 The text insists repeatedly that the only way to make agriculture and warfare attractive is to prevent any alternative route toward enrichment and empowerment. It specifies that “those who do not work but eat, who do not fight but attain glory, who have no rank but are respected, who have no emolument but are rich, who have no office but lead—“these are called ‘villains’” (Shang jun shu 18: 111; Book of Lord Shang 18.6). Any group which tries to bypass engagement in agriculture and warfare—be these merchants who amass riches without tilling or talkative intellectuals who seek promotion without contributing to the state economically or militarily—should be suppressed or at least squeezed out of profits. Nothing—neither learning, nor commerce, nor even artisanship—should distract the people from farming and making war. The text summarizes: