From "Stationary Bandit" to "Involutionary Roving Bandit":The Functional Mutation of Governance under Collapsed Time Horizons

This article argues that China"s governance model is undergoing a functional shift in governance behavior from "long-term tax base cultivation" to "short-term resource extraction." For a long time, the "China Model" has been interpreted as a successful case of a "Super Stationary Bandit" with a long-term vision, exchanging economic growth for tax revenue. However, with the collapse of "land finance" and the manifestation of debt pressure, the ruling group"s "Time Horizon" has shortened drastically. Building on Mancur Olson"s classic theory and incorporating the logic of political survival,this paper proposes the concept of the 'Involutionary Roving Bandit.' This term describes a functional mutation: while the ruler remains spatially fixed (stationary), their governance logic mutates into that of a roving bandit due to a collapsed time horizon. Constrained by fixed territory, this predation becomes 'involutionary'——turning inward to radically monetize internal stock resources. By analyzing the severance of signal feedback mechanisms, the shift toward non-tax fiscal extraction and its cross-regional spillovers, and the unilateral restructuring of intergenerational contracts, this paper points out that: at the local level, this transformation manifests as "active predation" targeting high-liquidity assets; at the systemic level, it manifests as "passive default" on intergenerational promises. This phenomenon cannot be simply attributed to a cyclical economic downturn; its essence is a simultaneous restructuring of the political-economic structure. Its core logic lies in responding to the collapse of the "Time Horizon" through a radical redistribution centered on stock resources.