VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 46, SECTION 3
After That Share Is Given Out, on Whom It Lands
The last section set the line: the gain not of labor belongs to the public. But the two words to the public, stopped here, are still half a line. For to the public is easily heard as gathered up. Gathered up is only halfway, and gathered up and heaped unmoving is no giving to the public, it is only changing who keeps it. For this share to truly go to the public, one must see where it lands at the last, and in what shape. This section walks the second half of the road, and closes this chapter, and with it the four commons.
One, to the public is not into a storehouse
Set this line dead first: that share gathered up, if only heaped in a store, or turning a few hands into a few men’s holding, then it has not gone to the public; it has only turned from having no owner into having a new owner, and this new owner’s hand reaches far longer than those nameless ones. This layer matters most, and is most easily blurred past. The first semester spoke of a road: direct holding, legal holding, market holding. Every step on that road is decent, every step has a saying, yet walked to the end that share fell into a few men’s pockets. Gathered up and not walked on, the road walked is still that old one, only under a finer name, the cover-saying ready-made.
So to judge whether a thing has truly gone to the public, look at one thing: where it lands at the last.Landed on the many, that is to the public. Landed on a few men, the reasons spoken ever so fine, the books kept ever so clean, it is spoken for nothing. This is no harsh line, it is a line that can be taken and checked. It gives this whole chapter a measure with no blur.
Two, it lands in four places, just that list
When that share truly lands, where does it land? Said plain, four places, and all four seen and touched. The first is the child. The schoolroom raised, the teacher’s wage paid out, the books printed, a room seated with dozens of children who make no yield and can pay not a cent. Chapter forty-two said: a society willing heart and mind to keep a batch who make nothing, a dozen years, and not press them once. The sum keeping them, a great part is just this grid.
The second is the sickbed. Health cover pays most of the hospital sum, the ambulance runs at midnight, the country clinic keeps its door open year round to those who may not pay. The sick one’s yield this month is zero, and chapter forty said: take the rule of risk to the seeing of a doctor and the cost this once is a person.
The third is road, bridge, channel, power. This place is the most worth finding, for it grows of itself: given out of this grid today, tomorrow it is the grid under the next shop’s feet. Dujiangyan walked just this way two thousand three hundred years. Raised, it was the many who put out the strength, and that generation walked off, and raised, it yields year by year for the later that share no one can say whose it is.
The fourth is the old and young and the gap. The pension, the few months of out-of-work money, the work-injury sum, and that bit of subsidy and few months of food money when the forty-year-old weaver learns a new craft. Chapter forty-two said: a life’s two ends plus the gaps in the middle, near half the days a person cannot lean on his own strength.
These four places are just that list not shared by what is put in, from chapter forty-five. The last section found the list’s source, this section sees its destination. These four share one place worth stopping over: not one is shared by what is put in. The child’s schooling asks not how much tax his house paid, the ambulance asks not how much the sick earned this month, the road to the one house up the hills asks not how many trips a year he makes. Change these to sharing by what is put in, and chapter forty-three’s standing alone comes at once, the first to drop that half not worth it. So this grid’s destination lands of itself in the range of the rule of need: the source ownerless, the destination not asking what is put in, the two ends match just so.
Three, common sharing is just this one line
To here, the two words common sharing can be given a very clean saying. Common sharing is not sharing all things flat. The wage is not shared flat, that grid not shared flat, the upstream sum not shared flat—whatever has an owner, not a cent moved, whose it is to whom, the more earned the more got.
Common sharing is putting that ownerless share back onto every person. Just this one line, no second, and none needed. This saying has a good: it is not the least blurred. Meet any matter, ask only: has this share an owner? The answer follows. The owned still to the owner, and stepping over to move it, both strength and risk must stop the hand. The ownerless to the many, and slipped by some one into his own name, that is taking the goods of the many for one’s own house. Chapter forty-five’s line takes force a third time here: the question was never share more or share less, it is to which rule this share belongs.
Four, this share is the grain that wounds least
There is one more layer, this section’s weightiest and least broken open: the being of this grid lets the other two rules butt less fierce. Chapter forty-four said: labor is need’s grain, that floor-under sum comes from the ones still putting out strength today. Yet if the floor-under money were all wrung from the ones putting out strength, the two rules must butt: the one who puts out strength feels he keeps a stranger’s family daily, and the one fallen feels the hand he holds out takes another’s money, and cannot lift his head. This butting butts out chapter forty-three’s two ills, one end hating men, one end bowing to fate.
But that grid is other. That grid was never any one man’s, and using it for the matters on that list, no one is taken from. It is the grain that wounds the strength end least, and the sum that, drawn out, reddens neither face. So this grid is the best cushion on that bound between the four rules. A part thicker, and labor and need loosen a part. Swept whole into a private purse, and the two rules butt at once, cheek to cheek, and a shop, a place begins to quarrel, and quarrels out no end. This layer is just what the next chapter, on the check and balance, will use.
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Five, back to that channel
Close this chapter on Dujiangyan, most fitting. Two thousand three hundred years, and that channel still lets the water through. Li Bing is long gone, the ones who hauled earth and carried stone long gone, and few even left a name. Yet every year that great spread of field below still grows grain, still keeps alive some millions who never heard their names.
Of that grain, one share the tiller earned furrow by furrow, his, and none can take it. And one share the channel gave, finding no owner. Two thousand three hundred years, this share has gone on giving out, given to one generation after another who never saw Li Bing, and need thank no one. This is the meaning of the six words at the foot of every page of this book: the merit goes to the ancestors. It is no courtesy, it is a rule on the account. The share that cannot be traced, give it out. The share a person did himself, own it. These two lines together are common sharing. A person who holds both will neither greed down another’s merit, nor own a shame he should not own. A place that holds both, that grid lands year by year back on the many, not year by year into a few hands.
Six, what this section sets, and the close of this chapter and the four commons
What this section sets is a line: to the public is not gathered up, it is landed down, landed on the many, and only then is it to the public. Put this chapter’s three sections together: the first found at the bottom of the account that grid of ownerless harvest, and pointed out it is no odd remainder but the big share. The second set the line: the gain not of labor belongs to the public, and made clear this is not charity but the thing returning to its owner, and the owned still to the owner. This section saw where it lands: on schoolroom, sickbed, road and bridge and channel and power, and the old and young and the gap—that is, that list not shared by what is put in.
The four commons walk to here and are done. Coexistence says the four are all there, common life says they feed one another, common dwelling says they each keep their bound, common sharing says the ownerless share goes to the many. Yet all four rest on one thing set before them: no one can stand alone to the end. Who guarantees this thing? On whom does the blocking lean? The next chapter speaks of this semester’s weightiest block: the check and balance.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Chapter 47: Restraint: Preventing Any Single Pillar from Dominating Clone