Week 8 · 22 February 2027 – 28 February 2027
No permanent rank
Chapter 8 Exalting the Worthy I
This week's question
Mozi says 'officials have no permanent rank and commoners no permanent lowliness; raise the capable, dismiss the incapable,' even farmers and artisans. Does your workplace, your community, or even your chapter work this way? If not, where is the block: no one sees the capable person, or they are seen and still not raised? Where it has been done, what happened?
This week's practice
This week, in one group you belong to, recommend by name someone who has no position but whose ability you have seen yourself, for a specific task. It need not be large, but the recommendation has to actually go out.
Introduction
Impartial care and opposing aggression are about whom to treat well. The six weeks beginning now are about how to govern. The three chapters on honoring the worthy are Mozi's personnel system.
尚贤上, Honoring the Worthy I, starts directly. Every ruler wants a rich state, a large population and orderly government, and usually gets the opposite. Why? "Because the rulers who govern do not honor the worthy and employ the capable." With many worthy officers a state is well governed; with few, badly. So "the business of a ruler is nothing but to make the worthy many."
How? Mozi's answer is practical: pay for it. "If you want many skilled archers and charioteers in your state, you must make them rich, honored, respected and praised." The same goes for the worthy. The sage kings "showed no favor to fathers and brothers, no partiality to the rich and noble, no fondness for good looks." "The worthy were raised up, made rich and honored, and made officials; the unworthy were held down and dismissed, made poor and lowly, and made laborers."
Then the line quoted for two thousand years: "Officials have no permanent rank, and the people no permanent lowliness. Raise those with ability; dismiss those without." And immediately after, a sentence that still lands: "Even among farmers and workers in the shops, whoever has ability shall be raised."
Note that Mozi's "worthy" is not empty virtue-talk. He gives criteria in this chapter: sound in conduct, capable in speech, broad in method and skill. Character, communication, competence. All three.
This chapter bears directly on the Community. Chapter leads and assignment heads are chosen on this principle: whoever does the job well does it, and whoever does not is replaced.
The three tests
This chapter uses the first and third tests together. Precedent: the sage kings' refusal to favor relatives and the rich. Application: honoring the worthy brings order; neglecting it brings disorder.
Mozi also uses an everyday observation as a second test: a ruler who needs an ox butchered finds a good butcher, who needs a robe finds a good tailor, but when governing the state he turns to relatives and the rich. That is a contradiction anyone can see.
Ask: where today are farmers and artisans "raised for ability"? What stands in the way?
For families
- Ask a child: is the most diligent person in class the class monitor? If not, why not?
- Tell the butcher and tailor comparison: who do you call to butcher an ox? To sew a robe? Then who should run a state?
- Try "raise the capable" once when dividing chores: whoever does a task best does it, regardless of age or habit.
For chapters
- Reading: the passage "officials have no permanent rank," and the passage "even among farmers and workers in the shops."
- Debate: bring the question home to the chapter. Are our assignments allocated by ability? Who should change this year? The chapter lead should invite criticism of themselves during this part.
- Three-tests review: record the selection criteria the chapter currently uses. Compare them in week 10 with 尚贤下.