| The period between the end of Ming dynasty and the beginning of Qing dynasty has a specially importance in the history of Chinese thinking. Its uniqueness consists in the opinion of the contemporary man-of-letters, they thought the replacing of Ming by Qing was not just a dynasty change, but a civilization conquered by another. Because of the fact that Ming dynasty was founded under the banner of nationalism, and its overturn of the Yuan dynasty before it, which was founded by the Mongolians? On the other hand, the policy of the early Qing government was somewhat against the tradition of Chinese history. As a result, it added insult to injury. This harsh situation forced every Chinese elite who had conscience to reconsider the tradition, was it wrong or something? The restudy of traditional law and institution was paid high premium on, so as to find the reason of the great failure. Which we must notice is that, the reconsideration of traditional law and institution was in the framework of confuciousism. That has some difference from the reconsideration after western scholarism made its way into China, which was under the principals of modern thought and science. If we compare them between each other, we may definitely conceive the author who made reconsideration under modern philosophy as a prosecutor or a defense counsel, but the reconsideration in the framework of confuciousism, its author was on the position of a defendant. Thus, the contemporary intellectuals such as Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu and Wang Fuzhi lived and considered under this situation, and led the "inner-criticism" to a new level in Chinese history of thought.Wang Fuzhi was one of them, but had a specialty. As criticizing the traditional law and institution, he was far more overriding, more calmly analyzing. His theory was not just responded to some specific points, but more conclusive. Xiao Gongquan put his thought as "Huang, Gu paid their importance to the autocracy of Song and Ming dynasty, so they want to reform the constitution by some feudally power-dividing; while Wang Fuzhi's theory was not led at some specific points, but rather putting importance to the political evolution. The former was a theory led by a reformer, while the latter had more closeness to the criticism of a scientist or a historian. Traditionally our country seldom lacked of reform-thinker, but hardly owned any pure scholar. Considering this situation, we may conceive that Wang's scholarism, may have some advantage of Huang and Gu's." This article tries to confirm Xiao's consideration on the special field of Wang Fuzhi's economic law and institution thought.Wang Fuzhi's economic law and institution thought, primarily, was to improve government efficiency at the premise of relieving the burden of the people. Its foundation lies on the belief that "there is no eternal law but eternal legal spirit". He was totally against the idea that governed the state by an "eternal law" or "laws from the old kings". This article wants to discuss Wang Fuzhi's theory on the very subject of estate, tax and franchise.At the aspect of estate law, Wang Fuzhi confirmed the inevitability of transaction freedom of estate; opposed the idea of "estate restriction" or "estate average".At the aspect of tax system, Wang Fuzhi criticized the estate tax fiercely; while at the same time agreed with the application of high poll tax. He thought that would transfer the burden of peasants to the idleness. Referring to history, he admired the "Zu-yong-diao" system of Tang dynaty.Meanwhile, Wang Fuzhi criticized any exorbitant taxes and levies. So, the tribute system in history was opposed by him fiercely. Its flaw lied in the fact that it had no regular and legal amount, so it was all depended on the local governors.At the aspect of tax amount, Wang Fuzhi realized there is some difference between the tax on the paper and the tax in the real world. You should conceive this so you can estimate the real burden of the people rightly.Why the tax amount grown consistently in the history? Wang Fuzhi thought the reason laid in the fact that tax-out-of-system kept being added to the legal tax system. At first it may be conceived easy collecting and convenient to the tax payer, but this vicious circle began to move on while new tax-out-of-system made their way into being. At the aspect of tax collecting, Wang Fuzhi prefered collecting currency to various stuff on the ground that this in fact had benefit to the people.Why sometimes there was low tax amount but people can't take advantage from this? Wang Fuzhi thought that the very situation of China made this possible; this country was too broad and had too large a population, while the government was based on centralization. This situation made the tax collecting a big problem. The central might collect a little, while the local government kept collecting much surtax and sometimes even worse, barely blackmail and corruption. In fact, many medieval layers took the benefit of tax-collecting.At the aspect of monopoly or franchise, Wang Fuzhi was totally with this application. His reason paid no premium on government finance, but on behalf of the people's welfare, on the consideration of fairness. He thought that monopoly or franchise was desirable because of its morality. It had the function of encouraging agriculture, restricting merchants and local despotic, covering the unfairness resulted by natural difference, and avoiding the meaningless struggle for scarce stuff etc.In one word, that Wang Fuzhi's theory of economic law and institution has some obvious contradictions. He insist on the idea of private property, economic freedom, currency economy, while at the same time conceive the belief of putting agriculture before commerce, heavy estate tax and low poll tax etc. These are all anti-history. This contradiction is only explainable considering his times. As criticizing in the framework of Confucianism, so he was bounded by the very tradition. Wang Fuzhi was bounded by his time and his ideological structure as the other thinkers in history. If we use the two concepts of "deconstruction" and "construction" to explain Wang Fuzhi's theory, we can make the conclusion that, although many idea of his construction is not convincible, but his deconstruction is profound and to the point. This is the very contribution of Wang Fuzhi to the study of traditional law and institution. |
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