books of “law” were allowed. Freedom of speech and expression, learning and freethinking were severely curtailed.

Socially, the legalist enforced a strict division of labor for those who worked with their mind ruled and those who labored. Each knew their places in society. Each followed an unwritten code of conduct. Even the emperor was advised to follow the legalist path. “A wise king never changes the law for his relatives, old acquaintances or the nobles.” Rulers, gentlemen and officials followed the li, or prescribed ceremonies, while the commoners followed the xing, the avocation of their title (like, farmer, artisan, merchant). The uneducated class was there to serve those who followed the li. “The li does not go down to the common people and the xing common people do not go up the social ladder. “

Only once in her long history, China practiced a government based on this strict legal philosophy. Between 280- 221 BCE the legalist ruled China, they united the country with the edge of the sword, but they lost the support of the people. That loss was permanent. Ever since 221 BCE China had rejected the legalism rule never to reinstitute a legal code that superseded the local customs. People found the laws so repulsive and regressive that they were turned off by legalism. Western style laws with loopholes and interpretations did not get a foothold in China. Even in modern times under the Chinese Communist regime, the fundamental of the Chinese constitution is deeply rooted in the legalist philosophy of Lord Shang Yang (d. 338 BE) and Hanfeizi (d.233 BCE) such as curtailing individual freedom of speech and expression, restricted social mobility and rejecting anything that would seem to threaten the ruling class.

The Chinese legalists used rewards and punishment to control the people and instill fear into transgressors.  They were not interested in the finer points of the law. Their goal was that every person should understand that good deeds were rewarded while bad deeds were punished. Rewards and punishment were the cornerstone to the Chinese legal philosophy and nowadays the basis of modern legal procedures. The legalists claimed that for centuries the Confucians taught that the golden age of man lied in the past. The present and future in China were always measured against past occurrences. But today circumstances were different, time had changed and so must the methods of the ruler, otherwise he would be like the farmer waiting for another hare at the stump in the middle of the field:  

“There was once a man in the state of Song who tilled his field. In the midst of the field there was a tree stump.  One day while plowing the field a hare run straight into the tree stump, broke his neck, and died. From that day on, the farmer quit tilling his field, and instead he sat by the tree stump in the hope that he would catch more hares.  But no hares came and the farmer became the laughing stock of the people of Song.“  (Han Feizi)
These ancient Chinese legalist concepts constitute the framework for the modern Chinese constitution and legal proceedings. 

Tiberiu Weisz