VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 22, SECTION 3
The Western Frame, Loosed to the Freest
This force knows no good and evil, only the differential. Then where the differential is built becomes a matter as great as heaven. In these two hundred years humankind made two of its largest uses of it. This section looks at the first, and its core is five characters only: loosed to the freest. Look first at what it made, then at what it paid, the merit and the cost, not one spared.
One. The core of this use
The core of this use lands on several very concrete things. First, property is guarded most strict, and what you earned, saved, made, is yours, and no one may take it at will, the government included. Second, you go do what you would do, open a shop, run a factory, without first begging anyone’s nod. Third, lose, and you may begin again, and having lost your whole holding, there is a road in the law that lets you start over once more, not carrying a whole life of debt. Fourth, the price is read by the market, and that rule of the last two chapters is handed to the market to read, and the government does its utmost not to touch that rule.
These four things joined make those five characters: loosed to the freest. Remember this core, for all its merit behind, all its cost, grow out of this one core.
Two. Look first at the merit it made
The merit of this use, set out five lines. The first, making new things: guarded strict, and able to begin again on losing, and the ones who dare to venture are many, and a person with a notion can find money willing to risk, made and it is his own, botched and he can come again, and so new things come up one kind after another. The second, doing business to the whole world: sea routes, ports, rules, contracts, it first stood up a whole frame for cross-border trade, and goods can sell from this end to that.
The third, money finds its road: where there is a good notion, money can gather from the pockets of ten million onto that notion, and the gathering the last chapter spoke of, this frame does it most smoothly. The fourth, the days grow rich first: it lifted the days of a part of people first, up to a height not had in thousands of years. The fifth, trying and erring fast: erred, and that rule the market is reads it, and the degree comes down, and the degree down, people change roads, without waiting for anyone’s nod.
Three. Why these several merits grew here first
These five merits, why did they grow in this frame first? Still that one core: loosed to the freest. This force once loosed runs at the fastest speed toward the place of highest return. It runs very fast, fast enough that some matters were done within one generation.
This layer, own it without discount. Those numbers of the last chapter, those children who lived, those who could afford to read, a great part of them are what this force ran out inside this frame. This volume does not, because a thing has a cost, wipe its merit away, that would be dishonest.
Four. The same core grows the cost
Now turn to the back. See one thing clear: the cost does not grow from some other place, it and those five merits grow from one and the same core.
The first, that early accumulation, in it a great block came from plunder overseas, from carrying people to and fro as goods, and this is historical fact, and not written clear, the nakedness of that position cannot be seen. The second, the environment: this force running toward high return does not reckon the account of the air and water fifty years on, for that account is not on the differential table. The third, one head grown too big: last semester spoke of it, one side grown too big and the calamity of the other side comes, and loosed to the freest can also loose a monster no one can rein. The fourth, the people not taken up: that weaver of the last section fell from right here. The fifth, the hair grown thicker than the hide: what that whole chapter eighteen spoke of is this one line. The sixth, the deepest line too: the splitting of rich and poor.
Five. That line of Laozi’s dug this root to the bottom
The sixth line, Laozi more than twenty-five hundred years ago spoke it to the bottom in one line.
The way of Heaven takes from what has excess and fills what is short, the way of man is not so, it takes from what is short to serve what has excess, runs the line in Laozi, the seventy-seventh chapter of the Daodejing. The way of Heaven takes a little off the excess to fill the short, and the way of man, the reverse: it takes a little more off the short, to serve the excess. See clear the fierceness of this line, it is not a cursing of people, it is a setting out of position.
Why does money gather ever closer? Because money can bear money. The one with a million puts out fifty thousand more a year, the one with a thousand puts out fifty more. Two people equally diligent, equally early to rise, equally daring not to spend one cent loose, and ten years on, that gap widens of itself. No one lifts a hand, it is that differential, forever moving things toward the side of excess. Laozi calls it the way of man, and these characters speak exactly the road this force will walk of itself.
Six. What this section set, crossing to the next chapter
This section looked at the first use. Its core is loosed to the freest: property guarded strict, the daring many, able to begin again on losing, the price handed to that rule the market is. Its merit has five lines: making new things, doing business to the whole world, money finding its road, the days growing rich first, trying and erring fast. Its cost has six lines: that early unclean accumulation, the environment, one head grown too big, the people who fell and were not taken up, the hair grown thicker than the hide, and the deepest line, the splitting of rich and poor, the way of Heaven taking from excess to fill the short, the way of man taking from the short to serve the excess.
Nail this line down: the merit and the cost are two faces of one and the same thing, not two things, they grow from one and the same core, and you would have its merit, then you take up its cost. The last line, and the most crucial: this one set is a use, not the only use, and still less capital as an institution itself. This point is the easiest to confuse, and many take this one set straight as the whole of capital as an institution, and it is not. Just after this one set had run a century or two first, on the other side of the earth another use rose, starting far later, starting far lower, and it walks another road. The next chapter goes to look at it.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.