The Difficulties of China's development of the division of labor

 No. 14 Phoenix Century Forum: Why is the division of labor in China is difficult development
- - Also on the issue and Adam Needham. Predicament
Smith Center for Economic Research of Peking University Professor Chen Ping
2001  4 21 broadcast, August 2 changes in the North Long Run Park
Moderator: pursuit of progress, academic listening, Century auditorium to greet you, we know that Needham wrote secret wrote The Professor Chen Ping. Well, today he asked me to be present, let him talk about what relationship the two men, well, there you Professor Chen to play. sit down. In the program we started, I want to tell you point homely words.
Chen Ping: Good.
Moderator: I would like to ask you how old you are this year?
Chen Ping: 50 years old now.
Host: 50 years old, that there is a secret to be imparted to us. I'm 34 years old when it comes to that I will always go like you skinny, but fat 35-year-old up suddenly.
Chen Ping: The secret is very simple, I Prigogine teacher told me, not the teachers teach the students, but to teach students the teacher, so if I can always learn from students, then, my first ever young. Secondly it will never get fat.
Moderator: I heard do not understand this. In general, intake from the outside world more than anything, he will be more abundant, is also on the fat from the body.
Chen Ping: You know, young man and older who challenge is to get you enough headache that makes you want the problem; then you could not sleep, you will not gain weight.
Moderator: Yes. I basically looked at your resume I found you from the bachelor, master to doctoral not studied all the economic, are the study of physics, how to bring you today to give it an economic issue?
Chen Ping: only a part of since I started to follow the S & P 1981 Takatsu done in non-equilibrium statistical physics, I main economic problems, in particular, the study of economic fluctuations. because we send non-equilibrium, the balance is not mainstream economics to accommodate school, so I can only stay inside the Research Department of Physics, economic issues . I have studied the economic issues for 16 years.
Moderator: Yes ah. Tell us about your favorite college, which began a year?
Chen Ping: I was in Beijing in 1962 into the China Science and Technology University, when it was still under the Academy of Sciences.
Host: This is strange, we think that China University of Technology has been in Anhui, how do you say it is called Beijing China University of Technology?
Chen Ping: Yes, moving to Anhui in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, were forced to moved to Hefei, from there to come back later.
Moderator: Who is to force it to move there.
Chen Ping: At the time of Li Desheng , a member of the Central Military Commission.
Moderator: Li Desheng, which now is a good man.
Chen Ping: is a good man, I think he did a very good thing. the world has two countries, their capitals and cultural center is a coincidence, one is Paris, France; one of China in Beijing. So the student movement a big impact on the government, government intervention is also a great academic. academic as well in order to leave the capital a little further. HKUST moved to Hefei to go, I do research in Hefei, than the research at the university could do a lot more.
Moderator: as you mean, you open people's congress at the time, you should give the people's congress write a proposal, it is recommended to Peking University and Tsinghua University have all the provinces.
Mr Chan: My best advice is move out of the Chinese government to establish a new capital, Beijing. This will greatly improve the efficiency of government, like Brazil Like build a new capital. Cultural Center should remain in Beijing.
Moderator: Are you going to move to where the capital of China?
Mr Chan: I think it should be in the middle, so appropriate. now built are in Beijing, is to defend against nomadic aggression, but the economic center but also in the south. the contradictions of China's political economy, focusing on the performance of the location in the capital. ancient capital of the majority in the north, let the economy subject to political decision-making, Song Zhaomin State election In the South, economic prosperity, the war failed. to coordinate the development of American political economy, one important reason is that Washington-based election in the business largely rural north and south between. I think China's future political center and economic center of the case of separation should be able to solve. the future of the new capital should be located in the middle of the sea a little Chinese. Beijing without water, the development of mega-cities Beijing and Tianjin not sustainable ecological base. After the Opium War, the attack from the sea no risk Beijing Shou. Beijing imperial tradition of too much bureaucratic culture, the tradition of weak open for business, academic atmosphere of political emphasis on science, bad China's reform and opening to open up new cultural and political traditions. Chinese history of the reform, the most significant sign is the relocation of the capital. Ecology degradation is ancient capital was moved eastward from the upper and middle reaches of Yellow River causes.
Moderator: Central sea that the middle part of the sea?
Chen Ping: Central no sea. election should be at the junction of inland and coastal, the junction of the north and south, not too far from the sea. China's geographic distribution, population and economic development focused on the southeast coast, but the military Mita ago in the Northwest. This is the history of political and economic center of a conflict caused by separation .
Moderator: Please be more specific or give us a concept, which in the end a city in China, Xi'an?
Mr Chan: I think it probably should be in the hilly areas between Hubei, Anhui, not from the Wuhan better than that.
Moderator: near Wuhan.
Chen Ping: It may a little too hot, we do not want to. about the area north of Wuhan, a little better.
Moderator: Your Master or less What year?
Mr Chan: I do not read the master, Dr. physical is read-only, the University of Texas in the United States,
Moderator: to go outside to read a. said it, you study Instructor is a physical chemist Dr?
Chen Ping: He is a physicist, but won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Moderator: You are to learn from him, and his study of the physical, and then engage in the economy.
Chen Ping: Because Puri high Jinyao address the gap between physics and biology, so I thought if you can solve the gap between physics and biology, then. I will be able to resolve between physics and economics the gap, do it now.
Moderator: From that time began to study the targeting of Economics.
Chen Ping: aim should be from the late Cultural Revolution began.
Moderator: Can Needham and Adam told me roughly. Smith in the end have to do?'s far worse, of the subjects are not together, as if the people of a country.
Chen Ping: thinking they are linked. My subject is called non-equilibrium physics or complex system science, the study focused on complex systems, especially biological, economic, social systems, and their evolution laws. Needham question is asked why science in Western Europe, but no Civilization in China or other. Chinese people like to ask a similar question is why China's feudal society so long? Adam Smith stressed the origin of the capitalist division of labor in the core, so I put the question to change what Needham, why the division of labor in the origin Western Europe and not China? on this issue can use our discussion of complex systems science to answer.
Moderator: Well, Professor Chen has been the topic of conversation today is deep into his academic reports. Chen to give us today The academic report is the a rural survey, a factory, a school. I wanted to understand the reasons behind the Chinese society. at that time that the reasons behind, and on long-term sustainability of feudal society. backwardness because of severe exploitation of the landlords, social motivation of farmers war. I took to investigate this problem, a plant, Taiyuan Heavy Machinery Plant. It was the first of a five-year plan projects assisted by the Soviet Union. I found that construction of more than ten years, production capacity reached only one third of design capacity. I was very surprised What is the reason? survey results, the reason is very simple, as production capacity is based on volume, mass production to design. it was not the imperialist blockade, China, everything must be self-reliant, self-sufficient. So even if a large country like China, market size is not large. a heavy machinery plant, a mold made out of a heavy machinery production, domestic orders only about two or three units, the enterprise would be no economies of scale. The results are very resistance to new technology companies, as each new technologies that , they will re-set the mold for the market will not lose money. then I thought why China does not encourage the division of labor? I began to read Marx's book. I found Marx and Adam. Smith are highly praised the division of labor . but at the time of Chairman Mao called on us to take the to continue to wonder why China wants to suppress the division of labor? to know science and the development of capitalism is the division of labor began. like this, I became interested in Needham's question. Needham asked, Why the science in Western Europe but not China? second law of thermodynamics, that entropy is always increasing. That means that the order must be neutralized, people die, and biological laws that conflict. because there is Darwin's theory of evolution biology. the trend of evolution from simple to complex, and that if the second law of thermodynamics is concerned by not happen. how are you going to resolve this conflict? Prigogine thermodynamic system proposed should be classified. The first isolated system, entropy always increases, that is, the order must be neutralized; second category is a closed system, such as water, salt and melted on the inside if you lower the temperature of a crystal separated from the water inside, this structure is called low-temperature equilibrium structure, but it can not appear life This type of complex system evolution. the evolution of life must be a third type of open system. open system means that it is to not only exchange energy flow and the outside world, but also to exchange material flow, exchange of information flow, so as to maintain a dynamic structure, called dissipative structures. So he called the theory of dissipative structure theory and self-organization theory. At that time he distinguished between open systems and closed systems of thought, gave me a sudden inspiration, like a bolt of lightning. I realized that stagnation of Chinese society the main reason, not because of class struggle, such as government corruption, not because of any evil Chinese nationalism, such as critical as the May Fourth Movement, but the Chinese society for a long time to implement immediately went on to ask the second question: why the history of successive dynasties of China until the Cultural Revolution have Restraining Commerce, the West has been to-business? I turned the history textbooks are not answered. I found the answer I come to see light readings. I see Scott in the Knights of the novel the growth of independent commercial and industrial space. The Chinese ruling class live in the city inside the city are mostly of Chinese military fortress, the city ruled the countryside. I guess this is the result of ecological crisis.
Impact and I came across the work of He is the Academy of Sciences, wrote a a large number of livestock deaths, as cattle and sheep is not hardy. I guess before the Shang Dynasty, China and Western Europe is mixed forest as the farming economy. Zhou Dynasty, when a large number of cold wave wiped out the animals, only hardy plants can be survival. Spring and Autumn when the climate began warming, China has achieved a turning point, from the mixed farming as the economic evolution of a single grain-based agricultural economy. and then the nations population growth caused by hegemony.
start Goujian Awards population reproduction, the age of twenty men do not marry, the woman should not marry seventeen fine. I read Mao Zedong's military writings, found the law of the Chinese civil war and Europe is not the same. the ancient history of China the size of the war times in Europe to a hundred times. Alexandria Eastern Campaign only twenty thousand people, about peasant uprisings in Europe only a few thousand people. But the Spring and Autumn Period, the Qin Zhao Xiang Bing abusing one to forty million people, which has reached the scale of the Second World War. three casualties of China's population one-to nine-tenths of peasant uprisings and foreign invasions, the history of thirteen times the population upheaval. Europe only once, the Black Death. After the Black Death, because the labor shortage to encourage the industrial revolution, labor-saving inventions to produce textile machines and steam engines of these labor-saving technologies. China's large population, it is difficult to accept labor-saving technology, but quickly absorb the technology to support more people, such as high-yield crops, corn and sweet potatoes.
second problem is that productivity mode selection and technology development, the relationship between the environment, this and the system, as well as cultural anthropology Harris, an American anthropologist, they want to promote the Marxist theory to explain social evolution. Marx stresses caused by the development of productive forces of production relations revolution. they ask a question of what affects productivity development? guess they should be below the level of productive technology, technology is based on ecology, which together determine the development of productivity. relations of production on top of the world system. a country's development, not a single phenomenon. capitalism produce, not an Anglo - Saxon system of diffusion process is the result of conflict between the various civilizations; take the words of our physics is the result of catalytic reaction is not only the diffusion process. so on top of it there is a world system. China Wallerstein observed that the generation of the world capitalist system, the bifurcation of Eastern and Western civilizations, probably in the fifteenth century or so. there is a French historian Xiao slaves, so that Wallerstein noted an interesting contradiction, and I put it called rough estimate, the plains area of Western Europe is China's eight times, but the population of Western Europe has been less than China, so you have to count his words of resources per capita in Western Europe is much larger than China.
according to logic, then China should be the lack of living space, should the lack of population in Western Europe, but the historical development of the contrary, Western Europe feel that their lack of living space, so the outward expansion, hence the discovery of history, there are colonial America, colonial Australia. felt a lack of labor in China. China is the only civilization in the industrial past, the population has quadrupled to, from the Song Dynasty about a billion or so, turn to the Qing Dynasty's four hundred million or so, this is a very strange phenomenon in history. According to economic explanations, Western Europe and China are very no economic reason.
I found that ecological rationality is very simple, eco-selection technique can be used to explain the economic structure. Our way of life and diverse: I can herd cattle, drinking milk, eating beef, I can kind of food, I can hunt. but a different way of life required resources is not the same. How much worse? I have a survey. I lived in Texas for twenty years, Texas is a grazing industry-based economy. in the industrialized today, if animal husbandry is the basic unit of Texas family of three, to survive without pay does not make a profit, he had at least how many animals? He needs one hundred cows, so we now translate the cowboy is turned wrong, is cow Aberdeen, COW BOY, he is dairy production units. the next calf can eat meat, milk could be sold, but also feed their children. How much support a cow pasture it? Texas 10 to 15 acres of pasture, one acre is 6 acres. one hundred cows need about 6000-9000 acres of pasture, to feed a family of three. In China, you can grow food to feed hundreds of families of farmers. so You understand that the essence of Chinese civilization, what is it? China's civilization is a savings of resources, but labor-intensive technology. and Western Europe do? is resource-intensive, but labor-saving technologies. Now we are talking about the origin of the work of modern Western division of labor, are labor-saving. We have discussed a number of historians that the seeds of capitalism in China, they did not expect that the seeds of capitalism, and not just commercial, but the division of labor trends. I think this simple ecological resources of the economic structure of the constraints, the problem can be explained by Needham and the roads, 1.3 billion people, foreign expansion, global resources are not enough. I say it is your logic of Western civilization, not the logic of Chinese civilization.
the complexity behind the problem 佷 interesting. I went to Prigogine Center after know in theory there are a similar biological paradox of control theory is proposed. control theory there are two very important person, one is Wiener, the second important figure is more than an Englishman named Assi, Asif wrote a book than the Ask biologists, biologists say most of the more complex system more stable. Why? because Darwin said before, suitable for this environment. more and more development of biological evolution, of course, means that the complex system than the simple system stability, greater viability.
I might talk about China's enlightenment propaganda of Darwin's home is not strictly scientific. Darwin's theory is is a distortion of the Chinese culture. you know, is not necessarily superior fit, such as cockroaches, can adapt to very harsh conditions, people do not cockroaches ability to survive. You can not say cockroaches than the gifted people. so must be the evolution of speech This is not right. evolution of most of the variation, 90% of the mutations are degraded. little to evolution. But the evolution has taken place, such as the origin of life, the division of labor, or the origin of capitalism such events, it once had the critical value of the future, they stopped. Most biologists believe that the more stable the more complex system. But as cybernetics scientists and physicists, prior to this problem will not admit that he has to do computer simulations. computer simulation The result is negative, whatever you how to construct a system that began more than a dozen variables, and later increased to hundreds of variables, you will always find that the greater the more unstable the system. The results of the biologist in an uproar. that you control theory, scientists must be wrong. Why is wrong with it, because your system is linear, your model is not realistic. have a good theoretical physicist at Princeton, diverted to do theoretical biology. He recognition of the real biological problems are nonlinear, and he put into the nonlinear system to study, the result is the same, the more unstable the more complex systems. This became a very well-known paradox of the. The theory of biological is also a pioneer of chaos theory scientist called Robert. plum, now moved from Princeton, went to Oxford.
eighties I came to America to study the matter, when Mao Zedong's military thinking from the inspiration. Physicists think the problem more often than biologists and social scientists simple. physicists if faced with repeated failure, he will not dead end, he would admit the facts behind the failure is justified. For example, physicists desperately want to do perpetual motion machine impossible to do, how do? you to summarize the laws of thermodynamics, energy is conserved. you always wanted to do a single heat source heat engine fails, then you find that the second law of thermodynamics. perpetual motion machine is impossible. You want to do the machine speed can not make infinite, then you recognize the theory of relativity is justified, the speed of light is limited. I have repeatedly thought about the future, physicists can also be extended to the law of life and social phenomena. I propose the more complex system more unstable than the complex system is stable and simple system. The reason is very simple, the reality is coming from China. Why Communist guerrilla warfare to defeat the Nationalist armies, why the U.S. lost the Vietnam War? This shows that a simple system may defeat a complex systems. throw a few bombs in rural Vietnam, farmers still living. New York power failure, skyscrapers once chaos. a worm you put it cut into two, two worms can become. people to cut into two sections, he will not become two people. think of economics, trade-off reason, put the stability of complex problems into a theorem, that is, between complexity and stability of the ebb and flow (trade off), the Chinese talk about the fish and the bear palm can not have both. the shift in the relationship between growth and decline, that the stability of larger, you sacrifice complexity or cost of development opportunities; if the development a little bit faster, you sacrifice the stability. so you know, the superiority of Chinese society is a simple decentralized small-scale peasant self-sufficiency, Nanniwan spirit, open to Western Europe's complex system stability, the Chinese Empire Roman Empire than a stable and lasting. turn it cost? If you engage in self- self, you take the Economists have also found similar contradictions. Chicago, has died of Nobel laureate Stigler, who in 1951 discovered an Adam. Smith's predicament. what say? we all know, Adam. Smith has two very well-known theory, called the Adam. Smith has a very deep, from rural to urban migration, how to pick the direction of development? good wishes of many Chinese economists called for the development of small cities and towns. If you have studied Adam. Smith theorem, you will find that limited opportunities for small towns, why? small towns , subject to size restrictions on the division of labor, your service can not become developed. only the development of large and medium cities, to the development of the division of labor in order to attract a large number of rural population. If Adam. Smith theorem, then, just in front of ; invisible hand Lenin said that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism would be conquered. Why is capitalism, not only did not die, and vitality? Lin Yifu, the teacher discussed the comparative advantages of hard to answer this question, but the complex science can answer.
me , this issue is the essence of Adam. Smith's two theories which can co-exist in the real world? In fact the two often coexist. ah, you know there is a large number of small businesses, there are a large number of multinational companies monopolistic competition exists. If you want to optimize the balance according to mainstream theory, one could only choose between the two: either the full market are small businesses, or all monopolies, there is no coexistence of small businesses and large enterprises room. how to understand the coexistence of these two do? coexistence or organizational diversity, the traditional balance of optimization theory there is no way to understand complex science can be solved. The solution is to do my graduate student, discovered in 1987 and stability of the complex relationship between growth and decline, so I just Last year, Smith made a generalized theorem, put the original theorems to the generalized Smith.
Smith original theorem is that the division of labor limited by the size of the market. I find it is not complete, more rigorous statements can be used to express mathematical model. Today, I do not speak math, talk about ideas. the division of labor limited by three factors, the first restriction is that market size, each technology after the exhaustion of its potential, benefits will be reduced. For example, farming, fertilizer, or you are trying very hard to put human, and later it is getting slower and slower output growth. The new technological revolution mean? means that new resources, so the second limitation is the type of resource. For instance, we If you stay in the old land of China, you have to continue to develop, there is not much future, and if you open up new resources, the discovery of new minerals, new energy, and even the discovery of new mental resources, and now the development of new information, resources, types of more opportunities to create more wealth, so the second division of labor is the type of resource constraints, and resources are a function of technology. The third it? limited fluctuation in the environment. how about these words? in front of me from China's war history and the history of technology observed that the Chinese invented a lot of outstanding disappear with the demise of the dynasty. If your environment is very large fluctuations, ups and downs, then the complexity of the system will collapse, the evolution of complex systems from a simple system, because the simple stability of the system are relatively high. If the fluctuation is relatively small, then the system may have evolved from simple systems complex systems. That is why, I do not agree with war and social development of farmers creativity . Of course, not peasant farmers militant war is forced out of the ruling class. But you have to know the community is the General Assembly makes the fluctuation of the accumulation of social capital are often interrupted again. China lost a lot of inventions, many inventions to repeat itself, because it No accumulation of a continuous system.
So, I get a general conclusion, if a society is to encourage innovation and invention, and constantly create new resources, but relatively stable society, the system can range from simple to the complex evolution of the division of labor to produce, generate new productivity and new social forms. Otherwise, you'll go another direction of self-evolution of a simple system. evolutionary path is not a straight line is the same as the shape of the tree, and evolution may be bidirectional. This can also be the way to answer the question under debate since the May Fourth Movement: Is it possible to Westernization? If you stand on the position of equilibrium theory, for example, the property is currently popular school of Kos, to believe that from time and space of any , it can go to any intended target. but if you stand the position of non-equilibrium theory, the same evolution as the trees, you know, you go to the branches of a tree, you can not jump on the branches of a tree. So the evolution of civilization is subject to her history, ecological, social, economic, and cultural conditions, not shock therapy, such as Friedman and designers believe it, go nuts design an ideal market to how we can achieve. This is also the failure of the Hundred Days Reform and the reasons for the success of Deng Xiaoping's reforms.
Finally, we use a little bit of time to discuss the reform of China.
We often argue: in the end should be seeking stability in development, or in the stability development. then I would tend to say, a little better stability and development. If you develop too fast, resulting in social upheaval, you will revert to the original simple system to go, this is a.
We also to discuss a number of specific policy issues. For example, the current reform of state-owned enterprises, says no. No one can guarantee investors to buy the kind of securities (eg stocks, bonds, gold, foreign currencies, or options) will ensure added value. because of the direction of the evolution of open systems is difficult to predict. In an open system, you CD one can do is keep your competitive edge, otherwise you will be eliminated. Therefore, conservative-minded culture of fear of competition, hindering the division of labor, a major reason. only the adventurous spirit of the culture, the development of the division of labor possible . If you are interested, you can look at my new book is published in Economic Science Press, 2000, the the two cultural competition, when a conservative culture, one is progressive culture. enterprising culture conducive to the division of labor, conservative culture conducive to social stability.
promote financial reform is now the policy of guarding against financial risks. prevention of financial risks is to promote economic growth? I want to be difficult. Why? in a normal financial market, risk and return are positively correlated. you block the channels of financial risks, it lost the opportunity to be profitable. Strictly speaking, You can prevent fraud, but no way to guard against risk. So you should learn This is the common sense of modern financial theory. economic issues more like a doctor, not as engineers repair the machine, because the organic whole is greater than a simple sum of its parts. Now a new subject, called non-equilibrium physics, or called Complex Systems Science , the original division of labor can break the limitations of the subject, the biological evolution, social evolution, economic reform issues, from the height of self-organization of scientific understanding. Thank you.
Moderator: Next, we first look to Since the question of Phoenix Web site users. The friends called the China's small-structure is the long-term instability of poverty, the root cause of seclusion. So long had business sense, dare in the Because I was able to read books is limited. I go abroad by the University of California, Los Angeles, after an invitation lectures, discussions, American cultural anthropologist to know Harris and I have similar ecological and economic ideas. He wrote in 1974 of a famous pamphlet, called ; singular style differences, explain the thinking of Marx's social development, which is a little description. Second, this article can be published, leaders of economic policy reform, ...