The bidding for the battery workshop that had been going on for more than a month was finally completed successfully. The three local tyrants who were qualified to participate in the battery project had been determined. Although Ang Lee did not ask about the power behind the three winning businessmen, these things could not be hidden for long. It was estimated that as long as he wanted to investigate, he would be able to find out soon.
Walking out of the bidding venue, the businessmen all gathered in groups of three to five to discuss this bidding activity. Ang Lee and the organizers naturally would not keep their mouths shut.
"Assistant Minister Li, this small bidding has filled the national treasury by a lot! A total of 160,000 gold. Excluding the 3,000 gold needed to rent the land and provide some machines, there are still more than 150,000 gold left. "
A Rank Eight official said happily.
"Yes! This time, we have earned quite a lot for the national treasury. However, this official did not expect that the final sum would be so large. It far exceeded my previous estimate. I estimated that we would get thirty to fifty thousand gold coins. I did not expect that we would get more than a hundred and fifty thousand gold coins for the court. His Majesty will definitely be very happy at the court tomorrow. Haha! "
Ang Lee laughed happily.
"Assistant Minister Li, if there are such good projects in the future, you might as well use them to bid. In this way, the national treasury will be quite full, and it will be a good time to let the rich businessmen bleed. They are too rich, so it is most appropriate to use some to support the national treasury."
A sixth-grade minor official gloated at the misfortune of others.
His salary was not high, so when he saw that these businessmen were so rich, his heart would naturally be a little jealous. The hatred of the rich had existed since ancient times, not only later.
The reason why people hated the rich was that many rich people became rich through improper means. Moreover, after they became rich, they often bullied the poor. Some even became rich overnight. This naturally made many people dissatisfied, especially those who became rich suddenly. They were the most annoying.
These referred to the normal hatred of the rich, which was justified. There was another kind of hatred of the rich, which was hatred of all the rich people in the world. Whether they became rich through improper means or through proper means, they were extremely hostile. They would force themselves to believe that wealth must be related to corruption. Why should others live better than them? Why should others be born with a golden spoon while they were born with nothing? Why should this society be so unfair?
And these people were often the ones who desired to be rich the most. They hated the rich in their hearts, but at the same time, they desired to be rich. These contradictions were very twisted in their hearts. Their outlook on life and values were seriously distorted.
According to the theoretical definition of later generations, in the Huaxia Empire, the definition of hatred for the rich was that when some people broke the historical longstanding wish of the Huaxia people for thousands of years and flaunted their wealth to the world, people would show suspicion, anger, jealousy, contempt, disdain, resentment, hatred, and other complex psychological states towards the wealthy class, especially those who became rich overnight. This behavior was caused by an abnormal view of wealth, and it was caused by a righteous heart that did not suffer from poverty, but rather from inequality.
In any era and any nation, jealousy of wealth was an existence of a mentality, but people often consciously found reasons to balance this mentality, such as understanding the owner of the wealth of the rich as the other party paying a huge price and hard work, the legacy of generations of hard work, or some people who became rich overnight and the children of rich families did not have some kind of precious spiritual wealth, and so on.
But once the reason they found for the other party's wealth was not very convincing and satisfactory, or thought that the other party's wealth cost was too low, especially when there was too much overlap between wealth and corruption, the sense of injustice would sublimate to hatred. Thus, the hatred of the rich to kill the rich to help the poor was born, but this mentality was too serious, and it would lead to mental illness. The gap between the rich and the poor in society was too big, and the rich were heartless, which was also the reason for the hatred of the rich.
Ang Lee was definitely not a person who hated the rich, because Ang Lee was rich enough. So, if Ang Lee hated the rich, then he hated himself. Therefore, Ang Lee would never hate the rich. Ang Lee's heart was very healthy, and helping the poor was something he often did.
As for why there was a hatred of the rich, what was the root of the hatred of the rich? This was not studied in depth in ancient times, but the civilized society of later generations carried out a very in-depth and detailed analysis. From many different angles, the reason for the hatred of the rich was deeply explained.
For example, from the general characteristics of human nature, the deep reason for the hatred of the rich was that individuals had a strong desire to possess wealth. Hatred of the rich was hatred of the rich, not hatred of the wealth itself. Love of the rich was love of the wealth, not love of the rich. The essence of hatred of the rich was love of the rich. Here, hatred was the means, and love was the goal. To have wealth for others was hatred, and to have wealth for oneself was love. Wealth itself was a coin, and hatred and love were only two sides of this coin. To oneself, it embodied the love side of the coin; to others, it embodied the hatred side of the coin.
From a social and realistic point of view, loving the rich was a normal psychology that most people had. In the ancient Hua Xia, some people who killed the rich to help the poor were regarded as heroes, but people racked their brains to become rich.
In addition, it could also be analyzed from the perspective of the system. The wealth generated by the social hierarchy caused by the system was the most likely to cause social dissatisfaction. For example, the income gap between the imperial court officials and ordinary people, the wealth caused by the asymmetric information held by the social status, and so on caused the hatred of the rich to form dissatisfaction in society.
It could also be analyzed from a theoretical point of view. Hatred of the rich was a natural logical extension of love of the rich. On the one hand, people's desires were endless, and on the other hand, resources were scarce. How to let limited resources satisfy unlimited desires, and the precondition to achieve this goal was that individuals as much as possible occupied as many resources as possible. The objective reality of scarce resources also meant that when others occupied more resources, the possibility of occupying more resources would be reduced, and the means to satisfy one's desires would be reduced. This would cause a sense of pain for individuals.
Hatred of the rich was a kind of leakage of this kind of personal pain. On the contrary, if a person completely gave up the desire for wealth, then he or she did not need to have hatred of the rich. Therefore, excluding the influence of other factors, a person's hatred of the rich and their love of the rich should have a certain proportional relationship.
In addition, in the case of a low level of material income, the utility level of material wealth in general was relatively high. Therefore, poverty had the effect of intensifying hatred of the rich. On the contrary, as a person's wealth and income level increased, their hatred of the rich also had a decreasing tendency.
For example, Ang Lee was like this. In his previous life, because he was at the bottom of society and his income level was relatively low, he more or less hated the rich. But after coming to the Tang dynasty, with the continuous rise of his wealth and status, his hatred of the rich had completely disappeared. If he continued to hate the rich, he would hate himself.
After all, Ang Lee himself was a rich man with a huge amount of wealth. He was second to none in the Tang Empire. So, Ang Lee was not qualified to hate the rich. It was good enough that other people did not hate Ang Lee.
As for the social effects of hating the rich, there were many. Some people believed that hating the rich had a certain positive meaning, such as promoting the pursuit of fairness. From a philosophical point of view, this view was reasonable, because everything had its pros and cons. However, the negative effect of hating the rich was also great. One of the direct effects of hating the rich was fear.
For example, in a society where the atmosphere of hatred of the rich was very strong, many rich people did not dare to consume too much. They were afraid that their consumption behavior would expose their wealth and threaten their personal safety.
This was obviously against human nature, because people had the need to achieve themselves through consumption. This correspondingly produced a kind of conspicuous consumption behavior, which would lead to attacks from people who hated the rich. Then, the rich people would not dare to consume. This would suppress consumption to a certain extent, which was detrimental to economic development. Therefore, the realistic effect of hatred of the rich was very detrimental to both the poor and the rich. The rich would find it difficult to consume as much as they wanted, and the poor would find it difficult to achieve a continuous increase in income because of the rich's suppression of consumption. If the rich did not consume, it would be difficult to sell luxury goods. As a result, the clerks who sold luxury goods and the craftsmen who manufactured luxury goods could only lose their jobs, which would cause a series of vicious cycles, which was extremely detrimental to economic development.
Under the atmosphere of hatred of the rich, in addition to being afraid of consumption, the rich were also afraid of investment because investment was also a kind of publicity. It was easy to attract the attention of people who hated the rich, which would then affect the personal safety of the rich.
However, if all the rich did not invest, the detriment to economic development was obvious. Because there was investment, there was production, and there was supply. At the same time, there was demand when there was investment. Because the demand for investment was also a part of the demand, investment had a role in promoting the national economy from both the supply and demand sides. In this way, the negative effect of hatred of the rich on the economy was long-term. At the same time, hatred of the rich also had a certain indirect stimulating effect on some non-productive investments. For example, the investment in security would increase, but these had no long-term effect on economic development.
For example, when Ang Lee invested in a workshop, he needed a lot of raw materials to drive the raw materials business to prosper. At the same time, he also needed a lot of manpower to promote employment and let the people have a way to earn money. The products produced could also meet the needs of many people. In short, the benefits were great. It was no wonder that in Ang Lee's hometown, investment promotion was the most important job. It could even decide the promotion and demotion of an official.
In addition to being afraid of consumption and investment, a society that hated the rich would also make the rich afraid of doing charity. Because once you did charity, it was equivalent to showing off your wealth. If you could donate a million to help the poor, didn't this mean that you had far more money than a million? Wouldn't it be troublesome if people who knew that you had so much wealth had bad intentions?
And the consequences of the rich being afraid of doing charity were naturally very negative. For example, it would stimulate the ordinary poor's hatred of the rich, causing people to think that the rich were bad guys who were rich. At the same time, it was not conducive to rationalization of distribution because charity was the third type of distribution compared to the market and the government. Charity had a certain positive meaning to make up for the lack of distribution by the market and the government. Also, it was not conducive to the development of humanitarianism. Charity reflected love, and hatred of the rich more reflected hatred.
The last was that it would lead to the outflow of funds because the hatred of the rich in the country was too strong. The rich did not feel safe living in the country. Therefore, they would think of bringing funds and wealth to live in other countries to live in a more stable place where there was no hatred of the rich. After these rich people left the country, in a certain sense, they would cause a huge loss to the country. After they lived in a foreign country, they would spend money abroad, thus promoting the local prosperity. If a large number of the rich in the country all went abroad, it would be a huge loss to the country.
There were many ways to solve the hatred of the rich in the society, but it was impossible to completely eradicate it. It could only be slightly alleviated so that the hatred of the rich in the society was not so serious.
For example, developing the economy and making the cake bigger, so that everyone's wealth would increase and they would feel a certain degree of happiness. The hatred of the rich would be relatively weakened. Another way was to improve the system so that everyone could have a fair opportunity to obtain wealth, improve the legal system, put an end to corruption and collusion between officials and businessmen, improve the system, and most importantly, strengthen education.
Of course, the most reliable way was to improve the personality of the rich, put an end to the behavior of being unkind and showing off their wealth, and encourage and ensure the rich to engage in charity. In this way, the poor in the whole society would be grateful to the rich, which would be conducive to the overall stability of the society and promote the development of the country.
After launching the wave of industrialization, Ang Lee also clearly felt some changes in the social culture of the Tang dynasty. Although the hatred of the rich among the people was not very obvious, it was slightly stronger than before. In particular, the businessmen who could not make a fortune with the wave of industrialization were very unbalanced in their hearts. After seeing many powerful people suddenly become rich, the whole society would have unhappy thoughts. The words of the official just now were very good to explain this point.
"Doesn't it feel good to see these big merchants bleed so much?"
Ang Lee asked with a smile.
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