VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 34, SECTION 2
Restored to one line of plain speech, distribution by need
The last section wiped away the two pictures, heaven and nightmare. Now the table is clean, and we can ask that most plain question: communism, peel off those two pictures, and what in the end is it. This section restores it to one line of plain speech. And you will find this line of plain speech you have used from a child, only you never knew it when you saw it.
One, peeled to the last, four words are left
Peel off all the frightening things, the beguiling things, and this thing communism, peeled to the last, has four words left: distribution by need.
What is distribution by need. It is that in dividing things, you look not at how much labor you put out, you look at how much you need. Whoever needs, it gives to. Needs more, it gives a little more. Set it beside those four words of the front half of the term. Distribution by labor looks at how much labor you put out. Distribution by need looks at how much you need. One stares at your putting out, one stares at your need. These are two wholly different rules, weighing two wholly different things.
Just so simple. That great word communism, argued over for a hundred years, painted into a heaven and painted into a nightmare, peeled to the root, is these four words, distribution by need, is a rule that weighs need and does not weigh the putting out. It is not so dark and deep, nor so fearsome. It is only a way the human world divides things, a rule laid abreast of the by labor, weighing another thing.
Two, this rule, you have used from a child
If you feel this rule that weighs need is far from you, then go back to the dinner table of your house. You will find that from the day you were born, you have lived under this rule.
A family eats, and on the table is one fish. How is this fish divided. Is it divided by who earns the most. It is not. The father earns the most, but the best of the fish, the belly meat with the fewest bones, is mostly picked into the bowl of the smallest child, or picked for the old one whose teeth are poor. The child has not earned one cent, the old one earns no more, yet they get the best piece. Is this by labor. It is not. It is by need. Whoever most needs that good meat, whoever most ought to be cared for, it goes to. Your family’s dinner table, every day, is distributing by need.
Now look at your childhood. When you were three, you could put out no labor at all, yet you ate the most carefully tended, wore the most carefully minded. When you fell sick, the house hurried to fetch you medicine, to fetch the doctor, and at that moment none reckoned how much labor you had put out this month, whether you deserved this care. From small to grown, you were guarded by this rule of need, guarded these many years. You have lived inside communism, lived a whole life in it, only you never called it by this name.
Three, from each what he is able, to each what he needs
To speak this rule whole, there is a first half too. The most complete way to say this word is eight words: from each what he is able, to each what he needs.
Put it plain. From each what he is able is that every man puts out, as far as he can, the force he can put out. To each what he needs is that in dividing things, it is divided by each man’s need. Mark, mark most closely, the order in these eight words, for this order is the most needful thing of this chapter, and of this half term. From each what he is able comes before, to each what he needs comes after. The former line is the cause, the latter line is the fruit. First each man spends his force and makes the things out, saves up things enough, and only then can there be talk of dividing by need.
Back to your family’s table. Why can this table of people divide that fish by need. Because first someone put out what he was able, and earned that fish back, made it out. The father and mother spend their force earning, buying, cooking, and this is from each what he is able. Only then is there that fish on the table, only then is there talk of whose bowl the best piece is picked into. Were there no one putting out what he was able, the table bare, then to each what he needs turns into an empty line, a crowd of men facing a bare table, dividing what by need. So of these eight words, the former line is the ground floor, the latter line is the house raised on the ground floor. The ground not firm, and the house is a tower in the air. This order, the next section speaks of on purpose, and heavily, because over a hundred and more years, the most deadly error is exactly to turn this order backward.
Four, the trouble is not scarcity but uneven share, here it joins back
To speak of by need, we join back that line of Confucius from the front half, because here it shows its other half of meaning.
Back in chapter twenty nine, we called Confucius to set right that word even, saying even is not the flat average, it is each getting his divide. That was spoken alongside the by labor. But the lower half of that line of Confucius was not then spoken close: the trouble is not poverty but unrest, for with the divide even there is no poverty, with concord no want, with peace no toppling. So runs the line in the Analects.
Take the most needful: with the divide even there is no poverty, with concord no want. Put it plain: the dividing fit, each at rest in his divide, and there is no true poverty. Above and below in concord, minding one another, and there is no fretting that things are few. See, Confucius here is already not speaking only of the by labor. He says with concord no want, and this concord is the minding of one another, the sharing of a trouble. A crowd of men who mind one another, though the things be not many, will have none starved dead, none cast off, because they will care for one another by need, will pick that best piece of meat for the one who most needs it. In this one line of Confucius, the by labor of each getting his divide, and the by need of minding one another, are laid together. He knew long ago that a good group has always used the two rules at once.
Five, what this section set, crossing to the next
Good. This section restored that great word communism to one line of plain speech.
Peeled to the last, it is the four words distribution by need, a rule that weighs need and does not weigh the putting out. This rule you have used from a child: that good piece of meat picked for the old and the small at your table, that careful care when you were three, all are by need, all are communism living in your days. And its most complete saying is eight words: from each what he is able, to each what he needs. From each what he is able comes first as the cause, to each what he needs comes after as the fruit, first the things made out, and only then talk of dividing by need. We also joined back the lower half of that line of Confucius, and saw he had long ago laid the by labor of each getting his divide, and the by need of minding one another, together.
The position this section set is: the true face of communism is distribution by need, the rule that weighs need, and it has lived all along in every man’s days, and lives most of all at the table of your house.
So, from each what he is able coming first, to each what he needs coming after, since this order is so needful, then to turn it backward, how great a disaster would it break loose. Why is it said that over a hundred and more years the most deadly error is exactly to turn this order backward. The next section sets this turned backward order right.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.