Benjamin Disraelly left the British palace in depressedly and returned to his official residence.

Then he locked himself up alone, wanted to calm down in the study, and quietly thought about how Britain should face the provocation of China next. He couldn't figure out what gave the Emperor Hua so much courage?

Benjamin Disraelli even suspected that Germany, especially Bismarck, had already reached some kind of agreement with the Emperor of China in private?

The British colonies were the most, and they looked very powerful on the surface, but the United States' unit labor productivity has been twice that of Britain since 1870, and there is no sign of reduction.

The United States has a vast land and sparse population, so it is capital-intensive in terms of manufacturing investment and attaches importance to saving labor.

Therefore, mass production in the United States is in line with the resource endowment of the United States and is feasible, but it is difficult to achieve good economic benefits in Europe when resources are relatively scarce and labor-intensive.

The United States adopts direct procurement of parts and assembly, and basically adopts the form of fixed models mass production.

However, European industry is made of parts and has personalized assembly (relatively speaking, the styles and varieties are more abundant).

In addition to the resource endowment, another major reason for the loss of productivity advantages in the UK is the industrialized organization mentioned above.

The transition from relatively high profit margins, low manufacturing levels and personalized production to low profit margins. The transformation of high manufacturing levels and large-scale production is an important cornerstone of the start of the US industry. Taking the ship operation industry as an example, the shipping industry in Europe in the 19th century mainly relied on interpersonal networks. A group of shipping agents jointly invested to purchase ships and other necessities. The mission of this investment is to complete the round-trip cargo voyage from London to Buenos Aires, which requires the shipping agents' different business connections (how to find goods, how to unload goods in Argentina by port, etc.). The credibility of people in the entire journey is very critical, and there are also long-term credit and running-in problems.

This is also the reason why Emperor Hua cannot directly engage in grain procurement and pass through the two agency countries, Spain and the Netherlands. The old empires Spain and the Netherlands, this pair of extremely weak brothers and brothers, is just right for Emperor Hua's current taste.

At the end of the 19th century, with the rise of international trade volume, communication became increasingly convenient (both telegraph and telephone, both of which were the first to develop in China. However, with the trade between various countries with China, Europe and the Americas were introduced in large quantities, and this technology was easy to imitate. The advantages between China and the great powers were already very small. However, as the earliest country to develop the information industry, China was always a little ahead), and steam engines became more popular and faster, fleets and shipping companies began to replace the relatively scattered shipping agency cooperative organizations in the past. Whether in the United States or the United Kingdom, the concentration of the top 10 shipping companies increased rapidly during this period, but the United States switched faster than the United Kingdom's industrialization organization, making its productivity level better than that of the United Kingdom.

In addition to the increase in concentration, there is also the transformation of corporate organizations from network to hierarchical system.

From the perspective of industrial structure, in 1870, the agricultural population in the United States still accounted for about half of its total working population, while the United Kingdom only accounted for 20%, which means that a greater proportion of the agricultural population in the United States moved to manufacturing and service industries after 1870.

This is even more so in Germany. The agricultural population still accounted for a considerable proportion before World War I, and by the end of World War II, it was still more than twice that of Britain, and the productivity of agricultural units was not as good as that of Britain, which to some extent dragged the entire Germany back.

But the rapid labor transfer after the war was also the basis for Germany's catch-up.

In terms of total factor productivity, in fact, Britain was not overtaken by Germany so quickly.

This involves many factors, popularizing education.

The popularity of secondary education and higher education in Britain and Germany lag behind the United States before World War II, which also led to the disguised proportion of service industry employment, Britain and Germany are quite far from the United States.

Of course, the linear relationship between educational penetration rate and productivity is not clear, it is just a major factor in explanation.

This is also the reason why Emperor Hua would rather sacrifice the speed of industrial expansion than dare not to fully popularize five-year compulsory education. Emperor Hua puts education first.

In terms of vocational education, the United States is relatively weak compared to the English-Germany. It does not require highly skilled workers in large-scale production, but it is necessary for English-Germany, which is more common in personalized production.

Germany's outstanding vocational education system after World War II made it the main reason for catching up with the UK's manufacturing productivity.

The United States left Britain and Germany far behind in the adoption of information technology after the war.

Therefore, Emperor Hua believes that the main reasons for Germany and the United States to catch up with the United Kingdom are different resource endowments, which lead to heavy capital investment and large-scale production, transformation of industrial organizations; the gap in education popularity and corresponding focus; as backward countries, the United States and Virginia happened to encounter a sharp jump in technology upgrades and industrial division of labor upgrades when the agricultural population transformed into manufacturing.

The large population is mainly due to this factor.

Population is the most favorable factor for China to laugh at the world, and it is also the reason why Emperor Hua dared to challenge Britain when he was still a 99% agricultural country in China!

The per capita GDP of the United States and Germany has always been far behind that of the United Kingdom, and it did not surpass the United Kingdom after World War II.

Before, the UK has always been the richest country with the highest standard of living in the world.

From the perspective of national system, Britain, the United States and Germany have established a relatively complete capitalist system, which may not necessarily be democratic (Huahuang believes that Germany's dual monarchy is far from being "democratic"). It guarantees that the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie can obtain the national discourse power that was difficult to obtain before, thereby ensuring its own rights and interests, and promoting the country to introduce many policies to encourage the development of industry and commerce (sometimes, wars and the outbreak of World War I are not unrelated to the agitation of the German Junckers).

From the perspective of population quality and technological level, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States and the United States have all reached a considerable literacy level.

In terms of technology, Britain was far ahead in the first industrial revolution (compared to the fact that France completed the industrial revolution during the Second Empire and achieved comprehensive industrialization; Germany may have to be after unification). However, in the second industrial revolution at the end of the 19th and early 20th century, the United States and Germany had caught up, but Britain was a little behind and did not stand in the first echelon of the industrial revolution. Most of the important inventions in the Second Industrial Revolution were mostly from the hands of American and virtuous scientists and inventors, and Germany attached great importance to the role of science and technology, and even used unconventional means such as technical spies to obtain technology on a large scale.

In terms of resources, although Britain has local coal mines and resources provided by vast colonies, the United States has no shortage of important resources in its vast territory. The coal and iron resources in the Ruhr and Saar districts of Germany fully meet the needs of industrial development, not to mention that resources can be obtained through imports.

In other aspects, the United States and Germany are at least not inferior to the United Kingdom, and the population has become the decisive factor for the two countries to surpass the United Kingdom.

The two countries grew extremely rapidly in the 19th century (the United States also had the advantage of a large number of immigrants). On the eve of World War I (1913), the United States' population reached 96.512 million, second only to Russia among the Western powers (and although Russia has a large population, its national quality is low, its scientific and technological level is extremely low, and the social and political system is backward, and various domestic contradictions are very fierce, making it difficult to maximize its population advantage into development advantages). Germany followed closely behind, with a population of 66.978 million, while the native population of Britain was only 46 million, and France's population growth was extremely pitiful, with only 39.79 million (accepting that the French population accounted for about one-fifth of the European population at the end of the 18th century). This arrangement is basically consistent with the industrial level of various countries at that time.

A large population means more labor force and a larger market, as well as more soldiers during wartime. The United States and Virtue have surpassed Britain in other aspects and have innate population advantages. It is inevitable that its national strength will surpass Britain.

Labor costs were the first to rise in the UK. In addition to squeezing profit margins and weakening international competitiveness, it will also lead to diversification of social thoughts. The effect of transforming education and technology into new investment hotspots cannot be demonstrated, and the downward turning point of national competitiveness is forged; the early development of liberal thoughts led to the gradual loss of India in the UK, and welfareism further led to the decline of British manufacturing.

Economic and social management of the rising labor cost cycle is even more difficult management. Britain was the first to experience pain and there was no precedent to follow.

The industrial revolution in Britain began early, and steam power was more popular at the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Therefore, when the electrical revolution began, it was difficult to renew the industrial equipment in Britain and was dependent on steam power.

Virtue happened to be just during the period when the bourgeois government was just established and consolidated, and the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, capitalists could concentrate on purchasing new equipment.

Britain had a vast colonial population as a market for sale, so it was not keen on the pursuit of industrial efficiency and technological development. Therefore, British industry had weakened at the end of the 19th century, but its trade volume did not decrease.

The idea of ​​mass production, especially the United States' standardized industrial production, has impacted the entire world of capitalist countries.

For a long period of historical period, a considerable part of the wealth of the Empire came from the occupation of various resources of the colonies.

For example, if you just occupied a colony, your resources can be completely occupied by force, and you will have no capital and profit.
Chapter completed!