从包税公司到有限责任国家:最小政府的历史起源与制度困境

From Tax-farming Corporation to Limited Liability State:The Historical Origin and Institutional Dilemma of Minimal State

公元前3世纪,罗马引入希腊的城邦包税制作为正式的岁入生产方式,并将包税公司确定为包税制实现的基本组织形式。城邦财政政治体系由此建立,并随着罗马扩张逐步成为中世纪欧洲、奥斯曼帝国及伊斯兰世界的主要资源汲取方式。包税公司对西方政治文明影响深远,诸如法人制度、两合公司制度、合约制度、产权制度等系列衍生制度奠定了西方政治制度文明的根基。罗马灭亡以后,在其废墟上继起的中世纪欧洲诸国和奥斯曼帝国都没有摆脱罗马包税公司的制度诅咒,逐步沦为包税商敛财的工具。在以美国为代表的西方代议制民主国家,包税制剥削更具迷惑性——包税公司以民族国家的形式成为暴力的合法垄断者,包税商豢养扶持的政客以民主、法治的外衣巧妙地隐藏剥削本质,剥削手段更加隐蔽。因此,厘清包税公司的制度源起与破坏性作用,对中国国家能力提升,以及坚持中国共产党领导的中国特色财政体系制度自信,具有镜鉴性意义。

In the 3rd century B.C.,Rome introduced the Greek city-state tax-farming system as a formal method of revenue production and established the tax-farming company as the basic organizational form.As a result,the city-state financial and political system was established and gradually became the main method of resource extraction in medieval Europe,the Ottoman Empire,and the Islamic world with Roman expansion.The tax-farming company has had a profound impact on Western political civilization.It has left a series of derivative systems,such as the corporate system,joint liability company system,the contract system,and the property rights system,which have laid the foundation for the civilization of the Western political system.After the fall of Rome,the medieval European countries and the Ottoman Empire,which emerged from Roman ruins,failed to escape the curse of the Roman tax-farming company system and gradually became tools of the tax collectors to enrich themselves.In the Western representative democracies,represented by the United States,the tax-farming company has become a legal monopoly of violence in the form of the nation-state.The politicians supported by the tax farmer cleverly hide the nature of exploitation under the guise of democracy and rule of law.Therefore,clarifying the institutional origin and destructive role of the tax-farming company is meaningful to improving Chinese national capacity and upholding the institutional confidence of the financial system with Chinese characteristics under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.