Benevolence and righteousness are not applied, but the attack and defense are different.
——Jia Yi (Western Han Dynasty, Taifu) “on crossing the Qin Dynasty”, the second year of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty (178 BC)
Qin Empire: a typical case of forced organization failure
[in modern society, although the ancient Corvee System no longer exists, simple and crude methods can still be seen everywhere. The key is coercion, threatening employees, and relying on employees’ inner fear to achieve management goals. But just as the Qin Dynasty inevitably suffered the consequences, these enterprises, regardless of the quality of employees, are in such a “psychological contract” They can’t inspire the slightest sense of responsibility and creativity when they work.]
According to the organization theory, all organizations are divided into three types of “psychological contract”, one is “coercion”; Second, “calculation”; Third, “cooperation”. The meaning of coercion need not be explained; The so-called calculation refers to the exchange carried out by both parties in the body of freedom to meet their respective aspirations. All organizations that take material interests as the basic return belong to this kind. A typical example is that employers exchange wages for employees’ services; Cooperation is based on the high recognition of organizational goals by organizational members, so personal initiative and creativity are brought into play to the highest level, and the form of return is not limited to material and money.
According to the same logic, compulsory identification is the worst and most harmful to long-term stability. Although on the surface, the method of coercion or slavery is particularly simple and easy. With a whip, things will be done. But that’s only a matter of time. As a force of social mobilization, the benefit of fear has a very low critical point. At this critical point, its curve will drop sharply, and even fall to the edge of collapse.
In Chinese history, a typical case of compulsory organization is the Qin Dynasty. Its critical point is the emergence of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang.
Originally, before and after Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, many of the old nobles of the six countries wanted to assassinate him. From Jing Ke, the leader of the death squads in Yan country, to Zhang Liang, the broken settlement in South Korea, they tried this trick, but failed. “Counting death but not dying, the will of heaven is unknown”. But why did this huge empire, seeing that it had cleaned up or controlled all the opposition and potential opposition, and there was no conceivable domestic opponent, let Chen Sheng and Wu Guang with a group of “muddy legs” poke a big hole at once, and from then on, the wall fell down and everyone pushed it down, collapsing out of control? A direct reason, according to the classic conclusion of Jia Yi, a young political scientist in the Western Han Dynasty, is that “the momentum of attack and defense is different without benevolence and righteousness”.
In the mandatory organization mode, the only motivation for people to work is fear. The reason why Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rose up was that they knew that fear was useless – because according to the regulations of the Qin Dynasty, they had to die, unless they faced their fate with a state of mind that was not afraid of death.
Moreover, there are more than thousands of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang in the world. It is said that 700000 laborers were once requisitioned for the construction of the Qin mausoleum. With 300000 to 400000 people building the great wall and other huge projects such as opening roads and digging canals, few strong labor in the Central Plains have been requisitioned. Not to mention who is left in the fields to engage in production and who is left in the market to engage in trading, but how cruel these projects are and how many people will die, it is not difficult to imagine from the ballad of “not seeing the Great Wall, the corpses supporting each other”.
“The people who fought against the extreme fortress did not know that the blood blade rose from the Central Plains”, later scholars repeatedly chanted:
Qin built the great wall stronger than iron, and Fanrong dared not cross Lintao.
Although thousands of miles are connected to the clouds, the Yao stage is three feet high. (Great Wall by Wang Zun)
Whether the era of Yao and Shun was really so peaceful cannot be tested, but the worship of Yao and Shun is a kind of folk psychology, or an imaginary “psychological contract”; Compared with the height of this folk psychology, the political reality of the Qin Dynasty is indeed very different.
In modern society, although the ancient Corvee System no longer exists, simple and crude methods can still be seen everywhere. The key is to force, threaten employees, and achieve management goals by relying on employees’ inner fear. But just as the Qin Dynasty inevitably ate its own evil consequences, these enterprises, regardless of the quality of their employees, can not inspire the slightest sense of responsibility and creativity under such a “psychological contract”. Such an employee team is definitely the lowest in external competitiveness, and the probability of causing disputes (bringing trouble to the wall) inside will undoubtedly be the highest.
Zu Shun and Zongyao were peaceful. Why did the Qin emperor suffer?
I don’t know if there is a disaster inside the wall, but I have built a city of thousands of miles to prevent it. (Great Wall by Hu Zeng)
According to the statistics of historians, during the “World War II”, although fascist Germany conquered and plundered externally, suppressed and forced internally, and the wartime economy seemed to be powerful for a time, its mobilization of GDP (gross domestic product), that is, the country’s share of GDP, still failed to exceed that of the enlightened Britain. It can be said that this is also a case of “different offensive and defensive positions without benevolence and righteousness”.