Jin Xin II · Passage 27 / 38 · 孟子 7B.27
Mencius 7B.27: why insist that taxes in goods
Mencius distinguishes cloth, grain, and labor-service exactions, insisting that a ruler should press only one at a time or the people will starve and families.
孟子曰：「有布縷之征，粟米之征，力役之征。君子用其一，緩其二。用其二而民有殍；用其三而父子離。」
Mencius said, 'There are the exactions of hempen-cloth and silk, of grain, and of personal service. The prince requires but one of these at once, deferring the other two. If he require two of them at once, then the people die of hunger. If he require the three at once, then fathers and sons are separated.'
Priority note
A human-edited reading layer
Central question
Why does Mencius insist that taxes in goods, grain, and labor must not all be pressed on the people together?
Direct answer
Because ordinary life has a threshold beneath which it cannot sustain itself. If clothing, food, and labor capacity are all taken at once, the basis of survival and family support collapses.
First principle
A state that does not leave the people room to reproduce life is using extraction in a way that destroys its own foundation.
Why it matters
This passage serves searches around taxation, labor service, and Mencius on livelihood, while clarifying how humane government begins from respecting the people's floor of survival.
Further reading
What this passage is doing
This is passage 27 of 38 in Jin Xin II. The cleanest entry point is "There are the exactions of hempen-cloth and silk,…". In context, it works as part of Mencius's argument about knowing words, knowing destiny, and the completion of cultivation and can be read alongside Humane government / kingly way.
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Jin Xin II treats knowing words, knowing destiny, and the judgments proper to mature cultivation together.
Related principles
Citation note
Do not reduce it to a simple anti-tax slogan. Mencius is analyzing the total structure of extraction and the point at which it becomes socially ruinous.