Shang Yang, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Yes. And the word weaken needs its meaning given, or it will be heard as cruelty when it is arithmetic. A people strong in its own wealth, clans and opinions is a rival to the state. If the people are made strong, the army is doubly diminished; if the people are made weak, the army is doubly strengthened.1 To attack a strong enemy with a strong people spells ruin, but to attack with a weak people means supremacy.1
A people that fears orders and works is a people that can be sent to the field and the battle, and the state that can send them is the state that survives. Now the parasites. The twelve are rites and music, odes and history, moral culture and virtue, filial piety and brotherly love, sincerity and faith, chastity and integrity, benevolence and righteousness, criticism of the army and shame at fighting.2
I call them parasites not because I say they are false, but because each is a road to rank that does not pass through the field or the battle. Where these twelve come together, the prince's administration is not stronger than his ministers, nor his officials' than his people; the parasites are stronger than the government, and dismemberment follows.2
A ruler who esteems them cannot make the people farm and fight, and the state grows so poor that it is carved up.2 Keep them out, and no one in the empire can invade; when the soldiers march out they take their objective and hold it, and when they are held in reserve the state grows rich.2 The ground of it is the One. Those who seek office and rank seldom seek it by agriculture and war; they seek it by artful words and empty doctrines, and that is what I call varying the people.3
Those who organise a country well teach that rank comes through one opening only. Then fine speaking is done away with, the people are simple, and being simple they are not licentious.3 Seeing the highest benefit come from one gate, they concentrate, and a people that concentrates has strength, and a state of such a people is powerful.3 Let the people have a surplus of grain, and let them buy office by it; then the farmers will not be lazy.4
War is the other half, and it answers a danger the moralists never reckon. A poor state that makes war sends the poison to the enemy's side. A rich state that does not make war turns the poison inward, and there the six parasites grow and make it weak.5 A country that is strong and does not fight breeds rites and music and the parasitic functions, and dismemberment is inevitable; if it fights, the poison goes to the enemy.6
So war is not the opposite of order but its guard. Weigh the two ways of attacking. A state that loves force attacks with what is difficult, and gains ten points for every one it undertakes. A state that loves words attacks with what is easy, and loses a hundred for every ten it marches out.6 Where offices go by merit, measures are simple and words are few; where they go by the parasites, measures multiply, the prince devotes himself to talk, and those who have merit retire day by day.5 That is the whole reckoning: one gate and a state in order, or ten gates and a state in ruin.
A country prospers by agriculture and is made great by war; these are the One, and everything that draws people from them weakens the state.78 Rites and music, odes and history, moral culture, filial piety, sincerity, chastity, benevolence and righteousness, criticism of the army and shame at fighting: where these are esteemed the people talk and do not till, and the state is dismembered.9
A simple people fears orders and works; a weak people makes a strong state. Rank and wealth come only from the fields and the battlefield, and war spends the state's strength outward before it turns to poison within.1011
If the people are made strong, the army will be doubly diminished; if the people are made weak, the army will be doubly strengthened. Indeed, to attack the strong with a strong people spells ruin; to attack the strong with a weak people means the attainment of supremacy.The Book of Lord Shang
The six parasites are; rites and music, odes and history, moral culture and virtue, filial piety and brotherly love, sincerity and faith, chastity and integrity, benevolence and righteousness, criticism of the army and being ashamed of fighting. If there are these twelve things, the ruler is unable to make people farm and fight, and then the state will be so poor that it will be dismembered.The Book of Lord Shang
Now those, who seek office and rank, never do so by means of agriculture and war, but by artful words and empty doctrines. That is called 'varying the people.'The Book of Lord Shang
If the people have a surplus of grain, cause them to obtain office and rank by means of their cereals; if through their own efforts they can count upon obtaining office and rank, farmers will not be lazy.The Book of Lord Shang
If a state, when poor, applies itself to war, the poison will originate on the enemy's side, and it will not have the six parasites, but will certainly be strong. If a state, when rich, does not apply itself to war, the poison is transferred to its own interior, and it will have the six kinds of parasites and will certainly be weak.The Book of Lord Shang
If the country is strong and war is not waged, the poison will be carried into the territory; rites and music and the parasitic functions will arise and dismemberment will be inevitable. But if the country (being strong) thereupon wages war, the poison will be carried to the enemy.The Book of Lord Shang
In this way they shun agriculture and war, and outside interests being thus furnished, it will be a perilous position for the country. To have people dying of hunger and cold, and to have unwillingness to fight for the sake of profit and emolument, are usual occurrences in a perishing state.The Book of Lord Shang
Indeed, if a country employs people for their talking then the people will not be nurtured in agriculture; so it is only an intelligent prince, who understands that by fondness of words one cannot strengthen the army nor open up the land. Only when a sage rules the country will he strive for singleness of purpose and for the consolidation of the people in agriculture and for that alone.The Book of Lord Shang
A country, where the strength has been consolidated, is powerful, but a country that loves talking is dismembered. Therefore is it said: "If there are a thousand people engaged in agriculture and war, and only one in the Odes and History, and clever sophistry, then those thousand will all be remiss in agriculture and war; if there are a hundred people engaged in agriculture and war and only one in the arts and…The Book of Lord Shang
To abolish law by means of the law means strength; to establish law by means of the law means dismemberment. If officials are permanent, law is abolished, but if officials are often transferred, laws are established. In administering a great country, it becomes small; in administering a small country, it becomes great.The Book of Lord Shang
If farmers do not suffer from famines and there is no ostentatious conduct, then public activities will be pursued with energy, and in the sphere of private activities there will be no fallow fields. (This being so), then agricultural affairs will certainly excel, and this being the case, it is certain waste lands will be brought under cultivation.The Book of Lord Shang
The most alienating pages in early Chinese thought, deliberately so in its early chapters, and the basis of the modern charge of totalitarianism; the later chapters soften the rhetoric without abandoning the programme.