What are the legitimate rights and interests of industrialists and businessmen?

Before answering this question, one thing needs to be determined: Do businessmen have legitimate rights and interests?

No.

Scholars, farmers, industry, commerce, business, business, and business, especially businessmen. Since ancient times, the status of merchants has been very low and has been listed as low-ranking by rulers of all dynasties. Not only is it derogatory in its status, it also specifically restricts food, clothing, housing and transportation, and is not allowed to wear slightly better clothes.

In order to show the lowliness of businessmen, there are even regulations on clothing: only white clothes can be worn (non-dyeed plain cloth clothes not only refer to white clothes).

So much so that during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, merchants were also called "white clothes", which was because the court at that time stipulated that merchants could only wear white clothes.

During the Three Kingdoms period, Lu Meng crossed the river in white and attacked Jingzhou, which made people dress up as merchants traveling across the country. In order to deceive the beacon guards along the river, they were all wearing white clothes.

Therefore, merchants who are regarded as untouchables in legal theory have the same status as slaves and are equivalent to livestock.

The court deals with private merchants, kills and takes away life and death, and does whatever they want. Just like the master deals with slaves, it is natural to deal with them, so where does the merchants get the legitimate rights and interests?

Most of the imperial courts in history implemented a policy of focusing on agriculture and suppressing commerce. The reason is very simple. Without farmers, there would be no food, so agriculture must be emphasized.

Merchants value righteousness and neglect separation, and raise prices, and they are like villains. They can get rich without work. If they are indulged, everyone will go to do business, so who will cultivate the land? It is naturally to be suppressed.

However, the business that emphasizes agriculture and suppresses commerce is actually private industry and commerce. The state-specific industry and commerce will never be suppressed, because "commerce" such as salt and iron can bring huge income to the country.

Then, merchants who are actually regarded as untouchables are actually private merchants with no foundation and backing, while those rich and powerful merchants who flirt with the powerful also live in luxury houses, have a lot of wives and concubines, and are all the best.

In the Zhengshi Hall, Ping Zhang, Qi, Wang Yu and Wen Li summarized the policies of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce implemented in previous dynasties. He believed that the "commerce" suppressed by the courts in previous dynasties was actually mainly to suppress private industry and commerce.

Industry and commerce are indispensable to the country, so there was no dynasty that prohibited industry and commerce. However, it is precisely because some industry and commerce can obtain a lot of profits that those industries that have profits are basically found by the court to "specialize".

This kind of franchise is either institutional, such as salt or iron, and is only allowed to operate by the government and not to intervene by the people.

Either it is an alternative franchise, that is, let a "obedient" few wealthy merchants monopolize the operation of a certain industry, such as usury.

For example, when the Gao Qi State ruled the Lianghuai region, the merchants who could release usury on a large scale in the Lianghuai region were all Hu merchants who had sex with the powerful people in the capital. In contrast, local loan sharks were suppressed.

As for handicrafts with average profit but indispensable, the courts of all dynasties often used the official business to organize handicraftsmen and placed them in a centralized manner, just like using official slaves.

Yuwenli believes that this is the essence of the so-called "suppression of commerce": the court implemented "franchise" of lucrative industries and then suppressed the development of private industry and commerce, which was not truly a comprehensive suppression of industrial and commercial activities.

Through various thresholds, private merchants are isolated from profitable industrial and commercial activities, ensuring the income of the imperial court.

This policy has been adopted in previous dynasties, but the times have changed. Now, the court cannot suppress private industry and commerce. Let’s talk about other reasons, just a fact.

Yuwen Li read out a group of numbers, which were all counted by the Ministry of Education. Various numbers show that the rapidly developing private industry and commerce absorbed a large amount of landless idle labor and paid a large amount of taxes to the court during production and operation.

The taxes paid by private industry and commerce account for the imperial court's fiscal revenue share to an unnegligible level, and among the goods of foreign trade, the proportion of industrial and commercial products is becoming increasingly large.

In addition, preliminary statistics have reached about 1.1 million households in labor absorbed by private industry and commerce.

Among them, most of them are two to three people working, relying on working instead of farming to make money to support the family's life.

One million households, nearly one-eighth of the number of households in the world, will increase significantly if the number of agricultural population that provides raw materials for industry and commerce is taken into account.

The court cannot let most of these people be unemployed, because once these people are unemployed, it means a large number of refugees appearing, and it also means a large amount of tax loss.

At the same time, the court could not manage technicians who operate various steam machinery and advanced machinery as ordinary craftsmen, and could not set up any "mechanical households" and treat these people as officials' enslavements.

Therefore, the court must find ways to promote the development of industry and commerce, so as to expand the scale of industry and commerce quickly, so as to absorb idle labor generated with the rapid growth of the population, so it must give industrial and commercial workers the status they deserve.

If the merchants do not change their status as untouchables, and their property is not given basic security, who would be at ease to expand the scale of the industry instead of using money to buy land and "change careers" to become landlords?

If the risk of technicians being assigned as craftsmen is not eliminated, many people will inevitably change careers after saving enough money, so as not to become craftsmen for generations. What should we do if steam machinery, steamships, trains, and telegraphs?

Even if the court could forcibly compile these people into craftsmen, the complexity of various advanced technical knowledge can no longer be continued by passing on from father to son. If the old methods are used to manage new things, it will inevitably mess up the matter.

Yuwenli gave an example: When the imperial court sent troops to fight against the enemy, everyone knew that they had to pay enough food and salary to ensure morale. In order to boost morale, they had to reward merits.

So, if the court continues to regard merchants as untouchables and technicians as craftsmen, so that merchants and technicians always feel like they are in danger of peace, how can the other party feel at ease?

Therefore, Yu Wenli proposed that on the premise of continuing to value agriculture, the lowly titles of merchants will be abolished first, at least from the legal level, the content of discrimination against merchants will be abolished, so that merchants can gain a consistent position with civilians, and various forms of craftsmanship systems will be abolished.

Secondly, based on existing laws such as the "Regulations on Industry and Commerce Administration", "Regulations on Chambers of Commerce, Guild Management", "Regulations on Trade and Company Management", special "Business Laws" were formulated to clear obstacles for Daxing industry and commerce (mainly industrial).

Of course, the court still needs to crack down on hoarding goods and price gouging.

The purpose of this is to confirm the legality of industrial and commercial activities in the form of law and confirm the legal status of merchants. The government has a basis for the management of industry and commerce, rather than arbitrarily cracking down on merchants and their industries based on "suppression of business".

To this end, Yuwen Science organized personnel and based on opinions from all parties, they initially formulated the "Company Regulations (Draft)" and the "Company Regulations (Draft)" and submitted them to the emperor as a practice to promote industrial and commercial legislation.

These two regulations (drafts) regulate the business behavior of trading companies/companies and the business behavior of merchants, and also lay the foundation for the emergence of the formal "Business Law".

The emperor read and ordered the Secretariat to modify it, which is for the Company Regulations (Draft) and the Merchant Regulations (Draft) and the Secretariat. Now, the Secretariat will submit it to the Menxia Province for review.

Because it is important to reverse the traditional concept of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, the review process of the Menxia Provincial Censorate's review of these two drafts is part of the Political Affairs Hall meeting.

As the proposer, Yu Wenli must accept questions from the opposition. The Political Affairs Hall meeting must finally vote to determine the fate of these two drafts.

The participants had obtained two draft materials before and had enough time to study them. Now if there are any questions, they can raise them on the spot. The positive and negative sides debate on this, and the debate ends and vote.
Chapter completed!