The development of society is often beyond people's imagination, twenty or thirty years ago, it is difficult to imagine cars flying into ordinary people's homes like swallows. Nowadays, do not say that the big city is full of cars, traffic jams have become a major social governance problem, even in remote villages, many people have cars, once the Spring Festival, most people drive home, the village has become a car exhibition field, and now the condition for marrying a daughter-in-law in the countryside is to build a new house and buy a new car.
Automobiles are a product of the industrial age, and during the Second Industrial Revolution, many far-reaching technologies were invented, such as electric lights, telephones, etc., and cars are related to trams and internal combustion engines. In 1886, carl Benz, the founder of the German car Mercedes-Benz, invented the world's first car, and 70 years later, in 1956, the mainland produced the first car, the Liberation CA10 car. Although the mainland produced the first car, but because it is still in the era of planned economy, the car is still out of reach in the eyes of people, individuals want to own a car and dare not even think, and it is a distant dream for cars to enter people's homes. So, how exactly did this dream come true? Everything is after the reform and opening up, and everything is because of the results brought about by the market economy.
Adam Smith revealed that the secret of the production of national wealth is the market economy, the main body participating in the market divides labor, and is directed by an invisible hand to cooperate, and the resources are distributed to the most efficient places, the finer the division of labor, the higher the degree of cooperation, the higher the efficiency. The automobile industry is a division of labor cooperation is extremely complex modern production system, a car has tens of thousands of parts, if only one manufacturer produces all the parts, its production cost will be very high, production efficiency will be very low, ordinary people simply can not bear the sky-high cost, it is impossible to buy a car. Only by relying on large-scale production and the universal application of high technology can industrialized large-scale production be realized. It is hard to imagine that today, in a modern production workshop, tens of thousands of parts can assemble a car in less than 1 minute on average.
The first car joint venture in mainland China was Shanghai Volkswagen, which was established in 1985, and automobile production has gone through more than 30 years from the joint venture to domestic automobiles. These 30 years or so are precisely the period of rapid development of the mainland's reform and opening up, and also the period of the rapid development of the market economy, and this is how the automobile has entered thousands of households. By 2021, the number of cars in mainland China has exceeded 300 million, with one car for every 4 people, and the production of passenger cars in mainland China in 2021 alone will be 2140. 80,000 vehicles, which people could not have imagined more than 30 years ago.
Cars from luxury goods to ordinary means of transportation, so that ordinary people can enjoy the fruits of modern industry, only under the market economy can be achieved. This is true not only of cars, but of all the necessities of life related to people, and the means of communication, food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, all because of the market economy.
Taking communication tools as an example, in 1876, the American Alexander Bell invented the wired telephone. In 1973, Martin Cooper invented the mobile phone. It was also after the reform and opening up that the market economy developed rapidly, and after 1980, the mobile phone, which was also known as the big brother, gradually entered people's lives. Mobile communications have developed rapidly beyond people's imagination, from 1G to today's 5G, and smartphones have become one of the indispensable tools for modern people. Telephones and mobile phones were once a luxury, only for a few people to own, only through the invisible hand of the market economy, telephones and mobile phones can be reduced to ordinary communication tools, and all this is also due to the market economy.
The planned economy is a command economy, which must bring about a shortage economy, and the market economy is the best system for the growth of human wealth, which fundamentally solves the problem of production incentives, that is, if a person wants to profit from the market, he must create value for them, provide better products and services, and obtain consumer satisfaction, and trade equally in a voluntary and fair environment. It is precisely because of this that large-scale production can be produced, there will be a great abundance of material production, and ordinary people can enjoy the fruits of the market economy. (The author is a cultural scholar)
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Editor: Wang Yue