Chapter 127 The Confusion of Shanxi Merchants: The Coal Boss Dissociated Between the Rich and Shanxi Merchants

The detailed explanation of the word "Fuhao" in "Chinese Idiom Dictionary" is: "refers to a rich and powerful family, family or person", or "wealthy and luxurious; rich and luxurious".In the minds of the general public, "rich people" refer to those who have considerable economic strength and status, but lack of performance in terms of social responsibility, fairness and morality.In short, it is the kind of "rich but not qualified". Today, under the general "context" of the market economy in the new era, Shanxi merchants have risen from an ordinary "business group" to a "commercial spirit" with special significance of the times, and their spiritual symbolic significance has far exceeded the initial Concrete meaning.

When answering the serious question of whether coal bosses are "new Shanxi merchants", some people gave a negative answer on the grounds that they are really hard to resist the banner of "Shanxi merchants".So some people had no choice but to classify the coal boss as a "rich man".To be clear, there is already a sense of contempt here. In their words, this is a "check-in" for the coal boss. The reason is that the so-called "DNA" genetic characteristics of the wealthy man are "in the same line" as the coal boss's unique talent.Among them, the most obvious and essential point is: money is not quality.However, some people far-fetchedly classify coal bosses as "new merchants". We do not agree with them here, and we still have reservations.

First of all, this "new Jin merchant" and that Jin merchant had the same career "success" under their respective historical environments, but their historical status and social significance were different. To be precise, the history of coal bosses in Shanxi is not long, and it was only a few years before they really accumulated a huge amount of capital, which mainly benefited from the abnormally high coal price at that stage.Their "success" was achieved by "fluke" based on the conditions of "positive" changes in external objective factors, not through personal subjective efforts.

In other words, coal bosses have contributed to their "success" in life and career on the basis of chance and necessity.The success of Shanxi merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties lies in the fact that they consciously carried forward the "Shanxi merchant spirit" of forging ahead, self-denial, diligence, dedication and dedication under certain historical conditions. But today, the "Shanxi Coal Reorganization" led by the government has blocked the coal bosses' "path to getting rich" in an instant. Several coal bosses can meet the requirements. This "integration" may mean that the coal boss has truly withdrawn from the stage of history.

Secondly, we should understand and judge the "Shanxi Merchants Phenomenon" from a developmental, dynamic and scientific perspective. Historically, at the end of the period, Shanxi merchants stuck to traditional business practices, rejected new things, and avoided venture capital, so they failed to successfully transform from commercial capital to industrial capital.Some media once cited such an example: After the 1870s, that is, in the late Qing Dynasty, it was a fashion for Niangziguan in the north of Shanxi to do foreign affairs. Still evading under the protection of the Qing court, he was keen on asking for land and houses, hoarding gold and silver, and exchanging official funds."Under the influence of the "inertia" of such a "path of thinking", they have been slow to transform into industrial capital, thus missing a good opportunity to move forward.

Success lies in continuous innovation, and failure lies in thinking about the past and keeping the old. This is the "gain" and "loss" of Shanxi merchants' century-old "business way". It can be seen that this "Shanxi Merchants" is not the "Shanxi Merchants" that Jin people are proud of today. Today’s coal bosses in Shanxi also seem to be facing an increasingly serious “inertial dependence” on “thinking paths” in the face of abundant resources and Shanxi Province’s long-term “positioning” as an “energy and heavy chemical base”. The most obvious feature is that over the years, private coal enterprises in Shanxi have continuously accumulated capital through mining, transporting coal, and coking. The development model has encountered severe tests in the face of the country's industrial regulation and environmental protection policies.

Today, although the Shanxi provincial government is promoting the "transformation" work with great fanfare, many people are still waiting to see whether the coal bosses can get rid of this vicious circle of path dependence as they wish. It may be the original intention of these people to classify the coal bosses as "Shanxi merchants".