In addition to elderly care, medical care, transportation, prices, wages, etc., the good life of the people in the Central Plains is also reflected in other aspects, but I will not list them one by one.
Of course, the Ming Dynasty also had many problems. In addition to the corruption of government officials and the power behind the scenes that most people could not see, the most criticized thing was the low efficiency of the government. In addition to quick action during emergency rescue and disaster relief, daily services were extremely slow.
.For example, if someone moves to another city and his/her identity also needs to be moved to the new city, it will take almost a month after submitting the information before the management department will respond. If the information is incomplete, it will take another month to get it again.
Reply, if you are a careless person, it will probably take half a year to get your identity properly processed.
Countless people have complained about this, and newspapers have reported it more than once, but it is of no use. The salary of the affairs officer is already lower than the average salary in the Central Plains, and there is no way to embezzle, and they do more and less, so who has more motivation?
Work? Even if we fire them all and replace them with a new group of people, it will be useless. Everyone can only complain while having to accept inefficient government services.
In addition, the efficiency of various projects is low. It is not just the municipal projects led by the government, including private construction of houses, and the construction of office buildings by enterprises. This is a problem of workers. The income of ordinary people is not low, and prices are very low.
The social security is also good, but who is willing to work hard? Workers in the construction team also pursue an 8-hour work system and two weekends off. Even if the employer is willing to pay more, the workers are not willing to work quickly. In this way,
, the construction progress will naturally not be accelerated.
In addition, there are other problems such as the media making false claims and the slow upgrade of municipal projects. However, despite these problems, the people of Ming Dynasty are still living a good life.
However, the people of the Ming Dynasty did not continue to develop for the better after the second social revolution and have developed to this point. In the 70 years from the restoration of stability in the Central Plains in 363 to about 435, the living standards of the people in the Central Plains have been declining.
However, starting from around 435, due to the gradual decline of the young and middle-aged labor force, the increase in pension and medical expenses, the decrease in income, the shortage of labor in factories and service industries, and the decrease in total domestic consumption, most people felt that
Not having an easy time.
At that time, in order to ensure that the people did not cause trouble, taxes had to be used to fill the gaps in pensions and medical funds; as the labor force gradually decreased, workers demanded more wages, and consumption in the Central Plains decreased, resulting in lower factory profits. They wanted to move the factory out of the Central Plains
.
However, the difficulties at that time eventually passed. The Ming Dynasty survived the most difficult period. Although the population dropped from 1 billion to just over 900 million, the population structure basically returned to normal, the economy began to develop again, and people's living standards gradually improved.
It has rebounded, surpassing the level 435 years ago, and reaching the current high level. However, not all countries are like the Central Government of the Ming Dynasty. Chongfan in the Northern Hanzhou Continent is also a populous country, with a total population of more than 300 million, and various economies.
The indicators are not inferior to those of the Imperial Center. The economy has been developing well. It has also encountered the problem of low birth rate, but the social welfare of ordinary people is far less than that of the Imperial Center.
There are many books on the market that study the similarities and differences between Zhongyuan and Chongfan in solving the problem of population decline. The first difference that will be mentioned is the issue of immigration. Chongfan ensured sufficient labor supply by attracting the population of Hanzhou's slightly less economically backward vassal state.
Pensions and medical funds were sufficient; but the Central Plains did not introduce the population of the vassal state.
After that, basically no one analyzed Chongfan, because it was easy to understand. Everyone was swarming in research on why the Central Plains could overcome the difficulties without introducing, or in other words, large-scale introduction of the population of the vassal state. Zhu Shihuan also had a few books at home.
Yun probably flipped through the book on problem solving in Zhongyuan last weekend.
However, after reading it, Yun felt that these books were all nonsense. She didn’t know whether it was because the writers were not good enough, or the imperial government did not allow them to write the truth and deceive foreigners. After all, some countries now have dozens of books.
The degree of development of the Central Plains 2000 years ago (referring to the degree of development of social welfare, education popularization, etc., not economic indicators, the country's economic indicators are of course much stronger than those of the Central Plains a few decades ago), faced with the problem of a significant decrease in the fertility rate,
If we can fool them into taking the wrong path, we can eliminate the only opponent that can pose a threat to the Great Empire Federation. There is no greater good.
Yun read the news, combined with the examples and data cited in several books, and summarized several reasons.
First, it is the system. The Imperial Center is a country that pretends to be a democratic system, but in fact it is still controlled by people behind the scenes, and these people behind the scenes control the country by controlling power. Of course, there are disadvantages to such a system
aspect, but it is still better for solving some major problems. People who control the country control the country by controlling power, which means that they are inseparable from the country and will take a long-term perspective when considering problems.
Consider the perspective.
The second is the international trade system. There is no international free trade system in this time and space. The reason is of course the collapse of the Ming Empire. The later rebuilt Ming Empire did not have the strength to rebuild at first, and later had no interest in rebuilding the global trade system.
The Ming Dynasty not only had no interest in rebuilding the global trade system, but also had no interest in dealing with the countries of Fu, Tianfang, and Moliejia. Yun still remembered that more than forty years ago, he led his troops to defeat Timur.
This famous man was captured and chatted with him for a while. At that time, Tamerlane told Yun that if he wanted the country not to fall behind, it would have to communicate more with other countries (this was probably what he meant, Yun couldn’t remember exactly what he meant)
). But Yun once thought about a question in his later years in his last life: 'If the land controlled by a country already accounts for more than half of the world's population, then does it still need to communicate with other countries? If there is no need to communicate with other countries
If we communicate, will we fall behind?'
This idea was not put into practice when Yun was still alive, because he still had to absorb the ancient scientific research results of Fuyu Tianfang; but it was later put into practice. After the second social revolution, the Ming Dynasty exploited Fuhe because it did not have enough military strength as a backing.
The Tianfang countries, these countries have imposed high tariffs on goods from the Imperial Federation. The Imperial Center simply stopped trade with the Fuhe Tianfang countries outside Oros. Most of the trade occurs within the Imperial Federation, the only large
The external market is India.
Of course, the Imperial Center has not fallen behind and has always maintained its lead. Facts have proved that when the population, resources and land of a country or country alliance account for more than half of the world (the land and population of the Empire Federation now account for about 60% of the world),
(excluding Antarctica), it is completely possible to communicate only internally and not with the outside world.
More importantly, because there is no international free trade system, this means that foreign goods cannot easily defeat domestic industries with high quality and low price. At the same time, capital cannot be transferred freely around the world and there is not even a freely convertible monetary policy. You
How to bring money to other countries? Within the Small Empire Federation, you can always transfer it freely, but the infrastructure construction, the number of skilled workers, or the supporting industrial chain in the Central Plains are stronger than those in the vassal territories within the Small Empire Federation, even if the workers'
If the salary is higher, you should carefully consider whether you want to move to a feudal territory. This will avoid the rapid loss of the manufacturing industry and the rapid hollowing out of the local area when the population is aging and labor costs are rising.
Of course, as labor costs in the Central Plains continue to rise, so do industrial costs. Even high tariffs and the difficulty of taking away the money earned are increasingly unable to prevent the decline of the manufacturing industry. At that time, Congress and the government were arguing over this issue.
The debate was very intense and various solutions were proposed. Whether it was luck or the insights of the national leaders, they chose the right path, which is: Third, take science and technology as the primary productive force and improve the technological level of the factory.
Increase the use of robots.
At that time, this policy was very controversial and there were many opponents. On the surface, it seems that improving the technological level of factories and using robots will reduce the number of workers employed, which means that fewer people can pay for the five insurances, pensions and medical benefits.
The economy will slump further, the government's finances will become more difficult, and people's lives will become even more difficult. Isn't this putting the cart before the horse? But Wu Bingjian, leader of the People's Party in power at the time, believed that if the technological level of factories was not improved, the manufacturing industry would be a dead end; for the possible pension and pension problems
The problem of further sluggishness in medical subsidies is that we can just use taxes to make up the difference now and increase taxes on these factories.
Wu Bingjian also creatively put forward a point of view: levy value-added tax on robots. His reason is this. When workers work in factories, they have to pay income tax, but when robots replace workers, they do not need to pay income tax. They all do the same job? Why?
What? Whose pocket does this tax that should be paid to the government go to? Of course it is the business owner. Then why not tax it? Of course, Wu Bingjian also raised the issue of the tax amount. The tax amount should not be too high, and it must be made in the country.
levy VAT on robots if the industry is competitive.
When he saw this point of view, Yun was shocked. This was an idea put forward by Andrew Yang, the Democratic presidential candidate in the first U.S. election. Someone had already put it forward decades ago in this life. Yun had to sigh.
The Central Plains developed too fast in the third life, and then they attributed all this to their second life and were complacent...
Because Yun has not seen whether this policy has been implemented in the United States, he does not know whether it is in line with the national conditions of the United States; but it is obvious that it is in line with the national conditions of the Ming Dynasty. Although business owners fiercely opposed it, the People's Party cabinet cooperated with the Labor Party and the Datong Party, and in
With the support of the nobles, the motion was still passed.
This bill allows the government to collect enough taxes to fill the gaps in unemployment benefits, pensions and medical benefits even as manufacturing workers gradually lose their jobs, while ensuring the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry. With the creation of new jobs
With the emergence of new jobs, younger former workers have found new jobs, completely solving the unemployment problem.
As for those manufacturing factories that were unable to use robots on a large scale, under the coordination of the government and in the spirit of not leaving outsiders, they were transferred to vassal territories and vassal states, and a few were transferred to vassal states. (In the small imperial federation, Han people were
After the vassal state with the main body was renamed as a vassal territory, and the non-Han people were renamed as a vassal state, the vassal state became the name of the Han continent states and Wufan of Egypt)
Now in the Central Plains, employment is mainly in the service industry, with manufacturing employing fewer workers, mainly machine maintenance personnel, office clerks and drivers. The robots and energy technology in this life are far better than those in Yun's first life, but in terms of intelligence and automation
There are some gaps in terms of performance. Cars are faster, more energy-saving and environmentally friendly, but they cannot drive autonomously and still require a large number of drivers.
Agriculture also uses a large amount of agricultural machinery. In order to reduce costs, almost all fields in hilly areas have been abandoned, and the originally diverse crops have also been greatly reduced. When driving a vehicle on the road, there are patches of corn or wheat on both sides; it is difficult to carry out large-scale operations.
There is no one to grow vegetables and fruits on a large scale. The fields in the Central Plains only produce enough food, and the vegetables, fruits, and feed for pigs, cattle, and sheep all come from Southeast Asia or India.
The fourth is to restrict chain enterprises in non-manufacturing industries, such as retail and fast food industries. Wu Bingjian also believes that if these industries form chain enterprises, it will cause wealth to be concentrated among the shareholders of the chain enterprises, reduce the wealth of ordinary people, and lead to unsatisfactory economic development.
Fairness. So he presided over the passage of a series of bills in the lower house of Congress to strictly restrict chain enterprises. This of course makes the prices of goods in supermarkets and stores slightly higher, but it is very good for ensuring social fairness.
Fifth, if we can, we will not only not reduce welfare, but also increase welfare. The reason for doing this at that time was purely out of fear of the second social revolution, but it had unexpected consequences. With the improvement of social welfare
Continuing to increase, the fertility rate has increased, recovering from the lowest of 1.4 in 413 to 1.89 in 465, and has remained around 1.9 since then. Although it is still not enough to replace generations, if not a single immigrant is introduced, the population will still be sluggish, but the population structure
Much better than in previous decades.
As for the sixth point, it cannot be regarded as government policy: people born when the fertility rate was high died one after another. With the death of these people, the pressure on pensions and medical benefits suddenly eased, and the government therefore had more money.
Redistribute and improve people's living standards.
The imperial center also implemented many other policies, but Yun believed that these were the most important. Because of these reasons and policies, the Central Plains gradually recovered, and ordinary people lived the best life in the world.
