New Shun 1730

Industrialization is the ultimate cure for the widespread poverty in Dashun, but nothing can be achieved overnight.

Sometimes, around a long-term goal, it may be necessary to take two steps forward and one step back.

Ilyich in later generations said that there was a problem of infantile disease of the left.

In fact, a similar problem also occurred in the Enlightenment in the 18th century.

This situation can be called the infantile disease of capitalism, or the infantile disease of the natural order.

The French Physiocrats are a typical example.

It is not that the natural order, domestic market, world market, invisible hand and other things are not good - good or not is relative, compared with the old system in France, it is definitely progressive.

Rather, it is to say that if the step is too big, it is a small matter to pull the egg.

The bigger problem is that the step is too big. As for the Physiocrats’ statement in 1967 on the French food crisis of “waiting for the natural order to adjust”, it can only be said that they were lucky not to be hung on the tree by the bottom of France. This will arouse very fierce opposition and even achieve a certain effect of extremes.

It seems that, regardless of reality, as long as the natural order is fully established, everything will be fine. And if it is not, it must be that the order is not natural enough.

This cannot but be said to be a kind of childish disease, and this childish disease has been continuing. Moreover, it is very likely to achieve the effect of things turning to the opposite extreme and the moon waning when it is full.

The problems facing Dashun now are somewhat similar.

This problem is the childish disease of industry and commerce of the Dashun School of Realism.

Specific situation, specific analysis.

Before Liu Yu left, Dashun's industry and commerce had a difficult start, so it was necessary to maintain the development of industry and commerce at all costs and let them grow.

Now, the situation is completely different from that time.

Indeed, Liu Yu said at that time that the development of industry and commerce is the ultimate solution to the widespread poverty in Dashun.

However, this also requires specific analysis of specific situations, and the problem must be solved slowly, rather than directly using the childish disease of capital or the childish disease of natural order to blow it up directly.

The situation in Dashun is very different from that in Europe. This difference is not something like race or national spirit. It is based on the difference in material foundation and historical conditions.

Let me tell you a simple story that is familiar to everyone.

In the "Water Margin" story of the "Birthday Gift", the seven people faced Yang Zhi and said that they were "people from Haozhou, going to Tokyo City to sell dates".

I will not mention the geographical issues in the process of writing the book here, but only say that this incident itself did not arouse any suspicion. It can also be regarded as a side proof that after the Salt and Iron Conference, the internal policy of the Celestial Empire was a unified domestic market, and goods could be sold across thousands of miles without anyone finding it strange.

However, due to geographical conditions, transportation conditions, and the vast area of ​​the empire, many commodities were unprofitable after adding the freight.

Let's put it this way, compared with the 18th century, there must be more free trade in later generations.

Then, in later generations, no one transported coal to Datong and sold it in Datong; no one collected a pile of wood and sold it in Daxing'anling.

So, can we conclude from this that free trade does not exist in later generations at all? Because no one sells coal to Datong, and no one sells wood to Daxing'anling.

Is this conclusion correct?

To some extent, before the construction of the railway, the domestic market of Dashun was like this: domestic free trade in policy, and regional economy caused by geographical factors and transportation factors in reality.

For example, in Dashun thirty or even fifty years ago, Guanzhong had a bumper harvest.

If you collected a lot of grain from Shaanxi and sold it in Jiangnan, no one would care about you, let alone say that you were not allowed to sell it.

The only problem is that unless you are crazy and have too much money to spend, normal people would not do this.

This is a problem of domestic economy, trade, and domestic market before Dashun - even if you talk about the previous Ming Dynasty, or even the earlier Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, you have never heard of restrictions on textiles in certain places, or restrictions on sheep grazing in certain places but not woolen spinning.

The situation in Europe is just the opposite.

For example, France, Italy.

I won’t mention the French Physiocrats here, that’s too radical.

Let’s talk about a less radical Physiocrat revisionist, the Lombard Reformism. Their Physiocratism is also aimed at the numerous checkpoints in the “domestic”, various restrictions, and trade restrictions between regions.

It should be noted that "country" is different from "country".

Dashun is a country.

Italy also...well, of course, Italy did not exist at this time. Moreover, even if Italy existed at this time, wouldn't the domestic trade of Italy be at most at the level of "people from Haozhou go to Tokyo City to sell dates" in terms of distance?

In other words, Dashun was limited by geographical conditions, transportation level, and transportation tools. In principle, Dashun used to have free trade in the country, and it was a very scary capital freedom in the whole of Europe - buying and selling land, without restrictions, clear property rights, and almost no messy feudal rights on the land, such as pigeon breeding rights, hunting rights, and gleaning rights. If you have the ability to get the land deed, the "Dashun Law" will protect your ownership. As for how you get it, it basically doesn't care. After all, the "Daming Law" and the "Dashun Law" both limit the maximum interest rate to 36% per year, but there are endless tricks such as nine out and thirteen back, and they can't be managed at all.

In Europe, the geographical conditions, transportation level, and transportation tools are all qualified, after all, the country is not large. However, feudal forces, merchant guilds, regional oligarchs, feudal laws, etc., make it necessary to come up with a very radical school to solve the problem of "free circulation of domestic grain".

Let me say it again here: "The Wealth of Nations" is not a summary of the current situation in Britain, but a criticism of the current situation in Britain.

Similarly. The Physiocrats are not a summary of the current situation in France and Italy, but a criticism of the current situation in France and Italy.

"The Wealth of Nations" is not saying "I will explain why Britain is so rich."

Instead, it is blasting "If Britain continues to do this, it will be finished sooner or later."

Even when he introduced the success of some big businessmen in North America, he deliberately concealed the facts that these successful big businessmen cooperated with the government, smuggled, plundered, pirated stolen goods, and had monopoly rights, but distorted it into the success of free trade.

Because it is black, it calls for white.

Instead of later, I am black and I am awesome, so black will be awesome.

After breaking this ideological stamp, looking at the situation of Dashun and Europe, we can understand what problems they are facing now.

The problem of Italy and France is that the feudal system, regional local forces, and hundreds of years of historical factors in the past have made them clearly have the conditions for a "domestic unified market" - Italy's Mediterranean transportation, France's labor to build roads, and transporting grain from Paris to Alsace, there is no problem of geographical and transportation conditions at all. Transporting grain from Paris to Alsace is not like transporting Jiangnan rice to Gansu to relieve disasters and ease grain prices. Although both are "domestic", the distance difference is huge - so they have the material foundation, but they still lack social awareness, and they also lack the governance means and political construction of eliminating domestic local forces and promoting a domestic unified market.

Social awareness lags behind social existence.

And Dashun is the opposite.

Because of the development of steamships, railways, and sea transportation, some conditions that Dashun did not originally have geographically are now available. As for Dashun, there was no real regional restriction on the domestic market from the beginning to the end. There was no policy. In the past, there was no restriction only because of geographical conditions and transportation conditions. However, with the application of new technologies and the development of steamships and railways, Dashun had to face many problems that did not exist before.

What does this mean?

Because of the enlightenment of the Physiocrats and their "ideological" revolution, France experienced a nationwide famine chaos.

And because of their material conditions, they actually had the foundation for such a nationwide chaos.

But in terms of consciousness, enlightenment is still needed. It is necessary to understand what private ownership, natural order, and domestic free trade are.

So, in France, "words are better than substance."

Why didn't France have the current type of nationwide chaos and flour war before?

Because before, there were seventy or eighty decrees related to bread, chambers of commerce, city bread guilds, regional feudalism, etc. to stabilize bread prices.

Why did the nationwide chaos occur?

The first step of the Physiocrats' reform was to break the various regional laws, guilds, and monopolies, and use grain as a model of the natural order of free trade.

Because the lower classes in the harvest areas did not want to ship local grain out, which would lead to a rise in grain prices.

Therefore, in places with famine, people opposed hoarding and buying, and raising grain prices in places with good harvests. Therefore, there was a national grain problem that France had no experience with before.

This can be said to be a childish disease of the French Physiocrats - are you out of your mind? You dare to completely control the natural order of grain, and you are still talking nonsense and muttering that you don't want to interfere? The old man hanged himself because he thought his life was too long, right?

It can also be said that this reflects the reality that agriculture is the most important industry in France, and it doesn't matter whether other things are changed or not, because the quantity is too small.

And in Dashun.

Because of the construction of railways and the use of steamships, there was no need for the enlightenment of the Physiocrats, because the things of the Physiocrats were taken for granted in Dashun. It was normal for me to sell dates from Haozhou to Dongjing City. I have never heard that there was a law in Haozhou that prohibited the transportation of dates to Dongjing City.

The construction of railways and the use of steamships caused a wave of chaos in Dashun that could affect the whole country.

Because in the past, dates could only be sold from Haozhou to Dongjing City by pushing a cart, but now dates can be sold by train to Wuguo City.

Before, Dashun did not have the basis of a real "domestic market", a domestic market in legal terms and a regional market in reality.

The emergence of steamships and railways made the real domestic market possible.

In other words, Dashun did not need the Physiocrats to enlighten people, because the Dashun court had never banned it, for example, grain from Jiangnan could not be sold to Shaanxi. The reason why merchants did not bring grain from Jiangnan to Shaanxi to sell was not because the imperial decree hindered the domestic unified market, but because of the commercial law that grain cannot be sold thousands of miles away.

Therefore, in Dashun, "substance is better than words."

Of course, the ultimate problem here is the material foundation.

Without the agricultural revolution in France, without the labor service to build roads, and without the development of industry and commerce in the coastal areas of Western Europe, it would be impossible to have the foundation to break the regional problem of grain.

If Dashun did not have new means of transportation such as steamships and railways, as well as external expansion and economic development of coastal advanced regions, there would be no problem of industrial products from advanced regions impacting the inland areas. Without steamships, even if the textile factories in Songsu had developed spinning machines and looms, the cost of transporting them along the river would not have caused a great impact on the textile industry in Jianghan. The sub-port tax, steamships, and inland river traffic after the 12th and 15th of the twelfth lunar month allowed the impact to be transmitted to the thoroughfare of nine provinces.

Did this problem exist in Dashun a few decades ago?

Obviously, of course not.

Because a few decades ago, Dashun was still troubled by the problem of transporting Lianghuai salt to Hubei. Salt, which is eaten a few kilograms a year, is such a headache because of transportation problems. How could it face the problem of regional economy being broken due to transportation development?

People cannot think of many problems facing a blank sheet of paper. Those who can think facing a blank sheet of paper are prophets, not people.

So, can Dashun at this time realize this problem?

Obviously, it can.

Because Dashun has already conducted two rehearsals for this kind of impact at home and abroad. Those who can really solve problems in Dashun will summarize and analyze problems from history, and then they may solve them correctly.

Inside.

After all, human life is short, and historical changes are too long and slow.

Therefore, people on the Dashun side may not realize that the changes in the problems in the Western Regions are due to the development of sailing ships and changes in trade routes.

However, among the living people in Dashun, they have truly experienced many problems caused by changes in transportation.

That is, the abandonment of the Grand Canal led to the decline of Yangzhou, the decline of Luxi, the rise of Jiaodong, the collapse of the Canal Economic Belt, etc.

This is a change that is visible to the naked eye, within a generation, with a strong impact, and more intuitive than the decline of the Western Regions due to ocean transportation.

Outside.

The decline of Lancashire, the interruption of Liverpool's development because the textile center moved east to Amsterdam, the destruction of Dhaka, the uprising in Surat... These are also visible to the naked eye, within a generation, and with a strong impact "history".

Of course, the destruction of Dhaka and the decline of Surat have little to do with the victory of advanced production capacity over backward production capacity, but the fact that similar production capacity fully demonstrates the commercial hegemony and national power in primitive accumulation.

However, this is a fact that can be used as a lesson in history with a slight change.

Some people in Dashun have studied these issues and have analyzed them in a basically correct direction.

For example, why did the cotton textile industry in western Shandong rise and fall?

Because of the canal, and because western Shandong is suitable for growing cotton, and because it is closer to the consumer market in Beijing, and because of the canal transportation bonus, Linqing became the largest textile distribution center in the north.

Because of the abolition of the canal, and because Dashun's conquest of Java and India obtained cheaper cotton, raw materials, grain, and technical capital advantages in coastal areas, the cotton textile industry in western Shandong survived for a short time under the protective export policy during the digging of the Yellow River channel, but it was finally destroyed.

This seems... It seems that this is nothing, isn't this analytical ability just "average"?

But, in fact, this can be regarded as a landmark analysis of the methodology of the School of Realism in Dashun.

Because, before this, the analysis of the prosperity of the Luxi region was mostly from perspectives such as "near the hometown of the saints"; "Mencius' mother and Zengmu had textile business"; "women weaving and men farming"; "Zou, Lu, Binzhu and Si still have the legacy of Zhou Gong, and the customs are fond of Confucianism and well-prepared for etiquette, so their people are mean. There are quite a few mulberry and hemp industries, but no rich forests and marshes. The land is small and the people are numerous, frugal, afraid of crime and stay away from evil. When they decline, they like business and seek profit, even more than the Zhou people" and so on.

Of course, the Luxi issue is the aftermath of the Yangzhou issue.

And the Yangzhou issue has brought too much impact to the Dashun generation.

After a thousand years of prosperity, it has declined in just a few decades.

And the School of Realism must give an explanation, an explanation of "necessary price", otherwise Liu Yu's series of reforms will face great doubts.

Therefore, this analysis method has been rapidly promoted.

Since the decline of Yangzhou, this kind of analysis method such as "business awareness", "folk customs", "near the hometown of saints" has begun to rise, and gradually touched the economics of the 18th century. The economics of the 17th century was the same all over the world. When British economists analyzed why Britain was not doing well, they talked about nationality, saying that Britain's nationality was not as good as the Netherlands, so Britain was not doing well and would be finished sooner or later.

Of course, some so-called economics hundreds of years later was not even as good as the 18th century, and it would be a matter of the future to return to the level of the 17th century.

As for now, Dashun has finally taken an important step in political economics.

It is true that by surrounding Liu Yu's coffin, the officials of Dashun avoided the real big problem of Dashun now, but at least their thinking about industry and commerce is still meaningful.

It's just that the development of industry and commerce is indeed the future, but how to transform is by no means a simple matter of opening or not opening the Zikou Bank. Politics and economy are inseparable, the problem of 200 to 300 million small farmers in the mainland... France knows to smash bakeries, don't we know how to resist the impact?

The Enlightenment is all-encompassing, and economics is also a part of it. So economics, especially the Physiocrats, cannot be expelled from the Enlightenment. It is not that the Enlightenment is when the scholastic philosophy analyzes the heaven or God and grants human rights; when it comes to economics, it is not the Enlightenment. Let me tell you something funny. If the Physiocrats are also part of the Enlightenment, then Louis XV was influenced by the Physiocrats and plowed in the spring. Is this considered a result of the Enlightenment? If Turgot's reforms succeeded, abolished the French gentry's privileges, and Versailles broke France's regional economic protection, and issued a decree to solve France's annoying land ownership, legally making the collective land of the village community belong to the land aristocracy, is this considered a result of the Enlightenment? In other words, after 1993, the private ownership of small plots of land in France was established. Is this considered a result of the Enlightenment?