Wen Tiejun: The spiritual core of contemporary rural construction is freedom and tolerance

2001 was a big year for China, and it was also a big year for our compatriot Taiwan, because in 2001, Chinese mainland and Taiwan joined the WTO in the same half-day and a tea break, took the initiative to integrate into globalization, and jointly carried the cost of globalization. Since the beginning of this year, the Rural Construction Center of Chinese University has restarted the construction of villages that rely on non-governmental forces from the bottom up. Up to now, the number of rural construction pilot areas at the city and county levels in which the center has participated in the construction has reached more than 10, involving nearly 50 villages; economic and social organizations in various places have also actively participated, and have developed into a very extensive social movement.

The current work includes five main contents: first, to carry out organized ecological agriculture in rural areas and engage in cooperatives; second, to build organic consumer consumption cooperation in cities; third, to assist migrant workers to integrate into urban service centers; fourth, to mobilize thousands of young students to go to the countryside to support agriculture; and fifth, to revitalize rural culture. These five series of comprehensive coordination constitute the large rural construction system that is now Chinese mainland.

At that time, Liang Shuming and Yan Yangchu both said that we should go to the countryside to carry out the peasant movement, but it turned out that the peasants did not move. Anyone who has been to the countryside knows that it is very difficult to get the peasants to move, especially to start cooperatives, and if they can't see the immediate benefits, they must not do it with you. You want him to engage in organic farming, ecology, if you don't do it, let him do it himself, it's impossible. Therefore, when we first launched cooperatives in the village and engaged in organic agriculture, we must rely on ourselves to do it first. At the same time, we must start from cultural activities, and cultural construction is the lowest cost and highest efficiency work. The social organizations needed by the peasants in all aspects were organized, such as the associations of the elderly and the women's associations, rather than the cooperatives that came up and started.

In the national strategies of the 17th and 18th National Congresses of the Communist Party of China, they began to talk about ecological civilization, sustainable development, resource-saving and environment-friendly agriculture, and many large enterprises also took organic ecology as their LOGO.

Mobilize young students to go to the countryside to mobilize farmers and let them join cooperatives. In addition, diversified citizen agriculture is carried out on the outskirts of the city. If we follow the traditional economic view of agriculture as the primary industry, the countryside will not be able to survive. Nowadays, when the ruling party talks about ecological civilization and also agrees with the organization of farmers, rural construction has come to this day, and some experience can be summarized and summarized.

Recently, we have taken advantage of the historic opportunity of the national strategy to promote the construction of new rural areas to carry out some work related to the radical modernization process of the past century and the work of summing up the experience of de-radicalized rural construction. Although the concept of "rural construction" is followed, its actual content is a comprehensive rural revival in the cultural sense.

In the past hundred years, the process of rural construction itself has been a social movement process in which social pluralistic groups interact and exchange on the big platform of rural construction, and eventually move towards mass democracy, stemming from our substantive disapproval of the elite democracy formed in the process of radical modernization. Elite governance, whatever the procedure and form it takes, has the characteristics of elite tyranny, which is inevitable. As long as it is elite governance, there will be the so-called Elite Capture: the process of capitalization must be the benefit of a small number of capital holders, and the benefits of the capitalization process of social capital are mainly elite appropriation.

However, there are hardly any successful examples of popular democracy in the world at present, because the interests of the masses are more pluralistic and more difficult to integrate.

According to traditional political economy, the "masses" of Chinese mainland can be defined to a large extent as the petty bourgeoisie, and the petty bourgeoisie is the most difficult to form the so-called conscious class. It is not a social group with a very clear self-positioning, and the interests of each petty bourgeoisie are very small and necessarily short-sighted, and it is difficult for the petty bourgeoisie to agree. They tend to follow any ideological propaganda that is completely different from the mainstream and turn these things into their own slogans. Many scholars believe that they are advocating for the public from the perspective of the masses, but the masses themselves have almost no position.

Therefore, when we are engaged in the construction of contemporary villages, we inherit the concept of the intellectuals of the previous generation, believing that this platform itself should be a completely free platform, free to enter and exit freely, it is not monopolized by a certain elite group, it should be the banner of the masses. But when the public raises this banner, it can also see that every individual who holds high this banner has a fly-and-dog side behind it, and it is necessary to recognize the side of the petty bourgeoisie, and to admit that they are the main body of mass democracy, then it is possible to achieve tolerance in the true sense.

The deep moral sense of intellectuals is often difficult to accept this truth, so the villagers always say that we are just more tolerant. If we want to truly achieve mass democracy, if we want the people to have conscious rules, form self-organization, and have the power of autonomy, there must be a gradual process of inclusion.

I often say that rural construction itself is a "four noes" platform: there is no leadership team, no superior organization, no fixed fundraising, no discipline - freedom to advance and retreat, come when you get, and leave when you have to go. In terms of management, we advocate mass democracy and pay attention to multiculturalism. Nowadays, xiangjian has established clubs in more than 200 colleges and universities across the country, and more than 200,000 young students have joined the activities of supporting agriculture, forming an unprecedented youth mobilization in history.

In this case, can our knowledge production and education still meet the actual needs? This kind of education has been criticized by Mr. Tao Xingzhi at that time, who said that "China's rural education has gone the wrong way!" He taught people to leave the countryside and run to the city, he taught people not to grow rice, he taught people not to grow cotton, he taught people not to plant houses; he taught people to envy luxury and look down on farming; he taught people to divide profits without profit; he taught peasants to become nerds; he taught the rich to become poor, and the poor to become exceptionally poor; he taught the strong to become weak, and the weak to become exceptionally weak. In front of us is a mighty cliff, and comrades must restrain the horse and find another way to live! ”

The teachings of Mr. Tao Xingzhi in 1926 are still applicable today.