VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 44, SECTION 3
Labor and Need: One Measures What Is Put In, One Measures What Is Needed
The pair the last section looked at, strength and risk, is two different matters gathered to do one same job. This section looks at another pair, labor and need. This pair is harder to speak of, for they are not two matters that fill each other out, they are two reasons that run just opposite.
One says he who does not work does not get, one says do not ask whether he worked. Set side by side they butt heads. Yet chapter forty said, they have lain side by side on the same account for decades and neither has pushed the other out, and the last chapter said, the ways run side by side and do not run against one another. This section takes these two opposite reasons apart, to see just how they feed one another, and how they watch one another.
One, first own that this pair truly runs opposite
Do not start by saying they are not really at odds, that is talking the matter slick, and coaxing the student past. They are opposite, and opposite clean, with not a hand’s-breadth of room to turn. The rule of labor asks: how much did you do this month. The one who did more gets more, the one who did less gets less, not a whit blurred, not a whit of face kept. The rule of need asks: what do you lack this month. The one who lacks more gets more, the one who lacks less gets less, just as little blurred, just as little asking you anything else.
A man who lies in a sickbed this month, by the first rule should get zero, by the second should get more than anyone. One and the same man, one and the same month, two rules measure out two wholly opposite numbers. This is no opposition of rhetoric, this is two solid answers. So between this pair there must be a bound, and the bound must be drawn very clear: which matters to this rule, which to that. The bound undrawn, and the two rules butt on the same matter, and a shop, a home, a place all follow into disorder, and the quarrel has reason on each side.
Two, labor feeds need
The reasons run opposite, yet they feed one another. Look at one end first. Where does that floor-under sum come from? The health cover’s money, the pension, the free schoolroom, the granary opened in a lean year, none of these fall from the sky. They come from the batch still putting out strength today, from this year’s grain grown in the field, the goods made in the works, the trucks running the road, every cent with a source. The last chapter’s line is most solid here: a way of sharing answers how to share, it cannot answer whether there is anything to share.
The last chapter spoke of what comes of need standing alone: the first year all say good, and the third year the pot has no rice, the ladle still that fair ladle, only nothing to scoop. This is not that the rule of need is bad, it is that it cannot make rice of itself. It is a rule for sharing things, not a rule for growing things, and these two matters cannot be mixed into one.
So the rule of labor is the rule of need’s grain and fodder. The ones who put out strength one part more, and that floor-under hand is one part thicker. The ones who put out strength all stop their hands, and the first to go hungry is not themselves, it is the ones who can put out no strength at all, the infant, the old, the one in the sickbed. This layer, whoever leans toward need must most of all see clear.
Three, need feeds labor
Now the reverse end, and this layer is more hidden, and more often missed. That thirty-eight-year-old, why does he dare to push hard at the company? Because his mother in hospital has health cover holding it, because his child’s schooling need not be borne by him alone, because he knows if one day he falls sick the family has a stretch of days to catch its breath, not cut off from food the next month. Behind him a few hands catch, so the one hand before him dares to bear down.
Of the three things the last section spoke of, one is the man can leave. A man able to leave leans not only on having a craft, but on whether there is a stretch of cushion behind him. If one sickness sinks the whole family, he dares not change trade, dares not try, dares not say one hard word to the manager. The first semester set: the free in form is that he has the right to say no, the free in substance is that he has the stake to say no. That floor-under share is for many a plain man the one bit of stake in his hand, and the nerve behind his daring to open his mouth and say no.
The first section, pulling out the rule of need, saw it plain: everyone guards himself, no one buys in the shops, the ones willing to come out and open a new venture are fewer. So the rule of need is the rule of labor’s nerve. Without it, the one who puts out strength dares only guard hard the one share before him, dares not step one pace further, nor turn back to change a road. This is Xunzi’s line on this pair: the two hold each other and grow. One supplies grain, one supplies nerve, one lets the other have something to share, one lets the other dare to go earn.
Four, where the bound is drawn leans on three ways
Since the two rules run opposite and yet feed one another, that bound must be drawn solid. The earlier chapters have in fact set the three ways out one at a time, here gathered to one place. The first way is by stretch. The last chapter spoke of a life’s three stretches: the first and the last to need, the middle thirty and forty years to labor. This is the coarsest and least-quarreled bound, for it lands on the years, which everyone must pass through, and no one need argue.
The second way is by matter. A few matters, no matter who did more or less, are not shared by what is put in: the child’s schooling, the seeing of a doctor, the old one’s keep, that stretch fallen in the gap. Outside these few, all is reckoned by what is put in. Which matters go on this list is argued year by year, and is the most-quarreled place, yet the list itself must exist, and be written plain, so every person can point at it.
The third way is by layer. This the third semester spoke of: the nearer the place, the thicker the need. Between a person and his mother, no account is kept. Within a village, a shop, half is kept. Between a city and a country, it leans on institution and sum after sum paid in. Outward through the layers, need thins and labor thickens. This is not the human heart thinning layer by layer, it is that the range a person can look after is bounded to begin with.
These three ways together, and the bound takes shape: not one principle, but a few places one can point at and name. These three ways share one good besides: they all draw the bound on the matter, not on the person. By stretch, drawn on the years. By matter, drawn on that list. By layer, drawn on the near and far. Not one is drawn by person, not one says this grade of person to this rule, that grade to that. This matters most. Once the bound is drawn onto the person, position turns to identity, and the two ills of chapter forty-one come back at once: one end hating men, one end bowing to fate.
Five, the two rules watch each other
This pair has one more layer, the weightiest of this section: they not only feed one another, they watch one another, neither letting the other walk to the end. The rule of labor watches the rule of need: no catching a man till he does not want to move. The last chapter’s word of measure takes force a second time here, to catch is not to hold in the arms, caught and sent back is holding up. Who reminds of this line? Just the ones daily putting out strength, daily measured by the rule of labor. Their bit of not-content is itself a pulling rope, pulled not sweetly, yet pulled to hold.
The rule of need watches the rule of labor: no measuring the rule onto a man who can work no longer. A man grown old, fallen sick, taken one fall, reckoned a useless man, this is that rule out of its bound. Who reminds of this line? Just the ones being looked after, or who have looked after another, every person with parents and children. Their bit of not-having-the-heart is a pulling rope too, pulled not loud, yet pulled to hold.
Two pulling ropes, one at each end, propping each other. This is holding each other: not each yielding a step, but two hands each pressing one end, neither letting the other take the matter to the last. The first semester’s chapter six, that Salt and Iron debate, quarreled to the end with neither wholly winning, is the earliest sample of these two hands.
So this pair quarreling daily is a good thing. The quarrel says both hands are still pressing, both ends still put their strength to it. The day it stops of a sudden, mostly it is not all quiet and well, it is that one end has let go, or been pressed silent.
Six, what this section sets, and the close of this chapter
What this section sets is a line: labor supplies grain, need supplies nerve, and the two rules run opposite in reason yet are each other’s road to live. Put this chapter’s three sections together: the first pulled all round and saw that pull out any one and the rest sicken, this is common life. The second looked at strength and risk, each holding the half the other lacks, and whoever wholly wins throws the whole shop in. This section looked at labor and need, one letting the other have something to share, one letting the other dare to go earn, and the two watching each other, neither letting the other walk to the end.
Xunzi’s line may be read once more: let desire never be worn out by things, and things never be bent under desire, the two hold each other and grow. The four rules are just these few logs propping one another, look at any one alone and it will not stand, propped in one place they stand steady.
Coexistence speaks of all being there, common life speaks of feeding one another. But things that feed one another are also the most apt to step over the bound and decide for the other. So the next chapter speaks of the third thing: common dwelling. Each keeping its position, each keeping its bound, and how to pull the hand back when it steps past.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Chapter 45: Co-living: The Noble Person Seeks Harmony Without Uniformity