Chinese Social Sciences Review. Volume 1

Author: Zhang Shuguang > Deng Zhenglai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: The three articles published in this issue's "Theme Forum" have different research subjects and content, but all are empirical studies. To conduct such articles well, one not only needs theoretical hypotheses and frameworks but also empirical data and analytical tools. The key is to find measurement indicators that meet theoretical requirements and can be supported by data. In this regard, all three articles are quite well done. The article by Yue Ximing and Li Shi discusses the targetting issue of China's rural poverty alleviation projects based on data from 592 national poor counties and households. The results show that the identification of national poor counties in 2001 improved significantly in terms of targetting compared to 1993. When the central government allocates poverty alleviation funds to provinces, the targetting accuracy is high, but when provinces allocate funds to counties, the targetting is less accurate. This means that improving targetting within provinces can enhance the overall accuracy of poverty alleviation fund allocation. Fan Jianyong's article changes the traditional perspective of examining regional disparities from neoclassical growth theory and comparative advantage theory. Instead, it adopts the analytical framework and theoretical assumptions of new international trade theory and new economic geography to explain regional disparities through industrial agglomeration and factor mobility. It empirically demonstrates how the migration of rural labor from the eastern region to cities, the concentration of labor in the eastern coastal areas, and the movement of labor from central-western regions to coastal areas have led to the agglomeration of manufacturing in the eastern coastal areas, thereby widening the economic gap between the coastal and inland regions. Chen Zhao et al. argue that since the reform, the female labor participation rate has declined, which is difficult to explain with neoclassical economics. Based on Chinese data, they discover a positive correlation between divorce rates and female employment rates. They explain that the rise in divorce rates reduces the efficiency of household division of labor, leading to a decline in female labor participation rates, using dynamic strategic household division of labor theory.
This issue introduces a new column, "Political Philosophy and Legal Philosophy." Due to the lack of high-level works in this field in China, we have published "The Purpose of Law: Its Development in Legal Thought," translated by Deng Zhenglai. The article uses precise language and rigorous logic to provide an incisive analysis of how the idea of social control purposes evolved from ancient Greek legal thought, through Roman and medieval legal thought, as well as the debates between Protestant legal theologians and Spanish legal theologians, into modern legal thought. It also offers an in-depth examination of its development in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Reading it is like experiencing the evolution of thousands of years of legal thought firsthand, as if listening to the profound and insightful arguments of the sages. It is indeed a great pleasure and enjoyment, truly a classic work of legal philosophy, worthy of serious study by domestic scholars.
The five articles in this issue's "Academic Monographs" and the two reviews in "Academic Book Reviews" are all highly worth reading. Here, only a few can be briefly commented on. For example, Liu Ye's article discusses modern Chinese state building through the lenses of faith reconstruction and organizational reconstruction, highlighting the role of intellectuals in the process. Qian Xuemei's article differs from the two major mainstream theories on Islamic revival—Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory and Giddens's rejection of modernization and globalization—by explaining Islamic revival from the perspective of the inherent self-reform and regulatory mechanisms within Islam. Chen Hongcai's article reviews Simmel's "Philosophy of Money" from two aspects: first, it reveals how money has transformed from a pure and absolute means into an ultimate end, becoming the "secular god" of the world; second, it points out that while money grants people freedom, this freedom is merely formal and and hollow, thereby explaining the metaphysical and ahistorical nature of Simmel's monetary philosophy and its tragic elements. Ma Yongxiang's article reviews Machiavelli's "Analysis of Sensations" and Hayek's "Order of Sensations," explaining that Hayek's reflections on human intelligence stem from the inspiration and transcendence of Machiavelli. By reviewing previous critiques, it points out that Hayek abandoned Machiavelli's reductionist monism of sensory elements and inherited his "relation" concept. It also explicitly states that it is inappropriate to discuss Hayek's fundamental issues within the framework of (anti)positivism and ontology.