Shang Yang, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
It may, and it must. The Confucian who hopes to make the people good builds his state on a hope; I build on what is observed. When they are hungry, the people strive for food; when tired, for rest; when in hardship, for enjoyment; when humiliated, for honour. This is their natural disposition.1 Strive for gain and they lose the rules of polite behaviour; strive for fame and they lose the eternal principles of human nature.
Look at robbers and thieves. They offend the prince above and fail as subject and son below, and though their names are dishonoured and their persons endangered, the profit keeps them at it. Look at the scholars who go hungry, wear out their limbs and rack their thoughts, and still redouble their effort. That is not goodness, it is the pursuit of fame.1
So I say: where fame and profit meet, there the people will go. Goodness cannot be the handle. The ruler who grasps the handle of fame and profit, as a sage grasps the scales by examining the weights, can send the people wherever the state has need.2 Farming brings hardship and war brings danger, and what leads men into both is calculation. Alive, they scheme for profit; facing death, they are anxious for a name.3
So I trace where fame and profit spring from. Let profit come from the soil and they will spend their strength to the full. Let fame come from war and they will fight to the death. Then the fields do not lie fallow, the enemy is conquered, and wealth and strength are won without the ruler stirring.3 The rulers of the world have the conduct of Yao and Shun in their persons and nothing of T'ang or Wu in their results.
Their mistake lies in the handle they hold.3 The measure is the same on the other side. Punishment restrains depravity and reward upholds the interdicts. Shame, disgrace, labour and hardship are what the people dislike; glory, ease and joy are what they attend to. If penalties cause no dislike and titles and emoluments are not worth a glance, that is the omen of a ruined country.4
And the road to glory must be one road, the road of merit in farming and war. If the sophist and the man with private influence also reach the prince, the people will not give their strength.5 Virtue is not forsworn, only put in its place. Force produces strength, strength produces prestige, prestige produces virtue. Virtue has its origin in force, which only the sage-prince possesses, and so he is able to hand benevolence and righteousness to the empire.6
The Confucian begins with virtue and ends with a fallow field and a conquered state. I begin with the people's self-interest, and virtue follows as a consequence of order.
It is the nature of the people when hungry to seek food, when tired rest, in hardship pleasure and in humiliation honour. While they live they calculate profit; facing death they think of a name. This nature is not to be changed but to be understood and used. Where fame and profit meet, the people go; the ruler who controls the sources of both can send them to the bitter work of farming and the danger of war.7
Teaching that hopes to make people good is idle; clear rewards and certain punishments make them useful, and in time orderly.891011
It is the nature of the people, when they are hungry, to strive for food; when they are tired, to strive for rest; when they suffer hardship, to seek enjoyment; when they are in a state of humiliation, to strive for honour.The Book of Lord Shang
If the ruler controls the handle of fame and profit, so as to be able to acquire success and fame, it is due to statistical method. A sage examines the weights, in order to control the handle of the scalesThe Book of Lord Shang
If the profit comes from the soil, then people will use their strength to the full; if fame results from war, then they will fight to the death.The Book of Lord Shang
Shame and disgrace, labour and hardship are what the people dislike; fame and glory, ease and joy are what the people pay attention to. So, if the penalties of the country are such, that they do not cause dislike, and the titles and emoluments are not worth attention, it is an omen of the ruin of the country.The Book of Lord Shang
the ruler opens the way to public benefit and bars the gate of private intrigue, so that the people's strength is developed to the utmost.The Book of Lord Shang
Force produces strength, strength produces prestige, prestige produces virtue, and so virtue has its origin in force, which a sage-prince alone possesses, and therefore he is able to transmit benevolence and righteousness to the empire.The Book of Lord Shang
These two methods being used in combination, people within the borders will be single-minded; being single-minded, they will farm; farming, they will be simple and being simple, they will dwell quietly and dislike going out. Therefore, a sage's way of ordering a country, is that the people's capital should be stored in the soil and that dangers would be run abroad by borrowing a temporary habitat.The Book of Lord Shang
If they give due consideration to what is profitable, they will fear punishment and will easily suffer hardship; if they easily suffer hardship, then the capacity of the soil will be developed to the full; if they enjoy employment in warfare, military strength will be developed to the utmost.The Book of Lord Shang
A sage, therefore, in organizing a country causes the people, in home affairs, to adhere to agriculture, and in foreign affairs, to scheme for war. Now, agriculture makes the people suffer hardships and war makes them run dangers, and the means whereby they can be led to encounter hardships and to perform actions, that expose them, to danger, is calculation.The Book of Lord Shang
Therefore, if the people are rich and unemployed, they should be made to obtain titles by means of their grain, and everyone of them will certainly become strong. Then there will be no derogation of agriculture, and the six parasites will not sprout out, and thus, the state being rich and the people orderly, there will be twofold strength. An army easily becomes weak, but it is difficult to keep it strong.The Book of Lord Shang
Thus, they can carry their personal capital round to any house on earth. If, for the people's capital, importance is attached to physical talents and for their habitat they are dependent on the outside world, then those who carry considerable capital, will become temporary sojourners.The Book of Lord Shang
The premise beneath the whole system and the reason Confucians called it inhuman; modern readers find in it the first political theory built on incentives rather than virtue.