Study On The "De-identification" Of Social Security System From The Perspective Of Civil Rights

The study of social security is filled with both value judgments and moral ideal,encompassing not only the rational thinking of how to increase people’s living qualitybut also possible solutions to some certain social problems. Facing such acomprehensive subject and in order to avoid the influence of partial positivist practice,this essay is going to analyze the social security system in our country under theframework of civil rights. From the perspective of historical development, rights inpeople’s views have developed from human-nature-based natural rights to morecomprehensive economic, politic and social rights. Rights have become an effectiveway for people to pursue their social justice. The understanding of rights has alsoevolved from original concept of “remedy” to social rights “deserved by everyone”,and the realism of social rights has become an effective way to evaluate social welfaresystems. Variations in the “de-commodification” degree of social rights make socialwelfare system into a stratifying mechanism. As the key system to shape social classesand social order, a social security system’s characters help decide the performance ofshared solidarity, class segmentation and the discrepancy of status.Back into social security practice, our country has been focusing on such practicesince the early years of the PRC and has built a social security system fit for thedemands of planned economy. After the reform and opening-up, the previous systemwas also reformed into a framework which fits the market economy and all citizensare covered by it in name. However, from the perspective of right itself, this processactually gave rise to and deepened “identity-biased welfare”. From the planned economy period, our country has formed a “working place” or “community”-basedsocial security system. People were classified into groups and given different socialwelfare treatments based on their “positions” in their “working places”. This isactually the birth of “identity-biased welfare”. Since the reform and opening-up,China has reached certain achievements in the reform of social security system.Compared to the traditional social security system, the new system has made laudablebreakthroughs in its coverage, welfare level and system completeness. However,instead of providing a solution to “identity-biased welfare”, the urban/suburbandichotomy aggravated this situation and obvious welfare gaps still exist betweendifferent groups.After the emergence and aggravation of “identity-biased welfare”, the socialsecurity system of China started to possess corporatist features: taking security systemas the core, labor group as the main body, contribution and performance as the basis,and emphasizing the balance of rights and obligations, and classifying differentgroups. Although the government is trying to solve the welfare stratification problemcaused by “occupational” and “regional” differences, the effort is made mainly toemphasize equality in the distribution of national income. The welfare of socialmembers still depends on their “occupation identity”. It can be said that, the mainbody of our social security system is similar to the welfare system of corporatism.Due to the tendency of liberalism and socialism in it as well as the diminishing classdisparities, it can be called a “quasi-corporatist pattern”. Data analysis shows thatsuch “quasi-corporatist” social security system has not only intensified the socialstratification that took shape in the first-round allocation but also restricted therealization of social rights. As two key areas of the social security system, the degreeof “de-commodification” in endowment insurance and medical insurance is ranked asfollows in descending order: retired employees in public institutions, employees inurban enterprises, countryside residents, and urban residents. It means that, after retirement, employees from public institutions and urban enterprises normally obtainpositions much more independent of the market than ordinary urban and countrysideresidents do. Therefore, the social security system of our country still highly replieson the “occupation identity” of each citizen. Moreover, with social rights beingextended to occupational area, a social security pattern that is highly related tooccupation identities took shape. The current social security system also reflects theprinciple that rights should be weighted equally to obligations, thus partly realizingsocial rights. The occupation-based social security system is positively correlated tothe classifications of the society. It means that, the group which has the dominantposition in the social security system still stays in the dominant position in socialclassification. The social security system is not amending the imparity caused bysocial stratification but worsening the situation.Facing “identity-biased welfare” in our social security system, we have toconsider how to satisfy the necessary demands of social members and at the sametime amend the imparity caused by social stratification. That is to say, we need toconsider “how to balance rights and obligations to reach a certain equal andreasonable outcome”. This is actually related to distributive justice as the realizationof social rights depends on what we think of distributive justice. This essay putsforward the value choice for social security system based on the principle ofdistributive justice, providing grounds for eliminating “identity-biased welfare”. Fromthe analysis of distributive justice principle, it can be seen that personal freedom andsocial equality form two opposite sides. The value choice of social justice iscompletely concerned with balancing these two elements. In the practice of our socialsecurity system, the “need” principle should be adopted to reflect social equality whilethe “contribution” principle should be used to reflect personal freedom. Social welfareis independent of personal preference and is distributed based on the social needs aswell as the social productivity level and the material basis. By distributing social welfare, social security system meets the demands of survival and development of allsocial members and finally adjusts social inequality. In contrast, contribution-basedsocial security system requires social welfare to be allocated in terms of thecontribution of each member. As the value reflection of free distributive justice, thissystem reflects the balance of rights and obligations, and is much concerned withefficiency and freedom. Considering that social security system needs to adjustincome disparities, contribution-based social security system needs to be limited bysetting a definite quota.Based on the above-mentioned matters, this essay also provides a preliminaryidea for the construction of social security system from the perspective of civil rights.From the practice of the social security system in China, need-based social securitysystem is fully sponsored by the treasury and usually covers all citizens through auniform system to meet their basic needs for survival; contribution-based socialsecurity system which is sponsored by individuals and employers, however, coversworkers through a differentiated system so as to meet the security demands of muchhigher level. Speaking of specific social security projects, China needs to build apension insurance system including basic and supplementary insurances, as well as amedical insurance system combining contribution medical insurance and free medicalinsurance.