The Expansion of Peasant Rationality: An Analysis of the Creators of the “China Miracle”*—Challenging Existing Theories and Proposing New Analytical Approaches

Abstract

在中国，农民占多数，长期以来农民被视为传统保守的力量。长期日常农业生产 方式下形成的农民理性，在农业社会内部的功效是有限的，主要是生存理性。而这种 理性以其惯性进入工商业社会后会形成扩张势态，产生一种农民理性与工业社会优势 结合的“叠加优势”，释放出传统农业社会和现代工商业社会都未有的巨大能量。要 理解“中国奇迹”，必须理解中国农民；要理解农民，必须理解农民理性。以农民理 性中的关键性词语来说明农民理性扩张是如何造就“中国奇迹”的，需要跳出传统与 现代二元对立的思维定式，高度重视社会变革中的民性民情民意。 关键词: 农民理性 中国奇迹 创造主体 The peasants, the majority of China's population, have always been seen as a traditional and conservative force. Formed over centuries of daily rural production activities, peasant rationality had limited efficacy within rural society and mainly functioned as a survival rationality. As rural society was transformed into industrial and commercial society, peasant rationality moved into the new society through inertia and expanded there. By combining with the advantages of the new society, it produced a kind of “superimposed advantage” that released enormous power unprecedented in both traditional rural society and modern industrial and commercial society. To comprehend the “China Miracle,” we must first understand the Chinese peasant. Similarly, to understand the peasants, we must first apprehend peasant rationality. To illustrate how the expansion of peasant rationality helped to create the “China Miracle,” it is imperative to discard the formula of tradition vs. modernity and to stress the character, attitudes and views of ordinary people in the process of social transformation.