VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 6

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 6

Saving the Laborer: What Labor Earns Goes to the One Who Labored, and There Is Enough

The last section set the word labor straight, and broke open the panic in the laborer, and showed that the source of that panic is an old chain welding staying alive to having a job. This section first sets up a plainest fairness—that what labor earns goes to the one who labored—and once that is clear, the chain begins to loosen. Then it tells how that chain is loosened all the way, by one enormous thing: there is, for the first time, enough.

I. What Labor Earns Goes to the One Who Labored

This fairness is a single line: what labor earns goes to the one who labored. You put in the effort, shed the sweat, spent the time, and the gain that comes of it is yours. This is the plainest, the least-to-be-argued-over fairness under heaven. The first section said it—Confucius said do not worry that there is too little, worry that it is shared unfairly, and Zhu Xi glossed that fair sharing as each getting his due, every person getting the share that is his. And what is the share due to the one who labors? It is the gain his effort earned. That gain goes to him, and no one may take it from him for nothing.

You will say, but is this not plain as day? The money I earned working is of course mine—does this even need saying? Do not rush. This fairness that looks so plain is, today, being quietly destroyed by a hand.

Think of one thing. A worker in a factory, in one month, by his strength and his time, creates ten thousand in value for that factory. But the wage that reaches his hand is three thousand. That remaining seven thousand, where did it go? You will say, well, that is only right. The plant is the boss's, the machines are the boss's, the boss carries the risk, so the boss draws off a part, and that is as it should be. Right, this is not wrong. Capital, that tool, as the last section said, gathers the money, builds the plant, carries the risk, organizes everyone into production, and it should have its return. This is the fairness of capital's share within distribution according to labor. Capital, too, put in its effort—gathering, organizing, bearing the risk—and capital, too, should get its share. Up to here, it is all fair.

But look one step further. That remaining seven thousand, the part drawn off, is it a reasonable share, or is it a great chunk wrung away? The boss draws off two thousand and leaves the worker eight thousand—that is one thing. The boss draws off nine thousand five hundred and throws the worker five hundred—that is another thing entirely. The first is capital getting its due share and labor getting its due share, both of them fair. The second is capital, leaning on its holding of the plant, its holding of the machines, its holding of the leverage that if you will not do it there are plenty who will, wringing away the great share that should have gone to labor. That is no longer a dividend. That is wringing.

Wrung to the extreme, what does it look like? It looks like the sweatshop from the last section, where a person works himself half to death and gets back only a mouthful to keep him alive, and the overwhelming most of what he created is wrung away by that hand. At that point, the fairness of what labor earns going to the one who labored is destroyed utterly. The one who labors puts in ten parts of effort and takes back one, and the nine parts are wrung away. In name he is a laborer, and in fact he has been wrung into a slave.

So the crux of the fairness of what labor earns going to the one who labored is not whether labor should share a little to capital. It should—capital deserves its share. The crux is that capital must not, leaning on its leverage, wring away the great share that should have gone to labor. The gain labor earns by its effort, the greater share of it must go to labor itself, and capital gets its reasonable share, and does not wring.

Let me draw this line clearer still for you, lest someone fish in muddy water. Capital gathered the money, built the plant, carried the risk, and takes a return, and this is as it should be, and no one should be envious of it, no one should call it wringing. But this share has to be a reasonable share, a share that matches the effort it put in and the risk it bore. If it takes only that matching share, then it is a proper capital, and labor and capital each get their due, and there is peace between them. But if it leans on its holding of the plant, its holding of the machines, its holding of the leverage that plenty are lined up to do the work if you will not, and scrapes away the great share that should have gone to labor, skin and flesh together, then what it takes is no longer a return—it is wringing. One takes a reasonable return, and one scrapes away skin and flesh, and what lies between them is the line between fair and unfair.

So who is it destroying this fairness? Who is it turning the drawing-off of a reasonable share into the wringing-away of a great chunk? It is still that hand. It is still the hand this whole chapter has been burying along the way, to be brought out later. It is not all capital, not all bosses. The great majority who run factories, who do business, draw off a reasonable share and leave labor the share it should keep, both of them fair, at peace with each other, and they themselves, as the last section said, are also people holding capital, also people to be saved. The ones destroying this fairness are that small clutch who, leaning on their holding of a monstrous mass of capital, leaning on the leverage that if you will not do it you starve, wring the one who labors half to death.

Set this fairness straight, and that old chain begins to loosen. Look back at that welded chain from the last section—staying alive welded to having a job. Why is it welded so dead, why does it bind so hard? Because the one who labors puts in ten parts of effort and takes back only one, the great share wrung away, so that he cannot save, cannot catch his breath, cannot step back, and can only clutch that job dead fast, for the moment he lets go he cannot live. But set the fairness of what labor earns going to the one who labored straight, so that the great share of what labor earns goes to labor itself, and capital takes only its reasonable share and is not allowed to wring, and then the one who labors has some room in his hands, can catch his breath, and no longer has to weld his life to one job. Straighten this fairness by one part, and that chain loosens by one part.

II. There Is, for the First Time, Enough—and the Laborer Can Pick the Work He Is Glad to Do

That old chain welding staying alive to having a job, how is it loosened all the way? By one enormous thing: there is, for the first time, enough.

Sit steady to hear this, because it is the biggest turn of this whole chapter, and even of this whole book. In thousands of years, humanity never once met this thing. This time, it has met it.

Look back over humanity's long road. For thousands of years, why did people live so bitterly, so hard-pressed? Underneath it all is one word: shortage. Things were not enough. The grain scratched out of the ground was barely enough to eat, and a bad year starved people. Clothing, goods, housing, every one of them tight. Things were not enough, so you could only toil for your life—no going to the field meant no food, no putting in effort meant nothing to wear. Humanity's whole way of living, that whole old chain of "you must have a job to stay alive," was rooted from the start in that word: shortage. Because things were short, staying alive could only be tied to working, and could not be loosened. This chain was welded for thousands of years, welded dead fast, because for thousands of years that word, shortage, never once changed.

But now, that word, shortage, has, for the first time, changed. This great AI turning, together with the machines and the productive power piled up over the last few hundred years, has driven things to a height humanity has never seen. Things are no longer short. Things are piled up in mountains. You do not believe it, then open your eyes and look. The first volume reckoned this account: to what degree are things piled up in this world today? Grain, so much it cannot be eaten, so much it rots in the silos and is poured into the sea. Clothing, so much it cannot be worn, new clothes burned by the ton as trash. Things, made cheaper than cabbage. Look at those cabbage-price things—a shirt for a few dollars, a cup for a few cents—why so cheap? Because they are made too many, so many they are worth nothing.

This is humanity's first-time thing: that things have gone from not-enough to enough, even to more than can be used. That word, shortage, which welded the chain, is gone. And with shortage gone, that welded chain—staying alive welded to having a job—the base it was welded onto has melted. Think about it, why was that chain welded so dead? Because things were short, and no work meant no food. Now that things are not short, now that they are piled in mountains, does that saying, "no work means no food," still hold? It does not hold. There is enough for everyone, always was enough, and it does not lack the little that those few not working would have saved. So that chain is loosened. Loosened all the way.

Understand how enormous this thing is. All of humanity's thousands of years, all its fighting, all its grabbing, all its bitterness, dug down to the bottom, was all because of that word: shortage. Things were not enough, so you had to fight, had to grab, had to toil for your life, had to weld staying alive dead fast to working, could not loosen your grip. The sages preached morality for thousands of years, urging people not to fight, not to grab, but so long as that word shortage remained, the fighting and grabbing could not stop, because not to fight, not to grab, truly meant you could not live. This deadknot that thousands of years could not untie is today untied, from underneath, by machines and AI—not by preaching people into being good, but by making things enough. Once things are truly enough, the very cause that forced people to fight, to grab, to weld their lives to their work, is gone of its own accord. This is an enormous good, a good humanity has met for the first time in thousands of years.

Once the chain is loosened, this thing of AI taking over your work changes its flavor completely. While the old chain was welded, AI's taking over your work meant you had lost your job, meant you could not live, and that was a disaster. Once the old chain is loosened, AI's taking over your work means you no longer have to do that tiring, wearisome work, and yet you still will not starve, because there is enough, and that is a liberation. The same thing, AI taking over your work, under the welded chain is a life-taking disaster, and under the loosened chain is a liberation come to lift your load. The difference is not in AI. It is in that chain, whether it is loosened or not.

And after the chain is loosened, what kind of days does the laborer live? Not lying flat from then on, doing nothing. People cannot sit idle—the second chapter said it, idle too long and trouble comes. The laborer still labors, still puts in his effort, still does things. But the frame of mind in which he labors is utterly changed. Before, he was driven by that chain to labor, and no labor meant starving, so however tiring, however wearisome, however much he had to swallow, he had to grit his teeth and do it—he had no choice. From now on, he picks the labor he is glad to do, for he will not starve anyway, and he no longer has to, for a single mouthful, go and do that job he hates, the one that wears him to the bone and makes him read another man's face besides. He can pick a thing he truly is glad to do, truly is able to do, truly finds some meaning in. He puts in his effort because he wants to, because he is glad to, not because if he does not he dies.

Savor this turn. From being driven to do a job you have no choice but to do, to picking a thing you are glad to do, this is the laborer walking, from the very edge of the slave, all the way back to a free person. The first section said that distribution according to labor has, over slavery, the gains of dignity and freedom. And it is only after there is enough that this freedom and this dignity are truly given in full. The laborer can at last not have to sell himself for a mouthful, and can pick the thing he is glad to do.

Think what a blessing this is. In thousands of years, how few people could ever pick the work they were glad to do? The overwhelming majority, all their lives, did the work they had no choice but to do—for a mouthful, for a family, gritting their teeth, swallowing their grievances, going against their own hearts, a whole life long. The ones who got to do the thing they truly loved were, from ancient times, a very few blessed people. But after there is enough, this blessing that once belonged only to a few can, for the first time, fall to every ordinary person. Every laborer can pick a thing he is glad to do, a thing that suits his heart. This is truly to treat a person as a person, to let a person live out the shape of a person.

This is the whole method of this section's saving of the laborer. Set the fairness of what labor earns going to the one who labored straight, so capital takes only its reasonable share and is not allowed to wring. Then, by that enormous thing—there is, for the first time, enough—loosen all the way that old chain welding staying alive to having a job. Once the chain is loosened, AI's taking over the tiring work becomes a liberation, and the laborer will not starve, and can pick the work he is glad to do, and turns from a laborer driven to fill his belly back into a free, honorable laboring person with dignity. The next section saves the third kind, the one who lives on capital. It speaks of the thing that takes the fiercest cursing, and that in truth every one of us is: the capitalist. It goes to take that frightening hat off, and to tell you that you, too, are a capitalist, and that the capitalist is not the enemy.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.