信用、法治与现代经济增长的制度基础

Institutional Basis of Credit, Rule of Law and Modern Economic Growth

信用是行为期待可能性的外在公共性评价信息,起到社会交往理性化的功能。它与法治的结合,走出了传统剩余物偶然交换的自然经济,成为现代经济增长与市场发展的制度基础。回溯西欧商业革命兴起的历史,商人法的统一规则与执行保证了交易本身的信用,而以信用机制为基础的商业技术创新,创设了新的法律关系,最终带来了行为模式和生产关系的根本转变。二者的结合稳定了交易预期、扩大了市场范围、提升了融资能力、降低了交易成本,具有巨大的经济价值。信用法律关系和市场机制是现代经济秩序的基础,其也有利于走出中国传统的关系信任,建构普遍信任。它本质上是一种具有现代性的“非人格化”治理方式,逐步塑造平等而非差序的现代社会关系。

Credit is the external public evaluative information of the possibility to the prospective actions of others.The function of credit is the rationalization of social interactions.Its combination with the mle of law obsoleted traditional casual exchange of remainders as natural economy and become the institutional basis of modern economy growth and market development.Retrospect to the histoiy of the rise of Commercial Revolution in Western Europe,the unified rules and execution of the Law Merchant guaranteed the credit of transactions,while the commercial technique innovations based on the credit mechanism created the new legal relationships,and finally brought about the fundamental transformation of pattern of action and relationships of production.The combination of credit and the rule of law stabilizes transaction anticipation,expands the scope of market,improves the financing ability and reduces the transaction cost,which has great economic values.The legal institutionalized credit is also beneficial for stepping out of Chinese traditional relationship trust and constructing universal trust.In essence,it is a modern pattern of impersonal governance,which gradually shapes the equal but not hierarchical modern social relationship.