VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 37, SECTION 2
The clan, the charitable estate, the union, the cooperative
The last section, in the most ancient tribe, found the by need’s first fire. This section walks on along the history. Man gathered more and more, society grew larger and larger, and that small fire grew into larger things. Look at four: the charitable estate, the mutual aid within a trade, and the later union, and the cooperative. You will see this matter of the by need is there the whole way, only it has changed into a larger and larger body.
One, the charitable estate: a guarantee a clan set up for itself
First look at the charitable estate. This is a marvelous thing the men of China set up for the by need, on a scale as large as a clan.
What is a charitable estate. It is that in a clan, those with the means put in a batch of field land, held apart for the common, and none is allowed to divide it private. The grain and money this batch of field brings in, used for what. Used to relieve those in this clan who are poor, old, sick, cannot afford to read, cannot afford to marry off a daughter or take a wife. See, is this not that fire of the last section, grown large. A clan is a great household. The charitable estate is a machine this great household set up, on purpose to take from the too much and make up the not enough. The too much put in, the not enough drawn out.
Mark one most needful care of the charitable estate: that batch of field is held for the common, is what none is allowed to take or divide private. Why must it be held for the common. Because once it can be taken private, divided private by some one man, this by need guarantee cannot be leaned on, it becomes some man’s private goods, given to whom he will, stopped when he will. Only held fast for the common, locked under the whole clan’s name, can it be handed down age on age, can it truly catch those not enough. This care of being held for the common joins onto that reasoning spoken again and again in the terms before: this thing that is to nourish the crowd cannot belong to any one private man, it must belong to the common. The charitable estate is the ancestors making that reasoning of belonging to the common into a batch of solid, real field.
Two, the mutual aid within a trade: the minding among fellows of one trade
Now look at one more, the mutual aid within a trade. This is by need pooled not on blood kin, but on fellows of one trade, one calling.
In the old days, the men of one same trade would often set up their own minding. Those doing one same business, learning one same craft, gathered together and set up a rule: whoever falls sick, grows old, meets a trouble, can do work no more, all lend a hand. Whoever has a wedding or a funeral, all put in a hand. This minding is different again from the charitable estate. The charitable estate leans on blood kin, on one surname, one forebear. This one within a trade leans on the fellows, on that bond of doing one same work, walking one same road. It pushes the by need, from that ring of blood kin, onto the ring of the same trade. You and he are not of one surname, not touched by kin, yet you and he are men of one same trade, and this is enough, enough to mind one another.
Join this one to the ring of the neighbor of the last chapter. They are of one road: both lean not on blood kin, but on some other bond, to hold the by need up. The neighbor leans on living near, the trade leans on working the same. Man is just so, ring by ring, extending that heart of catching one another, from blood kin outward, onto the men who live near, who work the same, who walk close. Each ring extended, that net of take from the too much and make up the not enough is one part larger, and the men it can catch, some more.
Three, the union and the cooperative: a larger, more shaped gathering
Walk on further, walk to recent ages, and that gathering to mind grew into a larger, more shaped look, and that is the union and the cooperative.
First look at the union. A crowd of working men, going one by one to talk terms with the employer, are of single force and slight, and cannot out talk him. But they gather into a body, set up a society, and the matter is different. This society stands out for them, contends for those members hurt, laid off, meeting a trouble, a share of minding, a settling of the case. The root of the union is still that reasoning of the fire: what one man cannot bear up under, a crowd of men bear up together, and whose turn to be hard comes, this crowd catches him. It sets the by need on the gathering into a body of a crowd of working men.
Now look at the cooperative. A crowd of men with not much stake, say a batch of tilling households, each going alone, take a loss at every turn: buying things they cannot buy at a good price, selling things they cannot sell at a good price. But they join together, open a society, buy together, sell together, divide together, and the force is large. Whoever cannot for a while turn his money round, the society can lend a hand.
The cooperative is unlike a pure by labor trade, in it there is a share of mutual aid, a share of sharing a trouble together. It is a crowd of small forces, gathered into one large force, and then within this large force, minding one another by need. From the charitable estate to the union to the cooperative, see this by need, its body growing larger and larger, its rules set finer and finer, yet its heart, with that earliest fire, is one same heart: a crowd of men, because each may have his day of being weak, catching one another.
Four, out and in as friends, on watch helping each other, in sickness holding each other up
To speak of this ring by ring gathering to mind, Mencius has a line that speaks it down to the root. Mencius speaks of what an ideal countryside should be, and says: out and in as friends, on watch helping each other, in sickness holding each other up. So runs the line in the Mencius, Duke Wen of Teng.
Put it plain. Out and in as friends, going out the door and in the door, the countryside neighbors meet one another as friends. On watch helping each other, guarding, keeping the lookout, helping one another, at any turn minding together. In sickness holding each other up, whoever falls sick, all hold one another up, prop one another. See these three lines of Mencius, they speak exactly the plainest look of that whole line of things, the charitable estate, the mutual aid, the union, the cooperative. On watch helping each other, in sickness holding each other up, is a crowd of men taking one another’s safety and danger as the common matter of all.
Taste this word each other in Mencius. The each other of out and in as friends, of on watch helping each other, of in sickness holding each other up, this word each other is mutual, is you help me and I help you, is two directioned. This joins exactly onto that reasoning set up in chapter thirty six: the healthy by need is two directioned. This word each other in Mencius’s three lines speaks that two directionedness as clear as can be.
The charitable estate, the union, lean not on one end forever giving alms and one end forever helped, they lean on this word each other: today I hold you up, another day you hold me up, whose turn to be hard comes, this crowd lends a hand together. Whether a countryside, a trade, a society can last is seen in whether it holds fast this word each other. Hold it fast, and it is warm, is alive. Hold it not, turned into a one directioned taking, and it scatters.
Five, what this section set, crossing to the next
Good. This section walked on along the history, and looked at the four things that fire grew into.
The charitable estate, a clan putting the field of the too much to the common, locked so that none may take it private, on purpose relieving the not enough of the clan, is making that reasoning of belonging to the common into solid real field. The mutual aid within a trade, leaning on the bond of fellows of one trade, pushing the by need from blood kin onto the ring of the same trade. The union, a crowd of working men gathered into a body, what one cannot bear borne together. The cooperative, a crowd of small forces gathered into a large force, within it minding one another by need. Through Mencius, out and in as friends, on watch helping each other, in sickness holding each other up, and above all that word each other, it set the most needful thing of this whole line of gathering to mind: it is two directioned, leaning on you help me and I help you.
The position this section set is: from the charitable estate to the union and cooperative, the by need’s body grew larger and larger, its rules finer and finer, yet its heart, a crowd of men catching one another, is one with that earliest fire.
So, this gathering to mind, from the clan, the trade, the union, pushed one step further up, to the scale of a whole state, grows into what look. When a state takes up this matter of catching the weak with a whole set of rules, that is the thing beside us today, and it has a name, welfare. It is that ancient fire, burned to its largest look today. But its largest is also where it most easily goes wrong. The next section looks at the welfare state, and the new forms it is growing today.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.