“发展都市以救济农村”与“乡土重建”--吴景超与费孝通的争论及其启示

“Developing Cities to Relieve Rural Areas”and“Rural Reconstruction”:The Debates between Wu Jingchao and Fei Xiaotong and Their Enlightenments

针对20世纪三四十年代农村的困境,吴景超强调“都市意识”,主张“发展都市以救济农村”;费孝通则立足乡土中国,主张“乡土重建”。两人的分歧主要是在两个层面:一是如何看待市场和权力这两种资源集聚方式;二是如何看待市场导致的资源集聚。费孝通认为,中国城市的发展壮大,并非全是市场所致,更有权力的影响。忽视这个因素,一味主张发展都市,不仅不能救济农村,还会伤害农村。吴景超对此则缺少警惕。在这个层面,费孝通的“乡土重建”论是合理的。另一方面,对于市场导致的资源集聚,费孝通也有担忧,因而主张分散的乡土工业。吴景超则参考发达国家的经验,认为都市化的集聚能够带来很多好处,中国应从都市角度思考农村问题,“发展都市以救济农村”。这种看法更有前瞻性。费孝通主张的乡土工业,终究有其限度。两人的不同思考,为我们反思当代的大城市与小城镇之争带来深刻启示。

In view of the plights of rural areas in the 1930s and 1940s,Wu Jingchao emphasized“urban consciousness”and advocated“developing cities to relieve rural areas”,while Fei Xiaotong based on rural China and advocated“rural reconstructions”.The two men differed mainly in two aspects.First,how to view market and power as two ways of accumulating resources?Second,how to view the resources agglomeration caused by market?Fei Xiaotong believed that while attributing the development and growth of Chinese cities to market,one should also account for the influence of power.In his opinion,ignoring this factor and blindly advocating urban development would not only fail to relieve the rural areas,but also harm the rural areas.Wu Jingchao did not stay vigilant on this problem.In this aspect,Fei Xiaotong's theory of“rural reconstruction”was reasonable.In the other aspect,Fei Xiaotong was also concerned about the concentration of resources caused by market and advocated decentralized rural industries.Wu Jingchao,referring to the experiences of developed countries,believed that the agglomeration of urbanization could bring a lot of benefits.In his opinion,China should think about rural problems from the perspective of cities and“develop cities to relieve rural areas”.This view was more forward-looking.In the final analysis,the idea of developing rural industries advocated by Fei Xiaotong was not immune to its limitation.The two men's different opinions have brought us profound inspirations to reflect on the contemporary debates about big cities and small towns.