Chapter 15 Chapter 13 Creation and Possession

Without the spirit of creation, what is the difference between human beings and ordinary creatures?Without the ability and achievement of creation, how can human beings have a glorious existence? If there is no creation, how can we possess?It is the act of stealing when others create and own.The life of possession without creation is the life of a parasite; he not only consumes the results of others' creations, but also erodes the creative power of the whole society. Creative impulse and possessive impulse are originally two forces that co-exist in human nature.The former develops and the society advances, while the latter develops and the society declines.This is a rule of history.There are many brilliant facts about the development of the former; otherwise, how could human beings have what they are today?But the development of the latter is easier than the former; is there anything in the world more tempting than getting something for nothing?Moreover, the movement of power is often towards the side with the least resistance. This is what scientists can prove to us.

Creation depends on genius, but also on sweat.The great inventor Thomas Alva Edison (Thomas Alva Edison) said: 5% of the achievement of a genius depends on inspiration, and 95% depends on perspiration.This is a matter of experience.Sweating is just a noun to describe hard work. In fact, why not just sweat, you have to rack your brains and vomit your blood. What a proud thing it was for one man to possess the property of a train of human figures under ancient slavery.In feudal society, how many serfs, how many tenants, came to pay their grain and taxes for private enjoyment: the princes and landlords lived in palaces like fortresses or mansions, and occasionally came out to hunt and hunt for entertainment, which was also very comfortable. .Since the Industrial Revolution, capital in the West has been relatively concentrated in cities, and it has gradually evolved into a society of financial capitalism.Money was originally a medium of exchange and a tool for construction, but it has become the only object of contention to obtain a lot of enjoyment and satisfy the desire for possession.The circulation of stocks in the trading market has resulted in many absentee ownerships.People in New York can manipulate the market in London, and people in London can buy Indian cotton.A phone can buy ownership of a factory without having to manage it yourself.He can enjoy the blood and sweat of thousands of laborers in his summer villa by the sea.So the accumulation of wealth has become a kind of gambling, a kind of siege, and a shortcut to luxury.He can disregard the happiness of mankind, disregard the needs of the state and society, and use purely personal profit as his goal.The disadvantages of this system are: firstly, it can waste a lot of human resources; secondly, it can generally degrade the morality of people who can create; thirdly, it can make the imagination of young people unbearable ("vulgarization of youthful imaginations").Especially the second and third abuses are the most painful things from the perspective of life philosophy.

Such a system may be called a profit motive system.What everyone pays attention to is the so-called success, and the meaning of success is to get ("Success is to get"). Getting a little is a little, the more you get, the more society will value you.In the West, it is still obtained from private enterprises; in China, where private enterprises are underdeveloped, they strive to obtain it from public property.Once the power is in hand, the public's money and utensils are squandered and embezzled; the degree of generosity and luxury is far more than the use of personal property a hundred times and a thousand times.Even during the Anti-Japanese War, despite the bloodshed on the front lines, many such cases were found in the rear.Handling the money from the public house without touching a few is like a fool, and it is immoral to oneself!How heartbreaking this is!There are constant cases of getting kickbacks for public purchases.Like a tea room in a hotel, you must pay a small bill.This kind of people, this kind of phenomenon, is called "Trinkgelder" in German, "tipping system" in English, and can be called the small account system in Chinese.The character of civil servants who are arrogant and arrogant during the day has fallen to the usual waiter, or even inferior to the waiter (the waiter is like this because of accumulated habits, in fact, there are people with higher morals than them in the waiter,) this How shameful it is!

There are people in the world who occupy but do not create.Let me give an extreme and interesting example, Mrs. Green (Mrs Hetty Green I825︱1906).When she died in New York at the age of eighty-one, the confirmed estate was more than thirteen million British pounds, and it is said that the other half was unknown.She is a grandmother who loves money and a genius for making money.She is British, and when she was young, she was engaged in buying stocks when she visited New York.She carried a worn leather bag into the trading market by herself, which could change the color of people in the world financial center.She has the ability to hit hundreds of millions of times.If she wants to defeat her opponent, she will definitely be able to defeat her.She divorced her husband who was in a good relationship, because although she loved her husband very much, she loved money especially.Her conscience felt sorry for her son, but because of the high price charged by the doctor, she would rather his son be disabled and delay the time for medical treatment.In winter, she wears newspapers because she saves money and does not buy underwear.She lives in a crappy house and moves a lot because she wants to avoid paying taxes.In a situation like this, she would naturally not invest any capital in construction, not even in charity.It was a strange animal, she was not surprised, but how could there be such a social system that allowed so much wealth to be in the hands of such a person?

But there are also people who create and possess at the same time.Possession may have been a by-product of Henry Ford's creativity, since his primary motive for creating was never money but creation.He created the motivation and the rest is not so much the desire to possess, but rather the desire to dominate.He started out poor; he had his outlook on life; he had very few opinions, but he practiced them with all his might.He advocated economic time, economic manpower, and economic material resources.He spared no effort to do anything that could achieve this goal.He first invented mechanical tillage tools for farmers, and continued to solve the transportation difficulties for farmers, and even ordinary people; in short, he wanted to save their efforts and leave the most sweaty work to machines.He not only wants to invent, but also wants the public to have the power to enjoy his invention.He devoted himself to transporting machines that can use roads, and in 1893 created the first car. The parts were made of scrap iron, and the wheels were transformed from bicycle wheels. There was no cooling equipment, but he drove After traveling a thousand miles, it was sold for two hundred dollars.After achieving this achievement, he continued to improve, not only to make his car well, but also to sell it cheaply.His goal is for every American to have one car, and now an average of three people have one).At odds with short-sighted for-profit shareholders in order to sell cheaply, he spun off from the Detroit Automobile Company he founded to form the Ford Motor Company.Although the capital was not enough at the beginning, he could do whatever he wanted and implement his ideas.Because he wanted to save manpower and make people give full play to their abilities, he improved many machines so that the blind, deaf, and people with disabled limbs could work in the same way.Not only did they have a job because of it, but he found their work especially satisfying because of its concentration.He dealt with the recession of the world economy by raising wages instead of reducing wages, seeking prosperity by increasing the purchasing power of workers. Even if only his family dared to do this, he would be willing to set an example.During the last World War, he built a large-scale Model T machine plow, and by 1931 had sold 15 million units.Whether you are for him or against him, he helped complete the transportation revolution in the United States, eased the suffering of farmers in Britain, America and other countries, and implemented the mechanization of agriculture.He has an ingenious way, which is indeed different from ordinary capitalist methods.In his will, every penny of his entire inheritance of 500 million US dollars will be used for human welfare, and the Ford Foundation Committee will be established to handle it.This spirit is especially admirable.Wells, who made an outline of world history, is a person who leans towards socialism and will never cheer for capitalists.When he talked about Ford, he said: His mind is dominated by the motivation of construction, and the desire to invent; the invention he wants in his heart is an invention that reduces human labor.He added: Not bad, against the value of pecuniary motives, he was a most striking witness. (See HG Wells "The Work Wealth and Happiness of Mankind") As for his idea that one should grasp the minority opinions and go all out, I think it is very meaningful in life philosophy.The Italian philosopher Croce criticized modern youth for having many ideas but not one.Yes, there are many concepts, half-hearted every day, without a central concept to dominate, and nothing will be achieved.

If there is room for debate in the case of Ford, (since he opposed Roosevelt’s New Deal, there have been debates in the United States), there is one person whose motivation for creation is beyond doubt: he also possesses, but he absolutely possesses for the sake of creation. .This man is Thomas A. Edison (Thomas A. Edison 1847︱1931) who benefits all human beings.He was a practical genius with fifteen hundred patents on his inventions.Many of them were invented under his supervision and with the help of research assistants in his laboratory after his successes; but the chief inventions, which have contributed most to mankind, are without a doubt the inventions of his genius.Some people say that his invention, which has nothing to rely on, is just the phonograph, and the rest are more or less simple primitives, which he modified; however, cultural sociologists can tell us that there are many purely theoretical inventions, and there are similar creations at the same time.What is this enough to be a disease?He applied many pure theories to practical problems, and used many possible developed concepts and things to re-experiment and try to improve.His genius in application, his ability to transform, is really rare in human beings.Modern electric lights, movies, radios, trams, storage batteries, etc. were either created by him or completed by him.The telephone is today, many of which are his contributions.Cement became the material used in construction by him.Western typewriters were improved by him to be practical.The copier was invented by him.His improvement and completion of new generators and transformers has great utility in industry.During the last war, he contributed thirty-nine inventions to the U.S. Navy Department.But he complained that the Admiralty had not paid sufficient attention to his invention.The most interesting thing is an invention he first patented, an automatic venue voting machine.This very suitable device was rejected by Congress because it counted too accurately, and its characteristic is that it can turn the best experimental work into the greatest industrial and commercial success.He is also a genius of organization.He runs a business, has many scientific organizations, and walks around.His invention not only made tens of thousands of people work in his laboratory and factory, but also created jobs for millions of people in the world; Not to mention one end.

But his struggle for invention is an epic biography.He was born in poverty and had only three months of school education; he had been a newspaper delivery boy on a train, opened a small vegetable shop, and worked as a telegraph company electrician.Everything he does leaves a trace of creation behind.When he was down and out, he invented a method of two-way transmission on a wire, which was adopted by the Pacific Telegraph Company and made a lot of money, but there was no compensation for the inventor.This kind of thing happened to him more than once in his life.Later, he got a job as a telegraph technician at the New York Gold Reporting Company, and then he began to receive a relatively generous salary, which was used as capital for starting Pope Edison & Co.With a surplus of US$500,000 within four years, he has the strength to formally build his laboratory, experimental factory and library.He keeps inventing, thus becoming the source of water, trickling out.His inventions were later produced by his own factory; because under the current system dominated by profit motives, many companies bought inventors' patent rights and put them on the shelf, in order to prevent others from buying them and robbing them of their financial resources.They themselves are cost-related, but they stick to it.This phenomenon of blocking human progress is not uncommon. (See JD Bernal "The Social Function of Science" 1939).So Edison's ability to make it himself was also a factor in progress.Wells says of him: This man does his work for any motive, but not for money; nay, his work is hindered by people who specialize in making money.If he works for money, it is only because he is the creator who is forced to make money.His creative energy is unlimited and unwearied.The desire to create, like the automatic current, constantly drives him inwardly.The time turned by the machine he invented is very accurate, but the time is meaningless when he is doing experiments, because the wall clock in his laboratory has only a clock face and no long and short hands.Those who worked with him were either moved by him, or had a hero worship mentality towards him, or had an unstoppable interest in his work, and they also worked hard like him, which is very exciting, especially A role model for youth, excitement.

We should not only see a strange Mrs. Green among the women.One of the women is Madame Marie Sklodowsks Curie (Madame Marie Sklodowsks Curie, 1867︱1935), a great scientist dedicated to creation without possession, a co-discoverer of radium, and the founder of radium radiation science.Her husband, Pierre Curie (1859, 1906), was a professor at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.Their life is very poor.Under their poor living conditions, they jointly discovered a new element of chemistry, radium, in a simple and incomplete laboratory.This was no ordinary discovery; it affected not only chemistry, but physics as well.According to the theories and discoveries of Crookes, Rontgen and Becque rel, they established the principle of radioactivity, which is an important part of modern physics.This part of the contribution to the theory of atomic structure can change human beings' view of the universe and the traditional idealistic and materialistic philosophical theories, although people still don't quite feel it.Its value in practical application has not yet been fully discovered, that is, in terms of physiology, chemistry and medical treatment, it does not know how much benefit it has brought to the world's suffering from diseases.After the death of her husband, Mrs. Curie studied hard for nearly thirty years.But such a great scientist who discovered radium did not have any radium himself.After the Great War, she went to the United States once. In order to honor her and sympathize with her, American women donated a huge sum of money (about one million U.S. dollars) to buy a piece of Graham's radium and donate it to her.In the gift book attached to this precious gift, they stated that it was for her personally.She thought it was wrong, and asked them to give it to the Radium Institute instead, and it would become the public property of the French academic community in the future.I was in the United States at the time, and I was very moved when I saw this incident.Mrs. Curie died, she ended her life in a noble and miserable way for her great contribution to mankind!

I cite the above few notable examples. Although the description is inevitably long, it can make everyone choose among the typical characters in the two aspects of creation and possession.As far as the philosophy of life is concerned, how do we develop human beings' desire to create and reduce the desire to possess.As far as the system is concerned, how does the country adjust and even transform the social system, especially the economic system, so that people with creative abilities can fully create and cooperate; It is not necessary to engage in private possession.It is not only wrong to let everyone do it for themselves, but also bury many talents and hinder social progress.

A person must have moderate means of living to be able to create with peace of mind, or to be able to further have independent thinking. Even Plato advocated the same in the Republic.The life of eating and drinking, and bending the arms and sleeping on it can only be hoped for by Yan Hui, but how many Yan Huis are there in history?Besides, Edison's creative work cannot be done under Yan Hui's way of life.We deny that material is the only condition of life, but we admit that material is one of the important conditions of life.From a personal moral point of view, we hope that individuals can have the high spirit of Yan Hui's peace and happiness; from a political standpoint, we absolutely cannot expect everyone to be Yan Hui.Therefore, how to re-arrange the social and economic order so that everyone can use their abilities to the best of their abilities and find a way to live in peace is one of the most difficult and basic problems in modern politics.Even if Ford increases wages and relieves the disabled, it must not rely on a special individual to do it, but the government should be able to make overall plans and undertake the whole thing.

Because in today's capitalist society, there are (have's) and no (have︱not's) class distinctions, which are too glaring.The rich class is the leisure class. (This is what Veblen called the leisure class).And he used his leisure to do evil, to do bad things.The benefits are enjoyed by them, but the responsibility for taxation is subtly transferred to the public.In particular, the vulgar luxury of the common nouveau riche is comparable to that of the nouveau riche.Even young people with ideals will lose their ideals when they see their role models.Their lazy life of getting something for nothing ruins their creative desire.Their control sometimes almost hinders the development of creation. In order to solve and adjust the problem of rich and poor, there are many schools of thought in economics and politics.I don't know how many factions there are in the so-called socialism.They have their own special emphasis, but they often have a common neglect, that is, they pay too much attention to economic solutions, while ignoring social factors, such as biological heredity, changes in habits, and education. Functions, etc., have never taken a considerable place in their consideration. This issue is too complicated, and it is too simple to regard him as purely economic.For example, Mr. George Bernard Shaw (George Bernard Shaw) believes that if everyone's income can be equalized and the working hours will be reduced. If everyone has leisure time and listens to the singing of swallows, jobs will be created.This is a beautiful imagination.Among other things, he has at least forgotten the role of biological heredity, which can make people distinguish between wise, foolish, virtuous and unworthy. For example, Stalinism in the Soviet Union was a large-scale forced work system.The state is the only employer, and it is the employer who compels people to work by force.According to the highest principle of communism, it should be from each according to his ability and from each according to his need, but the practice in the Soviet Union is still to use according to his ability and to each according to his worth.But Stalin’s speeches on several five-year plans can prove it, and the difference between the wages of ordinary workers and skilled workers in the Soviet Union can reach dozens of times. Times, that is, proof of fact.The stage of enjoyment reached by each person is naturally different.Since April 1, 6, 11, 16, and October 27, 1940, the Soviet Union promulgated several important decrees on restrictions on agriculture and labor. After changing the Stalinist Constitution, workers must never Freedom to choose factories and jobs; farmers are not free to choose and leave the farm.Those in power openly said that the sons of scholars should always be scholars, and the sons of farmers should always be farmers.The free and free education they were proud of was also abolished on October 3, 1940. As a result, workers earning 200 rubles a month cannot afford to pay 150 to 200 rubles a year for a child. tuition fees for primary school, 300 to 500 rubles for secondary and university tuition.So the son of the farmer would not be able to get it if he was not a farmer.The Soviet Union often adopts an honorary award system, designating someone as a hero in a certain world. This is because the rulers clearly see the weakness of human nature, either for profit or fame.The benefits of historical materialism are not enough to maintain it, so the name is used to maintain it.For fear of not being well-known under the third generation, the modern manipulators of the masses must have pondered this sentence deeply. Another popular idea is to set up large-scale public construction projects to solve the unemployment problem, that is, In a disguised form, the wealth of the wealthy is expropriated to adjust the poor without income.The extent to which it was carried out is unknown, but Roosevelt was the only one who carried out such a proposition.Of course, some people criticize that this is not a thorough solution, but in essence, this is a new trend of a social collective buying system (community buying).Because the modern economic system places too much emphasis on mass production and not much on mass consumption, economic panic is often unavoidable.If there is no poverty without wealth, this theory is not sound.It would be too hasty to believe that the poor are poor because the rich have robbed them of everything.The poor are not a class either. Except for a little lack of purchasing power, the poor have very little in common.These few words of Wells are worthy of careful study.Therefore, in order to solve this problem, issues such as population issues, eugenics issues, raw material issues, production issues, transportation issues, customs and habits, education issues, and international organizations should all be taken into consideration.In the future we will not only have a planned economy, but also a planned society. Regarding the above-mentioned institutional issues, it is not within the scope of the philosophy of life that the country should solve them as a whole.If it is discussed, another book should be written.What we pay attention to now is our moral judgment on the two phenomena of creation and possession, that is, our attitude towards life. This judgment is clear, this attitude is correct, that is: (1) Creation is the highest expression of human genius; (2) We have what we want but not occupy, what we have is for creation; (3) Our existence can only be limited to a simple and noble life, and we must not build our own happiness on the suffering of others. The eighth commandment of Moses' Ten Commandments says: Thou shalt not steal.But this is a minus sign.Those who do not steal are not necessarily those who benefit society.We should say rightly: We have to sweat before we can eat!As for getting something for nothing, that is stealing. It is extremely old, and the vigor of the blood is declining, so it is necessary to abstain from it.This is the legacy of Confucius.In fact, it is only the old people who have lost their vigor to quit, but now the people who have to quit should be the young and middle-aged people in their prime of life. The philosopher Russell used to be sympathetic to the Chinese.However, when he discussed the character of the Chinese people (see "The Problem of China"), he pointed out three shortcomings of our nation, namely greed, cowardice, and cruelty.Greed is a common phenomenon that we see.When we used to speak politely to foreigners, we called our country our country. In fact, this word should be changed to a bad word.But cheating comes for the love of money.Money can be magical, we Chinese really know the wonderful use of money, after death, our descendants have to burn paper money, burn gold and silver ingots to bribe the guards at the gate of hell!This is not a trivial matter, it represents a kind of social psychology.Russell's book was written during the war between warlords, so he humorously praised the soldiers at that time, saying that their virtue was that they loved money more than power, so China's civil war did not start long.When the coach wanted to make money, his subordinates were also bought by the other party.So at that time, some people said that Yue Wumu's famous saying that civil officials don't love money and military officials are not afraid of death, the world will be peaceful, should be changed to say that military officials don't love money, and civil officials are not afraid of death, then the world will be peaceful.This is very humorous, but also very profound.But is it enough for civil servants not to be afraid of death?Doesn’t China have an idiom that asks for money but not for life?I am not here to quibble with you, but I solemnly quote a few precious lessons from Zuo Zhuan: The failure of a country is due to evil officials; the loss of virtue of officials is due to favoring and bribing chapters. In the future, China will definitely go down the road where important economic undertakings are run by the state.But the biggest difficulty in the future of state-owned enterprises is the integrity of the people who run them, that is, personality.The corruption of China Merchants in the past really frightened the people psychologically.We hope that this mistake will not be repeated.There are inherent problems such as the supervision system, but this kind of attitude towards life has to be changed at the same time.Mr. Cai Zimin said: Only those who neither take nor grant can talk about communism; Old-school economics has much to say in defense of private property, and one of the reasons, which is hard to refute in fact, is that, among privately run businesses, there is the greatest incentive to create, because the property is his own. , so he always thinks of various methods to seek transformation.Unfortunately, there are too many people who treat the public as their own.But is selfishness the only motor of social progress?I can not believe it.I think there is a big life problem in it, that is, an education problem, not only about school education, but also about social education.Because the social atmosphere is a very powerful education. I don't agree with Huang Lao's philosophy, but I admire Lao Tzu's proposition that there is nothing in life, nothing to do, and nothing to kill when you grow up. (The translation used by Russell is "Production without possession action without self︱assertion development without domination" is particularly clear and moving.) There is a very profound truth in it. I can't even forget the two sentences in the Li Yun Datong article that express the highest social ideal and the most ideal society: Goods, if you hate it, throw it on the ground, so you don’t have to hide it for yourself; if you hate it, it doesn’t come from the body, so you don’t have to keep it for yourself.