VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 32, SECTION 3
Take from the too much and make up the not enough, three workings past the by labor
The last section saw clear: the world has a great stretch of men and labor the rule of the by labor cannot weigh, and the human world has another rule that weighs need at work all along. This section asks: since it cannot weigh them, on what way does the human world lean to send its things into these men’s hands. By pity, by alms dealt out at random. Not wholly. The human world made out three shaped workings. First call Laozi, to tell the root of this matter.
One, the Way of heaven, take from the too much and make up the not enough
Laozi has a line that tells this matter past the by labor up into the heavens. The Way of heaven, it takes from the too much and makes up the not enough. So runs the line in the Daodejing.
Put it plain. The Way of heaven, the reasoning of heaven, the doing of heaven. Take from the too much, take is to lessen, to take a little off the end that has too much. Make up the not enough, make up the end that is short. Together: the doing of heaven is to take a little off the end that has too much, and make up with it the end that is short. Think a moment, is this not exactly the reverse of distribution by labor.
Distribution by labor says more labor more gain, whoever has the greater skill, spends the more force, takes the more, and it lets the strong end grow stronger. The Way of heaven Laozi speaks of, is the reverse, it evens a little off the end that has much, to make up the end that is little, that is weak, that is not enough. These two reasonings, one lets the strong grow stronger, one holds the floor for the weak, run exactly reverse. Mark it, Laozi does not say the by labor is wrong. He says that in heaven and earth, beside that reasoning that lets the strong take more, there is another reasoning, one that evens the much to make up the little. For the human world to last long, these two reasonings must both be there at once. With the by labor alone, the weak are thrown off. With the making up of the not enough alone, the strong will not work. The two together, and only then is it steady.
Two, Laozi told the lower half too, the way of man is not so
This line of Laozi’s has a lower half most needful. Having told the Way of heaven, he says straight on the way of man. Laozi says, the way of man is not so, it takes from the not enough to serve the too much. Put it plain: the real doing of the human world often runs the reverse, it takes from the not enough to serve the too much, off the weak who is already short it scrapes one more layer, to serve the strong who already has too much. This line of Laozi’s is told with a great ache. He saw one thing clear: the reasoning of heaven is to make up the not enough, but man, once he lets loose his private heart, what he does in the real is often the reverse, it is to make the poor poorer, the rich richer.
So that take from the too much and make up the not enough is no thing that drops of itself from heaven. Heaven has that reasoning, but the human world will not of itself do by it, and let loose, it slides instead toward the reverse. To make the human world too do the take from the too much and make up the not enough, it must lean on man to set out on purpose a set of things, to right it. This set of things man sets out on purpose, that evens the much to make up the little, is the three workings to be told below. They are what the human world uses to stand against that bad drift of taking from the not enough to serve the too much.
Three, the first working, the house
The first, and the most ancient, working is the house.
The last section saw it very clear. In a house, the child of three, the old man of eighty, are men who weigh down to near zero by labor, yet get the best care. A house, from its birth, is doing the take from the too much and make up the not enough: the few grown ones who can earn are the too much, and what they earn is taken to make up that old and small who only spend and do not earn, to make up that housework with no price. The house is man’s first machine for evening the much to make up the little.
This machine of the house has its very great good, and its place it cannot reach. The good is that it leans on the love of blood kin, needs no condition, reckons no account, the father and mother nourish the child and ask never for return. But its bound is clear too: it makes up only to this one house. Your house’s old you nourish, another house’s old, this machine of the house cannot reach. Mencius’s line reach it to the old of others cries exactly to push this making up out the door of this one house. Yet the love of blood kin draws inward by nature. To make up to another house, to a stranger, the house alone is not enough, it must lean on a larger working.
Four, the second and the third, mutual aid and public keeping
Push the house out one step, and it is the second working: mutual aid.
A village of men, a trade, a countryside, gather together, you help me and I help you. Whose house raises a roof, the whole village comes to lend a hand. Whose house meets a trouble, all put in a share of money to prop him. The charitable estates of old, the common fields of the clan, the many kinds of mutual aid societies today, are all this one. It is wider than the house, it makes up not only one’s own kin, but the men of this village, this trade. It leans on a bond of village neighbor, of fellow in the same trade, the same Way. But it too has a bound: it makes up to the edge of this group, and there it ends, the men of another village, another trade, it cannot see to.
Push out further, and it is the third working: public keeping. This one is the largest, it leans on a whole society, a state, to gather the things of all into one place, and then make up those men who are not enough. The old, grown old, have nourishing. The sick, fallen sick, have curing. The one so poor he cannot live has a mouthful of rice to hold him. What it makes up is no longer one house, one village, it is every man in this whole society who falls to the not enough end. It leans not on blood kin, not on village feeling, but on a whole set of fixed rules. It reaches the furthest, but it is also the most apt to go wrong, the most apt to be wormed into, to be misused. These faults, a whole chapter in the back half of the term will go on purpose to look at. Here we first set it down.
The house, mutual aid, public keeping, these three workings, one ring wider than the last, one ring making up further than the last. They do one same thing: take from the too much and make up the not enough, catch, one by one, the men the rule of the by labor let slip.
Five, these three workings are exactly the door of the back half
Come to here, you may already feel it: the three workings this section spoke of are already not much like distribution by labor. Yes. They are the bound of the by labor, and the door onto the back half of this term.
The front half of the term spoke of a whole set of the by labor: it is everywhere, it has its rules, it flows. But all along it ran into the by labor’s bound: that bright poor child with no chance, that child of three, that old man of eighty, that mother with no price. The rule of the by labor, again and again, could not weigh them. And this section’s three workings are what the human world made out to catch these men it cannot weigh. What they weigh is not labor, it is need. What they walk is not more labor more gain, it is take from the too much and make up the not enough.
This other rule, this other reasoning, has a name. It is exactly the thing the back half of the term will call out in earnest: distribution by need. This section has quietly walked to its very door. The by labor the front half spoke of is one door. From this section’s three workings on, another door is to be pushed open.
Six, what this chapter set, crossing to the next
Good. Chapter thirty two walks to here, and this layer can be said firm.
This chapter spoke of the labor that cannot be weighed out. Section one held in that likeness of the by labor being the rule of life: the cell, the great tree, the pride of lions, watched down the line, are less and less like the by labor, it is a lead in and not a proof, and the by labor of the human world cannot copy nature, because man has a private heart, and a kind heart too. Section two walked near the men the by labor cannot weigh: the child of three, the old man of eighty, that mother with no price, and saw a house, a society worth the name, always uses the two rules, the weighing of labor and the weighing of need, at once. Section three called Laozi on take from the too much and make up the not enough, and looked at the three workings by which the human world catches the not enough: the house, mutual aid, public keeping.
What this chapter set firm is: distribution by labor has its bound it cannot reach, and the human world has always had another rule that weighs need, another reasoning that makes up the not enough, that by the three workings of house, mutual aid, and public keeping, catches, one by one, the men the by labor let slip.
The front half of the term, come to here, has in truth walked the greater part. But one most needful section is still short. We have spoken of so much labor, weighed it, divided it, flowed it, gone past it. Yet one question at the very root has all along gone unasked: one same share of labor, why is it in this man’s hand alive, and in that man’s hand dead. Labor, in the end, where does it live. The next chapter speaks of living labor, and closes a floor under the front half of the term.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.