Chapter 16 2. A small tree bears big fruit

The most important thing about the Industrial Revolution is its impact. First, it is particularly easy to say that it has promoted the development of productivity, consolidated the order of capitalist rule, and its productivity has been rapidly improved. What is the standard for this rapid increase in productivity?Or what kind of concept?From Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to Emperor Qianlong of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty, China's GDP doubled in two thousand years. What is the concept?That is to say, it can be considered that China's traditional agricultural society is basically a stagnant society. The reason why the GNP doubled by the time of Lord Qianlong may be due to the entry of foreign money. You have three hundred catties of rice per mu, one or two One hundred catties of wheat, at the level of the Han Dynasty, you did not improve significantly in the Qing Dynasty. You can feed so many people because of the arrival of potatoes and sweet potatoes, not because of the rise of wheat and rice, so the agricultural society is basically regarded as a A stagnant society.During the British Industrial Revolution, the GDP of the country doubled, and it was obvious that industrial civilization had a huge advantage over agricultural civilization. This is the first point.

Second, the development of own capitalism.This self-owned capitalism is the publication of "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, so self-owned capitalism must be relatively unfree capitalism.Is there still unfree capitalism?Yes, illiberal capitalism is what is called mercantilism.Mercantilism means that in the period of primitive accumulation of capital, capitalist countries want to intervene in the economy in order to complete the primitive accumulation of capital. How to intervene?That is, it can only be exported, not imported. Gold and silver flow in and commodities flow out, leaving money behind. All countries want to do this.You also want to sell things, I also want to sell things, everyone wants to sell things, and they all come to grab the market.The market is in the colonies, so countries fight for the colonies, and there are many wars. This is the main reason for the Second Hundred Years War between Britain and France, so mercantilism is the country's intervention in the economy.After the industrial revolution, I want to sell goods and I need raw materials. The bourgeoisie thinks that the state should not control this. If I need to import raw materials, I have to import raw materials. If I want to sell goods, I have to sell them. The government should not interfere. So under the dominance of this kind of thinking, free capitalism has developed.

Third, the formation of the industrial bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the rise and development of the socialist movement.The rise of the socialist movement, the industrial bourgeoisie and the proletariat prompted the rise of the socialist movement.First, the formation of two opposing classes—the industrial bourgeoisie and the proletariat—and then the rise of the socialist movement. Fourth, the issue of urbanization. Fifth, the East is subordinated to the West, the capitalist world market is initially formed, and nationalism is on the rise. In the first half of the 19th century, many parts of the world were colonized by European powers. If you look at Africa, it was still colonized until the First World War.Therefore, after the emergence of nationalism in Europe, it also emerged in Asia. Java, Afghanistan, Iran, India, these long-term oppressed regions all have nationalist sentiments.After the Industrial Revolution, three major social trends of thought emerged in Europe, namely nationalism, socialism, and liberalism, or the three major trends in the world.At that time, Europe represented the most advanced pace, and the trend of Europe was the trend of the world.Nationalism, liberalism, and socialism all arose from Europe.

I mentioned agricultural capitalism before. This agricultural capitalism has two paths: one is the large farm represented by the United Kingdom, and the other is the small farm system represented by France.Britain established the capitalist ranch through the enclosure movement.In addition to Britain, the United States also established capitalist large farms through the Westward Movement and the Homestead Act.There is another country, Germany, and there are only six major capitalist countries, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan.Germany is a typical capitalist large farm. The process of its farm conversion is to transform the semi-feudal Junker manor into a capitalist large farm.

There are several characteristics of a capitalist ranch.First of all, everyone must understand the "big" farms of capitalism. The word "big" means large in scale.A large scale must use mechanized production. The higher the degree of mechanization, the larger the scale, the less labor force will be occupied, and the faster the agricultural development speed will be.If you think that capitalist industry and industrial development in this country need raw materials, labor, and markets, it can provide sufficient raw materials, labor, and markets, and even provide some funds to provide sufficient capital markets, raw materials, and labor for industrial development.This is the big farm, the opposite of which is the small farm.Small Peasant System The country we mentioned earlier is France, which established the capitalist small peasant system through land distribution.Russia is also a small capitalist peasant economy. Slavery was abolished in 1861. Once slavery was abolished, farmers could get a piece of land, and you had to buy the land at a high price. Isn’t that nonsense? If you are free as a farmer, the state will let you get a piece of land. The state does not have this land. Landlords Given this land, if you were a landlord, what land would you sell to farmers?I'll sell you the land that doesn't even grow cacti. It's very barren and hard to plant.Some may be forests, some may be swamps. I gave them to you. After giving them to you, you have to buy them at a high price. If you have no money, you have to be loaned to you by the state, but you have to repay usury, which will be paid off in 49 years.Farmers borrowed 650 million gold rubles in 1861, that is, gold worth 650 million rubles. In order to stabilize the currency value, it paid off 2.5 billion gold rubles in 1910. You said that the ruble is not devalued, and the gold ruble does not depreciate, 25 How many times is 100 million? 4 times, the state made a lot of money, and then the landlord gave the most useless land to the peasants, and the peasants were the worst. You got a piece of land that doesn't even grow cactus, how do you make a living?How do you pay off the debt owed by the state?You have to rent the land of the landlord.In other words, Russia is a typical small-scale peasant economy, and even you can hardly call it a capitalist small-scale peasant economy, because it still retains landlords.Of course, everyone should pay attention. Because Russia is too big and the land is sparsely populated, it is not bad to drive 300 kilometers and you can see your neighbors. Maybe the land area occupied by farmers is not small. China is all at the level of landlords, but it is indeed In the small-scale peasant economy, the lower the degree of mechanization you occupy on such a large land, the more difficult it is for your land to grow. This is a case.

Finally, there is one country left, Japan.Japan's establishment of small farmers is to allow land sales and guarantee the land ownership of emerging landlords.This time was the Meiji Restoration. The Meiji Restoration guaranteed the land ownership of the emerging landlords. The peasants still had no land. If they wanted to plant, they could only rent the land of the landlords. So this is a typical small-scale peasant economy.Why should Japan protect the land ownership of emerging landlords?Why was Japan's Meiji Restoration successful?In China, whether it was the Westernization Movement or the Reform Movement of 1898, any reform in China that tried to touch the traditional system failed in the end.Because the social structures of the two countries are obviously different. Japan is different from China. Japan is like Europe, so it is easy to succeed. We have seen that France, Russia, and Japan are very typical capitalist small-scale farming systems, and France is the most typical. Russia and Japan are hard to say, while Britain, America and Germany are typical big farms.

The characteristic of the small farming system is that it is opposite to the big farms.The scale is small, the degree of mechanization is low, it takes up a lot of labor, and the development of agriculture is slow, so it cannot provide sufficient funds, raw materials and labor for the industry.Do you think China is now a large farm or a small farming system?Typical small farming system.It may be that the people's communes occupied some large farms during Mao Zedong's era, but their productivity levels were not up to par, so ordinary people did not work hard. He wanted to organize farmers for production.But now it is a typical small-scale farming system. At that time, we were most worried about the collapse of China's agriculture during the WTO negotiations, not the automobile industry. You accounted for 265 million acres of farmers. How do you compare the agricultural products of thousands of acres of farmers in the United States? Competition, that's what we're most worried about.You can't establish the reference significance of this thing to China today. How do you establish a large farm with more than 700 million people?You can only say that industry absorbs more rural labor force, and then the per capita arable land area in rural areas is increasing.