VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 29, SECTION 3
The trouble is not scarcity but uneven share, that line of Confucius read wrong
The last section, Xunzi set the divide as a root. But once the divide is set, someone frets: parted out, there is more and there is less, and to what degree of more does trouble start. At this moment almost every man thinks of an old line, the trouble is not scarcity but uneven share. Many take it to say, in dividing things the more level the better, best of all one share each, exactly the same. This section calls Confucius himself, to look at what this line means. Because this line has been read wrong far too long.
One, first call out the whole of the line
What men hang on the lip is only the half. To read it aright, the whole line must be called out. This line comes from the Analects, where Confucius tells a disciple how a state ought to be governed. The trouble is not scarcity but uneven share, the trouble is not poverty but unrest. So runs the line in the Analects.
First take the face of the words plain. The trouble is not scarcity but uneven share, do not fret that the things are few, fret that the dividing is not even. The trouble is not poverty but unrest, do not fret over being poor, fret over there being no peace. Look first at this word trouble, it means to fret, to fear. Confucius is saying, in governing a state, what is truly to be feared. Not that the things are few, but that this evenness has gone wrong. Not that it is poor, but that it is not at peace.
The trouble sits on this word even. Almost all men read it as the even of a flat average, read it as all dividing the same. But Confucius’s even is not this meaning.
Two, even is not the flat average, it is each getting his divide
This is the most needful line of the section, hear it clear. The even Confucius speaks of is not that every man divides the same, but that every man divides the share that ought to be his.
These two meanings stand ten thousand miles apart. The flat average is, no matter how much force you spent, no matter what your position, to hack all into one block of the same size. Each getting his divide is, the more due more, the less due less, each man taking exactly what answers to his one share of labor, his one position. The former is one knife cutting level, the latter is each going to his place.
The old speaking of this even spoke of dividing fitly, each at rest in his place. In a state, the man in office has an office holder’s share, the tiller has a tiller’s share, the soldier a soldier’s share, each share answering to his charge and his labor, and this is called even. It speaks of the beam of the scale being level, being fair. It does not speak of the weights being of one weight. The beam level, and the weights of one weight, are two matters wholly apart. What Confucius wants is the beam level, not the weights of one weight.
So this line of Confucius, far from quarreling with distribution by labor, speaks for it. It says, what a state should most fear is that the dividing is not fair, that the man who should get did not, that the man who should not took for free. Is this not the very thing said before, the one with labor should get, the one without should not.
Three, read this one word wrong, and how great a fire it lights
One word read wrong looks a small thing. Yet this one word read wrong has lit a fire as big as the sky.
If even is read as the flat average, read as all men the same, what comes of it. It comes to this: the one who does much and the one who does little take the same, the one who spends full force and the one who idles take the same, the one who can carry the great beam and the one who can carry nothing take the same. So then, who will still do the more. You do more, and it draws the same as doing less, why would you do more. Slowly, every man leans toward the doing less end. At the last, that crowd of men all sink together to the lowest notch, none willing to stand out, none willing to carry more.
This is no idle fancy. This one pot, the back half of this term will bring out on purpose to look at, and it has a name, the big shared pot. To read even as the flat level average is the wellspring of that pot. And all of this because Confucius’s even, that each getting his divide, was misread into the even hacked flat. One word’s difference, and from a road to live, it slides into a dead pot where no man will do the work.
Confucius’s even is that the beam of the scale be level, that each man’s share answer to what he put out. This even is alive, it is the even that makes men willing to do. The misread even is the even hacked flat, the even that makes men unwilling to do. Hold these two evens apart your whole life.
Four, wishing to stand, help others stand, the other end of Confucius
Yet then again. Confucius wants by labor, wants each getting his divide, so is he then a cold hard man, speaking only of more labor more gain, minding not whether others live or die. He is not. Confucius has another end too, and this end the back half of this term will speak of at length. Here we lay it down first. Wishing to stand yourself, help others to stand. Wishing to arrive yourself, help others to arrive. So runs the line in the Analects.
Put it plain. Wishing to stand yourself, help others to stand, you wish to stand firm yourself, so let others stand firm too. Wishing to arrive yourself, help others to arrive, you wish to fare well and get through yourself, so let others fare well and get through too. This line no longer speaks of by labor. You help another to his feet, and that other paid you no labor first. You let another fare well too, and that is no trade struck. This is another thing, it is to take of what you have, and divide a little to the one who has not yet.
So Confucius, this man, sets both ends out. One end is each getting his divide, reckon to each what is his, and this is by labor. The other end is wishing to stand, help others stand, take of your own divide and give a little to another, and this is the by need the back half will speak of, that thing given out with no condition. One same Confucius, and neither end slighted. Hold both ends in mind first. This term the front half walks the first end, the back half walks the second. Confucius long ago set these two ends, out together, side by side.
Five, what this chapter set, crossing to the next
Good. Chapter twenty nine walks to here, and this layer can be said firm.
This chapter called three ancestors. Mozi buttoned labor and position together, cried have the ability and be raised, lack it and be set down, and pried open that age where the birth settled the whole life. Xunzi set the divide as a root, make the divide clear and only then form the group, the divide not a means but the root by which man gathers into a body and lives. Confucius set right that misread word even: even is not the flat average, it is each getting his divide, the beam level, not the weights of one weight. Three ancestors, across more than two thousand years, together drove the deepest root under this reasoning of by labor.
What this chapter set firm is: distribution by labor is no thing born only of the modern, the ancestors set its reasoning firm more than two thousand years ago, and set it clearer than we do today.
But this chapter left a question grown harder and harder. Mozi says divide by ability, Xunzi says make the divide clear, Confucius says each getting his divide. All three speak of the divide, all three say the dividing must be right. Yet the most core thing was never settled: labor, in the end, how is it weighed. Ability, in the end, how is it reckoned. That beam that must be made level, those shares that must answer to what is put in, how are they fixed. The next chapter drives straight into this hardest thing: labor, in the end, how is it weighed.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.