Section 617 The Age of Stagnation
Electricity is only one aspect, or even the main reason, for the development of urbanization. The biggest reason why cities are attractive to live in is that they are more comfortable than rural areas.
To do this, it is necessary to solve many urban problems, such as livelihood problems, medical problems, education problems, and so on. These problems have been solved in the past two or three decades, and the city's sewer sewage technology and tap water supply technology have matured. Cities are more naturally resourceful in terms of medical and educational resources, and cities are creating knowledge much faster than in closed rural areas.
It is only when these advantages begin to emerge that the city becomes attractive. In the past, the migration of people from the countryside to the cities was mainly due to the pressure of life, and the countryside could not provide jobs for the growing number of people, while the cities could, so people flocked to the cities for livelihood, not for life. Now they feel that urban life is more comfortable, not only the new generation of young people, but even some landlords and old money have begun to buy houses in the city to live in peace, and urbanization is naturally accelerating.
In addition to these public administrations, city management has also become formal and rigorous. As in rural areas, cities have established military service and other related systems.
Urban dwellers, like village peasants, are required to serve in the military. China's population, even if the city dwellers do not serve, is in fact enough to cope with all the crises of war. But the danger of city dwellers staying away from the disciplined forces is that once there is a problem in society, the city can easily get out of control. The urban service system is more like a contingency plan, which can organize the people in the city when the economic crisis or other problems arise.
However, it is difficult to establish an effective training system in the full-time work mode in the cities, so the proportion of military service in the cities is lower than that in the rural areas, and only one out of ten is drawn. This is based on the data of previous economic crises, because in the economic crisis, the problem of unemployment is the problem of unemployment, and the unemployment rate during the economic crisis, in fact, about 10% of the population suddenly loses their jobs, and arming this adult population is enough to cope with the serious economic crisis. At that time, the economy will be better able to absorb the rest of the labor force, but it will not be able to absorb it, and the unemployment rate will not be enough to upend the social order. There are fewer people to help, and the armed army is the force to maintain order.
In view of the adverse effects of the evil hukou system, the current hukou system is relatively free, and it is very easy to change the hukou, basically only by going to the local county government department to register.
With the establishment of household registration, in fact, the threat to urban order is no longer the problem of unorganized displaced people, but the problem of organized confrontation, and the problem of trade unions is a global problem in this era. After the operation of China's parliamentary system, it has gradually matured, and the parliamentary power is smaller than that of the West, but it is not the same as the situation of China's powerful government being dominant before, the parliament has certain powers, in terms of legislative power and the power to approve the budget, similar to the West, but the government has won a higher freedom of governing for itself, and the government can do almost anything that can be done before, and only need to explain to the parliament afterwards, which is the so-called right to cut first and then play.
This is not a system that Zhou Lang deliberately created, but the result of a power game, which can only be said that China's parliament does not know how to play with the government, or that the elites in the government are better at using power.
The parliamentary struggle is still fierce, but the parliament has become orderly, the two sides of the struggle are not the majority, the power of the chamber of commerce and the trade unions, still not as strong as the gentry, the number of gentry members has been maintained at more than two-thirds, so the parliament has always been dominated by the gentry, but the number of union representatives has far exceeded the power of the chamber of commerce.
The natural interest relationship, relying on the hometown association to organize the workers' chamber of commerce, gradually in terms of influence on the workers, is not as good as the trade union, the trade union has also infiltrated into the chamber of commerce's factories, and even the main union members are the workers of the factory owners who participate in the chamber of commerce. The number of workers in clan-like associations controlled by the chamber of commerce has fallen to one-third of urban workers.
In the same way, the operation of the syndicated capital managed by the trade unions began to have problems, and after more than ten years of development, they began to have operational problems. Corruption of trade union leaders is frequent, and the management of union assets is inefficient. The assets of the trade unions with good leaders use a lot of profits to improve the living conditions of the workers and give benefits to the members of the trade unions, but they neglect to improve the conditions of production, the machinery and equipment are outdated, and the work of the workers with syndicate capital is also very problematic.
These inferior human beings have hindered the development of the beautiful syndicate capital, accumulated debts, and continued bankruptcy.
There were some radical trade union forces, hoping to fight for more favourable policies for the syndicated capital, and they demanded that the government give the syndicated capital a tax cut, on the grounds that the syndicated capital was best for the workers, but this was strongly opposed by the chamber of commerce, and the gentry forces did not support them, believing that this was unreasonable. There is no reason to let the government pay for the losses caused by lazy workers and poor management.
Because of these problems, work occurs from time to time, and urban life is becoming more and more attractive, but urban order is also becoming more and more a headache. However, the fact that everything can be done in a non-violent manner also shows that urban society is beginning to mature.
It's just that the capital of the syndicate and the excessive work have made China's industrial competitiveness begin to decline, and high-quality and low-cost Chinese manufacturing can no longer be found. The wages of workers have been continuously raised again and again, and the wage level in China's eastern coastal areas has begun to become one of the highest wage levels in the world, and in China, it is second only to the monthly salary of the west coast of the Americas of 30 yuan, and the average monthly salary is as high as more than 18 yuan. Wages are lower in the central region, less than half of those in the coastal areas and one-third in the western region, but the industrial development of the central and western regions is not going well, because there are still troublesome trade unions.
As a result of these problems, a large number of companies preferred to move to Japan, North Korea, and even Vietnam, where labor was more easily exploited, and the main area of transfer was Japan, which was divided into three powers, each of which developed steadily, and industrialization accelerated, and a large amount of Chinese capital boosted the industrial development here. The Japanese learn very quickly, the Japanese workers' awareness of rights protection is still very weak, and the most important thing is that Japan is overpopulated, which means that wages are low, the Japanese wage level is only one-tenth of that of China's eastern coast, and the tariffs between the two countries are very low, which makes many labor-intensive industries enter the Chinese market after Japanese processing, which is more cost-effective than local processing in China, especially some industries that need overseas raw materials.
Therefore, the cotton textile industry, which is the most suitable industry for transfer, took the lead in transferring a large number to Japan, and China's overseas territories, whether it is North America or India's cotton, are directly transported to Japan, processed into cotton yarn, and even directly spun into cotton cloth, and exported to the Chinese market, and the price is much lower than that produced in China.
As a result, a large number of backward industries in the east are difficult to move to inland areas, but to foreign countries.
Industries in the central and western regions of China mainly revolve around the processing of local raw materials, such as mining and agricultural processing.
In the case of Western countries, there will be a large number of people from the central and western regions moving to the east in pursuit of high wages, but in China there will only be a large number of migrant workers, and the phenomenon of the Spring Festival will appear accordingly.
The trade balance in the Midwest is often maintained by the wages remitted back by these laborers, rather than by local industries.
The benefits of a strong government are reflected in this large, unbalanced country, and the central government can continue to transfuse blood to the central and western regions through fiscal tilt, so that the central and western regions can at least maintain a certain level of education.
China's huge industrial transfer, so that Japan, North Korea's development shows a leap nature, China has accumulated more than half a century of capital, knowledge and experience, in a short period of time into these two small countries that are not at the same level of size, so that they develop rapidly at the same time, but also inevitably rapid Sinicization, the two countries know how to speak Chinese, write Chinese a large population, and even promote Chinese teaching in schools, and even the best school in the two countries, is all Chinese teaching. Japanese characters are called kana in Japan, and real names are called in Chinese. The official documents of the North Koreans have always been Chinese character records, and their elite has always been educated in Chinese characters, and now the wealthy who have the conditions allow their children to receive this Chinese-style elite education.
In the past two years, Japan's finances have grown at a rapid rate, with an annual growth rate of more than 10 percentage points, and the improvement of their finances has allowed them to improve transportation facilities and educational conditions on a large scale, and the two countries are rapidly moving towards modernization.
There must be gains, the transfer of a large number of industries in the east, for the east, is not a loss, because the east began to turn to a higher economic level, the proportion of light industry declined, the added value was higher, the heavy industry, power industry, and chemical industry with higher technical requirements grew rapidly, and the development of the east was not slow, but the vast central and western regions were almost stagnant, and there was no capital to capital, and there was no talent to talent, and capital and talent were gathered in the east, the development of Yunnan-Guizhou region is slow. Even Hunan and Jiangxi, which are connected by major rivers, are also developing weakly.
The better developed inland areas are only Shanxi, which is rich in coal resources, and Yunnan, which is rich in metal deposits.
Due to the stagnation of the development of a large number of inland areas, the development rate of the whole country has slowed down, and it has gradually changed from a fast-growing country to a slow-growing country. On the whole, China's economic growth level is no longer comparable to that of some small European countries, and even lags behind such large countries as Britain and France.
The situation is worrying, at least in the age of the steam industry, and there is no sign of improvement.
Low-speed growth tends to accumulate social anxiety, anxiety is often accompanied by restlessness, restlessness needs to be vented, either internally, or externally, Chinese are increasingly impatient, the new generation loses vitality, becomes confused, and cannot see the future.
This is very dangerous, not only for China, but also for the world!
And this world, however, is very restless.
Some of China's neighbors are particularly restless, with a coup d'état in Russia a year after the end of the American Civil War.