More on the New Legalists: The Philosophical Problems

    Picking up where I left off in the last post, I find various philosophical problems with the New Legalists.  I am reading them as nationalists who are appropriating ancient Legalist texts, together with some Taoist volumes, to fashion a neo-traditionalist legitimation for a contemporary Chinese assertion of power globally. 

    The question, then, is: how well does Legalism fit a modern nationalist project?  Not very well, it seems to me.

    First, the very idea of using Legalism as an expression of a tradition that can somehow inform the definition of state interests and the use of power today is, well, un-Legalist.  Han Fei Tzu, for one, is anti-traditionalist.  He was quite clear that old ideas and ancient traditions - especially Confucianism for him - were not important for a modern ruler.  Instead of looking to the past for ideas or wisdom, the ruler has to focus on immediate circumstances and not be bound or blind by outmoded thinking:

For the sage does not try to practice the ways of antiquity or to abide by a fixed standard, but examines the affairs of the age and takes what precautions are necessary. (96-97)

     This would call into question the entire New Legalist project.

     I assume that the New Legalists, while critical of globalization, would still want to maintain China's economic power.  And that would require, it would seem, some reliance on private entrepreneurs (who, of course, require exposure to the world economy to maintain their dynamism...but that is another problem).  Unless they believe that North Korea and Cuba are the preferred economic models for China's future.  The problem is, Legalists are not too fond of merchants and private business interests.  Here's Han Fei Tzu again:

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. (116)

     The main problem is political: the primary concern of Legalism is maintaining the power of the single supreme leader.  Private business interests pose a threat insofar as the wealth that is so generated can become a source of political influence independent of the single supreme leader.  Dynamic industrial/post-industrial economies cannot be centrally controlled and they inevitably create a plethora of powerful private interests.  If the New Legalists are really serious about their Legalism they will have to limit economic forces within China as well as between China and the world-economy.  All I can say is: good luck guys!

     Perhaps the biggest problem they face in fitting Legalism to modern nationalism, however, is the anti-populist, anti-demotic sensibility of Legalist thought.  It is all about maximizing the power of the single ruler.  It is not about serving the "people."  The people are simply fodder for the power of the state, and the power of the state is what the single ruler must control above all else.  Han Fei Tzu, in his anti-Confucian fever, rejects Mencian populism:

Nowadays, those who do not understand how to govern invariably say, "You must win the hearts of the people!"  If you could assure good government merely by winning the hearts of the people, then there would be no need for men like Yi Yin and Kuan Chung - you could simply listen to what the people say.  The reason you cannot rely upon the wisdom of the people is that they have minds of little children. (128)

...

The ruler seeks for men of superior understanding and ability precisely because he knows that the wisdom of the people is not sufficient to be of any use. (129)

     And just in case we didn't get the point, he says:

For the people, in their stupid and slovenly way, will groan at even a small expenditure and forget the great profits to be reaped by it. (95)

     Is is just me, or does a nationalist slogan of "the people are infantile, stupid and slovenly" fall flat politically?

     And if the New Legalists are thinking about projecting their (mis)understanding of the politics of the Warring States period onto the international politics of the twenty-first century, they should probably keep this in mind:

Neither power nor order, however, can be sought abroad - they are wholly a matter of internal government. (HFT, 114)

      There are other questions about how their use of Taoism - or their desire to use Taoism - for nationalist ends might work, and that will be a topic for yet another post.

Comments

[Jonathan Dresner]

Machiavelli, the great Legalist of Europe, very explicitly made the welfare of the people as a whole the primary goal and legitimacy of The Prince: unity was necessary for the creation of a great Italian republic without outside interference (he wrote a second book, which nobody reads, in defense of the idea) and powerful, effective and amoral leaders were necessary to accomplish this goal.

I don't have my early China stuff at home except for a hoary old Waley (Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China), but he cites Han Feizi on the goal of statecraft as "saving mankind from disorder and averting the calamities that hang over the whole world, preventing the strong from oppressing the weak, the many from tyrannizing over the few, enabling the old and decrepit to round off their days and the young orphan to grow up to manhood, ensuring that frontiers are not violated and that the horrors of slaughter and captivity are avoided." (p. 161; he cites "Han Fei Tzu, 14, p. 60")

It's self-justification at its finest, to be sure, but I could easily see modern nationalists using the neo-fascist (maybe I'm digging myself a hole here, but I think it's fair; though perhaps it would be more proper to refer to fascism as "neo-Legalism"!) aspects of Legalism to justify enhancements of state power, and restrictions on economic activity which they deem unworthy or unhelpful.

[Friend of New Legalism]

Who is “Distorting Chinese History and Chinese Philosophy”: The New Legalists or Prof. Sam Crane, Part III: TRADITIONAL CHINESE CULTURE: AN ORGANIC WHOLE
http://www.xinfajia.net/content/eview/6591.page