合伙企业法人化的进程与论争

The Historical Evolution and Academic Controversy of the Partnership

将商事组织定性为法人究竟意味着什么?商法学界针对此问题已经讨论了长达两个世纪。当我们将组织定性为法人时,等同于在宣称,法律将该企业与其所有者的资产、负债和义务进行了区分;或是认为其具有一个区别于所有人的真正独立的意志和人格;抑或是其在某些情形下可以享有或主张一般仅被赋予自然人的权利。合伙企业作为经常被忽视的商事主体,对其内涵进行深入探讨,有助于以此为起点,为前述问题提供新的思路。20世纪伊始,学术界和实务界对于合伙企业究竟是一种“集合体”还是“实体”,以及法律是否应将其视为独立的法人等问题进行了激烈的争论,并最终促成1914年《统一合伙法》的起草。“将商事组织定性为法人会带来怎样的道德后果”的问题曾经是争论焦点,如今似乎已被淡忘,但实际上却与法律人格密切相关。

What does it mean to say a business association is a legal person?The question has shadowed the law of business organizations for at least two centuries.When we say a business is a legal person we may be claiming that the law distinguishes its assets,liabilities,and obligations from those of its owners;or that it has a“real will”and personality apart from its owners;or that it in some way can carry or assert rights generally ascribed to natural persons.This Article sheds new light on these old questions by looking at an oft-overlooked business form,the partnership,and at once-fierce debates over just what the partnership is.In the decades around the turn of the twentieth century scholars and practitioners hotly debated whether the partnership was an“aggregate”or“entity”and whether the law should treat it as a separate legal person,debates which culminated in the drafting of the Uniform Partnership Act(1914).Central to these disputes was a now-forgotten facet of legal personhood:the moral consequences of treating a business association as a distinct legal person.