VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 25, SECTION 2
Patent and Franchise, Ringing In What All May Use
At the end of the last section a line was left: there is a method that needs no buying, no contending, no enduring, only a written paper. This section looks at this move. It is in truth a pair of twins: one rings in a notion, one rings in a trade. This move is far more refined than the last, refined to where you will hardly feel it is a wall, you will feel it is right by heaven and earth.
One. Look first at the first, ringing in a notion
A person thought up a thing never had before, he spent ten years, tried several hundred times, sank much money, and now he has made it. See one matter clear: a thing once made, another looks once and mostly has learned it, and learned, making it in copy, the cost is only a fraction of his. Then who still will go spend those ten years?
So a person thought of a method, and that method is: give him a written paper, on it written that for so many years to come, only he may do this thing, and another to do it must first ask him, must give him money. This is the first, ringing in a notion. See clear what it rings in: it rings not a well, not a mine, it rings in a notion, a thing that grew to begin with in a person’s head, and once spoken, all may use.
Two. This one’s merit, very solid
This move’s merit must be owned honestly. What it does is one matter: it lets the one willing to put in the effort be willing to put in the effort. Think of that person making the new medicine, a dozen years, billions, ninety-nine of a hundred roads breaking off half-walked. If, the day after it is made, anyone may make it in copy, then in this world no one will ever go make a new medicine again, and the next generation must then keep dying of illnesses that could have been healed.
This layer, see it very heavy. This written paper guards not that person’s money, it guards that there will still, hereafter, be people willing to do this thing. It is a wall, yet this wall is built for the people of the future.
Three. Yet this wall too will deform
Now turn to the back. The first: it has a term of years, the term reached, the wall must come down. See clear: this wall, from the day it was designed, is temporary, and its rightness is wholly on that temporary. Then, what if someone does not want to take it down? Methods there are aplenty: at the term, alter it a little, apply once more, and around this one thing apply several hundred papers more, so the one wanting to keep doing it walks into a stretch of wall with no end in sight. The second: it can ring too wide. A notion should ring in only that one concrete thing, yet it can be written very wide, wide enough to ring in a whole class of methods, and thus the ones behind cannot even go around it. The third, the most painful: some can afford it, some cannot. A medicine, a life-saving one, has that wall, so it is dear, dear to where that sick person cannot afford it. Here no verdict is handed down, only see clear this position: this wall keeps the cold wind off the people of the future, and at the same time, it keeps off this one person before the eyes.
Four. Now the second, ringing in a trade
The first rings in a notion, the second rings in a whole trade, and it is more direct. A written paper comes down: from now on, this one business, only he may do.
Notice the difference here. The first is, because he thought it up, so he is guarded a stretch, the second is, because the paper is written with him, so only he. He may have thought nothing up, he may have done nothing before, that wall is built for him.
Five. In the ancestors, more than two thousand years ago, there was already this
This move is not new, in the ancestors, more than two thousand years ago, there was already this. Last semester, chapter six, spoke of that debate in the court in 81 BC, salt and iron. What the court did then was exactly this move: the folk to begin with were boiling salt, smelting iron, and one decree came down, and these two trades went to the court. Further back, Guanzi had long spoken this road through.
Only the governing of mountain and sea will do, runs the line in the Guanzi, in the chapter the Sea King. Only by governing mountain and sea does it work. Mountain puts out iron, sea puts out salt, and what Guanzi says is: govern these two things in the official’s hand. See clear Guanzi’s mind, he was not out to grow rich, he answered another question: the state needs to use money, where does the money come from? Raise the tax, and the people will cry out, yet govern the salt, and on each catty of salt add a very little, and the people will not cry out, because they cannot see it. This move of Guanzi’s, is it merit or fault? The next section answers. This section first remembers one matter: this move, more than two thousand years ago there was already, and it was a most clever person who thought it up.
Six. What this section set, crossing to the next
This section looked at this pair of twins. One rings in a notion: give the one willing to put in ten years’ effort a written paper, guard him so many years, and this wall’s rightness is wholly on the two characters temporary, yet it can be dragged long, can be rung wide, and can keep off the one before the eyes who cannot afford the medicine. One rings in a trade: a written paper comes down, this one business only he may do, and he may have thought nothing up. Guanzi’s line of more than two thousand years ago: only the governing of mountain and sea will do.
Speaking to here, look at one matter. The last move, monopoly, is gathered back house by house, leaning on money, on contending, on enduring. And this move? It leans on a written paper. Then ask one line: this written paper, who approved it? Remember this question, the deepest layer of this whole chapter is hidden under it. The next section looks at the third move, and that move spares even the paper, it wants only a decree, and that decree is precisely, of these three moves, the one that bares the root most naked.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.