When all power is in the hands of the ruler and there is no independent legal system, the intellectuals place themselves in the hands of the ruler, as they have done in China right through its history down to the People’s Republic. Confucius believed in human nature and mistrusted laws. Legal rules, he thought, were not the best way of creating a just order. This was best achieved through a matrix of ritual and moral conventions, inculcated through education.
