Abstract:The national process in traditional China is based on and prototyped by the household system. Since the reform and opening up, the tradition of the household system has entered the modernization process of contemporary China in the form of a modern household through the rationality of the household, which constitutes the background color of the household in the modernization process of contemporary China. With its historical momentum, this kind of household background has given birth to the household foundation of the process of national modernization in contemporary China through the transfer and integration of household society, the superposition of the advantages of household economy, and the dislocation development of household politics. In the specific historical process, not only did the household not become an obstacle to the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state because of its tradition, but in the institutionalized reform of the Communist Party of China, it became an important driving force for the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state, and evolved into the endogenous advantage of the modernization process of the contemporary Chinese state. Keywords: national modernization; Household; Household rationality; Endogenous advantages
In modern times, China has embarked on a process of modernization, and the traditional family system has been regarded as a "strong fortress" of authoritarian rule, and has become the object of criticism. However, with the attention of Western scholars to China, the Chinese family system has begun to enter the field of historical, sociological and anthropological research in order to deconstruct the particularity of traditional Chinese society and state. After the reform and opening up, along with the social transformation brought about by China's economic development, the study of Chinese family has become one of the important themes of sociology, mainly studying the modernization and change of the family, following the Western theory of family modernization, and not profoundly revealing the relationship between the Chinese family and the modernization process of contemporary China. It was not until the introduction of the household system that household studies began to become the key to deciphering the process of the Chinese family and the modern state. In the process of modernization, the original institutional support system of the traditional household system has basically disintegrated, but the household system has entered the modernization process of contemporary China in the form of a modern household through household rationality, constituting the background color of the household of contemporary China's national modernization. With its historical momentum, this kind of household background has given birth to the household foundation of the process of national modernization in contemporary China through the transfer and integration of household society, the superposition of the advantages of household economy, and the dislocation development of household politics. In the specific historical process, not only did the household not become an obstacle to the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state because of its tradition, but in the institutionalized change of the Communist Party of China, it became an important driving force for the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state, and evolved into the endogenous advantage of the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state. In the past, we believed that the success of contemporary China's modernization stemmed from its late-mover advantage, but from the perspective of household foundation, it has been rooted in China's own historical mechanism and process from the beginning, and has gradually evolved in the evolution of the day after tomorrow. As General Secretary Xi Jinping said, "each country's political system is unique, and it is the result of long-term development, gradual improvement, and endogenous evolution on the basis of the country's historical heritage, cultural traditions, and economic and social development." This is true of China's political system, and so is China's national modernization process. Understanding China's national modernization is inseparable from the analysis of the background and foundation of households. Bringing household studies into the process of national modernization can provide a more complete understanding of the uniqueness of China's modernization path.
1. Research on the relationship between the household system and national modernization
The term "household system" originated from Professor Xu Yong's article "The Tradition of Rural Household System and the Path of Rural Development in China: Using the Village Community Traditions of Russia and India" published by Professor Xu Yong in 2013 in Chinese Social Sciences, after which the household system began to become a landmark academic proposition in academic debate and dialogue. Although the family system has been proposed in the past decade, the traditional Chinese family system has been in existence for a long time. As Dennis · Sherman and others argue in The History of World Civilization, the core aspect of Chinese culture is the family, which in turn extends to ancestors. The fundamental reason why the Chinese family is so special is that the entire historical process of the origin and development of the traditional Chinese state is embedded with the family system. However, due to the emphasis on individual politics or class politics in Western political modernization theory, China's family system has always been outside the scope of political science research. It was not until the introduction of the household system that there was a call to "bring the family into national research". Especially with the rise of historical political science, the household system has begun to become a symbolic concept generally accepted in political science circles.
Professor Xu Yong believes that the household system is the original tradition and ontological system of rural China, and he pointed out that "a complete family system supported by strong customs and a complete household registration system supported by strong state administration" together constitute the household system in Chinese history. From this definition, the core of the definition of household is the hukou system, which is closely related to the rule of the traditional state. The large-scale implementation of the household registration system originated from the nationwide policy of "organizing households and uniting the people" that was implemented nationwide after the Qin unified China. There are at least two levels of political significance: first, the peasants are subjects recognized and protected by the state, and have a formally equal political identity, so that the ruling power of the state extends to the grassroots society, and together with the county system and bureaucracy, it gives birth to the modern national characteristics of traditional China, and China has thus become a "precocious" modern state; Second, the family is the basic unit of state expropriation and servitude, the economic and social foundation of the traditional state, and the symbol of the legitimacy of state rule. From the perspective of historical practice, the household system is the original form of the Chinese family system, which is essentially a part of the evolution of the traditional Chinese state form, and constitutes the ontological system and basic system of the evolution of the traditional state. Compared with the connotation of "family" in modern society, the household is a specific political unit that is restricted, which determines that there is a strict distinction between the household and the family in the political sense. It is the existence of the household that gives the family a political dimension and makes the relationship between the household and the state more prominent.
The traditional household system has evolved in the process of China's modernization, and has continued to this day in the form of a household household. Regarding the relationship between households and the modernization of contemporary China, there are mainly the following three aspects of research.
The first is the study of the relationship between the family and the traditional state. Relevant studies have concluded that: (1) "Household and people" makes small-scale peasant families get rid of the shell of the clan and become independent units recognized by the state. (2) The basic unit of traditional Chinese society is the family, the basic feature is the family ethics, and the family system is an important cornerstone of the evolution of Chinese national civilization. (3) The Chinese family system is the core and foundation of the traditional rural "autonomy", and it is also the institutional basis of the "simple governance" of the traditional country. (4) The Chinese peasantry, based on the rationality of family survival, decides when and how to interact with state power, such as uprisings, rebellions, and revolutions. In Fukuyama's words, "To this day, the Chinese family remains a powerful institution, strenuous in defending its autonomy and unwilling to accept interference from political power." Therefore, the Chinese family is inseparable from the evolution of the traditional state and constitutes the social basis for the evolution of the traditional Chinese state.
The second is the study of the modernization of the Chinese family in sociology. The conclusion is that there is an affinity between the modernization of Chinese families, especially peasant families, and the process of China's modernization, which is manifested in the adaptability of modernization. This research path is a reflection on the Western theory of family modernization, which negates the linear path of family modernization theory and the "nominalism" of family studies, affirms the particularity of the Chinese family, and believes that the Chinese family is an organic entity with subjectivity and agency. In the process of modernization, driven by the goal of family development and the rationality of family economy, "Chinese peasant families have a high degree of integrated motivation and ability through intergenerational synergy and family reproduction, and can well adapt to the various pressures brought about by the modernization process". In particular, it affirmed the positive role of the change of family rationality in the modernization of peasant families. Although the positive role of the family in the process of China's modernization is affirmed, the research on how it plays a role in the process of national modernization is still in the embryonic stage.
The third is the study of China's state process based on the household system in political science. In recent years, the study of field politics to bring households into the national process has led to a series of research results. In fact, the household system itself has "Chinese characteristics", and it originated from thinking about the mechanism of "historical continuity" of China's modernization path from the beginning, and plays a fundamental role in China's national process. In the study of the household system in the national process, derivative concepts such as "household rationality", "household doctrine", "household property rights governance", "household state", "household political form", "resilient state" and "ancestral human rights" have been formed. The above research argues that the household system is the basic social system of traditional China, and traditional China is a typical household country. Among the household countries, smallholder farmers with resilient characteristics provide a continuous and stable mechanism for the evolution of China's state form, and generate a resilient state. Therefore, as a household system embedded in the process of traditional Chinese state, it has entered the process of contemporary Chinese national modernization with its historical continuity, and its fundamental role determines its own theoretical value and significance. The household system brings the Chinese family system into a new realm, returning to the tradition of the family and the state to explore the relationship between the family and the state in the modern way.
The study of household households in the process of national modernization in contemporary China originated from the "expansion of peasant rationality", which mainly explains why the miracle of modernization with high economic growth and relatively stable politics occurred in a peasant country like China, which is full of traditionalism. "The Expansion of Peasant Rationality" points out that as a modern country that grew up on the basis of agricultural civilization, China's peasant nature is closely linked to the national character. The rationality of traditional farmers, including the rational qualities of diligence, thrift, calculation, reciprocity, human affection, studiousness, stability, patience, etc., will form an expansion trend after entering the industrial and commercial society with its inertia, resulting in a "superimposed advantage" that combines the rationality of farmers with the advantages of industrial and commercial society, releasing its huge energy that is not found in both the traditional agricultural society and the modern industrial and commercial society, and then promoting the emergence of the "Chinese miracle" from the endogenous level. That is to say, there is a high degree of internal compatibility between the process of national modernization and the rationality of peasants in contemporary China. However, the rationality of Chinese peasants is essentially the rationality of peasant households, not the rationality of individual peasants. Because the basic unit of Chinese society is the household, in the face of the traditional family system supported by strong customs, the individual is subordinate to the household and has no independence. Therefore, the true form of peasant rationality is household rationality, and the purpose of the traditional rational qualities such as diligence, diligence and thrift, calculation, reciprocity, human affection, studiousness, stability, and patience is for the survival, continuation and development of households. Household rationality has become the basic principle of all social actions of Chinese peasants.
The rational existence of peasant households affirms the subjectivity and initiative of households in the process of contemporary Chinese state modernization, and highlights the characteristics of households in the construction of modern Chinese state. According to the classical theory of modernization, national modernization includes three main parts: social modernization, economic modernization, and political modernization. The attributes of the household shaped by the traditional Chinese household system have given birth to the endogenous advantages of contemporary China's national modernization through the transfer and integration of the household society, the superposition of the advantages of the household economy and the dislocation of the household politics.
2. Household Society's Transference and Integration: The Endogenous Social Advantages of Contemporary China's National Modernization
Since the reform and opening up, with the continuous growth of China's economy and the improvement of the public service capacity of the modern state, there has been a kind of self-consistency rather than confrontation between the state and society, and the core manifestation of this self-consistency is that the society has taken the initiative to accept the integration of the modern state and showed affinity. The internal factors are closely related to the basic form of household society in China. Up to now, China's vast rural society is still based on the household as the basic unit, and the Chinese peasants still live in a relatively independent household system, and make behavioral choices according to the rationality of the households, forming a unique household social form. From the perspective of China's original tradition, whether urban or rural, household society can still be summarized as the basic form of Chinese society. In a household society, the behavior of members of society is governed by the rationality of the household.
First, the rationality of peasant households has given birth to a contemporary Chinese society with a lack of publicity, and the society lacks the internal motivation for independent development, and cannot realize the modernization process through its own strength, thus creating conditions for the modern state to enter the market. The rational modern transformation of peasant households stems from the implementation of the household responsibility system. This system separates land ownership from contracting rights, in which the ownership of land belongs to the collective, which solves the problem of land annexation that may arise in the context of high marketization, and the ownership of land contract rights to rural households solves the problem of the development of small farmers in the context of high marketization. In particular, the final establishment of the goal of building a socialist market economy and the acceleration of the urbanization process have finally completely unleashed the economic vitality of small farmers. Never before in China's history has the socialist market economy provided every household with an equal opportunity to change their destiny without worrying about losing their land. With the advancement of marketization, the peasants "entered more and more deeply or were involved in an open, mobile, and socialized system of division of labor", and were gradually drawn into an era competition for the economic strength of contemporary households, and their most direct and realistic purpose was not to fall behind in this era competition of household status, identity, and power, so that they would be marginalized. From the point of view of the rationality of the peasants' households, the whole household society is involved in the inward-looking competition on how to achieve the upward development of households, and the basis of farmers' actions lies in how to obtain enough monetary income to support the upward mobility of households. They are not fully motivated to participate in the public life of the outside of the home, and society itself does not have the capacity to integrate and develop itself. The peasants living in their households could not become active actors in the modernization of Chinese society, which in turn gave birth to a contemporary Chinese society with a lack of publicity. This lack of public nature leads to the lack of the ability of independent development in modern Chinese society due to the lack of subjectivity, and the society itself is unable to realize the organized expression of group interests in the process of modernization, and thus cannot give birth to a modern organizational system that reconstructs the social structure and foundation. Therefore, in the process of contemporary China's modernization, social development has seriously lagged behind economic development for a long time, and "social imbalance", "social rupture" and "social struggle" have emerged. It was not until the modern state entered the market and started the construction of a socialist society with Chinese characteristics that the above-mentioned social problems were gradually resolved.
Second, the household society showed its affinity for the integration of the modern state and the rural society, and social modernization gradually entered the process of modern state construction. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, peasants have continuously participated in modernization through urban-rural mobility, and have actively adapted to modernization under the rational control of households. The huge difference in urban and rural development has made farmers obtain development opportunities for their families, and at the same time, they have continuously nurtured their inherent needs for public goods. However, the consumption revolution brought about by the continuous development of China's economy has continuously derived a new household demand structure and target system for farmers, and then constantly bound farmers' actions to the rationality of households. As a result, although farmers have public needs, they are unable to generate effective collective action based on common interests and goals. In this context, the household society shows a natural affinity for the entry of the state, and there is a consistency of internal needs between the state and society. On the one hand, the household society takes the initiative to accept the institutionalized construction of the state to realize its own public needs, and on the other hand, the modern state continuously resolves the dilemma of insufficient momentum for rural social development based on the lack of public nature through the path of national construction such as system to the countryside, law to the countryside, policy to the countryside, service to the countryside, propaganda to the countryside, talents to the countryside, science and technology to the countryside, and capital to the countryside, so as to realize the integration of the modern state into the rural society. Based on the integration of rural society and modern state, social modernization is gradually integrated into the process of modern state construction.
Third, the modern transformation of household society has realized China's historic transformation from the traditional "integration of the family and the state" to the modern "integration of the state and society", and has shaped the social conditions for the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state. In traditional countries that grew up on the basis of small-scale peasant economies, due to the limited state finances, the state was unable to extend political power below the county level, and rural "autonomy" became the best choice for traditional countries to achieve social domination. The traditional state has realized the homogenization process of the integration of the family and the country through the isomorphism of the family and the country ethics. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the modern state began to integrate the rural society into the modern state process based on class isomorphism, which ultimately hurt the enthusiasm of peasant households for production, and China's industrialization process also stalled. After the reform and opening up, China reconstructed the interest structure between households and the state through the institutionalization of the household responsibility system, and Chinese society began to transform from a traditional household society to a modern household society. With the establishment of the socialist market economic system, the state has continuously incorporated household development and national modernization into the process of the times with deep isomorphism of interests through institutionalized empowerment and market incentives. The vitality and vitality of households have been fully activated and actively integrated into the process of national modernization in contemporary China. Different from the traditional household society, the modern household society has the characteristics of strong mobility, openness and adaptability. Therefore, the traditional structure and foundation of rural society's "autonomy" based on closedness, stillness, and fragility have basically dissolved in modernity, and society itself has lost its internal motivation and foundation for self-integration. The process of social modernization in China requires the state, which is the power above society, and the state also needs to integrate society to maintain the stability of economic and political development. In the process of modernization, the state and society have achieved integration with a high degree of tacit understanding. Therefore, the modern transformation of household society has contributed to the integration of the state and society in contemporary China, and has shaped the social conditions for the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state.
In general, along with the institutionalization of the relationship between the household and the state, the household society has given birth to a contemporary Chinese society with a lack of autonomy and publicity. The "civil society" required for democratic development in Western political development theories cannot be developed independently by relying on the forces of society. In the past, following the basic presuppositions of Western political development, some scholars attributed it to the "centralized control" of society by the state, which led to the lack of autonomy of society itself. In fact, for a long time after the implementation of China's reform and opening up, the state did not directly intervene in the development of society, and Chinese society had sufficient space for independent development. However, the Chinese household society formed on the basis of historical tradition is fundamentally different from the individual social existence in Western political development theory, and contemporary Chinese peasants who follow the household rationality have little incentive to participate in external public life. In the later period, the state entered the market precisely to solve the problem of social disorder and decay caused by the lack of social modernization on the basis of household society. This kind of state entry is the active demand of the household society, that is, the process of transfer and integration. The modern state has also actively improved and performed the functions of public services, and has realized the process of integration of the state and social development. This process of integration provides a stable social foundation for contemporary China's economic and political modernization.
3. Superposition of the advantages of household economy: the endogenous economic advantages of contemporary China's national modernization
The traditional small-scale peasant economy is essentially a household economy, and the economic form of traditional Chinese countries is also based on the household economy. For a long time, the household economy, based on the "one family, one household" small-scale peasant economy, was regarded as the economic basis for the traditional Chinese state to maintain autocratic rule, and therefore also regarded as the object of transformation. However, what is paradoxical is that on the basis of long-term development and gradual improvement, the traditional household economy has been actively integrated into the process of modernization, and not only has it not become an obstacle to the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state, but has become the basic force of the modernization of the contemporary Chinese economy, forming the endogenous economic advantages of the modernization of the contemporary Chinese state.
First, the household economy's ability to avoid independent risks and reproduce constitutes the stabilizer of China's economic modernization. Under the institutional arrangement of separating land ownership from contracting rights, peasants can move freely between urban and rural areas, and advance and retreat freely. Even in the face of an external crisis, they can still retreat into the interior of their homes. Therefore, the modern household economy has the ability to avoid economic risks independently. This institutionalization has enabled farmers to devote all their energy to the market to maximize monetary income and enhance the realization of household economic goals. At the same time, as an economic unit with subjectivity and initiative, the household is governed by the rationality of the household and has a strong capacity for independent reproduction. This independent reproduction capacity is manifested in two stages of development: one is the stage of self-reproduction of households in the early stage of reform and opening up, that is, the stage of competition between the strength of households within the rural society, and its main goal is to achieve the improvement of the material living conditions of households, which are expressed in specific symbolic systems, such as building new houses, wearing flowers, buying electrical appliances, riding motorcycles, and buying agricultural machinery. The second is the stage of expanded reproduction after entering the 21st century, that is, the stage of competition between households in the process of rapid urbanization, and the upward development of households has become politically correct, and its main goal is to realize the flow of offspring families to the city through intergenerational cooperation within households. In order to realize the reproduction of households, Chinese farmers can constantly adapt to different stages of economic modernization. Even in the face of household and economic upheavals, farmers can quickly recover from their difficulties and re-enter the external market by relying on the mutual aid network within the household society. This means that the household economy, which is positioned at the goal of household reproduction, has maintained sufficient resilience between urban and rural areas, and has continued to inject stability into China's economic modernization. Moreover, the ability of the household economy to avoid independent risks makes it impossible for Chinese farmers to go to the opposite side of the state and society because of the pressure of survival, and the contemporary economic modernization of China has a stable social and political environment.
Second, the stability of property rights and the inward-looking development of the household economy have promoted the orderly urbanization process and the integrated development of urban and rural areas in China. The core of the household economy is the stability of the land property rights of the households and the inward-looking nature of the household economy. On the one hand, the stability of household land property rights has made China's urbanization process have the function of guaranteeing the bottom line, and even if some farmers cannot finally settle down in the cities, they can still return to the rural society, avoiding the hostility of the countryside to the city and the emergence of a large number of slums in the process of urbanization. On the other hand, the inward-looking development of the household economy has led to the material wealth obtained by farmers entering the cities to be fed back to the rural households, and the rural households have finally succeeded in urbanization through continuous improvement and accumulation of household competitiveness. Therefore, China's urbanization process is presented in an orderly and progressive manner. The basis of China's urbanization is that farmers account for more than 80% of the country's total population, so in essence, China's urbanization process is the urbanization process of small farmers. In the process of China's ever-expanding urbanization, cities have a natural affinity for farmers, and there is no systematic identity discrimination and antagonism between urban and rural areas, but rather a homogeneous aspect. At the same time, the inward-looking nature of the household economy enables farmers to continuously bring back the wealth, resources and capabilities obtained from the cities to the rural society, and there is a strong interaction between urban and rural areas, and the development between urban and rural areas is also constantly moving towards integration in the process of this interaction. Therefore, unlike the separation and confrontation between urban and rural areas in the process of urbanization in many developing countries, China has gradually embarked on a new path of urban-rural integrated development.
Third, driven by the rationality of households, the household economy and the market economy have an intrinsic affinity, which has created a miracle in China's economy. In the process of modernization, the rationality of peasant households bred by the traditional household system can be well integrated into the rational requirements of the market economy for individual self-realization. However, compared with individual rationality, household rationality has a stronger ethical consciousness, that is, the motivation of farmers to pursue economic goals stems from the self-driving force of household ethics. This kind of household ethics is traditionally manifested in the natural responsibility and obligation of farmers to maintain the survival and continuation of the household, and in contemporary times, it is manifested in the natural responsibility and obligation of farmers for the development of the household, especially the realization of the economic goals of the household. In fact, whether it is traditional or modern, farmers practice the rationality of their families through hard production and labor, and the value and significance of their existence point to the continuation and development of their families. Moreover, for the realization of the overall interests of the family, individuals often have strict ascetic characteristics, such as diligence and thrift, calculation, stability, patience, etc. This is similar to the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. This is the endogenous advantage that China has been able to create a miracle of economic development in just 40 years of reform and opening up. In the past, we often attributed China's economic development to China's huge demographic dividend under effective institutional arrangements, but in fact, the essence of China's huge demographic dividend is the household ethics behind Chinese's actions and the household rationality it bred.
In general, there are historical limitations to our understanding of the smallholder farmers and household economy produced by the traditional household system in China. It not only supported the precocious modern state, but also supported the historical continuation of Chinese civilization. However, the traditional household economy is limited by historical factors such as private ownership of land, the unity of the industrial structure and the low level of productivity, and does not show real vitality and vitality, but the small household farmers have been constantly regenerating with their unique resilience, and when they enter the process of modernization in contemporary China, the historical momentum they have nurtured has been completely released. The rational advantages of the household economy and the rational advantages of the modern industrial and commercial society have been superimposed, creating an unprecedented miracle of China's economic development. Therefore, it is impossible to fully and deeply understand the endogenous advantages of contemporary China's economic modernization without leaving one's home.
4. The Dislocation Development of Household Politics: The Endogenous Political Advantages of Contemporary China's National Modernization
"The reason why the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics is viable, vigorous and efficient is because it grows from China's social soil." The basic form of China's "social soil" is the household society, which has become a key variable in contemporary China's political modernization. The household society is different from the individual society in the West, and thus constitutes the basic background color of the household politics in China, which is different from the individual politics in the West. In China, the actions of the individual are governed by the rationality of the household, and the individual lives in the concrete life of the household rather than in the political life, and the first thing the individual has to fulfill is the moral obligations and responsibilities imposed on him by the rationality of the household, and accordingly decides when, where, and how to relate to the state. Affected by this, in the process of China's national modernization, the role of households in political modernization is mainly manifested in the following three aspects.
First, the Chinese peasants, who live in traditional households, are unable to participate in external politics on their own, giving birth to the social basis for the emergence of strong political parties. According to Fairbank, the Chinese peasant family was "a small kingdom of heaven in its own right, a miniature state," a responsible part of local political life, and a training ground for cultivating peasants to be loyal to their rulers and obedient to state power. In traditional China, the household is built into a self-contained unit with an internal orientation. Unless there is a crisis in the survival of the household, the peasant will not leave the village to participate in external politics for the rest of his life. The peasants living in traditional households were born without the claim of political rights, only the claim of the right to subsistence. Due to their class limitations, the Chinese peasants were unable to acquire modern political consciousness on their own. They "cannot represent themselves, they must be represented by others". Thus, until modern times, peasants were represented by the oath of the rulers of traditional countries. "The peasants need the leadership, organization, and ideological guidance of the advanced classes, so that they can become actors in Chinese history." In modern times, with the invasion of imperialism and the warlord war, the survival crisis of peasant households has continued to erupt, and the right to subsistence has been severely challenged. On the one hand, the traditional state is facing collapse because it can no longer effectively protect the peasants' right to subsistence. On the other hand, society is controlled by various local forces and loses the ability to integrate. China ultimately opted for a party-centric model for building a modern state. The core function of the development of modern political parties is representation, which is intrinsically compatible with the peasant characteristics of China's household society. Unlike the representation of traditional states, the representation of modern political parties is political mobilization through the empowerment of people. The Communist Party of China, which represented the interests of the proletariat, recognized the importance of the peasants in the whole Chinese revolution. Mao Zedong proposed that the main body of the Chinese revolution was the peasantry, and the essence of the Chinese revolution was the peasant revolution, and only the agrarian revolution could bring the Chinese peasants living in the traditional households into the process of the modern state. Because of this, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has gradually grown from a small party with only a few dozen members to a large party representing the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people, and finally won the victory of the national revolution and established a modern state.
Second, the institutionalization of the interests of peasant households has promoted the continuous improvement and continuity of China's political institutionalization. To lead a modern populous country with peasants as the main body to enter the process of national modernization in an orderly manner and continue to gain political recognition, the Communist Party of China must effectively and institutionalize the interests of peasant households, that is, the survival, continuation and development of households. After experiencing the twists and turns of socialist construction, the Communist Party of China (CPC) opened the prelude to China's modernization in the post-revolutionary era through the reform of the household contract responsibility system, and gradually established the process of national modernization on the basis of the survival, continuation and development of peasant households through institutionalized means, and completed the transition from a revolutionary political party to a ruling political party. From providing food and clothing for the people to building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way and then to building a modern and powerful country, the blueprint for contemporary China's national modernization has finally returned in an institutionalized way to Chinese the survival, continuation and development of every household, which is the foundation of the CPC's long-term rule. At the same time, peasant households have been transformed into the basic form of the entire Chinese social group through the process of urbanization. This also explains why the Chinese Communist Party has not encountered a new crisis of legitimacy in the process of urbanization. The main body of China's urbanization is the peasantry, and the peasant enters the modern city in an orderly manner in an institutionalized way. On this basis, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has continuously gained legitimacy for long-term governance from within the social system, accumulated governing experience in the practice of leading China's modernization, and continuously strengthened its own leadership ability.
Third, the peasants were governed by the economic rationality of their households, actively participated in economic modernization, and did not have the intrinsic motivation to participate in external politics, which shaped the historical opportunity period of China's political democratization process. Contemporary economic modernization in China has not led to large-scale political participation, even during periods of deep economic and social transformation. There are three main reasons for this. First, the fundamental issue of contemporary China's political modernization is not a question of political development, but a question of economic development. In the tide of the market economy, household rationality and market rationality have been superimposed, the household economy is well integrated into the market economy, and the peasants are actively engaged in the competition of the times for household status, identity and power, and have no motivation to participate in external politics. Second, under the centralized and unified leadership of the Communist Party of China, China has always maintained rapid and steady economic development, thus ensuring that peasant households can continue to grow in the interests of households from economic development and achieve urbanization in a gradual manner. Third, in the absence of pressure from urban and rural political democratization, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has ample time to advance the process of political democratization in China in an independent and orderly manner. China has gradually built a whole-process people's democracy system by continuously improving the system of people's congresses, innovating the system of regional ethnic autonomy, developing the system of grassroots mass autonomy, and promoting the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation. The systematic construction of political democracy provides a system and mechanism guarantee for the whole process for Chinese living in households to enter political life at any time. These democratic systems and mechanisms are also constantly cultivating the public spirit of household society and the ability of individuals to participate in democracy in concrete life practice. Therefore, under the conditions of sustained economic and social development, the rationality of modern households has shaped the historical opportunity period of China's political democratization.
Generally speaking, the Chinese who have come out of tradition still live in the household, and they do not have much interest in participating in political life, unless politics itself is related to the specific interests of the household, and their only concern is the survival, continuation and development of the household. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has institutionalized the introduction of peasant households into the process of a modern state and has established a stable mechanism for exporting the interests of households. On this basis, farmers follow the rationality of their households and deeply participate in the process of national economic modernization. In the process of contemporary economic modernization, the peasants' immersion in the creation of material wealth has no motive to enter political life, which releases the pressure that may come from society for the political modernization of contemporary China, and naturally generates the core value of political modernization-political stability, and the resulting political order. Therefore, the existence of the household society and the inward development of the household economy have become the stabilizer of contemporary China's political modernization. At the same time, sustained economic development has provided a solid material foundation for the CPC to scientifically promote political democratization. The society itself is also constantly nurturing the public character of the household society in the course of economic development and the political democratization of the country. This paper summarizes this as dislocation development, which is the unique advantage of contemporary China's political modernization.
epilogue
Western modernization theories often regard national modernization as a linear evolutionary path from a traditional state to a modern state, ignoring the specific interaction between tradition and modernity. At the same time, Western modernization theory divides national modernization into a collection of various elements, such as economic modernization, social modernization and political modernization. In fact, the modernization of the state in contemporary China is not just a simple superposition of economic, social, and political modernization. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, China's national modernization is an organic and unified whole with subjectivity and initiative. Social, economic, and political modernization are mutually conditional and integrated. Social and economic issues are political issues for the Chinese Communist Party. In the early days of reform and opening up, economic issues were the biggest political issues. Since the beginning of the 21st century, along with the changes in the main contradictions in society, the issue of people's livelihood has become the biggest political issue. This reflects the fact that the path of contemporary China's national modernization is gradually unfolded on the basis of long-term development, gradual improvement, and endogenous evolution on the basis of historical inheritance, cultural tradition, and economic and social development. From the perspective of the main actors of modernization, the basic form of this "historical inheritance" and "cultural tradition" is the household. In the process of undergoing the transformation from traditional household rationality to modern household rationality, household society, household economy and household politics have been deeply integrated with China's sustainable economic and social development, and its unique household mechanism has run through the specific historical practice of contemporary China's national modernization process, and has burst out with unprecedented powerful energy.
As the basic force in the process of national modernization, the household does not rely solely on its own strength to show its historical function. The development of the historical function of households is inseparable from China's special "party-centrism" road of state construction. The modern transformation of households comes from the profound summing up of the experience and lessons of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the process of leading China's modernization. Without the CPC leading the Chinese people to build a modern country, without the CPC's arduous exploration of the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and without the CPC's "people-centered" development concept, there would be no historical field and historical conditions for modern household practice. The essence of the process of national modernization in contemporary China is the deep integration of household rationality and economic, social and political modernization under the guidance of party logic, and then evolves the endogenous advantages of contemporary China's national modernization. Of course, the endogenous advantages of modern households are not eternal, and with the deepening of China's modernization process, the people's growing needs for a better life will gradually reconstruct household rationality, and Chinese people will eventually leave their homes and enter external political life. However, before Chinese entered the external political life, thanks to the period of historical opportunity created by the rationality of the household, the process of political democratization in China had been basically finalized and matured, and at the same time, the household society also tended to be more rational in the institutionalization of the state, and the construction of democratic politics and the cultivation of democratic society tended to be consistent in the specific historical process.
[Author's Affiliation: School of Government, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.] Rural discovery transferred from: Journal of Central China Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition) 2022 Issue 4]
