Film and Television: Starting from the Journey to Guandong

Chapter 123 No food to eat (1w)

During the dance dinner held on the night when the Shanghai Chinese Business Association was established, Zhu Chuanren kept a low profile and hid himself in the crowd. He neither took his female companion to the dance floor nor clinked glasses with others from time to time. He just sat there by himself, holding a cup in his hand. Glass of champagne, looking at the strange things in front of me.

On the contrary, Zhu Laowu, who was brought in by him, kept walking among the guests with a wine glass in hand. He could chat with everyone and even drink a drink when the conversation was interesting.

"Dear Zhu, long time no see!"

Zhu Chuanren turned his head and saw Helen walking gracefully with Maris on her arm.

Maris is now the general director of the Ministry of Industry Bureau, but his hobby is not in work. He prefers to play. He can be seen at all upscale dance parties in the Magic City.

"Long time no see, Mr. General Manager~"

"Oh~ My dear Zhu, I don't like this title." Maris pretended to be dissatisfied and came over to sit next to Zhu Chuanren.

"That was a joke, Gordon."

"Ha, okay, you caught me~"

Helen stepped forward and hugged Zhu Chuanren. She got married four years ago and gave birth to a daughter, but her husband has returned to China. Although there is no divorce in name, it is no different from divorce.

"Is your married life still happy?" Zhu Chuanren asked.

"Don't mention this~" Helen patted him and sat on the other side.

"Ha~ You two brothers and sisters are really..."

Zhu Chuanren was very convinced by their characters.

"Let's talk more seriously, dear Zhu. There is a big deal. I wonder if you are interested."

"I'm interested in anything that can make money, Gordon, tell me."

"Okay, I know, even if I asked a boring question, you know, there is a global economic depression, especially in the UK."

Zhu Chuanren spread his hands:
  "This is an indisputable fact~"

"Did you know that Britain has no food to eat anymore?"

The global economic depression of 29 is something that has been studied in textbooks. Zhu Chuanren was honored to catch up with it, and he was also glad that he was not affected too much, because the entire Far East was a bright light during the Great Depression.

Economic crisis is a basic contradiction that cannot be solved by capitalism.

The Great Depression was born from the United States and was the largest economic crisis in the history of capitalism.

After a 10-year bull market, the U.S. financial sector collapsed, and stocks fell from their peak to the abyss overnight.

Within a week, Ugly Americans lost $100 billion in wealth on the stock exchange, and farmers dumped milk into the Mississippi River to destroy "excess" product.

There was a popular children's song in New York at that time: "Melon sounded the whistle, Hoover rang the bell. Wall Street sent a signal, and the ugly country rushed to hell!"

During the stock market crash in October 1929, neither stock market investors in China nor other stock market investors in the world would have thought that September 10, 1929 was the day with the highest average stock price.

After the stock market crash, it took a full 25 years for stock prices to return to their highest level in 1929.

The last 1929 days of October 10 were a series of famous days in the history of securities.

On October 10, the New York Stock Exchange suffered a massive sell-off as soon as the market opened. More than 21 million shares were sold throughout the day, so that the automatic stock market recorder did not record the last transaction until 600 hour and 1 minutes after the market closed.

On October 10, the situation continued to deteriorate, with the New York Times Index falling 23 points.

October 10th was the day that marked the beginning of the stock market disaster, the famous “Black Thursday” in history.

As soon as the market opened in the morning, the stock price suddenly dropped like water from a bursting dam. People sold their stocks one after another, with 1289.5 million shares changing hands throughout the day.

Several major banks in New York quickly formed a "rescue fund." Richard Weiney, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, personally purchased stocks in the hope of turning the tide, but the building would collapse and it would be difficult to support it alone.

On October 10, Hoover issued a statement saying: "The basic enterprises of the United States, namely the production and distribution of commodities, are based on soundness and prosperity." He tried to stimulate a new round of investment.

However, after one weekend, all efforts to save the stock market were in vain.

October 10th is known as "Black Monday" in history.

On that day, the New York Times Index fell 49 points, and the Dow Jones Index plummeted 38.33 points, a daily decline of 13%. On this day, no one came forward to rescue the market.

On October 10, the darkest day arrived.

At 10 o'clock in the morning, as soon as the New York Stock Exchange opened, violent selling swept across the sky. Everyone was selling regardless of the price. Brokers were surrounded and the trading floor was in chaos.

The Dow Jones Index has plummeted. So far, the stock price index has dropped from its highest point of 386 points to 298 points, a drop of 22%, and the New York Times Index has dropped 41 points.

At the close of the day, the stock market set a record high of 1641 million shares traded.

One trader described the day as the "worst day" in the 112-year history of the New York Stock Exchange.

This is the most famous "Black Tuesday" in history.

In November, the stock market continued to decline, sliding to 11 points, a drop of as much as 198%.

1929年10月29日到11月13日短短的两个星期内，共有300亿美元的财富消失，这相当于丑国在第一次世界大战中的总开支。

道琼斯指数从9月3日到12月20日股指，下跌近40%；

By the end of 1932, the index fell by 84%, and the market value lost more than 70%;

It would be 1929 years before the stock index peaked again in 25.

This stock market crash completely destroyed investor confidence. It was not until 1954 that the U.S. stock market returned to the level of 1929.

At the same time, the chain reaction of the stock market crash triggered an economic crisis, with crazy bank runs, bank failures, factories closing, workers losing their jobs, poverty coming, and organized resistance coming one after another.

In the three years from 1929 to 1933, 5000 banks failed, at least 13 companies closed down, and the automobile industry fell by 95%.

1929年，通用汽车公司的生产量从1929年的550万辆下降到了1931年的250万辆。

By 1933, total industrial output and national income had plummeted by nearly half.

The economic level regressed for 10 years. From the fourth quarter of 1929 to the first quarter of 1933, there were 14 consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, with a cumulative negative growth of -68.56%.

In 1929, when the stock market crashed, the unemployment rate was 2.5%. After that, the unemployment rate rose rapidly, reaching a record high of 1933% in 25, which meant that one in every four people was unemployed.

Unlike the previous mini-crisis, the economic crisis of 1929 quickly spread from the U.S. to other industrialized countries.

世界国际贸易从1929年的686亿美元下降到1930年的556亿美元、1931年的397亿美元、1932年的269亿美元和1933年的242亿美元。

During the Great Depression, 109371 companies went bankrupt, and the reduction in heavy industrial production was particularly severe. The decline in industries such as steel, automobiles, and construction, which was a symbol of the American economic prosperity in the 20s, was even more obvious.

There are 3400 million adult men, women and children in the country. About 28% of the country's total population are unable to make ends meet (1100 million rural households are not included), and the homeless population reaches 200 million.

In New York alone in 1931, there were more than 2000 cases of people dying on the streets recorded.

Children born during this period were short in stature and became known as the "Depression Generation."

During the crisis, on the one hand, overproduction and consumption contraction led to a backlog of goods; on the other hand, ordinary Americans lacked food and clothing, and their lives became increasingly poor.

In order to maintain the price of agricultural products, agricultural capitalists and large farmers destroyed "surplus" products in large quantities, used wheat and corn instead of coal as fuel, and poured milk into the river and sea, turning the river into a "Milky Way."

Due to people's general lack of confidence in the future, social morality has further deteriorated, and cases of theft, fights, and homicides have emerged one after another.

On the day Rosefur took office, Hoover gave him a message: "We have reached the end of our rope and there is nothing we can do."

从1929年到1933年，丑国国民生产总值从2036亿美元降为1415亿美元，降幅高达30%。

The banking system bore the brunt, with 10500 bankruptcies, accounting for 49% of all banks.

After 1933, the U.S. economy entered a long period of so-called "special depression".

Despite the "New Deal" and other measures to ease the crisis, the country's economic recovery was still sluggish. It was not until 1941, after the outbreak of the Second World War, that the country's gross national product exceeded the level in 1929 before the crisis.

Looking back on this economic crisis, we can see that the seeds of this economic crisis were already secretly planted in the so-called “Crazy 20s.”

In 1920, the first economic crisis since the Great Depression broke out in the capitalist world.

After the crisis, the country's economy grew rapidly under the influence of "economic bubbles" such as stocks and bonds, creating a miracle in the history of capitalist economics.

From 1923 until the autumn of 1929, annual productivity growth was 4%.

At the same time, the values ​​of the entire American society are changing.

Although traditional Puritan values ​​are still prevalent in the countryside, the dominant moral concepts in the cities have undergone dramatic changes.

Getting rich became people's biggest dream, speculation was favored, organized crime and hedonism were prevalent.

A considerable number of people are intoxicated in material enjoyment all day long, while their spiritual life reflects impetuousness and vulgarity, so much so that many historians of the country call this period the spiritual "Hungry Age" or the "Crazy 20s" ".

Although the prosperity of the 20s created a golden period of capitalist development, deep contradictions and crises lurked within this prosperity itself.

First of all, the country's agriculture has been in a sluggish state for a long time, and rural purchasing power is insufficient.

In 1919, farmers' income accounted for 16% of the total national income, but in 1929, it only accounted for 8.8% of the total national income, and farmers went bankrupt one after another.

At this time, the per capita income of farmers was only about 1/3 of the national average income.

Secondly, the country’s industrial growth and social wealth redistribution are extremely uneven.

Industrial growth is mainly concentrated in some emerging industrial sectors, while old industrial sectors such as mining and shipbuilding are under-operated. Textile, leather and other industries have also experienced production reduction crises, and a large number of workers have become unemployed as a result.

During this period, mergers and acquisitions were prevalent, and social wealth was increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people.

全丑最大的16家财阀控制了整个国家国民生产总值的53%，全国1/3的国民收入被占人口5%的最富有者占有；
  On the other hand, about 60% of American families still struggle to live on $2000 a year, which is barely enough for food and clothing.

What's even more serious is that 21% of families have an annual income of less than US$1000.

In addition, the potential crisis in the international balance of payments has also deepened the potential crisis in the country's economy.

The country's growing economic power and supply greatly exceed domestic and foreign demand that can afford to pay.

All this heralds the coming of a big crisis.

October 1929, 10 is an unforgettable day in the history of Ugly Securities.

Almost all of the 1100 members of the New York Stock Exchange were present, more than 300 more than usual.

As soon as the market opened, traders were running back and forth like crazy, but they still couldn't keep up with the speed of the stock price's decline.

In just a few minutes, 160 million shares were sold, and both good and bad stocks were spared.

The trend is further aggravated by the technical impossibility of transmitting market information in a timely manner.

The transmission of information by telegraph and telephone was so frequent that the crowds were so crowded that the exchange of messages was delayed for more than an hour.

Therefore, an order issued at 10:30 in Baltimore did not appear on Wall Street's teletype machine until 11:30. As a result, everyone was terrified.

Many people were forced and forced to sell large bundles of stocks that had lost half or two-thirds of their value, but no one was found who was brave enough to accept this reliable wealth.

This wealth was sold by others reluctantly.

By 12 o'clock, the losses had reached 60 billion US dollars, and two bankers and one broker had committed suicide due to bankruptcy!

At 1:30 in the afternoon, a man with an arrogant and dejected face hurriedly entered the 23 Wall Street building.

He was Charles Mitchell, president of National City Bank, the most powerful bank in the world at the time.

Facing the avalanche-like plunge of the stock market, Charles Michel quickly contacted some big bankers and formed a financial "association" to desperately buy stocks in order to stop the crazy decline.

That afternoon, even though they spent millions of dollars buying shares on the exchange, they were only able to halt the sharp decline slightly.

In the past, when encountering this situation, they only needed to spend a few dollars to buy some stocks to mitigate the decline. However, this time it failed. Millions of dollars, which was a huge amount in 1929, fell into the sea like mud.

Later, the checkout number was displayed on the sign: in just one afternoon, the number of stocks sold increased three times than usual, which is unprecedented in history.

Four hours after the New York Stock Exchange closed, newspapers reported astonishing news: 4 shares had been traded that day.

This became known as "Tragic Thursday."

Everyone was convinced that the difficult days were over and rejoiced at the good operation of the exchange on the 25th.

However, another decline on the 26th, 28th and 29th brought this stock market crash crisis to its peak.

On Tuesday, October 1929, 10, at 29 a.m., the Wall Street Exchange opened.

In the first three minutes of the opening, 3 shares of U.S. Steel were ready for sale at $65 per share, but no buyer could be found. The opening price on the 179th was $24!

The decline in the stock price of Chouguo Steel Company was the beginning of the sharp decline in the market.

Westin's stock fell $2 a minute, and International Telephone and Telegraph's stock fell $17 in a quarter of an hour.

By 10:30, 3259800 shares had been sold, resulting in a loss of US$20 billion.

From early September to mid-November, the total market value of New York Stock Exchange stocks lost $9 billion.

However, this was only the beginning of the disaster. The collapse of the stock market brought about the most destructive Great Depression and crisis in the history of the United States, paralyzing the U.S. economy.

用居民的个人存款去搞股票投机的银行纷纷倒闭：1929年659家，1930年1352家、1931年2294家。

国民收入总值从1929年的880亿元下降到1932年至1933年中的400亿美元。

道·琼斯30种工业股票指数从1929年9月的最高点452点跌到1932年7月8日的58点。

The famous General Electric stock fell from a high of 396 yuan to 8 US dollars.

The par value of stocks and various bonds fell by a combined 90%.

Countless "millionaires" have gone bankrupt, and some people who have lost hope of survival have finally reached a dead end.

In the history of the United States, no event has brought such lasting worries to people as the Great Crash of 1929. Even people born after 1929 are worried about it, and even their children talk about it with a change of heart.

Every time we think back to the stock market crash of 1929, Americans are still shocked.

It was the worst collective fear in history, and millions of people stopped buying stocks and profiting in the same way they had in the past.

Lurking in the back of many people's minds is the idea that there will be another stock market crash that will swallow up people's life savings and fools who bought stocks will wander the streets wearing rags, sleeping in homeless centers and eating cold beans. , selling apples and pencils on the street.

During the Great Depression, which lasted about 10 years, money was scarce and jobs even scarcer.

Stores go bankrupt and employees lose their jobs and paychecks, which means they can't afford to buy anything, so more stores go bankrupt and more employees lose paychecks.

The economy was in a state of tension and companies were unable to turn a profit.

Once a company becomes unprofitable, the stock price will decline and stagnate.

Most historians will tell you that although the Great Crash of 1929 is often cited as the cause of the Great Depression, the Great Depression was not actually caused by the 1929 Crash.

At that time, only a handful of Ugly Americans owned stocks, and the vast majority did not lose a penny in the Great Crash.

Therefore, the stock market crash is only an important catalytic factor. A more important factor is actually: institutional issues.

To be precise, from the day capitalism emerged, there has been a fundamental problem: insufficient purchasing power.

According to an economic equation: profit = commodity selling price - wages - other costs, that is, it can be deduced back that commodity selling price = profit + wages + other costs. This equation applies to any business.

In fact, the "other costs" item is goods manufactured by other companies.

So when all companies are discussed together, the selling price of goods = profit + wages.

This shows that if all production is carried out in capitalist enterprises, there must be a problem: wages must not only buy all goods, but profits must also be added to the purchase, so that production and sales can be balanced.

This leads to the second corollary: the principle of diminishing propensity to consume.

Although people who make more money also spend more money, looking at the ratio, a person with a monthly salary of 2000 yuan will definitely spend all his income, a person with a monthly salary of 6000 yuan can save one or two thousand yuan at most, and a person with a monthly salary of [-] yuan can save tens of thousands per month. deposit.

By the time you earn one million a month, you will already spend a lot on luxury goods, but they may only account for [-] to [-]% of your total income.

People with higher incomes tend to have stagnant consumption.

In terms of material enjoyment, there may not be a clear gap between the world's richest man and a major domestic real estate developer.

This seems like a good thing at first glance. Rich people don’t consume. How great, saving resources for society.

However, when this is taken together with the first point, a problem arises.

Profits are concentrated in the hands of a few people, and wages are distributed in the hands of the majority. Salaries are basically spent, but most of the profits are not spent, which will inevitably lead to a situation like this: commodity selling price > boss’s consumption + worker’s consumption.

It is impossible to sell all goods within this system.

What should I do if I can’t sell it? The boss's first reaction is to reduce production to avoid losses.

Cutting production is not to build less stuff, but to pay less.

Workers will naturally not buy anything without their wages.

As a result, from the perspective of society as a whole, the proportion of purchasing power reduced is higher than the proportion of goods reduced.

Bosses in various industries can only subconsciously lay off employees and limit production.

If this vicious cycle continues, the economy will collapse.

The economic crisis of 1929 was based on this principle.

As long as anyone solves the problem based on the system, the problem cannot be avoided.

Of course, this problem was not serious before industrialization.

In the years before industrialization, personal productivity was very low, but personal consumption had a lower limit. People could not starve to death.

Therefore, no matter how much surplus products there are, it is not a big deal. Digging some local gold mines and fighting a few wars are enough to provide demand.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the industrial revolution was completed and it was immediately integrated with capitalism.

From then on, workers were able to produce supplies that far exceeded their basic needs, and humans began to constantly worry about overproduction - although it was very painful.

Around 1825, the first economic crisis broke out in Britain.

Because factories have reduced production and closed down, the price of machinery and equipment has dropped to about the same as scrap metal.

However, at this time, the United Kingdom was the only industrial country in the world. When it came to competition, other European countries were no match, so the United Kingdom could work hard to expand its market and solve the problem through external dumping.

So the crisis passed in one or two years, and another ten years of prosperity followed.

By the time of the 1837 crisis, things were different. Not only did Britain learn to use machines for production, but Germany, France, and the United States also imitated the cat and started to engage in industry.

Britain could no longer find a market for its old friend, so this crisis lasted for six years, and the industrial scale of each country was reduced by more than half.

The shrinking economy barely recovered until 1843.

The boom years that followed the crisis lasted only four years, and another crisis broke out in 4.

The crisis of 1847 was extraordinary. The first characteristic was that the crisis lasted longer than during the boom years. This was a huge psychological blow to society—ordinary people felt that there was no hope.

Secondly, this crisis has not spared any country. As long as the countries that have entered capitalism have experienced massive collapse and unemployment, the scale of emerging industries such as machinery and steel has been reduced to one-third or even less than its original size.

What ultimately alleviated the crisis?

Speaking of which, the first reason for the relief of the crisis is actually very funny, and that is the gold mine.

In 1848, gold was discovered in San Francisco, and in 1851, gold was also discovered in Melbourne.

These two places were anarchic at the time, with mountains high and the emperor far away, and the gold mines were not too deep, so the ore could be mined directly without much investment.

You can even pan for gold in the river bed without drilling a hole.

So poor men from all over the world flocked in, hoping to turn around overnight.

The former is therefore called "San Francisco" by the Chinese, and the latter is "New Gold Mountain".

American cowboys have knives and guns. Australia has always been a place of exile for prisoners, and the residents are extremely fierce. In such a place, neither the landowners who first occupied the mines nor the consortia later could turn the gold mines into a source of wealth for a few people. They could only Watching nearly a million heroes getting rich everywhere.

Many ships arrived in the Americas and Australia. At night, half of the low-paid crew members escaped off the ship to pan for gold. When the captain woke up, he could not even sail the ship.

What good has this gold rush done for the world?
  There is no benefit, gold cannot be eaten or worn. From the perspective of the whole world, there is not one more grain of grain or one more thread of cotton yarn, but thousands of able-bodied people are missing for production, which is harmful rather than beneficial.

But what good did the Gold Rush do to the capitalist world? A life-saving grace.

What capitalism lacks is demand, and the source of demand is that consumers must have enough money.

In the gold standard era, gold is purchasing power!

Of course, according to the principle of diminishing consumption mentioned earlier, if this gold is concentrated in the hands of a few large mine owners, it will only add gold brick collections to the rich's castles, and it will not increase much purchasing power.

But unfortunately, the gold mines in Australia and the Americas are all in wild places, scattered among countless gold prospectors, and the gold they produce is resounding purchasing power.

This is like God employing these people and injecting hard currency into the entire capitalism. As a result, both purchases and sales flourished, and the economic crisis was alleviated all of a sudden.

Using God-given gold to alleviate the crisis sounds wonderful, but in fact it is a very nonsense thing.

The reason is the same as mentioned above. Gold cannot be eaten or worn, but consumes labor. It can actually alleviate crises and promote prosperity.

This shows that the problem of the economic crisis is not material at all, but human beings making trouble for themselves.

Gold saves the world reflects the absurdity of capitalism.

The gold mine can be saved for a while, but not forever. Slowly, the shallow gold began to decrease, and "order" was gradually established in the mining area. Gold mining became a gold mining process in which a few people made a fortune and the majority worked hard.

Even if such gold mines continue to produce gold, they are not as efficient as they once were.

But capitalism, which has doubled its industrial capacity, still needs external purchasing power. What should we do?

In fact, there is a bigger gold mine in the world: the East.

After the Age of Discovery, Europeans discovered the Americas. The civilization there was low, the mining capabilities were poor, and many of the minerals that had been exploited long ago in Eurasia were still completely untouched.

So Europe got huge amounts of gold from the Americas - to buy more Chinese goods.

By the time the Industrial Revolution broke out in the early 19th century, most of the tens of thousands of tons of gold and silver that Europe obtained from the Americas flowed to the East.

These gold and silver eventually flowed into China, making China's similarly capitalist industry and commerce even more powerful, and continued to circulate in China's handicraft industry and commerce.

This is the essence of the war launched by the great powers, because they want to open China's import market and make money. Every tael of silver that China takes out is life-saving purchasing power for Western industrial capitalism.

The two huge markets of Huaxia and Asan have extended the life of the Western world for more than a hundred years. After the purchasing power of the two big countries in the East has been restored, 1929 is almost here.

Of course, from a capitalist perspective, purchasing power cannot be balanced unless the profits of capitalists are added to purchases.

Capitalists will definitely not be able to consume that much profit through luxury consumption, but they can still invest.

The so-called investment means that capitalists use their accumulated profits to hire people, buy things, expand production capacity, and improve production quality.

If capitalists are willing to invest without saving money, then the economic crisis can be alleviated.

However, the goal of investment is not to invest, nor is the goal to create more goods. The ultimate goal is to make profits, that is, to sell goods.

Therefore, once there is a disturbance and the market shrinks a little, the tendency to invest will weaken.

Investment is reduced, and so are workers' wages.

This is a mutually reinforcing process. If economic sectors are allowed to make their own decisions, the fragile balance can easily turn into an avalanche in an instant.

In fact, in the long run, investment creates stronger productivity for capitalists, which will inevitably lead to more serious surpluses.

Therefore, simply encouraging capitalists to invest cannot solve the problem. There must be a condition of "having to invest".

Investment can be a factor in mitigating the economic crisis.

Scientific and technological progress is such a suitable condition.

Once a new technology that promotes production appears in society, all capitalists are worried that others will adopt it first and they will be eliminated.

Therefore, investment must be made regardless of whether there is an anticipated market or not.

Industrial isolation not only transformed production, but also brought standardized experimental conditions to scientific research.

Therefore, the 19th century was an era of great scientific and technological progress.

The investment is small and the progress is obvious.

Decades after the first industrial revolution represented by the steam engine, the second industrial revolution represented by the internal combustion engine and electricity began to sprout.

The whip of technological progress always whips capitalists to invest, so supply and demand are always balanced.

If the crisis lasts for a year or two, new technology will come to the rescue.

Gold mines where gold can be panned at will, new wealthy colonies brought by industrialized armies, and an investment boom brought about by continuous scientific and technological progress.

These three factors put together are the reasons why capitalism went from 1848 to 1914.

The crisis of 1848 therefore dragged on for more than half a century without breaking out.

But capitalism's healthy complexion also has hidden dangers - all three of the factors that averted the crisis are beginning to weaken.

Let’s talk about gold mines first. It is inevitable that shallow gold mines will be mined less and less.

This is why there are so many gold mines in the New World - those in the Old World have been mined.

However, there are fewer and fewer shallow gold mines in the New World, and the empire is becoming more and more powerful. As a result, most of the newly discovered gold mines are occupied by a few people.

For example, the British dispatched 40 troops to fight the Boer War for the gold mines in South Africa.

How can you, a poor man, dig in the gold mine you worked so hard for?

The result will inevitably be that the rich and powerful will seize the land, and large capital will be invested in expensive machinery for mining.

The gold produced in this way does not promote purchasing power like the gold rush of 1848. It can only exacerbate the income differentiation of society. The gold mine is not easy to use.

Colonial growth also went wrong.

The earth is so big, we cannot discover a new continent every few years, let alone conquer a market like China with a population of 4 million every few years.

But industrialization and surplus products will double every few decades. When the colonies no longer have any industry, and when the gold and silver earned by the Eastern countries in the past few hundred years are exhausted, where can we find external markets for capitalism?

By the end of the 19th century, all decent colonies had been developed.

Only the interior of Africa is blank.

However, the African population has been plundered by the black slave trade, and the remaining population is poor and scattered, with little decent purchasing power.

So Africa is the last undivided land outside Antarctica.

Such land was also divided up by hungry powers after 1870.

Because the division was done so quickly, many people who signed the agreement had no time to conduct on-site inspections and did not know whether the areas to be divided were mountains or rivers. They could only draw horizontal and vertical lines on the map.

Looking at the world map now, most of the national borders in Africa are still connected by straight lines. This is a relic of that era.

Even the original colonies could not survive.

Originally, countries such as the Qing Dynasty, Ottomans, Persia, and Mexico had become accustomed to serving as compradors and agents of colonial powers. They began to stabilize from the turmoil at the beginning of colonial aggression.

As a result, around 1910, one by one, China expelled the emperor, Turkey threw the Sultan into a cage and used him as a puppet, the Persian parliament expelled the king, and even the always well-behaved Asan went on strike across the country.

The gathering together shows that the great powers have drained the colonies dry. What is the next step?
  And, of course, there are the investments that come with technological advancements.

But technological growth is no longer reliable. It was said earlier that technology promotes investment. This statement has an implicit premise - technology itself is not investment.

Otherwise, if the market fluctuates slightly, investment willingness will decline, and technological progress will slow down. Naturally, capital will not be forced to continue to spend profits, and the purchasing power gap will return.

In the 19th century, the threshold for science and technology was low, and it was not expensive to develop science and technology. A few enthusiasts could just set up a small workshop and start work.

Karl Benz, who built the first car, used his wife's dowry and jewelry to cover the cost of developing the car; Edison worked as a telegraph operator and was able to develop the first patent by frugally.

There is no shortage of technology in any era. Otakus live frugally and play with machines. Since it only costs a few dollars to develop industrial technology, otakus play to a higher level. Naturally, there were breakthroughs in science and technology in the 19th century, forcing all capitalists to invest hard and objectively make up for the loss. gap in purchasing power.

Around 1900, the situation changed.

There are more and more existing technology categories, and the cost of technology development is rising steadily.

Although the Wright brothers were also technical geeks, they were also bicycle manufacturers and very wealthy factory owners. They built their own wind tunnels to test various wings, and then they flew a plane in 1903.

Although Marconi developed radio at his own expense, his mother was a British aristocrat and his father was a super-rich real estate owner.

How rich is his family? Marconi experimented with radio. The communication distance was several kilometers, and the transmitter and receiver were still on the grounds of his country villa.

Only such rich people can afford scientific research, which shows that scientific research is getting further and further away from individuals.

When Edison was young, he worked alone. After he made a fortune, he had to affiliate with a large consortium to build a laboratory where hundreds of engineers collaborated, and he was known as a top student.

A fire in his Menlo Park laboratory caused a loss of US$4 million, which is equivalent to US$6 million in later generations.

Such scientific research activities themselves are super investment behaviors of enterprises.

Personal interests and technology no longer play a leading role, and the will of enterprises is the engine for scientific research breakthroughs.

After the 20th century, scientific research has also become an investment. Before investing, companies must consider whether they can make money - if there is no market, high technology will also lose money.

Therefore, in the 19th century, scientific research breakthroughs drove investment. In the early 20th century, scientific research itself was investment, which was naturally suppressed by market demand.

Scientific research, especially basic scientific research that is far away from products, is also stuck in the cycle of insufficient market.

Once the market fluctuates, it will also slow down investment.

In the end, the problem comes back to the problem of insufficient consumption and insufficient market.

Capitalism in the late 19th century walked on three legs and was prosperous. However, by the 20th century, all three legs were disabled. Will the economic crisis be far behind?
  Before the economic crisis broke out completely, everyone dragged their crippled legs and wanted to grab a crutch from other powerful countries - to add colonies to increase external purchasing power and survive for a few more years.

A more direct idea is to simply destroy other capitalist powers and increase their own market by reducing the supply of others.

Either idea means war.

Implement both of them together? In 1914, the world war began.

I won’t talk much about the process of the first world championship, only the results.

From the perspective of increasing colonies, the defeated Germany handed over some remote areas in the African Pacific.

From an industrial point of view, northern France and Belgium were reduced to rubble.

Originally, the victorious countries wanted to dismantle German industry, but they were afraid that Germany would be cut off from their fate and join the old Maozi, so they did not dismantle it.

As a result, there is no shortage of industrial countries in the world, and there are still so many markets.

When the capitalist powers replace the few machines they lost in the war, the economic crisis will still not go away.

Therefore, in 1929, only 10 years after the end of the world war, the real economic crisis arrived as promised, and it was so destructive that a world war was just a preview.

The country's industrial level has regressed to the 19th century in just a few months. The banking industry has gone bankrupt, 410 billion in deposits have been used to cash out 60 billion in cash, and even the president's checks cannot be cashed in cash.

The unemployed and semi-unemployed people in Germany account for 2/3 of the total.

During the First World War, Britain gritted its teeth and resisted the gold standard, and had to abolish it when the Great Depression came.

From 1929 to 1933, the whole world thought capitalism was ending.

Textbooks will tell you that it was Luo Sifu who pulled the ugly country out of the quagmire of economic crisis.

But how is it possible? No one in the world has this ability.

The real antidote to the economic crisis of 1929 was the Second World War.

War is cruel to the warring party, but it is happy to the watching party.

In the final analysis, the economic crisis is a serious imbalance between "supply and demand", and war is an effective way to solve the imbalance between supply and demand. War produces a steady stream of weapons, ammunition, vehicles, medicine and other equipment, manpower, and financial needs, and war destroys supply capabilities. , further zoom in.

Starting from the invasion of Xiaobo, the Second World War started in full swing. Almost all countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa were involved in the war. Only the Ugly country in South America was able to stay away from the war.

The war led to a rapid increase in demand for industrial manufactured goods. The country's excess production capacity was quickly absorbed, and even supply exceeded demand. Exports continued to increase, employment continued to rebound, and the economy returned to a rapid growth channel. The country entered the fastest growing period in history.

The huge destructive power of the Second World War almost destroyed all of Europe and Asia. With the end of the war, overseas demand dropped rapidly, and the U.S. economy fell back into negative growth.

In order to avoid a new economic crisis, the United States began to implement the Marshall Plan to help European countries rebuild after the war. A large part of the aid provided by the Marshall Plan was used by Europeans to import industrial products and raw materials from the United States. .

(End of this chapter)