一种特殊类型的共同体——中世纪行会功能的政治社会学分析

A Unique Type of Community: A Political Sociological Analysis of the Functions of Guild in the Medieval Ages

在表现形式上,中世纪的行会是一种职业性和专门化的工商组织,因此,国内学界的主流研究大都聚焦行会的经济职能,并将其纳入经济史的视域来分析和讨论。但问题是,即便在经济领域,中世纪的行会规章也表现出限制自由竞争的保守特征,所以,仅仅以是否提升市场经济发展速度或驱动市场经济规模扩张论功过,就只能对行会的作用给出否定性评价。这显然是片面的。从历史主义的立场来看,由于中世纪尚不存在作为强势主权单位的民族-国家,以安全和秩序为主要内容的公共物品的供给有严重缺口,因而,行会如何扮演"类政府"或"准公共组织"的角色,实施市场监管、开展社会救助、提供公益服务,才更加关乎那个时代社会治理的根本。就此而论,开启一个政治社会学视野,将中世纪行会当作一种特殊类型的共同体加以考察,乃准确把握其历史方位及镜鉴价值的关键所在。

Medieval guild used to be a certain type of professional and specialized business organization in terms of their extrinsic presentation, as a result, most of our mainstream studies in China usually analyze and discuss them in the context of economic history. However, since the guild has an intrinsic characteristic of conservatism which will undoubtedly limit free competition, this kind of mainstream studies can only lead to a negative evaluation concerning the role and function of it, for the major criteria in economic domain are the potentiality of accelerating the development of market economy and expanding its scale. This sort of judgment is obviously unilaterally. From a historicist perspective, as the powerful sovereignty unit of nation-state hasn’t exist at that time, and there is a sever lack of main public goods of security and order, the guild functioned as a fundamental and essential organization regarding the governance of the medieval society, to play the role of semi-government or quasi-public organization that regulating the market, carrying out social-assistance and offering public service. In the light of the above-mentioned reasons, the key to understand its position in history and evaluate the function of the guild is to put it under the perspective of political sociology and see it as a unique type of community.