Urgently seeking the basic structure of social organization in China ~~ Exam help!

Structural differentiation, as one of the main forms of social change, has had an impact on modernization through two mechanisms, namely, the promotion of productive efficiency by social division of labor and specialized organization embodied in heterogeneity, and the triggering and promoting effect of role diversification and occupational hierarchical differences on class diversification, social mobility, and the popularization of education, which have contributed to the elimination of feudal "preordained" privileges and the increase in the proportion of individual "self-made" status. Both of these contributed to the elimination of feudal "prior" privileges and the increase in the weight of the individual's "self-generated" status. Therefore, many sociologists have taken the degree of differentiation of social structure as one of the main indicators of the level of modernization of a country, and the pattern of structural differentiation as an important aspect of observation and description of the modernization process.

Since the reform, the most fundamental change in China's social structure has been the transformation from a total society to a differentiated society, and the fundamental motive for this I change has been institutional reform. The impact of the reform on China's social differentiation has been roughly like this: 1. The reform of the rural economic system and the "decentralization" of state-run enterprises have given rise to free-flowing resources in society, namely, labor, capital, products, raw materials, and technology that are not subject to uniform control and distribution by the state. These resources continue to increase with the depth of the reform. 2. The emergence and increase of free-flowing resources has led to a change in the organization and distribution of resources in society as a whole, i.e., a change from purely relying on the planning system and administrative means to a combination of planning and the market, and of administrative and economic means. 3. The development of a wide range of subjects of interest and subjects of power, such as a variety of local and community governments, various branches of the government, civil society organizations, rural enterprises, and rural and urban enterprises. civil society organizations, rural enterprises of all kinds, urban and rural individual businessmen, etc. 4. The emergence and increase of functionally specialized organizations and role groups gradually led to an initial separation between state and society, politics and economy, economy and administration, administration and law, and ideology. Since the Reform, this process of structural change from an overarching to a differentiated society has, as a historical necessity, indicated that China's modernization process has entered a new historical period.

The most noteworthy aspects of the process of differentiation of China's social structure at the present stage are:

1. Institutional reforms began in the countryside, and its greatest contribution to the structural change of rural society was the rapid rise and vigorous development of rural industrialization, which led to the drastic differentiation of the original homogeneous and homogeneous social structure in the countryside, and the emergence of a large number of new role groups and organizations, such as the township entrepreneurs, the nearly 100 million people who are now living in the countryside, the rural entrepreneurs and the rural organizations. Township entrepreneurs, nearly 100 million township workers, and new cooperative enterprises, private enterprises and so on.

The dualistic character of the original social structure of urban and rural areas determines that the process of differentiation of the urban social structure is different from that of the rural areas, and the urban social differentiation is mainly within and outside the system. After the reform, the social differentiation of urban society firstly took place in the most marginal part of the original system, one of the results is that a part of the social forces at the edge of the system were the first to be differentiated from the system, such as individual industrialists and businessmen, private enterprises, and three-funded enterprises. As differentiation continues from the periphery of the system to the central part of the system, the forces outside the system are also growing, and they are organized and operate under rules and in ways different from those of the system, a process that is constantly influenced by social differentiation within the system on the one hand, and by social differentiation in rural areas on the other. Some cross-cutting and marginalized groups that straddle the two systems and the two social systems of urban and rural areas have begun to appear, such as self-employed people and rural migrant workers who have moved to the cities to work, and so on. The emergence and growth of these new structural elements have given a strong impetus to the development of civil society.

2. After the reform, with the expansion of the autonomy of all kinds of social subjects (individuals, organizations, and governments) and the clarification of their interests, the original hierarchical social differentiation determined by administrative rank and status hierarchy was gradually transformed into a kind of four-block differentiation determined by categories and unit boundaries, and the original hierarchical elements determining the differences in the status and interests of the members of the society, such as the type of ownership, the family class origins, and the political identities, were greatly weakened, administrative rank, etc., have greatly diminished in importance, while the role of group elements such as the state of development of the individual's unit and community, and the occupational category and sector to which the individual belongs (e.g., automobile driver, tax department) has increased. The shift in social structure from hierarchical differentiation to clustered differentiation means that the process of stratification in Chinese society will be slow.

3. Compared with the pre-reform period, the speed of differentiation of Chinese society at this stage has greatly accelerated and the degree of differentiation has greatly deepened, but there are great differences in the speed and degree of differentiation between different regions, different social systems and different social groups, for example, the coastal areas are faster than the central and western regions, and the degree of differentiation of the Wenzhou region, which is located in the east of the country, is greater than that of the southern part of Jiangsu Province. Another example is that the differentiation of the economic system is faster than the differentiation of the power structure, the differentiation of the peasant group is bigger than that of the urban resident group, and the differentiation of the social structure in the narrow sense of the term is deeper than that of the broader sense of the term, and so on. This unbalanced differentiation has led to the diversification of the formerly similar and homogeneous social structure of the whole society, as well as to the dislocation of the formerly highly integrated three major structures, namely, the income, power and occupational prestige structures, and consequently to a much lower degree of integration among the various social positions of the members of the society. The diversification of social structures and the dislocation of the various social structures have increased the tension in the social structure and thus the difficulty of structural integration.

4. In most market countries, members of society are divided and combined under the action of the market according to the needs of the division of labor, and the division of social structure is mainly reflected in a functional division. With the deepening of the division of labor, this functional-structural differentiation is the condition and inevitable process of social modernization. The differentiation of China's social structure after the reform has, on the one hand, reflected this process of functional differentiation, such as the differentiation of the functions of the State and society, the differentiation of the functions of the party and the government, the government and the enterprises, and the development of functionally homogeneous and specialized organizations. But on the other hand, since the social differentiation in China at the present stage is mainly the result of institutional change, and one of the core contents of institutional reform is the redistribution and adjustment of interests, and thus structural differentiation is to a large extent reflected as a kind of differentiation of interests, in which the factor of policy plays an important role. Therefore, at the present stage of China's social structure change, there is a paradoxical phenomenon, that is, the social structure has been drastically and profoundly differentiated after the reform, but all kinds of social organizations, instead of deepening and accelerating their differentiation to make their functions more specialized and homogeneous, have become comprehensively "economic" or "entrepreneurial". On the contrary, there is a trend towards full-scale "economization" or "corporatization". The impact of functional differentiation on social structure is mainly to increase heterogeneity, while the differentiation of interests is mainly to expand inequality, and the role of interests in the differentiation of China's social structure in the post-reform period has led to a faster vertical than horizontal differentiation of the structure.

Administrative versus contractual integration

Social integration is generally realized at two levels. One is political integration at the national level and the other is social integration at the local level. The purpose of the former is mainly to ensure the sovereignty of the nation-state, to exercise administrative control and management, and to establish and maintain social order by administrative and legal means; the latter is mainly to play a role at the community level by civic and non-political means in order to maintain the basic order of social activities, so that the roles, organizations, and systems that assume different functions can establish a harmonious and cooperative relationship.

In traditional Chinese society, one of the salient features of the integration mechanism is that social integration is stronger while political integration is weaker; between the two levels of integration, there is a lack of organizational linkage, and it mainly relies on the private relations of the "gentry-landlord" group to link the two levels of integration. Between the two levels of integration, there was a lack of organizational linkage, and it mainly relied on the private relations of the "gentry-landlord" group to link the two levels of integration, and partially replaced organizational integration with value-based integration. This kind of integration system, on the one hand, gave the whole society flexibility and solid foundation, enabling it to last for more than two years, but on the other hand, it also resulted in one fatal weakness of this social system, i.e., the integration of the people's sub-lagua. As a result, the society has been subjected to the influence of the Western powers in the modern times. It is the inability to respond strongly as a whole to the aggression of Western powers in modern times. Mr. Sun Yat-sen deplored the "scattered sand phenomenon", which is the inevitable result of this integration mechanism. The new integration mechanism formed after 1949 was an effort to solve the dual political and social crises in China, especially as the mechanism of social integration continued to weaken under the influence of modern factors.

One of the salient features of the post-1949 integration model in China is that political integration is extremely strong, and even in grassroots societies, integration is realized mainly by administrative means. In this sense, this system of integration is to a large extent characterized by the substitution of political integration for social integration. The reason for this is not difficult to understand: when the mechanisms of political and social integration failed, the reconstruction of the mechanisms of political integration not only became an urgent task, but was also easier from the point of view of the resources available to the state and the government at the time. On the other hand, the reconstruction of the social integration mechanism is to a large extent a natural evolutionary process, which takes quite a long time. Therefore, it became an inevitable choice to realize the reconstruction of social integration through the reconstruction of political integration. Thus, by the mid-to-late 1950s, this model of replacing social integration with political integration had basically taken shape. In the countryside, the typical form was the people's commune (preceded by agricultural production cooperatives); in the cities, the unit was the mainstay, with a system of street committees attached. Both the rural people's commune and the urban unit are overarching organizations that combine a variety of functions, with political and administrative power playing a central role.c Specifically, the Party's organizational system, the system of administrative power, and mass organizations such as the Workers', Youth's, and Women's groups, are the three important forces that play a role in this integration mechanism. One of the obvious advantages of this integration model is that it removes the tension between social and political integration, brings them into high alignment, and subordinates social integration at the local level to political integration at the national level. In traditional Chinese society, friction between social and political integration is a frequent occurrence. But it is also important to see that the burden of political integration has been greatly increased as a result of the virtual non-existence of civic social integration. At the same time, this mode of integration is quite rigid and must be predicated on the constant suppression of social differentiation, which happens to be one of the driving forces of social development.

During the 15 years of reform and opening up, this model of integration, which had lasted for more than 30 years, began to suffer. It is mainly manifested in two aspects:

One is that the preconditions for the existence of the original integration model have been lost. The original integration model was premised on two basic conditions. One is the state's comprehensive monopoly of resources, and the second is the existence and effective operation of the top-down overall pieces of the organizational system. However, in the process of reform and opening up, both conditions are changing. As a result of the development of the non-public economy, the State's monopoly of resources has been significantly weakened; as a result of the dismantling of the people's commune system, the totality of organizations in the countryside has ceased to exist; and the reform of enterprises in the cities is also making them gradually become a purely economic organization, with the characteristics of the totality of the organization significantly reduced. This has made it impossible for the State to achieve social integration at the grass-roots level through its umbrella organizations. Secondly, new social divisions and the complexity of social life are constantly placing new demands on social integration. In the countryside, the decentralization of agricultural production, the specialization of economic activities in the countryside, and the constant differentiation of occupations and social classes require reintegration on a new basis. In the cities, while the unitary system is weakening, so-called extra-institutional activities are proliferating, the old household registration and personnel systems have been significantly loosened, and social mobility across regions has led to a large number of migrants in the cities. Not to mention the fact that the original integration mechanism is weakening, even if it can work effectively, it is not enough to cope with this ever-complex social life.

So, in a certain sense, the process of reform and opening up in the past ten years is also a process of seeking a new social integration mechanism, which is basically characterized by contractual social integration. In other words, China's social integration has gone through a historical change from the pre-eminent integration of traditional society (based on blood and geography), to the administrative social integration before the reform, and then to the contractual social integration. In the field of economic activity. This tendency has been clearly manifested in the domain. In addition to macro-control at the national level, contractual relationships in the market, as well as intermediary organizations such as chambers of commerce and trade associations based on contractual relationships, are playing an increasingly important role in integrating economic activities. However, in the broader sphere of social life, the situation is more complex, and there are marked differences between urban and rural areas. In the countryside, the family as an endowed form of integration is being revived in a considerable number of areas, while in others the old quasi-administrative (or self-governing) organizations at the village level continue to play a strong role, and in still others it is the "capable" who are playing an important role in grass-roots social integration. In the cities, the framework for new mechanisms of social integration is more ambiguous, and in addition to the integrating role of the market, intermediary organizations and community autonomy appear to be coming into play. Overall, while contractual social integration will be the basic direction of social integration in China in the future, the extent to which it is currently functioning must not be overestimated. As far as social integration is concerned, China is still in a transitional phase. In this stage, there is a situation in which the pre-eminent, administrative, contractual and other forms of integration **** exist. During this period, three issues require close attention: first, social integration is lagging behind the process of social differentiation, which will lead to disruptions in social life; second, there are both complementary and contradictory relationships between the different forms of social integration; and third, how the new forms of social integration will converge with the political integration at the national level is still an issue to be explored.

Organization and unitary system

Social organization is a constituent element of modern society, which directly reflects the form and change of social structure. The reforms of the past 15 years have changed the operation mechanism and even the nature of social organizations in China.

In the countryside, with the implementation of the household contract responsibility system and the abolition of communities and townships, the former quasi-administrative organizations - production teams were abolished, but the establishment of the new villagers' committees of the status of self-governance and its lack of resources in the grip, so that many underdeveloped rural areas in a state of disorganization. Village organizations in rural villages with developed collective economies are functioning more normally, and there are very few villages where independent interests have swelled and even separated from the state.

Administrative organizations at the center of the former centralized management system have been slow to change and continue to assume the function of "parts". Members' dependence on the organization is strong, but the nature of these units has begun to be complicated by the loosening of the personnel system, the greatly increased impulse of the units to seek their own benefits, and the exploitation of their own unplanned resources by many of them through such measures as the formation of "flipping" companies.

Private enterprises that grew up outside the planned system were not given preferential treatment by the state in terms of access to resources and were not subject to administrative constraints by the state. The personnel relations of their members are either attached to talent exchange centers or placed in street offices, and do not fall under the original administrative system. The relationship between enterprises and the state is governed by market rules, while high wages are used within enterprises to counter various risks and make up for shortcomings. In terms of organizational structure, they often lack the party and group organizations prevalent in state-owned enterprises, thus showing obvious heterogeneity.

By the above factors, the enterprises and institutions as the main body of the original "unit system" are also changing.

First, the role of the unit is functionalized. With the national center of gravity shifting to economic construction, the political functions of enterprises and institutions are weakening, and their professional functions are being strengthened. Enterprises are no longer "parts" to undertake the tasks assigned by the state, and institutions are no longer "agents" of the state as they were in the past; they have become functional wholes to varying degrees.

Secondly, the unit's interests have become independent. Separation of government and enterprises so that enterprises are gradually separated from the government's guardianship and intervention, the enterprise's independent management, self-financing makes it become a relatively independent subject of interest. The government does not invest in the enterprise, profit and tax package and let the enterprise to digest the contradictions brought about by the reform and a series of measures to make the enterprise's independent interests further obvious. Correspondingly, the institutions of fixed posts and financial arrangements have to gradually change their excessive dependence on the government, and seek self-improvement capabilities, and thus the interests of the relatively independent.

Third, the unit responsibility for the specific and inward-looking. As the enterprise becomes the subject of interest and establishes a contractual relationship with the state, this makes the social responsibility borne by the enterprise concrete. At the same time, the responsibility of the enterprise to improve the income and living standards of its members can nowhere be shirked as well as the weakening of the state's constraints on the enterprise, so that the enterprise from the outward responsibility to inward responsibility changes, that is, from being completely responsible to the state, to be mainly responsible for the employees of the enterprise, and even the inward responsibility is heavier than the responsibility of the outward responsibility. This also makes the enterprise is becoming a real workers' interests **** the same body, the above characteristics of the institutions are also becoming more and more obvious.

Fourth, the unit's "parent" role to strengthen. The formation of the unit members of the interests of the **** the same body strengthened the members of the same boat **** sense of security and the enterprise for its members, the responsibility of these unavoidable and . The social comparison mechanism makes the unit's "parental" role is generally strengthened.

In this way, since the reform, the relationship between the state and the organization has gradually changed from a general survival mode to an independent survival mode. Organizations are no longer "parts" of the state, but "wholes" with a certain degree of independence. With the exception of the countryside, the external character of our society as an organizational unit has not changed, but the functions of organizations are undergoing substantial changes. Although they undertake the function of social management, their central task is to satisfy the needs of their members and to seek organizational self-development. In other words, they are changing from "management units" to "interest units". As a result, the social structure of our country is transforming from a "management-type unit system" to a "profit-type unit system", and the characteristics of the "unit system" are not weakening, but rather, to a certain extent, are being strengthened. Whether it is the unitary consciousness of organizations, their calculation of and struggle for their own interests, or the increase in the recognition of and concern for the organization (unit) by its employees, it reflects the fact that they are forming a social ****similarity that is relatively independent externally, but closely interdependent internally, and it can even be said that the organizations of the present time are becoming real units. The "motherly State" is being replaced by the "fatherly unit" in the relationship between the State, the organization and its members. Instead of giving universal care to the members of the organization and society regardless of their contribution, as was the case in the pre-reform state, the unit is giving more care to its members on a contractual basis.

Identity categorization and social mobility

Identity is a category of markers that society assigns to individuals, linked to occupations and other social roles, and that mark a person's social status.

The identity categories of ownership were formed as a result of the socialist transformation of the forms of ownership by the state (the coexistence of universal and collective ownership); at the same time, they were the inevitable result of "limited resources". By controlling the distribution of living resources, the State controlled the transformation of collectively owned workers into nationally owned workers, thus effectively maintaining this identity category. After the formation of ownership status categories, the economic structure reflects and maintains the social hierarchy in urban society.

As economic construction became the center of all work, the political color of social life began to fade away, and the removal of the hats of landlords and rich peasants, the vindication of the wrongly classified rightists, and the implementation of policies and vindication of the victims of the unjust and false cases of the Cultural Revolution in the late 70s and early 80s undoubtedly corrected the erroneous tendency of the enlargement of the class struggle. The system of political examination, although it is linked to this, is not a system of political examination, but of political examination. In connection with this, the political examination system still exists, but its scope has been narrowed and more attention is paid to people's real performance. This means that the class identity series has lost the conditions on which it was based. The standards of evaluation in society have also changed considerably. People no longer give primary importance to a person's family origin, but focus on his abilities and achievements. As a result, the original series of class identities is increasingly weakened and tends to disappear in both urban and rural areas.

The reform of the rural economic system, which is mainly based on the "big contract", has given the peasants the autonomy of production and distribution. This led first of all to a loosening of the state's control over living resources. The development of the market economy in both urban and rural areas has led to the emergence of free-flowing resources in both urban and rural areas. This has led to an increasing loosening of the household registration system and the ticket system, which are closely linked to the distribution of living resources. The development of the unplanned economy in the cities since the reform of the economic system has given a large number of peasants the opportunity to move to the cities and change their status as peasants. A large number of surplus rural laborers are flowing to the cities and towns, and a huge army of migrants has emerged. The weakening of the prerequisites for maintaining the identity of urban and rural residents has inevitably led to the existence and development of a variety of economic components in the cities, creating a large number of new employment positions outside the system. These employment positions also imply a variety of new occupational identities, which are not covered by the original cadres and workers. The result of the flow of cadres and workers within the system to these new employment positions outside the system, driven by interests, is to blur the boundaries between the original "cadre" and "worker" identities, and to develop a kind of occupational identity series outside the system to accommodate the "cadre" and "worker" identities within the system.

The rapid growth of the economy outside the system, the flexibility of its operation and distribution (which puts state-owned enterprises at a disadvantage) and the increasing tendency of people's evaluation of enterprises towards economic efficiency have gradually blurred the original boundaries of the ownership status and weakened the significance of the existence of the ownership status.

Currently, Chinese society is undergoing a drastic change in the criteria for classifying identity categories. A new, self-causing and variable identity series marked by occupational status is gradually replacing the previous urban and rural identity series. What we see in this transition period is a complex picture of the coexistence, intermingling and cross-pollination of old and new identity categories. The old identities and evaluation criteria are still in effect, and people can use the resources they have already acquired through the old identities to seek a more profitable professional identity in the new ones. The coexistence of the political evaluation system and the interest evaluation system has led to the multifaceted nature of people's identity and social status, and has also determined their orientation in the new professional identity. In urban-rural mobility, the contradiction between the original identity and the new occupation and the new place of residence has led to the creation of a large number of marginalized people and a large number of marginalized groups.

Along with the loosening of these identity series, there are three major trends in social mobility. They are the diversification of the flow of social elites, the movement of 80 million rural surplus laborers to the cities, and the movement of workers and cadres from within the system to outside the system. These three trends of social mobility are changing the elite structure of Chinese society, the spatial distribution of social location and population, and the proportionality of economic and social location inside and outside the system.

Thus, the biggest impact of the loosening of identity categories on China's present social structure is that it has loosened the tie for the change of social structure.

Regional Patterns and Regional Relations

Regions are "communities of social relations and organizational principles". In a society, inter-regional relations and the basic regional patterns they form are an important aspect of the social structure. During the 15 years of reform and opening up, a series of important changes have occurred in China's regional relations and regional patterns. Analyzing these changes and their processes can enable us to deepen our understanding of China's social structure and its transformation in one way or another.

In the course of 15 years of reform and opening up, a series of important changes have taken place in the regional pattern of Chinese society, which is based on a national unity of purpose, homogeneous and homogenous among regions, and emphasizes the self-survival of localities. The most obvious of these are:

First, the polarization of interests, with localities beginning to become the main body of interests. As mentioned earlier, in the overarching pre-reform national system, local interests were to a large extent suppressed. In the process of reform and opening up, as the power of the central government continued to be decentralized to the localities, the pattern of national unity began to be broken, and local communities represented by local administrative bodies began to become the main body of interests, and the trend of localization of finances became more and more obvious. Under these circumstances, the relationship between different regions is no longer one linked by centralized administrative power, and the relationship of interests and the principles of exchange and contract in the market economy have begun to become a new bond linking different regions. The past situation of gratuitous inter-regional transfers no longer exists. Local protectionism, driven by local interest motives, has become increasingly evident.

Secondly, the heterogeneity between regions has increased significantly. Before the reform and opening up, the differences between different regions were only expressed 5 as differences in the degree of development. But today . The isomorphism between regions has been broken to a large extent, and the heterogeneity between different regions has been greatly enhanced. The reasons for this are that, with decentralization, the ability of localities to formulate policies has been strengthened; the central government has given special policies to some regions; and the natural conditions and different degrees of development of different regions have made the adaptability of different regions to the market economic system show obvious differences. As a result of differences in locational conditions and historical heritage, the current inter-regional heterogeneity is highlighted in terms of ownership structure, economic structure, economic operation mechanism, and the degree of economic development. The result of this is to make the basis for a nationally harmonized policy unavailable.

Thirdly, regional relations governed by market principles have formed a "gap-expanding power system". Due to the difference in the deepening degree of reform and opening up, the difference in economic heritage, and the difference in location, the development between regions shows a clear gradient. Within this gradient pattern, an approximate pattern of more developed, moderately developed, and underdeveloped regions has been formed. A large number of statistics can show that, in the course of 15 years of reform and opening up, the development gap between these regions has widened rather than narrowed, and there is a tendency for it to widen further. At the same time, what we can also see is that a regional pattern of division of labor similar to the international pattern of division of labor is beginning to take shape. For example, developed regions such as Guangdong, Shanghai and Jiangsu are beginning to become processing zones; while many regions in the interior, including old industrial zones like Liaoning, are becoming providers of raw materials and markets for the sale of goods.

Fourth, differences have emerged in the development mechanisms of different regions. Such differences are highlighted in the different development mechanisms of the developed regions represented by the coastal areas and the backward regions in the hinterland. The disintegration of the regional pattern of the national chessboard by means of administrative allocation and the initial formation of the national market have placed the development of each region in this market environment in the process of formation. However, due to the huge differences in the time and level of development of different regions, their ability to compete in this market shows obvious differences. For example, the early developed regions, due to their huge advantages in technology and economic strength, have a strong market expansion capacity, and their enterprises themselves have strong development momentum and potential, in a certain sense, the development of these regions is more in need of market conditions and liberal economic policies. The situation in the backward regions is just the opposite: their obvious disadvantages in terms of technology and economic strength, the lack of capital, the immaturity of the entrepreneurial class and other conditions put them at a distinct disadvantage in the competition with enterprises in the developed regions. In such a region, without the intervention of administrative forces that can effectively promote economic development, it is very difficult to obtain smooth economic development and narrow the gap with the developed regions.

In summary, in just 15 years, China's social structure has undergone and is still undergoing a major change, which is an essential general change. This change is cumulative and revolutionary. Although the details of the new structure are difficult to outline, its contours are certain: it will continue to deepen and develop in the direction described above.