Since the beginning of school, the knowledge that people in later generations have learned is that the West is a commercial society, and the commercial society seems to have become synonymous with modern society. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Indeed, Westerners have a strong business culture, and the culture represented by the free market and joint-stock companies has even been recognized as the core content of modernization.

But it is clear that commerce appeared much earlier than commercial society, and commerce and agriculture and nomadism appeared almost simultaneously in human history.

So when did Westerners enter the commercial world? Many people think without thinking that the West has been a commercial society since ancient times, while China has been an agricultural society since ancient times, and the theory is still the Tao, for example, the West has attached importance to trade since ancient times, and no country can live without trade.

In fact, the West's entry into modern society should have started as early as the Netherlands. Students of business often learn the story of Barents, a 16th-century Dutch captain whose ship ran aground on an island near the Arctic Circle, where they spent a long winter, most of them freezing to death, but they did not touch the goods entrusted by their customers, and among these goods, there were matches and medicines that could save their lives. At the beginning of the spring of the following year, they delivered the goods to the customer in perfect condition.

Economic and business textbooks use this example to illustrate that in the Netherlands in the 16th century, the basis of trust has appeared, and the Dutch have been honest enough to let investors trust their assets to strangers to operate, so of course they can safely hand over their money to others to operate, so the first joint-stock company in human history, the Dutch East India Company, was established in the Netherlands.

Whether the story itself is true or not remains to be verified, and he does illustrate a truth. But according to Zhu Jinglun's understanding, this is completely nonsense, let's think that Barron's incident is true, and Zhu Jinglun absolutely does not believe that the Dutch in the 16th century can all do this level. Even in the 21st century, Zhu Jinglun dares to guarantee that 99 percent of Westerners will choose to use medicine to save their lives when they encounter such a situation.

So this is just a special case, similar stories you can find in any culture, such as the Jin merchants spread many generations later, the descendants of the people to retrieve the ancestors of the Jin merchant ticket number of the silver and so on, I am afraid that in most cases, this kind of story is made up to promote their own integrity of the advertisement, the story of the Dutch is probably the same.

But in the 16th century, it was true that the Dutch were a mercantile society, and most of the people in the country depended on commercial trade for their livelihoods, and joint-stock companies also appeared.

The fig leaf that Britain found for the Opium War, the right to free trade, was also proposed by the Dutch. At that time, the Dutch East India Company did business all over the world, and the biggest challenge it encountered was the commercial monopoly of the two maritime hegemons at that time, Spain and Portugal, and their commercial monopoly had the legitimacy of the Pope's endorsement, so the Dutch preached the theory of trade freedom everywhere, believing that it was illegal for the Pope to divide the world into Spain and Portugal, and they found the basis that trade was the natural right of man from the theories of ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle. For this reason, the Dutch made a great appeal for their right to trade in the colonies of Spain and Portugal, which could not be forbidden.

The Dutch were obviously the first commercial society, not because they were dependent on trade, and they could not live without trade, but because their culture was rooted in commerce, and the ideas they put forward were all in the service of commerce, and commercial culture was the determining factor in whether a country was a commercial society or not.

After the Age of Discovery, the Dutch business culture expanded throughout Europe, and Europeans gradually embraced the idea of free trade. Freedom of trade is a political concept, not the same thing as free trade. Trade freedom is a power, and free trade often refers to the low tax rates promoted by the United Kingdom, and the policy state of concern for trade.

The fundamental reason why Westerners think that trade freedom is a kind of power is that Westerners can't do without trade, they are all small countries, they can't produce all materials, and all countries can survive through exchange, so this concept put forward by the Dutch is easy to be recognized by other countries, because they have this need.

On the other hand, China is a big empire, basically able to produce all the goods that meet its own needs, so objectively there is no dependence on trade, so even if the trade freedom proposed by the British is violated, it is difficult for the Chinese to understand their reasons, and feel that it is completely unreasonable, the Chinese feel that doing business should be something you are willing to do, we are not willing to do business with the British, how can we still infringe on their rights?

These are two different worldviews.

In the international law formulated by the West and the principles of Western concepts, there is a very important regulation, called the right of free transit, especially for those countries that do not have access to the sea, such as Switzerland, their goods, and goods to be shipped to their countries, have the right of free transit in neighboring countries, and the other party cannot interfere with them, which is obviously a law based on freedom of trade.

However, although Westerners generally accept the right to free trade, the whole Western culture is also very complex, and not all countries are purely commercial cultural countries.

The commercial culture of the Dutch has spread more thoroughly in northwest Europe, and countries such as Britain, Sweden, and Denmark, which have retained the maritime trade tradition of the pirate period, have better accepted the commercial culture, and their own culture is also dominated by commercial culture, which is a relatively pure commercial country.

In other European countries, although the business culture is strong, but not every country is based on the operation of the business culture, it can be said that the operation of most countries is not based on the law of commerce, Spain and Portugal and even France, their feudal culture is probably stronger than the commercial culture, in the operation of the country, nationality and nationalism may be the biggest operating principle.

The feudal military culture of Prussia and Russia was far stronger than their commercial culture, and the operation of the state was mainly based on the nationalism of the feudal military, and as for commerce, it was only one of the factors in the operation of their state.

China's business culture is even weaker, although most of the time it is commercially developed, but businessmen have never become the dominant class, and the culture of businessmen is not the mainstream, and even despised by people. Even the merchants themselves accepted the culture of literati and doctors, and when they made money, they hurriedly went to buy land and cultivate and read heirlooms. Therefore, the functioning of Chinese society has been rooted in agricultural culture since ancient times.

If Zhu Jinglun wants to lead China to modernization, it is bound to change this status quo, and it is bound to base the operation of the state and society more on the laws of business. However, he himself did not want to, nor could he completely, cut off the traditional agricultural culture.

For example, if he joins Zhu Jinglun's fanfare to promote industrialization and tell everyone that industry is the future, I am afraid that his views will soon be sprayed to death by the old masters in the countryside, and then launch a stronger resistance than Zhu Jinglun's compulsory education. Therefore, although Zhu Jinglun has been silently promoting industrial development, he absolutely does not dare to say that he uses industry to replace the status of agriculture, and he does not dare to challenge the traditional banner of agriculture as the state.

Moreover, Zhu Jinglun did not want to completely break with the tradition, he always believed that there are some very excellent factors in the traditional culture, and that China in later generations has been greatly rich in material terms, and even the world's largest material producer in terms of production, but the people's hearts are extremely empty, causing all kinds of social and moral problems.

If there is traditional culture to restrain it, it will obviously be much better, and Chinese traditional culture, to put it bluntly, is the set of moral norms of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith that Confucianism has always promoted. After Westerners entered the modern society, they slowly returned to religion, and they used the truth, goodness and beauty in Christian doctrine to restrain their national moral behavior, and China lost the principles of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith, and became at a loss.

These are all lessons, and it is impossible for Zhu Jinglun not to learn them, but the question is how to not only retain these traditional cultures, but also promote modern business culture, or how to embed these traditions tightly into the operating rules of business.

Zhu Jinglun searched through his own memories and had to admit that the Japanese have gone the furthest in the East in terms of combining tradition and modernity.

There is no doubt that Japanese culture is derived from the study of Chinese culture, and it can even be said that Japanese culture is a branch of Chinese culture, a subculture subordinate to Chinese culture, just as Greek culture is to Roman culture, and British culture is to American culture.

Of course, Japanese culture has its own characteristics, and it is not completely consistent with Chinese culture, but for China, it should have a certain reference significance.

There are many core contents in Chinese culture, and the interpretations of various schools are not the same, and even the same school is not the same, but in fact, they are generally similar, Confucianism says that benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith, or loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness are the foundation of the country, and Guan Zi says that etiquette, righteousness, honesty and shame are the four dimensions of the country.

In fact, these moral contents are not just a propaganda slogan, but a real way of running Chinese society.

Therefore, even if Confucius was later criticized and the statue and ancestral hall of Confucius were smashed, the thinking of the Chinese was still completely different from the Russians that the official wanted to imitate, because the invisible laws of social operation are indestructible, and they no longer subtly affect people's code of conduct all the time.

The same is true in Japan, where the core of Japanese culture is the character "loyalty", which is obviously developed from the Confucian character of loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, and righteousness.

Needless to say, the core of the samurai culture in the Japanese shogunate era was loyal ministers, and you can cite a truckload of examples, a very famous example is the outbreak of the Sahat-British War in 1863.

On the outskirts of Yokohama, several foreigners encountered the memorial frame of Shimazu Hisamitsu, the lord of the Satsuma Domain, but refused to back down according to Japanese etiquette and knelt on the ground to pay homage to the Daimyo, and as a result, four of them were slashed and killed by the samurai of the Satsuma Domain.

When the Satsuma clan lost, the daimyo said that someone needed to be in charge and that he would hand over a few men to the British, and as a result, hundreds of samurai signed up, and they were happy to hope that their master would die, and for this reason a duel was finally necessary.

This is the loyalty of the Japanese, some extreme loyalty.

The so-called loyalty refers to the unconditional obedience of subordinates to superiors, as in Japan, and finally constitutes complex social relations.

After the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese eliminated the samurai class in law, but the bushido culture, which centered on loyalty, was not eliminated, but spread to the whole nation through compulsory education later, and the bushido culture that became popular in the Japanese army originated here.

After Japan's defeat in World War II, bushido culture seemed to be eliminated, but this was only the surface. Because the culture of "loyalty" is the composition of the operating laws of Japanese society, it is impossible to be eliminated, but at that time, Japan had already introduced Western commercial culture, and under the promotion of the United States, Japanese society became a commercial society.

It was at that time that Japan's traditional culture began to merge with the commercial society, and it exploded into a powerful force that propelled Japan to become a world-class country.

How do they do it?

Rather than being an independent company in the exact same Western way, they maintained some of the old chaebol-like clubs and instilled a culture of loyalty into the business culture. Employees of Japanese companies are extremely loyal to the company, and a person often only serves one company for the rest of his life. And do your best to serve the company, unconditional overtime, which is unique in the world.

At the same time, Japanese companies do not fire employees, which is called lifetime employment.

So why are Japanese employees so loyal to the company that the company still promises lifetime employment?

This is the basic principle of social relations, the embodiment of equal rights and responsibilities. Equivalence of rights and responsibilities is an invisible law, which may be clear to some and not clear to others, but this law has been working in the shadows. The reason why every time a foreign enemy invades, the enthusiasm of the people at the bottom to resist is not high, because they do not enjoy power, they do not have the consciousness to take responsibility, and they feel that whoever comes anyway is the life of paying taxes and food, so why pay a huge risk to resist.

Japanese employees are loyal to the company, and the company reports by protecting their interests, and in turn employees are more willing to be loyal to the company, and the rights and responsibilities are consistent in the loyalty of the subordinates to the superiors, and the protection of the subordinates is achieved.

In this way, the Japanese company has developed the traditional samurai's loyalty to the daimyo and the Japanese army's loyalty to the emperor to the culture of employees' loyalty to the company, and the traditional loyalty culture has been infiltrated into the company's business organization, achieving a combination of traditional culture and modern business culture.

So how can China combine tradition and modernity, traditional morality and business culture in the future?

Zhu Jinglun thought about it for a long time, he knew that Chinese society is much more complex than Japanese society, and the Japanese have learned the Chinese culture of loyalty, but in Chinese culture, there is not only a culture of loyalty, and there are at least three kinds of cultural content that maintains social relations in the process of social operation, one is "benevolence", one is "righteousness", and the other is "loyalty".

The so-called loyalty reflects a kind of subordinate obedience to the superior, and at the same time through the maintenance of the superior's power to the subordinate to obtain a unified balance, which is mainly reflected in the subordinate and subordinate, especially between the adjacent subordinate and subordinate.

The so-called righteousness occurs mainly between members of society who are on equal footing.

There is an old Chinese saying, rely on parents at home, rely on friends when going out, rely on parents to listen to parents, and parents must protect the interests of their children, although Chinese culture will be loyal to their parents as filial piety, in fact, it is just loyalty with blood relations, it is a special case of loyalty, the same example is the younger brother's loyalty to the elder brother is called 悌, it can be said that filial piety is a derivative of loyalty.

Go out by friends, of course, friends are equal to each other, do not need to obey friends, unconditionally listen to friends. But if you rely on your friends, how can you give back this kind of help, the so-called friends should do what they should do, that is a naïve statement, not the operation law of the social system, the law of rights and responsibilities of the social system must pay attention to a reciprocity. Righteousness is embodied here, when you need help, you get the help of friends, you rely on friends, the balance of this kind of power and responsibility is that you must not shirk responsibility in the future when friends need help, otherwise people will say that you are not righteous, unrighteous and so on, this is the so-called righteousness, is a balance of rights and responsibilities between equal status.

Another law of power and responsibility that sustains Chinese society is called benevolence.

This benevolence is often transmitted from high status to low status, and often occurs between classes with very different statuses, the so-called benevolence is a kind of compassion and compassion for people with high status to people with low status. For example, between the emperor and the people, if the emperor cares for the people, he is called Renjun; For example, between the rich and the poor, often helping the poor is called benevolence.

However, the equality of rights and responsibilities to maintain the society is relatively loose, because the status is too different, and first of all, benevolence must first be a kind of moral level of compassion, so it is often used to give back the moral level of power and responsibility, such as the lower level of gratitude to the upper level, the so-called kindness from the top, the feeling of the bottom, and not strongly require the lower level to exert the same material feedback, what is emphasized is just a grateful heart, requiring people to know how to be grateful and other moral things.

In contrast, Japan mainly uses the culture of loyalty to maintain the ancient traditional society, while China mainly uses benevolence, filial piety and loyalty to maintain social relations.

So what would it look like to integrate traditional Chinese morality into the modern business system?

The Japanese provide an example of how to integrate loyalty into business culture, and it is relatively easy for employees to be extremely loyal to the company and the company to maintain its employees.

So to integrate benevolence into the business system, does it mean that the upper echelons of the commercial organization should care about the interests of the lower strata?

So what about righteousness, and how can this kind of mutual assistance and responsibility between equal status be embodied? Equal employees help each other, if it is achieved by commercial means, such as the establishment of some kind of employee mutual aid fund.

Zhu himself can't imagine what it would be like to reshape the business system with these principles, but he thinks it's worth trying.

But there is a question, the relationship between people can be regulated by loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness, and the relationship between organizations and enterprises, can these principles be used to constrain the relationship between organizations?

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These pictures are relatively boring, but I still wrote them down with great effort because I think they are very important, because the ideas of these pictures will be a basic principle of Zhu Jinglun's industrialization. will determine the plot development of the second half of the book, which is also something I have personally thought about seriously, so let's see if it's also interesting.