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by the contingency of human affairs than Machiavelli, Shang thus put greater stock in the ability
of reason to control the manifold of human particulars.
The congruency of Shang’s and Machiavelli’s maxims is the greatest where the matter is the
most concrete: control of people and generation of power. The relations between parts of the
political order, such as government and the people, are fundamentally relations of power because
the interests of self-seeking actors are inherently at odds. Given the inability of human beings to
transcend their passions, the fundamental way to control them is to evoke their fears by
punishment and to stimulate their desires by rewards. But, since people’s goodwill can never be
trusted, fear is more important love (i.e., rewards). And since more control is better than less,
punishments ought to be severe and applied with rigor. In addition to presenting people with
negative and positive incentives that affect their likes and dislikes, the state ought to shape these
preferences as well—by the various forms of indoctrination and habituation, ranging from songs
of war to the worship of the gods. Since rulers cannot single-handedly control multitudes but
must rely on officials and soldiers, they faces the additional problem of having to control
individuals whose function makes them more powerful than ordinary subjects. The solution is
twofold: to put at odds the particular interests linked to their positions, and to habituate their
minds to the maxims of public service. Since foreign affairs are inherently a struggle for power,
states must organize their domestic affairs for war. They must increase their population in order
to augment their military manpower and to generate a greater economic surplus, which, in turn,
is used to equip and maintain the army.
Convention