重建，還是崩塌？

Rebuild or Collapse?

——政治危機的組織孞托診斷學

— A Diagnostic Theory of Political Crisis Through Organizational Entrustment

錢宏（Archer Hong Qian）

一切政治危機、經濟危機、文化危機、未來危機，說到底，都是組織孞托危機。

危機發生的時候，人們看到的往往是政權更替、財政赤字、貨幣貶值、失業增長、社會撕裂、街頭抗議、犬儒逐利、戾氣沖天、躺平擺爛、文化衝突。政治家忙着滅火，經濟學家尋找周期，社會學家分析階層，歷史學家追溯制度。

這些當然都有意義。

然而，如果我們繼續往生命與組織關係的深處追問：一個社會為什麼會走到危機這一步？為什麼曾經有效的制度突然失靈？為什麼曾經接受的權威不再被接受？為什麼經濟數字仍在增長，人們卻越來越憤怒？為什麼政府說得越來越正確，人民卻越來越不相信？

最後都會碰到同一個問題：

組織承諾的價值，無法繼續得到承兌了。

生命把一部分權利、財富、時間、勞動乃至自由託付給組織，是因為組織能夠降低彼此交往的成本，保護生命，維持秩序，協調衝突，創造個人獨自生活無法獲得的公共價值。

這是一種託付，也是一種承兌關係。

組織一旦長期消耗這種託付，卻不能提供與之相稱的價值，危機便開始發生。

所以，政治診斷學真正需要測量的，不只是GDP、債務率、通脹率、支持率，也不只是左翼還是右翼、民主還是威權、市場還是政府。

更值得追問的是：

這個組織還值得生命託付嗎？

這就是組織孞托。

一、1965：一個被逐出聯邦的小島

1965年8月9日，新加坡脫離馬來西亞。

準確地說，這是長期政治、族群和經濟矛盾累積之後，馬來西亞國會通過修憲，將新加坡逐出聯邦。

李光耀在宣布新加坡獨立的記者會上落淚。

那不是一個勝利者的眼淚。

一個資源匱乏、面積狹小、族群複雜，連淡水供應都高度依賴外部的小島，突然必須作為一個獨立國家生存。

擺在李光耀面前的問題，當然包括住房、就業、工業、教育、國防、外交。

可是把這些問題放在一起看，會發現還有一個更加根本的問題：

誰相信新加坡？

居民是否相信這個剛剛誕生的國家？

不同族群是否相信彼此能夠生活在一起？

企業是否願意投資？

國際資本是否相信這裡的契約？

公務員是否能夠成為公共責任的承擔者，而不是權力與利益的尋租者？

世界是否相信這個小島明天還存在？

因此，新加坡真正稀缺的資源，甚至不只是土地、淡水、資本和技術。

還有組織孞托。

國家首先必須讓自己值得託付。

政府必須證明稅收不會無休止地被浪費，行政能夠有效運行，法律可以穩定執行，公共住房能夠兌現，教育能夠改變下一代人的生活，港口可以正常運轉，投資者的財產與契約能夠得到保護。

於是，一個幾乎沒有自然資源的小島，開始積累一種看不見的資源：

人們願意把自己的未來託付給這個組織。

新加坡後來創造的經濟奇蹟，可以用資本積累解釋，可以用全球貿易解釋，可以用產業政策解釋，可以用華人文化解釋，也可以用英國制度解釋。

這些解釋都觸及了真實的一部分。

但在這些因素能夠發揮作用之前，還必須存在一個條件：

組織能夠承兌。

這才是1965年以後新加坡最值得研究的政治經濟學遺產之一。

二、1990：廣場上的青年與總統府里的選擇

1990年3月，台灣青年學生聚集在中正紀念堂廣場。

後來，這場運動被稱為“野百合學運”。

學生面對的是一個非常具體、也非常荒誕的問題：1940年代在大陸選出的部分“中央民意代表”，遷台以後長期沒有全面改選，以至於出現所謂“萬年國會”。

一個聲稱“主權在民”的共和國，如果人民不能通過正常制度重新授權自己的代表，“主權在民”究竟由誰承兌？

所以，野百合學生提出解散長期未全面改選的國民大會、廢除《動員戡亂時期臨時條款》、召開國是會議、推動民主改革等要求。

這時候，真正接受考驗的並不只是街頭學生。

還有李登輝。

鎮壓，還是對話？

把青年視為秩序的破壞者，還是把他們提出的問題看作共和國自身必須回答的問題？

這是一個政治判斷，也是一種政治格局。

更深處，則是一次組織孞托選擇：

繼續消耗共和國的名義，還是讓共和國重新承兌“主權在民”？

李登輝選擇接見學生代表，隨後推動召開國是會議。台灣此後的政治改革當然複雜得多，也絕非一個人、一場運動所能完成，但這個歷史瞬間依然具有象徵意義。

因為政治組織面對挑戰的時候，最容易發生一種危險的錯覺：

把保護組織等同於保護既得權力結構。

其實，一個組織真正需要保護的，是生命為什麼願意把權利託付給它的那個理由。

當這個理由已經受到損害，繼續保護舊結構，恰恰可能加速組織自身的孞托耗損。

因此，1990年的問題表面上是“萬年國會”，深處卻是：

共和國還能不能讓共和國名副其實？

三、2016與2023：為什麼選民突然要掀桌子？

2016年的美國與2023年的阿根廷，相距數千公里，國家歷史、經濟結構、政治文化差異巨大。

川普與米萊的個人風格也完全不同。

然而，兩場政治震盪背後，都存在一個不能忽略的現象：

相當數量的選民已經不再相信原有政治組織能夠依靠自身慣性解決問題。

當普通人的生活成本不斷提高，政府債務不斷累積，行政體系越來越龐大，規則越來越複雜，政治語言越來越精緻，學校教育也越來越偏蔽，而人們對未來的確定感越來越低，一種奇怪的裂縫便出現了：

組織越來越強，組織孞托卻越來越弱。

一個組織最危險的時候，未必是GDP下降的時候，而可能是GDP仍在增長，生命卻開始退出的時候。

這正是共生經濟學（Symbionomics）對“無效GDP”分析能夠進入政治診斷的地方。GDP記錄發生了多少交易、投資和支出，卻不會自動辨別這些活動究竟降低了多少生活成本、創造了多少公共價值，又製造了多少新的組織成本。污染後的治理、擁堵後的擴建、高房價推動的土地金融、不斷膨脹的行政維持成本，都可能形成GDP；如果生命為此付出的時間、債務、健康和未來選擇越來越多，增長就可能與真實生活所得發生背離。

更值得警惕的是無效GDP的代際化：收益在當期確認，成本向未來遞延；增長記在今天，賬單寄給明天。那些以GDP增長作為政績考評、升官發財圭臬的殖官主義（Bureaucolonialism）者，還可能在任期、調任和晉升中，把自己的組織責任一併轉嫁出去。

這一代人在GDP賬面上留下了“增長”，下一代人在生活賬本上收到的卻是成本。

因此，共生經濟學提出GDE（Gross Domestic Energy / Efficiency），並不是再造一個數字崇拜，而是要求把經濟活動重新放回生命來衡量：有沒有降本、賦能、增進健康、生成孞托與和平？當GDP仍然增長而GDE意義上的生命效能持續下降，政治危機可能已經在經濟繁榮的表象之下發生。

這恰恰是現代政治最容易誤診的地方。

政府規模擴大，不等於治理能力增強。

財政支出增加，不等於公共價值增加。

法律法規越來越多，不等於秩序越來越好。

專家越來越多，也不意味着人民越來越相信組織。

當組織為了維持自身運行不斷增加社會成本，而它所承兌的公共價值卻沒有同步增長，組織就可能從生命的受託者，逐漸變成生命必須供養的對象。

政治危機由此孕育。

所以，2016年的美國選舉與2023年的阿根廷選舉，無論人們如何評价川普與米萊，都提出了一個比左右之爭更加持久的問題：

現代國家怎樣重新證明自己值得人民託付？

選舉可以更換總統。

真正困難的是重建組織孞托。

四、人民共和國怎樣名副其實？

同樣的問題，也擺在PRC大陸面前。

今天，一個值得高度注意的文化現象，是部分知識分子和公共表達越來越迅速地向權力敘事靠攏。

胡鞍鋼、金燦榮、張維為也好，林毅夫、李稻葵、張丹丹也罷，個人並不是這裡真正值得討論的重點。

值得觀察的是一種社會症候：

為什麼知識越來越容易成為權力的解釋工具？為什麼公共語言與普通人的生活體驗之間正在形成越來越明顯的裂縫？

一個組織可以擁有強大的宣傳能力，可以不斷生產宏大的國家敘事，可以反覆表達自己的善意。

但是，孞托無法靠語言單方面製造。

中華人民共和國曾經作出一個極高的政治價值承諾：

全心全意為人民服務。

“人民共和國”四個字本身，也是一張極高價值的政治承兌憑證。

人民不是修辭。

共和國也不是裝飾。

如果組織一方面宣稱全心全意為人民服務，另一方面卻在資源配置——土地、住房、教育、醫療、金融、行政壟斷和各種經營活動中不斷擴張自身利益；如果公共權力越來越深入地參與貨殖，又擁有普通市場主體無法擁有的權力優勢，那麼一個古老的問題便重新出現：

與民爭利。

我更願意採用司馬遷《貨殖列傳》中講的“最下者與之爭”，《史記正義》表述的：

與眾爭利。

這裡真正危險的，甚至不只是某一項政策是否正確。

危險發生在價值承諾與生活體驗持續分離的時候。

一個組織宣稱的價值越高，它承擔的承兌責任也越高。

“人民共和國”因此不是一份永久獲得的政治資產。

它需要每天承兌。

怎樣知道這種承兌正在發生，還是正在落空？不能只聽組織怎樣描述自己，還要看生命怎樣用生活作出選擇。普通家庭敢不敢消費和承擔長期負債，年輕人願不願意留下、結婚、生育並進入長期保障，企業家願不願意投資，人才願不願意把自己的創造力放在這裡，人們遇到不公時是否相信制度能夠糾正——這些都不是抽象的情緒，而是生命用時間、財富與未來對組織進行的現實計價。

當越來越多人減少長期投入、迴避長期契約，甚至以“躺平”“不捲”“不生”回應不斷上升的生活成本時，首先需要診斷的未必是年輕人的道德，而是組織承兌是否出現了裂縫。生命的退出，本身就可能成為組織孞托耗損最安靜、也最難偽裝的信號。

人民願不願意相信，年輕人願不願意留下，企業家願不願意投資，普通家庭敢不敢消費，人們遇到不公時相不相信制度能夠糾正，知識分子能不能誠實表達自己的判斷——這些看似分散的現象，都在不斷給組織孞托計價。

所以，大陸今天面對的問題最終仍然繞不開：

怎樣讓“人民共和國”名副其實？

換句話說：

怎樣重建組織孞托？

五、“重建人民共和國”：一個四十年前的問題

“重建人民共和國”，並不是我今天才提出的命題。

1986年，一場車禍以後，我開始寫作《公民個人權利優先引論——作為整體主義的共和國公民學與作為個體主義的共和國組織學》。

那時候我三十出頭。

它的導論題為《一個精神裂變患者的自述》，後來全文刊載於《華人世界》1989年第一期。

回頭看，那個時候真正困擾我的，其實已經是同一個問題：

個人與組織究竟是什麼關係？

如果共和國以人民的名義存在，公民個人為什麼反而可能被抽象的“整體”吞沒？

如果個人權利優先，共和國又如何形成超越個人的公共秩序？

整體與個體之間，難道只能彼此爭奪？

四十年過去，我越來越清楚地意識到，這個問題如果一直停留在“個人主義—整體主義”的二元框架中，很難真正打開。

生命本自具足，又非獨存。

人需要連接，需要交互，需要組織。

組織因此發生。

然而組織一旦發生，又可能逐漸忘記自己為什麼發生。

它從生命的受託者，變成自己的目的；從降低生活成本，變成製造組織成本；從幫助生命彼此連接，變成控制生命；從承兌價值，變成索取價值。

這也是我今天重新理解“重建人民共和國”的關鍵：

問題不再停留在國家與個人誰優先，而在於組織是否持續履行受託責任。組織一旦把自身擴張當成目的，把維持組織的成本轉嫁給生命，再用增長、秩序或宏大敘事證明這種轉嫁的合理性，個人主義與整體主義的舊爭論便遮蔽了更基礎的事實——生命為什麼還要繼續託付？

於是，1986年的“重建人民共和國”，經過四十年的思想生長，最終抵達了今天這個更加基礎的問題：

重建組織孞托。

這也使“共和國”重新獲得了一個可以超越意識形態爭論的尺度：

國家叫什麼並非最重要。

寫着什麼主義也並非最重要。

真正重要的是：

生命託付給組織的權利、資源和責任，組織有沒有好好承兌？

六、從普特尼到光榮革命：政治文明的另一條線索

1647年，英國內戰尚未真正結束，一群軍官、士兵與政治思想者在倫敦附近的普特尼展開了一場後來影響深遠的辯論。

Putney Debates。

他們爭論選舉權，爭論財產權，爭論議會，爭論一個普通英國人究竟憑什麼服從政治權力。

爭論異常激烈。

英國也沒有因此立即獲得一個完美制度。

隨後仍有王政復辟，仍有政治衝突，仍有權力鬥爭。但是，現代政治文明的思想萌芽，已經有了。

直到1688年的The Glorious Revolution，再到1689年的Bill of Rights，英國才逐漸形成一種新的政治安排：

權力必須受到約束；

徵稅需要授權；

議會具有不可輕易取消的地位；

統治本身必須擁有可以被承認的正當來源；

少數人的權利必須得到保障。

如果只用“君主制走向君主立憲制”來概括這一段歷史，當然沒有錯。

可是從組織孞托的角度看，還可以看到另一條歷史線索：

託付—背離—衝突—重新議定—重新承兌。

這可能才是現代政治文明最值得珍惜的能力之一。

一個社會不可能永遠沒有危機。

一個組織也不可能永遠不犯錯誤。

真正決定文明能否持續生長的，是組織有沒有自我修復能力。

當承諾無法兌現，能不能重新議定？

當權力越界，能不能把它拉回來？

當制度失靈，能不能修改制度？

當人民不再相信，組織能不能通過真實行動重新獲得託付？

Putney Debates與The Glorious Revolution的意義，由此超出了英國歷史。

它們讓世界第一次較為清楚地看到：

政治秩序可以通過重新議定組織與生命之間的託付關係獲得再生。

七、政治危機怎樣診斷？——從宏觀數字回到生命選擇

如果“組織孞托”只是一個漂亮的解釋概念，它還不足以成為政治診斷學。診斷必須能夠觀察：孞托在哪裡生成，在哪裡耗損，又怎樣從日常生活中顯現出來。

傳統政治經濟分析習慣觀察GDP、通脹、債務、失業、財政收支、支持率和選舉結果。這些指標當然重要，但它們主要告訴我們組織發生了什麼，卻不一定告訴我們生命怎樣感受並回應這些變化。

組織孞托診斷學因此需要增加一組“生命指標”：人們是否願意作長期投資，是否願意創業，家庭是否敢於消費和負債，年輕人是否願意結婚生育，勞動者是否願意持續進入長期社會保障關係，人才和資本是進入還是退出，人們面對不公時是否相信制度能夠糾正，知識分子能否誠實表達判斷。

這些現象不能被機械地歸結為單一政治原因，也不能把任何一次下降都直接解釋成孞托崩塌。它們真正的意義在於：當多個生活選擇長期、同向地發生變化，而宏觀數字仍然顯示繁榮時，我們必須警惕組織價值承諾與生命真實所得之間已經出現裂縫。

由此，政治危機可以沿着一條更完整的鏈條被觀察：生命託付，組織承兌；承兌形成公共價值，孞托生成；組織成本超過生命所得，無效GDP增加；成本向他人和下一代轉嫁，承兌開始失衡；生命減少投入、迴避長期契約乃至退出；組織孞托持續耗損；最後，原本可以修復的治理問題才演變成政治危機。

生命託付 → 組織承兌 → 孞托生成 → 承兌失衡 → 成本轉嫁 → 生命退出 → 孞托危機。

診斷的目的並不是等待最後一環發生，而是在組織仍有修復能力的時候，看見前面的信號。

這張表並不試圖把複雜社會壓縮成一套機械評分。它提供的是一種圭臬：所有宏觀指標最終都要回到生命，觀察組織究竟創造了多少值得託付的現實。

八、幸福的政治組織都是相似的

托爾斯泰在《安娜·卡列尼娜》開篇寫下了一句流傳至今的話：

“幸福的家庭都是相似的，不幸的家庭各有各的不幸。”(All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.)

政治世界何嘗不是如此？

新加坡有新加坡的問題，台灣有台灣的問題，美國有美國的問題，阿根廷有阿根廷的問題，中國大陸當然也有中國大陸自己的歷史、制度和現實處境。

它們不能簡單類比。

更不能拿一種制度模式去裁剪所有國家。

但是政治診斷仍然可以擁有一種圭臬。

我們可以問：

組織為什麼發生？

生命為什麼把權利、財富、時間和部分自由託付給它？

組織獲得這些託付以後創造了什麼？

它降低了生活成本，還是不斷增加生活成本？

它保護生命，還是消耗生命？

它促進人與人的連接，還是製造彼此敵視？

它讓社會更有創造力，還是讓每個人越來越害怕？

它有沒有履行自己的價值承諾？

它還有沒有糾錯能力？

它是否仍然值得託付？

於是，我們也可以套用托爾斯泰的話：

幸福的政治組織都是相似的：它們能夠持續承兌生命的託付。

不幸的政治組織各有各的不幸：它們以各自不同的方式耗盡組織孞托。

這或許就是政治診斷學最簡單的一把圭臬。

因此，幸福的政治組織並不意味着沒有衝突、沒有錯誤、沒有危機。它們真正相似的地方，是能夠把危機轉化為反饋，把反饋轉化為糾錯，把糾錯重新轉化為承兌。孞托不是一次授予的許可證，而是在生命與組織持續交互中生成的關係。

九、To be or not to be

莎士比亞讓哈姆雷特問：

To be or not to be, that is the question.

今天，每一個陷入政治、經濟與文化危機的組織，其實也面對着自己的“To be or not to be”。

重建，還是崩塌？

這裡的重建，不等於推倒一切重新開始。

真正有生命力的重建，是讓組織恢復自身的生命來源，讓失去的託付重新發生，讓已經無法承兌的承諾重新獲得現實內容。

新加坡曾經回答過這個問題。

台灣曾經回答過這個問題。

英國在漫長而痛苦的歷史中回答過這個問題。

美國仍在回答。

阿根廷仍在回答。

PRC大陸也必須回答。

沒有任何組織能夠憑藉過去的功績永久獲得未來的孞托。

也沒有任何權力可以僅僅依靠自己的強力，證明自己的正當。

因為組織從來不是生命的主人。

組織是生命的受託者（Trustee）。

生命託付，組織承兌。

承兌發生，孞托生成。

承兌不斷發生，組織獲得生命。

承兌長期落空，組織孞托便開始耗盡。

而當組織仍然能夠聽見生命的退出、糾正成本轉嫁、重新議定責任並恢復價值承兌，危機就可能成為孞托再生的入口。重建的核心因此不是恢復舊有權威，而是恢復組織值得託付的現實理由。

政治危機、經濟危機、文化危機、未來危機，由此獲得了一條彼此貫通的解釋線索。

而一個文明真正的成熟，也許就在於它終於明白：

危機並不可怕。

真正危險的是組織已經失去孞托，卻仍然把維護自己當作維護秩序；已經無法承兌，卻仍然不斷提高承諾；已經遠離生命，卻仍然要求生命繼續無條件託付。

歷史一次又一次把同一個問題放到人類面前。

今天，它再次來到我們面前：

重建，還是崩塌？

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Rebuild or Collapse?

— A Diagnostic Theory of Political Crisis Through Organizational Entrustment

Archer Hong Qian

All political crises, economic crises, cultural crises, and crises of the future are, in the final analysis, crises of organizational entrustment.

When crisis erupts, what people usually see are changes of government, fiscal deficits, currency depreciation, rising unemployment, social fragmentation, street protests, cynical rent-seeking, mounting hostility, lying flat and giving up, and cultural conflict. Politicians rush to put out fires; economists look for cycles; sociologists analyze classes; historians trace institutions.

All of this matters.

But if we continue to probe deeper into the relationship between life and organization, we encounter a more fundamental set of questions: Why does a society arrive at crisis? Why do institutions that once worked suddenly fail? Why is authority that was once accepted no longer accepted? Why can economic indicators keep rising while people grow angrier? Why can governments sound increasingly correct while the people believe them less and less?

In the end, all these questions converge on one problem:

The value promised by an organization can no longer be fulfilled.

Life entrusts part of its rights, wealth, time, labor, and even freedom to organizations because organizations can reduce the costs of human interaction, protect life, maintain order, coordinate conflict, and create public value that individuals living alone could not obtain.

This is a relationship of entrustment and fulfillment.

When an organization continuously consumes that entrustment but can no longer provide value commensurate with what it has received, crisis begins.

Political diagnosis therefore needs to measure more than GDP, debt ratios, inflation, approval ratings, or whether a system is left or right, democratic or authoritarian, market-oriented or state-led.

The more fundamental question is:

Is this organization still worthy of life’s entrustment?

That is organizational entrustment.

I. 1965: An Island Expelled from the Federation

On August 9, 1965, Singapore separated from Malaysia.

More precisely, after prolonged political, ethnic, and economic tensions, the Malaysian Parliament amended the Constitution and expelled Singapore from the Federation.

Lee Kuan Yew wept at the press conference announcing Singapore’s independence.

Those were not the tears of a victor.

A small island with few natural resources, limited land, a complex ethnic composition, and even a heavy dependence on external sources for fresh water suddenly had to survive as an independent state.

Lee Kuan Yew certainly faced problems of housing, employment, industry, education, national defense, and diplomacy. Yet taken together, these problems pointed to an even more fundamental question:

Who believed in Singapore?

Would its residents believe in this newborn state? Would different ethnic groups believe they could live together? Would businesses invest? Would international capital trust contracts made there? Could civil servants become bearers of public responsibility rather than seekers of power and rents? Would the world believe that this island would still exist tomorrow?

Singapore’s truly scarce resources, therefore, were not only land, water, capital, and technology. It also lacked organizational entrustment.

The state first had to make itself worthy of entrustment.

The government had to demonstrate that taxes would not be endlessly wasted, administration could function effectively, law could be applied consistently, public housing commitments could be fulfilled, education could change the lives of the next generation, the port could operate reliably, and investors’ property and contracts could be protected.

Thus an island with almost no natural resources began to accumulate an invisible resource:

People became willing to entrust their future to the organization.

Singapore’s later economic miracle can be explained through capital accumulation, global trade, industrial policy, Chinese cultural traditions, or British institutional legacies. Each explanation captures part of the truth.

But before any of these factors could work, one condition had to exist:

The organization had to be capable of fulfillment.

That is one of Singapore’s most important political-economic legacies after 1965.

II. 1990: Young People in the Square and a Choice in the Presidential Office

In March 1990, young Taiwanese students gathered at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. The movement later became known as the Wild Lily Student Movement.

The students confronted a concrete and extraordinary problem: some members of the central representative bodies elected on the Chinese mainland in the 1940s had remained in office for decades after relocating to Taiwan without comprehensive reelection, producing what came to be called the “Ten-Thousand-Year Parliament.”

If a republic claimed that sovereignty resided in the people, yet the people could not reauthorize their representatives through normal institutional procedures, who was fulfilling the promise of popular sovereignty?

The Wild Lily students therefore demanded the dissolution of the long-unreelected National Assembly, the abolition of the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion, the convening of a National Affairs Conference, and democratic reform.

At that moment, it was not only the students in the square who were being tested. Lee Teng-hui was being tested as well.

Repression, or dialogue?

Should the young people be treated as destroyers of order, or should the questions they raised be treated as questions the republic itself had to answer?

This was a political judgment and a test of political vision. At a deeper level, it was a choice about organizational entrustment:

Continue consuming the name of the republic, or enable the republic once again to fulfill the promise that sovereignty resides in the people?

Lee Teng-hui chose to meet student representatives and subsequently promoted the convening of a National Affairs Conference. Taiwan’s later political reforms were of course far more complex and cannot be attributed to one person or one movement. Yet that historical moment retains symbolic significance.

Political organizations under challenge are especially prone to a dangerous illusion: they confuse protecting the organization with protecting the existing structure of power.

What an organization truly needs to protect is the reason life was willing to entrust rights to it in the first place.

When that reason has already been damaged, continuing to defend the old structure may accelerate the depletion of organizational entrustment.

Thus the surface issue in 1990 was the “Ten-Thousand-Year Parliament.” The deeper question was:

Could the republic once again make its name correspond to reality?

III. 2016 and 2023: Why Did Voters Suddenly Want to Overturn the Table?

The United States in 2016 and Argentina in 2023 were separated by thousands of kilometers and differed profoundly in history, economic structure, and political culture. Donald Trump and Javier Milei also had very different personal styles.

Yet behind both political shocks lay a phenomenon that cannot be ignored: substantial numbers of voters no longer believed that established political organizations could solve problems through their own institutional inertia.

As ordinary people’s living costs rise, government debt accumulates, administrative systems grow larger, rules become more complex, political language becomes more refined, school education grows increasingly biased, and people’s sense of certainty about the future declines, a strange fissure appears:

Organizations grow stronger while organizational entrustment grows weaker.

An organization may be in greatest danger not when GDP is falling, but when GDP is still growing while life begins to withdraw.

This is where Symbionomics and its analysis of “ineffective GDP” enter political diagnosis.

GDP records how much transaction, investment, and expenditure has occurred, but it does not automatically distinguish how much those activities have reduced living costs, how much public value they have created, or how much new organizational cost they have generated. Cleaning up pollution, expanding infrastructure after congestion, land finance driven by high housing prices, and the growing administrative costs required to sustain expanding organizations can all add to GDP. If life must pay ever more in time, debt, health, and future choices, growth may diverge from real gains in living.

More alarming still is the intergenerationalization of ineffective GDP: benefits are recognized in the present while costs are deferred into the future; growth is recorded today while the bill is sent to tomorrow. Practitioners of Bureaucolonialism who use GDP growth as a criterion for performance evaluation, promotion, and personal advancement may also transfer away their organizational responsibility through successive terms, transfers, and promotions.

One generation leaves “growth” on the GDP ledger; the next generation receives the costs on its ledger of life.

Symbionomics therefore proposes GDE (Gross Domestic Energy / Efficiency), not to create another form of numerical worship, but to return economic activity to life as the measure: Does it reduce costs? Does it empower? Does it improve health? Does it generate entrustment and peace? When GDP continues to rise while life effectiveness in the GDE sense keeps declining, political crisis may already be developing beneath the appearance of economic prosperity.

This is precisely where modern politics is most easily misdiagnosed.

An expanding government does not necessarily mean stronger governance. Higher fiscal expenditure does not necessarily mean greater public value. More laws and regulations do not necessarily mean better order. More experts do not mean that people trust organizations more.

When organizations continuously increase social costs merely to sustain themselves, while the public value they fulfill does not grow accordingly, they may gradually cease to be trustees of life and become objects that life is required to support.

Political crisis is born in this way.

Thus, whatever one thinks of Trump or Milei, the U.S. election of 2016 and Argentina’s election of 2023 raised a question more enduring than the conflict between left and right:

How can the modern state once again prove itself worthy of the people’s entrustment?

Elections can replace presidents. Rebuilding organizational entrustment is far more difficult.

IV. How Can a “People’s Republic” Live Up to Its Name?

The same question confronts mainland China under the PRC.

One cultural phenomenon today deserves particular attention: some intellectuals and public discourse are moving ever more rapidly toward narratives of power.

Whether Hu Angang, Jin Canrong, Zhang Weiwei, Lin Yifu, Li Daokui, or Zhang Dandan, the individuals themselves are not the central issue here.

What deserves observation is a social symptom: Why does knowledge increasingly become an explanatory instrument of power? Why is a widening gap emerging between public language and ordinary people’s lived experience?

An organization may possess formidable propaganda capacity. It may continuously produce grand national narratives and repeatedly proclaim its benevolent intentions.

But entrustment cannot be manufactured unilaterally through language.

The People’s Republic of China once made an extraordinarily high-value political commitment:

Serve the people wholeheartedly.

The words “People’s Republic” themselves constitute a political certificate carrying an exceptionally high value commitment.

The people are not rhetoric. A republic is not decoration.

If an organization proclaims that it serves the people wholeheartedly while continuously expanding its own interests through the allocation of land, housing, education, healthcare, finance, administrative monopolies, and commercial activities; if public power becomes increasingly involved in wealth multiplication while enjoying advantages unavailable to ordinary market participants, an ancient problem reappears:

Competing with the people for gain.

I prefer the formulation associated with Sima Qian’s “Biographies of Merchants” in the Records of the Grand Historian, and the later wording in Shiji Zhengyi: “competing with the multitude for gain.”

The deeper danger is not merely whether a particular policy is correct. Danger emerges when value commitments and lived experience continuously separate.

The higher the value an organization proclaims, the greater its responsibility for fulfillment.

“People’s Republic” is therefore not a political asset permanently acquired. It must be fulfilled every day.

How do we know whether that fulfillment is taking place or failing? We cannot listen only to how the organization describes itself; we must observe how life chooses to live.

Do ordinary families dare to consume and assume long-term debt? Are young people willing to stay, marry, have children, and enter long-term systems of protection? Are entrepreneurs willing to invest? Are talented people willing to place their creativity there? When people encounter injustice, do they believe the system can correct it? These are not abstract emotions. They are the real pricing of organizations by life through time, wealth, and the future.

When growing numbers of people reduce long-term investment, avoid long-term commitments, or respond to rising living costs by “lying flat,” refusing endless competition, or choosing not to have children, the first object of diagnosis may not be the morality of the young, but whether cracks have appeared in organizational fulfillment. Life’s withdrawal may itself be the quietest and hardest-to-disguise signal of depleted organizational entrustment.

Whether people are willing to believe, whether young people are willing to stay, whether entrepreneurs are willing to invest, whether ordinary households dare to consume, whether people believe institutions can correct injustice, and whether intellectuals can express their judgments honestly—these seemingly separate phenomena are continuously pricing organizational entrustment.

Mainland China therefore cannot evade the ultimate question:

How can the “People’s Republic” live up to its name?

In other words:

How can organizational entrustment be rebuilt?

V. “Rebuilding the People’s Republic”: A Question from Forty Years Ago

“Rebuilding the People’s Republic” is not a proposition I invented today.

After a car accident in 1986, I began writing An Introduction to the Priority of Individual Civil Rights — Republican Civics as Holism and Republican Organization Theory as Individualism.

I was in my early thirties.

Its introduction, “Confessions of a Patient of Spiritual Fission,” was later published in full in the first 1989 issue of Chinese World.

Looking back, I can see that what troubled me then was already the same question:

What is the relationship between the individual and organization?

If a republic exists in the name of the people, why can individual citizens be swallowed by an abstract “whole”? If individual rights take priority, how can a republic form a public order that transcends the individual? Must the whole and the individual always compete with one another?

Forty years later, I see more clearly that this question cannot truly open as long as it remains trapped within the binary framework of individualism versus holism.

Life is self-sufficient in itself, yet never exists alone.

Human beings need connection, interaction, and organization. Organization therefore arises.

Yet once organization arises, it may gradually forget why it arose.

It can move from being the trustee of life to making itself the end; from reducing living costs to manufacturing organizational costs; from helping lives connect to controlling life; from fulfilling value to extracting value.

This is also the key to how I now understand “rebuilding the People’s Republic.”

The question no longer stops at whether the state or the individual comes first. It is whether organization continuously fulfills its fiduciary responsibility. Once organization treats its own expansion as an end, transfers the costs of maintaining itself onto life, and then uses growth, order, or grand narratives to justify that transfer, the old dispute between individualism and holism conceals a more fundamental fact:

Why should life continue to entrust itself?

Thus, after forty years of intellectual growth, the 1986 proposition of “rebuilding the People’s Republic” has arrived at a more fundamental question:

Rebuild organizational entrustment.

This also gives the “republic” a measure that can transcend ideological disputes.

What a state is called is not the most important thing. What “ism” is written on its banner is not the most important thing.

What matters is this:

Has the organization properly fulfilled the rights, resources, and responsibilities that life entrusted to it?

VI. From Putney to the Glorious Revolution: Another Thread of Political Civilization

In 1647, while the English Civil War had not yet truly ended, a group of officers, soldiers, and political thinkers gathered near London for a debate that would later become historically influential: the Putney Debates.

They argued about suffrage, property rights, Parliament, and the basis on which an ordinary Englishman should obey political power.

The debate was fierce.

England did not immediately acquire a perfect system. The Restoration followed, along with further political conflict and struggles for power. Yet the intellectual germ of modern political civilization had appeared.

Only with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Bill of Rights of 1689 did England gradually form a new political arrangement: power had to be constrained; taxation required authorization; Parliament possessed a status that could not easily be abolished; rule itself required a recognizable source of legitimacy; and minority rights required protection.

To summarize this history simply as a transition from monarchy to constitutional monarchy is not wrong.

But from the perspective of organizational entrustment, another historical sequence becomes visible:

Entrustment → betrayal → conflict → renegotiation → renewed fulfillment.

This may be one of the most valuable capacities of modern political civilization.

No society can remain forever free of crisis. No organization can remain forever free of error.

What determines whether a civilization can continue to grow is whether its organizations possess the capacity for self-repair.

When commitments can no longer be fulfilled, can they be renegotiated? When power crosses its boundaries, can it be brought back? When institutions fail, can they be changed? When people no longer believe, can organizations regain entrustment through real action?

The significance of the Putney Debates and the Glorious Revolution therefore extends beyond British history.

They allowed the world to see, with unusual clarity, that political order can regenerate itself by renegotiating the relationship of entrustment between organization and life.

VII. How Can Political Crisis Be Diagnosed? — From Macroeconomic Numbers Back to Life Choices

If “organizational entrustment” is merely an elegant explanatory concept, it is not yet sufficient to constitute a political diagnostic theory. Diagnosis must make it possible to observe where entrustment is generated, where it is depleted, and how those changes appear in everyday life.

Traditional political-economic analysis observes GDP, inflation, debt, unemployment, fiscal balances, approval ratings, and election results. These indicators matter, but they mainly tell us what is happening to organizations; they do not necessarily tell us how life experiences and responds to those changes.

A diagnostic theory of organizational entrustment therefore needs an additional set of “life indicators”: Are people willing to make long-term investments? Are they willing to start businesses? Do households dare to consume and borrow? Are young people willing to marry and have children? Are workers willing to remain in long-term social-protection relationships? Are talent and capital entering or exiting? When people encounter injustice, do they believe institutions can correct it? Can intellectuals express their judgments honestly?

These phenomena cannot be mechanically reduced to a single political cause, nor should every decline be interpreted directly as a collapse of entrustment. Their significance lies elsewhere: when multiple life choices move persistently in the same direction while macroeconomic indicators still display prosperity, we must ask whether a fissure has opened between organizational value commitments and life’s real gains.

Political crisis can therefore be observed through a more complete chain:

Life entrusts → organization fulfills → entrustment is generated → fulfillment becomes imbalanced → costs are transferred → life withdraws → entrustment enters crisis.

The purpose of diagnosis is not to wait until the final link appears, but to recognize earlier signals while the organization still retains the capacity for repair.

This table does not attempt to compress complex societies into a mechanical scoring system. It offers a criterion: all macro indicators must ultimately return to life and ask how much reality worthy of entrustment an organization has actually created.

VIII. Happy Political Organizations Are Alike

Tolstoy opened Anna Karenina with a line that has traveled around the world: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Is the political world so different?

Singapore has Singapore’s problems; Taiwan has Taiwan’s; the United States has its own; Argentina has its own; mainland China has its own historical, institutional, and contemporary circumstances.

They cannot be mechanically compared. Still less should one institutional model be used to cut every country to the same pattern.

But political diagnosis can still possess a criterion.

We can ask: Why does organization arise? Why does life entrust rights, wealth, time, and part of its freedom to it? What does the organization create after receiving that entrustment? Does it reduce living costs or continually increase them? Does it protect life or consume it? Does it promote connection among people or manufacture hostility? Does it make society more creative or make everyone more afraid? Does it fulfill its value commitments? Does it retain corrective capacity? Is it still worthy of entrustment?

We may therefore adapt Tolstoy:

Happy political organizations are alike: they continuously fulfill the entrustment of life.

Unhappy political organizations are unhappy in their own ways: each exhausts organizational entrustment differently.

This may be the simplest criterion of political diagnosis.

A happy political organization does not mean one without conflict, error, or crisis. What such organizations share is the capacity to turn crisis into feedback, feedback into correction, and correction back into fulfillment.

Entrustment is not a license granted once and for all. It is a relationship continuously generated through interaction between life and organization.

IX. To Be or Not to Be

Shakespeare has Hamlet ask:

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Today, every organization caught in political, economic, or cultural crisis faces its own “to be or not to be.”

Rebuild or collapse?

Rebuilding here does not mean demolishing everything and beginning again.

Rebuilding with genuine vitality means restoring the organization to its source in life, allowing lost entrustment to occur again, and giving real content once more to commitments that can no longer be fulfilled.

Singapore once answered this question. Taiwan once answered it. Britain answered it through a long and painful history. The United States is still answering. Argentina is still answering. Mainland China under the PRC must answer it as well.

No organization can permanently secure future entrustment through past achievements. Nor can any power prove its legitimacy merely through force.

Because organization is never the master of life.

Organization is the trustee of life.

Life entrusts; organization fulfills.

Through fulfillment, entrustment is generated.

Through continuous fulfillment, organization gains life.

When fulfillment persistently fails, organizational entrustment begins to be exhausted.

When an organization can still hear life’s withdrawal, correct the transfer of costs, renegotiate responsibility, and restore value fulfillment, crisis can become an opening for the regeneration of entrustment. The core of rebuilding is therefore not the restoration of old authority, but the restoration of the real reasons an organization deserves to be entrusted.

Political crisis, economic crisis, cultural crisis, and future crisis thereby acquire a common explanatory thread.

A civilization may truly mature when it finally understands that crisis itself is not the greatest danger.

The real danger comes when an organization has already lost entrustment but still equates maintaining itself with maintaining order; when it can no longer fulfill its commitments yet continues to raise them; when it has moved away from life yet still demands unconditional entrustment from life.

History places the same question before humanity again and again.

Today, it is before us once more:

Rebuild or collapse?

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Abstract

This essay develops a diagnostic theory of organizational entrustment, arguing that beneath political, economic, cultural, and future crises lies a breakdown in the relationship between what life entrusts and what organizations fulfill. From Singapore in 1965 and Taiwan’s Wild Lily Student Movement in 1990 to the United States in 2016, Argentina in 2023, the contemporary challenge facing mainland China, and Britain’s Putney Debates and Glorious Revolution, it examines how organizational entrustment is generated, exhausted, repaired, and rebuilt. Drawing on Symbionomics, the essay brings ineffective GDP, GDE, and organizational costs into political diagnosis: GDP may continue to rise even as life begins to withdraw under mounting living costs, debt, and intergenerational burdens. One generation leaves “growth” on the GDP ledger; the next receives the costs on its ledger of life. The essay therefore proposes six diagnostic dimensions: life costs, value fulfillment, organizational effectiveness, intergenerational responsibility, life investment, and capacity for correction. Political legitimacy cannot be permanently conferred by names, ideologies, historical achievements, or coercive power. Organizations are trustees of life: life entrusts, organizations fulfill; through fulfillment, entrustment is generated. Rebuilding or collapse ultimately depends on whether an organization can once again prove itself worthy of life’s entrustment.