Why do China people lack honesty? There is a lack of contractual spirit in history.

A few days ago, a survey of Shanghai residents showed that 90.2% people thought that honesty and trustworthiness would be damaged to varying degrees, which reflected the lack of honesty in China to some extent. As a constraint on honesty and trustworthiness, what China society actually lacks is the spirit of contract, which is precisely the main reason why China people are dishonest. Small-scale peasant economy lacks exchange, and the spirit of exchange contract can exist. It should be born in a society with developed commodity trade, such as a country with mature maritime trade like ancient Greece. When dealing with people you don't know, you need a contract to exchange with them. Only with a contract can you keep it. China has always been an agricultural society, self-sufficient and poor in commodity trading. The traditional mode of production of small-scale peasant economy is the economic root of the phenomenon of lack of social integrity. The game between man and nature embodied in the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy is different from the game between people embodied in the socialized division of labor, and the former is more conducive to promoting the opportunism consciousness of the game subjects. Of course, the small-scale peasant economy has a division of labor within the family, so the integrity caused by the small-scale peasant economy is more family integrity than social integrity. Have less contact with "aliens" who don't know each other's roots and roots, and don't use contracts to avoid being cheated. The traditional society in China is an agricultural society, and people's migration has led to the formation of a lifestyle characterized by families, clans and clans. One of the most important features of this lifestyle is the mobility of the population. Even with the floating population, China people are not inclined to break through the world by themselves, but move their families to one place in groups. In such a living environment, the contract used to avoid fraud seems a bit redundant. Simply put, family life will not lie to me, and I will lie to you. The crisis only happens outside the house, so naturally there is no need to conclude a contract. As we all know, if people want to cheat, they must fly away, otherwise, they can't face it and give in easily. However, running away to do some dishonest things will really bring too many unfavorable factors or pay too high a cost in the agricultural society. There is a proverb in China: "You can run away from the monk, but you can't run away from the temple", which makes the relationship between honesty and long-term and fixed very clear. It can be seen that the spirit of contract depends on how society is formed. There are few times when you don't know each other, and naturally you don't need a contract. The extremely secular attitude towards life leads to the contract being just a tool. Sun Longji, a Chinese-American historian, believes that China people have no "transcendental consciousness" outside the secular life and lack "ultimate care", which leads them to take an extremely secular attitude towards the life of "just eating a mouthful of rice". Confucius said, "If you don't know life, how can you know death?" This thorough "realism" leads to the fact that under the condition of long-term hunger and even instability, contract and trustworthiness naturally give way to survival. On the other hand, the existence of contract only serves for "settling down and living", which is a tool rather than a spirit and can be abandoned. This is simply unimaginable in the west where "the crew will not move the goods even if they starve to death". The essence of contract lies in equality, but in feudal society, man and country are unequal, and he is born equal and deserves equal rights. Therefore, the communication between people should be carried out on the basis of equality, which is an important element of the spirit of contract. This equality is also manifested in the relationship between individuals and the government. According to the western contract theory, the creator endowed everyone with certain inalienable rights. In order to protect these rights, human beings began to establish a government. Therefore, the contractual relationship between the government and members of society is a typical equal relationship. However, in the feudal society of China, there was a lack of ideas and practical actions for imperial power to conclude contracts with the people. The relationship between people and imperial power is regulated by an ethics, not a contract. The essence of contractual relationship is equality of rights and interests, the traditional ethics of monarch, minister and father is anti-equality, and the equality foundation of contractual society does not exist. The state uses "rites" to regulate the people, rather than making equal contracts. The way used by ancient society to adjust the relationship between people and the state is a top-down, vertical and stable "ritual" system culture. "Rite" is actually "submission and taming", and "state of etiquette" is translated as "state of obedience", which is tame politics and a top-down governance process. The ancient society was also a tame and passive society, full of hierarchy and no sense of equality. As far away as the Zhou Dynasty, there was no way out for courtesy, which replaced the function of law and was mandatory and binding. Confucianism emphasizes: "see no evil, don't listen if you are indecent, don't speak if you are indecent, and don't move if you are indecent." (The Analects of Confucius, Yan Yuan) That is to say, people's sight, hearing, words and actions are all bound by "ceremony", and only those who are suitable for "ceremony" can do it, and those who are not suitable for "ceremony" cannot do it. "Rite" has the function of restraining people's behavior. Obviously, such codes of conduct and ethics are quite different from the concept of equality in western society. The basis of contract civilization lies in equality, and it is impossible for hierarchical society to produce contract civilization. Rule by man leads to randomness, and randomness leads to opportunism. Confucius said, "With honesty, people dare not be ruthless", but thousands of years of political practice just shows that "faithfulness" is the most rare virtue of China. Social identity psychology is the same feature of biology, which is called "head sheep effect" in the animal kingdom. In the course of its own operation, the ancient feudal countries in China took the lead in breaking the rules and systematically breaking the contract when dealing with the relationship between the people and officials. The traditional bureaucratic centralization system based on small-scale peasant economy is the political soil that breeds the lack of social integrity. Rule by man leads to arbitrariness, and arbitrariness leads to opportunism, which inevitably leads to the lack of social integrity. Tian Ji horse racing is a typical Tian Ji horse racing that breaks the contract and rules. Some people even say that this story shows "Sun Bin's meticulous observation ability and operation ability" and reveals "how to make good use of his own strengths to deal with his opponent's shortcomings, so as to win in the competition". But in fact, Tian Ji (played by Sun Bin) won by forging and breaking rules and contracts-using a bad horse as a first-class horse, a first-class horse as a second-class horse, and a second-class horse as a second-class horse to race in Qi Weiwang, which violated the first-class horse-to-first-class horse rule agreed by the two, and "do whatever it takes to achieve the goal". Tian Ji (Sun Bin) won at the cost of destroying the basic beliefs of honesty, norms and fairness, and his behavior should be said to be extremely bad. This shows from an angle that the ancient officialdom generally lacked the awareness of rules and contracts and the recognition of false behaviors, as Yan Fu said: "The disadvantages of Chinese style are all self-evident. It started with forgery and ended with shamelessness. "Zhuge Liang violated the agreement of Wu Shu, took ancient classics from Nanjun privately, and broke the agreement and broke his promise everywhere. Zhuge Liang is only one of them: Zhuge Liang's" strategies "mostly contain elements of breaking the contract. For example, Zhuge Liang often said to unite Wu against Cao, but the main reason for this strategy's ultimate failure lies in Zhuge Liang's dishonesty to others. After Battle of Red Cliffs, Zhou Yu personally visited Liu Bei and asked him if he would attack Nanjun by fire. According to Zhuge Liang's instructions, Liu Bei said, "I heard that the governor wanted to take Nanjun, so he came to help. If the governor doesn't accept it, he will. " Zhou Yu is also frank. In front of Lu Su and Zhuge Liang, he made a statement with Liu Bei as evidence: If Zhou doesn't take Nanjun, Liu Bei can take it at will. Then a cruel war broke out between Zhou Yu and Tsao Ren, the satrap of Nanjun County. Zhou Yu suffered heavy casualties and was shot by a poisonous arrow. As expected, Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang broke their word. They took advantage of the fierce battle between Zhou Yu and Coss to win the two cities that Zhou Yu had always wanted to plot. Zhou Yu let out a cry of anger and the golden sore burst. This is the story of "Kongming is in Zhou Gongjin" described in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The country's "bad faith" in feudal society led to the appearance of the above examples in ancient society. Feudal countries broke their promises and contracts, which had an upward effect. China is an official-oriented society, and its social and cultural mentality is based on officialdom. Therefore, China people's social behavior standard is not right or wrong, but "official standard", as Bai Yang pointed out in Ugly China. According to broken window theory, as long as one person or one thing can violate this contract, all people or things can violate this contract. The direct consequence of bad faith in feudal countries is that most people have no moral bottom line and can do whatever they want for their own self-interest. Main, a famous British legal historian, said: "Up to now, all social progress movements are movements from identity to contract". The history of western civilization development can be said to be a history of contract development. Countries that create brilliant political or commercial civilization are all models of contract spirit. In fact, there are many contractual factors in China's historical tradition, but it is still far from contractual civilization. It is precisely the arrival of market economy based on contract that highlights the tradition of lack of contract, and the crisis of good faith follows.