Heavy reading丨Why life abroad is good

Looking back on the short decades of reform and opening up, the overall wealth of the Chinese people has increased dramatically, the quality of life has significantly improved, and more and more people choose to travel abroad during holidays. According to statistics from the China National Tourism Administration, the total number of Chinese outbound tourists in 2013 reached 98.19 million. It is expected that the number of outbound tourists in 2014 will increase by 18% year-on-year to 116 million. If you do not book your holiday trip early, you will have to buy full-price international air tickets. .

Many tourists traveling in developed Western countries cannot help but compare everything with domestic ones, and most people come to the conclusion that foreign countries are better. In fact, no matter the environment, facilities, humanities and other aspects, they are all inseparable from one theme: wealth. Marx said that the economic base determines the superstructure. When did the West begin to occupy huge world wealth and the East began to decline? What will happen in the future?

The world’s wealth is approximately 195 trillion U.S. dollars, most of which was created after 1800. Currently, the wealth of Western societies (Europe, America, Australia, etc.) accounts for 66% of the world's total wealth, but the Western population only accounts for 19% of the world's total population. What is it that causes a few countries to own most of the world's wealth? According to "Millennium Statistics of the World Economy" written by Angus Madison, after 1800, the per capita GDP of the United States rapidly exceeded China's per capita GDP, until it was about 20 times higher in 1950.

Economists at the time pointed out that the Western powers' massive accumulation of wealth through colonization was the driving force for rapid economic development. In 1913, Western empires, including the United States, controlled 58% of the world's land, 57% of its population, and 74% of its wealth. However, attributing the differentiation of wealth to colonial rule is only superficial. Why was the West so powerful at that time? Why were Asia and Africa unable to invade the coastlines of Western empires? Why can Western society turn the trading ports of great powers into colonies? Is it all down to corruption and decline? As long as people still have selfish desires, corruption and decline are not uncommon in any society.

Neal Ferguson, a professor at Harvard University, has concluded that the accelerated flow of world wealth into the West since 1500 is mainly caused by social gaps, and the most important gap is the sense of competition. Since around 1500, European organizations and sovereign states have been frighteningly numerous in such a small land. Europe's top talents can work for different organizations, compete with each other and make progress together.

Looking back at China at that time, almost 1/5 of the world's population had only one path to education, the imperial examination, which stifled the talents of many talents in other areas. In other words, there is no good experimental ground and lack of talents in many fields, such as important science, industry, etc.

When it comes to industry, we have to mention intellectual property protection and a consumer-oriented society. Only when the needs of many parties are satisfied can consumption begin to drive economic growth and technological innovation, which at that time was mostly industrial technological innovation. There are very few books like "Tiangong Kaiwu". Not only did the author Song Yingxing not earn royalties from this book, but he was labeled as an "anti-Qing" after his death in the Qing Dynasty because of this book. I wonder if he has no knowledge. Without the protection of property rights, how many people are still willing to devote themselves to scientific innovation in that bureaucratic society?

What is gratifying is that starting from the 1970s, the wealth of Eastern societies also began to increase dramatically, from the success of the Four Asian Tigers to the rise of China to become the world's largest economy. In the 1950s, the per capita GDP of the United States was about 20 times that of China. Now the gap has returned to five times that of 1500, returning to the initial point of wealth differentiation between the East and the West.

The future path of wealth differentiation will be for the East to catch up with the West, as some people say, will the Eastern society led by China dominate the world? I think it's unlikely. China has narrowed the gap with the West in terms of competition. The current rise of e-commerce and Internet entrepreneurship has proven to everyone that there are multiple ways to achieve success. The concept of entrepreneurship has emerged after the 1990s, and the college entrance examination and civil service examination are no longer the criteria for success. As more people go abroad during the holidays and overseas Chinese return to China to contribute, people's concept of "the only way to compete through the imperial examination" will become less and less.

Since the reform and opening up, the concept of "privatization" has made immeasurable leaps. There has been continuous progress in the protection of intellectual property rights, and the judicial system and government mechanisms have also been continuously improved in the anti-corruption wave. However, there is still a certain gap compared with Western societies. In addition to the fact that Easterners have sufficient advantages in terms of hard work, in fact, the approach of Eastern society to the wealth of Western society is a kind of economic convergence. In other words, our economy is on the road to catch up with the Western economy, not on the road to surpass the Western economy. .

The more important point is that economic data is not the only one. No matter if you go to Japan or Europe and the United States during the holidays, which were promoting the idea of ??"leaving Asia and joining Europe", I believe many people will admire that there are still many places where China has not done enough. Perhaps the most lamented ones are the living environment and the quality of the people there. In fact, the living environment is maintained by high-quality citizens.

Therefore, the construction of spiritual civilization is the key point for retaining wealth in Eastern society. It can make wealth play a practical role and allow people to feel the living standards of an economically powerful country. National quality, professional ethics towards employers, corporate social responsibility, and official integrity all fall within this scope.

Our wealth needs to be passed down and fermented, and we do not need wealth-acquisition behavior driven by money-first values.

Please think about it, no matter whether you are speculating in land or real estate, profiting from stock trading in the secondary market, or even defrauding money, you are taking money from one pocket of the people and putting it into another pocket. It does not create social wealth and makes no contribution to society.

The changes we have made have brought the great diversion of world wealth to this point, but if the quality of the people is not improved, it is like holding hundreds of millions of cash piled at home. What is the use of the economy no matter how good it is?