超越内卷:“板结社会”与国家渗透

Beyond Involution: The “Stratified Society” and State Penetration

中国先于欧洲近2000年出现了一个打破“分散而自成一体的管辖权”的“集中的国家权力”,但这一权力始终面临着“进入社会之中”的问题。中国传统乡村社会长期在内生权威的影响和控制下运行,形成了一个与国家保持疏离和张力并具有稳固根基的“板结社会”,不同程度地阻隔和消解国家政权,造成了近代以来国家政权建设的“内卷”结局。这一历史困境决定了中国现代国家政权建设的社会路径:国家政权打破“板结”及“再板结”的社会土壤,实现对乡村社会的有效渗透,并履行其社会职能,将自身置于民众日常生活和服务的紧密联系之中,获得民众认同,由此形成了政权“超越内卷”困境的建设路径。国家政权对乡村社会的渗透,不仅重构了乡村社会形态,而且塑造了政权本身。

In China, almost 2000 years before Europe, a “centralized state power” that shattered “fragmented and self-contained authorities” emerged. This power had always been confronted with the problem of “entering into society”. Traditional Chinese rural society had long been operating under the influence and control of its endogenous authority, forming a firm foundation of a “stratified society” that remained detached from and in tension with the state, blocking and dissipating state power to varied degrees, resulting in the “involution” of state building in modern times. This historical dilemma has determined the social path of modern Chinese state building: to break the social soil of the “stratified society” and “re-stratified society”, to achieve effective infiltration of state power into rural society;to fulfil the social functions of state power, to place state power in close contact with the daily life and services of the people in order to obtain the people’s recognition, thus creating a solid foundation for the state power and forming the path of building a state power that is “beyond involution”. In this way, the infiltration of state power into rural society not only reconstructs the rural society, but also shapes the state itself.