The Modern Context Of The Local Reconstruction

The object of this research is Ping'an Zhai, a Zhuang village located in Longsheng Autonomous County in Guangxi. The method of investigation is participant observation and depth interviews. It uses the framework of ethnography, to describe the rural society re-construction process in modernization ,reveal its views of economic and social transformation and analyze its inherent laws in the changes.On the basis of two historical processes of China's rural modernization——economic changes and the enforced effort that the state controls rural society——the research will be done through analyzing the processes of economic re-construction and social re-construction in the view of the theory of social transformation.This study first takes a look at the economic transformation of Ping'an Zhai. Ping'an Zhai has a traditional small-scale peasant economy in which production and consumption is by each family unit for the purpose of survival. In this village, the majority of farmer families live their lives at the edge of surviving, the working method is "survival rationality". In this kind of survival economy, the features of "the moral economy" and "the rational peasant" present at the same time. To the peasants who have been living in bad conditions for a long period, survival rather than profit maximization is the first concern. Nevertheless, they do have a sense of rationality in survival. Up to 1949, Ping'an Zhai existed with the same conditions as the Lu Village that FeiXiaoTong investigated, a place that modern economic influences had barely touched. Because the productivity was too low to absorb capital, ownership of the land was unlikely to expand, and so, the surplus laborers had been bound to the disperser lands. Regarding the issue of how to develop industry, China was conflicted with the western countries. Before China's semi-colonial semi-feudal status was solved politically, the industrialization of Chinas' cities was difficult to develop enough to absorb surplus laborers from rural areas. Before 1949, there was no modern industry in Longsheng County even whole Guangxi province. Ping'san Zhai economy was on the way of involution for the pressure of farmland population.After the establishment of People's Republic of China, new political power reached deep to rural villages, further more, it developed around rural economies, reorganizing them through campaigns of land reformation, fixed grain production, purchase and sale quota collectivization. But in this process, the Ping'an Zhai economy involution continued due to the farmers were bound to their limited lands even more strictly, with no alternative except for farming. Ping'an Zhai economy, restrained by collectivist involvement developed slowly or even stood still for a long time.With the commencement of China's economic reforms and opening up to the outside world in the late 1970's, the situation began to improve. During the 1990's, new roads brought in tourists, Ping'an Zhai was taken into the great market of tourism. Tourism served as a motor for economic development and diversification to the extent that nowadays Ping'an Zhai economy has progressed, becoming less dependent on agriculture. It eventually reduces its reliance on less rewarding work and stagnant small-scale farming, moving away from traditional agriculture economy and became increasingly more modern.Another aspect this study has paid attention to is the social re-constructuring of Ping'an Zhai. During the late Qing and early republican era, the state brought local administration under central control and had local authorities serve the interests of the central state. Ping'an Zhai somehow experienced reconstruction of the political and social order. Previously, state power exercised in Ping'an was built on the basis of a sort of military organization, a system of "baojia" and "tuanlian". However, local power consisting of the Zhai elders "Zhailao", had somehow weakened the state power, developing into the ethical and social order.After the suppression of the Yao minority group uprising in 1933, the government promoted the policy of Xinzheng, "new government policy", which made a profound change in local political life. As a result of the Xinzheng, the Zhailao system lost its preeminence as the dominant power stabilizing village society. The Xinzheng was only partially successful and still depended on the cooperation of village leaders, unable to avoid what Prasenjit Duara called "state involution", but somewhat different. There was resistance by some, and other Zhailao who chose to cooperate with and formalize their status in the new government often saw their connection with and influence over the people weakened. Furthermore, the government just wanted Zhailao to complete its goal, mainly taxation, allocate levying and social custom improvement etc, but not the government principle transformation. This meant that it was hard to implement the Xinzheng and overall it failed to establish a standardized system of governance. As a result, the local power chose negative treatment to avoid the state power, or paced back and forth between the state and village while the state's benefit was in conflict with the village's, so the chain of power linking the state to the local authority was very frail.After 1949 when new China had been established, Chinese villages experienced an intensive process of political reconstruction. From the time of land reform to the people's commune, Chinese farmers established the new economy and social order through class struggle. By the time the people's commune was established, the state power became involved in all aspect of village social life and farmer's nearly lost all of their rights. Their daily activities were controlled by state ideology; and the independence of rural society was dispelled. From the viewpoint of the relationship between the state and rural society, this meant state power has dominated the community authority. It seemed to have advanced national - construction, however, the centralization of the people's commune system which was established on the basis of direct plan economy was unable to solve the five basic problems of the national system construction, state identity, legitimacy, penetration, participation and distribution which was in crisis.In the 70s and 80s of the 20th century, having been through the people's commune system experiment, the central government and Chinese people profoundly realized that state power must have the inseparable relationship with society. Thus, the Ping'an village, like other villages in China, started the practice of villagers autonomy. The essence of villagers autonomy is to reconstruct the relationship between state and local society. But, because its mechanism and organizational function were not suitable to construct a market economy, the autonomous villages had the condition of the mechanism uncoordinated and the function withered.This dissertation believes that the Ping'an village economic change represented one type of transformation that approaches "the market economy", away from the agricultural economy type, which might be summarized as "the Ping'an pattern". It is the creation of the Ping'an village people in modern times and the result of a traditional agricultural community docking with outsider information society. It is representative of Chinese countryside economy development,and it will play an exemplary role in exploring the modernization way for Chinese,particularly for those living in the west of China.Though the economy develops, the villagers autonomous mechanism laid down conditions that have caused some local social problems such as the "3.25 Event", reveals disharmony of local society, and its political significance cannot be ignored. As a case of the disharmony of Ping'an society,it is the expression of the imbalance of rights and in the final analysis,it is the result of social and institutional reconstruction not well matched with economic development in the social transformation. That is,in a time when market took the place of redistribution and became the mechanism of resource allocation,interest distribution is no longer dependent on the state ,but on the interest game in the market and society,for which the corresponding interest coordinative mechanism has not been founded or improved,as is made manifest in the contradiction between the diffused petty farmer and market and government.To fulfill economic prosperity and create harmony in nature and society, the most important thing is to have benign relations between the farmer and the market, and the farmer and the state. But to promote interaction between the farmer, the market and the state, we must raise farmers' ability and the organizational level, and integrate them into a systemic framework, making it a part of new system, and meeting the market needs. The key is to further complete the village autonomous system. To do so, we must have the creativity to cultivate and construct a professional economic organization, reconstruct village social basis, and develop the resources of village autonomous organizations. At the same time, we must establish and construct various economic professional organizations in the mold of modern and scientific democratic organizational form. We need to establish new government relations, principles and rules on the basis of advancing the rural organization, and to establish modern citizen status through powerful restriction and protection.