What is the community street residential system?

After the founding of New China, China has gradually established an urban grass-roots social management system ("street residence system") with "unit system" as the mainstay and grass-roots management as the supplement. The state manages employees through the organizational form of units, and manages social idlers, civil relief and social special care recipients through the street residence system, thus realizing the control and integration of all social members in the city and achieving the purpose of social stability and consolidating political power. However, after the economic and social transformation in China, the unit system was gradually broken, and the unit management mode tended to fail. Due to the great changes in grass-roots society, the street residential system is also facing many practical problems and is in trouble in management. Therefore, urban grass-roots society urgently needs a new organizational form and management system to solve the problems and contradictions in society and assume the function of reintegrating society. The emergence of community system is an inevitable requirement, which has changed the traditional ideas and methods of urban grass-roots social management, and will certainly play an important role in the future development of urban society in China.

Unit system: entering history

The unit system is the product of social management after the founding of New China. Unit is a special organizational form established to adapt to the planned economic system. It has the trinity function of politics, economy and society, and has the characteristics of administration, closure and oneness. The formation of the unit system has its historical background, which played an important role in social integration at that time, but it also brought institutional consequences and created a holistic society and dependent personality. After the reform and opening up in China, the ownership structure has changed, the socialist market economic system has been gradually established, and the social mobility has also increased rapidly, resulting in the gradual disintegration of the unit system and the loss of the historical stage.

(A) the background of the unit system

1, empirical inertia. After China's * * * production party seized the national political power by "encircling the cities from the countryside", its focus shifted to the cities, but our party has no experience in urban social management. Facing the problem of how to organize the broad masses of the people to carry out socialist construction, our party can only look for it from the past military organization experience. During the war years, our party formed a special management system, namely "public servant" management. All public officials with party member as the core, including members of the Party and mass organizations, the army, political institutions and public enterprises and institutions, have a supply system, which extends to clothing, food, housing, transportation, school, health, old age, illness, death and disability. [1] This management system has enabled our party and army to maintain a strong fighting capacity and win the national struggle. After the founding of New China, although the supply system implemented for many years was gradually changed to the wage system, the management mode of "public servant" was continued through the unit system. Moreover, during the Great Leap Forward, our party also extended this form of social management to the whole country, and launched the people's commune movement in cities and rural areas, trying to bring all the people into the people's commune, a new social organization integrating production, exchange, distribution and people's welfare.

2. The pressure of reality. After the founding of New China, China's * * * production party faced the "all-round crisis" of China's political disintegration and social disintegration since the late Qing Dynasty [2]. On the one hand, after the late Qing Dynasty, China fell into a chaotic situation in which foreign enemies invaded and warlords scuffled constantly. The central government became increasingly powerful and the pace of modernization was difficult. On the other hand, the traditional social order has been destroyed, and the whole society has fallen into an unprecedented chaos. The power of the people is in a state of "a bag of potatoes" and cannot be completely condensed. To end the chaos, restore social order and put China's economic and political development on a normal track, the first task is to organize the whole society and build an effective organizational system, so the unit system became the best way to choose at that time.

3. Ideal requirements. After a century of humiliation and war, the newborn China is devastated, lacking in resources and with a large population. But in order to prove the superiority of socialism urgently and enter the capitalist society as soon as possible, we are under heavy pressure to catch up. Therefore, the whole country should play a game of chess, get rid of the backward situation as soon as possible, establish its own industrialization system in the shortest time, develop rapidly, and catch up with and surpass the level of developed countries. This is our good wish, and to realize this ideal, we must have a strong mobilization mechanism and resource allocation mechanism to concentrate the huge population and limited resources in the country, so it is natural to choose the unit system.

(2) the function of the unit system.

In a sense, the unit system is a set of social organization system to deal with the grim situation after the founding of New China and solve the "overall crisis". For the operation of the highly centralized political system at that time, the implementation of the highly centralized planned economic system and the integration of the whole social order, the unit system provided a very efficient guarantee from the organization and played an important role, and its historical significance was undeniable.

1, political mobilization. The political function of units in the unit system is very prominent. Every unit (whether it is a public institution or an enterprise) has a certain administrative level. Every unit is composed of cadres and workers, and every unit exists as a "component" in the administrative system. Each unit has become the leading force of political mobilization by establishing a sound party-mass organization. Therefore, the party and the government can organize the masses to participate in various political movements on a large scale through the efficient political mobilization mechanism of the unit and the top-down administrative means to realize the principles and policies of the party and the government. With the help of highly administrative unit organizations, the party and the government have strong political mobilization ability, and can directly face the people in strategic deployment and realize the realistic actions of the people throughout the country.

2. Economic development. Under the planned economy system, the state controls almost all resources, and the state regulates and allocates resources through various units and organizations. The party and the government make every grass-roots unit belong to its own superior unit by compiling the unit affiliation network, so that the superior unit can fully control and dominate the subordinate units, which in turn belong to the central and provincial and municipal administrative departments. Therefore, the party and the government can assign tasks to subordinate units through superior units, and allocate and allocate manpower, material resources and financial resources. The unit system has played an important role in concentrating scarce resources and putting them into key areas of modernization, effectively ensuring the smooth implementation of national strategic intentions and laying a good foundation for the rapid establishment of China's industrialization system.

3. Social control. Comrade Mao Zedong attaches great importance to people's strength, emphasizes people's organization, and once called for "uniting the people" ... We should further organize. We should organize the vast majority of people in China to participate in political, military, economic, cultural and other organizations to overcome the unorganized state of old China ... "[③] The unit system should reflect this requirement. In the state of low productivity at the beginning of the founding of New China, the whole social life was highly organized through the systems of "full employment", labor insurance and welfare, housing allocation and children's enrollment. Almost all people in the country are under the control of administrative power, and the tentacles of the country extend to every corner of the country and every field of social life, and the whole society has achieved a high degree of integration.

(C) the consequences of the unit system

In the process of playing its historical role, the unit system inevitably produces a series of consequences, which some scholars call "institutional consequences" [4]. The author believes that the consequences of unit manufacturing can be summarized in two aspects: first, as far as the whole society is concerned, a "whole society" has been formed [5]; Second, as far as individuals in society are concerned, there is a dependent personality.

1, the whole society. Guma and others pointed out that after 1949, the mainland established a whole society, that is, a society with a low degree of structural differentiation. In this kind of society, the state monopolizes the economy and various social resources, and the three centers of politics, economy and ideology are highly coincident, and the state power exercises comprehensive control over the society. [6] and the formation of the whole society is achieved through the organizational intermediary of the unit system. Specifically, first of all, with the help of a strict organizational system, the country's mobilization ability is extremely strong, and it can mobilize the country's human and material resources to achieve a certain economic construction and national development goal. Secondly, the unit system is highly organized. In the past, the three-tier structure of "state-folk elite-people" has become a two-tier structure of "state-people". The country directly faces the people, so it can directly transmit all kinds of information to the people, but the people have no effective form to realize bottom-up communication, and the social order depends entirely on the strength of state control. Thirdly, the unit phenomenon makes the whole social life tend to be politicized and administrative, and the social subsystems lack the conditions for independent operation. The whole society promoted by the unit system overcame the overall crisis of "fragmented sand" in old China, but with the arrival of social transformation in China, the disadvantages of the unit system gradually exposed, and the whole society came to an end.

2. Dependent personality. The unit system realizes the high dependence of unit members on the unit through resource monopoly and space closure, and creates the dependent personality of unit members. First of all, under the unit system, the resources controlled by the state are distributed through units. For the members of the unit, the unit is the only source of living welfare, not only from the unit, but also from housing, non-staple food subsidies, pensions, relief funds, medical security and so on. Because there is no free flow of resources outside the system, leaving the unit means losing everything. Units not only control economic resources, but also control political resources and social resources. The unit has opportunities to promote cadres, join the party and study abroad; Unit is the definer of individual social status and identity legitimacy. Without the certificate issued by the company, you can't register for marriage, apply for divorce, travel, buy air tickets or even stay in hotels. The unit also solves the employment problem of employees and their children. Secondly, the unit system also limits the living space of members. On the one hand, the unit meets the basic needs of its members by providing various welfare facilities, such as schools, hospitals, canteens and bathrooms. Some large units also have special unit compound, and the unit personnel live together day and night. This self-sufficiency in the unit greatly reduces the possibility of people outside the unit. On the other hand, there is no room for the free flow of unit members. The unit firmly fixes everyone in every post, "can enter but can't leave, can't go up and down", and it is very difficult to mobilize the work. There is little mobility in the whole society, so the living space of each unit member is relatively stable and closed. Generally speaking, a unit forms a dominant relationship with its members by monopolizing political, economic and social resources; By strictly controlling the social free flow of unit members, the space of unit members is closed. Without free-flowing resources and free-flowing space, the members of the unit only rely on the unit in an all-round way, and finally form a dependent personality. (3) Community (Management) Committee: namely, the "executive layer", which is the executive body elected by the community members' assembly. A community committee shall have a director, deputy directors and several members, usually 3-6. Committee is the actual organizer and implementer of community work.

3. Jianghan model. This refers to the experience of community system practice in Jianghan District, Wuhan, which is characterized by actively changing government functions. Based on the Shenyang model, Jianghan District repositioned the community as "smaller than the street, larger than the neighborhood committee". Through democratic consultation and election according to law, community self-governing organizations have been established, that is, community members' assembly, community neighborhood committee and community consultation meeting (unlike Shenyang model, Jianghan model does not regard community consultation meeting as a permanent institution of community members' assembly), which clearly puts forward the goal of community self-government, and the path to achieve this goal is to transform government functions and cultivate community self-government. Its main approach is:

(1) straighten out the relationship between community neighborhood committees, streets and government departments, clarify responsibilities, and ensure the autonomy of community neighborhood committees. It is clear that the relationship between neighborhood committees and sub-district offices is the relationship between guidance and help, service and supervision, not the relationship between administrative levels. Redefine the responsibilities of street administrative departments and community organizations, and streets are responsible for administrative management and undertake administrative tasks; Neighborhood committees are responsible for community autonomy, no longer sign a target responsibility form with the streets, and have the right to refuse unreasonable administrative apportionment. At the same time, it also establishes a community evaluation and assessment system for various functional departments of the street, and takes this as the main basis for rewards and punishments.

(2) The functional departments of the government are oriented to the community, and the focus of work moves down. District government departments should achieve "five to the community", that is, personnel allocation to the community, work tasks to the community, service commitment to the community, evaluation and supervision to the community, and work funds to the community.

(3) Rights follow responsibilities and expenses follow things. Including two situations: first, when the district government departments need the assistance of the community neighborhood committees to handle the work involving the interests of residents, they must also provide the community organizations with the rights and necessary funds for assistance with the approval of the relevant departments and the consent of the community organizations; Second, when the social service function that the district government departments can't do well or can't do well is transferred to the community, they must transfer their rights and work funds at the same time, so as to ensure that "who does things, who uses money, who is responsible and who has the right" and ensure that the community can "have jobs, rights and money" when assisting the work or undertaking social service functions.

(4) Responsibility goes to people and supervision goes to people. Mainly refers to the establishment of the implementation mechanism of "responsibility to people, commitment to people, supervision to people", to ensure that the functions of district and street government departments are transformed into place without going through the motions, and to eradicate the past chronic disease of "rushing to do good when in trouble and kicking the ball when in responsibility".

Through these measures, Jianghan District strives to establish a community governance model that combines administrative regulation and control mechanisms with community autonomy mechanisms, complements administrative functions and autonomy functions, integrates administrative resources with social resources, and interacts with government forces and social forces. [⑧]

(D) Problems and thinking

The practice of community system is not long, and it is still in the initial exploration stage. There are still many problems in theory and practice, which require researchers and practitioners to think deeply from a broader perspective, constantly improve the community system, make the management model of the community system form a long-term mechanism, promote the sustainable development of the community, and constantly improve the living standards and quality of residents, thus moving towards a well-off society in an all-round way. To this end, the author analyzes and thinks about the following three issues.

1. How to judge the two divisions of community system theory: administrative tendency and autonomous tendency?

Theory comes from practice and guides practice. With the development of modernization in China, the original unit system and street residence system for managing urban grass-roots society can no longer meet the needs of the situation, and the community system should be reconsidered. However, due to the long-term interruption of politics and sociology, the theoretical preparation for community system construction is not sufficient. Therefore, from the local experience and western research, the theoretical circle has formed two orientations to the community system. The first kind of researchers mainly set out from the perspective of strengthening social management at the grassroots level. They saw the severe problems faced by China's grass-roots social management after social transformation, and regarded the community system as an alternative tool to strengthen the government's control over grass-roots society. They believe that after the disintegration of the unit system, the sub-district office has actually assumed the functions of the first-level administrative government, but there is no corresponding administrative power granted, and the inconsistency between power and responsibility limits the integration ability of the sub-district office in the region. Therefore, the idea of community system advocated by them is mainly to shift the focus of government power downward, integrate various social organizations, enterprises, institutions, residents and other resources in the community, and jointly promote community development under the guidance of sub-district offices. The construction of community system here is actually the reconstruction of grass-roots political power. The second type of researchers mainly use western theories to judge the construction of community system from the relationship between the state and society. They believe that under the planned economy system in China, the situation of "big government and small society" has been maintained for a long time, and the government is omnipotent and the social forces are very weak. Under the market economy system, the society has got the opportunity to grow, but the power of the government is still too large, which leads to problems such as low administrative efficiency and lack of social recognition, and it is difficult for the community to develop. To this end, their main views on the community system are: to build a "small government, big society" model and transform government functions, the government should manage public affairs that should be managed by itself, and leave those that should not be managed and those that are not well managed to the community. Street government has changed from being responsible to serving community residents, fully cultivating social intermediary organizations in the community and moving towards community autonomy. [9] These two theoretical differences in the study of community system can be summarized as "administrative" tendency and "autonomous" tendency. These two tendencies have their own emphases, but in fact they also have their own defects. "Administration" tends to adopt the idea of "question-response", which is practical and does not take into account the history and trend of social development, so it is difficult to solve the long-term driving force of community development; Although the tendency of "autonomy" is recognized by most people from a long-term and macro perspective, it is completely based on western theories and fails to recognize the actual situation in China. At present, the ideal goal of autonomy still lacks the subject and resources to promote it. The author believes that the most important thing in the transition from unit system and street residence system to community system is to solve the problem of dynamic mechanism. From the government's point of view, strengthening the management, control and integration of grass-roots society is a realistic goal, but it needs to reduce costs, win the recognition of residents and establish legitimacy. From a social point of view, various social organizations, residents' groups, etc. There is an inherent need to participate in democratic management. The government and society constitute the power source of the community system, so in the process of transforming to the community system, it needs the two-way start of the government and society, not only the reconstruction of grass-roots political power, but also the reconstruction of grass-roots society.

2. How to choose three modes of community system practice: administrative mode, autonomous mode and mixed mode?

The two divisions of community system theory lead to three modes in practice, namely, administrative mode, autonomous mode and mixed mode. From the perspective of foreign community management models, there are mainly these three types. The administrative model is characterized by the establishment of special community management institutions in government departments; The characteristic of autonomy mode lies in the separation of government behavior and community behavior, and the government's community development planning is often implemented through the community's special funds with relevant departments; The mixed model is characterized by the government's planning, guidance and allocation of considerable funds for community work and community construction, but the government's intervention in the community is loose, and community work and construction are mainly autonomous. From the practice of community system in China, there is no complete autonomy mode, Shanghai mode belongs to administrative mode, Shenyang mode and Jianghan mode tend to be autonomous mode, and Jianghan mode also has mixed characteristics. We can't simply evaluate which of these three modes is better or worse, because each mode has its reasonable value at this stage. As far as the Shanghai model is concerned, the administrative characteristics do not seem to conform to the development trend of modern society, because the strong administrative power makes the social power very weak, so most people do not agree with this model. However, we should see that the community construction in Shanghai has changed with each passing day in recent years, and the community service, community environment and community culture have made rapid development under the vigorous promotion of the government. In order to establish a long-term mechanism, Shanghai has also implemented the direct election of neighborhood committees, combining the external mechanism of administrative promotion with the internal mechanism of community development. As far as Shenyang mode is concerned, although the factors of community autonomy are fully considered in the system design, how to deal with administrative power is still a key issue, which cannot eliminate the concern about the tendency of administration. Director Zhang Mingliang also pointed out at the Shenyang model expert hearing that the problem of administrative tendency should be avoided. He said: "I am very worried about this matter. The purpose of establishing a new community system is to reflect the self-management of the community, not to increase an administrative level, nor to eventually become a street office. Hang many signs there. If the administrative tendency is strong, it is actually adding another layer between the street and the neighborhood Committee, which is outdated. " Attending his worry is not unnecessary, because there is a distance between the ideal goal and the practical experience. We all accept the model of community autonomy in value orientation, but in practice it often strengthens the power of the government, or "the government runs the community". Autonomous mode is our natural goal, but it can't be realized at present. What is the reason? The first reason is that to build a "small government and a big society", the "society" is not "big" at present. In the community, except for mature government organizations and neighborhood committees, other social organizations lack sufficient resources and authority, have insufficient ability to organize residents to manage public affairs instead of government departments, and residents also lack self-organization consciousness, so the degree of community participation is low. The second reason is that government departments still have too many resources and are the main body of community management. Without restraint, it is difficult for the government to quit and to distribute power to the society. Driven by interests, it is easy for the government to see the tension between itself and society, but it is easy to ignore the resultant force between them. To sum up, although there are many difficulties and problems in realizing community autonomy, it should still be our direction, because the significance of community autonomy lies not only in the management of urban grass-roots society, but also in the political height of building the legitimacy source of the party and the government under the conditions of market economy. For the path choice of community autonomy, the author thinks that we can consider the gradual road and take the autonomy model as the direction. Of course, the administrative model and mixed model still have room for survival in the current period.

3. How do the four departments involved in the community system: government, market, society and political parties operate?

Western sociological theory divides the whole society into three major sectors: government, market and society, namely the first sector, the second sector and the third sector. Because the nature of China's * * * production party is different from that of western political parties, China's * * * production party also plays an important role in the community, thus forming the fourth sector [1 1]. How these four departments operate in the community is an important issue related to the success of the community system and the sustainable development of the community. The author thinks that the four departments in the community field should follow their own principles, strengthen mutual cooperation and support, eliminate contradictions and conflicts and promote community construction and development.

The principle of the government is to pursue the maximization of public interests and safeguard social equity. The power of the government belongs to public power, and public power comes from the people. The government must consider the well-being of the people and establish its own legitimacy, rather than seeking to maximize its own interests. After the government no longer plays the role of "athlete", it must be a "referee" and build the institutional basis of social justice, which is also an inevitable requirement for building a well-off society in an all-round way. Otherwise, it can only form a society that favors others rather than * * *. Such a social foundation is unstable and the authority of the government will also be affected. In addition, the government should realize that its ability is limited, and do something. In the past, the result of omnipotent government was that the government cost was extremely high, but the social efficiency was low. The government should adapt to the change of role, get rid of past habits and handle the relationship with other subjects.

The main body of the market field is the enterprise, which pursues the maximization of economic benefits as the principle. In the period of planned economy in China, the relationship between enterprises is not competitive, but after the establishment of socialist market economy, enterprises should operate according to market rules and survive in competition. Without economic benefits, there will be no competitiveness and no living space. The market economy survives the fittest without mercy. The government can no longer interfere with the independent operation of enterprises in the past, but it does not mean that the government will give up the market, but regulate it from the macro level, because the market sometimes fails.

The principle of society is people-oriented and care is paramount. The government and the market cannot solve all the problems in the process of economic development. In order to make up for government defects and market defects, the existence of society is needed. In the process of reform in China, a large number of socially disadvantaged groups, such as laid-off workers, have emerged. They can't be excluded from society and need social care. In the process of rapid change, people's social values have changed, and the alienation of social members has deepened, leading to the loss of trust in the government, the market and others. In order to rebuild social capital and social norms, society needs to increase the participation of social members through various community organizations and form norms such as reciprocity, trust and cooperation. At the same time, with the improvement of living standards, members of society put forward higher requirements for the quality and content of life, which need to be provided by society. The relationship among society, government and market is not antagonistic, but the society should maintain a certain degree of independence and autonomy to prevent the excessive intrusion of government and market.

The position of China * * Production Party in the community is the core of leadership, and its role is to take the overall situation into consideration and coordinate all parties. The party should be divorced from specific administrative and economic affairs and consider the overall situation from a higher angle. What needs special emphasis is that the party's work in the community is brand-new. We should not only ensure the implementation of the Party's theory, line, principles and policies, but also give full play to the ideological and political work of the masses, give full play to party member's vanguard and exemplary role, keep close contact with the masses and strengthen the social foundation of the Party. An important change in the work of grass-roots party organizations is to face the society, act on the social stage, participate in society, serve society and care about society. The function of the party in the community should be changed from mobilizing and organizing revolution or production as the axis to social care and interest coordination as the axis.