Urban Residents in Construction of Harmonious Society: Actor, Structure and System Pattern - 中欧社会论坛 - China Europa Forum

Urban Residents in Construction of Harmonious Society: Actor, Structure and System Pattern

Li Lulu

2007

Department of Sociology, Renmin University of China

There are the old sayings in China such as “harmony is precious”, “harmony but difference” and “big because of capacity”. Make one and all people satisfied and the society harmonious should be a necessary item on the agenda for construction of a harmonious society and also an important target of building a well-off society in an all-around way. From the perspective of cultural origin, China advocates harmony and looks forward to stability in pursuit of a safe and harmonious society in which the government functions well and the people live in harmony and work in peace and contentment, which is a major component of Chinese culture. In addition, according to international experiences, the stage of GDP per capita between 1000 and 3000 dollars is a golden period of speedup development and also a critical period of various contradictions.

Under such circumstances of system transition and social transformation, as an important aspect of market, society and political administration, the urban residents hold a very outstanding and important status, their motives, behaviors, ideas and changes of value orientation, more or less, decide the future trend of China to certain extent. At present, whether such functioning mode is indirect or direct, separate or collective, we all should pay necessary attention to it and make an analysis from the perspective of overall situation, so that our government can take precautions before it is too late and hold the initiative in making decisions.

The stress of our research and analysis should be put on how to make decisions, for an urban resident as an actor, how to think and weigh in a framework of crossed multiple structures of market, society and culture etc. and how to give his own voices in a rational way to attract attention of the government in the interactive process with the existing system (no matter that this system is related to economy, society, politics or culture) and finally build himself into a qualified interest subject.

Therefore, the social stability against the background of constructing harmonious society should be realized through whole new ideas and measures. And the core of the new ideas and measures just is “human-based”. To really realize organic, sound, continuous and healthy social stability will ultimately depend on persisting in “human-based” and interest sharing instead of others.

In the following, I will make a brief summary of status quo of the life of urban resident and point out the existing problems and try to give some feasible countermeasures and thoughts.

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