VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 23, SECTION 3
Cost Set Against Cost, Digging to That Root Held in Common
The last section looked at five pairs of merit and saw roads apart coming to one home. This section turns to the back. Before turning, say one thing clear first: to set out the cost is not to pull down anyone’s stage, not to prove which set will not do. A use’s cost set out honestly is its family holding, not its list of crimes. Set out, one must keep digging down, digging to the root the two costs hold in common, and that root is the deepest stroke of this whole volume.
One. The first pair of cost, the environment
The first pair, the environment. That set of loosed to the freest, across two hundred years, this force ran faithfully toward high return, and the air, the water, the soil, the account of fifty years on was not on the differential table, and so that account was pressed back, generation after generation. That set of the state gives the direction, the cost is the same thing, only compressed: the road others walked two hundred years, it walked in a few decades, and so those pollutions, those emissions, those overdrafts, in a few decades poured out all together.
See clear: one is spread long, one is pressed tight. The base is one and the same matter: when running too fast, no one reckons that account for the people behind.
Two. The second pair of cost, the splitting
The second pair, the splitting. That set of loosed to the freest, the splitting is on rich and poor: the last chapter asked Laozi to speak it, the way of man takes from the short to serve the excess, money flows of itself down the differential, the more-having has ever more, the less-having has ever less, no one lifts a hand, and that gap widens of itself. That set of the state gives the direction, the splitting is elsewhere: the coast and the inland, the city and the country.
The concentration of strength is its greatest strength, yet the other face of concentration is precisely the place not concentrated onto: the road chosen has power brought, cars brought, network brought, and the village not chosen still waits. See clear: the splitting is no one set’s monopoly, one set’s splitting grows on the differential, one set’s splitting grows on who is chosen.
Three. The third pair of cost, the most crucial pair, the excess
The third pair, the most crucial pair, sit up straight. This pair is called: the excess. The excess of that set of loosed to the freest is the excess of freedom. Freedom loosed past measure, what happens? Chapter eighteen spoke of it: the hair grows on the hide faster and thicker, grown heavier than the hide, and then a small gash opens on the hide, and the whole coat of hair collapses.
The excess of that set of the state gives the direction is the excess of that hand. The last section asked Laozi to speak it: governing a great state is like cooking a small fish, turn it too often and the fish falls apart. One loosed past measure, one governed past measure. It looks like two errors in two directions, one too loose, one too tight. Follow and dig one layer deeper.
Four. Dug to the bottom, it is one and the same error
Ask one line: what is called loosed past measure? It is that the money end ran into the place that should not have been the money’s to decide: a person’s life, a person’s learning, a person’s old age, a person’s water and air, things that should not have been read wholly by that rule, all taken to be read for a degree.
Then what is called governed past measure? It is that the hand reached into the place that should have been read by that rule: how much a thing is worth, the market read it clear, and it is set by force, a road a person would have found himself, and it is pointed by force. Set these two lines side by side and look once: one is money crossing the line, reaching into a place not its to govern, one is that hand crossing the line, reaching into a place not its to govern. Seen it? These are not two errors, this is one and the same error. That error is three characters only: crossed the line.
Five. That line of the ancestors, spoken more than twenty-five hundred years ago
This error, Confucius spoke through in one line.
Not in that position, one does not plan that position’s governing, runs the line in the Analects, in the book Taibo. Not standing in that position, do not go to plan the matters of that position. See clear the weight of this line: it speaks not of deference, not of not minding others’ business, it speaks of position. One position has one position’s matters, you stand in this position, then you do this position’s matters, you reach into another position, and that position’s matters are then done well by no one, and your own position’s matters are not done well either. Set this line onto this whole chapter: the economy is one position, politics is another position.
The economy’s position governs the making of things, the sending of things to the hand that needs them most, the reading of that degree exact. The politics position governs the fixing of the direction, the drawing of the boundary, the taking-up of those who fell through the gap. All the costs of the two frames, dug to the very bottom, are one and the same line: one side crossed the line.
Six. What this section set, crossing to the next chapter
This whole chapter is walked through, so set the meaning down. The merit, roads apart coming to one home: one from zero to one, one from one to ten thousand, one builds the skeleton, one is the engine, one allots money by the differential, one allots money by people, one the rule steady, one the direction steady, one rushes up first, one holds the bottom up. The cost, also one and the same root: the environment, one spread long, one pressed tight, the splitting, one grows on the differential, one grows on who is chosen, and the deepest pair, the excess.
Loosed past measure is money crossing the line, governed past measure is that hand crossing the line, one error, not two, and that error is called crossed the line. Not in that position, one does not plan that position’s governing. This stroke is the deepest stroke of this whole volume, carry it away. Then, where exactly is the boundary drawn? Which matters go to the economy to govern, which to politics? It must be said honestly: this question, this volume cannot finish answering, it is left to volume four, the Political Institution, and to volume five, the Legal Institution. What this volume can do is point this position out, point it clear. The next chapter digs down, digs to under this force, and asks a question never yet asked to its face from beginning to end: a thing, by what does it have a price? And that answer is two characters only, and these two characters are the board of this whole game of chess.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.