VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 30, SECTION 2
Six rules
The last section set one thing firm: the hard thing is not the dividing, it is the weighing. And it left one question: which few rules in the end did man make to weigh labor. This section sets these few rules onto the table one by one. You will see that every sum of money you drew, every score you took in this life, has behind it one of these rules doing the weighing.
One, the first, weigh by time
The oldest, most common rule is to weigh by time. However long you worked, that much you take.
A price for an hour, a price for a day, a price for a month. However long you stayed in this position, by that length it reckons to you. The odd job man on the street settles by the day. The office worker in the tower is paid by the month. This rule is the simplest, the best to use, no one will reckon it wrong. You need only look at the clock, look at the calendar, and the account comes clear.
But this rule has one great hole. It weighs only how long you stayed, not how much you did in that stretch, nor how well. Two men sit eight hours the same, one with his head down doing a whole day of work, one idling a whole day away, and this rule weighs them out the same. What it weighs is the time you set your body there, not the labor you put out in that time. So on this one rule alone, the idler and the one who strains take the same money. This hole drives man to make another rule.
Two, the second, weigh by the piece
To stop that hole, man made a second rule: weigh by the piece. However many pieces you make, that much you take, no matter how long it took.
A price for one part, a price for one garment sewn, a price for one basket of fruit picked. You make more, take more, make less, take less. The idler shows his shape under this rule, because in a day he makes few pieces, and it stands plain on the account. This rule weighs in the diligence the last rule let slip.
But this rule opens a new hole in turn. It counts only the pieces, not the good or the bad. One man, to make a few more pieces, works flying fast, but the things he makes are rough, flawed. Another man works slow for the fine work, makes few in a day, but each is good. This rule weighs it out, and the one who works fast and rough takes more instead. It lets the quality slip. So man must go make a third rule, to make the quality up.
Three, the third, weigh by result and quality
The third rule weighs the thing you made in the end, whether it comes off, whether it is good, what it is worth. It does not count how long you stayed, nor count the pieces alone, it looks at the result.
A man who runs sales, look at how many orders he closed in a year, how many clients he drew back. A man who tills, look at how much grain that plot brought in at the last. A doctor, look at whether he cured the patient or not. This rule drives straight at the most needful thing: what did you bring off in the end. It sets onto the open face that true question hidden under time and under pieces both, the result. Why Cook Ding’s one share of labor is worth the price, weigh it with this rule and it comes clear: he carves the ox quick and good, the knife unchanged nineteen years, the result stands there.
But this rule too has a place it cannot reach. There is much labor whose result is not to be seen at the moment, nor to be reckoned into a number. A teacher teaches, and the thing he plants shows only in ten years, in twenty. A man doing research may bring out no result for ten years, yet the one that comes is worth another man’s whole life. These labors, weighed by the rule that looks at the result of the moment, are weighed thin, weighed short. This hole is a deep one, and a whole chapter later speaks on purpose of the labors that cannot be weighed out.
Four, the fourth, weigh by scarcity
The fourth rule is the one last term ran again and again, and the least sparing of feeling: weigh by scarcity. This one share of labor of yours, how many men in the world can do it, the fewer who can, the dearer you are.
This rule weighs not how much force you spent, but whether you can be swapped out. In the whole factory only two men can run that numerical machine, and those two are dear, the wage high, not because they are the most worn, but because they cannot be swapped. The man on the field who by himself changes the win or loss of a game takes ten million a year, and this too is weighed by this rule: that one hand of his, the whole world can hardly find a few who hold it.
This rule is the coldest. It asks not whether you are hard worked, asks not whether your character is good, it asks one line only: without you, will it do. Without you it will not do, and you are worth money. Without you it turns all the same, and you are not worth money. This rule often strikes men as unfair: on what ground does the one worked to death take little, and the one who looks at ease take much. But behind this rule is an iron reasoning, scarcity fixes the price. It is cold, yet it is real. Of those few rules, it is the one least to be gone around.
Five, the fifth and the sixth, weigh by charge, weigh by contribution
Two more rules, spoken together, because what they weigh is the thing the ones before cannot reach.
The fifth, weigh by charge. In one same factory, why does that floor head take more than the old hand. Not that he makes more chairs, he makes not one chair. It is that when the whole line goes wrong, it is he who carries it. This thing charge, in the ordinary day cannot be seen, and shows its weight only when a thing goes wrong. What this rule weighs is how heavy the load on your shoulder, how great the blame you must bear when a thing goes wrong. The higher the position, often the heavier this load, and the heavier the weight this rule gives.
The sixth, weigh by contribution. What this rule weighs is how great a good you brought to this whole matter, even should that good not be made by your one pair of hands alone. The man in that community that pays no money, who wrote one stretch everyone is now using, his contribution is that thousands upon thousands took the good of it. What this rule weighs is the size of this good. It stands close to the result rule, yet it is wider, it counts in the whole of the good you did the group.
Six rules, set out. By time, by the piece, by result, by scarcity, by charge, by contribution. Turn back and look at that pay slip in your hand, and you will find it is not weighed by one rule, it is weighed out by these six together. The base wage line, mostly time. The performance line, result. That high wage of the technician only two can run the machine, scarcity. The floor head’s share, charge. On one sheet of paper, six rules weighing at once.
Six, no one of the six rules weighs whole
Set out the six rules, and one most needful line must be said: of these six rules, not one weighs whole. Each can weigh some labor, and each lets some other labor slip.
The time one lets the diligent and the idle slip. The piece one lets the good and the bad slip. The result one lets slip the slow labor whose result is not seen at the moment. The scarcity one, the coldest, lets the hardship and the character slip. The charge one and the contribution one, often cannot be told clear, cannot be weighed sure, and are easily wormed into by men. This is not that some one rule was made ill, it is that this thing labor is by nature too knotted, knotted till no one rule can bag the whole of it.
So in the real world it is never one rule used alone. It is several rules used propped together, you make up my hole, I make up yours. A pay slip is a platter propped up of several rules. Yet even propped so, there is still some labor the six rules all cannot reach. Those labors are what the back of this chapter goes on purpose to look at.
Seven, what this section set, crossing to the next
Good. This section set out man’s six rules for weighing labor, one by one: by time, by the piece, by result, by scarcity, by charge, by contribution.
Two things came clear. The first, every sum of money you drew, every score you took in this life, has behind it several of these six rules doing the weighing, and a pay slip is a platter propped up of several rules. The second, and more needful: of these six rules not one weighs whole, each lets something slip, so in the real world it is always several used propped together, making up one another’s holes.
The position this section set is: to weigh labor leans not on one rule that weighs all, it is a heap of rules each with its long and its short, used propped together, making up one another.
But this heap of rules, propped this way and that, in the end must have someone to prop them, someone to fix them. Who fixes how much weight this rule should give. Here two greatly unlike ways part. One hands the work to the market, and lets the price fix it. The other hands it to man, and leans on layer upon layer of assessment to fix it. The next section looks at how these two frames each fix that share.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section 3, Two frames, one uses the price, one uses assessment