Civilization Structure Theory: A Theoretical Reconstruction from Cultural and Political Economics

Epigraph — whether a theory has taken shape is measured by whether, in explaining itself,
it can also explain why it is named the way it is.

I · Beginning with the renaming: recalibrating the disciplinary home

For its first decade, this theoretical system was called Cultural and Political Economics. That name was received reasonably well in Chinese scholarly circles, but the misreadings it produced never ceased — in the eyes of most readers, "political economy" is a branch of economics, and with the word "culture" prefixed, it is taken either as "the economics that studies cultural phenomena" or as "the Chinese translation of the Western CPE framework." Neither reading is what this system actually sets out to do.

In the systematic revision undertaken in 2026, the author decided to rename it Civilization Structure Theory. The renaming is not a tactical "repackaging"; it is a recalibration of the disciplinary home — the true disciplinary coordinate of this system lies not in economics but in sociology (more precisely, in that stretch of terrain where "historical sociology" and "economic sociology" overlap).

Once the disciplinary coordinate migrates from economics to sociology, several judgments that had been blurred become clear at once:

• From functional questions ("what can finance do") to relational questions ("who controls finance, whom does it serve, and what relations of production does it rewrite").
• From an equilibrium model to a phase-transition model (the three states of gas, liquid and solid).
• From division of labor within a discipline to linking across disciplines (finance — political science — sociology — physical metaphor).

"The first task of a genuine theoretical system is not to answer questions, but to know which discipline it belongs to."

II · Demarcating the boundary against the Western CPE framework

The boundary between Cultural and Political Economics and the Western Cultural Political Economy (CPE) framework must be drawn first. Otherwise two systems with similar names get discussed as one — even though their foundational propositions are almost exactly opposite.

The Western CPE framework (its leading figure: Bob Jessop) studies the varieties of capitalism through the triad of "discourse — institution — material," inheriting the methodological legacy of Gramsci, Althusser, Foucault and the Regulation School. Its strength lies in supplying the dimension of ideology / discourse that Marxist political economy lacked. But it does not revise the functional definition of finance, nor does it unfold finance itself as the carrier of the relations of production.

Civilization Structure Theory does the reverse: it directly rewrites what finance is, restoring the essence of finance from "an intermediary for the intermediation of funds" to the relations of production of modern society (Proposition 1). This is where it parts company with the Western CPE framework at the deepest level.

The table above is a rough demarcation; a rigorous comparison would require a paper of its own. Here we only set out the judgments at the deepest level and leave the rest to a later monograph.

III · Why "finance = relations of production" cannot be filed under "economics"

"Finance = relations of production" is Proposition 1 of Civilization Structure Theory. This judgment rewrites the object of study of finance — from "the time value of funds and the pricing of risk" to "who owns the means of production, who disposes of labor power, and who distributes the surplus."

Once this judgment is accepted, finance is no longer a branch of economics but becomes the intersection of political economy and sociology. This is precisely why Civilization Structure Theory had to be renamed: it still borrows the tools of economics (time, risk, trust, information asymmetry), yet its object of study and its coordinates of value judgment have already moved beyond economics.

A set of concrete discriminators follows:

• Object of study: no longer the abstract "market," but the structure of relations within the market.
• Core question: no longer "the optimal allocation of resources," but the structure of power behind resource allocation.
• Criterion of evaluation: no longer "equilibrium," but subject building (Proposition 9) and maternal-right distribution (Proposition 6).
• Policy implication: no longer "deregulation," but capital policy (Proposition 3) and capital parity (Proposition 7).

These four points suffice to peel Civilization Structure Theory away from the terrain of economics. The question of which discipline a body of learning belongs to has never been a small one — when an object of study is filed under the wrong discipline, the way questions are posed, the criteria of evaluation, and the policy implications all fall out of alignment with it.

IV · Civilization Structure Theory: a unified narrative on the terrain of "sociology"

After the renaming, the unified narrative of this theory becomes clearer — it can be stated in a single sentence:

"Civilization Structure Theory is a theoretical system that takes finance = relations of production as its foundational assertion, the phase transition of the three states — gas, liquid and solid as its analytic instrument, the "three policies combined" in macro-control as its operational framework, and the civilizational-historical roots of Chinese-style modernization as its direction of value. It aims to explain how, in the financialized twenty-first century, Chinese civilization can accomplish 'return and transcendence' on the battlefield of finance."

The sentence is long, but it already packs all nine core propositions of the system. For any theoretical system that is to be taken seriously must, in its early stage of formation, be able to be restated in one sentence; if it cannot, it has not yet taken shape.

The decisive mark of Civilization Structure Theory having taken shape is that, after being restated in one sentence as above, it can still be pushed further. Those further directions have all been unfolded in the nine propositions of the Theory Framework page.

V · From "Cultural and Political Economics" to "Civilization Structure Theory": three shifts of the theoretical coordinate

The renaming did not happen overnight. Behind it lie three important shifts of the theoretical coordinate:

• The first shift: independence from "Western CPE" — elevating the dimension of discourse from a "method of research" to an "object of research," thereby parting ways with the Western CPE framework.
• The second shift: detachment from "economics" — restoring finance from a "functional intermediary" to "relations of production," thereby leaving the terrain of economics and entering the terrain of sociology.
• The third shift: expansion from "finance" to "the study of civilization" — reconnecting capital policy with the tradition of water governance, thereby binding contemporary financial questions to the five thousand years of Chinese civilization's resources of political philosophy.

The third shift is what finally made this renaming hold. Without the joining of "governing water" and "governing metal," this system would at most be one more "school of financial sociology"; once the joining is made, it becomes a proposition at the level of civilization structure — which is the mark of its first genuine formation as a theory.

Renaming is a small matter. In the history of thought, what truly matters is not the name itself but the clarity of the disciplinary home behind the naming. While a theory's naming is still inexact, its work is often blind; once its naming is finally exact, its work instead becomes sustainable, open to criticism, and open to iteration.

This long essay on the renaming is not itself an endpoint. It is one setting-out afresh of Civilization Structure Theory at this point in 2026 — from a concept still under assembly into a theoretical system with boundaries, instruments, propositions, and a civilizational-historical coordinate.

Whether it can go further depends on whether, while explaining China's financial reality, it also lets that reality correct it in turn. The author is willing to accept such mutual correction — a willingness to accept criticism means the theory is still growing.

Zhang Keliang · Civilization Structure Theory · 2026