Guan Zhong's first initiative was to implement: "Separate industries among the four people, scholars, farmers, industry and commerce."
The key point of this policy is to divide the people into four classes: sergeants, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants, and to live in fixed areas according to their respective professions. "Guoyu Qiyu" records that Guan Zhong planned fifteen scholar townships and six industrial and commercial townships.
, there are two thousand households in each township. Based on this calculation, there are 30,000 professional soldiers and 12,000 professional industrial and commercial subjects in the country (calculated as one person per household). In addition, there are 450,000 peasant households in the opposition.
Guan Zhong believes that the separation of industries among the four people has four advantages: first, people in the same industry live together, which makes it easy to exchange experiences and improve skills; second, it has a great effect on promoting the production and circulation of goods; third, it creates a professional atmosphere and makes people
Be content with your own profession and avoid "moving away when you see something foreign", thereby causing career instability; fourth, create a good social and educational environment invisibly, so that children can be influenced by it from an early age and naturally master professional skills under the influence of their father and brothers.
.
He divided and managed all social strata according to occupation. Guan Zhong was the first person in world history. This specialized commodity economic model has been respected as the basic form and guiding principle since the Han Dynasty. The detailed professional division of labor and generations
The institutional arrangement passed down from generation to generation is one of the important reasons why China’s early civilization was ahead of the world. Some scholars believe: “China’s social division of labor was at least a thousand years earlier than Europe’s. The main traditional production technology (non-machine production before the industrial revolution)
Technology) also appeared in China 800 to 1,000 years earlier than in Europe."
It should also be noted that Guan Zhong's implementation of "separation of industry among the four people" was in the same sense, and there was no distinction between superiority and inferiority. However, after inheriting Guan Zhong's "separation of industry among the four people", Confucianism believed that there was an existence of superiority and inferiority, which is sad.
Sadly, it also had serious consequences.
Guan Zhong's second creation was "freedom of trade."
Guan Zhong, a politician with many years of business experience, had long discovered that the profitability of industry and commerce was greater than that of agriculture, and revitalizing the commodity economy was the best way to enhance national strength. He implemented various policies in Qi involving industry, taxation, prices, etc.
overall supporting reform.
Internally, Guan Zhong canceled the toll tax and only levied the tax once at the time of sale; externally, there was no tax on those who came with empty cars, and no tax on those who came carrying things on foot. Even businessmen who came by car could enjoy free meals.
In addition, Qi State has made several alliances with princes, and has reached tariff agreements with various countries to reduce tariffs.
This led to the extreme prosperity of Qi's commerce and the activity of merchants. According to calculations, the number of residents in Linzi reached 300,000, making it the largest, most prosperous and wealthy city in the world at that time, while the city of Athens at the same time had a population of less than 5
Ten thousand.
Guan Zhong's third innovation was "macro-control."
Guan Zhong established a national grain storage system. The state purchased and hoarded a large amount of grain. The amount was enough to control the fluctuation of grain prices in the market to achieve a balance between abundance and hunger. Guan Zhong attached great importance to grain. He did not allow anyone to manipulate grain prices and strictly prohibited the situation during famine.
In 2007, grain trading was used to bully farmers, and grain price fluctuations must be controlled by the state.
Guan Zhong was also a master at using price leverage to regulate the economy and increase national income. He once gave an example: if the country had a large amount of cloth, it would no longer need to levy a cloth tax, but would have to levy it on the raw material hemp. The price of hemp would increase by ten percent due to the tax.
times, the price of cloth may rise to fifty times; similarly, if the country has a large amount of fabrics, it can levy a tax on the raw material silk, which can increase the price of fabrics ten times.
In terms of foreign trade, he advocated controlling commodity prices based on different situations, that is, "because the world controls the world": if the quality of foreign goods is higher than that of the home country, the sales price of the goods in the country will be increased to control the import of foreign goods.
, if you want to encourage exports, you must lower the sales price, "the world is high and I am the bottom".
Guan Zhong's fourth initiative was to "integrate taxes into prices and specialize in salt and iron".
Duke Huan of Qi and Guan Zhong discussed strategies to enrich the country many times. Duke Huan of Qi suggested taxing the population, buildings, trees, and livestock, but Guan Zhong rejected them all. In his view, taxes are tangible, and collecting property directly from the people will naturally incur consequences.
People's dissatisfaction. The best and most ideal way is to "take it from the invisible, so that people will not be angry". Accordingly, Guan Zhong proposed the method of "embedding taxes in prices" - hiding taxes in commodities and implementing indirect collection
, so that taxpayers can't see or touch it, so they pay taxes without knowing it, and it won't cause psychological resistance.
In terms of specific methods, Guan Zhong gave seven simple words: "Only the mountains and the sea are the key to officialdom." - Just monopolize the resources of the mountains and the sea. Iron ore is produced in the mountains and sea salt is produced in the sea.
Salt and iron monopoly system.
During the farming period, salt and iron were the two most important pillar industries, and no one could leave them for a moment. Guan Zhong gave an example of the income from the monopoly of salt and iron. He said that the population of a country of ten thousand chariots is about ten million
, if the head tax is levied on adults, the number of people who should pay is about one million, and each person will be taxed 30 yuan per month, which is 30 million yuan. If the salt is monopolized, the price of each liter of salt will be increased accordingly, and the price may be increased every month.
With 60 million yuan, you can expect to get double the revenue of the poll tax. On the surface, the government has indeed not levied taxes, so it will not arouse the opposition of the people. Not only this is the case at home, but also the salt can be exported and make huge profits.
This is equivalent to boiling inexhaustible sea water to force the people of the world to pay taxes to Qi.
The same goes for the monopoly of iron. Guan Zhong said that generally a farmer, whether engaged in farming or working as a female worker, needs iron tools such as needles, knives, rakes, chisels, saws, awls, chisels, etc. All he needs to do is increase the price on a needle.
For one money, thirty needles can collect thirty money, which is equal to the poll tax payable by one person. By analogy, the total national income is no less than the total amount of the poll tax. On the surface, the country does not impose taxes.
In fact, "all those who obey the nationality".
However, it should be noted that Guan Zhong advocated salt and iron monopoly, but he did not advocate that the government should personally take action and establish a state-owned salt farm or a state-owned iron factory. Later generations learned from Guan Zhong and believed that monopoly was state-owned, and many went astray.
Guan Zhong’s fifth initiative was to “encourage consumption.”
For the ancients, the most peculiar one of Guan Zhong's economic thoughts was to encourage consumption. He even advocated luxury. This was the only thing seen among the rulers of the past and present. In the book "Guan Zi", there is a wonderful article "Luxury Pian"
.
Guan Zhong's reason for advocating luxury is: as long as the sources of profit are not artificially blocked, merchants will work day and night without rest, while wealthy people can only continue to consume, and poor people have work to do. In order to strengthen his point of view
, Guan Zhong even made an extreme metaphor. He suggested that eggs should be carved before boiling, and carving should be done before burning firewood - "carve eggs and then cook them, carve eggs and then cook them."
Guan Zhong even invented a very advanced point of view. He said that whenever the years are bad and the people have no work to do, the country should build palaces and pavilions to promote people's employment, especially those who have lost their property.
The extremely poor people. Building palaces at this time was not for pleasure, but to promote employment and balance the economy.
This method of stimulating economic recovery and promoting employment through government investment in fixed assets took Westerners more than two thousand years to learn. Take the Great Depression of 1929 as an example. At that time, the United States, Germany, etc. were all doing this.
It took such a policy to get out of the trough. But more than two thousand years ago, Guan Zhong had such wisdom, which is really amazing.
Guan Zhong's sixth creation was "to stop war with business". This was also Guan Zhong's governing thought that was most ignored by later generations.
As far as the country's internal affairs are concerned, "stopping war with business" means developing a commodity economy to make the people wealthy and prevent them from rebelling.
As far as relations with the vassal states are concerned, "stopping war with business" means expanding foreign trade and maintaining balance with military deterrence.
The above six points are the ideas pioneered by Guan Zhong.
Anyone who has a little knowledge of the national economic policies and economics of later generations can see that, except for the policy of "separating industries among the four people", which is really impossible to inherit, the effective policies implemented by later generations of China are almost similar to Guan Zhong's policies.
; And anyone who violates Guan Zhong’s policies will basically fail.
And the above policies of Guan Zhong, judging from the existing historical data, are the earliest ones in the world. He himself is very similar to, no, it should be said that Keynes is very similar to him, respecting the laws of the market for state intervention.
Activists.
However, in order to consolidate their power, the kings of the past dynasties used the governance ideas that combined Confucianism and Legalism, and neither Confucianism nor Legalism were compatible with Guan Zhong's thoughts. These great policies of Guan Zhong, except for the "Four Mining Separation" and "Salt and Iron"
Except for specialties, everything is ignored by the rulers. How sad!
After seeing Yang Zirong's policy for the imperial examination, Yunxi suddenly thought of Guan Zhong, so he specifically found out the fragments about Guan Zhong in the book "Guanzi" and "Guoyu Qiyu", and then discovered this buried figure.
A Ming Prime Minister. Guan Zhong is clearly the first Ming Prime Minister throughout the ages. In terms of historical contribution, his contribution is much higher than that of Yan Ying, Zhuge Liang, Xiao He, Zhang Liang, Xie An, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Zhang Juzheng, etc. However, in history, he is only
Together with Le Yi!
After reading the records about Guan Zhong, Yunxi immediately decided: "We should carry forward Guan Zhong's great thoughts among officials, and we should promote them to the county level. Anyway, even Confucius said at that time, "If Guan Zhong is ignored, I will be sent to the left.
It's true, officials don't dare to oppose it openly.'
'It is impossible for those stubborn people to change their minds, but officials with flexible minds will naturally understand Yunxi's ideas and come over.'
Therefore, before he arranged to inspect the brothels in Huanghuai, he had already begun to sort out the relevant records of Guan Zhong. He just finished it a few days ago and formed the book "Collected Commentary on Guanzi". Although he did not write most of the annotations in it.
It is clear who made the annotation, but it was all his annotation.
Xie Jin was one of the organizers who participated in the compilation of Guan Zhong's records, so he knew Yunxi's thoughts very well.