市场导向与行政理性:清代盐政运作的原则和机制

Market Orientation and Administration Rationality:The Principle and Mechanism of Salt Policy in Qing Dynasty

清代食盐贸易制度,学术界一般以专卖统称而彰显其与市场脱节的计划色彩。不过,通过分析清代官方人口和盐引数据,可见清代盐政宏观上具有盐引额分配符合市场容量的特征;而清王朝在新开疆域的盐法设计、盐引额分配和盐区划分等重大问题上,市场导向性更为明显。但分区行盐制度导致盐区的边界地区盐务纠纷与冲突连绵不断,与市场导向明显悖离,这与官员们在盐务考成、保护两淮盐课、维护自身盐务利益、维持千年盐务传统等问题中形成的行政理性和制度的路径依赖密切相关。一定程度上的市场导向、特定情境下的行政理性、长期以来的制度路径依赖共同构成清代盐政运作机制。该机制使清代盐政表现出局部地区违反市场逻辑与宏观上具有一定市场导向的矛盾现象,并通过令人嘱目的局部地区之冲突与纠纷,引导出对清代盐政完全脱离市场的误解。

Academics generally refer to the salt trade system of Qing Dynasty as monopoly,showing that it was planned and disconnected from the market.However,the analysis of the official population and the statistics of salt licenses of the Qing Dynasty reveals that the salt policy of the Qing Dynasty has following characteristics:the issue of salt licenses was in line with the market capacity at the macro level;the Qing Dynasty was obviously market-orientated in the major issues such as salt policy,salt licenses and the division of salt areas in new territories.However,the regional salt administration system resulted in disputes and conflicts over salt in border areas,which obviously deviated from the market-oriented policy.This is closely related to the administrative rationality and institutional path dependence the officials developed in addressing issues such as the performance assessment in salt administration,the protection of salt taxation in Huainan and Huaibei,the maintenance of their own interests in salt administration,and the traditional salt administration of a thousand years.A certain degree of market orientation,administrative rationality under specific circumstances,and the long-standing institutional path dependence constitute the operation mechanism of salt administration in Qing Dynasty.Under this mechanism,the salt administration of Qing Dynasty showed that some areas violated the market logic while the overall administration was market-orientated to some extent.This contradictory phenomenon was reflected in dramatic conflicts and disputes in some areas,which leads to the misunderstanding that the salt administration of Qing Dynasty was completely disconnected from the market.