Civil Society and Reconstruction Of
CIVIL SOCIETY AND RECONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL KNOWLEDGE GOVERNANCE SYSTEM
-- GROWTH AND ROLE OF UNOFFICIAL
KNOWLEDGE DIFFUSION MECHANISM
Deng Zhenglai
As we all know, a most important institutional arrangement which the state relies on for social governance has been the monopoly of knowledge production and diffusion since the Communist Party of China was at the helm of the state in 1949. The article is designed to summarize some theoretical views. The author starts with the review of the construction of the system and the investigation of the process of the gradual disintegration and deformation of the system, then gives a detailed account of the current basic conditions on the basis of the materials from the investigation of experience and finally tries to explain the matters which have been discovered from research in experience on the basis of the theory of interaction between civil society and the state.
- Construction of Knowledge Governance System after the
Communist Party of China was at the Helm of the State in 1949
Any country can strive for the political socialization of the whole society according to its own interests and intentions and through various means and institutions, with a view to transforming a specific political ideology into the conscious code of conduct for its citizens in the process of political socialization and constructing a political culture which can maintain and consolidate its rule. As a result, its legal authority is generally recognized and accepted, the costs for its social rule are lowered and its social stability is maintained.[1] In a sense, a process of political socialization can be regarded as a process of national control and governance of the process of knowledge production. From this we can see that fundamentally speaking, the state takes political socialization measures to establish a system of knowledge governance. On the one hand, the state uses the political ideas which reflect or conform to its intentions to dominate knowledge producers and production sites and diffuse and disseminate to the public the knowledge which is produced by these producers at these production sites through specific convenient institutional arrangements. On the other hand, the state puts a stop to the production activities which are detrimental to its legal rule through various official or unofficial institutional arrangements and ban all possible activities of harmful and even subversive knowledge diffusion and dissemination. Therefore, one of the important institutional arrangements which the state relies on for social governance is the governance of knowledge production and diffusion. How a system of knowledge governance should be established and what system should be established become an important component of the formation of state organs. The effects of the system of knowledge governance in practice and the readjustment and reform of this system by the state become an important link for the development of state organs.
However, the model and effects of the system of knowledge governance do not depend on the will and determination of state leaders according to their wishful thinking, although their will and determination play a crucial role in the process of the construction and operation of the system of knowledge governance. From the survey of the Chinese society before and after 1949, we can find that under a specific economic system, the resources including economic material and institutional resources which the state can use and the methods of the use of these resources often exert a decisive influence on the establishment and development of the system of knowledge governance.
Before 1949, state organs found it hard and even impossible to establish an integrated knowledge governance system in old China. Because of urban free market economic system and structure, the state found it impossible to monopolize and control the whole system of knowledge production and reproduction including educational, research and publication and distribution institutions. Politically, the state found it impossible to exercise comprehensive and rigorous control. The state established a press censor system and formulated corresponding laws and regulations for the purpose of containing political opposition and issued licenses for books, newspapers and periodicals, censored them and closed down the publishers who violated regulations. In actual life, the cases of closing down periodicals, newspapers and bookstores only for purchase and sale and for publication for political reasons occurred from time to time. But the final outcome was that this censorship often existed in name only. The publishers which were closed down often started publication soon under some pretexts, and operation in violation of regulations became a common phenomenon which existed despite repeated prohibitions. Another reason for the failure to establish an integrated system of knowledge governance was the unimpeded communication at home and abroad. Non-permanent residents were able to run newspapers and bookstores in China, and foreign newspapers and books had no difficulties in entering China. So control became more difficult. First, the state was unable to overcome certain misgivings in handling matters involving foreigners. Second, the domestic political opposition was engaged in anti-system activities under some pretexts. Moreover, there were separatist regimes of local warlords first and then the armed based areas established by the Communist Party of China. The Republic of China never had the chance to truly centralize national administrative power. The state found it impossible to establish a system of governance of the process of knowledge production existing in those separated geographical areas.
After the Communist Party of China was at the helm of the state in 1949, fundamental changes took place and a different situation arose. In comparison with the political forces which controlled state power, it was obvious that the leaders of the Communist Party of China attached vital importance to the above-mentioned knowledge governance system and conscientiously began to establish and improve the governance system throughout the country. As early as May 1951, the Communist Party of China held the First National Conference on Publicity Work, at which it decided to incorporate all the links and matters concerning the process of knowledge production into the categories of culture and education, determined the system of unified leadership by the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and proposed a shift from “shock” actions launched for waging wars and opposing the Kuomintang rule to routine work undertaken by permanent organizations.[2] From then on, the basic framework of the system did not undergo great changes. The National Conference on Publicity Work or the National Conference Attended by Heads of the Publicity Departments of the Party at Different Levels or Political Divisions has become an institutional arrangement so far.
But more importantly, the knowledge governance system constructed by the Communist Party of China relied on an entirely different political and economic basis. So it was manifested in an entirely different model and form. First, there was a complete political unity, so that the orders of the Communist Party of China were carried out smoothly. Second, a few movements were launched in the ideological sphere, so that any opposition with different ideology found it hard to exist. Lastly, the most important thing was that the process of the establishment of a “socialist planned economy” in the economic field helped remove the process of free or at least semi-free knowledge production so that a comprehensive and rigorous system of knowledge governance was established for a short span of several years.
This system involved all aspects and links of knowledge production. From the investigation of human and material resources involved in knowledge production, we can find that to knowledge producers, the state under the leadership of the Communist Party of China continued to run the original state educational institutions which ceased operation owing to chaos caused by war after 1949 and nationalized the existing civilian-run educational institutions by “closing down, suspending operations, merging and changing operations”, so that all educational institutions and research institutes were finally nationalized in 1958. At the same time, the state made other non-teacher free intellectuals engaged in knowledge production become professional ones who were restrained by posts and who worked in units by establishing the writers’ association and other associations, so as to control these knowledge producers under a typical socialist system of units. The state easily controlled all the indispensable material resources for knowledge production through the application of the comprehensive planning system. From the investigation of the three links of production, distribution and consumption in the process of knowledge production, we can see that the link of production included the schools and research institutes in which producers worked and the publishing houses in which intermediaries worked became “socialist units”, so that the state exercised effective control over them. With regard to the two links of consumption and distribution, distribution was an object which the state concentrated on improving mainly by comprehensively transforming the organs for distributing and selling newspapers, periodicals and books and incorporating them into the national knowledge governance system. Under these circumstances, solving the problem of knowledge distribution naturally helped tackle the issue of consumption, the next link. Therefore, to be more exact, the state exercised the control and management of knowledge production and reproduction and knowledge diffusion and distribution in the process of materials flow involved in knowledge production.
To be specific, while establishing the governance system for knowledge distribution and diffusion, the state mainly used the following two methods. First, the state restricted, transformed and even banned all private bookstores and booksellers through joint state-private ownership. Second, the state established the nationwide Xinhua Bookstore system with the functions of state monopoly for purchase and marketing from the central to county levels and the China Bookstore system in some large and medium-sized cities on the basis of the original book distribution system in base areas established by the Communist Party of China. The two systems had division of work in their scope of business. The former exclusively dealt in newly published books, and the latter exclusively dealt in old books and second-hand redistributed books. Therefore, they actually included the diffusion and distribution of the whole new knowledge, and they actually controlled the distribution of the results of the past knowledge production, resulting in a monopolistic control over knowledge distribution. This is a specific social phenomenon of China which is different from that of other countries.
It is obvious that in comparison with other means of governance, the control of the link of knowledge distribution and diffusion is a system which requires low costs and easy management and produces great positive results. On the one hand, the establishment of this system is accomplished while the whole national economic structure undergoes transformation, so there is little political obstruction. On the other hand, the establishment of this system is superficially related to economic matters without causing much concern. Great positive results are produced. First, all the books are actually re-censored in a highly centralized way and through the function of state monopoly for purchase in the Xinhua General Bookstore (this is a supplement to the official censorship system). Second, it is easy to ban and recover the “bad books” discovered later through the function of monopoly of sale. Therefore, these functions of the Xinhua Bookstore have been weakened so far, but they have not been completely lost. The state tries to continue to support and utilize the function of the “main channel” through preferential policies if possible.
II. Process of Change in Knowledge Governance System
Centering on Book Distribution since the Policy of
Reform and Opening up Was Implemented
The knowledge governance system featuring the state’s complete and thorough control of the process of knowledge production which was established after the Communist Party of China was at the helm of the state began to undergo changes. This occurred during the transition to market economy and in the process of opening under relatively favorable political conditions. To be specific, the depth, scope and speed of changes in all the links of knowledge production are not the same. Comparatively speaking, with regard to knowledge producers and production sites, a few freelance writers, academic researchers and so-called civilian-run research institutes appeared because the state lost the complete control and monopoly of economic resources. But because of the system, this change just began without producing scale effect. Although the varieties of books increased from 10,000 in 1978 to 90,000 in mid-1990s and the total number of copies printed increased from 3.7 billion to 6.4 billion,[3] of which a large number of the books which were popular in the intellectual circles were planned and written by these independent and freelance writers and academic researchers. With regard to knowledge distribution and diffusion, an entirely different situation occurred. The state did not relax control over the press – the intermediary between knowledge producers and knowledge distributors. On the contrary, the state tightened control over it. But at the same time, the state slightly lifted control over pure book distribution. To be more exact, the state began to allow individual bookstalls and civilian-run bookstores to exist and develop. So far, the national sales network of the state-owned Xinhua Bookstore system has not undergone great changes and has had 12,000 stores.[4] On the contrary, there are countless individual bookstalls and civilian-run bookstores throughout the country. According to incomplete statistics, there are over 800 civilian-run bookstores throughout the country. The original institutional arrangement for the monopolistic control of knowledge distribution is being gradually disintegrated in this process.
From the whole process, we can see that the process of change in the knowledge governance system centering on book distribution is increasingly obvious with the emergence and development of individual and private business operations. From 1979 when the state began to allow the self-employed persons to exist until now, the development of individual and private business operations in China has experienced the five stages. At every stage, changes in the process of knowledge production centering on changes in the distribution of books, newspapers and periodicals have experienced different stages of development:
The first stage was from 1979 to 1982. It is a period of the emergence and restoration of the self-employed persons.[5] At this stage, as the first group of the self-employed persons emerged, there were also the individual pedlars mainly engaged in dealing in newspapers, periodicals and books – small individual bookstalls who operated on streets and lanes. This is mainly because the original Xinhua Bookstore system which operated in a unified and planned way was imperfect and the method of sales was too rigid and was not able to meet social demand for book distribution. We can say that the drawbacks of the original planning system and a series of the defects caused by these drawbacks lay a basis for the emergence of individual bookstalls. At the same time, solving the problem of employment pressure of the urban population, raising people’s living standards, admitting the operation of diverse forms of ownership on condition that the overall arrangements in the national economic plan and allowing their existence according to the method of “making good omissions and deficiencies” are the state’s basic policy-related macro considerations for permitting the self-employed persons including individual bookstalls to develop to some extent.
The second stage started at the end of 1982.[6] The Fifth National People’s Congress held at the end of this year revised the Constitution and made it clear that the self-employed persons are supplementary to the socialist economy and determined their corresponding legal status. Therefore, the development of the self-employed persons reached the first peak in 1983. So this stage was a period of upward sustained development. During this period, the number of individual bookstalls increased considerably. Individual bookstalls were widely scattered particularly in large and medium-sized cities. But in comparison with the self-employed persons engaged in other business activities, the operation scale of individual bookstalls still expanded slowly, mainly because such supporting market conditions as the formation of primary and secondary book wholesale markets, the growth of experienced book distributors and operators and the contribution of large capital did not produce scale effect.
The third stage was marked by the Third Plenary Session of the Twelfth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in 1985. It determined the concepts for reform of the economic structure with stress on the cities and set forth the theory of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. This gave a new impetus to the development of the self-employed persons. So the development of the self-employed persons and private business operations reached the second peak. A new stage of the steady development of the self-employed persons began. But things were complicated in the field of book distribution. On the one hand, with the deepening of the reform and opening up, the emergence of a large number of civilian-run research institutes basically weakened the state monopoly and control of the field of knowledge production, as knowledge production sites which mainly included institutions of higher learning were very active. The initial manifestation is the emergence of the “series boom”. Many series which were published at that time have still been influential so far. Their varieties, wide range of subjects and diverse forms have been unknown before. This provides a wealth of knowledge sources for the field of book distribution and greatly promotes the prosperity and development of individual bookstalls. At the same time, the operating conditions of individual bookstalls were also improved notably. There were large concentrated primary or secondary book wholesale markets outside the Xinhua Bookstore system for the first time in all large and medium-sized cities. Some individual bookstalls began to develop store business operations on the basis of capital accumulation at the preceding stage. Some staff members and workers of the original state-owned bookstores began to contract the operation of the original state-owned bookstores according to individual business operation. This further helped civilian-run bookstores emerge. These operators of civilian-run bookstores showed a high quality and self-possession, contributed more capital, began to establish a network for connecting the groups of knowledge producers and were even involved in the planning and writing of some books. As a result, the “free salons” for intellectuals emerged in some bookstores. But on the other hand, the individual and civilian-run booksellers encountered specific difficulties in their business operations because the movement of “eliminating bourgeois ideological pollution” occurred and the slogan of “promoting material progress and ideological and cultural progress” was put forward. With regard to institutional construction, the state began to use a new method of governance. The Bureau of Culture established a new “office for special business operations”. All functional departments related to market management set up a joint “office for eliminating pornography and cracking down on speculation and profiteering” under the unified leadership of the Publicity Department of the Party Central Committee and the Press and Publication Administration. This trend of development culminated because political disturbances occurred in 1989. Therefore, a group of the individual bookstalls or civilian-run bookstores involved in the political disturbances closed down.