“互嵌”:市场规则与基层社会——基于农资“赊账”现象的社会学探讨

Mutual Embedded: Market Rules and Grassroots Community: A Sociological Perspective of the Credit of Agricultural Endowment

卡尔·波兰尼提出的"嵌入性"理论将经济学问题纳入到社会学解释框架中,这对新古典经济学构成了严重威胁,然而因其过于宏大和纯理论性而难以在经验上得到验证。通过对农资市场中"赊账"行为的调查,文章在中观层面提出"互嵌"概念用以对"嵌入性"进行进一步的经验性拓展研究。该概念表征出在"赊账"已经成为一种社会事实的背后蕴含着基层社会与市场之间的"适应性调整"。在赊账行为中,经销商经历着"记账—催账—清账、抵账或坏账"的赊账实践,农户有着"赊账—还账或赖账"的赊还实践,最终两者在"赊账"事件中达成一种"次优利润"的结果。传统社会的坚守和市场经济的冲击成为其存在的基础,最终,两者"互嵌"式的发展促进了乡村社会的转型。

Carle Polanyi puts forward the ‘embeddedness' theory,translating economic problems into the sociological interpretation framework,which constitutes a serious threat to the new classical economics. However,it is too ambitious and theoretical to be tested in experience. Based on the survey of agricultural markets in the ‘credit'behavior,the paper puts forward the concept of ‘mutually embedded'to deepen the concept of ‘embeddedness' for further empirical research in the medium level. The concept shows that the adaptation between grassroots society and market behind the credit behavior has become a kind of social facts. In the credit behavior,dealers experience the credit practices of ‘bookkeeping-remind-clear,credit and bad debt',farmers experience ‘credit-account settlement or debt bilking',which both lead to a ‘suboptimal profits' result. This is the ‘mutual embedded'development of the rural community and market rules.The survivance of the traditional society and the impact of the market economy both provide the basis for the existence of such credit. The mutual ‘embedded'development promotes the transformation of the rural society in the final analysis.