Shang Yang

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Shang Yang

Shang Yang (also known as Wei Yang or Kung-sun Yang), who died in 338 B.C., was a Chinese political administrator who left his native state of Wei to enter the service of Duke Hsiao of the state of Ch’in. At the time, the feudal hierarchy dominated by the Chou dynasty had degenerated into a struggle for power among feudal principalities, and Duke Hsiao’s consuming concern was to build up Ch’in strength and become a leader among the contending states.

Although it is questionable whether Shang Yang himself wrote The Book of Lord Shang, which has been ascribed to him, the conception of a state that is presented in this work is very likely similar to his, and it was therefore surely influential in the reforms he instituted to fulfill Duke Hsiao’s ambition. “The central idea of the political theory expounded in The Book of Lord Shang is the necessity for creating a strong government; the strength of a government is relative to the weakness of the people and is insured by a strict rule of law” (Duyvendak 1934, p. 16).

Power, for Shang Yang, consisted of a large army and a full granary. He was convinced that the maximum strength of the state could be obtained only through state-wide mobilization, and this in turn required a system of effective laws enforced by severe punishment. He succeeded in instituting laws that applied uniformly throughout the state and equally to all classes of people. The laws were codified and made public, and a judiciary was set up that was independent of the administrative offices of the government. In addition, Shang Yang proposed and implemented a new system of land division, based on private ownership, together with a tithing system of taxation. In accordance with the principle of centralized government, military service was owed only to the state, and all private military action was prohibited.

Shang Yang’s administrative system was a success. In ten years the state was reputedly rid of lawlessness; it was highly centralized and bureaucratized; and it pursued a victorious policy of foreign war. When the Ch’in state succeeded in subduing all its rivals and reunifying the empire in 221 B.C., the programs initiated by Shang Yang were introduced and extended throughout the empire.

Shang Yang did not long survive the death of Duke Hsiao in 338 B.C. His severe and egalitarian laws had aroused much resentment on the part of the nobility and the privileged classes, and they took the first opportunity to turn against him. His attempts first at flight and then at armed resistance failed, and he was put to death.

The Book of Lord Shang remains a valuable record of the social and political philosophy of the ancient Chinese school of law in general and of Shang Yang in particular. The “school of law” stressed the importance of government by law, as opposed to the Confucian ideal of government by “moral virtue.” Traditional China, dominated by Confucianism, therefore regarded Shang Yang and the other members of the legalist school with suspicion and abhorrence and condemned Shang Yang for having no moral sense or human feeling. Modern China has re-evaluated him more favorably. The ideas and institutions associated with his name now appear to contain a number of elements considered necessary to the modern administration of law and government. In Shang Yang’s approach to politics, however, an informed public played no role, nor were there any safeguards against a ruler who wished to substitute his own whims for the welfare of the state.

Y. P. Mei

[See alsoChinese political thoughtand the biographies ofKautilya; Machiavelli.]