When people are hungry, it is because their rulers eat too much tax-grain.
Therefore the unruliness of hungry people is due to the interference of their rulers. That is why they are unruly.
The people are not afraid of death, because they are anxious to make a living. That is why they are not afraid of death.
It is those who interfere not with their living that are wise in exalting life.
(Tao Teh King 75)
When people are hungry, it is because their rulers eat too much tax-grain. Wu: “Why are the people starving? Because those above them are taxing them too heavily. That is why they are starving.” This is certainly true in many instances.
Therefore the unruliness of hungry people is due to the interference of their rulers. That is why they are unruly.
Civil disobedience often results from government interference that is unjust, foolish and destructive. I am sorry to say that famines have been engineered by governments that wanted to prove that without them the people could not survive. Their friends in high places ignored the fact that the people were not surviving at all! The wife of a former governor of Madras State during the British Raj told me that her husband had engineered famines in the Madras State that brought about the deaths of tens of thousands of Indians. One time he collaborated with the governor of Bombay State to sell rotten rice (her words) to the Madras State. In this way the Bombay State governor got rich and thousands died of starvation in Madras State. And the British Raj told the world: “If we were not here things would be much worse, even impossible!” And a foolish, gullible world believed it. The much vaunted poverty of India was a result of one thousand years of exploitive tyranny: seven hundred years of Moslem domination and three hundred years of British domination. It took nearly fifty years to recover from this blight, but today India is well on its way to becoming a major economic force in the world. Jai Hind!
The people are not afraid of death, because they are anxious to make a living. That is why they are not afraid of death. Wu: “Why do people make light of death? Because those above them make too much of life. That is why they make light of death. The people have simply nothing to live upon! They know better than to value such a life!” Feng and English: “Why do the people think so little of death? Because the rulers demand too much of life.”
Governments often create poverty so the people will be so desperate in their struggle to live that they will either be distracted from the evils of those governments or too busy barely living that they have no time or inclination to protest, much less rid themselves of such a government. Some Russian friends told me that in the heyday of the Soviet Union the people used to say: “If the Soviet government was put in charge of the Sahara desert, within a week there would be a shortage of sand.” Stupidity and cunning often combine to perpetuate what Lao Tzu is discussing.
It is those who interfere not with their living that are wise in exalting life. Mabry: “Therefore, it seems that one who does not grasp this life too tightly is better off than one who clings.” Feng and English: “Having little to live on, one knows better than to value life too much.” There seems to be no consensus among translators as to the meaning of these words, so apparently we can choose which we prefer. There certainly is a difference between living and life. As I read once long ago: “Most people make a living, but very few make a life.”
Next in the Tao Teh King for Awakening: Hard and Soft