New Shun 1730

If we must characterize the issues discussed by those who gathered around Liu Yu's coffin to discuss the internal currency exchange of Dashun, then perhaps we can use a very harsh word to evaluate: it has only theoretical significance, but no practical significance.

Theoretical significance does exist. Opening the currency exchange is "progressive" than continuing to maintain the currency exchange.

In theory, there is nothing to argue about.

Whether it is the theory of the Wealth of Nations, the theory of the Physiocrats, or the Dashun side's own out-of-context distorted theories that continue Liu Yu, it is the same.

Regarding the issue of this "progress", Lao Ma specifically talked about this "seemingly progressive behavior" in his anti-Bakunin issue of disintegrating the family and abolishing the right of inheritance.

Family disintegration, socialization, abolition of inheritance rights, etc. should be the result of social transformation, but not the starting point of social transformation.

Regarding the abolition of inheritance rights, Lao Ma said: [As an economic measure, this will not bring any benefits. This will arouse a kind of anger, which will inevitably encounter almost unstoppable resistance, and this resistance will inevitably lead to reaction. Even if this demand is announced at the moment of revolution, the general level of consciousness may not necessarily guarantee support for it.]

[On the other hand, if the working class has enough power to abolish the right of inheritance, then it will be strong enough to implement deprivation, because deprivation will be a much simpler and more effective measure.]

[Abolition of inheritance will cause everything to fall into chaos and will not achieve any purpose.]

This principle is actually the same at this time.

It is similar to the principle of paraphrase, of course, its logical core is different, but its form can be paraphrased.

That is:

If the abolition of the currency gate is used as an economic measure at this time, it will not bring any benefits. This will arouse a kind of anger, which will inevitably encounter almost unstoppable resistance, and this resistance will inevitably lead to reaction...

On the other hand, if the bourgeoisie has enough ability to withstand the resistance of two or three hundred million small peasant economies and handicraftsmen, then it will be strong enough to implement the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. What else do we need the emperor to do? What else do we need reform to do? Because they can suppress the resistance of 200 to 300 million small peasant economies and handicraftsmen, it would be a much simpler and more effective measure to directly seize power and implement rule.

Directly abolishing the banknote gate would cause everything to fall into chaos and trigger a huge resistance.

This is obvious.

So, this is a theoretically progressive form, but it may lead to reactionary consequences in practice.

The 18th century had the 18th century's form of social transformation, and the 20th century had the 20th century's form of social transformation.

In this era, Dashun did have about two-fifths of the world's population, and in fact, the total industrial and agricultural output value accounted for about 50% of the world's total output value or even higher.

However, some output values ​​are meaningless for business, trade, transactions, and capital appreciation.

For example, in Nanyang Prefecture, Henan, the per capita land is about 4 mu, and the per mu yield is about 1.2 shi.

So there are 100 mu of land here, with 25 people on it, and a total of 120 shi of grain is produced.

The problem is that these 25 people also need to eat, so in the end, for the "surplus product" that is meaningful in the new era, this is not the value of 120 shi.

When calculating the total industrial and agricultural output value, it is calculated based on 120 shi. So if calculated in this way, Dashun does account for more than half of the world's total industrial and agricultural output value.

But the problem is that Dashun is far behind in terms of surplus products that can be used for commodity exchange.

In addition, a series of problems such as overdeveloped family handicrafts and high land rents have made Dashun's internal market very small.

In fact, it is a very simple matter: insufficient per capita resources.

If there are only five people in this 100 mu of land, can the uneaten food be sold? Or grow some food for yourself and some cash crops such as cotton for trading? If the five people in this family sell the money, can they buy three more feet of cloth, five more pounds of iron, and one more red headband for the New Year?

But the reality now is that there are 25 people on this 100 mu of land. People have to eat, and there is very little surplus left after eating. And most of the surplus may have gone to a landlord.

Can this internal market be large?

Things need to be analyzed according to specific circumstances.

If you say that the Second World War is over, the Age of Exploration has long passed, and the land has been determined, then what is the biggest problem under these realistic conditions? It is different from now.

The current situation is that Dashun grabbed a handful of arable land at the end of the Age of Exploration. The arable land in its hands is indeed a lot, but the problem is that this "per capita" is meaningless because the people who really want to go there cannot go there. This is the biggest problem that Dashun has to face under the current conditions.

Specific situations require specific analysis, and we must not stick to the old ways.

From the perspective of future generations, what do you think of land? Why not develop industry and commerce well? Look at the United States, which is so developed, but its agricultural output value only accounts for 1% of the total output value?

The problem is that now is now and the future is the future.

Now, all over the world, one by one, which country does not have the highest total output value accounted for by agriculture?

In this era, the knowledge such as "land is the mother of wealth", "only land can generate added value", and "the school of agriculture" that became popular for a while became popular because it was in line with the current social existence.

Social existence determines social consciousness. In this era of "land is the mother of wealth", agricultural surplus is the only possibility for market expansion.

If people really have no clothes to wear or shoes to wear, they can also go to the grass by the river to pluck a handful of reed hair and make shoes with reed hair. This is very common in some areas at this time.

If people have nothing to eat, it is absolutely impossible. Everything is for food, and everything must be eaten first. This is the biggest truth at this time.

There are only two ways to eat.

Either, technological progress. Water conservancy facilities keep up, fertilizers are rubbed out, and good varieties are produced. 800 kilograms of wheat per mu is considered a poor harvest.

Or, expand the planting area and expand the arable land. North America, the Western Regions, Australia, the Northeast, and the South Seas, cultivate them.

The former is a future solution.

The latter is the least ridiculous and most likely solution under the current situation.

As for the current traffic conditions and transportation capacity, the idea of ​​"building large plantations in North America, importing grain, and reaching the per capita satiety line" is purely out of touch with the real world, or thinking that grain can be directly transported to various places through wormholes.

In fact, this is a question of comparison.

Now, relatively speaking.

Is it easier to rub out fertilizer? Or is it easier to expand the area of ​​​​cultivated land?

Obviously, the latter.

Then, the expansion of cultivated land and the total grain output have increased.

Is it easier to let the food without legs run all over the country? Or is it easier to let people with legs go to places where grain can be grown?

Obviously, the latter.

Of course, in fact, none of these problems is easy.

But even if it is not easy, it can be divided into different levels, and it can be divided into "it can be done now if you try hard" and "it will be useless for at least 20 to 30 years if you try hard".

The increase in per capita arable land is of great benefit to Dashun.

Capital needs a market, and the market is large only when there are more resources per capita.

The problem is that capital is profit-seeking, short-sighted, and disorderly.

You tell capital to use the capital to relocate people. When the market expands in the future, won't you sell more products?

However, capital is not a person.

So, Person A thinks, hey, this is a great plan that benefits both the country and me, I will pay for immigration.

Person B thinks, Person A is a fool, using the capital for immigration, I can just use the money for industrial expansion, and save you from competing with me.

So, there are only two solutions.

One is to do what Liu Yu did at the beginning, to make the relocation of people profitable for capital. For example, Nanyang is developed to grow rice and sugarcane, North America is mined for gold, and soybeans are grown north of Songliao.

If it is not profitable, then all the conditions are prepared: lack of railways? Build; competition from Indian sugar? Destroy...

The other is to make capital succumb to human will, so that people can control capital and move against the natural law of "water flowing downward".

For example, organize all the capital and power in society to force the immigration process.

This, again, goes back to the question of "China" and "Chinese".

If the Chinese are given an advantage in the Pacific Rim, then it actually doesn't make sense to do it now. The population base has already been reached. Even if Dashun collapses instantly now, the Chinese in Southeast Asia and North America can withstand and defend it.

The problem is, if we regard the people in Henan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Gansu and other places as people, and consider their future.

Then, the former path is obviously unrealistic.

People have to be born, the population base is here, and diseases such as smallpox can be prevented. At least 1% of the population must be moved every year to basically maintain the three or four acres of land per capita. This is the approximate population growth rate at this time.

In the UK when the Puritans were expelled to North America before, 1% was only 30,000 to 50,000 people a year. It's not a big problem. Even if they are all arrested and sent to the debt prison, they can afford to send them by official ships.

And in Dashun, 1%, what does it mean with this population base?

3.5 million.

Even if Dashun tries its best to develop industry and commerce now, can it absorb 3.5 million people a year to engage in industry and commerce?

At the end of the first industrial revolution in history, how many people were there in the world's industrial population?

So, if the migration is not 5 million people a year, it will basically not solve the problem of insufficient per capita resources in Dashun.

And the migration of 5 million people a year, especially in this era when steamships are just emerging... How should I put it, this is quite scary.

In this era, any country that can organize the migration of millions of people across three to five thousand miles every year will scare the rest of the world.

Relying solely on the profit-seeking nature of capital, by alienating people into some kind of goods that produce surplus value, that is, Liu Yu's previous policy, will definitely not work.

Because surplus value occurs in production and is realized in circulation.

5 million people are alienated every year, so how big a market is needed to achieve this circulation?

Even if you say that it is reactionary to restore slavery. The question is, even if the reaction was to restore slavery, if you get a group of people to work on plantations on the west coast of America, what would they grow? Who would they sell to? Or do they have some quirks and just like to see cotton and grain piled up in warehouses, which makes them feel good, instead of wanting to turn them into money?

For a piece of land, you need certain conditions, and only under these conditions, it is capital in the capitalist production system, otherwise it is just a piece of land.

This condition includes the market, climate, transportation capacity, workers who have been stripped of the means of production, and the social conditions that maintain workers’ subordination to capital, such as ownerless wasteland with no cultivable land nearby, etc., etc.

Therefore, pushing it to this step, if we regard the people in Henan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and other places as human beings, we must let them live a good life.

Instead of just setting the goal of making the Han Empire a steam roller, or for the Pacific Rim Chinese to have an absolute advantage.

So, it seems that there is only one possibility to accomplish this.

That is, the state machine has been strengthened to the extreme to concentrate social resources, capital, and strength to complete this great cause of migrating five million people every year.

In order to have this kind of extreme national power, the Dashun Dynasty must be killed first, because the ruling class of the Dashun Dynasty hindered the concentration of social resources and power, and determined the upper limit of the Dashun Dynasty's capabilities—— It is more than enough to be a steam roller; it is more than enough to establish a new celestial system based on free trade; but it is absolutely incapable of solving the widespread poverty problem of 200-300 million people.

In fact, the possible resistance of those 200 to 300 million people after being hit also means that Dashun is actually the "upper limit of industrial and commercial development."

If you go further up, you have to break the internal gate, but this will explode, or Dashun may not dare to do so. Therefore, the upper limit is locked - one-third of the world's population cannot complete industrialization under Dashun's rule, which is destined to not be too high, because that is one-third of the world's population.

In other words, the Dashun Dynasty, which continued to strengthen its centralization, became an obstacle to an even more extreme state machine.

Because of the underlying construction, the old system cannot be upgraded to the new system.

The old system must be uninstalled first.

Existing railways, factories, land, technology, steel plants, textile factories, etc. are similar to files on non-system disks.

Changing the system does not affect the inheritance of these files.

To achieve this goal, this new system should never debate matters of only theoretical significance around the Chao Guan Zi Kou issue at this time. Instead, it must find the real contradictions and crux.

One: We must understand the differences between Liu Yu and the Yan-Li school of thought who supported Juntian and even believed that Juntian was the most benevolent government in the world.

Equalizing land is a means, not an end. Land equalization should be used as a political tool to establish grassroots rule and thus organize social forces efficiently.

Second: We must firmly believe that industry is the solution for the future. Not to mention the further level, just compare it with the present. At least we must achieve Hamilton's understanding of this era: Times have changed, manufacturing is the foundation of a country, just like Jefferson. A country with yeoman morals that emphasizes agriculture and neglects commerce will not work.

Third: the final and complete abolition of Zikou, banknote customs, tariffs, etc. should be the end of comprehensive transformation of the world, not the starting point of transformation of the world.

When the two to three hundred million people here still had three acres of land per capita and relied entirely on handicrafts to survive, they have progressed to the point where they have directly abolished the customs duties at Qiaoguanzikou and so on.

Or when the country's industry has just started, it is necessary to cancel the tariff protection, and for the sake of justice and progress, it will not hesitate to destroy the country's industry. I would rather cede land and pay compensation, and would rather have countless people lose their jobs, than leave a clean slate in this world.

This kind of progress, like the French Physiocrats, is an infantile disease of the natural order. And the natural order is an idealized capitalist society, so it is also the infantile disease of capital.

At least now we can be sure that all restrictions on banknotes and capital will be lifted...

[As an economic measure, this would do little good. This will arouse a kind of anger, which will be met with almost irrepressible resistance, and this resistance will inevitably lead to reaction]

Fourth: The future is bright but the road is tortuous. Don't go straight up or down. Take two steps forward and one step back when necessary.

For example, the rapid development of industry and commerce is a two-step process. After taking these two steps, it seems that the third step should be to move forward and directly cancel the internal banknotes and various restrictions, because this is progress. However, not only should we not move forward at this time, but we should take a step back.

Fifth: The leadership class must represent the present and the future. Rather than taking equalization of land, or even returning to well-field, as the ultimate goal. That is to say, at least in terms of class consciousness, it cannot be that of small farmers or petty bourgeoisie.

However, it must be realized that Dashun is a country of small farmers. If you want to achieve success, you must consider small farmers. Otherwise, nothing will happen.

Sixth: The goal of concentrating social resources should be set on rent-collecting landlords. These annual land rents, which are actually several times the total fiscal revenue of Dashun, are used as social resources for the Great Eastward Movement.

At this moment, at this moment, this goal is not too much.

It can even be said that this is just a bourgeois revolution of industrial capitalism - the goal is to eliminate possible internal reactionary resistance and expand the world market.

From a historical perspective, Dashun itself has some advantages in developing industrial capitalism.

These advantages are traditions that Dashun himself may not have a theoretical or systematic understanding of.

For example, look at colonial policy.

Historically, 1813 can be regarded as a landmark year for various colonial empires to transform from the colonial concept of commercial capitalism to the colonial concept of industrial capitalism.

What is the colonial view of commercial capitalism?

Give an example.

Java.

Early Dutch rule.

Forced planting and forced tribute.

Controlling spices, cutting down clove trees, and manipulating prices.

They completely ignored the development of productivity, and aimed purely at commercial profits and the rate of return on commercial capital.

You also said that some landlords in Dashun hoarded land and collected rent instead of improving the land and expanding production, which can also be regarded as a kind of commercial capitalist thinking.

What is the colonial view of industrial capitalism?

Still Java.

During the anti-French war, Britain briefly occupied Java.

Tried to carry out reforms in Java.

The planned direction of reform is:

Dividing the land.

Collecting land taxes.

Conscription law.

Abolishing the Dutch forced planting and switching to farmers spontaneously choosing crops to plant to expand commodity production.

Of course, in the end, the change lasted less than half a year, and forced planting, tribute, and labor were continued in disgrace.

But the idea, especially the collection of land taxes, the conscription law, and what farmers planted and sold after paying taxes, was regarded as a sign of industrial capitalist colonialism in the colonies.

The reason why 1813 is said to be the landmark year when industrial capitalist colonialism began to replace commercial capitalist colonialism in history.

It's not just the Javanese reform.

In addition, in this year, the British industrial bourgeoisie defeated the commercial bourgeoisie and aristocratic landlords to a certain extent and issued the new "East India Company Charter Act".

The East India Company, which was originally a representative company of commercial capitalism, had to transform into a tool for the external expansion of industrial capitalism.

What is the typical commercial capitalism: the British woolen textile industry that transported cotton cloth from India protested and banned cotton cloth twice in a row by administrative decrees; plundered various raw materials in India, almost openly robbed; scraped the land three feet, I don't care if you have a market here in the future, I only consider the rate of return of commercial capital...

And the new bill in 1813 forced the East India Company to transform and become a tool for the external expansion of industrial capital.

To rule, to have a market, to produce raw materials, to improve the production efficiency of colonies to meet demand...

It is no longer a direct robbery, that is, the robbery system under the dominance of commercial capital as Lao Ma said.

And Dashun was due to various historical and realistic factors.

At least, on the issue of colonies, it is an obvious industrial capitalist colonial view. Rather than a commercial capitalist colonial view.

Especially in the Java and Southeast Asia region, it is vividly expressed - from the perspective of the 18th century, it is the most industrial capitalist colonial view.

Although it may be that the Dashun side was unconscious at the beginning, it was purely a "habit". Or it can be called policy or historical inertia: if you don't know what to do, just follow the idea of ​​​​per-acre tax and agricultural emphasis in China. Collect per-acre tax, develop small peasant economy, develop production, expand exchange transactions, exchange cotton cloth for rice, cotton, indigo grass...

Anyway, it's all bullshit. Just a joke: Weber said that "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" is bullshit, it's better to call it "The Protestant Ethic and [Commercial] Capitalism"; and the ancient Chinese production model can be called "Agricultural Civilization Tradition and Industrial Capitalism", and then shoot arrows and draw targets. Those with better industrial development must have a history of farming well. Even in the United States, the city on the hill that the Puritans wanted to build in the early days was also a tangible saint's teaching and the tiller had his land. East Asia later developed industry, and it can be said that this was because the farming here was good in ancient times. This kind of thing that draws targets can always find the bull's eye. If Europe is completely destroyed someday, wouldn't some foreign scholar take a look at East Asia and publish a book called "Confucian Ethics and Industrialization"? To some extent, it is really interesting to say that once you enter the country, there will be great scholars debating the classics.