VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 16, SECTION 2

Exploitation Is a Moral Verdict, Distribution Is a Fact of Position

The account book has two pages left, one you cannot guess and one you surely can. This section turns them over, and then does a more important thing: it turns back, carries the two characters that spell exploitation under the lamp, and looks clear at just what kind of saying it is.

One. The sixth account, paid to those who lent you the money

Turn the second-to-last page, it is interest. When this chair plant first opened, the boss did not have enough of his own money, and he went to the bank and borrowed a sum, and having borrowed, each year he must repay interest. This share, one hundred fifty thousand. Follow this hundred fifty thousand and walk a stretch, and see where it goes.

The money the bank lent the chair plant, the bank did not conjure it out of itself, it was deposited by others. Deposited by whom? By the little bit someone left over after drawing his wage each month, by the stack an old person saved from drawing his pension, by tens of millions of ordinary people, a little at a time. The bank takes this money and lends it out, takes back interest, and returns a share of it, as deposit interest, to these tens of millions of people. There are pension funds too, and the pension of the future rolls forward on this kind of money, a little at a time. So this hundred fifty thousand, whom does it flow to in the end? To the deposits and the old-age of tens of millions of ordinary people. This account, across a hundred years and more, almost no one has reckoned.

Two. The seventh account, only at the last does it reach him

Turn the last page. Three hundred thousand, minus the hundred fifty thousand of interest, leaves a hundred fifty thousand, and this hundred fifty thousand is this company’s profit for a year, and the boss takes it. Ten million came in, and what lands at last in the boss’s hand is a hundred fifty thousand. Set this number beside that ringing sum and take one look: that sum says six hundred thousand was taken, the account book says of that six hundred thousand, five million seven hundred thousand flowed elsewhere, and what lands at the last is a hundred fifty thousand.

Add one more line, the line that matters most: this hundred fifty thousand was earned this year. And next year? Next year the chairs do not sell, and this hundred fifty thousand may be a negative number. At that point the workers’ four million is still paid, because it is written in the contract, the upstream stock money is still paid, because a debt owed must be repaid, the tax is still handed up, the interest is still repaid. That loss, who bears it? The one on the last page bears it.

Three. Set the seven accounts out together

Set the seven accounts side by side once: the first, the stock upstream, the second, plant and machines, the third, moving the goods, the fourth, tax, the fifth, put back into tomorrow, the sixth, interest, flowing to the deposits and old-age of tens of millions, the seventh, only at the last, that boss.

Look clear at the shape of these seven accounts. It is not one hand reaching into another person’s pocket, it is a sum of money that comes in and then, following a whole structure of positions, flows out cell by cell. On every cell stands a person: the upstream worker, the one who makes the machine, the one who drives the truck, the nurse in the hospital, the one who saved money, the one who draws a pension, and that boss. That gap is real, this was granted in the last chapter, not one character of it hedged, but it is not one hand into one pocket, it is a flowing into a whole structure of positions.

Four. Now look at the two characters, exploitation

Now carry these two characters under the lamp. Exploitation, what kind of saying is it? It is a verdict. It says: this thing is bad, and the one who does this thing is a bad person.

Notice, once a verdict is out of the mouth, one thing happens: the argument ends. He is exploiting you, once this line is spoken, who still turns those seven pages of account? Who still asks where that five million seven hundred thousand flowed? No one, because the judging is done. This is the very thing this volume guards against from beginning to end: paste on a label, and people stop looking. Last semester we spoke of the old woman who guarded her money and died of the pain. Stand far off and look, and give her four characters, slave to money, miser, and pasting done it is done, but walk close, and only then do you see that the money was left to her by her dead beloved, and what she guarded was not money, it was that person. These two characters, exploitation, are also a label pasted on from far off.

Five. Then, how to ask

Then how to ask? Change the way of asking. Do not ask whether he is exploiting, ask: these seven accounts, where did each flow. Do not ask whether he is a bad person, ask: in this relation, who is locked by what, and who locks whom. Do not ask who owes whom, ask: the person in this position, what did he cede, and what did he take back.

Hold these two lines firm, write them in your notebook: exploitation is a moral verdict, distribution is a fact of position. A verdict, one line and it is done, a fact, page after page to be turned.

Six. But is the fact really all on the account

Good, the account is turned through, and the positions are set out. But here a most restless line has to be inserted. Those seven accounts just now are clean, every sum of money found a position, and on every position stood a person who had given strength. Yet think carefully.

That punch press is three times faster than ten years ago, and who made it three times faster? That line, a hundred people do the work three hundred once did, and who made it do so? That extra share, on the account book there is no position to claim it. It does not belong to the labor of anyone in the workshop today. Then, whom does it belong to?

Seven. What this section set, crossing to the next

This section turned the account through. Seven accounts: upstream, plant and machines, moving the goods, tax, put back into tomorrow, interest, and only at the last the boss. That gap is not one hand into one pocket, it is a flowing into a whole structure of positions. And it set the most useful line of this semester: exploitation is a moral verdict, distribution is a fact of position. A verdict, one line and it is done, a fact, page after page to be turned.

But turn the account to the last and one thing remains with no position to claim it. That machine three times faster, that line where one holds three, that extra share, it is not made by the hands of these hundred workers today, and not thought up by that boss alone, it flowed from very far off all the way down to today. The next section asks a person out. More than twenty-two hundred years ago he did one thing, and the fruit of that thing is still bearing today. His name is Li Bing.