Give the ideal time

Do you believe in the head or the heart? "A friend asked during a conversation.

I said I believe in time.

When summing up the reasons for the Kuomintang's defeat on the mainland, one of the reasons often cited is that "the Kuomintang did not carry out land reform," and thus lost the peasants. In contrast, the Communist side of the land reform with a bang, hit the tuhao, divided the land, turn over the master. The peasants were allotted land and joined the revolution to protect the fruits of victory.

In fact, strictly speaking, the Kuomintang during the mainland was not without the desire for land reform. Sun Yat-sen's ideal of "land for the tiller" is well known, and Chiang Kai-shek's government was not without action. From the promulgation of the Land Law in 1930 to the Land Disposal Measures in the Appeasement Areas in 1946, from the 255-year rent Reduction Movement in Zhejiang Province in the late 1920s to Jiang Ching-guo's land reform experiment in southern Jiangxi, the Kuomintang was not unaware of the effect of "equal land rights" on winning people's heart.

The problem is that compared with the violent land reform, the Kuomintang government not only has a much less intensive land reform, but also pursues a more peaceful land reform in philosophy. The so-called violent land reform is actually an upgraded version of the peasant uprising since ancient times. When one class overthrows the rule of another class, it should be killed and divided. Of course, since it is a revolution, it is not just an uprising, but a whole set of revolutionary words and rituals to give it meaning. As a result, the words "exploitation", "turning over" and "class struggle", which Chen Sheng, Wu and Guang had not been able to come up with, began to become daily expressions, and thus the "system innovation" of "complaint meeting" and "struggle meeting" came into being.

The core of the so-called peaceful land reform is redemption. The government uses land bonds to buy land from landlords, and then lets farmers buy land from the government at a low price in installments over several years. The upside is that both landlords and farmers may win: the farmer ends up with the land and the landlord with the capital. The Kuomintang did not have time or ability to promote peaceful land reform on a large scale during its time in the mainland, but extended it to Taiwan. As a result, it helped many Taiwan farmers realize "land for the tiller" and accelerated the industrialization process in Taiwan. Although there were many unfairness in the process, a group of landlords realized the primitive accumulation of capital through land reform and turned to industry and commerce, which promoted the take-off of Taiwan's economy.

Since it is closer to win-win situation, why does peaceful land reform often have no market? Come to think of it, it is simply because it is "slow". Compared with the overnight "what's yours becomes mine" mode of reform, peaceful land reform may have good economic effects but low political profits. A diamond is put in front of you, and one person tells you that you can have it for free right now, and the other person tells you that you need ten year installments to actually own it. Who do you go with?

This word "slow" may be the reason why liberalism, besieged by left-wing and right-wing radicalism throughout the 20th century, has struggled to take root and spread among the masses even today. While radicalism promises immediate change, liberalism promises nothing more than a long period of growth. To bring about dramatic change, radicalism must be based on "solidarity" and "solidarity," paving the way for a unified authority, whereas liberalism means everyone acting individually and working together through an invisible hand. Radicalism gives you a savior; liberalism simply gives you back to yourself.

But is there really a savior? "A government strong enough to give you everything must be strong enough to take everything from you." The collectivization movement in the mid-1950s was an illustration of this. Diamonds held in the hand did not cover the heat, and then all the hands of the state. By the end of the 1950s, farmers in Taiwan began to realize "land for the tiller", but natural and man-made disasters occurred in some parts of the mainland. Did the peasants who had the misfortune to die of famine think that there was a secret connection between their hunger pain and the pleasure of dividing up their land with the rich?

To believe in time means to believe that in addition to the accumulated efforts of tens of millions of people, there is no shortcut to progress in history. For people who yearn for overnight liberation, this is a dampener.

One explanation for the difficulty of the transition is that institutions may be rewritten overnight, but entrepreneurship, business acumen and market consciousness can only be developed through long learning. For those who rush to declare the transition itself a mistake, the "time" factor is apparently forgotten. Today, 20 years later, many countries in the Soviet Union and East have gradually entered the healthy economic growth, which once again proves the power of time. As we all know, stew a pot of meat, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar seasoning is important, but "fire to slow cooker" this link is always necessary.

History may spiral forward in the form of two steps forward and one step back, and one generation may spend a bad life in the backward step, but I believe that of all despotists, time is the most despotic one. Most of the time, humans accidentally misunderstand themselves, imagine themselves too smart, or not smart enough, and time is always slow to clear up the misunderstanding.

In 1956, after the political turmoil in Hungary, Prime Minister Nagy was hanged for losing his "stand". During the trial, he refused to ask the court for leniency, saying: "I know that another Naji trial will vindicate me and that one day there will be a reburial ceremony for me." On June 16, 1989, "One of these Days" came, and Nagy was reburied in a ceremony attended by 100,000 people.

Nagy believed in time, and he won.