产权怎样界定——一份集体产权私化的社会文本

Defining the Property Rights in the Context of Township and Village Collective Enterprises

产权界定,作为一种当事人之间缔结或改变权利合约的互动过程,无疑是经济生活史上一项重要的社会活动。20世纪90年代中期以来,乡镇集体企业改制的某些经验事实表明,社区集体产权主要不是一种市场合约性产权,而是一种社会合约性产权。这种社会性合约既不是某种有意识设计的制度,也不是社会关系的自然表达,而是特定行动关系协调的产物,反映的是一种社会和谐秩序。在市场合约不完备的情况下,它有可能以非正式的方式比较好地处理和解决社区内部的合作问题和产权冲突,具有界定和维护社区产权秩序的作用;但是在制度环境发生急剧变化时,这种作用就十分有限了。在当下依靠行政力量推动改制时,如果仅仅以制度设计来取代非正式的社会合约规则,而不能充分考虑到后者的延续或替代问题,将会给社区的持续发展带来严重的不良后果。

As an important part of social life in the history of economic development, defining the property rights is a process of interactions between concerned parties to reach or change an agreement or contract on the nature of the property rights. The experience in changing the ownership of township and village collective enterprises (TVEs) in contemporary China since the mid 1990s demonstrates that the public property in these enterprises is defined largely by social factors, instead of market forces. To be more specific, the social contract regarding the nature of the property rights in these enterprises is neither an institution consciously designed nor a spontaneous consequence of social relationships. Rather, it results from the integration of social interactions in the economic development of rural areas, and it reflects public efforts to reach a harmonious social order. The contract thus formed functions to soften tensions on property-related issues and foster cooperation in rural communities when the market-based and market-oriented contact is still under construction. However, the role of this kind of contract seems to be limited when dramatic transformation in the institutional environment of rural communities occurs. On the other hand, if the government, in pushing forward its property rights reforms, replaces the social contract of the property rights in TVEs with deliberately institutionalized systems without properly considering how the functions of the former are to be continued or substituted, the sustainable development of rural communities might be at stake.