Intermediaries and the future of intermediary organizations

? ? ? ??I do not know why, people for the "intermediary" and "intermediary organizations" very hated, even the official ideology for the intermediary organization's attitude is ambiguous and even secrecy.
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?????????Why hate "intermediary"?

?????????People hate "intermediary" the origin of a long time, the reason, it also from the history of Chinese economic thought.
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?????????The first is the "derogatory thinking" to the merchants to belittle and suppress. Confucianism does not oppose the pursuit of profit, but they put righteousness in the first place, that for profit-seeking activities should be restricted by righteousness, advocate the righteousness and light profit, the first after the benefit, "gentleman Yu Yu, villain Yu Lee." The theory of Confucianism, the righteousness and profit, always dominated, until today. For example, the use of their own information or relationships to a rich product distribution to the lack of B, and thus profit, in line with the normal economic rational economic law, but this behavior in ancient times known as the " , More than 30 years ago in China, which is called "speculation", they are to go to jail. (Asymmetric information, asymmetric resources, asymmetric relationship, asymmetric trust, professional asymmetry, asymmetric information, asymmetric information, asymmetric information, asymmetric information, Power asymmetry, cognitive asymmetry ... ...), and these asymmetries are intermediary and intermediary organizations exist the basis for the elimination of asymmetry in order to eliminate intermediaries. The traditional state of the state hopes to eliminate the asymmetry to eliminate inequality, the result of the eradication of freedom also the "intermediary" also eliminated.
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????????People hate the "intermediary", but also and "heavy agricultural or business" policy is extremely behind the idea.

????????The traditional thinking that the farmers are the main producers, hardest and hardest profit the least; businessman is not a producer, but profitable. This is the root cause of the idea of ??"not being widowed and unaffected." The Song Dynasty, "Jia Jia Xing Merchants," saying, "Jia" (gǔ) is to open a shop with a fixed place to sell things business people, "business" is the flow of people selling goods. So the people of the "business" less than the degree of trust, "Jia", until today, "Merchants" is also known as the "bag company", especially those who act as intermediaries comprador, such companies themselves as "light assets" Ignoring their most important asset is "people" (although I object to people as assets, capital).

????????The people of this by the end of the wise, wisdom is more than fraud, corruption good habits. This is the businessman is often referred to as profiteers, the theoretical basis for trouble people. Because no business is not rape argument exists for thousands of years, lie that thousands of years, even if the false has become true, so "everything is inferior, only reading high", a mighty force to squeeze Imperial examination and the entrance of the single-plank bridge, resulting in a commercial civilization developed.

????????The development of commerce is a disintegration of the feudal society, the development of business will inevitably lead to the birth of new relations of production, undermining the traditional relations of production, production systems, production methods; frequent economic exchanges, enhanced mobility; traditional feudal ethics, family ethics Will also be challenged, which will inevitably threaten the feudal rule of law and order. The traditional Confucian society is the integration of the family, self-sufficiency, the family economy can be maintained, the mobility of commercial society is the destruction of the existing system, so the Confucian society can not afford the change of mobility, Can only allow limited prosperity, once the social mobility of more than a certain threshold, the traditional value system will collapse, so for the prosperity of the business is limited, the people limited to the household registration on the ground to facilitate management.
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????????Internet era of "intermediary"

????????In today's society, despite the popularity of Internet thinking, but people's minds are still the shadow of traditional thinking, you say that the Internet how to do business civilization up? Any Internet company has more or less intermediate properties, is not it? Dock "resources", butt "information", guarantee, matching transactions, this is not intermediary services, what is it? But the "paradox" is that almost all of the Internet companies have refused to say that they are intermediary companies, a fear of peer look down on their own, and secondly, fear of fear fooled consumers (domestic consumers will not spend most of the intermediary fees Points), those who look at the house on the one hand to find intermediaries, find houses after trying to secretly and with the landlord transactions. In order to meet the people's fear of this psychological, you see that "melon seeds second-hand car network," the main advertising slogan is "no intermediary to make the difference." You search for "non-intermediary" in Baidu, you can get 6.94 million search results, and you search for "intermediary" when the word, the search results in negative reports countless.

????????Therefore, in the Internet age, to mediate the one hand, is to conform to the world trend, on the one hand is to meet the people want free benefits, on the other hand also happens to adapt to the traditional economic thinking - the intermediary businessmen do not trust. However, to mediate does not mean that there is no intermediary, on the contrary, to mediation is the intermediate form of transformation only, but the traditional intermediary into an Internet intermediary only, Internet intermediary because it is bit state light service can be achieved free of charge.
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????????The Nature of Mediation

????????From a commercial point of view, intermediaries and intermediaries provide professional services. Professional service Firms (commonly referred to as "PSFs") are understood by foreigners. Lawyers are not intermediaries of law and dispute (or judges and parties)? Do not doctors and patients is the intermediary of disease? Is not the clergy a mediator of believers and doctrines? Is not the teacher the intermediary of knowledge and students? Bank is not the money and people intermediary? Which industry has nothing to do with the intermediary?

????????The use of information technology language, the intermediary is actually a node, is to create a link node. Therefore, intermediaries in our society is everywher, any person may be someone else's intermediary, any organization may be more or less assumed intermediary service. Civil society, non-governmental organizations is actually an intermediary between the government and the people, such intermediary organizations constitute the so-called "civil society", these intermediary organizations serve as a buffer of the role of society, and rich intermediaries for the maintenance of social and ecological balance But in fact our government always likes to rush in front, directly facing the contradictions from the people in the elimination of contradictions, but also exhausted their physical strength, overdraft their trust, such a dual state is dangerous of.

????????To mediate is not to destroy the intermediary, because to the intermediary after the "dual" society is not a real society, any group of loose sand "society" is not a real society, such society is a rigid rigid society, lack of flexibility, is Dry wood fire a little on the. Therefore, the intermediary is still a solid node, so that this society is "wet" (like a sponge with tenderness of tenderness, which has a human and human color).
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????????Why mediate

????????In addition to the above mentioned, in a broader sense, people can not be separated from the intermediary because of the following reasons:

????????First of all, human cognition, memory, reason is limited, so individuals can not assume all the risks and mistakes, which must emphasize the society and the organization of the full-time and division of labor, resulting in outsourcing services, outsourcing Services is the asymmetry of knowledge, risks and uncertainties in the transfer, said the popular point is that professional people do professional things, so that professional people to help you transfer the risk. Even if there is a division of labor in a family, if which individuals are good at sorting the housework, over time this job is the TA's expertise, with the things you can not find on the TA. In the business sector, the completion of an activity may involve dozens of service providers and suppliers in the industry I work in. Any organization or individual (organizer) can not have all the experience, knowledge and risk aversion capabilities. PCO professional is to help you integrate these knowledge, experience, reduce risk and cost, which is the PCO professional, even so, PCO also outsourced some services to reduce his risk and cost, and outsourcing depends on the size of transaction costs . Everyone is rational, do not need to explain, but ordinary people always feel that this is the "two traffickers", "bag company", often unknown on the inside.

????????Second, people's time is limited, so that any person and organization can not try all the success and failure in life, due to the presence of more cost, so some people have to help you go trial and error, to help you to save time, If all the things you own hands to do for themselves, this time the cost is very high. If everyone has to self-sufficiency to "save money" (the cost of the intermediary), then the loss of time is "life", in fact a variety of business services are more or less the nature of an intermediary, but Is a different level. The development of service industry is based on the continuous reduction of transaction costs on the basis of reducing transaction costs (and its ability) is the existence of the value of professional intermediary organizations.

????????Again, trust is required to be "endorsed", trust is built on a "guarantee", and some security and endorsement is self-assurance (but self-guarantee takes time, consumers and others can not), so more Of the guarantee of trust is achieved through a third party intermediary guarantee (social intermediary, professional intermediary) form. Without trust as the basis, the transaction costs are very expensive, the transaction can not be reached. So the intermediary organization provides a third-party security, he took his credit and strength to make endorsements, to facilitate the completion of the transaction. If there is no "Paypal" this payment intermediary, Taobao this intermediary platform transactions can not be achieved. The more Internet-based transactions, the more need to guarantee, but is no longer the traditional personalization of the guarantee. Excellent intermediary like "wormhole", let you through the mistrust of the "black hole", or you will never be able to reach another person, which is like we want to know a person always like to find an acquaintance to refer to the same, the acquaintance to act as The "intermediary" responsibilities.

????????Finally, there are weaknesses in human nature, any person and organization are lazy tendencies, have dispersed their responsibilities and obligations of the will, have to be served, the needs of the service, social progress is from the past by the power to force people Labor becomes a service payment service, society becomes more civilized, that is to say, both the servant and the servant are two-way choices of freedom, so the progress of society, the progress of ethics, the variety of Intermediary services have become "legitimate and reasonable". In addition, more importantly, there are evil side of human nature, there are prejudices, there must be a third-party intermediary to guarantee, coerce, persuade, teach, notarized.

????????A social development, it is precisely the development of intermediary organizations. People hate "cattle party", but you think about the existence of cattle must have the value of existence, cattle is commonly known as the vote traffickers, cattle is not an intermediary service do. Cattle with their own time and risk for those who have idle resources and the shortage of demand for people to provide a paid service, the overall level of benefits is actually improved. Therefore, for most people, in fact, should not hate cattle, cattle is also an economic organization, he provides a compensation mechanism, you need his services must pay for his risk and time to pay. The so-called market mechanism is that you are willing to pay for this service mechanism, the intermediary fee is the middle of the market to maintain the existence of compensation. Therefore, if you want to enjoy the convenience of cattle services, you must pay for his sacrifice (time and liquidity risk). Otherwise, we all return to the most primitive people, at that time transaction costs infinite. Human progress is not the result of transaction costs continue to break through it? So the last 50 years of economic results in the past 5000 years even more.

????????It is gratifying to see that the recognition of intermediaries, intermediaries and their services is always more and more, this is the progress of society - to pay for the transaction cost itself is social progress.
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????????Intermediaries and intermediaries of the future

????????In the intermediary of today, I would like to emphasize that: intermediary is not less, but more, to the big trend of mediation "to" is the intermediary of the monopoly rather than the intermediary itself, "go" is only intermediate links Rather than the intermediary itself, the "go" is the form of intermediary rather than the nature of the intermediary - the intermediary from the pyramid-style hierarchy into a flat distributed. Finally, to mediate is not not mediated, but the intermediary of the scattered, multi-intermediary, intermediary transformation.

?????????In his lectures and books, Lishan quoted G?del's first law: "any system is self-consistent, it will be incomplete." This law is actually the theory that the limitations of any theory are qualified , When the conditions (system) change, the theory does not apply.

????????Therefore, in the traditional society, the intermediary is the clan society, patriarchal society, such a society, chiefs, chiefs, parents are intermediaries, have their risk and responsibility, in such a society, kinship is a link, the rules are family rules and family rules. But when society develops further, breaking through previous settlements and expanding the deal to people without blood, the impersonal commercial intermediaries and services in the market have sprung up and have made progress in society wher things have gone wrong. To find patriarchs, find parents, find acquaintances will not work, and this is the rules of business society, intermediary on the transition - the intermediary must go to the kinship, to the region, to the relationship, become impersonal, professional, Modern commercial civilization.

?????????In the Internet age, the traditional human-centered professional intermediary (centralization) and social intermediary (decentralized) transferred to the network, so the marriage can no longer be married, "the old matchmaker" but "lily network "; Between the neighborhood, alumni word of mouth between the social media into the" public comment network "and" WeChat circle of friends, "such as social networking intermediaries. People-based traditional professional intermediary services (lawyers, accounting, human resources, marketing ...) have gradually become a computer-based, "cloud" of the "algorithm intermediary", this calculation is not a human, Is the computer's calculation. Therefore, the intermediary is not without, but into an algorithm intermediary. However, even a computer-driven algorithm is essentially a set of standards imposed on the machine by the person, so the algorithm is biased, so the intermediary mediation is also indispensable.

????????In the Internet age, the traditional intermediary service is not without, but the transformation, the competitors are not peers but "Turing" of artificial intelligence intermediary. Therefore, organizations and individuals who rely on professional services should have a continuous learning skills, can run faster than the machine Caixing, which is Schr?dinger in the "What is life," said the life is An ability to continuously reduce entropy. The wisdom of people is good at sharing learning and sharing, to turn this closed system into an open system, in order to avoid "heat silence", which is - continuous learning.

????????Wei Zexi event is undoubtedly a social tragedy, but the main responsibility should not be the responsibility of network intermediaries, but is precisely the intermediary is not complete, not professional, non-standard responsibility. Despite the increasing transparency of the Internet, information seems to be more and more symmetrical, and in fact people believe that more and more. Is not social dilemma today brought about by Samuel Huntington's reduction of social capital in the Great Fracture: Reconstruction of Human Nature and Social Order? The surface looks like the Internet to make information more free, but the social "trust" is not linear growth and even regression, this is the information age "big break."

????????Xu Benedict said, "Today's skepticism not only doubts the pseudo-values ??(power, money) in the real world, but also fundamentally doubts whether humans really have a lasting and universal value, This latter skepticism is truly terrible, and belief is being real rather than suspected of being deconstructed or shattered, and skepticism is only the result of the belief that there is no such thing, not the reason why it is shaken.

?????????In times of doubt, we do not necessarily need to believe, but need more independent thinking and free will.