On The Action Of Rural Elites In The Distribution Of The Post-disaster Wealth

After the Wenchuan earthquake, victims had been severely harmed both physically and mentally, and their property vanished overnight. The country started the rescue and proposed policies of post-disaster restoration and reconstruction at the very first moment. Guided by the policy, enormous wealth poured into the disaster-stricken area. In the process of post-disaster restoration and reconstruction, there were three main sources of wealth in the distribution and flow:the state, the society and the victims. With the support of finance, taxation and fiduciary loan, the country took a series of measures to provide special grant-in-aid and other support. Social forces are mainly non-governmental organizations, the donations of caring people, or non-reimbursable assistance. In addition, self-collected wealth of victims was an important source of post-disaster wealth.Each disaster means a new round of distribution and flow of wealth. In this process, the state, the market, the elite and institution separately play a unique role and expand the game to each other. Among them, the important role the rural elite played in post-disaster restoration and reconstruction is evident. The successful issue of the state policy and wealth as well as the prompt report of the social situation and people’s will, all these must rely on the intermediary status of the rural elite. However, the rural elite is not this system’s faithful follower with value neutrality, but they combine in one the multiple roles of state agents, village masters and family spokesperson with their own values and interests preferences.In the institution context where public crisis is universally existent after the disaster, the rural social order exhibits the binary features in that the national formal institution and the rural informal institution coexist. The informal institution’s legality is indirectly strengthened due to the absence or the lagging-behind of the formal institution. The rural elite complement s the top-down national policies on the basis of the formal institution while identifies with the informal system while conveying a bottom-up condition of disaster and public opinion, which just right provides the institution space for rural elite’s conspiracy action of post-disaster riches. They use informal institution as pretext to construct disaster to the nation for seeking wealth as much as possible, but squeeze extra benefits on the basis of formal institution while distributing the wealth of post-disaster, which means the misplaced employment of the formal institution and informal institution has become the operation logic of the rural elite. Under the direct manipulation of the rural elite, the distribution and flow of post-disaster wealth results in a coexistence of universality and particularity. Much of the wealth has been reasonably distributed and has embarked on a reasonable flow, thereby producing the effect of universality, but a small part has to meet the special interests needs of the elite groups. The coexistence of universality and Particularity is a normal phenomenon of the distribution of wealth, but it must be moderately controlled. If not properly controlled, the special interests obtained by conspiracy of the rural elite can not be effectively restricted or supervised; it may lead to serious wealth disparity and social contradiction, impeding the positive interaction between the rural elite and ordinary villagers, is non-conducive to the democratization of self-governance and long-term stable development of rural society.