中国东部城郊夫妻农场中的劳动极限与“勤勉革命”

The Production Limit and “Industrious Revolution” in Husband-and-Wife Substitute Farms in the Eastern Suburbs of China

以往将个体或家庭作为劳动单位的研究路径经常导致内卷化的含义模糊不清,对“家庭辅助劳力”的笼统概括也使得内卷化的边际飘忽不定。改革开放以来出现在我国东部城郊的大量夫妻代耕农场,不仅以“夫妻”为劳动单位贡献了一场“勤勉革命”,而且为理解传统农业社会是否内卷或农业能否去内卷化,提供了一个特殊的经验案例和社会学视角。夫妻农场的实践智慧隐藏在日常默会合作的劳动世界里,用单性别视角、个体主义经济理性或家庭化的分析视角均无法理解“夫妻”这一生产与生活单位,更无法揭示这一合作单位中的生存智慧。代耕农场释放了传统农业文化所束缚的以夫妻为单位的劳动能量,多重耦合了恰亚诺夫“自我开发的过程”、格尔茨“自我战胜的过程”以及黄宗智的“过密化耕作过程”,以史无前例的勤勉程度发挥夫妻合作的活劳动,其劳动能量远远超过1+1的劳动力之和。

In the past, the research approach of taking individuals or families as labor units often led to the ambiguity of the meaning of involution. The sweeping generalization of“auxiliary family labor”also made the marginal of involution erratic. Since the Reform and Opening-up, a large number of husbandand-wife substitute farms have appeared in the eastern suburbs of China. They not only contributed to an“industrious revolution”for“husband and wife”as labor units, but also provided a special empirical case and sociological perspective for understanding whether the traditional agricultural society is involutionary or whether agriculture can be de-involutionary in the future. The practical wisdom of husband-and-wife farms is hidden in the labor of daily tacit cooperation. It is impossible to understand this basic unit of sociology and anthropology from a single-sex perspective, individualistic economic rationality, or fuzzy thinking of familization, let alone reveal the wisdom of surviving in this cooperative unit. Substitute farm releases the labor energy of the husband-and-wife unit bound by traditional agricultural culture. It multiply couplings Chayanov’s“the process of self-development”, Gertz’s“the process of self-overcome”, and Huang Zongzhi’s“the process of involutionary farming”, which uses husbandand-wife labor with unprecedented diligence, whose energy is far more than 1+1 labor force combined.