"rational Economic Man" And "civil Society"

"Rational Economic Man" is the core concept, logic precondition and argumentation basis of western mainstream economics. The need to answer many modern & contemporary hot problems urgently requires us to deeply criticize and reflect on it. To systematically review and backtrack the historical development of "Rational Economic Man", give a comprehensive & correct comment of its functions & values and offer some necessary ideological & theoretical resources for the market reformation of current China is the ultimate goal of this thesis. Concretely speaking, the thesis, guided by Marxism and starting from the position & viewpoint of Historical Materialism, widely absorbs, refers to and derives from philosophy, sociology, history, economics, politics and nomology home & abroad. Through discussing the formation and origination of "Rational Economic Man" and "civil society", the relation of "formal rationality" and "material rationality" and the interaction between civil society and political state (government), the thesis tries to reveal the essential feature of "Rational Economic Man" and the common rule of the generation & evolution of "civil society" and then resolve its paradoxes.In pace with the total logic approach of posing, analyzing and resolving problems, the thesis can be divided into five chapters. Above all, through the collection of relevant documents and records, the 1st chapter reduces "Rational Economic Man" to three basic elements:"egoist human basis ","complete rational expectation", "abstract individual analysis" and two definition levels:"function-generative Rational Economic Man" and "existence-descriptive Rational Economic Man"(i.e. to regard "Rational Economic Man" as only a pure, useful "presupposition" or a vivid real person), and on the basis of which enumerates the intrinsic key contradictions of it between "egoism" and "altruism" ("Adam Smith-Problem"), "efficiency" and "justice", "market" and "institution".The 2nd chapter is the threshold of analysis. The thesis removes "Rational Economic Man" from the pure economics context and places it back in the grand historical background:its original forms or rudiment were "mercatores" and "burgenses", the ones who were engaged in early industry & commerce and gradually gestated in the matrix of middle-age economic life. The production & life mode of civil society fundamentally determined its "formal rationality" feature as Max Weber depicted. This essential feature was the necessary requirement of market economy and capital increment and then, during the struggle of civil estate against traditional institutional circumstances which inhibited the development of industry & commerce, spread and penetrated into such superstructural areas as law and politics (or as one of the achievements and results of this struggle). After the backtracking of civil society and three basic elements of "Rational Economic Man", the thesis clearly stipulates it as "formally Rational Economic Man", thus gives the "existence-descriptive Rational Economic Man" an utter negation and finishes a logic clarification for further augmentation. This concentrated development history of civil society is both the systematic response to the "presupposition" definition level and the application & embodiment of basic Historical Materialism principles.In the 3rd chapter, the thesis carries on a thorough analysis of the relation of "formal rationality" and "material rationality" and points out that the history of "Rational Economic Man" ever since its coming into being was both the ceaseless implementation and outspread of its "formal rationality" feature and the sharp contradiction and mutual deviation between "formal rationality" and "material rationality". In essence, the deviation between "formal rationality" and "material rationality" implied "demoralization" and "deinstitutionalization", which certainly, did not absolutely mean to go on without any regard to morality or institution. To be exact, what the growing civil estate ("Rational Economic Man") really wanted to banish and dispel were merely the traditional "old morality" and "old institution", meanwhile, they were making great efforts to reconstruct "new morality" and "new institution" in accordance with the development of capitalist industry & commerce. However, followed by faith crisis and moral degradation, the "new morality" was not successfully established as they wished. With the "disenchantment" of "3R" movements, i.e. "Revival of the Rome Law", "Renaissance", "Religion Reformation" and the "Enlightenment", "formalized" (rationalized) civil society enabled the market system to grow and spread ceaselessly. As a result, it rapidly broke through the original borderline and even began to "disembed" (Karl Polanyi) from and dominate society, while the "new institution" provided the "disembedding" of free market system with both policy & ideological supports and guarantees. Thus the economic domain gradually got rid of the bondages of traditional ethics, morality and political principles and gained its "independence", because of which the above paradoxes were generated.The 4th chapter is the attempt to resolve the paradoxes of "Ration Economic Man". The deviation between "formal rationality" and "material rationality" caused by the formation of civil society has been the very core contradiction of western civilization ever since Industrial Revolution, which was hidden in civil society at beginning and aggravated step by step with the actual development and functioning of market economy. The schism between civil society and political (citizen) state was not only the ultimate end of the deviation between "formal rationality" and "material rationality", but the theoretical preconditions of thinkers including Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. However, although he no longer looked upon the relation of them from the insight of traditional theology, Hegel still insisted on the primacy of ethics and regarded political state and bureaucratic institution as the highest incarnation of ethical idea on the basis of which he expected to resolve the problems of civil society and "Rational Economic Man". Like the enlightenment thinkers, Karl Marx resolutely opposed any "mysterious & fantastic" theory about the origination of civil society and political state. After the systematic critique of Hegelian legal philosophy and national economics, he creatively put forward the historical viewpoint that "civil society determines political state" and his own theory of society & state. Guided by it, the thesis does not continue the "combination" of conflicting sides of "Rational Economic Man" paradoxes so as to take on some seemingly "perfect" or "satisfactory" effects like other articles did. On the contrary, based upon the fundamental frame of domain & principle division between civil society and political state in the "insurmountable" development stage, the thesis puts forward clearly that the contradictions between "egoism" and "altruism", "efficiency" and "justice", "market" and "institution" be "respectively" dealt with by them and on the precondition of which political state be given play to the effects of macroscopic "coordination"& "balance" and endeavored to maintain the "dynamic" borderline between civil society and itself.As a key link in the whole evolvement of civil society theory and the scientific program guiding human history research, Marx's theory of civil society inspires us that although it first originated and appeared in the west, civil society is not exclusive, because it is the inevitable outcome of market economy development. As long as market economy keeps running, "formally rational" civil society and "Economic Man" (burgenses) can also be brought up in other forms of civilizations. With the deepening of market reformation and faster paces towards modernization, civil society has begun its formation in China. Under such circumstances, how shall we understand "Rational Economic Man"? Do we need to recognize it? How to avoid or prevent the paradoxes & contradictions appeared in "modernized" western countries during the growing-up of civil society? In order to accomplish the above goals, what functions and roles should civil society and government play besides the general precondition of domain & principle division? All these are the theoretical and realistic problems of great importance to be resolved. In the 5th chapter, the thesis reviews and reflects on the concrete situation of China and draws the final conclusion that:on the one hand, in order to progress market economy, we still need to recognize "Rational Economic Man", however, we should also be convinced that it is in fact a "double-blade sword", therefore, on the other hand, in order to avoid or prevent the paradoxes & contradictions appeared in western world during the growing-up of civil society as best as possible, we must definite the functions & roles that civil society and government respectively play and add to them corresponding policy environmental factors, which means to carry on "institutional innovation" revolving around our own "Rational Economic Man" in socialist market economy and speed up the construction of nomocracy so as to make it serve the current reformation practice better.