Introduction to the industrial system

More than 100 years after the industrial revolution in the 18th to 19th centuries, most developed countries in the first half of the 20th century has formed a relatively stable structure, the layout of the basic stereotypes of the industrial system. By the 1960s, the world largely formed the United States, Western Europe, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Japan, five industrial core areas, with independent, complete and powerful national or state group industrial system.

Since the 60's, the economic growth of developing countries, produced a new influence on the layout of the world industrial system. At the same time, the leap in modern science and technology to promote a new period of industrial revolution. The interaction of these two factors, so that the world industrial system in the structure and layout have undergone significant changes, such as the emergence of new industrial agglomerations, the structural reorganization of old industrial zones, the transfer of traditional industries from developed countries and regions to developing countries and underdeveloped regions, the development of marginal areas and industrialization, etc., so that the regional industrial system in one or two decades of change than the past decades and centuries of the The process is more significant and profound. But even so, once any industrial system is formed, it is still relatively stable, and only when some important factors change suddenly will it cause the nature of the whole industrial system to change. The industrial system is constantly changing at all levels, but the changes at the regional level are particularly significant and dramatic. Research on the development and change of the industrial system has three main aspects: ① the development and change of the system in function and space; ② the change of the material flow, information flow and inter- and intra-regional connection of the system; and ③ the development trend of the constituent units and the dynamics of change. During the period of the first Five-Year Plan from 1953 to 1957, hundreds of backbone enterprises were built, laying the foundation for the formation of the national industrial system, and several important industrial bases and industrial centers were constructed and developed; in the 1960's and 1970's, the industrial sectors of energy, raw materials and machine manufacturing were continued to be strengthened and a number of new industrial centers were constructed in the interior. A number of new industrial centers were built. In addition to the completion of an independent and complete national industrial system, a large regional industrial system with a certain degree of strength and relatively complete and distinctive sectors has also been formed in Northeast China, North China and East China. The industrial systems of southwestern, central and southern China are slightly embryonic, while the northwestern region is at an initial stage. In addition, a number of distinctive industrial regions (industrial bases) have been formed at the level of the industrial system. Such as south of Liaozhong, Luzhong, Jinzhong to energy heavy industry, the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta to light textiles, chemicals and other processing industries, Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan region, Wuhan, Chongqing and Guanzhong region, light and heavy industry is more balanced. The industrial system of the industrial centers, although there is a considerable degree of development, but most of them are divided due to sectoral management, so that the organizational links and technical and economic links are affected to some extent.

(Li Wenyan) 1, the market mechanism is the theory of the practice of small peasant economy

In fact, any theory has preconditions and scope of application, at the same time, the theory also sometimes has her own special mission, "invisible hand" of the market mechanism is no exception. The "invisible hand" is basically an economic theory practiced in the agricultural society and the workshop handicraft industry which is typical of the private economy of the manor or in the early stage of the industrial production society in free competition, and its premise is that there are decentralized and independent buyers with equal strength and decentralized and independent sellers with equal strength, and that buyers and sellers use the market price exclusively to buy and sell goods spontaneously and equally. The act of exchanging goods spontaneously and equally. Therefore, Chinese economists do not really understand the reality of industrial society and the laws of industrial economic operation, dreaming of "exchanging market for technology" and worshipping the "invisible hand" as God, treating the market economy and the clarity of property rights as treasures, and thinking that as long as a "sound market economic system" is established, the market economy and the property rights of the buyers and sellers will not be affected by the market. "sound market economic system", so that all the assets belong to the individual who can get rich, the strong country is just around the corner, the wealth will come rolling in. Little did we know that there is no example in the world of a country that has progressed and developed into a developed country by relying on the free market of the "invisible hand". In reality, the global economy, national economy and regional economy are all far from the theoretical premise of the "invisible hand". Looking at the economic reality, we can see that the economy is in a period of high development of the industrial economy, and the economy has always been manipulated by the monopolistic big capital. In this case, the study of China's economic problems can not be analyzed by the small peasant economy, free market economy, but should be used to study China's problems with the vision of a modern industrial society.

In the era of agricultural economy, the individual is the main body of production, using simple production tools for repetitive labor. The modern industrial economy, on the other hand, is characterized by the widespread use of advanced machinery and by the interworking, constantly evolving and changing mass production of the whole society. In an industrial society, production is accomplished by a combination of people and machines in an industrial system, where machines have far more physical strength and energy than people, and are able to achieve production efficiencies that are far less than those of human labor. Man in production only designs and operates the machines. The whole modern industrial society is actually like a machine, with a highly organized social structure, the need for coordination of various sectors to operate. The mainstay of modern industrial production is the heavy industrial system, which has virtually no upper limit to its productivity, limited only by the resources and markets it can access. Even agriculture, which is the result of modern industry, would have greatly reduced yields and would not be able to feed such a large population without the fertilizers, pesticides, farm machinery, seeds, and other industrial products provided by modern industry. Fragmented individual motivation is also small in front of the steel monster that is the big industrial system. As for other industries, the efficiency of a unified large industrial system is even far greater than that of fragmented manpower. Early machines lacked flexibility and were only suitable for standardized mass production, but with advances in computer control technology, machines gradually became more flexible and continued to take the place of man in production. As a result of the development of machine technology, manual labor has been replaced by a large number of machines throughout the industrial production chain, except in the final assembly process, where a large number of human beings are still needed because of the many varieties of products and the small batch sizes of single assemblies, which make it impossible to design a separate automated production line for each type of assembly. People in industrial societies either improve their knowledge and skill level to engage in intelligent fields where machines cannot venture, or improve their motivation to engage in the assembly industry of simple mechanisms, competing with the efficiency of machines, and engaging steel with flesh and blood.

2. The root cause of backwardness is the lack of a complete large industrial system

Agriculture, handicrafts, or the tertiary sector cannot by themselves contribute to their own output or quality as much as heavy industry can, unless the population is increased in the same proportion. In traditional agriculture, for example, no matter how well you prepare for the next year's farming, how much you sweat on the land, and how many seeds you plant, it is very difficult to increase the next year's production by 10% on the historical maximum. The same goes for handicrafts; the quality and output of handicraft products depend entirely on the skill level of the craftsman, and it is best to find a good master and guide yourself to become a skilled worker. However, the technological progress of agriculture and handicrafts is single and isolated, and technological progress that cannot be mutually reinforced with other technological achievements is not sustainable, and once the new technology is popularized, the progress also stops there. In contrast, modern industry can not only expand exponentially in scale, but more importantly, processing precision and technology can be accumulated in one generation of machines, and various technologies can support and improve each other. Hand tools can be used to produce the initial machine tools, and the machine tools themselves can produce more precise rulers, more precise machine tools, produce power machinery for themselves, and at the same time promote the progress of science as a whole through the provision of standardized experimental equipment, and then get the direction of further development from scientific progress. In the end, we get the whole modern industrial system. In almost two centuries, simple machine tools and steam engines have evolved into today's solar power plants, CNC machine tools, and weather satellites, and there is no sign of a peak in the ability to harvest and process energy ---- resources, an advancement that is unimaginable in artisanal ---- agricultural societies.

Entering the modern era, backward countries can sell their resources and labor in exchange for machinery and equipment, key materials and components from developed countries, and also enter machine mass production. The introduction of foreign mature equipment and technology can increase production capacity in a short period of time, but it does not have the characteristics of exponential proliferation of heavy industry technology because of the relative surplus of resources and labor force, low prices, and the existence of an upper limit on the amount of resource extraction and labor force, and the increase in labor intensity. Relying on the introduction of foreign heavy industry technology to develop the economy basically shows a trend of catching up.

Whether or not there is a complete and comprehensive iron and steel, chemical, mechanical, and electronic industry is the fundamental mark that distinguishes developed countries from backward countries. A developed country with a complete and comprehensive backbone industry is a developed country that can design and manufacture almost any modern product. A country with a large industrial system may also be temporarily poor, and may also have a low level of technology in a number of basic industries, but as long as it is comprehensive and complete, and chooses the appropriate path of development, it can realize the biological exponential proliferation and evolution, and become a rich country in a short period of time.

3, the West does not allow backward countries to establish a large industrial system

The country to the long-term development of the policy is not to adopt the "invisible hand" strategy. Chinese economists are still in the continuation of the agricultural time way of thinking, the ordinary people do not realize how the wealth of the industrial era, always think that China's vast territory, let nature take its course, there must be a good result. This kind of social spontaneous economic law naturally focuses on stimulating individual motivation and maintaining private property rights, but individual motivation is only effective in agricultural societies, where farmers can work early and stay late to plant more acres of land. But in industrial societies, individual initiative is small in front of the national big industrial system, and in any case, it can't do anything about the automatic machines of production ---- national big industrial system. The core problem we have in China today is actually that China's large industrial system is weak in the legs. Although the economists of the comparative advantage theory pointed out China's advantages, but did not fundamentally solve the problem of how the national industry to obtain core competitiveness (technology), and enterprises are busy assembling and processing, the pursuit of having independent intellectual property rights of the road is even more difficult. The real situation of Chinese enterprises is that they can't break through ---- up to develop advanced technology, and foreign investors don't transfer it; down to face the break ---- a large number of laborers can't be transformed quickly to the industrialized population, and most of them can only engage in simple labor. In addition, to face competition from other populous countries, the "comparative advantage" is being challenged by late-developing developing countries, where land and labor costs are lower than in China.

The history of the world economy from the Industrial Revolution to the present day tells us that almost all developed countries have relied on the establishment of a large industrial system as the basis for development, and that the early stages of development in the United Kingdom and the United States were relatively easy, with the heavy chemical industry coming from private capital, but that the British and American large industrial system was not a market economy, and that it had to rely on the government's huge military expenditures and government purchases to support it. Behind them there were also a large number of state research and educational institutions, as well as many private but not private foundations as economic backing. The lagging countries are also in a permanent position of dependence and backwardness because they have not established their own independent large-scale industrial systems. Many of these countries have a free-market economy with an "invisible hand", but private capital and a free-market economy will not build a large industrial system, but will seriously undermine the existing large industrial system. The reason is that the construction of a large industrial system of a country and nation is incompatible with the universal economic laws, the reason is very simple ---- If the world is the same, the whole world only needs a set of large industrial system is enough, more is a waste. When relatively backward countries try to establish a large industrial system independently of the Western system, if the principle of free competition is practiced, their own immature large industrial system will certainly go bankrupt under the competition of the developed countries, and the world reverts to the existence of only one large industrial system.

The problem is that although in theory the world needs only one big industrial system, the big capital of the West will not allow the backward countries to share the benefits brought by modern science and technology for nothing, unless the backward countries exchange their resources and manpower for it. As the world's human resources relative to the large industrial system is a surplus, scrambling to lower prices to compete in the backward countries in exchange for not much foreign exchange, naturally, there is no ability to buy advanced industrial products, this relative overproduction in turn resisted the developed countries to expand the desire of the large industrial system. The world economy is in this knot in the division into two worlds: have a large industrial system of countries are independent and autonomous developed countries, no large industrial system of countries can only be dependent economy and backward countries. From dependent countries to modern countries is not a gradual process of development, but either resting on the status quo, or taking private risks and overcoming difficulties to cross the barriers of industrialization, there is no third way.

4, the establishment of a complete large industrial system is the only way for China to be strong

The world pattern restricts the scope of activities of the backward countries, the backward countries to participate in the already existing but for the developed countries of the West dominated the global trading system. It is the combination of the characteristics of the big industrial system and the "invisible hand" that prevents these countries from establishing their own big industrial system. Attempts to acquire resources and technology for industrialization through trade and the development of domestic enterprises on their own, when the Western industrial system was already overwhelmingly dominant, would result in falling into the trap of low-level development. This is because building up one's own system of production knowledge and a large industrial system based on comparative efficiency requires a great deal of training of human resources, a long period of time and capital, and at the beginning the industrial goods made are of inferior quality and high price. If the state power can effectively block the interference of other large industrial systems, the establishment of an independent economic system in a sufficiently large country is entirely possible. Late-stage countries need to capitalize on the history of the West's rise to power, and seize the key to economic progress ---- the Industrial Revolution to improve their own science, technology, and economy more quickly. This is also in the existing Western large industrial system is monopolized and limited by capitalism, and thus can not be fully expanded to serve all of mankind, the establishment of an independent large industrial system of backward countries helpless but inevitable choice.

An ideal large industrial system should be composed of a heavy industrial system that basically implements a planned economy, and assembly and light industries*** that require free trade and emphasize corporate independence and free trade. The former, carried out with investment in limited key technologies and resources, provides basic industrial materials and machinery. The latter, on the other hand, basically maintains the system of the pre-industrial era, utilizing these materials and machinery to complete product manufacturing (including non-physical products) of final products. The developed countries have basically established this economic system through partial nationalization of core industries and interpenetration of enterprises, except that assembly and light industries have been transferred to a large extent to third world countries. As for the backward countries in general, the latter are not lacking, what is lacking is a heavy industrial system that cannot be established through market economy and free trade.

The backward heavy industry system cannot compete with advanced rivals under free trade, unless it makes efforts to develop to narrow the gap with advanced rivals, it is possible to change the unfavorable situation. But in the continuous upgrading and catching up of the heavy industrial systems of the backward countries, the economic resistance encountered tends to grow, and in fact, the reasons for the West and the Buyers' Collective's demand for the opening up of the market are often created and imposed by the very industrialization efforts of the backward countries.

5, Western economics has become a very clever theoretical tool to prevent backward countries from becoming rich and strong

I think the most fatal problem of the "invisible hand" is that it ignores the relative scarcity of such a heavy industrial system, or believes that such a state of affairs is only a temporary imbalance, and that long-term development of the world economy will naturally lead to the rapid disappearance of such an equilibrium. The most fatal problem with the "invisible hand" is that it ignores the relative scarcity of this heavy industrial system, or that this state of affairs is only a temporary imbalance that will quickly disappear as a result of long-term world economic development. But why can such a theory, which is in serious conflict with reality, remain in the mainstream.

Western economics is a pre-Industrial Revolution economic ideology that advocates free markets, private property rights, and counting on competition to provide the economic impetus, and it is a theory that is compatible with agrarian societies, and it is only in agrarian societies that such theories emerge, which is consistent with the historical facts of the pre-Industrial Revolution in Europe and the post-Han Chinese societies, especially in the Song and Qing dynasties. And most agrarian societies also established concepts similar to modern Western economics at this stage and were happy to trade with the whole world under low tariff conditions.

After the Industrial Revolution, the fortunate Western countries were the first to establish a heavy industry system, and were able to take advantage of a world system that was close to free trade, and were able to consolidate that position through free trade, and of course, for the developed countries, the "invisible hand" was a very appropriate theory. In fact, the black hand of the "invisible hand" is the decisive force of big capital and big capital with greedy nature in the interests of the developed countries. The backward countries outside the West have not been able to establish an independent heavy industry system. Therefore, in these countries, the most powerful economic group is the buyer's economic group that organizes the export of raw materials and simple labor in their own countries and imports advanced industrial products. In the short term, selling more resources and labor to the free trade system and importing more advanced products did increase profits. According to the law that social operation determines ideology and culture, both developed and backward countries in the West have inherited the economic ideology of the pre-industrial time due to their respective economic structures. Under the Western-centered economic structure, the doctrine of free trade, which did not incorporate the Industrial Revolution itself into its theories, was able to maintain its mainstream status.

(This excerpt is taken from Tiny's article, "Market Mechanisms Alone Cannot Make Backward Countries Rich and Powerful."