Chapter 10 Politics of inaction

People who talk about power can be more or less divided into two factions, with two views: one faction focuses on the aspect of social conflict, and the other focuses on the aspect of social cooperation; both have their own emphasis, and what they see is inevitably different. The place. From the perspective of social conflict, power is manifested in the form of master-subordinate among different social groups or classes.Those above have power, and they use their power to dominate those below, issue orders, and use their will to drive the actions of the dominated.Power, on this view, is the continuation of the conflict process, a temporary balance in a state of truce.The nature of the conflict has not disappeared, but the stage of force has passed, and the dominant side has surrendered and surrendered.But they did not willingly accept the conditions stipulated by the victors, and they were not convinced.Power then arises in the relationship between the two parties.Power is the means necessary to maintain this relationship, it is oppressive, it is the difference between upper and lower.From this point of view, the government, or even the national organization, if it holds such power, is a tool of the ruler.It can also be said that the government, and even the state organization, only exist in the process of class struggle.If one day the problem of "class struggle" is solved and there is no class distinction in society, the government and even national organizations will wither and fall to the ground like sycamore leaves in the autumn wind. — This kind of power we may call tyrannical power.

From the perspective of social cooperation, we see another nature of power.As a result of social division of labor, everyone cannot live without asking for help.The division of labor is beneficial to everyone, because it is the foundation of the economy. People can get more with less labor. Labor is a cost and a pain. People rely on the division of labor to reduce the burden of life and increase enjoyment.Enjoyment is certainly what people like to do, but if they are greedy for this kind of cheapness, everyone can no longer be self-sufficient, can't be alone, and can't ignore "nosy", because if others don't do their jobs in a good position, they will be will affect your own life.At this time, for my own sake, I have to stop interfering with others.Similarly, if you don't do your best, you will also affect others and be interfered by them.In this way, rights and duties have emerged. From the perspective of interfering with others, it is a right, and from the perspective of accepting interference from others, it is a duty.Everyone has the responsibility to maintain their work and to maintain mutual supervision.No one can "arbitrarily" do what they want to do according to their own pleasure, but have to abide by the work assigned by everyone.But what guarantee is there?What if someone doesn't obey?Here co-granting happens.The basis of this power is the social contract, consent.The more complex the social division of labor, the more this power will expand.If you don't want to be restricted by this kind of power, you can only be Robinson in the realm of "not asking for others", then you can really stand up to the sky.Otherwise, it would have to be a "small country with few people" in order to reduce power.To put it more clearly, we have to abandon economic interests, forget about enjoyment, and return to the primitive standard of living like Tarzan of the apes.Otherwise, this power will never be freed. — We may call this power the power of consent.

Both of these views are valid and do not conflict, because both kinds of power exist in human society, and on the factual level, the ruler, the so-called government, always represents these two kinds of power at the same time. differ in composition.The reason is that social division is not easy, at least according to past history, there is only cooperation but no conflict.These two processes are often intertwined and intertwined. There is cooperation in conflict, and conflict in cooperation. It is not very simple.So the above two natures of power are conceptual rather than de facto distinctions.If we want to understand the power structure of a community, we must analyze how these two powers cooperate.Some communities focus on one aspect, and some communities focus on that aspect; moreover, in a community, one kind of power relationship may occur among some people, and another kind of power relationship may occur between some people.For example, the United States, on the surface, favors consent power, but between races, in fact, tyrannical power is still at work.

Some people think that power itself is attractive, and people have "power hunger".This view ignores the instrumental nature of power.People may have pure desire for dominance or so-called Sadism (cruel hobby) because of some kind of psychopath, but this is not normal after all.What people like is the benefit that comes from power.If the power held in one's hands does not bring benefits, or if the benefits can be obtained without holding power, the temptation of power will not be too strong.For example, there was a public opinion poll in the UK, and the proportion of people who would like their children to be members of parliament or cabinet in the future is very low.Although the salaries of MPs or cabinet members in the UK are low, they are still rewarded with social honors. Most people are not eager to climb the ladder. , I am afraid that people like Xu Youwuguang in the world will not be surprised.

The most important reason why power attracts people is economic interests.Under the power of consent, those who hold power do not want to protect their own special interests, so the society must use honor and high salary to recruit them.As for the relationship between tyrannical power and economic interests, it is even closer.The rulers cannot use violence to maintain their position without purpose, and the purpose is hardly conceivably other than economic.We can easily say the other way around, if there is no economic benefit to be gained, violent power does not make much sense, so it is not easy to happen.

If group A wants to use power to rule group B to obtain economic benefits, there must be a prerequisite: the existence of group B can provide this benefit; to put it more clearly, the production of group B must be able to exceed its consumption, and then There is some left over to lure Group A to conquer him.This is extremely important.A person who only produces the consumer goods necessary for his survival does not qualify as a slave.I say this to point out the limits of tyrannical power in an agricultural society.When I was investigating in the Yao Mountains in Guangxi, I often saw that the Han people invaded and occupied the land of the Yao people, but did not conquer the Yao people as slaves.There are of course many reasons, but the main one, in my opinion, is that the land is too poor, and the Yao people who plant paddy fields are unwilling to lower their living standards and become tenants of the Han people.If the Yao people can't beat the Han people, they will give up their land and move to other places.In the struggle of agricultural nations, the most important way is to drive away the aborigines and occupy their land to cultivate themselves.This is especially the case when the population is already large, the labor force is self-sufficient, and the land use has reached the limit.When we read history, we can often find records such as "tens of thousands of people were killed". As for the rogues who killed anyone at sight, it was possible to encounter experience until not long ago.This situation is probably beyond the comprehension of industrial aggressive powers.

I am not saying that tyrannical power cannot be established on the basis of agricultural rural society.On the contrary, we often see this kind of society as the birthplace of imperial power, because the rural society is not a resistant organization.The aggression of agricultural peoples by nomadic peoples is a constant record in history.This is true, the agricultural plains in the east are the domain of the empire, but agricultural imperialism is weak, because the imperial power cannot grow and thrive, and the foundation for controlling a powerful and violent power is insufficient, and the surplus of agriculture decreases with the increase of the population. , and peace gives opportunities for population growth.

China's history can well support this view: an eloquent imperial power, in order to open up territories, build cities and repair rivers, these cannot be called tyranny, but can be regarded as an investment.There can be similarities with the nature of Roosevelt's Tennessee project.However, the agricultural economy that lacks savings can't bear the cost of this kind of project, and there is not enough surplus, so there are many complaints, and the land and the imperial power are embarrassing.This kind of promising imperial power had to strengthen his internal pressure at the same time, and the cost was even greater. Chen She, Wu Guang and his like rose up, and the world was in chaos.The people died everywhere, and the population decreased, so the long-term chaos will inevitably unite, and a situation is formed where there is nothing more attractive than rest. The imperial power seeks to do nothing, so-called nourishing the people.After a while, the imperial power gradually accumulated some power, and this power stimulated the emperor's ambitions, and the cycle began again.

In order to maintain the imperial power itself, in the historical experience, it found the survival value of "inaction" and established the ideal of inaction politics. The tyrannical power has this economic constraint, so at the distance of the sky-high emperor, the people's personal affairs in the rural society are given to the consenting power to operate.But consent power is limited by a set of economic conditions.As I said above, consent power is a product of the division of labor system.Only when the division of labor system is developed can this kind of power be expanded.Rural society is a small peasant economy.Economically, each farm family, except for salt and iron, can close its doors and support itself when necessary.So we can easily imagine that the scope of consent power can be as small as "closed doors".What we can see here is the power structure in rural society. Although it can be said to be "dictatorship" and "dictatorship" in name, except for the last emperor who did not want to continue, in terms of people's actual life, it is loose and weak. Yes, it is nominal, it is inaction.