中国水利社会下的政治理性与经济效率

Political Rationality and Economic Efficiency under Hydraulic Society in China

在古典学派工资铁律的前提下,本文将水利社会概念纳入阿西莫格鲁(Acemoglu)的新制度学派模型,并通过理论模型与数值仿真发现:中国政治与经济结构以宋朝为分界点,由生产小麦的地方分权转变为生产稻米的中央集权。在经济发展环境变迁下,中央集权其实就是皇帝与地方贵族因应科技进步与人口增加所为之制度调整。只要水田稻米生产力显著高于旱作小麦生产力,宋代以后的中央集权就能符合中央与地方双方的诱因兼容条件:中央通过对地方私有财产权之保障,地方通过对中央之效忠,发展出一套可信赖的双边承诺,以便利稻作与市场经济的发展。中央集权非但符合上层社会的政治理性与经济效率,也养活了众多人口,使中国人口由宋以前的6 000万人一路增加到清末的4亿。

Based on the iron law of subsistence wages, this article introduces the concept of hydraulic empire into a neo-institutionalism theoretic model. The simulation analysis indicates that China began to transform from a wheat-producing feudal society into a rice-producing hydraulic society after Sung dynasty. Under such a change, despotic centralism was an institutional adjustment to facilitate nationwide coordination so as to cope with technological progress and population growth. Only if there was a substantial difference between the productivity of rice and wheat could centralism satisfy the incentive compatibility constraints for both central emperor and local nobles. This implied that both agents could enter into implicit an agreement :the emperor would protect property right of local nobles, and the locals would comply with central authority. This arrangement would facilitate the development of high productivity agriculture( rice farming). The centralism did not only fulfill both political rationality and economic efficiency, but also supported a huge population.