Through longitudinal comparisons of the same country or political regime under different systems, as well as horizontal comparisons of the same ethnic group (sharing common roots) under different political regimes, this study reveals the inherent connection between the balance of the people’s demands for self-interest and fairness (B=f[S,F]) and a nation’s fate. This inherent connection constitutes a universal historical and social phenomenon, thereby further verifying the objectivity of the role of the "Underlying Contracts".

To adapt to complex social interactions, humans have developed an “Underlying Contract” in the course of evolution—one that balances self-interest and fairness and is characterized by tension and elasticity. Like “an ancient weighing scale in the human psyche”, interdisciplinary experiments and studies in evolutionary science, anthropology, game theory, and other fields confirm that the function of the underlying contract is an objective existence that transcends individual will and class positions. The rapid collapse of the Soviet-style socialist bloc, the social prosperity of contemporary “full-fledged democratic” blocs, and comparisons between the periodic rise and fall of China’s patrimonial bureaucratic dynasties and the 15 historically enduring states (each lasting over 500 years) all indicate a direct causal relationship between this underlying contract and the fate of nations (encompassing enduring prosperity and viability)—with power being an exceptionally unique variable.

The biases in the theory and practice of Soviet-style socialism, particularly the misperceptions in the understanding of power, not only destroyed the symbiosis between self-interest and fairness but also left the people with neither private ownership nor fairness to speak of. While the power-holding stratum professed socialist "fairness and justice," they had, in essence, "betrayed" the moral norms preserved through human evolution. They were compelled to rely on absurd means such as violence, lies, falsification, and blockades to sustain severely imbalanced social interactions. Under the discipline of alienated power, this repeatedly gave rise to multiple major catastrophes in the 20th century.

The perplexing Chinese "cyclical pattern" is neither an exception nor a superficial phenomenon, but a typical manifestation of deviating from the Underlying Protocol (B=f[S,F]) that transcends individual will and class positions. The existence of extreme "power self-interest" leads to irreversible corruption, which in turn results in irreversible cyclical collapse. While contemporary patrimonial bureaucracy is rare, there are numerous irrational bureaucratic authoritarian states in the post-patrimonial era. Revealing the inherent characteristics of this "cyclical pattern" carries practical and broad warning significance: ignoring social injustice and the polarization between the rich and the poor, even if a temporary "golden age" is achieved, it will only be a golden age for "the nobility and high officials", not for the people.

The social contract theory constructed by Enlightenment thinkers through rational speculation is highly susceptible to cognitive divergences arising from researchers’ positional differences. Even in the 21st century, scholars adopting diverse theoretical perspectives hold vastly different interpretations of the concept of the “social contract”; some even regard contemporary authoritarian regimes as a form of social contract. Drawing on interdisciplinary experimental evidence from psychology and behavioral research, this paper attempts to distill a relatively simple analytical tool at the fundamental cognitive level that transcends individual volition and class stance, so as to resolve divergences triggered by positional disparities and meanwhile offer a new perspective for analysing various historical and political phenomena.