Source: Humanities Society
Author: Professor Zhang Wuchang, internationally renowned economist, one of the founders of new institutional economics and modern property rights economics. He is well known for his two articles, "The Theory of Sharecroppers" and "The Myth of the Bee".
Mr. Ren Zhengfei, who has always been rare in the media, has recently met for two consecutive times. He said well, I wandered between the lines of what he said, and if I had some understanding, I said to a classmate that Ren Zhengfei was the Hardy of the twenty-first century. After an explanation, the classmate agreed with what I said.
Who was Godfrey Harold Hardy (1877-1947)? He is a master mathematician in Cambridge, England, and a teacher of the Chinese mathematician Hua Luogeng. His most important contribution was that he discovered Ramanujan, a young mathematical genius in India. Ramanujan was the greatest mathematical genius in human history, had not read any books, studied mathematics on his own, and in 1914 sent some mathematical manuscripts to Hardy, who was amazed and invited Ramanujan to Cambridge. This almost mythical story is a good movie today.
The impression that Ren Zhengfei gave me was that Ofe was that in the 1930s, Hardy wrote a very small autobiographical book called A Mathematician's Apology. Hardy famously says a passage at the beginning of the book that is often quoted. Although his English is good, but because it is philosophical and not easy to understand, I will first append his original English text here, and then translate it into Chinese to the reader:
It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician tofind himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is todo something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talkabout what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists,painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicianshave usually similar feelings; there is no scorn more profound, or on the wholemore justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
Translated to the effect:
"It is sad that a professional mathematician writes about mathematics. It is the mathematician's duty to do something, to create new axioms, to add a little to mathematics, rather than talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Politicians despise those who comment on politics, painters despise art critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians often feel the same way. There is no ridicule that can be more profound or more plausible than the creator's ridicule of the interpreter. Explaining, criticizing, and appreciating are all the work of people with only second-class brains. ”
Hardy is saying that as a mathematician, he only wants to make a little contribution to mathematics, and the people who criticize or appreciate it are a bit boring, and belong to the work of people with only second-class brains. Why did I want to go over there? Because in the interview with the media, he said clearly: "Huawei is not a listed company, we don't need a beautiful financial report." If they don't want Huawei to enter certain markets, we can scale it down. As long as we can survive and feed our employees, we have a future. ”
As we all know, as an important entrepreneur, Mr. Ren was once photographed waiting in line for a taxi and taking the subway, and he had little interest in material enjoyment. The difference is that Hardy only needs a pen and some paper to engage in mathematical research, but Mr. Ren needs to make a lot of money to engage in research and development in an industry like Huawei'. Huawei spent more than RMB100 billion on research and development last year and has more than 87,000 licensed patents. Different industries have different needs for capital. But making money is always so difficult, not to mention that Huawei's participation in the industry is not like real estate, which can earn the money it needs with favorable time and place. There is no doubt that today's Huawei is a phenomenon.
My own economics research requires minuscule money, but it costs a little more than Hardy's money needing only a pen and some paper. I received several grants from the National Research Fund there when I was in the United States, but today I don't look back on it as much. From the time I returned to Hong Kong in 1982 to this day, I have given all the remuneration and royalties I received from publishing books to friends who help me find information and organize manuscripts. The research funding huawei needs is astronomical. However, in the final analysis, Hardy only wants to do something, I only want to make something, and Ren Zhengfei only wants to do something. To borrow Wang Xizhi's words, its zhiyi also.
It is not easy to understand behavior. I didn't start writing economic explanations until 2000, the year I retired, because I was going to accumulate phenomena about the real world. I have always thought that the stupidest economists are those who have tried to explain things that have never happened. I waited until I was sixty-five in 2000 to write, and it was the last time. At that time, I did not think that it would take nineteen years to revise again and again. The new edition of the Economic Interpretation, which is about to be published in CITIC, is divided into five volumes and should be final. I remember someone saying that a work of art is never completed, just abandoned. The five volumes of the Economic Interpretation, which are about to be published, have been abandoned. I'm afraid that if I continue to change it, I will change it. Some friends have changed their masterpieces version by version, and finally they have changed them.
I myself am at dusk, but Ren Zhengfei is only seventy-four years old and has come to Japan for a long time. I hope mr. Ren doesn't care what others say, because Hardy said it clearly, "There is no ridicule, it can be more profound than the creator's ridicule of the interpreter, or more reasonable in general." Explaining, criticizing, and appreciating are all the work of people with only second-class brains. ”
Speaking of which, Mr. Ren may be a generation behind me. That's how I counted. Hardy's descendants were his student Hua Luogeng, who was a contemporary of Chen. Chen Shengsheng's descendant was Qiu Chengtong. The latter is seventy today, and Mr. Ren should be the same generation. Among hardy's contemporaries among economists, I think of Friedman's teacher Frank Knight (1885-1972) and Coase's teacher, Plant (Arnold Plant, 1898-1978). Although Friedman and Coase were in my twenties older than me, they were supposed to be my peers. This is because although I entered the university at the age of twenty-four and entered the first year of undergraduate studies, after writing the Sharecropper Theory at the age of thirty-two, Friedman, Kos, Stigler, Arrow, Johnson, North, and others liked to study on an equal footing with me. I once said that I was the last person to have the opportunity to associate with many of the economic masters of the twentieth century. Economists live long and raise my generations for no reason!
Having said that, although the world-class scholars I know are all high-IQ, hard-working, and analytical, none of us can compare with Mr. Ren Zhengfei in terms of the difficulty of entering the career.
Ren Zhengfei profile
Ren Zhengfei, whose ancestral home is Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province, was born on October 25, 1944 in Zhenning County, Anshun City, Guizhou Province. He is the principal founder and president of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
In 1963, he studied at Chongqing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture (now merged into Chongqing University), and after graduation, he was employed in a construction engineering unit. In 1974, in order to build the Liaoyang Chemical Fiber General Factory imported from France, he was conscripted into the army to join the infrastructure engineering corps that undertook the construction task of this project, and successively served as a technician, engineer, deputy director (technical deputy regimental level), no military rank. Ren Zhengfei also attended the National Science Congress in 1978 and the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1982 for his contributions in the construction of the project. In 1987, Ren Zhengfei raised 21,000 yuan to establish Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and in 1988, he became the president of Huawei. In March 2018, Ren Zhengfei ceased to serve as vice chairman and became a member of the board of directors. On October 24, 2018, he was selected into the "List of 100 Outstanding Private Entrepreneurs in the 40 Years of Reform and Opening Up" by the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.
Originally from Huangzhai Town, Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province, Ren Zhengfei was born in 1944 in a small village in a poor mountainous area of Zhenning County, Anshun District, Guizhou Province, near Huangguoshu Waterfall. Ren Zhengfei also has 6 brothers and sisters in his family, his father Ren Moxun is a rural middle school teacher, Ren Zhengfei primary school is in guizhou remote mountainous minority county, high school in Guizhou province Qiannan Prefecture Duyun City Duyunyi Middle School. The family background of intellectuals was the first decisive factor in Ren Zhengfei's life. Because of the parents' emphasis and pursuit of knowledge, even in the three-year difficult period, Ren's parents still insisted on letting their children read.
In 1963, Ren Zhengfei studied at the Chongqing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture (which had been merged into Chongqing University), and when he was still a year away from graduation, the "Cultural Revolution" began. His father was locked up in a cowshed, and because he was worried about his father, who was criticized, Ren Zhengfei pulled the train home to visit his father. His father told him to keep learning. After Ren Zhengfei returned to Chongqing, he completed the self-study of electronic computers, digital technology, automatic control and other professional technologies, and he also did Fan Yingchuan's set of advanced mathematics learning problems twice from beginning to end, and then learned a lot of logic and philosophy. He taught himself three foreign languages, to the point where he could read college textbooks.
After graduating from college, Ren Zhengfei became a soldier, but a construction soldier. Ren Zhengfei's first project as a soldier was the project of the French company. At that time, the French company Debnis Spésim sold a complete chemical fiber plant to China, in the northeastern city of Liaoyang in China. Ren Zhengfei was there from the beginning of this project until the construction of production, and then left.
In 1983, with the national reorganization system, the infrastructure engineering corps was abolished, and Ren Zhengfei was demobilized and transferred to the Shenzhen South China Sea Petroleum Logistics Service Base.
In 1987, due to the lack of success, Ren Zhengfei raised 21,000 yuan to establish Huawei. In the early days of its establishment, Huawei won the first pot of gold by acting as an agent for an engineering-controlled switch of a company in Hong Kong.
In 1992, Ren Zhengfei invested in the research and development of C&C08 switches.
At the end of 1993, the C&C08 switch was finally successfully developed. Its price is two-thirds lower than that of similar foreign products, which has occupied the market for Huawei.
In March 1996, in order to negotiate a joint venture project with Yugoslavia, Ren Zhengfei led a team of more than ten people to stay in Shangri-La in Belgrade. They booked a presidential suite for about $2,000 a day. However, the room is not exclusive to Ren Zhengfei, but everyone plays on the floor together to rest.
On January 23, 2003, Cisco formally sued Huawei and Huawei's U.S. subsidiary for imitation of the company's products and infringing on its intellectual property rights. In the face of Cisco's suppression, Ren Zhengfei hired a lawyer in the United States to answer the lawsuit, and at the same time began to form an alliance with Cisco's sworn enemy in the United States, 3COM. In March 2003, Huawei and 3COM, which was already in recession at the time, announced the establishment of a joint venture company "Huawei Sankang", and the CEO of 3COM Company testified that Huawei did not infringe Cisco's intellectual property rights. In the end, the two sides reached a settlement.
In early 2007, Ren Zhengfei wrote a letter to IBM CEO Peng Mingsheng, hoping that IBM would send financial personnel to help Huawei achieve the transformation of its financial management model.
In December 2011, Ren Zhengfei published the article "A River of Spring Water Flows Eastward" on Huawei's internal forum, revealing Huawei's shareholding system for everyone. Ren Zhengfei revealed that the design of this system was influenced by the parents' unselfishness, frugality, patience and love. Ren Zhengfei also created Huawei's CEO rotation system, with each person rotating for half a year. This move is to avoid the success or failure of the company depending on one person, but also to avoid a son of heaven and a courtier.
On March 22, 2018, Huawei Investment Holding Co., Ltd. announced that Ren Zhengfei would no longer serve as vice chairman and become a member of the board of directors.
On January 20, 2019, Ren Zhengfei said in an interview with CCTV's "Face to Face" that he voluntarily gave up the title of 100 outstanding contributors to reform and opening up, saying that he could not sit still for two hours during the meeting.
Further reading:
Zhang Wuchang introduction
(Economist, Hong Kong, China)
Zhang Wuchang (born December 1, 1935) is a Hong Kong economist and one of the representatives of the new institutional economics, graduated from the Department of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Zhang Wuchang is one of the founders of modern new institutional economics and modern property rights economics. Born in Hong Kong in 1935, he took refuge with his parents in Guangxi during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, heard and witnessed the hardships of the Chinese mainland countryside, and from an early age he hoped that China would be rich and strong and the people happy. His book The Theory of Sharecroppers won the University of Chicago's Prize in Political Economy.
In 1959, he went to the University of California, Los Angeles to study in the Department of Economics, and then studied for a master's degree and a doctorate, and graduated from the Department of Economics of the University of California with a doctorate. He was elected president of the Western Economic Association and was the first scholar outside the United States to receive the position.
In 1969, he sensationalized Western economic circles with his doctoral dissertation entitled "Tenant Farmer Theory: Agriculture in China and Land Reform in Taiwan".
From 1982 to 2000, he was a professor at the University of Hong Kong and the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Finance. Adjunct Professor, School of Economics, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.
In 1991, as the only economist who did not win the Nobel Prize, he was invited to participate in that year's Nobel Prize ceremony.
Zhang Wuchang has always been arrogant and arrogant, happy to speak wildly, and is known as "crazy life" in economic circles.
Academic career
In his early years, he studied under the modern new institutional economics master Archian; he worked with the modern property rights masters Coase and Bazel for many years and his ideas influenced and inspired each other, Coase said that Zhang Wuchang was the person who knew the true meaning of his ideas the most; he had a lot of contacts with most Nobel Laureates in Economics, and Zhang Wuchang's home in Hong Kong often became a bridgehead for them to enter China; he accompanied Friedman to China many times to talk with state leaders about the major importances of China's reform; he was also invited to the Nobel Prize ceremony and was honored as a guest He was elected president of the Western Economic Association of the United States from 1997 to 1998, the first time he was awarded an honor to economists outside the United States, and so on. Among the economists of the Chinese world, I am afraid that there will be no one in the past and no one in the future.
On the other hand, Zhang Wuchang is also the best economic essayist in the world Chinese, and his "Words of the Seller of Oranges" is all the rage; he is a famous photographer who can compete with the famous Hong Kong photographer Jian Qingfu and others; he knows the art of calligraphy very well, and when it comes to the art of calligraphy in Various Schools in China, he is really full of joy.
The doctoral dissertation was a blockbuster
In 1959, Zhang Wuchang entered the University of California, Los Angeles, usa, and in early 1966, Zhang Wuchang opened his doctoral thesis with the title of "Tenant Farmer Theory: Agriculture Applied to Asia and Land Reform in Taiwan", and wrote an eleven-page outline, hoping to listen to the opinions of the teachers, and Amen Archian was Zhang Wuchang's mentor at that time.
Zhang Wuchang's "Tenant Farmer Theory" later became the pioneering work of modern contract economics. Several of these articles have also become classics of modern new institutional economics after they were published in journals.
Friendship with Kos is highly appreciated
Johnson was the authority on the theory of sharecroppers at that time, and Zhang Wuchang took a knife to his analysis. Johnson not only did not mind, but also repeatedly asked Hearst to urge Zhang Wuchang to apply for a bonus of one per year at Zhida University. In the fall of 1967, Zhang Wuchang went to the University of Chicago to take up a position, and a few days after the opening of the school year, he visited Coase at the University of Chicago Law School. Zhang Wuchang and Coase became good friends. In the 1980s, when Zhang Wuchang arrived in Hong Kong, a professor passed by and told Zhang Wuchang a story:
Coase came to their university to give a speech, and the audience gathered together. In his speech, Coase bluntly said that the people who quoted his ideas were not quoting correctly. When it came to a personal question, an audience member asked, "In today's world, is there a person who quotes your thoughts correctly?" Coase replied, "Only Zhang Wuchang." It is no wonder that in his speech at the 1991 Nobel Prize in Economics, Coase repeatedly mentioned Professor Zhang Wuchang's significant contribution to the new institutional economics.
The most popular professor "the worst teacher"
In 1991, Zhang Wuchang was selected as the "worst teacher" in some of the "worst teaching awards" held by the University of Hong Kong. Zhang Wuchang was appointed to an inferior seat, and almost the whole of Hong Kong was in an uproar! In fact, this is very natural, if according to the traditional oriental education model and standards, Zhang Wuchang's teaching will definitely be inconsistent with its requirements.
Zhang Wu often lectures, never prepares lessons, has no lecture notes, and does not read books on the blackboard. In his view, the economics he thinks about every day, and preparing for lessons is superfluous. He was not prepared much for speeches even on formal occasions (e.g., speeches to numerous Nobel Laureates in Sweden in 1991, speeches to the President of the Western Economic Association in the United States in 1998).
The first person to analyze China's economic system
The first person to systematically apply the analysis of the new system to the study of China's economic problems was None other than Zhang Wuchang. Zhang Wuchang was personally passed down by the famous masters of new institutional economics Kos, Archian and Demsitz, and worked with North and Bazel for many years, and a generation of new institutional economics masters were about to come out (Coase repeatedly mentioned Zhang Wuchang's contribution to new institutional economics in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in economics (Coase, 1994).
North also mentions Zhang Wuchang's influence on his economic thought many times. Zhang Wuchang's greatest contribution to the new institutional economics should be to systematically introduce the methods of institutional analysis into the study of China's economic problems.
As early as the late 1960s, Zhang Wuchang applied the analysis method of the property rights system to Taiwan's land reform and founded the "New Tenant Theory". Zhang Wuchang put forward his own arguments for China's agricultural reform, urban enterprise reform, China's financial reform, and China's corruption with pure institutional analysis.
It can be said that throughout the 1980s, Zhang Wuchang devoted himself entirely to the institutional analysis and policy proposals of China's economic reform, and his works such as "The Words of the Orange Seller", "China's Future", "On China's Future", and "China's Economic Revolution" written in Hong Kong in Chinese were expensive and popular, which influenced a whole generation of reformers and young students in China.
Major achievements
Zhang Wuchang, a columnist on Sina, has made outstanding contributions to the study of transaction costs and contract theory. In 1959, he studied at the University of California, Alkian, the founder of modern property economics, and received his Ph.D. 8 years later; later, he became a professor at the University of Washington. He returned to Hong Kong in 1982 as Dean of the School of Economics and Finance at the University of Hong Kong until his retirement in 2000.
Professor Zhang Wuchang has written many books, and when he was studying, he came to prominence in the economics community with a copy of "Tenant Farmer Theory". After returning to Hong Kong, he has gained a wide influence in the Chinese-speaking world with a series of column articles written under the Chinese, such as "The Words of the Orange Seller", "The Future of China", "On China Again" and so on. In 2000, he completed a three-volume economics book, Economic Interpretation, and in late 2005, he published an English academic essay collection, Selected papers of Steven NS Cheung. These two books are considered to be the culmination of Zhang Wuchang's academic skills and will also have a far-reaching impact on the classic works of economics.
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