Chapter 80第80章

Let there be a small country with few people. Let there be tools tenfold and hundredfold beyond their need, yet no one uses them. Let people take death seriously and not travel far. Though there are boats and carriages, no one rides them. Though there are weapons and armor, no one displays them. Let people return to knotting cords and using them. Let them find their food sweet, their clothing beautiful, their homes comfortable, their customs joyful. Neighboring countries can see each other, hear each other's roosters and dogs — yet people grow old and die without ever visiting each other. Now, this isn't really a political program — it's a vision of contentment. When you're truly at home where you are, what is there to seek elsewhere?

A small country, few people. Implements tenfold and hundredfold — unused. People treat death as weighty and do not travel far. Though there are boats and carriages, no one rides them. Though there are armor and weapons, no one deploys them. Let people return to knotted cords for their records. Sweet their food, beautiful their clothing, peaceful their dwellings, joyful their customs. Neighboring states in sight of each other, hearing each other's roosters and dogs — people grow old and die without coming and going between them. Now, this is the most radical vision in the text — a complete rejection of progress, of empire, of globalization, of the whole project of civilization as we know it. And I think it's essentially a description of what indigenous life actually looked like before the dominator culture arrived. Not poverty — abundance. Not isolation — sufficiency. Not ignorance — contentment. It's the archaic revival as political philosophy. Small scale. Local. Complete.

Wang Bi makes a fascinating rhetorical move here: even a small state with few people can be returned to the ancient simplicity — how much more so a great state with many people! He begins from the small to imply the large. The idea that people might have tenfold and hundredfold tools but not use them means: when there is no insufficiency, no felt lack, what worry could there be? The people value their own lives and do not travel far. Though there are boats and carriages, no one rides in them. Though there are armor and weapons, no one displays them. The people return to knotting cords — to the simplest technologies. They relish their food, find their clothes beautiful, are content in their dwellings, and delight in their customs. Neighboring states are so close they can see each other and hear each other's roosters and dogs — and yet the people grow old and die without ever visiting one another. Wang Bi says: 'There is nothing they seek or desire.' The entire vision rests on the absence of craving — not enforced isolation, but the natural contentment that makes travel and acquisition unnecessary.

Wang Bi's reading of this chapter begins with a remarkable rhetorical strategy: 「國院小民寡尚可使反古況國大民衆乎」 — if even a small state with few people can return to the ancient ways, how much more so a great state with many! He argues from the harder case to the easier, implying that simplicity scales. The tools — 什伯之器 — exist but are not used. Wang Bi says 「言使有什伯之器而無所用何憂不足也」 — when these tools exist but there is no occasion to use them, what insufficiency could there be to worry about? This is not primitivism; it is post-scarcity. The tools are available but unnecessary because needs are met at a more fundamental level. The people value their bodies — 「惟身是貴」 — and do not travel far. Their food is sweet, their clothing fine, their dwellings comfortable, their customs joyful. Neighboring states are visible and audible — the roosters crow across the border — yet the people never visit each other. 「無所欲求」 — there is nothing they desire or seek. This is not isolation imposed by walls or law but satiation so complete that movement becomes pointless. And I think what Wang Bi is describing is essentially the aboriginal condition — the state before the dominator culture installed the engine of infinite desire. It is not a regression but a recognition that sufficiency, when genuine, dissolves the entire apparatus of seeking.