1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 646, The Future Era (3)

“Well, Dena.” Scrooge smiled confidently. “I have many kinds of conspiracy to destroy your country. Yes, it is conspiracy, not conspiracy, so even if I tell you now, In fact, there is nothing you can do.”

“First of all, the most direct affirmation is military preparations. The whole of Europe will stand on the opposite side of you, and can continue to deter you through the proxies bordering you, so that you have to invest huge manpower and material resources in the military. And because of this it drags down your industrial development and people’s livelihood. Dena, as you know, in this war, there have been many things that will profoundly change the situation of the war. But because of the backward technology, Russia has not mastered such technology. Coupled with the destruction of the civil war itself, coupled with, well, Dena, most people in Russia who have the opportunity to receive a good education are your class enemies. There may be a few of them willing to take your side, but most They will stand on the opposite side of you. So your technology is quite poor, even much worse than the original Tsarist Russia. This means that in the transformation of military technology, you will all be followers for a long time. Dena, do you understand the difficulties this will bring you?”

“We need to allocate a considerable amount of resources for education popularization and scientific research from the already extremely tense resources. In order to catch up with other European countries that are already ahead of us, we must invest more in these aspects than them. High. But our system has advantages. We can deploy all kinds of resources in a unified manner, and the efficiency will be higher.” De Na replied.

“It’s not just that.” Scrooge said with a sneer, “In order to protect yourself, you need to maintain a larger army, and because of technological backwardness, you need to have an advantage in numbers to maintain a balance of military power. This means that even if it is a weapon that has fallen behind, you have to equip a lot. Once new developments appear in the weapon, the things you have hardly equipped will become waste, and then you need to invest more on the one hand. Resources to keep up with the progress of military equipment. On the one hand, before the development of new equipment, not only can you not reduce the number of backward weapons, but even increase them to ensure that this window will not be used by the enemy. Wait until you have new weapons. After it has been developed, a large-scale change of equipment will be required, and then a newer generation of your enemy will come out… As a result, you will continue to spin in the vicious circle of mass production of backward weapons to maintain balance.”

Seeing that Dena seemed to want to refute, Scrooge hurriedly made a gesture and said: “Dena, don’t worry, let me finish first. I know you want to say that this is just a technological problem, and there is always a solution. Indeed, for example, if you are lucky and those countries are in economic crisis, you can buy machines and technology at a very cheap price. This is very likely to become a reality. But on the other hand, it also means war As it approaches, your economic development will definitely be interrupted. But these are not the most terrible things. Compared with the real problems, these are minor problems.”

“Then Scrooge Uncle, what is the real problem you are talking about?” Dena asked.

“It’s your own internal out-of-control.” Scrooge said, “Dana, don’t laugh, are you still not aware of the seriousness of the problem? Well, let’s do it, before we discuss this issue, first establish a few basics Assume as the premise. First of all, there are individuals who betray their own interests, and there are no classes that betray their own interests. Dena, I am here to change the class to a class, because there are still conflicts of interests within the same class. For example, the petty bourgeoisie. And me, it’s almost a life-and-death relationship; and the relationship between aristocratic workers and ordinary workers is not necessarily harmonious. Of course, there is still a difference between class contradictions and class contradictions, at least there is room for reconciliation. Okay, what do you think of this hypothesis Sample?”

Dena didn’t answer right away. She knew that this thing Scrooge threw out was not good and immediately admitted, there might be many traps in it.

“Dana, do you remember the story about the blind man touching the elephant that I told you before?” Scrooge continued, “Every blind man is trapped in his ability to perceive the world, and can only make such mistakes. Conclusion. In fact, when facing the whole world, each of us is blind. Our life experience, our education situation, our technology ability, all aspects limit the way and scope of our view of elephants. So Although there are special cases, people with similar life experiences have similar views on the same things. You don’t disagree with this, Dena. Most people of the same class, even if they don’t consider their conscience or something. Other ridiculous things are trapped in their horizons, and they will also have similar views and attitudes. Therefore, all classes will naturally protect their own interests and strive to maximize their own interests. This has nothing to do with morality. This is determined by their Life. I think this assumption should be relatively reliable.” Scrooge continued.

“Well, I agree with this hypothesis for the time being.” Dena replied, she was also very interested in what Scrooge could deduce from this hypothesis.

“That’s good. Then I have a second hypothesis based on my observation of the world.” Scrooge said, “Economic activities have become more and more complicated, and this complexity is due to the more and more detailed division of labor in society. I think that with the development of productivity, the social division of labor will always be more complicated than it is now, and the interdependence between various industries is getting stronger and stronger. From this phenomenon, I propose the following hypothesis: the more coordinated social production It has become more and more complicated, so that the coordination of social production itself has become an industry, and it is an industry with very difficult technology and a very high threshold. With the continuous development of social productivity, many people, or most people in non-industry It became more and more difficult to understand the status of this industry. Later, even after all the information was disclosed to him, he mostly couldn’t understand the meaning and possible impact of the various measures.”

Dena frowned. She had already faintly sensed what Scrooge wanted to say. She even rushed to Own’s body and began to tremble a bit uncontrollably, so she had to hold it tightly. The armrest of the chair.

“In a socialist country, an important task of state institutions is to coordinate production among various industries.” Scrooge continued, “I can use an analogy. A socialist country is like a large company. The equity of a large company belongs to all members, and each member’s equity is naturally equal. In other words, this means that the equity of this large company is highly dispersed. On the other hand, the coordination of the operation of this large company is very large. To a certain extent depends on the command of the managers. Dena, you tell me, what kind of problems will exist in such a large company?””What kind of problems will arise in such a large company?” Dena couldn’t help but think, “Such a large company…Who else can restrict the managerial level in this company…”

“In this large company, the biggest problem is that the owner will completely lose the power to restrict the operator.” Scrooge did not wait for Dena to answer, and threw out such a cold answer.

“This is not a problem that the general meeting of shareholders can solve. First of all, every employee is very tired, very tired. Dena, I think you understand, because if every employee or owner has a little leisure, you will be outside The enemy of the company is defeated. Therefore, they cannot help but be tired and exhausted. At the same time, coordinating various productions is so complicated that these shareholders have neither the knowledge and ability, nor the time to read and understand the company’s various statements. The company’s For them, operation has become a de facto black box. Because they don’t understand these at all, although in the system, these employees and shareholders have the power to manage the company and remove those managers, in fact, they are fundamentally There is no ability to enforce such powers. So the managerial class actually becomes the controller of the company.

However, this is not the most terrible thing. The most terrible thing is that the interests of the managerial class are not natural and completely consistent with the interests of the company. The company is not his, he is just the operator. Going back to our first hypothesis, any class will naturally be loyal to its own interests. The managerial class is no exception, they will use various means to ensure the maximization of their own interests. Even at the cost of harming the company’s interests. For example, if the normal income of the company’s managers is one, and the company goes bankrupt, and the income of embezzling the company’s assets in the process is two, or even twenty, it is almost inevitable that the managers betray the company. Anyway, as long as I can make myself rich at the company’s funeral, it is enough. ”

Speaking of this, Scrooge suddenly remembered some very interesting phenomena he had seen before crossing. In another time and space, when the financial crisis broke out in 2008, the CEOs of some companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy did not rush to find a way to save the company, but hurriedly figured out ways to give themselves high bonuses, or low prices to other companies. Companies sell company assets to get more returns. (Of course, in the United States, it is a crime to directly give money, but it is legal to hire someone as a consultant, and the amount of salary for the consultant is completely free of the company.) For example. Say that the CEO of a certain company just before bankruptcy gave himself hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to reward himself for his contributions to the company over the years. Anyway, because of the dispersion of equity, the general meeting of shareholders cannot form a resolution at all. In December 1991, managers of a super large company even directly assigned the company. Then each of these managers immediately became a wealthy oligarch, and their feat of making a fortune at the funeral of the company they ran has become an example for countless caring people to learn later.