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The endless pursuit of money and the awakening of the sense of borrowing are seen as the seed of modern capitalism. In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin warned the Americans then:

” The essence of money is value-added. Money can produce money, and money can produce money. Whoever kills a sow is equivalent to killing thousands of pigs that it can reproduce. Whoever wastes five shillings is equal to Murdered everything it could produce-countless money …. Remember, borrowing is money. If someone lends me money, it is giving me the money I made during that time. . “

As one of the three founding fathers of the United States, when Franklin said these words, it was not the greed of the merchants about money, but the politician’s advocacy of a new standard of life.

From the perspective of the American people at the time, labor was not a “tariff” or “obligation” of workers, but a means of earning a living; entrepreneurs’ pursuit of profit was morally tortured because “the pursuit of material benefits beyond their own needs” Violates religious teachings.

Under this standard of living, everyone works only to meet basic living needs, not to pursue money itself. If the cost of living is 100 yuan a day, earning 100 yuan for 5 hours is enough, and few people are willing to work for 10 hours to earn 200 yuan. Just as we see the current laborers in some regions in Africa, Southeast Asia, etc., this is the state after working for one month, playing for two months, spending money and then looking for work. Even entrepreneurs are “Buddha Departments” operating and competing for “Buddha Departments”. They work five or six hours a day. After work, they can chat and drink tea with their competitors and learn about life.

This kind of life concept is not a problem in itself, but it will cause the factory to fail to recruit qualified workers and lack the means to encourage workers to work, which is not conducive to the development of modern capitalism. Although Franklin’s advocacy of the new life idea was accused by the old school at that time of “squeezing oil from cows and squeezing money from people”, it was of great significance to the development of modern capitalism.

In his book “Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism”, Max Weber regarded these principles advocated by Franklin as the core of the “capitalist spirit”-systematically and rationally pursuing legitimate profits with a professional spirit.

Of course, Franklin ’s advocacy alone is incapable of changing people ’s life ideas. The core strength is the change of ideas brought about by the Reformation. At the time, the emerging Reformers believed that the purpose of believer labor was to increase God’s glory, and that his sense of responsibility in his profession was an important prerequisite for his “calling to be rescued.”

Under this Protestant ethics, religion advocates the hard work of believers, and the waste of time is the first of all evils. Time is infinitely precious, and any loss of time is equivalent to reducing labor for the glory of God To work in a fixed occupation-without a fixed occupation, a person just works erraticly on the job, and the idle time will exceed the working time.

Religion does not advocate people’s pursuit of profits, but it has brought about this objectively in the secular world: entrepreneurs find inexhaustible motivation to innovate and expand reproduction; workers are more likely to obey management and are willing to learn to adapt to new Work flow, take the initiative to sacrifice your time under the baton of piece rate.

As Max Weber said, “the economic order of capitalism requires people to dedicate themselves to the” duty “of making money.” When people sacrificed themselves to work, modern capitalism was born.

To produce, you need capital, and borrowing flourishes. As a result, the promotion of religious ethics, the awakening of money consciousness, the transformation of the concept of borrowing and lending, and the advancement of the industrial revolution, modern capitalism and the market economy have moved from the bud to the mainstream.

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Slowly, people do n’t need the promotion of religious ideas. People also start chasing money and profit spontaneously. The growth of wealth has shed the cloak of religious ethics. And borrowing, which adds leverage to the appreciation of wealth, is increasingly sought after by the market and has become an integral part of the market economy.

But people soon discovered that borrowing is not only the engine of the market economy, but also the source of the economic crisis. Success is also borrowing, and failure is also borrowing. The founder of Bridgewater Fund Dalio summarized the advantages and disadvantages of borrowing in the book “Debt Crisis”:

“Because credit creates both purchasing power and debt, increasing credit is good or bad, depending on whether borrowing can be used for productive purposes, thereby creating enough income to pay off principal and interest. If this can be achieved, resources With a good allocation, both creditors and debtors can benefit from it. Otherwise, neither party is satisfied and the allocation of resources is likely to be suboptimal. (For example, the proportion of people with credit records in the central bank ’s credit reporting in 2015 was about 26%) span>.

The situation is much better now, because a large number of Internet institutions and small loan companies have used big data technology to actively explore and actively serve the so-called “high-risk groups” at the time, turning non-lenders into lenders and ” “High-risk users” are “low-risk users”. In this process, the users themselves may not change, but the risk identification capabilities of financial institutions have improved, and they have the ability to pick out really good users.

The premise that you can choose is that you must let financial institutions reach these high-risk users. The ability to identify risks needs to be exercised in practice and grown in failure. So, when more and more financial institutions are shutting out high-risk groups, who will help those low-risk customers who have been labeled with high-risk labels to remove the labels?

Fortunately, Finance is a regulated industry. I prefer to believe that closing the door to high-risk groups at this time is only based on regulatory needs. In order to maintain the vehicle while driving, we will reopen the closed door after the high leverage risk of the specific group is lifted. Financial institutions serve high-risk groups and slowly lift the high-risk labels affixed to high-risk groups. This is the meaning of inclusive finance.

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In the book Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber laments:

“National or religious minorities, that is, groups of ruled people as opposed to rulers, are more likely to be inclined to devote themselves to the path of profit because they are voluntarily or involuntarily excluded from political groups. Members, who have no opportunity to hold public office in the country, can only realize their ambitions in the economic field. The Jews of the past two thousand years are the most typical example. “

Similarly, deprived of freedom to borrow”High-risk groups” are excluded from the perspective of formal licensees, and their borrowing needs can only turn to underground usury until they become truly high-risk groups.

I think this is not the result we want.

This article is from WeChat public account: Hong Yan whisper (ID: hongyanweiyu) , author: Xue Hong Yan