The tools of interpretation: the principles of economics in life reading notes 4

In the previous five chapters, from the human Nature Instinct, the group system, the supply and demand relations, the economic system and the information question these five aspects elaborated the author to in the Life, in the economic activity easy to see the basic characteristic, the origin, the expression form and the development change understanding and the understanding. The author attributed the five chapters to the first article, called "The Economic concept of life". And this note to introduce is the second chapter of the book, called "Social relations have a ' price tag '". I think, the author is to first through the analysis of the economic phenomenon of life in the economic theory, let our understanding deepen a level, contact more basic knowledge and ideas, and then back to life, the previous understanding further extended, in order to deepen a layer of understanding of life. In this article, the author mainly talks about three kinds of relations, one is the relationship between parents and children in the family (family rituals), one is the relationship between human and human in society (social capital), and the relationship between the old society and the new social (social change). Through these three relationships, how will the author describe the "price tag" in his mind?

Sixth chapter

Economics and sociology before the the 1960s were strictly separate, without overlap, but from 1960 onwards, economists began to extend their tentacles to other social sciences, such as politics, society, and law. In these pioneers, Professor Guerybecher of the University of Chicago had the greatest influence on sociology. He put forward a sensational view of the world: Parents think about having a few children, there will be cost-effective consideration! Since then, discussions about whether the rituals relationship has been linked to benefits have been going on for so long. What does the author think of it?

The meaning of rituals

Rituals, an ordinary and great rule, including how much to pay, dedication, love and tolerance, it seems that any critical judgment of it with moral misconduct, the truth of the non-objectivity, so most even rational people avoid "really objective" to see the rituals relationship. But if there is a person (and you respect, trust, life mentor) very seriously and lightly to tell you, rituals relationship is a "tool" arrangement, with "functional" connotation, how will you react? Shocked. Mr. Xiong gave his students such a shock, but what is his basis? He told a story.

There is a concept called "leasing". What kind of things are "rent"? For example, "economic rent". What kind of things can exist "economic rent"? Very simple. For example, in both Chinese and foreign countries, in the sports arena, there are some super stars. The reward for playing a ball, a concert, and a movie these days is likely to be the result of decades of sweat and Wang Tian from ordinary townspeople. However, the cost of playing singing and acting is actually very low, but the income is higher than the sky. Between this kind of income and pay, this is the "economic rent" that these favored get. Obviously, the income of "economic rent" is greater than the cost. "Economic rent" is a kind of "leasing". Another kind of "rent", which is not the same as "economic rent", is the rituals relationship between people. Standing in the perspective of parents or children, rituals relationship often represents the parents to the children no regrets, death regardless of to pay the spirit, material, mental, time, children to parents also have Ruzi and Outworld devourer body difficult to report feelings. But standing on the sidelines, the rituals relationship also has the property of economic rents--the benefits outweigh the costs. "Parents and children are not necessarily every day Hee-hee, but as long as the ' parents ' or ' children ' These two words in mind, will always lead to a special, close, willing to pay the feelings"-as long as it is this identity, do not need him to pay anything, you have to pay for him, this is not more than cost.

For the so-called "rent" characteristics of the rituals relationship, the author has two points: first, this is to reproduce their genes slowly developed a class of instrumental arrangements; second, in the process of evolution, rituals relationship is like a valuable tool is generally important, both in the ideological and subconscious are worthy of special treatment. The author's point of view seems to have its rationale, but I still do not accept!

The sculpture of rituals

If the rituals relationship, kinship thicker than water, is the evolution of human experience over the years gradually formed, then, in contrast, a friend such a relationship should be said to be formed, but it can be used as a rituals sculpture, through the "friends" of the formation of the relationship, how many found some rituals relationship formed shadow.

An American sociologist once conducted a survey on the subject of "Who is your best friend". The answer to this question is the highest proportion of people: my neighbor. Why are their neighbours always their best friends? Does it mean that there is a destiny in the sky, like sesame seeds with mung bean like the likes of similar, similar personalities arranged to live together? Of course, this is iffy and not convincing. So what is the intrinsic nature that leads to such a result? In the opinion of the author, there are two aspects, positive aspects and negative aspects. From a positive point of view, the neighbors meet more time, the character is also more familiar with each other; When you need help, friends and family "far water" is always less than the neighbor's "near water" comes in time quickly, easy to cultivate good feelings; Growing up and self-reliant, and neighbors most easy to establish a solid connection and spiritual sustenance, so good relations with the neighbors. From a negative point of view, if you offend the neighbors, one is to affect the quality of life, and the other is that some of the interests of the co-ordination of things, for the individual is unfavorable. So, instead of being friends with neighbors, it is better to be the embodiment of cost-effectiveness, maximization of benefits and minimization of costs. For the reason of blood and affection, the author feels that "once we realize the true and primitive of blood kinship, we can cherish this special relationship, and be more considerate and tolerant of people's limitation and fragility." ”

Rituals relationship is like a structure, although natural tiancheng, but can imagine some ways to optimize the rituals relationship. For example, a "distant attachment" can be needed. Parents and children get along with children from small to large more than 10, 20 years, when the child really independent out of the parents, parents will always reluctant to, and finally full of melancholy. How can let parents not so full of melancholy? "Diamond Sutra" There is an important point of view is called "away from the phase without living", "away from the phase" means to break free from the persistence of the appearance of things, "no living" means to break away from the appearance of things to give the emotions, combined with the meaning is inner peace. If parents can be the inevitable alienation of children inner peace, but can more cherish the present situation this scene, and Shing will not be feeling clustered.

The mood and vision of the beholder

Professor Becker's analysis of the family in economics is instructive from an outsider's point of view. Family, like a small economic organization, the change of the economic organization is obviously affected by the market economy. For example, by analysing the development of the past few decades, it is immediately possible to see two significant changes: 1. When women can go out to work to earn income, fewer children are born (willing), 2, the development of urbanization, so that many families moved from rural to urban areas, population concentration, living space narrowed, urban housing prices rise, As a result, compared to families living in the suburbs, the number of family children in the city is smaller. Ramzille, a professor at Harvard Law School, also found such changes when studying the labour market in Japanese history. Before 18th century, Japan was an agricultural society, tenants were more low-income, often forced by the pressure of life, borrowing money from landlords, the children as collateral. If there is no time to repay the loan, the children will stay in the landlord's home for many years, but when Japan began to enter the industrialization, the urban employment opportunities, population mobility also slowly increased, the collateral prices fell, parents can no longer with the landlord to sign a long-term guarantee contract, the maximum is to let the children in the landlord home for 2-3 years. The reason is simple, if it is a long-term contract, children tend to vote in the foot, fled to the city. Therefore, the influence of parents on their children (restraint, manipulation) is indeed affected by economic forces.

All of these can fully explain that the various relationships in the family actually contain cost-benefit considerations. But I think since the author in this chapter talked about this rituals problem, it should be the various relationships behind the various cost-effectiveness of the principles of the principle of clarity, if such generalizing to say, I feel still not to say too clear, also not necessarily can let everyone is convinced.

Seventh Chapter

In this chapter, the author mainly compares the research centers and methodologies of economics and sociology, and deals with the important topics of sociology through the concepts and methods of economics-how to make up the community and the society from one family to another?

The author argues that economics and sociology are still different, compared with the following:

On the issue of research, economics value individual, family, manufacturer these individual questions, as well as the whole society's price, the employment level and so on overall problem; In contrast, sociology focuses on community, socialization, religion and so on in the "intermediate domain" between the individual and the whole. In the research method, the economics is the individual or the manufacturer as the basic analysis Unit, then adds the total to become the market or the industry, whether is the manufacturer or the individual, the economics all consistent uses ' the Rational Choice Model '. In contrast, the theory of sociology usually refers to the theory of Weber, Habermas, Durkheim, etc., and sociology itself has no consistent methodology. ”

Because of the differences between economics and sociology, there is a difference between economists and sociologists, for example, economists are always on the sidelines and distance from the analysis, while sociologists are usually local, according to the characteristics of the problem to determine the structure of the analysis, for the analysis of the object, also tend to integrate into it. Such a contrast can be seen, the analytical method of economics than the sociology to consistent, and sociology as the problem and local conditions in the methodology also has a tailor-made, the advantages of the situation.

Social capital

Using the concept of economics, we look at two social phenomena: 1, a city in the United States a residential densely populated area, the night of a vicious robbery injury incident, the gunman stabbed the woman for more than 20 minutes with a knife, the woman shouted loudly, the voice spread throughout the block, but until the end of the robbery, the woman died, no one call the police. After the investigation of the tenants, repeated hearing is the same answer: because there are too many people to hear the voice, they think that others have reported to the police, then they do not need to repeat the police. 2, in the street, the park, parents with children to play, the child peeled a sugar, but the candy is thrown underground, parents see but not stop, other people see also do not stop, even if not far there is a clear "Prohibit littering" logo. What do these two examples tell us about a problem? What do you think of economics and how should we solve it? This involves a noun called "social capital". Social capital can be said to maintain the social movement of human, relations, public good and vulgar accumulation, the higher the social capital, the higher the level of social civilization. Examples of homicides and littering are the low performance of social capital, as they all lose their public order. There are two kinds of punishments or sanctions that need to be maintained in order to maintain the customs. The first is sanctions against those who violate the morals and customs, and the second is when the first sanction fails, and some people punish those who do not do their best to maintain the morals and customs. "These two kinds of sanctions must be matched to each other in order to maintain the social well-being and morals." "Of course, this is a bad situation of social capital, good situation is, because the residents of a city to understand each other, public morals, public morals are good, so parents are very relieved to let their children go out to play, because even if lost will have friends and neighbors to help." Another example is that one side is hard to P plus support. Once heard that a domestic city has a noodle shop boss in order to suffer serious disease daughter cure and desperately sell noodles, moved the city of people, we all pour, noodle business instant hot, between, to that noodle noodles become a local fashion. This is the high performance of social capital. In an environment of abundant social capital, the authors say, people enjoy the existing social capital on the one hand, while also protecting and irrigating social capital. On the contrary, in a very poor social capital environment, there is not much resources to rely on and use, of course, people are less willing to pay and investment, in this case, there will not be too much social capital. Social capital is often what we call civic-minded.

The origin of good value

Since social capital is good, how is it produced? It might be easier to analyze it in a small environment. In general, there is a more abundant "social capital" in the family, because you can always rely on other family members when you need relief, and if someone breaches the rules, the family can be more natural without worrying about the consequences of reminding and correcting the offending person. Apart from kinship, what other factors can nurture the abundance of social capital? The author gives three points: the first is the number of people, the second is the small environment, the last is to repeat the interaction. These three factors imply that family members continue to interact frequently, thus enabling mechanisms for rewarding punishment to work. And each other can observe and exchange information, so that the reward and punishment mechanism of the operation more effective. Why do small places have a mellow, big city? The author thinks that it is also because of the environment is small, the number is few, repeat intercourse these three conditions. The author also raised a personal experience, the people who lived near him, although close to him, but for many years even the name is not recognized, but with some far away friends because all have a common hobby, so often can mutual care, mutual understanding. Therefore, the accumulation of human beings should not be defined as a "geographical" or "geographic" combination, but "active" or "functional" aggregation. Such a network is expanding, so that the social capital of each other's small circle is increasing. In fact, the interaction between family and family can determine the various phenomena of community and society. The concept of "social capital" miniature to reflect the relationship between family and family.

Eighth Chapter

From the ancient society to the modern society, from the Agricultural Society to the industrial society, from the feudal society to the capitalist societies, the communist societies, the society always with the economic base, the superstructure changes unceasingly has the change. Both the objective economic scholars and the social scholars involved in the social change are regarded as an important research topic. From the personal rational self-interest to the cost-benefit of the family to the social capital of the community finally to the social changes, the process from the bottom up, from the perspective of economics constantly reflect the "price tag" of social relations, so six, 73 or 83 chapters is consistent, from small and large. In this chapter, the author tries to indicate the opportunity of social change, then depicts the process of social change, and finally points out some major forces that affect social change.

Social change

Not to mention the social changes that have taken place in the past, the recent 100 years of social change have reached incredible proportions. Neither the inner thought, nor the outward behavior, nor the structure of the family, nor the system of the institution of society, have been very different from the past. It was sunrise and sunset yesterday. What is the meaning of nightlife, and now the expansion of space and time caused by information explosion has greatly increased the efficiency of time utilization. These changes are difficult for economists and sociologists to overlook, but also a source of changing social relations. To understand the economic principles of social relations and to form a theoretical system, it is important to recognize where it comes from and where it is going to be.

The author argues that the cause of the change, whether for the larger system of society, or a relatively small system such as a community or a family, has only two possibilities: external factors or intrinsic factors. External factors can be an appalling catastrophe (such as a comet hitting the earth for a dinosaur extinction) or a change in resources (such as the extinction of certain organisms due to lack of food), and internal factors can be the result of institutional or leadership decisions (such as migration). In the study of the internal factors of human social change, "entrepreneur" has a very important and special status. Entrepreneurs here are not necessarily the ones who make money in business, they should be the ones who replace existing practices with new ideas, products and practices. Such people try to transcend the times and are the elites and great practitioners of society. There is also a point, that is, the emergence of social phenomena, whether good or bad, there are the reasons behind, the best practice, good products, good system, to be able to be preserved, need the support of relevant conditions. Otherwise, the entrepreneur's new ideas may soon become ephemeral. This is in the same way as the author has said before: a good social system needs the support of a new society if it wants to be transplanted into a new society. In order to facelift a new look, the entrepreneurs who introduce social system and try hard to make their presenting illegal weapons must win the support of society-related conditions. To recite the modern history of China, this conclusion can be said to have been fully confirmed.

Once the social system is confronted with stimuli, both externally and internally, it will soon face a realistic test of how such stimuli are perceived and reacted, depending on the nature of the society itself. The author gave a small example: before, the children will go home to eat at night, but now they are becoming more and more early to form a sense of self, at night began not to go home to eat, and also run away from the phenomenon is more and more, this is unimaginable. How can you do this when you are a little older and self-conscious? Because the past society, the sunrise and sunset, and people to deal with a lot of, children in a complex network of human growth, both by its support, but also by its restrictions. People, not only for their own lives, but also for others to live, so self-awareness is not so strong. Now, parents come back late, and friends and family distance, everyone's time also began to become less unison, the development of the information society leads not to go out and know the world, in this environment to grow children, enjoy not the support of traditional interpersonal network, and will not be limited by it, So they are more living for themselves than for others (expectations). This small change of children is a small phenomenon of social change, which is formed spontaneously with the development of society, which can be considered as internal cause. A lot of social changes, it is such a bit of happening. Of course, the social activities behind all have the shadow of economic activity, economic activity has always been one of the leading forces to promote social change.

The result of social change is as if "there was a piece of stuff thrown into the pond, after a moment of confusion, the last state of the pond". I like the metaphor, which says the causes, the scale of the causes, the way of proliferation, the scale of proliferation and the final influence. Human society, in general, is the same, however, after the size of the social changes, the original things may be unchanged, may change the meaning, may also disappear. When the society changes, the relative meaning of many things will change obviously, with the economic terms, "relative price" change, at the same time, social change is not only the human behavior and social phenomena, but more importantly, the meaning and connotation of human itself is constantly re-assigned and defined. "There has been a metaphor for social phenomena as a dialogue: everyone has been involved in a long-established dialogue, influenced by the content of the conversation and influenced by the content of the dialogue." The relationship between man and society has similar characteristics. The experience of human growth is influenced by the existence of the environment, but when people participate in the activities of society, they also add new content to the society, thus affecting the trajectory of social development. This sentence fully illustrates that the meaning of man is constantly being filled and defined!

The tools of interpretation: the principles of economics in life reading notes 4