Chapter 16 My way of writing is the solution

Interviewer: Zhu Yuchen Published time: March 2006 issue I think you are a witness of history first, and then turn around to study history, looking for the connection between history and reality.Your experience is very different from that of scholars from study to study, theory to theory.In your book, you also talked about your experience as a production team leader in the countryside.How has this experience influenced your historical research? The impact was great, and in some respects arguably decisive.This has to be said slowly. I have not been in the countryside for a long time, but the density is very high.Our production team has a total of 57 households with more than 220 people.At that time, the rural areas were militarized, and the production team consisted of a company and an instructor.I am the instructor. According to the rules at the time, the instructor is the leader.The captain and vice-captain always ask me to pick things up.Therefore, within two years, I will inevitably also serve as the captain of the production team.

I have experienced many rural things.The problems we have to face almost every day are stealing things here, who is not working hard on the other side, fined work points for quarreling, and who gets into fights with whom again.Sometimes it is necessary to divide the family members.The most troublesome problem is that the production team leader or other team cadres quit the job, and then I have to persuade others to do it, or persuade him to come back to do it.Why don't they do it?There's a lot of truth to be said here.How to pull others out to do it is a lot of reasoning. So what I faced was their deepest calculations, what were they thinking, why did they think so, and how to make them change their decisions?

You say the word "decision".It's a pretty trendy term.But when you faced these problems, what language and theory did you use to face them? Most of the problems I faced were problems that Mao Zedong Thought, that is, the theory of continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, could not solve or even describe.The books tell us that this is class struggle and line struggle, and it is the spontaneous capitalist tendency of the petty bourgeoisie or small production.In fact, it can be explained by the current popular economic principles, which is a serious "free-rider" phenomenon.

When I was writing Chen Yonggui’s book, I used this analogy: There are 80 households in Dazhai, and every time you plan 80 picks, one pick is yours.If you are lazy and skip 80 pickaxes, the loss allocated to you is only one pickaxe.This is a very powerful mechanism for passing on losses and apportioning labor income.This benefit mechanism motivates people to be lazy and punishes hard work.Unless the managers use very strong moral power or administrative pressure to make up for the 79 picks of interest incentives, they can make everyone work like they are in private plots.This is not class struggle in the classic sense.

At that time, everyone was a member of the People's Commune.It is said that the interests are the same.But I found that the poor peasants are often the most lazy, but the middle peasants are more diligent, and the landlords have the most handles and dare not be lazy.Can this be described by the concept of class struggle? Of course, not all poor and lower-middle peasants are lazy, but middle peasants are more rational and calculating, otherwise they would not be middle peasants.They don't work too badly.Among the poor peasants, some have done well and some have done very badly, which belong to the two extremes.However, those who dare to take advantage of the collective are poor peasants, and they are very hard-rooted poor peasants.

But the important difference between you and the elite intellectuals is that you recognize, affirm and even admire the inherent wisdom of farmers.You use a head-on perspective instead of looking down on them like an elite intellectual. Yes, I've fought farmers of all kinds for years, and I can't beat them.They are all good at calculating stakes and choosing strategies.I dare not say that I am better than them. Sometimes I can win a little bit, but overall I am a failure.People in the city look down on them. I think it's because they haven't dealt with them. In their environment, you try to fight them?

What faith did you belong to at that time?Does it conflict with reality? I have been extreme left since middle school, and even more extreme left in the countryside.When encountering these difficulties in describing and explaining, the first reaction was to look for classics, especially to distort the dispute between public and private into a struggle between the proletarian line and the bourgeois line. This is actually a very absurd approach. "Conflict between public and private" is very important in the Confucian concept system, and it is not a classic concept of Marx.We associate "private" with the bourgeoisie, and "public" with the proletariat, and use this to explain line struggle and class struggle.

But the more you read those classics seriously, the more you have to mutter: "Is that right? Is that so?" In the end, it was a complete collapse of a worldview.This is a process for many reasons. During the April 5th Incident in 1976, workers' militiamen rushed into Tiananmen Square with big sticks to beat people up.Some of my middle school classmates were assigned to factories as militiamen after graduation, and participated in the suppression at that time. The collapse of your world view that you felt at that time was the collapse of belief or the collapse of theory?Could it be that the theory of the time was completely incapable of grasping reality?

I have worked as a grassroots rural cadre for two years, and I am quite aware of the ills of the people's communes.But before I left the countryside, I could not provide material stimulation, let alone divide the fields and work alone, which was beyond my imagination.Then rely on ideological education and moral inspiration to make farmers work hard.There was darkness in front of me, and I knew it wasn't going to work. As long as it was related to material incentives and contracting, I was very ideologically opposed at the time, thinking that it was stimulating people's selfishness, and it was a road of capitalism, a road of strengthening private ownership. This happened to be Chen Yonggui's opposition. It is said when there is a big package.At the same time, I also have a vague feeling that it may be an inevitable path, and some compromises and concessions must be made like Lenin signed the Brest Treaty.This is how I arrange some theoretical revisions within a very "left" framework.The theoretical system at that time could only understand and accommodate the big contract in this "concession" way.

The problem cannot be solved. Intellectually, I can no longer believe in the original thing, but I cannot reverse it in terms of faith, and I really want to get the approval of the authority.I once dreamed of Chairman Mao twice.Confucius said that he was old, and he hadn't dreamed of Duke Zhou for a long time, and he was very depressed.When I dreamed of Chairman Mao, I was arguing with Chairman Mao. My parents used to watch a play in Huairen Hall, and Chairman Mao was three rows away. This kind of scene somehow came into my dream.I dreamed that Chairman Mao was sitting slightly to the right of the middle, so I poked my head over and said to Chairman Mao, "Chairman Mao, can I say a few words to you?"

Chairman Mao said: "You tell me." So I rolled over two rows of chairs and sat next to Chairman Mao, and said, "It really doesn't work like this in the countryside. I tried it seriously, and it really doesn't work..." Chairman Mao looked at me very suspiciously.I'm going to tell him why it doesn't work and where it doesn't work. I have to make necessary compromises and concessions like Lenin did, and I have to make concessions to small producers.But I didn't know where to start when I was full of words, so I woke up.I dreamed of Chairman Mao to introduce the real situation to him, and I dreamed of persuading him.This was when I was in college in 1980. From your experience in the countryside, I get the impression that you believe that everyone has "bounded rationality".Any system leaves a certain space for everyone, allowing everyone who occupies the grid to use their limited rationality to play games.The problem is that our historical system has been distorting these limited rationalities, and it can even be said to be against human nature, so there will be "hidden rules".Am I understanding this right? This is a bit too big. What I understand is this: For example, if there is a market transaction, if you think it is not suitable, you can withdraw, so all transactions completed here are win-win.The problem is that there is a kind of transaction that is not win-win, nor can it be withdrawn at will. That is not a market transaction, but a road robbery, money or life?This kind of transaction is definitely a transaction where one side loses and the other side wins. Is it rational to say that bandits rob and sacrifice their lives to grab things?Not only the Chinese people, but the whole world has shown a kind of respect for what is obtained by hard work: "It is obtained by conquering the world, and it is not easy for others." The world bought with 30 million heads, you can't use a few A million heads to exchange?We have to accept this account. In this sense, it is also human nature.It was you who risked your life and you got paid what you deserved, and there's a part of the rationale to that.But there is only half of the rationality here, and the other half is a net loss of unreasonableness. In Chinese history, there is a lot of room for the use of violence to harm others and harm others.In historically formal institutions, there are even plenty of safeguards for these actions.Those officials can use their public power to harm others and gain their own personal gain, with very little risk.The principle of public rights harming people and bandits harming people is actually the same, both are backed by violence.Violence does not create new things. It is different from production and trading. It only grabs stock and does not add increment.Moreover, in the process of robbing, it will also stimulate the opponent's evasion or resistance, resulting in higher consumption-I must kill a chicken to scare the monkey. There must be a net loss before that - you don't believe I'm going to burn down the house, do you?As soon as I set fire to the house, these people will believe me next time and hand over the money.The house that burns is the net loss.Let alone murder.Kill a few, even the buried gold and silver can be knocked out. This method of making money has been very successful in Chinese society. For example, the water pumps led by Liu Jin have all started using this method.The widely popular unspoken rules are actually a profit distribution system formed by utilizing these legitimate harm rights. After graduating from college, you become a journalist and do it for ten years.This journalistic writing style can also be seen in your books now. You always tell a historical story quietly, so that everyone listens with gusto and smiles knowingly, and then you start to tell your truth, let Readers are overwhelmed.I always feel that what you talk about is common sense, which is the result of deductive logic of common sense.Do you feel that what you write is a theory or common sense?Is it a theory that contains a lot of common sense information? I think it contains a lot of theoretical common sense.The stories I tell are actually stories that happen in many places, and no one will doubt its authenticity. What I do is to tell this story once, and then abstract it to break it. When you tell a story, I feel that you use a lot of tools, such as history, news, literature, economics and so on.Where do your economic tools come from? When I was in middle school, I was good at mathematics, physics and chemistry, and I was not too afraid of theory.When I was a reporter, I went to the Central Party School to study for half a year and received some training in economics.The main reason is that I read a lot of books on economics when I was trading in stocks.It is very effective to apply what you have learned, because it is immediately related to losing money and making money. In fact, if you read my book carefully, there are not many economic tools used.One is "benefit" and "harm", and the cost-benefit calculation is carried out.Anyone can count, any child or old man can count.The second one has something to do with economics, which is marginal analysis, marginal cost and marginal benefit, explaining clearly what each new part is like, whether it is a loss or a gain, and everything else is common sense.In short, it is very simple, nothing more than I always settle accounts for others.I don't even bother to use economics terms. What other analytical tools did you use? There are also some game theory things. In fact, I just know how to calculate the Nash equilibrium.Based on the knowledge of game theory I know, it is not enough when it is really used to analyze history, and many concepts are simply not there.I just pulled in the Go stuff. Let's take Go as an example.If we use game theory to analyze, two stakeholders play a game, each seeks the best strategy, avoids the truth and pretends to be false, you are you, and I am me, the identity remains the same, and the rules are also predetermined and unchanged. But look at the actual history.In actual history, the rules themselves are subject to change, not given. What it looks like needs to be analyzed.The rule itself is a consequence, not a premise. We still use the word "transaction" to talk about history.History is different from Go. The identity of any party in the transaction is not certain and will change.When both sides of the game find that changing the way is more conducive to survival and development, they change: farmers can become bandits, bandits can become farmers, and bandits can become officials.In addition, there are changes in quantity. A peasant can become a group of peasants, and a bandit can become an army. Making things becomes something else. The subject can change during the game. I don’t know how game theory can deal with this problem. I don’t know much about game theory. I’m afraid this problem is too complicated for current game theory to deal with.For any player, if the rules change, his nature will also change, or if his identity changes, the rules will change accordingly, and his strategy will also change at the same time... This is a guy who is interconnected in many aspects. You must If you want to use game theory to explain it, you may be able to fool people. But if you use Go and your understanding of life to explain it, it will be very clear that life is like this. So when I use game theory, I just understand its interaction and equilibrium ideas. In the actual application process, I randomly modify and add oil and vinegar. As a result, what has this thing become?I call it "historical study of situational view"—it regards things as a bureau, and the bureau itself is a field and a field where two or more subjects are related.Its key is a relationship, not a blank space formed by placing the chessboard here.If we fight against each other, it is called a game, and the relationship in the game is called a "game". I regard history as such an ever-changing relationship in the game.This "historical view of the situation" is my name, the methodology I invented, the methodology I can consciously realize, and my writing method is the method of "solving the situation", constantly dismantling the situation-who is playing with whom?What strategy was used?Under what rules did it happen?How does the rule deform as the game progresses?How do the respective subjects deform during the deformation process?How are the benefits distributed?What benefits are generated?What benefits are lost?How do the parties in the game analyze and understand the situation? For example, if a telecommunications company and the Ministry of Information Industry fight, the relationship between them is a bureau; once the State Council wants to regulate the industry and affect their common interests, they will immediately unite to become a stakeholder, and if they fight with the State Council, this will change the situation; if they Teaming up to pinch the common people has become another round. The dialectical materialism of Marxism says that things move in universal relations, which is a big statement.What is universal connection?How did you get in touch?If you use this "bureau" to explain it, it should be clear.The main contact is the secondary contact, and no random contact is allowed.Who is connected with whom can be quantitatively analyzed in a specific "bureau".Once they want to form an alliance to deal with a new interest subject, the relationship between them will immediately begin to deform, and their cooperation in this field will increase.If the two of them are working against each other, the elements of their cooperation will decrease, and the elements of confrontation and competition will increase.Once an agreement is formed between them, their respective tricks are exhausted, and a boundary is formed, they will stabilize and an equilibrium state will be generated. In the process of solving the game, you can clearly explain the quite complex, different levels of connections, and the connections between different games. Sometimes the game is suddenly expanded, and you can enter the interaction between human beings and nature or other species; Sometimes it is very small, as small as a small friction in the family. This tool can be used to expand and contract freely, and I think it is very convenient. All real history is contemporary history, and the stories of the past that you have repeatedly written can be confirmed by the stories of the present.You can keep finding exactly the same stories in contemporary history, modern history, and ancient history. Do you disagree with the division of historical stages in the past? That division is very problematic.What I can see is one thing after Qin and Han, and another before Qin and Han.Three generations like that.The twentieth century is the same again. According to the ancient Chinese saying, the three generations are called feudalism, a system of enfeoffment, where the big king and the little king are built on top of each other, with scholar-bureaucrats underneath. After "abolishing feudalism and establishing prefectures and counties", it can be said that a new historical situation has begun.From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the present, not many things have been changed. Mao Zedong also said that "a hundred generations will follow the Qin political system."In fact, there is still a change, that is, the party state and the empire are not the same.Sun Yat-sen modeled the Soviet Union to establish a party-state system. In this case, there are three big historical outlines, the enfeoffment before the Qin and Han Dynasties, the empire from the Qin and Han Dynasties to the late Qing Dynasty, that is, the Jiatianxia, ​​and the Dangtianxia after the Republic of China.Such three states. In fact, there used to be a saying of "official world": "The three emperors rule the world, and the five emperors belong to the world".The official meaning of the official world is public, the official world is passed down to the virtuous, and the family world is passed down to the son.The problem is that the "official world" is an unstable state, and it may be passed on to others.The "party world" after the Republic of China is also in an unstable state, because everyone is an agent, who owns this world?Everyone is an agent, and no one is responsible, which is very dangerous for society. However, according to your article, for example, Liu Jin of the Ming Dynasty was an agent, and you compared him to a "water pump".There is also a small "pump" below, rumbling, they are all agents. The characteristic of "official world" is that there is no master.At that time, Liu Jin still had a master. In the history of Rome, an emperor complained, saying that these ministers, as long as they are for their own interests, they can unite to deceive me.That is a minister at the level of the Politburo.This kind of emotion is very similar to Chongzhen's emotion - regardless of whether it is the first assistant, a bachelor, or a partner to lie to me. Under the condition that there is no master in the world, this problem does not exist.Why lie to you?Can't we just pull you into the water and do it together?Why am I lying to you?You have to have a boss before you need to cheat.It's like a private boss who never takes kickbacks. This is mine, and the business is mine. Don't talk about kickbacks with me.With the agency structure of department managers and deputy managers, there will be kickbacks. In fact, when we look into it more specifically, different periods of the same dynasty are also different.In the early days of the dynasty, it was "small farmers-officialism".The government must rely on those who care about production and collect taxes from them. This "they" are farmers.In the later period, it became "landlord-officialism", and the officials still had the final say.Can the landlord have the final say?Sometimes landlords have influence, because their interests have influence on officials, and they may also be bureaucrats themselves. Bureaucrats rely on landlords to collect taxes. "Landlord-officialism" was more appropriate in the imperial era.In modern times, it is not so appropriate, and the influence of landlords is gradually not as good as that of industry and commerce.This principle is especially obvious when we look at it now. Does the landlord still have influence?Now there are no agricultural landlords in China, and the entire agricultural output value is insignificant.The biggest influence on China is capital.The question is, is it the capitalists who have the final say, or the officials who have the final say?It's still the officials who have the final say.Mr. Wu Jinglian said that we should be vigilant against "crown capitalism", he said it very well, and he made a point.If China is capitalism, it is crony capitalism.But China is not capitalist, and capitalists have no say in this country. Therefore, it is better to reverse this concept, and it should be said to be "capitalism and aristocracy" rather than aristocracy capitalism.But this statement is still not accurate enough.Power and authority is a very broad concept. Who is the power and authority?Who is "ism"?Still official.Therefore, to be more accurate, I think it is still "officialism" of capital. The difference from before is that in the past it was "small peasant-officialism" or "landlord-officialism", and the officials most needed to listen to the voice and opinions of the landlords.Landlords were successful in the owner-peasant economic system and the economic system at that time.Not so now.Some bureaucrats now have the identity of capital operation, and his identity of capital operation and official status overlap in various ways, either by himself or by his sons and daughters.In any case, they don't issue land contracts to collect rent as in the past, but work capital, because they find that work capital is a good business with high returns. When we use "ism" to name society, China has always been "officialism".Whether it is an empire or a party state after the Republic of China.The difference is that the tax-paying groups that the government relies on are changing. In the past, they were small farmers, landlords, and later capitalists.Bureaucracy is not the same as bureaucracy, bureaucrats are agents, and officials mean to be the masters of the country. "Guanjia" is an polysemy, and we should make good use of this polysemy. Would you like to predict the future?Maybe this question is silly for a historian. Can you predict the stock market?Do you think the stock market will rise or fall tomorrow?Will a certain stock go up or down a week later?Can't tell.But if it is said that this time next year, the probability of guessing correctly is much higher if the rough outline is predicted for a long time. My prediction is that China will move towards democratization, which cannot be stopped within a generation or two. Sooner or later, the "official world" will become "the civil world" and become a democratic society. The combination may be very complicated.But the status of officials will be reduced and restricted. Another prediction is that the shortage of resources and population pressure will make China very different from the United States and Japan. It may be necessary to use technological creation to compensate for the shortage of resources, or it may use ideological creation to curb consumption and compensate for the shortage of resources. It may be the creation of multiple systems, which are in harmony with nature.This new form of civilization is different from the past. Do you have an ideal mother parent? There are many mothers of a democratic society, whether it is the United States or France.However, in terms of the relationship between man and nature, I really can't see any mother parent.I'm not even sure we'll find a new path, I can only be cautiously optimistic. Now your identity is the editor-in-chief of a magazine.You are someone who writes history outside of the field of historians.What do you think of current historical research? To be honest, I am not familiar with current historical research.I have no training in history, except in the history of literature. However, I used a lot of historical research results, such as literature and history materials.Once I want to find something, I read books in this area, at least it gave me a lot of help in sorting out data.Another example is some special research, about private salt and ceramics, which are all helpful to me. That is to say, you have your own system to get through the social sciences, and history is just a carrier? Not quite.History itself is a source of creativity and inspiration.I had this feeling early on that when you face life, such as your interviews, the complexity, richness and delicacy of life itself contains powerful creativity.Facts and truths have the creative power to break through any theoretical dogma. History is not merely a vehicle for theories and frameworks, it creates them.A good historical theory comes from rich facts and historical facts, and history is not only a carrier but also a source of theory. I keep digging into history because it's so concentrated.If you go to interview now, it may take 20 days to clarify an important matter, but in history, you can spend 5 days to track such things repeatedly and discover their causes and consequences. The last question is about identity positioning.What is the most precise positioning you give yourself? Wu Si (laughs, the first time there was a long pause): It’s really hard to define, if I have to say, I’m an editor, but an editor is not a writer, a writer?A writer in the conventional sense is not like me. I can be regarded as a calculator in Chinese society.