Suppose Confucianism had prevailed? We'd have "rites and music" instead of law; filial piety instead of democracy and free-market capitalism. The ruler would radiate paternal benevolence and we, his subject-children, would respond with respect and obedience. Would we be worse off?
Most people would say yes, we would be. Few of us are satisfied with the way we're governed or the people we elect to govern us, and yet, strangely enough, democracy itself is rarely called into question. The modern alternatives — communism, fascism, Japanese militarism — disgraced themselves horribly in the last century, which seemed to settle the issue once and for all in democracy's favor. Confucianism? Ancient, quaint, charming — but relevant? How can it possibly be?
Rites and music: It sounds crazy. Yet one of early-modern Japan's great thinkers, Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725), meditating on the shogun's failure to beget an heir, wrote: "At present, rites and music are not properly practiced. ... Thus, without the assistance of the gods and spirits, it is possible that the principle of germination cannot be achieved."