Tolerance From The Perspective Of Economics

The whole history of man is filled with various sufferings brought by intolerance, and it is obvious that the contradiction between the scarcity of resources and the infinity of man's demands is the important factor resulting in the intolerance sufferings, which caused great losses. In front of these intolerance sufferings, people have never stopped the step of seeking for tolerance, which is people's long dream. We can find tolerance thoughts either in the early cultures and modern cultures, and no doubt, religion is the best representative of culture. Certainly, the religion here includes various primitive religions, such as totem and taboo. During the courses of seeking tolerance, the classical tolerance, religious tolerance and modern tolerance gradually come up. Compared with modern cultures, the tolerance existing in the early cultures or traditional cultures of today has different features, so we call this kind of tolerance classical tolerance. Classical tolerance is mainly a kind of tolerance in moral manner, as informal institution existing in religion and other kind of traditional cultures. Modem tolerance exists in law and other kind of formal institutions and can be regarded as formal institution. Religious tolerance refers to protecting people's freedom of religion belief by means of law, in order to get rid of the intolerance sufferings as a result of the differences of religion belief.Since tolerance is very important to man's harmony and happiness, it has become hot point of study, and almost all the social sciences have shown interests in it. Just a certain academic thesis may concern with several social sciences and different stages from classical to modern tolerance. The present study of tolerance concentrates on the following aspects: firstly, probing the tolerance thoughts of Chinese traditional cultures, mainly of Confucianism; secondly, probing the tolerance thoughts of world-wide traditional cultures, mainly of Christianity; thirdly, the study about religious tolerance which concerns the sufferings of the Christian society brought by the religion violence of the Inquisitions and religion war after the Protestant Reform; fourthly, the study of modern tolerance by many social sciences whose core content is to protect the human rights; fifthly, the utilization of tolerance in daily life and relevant experience; sixthly, the demarcation line and standard of tolerance. Among the above, modern tolerance is the key point of study.Tolerance has become a hot point of study, but the present study still has some blank space which has both strong practical and theoretical significance. For example, firstly, lack of comparative analysis between Confucianism tolerance and Christianity tolerance. As a result of strong path dependence, traditional cultures especially the mainstream traditional cultures have deep effect on every field of our daily life. Confucianism tolerance and Christianity tolerance respectively exist in Confucianism and Christianity which are respectively mainstream traditional culture of China and the West. No doubt, they still respectively have strong effect on the social life of China and the West, and maybe the differences between them are the explaining variables of the different development paths and present situations between China and the West. So we need comparative analysis between Confucianism tolerance and Christianity tolerance. Secondly, lack of systematic study of the historical development course of tolerance. Many scholars just speak of the difference between the classical tolerance and the modern tolerance roughly and simply, and they haven't made systematic study of the development course of tolerance, so they can't have brought to light the differences among classical tolerance, religious tolerance and modern tolerance. Thirdly, lack of economic analysis of tolerance, economic analysis can and should do something for the study of tolerance, but the economic analysis of tolerance in china at present is blank, while the foreign economic analysis of tolerance often just focuses on helping the disabled, the poor and other social vulnerable groups. Economic study can help to prove the necessity and feasibility of tolerance, while in the present study the necessity of tolerance just gets support mainly from philosophy demonstration and historical experience, etc. The efficiency standards of economics are important to prove the necessity of tolerance. If tolerance is efficient for the whole society and the individual, tolerance is necessary. On the other side, no matter tolerance is efficient for the whole society or not, the tolerance coming into reality depends on the individual's tolerance action. But for the individual, the motive power of providing tolerance action is that the benefit of tolerance action should be more than the cost. The more the net benefit, the stronger the individual's motive power to provide tolerance action. My study aims at filling in the above blank space of tolerance study, among which I will mainly solve the third problem, using economics theory to analyze tolerance.The above blank space of tolerance study is the study focal point of my thesis. The first part is document summary. During this part, I will summarize the existing study of tolerance, and at the same time, I will advance some individual views. The details are as follows: firstly, I will use a historical frame to summarize the existing study of tolerance, elaborating it according to its historical development course from classical tolerance to religious tolerance still to modern tolerance. Especially I will focus on elaborating the modern tolerance, in which many social sciences have shown great interests, such as politics, philosophy, religion, law, sociology, etc. Secondly, in the part of classical tolerance, I will make tentative comparative analysis between Confucianism tolerance and Christianity tolerance as well as their thoughts of intolerance. Confucianism and Christianity are often regarded as an important factor that has caused the different developments between China and the West, and Confucianism tolerance and Christianity tolerance are respectively an important part of Confucianism and Christianity, so they are also important factors that have affected the development of China and the West differently. Because of the limits of time and energy, I will just make a tentative comparative analysis between Confucianism tolerance and Christianity tolerance. That is to say, I will just set out the tolerance thoughts of Confucianism and Christianity as well as their intolerance thoughts. Thirdly, I will elaborate the differences between the modern tolerance and the tolerance of modern society. Modern tolerance is different from the tolerance of modern society, but many scholars haven't realized this point. Classical tolerance still has strong life-force today, and it is a necessary and important part of the tolerance of modern society. The tolerance of modern society is made up of the classical tolerance and the modem tolerance jointly, but the present classical tolerance has become different from its history both in content and function. The classical tolerance used to be dominative tolerance institution of the social life. Today, the classical tolerance and the modern tolerance promote the social tolerance and harmony jointly, but they also have marginal conflict, which properly say that they exist side by side in modern society.On the basis of the document summary, I will make economic analysis of tolerance. The first part of the economic analysis is tolerance from the perspective of the Public Goods Theory. The two important features of public goods are non-competitive and non-exclusive, and tolerance is just this kind of public goods. According to the extent of non-exclusiveness and non-competitiveness, public goods can be divided into pure public goods and quasi-public goods. Using Public Goods Theory to analyze tolerance, we not only can find that tolerance has the features of public goods, but also can find 3 hierarchical structures of tolerance. The 3 hierarchical structures are the knowledge stocks of tolerance, the knowledge education of tolerance and the tolerance action of people. The tolerance's features as public goods in its 3 hierarchical structures are different, and every kind of tolerance has these 3 hierarchical structures. Among these 3 hierarchical structures of tolerance, the knowledge stocks are typical pure public goods, while the knowledge education of tolerance and the tolerance action of people are both quasi-public goods. The knowledge stocks of every kind of tolerance in every society have complete non-exclusiveness and non-competitiveness, and will not refuse the consumption of any person. Though the knowledge education of tolerance is public goods, it can't make everyone of the society receive the education of the same amounts and quality, so there is competitive and exclusive in some extent. Of course, for the education of different kind of tolerance, their features as public goods are different too, even if we control the personal natural endowment. For example, the features as public goods of Christianity tolerance education are purer than that of Confucianism tolerance education. Here, I haven't explained the features of public goods of people's tolerance action. The analysis of the tolerance's features of public goods will also provide the basis for the tolerance study from micro-economics, and it can help to make clear why the consumption of tolerance nearly has the feature of complete elasticity. Certainly, the consumption of different kind of tolerance will still show difference in the feature of complete elasticity.The second part of the economic analysis is tolerance from the pespective of the Human Capital Theory. Human capital mainly refers to the knowledge, the technical ability, the labor capacity, etc that exist in the body of people. Human capital is regarded as an efficient economy and an important factor to promote economic growth. Tolerance owns the three main features of human capital. Firstly, tolerance must exist in the body of people, and its existing form is people's knowledge, ability, and even people's physical strength, health, experience, attitude, etc. Secondly, to acquire tolerance, people must pay a certain cost, and the people's tolerance knowledge, ability, etc results from the joint investment of the individual, the family, the state, the society, etc. People's knowledge, ability, etc of tolerance is the fruit of joint investment. The way to acquire tolerance is to receive tolerance education of various forms as well as through "Learning by Doing", and the main forms of cost are time, money, etc. The individual is the only subject that owns tolerance as a kind of human capital, but the subjects of investment include the individual, the family, the state, the society, etc. The cost paid for obtaining tolerance can be divided into three parts: the cost paid by the state and the society in order to establish, develop, and uphold the tolerance institutions; the cost paid by the family, the state and society to help the individual to receive tolerance education and to form his tolerance ability, etc; the cost paid by the individual himself. Besides, under the angle of lending and borrowing business, the cost paid by the state, the society, the family, etc can be regarded as the cost paid by the individual himself too. That is to say, it can be regarded as the debt that the individual must pay in future, so it can also be regarded as cost paid by the individual himself. The way for the individual to pay the other's investment is mainly to provide tolerance action for the society, which can benefit the state, the society, the individual's family, etc. Thirdly, tolerance is also an approach to obtain profit. An important feature of human capital is that it can bring profit for the investors. This is why the investors will pay cost to gain the human capital. Tolerance can bring profit too. For every kind of tolerance of every region at anytime, the last reason of the state and society to pay a lot of cost to establish, develop, and uphold the tolerance institutions is that tolerance can benefit the whole state and society. Or there will not be unified social tolerance institutions. Tolerance can and must benefit the individual and his family too, or the individual will not pay cost to receive tolerance education and provide tolerance action, and tolerance can't be turned into reality either.The third part of the economic analysis is tolerance from the pespective of the New Institutional Economics. Tolerance has been considered institution in social sciences besides economics. To explain in precise term, the classical tolerance is a kind of tolerance as informal institution, while the modern tolerance is formal institution. From the pespective of the New Institutional Economics, the institution is a kind of incentive mechanism, restraining the production and the transaction and affecting both the production costs and transaction costs; besides, different institutions can affect the production costs and transaction costs differently. The tolerance is just this kind of institution, and its effect on the production and transaction is as follows. Firstly, every kind of tolerance institution in history faced intolerance sufferings when they were born. Those intolerance sufferings destroyed the production and transaction seriously, and caused great losses of life and property in many cases. And just the losses of life itself should have been regarded as the infinite production costs and transaction costs. The direct aims of the newly-born tolerance institutions were to get rid of these disasters and to help to return to the normal production and transaction order. So, we can say that the tolerance institutions which were born in the time filled with intolerance sufferings reduced the production costs and transaction costs greatly. Secondly, different tolerance institutions can have different effect on the production and transaction. I will use Confucianism tolerance institution and Christianity tolerance institution as example to make deep analyses. The findings are as follows: the differences of the people's status in the production and transaction between the Confucianism tolerance institution and the Christianity tolerance institution can cause different production costs and transaction costs; the differences of the power of the church, the state and the god (or gods) between the Confucianism tolerance institution and the Christianity tolerance institution can affect the production costs and transaction costs differently; the differences of the regulations of production, transaction, distribution and consumption between the Confucianism tolerance institution and the Christianity tolerance institution can affect the production costs and transaction costs differently; the differences of property rights arrangement between the Confucianism tolerance institution and the Christianity tolerance institution can affect the production and transaction differently; the differences in overcoming the incomplete information, the time-limit game, and the unfair rewards and punishments between the Confucianism tolerance institution and Christianity tolerance institution can affectthe production costs and transaction costs differently.