What a legalistic government does?
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Legalistic government is one overrelying on legal processes to maintain legal control and win like in legal cases. It's basic philosophy is to win at all costs legally like in any court case against all opponents and defend against any queries or complaints of any kinds.
Problem solving is not its primary objective. Legalistic government is aimed at winning all cases, debates, arguments legally for the government's positions or policies, sustain controls and perpetuate in the hold of power.
Such legalistic government will not concern itself with alternative views and solutions as its make-up or system is designed to win on legality and not lose any case.
Such legally oriented system aimed at winning legally to stay in power, maintain controls of populations, perpetuation of high costs and building of surpluses to benefit limited legally-oriented objectives.
Such legalistic government will not be inclined to considerations of non-legal matters like moral, social or sin issues.
So people cannot expect legalistic government to admit mistakes as it is against their primary objective to lose any case or disputes. Whatever the outcome, legalistic government will justify its doings one way or another instead of admitting mistakes. Even if any mistakes is admitted it will be done very casually or lightly and not in court or legally.
The deadliest sins can be legally justified as correct eg. legally self-approved highest pay (in the name of preventing corruptions) when the final outcome is the same - those who are paid high are still as corrupted except in different ways or otherwise justified.
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sounds like a book i read on legalism a couple of months back , something about using rule of law to hold power.....
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Actually Peter's Principle says that "a person is promoted to the next position of imcompetence.Originally posted by oldbreadstinks:sounds like a book i read on legalism a couple of months back , something about using rule of law to hold power.....
By way of example, he says that a person tends to bring his past habits accounting for success in previous position into the new job requiring different attributes thereby becoming incompetent.
Therefore an over-fastidious surgeon good in probing or analysing patient might make a poor politician as he might be over-detailed and inflexible as a politician which is expected to be much more open and flexible.
Similarly a marching sergeant good in delivering or marching orders might make a poor officer because of carrying his past order-shouting habit to his next post which may prove to be his failure.
A lawyer is trained to be litigious. He similarly might make himself a control freak thereby always to win on debates or disputes instead of solving people problems. -
Legalism is a law-based totalitarianism very different from virtue-based Confucianism. Perhaps the government may have wanted the people to follow Confucius, but the philosopher they themselves really wished to follow was Han Feizi, who helped Shih Huang-ti (Qin Shi Huang) unify China under a iron-fisted totalitarian regime.
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Legalism is drummed up by individuals who seek to subsume the masses and their flaws into one set regime of monopolistic rule.This is acheived through the overwhelming emphasis on legal methods to ruin another opponent, disregarding common law but only following whatever is written on paper, albeit by its own advisors.
Such applicants of legalism are usually painfull unable to co-exist with others who might pose a threat to his supremacy. -
Will a lawyer say he will not win a case? It is difficult for him not to win because he is trained to win not to lose.
Nope, I mean "win" in the sense not of solving problems but winning legally in public or court to prove a "standpoint" or policy is right. Problem-solving or objectivity is not of the utmost concern as a lawyer is basically trained to make a right into wrong or wrong into right and to be litigious. He does not care about solutions to problems.
Still remember water disputes with malaysia was handled by who? Lawyer or non-lawyer? This case should prove the point that lawyers will make poor negotiator or problem-solver.
In real life one cannot win all the times and has to be flexible in order to win most of the time. The legalistic government has won and made all the handsome surpluses from people all the past 39 years. Because it is legalistic government by nature it will always win and continue to want to win again.
Legally many things said may look correct in on-going water disputes, but what is over-looked is diplomacy. Legal technicalities so dominated the case conduct of this dispute that nothing else matters. This is really where the big problem than it actually is - legalistic approach is a poor cousin for entrepreneurship and real abilities.
Singapore can gain much more by adopting a people-to-people relationship building approach there can be many alternative win-win solutions. This legalistic approach adopted is not good to us or our daily high-cost and other problems. We will continue to face the legalistic problems or all kinds which will delay solutions to our many problems.