Zhuge Liang, alias Kong Ming, Chinese sage and general, writing 1,800 years ago in The Way of the General :

What Hurts the People

There are five things that hurt the people:

  1. There are local officials who use public office for personal benefit, taking improper advantage of their authority, holding weapons on one hand and people's livelihood in the other, corrupting their offices, and bleeding the people.

  2. There are cases where serious offences are given light penalties; there is inequality before the law, and the innocent are subjected to punishment, even execution. Sometimes serious crimes are pardoned, the strong are supported, and the weak are oppressed. Harsh penalties are applied, unjustly torturing people to get at facts.

  3. Sometimes there are officials who condone crime and vice, punishing those who protest against this, cutting off the avenues of appeal and hiding the truth, plundering and ruining lives, unjust and arbitrary.

  4. Sometimes there are senior officials who repeatedly change department heads so as to monopolise the government administration, favouring their friends and relatives while treating those they dislike with unjust harshness, oppressive in their actions, prejudiced and unruly. They also use taxation to reap profit, enriching themselves and their families by exactions and fraud.

  5. Sometimes local officials extensively tailor awards and fines, welfare projects, and general expenditures, arbitrarily determining prices and measures, with the result that people lose their jobs.

These five things are harmful to the people, and anyone who does any of these should be dismissed from office.



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