Chapter 329 Towards Modernization
"Yes!" Riven nodded seriously.
This female soldier, who had little education and no interest in reading, now picked up a pen and paper and started taking notes at work.
This is not her type of performance.
In fact, after becoming the branch president of this leader, Riven, feeling a great sense of responsibility, unconsciously developed the habit of taking work notes.
She recorded her work experience, the problems she encountered, and her corresponding thoughts in detail, waiting to find a wise person who could point her in the right direction.
And Levi, who has now come to Wuji Village, is obviously the mentor that Riven is waiting for.
"Without investigation, there is no right to speak." Levi also said at this time: "I have never been to Ionia before. But fortunately, Comrade Riven has taken a lot of work notes these days, allowing me to have a deeper understanding of the real situation in Ionia."
"It contains many of her interview records and investigation results on the situation in rural Ionia, which are of great help to me."
“And I have some ideas about how Ionia will change and what it will look like in the future.”
Levi said in a very cautious tone.
"Oh?" The leaders immediately perked up and looked over carefully.
They were all waiting for Levi's answer.
Levi concluded: "The main contradiction in Ionia lies in the contradiction between the growing population and the limited natural resources under the law of balance."
"In order to ease this ineradicable contradiction, Ionia previously adopted the method of 'expelling' some people from the human race, allowing the poor and untouchables to occupy as little land as possible and consume as few resources as possible, and in disguised form depriving them of the right to marry and have children, so as to maintain the overall balance between man and nature."
Now that the leader has arrived, of course we can no longer do this.
So what to do?
What can be done to maintain balance and make life better for Ionians without sacrificing the poor?
"In this regard, we can fully learn from the successful experience of Wuji Village," said Li Wei.
Riven's investigation in Wuji Village is very instructive for solving the problem of untouchables in Ionia.
The core of the so-called "Wuji experience" can be summed up in two sentences:
Let those who have more children not make any profit;
It’s not a loss to have fewer children.
To achieve the latter, it is necessary to establish a fair social order.
As long as the leader is like the Wuji masters in Wuji Village, he can provide a fair social order for all Ionians, so that even if everyone has fewer children, they will not face the deadly problems of being eaten up, bullied, and left alone in old age...
The Ionians, who believe in balance, will naturally take the initiative to restrict births and control population, so as to maintain the balance between man and nature.
"But..." Riven still looked over with confusion.
Because Levi only talked about how to make "fewer births not a loss" but did not say how to "more births not a gain".
The reason why Wuji Village can achieve the goal of "more births but no profit" and thus reduce the villagers' enthusiasm for childbearing is entirely due to its extremely special, isolated, small and closed social background.
In this closed mountainous area where the land carrying capacity is already saturated, even if you have more children, they cannot find jobs and you cannot cultivate more land. So having more children will only result in losses and will not bring any benefits to the family.
But outside of Wuji Village, looking at the entire Ionia...
There is such a vast land, such a broad market, and countless jobs in the outside world... In this way, it seems that having more children can still be a way to generate income for the family.
"Wuji Village's experience in this area..." Riven hesitated and offered her opinion: "It shouldn't be copied to the entire Ionia, right?"
"That's right!" Levi looked at Riven approvingly.
The leaders of this world do not have the problem of purity, but they still cannot avoid the problem of good intentions but bad results. A driver who serves passengers wholeheartedly may not necessarily be a driver who can drive well and steadily.
So what Levi was most worried about was never that everyone would fall behind, but that everyone would rush too fast.
Riven was able to not be blinded by ideals and enthusiasm, but to adhere to the principle of starting from reality and analyzing specific issues in specific ways, rationally analyzing the differences in the social background of Wuji Village and the whole of Ionia, and treating the problem carefully and seriously...
This is exactly what Levi wants to see, the kind of leading cadre with firm beliefs and clear minds.
"Of course, Ionia cannot copy the experience of Wuji Village and build the entire continent into an isolated primitive village."
"So, I think what Ionia should learn more is our Zaun's experience."
As mentioned earlier, in an industrialized society, the surplus value of a labor force is taken away by the child's family, but the cost of cultivating the labor force has to be borne by the parents.
Therefore, in the past, Zaun and Piltover have successfully achieved the goal of "making extra births lose money".
What about Zaun now under the rule of the Wind Leader?
"Actually, there is no essential difference." Levi said frankly.
Some passionate young people always regard the current Zaun as the holy land of Janna's Kingdom, and even advocate that Janna's Kingdom has been successfully built in Zaun.
But Levi himself clearly stated in the article that the current Zaun is just an enhanced version of Piltover.
Until a true harmonious society is achieved, exploitation in the theoretical sense will not disappear from Zaun.
In the past, the surplus labor of the Zuan people was taken away by the Ziben family.
Although the Ziben family is weak now, a large part of the surplus labor of the Zuan people still has to be handed over to the collective.
However, compared with Zibenjia, the leader takes less and gives back more, which reduces the huge losses caused by Zibenjia as a middleman, and the cake is divided more fairly relatively speaking.
Anyway…
In industrialized society, the economic model of agricultural society based on the family as the production unit and the almost absolute personal dependence between children and their parents have been completely broken.
In any case, the surplus value of a labor force will no longer belong mostly to parents and family as in agricultural society.
In human terms, it means:
Part of the value you create is given to your boss, part is paid as tax, and only part is left for yourself.
And your parents can't force you to hand over all your salary like feudal patriarchs.
The little bit of alimony they can "forcibly" take from you through the law may not be worth the time and education they spent raising you.
Forget about making money after having a child, it would be good enough if you can just balance your income and expenditure.
So people will spontaneously pursue eugenics rather than having more children.
Even if a leader comes, there will only be some improvement in this regard, but no fundamental change.
Because we are still far from a harmonious society where distribution is based on needs, the leaders have only changed the proportion of the cake, but have not fundamentally changed the principle of how the cake is divided.
“How can we maintain balance and make life better for Ionians without sacrificing the poor?”
Levi returned to the question itself again.
After the analysis just now , the answer to this question has been obtained -
"The leader regime plus an industrialized society is the answer!"
This is also a standard answer.
This answer seems to apply no matter where it is placed.
"But..." Riven realized something was wrong: "Industrialization... doesn't seem to work in Ionia, right?"
She had seen what Zuan looked like.
The smog blocks the sun all day long, wastewater is discharged directly into the sea, the land is barren, and fish and shrimp are dead and extinct...
The industrial society's demands for natural resources and destruction of the environment are far beyond the reach of the agricultural society.
But everything in Ionia is spiritual; every blade of grass and every tree is a living being with a soul.
If the leaders build factories, mines, and discharge sewage and exhaust gas in Ionia, turning the Presidio into the London of the 19th century and the Ipu River into the Ganges of the 21st century, and first make nature suffer for the sake of industrial development...
The balance between the material and spiritual realms will be completely broken, and the virgin land will become infested with evil spirits.
In the end, it is human beings themselves who suffer.
"That's right." Levi was even happier after being repeatedly pointed out: "Comrade Riven, you are right."
"Ionia has its own national conditions. It is impossible for it to achieve high industrialization like Zaun."
"Then what should we do?" Riven murmured in confusion.
Developing industry will disrupt the balance.
Without industrialization, the Ionians would have to continue farming.
"Then just farm." Li Wei said, "The inability to achieve high-level industrialization does not mean that we cannot enter an industrialized society, or in other words..."
He thought about it and decided to replace "industrialized society" with a more appropriate term:
“Modernizing society.”
What the Leader wants to help Ionia enter is a modern society.
"Let me give you an example..."
"After being transformed by the Wind Leader, Bilgewater has completely transformed from a pirate's lair into an ocean fishing port that mainly produces seafood and meat."
"The city's fisheries and service industries account for a large proportion of its output value, while its industrial output value accounts for a relatively small proportion."
Bilgewater also has shipyards and weapons factories, but their size is not large compared to the overall economic scale.
Even in the era of the booming pirate economy, the foundation of the city's prosperity is still the 200,000 fishermen and fishermen. The majority of the city's population has never been pirates who kill and rob, but hardworking fishermen.
"If Ionia is about farming, then Bilgewater is about fishing. Both are primary industries, there is not much difference."
“But can you say that Bilgewater is not a modern society now?”
Levi asked Riven in a thought-provoking tone, patiently and persuasively:
"How is it different from Ionia today?"
