VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 37, SECTION 3
The welfare state, and today’s new forms
The last section looked at that fire grown into the charitable estate, the union, the cooperative. This section walks it to the present age, walks it to today. When a state takes up this matter of catching the weak with a whole set of rules, that ancient fire is burned into its largest look today, welfare. Look at how it is set up, and look at the new forms it is growing today.
One, welfare: that fire, burned to the scale of a state
What is welfare. Said through, it is a state formally taking up this matter of take from the too much and make up the not enough, with a whole set of nationwide rules.
The old have money to be nourished by, the sick have cover to be treated by, the one who loses work has a stretch of relief, the one so poor he cannot live has the lowest mouthful of rice to hold him. Look at these one by one, they are all the reasoning of that fire, only burned to the scale of a state. The money to be nourished by is left for that old man by the fire. The cover to be treated by is left for that man who fell sick and could not rise. The relief for the one who lost work is left for that hunter who for a while could hunt no food. The welfare state is taking that heart of the earliest small crowd, ringing the fire, catching one another, and, with modern rules, enlarging it onto tens of millions. It is that ancient fire, in its largest look.
See this layer clear: welfare is no outland, no novel, no thing any one ism owns. It is man’s most ancient by need heart, grown to the scale of a state as a matter of course. Any modern state worth the name has more or less such a set of things standing. It has no bound tie with what signboard a state hangs, what label it pastes. It is only that old wisdom of man gathering to live, in today’s look. To force it onto some one ism, saying this is that side’s alone, is again to commit that old failing spoken of at the term’s opening: to drag a thing held in common by the human world hard to one side and paste a label.
Two, welfare is the largest, and the most apt to go wrong
But the rule of this book is that the good must be told, and the hidden trouble told clearer still. This thing welfare is that fire’s largest look, but exactly because it is the largest, the furthest, the least on blood kin, it is also the most apt to go wrong.
Think, by that earliest fire there were just those few tens of men, and who is truly hard, who feigns hard, was seen clean at a glance. That man who feigns sickness to skip the hunt yet comes to divide the meat could not hide from all their eyes. But welfare enlarged onto tens of millions leans wholly on a set of cold rules to tell who should be made up and who should not. The rules always have a place they cannot tell clear, always a hole a man can worm into. So it may come out that the truly in need are barred at the door by the cumbersome rules, and the not so in need, even those come on purpose to take the cheap, worm in instead. This is not that this matter of welfare has gone bad, it is that once it leaves that fireside where all are close acquainted, and leans on rules to tell men alone, there will unavoidably be times of telling wrong, of being wormed into.
There is a deeper layer of hidden trouble still. That relief by the fire is temporary: you are weak this winter, I catch you, and come spring when you are well, you are still to go out to the hunt. But welfare, set up poorly, may turn this temporary catching into a lasting leaning, letting some men who could go to the hunt lie by the fire and be unwilling to leave. This layer is exactly what the next chapter goes on purpose to take apart. Here we first set it down: welfare is the greatest kindness of that fire, and also the most apt to grow the greatest sickness. Its good and its sickness are joined together, the greater the good, the greater the sickness hid beneath. This is why, the larger the scale, the more that check and balance cannot be done without.
Three, today’s new forms: the fire is changing to new firewood
That fire, come to today, is still growing new looks. Not only the state’s welfare, in the folk too many new, unthought of by needs are cropping up.
Look at those things that cost no money, that anyone can use. Chapter thirty five spoke of that technical community that pays no money, a crowd of men making a set of software anyone can use for free. Is that not a new fire, only this fire burns not firewood, it burns the bit of heart’s blood each man contributes, and warms all the world willing to use it. And those matters where one place is in trouble and eight quarters pool money on the net to help, tens of millions of strangers, each putting in a little, catching one stranger’s trouble. These are all that ancient fire, in today’s changed firewood, burned into a new look. The man changed, the tool changed, yet that heart of a crowd of men catching one another has not changed one bit.
See this layer clear, it is the landing of this whole chapter: distribution by need, from that earliest fire, walking all the way to the charitable estate, the union, welfare, and on to these new looks on the net today, has never once broken, never once stopped growing. It is no thing that belongs to the past, gone old, nor a dream that belongs only to a future, not yet come. It is alive, has been alive all along, is growing new looks right before your eyes and mine. This returns to that line at the term’s opening: communism is not a state to come or gone, it is a kind of element that lives all along, grows all along. The history of this chapter is that line’s most solid proof.
Four, Zhou is an old realm, yet its charge is ever new
To speak of this ancient fire growing new looks all along, call a line from the Book of Songs to close, which tells this reasoning of both old and new to the end. Zhou is an old realm, yet its charge is ever new. So runs the line in the Book of Songs, the Greater Odes.
Put it plain. Zhou is an old realm, Zhou though an ancient realm of state. Its charge is ever new, yet the charge it bears, its life, is ever renewed. These eight words tell that a thing can be both old and new: its root old, ancient, yet its look, its life, ever making itself new. Set this line on this matter of distribution by need. Is it old. Old to the extreme, old to that earliest fire in the human world. Is it new. New to the extreme too, new to those unthought of looks on the net today. Zhou is an old realm, yet its charge is ever new, tells exactly this thing distribution by need: its root as ancient as man, its charge age on age ever making itself new. A thing that can be both old and new, that on an ancient root can ever grow new boughs, that is a thing truly alive. Distribution by need is just such a living thing. It will not die of age, because its root is struck into the deepest of human nature. And it will not stiffen and die, because every age it grows a new look. The old realm and the new charge are exactly its likeness.
Five, what this chapter set, crossing to the next
Good. Chapter thirty seven walks to here, and this layer can be said firm.
This chapter tidied for distribution by need a history of its own. Section one, from the most ancient fire, that quarry, saw clear the by need is as ancient as man, a guarantee of life set up for one another by men each of whom will have his day of being weak. Section two, saw that fire grow into the charitable estate, the union, the cooperative, its body larger and larger, yet that heart of catching one another unchanged, leaning on Mencius’s two directioned word each other. Section three, walked to the welfare of the present age, saw clear it is that fire’s largest look, and the most apt to go wrong, and looked at the new looks it burns today in changed firewood, landing on that line, communism is a kind of element that lives all along, grows all along.
What this chapter set firm is: distribution by need has a history as ancient as man and ever making itself new, from a fire to welfare to today’s new forms, never once broken, never once stopped growing, it is alive, growing new looks before our eyes.
But at this chapter’s end we run into a thing there is no going around: welfare is the largest, and the most apt to go wrong, the warmer the thing, the greater the sickness hid beneath. These several chapters have spoken the by need so good, so warm, and it is time, in earnest, to look at its other side. How does it come to be used badly, misused. Where is its bound. Why is it said that a society with only the by need, with no check and balance, is a wei question. The next chapter goes to take apart the bound of the by need.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.