For Spring Restaurant and Chen Yu Construction Machinery Company, Feng Xiaochen's attitude is guided in principle, and he does not intervene in specific operations. He knows that his strength lies not in business management, but in the foresight of a time-traveler, as well as the overall situation that he had as a head official in the equipment industry in his previous life. Let him do the management of a certain enterprise specifically, but it is not as good as those professional managers.

Chen Shuhan and Yang Haifan may not be the most qualified professional managers, but they are the most suitable candidates that Feng Xiaochen can find at present. Fortunately, it was relatively easy to start a business in the 80s, as long as you were bolder, had a little business acumen, and did not particularly "die", you could basically succeed. Chen Shuhan and them will continue to grow up in this kind of training and become business elites who have the ability to fight the wind and rain in the market.

After the Spring Festival, a new semester begins. After a semester of adaptation, the 84 master's students of the Institute of Strategy are no longer as nervous and restrained as last semester, and their respective supervisors have also assigned them scientific research topics, so that they can conduct academic research in addition to their course studies. However, this kind of scientific research project does not require how many foreign literature to read and what beautiful mathematical models to be made, as later generations did, but to do some typical case studies on the current reform practice, and all the research results are closely related to real economic life.

In 1985, China was a thriving scene in both urban and rural areas. At the plenum at the end of 1984, the state took a "decision on the reform of the economic system", putting the reforms that had been in place since 1978 on the fast track. The core point of the reform of the economic structure is decentralization, with a strictly planned economy giving way to a "planned commodity economy," a unified centralized management system giving way to "expanding local autonomy," the government shifting from direct management of enterprises to indirect management, and enterprises gradually becoming economic entities that operate independently and assume responsibility for their own profits and losses.

For a time, the enthusiasm of individuals, enterprises, and local governments has been fully mobilized, and to paraphrase a sage quote, it can be described as "ten thousand kinds of frost and heaven compete for freedom". Private capital, which did not dare to do anything because it was afraid of policy changes, entered the market one after another, and a prosperous scene of "one billion people and nine hundred million businessmen" appeared. State-owned enterprises have begun a large-scale reform of the contract system, and a large number of "capable reformers" have appeared on the stage, shouting louder slogans and more shocking reform measures one by one. Not to be far behind, local governments have been calling for wind and rain on their own turf, engaging in large-scale capital construction, and the scale of investment has continued to expand, and various television factories, refrigerator factories, motorcycle factories, and other enterprises have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, causing the first round of "economic overheating" in the macroeconomy after reform and opening up in just one year.

The diversity of economic practice has also brought about a boom in theoretical research. In the world of economics, there is a competition of academic opinions, "reform seminars" one after another, and almost every conference is accompanied by heated theoretical debates. However, no matter what kind of viewpoint scholars hold, their blood is full of concern for the country and the people. They are doing their best to think about it, or holding high the banner of Marxism-Leninism, or holding the original works of Keynes and Samuelson in their hands, and they are repeatedly deducing the direction of the country.

As an economist at the level of a central think tank, Shen Rongru is naturally favored by the organizers of various academic conferences. He was overwhelmed by the mountains of conference invitations in his office, and the constant stream of invitation calls from his old friends in academia. His special identity determines that he can't express his opinions at academic conferences casually, and when he encounters some high-level conferences, he can only let his assistants or students attend for him, and Feng Xiaochen, a closed disciple, plays the role of a mentor stand-in.

"Did you get anything out of this meeting?"

Every time Feng Xiaochen went out to hold a meeting for Shen Rongru and came back, Shen Rongru had to ask him about the meeting like this. At the end of these conferences, of course, there will be some conference newsletters and proceedings, which can reflect the main points of view of the participants. However, Shen Rongru preferred to let Feng Xiaochen introduce the highlights of the conference to him from his own point of view, and he had already discovered that this young disciple of his had a keen academic observation and looked at problems from a very different perspective from ordinary people.

"It's still a cliché, the battle between the plan and the market, and the other is some opinions about price reform. On the whole, there are now more and more voices in favor of further decentralization, and several scholars have directly proposed the abolition of all regulations and the emergence of great order in the market, which is also said to be the viewpoint advocated by some scholars of the institutional school in the United States. Feng Xiaochen replied.

Shen Rongru said: "Yes, the country has been delegating power in recent years, and it has achieved many gratifying results, so the voice of decentralization will become louder and louder." In addition, local governments have tasted the sweetness of decentralization, and their attitude towards decentralization is very resolute. ”

Feng Xiaochen said with a smile: "But the decentralization proposed by scholars is not the same as the decentralization required by local governments. Scholars have suggested that the government should not intervene in the economy, including by relinquishing pricing power and abandoning the management of state-owned enterprises. Local governments, on the other hand, want to retain their interference in their subordinate enterprises, and they just want the central government not to meddle in their affairs. ”

"That's the contradiction. Shen Rongru said, "In fact, the central, local, and enterprise governments all have their own interests. Even the lowest level of enterprises has reservations on the issue of decentralization. They are worried that if the government ignores them completely, they will be at risk in the market. ”

Feng Xiaochen said: "That's right, some scholars at this conference released the results of their research in some state-owned enterprises, and they found that many state-owned enterprises hope that on the one hand, the government will not interfere in their operations and give them full autonomy, and on the other hand, they hope that the government can control the development of township enterprises and private enterprises, so that these emerging economic forms do not compete with them for the market." ”

Shen Rongru sneered: "In other words, they want the government to protect their monopoly on the market, but they also don't want the government to interfere in their operations. They all want to share the benefits, but they don't want to bear the responsibilities at all, how can such an enterprise be regarded as an independent market entity?"

"But it's not always like that. Feng Xiaochen said, "I went to a meeting this time, and I also visited a few friends in the company during the meeting. Their enterprises were originally subordinate enterprises, but they began to be placed under local management last year. They told me that after being transferred to the local government, their cooperation with other subordinate enterprises has been affected, and there is no such great cooperation as a game of chess for the whole country, and it is difficult to improve the technical level. I was planning to ask Director Luo for another verification of this question. In a country as big as ours, the equipment industry cannot be separated from each other, otherwise it will not be competitive. ”

Shen Rongru nodded and said: "In this case, I have also heard some feedback, but I have not done specific work in the equipment industry, and my experience may not be as in-depth as yours." You can study it as a special topic, put forward some policy suggestions, and I will help you submit them to the central leadership. ”

"That's great. Feng Xiaochen said, "I think this issue will also be reported to the Central Committee by the Economic Commission, and with the views of the academic community on your side, the leaders should pay more attention to it." ”

Shen Rongru said: "Actually, the central government has always attached great importance to this issue. Last time, we went to Beihua Machinery to investigate the quality incident of the fractionation tower, and the central leaders also made instructions on the research report written by several of your graduate students after they came back, clearly proposing to strengthen the management of state-owned enterprises under the conditions of commodity economy. The difficulty lies in how to grasp the proportions of the policy.

At present, the general policy direction of the state is to decentralize power, and if too much emphasis is placed on 'a game of chess for the whole country,' it is very likely that we will return to the original situation in which the state grasps the situation at one time, so that the previous efforts to invigorate the economy will be abandoned halfway. This is also the reason why it is inconvenient for the central leading comrades to give rash instructions. ”

"I see. Feng Xiaochen responded. He is not a rookie in policy, he is well aware of the sensitivity of the country's major policies, and any policy may affect the whole body, not a pat on the head to change. The decentralization of power in the past two or three years has indeed caused some economic chaos, but the benefits have been significant. By unleashing the vitality of local, corporate and private capital, the national economy has shown a trend of prosperity, which is the mainstream. If you have to reverse the wheel because there are some problems in individual departments, it will be more than worth the loss.

After reporting to Shen Rongru, Feng Xiaochen asked for leave and went to the rearmament office to meet Luo Xiangfei. He went out for a meeting this time, and several friends he contacted were cadres in key equipment enterprises, and the things they reflected had something to do with the work of the Heavy Equipment Office, and Feng Xiaochen also had the obligation to give feedback to Luo Xiangfei on these opinions.

"Yo, Xiao Feng is back, how about it, now that I am a big master, I have the opportunity to guide our work more." ”

As soon as Feng Xiaochen walked into the courtyard of the heavy equipment office, he received a bunch of compliments, Liu Yanping, Xue Ducang, Wu Shican, etc. all greeted him affectionately, and Wang Genji, who had fought side by side not long ago, grabbed his shoulders and gave him a bear hug that looked ambiguous.

After dealing with these colleagues, Feng Xiaochen walked into Luo Xiangfei's office with a smile. Luo Xiangfei had already heard the movement just now, and when he saw Feng Xiaochen enter the door, he stood up with a smile, poured a glass of water for Feng Xiaochen personally, and sat down on the sofa with him. In Luo Xiangfei's mind, Feng Xiaochen is still his most powerful and discerning subordinate, and every time Feng Xiaochen visits, Luo Xiangfei is very happy.

"Going out for a meeting again? How's it going, do you have anything new?"

Luo Xiangfei asked.