In Search of the Necessary Conditions for Transforming the Chinese Reified Social Reality

A reified social reality is oppressive in essence and reactionary by nature. Transforming reified social realities is thus desirable, but what are the necessary conditions for effective transformation? The related literature has yet to furnish a basis to address this critical question. To generate theoretically meaningful and practically usable knowledge for theorists and practitioners, this paper analyzes a successful case of the transformation of a reified social reality in China in the early 20 Century and reports a recent natural experiment basing on the findings of the aforementioned case analysis. The purposes are to identify the necessary conditions for effective transformation and to illustrate how the propositions basing on the fruitful experience reported could be applied to formulate strategies for solving similar problems in contemporary China. The principal finding of the case study is that pertinent political propositions, appropriate strategies, and effective operation mechanisms are the three necessary conditions for the occurrence of transformation of reified social reality. The principal finding of the natural experiment is that the three necessary conditions are indeed essential to enhancing the feasibility of the occurrence of transformation of the reified social reality in China in the 21 Century. Research and policy implications are discussed.

such as inequality, inequity, epidemic corruption, and continual mass protests (Harwit, 2014;Zheng, 2012;Zheng, 2013). From a sociological-political perspective, these problems are inevitable. After all, social realities are often reified-trapped in vicious cycle of development.
The concepts of reification and transformation of social reality are delineated in Berger and Luckman's The Social Construction of Reality (Berger & Luckman, 1966) and Hummel's The Bureaucratic Experience (Hummel, 1994). Reification means regarding something abstract as a material thing. According to the theory of social construction of reality depicted in the aforementioned books, members of a social system can be considered as social beings undertaking actions that objectify-that is, making their actions of value realization part of the social reality that they and others could observe. With repeated undertakings of the same actions, objectification, or the process of stabilizing the social reality, takes place. As the social values which enhance objectification prevail, other competing values would be marginalized and their respective social actions would be considered deviant and thus sanctioned. As time goes by, externalization occurs, through which members of the social system could no longer objectify due to reprimand and sanction, but to accept the reality as is and choose to go with the flow. When they find the externalized reality beyond their resistance, reification has occurred.
A reified social reality serves the well-beings of those who benefit from the externalized values and practices. But it limits choice options for others, thus circumscribing freedom, sabotaging actualization of human potentials, and making sustainable happiness unattainable. It also prevents the all-round development of all members of the social system, inclusive of the privileged class. A reified social reality is therefore oppressive in essence and reactionary by nature.
As such, transforming reified social realities is more than desirable-it is a duty call to those who are committed to making their respective society a better place for all. However, a pending question must be addressed, of which is "What are the necessary conditions for effective transformation?" Identification of necessary conditions for the occurrence of specific events is a critical pursuit, essential to social scientific theory-building. The propositions taking the causal form of "if not X, then not Y" or "if X, then Y is likely" would provide a basis for constructing more complex causal models embracing "given X, and if Y, then Z". The propositions so generated could also be used to guide the devise of social action plans to mitigate problems in society. My literature review, unfortunately, has generated limited amount of relevant materials and research findings about transformation of reified social realities. A plausible explanation is that it is a macro-level political-sociological phenomenon, and thus could only be examined from a holistic perspective. Nevertheless, most contemporary researchers tend to, on the one hand, adopt the mono-disciplinary approach to examine the political or sociological aspects of reified reality's transformation and, on the other hand, apply the reduction a list approach to analyze To generate theoretically meaningful and practically usable knowledge of transformation of reified social realities for Chinese theorists and practitioners, this study uses the scientific empiricist foundationalism (Kilduf, Mehraand, & Dunn, 2011;Ketokivi & Mantere, 2010) and the scientific instrumentalism (McGinnis, & Ostrom, 2011;Mcgarth, 2007) approaches to analyze a successful case of transformation of reified social reality in China in the early 20 th Century.
The purposes are to identify the necessary conditions for effective transformation and to illustrate how the propositions basing on the Chinese experience could be applied to formulate strategies for solving similar problems in the 21 st Century in China and in other developing countries.

The Development of China at the Crossroads
A reified social reality is in formation in the People's Republic of China (PRC).
These problems are seemingly inevitable. Consider corruption. It has been endemic due to the institutional features of a distorted Marist-Leninist state-with the People's Congress as a "rubber-stamp" legislature, unchecked policy-making and implementation powers are vested in the state bureaucracy with self-serving state cadres being the wielders of political, social, economic, and judicial powers.
Then, as PRC further develops economically, the corruption stakes increase exponentially-recent news reports on anti-corruption reveal that bribes received by township level cadres could amount to millions of US dollars, while bribes at ten million dollars for provincial level cadres are hardly atypical. Given that their average annual income is just around US$10,000, state cadres inevitably find corruption irresistible. In this context, even though most state cadres and CPC members no longer subscribe to Marxian revolutionary values, they as power wielders are still committed to regime continuity, just because it enhances their self-enrichment (Butterfield, 1982).
Research has documented that the malfunctioning of the state bureaucracy has been a prime cause of various major economic, political, and social problems in PRC, undermining CPC's governance legitimacy (Zheng, 2012;Zheng, 2013;Chan, & Chow, 2007). Inevitably, the CPC leadership has to repeatedly introduce such reform policies and measures as rule-of-law and sunshine practice to keep power wielders in check. Their effectiveness, however, is questionable, as such deadly sins of state administration as ineffectiveness and corruption still prevail, observable in all administrative organs, institutions, and state-owned enterprises (Caulfield, 2006).
After the 18 th Plenary Session (2012), the CPC leadership has intensified its efforts to curb corruption and abuse of authority. As a result, as plentiful public opinion surveys have shown, citizen political trust in the CPC leadership has increased (Zheng, 2013). Such an increase, however, is hardly an assurance that the citizenry would still support the regime when they have other options. One fundamental problem is that CPC has failed to refine its governance ideology to justify the Marxist-Leninist institutional arrangement of political monism, which now serves only the interests of power wielders, rather than collective interests of tive. This basic monism-individualism contradiction is the source of various challenges, which may trigger regime collapse (Chow, 2010).
As of today, however, the prime concerns of the CPC leadership merely revolve around the upgrading of PRC's overall capacity to face challenges that stem from globalization, such as intensifying global economic competition and rising international standards of quality of goods and services, as well as unchecked-marketization, hyper-consumerism, capital accumulation in monopolization, and citizen preference for Western style rule-of-law practices. The CPC leadership has yet to find ways to handle such deeper level challenges, such as some CPC members' lacking faith in communism and many citizens are receptive to such Western socio-political values as individualism and procedural democracy (Ogden, 2014). These challenges are threatening the legitimacy of CPC's monism (Gilley, 2008).
The aforementioned deeper level challenges are generating wide and far-reaching impacts on the course of PRC's development. At stake is CPC's governance, as regime collapse may suddenly take place, just as the former Soviet Union had experienced (Kux, 1990). At the crossroads, PRC could either continue her current development path to become Westernized and eventually experience regime collapse as the CPC leadership has noted (Wu, 2012) and as some researchers have predicted (Ogden, 2014;Gilley, 2008)

The Reification of Social Reality in China
In the case of China, the social reality has become reified, as almost all Chinese people find it unchangeable and beyond their resistance. In brief, research has already documented that self-serving has become an objectified reality in PRC since the 1960s and, as such, most Chinese (inclusive of CPC members) are concerned with optimizing personal interests, oftentimes disregarding the unethical outcomes of their self-serving behaviors (Chow, & Luo, 2007). Given the prevalence of individualism and pragmatism, inevitably, exploitation, oppression, dishonesty, deceitfulness, and the like are endemic, while some power wielders would even subscribe to Machiavellianism (Chan, & Chow, 2007;Chow, & Luo, 2007 (Chow, & Luo, 2007).
Self-serving contradicts the basic values of socialism. The reified social reality of individualism, human greed, irresponsibility, and realpolitik could erode CPC's governance legitimacy, even though some citizens support the CPC leadership (Yang, 2014). The Xi (Jinping) administration (2012-present) has strived to create political support by advocating "Chinese dreams" (Heberer, 2014). The effectiveness, however, has been questionable, as "Chinese dreams" could merely be individuals' dreams of self-enrichment (such as accumulating more wealth or migrating to the USA), which may further reinforce individualism. Seemingly, Western style democratization as forecasted by China watchers (Gilley, 2008) may soon become a reality. Yet, Western style democratization that takes place in a self-serving behavioral context with defective rule-of-law policy and checks-and-balances mechanisms would intensify realpolitik and eventually lead to political instability and even chaos. The self-serving and corrupt Nationalist regime

The Case of Reality Transformation in the 20 th Century
Since a reified reality is man-made, it is thus transformable. Indeed, the Chinese modern history has shown that transformation of reified reality had occurred in . In other words, to address the aforementioned question of "Could it happen in China", the straightforward answer is "It did happen!"  or "if X, then Y is likely". problems as corruption and abuse of authority, they became enthusiastic, expressing resentment and support for wholesale institutional reform. All these furnish a basis to wonder if the contemporary Chinese citizenry may indeed be unreceptive to CPC's governance, (Zheng, 2012;Zheng, 2013) meaning that a necessary condition of regime collapse is in formation.

The Feasibility of Chinese Reality Transformation in the 21 st Century
Nevertheless, a critical question remains to be addressed: I then suggested to students that, basing on the above understanding, people could be classified as persons at the elementary level of development when they are selfish, no matter how knowledgeable, competent, independent, and farsighted they are. In contrast, those at the advance level of growth and development are altruistic. They are social-psychologically mature with self-discipline, strong urge to fulfill social responsibility, and compassion for other people and living creatures. In essence, they are transformed beings, even though they may still be relatively ignorant, incompetent, dependent, and shortsighted. More importantly, they are willing and eager to help make this a better world for all by extinguishing exploitation and suppression. However, as it takes various physiological, psychological, and socio-political factors to act in concert to effectuate transformation, human development is unavoidably a long and difficult process.
As a result, most members of society are primarily social-psychologically immature. Such a collective immaturity in turn reinforces selfish behaviors in society, creating a vicious cycle of stagnant human development in China.
Furthermore, I assessed with the students in the classroom the contemporary need to establish a genuine government of the people, for the people, and by the people. I then analyzed how such a government could enhance such mechanisms as "optimal governance" for actively and effectively exercising public authority to mitigate problems of exploitation and suppression while promoting citizens' optimal growth and development. I used CPC in its heyday as an example to underscore the feasibility, practicality, and values of "optimal governance". In brief, basing on recent research findings (Zhou, & Luo, 2016), I firstly highlighted that CPC could establish PRC all because of its unique value system, which was composed of three deep level core values-"genuine respects for others", "willingness to help the needed", and "co-development for co-prosperity".
These values were advocated and realized by CPC between 1930s and1950s, and were widely endorsed by the 400-million Chinese.
I then reported to students that CPC members' internalization of these values of respect, altruism, and co-development (hereafter RAC Values) had fostered their urge to contribute to the institutionalization of "optimal governance" which, basing on the application of public authority, functioned to promote people to mutually grow and develop. In the process, those who had a strong

Concluding Remarks
All in all, the study documents that pertinent political propositions, appropriate strategies, and effective operation mechanisms are the three necessary conditions for the occurrence of transformation of reified social reality. Social and political reformers committed to transforming the reified social reality in the respective countries should thus focus on the creation of these three necessary conditions.
It should be noted that reality transformation is inevitably a long process. It took The mitigation of these critical problems will take time. In the case of China, the first step for committed Chinese reality transformers to take is to affirm the Chinese people's receptivity of genuine Marxian values. The experiment reported above shows that educated young people are indeed receptive and are motivated to help transform the reified social reality if the genuine societal values are rediscovered in wordings and expressions pertinent to the temporary context. The next step is for the CPC leadership to officially reword Marxian propositions, to systematically design appropriate strategies, and to practically devise effective mechanisms for the desirable effectuation of reality transformation. These are demanding jobs. Hopefully, the mission of revitalization of Marxist China could be more timely accomplished, as it could generate valuable experience and inspiration for all vulnerable people everywhere to strive to collectively enhance transformation of reified realities in their respective countries.
Finally, as pertinent political propositions that are adaptive to contemporary societal conditions in different countries with different milieu are the most important factor to transformation success, trans-disciplinary contributions from sociologists, political scientists, and area study specialists are crucial.