VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 46, SECTION 2

Gains Not from Labor Belong to the Public

The last section found at the very bottom of the account one grid: that share of harvest no one can say who earned. This section answers the next question, and the very bone of this chapter: to whom should this grid belong? Set the word first. The line this section sets is short: the gain not of labor belongs to the public. Yet this line is most easily heard as two wholly different things, one heard as cursing men, one heard as sharing out another’s goods. So we walk it a step at a time, first set the words gain not of labor straight, then see how many roads an ownerless thing has, and last why this one road stands.

One, first set the words gain not of labor straight

The gain not of labor is no cursing word. It does not say some one loafs, does not say some one takes without working, does not hint that some one takes too much. It says one very level fact: that share of harvest finds no laborer who can stand out and claim it.

Here divide it clear from the last chapter’s position. That man who cannot sleep at night, is his grid the gain not of labor? No. Chapter forty-four said it plain: carrying risk is a real matter, a matter another cannot do, that grid has an owner, and the owner is he. Likewise the strength’s share has an owner, the upstream’s share an owner, the interest’s share an owner, only the owners past counting. The gain not of labor points to that other grid: road, power, bridge, peace, script, numbers, measures, mortise and tenon, and that channel watering two thousand three hundred years. These together let one same pair of hands make ten times the thing, and of those ten times more, no living man can strike his chest and say, that I earned.

So these words are a statement, not a verdict. They answer one thing only: has this share an owner or not. The answer is no, not one to be found.

Two, an ownerless thing has only three roads

A thing with no owner has, on down, only three roads to walk: old and new, near and far, turn it over and it is these three. The first: whoever grabs it first, his. Who is nearest, who is quickest of hand, who is strongest, that share to him. This road is the least trouble and the most first-hand, two beasts on a hill fighting for a piece of meat walk just this one.

The second: whoever can block others, his. No need to grab with his own hand, only raise a wall, set an order, write a contract, so others cannot come in, and that share flows of itself into his grid. This road is far more decent than the first, and far stouter too. Chapter forty spoke of this thing, and chapter forty-seven will speak on its own of that diamond that held a hundred years and more.

The third: to the public. Since no owner can be found, give it back to the many, use it on the many, none holding it sole. The first semester spoke of a road: direct holding, legal holding, market holding. That road walks just the first two roads here, step by step more decent, and walked to the end needs no bad men, only a crowd of ordinary men each at his duty. So these three are not three claims, they are three directions. A share with no owner set there will surely flow toward one of them.

Three, why the third road stands

First the weightiest line: to the public is not charity, not some one of good heart sharing goods. To the public is the thing returning to its owner. That share, whose was it to begin with? The road-builders’, the bridge-makers’, the teachers of letters’, the one who thought the mortise and tenon, the channel-cutters’, the peace-keepers’. Who are they? Generation after generation of the many, counted up layer by layer to where at the last there is not even a name, and most are long gone. The first owner cannot be found back, yet who the first owner is is clear: not some one man, but the many.

A thing whose first owner cannot be found back has two ways. One is, whoever picks it up keeps it, first come first served. One is, give it back to the same kind as the first owner, that is, back to the many. The second is the thing returning to its owner, the first only turns the ownerless into the one who reached first.

The first semester told this layer in a very old line: to give it to the god, said plain, is to give it to the public. A person offers to the god that share he cannot trace, and what he offers is in truth not the god, it is the many, for from the many it came and to the many it goes. And this line lands just on the six words at the foot of every page of this book: the merit goes to the ancestors. The share that cannot be traced, give it out. The share a person did himself, own it.

Of these three roads, the first two share one ill: both must first answer a question that cannot be answered, by what right is it you. By quickness of hand, by strength, by that contract written in your name—these reasons set in the open will not stand, so those who walk these two roads must always work up a set of sayings to cover it. The third needs no cover: that share was never any one man’s, give it back to the many, and the reason is in the open, plain to all. Whether a road needs a saying worked up to cover it often shows whether it stands.

Four, the two concrete shapes of giving it out

The reason told, look at what shape it lands in. Today that share, given out, walks mainly two roads, both very concrete, both daily before the eye. The first is to gather it up. This share is scattered through every trade, every income, mixed among the grids that have owners, no shape to it, so there must be a way to pick it out from the middle, and this way today is called tax—in old days called levy, rent, due, the name changed many times. Here set the position only, pass no judgment: how much to take, how to take, which thing to take and which not, that is another account to be talked over year by year, and a matter for the fourth and fifth volumes to come. This section sets one line only: that grid truly exists, and it was never a thing that should stay whole in some one man’s name.

The second is to use it out. Use it where? On that list not shared by what is put in: the child’s schooling, the seeing of a doctor, the old one’s keep, road and bridge and power and water, and the ones fallen in the gap. Chapter forty-five said that list must exist, this section adds its source: the money on that list, a great part is just this grid.

Put the two roads together and it is one matter’s two ends: from the many it comes, to the many it goes. The middle stretch is the position of the word tax: it is no fine, no one’s grace, no taking for nothing from a pocket, it is only a name for that grid of ownerless harvest.

Five, guard two ends here, and neither may be short

The line set, two directions of going astray must be guarded, and both have bred great disorder. One end is taking the owned for the ownerless and gathering it away. The strength’s share, the risk’s share, taken for that grid and swept off together, and a reason spoken for it too, saying you also earned it treading on the ground of the many. Chapter forty-four reckoned this account: the strength wholly winning or the risk wholly winning both throw the whole shop in, and sweeping off both their shares falls faster still. Chapter forty-three’s line takes force here: whoever stands alone is pushed back by the matter it cannot measure.

The other end is calling the ownerless wholly one’s own earning. This end is commoner, and harder to catch, for it need grab nothing, only slip that grid by hand into its own name and say, this I all fought out myself. Chapter forty-two spoke of this ill: a man who owns only one rule cannot see the ground others laid under his feet. Landed on one man, it is forgetting where he came from. Landed on a generation, it is taking the whole of what the generations before toiled to gather, and calling it this one generation’s own skill.

So the bound is still that one line: which share to which rule. The owned to the owner, not a cent to be taken more. The ownerless to the many, not a cent to be privately drawn. These two lines must be said together; short either and it walks to one end.

Six, Laozi’s line, and what this section sets

Laozi said a passage in the Daodejing that faces just this matter: the Way of heaven takes from the too-much and makes up the not-enough; the way of man is not so, it takes from the not-enough to serve the too-much. This line sets two Ways side by side. Heaven’s Way, the too-much end flows toward the not-enough end; water walks just this way, the full place brims and spills of itself toward the low, no one need push it. Man’s Way often runs reverse: from the not-enough end take a little more, to add to the too-much end. Laozi did not curse men, he only set the two Ways side by side and let a person see for himself.

The line the gain not of labor belongs to the public speaks just of heaven’s Way: that share of ownerless harvest flows from the place of too-much back to the place of not-enough. It need lean on no one’s good heart, nor on anyone yielding a step, for it was never anyone’s to begin with.

What this section sets is: the gain not of labor belongs to the public. This is not charity, it is the thing returning to its owner, and the owner is the many, most of them long gone. The owned still to the owner, the ownerless to the many, the two lines said together and only then does it stand. The next section looks at where that share lands after it is given out.