Chapter 301 Learning from Piltover cannot save Demacia
"This..." Prince Jarvan was stunned.
He looked at the snack bar owner in front of him with a mysterious expression and felt inexplicably uncomfortable.
Because in Demacia, politics has always been a doctrine that only nobles and elites can access.
When his father was giving him extra lessons, he was always mysterious, as if he was teaching him some incredible dragon-slaying technique and he was afraid that others would overhear it.
But in Zaun... a snack bar owner who can be seen everywhere on the street can discuss politics with him, a prince, so confidently? Is he too confident?
"You..." Jarvan decided to listen to what he had to say: "Why do you say that Demacia can't learn from Piltover, but can only learn from the past Zaun?"
"Haha." The owner of the snack bar asked with some amusement: "Customer, have you never read the book "A Brief Account of Janna's Thoughts"? "
"I've seen it," Jarvan said.
"You've read it and you still can't figure it out? Then you've read it in vain." The snack bar owner actually looked down on the political level of this prince.
"Let me ask you, how did Piltover become rich?"
Jarvan thought about it. This was just a simple historical record, and it was written exactly in the booklet. Of course he could understand it.
"300 years ago, before the Noxian Empire expanded to the southern continent, Piltover was the first to colonize many city-states on the northern coast of Shurima. It not only plundered a huge amount of wealth and resources, but also opened up a vast overseas market. It eventually took the lead in launching the Industrial Revolution and achieved progress in science and technology and civilization..."
"Yes." The snack bar owner spread his hands and told Prince Jarvan: "The real Ziben leader achieved primitive accumulation by invading and plundering the wealth of other countries."
"The reason Piltover was able to colonize Shurima was because the Noxian Empire had not yet expanded here. What about now?"
Now Noxus has occupied the east and south of Valoran, as well as the northern coast of Shurima. Demacia's external expansion has long been blocked by their mortal enemy.
"Who can Demacia invade now? You should be thankful that you are not invaded by Noxus."
"Uh..." Garen and Jarvan were both a little embarrassed.
Jia Wen thought about it seriously before saying, "But, does it have to be through invasion and plunder to develop the seed benzene doctrine?"
"I remember that Piltover's overseas colony in Shurima was taken away by the Noxian Empire more than 100 years ago."
"For more than 100 years, Piltover has not invaded or plundered other countries. Isn't it still a civilized and progressive city?"
He asked the question hesitantly, but was immediately given a cold shoulder by the snack bar owner:
"Guest, I think you don't understand at all."
"How big is Piltover? How big is Demacia? Piltover is just a small city-state with a population of around 2 million."
"Apart from the Sungate Canal, which was a treasure trove bestowed by God, the technological advantages they accumulated during the Industrial Revolution alone were enough to allow them to make a fortune in the subsequent global trade."
"But you, Demacia, have neither technological nor industrial advantages, and you have tens of millions of poor people to feed. Do you think that as long as you do business in an honest way, you can develop the country without any pain?"
The snack bar owner's repeated questioning left Prince Jarvan speechless.
But the other party's sharp mouth did not stop there:
"Guest, do you think you can be as rich as Piltover by becoming the master of seed benzene?"
"But you haven't thought it through. In the past, Zaun was also dominated by the genocide. Even our system was no different from that of Piltover in the beginning. But why are we so poor?"
"This..." Jarvan was awakened.
Yes, he only saw the success of Piltover but not the failure of Zaun.
But in fact, the two have the same route and system. Why is the former so rich while the latter is so poor?
"Because the two cities are essentially one. Zaun is the slums of Piltover, the lower city of Piltover."
"The canal in Piltover separates their slums and hides the ugly side of the slums."
"For example..."
The snack bar owner looked at the two Demacians in front of him:
"If you only look at the capital of Demacia and not the places outside it, you would probably think that Demacia is a country where everyone has enough food and clothing, right?"
"Hmm..." Jarvan understood now.
He mistakenly equated Piltover and Demacia, thinking that by learning from Piltover he could lead the entire Demacia to prosperity.
But in fact, judging from the size of both sides, Piltover is more like the capital of Demacia.
Outside of Xiongdu, there are countrysides like Zaun, and countless country serfs who sell their blood and sweat for Xiongdu.
"Do you know what kind of life the people of Zaan lived in the past ?" the snack bar owner recalled with emotion.
In fact, his life in Old Zaun was pretty good.
In old Zaun, if you could own your own stall like him, without having to work in a sweatshop or sell yourself into slavery, and whose income could support yourself and your family, you would be considered a decent middle-class person.
But this does not mean that the snack bar owner had an easy life in the past.
Yes, as a self-employed person with his own business, he did not need to endure the bone-sucking exploitation of the alchemy barons like those Zaun laborers.
But the problem is that the Alchemist Baron’s means of exploiting people are not just to make them work in the factory.
In old Zaun, the city was divided into spheres of influence by powerful alchemy barons based on streets or communities.
In fact, all businesses within the sphere of influence are controlled by the giant enterprises under the name of the Alchemy Baron.
Residents theoretically have freedom of person and property, but they have to pay high fees for all their actions.
You have to pay high electricity bills to the company, you have to buy expensive medicines from the company when you are sick, you have to pay rent to the company for accommodation, you have to buy clean food from the company for meals, you have to buy clean water from the company for drinking...even to breathe a breath of non-toxic air, you can only buy a breathing mask from the company.
The company paid the workers a meager salary, and easily collected back the money they invested and paid interest by selling the goods they produced with their hard work.
The people of Zaun work hard for half their lives, but often cannot save a penny and may even owe the company a high-interest debt. They can only sell themselves into slavery, or even sell themselves to alchemy shops or to those scientific lunatics who are keen on prosthetic transformation.
"I could make a lot of money from selling the Magic Frogs, but most of it was spent on paying protection fees to the alchemy barons, and on food, clothing, housing, transportation, and various necessary expenses," said the snack bar owner with emotion.
"This business is very tiring, but I dare not take a day off."
"Because I know that it only takes one illness, one accident, or even just one increase in water and food prices by the alchemy barons, and my so-called decent life will become unsustainable."
Prince Jarvan listened attentively.
He always felt that... he seemed to have seen the snack bar owner's story somewhere before.
Residents have freedom of person and property, but are required to pay high fees for all their actions.
this……
"Aren't these the tenants of our Demacia?" Prince Jarvan finally realized where this sense of déjà vu came from.
"Those alchemist barons are like our noble lords in Demacia?"
"That's right!" The snack bar owner nodded in agreement.
It is true that socialism is more advanced than the feudal system.
When the seed benzene main force grows wildly to the point of Zaun, you will find that:
Those giant corporations that have completely taken control of society and people's livelihood have tacitly turned back into the feudal lords they once overthrew.
"That's why I said that Demacia can only learn to become like Zaun in the past."
"You don't have the ability to plunder other countries like Piltover and Noxus did in the past, so you can only rely on your own cheap labor to accumulate seeds like Zaun did."
"This process will be difficult and painful. But after going through all this pain, when Demacia finally achieved primitive accumulation and had some development results ..."
"Because you are too big and have too many people, it is difficult for you to let all Demacians live a life close to that of the people of Piltover."
"The most likely possibility is that the capital becomes 'Piltover', and everywhere outside the capital becomes 'Zaun'."
If Demacia could impose some restraints on the lords of the seed at this time, it would undeniably be a huge improvement compared to the poor and backward feudal kingdom of the past.
But if we allow the tyranny of the Demacia system to grow wildly, and if Demacia really becomes the old Zaun where giant corporations can do whatever they want and run rampant, or even civilian businessmen take control of the government...
Then the Demacians living in the Seed Age are essentially no different from the Demacians living in the Kingdom Age.
"In short, learning from Piltover can only make some people rich. No matter how well you do, it's impossible to make everyone rich."
"Even if you are a once-in-a-millennium great man, and you have miraculously made tens of millions of Demacia people rich, there must be tens of millions of poor people outside of Demacia who are suffering because of you."
"This is the general law of the seed benzene, and it is not something you can change."
"Guest, do you understand?"
