Chapter 13 The Logic of a Powerful Nation: The Founder of a Centralized Power System

Shang Yang's art of strengthening the country can be regarded as the cruelest and most severe one in Chinese history, and even in the history of the world. It is a radical experiment of nationalism.If we examine the various policies of Shang Yang’s reform within the framework of the construction of the four basic systems of centralization, we can see its historical significance more clearly. The system of prefectures and counties later became the basic system for the distribution of power between the central and local governments, which is the basic political system for the operation of a centralized state.

The military title system allows ambitious people of Kongwu the opportunity to enter the ruling class, partially completing the elite control model. In terms of the control mode of the whole people's thoughts, Shang Yang adopts the policy of "no thinking" to fool the people. He regards all literati, businessmen, and skilled people as "national harm."Once, he was discussing the law by the Wei River, and killed more than 700 people in one breath, causing "the Wei River was completely red, and the sound of crying moved the world."He didn't like those who opposed him, and even hated those who praised him. In the great court debate at the beginning, he said, "People who restrict rituals are not enough to talk about things, and those who make laws are not enough to talk about changes." That is to say, no argument is allowed, no refutation allowed.Sima Qian also recorded such a thing: halfway through the reform, some people who had previously opposed it ran to Shang Yang to praise the reform. Shang Yang said that these were "disordered people", so he exiled them all to remote border towns. No one dared to discuss state affairs.More than a hundred years later, Qin Shihuang's "burning books and burying Confucian scholars" is actually a reasonable manifestation of this governance model.

In terms of economic model, Shang Yang experimented with a "command-type planned economy", that is, the state controls almost all important means of production, excludes or partially prohibits commodity trade, suppresses or eliminates the free merchant class, so that the national economy can completely serve goals for the country. Many systems promoted in Shang Yang’s reform, such as the prefecture and county system, the military nobility system, the strategy of “establishing the country through agricultural warfare”, and even the land reform, unified weights and measures, and the household registration system, were not invented by Shang Yang, but they were far superior to him and did not A systematic, long-term and effective experiment has been carried out. In this sense, Shang Yang can be regarded as the founder of the Chinese-style centralization system.Hannah Arendt summed up the three characteristics of totalitarianism in "The Origin of Totalitarianism", namely "internationalization of organization, comprehensiveness of ideology, and globalization of political ambitions". sports.

In Shang Yang's economic thinking, "strengthening the country" and "enriching the people" seem to be opposites.In his extreme opinion, not only should the people not have the ability to think, but they should never be rich. Since ancient times, how to solve the problem of distribution and alleviate the opposition between rich and poor has been the "first proposition" that thinkers and economists of all ages have paid close attention to. rich" point of view.Various schools of thought have their own analysis on this. Confucius of Confucianism proposed that "don't worry about scarcity, but worry about inequality, and don't worry about poverty, but worry about uneasiness." He believed that the best state is "no poverty at all", similar to a welfare society.He also advocated "hiding wealth from the people", and believed that "the people are sufficient, the ruler is not enough; the people are not enough, the ruler is enough".But he has no specific formula for how to realize these ideals.Lao Tzu of Taoism also advocates the equalization of the rich and the poor, and the way to achieve it is "to make up for what is lacking."

Different from Confucianism and Taoism, Mozi admits the existence of appropriate differences between rich and poor, but only requires that they can be transformed into each other. The transformation method depends on whether a person is virtuous or not. To make the country rich, the so-called "government is real but the wealth is not scattered." The above-mentioned thinkers analyzed the problem of rich and poor in an abstract way, while those who really grasped the national guidelines proposed specific solutions. For example, Guan Zhong advocated using price policy as a tool to narrow the gap between rich and poor, while Shang Yang went to "strengthening the country and the poor." "Extreme.

Shang Yang also opposed the disparity between the rich and the poor, and believed that "the act of governing the country is to make the poor rich and the rich poor." A little extra food - "the family does not accumulate millet", in order to maintain a hungry and enterprising mental outlook.A strong army must make the people weak, cowardly, and stupid. Such people can be transformed into brave and fierce fighters through heavy punishment or heavy rewards.And once the gap between the rich and the poor widens in society, the state machine should be used to achieve balance by means of administrative deprivation. poor".Obviously, Shang Yang regards the poverty and ignorance of the people as a necessary condition for the country's sufficient military resources and social stability. This is of course "anti-intellectual" and "foolish people".

Shang Yang's extremist thoughts have become famous in later generations, but they are not without followers-although they no longer dare to speak straightforwardly and decisively like Shang Yang, they have never given up on two ideas: First, the subconscious mind that the people should not be too rich and thoughtful has survived, and eventually turned into a systematic policy of ignoring the people; Second, the vast majority of state leaders put the country's strength far ahead of the people's prosperity, emphasizing "the country is strong and the people are safe" rather than "the country is strong and the people are rich". Eat food, and when the famine comes, not to starve to death, this is the greatest good governance.