产何以存?——清代《巴县档案》中的行帮公产纠纷 周 琳
通过对清代《巴县档案》中70个行帮公产纠纷案例的考察,可以发现清代重庆的行帮更倾向于通过诉讼解决此类问题。在清末新政之前,行帮的确能够凭借与地方官府的互惠关系,比较有效地利用法庭处理纠纷、保护公产。但是在新政实施之后,地方官府在巨大的财政压力之下,转而利用诉讼剥夺行帮公产。基于这样的事实,本文提出了“官府掌控下的‘理性市场’”这一分析框架,即官府主导着市场的命运,但也会在经济、社会比较稳定的前提下,给市场发展留下一个弹性的空间。然而在面对财政压力和形势突变的时候,官府又会不遗余力地剥夺工商业者。这些既矛盾又共存的现象,其实是一种微妙、变通的制度安排,清代中国许多地区或许都存在着“专制统治”与“理性市场”的共生。
How to Settle the Public Property Disputes: A Case Study on Chongqing Hangbang in the Qing Dynasty Zhou Lin
Based on the Baxian Archive, this article investigated 70 public property disputes in Qing Dynasty Chongqing, and discovered that the merchants of Chongqing Hangbang would rather settle these disputes through litigations than through meditations. Moreover, before the systematic reforms in late Qing Dynasty, the merchants of Chongqing Hangbang did established mutual-beneficial relationships with local officials and effectively protected their public property by lawsuits. But after the reforms have been put on the agenda, the whole thing changed. The local officials suffered from the increasing financial burden, and began to deprive the public property of Hangbang by lawsuits. Based on these facts, this article put forward the model of “government-dominated rational market”, which means that the government dominated the market, but as long as the society and economy were stable, she was willing to leave a flexible space to promote commercial development. But if the political situation changed, the government officials might turned abruptly into the enemy of the merchants. Further speaking, the “autocratic rule” and the “rational market” might be coexisted in many regions of late imperial China.