"Is there anything at all that the conventional world calls 'wisdom' that is not really just piling up loot for the great thieves? ... If you create ideals of humankindness and responsible conduct to regulate them with, why, they'll just steal humankindness and responsible conduct and use them to rob you more. How do I know this is so? He who steals a belt buckle is executed, but he who steals a state becomes a feudal lord. Humankindness and resposible conduct are always among the properties found in the homes of feudal lords. Have they not also stolen humankindness and responsible conduct? So as long as the great robbers continue to go scot-free -- as long as these feudal lords continue to be exalted -- they will keep stealing humankindness and responsible conduct, together with the weights, measures, scales, balances, tallies, and seals that ensure their advantage, even if you reward them with high rank for refraining or threaten them with execution for persisting..." 

                - Zhuangzi (Ziporyn translation, Hackett, 2020)

"We ought to regard the interests of the state as of far greater moment than all else, in order that they be administered well; and we ought not to engage in eager rivalry in despite of equity, nor arrogate to ourselves any power contrary to the common welfare. For a state well administered is our greatest safeguard. In this all is summed up: When the state is in a healthy condition, all things prosper; when it is corrupt, all things go to ruin."

                - Democritus (translation taken from Bakewell's 1907 Source Book in Ancient Philosophy, reference plundered from Thilly's A History of Philosophy, Third Edition, p. 51)