The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 75 Listing Notice and Some Gossip

First, the business:
It will be on the shelves at 12:30 noon today. At least four chapters and 10,000 words will be updated directly. There is no guarantee for more.

After it is put on the shelves, it will be at least 6,000 words per day, and I will write as many as possible on this basis.

Most of my book is about settings and social analysis (keyword politics). It is difficult to quickly type out a lot of content, so I dare not give too high a guarantee.

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The following are some of the author's personal thoughts, which have nothing to do with the formal content of the novel:

I believe that many readers feel that modern America’s position is the most comfortable.

They can print dollars like crazy and use these waste papers to exchange for real resources and goods around the world.

This then gave rise to the idea that as long as others use money to exchange for the products I produce, they are plundering my wealth.

In reality, to some extent, this concept makes sense.

But this is a product of the special social and international environment of reality and cannot be directly applied to other social environments.

In different historical periods and in this fictional world I set up, it is impossible to directly match the characters to their real identities. That is a typical case of trying to find a sword by carving a mark on a boat.

First of all, gold and silver are natural currencies.

It is a general equivalent. Gold and silver are valuable in themselves and are also "commodities".

The US dollar is a credit currency.

It is just a currency symbol. The dollar itself has little value.

The Federal Reserve can directly start the printing press to print US dollars.

But there is no way for anyone to simply produce gold and silver.

Therefore, before modern times, people used gold and silver to trade products, which could be regarded as equal exchange.

It cannot be equated with modern people using paper money to purchase goods.

Then, the Ming Dynasty mentioned in the introduction obtained a large amount of gold and silver. What was the use of it?

The answer is: it can promote the establishment of capitalist production relations.

How did capitalist production relations come into being? Here is a basic political concept:
“Primitive accumulation is the premise and starting point of the capitalist mode of production.

“The establishment of the capitalist mode of production requires two basic conditions:

“First, there are a large number of workers who have personal freedom but no means of production, and they must rely on selling their labor to make a living.

“Second, accumulate a large amount of monetary wealth.”

The large amount of gold and silver in the Ming Dynasty can directly meet the second basic condition.

Monetary wealth cannot usually be regarded as modern credit currency, because credit currency became mainstream only after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.

When the United States gained independence, it used credit currency, but it was a last resort as it did not have sufficient gold and silver reserves.

After the situation stabilized, the United States also turned to the gold standard currency, and it was not until the collapse of the Bretton Woods system that it finally became a de facto credit currency.

Before the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, paper currencies that existed for a long time and operated relatively stably were basically gold and silver-based currencies.

All of them are backed by sufficient gold and silver reserves and are issued according to the size of the reserves.

These banknotes can be exchanged for gold and silver at a fixed price.

It can be regarded as a bearer gold or silver note with a fixed value.

Before the emergence of gold and silver standard paper currency, people used gold and silver directly for transactions.

Or it can be traded with other commodities that can serve as general equivalents.

For example, silk and grain.

Before managers have sufficient mathematical foundation and management capabilities, credit currency will inevitably collapse.

The treasure notes of the Yuan and Ming dynasties eventually became waste paper, and the early US dollar also directly and actively devalued by half.

The process of becoming waste paper and devaluing will seriously damage the credibility of the court.

Now let’s go back to the first one:
“A person who has personal freedom but no means of production and lives by selling his labor.”

They are “wage workers”.

Before industrialization, only extremely developed handicrafts and commerce in cities could give rise to and maintain the existence of a large number of pure wage laborers.

If we want to ensure the sustainable development of industry and commerce, we must have sufficient money supply, otherwise there will be continued deflation.

Merchants would melt the gold and silver into silver bars and store them in basements.

Therefore, there needs to be sufficient gold and silver, more than the market demand.

Keep the market in a state of sustained inflation, and gold and silver will continue to depreciate slowly accordingly.

Only in this way can the market economy continue to prosper and naturally reduce the practice of hoarding gold and silver.

So, Europeans collected gold and silver from all over the world and sent them to the Ming Dynasty in exchange for products such as tea, silk, and porcelain. What did the Ming Dynasty get from them?

First, the Ming Dynasty obtained sufficient natural metal currency.

Even if it depreciates slightly, it will never become waste paper. It is a currency that is always recognized by everyone, that is, the "general equivalent."

This satisfies the second condition of capitalist production relations.

Second, there was a prosperous urban handicraft industry.

This satisfies the first condition of capitalist production relations.

Third, a large number of skilled handicraftsmen were obtained.

This in turn was the foundation of the first industrial revolution.

The Industrial Revolution was born out of highly developed handicrafts.

If you have a basic understanding of political concepts, it should be easy to understand this logic.

If gold and silver were really useless, and if they were exchanged for something useful, it would be a profit, and there would be no need for Britain to launch the Opium War.

Anyway, the gold and silver are of no use to Britain. These stone-like things are all earned by the Qing Dynasty. Wouldn’t Britain be happy to get usable goods?

But the UK needs to use its gold and silver reserves to ensure market stability.

However, ordinary people think that gold and silver cannot be eaten or worn, so they are essentially completely useless.

It was a loss to exchange silk, porcelain and tea for gold and silver, but from the perspective of personal interests, it could actually be said to be correct.

If the whole society is distributed according to need, then gold and silver will lose their value as currency. But before it can be distributed according to need, especially if you still want to engage in capitalism, it is short-sighted.

If we really can't turn around, then we can think in another direction.

In ancient times, there was a lack of sufficient gold, silver and copper coins.

Things like silk, porcelain, and tea can actually be used as general equivalents.

For ordinary people in ancient times, most of the silk, porcelain and tea that could be exported were luxury goods.

This is something that ordinary people cannot enjoy.

What is it that they can use?

They are cotton and linen cloth, wooden furniture, iron farm tools, iron pots, grain, coal, bricks and tiles and other daily necessities.

These items were of low value and were not usually used as commodities in ocean trade in the Age of Sail.

Shipping a shipload of grain from Ming Dynasty to Europe is a pure money-losing business.

Things like iron pots are often exported to Japan and the Mongolian grasslands.

Because they don't have the technology to make good iron pans, iron pans are also high value-added products for them.

During the Wanli period, one iron pot could be exchanged for twenty Japanese swords, but the iron in one iron pot was definitely not enough to make twenty Japanese swords.

Therefore, commodities that sustain the basic lives of ordinary people would not flow overseas on a large scale in the luxury trade of the Age of Sail.

At the same time, for ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty, even if they received a piece of silk as wages, they would definitely not be willing to use the silk to make clothes.

They wanted to use silk as currency to exchange for food, cotton and linen cloth, iron pots, and bricks and tiles.

The market value of silk is unstable and it is far less useful than gold and silver. The key is that it cannot be stored easily.

If ordinary people wanted to save money, they would have to sell the silk and exchange it for gold, silver and copper coins to save.

Of course, the massive influx of gold and silver is definitely not all good things.

If there is too much gold and silver in the market, exceeding the amount needed for industrial and commercial development, it will directly lead to inflation.

This will cause ordinary workers to be afraid to save money and spend the money as soon as they get it.

This is of course harming the interests of ordinary people.

But for society, this will further catalyze the development of industry and commerce and further induce the brewing of the industrial revolution.

Farmers may be even worse off, as the food they produce is becoming less and less valuable and can only be used to make a living.

That’s not all. Factory owners would try every means to seize their land and use it to plant mulberry trees to feed the silkworms and maintain silk production.

Farmers will lose their land and be forced to seek a living in the city.

Eventually they will become wage workers in factories, becoming a key link in the formation of capitalist production relations.

This is capitalism that emerged spontaneously.

In fact, in the last years of the Song and Ming dynasties.

If the ruling class still has strength, they can survive the final collapse.

The key is to complete the absolute annexation and concentration of rural land and make the conversion of rice to mulberry a national policy.

Even if hundreds of millions of people starve to death in the end, the entire national order will still not collapse.

Then capitalism was almost done.

All that’s left is to wait for the Industrial Revolution to arrive.

Because history education is carried out from the perspective of an ideal society, many people instinctively dislike land annexation, while at the same time expecting capitalism to emerge in ancient times.

The two are contradictory in themselves.

Relatively thorough land annexation is an important prerequisite for the spontaneous formation of capitalism.

This is what the British experienced.

The change from rice to mulberry can basically be corresponded to the enclosure movement where sheep eat people, and the land annexation in the UK was also carried out very thoroughly.

Converting rice into mulberry trees and sheep eating people are both primitive accumulation of capitalism.

This is the normal state of a spontaneously formed capitalist society.

Many people have some idealistic misunderstandings about capitalism and instinctively regard it as a good social system.

But the Great Teacher said long ago:
“Capital comes into the world dripping with blood and filth from head to toe.”

Why did the instructor say that?

Because the capitalism he sees is what he describes.

Early capitalism was extremely cruel.

Many ordinary people probably equate "capitalist countries" with "developed countries."

I think capitalist countries should be very civilized and wealthy from the very beginning, and have extremely high social welfare from the very beginning.

I feel that a traditional agricultural country can be relatively simple and harmless without affecting the lives of ordinary people.

The key is that there is no need to go through the process of land annexation, changing rice to mulberry, and sheep eating people.

A wealthy and civilized capitalist country was spontaneously formed.

This is obviously a dream.

The ones who are really close to turning this dream into reality are not the truly capitalist countries, but our former Big Brother and ourselves.

What really forced those dirty capitalist countries to put on the current civilized cloak was the Big Brother we once missed.

Therefore, the protagonist of this book will instinctively have this kind of dream.

The social system he will eventually promote will not be capitalism in the traditional sense.

Instead, on this basis, more progressive features are added while also retaining some traditional features.

A developed world dominated by Eastern cultural traditions, a world that everyone imagines.

Finally, let me repeat the basic principles:
Productivity determines production relations, the economic base determines the superstructure, and social existence determines social consciousness.

Production relations have a powerful reaction on productive forces, superstructure on economic base, and social consciousness on social existence.

(End of this chapter)