warring states careerist

Chapter 646 The Way of Qi Country ([-])

The Bureau of Statistics should not only pay attention to confidentiality and pay attention to social surveys, but also use these data to carry out various progressive tax policies and monetary adjustment policies for wealthy households to stabilize prices.

They even use some extreme means to manipulate prices and absorb wealth.

For example, when the grain is controlled and the grain in the treasury can be used to fight an economic war, it can be forced to order to borrow money from the rich and usurers, and at the same time cut off the official sales of grain, so that the price of grain in a certain place will rise.After borrowing money from rich people and usurers, the price of grain also rose rapidly under the control of the state treasury. At this time, it was announced that there was no money to pay back, and the grain was paid according to the price at that time.

It’s not enough for the rich, and I think the rich didn’t suffer a loss, because the food price was really high at that time.

After repaying the grain, release the grain quickly to stabilize the price and reduce the price of grain. This is equivalent to asking the rich family to borrow 50.00 yuan. The control of the state has made grain prices rise by [-] yuan and can only buy [-] catties of grain. At this time, [-] catties of grain will be returned to the rich and usurers including [-]% interest, and then the grain stored in the treasury will be sold, which is equivalent to asking the rich to borrow money. [-] yuan but only paid back [-] yuan...

Whether the means are available is not just based on reason, but the economics school in Qi State is already extremely advanced if you can think of the state's regulation and control of prices.

In fact, the economic theory of the Qi State School is to let the monarch be the largest businessman in the country, with the right to mint coins and taxes, and to have sufficient funds and goods.

Knowing that Duke Huan of Qi heard the idea of ​​"National Track", Tian He was very excited and asked, "I want to establish a statistics bureau and control prices, but how should I do it?"

Guan Zhong also finally answered the first question about "Guan Shan Hai" systematically, saying: "This requires the use of Guan Shan Hai's policy, using the natural resources such as mountains and seas owned by the monarch and the franchise of salt goods as reserve funds, and establishing a special financial institution. Institutions, supporting the National Rail Statistics Bureau.”

This set of institutions uses the money from the official Shanhai policy and the information from the National Bureau of Statistics to lend money to support industry and commerce, regulate prices and levy progressive taxes, etc., use money to make money, and then use money and taxes to support industries.

For example, lending money in rich places and earning interest; lending money to support horses in places that increase the number of horses in the country; buying grain when the grain harvest is good to control prices; selling grain in places where the textile industry is developed to reduce prices and purchasing textiles to promote industry and commerce etc……

Another example is to use the method of price manipulation, so that after the price rises, the price after the manipulation is used to exchange the relatively depreciated horses from the hands of the rich, etc., and the rest of the goods that have risen after the manipulation, but the treasury has sufficient reserves, are distributed to the border areas. The way of loan allows the people in the border areas to buy the country's horses, which can not only collect interest, but also make the chariot reserves in the border areas sufficient, and can exempt the "Qiu Jia Fu" in the border areas.

There are so many things, in short, nothing more than a few points.

"Split goods with it" and differential land rent to replace labor rent, promote agricultural development, collect tax in kind, and change the land system.

Rely on taxation policy to rob the rich and give to the poor, and use tax regulation to promote regional economic development and industrial tilt.

The establishment of the "National Track" Bureau of Statistics and the supporting "banks" supported by official, mountain and sea policies and national taxation are used to support industry and commerce with loans and lending for profit, relying on moderate currency taxes to promote currency circulation, and suppressing usury. Rail" became the largest lending institution in the country.The control of indirect taxes such as salt and the method of "plucking goose feathers so that the goose does not feel pain" have made Qihou the largest asset controller in the country, and it is enough to control prices.

However, the strategy of Guanshanhai is not a national monopoly. In essence, the state collects land rent, such as salt cooking and smelting, which can be contracted to private individuals, and then the monarch and marquis collect land rent and dividends, or the mountains, forests and seaside will belong to the monarch. As a share capital, this can expand production and make management easier.

Because the class standing behind the school of economics in Qi State is a part of the aristocrats who carry out industry and commerce, they need a platform theory.

All these seem to have many similarities with Sishang Mohism’s policy. Tian He thinks that this method is enough to enrich the country, but he forgot to consider how many officials and cadres with economic foundation are needed to form such a system. Mohism invests in education It took 20 years to be able to do it in Sishang, but Qi State definitely couldn't do it, and it was easy to make trouble.

And it just looks the same, in fact the core is completely different from Mohism.

This huge difference stems from the article "Luxury" written by Tuo Zhong. The focus of economic activities is on consumption to promote production, but because it is inconsistent with the Mohist theory of "Fuguo", it will inevitably lead to many problems.

It is difficult to solve the problems of core ownership and labor to obtain wealth, and at the macroeconomic level, the strategies of the Qi State School of Economics are also very different from those of Mohism.

Consumption, investment, and export are the three carriages of the macro economy.

The economic basis of the Mohist School is "Economic Use", which uses high accumulation and high investment. After completing the transformation, it expands the external market and uses the tax-free treaties with Yue and Chu to dump a large amount.

At the same time, the internal land reform will create a large number of self-cultivating farmers with the ability to consume low-level handicraft products, without greatly harming their interests. The issue of the interests of the peasants in Shang, even if it harms the interests of the self-cultivators in Sishang - use the theory of "Saving the Use" to develop the state-owned handicraft industry with high investment, use "The Will of Heaven" as the principle to carry out technological monopoly and upgrade, and expand internally while exporting a large amount Consumer market for homesteaders.

Internally, the basic stability of the owner-cultivators was ensured to provide enough soldiers and an internal market, and externally, it relied on tax-free exports in exchange for currency, copper and other precious metals, and continued to invest in further development.

The Qi State School of Economics puts too much emphasis on the anti-promoting effect of consumption, and also hopes to rebalance the regulatory policy by invisible hands.

The issue of investment and export is not considered important, and the official mountain and sea policy is mainly to use the monarch's ownership of mountains and seas, and the essence of the collection is still land rent. Most of the profit-making methods of the "National Track" are actually either land rent or interest. It looks good, but it will inevitably lead to big problems in practice. The core is also exactly "the people don't add taxes, but the country uses enough".

This issue can also be regarded as a major difference between the Qi State School of Economics and the Mohist School of Economics.

For example, on the issue of "Jiebu" and "Jianyong", the Mohists' idea is to bury lightly, accumulate capital and reinvest in production, so that horses, cattle, sheep, cloth, grain, and even the population can double within 20 years.Using land reform methods, there are no big nobles in Sishang, and the reproduced products are put into the external market, constantly eroding the world.

However, the School of Economics of the State of Qi believes that "the burial is important to make money. One relative goes and the other comes, so the relatives are married. This is called the covenant. The huge tomb makes the poor; the beautiful tomb makes it civilized; There are huge coffins, so carpentry is used; there are many quilts, so female workers are used. They are not exhausted, so there are times of floating, there are gaps, and there is hiding. Do this, and then the people will benefit from each other, and the preparations for the battle will be united. carry on."

That is to say, not only thick burials are required, but also thick burials must be vigorously promoted as a custom.

Not only should we vigorously promote it, but we must also dig huge tombs so that the poor can have jobs; decorate stately cemeteries so that carving and painting craftsmen can have jobs; make huge coffins so that carpenters can make a fortune; Bonus.This is not enough, there are also various sacrificial burdens, various ceremonial guards and various funeral objects.Use these methods to keep the poor alive, and then make the people benefit from it.

In the same way, the Qi State School of Economics encourages consumption and luxury, and believes that consumption can promote investment and development.

For example, the economics school in Qi State believes that eating the best food, listening to the best music, carving and painting eggs and cooking them, and carving firewood and burning them.Don't block the opening of the cinnabar mine, so that the merchants will not be sluggish.Let the aristocrats spend extravagantly, and let the poor work and work.In this way, the common people will live and work in peace and contentment, and they will be excited in every way and have food to eat.

For example, in a famine year, nobles should be encouraged to build palaces.why?Because the more desolate the year, the more tossing, let the nobles build palaces, so that the refugees can go to work, and then promote the redistribution of wealth. When the rich can eat and drink eggs, they have to carve the eggs with flowers and burn a piece of wood. Carve out patterns so that there will be no crisis in the world.

These are the differences between the Qi State School and the Mohist School on economic issues. It sounds reasonable for the Qi State School of Economics, but there is actually a huge problem hidden.

Qi's economics school actually recognized the existence of "rentier classes" such as nobles, and greatly recognized the importance of rentier nobles to the national economy.

In the model of the Qi State School of Economics, it is as follows: industrial and commercial development, capital investment, and product production, but the purchasing power of the bottom layer is insufficient, and there will definitely be a problem of relative surplus of goods.And this requires a "third class" as the main force of consumption.

This "third class" is aristocrats who mainly rely on land rent. Their existence is not only reasonable from the perspective of "rituals and laws", but also reasonable from the perspective of "economics".They don't exist, so who are the consumer goods sold to?If consumer goods cannot be sold, who do the people at the bottom work for and where do they get money?

Therefore, in the theory of the Qi State School of Economics, capital is put into production, the bottom layer sells labor, and the rentier aristocrats are consumers, forming a stable triangular structure.

Industrial and commercial people employ bottom-level production, sell products to rentier aristocrats, and recover funds to stabilize production.

In this stable triangular structure, the rentier aristocrats can not only exist, but must exist. Even without them, the entire economy will collapse, which will lead to problems such as insufficient consumption, wealth that cannot be redistributed, and unemployment among the people at the bottom.

In the theoretical model of the Mohist school, there is no rentier aristocrats, or they are going to be eliminated.

The theory of the Mohist school has also basically taken shape, which is investment, production, finding a market, selling things for money, reinvesting, and reproducing.

What should I do if the market is insufficient?Internal land reform created a large number of self-cultivating farmers with consumption capacity.

What if the cost of land is too high?Get rid of the land aristocrats, reduce costs, or directly collect state rents, otherwise the land aristocracy exists, and if you want to expand production, you need to pay the aristocrats land rent, resulting in an increase in cost, and the increased cost is added to the product.

What if internal consumption is still saturated?Instead of creating a third class, look for markets outside.The Chu and Yue countries dumped; the returned capital was put into reproduction again, and the market was not enough, so they continued to look for the market, and did not hesitate to fight for the market, sail, and go deep into the territory of the indigenous people who are still drinking blood.

Not only in-depth, but also to transform the world according to the will of capital, such as continuous bourgeois land reform in the controlled areas, expanding the number of people with consumption capacity, expanding capital, expanding the number of employees, continuing to expand the market, and then continuing to invest and continue production after feedback This snowballs.

Until one day... when the snowball snowballed so much that it couldn't go any further... then it's not what the Mo family should care about now.

The Mohists recognize the consumption promotion and balance theory of the Qi State School of Economics, but there is no room for the existence of the "third class" rentier aristocrats in the Mohist School.

This has led to the fact that the Mohist system is not stable, but needs to constantly go outward and transform the entire world according to the will of capital, or else it will be crushed to death by a snowball that is getting bigger and bigger.

The theory of the Qi State School is internally stable, which is also in line with the characteristics of the era when there are so many nobles. They have to consider the existence of the nobles, and they think they have created a perfect and self-consistent "stable structure". The rentier aristocrats act as consumers and promote economic development.

From the point of view of the Qi State School, the Mohist system is unstable, because one day the infinitely expanding capital will have an accident due to insufficient market, and it is absolutely unstable, so it seems that the Mohist system has great flaws.

In the previous great debate between Mohists, Yang Zhu, and Lie Yukou, the Qi State School also addressed the issues of "Festival Burial" and "Festival Use", not from the perspective of "rituals", but from the perspective of economics. refute.

The Qi State School believes that the Mohists' actions will inevitably lead to insufficient consumption, and the reinvestment method of the Mohist Festival will one day explode, which will lead to a situation where there are too many products but cannot be sold.For festivals and funerals, what do you do when you only accumulate and don’t consume, when you are frugal and useless, and you can’t sell so many commodities?Without rentier nobles, who will buy your Qilin?Count on wealthy businessmen?How many wealthy businessmen are there in the world today?The richest people are those nobles with a lot of fiefdoms. They are the cornerstone of maintaining economic stability. You Mohists will cause chaos in the world. If you do it like you, a war for profit is inevitable, so you can’t be like Mohism Then do it.

The era of contention has begun, and the theories of various schools are constantly forming a system, transcending the original germination and enlightenment, or thinking about more profound content.

Qi State has its own theory.

So Tian He is sure that he has found a different path from Wei Qinchu and Mohism.

A road to prosperity that can not only maintain the stability of the aristocracy, but also promote economic development, and can also explain the perfect road of the Tian family to replace Qi in terms of legitimacy.

He thought so.

(End of this chapter)