Legalism

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Identifying the Ideological Construct used by the ruling party the first step towards defeating it?

While doing research for my final university course on culture, I came across a really interesting entry on Wikipedia that happened to describe Singapore very well:


Legalism

- a pragmatic political philosophy,
with maxims like "when the epoch changed, the ways changed"
as its essential principle, than a jurisprudence.
(Source: wikipedia)


(Jurisprudence: Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Students of jurisprudence aim to understand the fundamental nature of law, and to analyze its purpose, structure, and application. Jurisprudential scholars (sometimes confusingly referred to as "jurists") hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the law, the kind of power that it exercises, and its role in human societies. At a practical level, some jurists hope to improve society by studying what the law is, what it ought to be, and how it actually operates. They seek a deeper understanding behind law's seemingly unpredictable and uncertain nature. Source: Wikipedia)

Now, what really intrigued me was how each of the core principles described in the wiki entry, could easily be reflected in the political approach to governing Singapore:

Fa (法 fǎ): law or principle. The law code must be clearly written and made public. All people under the ruler were equal before the law. Laws should reward those who obey them and punish accordingly those who dare to break them. Thus it is guaranteed that actions taken are systemically predictable. In addition, the system of law ran the state, not the ruler. If the law is successfully enforced, even a weak ruler will be strong.

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