VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 26, SECTION 3
Not in That Position, One Does Not Plan Its Governing, the Economy Is Not Politics
This is the last section of the semester. This semester has dug many times, and twice it dug to the same place: once the cost of the two frames, dug to the bottom is one line, one side crossed the line, once the three moves of making scarcity, dug to the bottom is also one line, the root is not in the economy. Two roads, one pit. This section digs this pit to the bottom.
One. First set those six characters to the very center
Those six characters of Confucius, used once in chapter twenty-three, today are brought to the very center.
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. Save this line out of the reading of deference. It speaks not of courtesy, not of not minding others’ business, not of the clever guarding of one’s own skin, it speaks of position. One position has one position’s matters, and you reaching into another’s position, two things happen: that position’s matters are stirred into confusion by you, and your own position’s matters are done by no one. Both ends fall.
Two. The economy’s position, what it governs
Set out the economy’s position, it governs three matters. The first, make the thing. It waits on the farmer to be eaten, on the ranger to be brought out, on the craftsman to be made, those three relays of chapter fifteen, all here. The second, send the thing to the hand that needs it most. On the trader to be moved along, that plow lying in the shop is dead, sent to the farmer three hundred li off, it lives. The third, read that degree exact. The market is the standard of goods, where is short, there the price is high, and the price high, people and things flow toward that gap.
See clear: these three matters are the duty of the economy’s position, and doing these three well is its merit and virtue.
Three. The politics position, what it governs
Then the politics position, what does it govern? It governs another three matters. The first, fix the direction. This force knows no good and evil, only the differential, then where the differential is built, who fixes it? This the economy cannot answer. The second, draw the boundary. Which things may be sent onto that rule to be measured, which may not, chapter twenty asked it: that breakfast of a mother’s, that bond of many years.
The third, take up those who fell. Go back to that weaver of chapter twenty-two, forty years old, his hand not turned clumsy, his cloth not turned worse, yet from that day no one bought his cloth. The machine takes charge only of taking away the old position, it does not take charge of sending a person onto a new position. That stretch of gap, who takes it up? Not that force, it has no heart, the one who takes it up is people, a whole set of arrangements that let a person stand again. This is the duty of the politics position.
Four. Crossing the line, two directions, one and the same error
Now see clear this matter of crossing the line. One direction: money reached into the politics position. It goes to buy that decree, goes to buy that written paper, goes to build itself a wall so others cannot come in. Those three moves of chapter twenty-five, why each nearer to power than the last? Because to contend in the economy’s position is too wearying, you must make the thing well, press the price low, endure it cent by cent, yet you need only get that decree, and in one night, of all under heaven only you may sell.
The other direction: that hand reached into the economy’s position. How much a thing is worth, the rule read it clear, and it is set by force, a road a person would have found himself, and it is pointed by force. Governing a great state is like cooking a small fish, turn it too often and the fish falls apart. See clear: these two directions, one looks too loose, one too tight, yet they do one and the same matter: the person standing in this position reaches a hand to do the matters of another position.
Five. This stroke, the deepest stroke of this volume
Copy this line down, carry it away: the economy is not politics. This is not to say they are unrelated, they are related in the extreme, they are pasted together, like the cheek and the jaw, the cheekbone and the jaw lean on each other, the lip gone, the teeth go cold.
This volume, from chapter fourteen to today, has spoken all along one and the same matter: the constraint is two-way, the positions differ only in the division of labor. The economy’s position is not higher than politics, the politics position is not higher than the economy either, they are only two different matters. All the costs of this semester, all the walls, all the pain, dug to the very bottom, are the same one line: one side crossed the line. Then where exactly, on which inch, is the boundary drawn? It must be said honestly: this volume cannot finish answering, it is left to volume four, left to volume five. What this volume can do is point this position out, point it clear.
Six. This semester, walked through
Thirteen chapters walked through, turn and look back over this road. It took the worker and the capitalist down off the scale, saw clear that value is handed out by four relays, saw clear that place stepped over empty, reckoned that gap out entry by entry, and at the last found a thing no one may swallow alone: gain not of labor belongs to the public.
It laid out the card in the worker’s hand, scarcity, turned over capital’s holdings, hide and hair, counted the five chains on the capitalist, and made good last semester’s line, the slaveholder is a slave too, measured that rule, and drew the place it should not reach into. It restored capital from a mouth sucking blood to a force with no eyes and no heart, looked at the old bind it loosed, and at that weaver with the ground gone from under his feet, set the two frames side by side, roads apart coming to one home, the cost of one root. It dug to the board, a thing is dear for being scarce, saw clear that wall, saw the three moves that build the wall, and the root under the three moves. And at the last, spoke the way of living: the kind man grows the self by wealth. The board is dead, the rule is dead, capital is dead, the alive is only that person playing the chess.
Seven. What this section set, crossing to the next semester
There is one last line to leave. This semester has reckoned all along one matter: that gap, how it is divided. The seven accounts, turned over time and again. Recall that first account of chapter sixteen: the workers’ four million. That four million, by what was it divided? It was divided by labor: the one who did more takes more, the one who did well takes more, the one whose craft is hard takes more.
Stop a moment. Distribution by labor, in the sayings of many, is the way of dividing of another institution. Yet it is right here, it is in this capitalist chair factory, running every day. Then is it another institution, or has it all along lived in this one workshop? The next semester speaks this matter. It goes to look at a larger scene: is there in this world one person who can escape those two characters, by labor.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.