There is an old saying from our ancestors, "You can't be rich but three, you can't be rich, you can't be six, you can't be poor, you can't be nine." It means that no matter how rich a family is, it can't survive for three generations, and no matter how rich it is, it can't survive for six generations. The family will not be poor forever, and there will be someone who will turn over within nine generations. This sentence actually evolved from the famous saying of Mencius, a great Confucian scholar during the Warring States Period. After hearing this, many people may question whether the large family-owned companies in the world, such as Panasonic, Honda, and Ford, have been inherited for hundreds of years. It can be seen that this sentence is simply not accurate.
But in fact, if all the inherited rich people in the world are counted, the truth is really the same as what our ancestors said. Today, a quarter of the wealth of the world's richest people comes from inheritance, and only 22 people can inherit it to the third generation.
Just like South Korea's famous Samsung Group, the first generation Lee Byung-cheol started a business, and the second generation Lee Kun-hee stayed in business. However, the third generation Lee Jae-yong ended up in jail for being involved in a political scandal. And there are even more new wealthy people emerging in an endless stream, like Xu Jiayin, the boss of China Evergrande Real Estate, whose family has been poor farmers for three generations, starting as a wage earner and developing to where he is today. So why does this happen?
One of the important reasons is family education. During the Republic of China, there was a famous big businessman Nie Yuntai in Shanghai, who was the president of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce. He once wrote a book called "The Law of Preserving Wealth". In the book, he described in detail what he saw as the decline of his family. example. Many wealthy people have worked hard to earn their money, but their children and grandchildren do not cherish it at all. They squander it all in an instant on food, drink, whoring and gambling.
He also summarized the reason for this phenomenon in the book, which is that the elders did not teach the younger generations the principles of life and work. All they left to them was money, which they did not know how to cherish and only had money. Will be squandered, causing the family to fall into ruin.
An ancient saying goes: It is better to teach a son once if he can win a lot of gold if he leaves a son. No matter how wealthy a family is, if they indulge their children blindly and fail to teach them the principles of life and good deeds, the children will develop a habit of being indolent, extravagant and showing off, and naturally will not be able to inherit the family business.
Correspondingly, if you are poor, you will want to change. Although my parents are poor, they are not poor mentally. Not only are they hardworking, but they also educate their children to read more. Reading can change their destiny. Many children from poor families have gained a foothold in big cities because they are good at reading. Their children will enjoy better education. If accumulated from generation to generation, transcending class is not a dream.
Of course, if you don’t actually take action and blindly instill this concept in your children that you will be poor for nine generations, you will harm your children. Without your own efforts, no one can get rich overnight.
Another reason lies in political changes. During the thousands of years of dynasty changes in China, there will always be people ascending to heaven and people going to earth, which is the so-called emperor and courtiers in one dynasty. For example, during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the famous Langya Wang family, all members of the family served as officials in the imperial court. The famous Wang Dao, Wang Xizhi, and Wang Xianzhi were all members of this family. They were very prominent and almost ignored the emperor.
As a result, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was destroyed, and the Langya Wang family was slaughtered, and there has been no revival since then. But like Zhu Yuanzhang, an eighth-generation poor peasant and a third-generation beggar, he caught up with the chaos at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and took advantage of the situation to rise up, establish an insurrectionary army, and achieve a generation of hegemony. In peaceful times, he might not be able to stand out.
The same is true in modern society. Political and social changes profoundly affect everyone. The rise of the real estate market in the new millennium has made a large number of people become rich, while traditional industries have declined and some people have gone bankrupt. In addition to its own factors, this irreversible change in society is also an important reason for the ups and downs of the family.
Su Shi said that loyalty lasts for a long time, and poems and books last for a long time. In addition to social factors, whether you are poor or rich, if you do not educate your children well, they will not last long if they cheat and cheat. If you want to pass on a family for a long time, you can only rely on good moral character and education, not money and land. The most important thing is to keep What is given to the next generation is noble character and morality.