治本

What is the root of governing people? Without the five grains there is nothing to fill bellies; without silk and hemp there is nothing to cover bodies. Therefore fullness depends on grain, and clothing depends on thread.

When the husband is weeding in the fields and the wife is working the loom, and the people have no secondary occupations, then they accumulate surplus. When men have no work of ornamental carving and engraving, and women have no work of embroidery and decorative weaving -- when wooden vessels are simply lacquered and metal vessels simply cast -- then the sages drank from earthenware and ate from earthenware. They shaped clay into vessels, and All-Under-Heaven had no waste.

Today, metal and wood by nature do not feel cold, yet they are dressed in embroidered coverings. Horses and cattle by nature eat grass and drink water, yet they are fed beans and grain. This is governance that has lost its root -- the regulations need to be redesigned.

In spring and summer, men go out to the southern fields; in autumn and winter, women work at refining cloth. Then the people would not be in difficulty. Yet today, short jackets cannot cover their bodies and chaff cannot fill their bellies -- governance has failed.

In ancient times, the soil was no more fertile and the people no more diligent. What did the ancients gain that we have lost? Some do not finish plowing a single acre, some break off weaving in the middle of the day -- and then wonder about hunger and cold! It is simply that the governance of antiquity was practiced, while today's governance has stopped.

What is meant by governance is making the people have no private interests. When the people have no private interests, All-Under-Heaven becomes one family, without private farming or private weaving. They share each other's cold and share each other's hunger. Whether a family has ten children or one, rations neither increase nor decrease. Where then is there room for carousing and drunkenness to corrupt good people?

When people treat each other with contempt and frivolity, desires arise and the troubles of contention begin. When lawlessness springs from even one man, people hoard private food stores and private wealth. When someone violates prohibitions and is restrained by criminal punishment -- how can this be considered good governance?

Good governance holds to its regulations and ensures the people have no private interests. When those below dare not act for private gain, no one commits offenses. Return to the root, follow principle, and proceed from a single unified way: then desires depart, contention ceases, prisons stand empty, fields are full, grain is abundant, the people are secure, distant peoples are attracted, there are no difficulties abroad and no violent disturbances at home. This is the perfection of governance.

The vast expanse of heaven -- no one knows its limits. Among rulers of emperors and kings -- who sets the standard? Past ages cannot be reached; future ages cannot be waited for. One can only look to oneself.

The Son of Heaven possesses four qualities: first, divine clarity of judgment; second, radiance that illuminates all; third, a grand system of order; fourth, invincibility. These are the affairs of the Son of Heaven.

Wild game is not fit for sacrificial offerings; scattered learning does not make a comprehensive scholar.

Today's persuaders say: 'A sea of a hundred li cannot quench one man's thirst; a spring of three feet can satisfy the thirst of three armies.' I say: desire arises from the absence of standards, and depravity arises from the absence of prohibitions.

The highest form of governance transforms people unconsciously. The next best works with circumstances. The lowest merely avoids taking the people's time and depleting the people's wealth.

Prohibitions must be enforced through military force; rewards must be achieved through civil culture.