礼物、贿赂与关系:布迪厄的社会资本再思考

Gifts,Bribes and Guanxi:A Reconsideration of Bourdieu's Social Capital

布迪厄探索包括各种资本间的转化在内的实践经济学的努力是极富洞见的,但同时这种探索却建立在了一组界定相互矛盾的不同资本的基础上。在这里,我将尝试鉴定符号资本、社会资本、文化资本和经济资本这四种资本的核心意义,并通过思考礼物或贿赂等交换形式的社会建构来考察各种资本间相互转化的实践过程。文章的探讨建立在对中华人民共和国的实地研究和已发表的礼物交换相关著作的回顾的基础上。通过考察可以发现,礼物和贿赂的界线并不在于交换是否有工具性动机,而在于能否有效地赠送一个东西,使它被认为是把发展和保持一种社会关系而不是获得短期利益放在首要位置。基于这种探讨的需要,文章考察了香港企业家的投资策略背景下的关系这个中国概念。在对现存政治系统很大程度上不信任的情况下,这些企业家们更多地选择了通过培养社会关系来建立信任。

The efforts of Pierre Bourdieu to explore the economy of practices involving the conversions of one kind of capi- tal, while insightful, is based on an inconsistent set of definitions of the different kinds of capital. Here, an attempt is made to identify the core meanings of four kinds of capital： symbolic, social, cultural, ＆ economic. The processes of con- version practices are examined through a consideration of the social construction of exchanges as either gifts or bribes. The argument, based on field research in the People＇s Republic of China ＆ a review of published work on gift exchange, is made that the boundary between gift ＆ bribe is not based on the instrumental motivation of the exchange, but on failures to effectively present a prestation as being concerned foremost with the development ＆ maintenance of a social relationship rather than with immediate instrumental gain. The Chinese concept of guanxi is examined in relationship to this argument within the context of the investment strategies of entrepreneurs from Hong Kong, who cultivate social relationships in or- der to establish trust in a context where they maintain a large degree of distrust for the political system prevailing.