荀子是通過儒家的「同」（君臣同治）與墨家的「獨」（君主專制）相比較來確立了儒家政治哲學同一性的第一人。荀子認為政治的主體是君主與宰相。君主的職分是選拔宰相、百官與讓全官僚有著共同的治國哲學；宰相的職分是總括、評議整個國家治理。宰相的職分如此重大，所以只有像孔子一樣的人才是作為宰相的最佳人選。為了經營天下，需要把德才兼備的儒者任用為官僚（尚賢）。並且，如果君主失政的話，大臣要立足於「道」向君主諫言。但是，當君主徹底喪失政治正當性時，荀子拋棄了革命論開展了保身論。造成這種情況的原因之一是因為荀子沒有像孟子一樣的「天」信仰。

It was none other than Xunzi who established the principles of a distinctive Confucian political philosophy by drawing a comparison between the Confucian “Joint Rule by the ruler and the minister” (tong 同) and the Mohist “sole-governance by an absolute ruler” (du 獨). Xunzi regarded the ruler and the minister as the main agents of governance. The duties of the son of heaven are to appoint the minister and the hundred-officials, and share his ideas of governance with them. The duties of the minister are to look after and confer on the governance of the state as a whole. For that the role of the minister was extremely crucial, people comparable to Confucius were considered as the qualified. To govern all under heaven, ru-ists equipped with both the education and the virtue should be appointed as officials. Moreover, in the case of the misrule of the ruler, the minister should remonstrate grounding his principles on the Way (dao 道). However, when the ruler completely loses his legitimacy, Xunzi does not suggest revolution but self-preservation. One of the reasons that Xunzi promotes self-preservation is because the philosophy lacks the belief in “heaven” (tian 天) such as that of Mencius.