Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.10, 2013

Phenomena of Capable Persons in the Functioning of Self-organizations

(Abstract)

Luo Jiade and Sun Yu et al.

This study is based on a number of rural community cases collected in the quake-stricken Sichuan Province, and attempts to compare the different founding histories of two industry associations in China and the United States. Our research shows that the self-organizing process in China takes place distinctively in social relationships, which is different from the Western one wherein formal rules play a major part. Chinese capable persons are usually the central figures of an established social network who are strongly tinged with political elites. In domestic cases, formal rules are generally inadequate, and equal division is often used as a substitute for the principle of fairness. Capable persons usually observe the balance of human relationships and equal division. Once the balance is broken, people’s trust of the capable persons will be destroyed. Nevertheless, as in the Western self-organizing process, capable persons need to bear the costs incurred in the early period before they can reap the returns on reputation later. During the process, the “dilemma of human relationships” is particularly interesting in domestic self-organizations. When a resource controller takes advantage of his position to allocate the resources favorably towards a resource trustee, he will contravene the principle of fairness, and may incur the social reproach of other stakeholders and even legal punishment. This is the gravest challenge confronting Chinese capable persons.