对儒家文化的金融学反思

A Finance-Theoretic Critique of Confucianism

文化到底是什么东西?儒家文化为什么会在中国出现?除了儒家外是否有别的更"好"的社会秩序安排?西方文明真的只是物质文明,而东方文明是更高尚的精神文明吗?"五·四"新文化运动给中国带来了自由、民主、法治的思想,让中国走近世界一大步。但是,现在人们发现,在当年打倒"孔家店"后,今天似乎又要重建"孔家店",这是怎么回事?我们还缺少什么使得个人权利、个人自由难以扎根?为了理解文化的成因,本文假定人的基本生存挑战有两种:物质需求和精神需求,而这两种需求又分今天的需求和未来的需求。今天的需求靠提高生产力来满足,但未来的需求除了也靠提高生产力来满足外,同样重要的是要通过金融契约的交易来规避各类未来不确定性风险。换言之,最理想的社会状态是不仅今天的物质供给和精神供给都丰富,而且金融保险与证券市场也完备(Complete Markets),这样人们能利用金融契约交易把各种未来风险都规避好。当然,现实并没那么完备。特别是在传统农业社会里,不仅没有完备的金融市场,连基本的外部金融交易都没有。那么,在传统社会里,人们如何规避未来的物质风险与精神风险呢?当外部金融市场不发达或根本就不存在时,社会组织特别是"家庭"承担着最重要的经济交易(尤其是风险交易)和感情交易功能,后代以及亲戚是人格化了的"保险"、"借贷"、"投资"、"养老"等金融品种。为了保证家庭、家族内部的这种隐性契约交易能"安全"地进行,为了降低交易成本,"文化"就必须具备一些基本的保证契约交易能执行的内容,儒家的"孝道"文化以及相关名分等级社会秩序的作用也在此。"家"以及其他社会组织的功能主要在于促进成员间的经济交易和感情交流。随着外部金融市场的发展,"家"的经济交易功能逐渐由市场取代,"家"则越来越以感情交流为主。于是,相关的制度性文化特别是"家"文化也发生根本性变化,像儒家"孝道"这样的"刚性"等级文化就变得无必要,取而代之的是让个性更自由、以个人权利为核心的现代文化。西方文化的发展经历大致如此,中国文化的变迁轨迹也将是这样。一旦文化的某种功能能由其他更受社会欢迎的东西取代,那么那项文化内涵的生命就会结束。随着经济和金融技术的发展,社会所需要的文化内涵也会变化。所以,简单意义上的文化复古不仅是一厢情愿,且没意义。

Why did Confucianism emerge in China about 2 500 years ago?Does the Confucian social order have to be the only one suitable for China?The'May 4^(th) Movement'of more than 80 years ago brought the ideals of democracy,free- dom and the rule of law to China,and it led to a complete re-examination of the Confucian culture that had been the core of Chinese culture.However,even 80 years after that critical re-examination,China today has still not realized these ide- als.What has been missing from the picture that has prevented China from realizing these dreams? To understand how certain cultural elements emerge and submerge in a socie- ty,we propose that every human being faces two basic needs:material needs and spiritual/emotional needs.There are these needs both today and in the future.To increase the ability to meet these needs today and in the future,the human race has to both improve productivity through economic development and provide means to hedge future uncertainties through financial development.That is,economic growth helps improve the overall human ability to meet the needs of existence, whereas trading in financial contracts allows better risk sharing and resource alloca- tion among individuals over time and across states of nature.Ideally,there should be abundant supply of both material and spiritual goods and the financial markets should be complete (so that every type of future uncertainty faced anyone can be hedged by using financial contracts).However,especially in traditional agrarian societies hundreds or thousands years ago,not only was the supply of goods limit- ed,but also was there hardly any financial market available for individuals to en- gage in risk and resource sharing (so that financial markets were totally incom- plete).So,how did people hedge future risk and share resources to maximize the probability of human survival? When external financial markets are not complete or hardly exists,societies look for social organizations such as the family to serve as functional substitutes of formal financial contracts/securities.By becoming a member of and committing oneself to,say,the family,one participates in the risk sharing and resource poo- ling among members of the family.Economic transactions and spiritual/emotional exchange within the family are conducted via implicit contracts,the enforcement of which is not through formal legal institutions,but through culture.That is,in order for such implicit contracts to be enforceable,the society has to develop cer- tain cultural values.Such was the reason behind the emergence of the Confucian values 2 500 years ago.The Confucian culture developed in response to the need to add confidence and provide security to members in a family so that they would be willing to engage in implicit intra-family financial contracting. As external financial development takes place,the need for the family and other social organizations to facilitate implicit intra-family financial exchange goes down and the financial market takes over this economic function.Consequently, the family becomes a more social,rather than economic,organization where spir- itual and emotional exchanges take place.As this financial development-induced process continues,the society's culture changes as well,with the individual obtai- ning both more rights and more personal freedom.The history of the rise of individ- ual freedom and rights in the West mirrors the evolutionary process of financial de- velopment.China's recent changes in culture also support this claim.