Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 277 A Perfect Businessman Is a Slave to Money
After understanding these situations, it is not difficult to analyze the future development.

"In my opinion, even if the Ming Dynasty learns to use machines, it will not adopt the same method as us." He told Theodora: "Of course, this may not be a problem...they are too big. Just find a way to get used to it.”

"I don't know how they will solve the cost problem." Theodora hesitated.

"Maybe there is no need to solve it." Guo Kang asserted: "According to the businessmen's point of view, only by lowering the price of hiring labor can we gain a competitive advantage, but in fact this may not be the case-at least for Serris."

"Oh? Is there an example of this?" Theodora asked curiously.

"Their work is the same as fighting." Guo Kang used an analogy to make it easier for her to understand: "The money given is small, and the cost is low, but the craftsmen have no motivation, and the things they make are a waste of materials. It seems that there are Competitive advantage, in fact, is very inefficient, and even outweighs the gain.”

"Is that so..."

Guo Kang nodded confidently.

The current Ming Dynasty can't see it yet, but in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, this can be regarded as the most typical situation.

The ordnance produced by the court itself was unusable. One of the reasons why the muskets could not be replaced was that the quality of the barrel was too poor. If the matchlock gun was replaced with a long and thin barrel, it would directly become a "blasting barrel".Armor, artillery, etc., also have their own problems.

In response, some officials proposed to go to Macau to buy firearms from the Portuguese.For this reason, the Ming Dynasty purchased several batches of ordnance from the Bucarao Cannon Factory in Macau, and it was very popular because of its good quality.

But what is more funny is that the Bogarao Cannon Factory is not an "authentic" pure Western-style ordnance factory.At that time, compared with Europe, the metallurgical technology of the Ming Dynasty had advantages in many aspects, especially in cast iron.Therefore, the Bugarao Cannon Factory not only absorbed a lot of Ming Dynasty technology, but even many of the craftsmen in the factory were directly hired from Guangdong.

Their weapons, especially iron guns, are the Ming Dynasty's own technology.The workers who produced ordnance were also craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty. Why did they change their place and the quality was so good that they sold well in East Asia and even returned to Europe?
The reason is actually very simple, because the Portuguese were relatively "simple" at that time, and they basically did as much as they were paid.As for the Ministry of Industry's own ordnance factory, after a series of complicated distribution and exploitation by the court officials, there is no money to be distributed to the grassroots.If you don't have enough money, you won't be able to make reliable things.

The same goes for armor.The armor technology of the Ming Dynasty was not far behind. The armor of Zheng Chenggong left a deep impression on the Dutch.According to the records of the Dutch, the soldiers of the Zheng army in heavy armor could even shoot at the Dutch soldiers against the bullets that kept hitting them.However, the Ming army's own armor has never been very eye-catching, and its biggest effect is to hold back during wartime.

In the final analysis, this kind of situation is not a technical problem, but simply money being greedy too much and not giving enough...

In the end, the Portuguese in the south, the Zheng family in the southeast, and the Houjin in the northeast... Anyway, they are all forces, and they are all doing better than the Ming Dynasty itself.

For Guo Kang, this example came at his fingertips - because the phenomenon at that time was too famous.

"Conversely, if they are given enough money, they won't be afraid of the cost." Guo Kang thought for a while, and found that the other direction also makes sense: "The method of reducing labor costs is for the useless European slave labor. It may be the most appropriate, but for the large number of professional craftsmen in the East, it is probably not the case."

European factory owners kept labor costs as low as possible and used machines.But even so, in the early days of industrialization, their production efficiency was at a disadvantage, even inferior to the handicraftsmen in the south of the Yangtze River.

In 1844, a British came to Fujian to investigate, collected samples of various local cotton cloths of different textures, recorded the prices, and sent them back to the UK for comparison.After returning, the British businessmen were surprised to find that the factories in Manchester could not make it according to the price they bid.And Fujian was not considered the most developed and efficient place in the textile industry at that time.

If this is the case in the UK, it will be even worse in other countries.For example, the United States, in the 19th century, could only rely on large quantities of gold and silver exports in exchange for Chinese goods.

From 1805 to 1844, the trade deficit between the two countries was as high as 39%. In the ten years from 1805 to 1815, the United States exported 2270 million US dollars of gold and silver to China, while the goods exported to China during the same period were only 1000 million. USD, and almost all low-end products such as crops and minerals.

In addition, at that time, the United States was introduced to the Qing Dynasty by France (Louis XVI had a very good relationship with the United States and the Qing Dynasty), and the Qing Dynasty even believed for a long time that the United States was a vassal of France and an African country that provided raw materials to France.

Compared with British products, American textiles were inferior, so much so that in 1850, the American consul was still complaining to the country, saying that a large number of American fabrics were backlogged at the port and could not be sold at a price.

Therefore, there is a conclusion that is very counterintuitive: the production efficiency of sweatshops is actually very low.Even though the treatment of Jiangnan craftsmen is much higher than that of English workers, there is still no obvious cost disadvantage.This idea of ​​forcibly reducing labor costs, although in line with the most simple and direct thinking, is not correct like many other "common senses".

"In this way, we can actually retain promotion channels in slave labor factories." Thinking of this, Guo Kang added: "Don't push too hard at ordinary times, and with incentives, it will be better than simply driving slaves." more efficient."

"Even English slaves?" Theodora asked doubtfully.

"Even if it's from England." Guo Kang nodded affirmatively.

In the early 19th century, the British Owen conducted an experiment.He bought a piece of land in the United States and tried to build a utopian settlement.In the settlement, there is a factory. According to Owen's vision, people only work here for 10 hours a day.For other factories of the same era, this time may not have an upper limit.

Utopian settlements eventually failed due to an overly idealistic design.But only this factory not only survived, but also made money.This surprised people at the time.It was also on the basis of this discovery that Owen continued to experiment, which resulted in the idea of ​​an eight-hour working system.

"This conclusion is a bit strange." Theodora said frankly: "If reducing working hours improves the overall efficiency, why do all businessmen like to ask employees to work more?"

"Because this conclusion is drawn through scientific analysis, and science is often contrary to common sense." Guo Kang replied: "Besides, if a person does business only to make money, then he is a saint in the business field. Usually, it is There can't be such a person."

"An idealized businessman would accept everything in order to make money, but a real businessman..." Guo Kang spread his hands: "They may make decisions for their own pleasure. Many unimaginable decisions appear in this way—speaking of which If you don't feel comfortable being a boss, you're not a slave to money."

"It seems to be... the same as ruling a country." Theodora thought for a while, and said with emotion: "Perhaps, a perfect businessman should be a slave to money and should not consider other things. A perfect rule Or... shouldn't it be the same?"

(End of this chapter)