Chapter 3283: Bloodshed in the New City (43)

Of course, the wealthy people wouldn't be so kind as to send money directly to the Pale Knight. Municipal funds all entered the city government's account in the name of donation. And those employees who had gone on strike before all returned. This was equivalent to still having agents sent by elite individuals managing this money.

However, regardless of who manages this money, at least there is money in the account.

And, is it really possible that the agents who manage this money will be selfless, burn themselves, not take a cent from it, and not use it to improve the quality of their own working environment?

This is naturally impossible. No one is a saint. People who do this kind of thing don't have faith and are not here to serve the public. Since I manage the money, why can't I use the city government's money to buy the best quality toilet paper for myself? Why can't I add two air conditioners to the office? Why can't I hire two more cleaners to help me clean my workstation?

Most of the small leaders inserted by elite individuals in the city government think this way and do so.

People in various departments are also mutually beneficial. You are responsible for choosing the coffee brand, you chose the most expensive one, and then send a most professional coffee machine to every office. Then I book the best hotels for your business trips, and provide special car pick-up and drop-off when going out. Everyone comfortably gets things done.

As for how much money is spent, who cares? If this money isn't spent, it won't fall into my pocket. If I spend more, I can take more from it.

But this involves a problem, and that is that everyone takes it, so this atmosphere will be harmonious and pleasant. If one person doesn't take it, it will appear a bit awkward.

And if this person is the mayor, the situation will be even uglier. When the Pale Knight questioned for the sixth time the necessity of the set of coffee equipment in his office that was more professional than in a coffee shop, Ms. Weiss really couldn't help it.

Ms. Weiss stood at the door with her hands folded in front of her, looking at the Pale Knight and saying, "I have worked in the city government for 36 years and will retire soon. You are the best mayor I have ever seen."

"So I hope you understand that the general public in this world, although not as smart as you, is not stupid. Although not as kind, they haven't all become bad to the point of losing their humanity."

"You have strict requirements for yourself, but if you apply this requirement to us, we can't do it. Not everyone can sacrifice as much as you for justice and fairness."

"Within the scope of our ability, we are willing to provide convenience to others, and we are also willing to appropriately help people who are a bit worse than us to satisfy the realization of our self-worth. But we can't do more, and you can't always count on it."

"If you still want to continue being the best mayor, you can't always ask us to sacrifice selflessly, but must learn to accept and utilize this extremely limited kindness of ours that belongs to small citizens. Only this can make the city government operate well, which is good for you and this city."

After Ms. Weiss left, the Pale Knight thought a lot. He was a person very good at reflecting on himself, and gradually realized his problems all along.

He was a person who would take standing up to preside over justice and sacrificing himself to help the poor as a matter of course.

This might be because he was the Joker before. Although he didn't have the Joker's memory, he was using the Joker's body after all. He felt he should be responsible for the evil deeds the Joker had done before, so he had this Jesus-like sacrificial thought.

He was undoubtedly arrogant. He felt that through his firm sacrifice, he could save others, and he had a very strong savior complex.

And looking at it from another angle, he actually thought that the people in this city had no way to save themselves.

This kind of thought also exists universally in people's lives. When people see the weak, they will feel that they are already so weak and pitiful, and if they don't help them, they will definitely die.

But this is actually a subjective assumption, lacking powerful evidence and logical thinking.

This is a typical thinking trap—regardless of whether he will really die after no one saves him, people can save him. So few people spend effort to carefully investigate the real predicament faced by the rescued person, as well as his ability to save himself. But this is actually very important.

If you don't do the above investigation, it is very likely that you won't help people to the point, and in serious cases, you might even do bad things with good intentions, triggering the tragedy of the farmer and the snake.

The Pale Knight had similar thoughts before. Regardless of what the specific predicament faced by Gothamites is now, and whether they have tried to save themselves, and how they saved themselves, he could go save them. He also partially succeeded.

Just because of this kind of success, he ignored the above problems even more, so that when his rescue action fell into stagnation, he didn't know which direction to work hard in.

There are no ultimate answers to many disciplines in this world. Just like mathematics has no universal formula, physics has no cosmic truth, and chemistry has no ether factor.

They don't even have ultimate questions, no problem that as long as it is thoroughly solved, the discipline is declared to have reached the end.

But sociology has. The ultimate question of sociology is how to make the world have no poor people. Summarized, it is—poverty alleviation.

This is an extremely complex problem that encompasses all knowledge of sociology and all its related disciplines. The threshold for studying this problem is very high, because there are too many prerequisite problems before this problem, such as how to let people survive, how to let society stabilize, and how to let this society give birth to a group of people capable of poverty alleviation, etc.

The Pale Knight's theme is "rescue," but this word is a bit too broad. After all, the elite individuals of this city don't need to be rescued by him, so the target population is basically the poor. Then what he is doing now can also be called "poverty alleviation."

These two have essential differences. If you treat what he did as the Jesus-like "rescue" in mythology, then what he did is already perfect. He stood up, gained people's support, achieved certain results, and from motivation to result, it is impeccable, very consistent with the definition of a savior.

But if you look at what he did from the perspective of "poverty alleviation," then he can be said to have done a mess.

Because he didn't do any social research, and didn't even figure out the details of that extremely complex problem, just did some "poverty alleviation" in the traditional definition.

At first glance, it seems very right: tax the rich, reduce taxes for the poor, strengthen social security, build welfare facilities, provide more welfare for vulnerable groups, strengthen the control of various enterprises, and avoid the expansion speed of capital being too fast.

But if you look closely, you will find that these policies have a certain feudal meaning and are relatively backward. It's not that doing so is bad, it's just that it doesn't utilize any advantages of modern society, and it's still the set of tax exemption and relief.

Every dynasty in a certain Eastern country has done it, and it didn't avoid their fate of destruction. Even in modern times, some people have done it; although Franklin D. Roosevelt succeeded in extending the life of the United States, because it was not advanced enough, it eventually collapsed comprehensively.

The main reason these policies are good but not long-lasting is that the policymakers stand in high positions, and what they do is what they think is good for the poor.

These things might indeed be good for the poor, but not necessarily good for the poor in every region and every situation. It might be good in the early stage, but not good in the later stage. While being good for one poor person, it harms another poor person, or it seems to be good for the poor, but in the end, it is still good for the rich.

This kind of inequality caused by execution gaps is actually exploitation in another sense, letting one group of poor people stand up on the heads of another group of poor people and become new exploiters. Essentially, it is not poverty alleviation, but chicken-eating escape, and in the end, it is still a zero-sum game instead of a win-win.

Sometimes, this inequality is not because there are too few materials, and if you help this one, you can't help that one, but because of a lack of investigation, only relying on the subjective assumptions of high-level people, patting their heads to think of strategies, which leads to it.

It is also very simple to avoid this situation, and that is to fully investigate, go deep into the bottom, and adapt to local conditions. In this way, the resources required might be less than that kind of average big money scattering, spending the least money to do the most things.

The Pale Knight has been thinking about whether he really lacks understanding of the poor during this period.

Before, he felt that he was not from a rich background, he was also from the bottom, so how could he not understand the poor?

But now he finds it is not like this. Rich people are all the same, while poor people have their own ways of being poor.

He was poor because he was from a small town, had no roots, was physically weak, and was bullied. Then why are there so many local poor strong men in Cat Getan?

He was poor because he hadn't gone to college, hadn't received higher education, and couldn't find any good jobs. Then why are there so many homeless people in Cat Getan who have gone to college?

He was poor because of mental illness, and many times he couldn't control himself, so he couldn't live normally. But there are even more poor people in Cat Getan who are mentally normal. What are they poor because of?

Not only the poor, but all the employees working in the city government now who can be called the middle class, why didn't they become the elite class? Why are they still poor compared to the rich at the top?

When the Pale Knight truly started thinking about these problems, he realized that what people often say, seeing is believing, or practice is the only criterion for truth, actually has certain limitations.

What can be seen may not be understood, what is understood may not be personally experienced, and what is personally experienced may not have universality.

If you have to say which sentence has some truth, it is "no investigation, no right to speak."

Now the city government has just resumed operation, and the Pale Knight cannot leave too far. He decided to check from his own side.

Ms. Weiss has a very good temper. When the Pale Knight just took over the city government work, she gave him a lot of help. Regardless of whose person she is, at least she is willing to remind the Pale Knight.

And the culprit who made her speak up to remind... The Pale Knight turned his head to look at that coffee machine. This thing occupied the entire kitchen of the lounge, looking more like some industrial assembly line.

The Pale Knight racked his brains and couldn't think of the necessity of this thing existing here. But since Ms. Weiss reminded him of her dissatisfaction, it meant she thought this thing was necessary.

Where exactly was it necessary?

The Pale Knight really couldn't think of it, so he called his assistant and asked him to investigate in detail how this overly professional coffee machine came here and what state it is in now.

The assistant came back not long after.

His expression when handing over the report was very calm, but when the Pale Knight saw it, he sprayed a mouthful of coffee.

He looked at the assistant in shock and said, "Just such a coffee machine, equipped with twelve mechanical maintenance workers and four cleaners???"

"Yes. This is the commercial multi-head espresso machine produced by Synesso, their latest Victoria Retro X series, with the highest temperature stability and product quality. And to make this machine produce the most perfect coffee, professional maintenance is required. This number of people is not much."

The Pale Knight accepted this statement very, very, very reluctantly. He turned over a page of paper and said again, "Maintenance and cleaning personnel are fine, what's the matter with the history consultant?"

"Oh, this is so that when you use this machine to entertain guests, you can have someone provide you with professional advice when telling them about the history of Italian coffee and the history of the coffee machine brand."

The Pale Knight opened his mouth, and this time he couldn't even be reluctant. He pointed to the line below and said, "Okay, this is fine too. Then what is the supporting equipment for this professional disinfection room?"

"Mr. Mayor, such a large machine cannot be cleaned as a whole here; it must be disassembled for professional cleaning and disinfection. The disinfection room is prepared for this."

"Then this is fine too. But this machine has clearly only been sent yesterday, and it has already consumed 100,000 liters of disinfectant..."

The assistant coughed twice and said, "Maybe the previous municipal building also had such a coffee machine, but you haven't used it."

"That's not right," the Pale Knight said, "I auctioned off everything in the original municipal building. If there was such a coffee machine, would I not know?"

"Are you sure it's everything?"

The Pale Knight was really stumped. Everything was transported by Schiller, so how would he know if it was everything?

So he had to make a call to Schiller and said, "Hello, is this Schiller? When you dismantled the municipal building, did you see a coffee machine of a brand starting with S?"

"What?... Oh, that one, I saw it, I saw it. That thing was accidentally broken when it was loaded into the truck, and it was sold as scrap iron."

The assistant immediately breathed a sigh of relief, but then his eyeballs rolled around again. ===== CHAPTER 3284 =====