VOLUME V, CHAPTER 9
Law and Scarcity, the Longest Line of All, Land
Part Three dug the real position of the law down to output. This part follows that root downward and asks the most fundamental question, why does law exist at all. This chapter is the head of the part. It sets the root proposition first, then opens scarcity itself, then walks the most solid kind, land, across three thousand years.
The first section asks, if resources were endless, would we still need law, and the answer is no, and from that question it draws the root proposition. The law is a tool made under scarce output, by the strong, to hold the scarce thing alone and to check the grabbing of the weak. Han Fei and Huang Zongxi saw through it long ago. This is the twenty-sixth layer.
The second section breaks scarcity into four kinds, material, position, relationship, and culture, each more hidden than the last, and the more abstract the kind, the greater the force it spends sorting out a life. This is the twenty-seventh layer.
The third section digs the largest and most solid kind, land. China from the well-field system to the merging of the head tax into the land tax, the West from the Twelve Tables to the enclosures, the two long lines set side by side. The strong wore out one name after another, the holding alone never changed, and Wang Mang and the Gracchi brothers gave their lives trying to change it. This is the twenty-eighth layer.
These three sections build from the twenty-sixth layer to the twenty-eighth, set the root under why law exists firmly, and walk its most solid sample once through. This chapter is dense with history and wide in span, but its root is one line, output falls short, scarcity stays, the strong write law to hold it alone. The stance has not shifted. It sets down only facts, draws no verdict, and leaves the judgment to you.
Contents
Section One. Law Is a Tool for the Struggle over Scarce Resources.
Section Two. The Several Forms of Scarce Resources.
Section Three. The Strong Write Law to Hold It Alone, the Line of Land.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.