VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 30, SECTION 3
Two frames, one uses the price, one uses assessment
The last section set out six rules for weighing labor, and left one question: this heap of rules, in the end must have someone to prop them, to fix them, who. Here two greatly unlike ways part. One hands it to the market, and lets the price fix it. One hands it to man, and leans on assessment to fix it. This section sets these two open, and you will find that the opposition argued over for more than a hundred years, come down at last to this matter of weighing labor, is in truth the parting of the work between these two rules.
One, the first frame, hand it to the price to fix
The first way is to hand this fixing of the share to the market, and let the price fix it of itself.
How does it fix. It sets no man sitting above to slap the table and say how much you should take. It lets you go out to the market, and see how many men want this one share of labor of yours, and how many can offer the same labor. The men who want it many, the men who offer it few, and the price of your labor walks up. Turn it about, the men who want it few, the men who can do it a whole handful, and the price falls. What your one share of labor is worth, no man has the say, it is countless buyers and countless sellers, back and forth, knocking out a number at the last.
The good of this way is that it is quick, that it needs no man to trouble over it. It moves of itself, and shifts at every moment with more men or fewer, with what this age lacks and does not lack. That coldest scarcity rule of the last section is this frame at work: whoever is scarce is dear, and it does not idle one minute, it marks you a price at once. This way is nimble, and real.
Yet it has one great fault: it knows only the labor that can be carried to the market and sold. One share of labor, so long as it cannot be carried to the market and cried, it cannot weigh. The mother minding the child at home, that one share of labor, has no market, and it cannot weigh, cannot mark a price. It is cold, and one thing more, it knows only the price, and knows not whether that man is hard worked, is to be pitied. This layer is its inborn short.
Two, the second frame, hand it to man to assess
The second way is to hand this fixing of the share to man, and lean on layer upon layer of assessment to fix it.
How does it fix. It sets up a set of rules, a layer of men. You worked a year, and at the year end there are men to score you, to grade you, to write your appraisal. What grade your skill is, which few great matters you brought off this year, what wage this position of yours should be fixed at, are assessed out by a layer upon layer of men, against a standard fixed beforehand. The old examinations were this set. The rank of title, the reckoning of performance in a work unit today, are this set too. It does not throw you to the market to try your luck, it sends men to weigh you, to assess you, to fix you.
The good of this way is that it can weigh the thing the market cannot reach. It can take that slow labor whose result is not seen at the moment, take that charge heavy yet hard to tell, and weigh them in by the eyes of men, by a set of assessing rules. Where the market rule cannot reach, this rule reaches in. It can also speak to feeling, can see to the men and the matters that for a while are down on their luck, for a while have no market, yet still count.
Yet it too has one great fault, and this fault is fierce: what it assesses is man, and man can look wrong, man can lean to one side, man can be swayed by feeling, by ties, by the color of the face above. A rule handed to man, whether it weighs true, hangs whole on whether the man holding the rule is upright, is clear. Let the hand holding the rule go crooked, and this rule goes crooked. Last term ran a line: the rule is dead, the hand that holds the rule is alive. This line, in this way, is the most deadly.
Three, the two rules, each with what it can weigh and cannot
Now set the two ways side by side, and you see it very clear: they are not one right and one wrong, they each have their own thing they can weigh, and their own place they cannot reach.
The price rule can weigh the labor that can be carried to the market and sold, weighs it quick, weighs it real, and spares no feeling. What it cannot reach is the labor with no market, is the mother’s bowl of rice, is the thing that cannot be cried for sale. The assessment rule can weigh the slow labor, the charge, the contribution hard to tell that the market cannot reach, and it can speak to feeling, can see to men. Yet it cannot reach one word, true, because it is held in the hand of man, and man once crooked, it is crooked.
See it, these two rules, each just makes up the other. What the price cannot weigh, assessment can reach a hand in. What assessment cannot weigh true, the price is firm about instead, and plays no favorites. In the real world it is never one rule used alone. A factory a private man runs, the market fixes it the price of the great plate, yet whose office to lift in the factory, whose bonus to hand out, still leans on men to assess layer by layer. A public work unit fixes grade and wage by assessment, yet its taking men on, its holding men, cannot go around the pull of the market price. The two rules tangle together in the use.
Four, that opposition of a hundred years, come down to here, is the strife of two rules
Here call back that opposition of the term’s own opening, and make an end of it.
That capitalism against socialism, argued over for more than a hundred years, argued down to this matter of weighing labor, you will find its core is in truth just the strife of these two rules. One side says, this fixing of the share should be handed more to the price, let the market fix it, and man put in his hand the less. The other side says, this fixing of the share should be handed more to assessment, let man fix it by a fair standard, and not throw it all to the market.
See it clear. What the two sides strive over is not whether to go by labor. Both sides go by labor. What they strive over is that rule for weighing labor, whether to use more the price, or more the assessment. This is a real question, a question worth taking up in earnest, worth taking up on and on forever. Because these two rules are by nature each of their own long and short, and which to use more, and on which matter to use which, is by nature without one answer that settles it once and for all.
Yet see, once it comes down to here, that opposition set against each other to the death turns into a work of the hand: on this matter use more the price, on that matter use more the assessment, prop the two rules and use them, and let neither end run to the extreme. It is no longer a war to the death, it becomes a matter of measure, of how to prop the rules well. This is the truth we have walked this half term to give back to you.
Five, the great craftsman teaches, and must with the compass and the square
On propping the rules, on the measure, call Mencius to make the close. Mencius ran a line, on the teaching of the craft. The great craftsman, in teaching men, must go by the compass and the square. So runs the line in the Mencius, Gaozi.
Put it plain. The great craftsman is the workman of the highest hand. Teaching men is teaching the apprentice. Must go by the compass and the square, he must use the compass and the square. The compass is the tool that draws the circle, the square is the bent rule that draws the square. Mencius says, even the most brilliant master, teaching an apprentice, must lean on these two tools, on a set of tools fixed and weighing true.
Put this line onto the weighing of labor. To weigh labor, there must be the compass and the square too, there must be the rule. You cannot fix the share by one mouth alone, by one man’s likes and dislikes, that way sooner or later runs to grief. You must have the compass, have the square, have those six rules, have the price, have the standard of assessment. Yet this line of Mencius has one layer deeper: the compass and the square are dead, and the great craftsman who uses them is alive. One same set of compass and square, handed to a clumsy hand, makes waste, handed to the great craftsman, makes the good thing. The rule is dead, the hand that holds the rule is alive. This line, set up last term, this chapter comes round to it once more. This matter of weighing labor, whether it comes off at the last, is half in whether the rule is upright, and half in whether the man holding the rule is clear, is fair.
Six, what this chapter set, crossing to the next
Good. Chapter thirty walks to here, and this layer can be said firm.
This chapter drove into that hardest word of distribution by labor: the weighing. Section one set firm that the hard thing is not the dividing, it is the weighing. Section two set out six rules for weighing labor, and saw that not one weighs whole, and in the real world they are used propped together. Section three set the two frames for fixing the share open: one handed to the price, one handed to assessment, each with what it can weigh and cannot, one making up the other. And that opposition of a hundred years, come down to this weighing of labor, is no more than a strife of which of these two rules to use the more, a work of the hand about measure, not a war to the death.
What this chapter set firm is: the whole hardness of distribution by labor is in the weighing, and the weighing leans on a heap of rules each of their long and short, used propped together. And that famous opposition, come down to the ground, is only the strife of measure in propping the rules.
Yet through this whole chapter, what we weighed was all the labor that can be weighed. There is still a great stretch of labor the six rules all cannot reach, the two frames all weigh thin. The mother’s bowl of rice. The thing the old man’s hand can no longer do yet is dear beyond price. The worth of a man for a while down on his luck yet counting still. These labors that cannot be weighed out, what is to be done. Are they then not labor at all. Before the next chapter, look at a thing more at the root: labor, is it a thing that flows. Can it move from this man onto that man, walk from this position to that position. The next chapter speaks of the flow of labor.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.