制度企业家与儒家社会规范

Norm Entrepreneurs and Confucian Social Norms

人类社会博弈的游戏规则是长期历史演化的结果,而不是计划设计的产物,但有一些"制度企业家"对社会规范和法律的形成产生了举足轻重的影响。本文第一部分分析了制度企业家的职能、他们在制度创新时面临的风险以及决定他们成败的因素;第二部分讨论了公元前500年开始的所谓"轴心时代"伟大制度企业家出现的社会背景,概括了东西方制度企业家有关人类行为规范的五点共同主张,并以基督教和佛教为例,分析了成功者的轨迹;第三部分讨论了儒家社会规范,认为儒家主张的"君子"和"等级制度"既是一个协调机制,又是一个激励机制。本文认为,古典儒家有"民本"思想而无"民主"的制度构架,但儒家文化与法治和民主并不矛盾。

This paper argues that the rules of the game in human society are the results of long - term evolution in history, rather than the products of planned design, but it should be recognized that great norm entrepreneurs have played essential roles in the formation of laws and social norms. The first section of this paper analyses the function of norm entrepreneurs, the risk they face in institutional innovations, and the determinants of their success and failure. The second section discusses the great norm entrepreneurs of the Axial Age starting from 500 BC： their historical backgrounds, their shared missions, and the five common principles they proposed for human behavior. This section also analyses the trajectory of the successes of Christianity in the Rome Empire and Buddhism in ancient China. The third section shows how Confucian social norms functioned both as a coordinating device and an incentive mechanism in promoting cooperative behaviors. This paper also argues that Classical Confucianism was not contradictory with modern democracy and the rule of law.