VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 48
Grain Stores Full, Mind to Manners
Through the previous eight chapters, the eye has rested strictly on the layer down below: how the four scales run across a single general ledger, how they hang on a single person, how they hold up a lifetime, how they coexist, generate together, live together, and share together, and how they push against one another so that not a single one grows into a sole ruler. From this chapter onward, the eye raises a notch higher, to see what kind of upper structure is pushed out as the layer down below runs in this manner. That upper layer refers to laws and decrees, rules and customs, and societal tone—what a place honors, what it taboos, and what it counts as decent and honorable. This chapter is divided into three sections: setting that lowest sequence first, examining a plain-spoken line from over a hundred years ago that spoke of this sequence, and finally replacing two words in that line that were spoken too absolutely.
Section One sets that sequence first. That thirty-eight-year-old person, before daybreak, boils porridge and sets out medicine first; at eight-thirty, clocks in at work first; on the tenth of every month, pays off that debt first. Reasoning, dignity, and ambition all stand ranked behind these few items. It is not that he does not care for them, but that the sequence is such. So it is with a factory: in years of good business, rules are kept most properly; once order slips snap and wages are delayed, the very first thing to crumble is that set of rules—and the people remain the exact same people. So it is even more with a region: only when the grain store opens does the people's mind settle, and only then can courtesy and yielding be spoken of; when the grain store is empty, even the most refined places cannot preserve their refinement. Guan Zhong spoke this matter to the very end two thousand seven hundred years ago in twelve characters: When the grain stores are full, they know rules and manners; when food and clothing are sufficient, they know honor and shame. Yet this section must hold off a line heard wrongly at once: that material things come first does not mean material things matter most. As set in the first semester, reading differences in position as differences in personal character is the most common move of false virtue. That person who divided his last half-bag of rice with a neighbor in a year of famine did not have a full grain store, yet he preserved rules and manners; what he performed was precisely the hardest thing beneath this sequence.
Section Two looks at that plain-spoken line: The economic base determines the superstructure.Acknowledge the merit first, solid and true. Before him, when speaking of whether a place was good or bad, mostly people began from human hearts, and from whether those few figures on top were wise or not; he shifted the eye one layer downward, looking first at how people eat, how they work, and how they divide things—this shift was equal to turning over a whole stretch of ground that no one had been willing to bow down and look at. What should be acknowledged even more is that he rendered it into plain speech in ten characters, so that a worker who had not read books for many years could remember it by heart. Yet for that position spoken of in this line, Guan Zhong was two thousand four hundred years early. Pointing out its origin is not to compete over who spoke first, but for two matters: one is to return the credit where it belongs, which is why those six characters at the end of the page are written so; the other is to let people see clearly that this position was seen independently by different people across thousands of years—it is not any single school's banner, but merely a fact. The stance of this book set is also made clear here: from beginning to end, it opposes no one, and good plain speech is accepted all the same; yet no matter how good plain speech is, it came from the ancient prose of the ancestors, and he merely learned that line. He does not stand opposite the ancestors; he stands behind the ancestors.
Section Three replaces those two words. Determines was spoken too absolutely: whatever is down below, the top must strictly be the same, in one-to-one correspondence. Yet in those two workshops of the chair factory, with identical machines, identical payroll sheets, and identical raw materials, one workshop's master craftsman is willing to teach apprentices and someone steps forward to claim defective work, while in the other workshop no one is willing to say a single extra word and iron shavings are left as usual for the next shift. Down below they are identical, yet up top they differ so widely. Thus the word that ought to be used is supports: without it, the top cannot stand firm; with it, what shape the top grows into remains undecided. If the foundation is not solid, the building will surely collapse; once the foundation is solid, how many stories are built and how many windows are opened are beyond the foundation's governance. Changing this single word, human agency still bears room; that line from chapter forty-one is raised one layer upward here: what the layer down below gives is position, not a final verdict. Moreover, these two layers bite into each other: a paper decree pulls a child out from under a well, and a single command can make the chessboard grow bigger or smaller; that table in chapter forty-seven that lets both ends speak was precisely given by that upper layer.
What this chapter sets firm is this layer: material things come first, and this sequence bears no exception, yet it speaks of sequence, not high or low; that good plain-spoken line is accepted all the same, yet its origin lies with Guan Zhong; and the foundation supports the upper layer, rather than determining everything. At the end, one more layer is added, which is where this set of books differs most from that line: why does the same foundation grow different buildings? A layer of soil must be laid further beneath, and that layer of soil is called culture. Thus what this book set lays out are three layers: culture is the root, economy is the foundation, and politics and law are the upper layer; this layer is reserved for chapter fifty to speak of head-on, while this chapter merely sets the positions well. With the relationship between foundation and upper layer set firm, a very real question follows: where is that boundary between these two layers? The next chapter speaks of this, speaking still of that line from the ancestors: Not being in that position, counsel not on its governance.
Table of Contents for This Chapter
Section 1: Material Things Come First, This Sequence Bears No Exception
Section 3: The Foundation Supports the Upper Layer, Not That the Foundation Determines Everything
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section 1: Material Things Come First, This Sequence Bears No Exception