Chapter 8 Rebuilding understanding of Chinese history

Interviewer: Gu Yun Published time: October 28, 2003 "Shenzhen Business Daily" A new term should also be mentioned - meta-rules.According to your statement, "All the rules are established, in the final analysis, to follow one fundamental rule: the most violent has the final say. This is a 'meta-rule', the rule that determines the rules." Does this mean that it actually Is it the creative fundamental principle governing the entire view of history based on the "hidden rules" and "the law of blood rewards"? "Meta-rules" naturally determine "hidden rules" and various other rules.Whoever has a strong ability to truly harm can expand the boundaries of his own interests.But the law of blood reward is the connotation of meta-rules, not two things. What the "Law of Blood Pay" discusses is the exchange of life and survival resources. "Meta-rules" means that violence determines the distribution rules of survival resources, adding a rule factor, that is, using blood and life to create the distribution rules of survival resources, and using violence to protect these rules.Is it worthwhile or not to use violence in this way and exchange life for resources?Gained or lost?This needs to be calculated according to the "law of blood reward".

"Meta-rules" can explain major institutional changes and seem to have fundamental significance, but I dare not say that this is the most fundamental.Which is more fundamental, productivity or violence?I didn't think it through, so I couldn't answer well.It seems that productivity is more important, violence itself does not create value.But not necessarily.If we look further, the monkeys do not plant trees, but only pick fruits. The violent groups and individuals can obtain richer survival resources and survive in the survival of the fittest.Perhaps it is wrong to ask the most fundamental way of thinking, just like the way of thinking about the question "which came first, the chicken or the egg".There is yin and yang, and yin and yang correspond to each other, and there is no precedence.

Maybe you are right, the ebb and flow of yin and yang is a common law in the world.However, I still don't understand one thing. The core connotation of "meta rules" is "the most violent has the final say." This sentence seems familiar, but in the process of reading the work, it makes people feel completely new.I can't tell why this is, can you explain the subtleties? Probably because of the thoroughness of the theory.Marx said that only thorough theory can conquer people.Carrying out a logic to the end, using this logic to explain many historical phenomena, and interrelated phenomena, is obviously more powerful than a single or two proverbs, and it is easier to leave a deep impression on people.What's more, the phrase "the most violent has the final say" has not been integrated into any social and historical theory, at least I don't know of such a theory. "Hobbesian Jungle" is very famous, but its basis is the theory of contract, everyone discusses it, and "the most violent person has the final say" just happens to hit you without discussion.Mao Zedong said that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun", which was regarded as heresy by the orthodox theory of Marxism-Leninism represented by the Soviet Union, because Marxism-Leninism does not promote violence so much.And Mao Zedong’s words are also placed within the historical materialist framework of productivity and production relations, economic base and superstructure, classes and class struggle. Not that fundamental.

Reading, I am particularly interested in the content about the folk and the bottom.For example, "Common People Use Hidden Weapons", it is said that the common people have their own "calculation of interests and harms". This principle just explains the confusion you encountered in Dazhai that you mentioned above. "Selling Heroes" further illustrates the contest between justice and "calculation of interests".There are countless examples in history. I think the article on "Earth Tyrant Order" is also very meaningful.In the past two years, when explaining the phenomenon of the underworld, academic circles often refer to "Sicilianization". This statement is an improvement, because it proposes a model of civil violence to control society.The disadvantage is that the political system of contemporary Sicily is different from ours, and the survival and development strategies of the underworld are also different.China has such a rich history, if we can discover the pattern of civil violence controlling society from our own history, and explain the ins and outs clearly, wouldn't it be more explanatory?

There are also several articles, such as "Hard Partner Enterprises" and "The Value of Foreign Flags", mentioned that the abnormal transaction costs that enterprises had to pay at that historical stage still have practical significance that cannot be ignored today.Can you talk about the implications of these two stories for improving the market economy? These two stories portray a kind of enterprise with Chinese characteristics.I don’t know if you have noticed, but Chinese companies actually have hierarchical status.According to the public statement, everyone should be equal, and everyone should be equal as a legal person. However, if the enterprise is run by the son of the county magistrate, he can enjoy the privileges that ordinary people in the county can't enjoy at all like the county magistrate.In the same way, royal enterprises have royal privileges, and underworld enterprises have the privileges actually enjoyed by underworld figures.Every enterprise has its own identity and corresponding rights, and the weakest is the civilian identity without any hard relationship.In China, identity is an element of what constitutes a business.

Coase, the Nobel laureate in economics, defined the enterprise based on the contract theory.But the contractual relationship is not innate, just as the so-called natural human rights cannot actually fall from the sky.The establishment of a contractual relationship requires real and strict conditions, that is, methods such as fraud, theft, or violence are not cost-effective, and are not as cost-effective as free trade.Before this condition is met, Chinese enterprises are not enterprises in the sense of Western economics. When talking about the academic masters of Western thought, you have already mentioned "based on contract theory", and you are very disapproving.So, what do you think it should be based on?

There is a deeper way of understanding history, a more flexible and broad wisdom.Although there are different terms and names in different eras, the idea is generally the same.For example, yin and yang and five elements, the mutual generation and mutual restraint of one thing and the other, what is this theory?Yin and Yang theory?Fighting theory?There is also the theory of contradiction that we are all familiar with, and what is popular today is game theory, or game theory, etc., both in ancient and modern China and abroad.In comparison, contract theory is narrower.If both parties in a martial arts can choose one hundred moves, only ten are included in the circle of contract theory.You can bargain, but you are not allowed to cheat, use a knife, smash glass, or fly a plane into a building.As an ideal norm, what should be, research based on contract theory is certainly good, but our goal is to explain history realistically.Standing on the narrow basis of contract theory, understanding society and explaining history will inevitably be stretched.

In addition to and, what other works have you created? My first book was a survey on the rise of the self-employed in China, written together with Wang Tai, the deputy editor-in-chief of "Farmers' Daily", published by Minzu Publishing House in 1987.The second is "How to Make a Truce with Your Children", which I took the lead in translating, which was published by China Social Sciences Press in early 1992.The third is "Chen Yonggui Ups and Downs in Zhongnanhai——An Experiment to Transform China", published by Huacheng Publishing House in 1993. What are your personal hobbies?

read. In the middle and late 1960s, because the school was closed for a long time, I was locked at home by my parents. While taking care of my younger brother, I read books in a mess, mainly novels and memoirs.The reading hobby was probably developed at that time.Since then, for more than 30 years, I have read books in my spare time, and I can't put them down.In the middle, I became addicted to playing Go for a few years, which delayed my study, and then quit. Can you start a bibliography and talk about books that have influenced your thinking? The first book, I was very reluctant, but I have to admit that it had a great influence on me.At the age of seventeen, I copied Paul's famous saying "Life belongs to us only once" on the title page of the diary.Around the age of 20, I put this book by my pillow and often read the section of Paul Xiu Railway.At that time, I was building roads in the mountains. The work I did was similar to that of Paul. It was trivial and difficult, and I couldn’t get enough to eat. I really needed to support myself with words such as the meaning of life.

However, when I re-read this book six years ago, I couldn't bear to read it.I was taken aback by Paul's narrowness and conceit.Could this be my idol back then?How could I try to imitate this kind of person?I feel very embarrassed.I wouldn't recommend this book to my daughter, and I won't read it again, unless it's to find fault and say bad things. The second, Tolstoy's or Anna Karenina.In the protagonists Andre, Pier and Levin, I saw my own soul.I think Tolstoy's sentences can go straight to the bottom of my heart, allowing me to live a few more times in different states.

The third book, "Three Hundred Tang Poems".This book is a representative of Chinese classical poetry. I have already flipped through one, and I will read it again and again in the future.Ancient poems can quickly mobilize my sense of the vicissitudes of life and call out my "fundamental anxiety".Life is short, and time is fleeting. This kind of feeling makes people feel profound and heavy, surpassing the flies and dogs, and entering the depths of good fortune, so that words are few and far between.Nineteen Ancient Poems, Song Ci, and Yuan Qu also have similar functions. The fourth book, Becker's "Resisting Death".This book has influenced me more than the works of various schools of psychology.This book, along with Tillich's The Courage to Be, helped me understand the human heart and human nature—beyond the peculiarities of animals. After reading this book 10 years ago, I was amazed and never read psychology books again. The fifth book.Zhuangzi paints a wonderful picture of life and the universe that can pull us out of the quagmire of ego and awkwardness, and allow us to face the issues that matter most without sinking so deep that we forget our true place in the universe. The sixth book, "Microeconomics", any one.Although the book analyzes the market, the reason is clear and the analysis is exquisite, which is of great help to my understanding of the general state of the human heart and the equilibrium state of interpersonal relationships.After reading it, I felt astigmatism with glasses. The seventh book, "Institutional Economics", any one.Using the clarity and rationality of microeconomics to analyze institutional changes is a good skill that history can borrow. Once you understand this kind of thinking, it is difficult to forget it. The eighth book, by Huang Renyu. When I read this book in early 1986, I felt that history could still be written like this.Years later I also turned to history, somewhat influenced by this book.I also imitated the writing style of this book, but it was not as smooth as my original writing style, so I had to give up.As for the depth of writing, the light of "image is greater than thought" leaves readers with room for opinions, and there is generally no problem.However, when it comes time to say a few hard words to explain history, Mr. Huang's generalizations are often scarred. The ninth book, Linda's.This book allowed me to understand the essence and evolution history of the United States and its political and legal system.The most rare thing is that I feel that I seem to have lived in that world with Linda, and I have learned and thought very deeply. If I refine it further, beyond professional or professional needs, among the above-mentioned books, "Three Hundred Tang Poems" and "Tang Poems" are the most important to me, followed by Tolstoy's books.There is no limit to knowledge, but there is only one soul, which cannot be allowed to wither. What books have influenced your approach to analyzing history?Is it because of the introduction of new methods such as institutional economics in the work that the work is so unique? Microeconomics and New Institutional Economics have influenced me, as have game theory and evolution.Many ideas in biology, behavior, ecology also influence me.Ancient Chinese sages, such as Han Feizi and Sun Tzu, were very good at calculating benefits and harms, and their calculations of benefits and harms also had a great influence on me.However, as a philosophy of history, historical materialism is the most familiar to us, and it is the background color of school education.When I analyze and write, I must deal with the relationship with historical materialism, accept or partially accept it, and if I want to adjust it, I need to come up with a reason.In this sense, the most influential one is historical materialism. Being unique is probably caused by "nondescript".My book says that literature is not literature, that history is not history, and that social theory is not social theory.The classification code of the first edition of my same book was essays and essays, which belonged to literature, and the classification of the second edition was changed to social issues.But when I went to the National Library to check it, it was placed on the shelf of general history.I don't rely on institutionalized academics for a living, and dare to write on my own accord, based on my interests and my understanding of readers' interests, so I have this kind of "non-donkey and non-horse" stuff. What do you think is the significance of the work you do? Re-understand Chinese history and reconstruct the interpretation of Chinese history.The explanations of the past are not enough to answer the questions of the contemporary people, and as a result, the Chinese people have fallen into a situation of aphasia in the face of their own history.We can't find the right words, and it's not easy to tell where we came from and where we are now.So it is not easy for us to know who we are.For a nation, it is too serious a problem if it does not know itself, cannot understand itself, and cannot explain its own problems clearly.