VOLUME III, SEMESTER 1, CHAPTER 12, SECTION 1
The Thirty Year Mortgage, Pledging the Future Out in Advance
The four chapters before watched that position shed its skin layer by layer. The bare slave, the serf bound to the land, the worker standing before the machine. Every layer more refined than the last, harder to recognize. This chapter walks to today. Today’s layer is refined to the point where, on the day you signed, you were still glad.
First, work this account out, one number at a time
Suppose a city apartment at a total price of one million. This price band, in the core districts of several major cities of the world, is the typical level at which the middle class buys a home.
A down payment of two to three parts in ten, two to three hundred thousand. Many people saved for more than ten years, and with help from their parents besides, scraped it together.
The loan is about seven to eight hundred thousand. The term of the loan is thirty years, this is standard. The yearly interest rate is three to six in a hundred.
Reckoned by level installments of principal and interest, the monthly payment is about three thousand five hundred to four thousand five hundred.
The total repaid over thirty years is about one million three hundred thousand to one million six hundred thousand. Of it, the interest is about six to eight hundred thousand.
Stop on that number. Borrow seven to eight hundred thousand, repay one million three to one million six. The part repaid over is close to double.
Add the down payment, and for a house priced at one million, the total paid is one million five to one million nine. Above the price of the house itself, five to nine hundred thousand more.
Where did that extra money go
To the bank.
But the bank is not the end. Walk one step further down.
The bank’s money comes from the depositor, from the buyer of the bond, from the pension fund, from the insurance company.
In the end, it scatters into the pockets of capital holders across the whole globe.
See this layer clear.
A person buying a house, his monthly payment, is broken up and flows into thousands upon thousands of nameless pockets.
He does not know whom he is keeping alive. The ones he keeps alive do not know who he is.
And yet this relation of keeping alive is real. Once a month, deducted of itself, thirty years without a break.
Think back to the eighth chapter of this semester, that Han clerk who wrote a person’s age, place of origin, price, onto the contract. In that day, the one who bought and the one who was bought had at least met face to face.
Today, the faces cannot meet.
This is the purest form of that position. A holding with the person wholly taken out of it.
These thirty years, whose is the house
In law, it is very clear.
Through the years of repaying, on the house there is a right of mortgage, in the bank’s hand.
Should any year the payment fail, the bank starts the forced auction. The proceeds of the auction go first to make good the loan, and what is left, if there is any left, is then returned to the buyer.
So through these thirty years, this person’s true position is this. Working for the bank, living in the bank’s house.
Look once more at those two words, mortgage, pledge.
The eighth chapter said it. A slave could be pledged into another’s hand, to draw a sum of money back. He still stood where he stood, still did his work, but he already belonged to a debt.
What is pledged out today is not a person’s body.
It is a person’s thirty years.
But is this the same thing as a house slave
Mark this. This section does not speak against the house. The house is a good thing. To have a nest of one’s own, for a family to settle down, is one of the deepest wishes of the human across thousands of years. Mencius speaks of providing the people a holding, and this is exactly what he means. This volume does not curse the house.
This section speaks of those thirty years.
Look at what this person becomes over these thirty years.
He dares not quit. He dares not fall out with his boss. He dares not have one grave illness. He dares not change to work he wants more but that pays a little less. He dares not rest half a year, to think over what he really wants to do with this life.
Because the monthly payment cannot break for one month.
Set this line against Guanzi’s from the third chapter of this semester. Rich is not how many coins he has, it is how much room is left in his hand. Room is whether he still dares to say no.
Under this person’s name there is a house, and on the books he is an owner.
But the room left in his hand is zero.
Set it against the rod of the eleventh chapter. Formal freedom is that he has the right to say no. Substantive freedom is that he has the means to say no.
He has the right to quit. In thirty years, he does not dare, not one day.
The layer that matters most, no one is pressing him
Now the deepest layer of this section.
The slave of the Shang was dragged off. The serf was bound. The worker had every other road blocked.
And this person of today.
No one drags him, no one binds him, no one blocks his road.
The contract he read himself, the pen he held himself, the name he signed himself. On the day he finished signing, he was glad. He stood his friends a dinner. His friends said congratulations, and he said, thanks to you.
See this layer clear.
This is not a swindle. The bank did not swindle him, the terms in black and white, written plain, the interest rate, the term, not one character hidden.
This is not a robbery. That was the thing he himself wanted. He truly wanted a home, wanted a settled place for his wife and children. That heart has not a fen of falseness in it.
Think back to the move of the tenth chapter. Give a little hope, and he will lock himself in there, with no guard needed.
The thirty year mortgage is the today-version of that forty nine year contract.
Only this time, even the hope need not be given by another. He has it of himself.
So this layer of skin, where is the skin
Look at the whole line, from the head.
The Shang. I hold you the person.
The Zhou. The law says you are a slave.
The Han. You are property that can be moved along.
The serf. I do not hold you, I hold your output.
The factory. I hold nothing, I only leave you nowhere else to go.
Today. I do nothing. You walk over yourself, sign yourself, and gladly hand over thirty years.
See the direction clear.
Every layer of skin changed, and the receiving side steps one pace back.
Stepped all the way back, and it is gone.
Before you there is left only a handsomely printed contract, a few lines of calm terms, and a smiling self.
Wei the more refined is the harder to recognize. Walked to this step, it is refined to the point where the one who is ceded will do the whole work of the argument himself.
What this section set up, and the turn to the next
This section set up three things.
The first. That account. Borrow seven hundred thousand, repay one million four. The extra half, broken up, flows into thousands upon thousands of nameless pockets. He does not know whom he keeps alive. This is a holding with the person wholly taken out.
The second. What is pledged out is not the body, it is thirty years. Through these thirty years, he dares not quit, dares not fall ill, dares not change work, dares not stop to think what he wants. His name is on a house, and there is no room in his hand.
The third. No one presses him. He signed himself, and was glad when he finished. By this layer, the receiving side has stepped back out of sight, and the one who is ceded will find all the reasons for the thing himself.
Then, besides the mortgage, how many more such ropes are there. Twenty four hours in a day, an ordinary person hangs at once on several nets.
Tomorrow at six thirty in the morning, the alarm rings. This alarm, who set it for him.
The next section, twenty four hours a day, in eight nets at once.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.