Zhou Qiren | If We Stop Reforming, We Will Face Three Major Problems

Reform is difficult to begin with. At this point in time, it is even more difficult to reform. However, delaying reform is not a way out. 

If we stop reforming, we will face three major problems

In fact, various economic systems in the world are competing on one thing, which is the ability to correct mistakes. Which system doesn’t make mistakes?

Capitalism is remarkable. The “Communist Manifesto” says that it has created revolutionary economic achievements that surpass all previous eras, but why does it always have economic crises? Isn’t it because that system makes mistakes?

In the past, it was thought that by implementing a planned economy, crises could be eliminated. In fact, whether in the Soviet Union or in China, economic decisions would also make mistakes. Otherwise, why would there be an “adjustment” every few years?

Experience has proven that making mistakes is inevitable. The question is whether the ability to correct mistakes is strong. A highly centralized power system can concentrate resources to accomplish great things, which is an advantage, but the premise is that the decisions must be correct. If the decisions are wrong and the power is concentrated, then the mistakes are also great, and it is difficult to correct them.

Reform is nothing more than systematically correcting mistakes. There is a paradox here: the planned system itself needs reform because its ability to correct mistakes is not strong enough, and it has accumulated many problems. But if we raise the banner of reform, can our system’s ability to correct mistakes automatically become stronger?

In practice, a new bias has emerged. It is extremely difficult, and reform has finally made some progress, and thus achieved some economic achievements. There is an opinion that our system is the most brilliant system in the world and no longer needs to be reformed.

Since reform is so difficult, can we simply not reform? Can we simply announce that China has built a new system and no longer needs reform?

After thinking about it, the answer is “no.” Because if we only reform halfway and stop, big troubles will follow. There are roughly three levels.

●The first level, if we do not continue to promote reforms in some key areas, do not continue to promote reforms in the direction of a socialist market economy, and do not promote reforms to improve socialist democracy and the rule of law, many social contradictions will show a chain reaction.

Referring to the current economic situation, the overall characteristic is a high-level decline. As the old saying goes, “It’s easy to go up the mountain, but hard to go down.” It’s easy to have problems when going downhill. Many contradictions are covered up during rapid growth, but when going downhill, the difficulty of balancing increases.

●The second level, a younger generation becomes the main body of society. They have a new frame of reference for evaluating the system, policies, and their own environment, which is different from the previous generation, and they also have higher expectations for an ideal society.

For example, for those who experienced the Great Famine of 1959-1961, the people’s communes, and the “Cultural Revolution,” they feel that the changes after China’s reform and opening up are huge progress.

However, for the “post-80s” and “post-90s,” their frame of reference is different from birth. They live in a more open China, have more understanding of the world, and believe that the world should be like this and that. If it doesn’t meet the standards, they are not satisfied.

Now, what is the frame of reference for the main body of the society, that is, the most active population in the industrial structure, the most active population in the consumption structure, and the most active population in cultural activities? What are their expectations? Are their standards for social justice and modern civilization a little higher than in the past? Do they feel more intolerable about the negative phenomena brought about by inadequate reforms?

It should be noted that China’s total economic output is already the second largest in the world. Because of this, people’s expectations for their own country are higher than in the past. We cannot always talk about how things were before the reform, and we cannot talk about how things were before the founding of New China. We cannot always rely on “remembering the bitterness and sweetness” to maintain people’s satisfaction.

A country has hope, and it must be that generation after generation has higher expectations for their own society. Therefore, reform should also match the expectations of the mainstream population.

If the reform is too slow and cannot keep up with the expectations of the younger generation for society, problems will also arise, and it may also lead to a spread of disappointment, and then it will be impossible to mobilize generations to face problems and solve them.

●The third level, many institutional variables are now changing too slowly and are not in place, which is stimulating more and more extra-legal behavior and phenomena.

Now, in many things, the law says one thing, the book says another, and people actually do another. Many people are not within the framework of the law, but are living in the world outside the law.

When seeing these phenomena, people are accustomed to criticizing mainland China for not abiding by the law and not having the good habit of observing the law. This problem exists, but in some cases, it is also because many of our laws or regulations are unreasonable.

I gave a small example. When a civil aviation aircraft lands, the broadcast will definitely say, “Please do not turn on your mobile phone.” But if you look around, almost everyone is turning on their mobile phones. And when you take a Cathay Pacific or Dragonair flight from Hong Kong, they will announce as soon as they land that you can turn on your mobile phones now.

My question is, if there are no adverse consequences after turning on the mobile phone after landing, why not let everyone turn on their mobile phones? This is to say that in some cases, it is not difficult to make the law enforced by changing the law or regulations.

Now many economic controls, or regulations or policies, are simply difficult to implement. In the end, everyone has to break the law to make it easier to live.

Speaking of these phenomena, “small principles” prevail – this is not allowed, that is not allowed. But it seems to have forgotten a big principle, which is to allow the vast majority of people’s vast majority of behaviors to be carried out within a legal framework.

In a rapidly changing society, reform should enhance institutional capacity, that is, to resolve extra-legal behavior and incorporate extra-legal activities that do not harm others and society into the legal framework as much as possible. Otherwise, more and more people will start from scratch and “not play with you,” which is the biggest institutional failure.

Reform is difficult to begin with. At this point in time, it is even more difficult to reform. However, delaying reform is not a way out.

In the current situation, reform must not only race against corruption or collapse, but also race against the expectations of the increasingly younger social main body, and have the ability to absorb a large number of activities from the extra-legal world into the system. If we cannot win in these three directions, big troubles will follow.