VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 34, SECTION 3
The order was turned backward, from each what he is able is the cause, to each what he needs is the fruit
The last section restored communism to eight words: from each what he is able, to each what he needs. And it pointed out that most needful order: the former line is the cause, the latter line is the fruit. This section speaks this order through once more, heavily. Because over a hundred and more years, the sorest lessons, chased to the root, are almost all one same error: to turn this order backward.
One, the right order: first make it out, then talk of how to divide
First set the right order out clear.
From each what he is able comes first. This says, there must first be a crowd of men, with all their heart and all their force, who make the things out, make them enough, enough to meet the crowd’s needs, even with some to spare. This step is capacity, is making the cake big, making it full. To each what he needs comes after. This says, once the things are truly made out, made enough, then divide them down by each man’s need. In this order sits a reasoning hard as iron: you can divide only the things you have already made out. There must first be that fish on the table, before you can talk of whose bowl the best piece goes into. No fish on the table, and you divide the air by need.
So the true order is: capacity first, distribution after. First make the things full, that is the cause. To be able to divide by need, that is the fruit. Carve this line into your heart. The true goal was never distribution by need, that way of dividing itself. The true goal is capacity enough, things many enough to meet the crowd’s needs. Distribution by need is only, after capacity is enough, a fruit come of itself, water arriving and the channel forming. Capacity not enough, and you insist on dividing by need, that is water with no source, that is dividing a fish at a bare table.
Two, the turned backward order: not yet made out, and grabbing to divide first
That turned backward order, what does it look like. It takes the fruit for the cause, snatches the latter step up to the former step.
It thinks this way: so long as we first set down this way of dividing, distribution by need, first declare that every man takes what he needs, wants a thing and has it, then that fair world comes, does it not. See, it takes that fruit, distribution by need, for the goal to chase, for the first thing to do. It holds that so long as the way of dividing is set right, capacity will of itself catch up. It turns the order whole about: it would divide the fish first, and then have the fish grow.
This turning about, how great a disaster does it break. Think, you have not yet made the things enough, and you declare all may take what they need. What happens. The first thing, the things are not near enough to divide, and a crowd of men facing the not enough, either queue long, or grab. The second thing, and more deadly, since whether I put out force or not I can take what I need, then why should I still put out what I am able. Every man leans to the doing less end, and capacity, far from coming up, caves in instead. The order once reversed, that from each what he is able which ought to be the cause is drawn out, and the ground drawn away, and the house of to each what he needs comes crashing down. The look of it crashing down is exactly those nightmare pictures of the last chapter, the queues, the bare shelves, the big shared pot.
Three, walk near a thing: a pot of divide first and talk later
Walk near a plain thing, and see how this turning about drags men down.
Set a village, a crowd of men tilling the ground together. It was agreed that at year end, when the grain is in, each house divides by heads, by need, enough to eat, with some to spare, and this is a matter good as the sky. But someone grew impatient, and said, why wait for year end, let us divide by need now, whoever wants how much draws first, draw open handed. The first year, there is still old grain in the store, and all draw open handed, draw with joy, and every man says this life is good. But the second year, the spring, when it is time to go to the ground. Someone begins to reckon in his heart: no matter whether I work or not, at year end I draw by need all the same, so why should I work myself to death. So he goes to the ground late, slacks at the work. You slack, I slack too, and a village slacks together.
Come the autumn, the grain the ground gives is a great stretch less than other years. But the mouths to be divided by need, not one is fewer. Grain less, need not less, what to do. There is only to divide each a little less, and starve together. Another year, and fewer still are willing to put out force, and the grain is less still. This pot of divide first and talk later, so, year on year, drags a village that could have eaten its fill down to starving together. See it clear: what crashed them is not the rule of distribution by need itself. It is that they turned the order backward, and at a time when the things were not yet made enough, drew out that cause, from each what he is able.
Four, a tree with no root, water with no source
This turned backward order, the ancestors have a ready saying for it, and none more exact. It is called a tree with no root, water with no source.
Put it plain. The root is the tree’s root. The source is the water’s spring. A tree with no root, a tree with no root. Water with no source, a stream with no head. A tree with no root, you stick it in the earth, and it can green a while, but it must die, because it has no root to nourish it. A stream with no source, you can watch it flow a while, but it must run dry, because behind it there is no source to carry on. Distribution by need is that tree, that stream. From each what he is able, capacity enough, is that root, that source. You cut distribution by need off the root of capacity, and stick it alone in the earth, declaring we divide by need now, and it can look fair a while, like that village’s first year of drawing grain open handed. But it has no root, no source, and it must crash. So the trouble was never in whether the rule of distribution by need is good. This rule is very good, it lives well at your family’s table. The trouble is: you cannot cut it off the root of capacity, and stand it alone as a goal, a kind of state to overspread all. Cut off, it becomes a tree with no root, water with no source, and dies without doubt.
This layer sees clear through that error of the heaven side of the last chapter. What the heaven side did is exactly to cut this rule off its root, and set it up as a goal. It is not bad, it turned the cause and the fruit about, took the fruit for the cause, took the treetop for the root.
Five, what this chapter set, crossing to the next
Good. Chapter thirty four walks to here, and this layer can be said firm, and this is the ground floor of the back half of the term.
This chapter did three things. Section one wiped away the two extreme pictures, heaven and nightmare, and saw clear they commit one same error: both mistaking communism for a great institution to swallow the whole society. Section two restored it to one line of plain speech, distribution by need, a rule that weighs need, that has lived all along at your family’s table. Section three set up that most needful order: from each what he is able is the cause, to each what he needs is the fruit, capacity first, distribution after. The true goal was never distribution by need, that way of dividing, it is capacity enough. Distribution by need is only, after capacity is full, a fruit that comes of itself. Turn this order backward, take the fruit for the cause, and it is a tree with no root, water with no source, and must crash.
What this chapter set firm is: the true face of communism is distribution by need, and distribution by need is the fruit and not the cause, its root being from each what he is able, being capacity enough. The order once reversed, the heaven crashes into the nightmare.
So, the ground floor set firm, the next step should do an honest thing: since distribution by need has lived all along in the human world, then, as the front half counted the by labor, count it out, corner by corner. Where in the end does it live. The next chapter counts from the nearest place, counts from that bowl of rice your mother left for you.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.