Ciqi and Langya can still be busy and comfortable for a few days, but in Jinhe City, the Emperor Hong Tao is very busy. On the one hand, he had to supervise and guide several young people with a group of old craftsmen to complete the parts of the first hydroelectric generator with the help of simple machinery, and on the other hand, he had to visit every factory and workshop, from technicians and managers to ordinary workers, all of them were selected to chat, even slave workers.

He had already read the investigation report that Ciqi had taken before setting out to trap Weng Xiaoyi, and the reason why Weng Xiaoyi committed such a serious crime was due to his personal reasons, and at the same time, there were also institutional problems, and he could not be blamed entirely on himself. People are very cheap, and they are inherently evil, no matter what others think, and no matter what the ancients thought of the original nature of people, anyway, Hong Tao decided that human nature itself has an ugly side, which is innate, and no one can be exempt from vulgarity.

In a person's life, whether he is good or evil, loyal or treacherous, good or bad, only a small part depends on his own efforts, and most of it is caused by the surrounding environment. Among them, institutions, laws and social ethics are the environmental factors that have the greatest impact on people.

If a person wants to do something bad and finds it more difficult to do something bad than not to do something bad, then he is likely to dispel that thought. In layman's terms, this is called the high cost of crime. Hong Tao does not think that crime can be completely eliminated, because this is human nature, and eliminating human nature is equivalent to eliminating human nature. However, he believes that such behaviour can be reduced through better and more self-healing rules, the most effective of which is to increase the cost of crime.

Let's take corruption as an example, in later generations, the corruption of officials in some countries was very common, and it was no longer a question of the crime rate, but a social phenomenon, a popular trend, and an unspoken rule in officialdom. Once things get to this point, it's hard to change because it's not a problem with a particular leader, it's a rule flaw.

This defect mobilizes all the evil side of human nature, but suppresses the good side, and it is unrealistic to rely on one person or a few people to change this status quo. If a rule is so easy to change, then it is not a rule, whether it is a good rule or a bad rule, unless it is newly established, it is always very stubborn, and it is harder to change drastically than to overturn and rebuild. It is also very difficult to overthrow it, it requires all kinds of timing coincidences, and it is completely controllable by non-human beings.

Why are corrupt officials so rampant? It's because the rules allow them to do that, in other words, the cost of crime is too low, or there is no cost at all. Another sentence that the ancients said Hong Tao felt very philosophical, and it was effective to go up and down! The reason why officials dare to do this is because there is a back door when the rules are formulated, and this back door is used by the top level of the state to break the rules for themselves in the future.

Once a rule has such a serious flaw, it is inherently fatally wounded, losing the ability to heal and evolve itself. To sum it up in simple terms, this kind of rule is a disposable product, something that is temporarily used up and thrown away when it is used up, and does not have a long life. How long it lasts, there is a human factor, a factor of the surrounding environment, and so on. But one thing is for sure, after it collapses, the rules that come out again will still be this set of things, except that the makeup technology is higher and more deceptive, there will be no difference in essence.

This answer does not need time to prove, just look at the history books to understand that the ancients have proved it for thousands of years and countless times, so why waste time chasing a known answer.

How can corruption be reduced? Note that it is to reduce, not eliminate, because this is the evil side of human nature, and it is impossible to completely eliminate it unless it can fundamentally change human nature. This is too difficult a task to be done at the moment.

The only way to reduce corruption and prevent it from becoming a social phenomenon is to improve the rules, remove the back doors of the rules, and raise the cost of crime. When anyone wants to embezzle collective property, he will face a very serious consequence, such as ruined reputation, bankruptcy, bereavement of descendants, etc., then he will not reach out casually, at least before reaching out to come up with a foolproof solution.

How many people can come up with such a complete solution? In fact, the proportion of people who are smart and have enough IQ to challenge collective intelligence is very, very small. In this way, a large part of the people will be forced to suppress the evil side of their hearts, not because they don't want to, but because they don't dare. Pursuing advantages and avoiding disadvantages is also an important element in human nature, and using human nature to restrain human nature is the fundamental way to solve the problem.

Whether it is a rule or a law, it is not to suppress human nature, on the contrary, only when human nature is fully embodied and let human nature be constrained by human nature, so as to achieve a certain balance, the rule will be more perfect. Of course, it's tending, not reaching. There can be no perfection in the world, and perfection is itself unbalanced and unrestricted, and it should not exist in the rules.

Therefore, a good rule is not to pursue perfection, but to try to be mediocre, to meet the interests of the majority of people in mediocrity, and to give up the rights of a small number of people. Under this kind of rule, everyone will naturally seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, try to be the majority of people, and avoid being the minority people. Then again, isn't that human nature?

Hong Tao has now discovered that there is a big loophole in the laws of the empire, which ignores the part of the rule that protects the interests of the majority. If Weng Xiaoyi deprives slaves of their rights, these slaves can use the rights granted by the law to resist, Weng Xiaoyi may stop because the cost of crime is too high, or some Weng Xiaoyi will stop, which has achieved the goal of balance. The remaining Weng Xiaoyi, whose human nature is too evil, are a small number of people in this society, that is, they can be abandoned. Eliminate them ruthlessly, most people will not object, maybe they will have to applaud.

Extending this question further, what if Weng Xiaoyi did not deprive slaves of their rights, but deprived the people of the empire of their rights? In fact, as long as the people of the empire are given the legal right to resist and the cost of crime is increased as much as possible, Weng Xiaoyi will still only have a small part that can be discarded.

So how do you give this right to the people? Is there such a method in the world? Can Hong Tao come up with a suitable way to make up for the flaws in the rules?

The answer is yes. However, this method was not thought up by Hong Tao, he didn't have the ability, and he didn't understand sociology and law. However, he has a brain that can plagiarize the essence of human wisdom for thousands of years, and he doesn't need to think about most of the problems himself, he only needs to compare history before and after, left and right, and he can come to a relatively valid conclusion. Specifically, the method he borrowed was the trade union!

Trade unions are a non-governmental organization that flourishes in European and American societies, but its birthplace is perhaps, probably in China. Hong Tao has no knowledge in this area, but he has almost traveled all over the world where there are countries, except for the discovery of the rudiments of the trade union in the Southern Song Dynasty, he has never seen this thing in any other country, and he has never even heard of it. The only thing that was somewhat similar was the merchant alliance that the Venetians had created, but it was more like a government, not for the protection of ordinary people.

In contrast, the various trade associations in the Southern Song Dynasty were more like the trade union organizations of later European and American countries. These associations not only protect the interests of investors, but also represent the interests of ordinary people. For example, the associations organized by the coolies on the wharves in Guangzhou and Quanzhou were largely aimed at bargaining with their employers, so as to obtain their due benefits. Between employers and coolies, coolies are clearly the weaker side, but they have learned how to unite and negotiate with forces stronger than themselves. From this point of view, they do have an important element of the trade unions in Europe and the United States in later generations.

Of course, it is only a rudimentary form, and trade unions existed in every dynasty and generation in ancient China, but their later development direction changed and became a kind of gang organization, which can also be called the underworld. Why is that? Hong Tao felt that it was still a matter of rules.

Dynasties did not see such organizations as an effective tool to help them run their country, but rather as a stumbling block that threatened their rule. Even if they were sometimes forced to cooperate, it was very short-lived, and after using it, it was still thrown away like rags, and even had to cross the river and tear down the bridge. The prototypes of these forced unions had to be transformed into another, more violent and brutal organization, thus losing their supposed effect and really becoming a stumbling block to the state.

In this regard, it has to be said that the rules of European and American countries are smarter, and they make full use of the tool of trade unions to give ordinary people a right to get closer to employers and governments, so as to make the rules closer to balance. But don't think of the union as the savior of the people, it is also a management tool in itself, always in the service of the ruling class.

It's just that this tool is relatively more balanced and more in line with human nature, so Hong Tao thinks it's a good tool, at least for now. Especially after the empire moved towards private ownership, this tool became even more indispensable. With it, it can effectively alleviate the dissatisfaction of the people at the bottom, so that everyone has a chance to talk and vent. In addition, trade unions can also relatively restrain the power of capital, at least increase the cost of capital evil, isn't this a kind of balance?

(To be continued.) )