The importance of salt and iron in ancient times: salt is the necessity of life; Iron is an important means of production for the progress of productive forces. Isidor in the sixth century wrote: “nothing is more important than salt and the sun”; In ancient China, “a country must have salt, and a country cannot be established without salt”. As an important bridge from cave society to agricultural civilization, salt has made great contributions to human economic development. However, due to the relatively backward technology of artificial salt production for a long time, and the high transportation cost, time-consuming and laborious, most of the ancient salt was in short supply and the absolute price was expensive. Salt became a symbol of money in ancient times, which is also the origin of “Tao Zhu Yidun” used to describe the family of great wealth. Coincidentally, the word “salary” also comes from the ancient Roman salt ticket. As for iron, as a necessary means of production, iron has greatly improved the production efficiency of agricultural economy.
The power of “high frequency low price” and “low frequency high price”. Salt is a commodity that needs “high frequency” consumption but is relatively “low price” (which is not contradictory to the absolute high price): the “high frequency” is reflected in that people basically need to eat a certain amount of salt every day, while the relatively “low price” is mainly reflected in the fact that the per capita daily cost of salt (1 money / day) was “cheap” compared with that of rice in ancient times, and the per capita cost ratio of rice salt was 7:1, The proportion of relative expenditure is relatively low, creating space for price increase and profit. According to the calculation in the investigation and Research on the annual iron demand of ancient Chinese farmers, under the conditions basically the same as the production tools and production environment of ancient farmers, the average annual iron consumption of a family of five is about 3.7 catties, less than 1 catty per capita / year. The consumption of iron is “low-frequency”, but relatively “high price”: mainly because iron is durable rather than consumable, However, the price of iron tools purchased in the Han Dynasty was very expensive. Buying a good firewood knife basically cost about 100 yuan at one time. However, due to the characteristics of durable consumer goods, the use price of the whole life cycle is acceptable, and families need to face a high price consumption in 1-2 years, so the price increase can be accepted.
Salt and iron monopoly: increase income and reduce direct tax. Since the Qi State in the spring and Autumn period, the monopoly of salt and iron has become an important means to increase government revenue and reduce the pressure of direct tax. Guan Zhong believes that “taking from the people and using more than it, the country will be in danger although it is large” (to reduce the direct tax), so he puts forward “the benefits of light fish and salt” and “only official mountains and seas can be heard”, and advocates that the state monopolize salt industry and minerals. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, sang Hongyang vigorously promoted the monopoly of salt and iron, which greatly increased the financial revenue of the imperial court and reduced the direct tax pressure to a certain extent during the period of large national financial expenditure. It is noteworthy that the franchise of iron gradually withdrew from the historical stage, and the franchise income of salt often accounted for more than 40% of the government revenue until the Qing Dynasty.
After the marginal weakening of the role of real estate land transfer, look for the current “high frequency and low price”. Salt and iron monopoly is still the product of agricultural society. Although it is “necessary”, its importance has been greatly reduced at present. At present, electric power is becoming a high-frequency necessity in industrialization, informatization and even digital society, and its equally low cost proportion in current life gives it a certain room for price improvement: (1) the proportion of electricity expenditure in consumer expenditure has basically been in a downward trend since 2008; (2) China’s power and heat production and supply account for only 3.70% of all intermediate inputs in the input-output table, which is at a low level. In the past, China’s fiscal revenue did not rely very much on such “high-frequency and low-price” commodities. However, it was very dependent on the transfer of land use rights supported by “low-frequency and high-price” real estate. This income was far more important to fiscal revenue than ancient iron appliances. The marginal changes at present are: first, the status of electricity has been further improved in the process of energy transformation, and the instability of renewable energy requires more price mechanisms to regulate supply and demand; Second, under the condition of “housing without speculation”, the future expansion of real estate will tend to slow down, and the role of real estate and land transfer income can still not be replaced in the short term. However, in terms of marginal increment, social income regulation and distribution needs more tools. At this time, the “high-frequency and low-cost” essential electric power may play a more important role. Over the past two decades, as an important tool of income distribution, real estate land has played a positive role in economic construction, income distribution and reducing direct taxes, and also had an important impact on asset pricing. In the future, there will be important opportunities for the development and construction of alternative fields and the production of downstream varieties, which will be an important investment main line in the future market.
Risk warning: history does not represent the future; Data error
