Chapter 3 a cash register story

Brother Lu: Hello! Letter received.You raised a very interesting question in your letter.You said that if there are so many "social ideals" produced from well-thought-out philosophical systems, there will be serious problems in the implementation process.Then why, after the "revolution", the United States, which seems to be in a relatively natural state and does not have a large group of philosophers, can instead come up with a constitution that has not changed for more than two hundred years when necessary, and it can be elected smoothly. What about the more than forty presidents and the dozens of peaceful regime transfers?

Before answering your question, I would like to briefly tell you a typical American invention story. In the world, one of the oldest commercial activities is probably the large and small shops with cash transactions.But for a long time in history, shopkeepers around the world have been unable to solve two rather nerve-wracking things.One is statistics and planning.That is, the complex and large inventory cannot be checked frequently, and as a result, it is impossible to have a reasonable purchase plan.The second is the record of cash income.Slightly larger shops employ clerks who deal with cash every day.Even every store often encounters such a situation, that is, there is not enough change in the cash box, and the employee takes out his wallet, advances some change, and then takes it back from the cash box.When an employee withdraws money from the cash box into his wallet, no one can deny that he is faced with a great temptation.

This is truly a "worldwide" problem.However, in addition to being punished by law after the theft is caught, on the issue of how to prevent it, the ideas produced by various cultural backgrounds are different. In addition to mutual supervision, surprise inspections, encouragement of reporting, etc., there is another method that is widely used, which is to advocate starting with ideological education.It's really another way of thinking.This way of thinking believes that technical supervision is only a way to treat the symptoms, and it is difficult to solve the problem fundamentally.To really put an end to this phenomenon, we still have to transform people's ideological quality and solve it from the root.Therefore, while strengthening legal sanctions, it is even more necessary to strengthen ideological work, education and learning.Undoubtedly, this method must be based on a deeper philosophical thinking about solving a practical problem, and this kind of thinking must have its positive significance.

What I want to tell you is, how do Americans usually consider and solve such problems?We found that their thinking habits on such issues often go straight from reality to reality without further theoretical exploration.They are not used to it, and probably don't think there is any need for deeper philosophical thinking. They think very simply, since the easy cash in front of them is a huge temptation, then it is very natural that there are often weak-willed people who cannot resist such a temptation.For Americans, they are just acknowledging the fact that people have weaknesses and are unreliable.

This understanding naturally led them to another line of thought.They will wholeheartedly start from the perspective of inventing a mechanism.Looking forward to a mechanism to address human unreliability.They believe that caring about "major issues" such as the "soul" of people is the business of teachers and pastors, while ordinary people can only solve practical problems. Small shopkeepers in the United States are no exception. They have also experienced "big troubles caused by small problems" for a long time.Finally, more than a hundred years ago, they solved this problem in their own way.

Probably shortly after the Civil War, the son of a grocer in Ohio was deeply troubled by the above difficulties when he opened his own coffee shop. A machine that displays the results of a transaction, and both clerks and customers can see the displayed results.Such a display will dispel a lot of the clerk's original impulse to steal.So this kind of machine was once called "clean teller".After improvement, the function of this machine has been rapidly enhanced. It can not only calculate the total amount of each transaction, calculate the change, but also record every account every day.Afterwards, James sold his invention.

Then, the new patent owner made another crucial improvement in the cash register.A cash drawer with an automatic lock and a bell are designed on the cash register.The clerk enters the price and quantity of each item, and the machine automatically adds up to get the total, and then enters the cash handed over by the customer, and the machine automatically calculates the change, and the whole process is displayed.There is no difference between the two sides, one button, and with a crisp bell, the cash drawer will pop out automatically.If you don't follow the rules, the cash drawer won't open if you try.The machine records the whole process of each transaction on the paper tape. Under the triple management of the mechanism of the cash register, customer supervision and store owner's review, how can you not be found out on the same day for petty theft?

Therefore, American customers also trust the machine, and hardly doubt the results calculated by the cash register, not to mention that the receipt printed by the cash register includes your shopping list, and you can check it slowly after you go home.After arriving in the United States, I have never seen a dispute between a customer and a salesperson over the price.There is a cash register, so why fight! Although this early cash register was mechanical, it was also very bulky.We can still see various cash registers from that era in antique stores in the United States.It's a good thing they figured it out. In the era when there was no electronic display, they designed a small hook with a small number plate showing the price.As soon as you press the button below, the price tag will be hooked up wobbly.The price tag is double-sided, and can be seen by both the salesperson inside and the customer outside.Although such an early cash register is clumsy, it already has the most important functions of a modern cash register.Every day shopkeepers can check the cash from the records.Since then, in the ringing of the cash register's bell, the troubles of small shopkeepers have been solved once and for all.In American English, "ring a bell" has become synonymous with "making a deal."

At the time, American companies that produced cash registers declared that their cash register bells, like the first shots of the American Revolution, would ring the world within decades.Although the description is a bit exaggerated, today, more than a hundred years later, we do see that even distant China has begun to use the same cash register. Since then, the cash register has been continuously improved.In addition to a series of electronic equipment, the code of the product can also be recorded in the record, and all transactions are automatically entered into the inventory database, so that the statistics and planning problems of the store can also be solved together.

The cash register was invented by a non-expert user in the United States more than a hundred years ago.Just because he is an ordinary user, he sold his patent and the production right of the cash register at a very cheap price early after registering the patent.For him, it would be easier to sell his coffee than to develop and produce cash registers.In the United States, many inventions were born under such a very practical ideological motivation.Therefore, such an invention in the United States can be said to be an accidental thing, or it can be said to be a very inevitable thing. When we were in China, we heard such a saying.It is said that if Americans encounter a tricky job, they will first spend 90% of their time inventing a machine, and then use this machine to finish the job in the remaining time.After arriving in the United States, we found that this statement is not too much as a way of thinking.

Eliminate the efficiency factor that we usually understand.Americans seem to trust the function of a machine or a mechanism more than people in other places, and they are less willing to trust people. How do you say this?For example, in a very specific detail, the tools of the Americans are particularly well developed.No matter how good a craftsman you are, he will recognize your technical level as a handicraft artist, but from the perspective of technology itself, he trusts the role of machines and tools more.When what he needs is not a work of art that needs to be appreciated from an artistic point of view, but a practical product, he will undoubtedly give up manual operation.He would rather buy a machine or a set of tools to ensure the success of a technical movement than hire a skilled craftsman.The reason is simple, people make mistakes all the time. When we first came, we enjoyed browsing the building materials store here.It soon became apparent that the paint department in the store offered customers hundreds of color scales of paint colors.You choose the color you need, take this color standard, and the salesperson can immediately prepare the same color paint for you.Seeing this, you must not think that all American stores employ highly skilled eighth-level painters.On the contrary, the little girl who made the paint knew nothing about it.All she has to do is to check the ratio formula prepared in advance in the laboratory, and follow the recipe.So in the United States, I have never heard of a "master" who can "take a hand" in this regard.The logic of the United States is very simple. The formula in the hands of a little girl can’t be wrong, and even experienced masters sometimes make mistakes. In this way, we can go a step further to see the significance of the cash register.You can see that the quality and quality of "people" no longer need to be worry about by employers.Because all this is under the supervision and control of the entire mechanism of the cash register.The logic is also very clear.Employees must record the transaction in order to open the cash drawer.It must be recorded according to the actual situation of the transaction in order to pass the supervision of customers based on their own interests.At the end of the day, the owner checks it again.Whether it is a mistake caused by a human quality problem or a cash shortage caused by a human quality problem, it can be found immediately.After it happens a few times, the employer can make a substitution.In other words, it is a mechanism that guarantees the quality of work of employees. The reason why I call the cash register not just a machine, but a mechanism is that the designer of the cash register has put the interests of customers and the supervision of customers into it as a part of the design. In fact, even the employer's daily verification based on interests has become part of this mechanism.Without any one part, it could not be as successful. Therefore, here, people can be unreliable, but a cash register guarantees the screening of unreliable people, as well as the supervision and control of unreliable behavior. Now, let's get back to your concern.After the American Revolution, when Americans also had to establish a central government, what kind of thinking did they follow? In the last letter, I have already talked about it.After independence, the United States immediately dispersed and returned to a state with a high degree of autonomy.For ordinary people, it is better to say that the state in which they live is a country than the United States is a country.In fact, the thirteen states in the United States at that time were just like thirteen small countries, each of which had its own militia and printed and issued its own currency.The relationship between them is also like that between countries.For example, the states of New York and New Jersey are not very large, and the two states are close together.As a result, New York State decided to tax out-of-state ships entering and leaving its waters, and New Jersey immediately decided to tax a lighthouse that New York State built on their state grounds.Americans at the time were not so much concerned with the United States as they were with more specific things like their hometown, family and themselves. Still, the United States is already a country after all.The symbolic and formal things like the national flag and the national anthem can be discussed slowly, but the absence of a strong central government has actually brought the United States into crisis.Such a crisis, of course, has uncoordinated chaos in the fiscal and financial markets of the entire United States, and there is no one to deal with possible external aggression and internal conflicts. In 1787, eleven years after the United States issued the Declaration of Independence, and four years after Britain recognized the independence of the United States, Nora, who "run away", ended a period of undisciplined life and sat down to think about "what to do next".This year, 55 representatives from 12 states except Rhode Island finally gathered in Philadelphia and held a meeting in an ordinary house. constitutional convention. what are they doingThey're trying to create America's first central government.What kind of thinking did they follow to do it?Now, I can answer your question: they are just designing a "cash register". Thinking about it now, saying that the Americans were uneducated, at that time they really did not wrong them.Up to this time, these people, who are revered as the founding fathers of the United States today, have not considered at all to propose a blueprint for a perfect social form.Nor did they imagine how invigorated, united, and forward-looking the American people would be if there was a good social purpose to guide them.Instead, they have changed their "historical ills" of being free and undisciplined. Unfortunately, they missed this important historical opportunity.Therefore, the Americans we see today are essentially the same as the Americans more than two hundred years ago.So far, they do not have a goal of building a common ideal society, nor do they have similar good things to guide them.A pair of energy to go wherever you go. If everyone thinks that today's America should have a social label of XXism, it is by no means the perfect goal that the founding fathers gave the American people.They really came to this point naturally.Therefore, where they will go in the future, they have no idea at all. Therefore, our American friends are really not like us at all. They have been familiar with the development of society since they were young, and they always have a scientific spectrum in their hearts.Know which stage of social development you are in now, where you have come from, where you are going, and you will inevitably go to that society.For Americans, these are pure fantasy.They know that there is a theory of social development in the world that they feel is just one theory, and they know that there are all kinds of other theories.As for the various theories, they seldom believe in the various predictions made about the future of human society, and even if they "believe", they all "believe" in their own way. In this sense, their founding fathers are really irresponsible. I have always wondered how they could not make any goal planning for such a big country, and let the common people live as they want. ? You must also wonder, as the founding fathers, they should naturally have the ambition to build an "ideal country" and a "perfect society", so why are they an exception.Perhaps, first of all, they really do not have such deep philosophical thinking.Second, they don't feel very good about themselves.They don't even realize that they are a group of "leaders" above the American public.They feel that they are just representatives of the people pushed out by the people of the state.Like ordinary Americans, they are quite satisfied with the words in the "Declaration of Independence" that represent their simple demands, "the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", and have no higher ideals. and aspirational too.But I still feel that the ideal expressed in the words of the "Declaration of Independence" is just a lower level of personal ideals, rather than a grand social ideal. Looking at their constitutional convention, the atmosphere is very different from what you and I imagined. I once imagined such a scene.A group of founding fathers and heroes sat together.They finally fought bloody battles, and now that they are in control, they reunited and jointly planned to establish a central government.In any case, this is also a festive scene for grand plans.However, in fact, the atmosphere of the Constituent Assembly for several months has always been dignified.A heavy worry has always weighed on the hearts of every participant.For them, if the establishment of a new central government for the United States is a "happy event", they should have rushed to make arrangements for it long ago, and they don't have to wait until a few years later. Ordinarily, since they have no "lofty social ideals," the task of designing blueprints is much lighter.So what are they worried about?What they worry about is that the simple personal ideals in the "Declaration of Independence" cannot be realized.What they want is simple, nothing esoteric.Therefore, it is easier for them to figure out what they don't want for themselves: they don't want to hinder the realization of the above-mentioned personal ideals. Such things are despotism and tyrants. But how can a centralized central government ensure that it does not evolve into an autocratic tyrant?It's a puzzle they haven't solved for several years.Therefore, they have been avoiding this problem.Now, they have not found the answer and come here with a confident and relaxed mood. They are forced to come to this constitutional convention by reality.Therefore, there is always a cloud of gloom hanging over the conference table. This cloud of gloom is not without reason, and they have a ready-made lesson in front of them.This is the British Revolution that happened more than a hundred years ago and they are all familiar with.At that time, North America was still a British colony, so this period of history was like happening to one's own "brother", which was of great significance to everyone, and the stimulation it produced was particularly strong. In the British Revolution, there is a well-known important figure Cromwell.He became a legendary hero from a member of Congress to organizing an invincible army in the revolution against the king in Congress.However, after the victory of the revolution and the republic, he quickly took military power to implement a dictatorship, declared himself the "Lord Protector", and became another tyrant among countless tyrants in British history.At that time, Britain was already familiar with the theory of separation of powers. It had both a parliament and a constitution. However, Cromwell still monopolized all the real power of the country and dissolved the parliament at every turn, making the constitution useless.Before the smoke of the British "revolution" cleared, the British once again lost their freedom. The result of the "revolution" is nothing more than a change of powerful figures, but they are not called "emperors". Today, as they sit together to write the U.S. Constitution, the specter of Cromwell hovers before them.They must have foreseen that once the "central regime" is formed, it will use the state resources in its hands to expand itself.The regime itself will become a monster with the most vitality.However, I often wonder whether it is possible for them to foresee the development of this country in the United States, where all technology is still in its infancy.If they can foresee what the United States looks like today and the super-scale of the US government today, will they still have the courage to be midwives for the birth of such a "big Mac"? No matter how worried they are, the facts of the past few years have turned the dispute into a consensus.They have no way out, they can only sit down together, not to complete the constitution, not to leave this room. To be honest, I read the famous U.S. Constitution for the first time. After reading it for a while, I changed "reading" to "turning over".It was so different from what I had imagined.The text of this constitution is extremely boring, and there is not even a single bit of the fundamental principle of the establishment of a country that should be included in the usual supreme law of the country, and there are no gorgeous and beautiful rhetoric.This constitution is really a typical American style. It is written in the vernacular, which looks like a blueprint for the design of the power structure.A sentence is as monotonous as lines and numbers on a blueprint. You know who I am, I am most afraid of watching monotonous and boring things.So I let it go for a long time.It was not until a long time later, when I watched live performances on the American political stage, that I finally realized that there are laws in all kinds of tragedies and comedies, and these laws are related to this constitution that has not been amended for two hundred years. Bite the bullet and sit upright, and read it carefully.Then, I read it again.This reading, really read a lot of taste from the boring, really beyond my own expectations. In my opinion, this is a well-designed "cash register".Its design idea is very simple to put it bluntly, which is the same as the design idea of ​​the cash register I introduced earlier.That is, frankly acknowledging the fact that people are unreliable.A mechanism must be used to delete unreliable people, and at the same time use this mechanism to limit and regulate people's unreliable behavior. Therefore, there is no need to define and speculate on power itself, which has become superfluous nonsense for Americans.All they really know is that if the design of this "cash register" is successful, then power will naturally still be controlled by the common people, no matter what.If the whole design fails, then it is useless for you to say in the constitution that this is the government of the people.So, let them omit some beautiful words that could have been put aside to look at them. The first step in their design is the division of power.This is how the separation of the three powers of legislation, administration, and judiciary came into being.They are far from satisfied.It also continues to cut these three branches layer by layer.These three branches of power are cut into pieces like three carrots under a kitchen knife.The federation, state, city, county, and even the small town of Chicken Feather all have their own complete power structure.There is no hierarchical relationship between them, and they are all independent and independent. For example, in the judicial system of the United States, the federal courts do not have a leadership relationship with the district courts, and the judicial system is not a complete carrot.Each state has its own state constitution, and there is no relationship between the justices of the Supreme Court at the state level and the justices of the Federal Supreme Court. The former is not appointed by the latter, but the people of the state according to their state constitution. elected. The principle of power division is that it is better to be fragmented and self-contradictory than to be fully unified and highly centralized. Despite the separation of powers, they still worry about whether the unified federal government will become monopolistic, like the British Parliament, taxing the localities heavily and making life difficult for the states.They also worry that after a division of power, one of the branches will still wait for an opportunity to expand itself.They have seen enough of the political farce in the UK. Although there is a structure similar to the separation of powers, the branches of power will expand from time to time. When the executive expands, the parliament will be dissolved, and the parliament will overthrow the executive when it expands.Opening the history of Britain, a lot of people came and went on and off the stage like a revolving lantern, and they became dizzy before reading it.They don't want the United States to make the same mistake. Of the three branches of power in the federal government, the one that worries them the most is the president of the executive branch.Because, despite the division of power, in order for the executive branch to become an effective executive agency of the government, it must still hold great powers such as the army, finances, etc., and the president sits at the top of these powers.In their view, these powers are no different from the cash in the cash box. How can we prevent the president from being tempted to use these powers to dream of an emperor when the conditions are right? You will not be surprised by such worries, and it is unlikely that any Chinese will think that their worries are unfounded, because this kind of history is familiar to us.This reminds me of the story of Yuan Shikai proclaiming himself emperor.Just imagine, he looked at the emperor's dragon chair and knew that he only had to take a few steps forward, turn around and sit down, and from then on, everyone would kowtow to him.For him, this is such an irresistible temptation.And the civil servants around him only need to push him gently, and from then on, they will change from an ordinary official to a minister with one person under one man and above ten thousand people.How could they involuntarily stretch out their hands to push.Those concubines, as long as they step forward to help them, and turn around, they will all become princesses, how could they not help them.What a fascinating magic. I often suspect that everyone's ridicule of Yuan Shikai's "short-lived emperor" is just a kind of self-comfort.I have never dared to underestimate the vitality of the emperor, let alone the Chinese people's ability to accept the emperor, and there will always be a group of people who tirelessly tell the common people that this is a rare and good emperor. Let's go back to the Constitutional Convention of the United States.America's founding fathers knew that their lives were short, but that America, the newborn, would grow and live long.Future generations of Americans will live through countless presidents.It was within their power not to do something for their posterity, and for those who would come to this country with the same ideals in the future.Otherwise, the personal ideals of these people will undoubtedly be ruined sooner or later. We are all familiar with the brilliant Benjamin Franklin.We all read about him as kids in books like "The Scientist's Tale".The lightning rod was his invention.However, he was actually a famous politician.He participated in the drafting of the "Declaration of Independence" and successfully went to France to raise funds for the United States during the War of Independence.He was also one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention at this time.He said something quite representative at that time.He said, We know that the first president we elected was a good man, but God knows what will come out later. They are unwilling to place their trust in the personal qualities of future presidents.In their eyes, power is undoubtedly synonymous with a strong corrosive agent.Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, it's so simple for them.They still firmly believe that man is unreliable.Even if the selected person is sure to be a good person, if there is no supervision mechanism, there is still no guarantee that no change will occur under the corruption of power. Here, you can find that the worries of the founders of the United States about corruption are fundamentally different from the concerns of "resisting corruption" that we are familiar with since childhood.Their starting point is not to locate a group of "revolutionaries" who may be "corroded and polluted" by the external society, such as "fragrant flowers and poisonous weeds" or "big dye vats", but to focus on the internal changes that may occur in the power organization itself . For them, if there is no strong institutional guarantee, under the catalysis of authority, it is impossible not to ensure that the "president" will not gradually evolve into the de facto "emperor."Therefore, even Washington, the first President of the United States elected by them as a "good man", was placed under the supervision of the entire set of mechanisms they designed from the very beginning, and there was no such thing as arbitrarily using power for a day. day. Based on the above considerations, they set out to improve their "cash register".In addition to the separation of powers, they have designed a set of internal "safety brakes" that exist and work simultaneously with the entire power structure to prevent the federal government from evolving into a federal tyrant. This set of "safety brakes" is the so-called "checks and balances" or "checks and balances" in the US power structure.It was also after a series of disputes and compromises that some provisions were deliberately made in the constitution, so that the legal power of any branch of the government must be restricted by the other two branches. The three branches restrict each other, and it is impossible for any one branch to The proportion of power is greater than the other two branches, so it is impossible to grasp absolute power. In my last letter, I mentioned that Clinton’s difficulty in choosing the attorney general is actually the result of the separation of powers and checks and balances between the president and Congress.The two branches of the executive and the legislature work closely together, and between them a drama of cooperation and opposition is played out every minute.The constitution stipulates their respective territories, and none of them can do without the other, and at the same time, no one can cross the boundary. In contrast, the justices of the Supreme Court seem to be much more dignified, they don't show their faces much, and they don't make much of the limelight on TV.But there is such a time, the Senate and the House of Representatives finally passed the bill, and finally got the president to sign it. Seeing that it can be implemented, the Supreme Court suddenly declared that the bill was unconstitutional and thus invalidated. The unique "power of life and death" of the US Supreme Court over legislation is called "judicial review". It is not clearly stipulated in the Constitution, but it is an extremely important part of separation of powers and checks and balances.It can be said that this is the improvement of the design of the "cash register" by the Americans in the process of implementing the Constitution and according to the spirit of the Constitution.That is, yet another brake that comes with the "cash register" that is made in the United States. Just as the design of the "cash register" with a large number of brakes is about to be successfully completed, as I mentioned in my letter last year, they still cannot finally rest assured that the people's personal ideals can be guaranteed.Although the size of the federal government was pitifully small at the time, they were well aware of its potential enormous power.After repeated discussions, the ten constitutional amendments that defined the freedom and rights of the people were finally added to the constitution, which originally planned to discuss only the government structure.The role it plays has been described in detail in my letter to you last year.Here, I would like to add that the ten amendments protect civil rights in the form of law from a positive point of view, but from another perspective, they are outside the structure of government power and limit government power at the same time. , and added a set of supervision mechanisms in the form of civil restrictions. In the economic, political, cultural, and social life of the United States, separation of powers and checks and balances go far beyond the so-called separation of powers.The division of powers and rules stipulated in the Constitution are only a microcosm and a symbol of the separation of powers and checks and balances in the great society of the United States.For two hundred years, the principle of separation of powers and checks and balances has permeated all aspects of society, but it is not clearly stipulated in the constitution.This is undoubtedly the reason why the United States, a country with a vast territory, a large population, complex origins, and diverse cultures, which has the most reason to be unstable, has always been very stable. The "cash register" has finally been designed.The founding fathers of the United States finally left this historic little house after meeting for more than three months.When they left, they still looked dignified.None of them really realized what they had done for history, nor did they bother to think about such issues. During the months of meetings, they didn't know how many disputes occurred over the details of the entire design, and they didn't know how much they spent in fighting for state-level power and the expression of public opinion in the state.Finally, in order to enter the Bill of Rights into the Constitution as soon as possible, they fought red-faced again.At this time, they only hurried back to their respective states.Because, only after the votes of the states, this constitution can be formally established.They have to go back and explain their design to the people in their hometown to get their understanding and support.This work took them the next three years.It was not until 1789 that the Constitution was officially declared the fundamental law of the United States. I watched their backs leaving in a hurry, and always felt that there was something unreasonable here. First of all, although an ordinary country is ruled by a group of people, there is always a leader with the courage to take the lead.So in the end, it's always possible to identify a person to call the father of the nation.But in the United States, there are fifty-five founding fathers!Washington "popped up" naturally during the Revolutionary War.However, as soon as the war was over, before people could recover from the shock of the war and consider whether the father of the country was the father of the country, he had already handed over his military power and went home.As a result, later Americans used to respect the fifty-five representatives of the people who formulated the Constitution as the fathers of the nation.This always strikes me as a bit unusual. Secondly, no matter from the situation of the meeting or the subsequent performance of the fifty-five framers, it is not clear that they have any basic normal understanding of their achievements in the War of Independence or in the process of establishing the government.Although several of them, including Washington, were elected president successively, they were all elected by the common people through normal procedures after the election, just like all other candidates.The entire constitutional convention and the government's charter were given by them, but none of them thought that this was a great opportunity to occupy a "seat" for themselves.They fought for the interests of their own state, they fought for the individual ideals of every American, and then, the constitutional convention ended.There was no ranking of seniority, no arrangement for future government seats, not even a hint of it.They went on the road hastily like this, and left in a hurry! Perhaps, it was their departure that pushed the first start button for the normal start of this "cash register". However, will this "cash register" be able to function normally? I will answer this question in my next letter. wish it is good! Linda