国家在干什么?——一个经济史分析视角

What Role Should A State Play in Our Life?——The Perspective of Economic History

国家理论关于国家的本质可以概括为三只手:无为之手、扶持之手和掠夺之手。以此来考察中国经济史上国家的行为,发现在大多数时候,国家扮演着掠夺之手的角色。国家之所以能肆无忌惮地进行掠夺,原因有三:法治与民主缺位,商业行会力量微弱,国家之间缺乏竞争。国家的掠夺行为是阻碍中国迈入工业文明时代的深层次原因,当代中国经济要实现又好又快发展,必须合理界定国家的行为边界。

According to the State Theory,the essence of the state can be summarized as follows：a hand of actionless governance,a hand of support and a hand of plunder. A survey of China＇s national actions throughout her economic history will tell you that the state has played the role of ＂a hand of plunder＂ most of the time. As to why the state could plunder so barbarically, we need to look into three respects：the lack of law and democracy,the faintness of commercial guilds and the absense of competition between the states. Since the plunder of state has been found to be the underlying reason that impedes China on her path to industrial civilization era,to achieve a sound and quick development of our country, we first need to reasonably define the boundary of state activities.