Governing as one household

Introduction

尚同下, Aligning Upward III, is the longest and most complete of the three. The first two built the frame; this one answers a practical question: how can one person possibly know what is happening across the world?

Mozi returns to method: "Only by governing through aligning upward to one standard can it be done." Then an analogy: "Govern the states of the world as you would govern one household; direct the people of the world as you would direct one person." It sounds like a totalitarian slogan, but the text immediately explains. The head of a household must know what happens in the house; the ruler of a state must know what happens in the state; the ruler of the world must know what happens in the world. Only then can good be rewarded and violence punished.

How does he know? Reporting, level by level, described in more detail this time: "So the village head follows the Son of Heaven's policy and unifies the standard of his village." Having unified his village, he leads it to align with the district head; the district head unifies the district and aligns with the lord; the lord unifies the state and aligns with the Son of Heaven. Each level is responsible for its own alignment and reports to the next. Only so can "the Son of Heaven unify the standard of the world" and the world be governed.

He also handles an objection: some say aligning upward is a tool for the Son of Heaven to suppress the people. On the contrary, Mozi answers, it is "the root of government and the essential of order": the people's good proposals can reach the top, evils can be removed, rewards and punishments have grounds. That is in the people's interest.

At the end he stresses that this is not idle talk: rulers and gentlemen who "wish to enrich their states, multiply their people, order their government and secure their altars cannot fail to examine aligning upward."

Having read all three, you can summarize 尚同 in three sentences. Without a shared standard there is no cooperation (I). The value of a shared standard is that information flows up and down (II). Information flows because each level takes responsibility for itself and reports upward (III). That is the Community's structure: chapter, region, council, each level responsible for itself, each reporting upward, and the council itself bound by 墨者之法.

The three tests

All three tests appear. Precedent: how the sage kings "unified the standard of the world." Evidence: the everyday experience of running a household; everyone knows a parent must know what happens at home. Application: align upward and there is order; fail to and there is disorder.

With all three chapters read, run 尚同 as a whole through the three tests. Has any organization in history done "align upward, no cliques" well? (first test) Have we seen one ourselves? (second) What became of them? (third)

For families

• Ask a child: do the parents know everything that happens at home? If not, how could they find out?
• Explain "govern the world as one household," then ask: how does a family make decisions? Could a country do the same? Where does it differ?
• Let a child be "village head" for a week: report the state of their room (or the pet, or the plants) once a day.

For chapters

• Reading: the passage "govern the states of the world as one household," and from "the village head follows the Son of Heaven's policy" to "aligns with the Son of Heaven."
• Debate: focus on whether it still works once the group grows. Ask those who drew the reporting chain in the practice to show it.
• Three-tests review: run the three 尚同 chapters through the three tests as a whole and file the conclusion as three sentences. This is the first summary week of the half-year.