VOLUME I, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 3
Capital is only a tool. The operator is the living person, and the responsibility is the operator's.
The first two sections set it down. Capital chasing profit is an instinct, the way of things. Capital does not care whether a man lives or dies, but it is not evil. The end of the second section planted a seed. Capital itself is not a person, has no intent. The one who operates capital is a living person, with intent, with room for moral choice. This section sets it down. Capital is only a tool, and the operator is the living person, and the responsibility is the operator's. This is the most crucial turn in the chapter. Set it down, and the direction of Volume VI comes out. Rein in the operator, do not destroy the tool.
One. First, what is a tool? A tool is a thing used by a person, producing an effect, with no intent of its own. A hammer is a tool. A hammer can drive a nail and build a house, or smash a window and hurt a man. The hammer has no intent. The hammer does not decide today I will hurt someone. Every effect of the hammer comes from the hand that holds it. A knife is a tool. A knife can cut vegetables and cook a meal and save a life, or kill and burn and harm. The knife has no intent. Every effect of the knife comes from the hand that holds it. A gun is a tool. A gun can hunt and guard a home, or slaughter civilians and start a war. The gun has no intent. Every effect of the gun comes from the hand that holds it. Capital is a tool. Capital can invest in the people's livelihood so everyone has food, or invest in arms so everyone goes to the front. Capital has no intent. Capital does not decide today I will ship people to war. Every effect of capital comes from the person who operates it.
Two. Set one thing down. The real responsibility sits with the operator. The hammer hurts a man, the responsibility is not the hammer's, it is the hand that held it. The knife kills, the responsibility is not the knife's, it is the hand that held it. The gun slaughters, the responsibility is not the gun's, it is the hand that held it. Capital ships people to the front, the responsibility is not capital's, it is the hand that operates it. Marx's prescription was overthrow capital, charging the responsibility to the tool. That prescription is like a murder happens, so put the knife on trial and shoot it. After the knife is tried and shot, the hand that held it is still there, and it goes looking for the next knife. After capital is overthrown, the person who operates capital is still there, and finds the next tool, maybe state power, maybe religious authority, maybe a monopoly on technology, maybe control of data. Some nations in the twentieth century overthrew private capital, and state capitalism rose. Overthrow the private capitalist, and the state bureaucrat becomes the new capitalist. The tool changed, the operator is still a person, and the profit-chasing instinct still chases profit. This is why the prescription overthrow capital can never go through. Because the responsibility is not the tool's. It is the operator's.
Three. The ancestors said it. The heart that cannot bear the suffering of another, every person has it. A living person has room for moral choice, can choose to feel it, can choose not to. That is the living person's position. Cultivate the self, order the family, govern the state, bring peace to all under heaven. What is cultivated is the living person, not the tool. The virtue of the living person decides how the living person uses the tool. The gentleman looks to himself, the small man looks to others. When something goes wrong, the gentleman first examines himself, whether he did wrong. Only the small man blames the surroundings, the tool, his luck. To push the responsibility onto the tool is looking to the thing. To put the responsibility back on the living person is looking to oneself. This is the ancestral brushwork of thousands of years. Credit to the ancestors. I am only setting it out again in plain words. And so it is down. Capital is the tool, the operator is the living person, the responsibility is the operator's.
Four. Now a deeper thing. Who is the operator? By the first section, everyone is a capitalist, a single coin in savings makes you one. By this section, capital is the tool, the operator is the living person, the responsibility is the operator's. Put the two together, and everyone is an operator. Everyone carries responsibility. Plain enough to grasp in a second. The retiree drawing a pension, whose fund the manager invests, is a capitalist, and by this section is also an operator, and carries responsibility. What responsibility? The retiree has a responsibility to ask where the pension is invested. Into arms stocks? Into a tech company laying off at scale? Into a sweatshop clothing firm? Into a polluting chemical plant? If the retiree knows nothing of this and cares only about my return, the retiree has handed the responsibility to the manager, has let the manager make the moral choice for him. The manager carries out the contract, picks the most profitable investment, and may ship thousands of workers to the unemployment line. The retiree carries responsibility. It cannot be pushed onto the manager, and it cannot be pushed onto capital. The wage worker with savings in the bank, lent out and invested, is a capitalist and an operator and carries responsibility. The middle-class family whose house is capital is an operator with a responsibility to care what kind of market the house takes part in. The student with a tuition deposit the school invests is an operator with responsibility. The farmer with savings the credit union invests is an operator with responsibility. Everyone is an operator. Everyone carries responsibility.
Five. Here you may push back. This is too idealized. How is a retiree to ask where the pension goes? Fund information is so complex an ordinary person cannot read it. To put the responsibility on ordinary people is to push it onto the ones with the least information. This is sharp. Let me answer it seriously. The answer has two layers. Layer one. That the information is complex is indeed a fact. But complex information is not the same as no responsibility. Take a comparison. A man drives and kills someone. He can plead I did not know the traffic law. But the law does not accept the plea. The driver had a responsibility to learn the law first. A man buys food that kills someone, tainted formula, say. The consumer can plead I do not understand the ingredients. But the consumer bears some responsibility to know something of food safety first. A man buys a house built on a fault line that collapses in a quake and kills people. The buyer can plead I do not understand structural engineering. But the buyer had a responsibility to learn what he could about where the house stood. By the same law, a person whose savings are put into arms stocks, the arms sold to a party at war, thousands falling, can plead I do not understand finance. But by the real pattern of position, the saver has a responsibility to learn what he can about where his money goes. Layer two. The problem of complex information is solved by adjusting the system, not by cancelling responsibility. Letting ordinary people read where their money goes is the responsibility of the system. The fund should disclose its direction clearly. The bank should disclose its lending clearly. The pension should disclose its allocation clearly. But the ordinary person cannot use the system is not clear yet as a reason to drop his own responsibility. The ordinary person has a responsibility to push for the system to be adjusted so he can read it, and a responsibility to make the moral choice within the range he can read. How the system is adjusted so ordinary people can read it, Volume VI lays out point by point. This section only sets down everyone is an operator, everyone carries responsibility.
Six. Set one thing down. The operators do not carry equal responsibility. Everyone is an operator, but the responsibility is not equal. The retiree holding a hundred dollars in savings is an operator, but his responsibility is tiny, the capital he can move is too small. The manager holding a billion-dollar fund is an operator with far greater responsibility, the capital he moves runs to hundreds of millions, and every investment decision touches thousands of people. The great capitalist holding capital in the hundreds of billions, the founder of a global tech giant, the top investor, is the largest operator, with the largest responsibility. Every decision touches hundreds of millions. By the pattern of position that responsibility matches power, the greater the power the greater the responsibility. The greater the reach, the greater the responsibility. The more capital operated, the more responsibility. The ancestors said it. In power, walk it together with the people. Out of power, at least walk your own road well. The one in power, with reach, must walk it together with the people. The ordinary person, out of power, must at least walk his own road well. The one with great power carries great responsibility. This is the ancestral position of thousands of years. The higher the position, the heavier the charge. By this law the great capitalist, the largest operator, carries the largest responsibility. But the great capitalist cannot be overthrown for the size of that responsibility. To overthrow the great capitalist is to overthrow everyone, because everyone is a capitalist. What must be done is to rein in the pace at which the great capitalist turns. How to rein it in, Volume VI lays out.
Seven. Now tie this section back to the first two chapters. Chapter 1's alarm set it down. The AI Stampede puts everyone before the position vacuum. Capital hands out the knife, the engineer takes it, the knife runs through every job. Chapter 2's history set it down. The first three industrial revolutions, capital shipped the idle hands to the front, close to a hundred forty million down. By Marx's prescription, this is capital is evil, so overthrow capital. But by the real pattern of position, capital is not evil, section one. Capital does not care whether a man lives or dies, but is not evil, section two. Capital is only a tool, the operator is the living person, the responsibility is the operator's, section three. The thing running the knife through every job is not capital, capital is the tool. The thing running the knife through every job is the person who operates capital, the Silicon Valley great capitalist, the Wall Street fund manager, the Washington politician, the media magnate. These operators carry responsibility. Deeper still, everyone is a capitalist, section one, plus everyone is an operator, section three, equals everyone carries responsibility. Including every person with savings reading this book. Me too, and I will not hold myself out of it. The whole responsibility chain of the AI Stampede, from the Silicon Valley great capitalist to the Wall Street fund to the ordinary person's pension to the ordinary person's savings, everyone is in it. Everyone carries responsibility.
Eight. How does the responsibility land? Not by cursing capital as evil, cursing does nothing. Not by overthrowing the capitalist, you cannot, to overthrow him is to overthrow everyone. Not by destroying the tool, destroy the tool and the hand that held it is still there. It lands by reining in the operator. Let the person who operates capital operate it in a fitting direction. Let the great capitalist carry a responsibility that matches his power. Let the ordinary person carry a responsibility that matches the size of his savings. Let every living person on the whole chain carry the charge of his own position. How to rein it in, Volume VI lays out point by point. This section only sets down the root direction, rein in the operator, do not destroy the tool. Close the section. Capital is a tool. Hammer, knife, gun, capital, all tools. A tool has no intent of its own, no moral property, does not stand in the position of evil or not evil. The responsibility is the operator's. The hand on the hammer, the hand on the knife, the hand on the gun, the hand on capital, all operators. The operator is a living person. A living person has room for moral choice. A living person carries responsibility. By everyone is a capitalist from section one plus capital is a tool, the operator is a living person from this section, everyone is an operator. Everyone carries responsibility. Not equally. The great capitalist carries great responsibility, the ordinary person small. But every living person carries responsibility in his own position. Marx's craft was not whole. He charged the responsibility to the tool and wrote the prescription overthrow capital. Hundreds of millions of the poor in the twentieth century fell on it. By the real pattern of position, rein in the operator, do not destroy the tool. The ancestral positions of thousands of years. The heart that cannot bear another's suffering, every person has it. In power, walk it together with the people. Cultivate the self, order the family, govern the state, bring peace to all under heaven. The gentleman looks to himself. The higher the position, the heavier the charge. Every one of them speaks of the responsibility of the living person, not the responsibility of the tool. The next section closes the chapter. Rein in capital without destroying it, channel it, do not wall it. The four sections together set down one of the deepest turns of position in the whole of Justice Way. 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.
Four. Rein in capital without destroying it. Channel it, do not wall it.