Legalism (Chinese philosophy)

Legalism
Statue of pivotal reformer Shang Yang
Chinese	法家
Literal meaning	The two basic meanings of Fa are "method" and "standard". Jia can mean "school of thought", but also "specialist" or "expert", this being the usage that has survived in modern Chinese.
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Fǎjiā Gwoyeu Romatzyh Faajia Wade–Giles Fa3-chia1 IPA [fàtɕi̯á] Wu Romanization Fat平 ga平 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Faat-gāa Jyutping Faat3-gaa1 Southern Min Tâi-lô Huat-ka

Fǎ-Jiā (法家) or Legalism is one of the six classical schools of thought in Chinese philosophy that developed during the Warring States period. Grouping thinkers with an overriding concern for political reform, the Fa-Jia were crucial in laying the "intellectual and ideological foundations of the traditional Chinese bureaucratic empire", and remain highly influential in administration, policy and legal practice in China today. Largely ignoring morality or questions on how a society ideally should function, they examined contemporary government, emphasizing fixed, transparent rules and a realistic consolidation of the wealth and power of and state, with the goal of achieving increased order, security and stability.

That there is any evidence at all in the ancient world for a field of management is notable, and may well be said to have originated in ancient China, including possibly the first, if not highly centralized bureaucratic state, and earliest (by the second century BC) example an through testing. Far in advance of the rest of the world until almost the end of the eighteenth century, Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel and other scholars find the influence of Chinese administration in Europe by the twelfth century, for example, in Fredrick II's promulgations, characterized as the "birth certificate of modern bureaucracy".

Though Chinese administration cannot be traced to any one individual, emphasizing a merit system figures like 4th century BC reformer Shen Buhai (400–337 BC) may have had more influence than any other, and might be considered its founder, if not valuable as a rare pre-modern example of abstract theory of administration. Creel writes that, in Shen Buhai, there are the "seeds of the civil service examination", and that, if one wishes to exaggerate, it would "no doubt be possible to translate Shen Buhai's term Shu, or technique, as 'science'", and argue that he was the first political scientist, though Creel does "not care to go this far".