Volume III
Economic Institutions
Economic Institutions
VOLUME III
ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS
This is the third volume of Justice Way, focusing on economic systems. The entire volume is divided into four semesters, fifty-two chapters, and one hundred and fifty-six sections. Each of the four semesters bears its own title: Semester 1, Servitude Systems; Semester 2, Capitalist Systems; Semester 3, Socialist and Communist Systems; Semester 4, Economic Structures. The chapter numbers run continuously straight through and do not reset to zero with each semester.
From beginning to end, this volume discusses only four types: servitude systems, capitalist systems, socialist systems, and communist systems. These four are not four historical stages; they are four foundational elements that live simultaneously in every society today, as well as within a single day of an individual's life. The first three semesters deconstruct these four items one by one, restoring each to its respective position; the fourth semester brings all four together to examine how they coexist, co-nourish, cooperate, balance each other, and rely upon one another, while also examining the soil of culture that supports the entire structure.
This volume started from a breakfast made by no single person. In Chapter 1, Section 1 of the first semester, a master opens his eyes, and breakfast is already prepared and laid on the table, he has never cooked a meal in his entire life. Yet that person cooking for him holds his three meals, his stomach, and his life. That section does not speak of sympathy; it speaks of positions: two directions of restraint pulling in opposite ways, biting into each other. The approach across the four semesters of this volume was fixed from the very first page: not starting from abstract definitions, but starting from concrete scenes; not issuing judgments, but laying out positions.
Semester 1: Servitude Systems (Chapters 1 to 13)
The foundational line it establishes is: The one receiving restraint is the servant/slave; the one applying restraint is the master; servant and master are positions, not identities. This is closely followed by the second line: Restraint is mutual and two-way.
Down the line are several core observations used throughout this volume: Sophistry/Falsehood (偽) is neutral; whether it is good or bad depends on the hands using it, and the more exquisite it is, the harder it is to recognize; the position that material conditions come first admits no exceptions, and reading differences in position as differences in personal character is the most common trick of sophistry; profit-seeking is instinct and duty, not evil; when one side dominates alone, disaster on the other side arrives; running parallel without conflict does not mean living without argument; human origin starts not with selfishness, but with sharing; non-labor yields belong to the public.
The two heaviest lines of this semester are saved for the end: The firmest lock is not made of iron, but of accounting entries; formal freedom means having the right to say no, whereas substantive freedom means having the capital to say no. And finally, the overarching summary: The master of slaves is also a slave; the higher the position, the more constraints attached, the way out lies not in rising higher, but in becoming clear-minded.
Semester 2: Capitalist Systems (Chapters 14 to 26)
It deconstructs piece by piece that mirror that has shone for over a hundred years, restoring capital to a position: Capital has no eyes, no heart, and no mind of its own; it is dead momentum, and what truly moves it is human beings. Scarcity is the chessboard: the chessboard was not laid out by the player, yet every move must be played upon it. Ten million in revenue flows out cell by cell, wages, materials, depreciation, delivery, taxes, reinvestment, interest, and only the final remaining cell reaches the boss, which represents the reward for bearing risk.
This semester also establishes two operational principles: Walk close to look, and look deep down beneath it; sticking labels from a distance takes the least effort, yet proves the most useless; economics is not politics, the two positions handle different affairs, and crossing positions breeds chaos. It leaves behind several iconic scenes used continuously hereafter: the seven-cell ledger of that chair factory, that boulder holding up for over a hundred years, that company that manufactured film for a century, and that forty-year-old weaver whose cloth suddenly nobody would buy.
Semester 3: Socialist and Communist Systems (Chapters 27 to 39)
It sets up two scales, one measuring contribution, and one measuring need. The first line established is: From each according to ability is the cause; to each according to need is the effect; what is truly needed has never been a specific method of distribution, but sufficient productivity, distribution methods answer how to divide, not whether there is anything to divide.
The second line speaks of hierarchy: The closer the relationship, the stronger the element of distribution according to need, between a person and his mother, no ledger is kept, whereas between a city and a nation, order relies on formal systems and taxes paid upward; this is not human hearts growing thinner layer by layer, but that the domain a single person can attend to is naturally limited.
The third line speaks of selfless givers: There are nine types of things that can be given away for free, counting from the outermost slice of time all the way to the innermost heart; yet healthy giving flows out from abundance, not by burning oneself out to squeeze from depletion.
The deepest two lines are left at the end: Mechanisms guard the baseline; virtue determines the height; the foundation for executing distribution according to need is not mechanism, but virtue, and virtue belongs to culture, which forms the common root of economics, politics, and law. This final sentence hands the volume over to the fourth semester.
Semester 4: Economic Structures (Chapters 40 to 52)
What it performs is integration (合). Four components are spread upon the table, and this semester combines them into a single diagram. The levels established are as follows: These four are not four historical stages, but four foundational elements living simultaneously on a single ledger, within a single individual, and inside a single life; the four scales measure four different matters, contribution, need, risk, and coercion, all four matters are real, which is why not a single scale can be removed; the first three cannot be removed, and the fourth cannot be ignored; between the four lies coexistence, co-nourishment, co-living, and sharing.
What holds them up to prevent any single pillar from dominating alone are three open paths: people can still speak out, people can still produce something else, and people can still choose not to buy. Moving further up lies the foundation and superstructure, and down below lies that soil, synthesizing into three tiers: Culture is the root, economics is the foundation, and politics and law form the superstructure.
In the end, it closes upon two lines: Lacking any single one, it fails to form a world, a system, or proper order; the four elements differ from one another, yet can achieve harmony, the noble person seeks harmony without uniformity (君子和而不同).
Across hundreds of thousands of words in four semesters, underneath lies actually only one single line: Walk close to look, look deep down beneath it; what is seen is position, not good or evil.
There is also another aspect residing not in sentences, but in execution: Whenever discussing an item, lay out positions first without issuing judgments. Discussing servitude did not scold the master, discussing capital did not scold the boss, discussing distribution according to need did not glorify it, and discussing that wall did not point fingers at anyone's nose. The four scales have no ranking; it is not allowed to quietly promote any single one to the highest, final, or best position. Conclusions will become outdated; the method of laying out positions will not.
This volume has invited Guanzi, Sima Qian, Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Laozi, and Yanzi; it has invited the I Ching (Book of Changes), Book of Rites, and Doctrine of the Mean; and it has also invited several Western gentlemen. Whenever something was stated correctly, it was gathered sentence by sentence; whenever gathered, its origin was pointed out. This is not polite modesty: whenever there is a sentence in this book that stands firm, it was mostly not thought out here, it was already spoken long ago by the ancestors, and here it was merely learned.
When this volume on economics reaches its end, both ends are handed over.
Downward, it is handed over to that soil of culture: how that soil grows, how it is nurtured, and how it shapes people generation by generation form the topic of Volume II, Cultural Institutions.
Upward, it is handed over to that word Feng (封 / Conferment and Enclosure): The four items are arranged in position, and boundaries are drawn clearly, yet by whose pen that boundary is drawn, on what grounds he sits there, how to modify it if drawn wrong, whether it will grow after being drawn into a wall that no one is allowed to cross, and how to guarantee that what was conferred upon a single individual will eventually be returned to the public, these five questions cannot be answered by a single sentence from the position of economics, and are handed over in their original form to Volume IV, Political Institutions; whereas matters after writing that boundary into black and white text are handed over to Volume V, Legal Institutions.
A breakfast made by no single person, a boundary where no one can answer who draws it. This is the path walked across this volume.
Table of Contents
Semester 1: Servitude Systems (Chapters 1 to 13)
Semester 2: Capitalist Systems (Chapters 14 to 26)
Semester 3: Socialist and Communist Systems (Chapters 27 to 39)
Semester 4: Economic Structures (Chapters 40 to 52)
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.