VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 25, SECTION 1
Monopoly, Gathering What Many Houses Could Do into One House
At the end of the last chapter it was said that making scarcity has three moves, and that diamond used only the first. This chapter sets them out one by one. The first move is the coarsest, and the easiest to see, it is called monopoly. This section first sees clear how it builds the wall, then sees clear what that pair of hands is thinking as it builds. Seen clear, one will understand why this move was used more than two thousand years ago, and used more practiced than today.
One. The shape of this move
The first move, one line says it through: gather the thing many houses could do into one house. See this action clear. It is not hiding the thing away, not sealing the well up, what it does is: make the ones who do this thing come down to one.
In a village there were, to begin with, five houses that smithed iron. You go to this house, he wants thirty coins, you go to that house, he wants twenty-eight, you have the choosing. Now five houses become one house. Notice: that smithing hammer has not changed, that furnace fire has not changed, that piece of iron has not changed, the one thing changed is that you have no second house you can go to. From that day, the price is not talked out by you and him, it is his to say.
Two. Back to that diamond
Bring back that diamond of the last chapter, it used exactly this move. The diamond underground is in truth not so very few, yet to gather the ore that comes out, place by place, into one house, the matter is made easy.
Gathered in, the thing that company does is one only: it decides how much to put out in a year. It is not, however much is underground, that much is sold, it is however much it would sell, that much it puts out. See this layer clear: it need not make the diamond fewer, it need only make the ones who sell diamonds into one. The last chapter spoke of the well at the village mouth: not one drop of water fewer, not one person more, yet someone opened only one door. This move, monopoly, is that door.
Three. This move’s merit, wipe it once
This volume curses no one, and wrongs no one either. So having set out the shape of this move, one must, honestly, wipe its merit once. Monopoly, does it truly have merit? It does. Look at a few matters.
The first, some matters only one house can afford to do. A power grid spread over the whole country, a railway through mountain and across river, a set of running water for a whole city. Can you let five companies each lay a set of water pipes, buried under the same street? You cannot, that is a waste as great as heaven. The second, some matters must be invested many years, all loss up front. A new medicine, from a notion to being able to heal a person, may take a dozen years and more, the money sunk an astronomical number, and ninety-nine of a hundred roads break off half-walked. If, the day it is made, all can at once make it in copy, then who still will invest those dozen years? The third, one house doing it, the cost is lower. Remember: these three merits are real, not one wiped.
Four. This move’s cost, wipe it too
Now turn to the back. The first cost: the price is his to say. You have no second house to go to, he wants how much, you give how much, and that rule of the last chapter, then, is no longer the market reading, it is him quoting.
The second cost: he need no longer grow better. This one is fiercer than the first, see it clear. When there were five houses smithing iron, each had to smith the iron a little better, press the price a little lower, why? Because if you do not, the guest goes next door. And when there is only one house? Whatever he smiths the iron into, you must take it. That rule of chapter twenty, that sieve, here fails, for the sieve to sift, there must first be something else to choose. The third cost: the door is shut. A young man of very good craft, wanting to open a sixth smithy, cannot open it, not that his craft will not do, but that door, from the inside, is locked.
Five. What this section set, crossing to the next
This section looked at the first move. Monopoly is gathering the thing many houses could do into one house, it need not make the thing fewer, it need only make the ones who can do this thing into one. Its merit is real: some matters only one house can afford, some matters take a dozen years, one house doing it the cost is lower. Its cost is real too: the price is his to say, he need no longer grow better, that door is locked from the inside. The merit and the cost, still two faces of one and the same thing, this line, this semester has spoken three times.
Yet walked to here, one question has all along not been asked. Now ask it out: those five houses smithing iron, how did they become one? Did he buy the other four? Perhaps. Did he do it so well the other four closed of themselves? Perhaps. Yet there is one more method, and this method is fastest, most labor-sparing, and cleanest besides, it needs no buying, no contending, no enduring, it needs only a written paper. On that written paper it says: from now on, only he may do it. The next section looks at the second move.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.