中国社会保障制度的价值理念研究—基于公平与效率的理论视角

The Research on the Value Choice of Chinese Social Security—Based on the Theory of Fairness and Efficiency

纵观现代社会保障的发展历程不难发现,社会保障由单一的强调经济效率,被视为维护统治阶级的工具,到公平性不断增强,维护公平程度不断提高,以致成为社会经济的负担,再到社会福利的削减,效率的回归,这一过程始终伴随着对公平与效率的价值选择。对公平与效率关系的认识,理论界有三种观点:第一,公平与效率是相互矛盾的,二者不能同时实现,任何一方的增强都会导致另一方的削弱;第二,公平与效率整体是上统一的,不存在根本性的矛盾,公平的实现有助于提高效率,效率的提高为实现公平提供物质基础,二者处于一种动态平衡,依赖具体的社会背景存在何者优先的问题;第三,公平与效率就像天平的两端,必须二者并重,对任何一方的倾斜都是不正当的。笔者认为,在社会处于上升阶段,第二种观点适用范围更加广泛。本文从历史主义的角度出发,通过分析我国社会保障发展历程中的不公平现象以及它们赖以存在的经济效率基础,为探究公平与效率的关系提供经验佐证,进而明晰公平与效率的均衡状态并顺应社会实际而稍有偏移是社会保障理想的价值选择,旨在为我国社会保障一些问题的解决和制度的进一步完善提供理论支撑和思维范式。

Throughout the course of development of the modern social security, it is not difficult to find that social security just emphasizes economic efficiency at the beginning and it is regarded as a tool to maintain the ruling class. With the growing awareness of fairness, to maintain a fair degree of con-tinuous improvement, social security became a burden of the social economy. Then government began to cut social welfare and enhance the efficiency. This process is always accompanied by the value selection of the equity and efficiency. On the understanding of the relationship between fairness and efficiency, there are three points. Firstly, fairness and efficiency are mutually contra-dictory, and they cannot be achieved at the same time;any part’s enhancing will lead to the other enhanced weakening. Secondly, fairness and efficiency are unified. There is no fundamental con-tradiction, because it helps to improve efficiency to achieve fairness, and efficiency provides the material basis of fairness. They are in a state of dynamic equilibrium, and the specific social back-ground decides which priority is. Lastly, fairness and efficiency are the ends of the scale. You must try the two, and it is unfair to trend to anyone. The author believes that in the rise of society, the scope of the second view is more widely applicable. From the historicist perspective, this article analyzed the inequities of the development process of Chinese social security which were based on economic efficiency, providing evidence of experience for exploring the relationship between fairness and efficiency, and thus making it clearing that fairness and efficiency are equal but de-viated sometimes to adapt to the social reality which is the ideal value choice of social security;at last providing theory supports and thinking paradigm to solve the social security problems and improving the system of social security.