1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 88 Big Machine Production

Lawrence Knight came naturally for the “power pill” that can perform miracles. But after he explained his intentions, Scrooge shrugged at him, spread his hands and said, “My friend, I’m sorry, I can’t agree to your request, whether it’s authorized production or patented shares.”

“Why?” Lawrence asked, “If you are dissatisfied with my terms, or if you have any new suggestions, we can talk about it.”

“Ah, my friend, you have misunderstood.” Scrooge said, “As far as I am concerned, of course I am willing to continue our cooperation. But, um, maybe you are in a hurry and didn’t notice today’s news. “Scrooge said, picking up a newspaper from the coffee table and handing it to Lawrence.

Lawrence took the newspaper, glanced suspiciously, and saw a line of black words on the headline: “The House of Representatives passed a resolution to restrict the export of key technologies related to national security.”

“Mr. Lawrence, you know, when my business is big and I make more money, people will naturally look at me unpleasantly. So, um, someone has come up with such a thing.” Scrooge showed helplessness. “Although it is only passed by the House of Representatives and not considered by the Senate, this thing has not yet become a bill, but at this time, it is not appropriate for us to talk about this matter. If someone knows it, he will detain me. It’s a traitor. Of course, I’m working hard in the Senate. If the Senate rejects this bill, it’s okay for us to continue to cooperate on this issue.”

This situation is obviously beyond Lawrence’s expectations. Who knows how the United States Congress suddenly jumped out and went crazy.

“If your parliament continues to take such an approach that is not conducive to the freedom of business, the United Kingdom will not do nothing.” Lawrence thought for a while and said.

“I also hope that you can put a little pressure on the congressional gang to let them know that it is immoral to obstruct the freedom of trading.” Scrooge replied.

“If we can’t talk about cooperative production for the time being,” Lawrence said, “then we hope to be able to obtain sales agency rights in Europe.”

After listening to Lawrence, Scrooge sneered inwardly. “Daliwan” has now become a strategic material, and the benefits of being able to monopolize the sales of such things are of course very huge. If this is really done, the British can even use it to freely influence the situation in Europe. But because of this, such a condition cannot be promised anyway. Otherwise, Scrooge would be completely making wedding clothes for others.

“Mr. Lawrence, you should understand that such conditions are impossible to accept. There are both economic and political reasons. Moreover, I also dislike this kind of undermining the normal principles of free trade. . Therefore, I cannot agree to conditions such as whom I should not sell the product to but to whom it can only be sold. However, considering that we have been cooperating very happily, so in terms of the price, I can give His Royal Highness Some discounts. Of course, this is not without a price.”

Lawrence had almost figured it out now: Scrooge felt that he had enough power himself, and he was unwilling to easily share his own interests with others. Regarding this collaborator, the Prince did not fail to conduct serious investigations. Lawrence knew that Scrooge is now one of the most important sponsors of the Republican Party. In the North, the Republican Party has basically inherited the political legacy of the previous Whig Party. Whether in the House of Representatives, where the number of seats is determined by the number of seats, or the Senate, where the number of seats is determined by the number of states, Republicans and pro-Republican forces have already controlled the majority of seats (of course, this also made President Buchanan lame early. NS). Under such circumstances, if Scrooge was unwilling, how could the House of Representatives pass such a bill? This motion may have been created by Scrooge himself instructing others in order to use the power of the United States government to reject them and monopolize the profits that the “Dali Pill” can bring.

However, the more he understands this, the more frustrated Lawrence is. If it is in other countries, the British Empire can still use its powerful economic and military power to force the other party to submit. But for United States, it is not so easy. At a time when the situation in Europe is volatile, it is completely impossible to send troops to threaten United States. As for economic sanctions, well, the President of the United States may be very worried, but the gang of Republicans in the United States Congress are hoping to have trade frictions with the British. Because they want to rely on this opportunity to raise the tariffs of United States, so as to drive Europe, especially the British industrial products from the United States market, and make room for the industry in the north.

After thinking about this, the Lawrence Cavaliers felt particularly frustrated. Since he didn’t have a trump card in his hand that could make his opponent surrender, he could only stop and listen to his opponent’s opinion.

“Then Mr. MacDonald, what are your conditions?” Lawrence asked.

“Mr. Lawrence, we need to buy a lot of raw materials, saltpeter, opium, and many other things. Especially saltpeter and opium. If His Royal Highness can provide us with saltpeter and opium below the market price, we will naturally be able to offer more favorable prices. The price is to provide medicines to His Royal Highness. In this way, both of us will benefit. What do you think of this sale?”

Scrooge needed a lot of saltpeter, which was not beyond the expectations of the British. Just as many people in United States have seen the possibility of a civil war, the British have also noticed this. Many people are waiting for this war to break out, so that they can make a fortune. So Lawrence also understood that Scrooge must also know this, so he wanted to hoard a batch of saltpeter in advance to make a fortune. As for opium, because of previous cooperation, the British already know that one of the raw materials for the preparation of heroin, the magic drug that cures all diseases, is opium. They are happy that the opium they grow in India has new uses, and they certainly won’t object to the idea of ​​the United States to increase imports. As long as these manufactured products are not sold in British territories.So, after some bargaining, Lawrence and Scrooge finally reached a preliminary intent on buying “Dali Pills” and other businesses, and now they are waiting for the Prince’s final approval.

After sending this big customer away, Scrooge looked through the company’s order and found that now the production capacity of McDonald’s Chemical and Pharmaceutical Company has begun to become a bottleneck. Expansion of production is imperative, but the construction of a new factory takes time and is not urgent. Perhaps it is time to move out the big killer of assembly line production.

So, after spending a night, Scrooge studied the current production process in detail. Scrooge separated these disability processes into more than ten independent steps that were connected to each other, and then found them. The engineers in charge of production began to discuss how to improve the production process.

Compared with the previous production method, the production method of assembly line is a revolution. This is not only because in this mode of production, workers do not need to move or perform overly complex operations, which makes production more efficient, but also in the game between capitalists and workers, its appearance makes capitalists’ The advantages are even more obvious. First of all, in this mode of production, the difficulty of training workers is reduced. A worker will no longer need to be responsible for so many things, and naturally does not need to master so much technology. This makes it easier for capitalists to find qualified jobs. Workers, and the status of the original workers with “technology” has been relatively reduced. Second, in this way, it is easier for capitalists to increase labor intensity even higher. For example, the easiest way is to increase the speed of the conveyor belt. The amount of work that workers have to complete in the same working hours is ascending, so the labor intensity is unknowingly increased. Before the emergence of this production method, although the factory had been using machines for production, the production at this time was still workers using machines to produce. No matter how large the machines they used, it was still under the control of the workers. of. After adopting this method of assembly line production, the workers are no longer human at least when they are working. He was alienated into a part of the monster machine in the assembly line. Now, it is no longer that the machine is manipulating the production, but the machine itself is manipulating the production of the workers. This is the real large-scale machine production!

However, the more monotonous and unchanging repetitive operations, the easier it is to make people tired. Once the workers are exhausted, efficiency will drop rapidly and various errors will continue to occur. Therefore, in the original history of time and space, Ford, which was the first to use assembly line production, took the lead in providing workers with an 8-hour work system. This was not because of the conscience of capitalists claimed by some people. It is hard to imagine a person like Henry Ford. Anti-unionists openly declared that workers don’t need brains at all, they would really have such a conscience. In fact, the real reason is that not many people can maintain error-free work after more than eight hours of intensive labor on the assembly line. However, the characteristics of the assembly line make any error in one link interfere with other links. Therefore, when workers are allowed to work longer, the efficiency of making money is no longer as efficient as simply recruiting a group of workers.

But Scrooge has a way to break through this time limit, because he has the omnipotent “power pill” in his hands, but Scrooge does not intend to make the working hours longer. This is too obvious. He only intends to give the workers some “power pills” first, and then make the assembly line turn a little bit faster.