VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 38, SECTION 2
The four ways of misuse
The last section, in reasoning, took apart that wei question that pushes the by need to the extreme. This section lands the reasoning on the ground, to look at what it looks like used badly, misused. So good a rule as the by need, once used badly, goes bad from four directions. Look at them one by one. See these four clear, and only then have you truly seen the by need through.
One, the first: the big shared pot with no spur
The first misuse, the most famous, and the most cutting to the sinew and bone, is called the big shared pot.
What is the big shared pot. It is to draw out the rule of the by labor, and no matter whether you do much or little, do well or ill, what you get in the end is one same. In chapter twenty nine, when we set right that word even of Confucius read wrong, we pointed at the wellspring of this pot. This section looks at it straight on. One big pot, a crowd of men ringing it to eat, the one who does much and the one who does little, one same ladle, what will come of it. The first month, perhaps nothing shows yet. But man is born liking gain, and slowly, in every man’s heart there is a reckoning: I do more, and draw the same as doing less, what do I do it for. So you rest a while, and I rest a while too, and every man leans to the doing less end. At the last, the things in that pot grow fewer and fewer, and a crowd of men ring a pot growing ever thinner, and starve together.
Let us fit this pot with a picture. Imagine this big pot as a pot grown large as a cradle, and a man who could have put out force lies lazily in this cradle, rocked by it, lulled by it, sleeping sweetly, unwilling to rise and work. A cradle is for lulling a child to sleep.
The big shared pot is just such a cradle: it uses a share of ease got without labor to lull a man who could have put out force to sleep, lull him to limbs unstirring, mind unstriving. It looks like nourishing men, it is in truth wasting men. It lulls away, bit by bit, that vigor in man that ought to be sparked. This is the big shared pot with no spur: it is not malicious, it is even good hearted, yet it drew out the by labor, which is to draw out that vigor that makes men willing to do, and at the last drags a crowd of men together to the lowest notch.
Two, the second: need enlarged without bound
The second misuse hides a little deeper, and is called need enlarged without bound.
Distribution by need goes by need. In here there is a hole as big as the sky: what is need, who fixes how large this need is. A man’s true need to live is in truth bounded: a mouthful of rice, a garment, a place to keep off wind and rain. But man’s want has no bottom. Give him a room, he wants a building. Give him a car, he wants ten. Once that need in the by need is quietly swapped, from the need to live, into the bottomless want, then this rule is ruined. Because there is no thing that can fill full a need enlarged without bound.
This layer, Xunzi saw through long ago, and this term will call him straight on later. Once a man, under the name of the by need, swaps need for want, he will by shifting means take over much, want over much, draw over much. He says not I am greedy, he says I need. This need becomes a fig cloth, and under it is covered a bottomless want. This is why distribution by need can by no means be without a bound. This bound is to press need dead onto the true need, the need to live and to live with dignity, and by no means let it, along the want, swell up without bound. Once this bound breaks, need enlarged without bound, no things however many are enough to divide, and the good rule of the by need is burst by want.
Three, the third: privilege turned strange
The third misuse is the most sinister, and the most wounding to the heart, called privilege turned strange.
Distribution by need was set up, at root, for the weak: whoever is weak, in hardship, most in need, is made up first. But this rule, once fallen into the hands of the man with power, may be turned wholly over and used. It is no more to make up the man most in need, it turns into: whoever has power, whoever is near that hand that divides the things, says himself most in need, and to him it is given first, given more. See, this turns the by need wholly strange. Its mouth still says by need, but what it goes by is no more the true need, it is the size of the power. That weak one most in need is squeezed to the very last, and that man with power who lacks nothing, on the contrary, under the flag of need, takes the most.
Join this layer to that line of Laozi. Chapter thirty two spoke of Laozi’s lower half: the way of man is not so, it takes from the not enough to serve the too much. Privilege turned strange is exactly that line’s most glaring look. It wrenches that by need which ought to take from the too much and make up the not enough into the take from the not enough to serve the too much: off the weak already not enough it scrapes one more layer, to serve that man already with too much, yet gripping power.
This is, of the by need’s misuses, the one that most chills the heart. Because it is not only not doing a good thing, it is under the by need, that warmest flag, doing the coldest thing. Under the name of holding the floor for the weak, it works the substance of taking over much for the strong. A warmest thing turned strange into a coldest thing, this is privilege’s deepest defilement of the by need.
Four, the fourth: the politicized painted cake
The fourth misuse is the most cheating, called the politicized painted cake.
That fair look of the by need, every man taking what he needs, is too moving, moving to where it can be taken up by men, made into a cake, painted on the wall, to lull men into risking their lives. This is the politicized painted cake: not honestly making capacity full, making the things out, only painting that fair by need society into a great cake, hung far off, telling all: you now bear a bit of bitterness, endure a bit, sacrifice a bit more, and that cake, in the days to come, is yours. But that cake is forever in the days to come, forever out of reach. Man, hung by that cake painted on the wall, year on year endures, sacrifices, and the cake stays always only a painting.
Join this layer to the ground floor set in chapter thirty four. That ground floor is: from each what he is able is the cause, to each what he needs is the fruit, capacity first, distribution after. The politicized painted cake is exactly that order turned wholly upside down, and taken to cheat men with besides. It does not do that cause, from each what he is able, does not steadily save up capacity, only paints that fruit, to each what he needs, into a cake, and uses it to trade for the present endurance and sacrifice. This is turning a fruit that ought to come of itself into a hollow promise that can never be redeemed. What it cheats away is a generation’s, even several generations’, solid real days, traded for only that cake on the wall, painted ever larger, yet forever uneaten.
Five, the trouble is not scarcity but uneven share, here it comes again
These four misuses look each unlike the other, but under them, they are in truth wounded in one same place. That line of Confucius, set right once in chapter twenty nine, is to be called back here, because these four bad ways spoil exactly this line. The trouble is not scarcity but uneven share, the trouble is not poverty but unrest. So runs the line in the Analects.
Chapter twenty nine spoke of it: this even of Confucius is not the flat average, it is each getting his divide, it is the beam of the scale level. Now look back at these four misuses. The big shared pot is even misread as flat average, the scale hacked level, unfair on the contrary. Need enlarged without bound is someone taking over much, the scale gone crooked. Privilege turned strange is the man with power pressing down one end of the scale, the scale bent by power. The politicized painted cake is trading a false future for the true present, the scale tampered with in time. See, these four bad ways spoil all that word even of Confucius, all bend that scale that ought to be level, from four different directions.
Confucius said too, the trouble is not poverty but unrest. These four misuses, at the last, bring all of them unrest. The big shared pot makes the willing worker unrest, privilege turned strange makes the honest weak unrest, the painted cake makes the hung generation unrest. A society, once this scale is bent, the heart of man is unrest, and the heart of man once unrest is more to be feared than the things being few. This is that line of Confucius, more than two thousand years ago, sounding the alarm bell for these four misuses.
Six, what this section set, crossing to the next
Good. This section walked near the four looks of the by need used badly.
The first, the big shared pot with no spur, drawing out the by labor, lulling the willing worker to sleep, wasting the man who could put out force, like a pot grown large as a cradle with a man lying in it rocked asleep. The second, need enlarged without bound, swapping the bounded need for the bottomless want, bursting this rule. The third, privilege turned strange, wrenching the take from the too much and make up the not enough into the take from the not enough to serve the too much, doing the coldest thing under the warmest flag. The fourth, the politicized painted cake, throwing away the capacity that ought to be the cause, and taking only that fruit to paint a cake and cheat men. Through Confucius, the trouble is not scarcity but uneven share, it saw clear these four bad ways spoil all that scale that ought to be level, and bring all of them the unrest of the heart of man.
The position this section set is: once the by need is used badly, it goes bad from four directions, all of them spoiling that scale that ought to be level, and this shows exactly that the by need can by no means be without a check and balance.
So, since the by need is so easily used badly, then how in the end should a bound be set for it, a check and balance added, to let it do only good things, and grow none of these sicknesses. Is this check and balance a bond of restraint hard added from outside, or a thing it ought by nature to have. The next section calls Xunzi, to look at that line, let the want not be exhausted by the things, and set the reasoning of the check and balance down to the root.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section 3, Let the want not be exhausted by the things, the check and balance is a must