VOLUME I, CHAPTER 2, SECTION 4
The pattern of positions is not a conspiracy. It is the mechanism itself. Three times, one chain.
The first three sections laid out how the three industrial revolutions actually ran. The first, the steam engine roars, the enclosures and the factory machine replace the hands, the idle pile up, capital fears being grabbed, moves the government to ship them to the battlefield, fifty million down, the world order reset. The second, the current comes on, the assembly line and the Great Depression, the idle piled thicker than ever, capital backs the Nazis, the militarists, the New Deal, the five-year plans, ships them to the battlefield, seventy million down, China beyond words, the world order reset. The third, the computer arrives, the welfare state and the planned economy and the opening seat part of the vacuum, the local wars run on, fifteen to twenty million down, and it has not stopped. Three revolutions, close to a hundred forty million down. This section sets down the close of the whole chapter's pattern. This script is not a conspiracy. It is the mechanism itself.
One. Before this section, let me answer a question that may be sitting in your chest. All this talk of capital moving the government to ship the idle hands to the battlefield, is that a conspiracy theory? Is it saying a room of bad men met in secret and decided how to harm the poor? Answering this matters more than almost anything in the chapter, so I'll answer it straight. This is not a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory says a group of bad men consciously plotted an evil. Some family held a secret meeting and decided to start the First World War, that kind of claim is a conspiracy theory. This is not that. This is the mechanism itself. What does the mechanism itself mean? Take an example. Water runs from high ground to low. That is not a conspiracy. No group of bad men met inside the water and decided we shall run to the low ground. It is water's nature, gravity carries it down. Capital chasing profit runs from the position vacuum toward the battlefield. That is not a conspiracy either. No group of bad men met inside capital and decided we shall send the poor to die. It is capital's nature, profit carries it to guide the idle hands toward the place that threatens capital least. A foreign battlefield threatens capital less than a revolution at home, so by instinct capital guides the idle hands to the foreign battlefield.
Two. Every individual capitalist's decision is rational. Arms pay better than the rest, so invest in arms. Every individual politician's decision is rational. Backing the war wins more than opposing it, so back the war. Every individual editor's decision is rational. Stoking the national feeling sells more papers than reporting the tangled truth, so stoke the feeling. Every individual general's decision is rational. War brings budget and promotion, so argue for war. Every single decision is rational, and stacked together they become a war. That is the mechanism itself. And this matters, because if it were a conspiracy, the fix would be simple, catch the bad men and lock them up. But it is not a conspiracy. It is the mechanism itself. Catch one Krupp and the next Krupp rises. Catch one Rockefeller and the next Rockefeller rises. Catch one Hitler, and after Hitler come a few hundred smaller Hitlers standing in different positions. Why? Because the mechanism is still there. Leave the mechanism unadjusted, and whoever stands in that position does roughly the same thing.
Three. The ancestors said this long ago. Whether a man turns out worthy or worthless is like the rat, one of them said, it is all in where he is placed. The same rat, in the granary it grows fat, in the latrine the dog chases it. The rat did not change. The position changed. It is not that he cannot, it is that he chooses not to, that line is about individual choice. But read it the other way, it is not that he chooses not to, it is that he cannot, and you have the mechanism itself, the mechanism setting cannot do otherwise, the room for individual choice ground down to almost nothing. He who holds the way has many to help him, he who loses it has few, and the way here is the mechanism. Get the mechanism right and the stacked effect is good. Get it wrong and the stacked effect is bad. Heaven's net is vast, and though its mesh is wide it lets nothing slip, and heaven's net is the mechanism, formless and covering everything. A house that stacks up good will have blessing to spare, a house that stacks up ill will have grief to spare, the single good or ill does not count, the stacked good or ill counts, and the stacking is the mechanism. Chinese civilization set the position of the mechanism itself down thousands of years ago. It is not the individual that decides everything. It is the mechanism that decides most.
Four. A few scholars of the modern West saw part of the mechanism too. Adam Smith wrote in 1776 of the invisible hand, the market coordinating supply and demand on its own. That is one expression of the mechanism itself. Smith saw the market's self-coordination, but he stood on capital's side and saw only the bright face, the market reaching its balance, and did not see the dark face, the mechanism run to its limit guiding the idle hands to the battlefield. He saw one half. And here I'll say plainly where I stand, because the rest of the chapter turns on it. I didn't discover any of this. Smith was reaching for one corner of a pattern the ancestors had already set down whole, thousands of years before him. I'm only setting the whole of it out again, in plain words you can use today. The credit is theirs. The next names are the same story. Marx, in the 1860s, wrote of historical materialism, the base deciding the superstructure, the mechanism of the relations and forces of production deciding the course of history. Marx saw that the mechanism itself exists, and that seeing was real and it was large. His boundary was that he simplified the mechanism to capital exploits labor, simplified the way out to overthrow capital, and folded instinct and design into one, capital's profit-chasing instinct and capital's design of moving the government to ship men to war stirred together. That is a boundary, not a wrongness, and the cost of the later roads taken past that boundary was heavy. Weber, early in the twentieth century, wrote of the iron cage of rationalization, the mechanism of modern society locking each person in a cage of reason with no way out. Weber saw the binding force of the mechanism, and his boundary was that he gave no way out. Arendt, in 1963, wrote of the banality of evil, that the great slaughter came not because Eichmann was a demon but because he was an ordinary clerk, the mechanism moving him to do these things. Arendt saw how terrible the mechanism is, and her boundary was that she held it at the level of moral responsibility and did not reach the pattern of position underneath. Piketty, in 2013, wrote that the return on capital runs ahead of the growth of the economy, a real law of the mechanism, the non-labor share eating the labor share. Piketty saw the mechanism's man-eating position, and his boundary was that he gave no way out that could land, his global progressive tax on capital a thing that does not touch the ground.
Five. These modern scholars each saw a part of the mechanism. Each stood in his own position and carried his own share, and I'm not here to run any of them down. But every one of these is a pattern of position the ancestors had already set down thousands of years ago. Smith's invisible hand is one corner of Laozi's doing nothing, yet leaving nothing undone. Marx's historical materialism is one corner of the Book of Changes, at the limit it turns, turning it opens through. Weber's iron cage is one corner of Zhuangzi's machine-heart. Arendt's banality of evil is the far side of Mengzi's it is not that he cannot, it is that he chooses not to. Piketty's law of capital's return is the warning-face of the Guanzi, take from the people within measure. Each modern scholar reached one line of the ancestors' pattern of position, and reached it before his craft was whole, and none saw the whole. All I'm doing is setting the whole out again in plain words. The credit is the ancestors'. And with that set down, lock this in. The pattern of position of the first three revolutions was not some group of bad men in a plot. It was capital's profit-chasing instinct, plus the government's power-keeping instinct, plus the physical structure of the idle hands' position vacuum, stacked into a turning mechanism. Capital's instinct is to chase profit. Capital fears being grabbed, and by instinct flees toward safety. The government's instinct is to keep power. The government needs revenue, needs stability, needs votes in a democracy or support in an autocracy. Capital supplies these, so the government listens to capital. The position vacuum of the idle hands is a physical structure. The machine replaces the hands, the hands fall idle, find no position, and pile up on their own. Three stacked, and capital moving the government to ship the idle hands to the battlefield is the necessary course of the mechanism itself. No bad men in a secret room required. Each individual acts on his own instinct, and the stack of them produces this result.
Six. And now the deeper position, the one that matters most. The mechanism itself can be adjusted. This matters more than everything before it. If the mechanism could not be adjusted, there would be no way out at all, capital would keep turning and the idle hands would keep going to the battlefield until there was no one left on the Earth. But the mechanism can be adjusted. The ancestors said it. At the limit it turns, turning it opens through, and open it lasts. The mechanism run to its limit turns of itself. If you can renew yourself for a day, renew it day by day, and renew it again, the mechanism can be renewed without end. The people are the root, the state second, the ruler light, and setting that law down was itself an adjustment of the mechanism of its day. Reversal is the movement of the way, the mechanism run to one end moves of itself toward the other. The brushwork of Chinese civilization across thousands of years is this, see the mechanism, adjust the mechanism, do not hunt the bad men. How is the mechanism adjusted? Not by overthrowing capital, overthrow one and another grows. Not by smashing the machine, the machine is not evil. Not by returning to the farming age, there is no going back. Not by hunting the bad men, the bad men are the product the mechanism stacks up. It is adjusted from the root of the pattern of position. How, exactly, Volume VI lays out point by point. This section only sets down the one position, the mechanism itself can be adjusted.
Seven. The fourth industrial revolution, the AI Stampede, is the last chance to adjust the mechanism. Each of the first three revolutions had a chance to adjust it. And each time the chance was missed. Smith had the chance, and he stood on capital's side. Marx had the chance, and his craft was not whole, and he stirred instinct and design together. Keynes had the chance, and he adjusted the parts and left the root untouched. Each missed chance, and tens of millions of the poor went down. This fourth time, the robots take the battlefield, and capital cannot ship the idle hands to war even if it wants to. The script the first three ran will not run. The position vacuum piles up, and capital chases profit to the end and eats its own root. If the mechanism is not adjusted this time, the human race is finished, not tens of millions of the poor down, but billions facing the position vacuum, capital finished with them, the world frozen. But turn it over, and this is also the time the adjustment is most likely to succeed. Why? Because in the first three, capital could still spend the idle hands through war and keep turning, so capital had no reason to adjust the mechanism. This time capital cannot spend them through war, the idle hands cannot be spent, capital walks into its own dead end, and for the first time capital has a reason to adjust. Capital is not stupid. Once capital sees clearly that it too will be finished, capital will be willing to adjust. That is the possibility the AI Stampede age holds alone. The level-up of the pattern of position itself forces the possibility of adjusting the mechanism.
Eight. Close the section. The first three revolutions, close to a hundred forty million of the poor down. The mechanism ran and ran and did not change. Not because bad men worked it from behind, but because the mechanism itself stacked up. Hunting the bad men does nothing. Adjusting the mechanism does. The pattern of position the ancestors set down thousands of years ago, the mechanism itself can be adjusted. The modern scholars, Smith, Marx, Weber, Arendt, Piketty, saw a part, each reaching one line before his craft was whole. The fourth revolution is the last chance to adjust the mechanism, and the one most likely to succeed. How is the mechanism adjusted? Turn to Volume VI, Saving People: A Race Against Time Before the Blood Runs. The four sections of Chapter 2 have set it down, the script the first three revolutions ran, the pattern of the mechanism itself, the possibility of adjusting it. Chapter 3 takes the next step. Capital is not evil. It is an instinct doing its job. Once that is set down, the direction of the adjustment comes clear. Not overthrow capital. Rein in the pace at which capital turns, let the instinct keep running but never run to the limit where it eats its own root. Turn to Chapter 3.
Or go straight to the way out. Volume VI, Saving People: A Race Against Time Before the Blood Runs.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Chapter Three, Capital Is Not Evil; It Is Instinct, Doing Its Job