VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 26, SECTION 1
The Three Deaths of Capital: Hoarded Dead, Turning Empty, the Guest Made Host
This is the last chapter of the semester. Before it begins, do one thing first: press down that breath in the heart. Those three moves of the last chapter, the ones who build the walls, are they bad people? This question, today, is answered to its face. Answered, then this chapter speaks the thing it truly means to speak: one and the same piece of capital, how it can be dead, and how it can be alive.
One. Press that breath down first
That person who ringed the well at the village mouth, is he an evil person? Do not hurry to nod. The rule of this volume, held a whole semester: walk close and look, look down into what is under him. So walk close to him.
Why did he ring that well? Perhaps someone at home is ill, waiting on money to save a life, perhaps he saw all others ringing, and he not ringing, his share would be gone, perhaps he felt the well left idle a pity, and he mended the well-mouth, changed the windlass, and felt he ought to take this money. This is not to let him off, it is to see clear: when he did that thing, what he had in his heart, most likely, was not I would harm people, what he had in his heart was, here is a gap, I do not take it, another will.
Two. The position is neutral
Carry back that meaning of last semester: the chasing of gain is instinct, is the work of the position, not wickedness. Sima Qian said: to be rich is the temper of human nature, unlearned yet wanted by all. The person standing in that position, seeing a scarcity that can be made, reaches a hand to make it, and this matter, and water flowing to the low place, are one and the same position.
Then does this volume just let it go at that? No. See clear: not to judge him is not the same as not to look at that wall. Only say the words exact: that wall standing there is one fact, who goes and builds it is another matter, you curse that person down, and tomorrow a second person comes to build, for that gap is still there. This is the method of this whole book from beginning to end: to curse a person, one line and it is done, to see the position clear, one must look chapter by chapter.
Three. Then, how to govern that road
One is bound to ask: then what in the end is to be done? Give two, both roads this semester has already walked. The first, fill that gap in. The machine of the Henan folk is this one, they quarreled with no one, they only made that thing no longer scarce, the wall no one pushed, and it was of itself of no use.
The second, if that wall is built up by a decree, then it does not go to the economy to govern. That root the last chapter dug is here: a wall built by a decree, you, within the economy, cannot pull down, it wants a person in another position to draw that boundary. That position is the matter of volume four. This volume does one thing only: point it out, point it clear.
Four. Now, speak the true matter of this chapter
The breath pressed down, come back to the main subject of this semester. Look at a sum of money, a sum of ten million. Ask: this ten million, is it alive, or dead? You cannot answer, for looking at this number only, it cannot be seen.
This is the eye of this chapter: one and the same piece of capital, it can be dead, and it can be alive, the difference is not in how much it is, the difference is in how it is used. This whole chapter will speak three deaths, then speak the way of living.
Five. The first death: hoarded dead
The first death is called hoarded dead. Many take it that to save money up, lock it in the safe, watch that number grow greater day by day, this is to be rich. Go back to chapter nineteen, back to the first of those five chains, where it was said: money left unmoved begins of itself to shrink, the money that buys a machine this year cannot afford one three years on.
Yet what is to be spoken is not that number shrinking. Go back to last semester, back to that old woman who guarded her money and died of the pain. She fell ill, an illness that could have been healed, and she did not heal it, could not bear to spend that money, and she guarded a houseful of money and hurt, sheer and hard, and was carried off by an illness that could have been healed. That money, not one cent was fewer, yet not one cent of it ever lived.
See clear: that money was not for spending, nor for looking at, what she guarded was that departed love of hers. This layer, not one character laughs at her, it only sets the position out: the money in her hand is dead, it did not turn into a dose of medicine, did not turn into an old person who could rise and walk.
Six. The second death: turning empty
The second death is called turning empty. Go back to chapter eighteen, back to hide and hair. Industrial capital is the hide, financial and fictitious capital are the hair. When a sum of money leaves the real making, and turns on the hair layer over layer, round and round, the number on the books grows greater day by day.
What is it doing? It grew not one more grain of rice, made not one more plow, made not one person’s days one bit better. It is turning empty. It is like a machine burning empty, the sound very loud, the heat very high, yet it has driven not one shaft. That year, 2008, was turning-empty turned to its end, those numbers, in one night, gone, and the hide beneath still keeps a long wound.
Seven. What this section set, crossing to the next
The third death, the most hidden, and the most painful, is called the guest made host. Go back to those five chains of chapter nineteen, that person of sixty still chasing customers, of seventy still holding meetings. At the start, he took money to do matters, the money the guest, he the host. Yet one day, the position turned head for tail: all his time, all his mind, all his sleep, are used to make that number grow greater. Ask one line: is he still the master of that money? Or has he become the money’s watchman? Last semester nailed a meaning: the one who takes the constraint is the slave.
The three deaths are set out: hoarded dead, turning empty, the guest made host. The next section speaks the way of living. And the way of living, the ancestors spoke through in one line, and in that line there is one character that is the key of this whole semester.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section 2 The Kind Man Grows the Self by Wealth, the Board Is Dead, the Player Is Alive