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Legalism -> Shang Jun Shu -> Agriculture and War -> 6.2

Indeed, if farmers are few, and those who live idly on others are many, then the state will be poor and in a dangerous condition.
Now, for example, if various kinds of caterpillars, which are born in spring and die in autumn,
appear only once, the result is that the people have no food for many years.
Now, if one man tills and a hundred live on him, it means that they are like a great visitation of caterpillars.
Though there may be a bundle of the Odes and History in every hamlet and a copy in every family, yet it is useless for good government, and it is not a method whereby this condition of things may be reversed.
Therefore the ancient kings made people turn back to agriculture and war.
For this reason is it said:
'Where a hundred men farm
and one is idle,
the state will attain supremacy;
where ten men farm
and one is idle,
the state will be strong;
where half farms and half is idle,
the state will be in peril.


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