VOLUME I, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 1
Capital chasing profit is the way of things. If you have a single coin in savings, you are a capitalist.
After the first two chapters, most people are carrying one line in the chest. Capital is too vile. Capital gathered hundreds of millions and shipped them to the front, chased profit until it spent the idle hands as cannon fodder, capital is evil. This section cuts across that in one stroke. Capital is not evil. It is an instinct doing its job. Capital chasing profit is the way of things. This is one of the deepest turns of position in the whole of Justice Way. Set it down, and the direction of the whole book comes out. Not overthrow capital. Rein in the pace at which capital turns. This section sets down two root understandings. Capital chasing profit is an instinct, and if you have a single coin in savings, you are a capitalist. Set those two down, and the other three sections of the chapter have something to stand on. The direction of all six volumes of Justice Way comes out.
One. First, what is capital? Capital is not money. Capital is not the factory. Capital is not the stock. Capital is a social force put into motion to produce more value. Take a plain example. You have a hundred dollars in your hand. Bury it in the ground and it is not capital, it is buried paper. Spend it on bread and it is not capital, it is consumption. Put it into a little shop, hoping to sell goods and bring back a hundred and ten, and only then does the hundred become capital. The instinct of capital, its whole job, is to be put into motion in the hope of producing more value. That is the root nature of capital as a social force. The moment a sum of money is put into motion in the hope of more value, it becomes capital and begins to turn by capital's instinct. Capital itself is not a person. Capital is a flowing force of value. It has no moral property. It has nothing to do with evil, and nothing to do with good. Capital is just capital.
Two. Set one thing down. Capital chasing profit is the way of things. What does the way of things mean? It means the thing fits the root order of heaven and earth, fits the instinct of the thing, and cannot be judged right or wrong, because it does not stand in the position of right or wrong. Water running downhill is the way of things. Fire climbing upward is the way of things. The lion running down the antelope is the way of things. Capital chasing profit is the way of things. If a man says water running downhill is wrong, that water should run uphill, the saying itself is out of position. Water does not choose by morals, water goes by instinct. If a man says the lion running down the antelope is evil, that the lion should eat grass, the saying itself is out of position. The lion does not choose by morals. If a man says capital chasing profit is evil, that capital should not chase profit, the saying itself is out of position. Capital does not stand in the position of evil or not evil. Capital chases profit by instinct, as naturally as water runs downhill by instinct.
Three. The ancestors said it. Heaven and earth are not kind, they treat all things as straw dogs. This is a very deep law. Heaven and earth are neither kind nor unkind. They turn by instinct, with no favor and no hatred toward the ten thousand things. Heaven lets the sun fall on every person, good or wicked. Heaven lets the rain fall on every field, fertile or poor. To judge heaven and earth as kind or unkind is itself out of position, because heaven and earth do not stand in the position of kind or unkind. Capital is the same. Capital does not stand in the position of kind or unkind. Capital chases profit by instinct, treats every chance of investment alike, treats every worker alike, invests where it can earn and presses cost where it can press. Capital favors neither the poor nor the rich, neither the good nor the wicked. Capital looks only at profit. To judge capital as kind or unkind is itself out of position. All the world bustles in for gain, the ancestors said, all the world rushes out for gain. Sima Qian set this position down more than two thousand years ago. A person chasing gain is instinct. A merchant chasing gain is instinct. Capital chasing gain is instinct. That instinct needs no moral verdict, only a clear eye. Sima Qian did not curse the people who chased gain as evil. He set a position down. The instinct to chase gain keeps a society turning. Credit to the ancestors. I am only setting it out again in plain words. And so the first understanding is down. Capital chasing profit is an instinct, the way of things, not evil.
Four. Now the second understanding. Who is the capitalist? Before that, set Marx's position beside it. Marx said the capitalist exploits the worker. Marx saw a real thing, that capital exploits the worker, and he set his law by it, and he carried his own share of the work. His boundary was this. Marx pictured the capitalist as the nineteenth-century European factory owner in the top hat with the cigar, a specific band of people, a small band that could be overthrown. His prescription was overthrow the capitalist, and by his narrow definition the capitalist was the few, and overthrow the few and the many are freed. That narrow definition does not hold up in the real world. Why not? Because the capitalist is not a specific band of people. The capitalist is anyone who controls capital or invests capital. By that wide definition, if you have a single coin in savings, you are a capitalist.
Five. This is plain enough to grasp in a second. You have ten thousand dollars saved in the bank. You think you are just an ordinary person putting money aside. But the bank does not sit your ten thousand in a vault. The bank lends it out, to the one building a factory, to the one buying a house, to the one running a business, and earns the spread. Your ten thousand is capital put into motion to produce more value. You are the investor of that capital. You are a capitalist. By this law, the retiree drawing a pension whose pension fund a manager invests in stocks and bonds and property is a capitalist. The wage worker with savings the bank lends out is a capitalist. The student with a tuition deposit the school invests is a capitalist. The farmer with a few thousand in savings the rural credit union invests is a capitalist. The middle-class family whose house is appreciating, itself capital in motion, is a capitalist. The middle-aged buyer who mortgaged thirty years of future income to the bank is turning capital, and is a capitalist. Everyone is a capitalist.
Six. Set down the root of Marx's boundary. Marx pictured the capitalist as a small band in top hats, a band you could overthrow, and once overthrown the many would be freed. But by the real pattern of position, the capitalist is everyone with savings, everyone is a capitalist. Overthrow the capitalist, and you overthrow everyone, you overthrow the overthrower himself. That logic must slide into absurdity. The tragedies of the twentieth century proved it again and again. Purge after purge, from the factory owner to the rich farmer, from the rich farmer to the middle farmer, on to anyone with a little something, until everyone lived in fear. Down with the capital-roaders, and the capital-roaders began as party bureaucrats, then widened to the intellectuals, then to anyone with a family background, then to anyone another person pointed at, until in the end everyone was pointed at as a capitalist. The Khmer Rouge ran Marx's overthrow the capitalist all the way, took a pair of glasses as the mark of the bourgeois, killed the people who wore glasses, and overthrew until only the stone age was left. Why? Because by Marx's narrow definition no capitalist can be found. By the real pattern of position, everyone is a capitalist, and a movement to overthrow the capitalist can only slide toward overthrow everyone. Marx wrote the wrong prescription. Hundreds of millions of the poor in the twentieth century fell on it. This is not Marx's sin. Marx did his work from his own position. It is his boundary, that his craft was not whole, that he did not see the two positions the ancestors had set down long before, chasing gain is instinct, and everyone is a capitalist. What Sima Qian had made plain more than two thousand years earlier, Marx in the nineteenth century had not taken in. I am not here to stand and curse Marx. Marx carried his own share. But the plain fact that his prescription was wrong stands. And you the reader should be clear in your heart. To walk Marx's prescription is to walk the old road of the twentieth century's tragedies.
Seven. And one more thing must be set down. To grant that everyone is a capitalist is not to praise capital. This matters. You might think, this talk of capital not being evil, plus everyone being a capitalist, is this speaking for capital? No. To grant that water runs downhill by instinct is not to praise water. To grant that everyone is a capitalist is not to praise capital. It is to see the position clearly. And once you see it clearly, the response is not to overthrow, you cannot overthrow it, to overthrow it is to overthrow yourself, but to guide capital's direction by capital's instinct. You do not curse water because it runs downhill. You build the dam, dig the channel, set the reservoir, and guide the water's direction by the water's nature. This is Yu's method. Channel, do not wall. You do not curse capital because it chases profit. You guide capital's direction by its instinct, set capital a rule, let its instinct turn within a range that does not wound the root. How, exactly, Volume VI lays out. This section only sets down the two root understandings, capital chasing profit is an instinct, and everyone is a capitalist. And someone may still ask, then what of the capitalist? If everyone is a capitalist, is the capitalist evil? A living person can make a moral choice. This is sharp. Capital itself is not a person, has no room for moral choice, turns only by instinct. But every capitalist is a living person, and a living person has room for moral choice. A capitalist can choose to put savings into arms stocks, earning more but shipping people to the front. A capitalist can choose to put savings into industries that serve the public good, earning less but seating the idle hands. A capitalist can choose to put savings into charity, earning nothing but returning it straight to the public. Every one of those is a living person's choice. A living person carries responsibility. That law the third section sets down on its own. Capital is only a tool. The operator is the living person, and the responsibility is the operator's.
Eight. Close the section. Capital chasing profit is an instinct doing its job, the way of things. Like water running downhill, like fire climbing upward, like the lion running down the antelope. Capital is not a person, and has nothing to do with evil. The capitalist is anyone who controls or invests capital. If you have a single coin in savings, you are a capitalist. Everyone is a capitalist. Marx's craft was not whole. He defined the capitalist as a small band, wrote the wrong prescription of overthrow the capitalist, and hundreds of millions of the poor in the twentieth century fell on it. By the real pattern of position, to overthrow the capitalist is to overthrow everyone, to overthrow the overthrower himself. That road does not go through. The road that goes through is to guide capital's direction by capital's instinct. Channel, do not wall. The position the ancestors set down thousands of years ago. Heaven and earth are not kind, they treat all things as straw dogs. All the world bustles in for gain. Yu channeling the flood, channel and do not wall. I am only setting it out again in plain words. Credit to the ancestors. The next section sets down that capital does not care whether a man lives or dies, but it is not evil. Capital chasing profit is not charity, and not caring whether a man lives or dies is the necessary end of the instinct. But not caring whether a man lives or dies is not the same as being evil. Once that difference is set down, the direction of rein in capital, do not destroy it comes out. Turn to the next section.
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.
Two. Capital does not care whether a man lives or dies, but it is not evil.