There is a problem that has plagued me for a long time, that is, people have birth, old age, illness, and death, and Buddhahood is formed, lived, bad, and empty. So what is the fate of the country? How does it evolve and change? When I wrote "The Decline of Great Powers", I tried to find the answer from the history of ancient and modern China and foreign countries. Here I will briefly talk about the birth and fall of a country in the form of a thought experiment.
First, let's make a hypothesis: I, as a well-trained, experienced and physical special forces soldier (Bey-ye?). Traveling to the prehistoric world in an incredible way, of course, alone, without a return ticket.
What do I need to do first? Friends who have watched "Survival in the Wilderness" know that looking for food!
Yes, but don't forget that all of Bel Grylls' actions on the show are aimed at returning safely to human society. Now that there is only one person and there is no one else to rely on, I have to think carefully: Can I always find food? Can I avoid the beasts and find a safe enough place to rest? Can I survive when I get sick? Can I withstand climate change such as cold, frost and rain? Robinson lived alone for 20 years, that was defoe hanging for him, I don't think I can.
So the solution is to quickly find a tribe to join, and the best way is to marry the women in the tribe. Because tribes are all linked and cohesive by blood, it is worth mentioning that the leader of the tribe is selected by all adult members, and he must contribute to the tribe and be recognized.
For me, the advantages of joining a tribe over going it alone are similar to having insurance to protect against risks. Blood only provides a relationship of trust in it, and the real advantage is that I can count on the tribe's help when I am in a difficult situation after I can help the rest of the tribe. Not only is the odds of survival greatly improved, but I can also exchange my labor with other people's labor that I am not good at, such as exchanging a piece of animal meat for a piece of clothing. In this way, I can give full play to my comparative advantages, and over time, I can even leave my savings while meeting my survival needs.
Well, next I should consider having a few more children, so that when I am old, even if I can't work, I have someone to support, perfect. Wait a minute! Is that enough?
Today, there are still some indigenous peoples of South Pacific island countries that maintain cannibalistic cultures, so in primitive societies, strangers will be very peaceful to say hello, and then go their separate ways?
I know with certainty that there was once more than one species of humanity on Earth, but now only our Homo sapiens remains, because our ancestors ate people such as the Peking people, the Yuanmou people, and the Neanderthals. When not to eat it? After only Homo sapiens remained, everyone was equally intelligent, organized, and dangerous, and the risk of hunting other humans was much higher than that of beasts such as mammoths and saber-toothed tigers, and the situation of cannibalism gradually decreased. However, before the large-scale development of human agriculture, under the pressure of survival caused by the limited supply of natural resources, different tribes were hostile to the guard, and the struggle between them was still bloody and cruel. When I was a child, I could still hear that there were some villages that killed people because of water fighting, and I could imagine that tens of thousands of years ago, human beings would never love each other and coexist peacefully.
Considering that I and the tribe have become a community of destiny, not being used as food by others has become a top priority. Therefore, I suggested that the tribe should take a part of each person's harvest and use it for some off-the-job training warriors to defend the tribe, and even go further to rob other tribes. Well, ants understand this, so it's clear that my proposal was approved and I was chosen as the leader of the tribe.
After solving the pressure of survival and safety, I breathed a sigh of relief, and finally I could quietly build children and consider retirement. Suddenly, it rained for a long time, the river flooded, and there was not enough food, which broke my plan.
How? Migrate! In this way, human ancestors traveled all over the world (except Antarctica) in the Stone Age, and from the poles to the islands, the extinction of countless organisms supported the continuation of human beings.
After many hardships, it was difficult to grab a place with abundant water and grass, and people were very happy, which was the foundation of the tribe. We will multiply here, and everyone will swear to protect it, and no one can take it away! And there are a lot of prey here, I teach everyone not to eat all the prey they catch, leaving the young animals to breed and breed, which can be used as an additional food source for famine. My method was very successful, and as a result, it multiplied for several generations, and the tribe expanded to thousands of people at once, and there was not enough food to eat!
Seeing that everyone was running out of food, my heart was very anxious, what should I do? I'm an expert I have a way!
I picked some wild grasses and wild fruits that could be used and opened up some land for planting. These wild grasses and wild fruits are cultivated to produce far more than the proceeds of hunting, gathering and farming, and are more stable. Now the tribe can raise more people, and now there are 20,000 people. The abundance of supplies was so abundant that people had to open markets for exchange. And every "commodity" trade like 20 hides or 100 cartons of grain led me to invent "money" to solve the problem of people moving goods around every time.
But the new problem comes again, not that I'm 100 years old. In fact, I was still the same teenager, but I found that even if I spent all my time, I could not effectively manage the affairs of the tribe. I don't even have time to find a woman, is this what a leader's life should look like?! I began to select some smart, strong, prestigious people in the tribe to cultivate, and let them take charge of sacrifice, fighting, and production. This allows me to get out of a lot of things and spend a small amount of time identifying people and distributing the work and the harvest.
There is no doubt that this has increased efficiency and allowed for better management of the tribe, but it cannot be mentioned that the cost of the tribe is also increasing, and more needs to be retained from the harvest to feed those who do not produce directly.
The challenge continues, and the challenge never ends! There was a year of drought and the river dried up. What if the tribe has insufficient food and is not sure that it will find enough food through migration?
Fortunately, I am a prophet, and I have a way to cure the water! Controlling water is not only to control floods, but also to control water for profit. I organized the construction of embankments and canals as early as the good years. Storing water during rain and diverting water during drought, although there is a great drought now, through the concerted efforts of the tribe, it has finally succeeded in passing. Also because of the drought, many tribes that could not survive had to join us and perform sacrifices in our language and rules.
This is a milestone! It was a leap forward in human society, and since then people no longer distinguish each other by blood tribe, and a country that follows a common culture, rules and beliefs has been born!
Of course, the flaws are obvious: tribal flat organizations are no longer suitable for managing so much land and population. The development of productive forces requires the state to divide religious people, managers, technical experts, warriors and ordinary people, adopt more complex and sophisticated hierarchical management, and the cost of management is greatly increased. The surpluses from technological advances and the expansion of the population and land are used for off-the-job managers at all levels of the country.
But the trouble doesn't stop there, even when the state gets moving, even if everyone keeps their eyes wide open, some smart managers can still find enough loopholes for their own greed. I had to appoint more overseers to monitor the functioning of the state administration and inflict cruel punishment on the guys who undermined the effectiveness of management, but nothing but more cost input. Citizens of the country began to resent the long-term stagnation or even regression of their living conditions.
Seriously, some ambitious guys began to exploit popular discontent to gain a place in the country, even conspiring to replace me. I had only two paths: kill people who were dissatisfied with me or bribe them. Choosing the first one would mean that I would kill everyone; but I wouldn't have enough money to bribe them in the face of the second way. So I actually went the other way: killing some of the people who threatened me the most and bribing those who could help me secure my position.
I expanded my army to deter dissidents internally and plunder other tribes or nations externally. Distribute the looted goods (including people) to the people who support me. People were given possessions, used captives as slaves, and freed themselves from heavy work.
The country officially entered the stage of slavery. But the important thing is not that this model of the jungle between countries has continued until the civilized era, but that in the cheers of the people, I have also succeeded in transforming the achievements of all the armies of the country into my own self-interest. Of course, I wouldn't tell anyone else about these things.
At first, this was a success. I elevated all my supporters to nobility, with all kinds of privileges, and turned all my opponents into slaves. The country is expanding and thriving, and the people support me from the heart. But over time, the descendants of the nobility grew up in a life of luxury, having lost their fighting spirit compared to their fathers. On the battlefield, these fools have been unable to help me win from other countries that have grown up, but still take more and more bribes from me. Now that the state has lost its ability to expand and can no longer satisfy the people's desire for wealth and slavery, I already feel that some people are beginning to stir again with their self-confidence.
Faced with this situation, I decided to introduce competition. I announced to the people that all of them could become officials or generals of the state through study or military merit, breaking the monopoly of the nobility on these positions, and rejuvenating the country again.
At the same time, the "quality" of development technology and efficiency improvement and the "quantity" of population and land expansion are still the only way for the growth of empires. I encouraged the innovation of technology and economic models, and for the current situation of the land population, the administrative difficulties were also tried successively, the hereditary feudal system and the governor system of the exiled officials.
I can also...
In fact, this has already brought an end to this thought experiment: in the midst of endless challenges, the cost of maintaining the political system and bribing the people is getting higher and higher, the cost of solving problems is getting higher and higher, and failure and decline seem inevitable, unless the state can continue to expand.
Therefore, any country may at any time be annihilated by accidentally losing its soldiers in the face of a strong enemy; it may also be economically unable to make ends meet, and the financial collapse will lead to the overthrow of the regime by the dissatisfied people; it may also be divided from geography or ethnicity or civilization to form many countries due to internal division; it may take a detour on the road of development and be thrown away by other countries; of course, it may disappear into the dust of history in a natural disaster...