Five necessary conditions for the construction of a highly efficient and modern social credit system

Five necessary conditions for the construction of an efficient and modern social credit system

1. Introduction

The construction of the social credit system must be carried out in accordance with the laws of the market economy itself. As we have mentioned above, the social credit system is a social punishment mechanism for the dishonest. In fact, the market economy itself has a social punishment mechanism for the dishonest. We also start from the most primitive village economy. At that time, the scope of human activities was small, and the area of economic transactions was small. Most of the parties to the transaction lived in the same village or community, or lived relatively close together, and people often lived together. At this time, people are unwilling to break their promises, because once they break their promises, the whole village or the whole community will know about it, and they will not want to deal with him again. For example: Zhang San borrowed 500 yuan from Li Si. If he refuses to pay back the debt, Li Si will tell other people, so it will be difficult for Zhang San to borrow money in the future. Later, the economy developed, the social division of labor increased, and the trading area also expanded. Both parties to the transaction did not recognize each other, and lived far away, so they were not afraid of others saying that he was dishonest, and the punishment for dishonesty based on the village economy became invalid , A large number of liars began to appear. In terms of economics, there must be a market for defects, and at this time, the credit evaluation industry emerged as the times require. In order to satisfy clients and increase their own competitiveness, credit companies collect and organize a large amount of information on dishonesty, and credit companies have also organized alliances and associations to share their own credit information. The record of dishonesty of a person or unit will be collected and sorted by the credit company, and provided to the society, so people are unwilling to break the promise, and there will be fewer scammers. In this way, the social punishment mechanism for dishonest persons has been established.

Since the market economy itself has a social punishment mechanism for the dishonest, we must act in accordance with the laws of the market economy in order to build a social credit system. We must improve the social punishment mechanism for the dishonest from various aspects such as legislation and ensure its normal operation. impair the functioning of this mechanism. Next, we discuss how to establish a social credit system.

Two, five necessary conditions

(The role and positioning of the government in the social credit system)

Looking at the development history of the credit evaluation industry in major western countries, the social credit system in developed countries was formed spontaneously during the development of the market economy, and most of the credit laws were formulated according to the requirements of the credit evaluation industry. Since the market economy itself has a social punishment mechanism for the dishonest, we must act in accordance with the laws of the market economy in order to build a social credit system. We must improve the social punishment mechanism for the dishonest from various aspects such as legislation and ensure its normal operation. impair the functioning of this mechanism. The government and other state agencies should always ensure that our province meets the following five conditions.

First, and this is the most critical one, we need to open up the credit rating industry, allow private capital to enter the credit rating industry, and at the same time put an end to any form of industry regulation on the credit rating industry, such as setting entry thresholds.

At present, the practice of industry regulation has long been rejected in the world from theory to practice, because industry regulation will cause power rent-seeking, and make the survival of the fittest mechanism of the market economy itself invalid, and eventually turn into survival of the fittest. mechanism. Professor Zhang Weiying, a well-known domestic economist, once discussed the "violent circle of regulation" in this way: "A place with the most regulation must be a place with the most scammers. The first reason is that the regulation has eliminated the credit mechanism that the market should have. The more there are, the more motivated the scammer is to bribe the government, because the scammer’s bribery cost is low, as long as he gets the government’s approval, he can make money, and law-abiding and honest businessmen, who are bound by morality and values, are unwilling or have no extra funds to bribe The government, on the contrary, cannot enter the market. Therefore, where there is a lot of regulation, it is difficult for good people to enter, and it is easier for scammers to appear. When there are more and more scammers, the government will not feel that it is because it should not regulate too much, but instead They mistakenly think that others have too little control. In this way, the control will be self-reinforcing and intensified, and finally the market competition on which the reputation mechanism is based will have no foothold, and corporate reputation will of course be out of the question.” In addition, regulation also has a "cloaking effect", which means that the administrative agency in charge of regulation often does not punish the illegal activities of enterprises that have obtained market access according to law, because the punishment will make the superiors think that they originally issued access licenses to enterprises There are mistakes from time to time. In order to "cover up the ugliness", administrative agencies often choose to solve problems by making big things small and trivial. This eventually leads to the fact that the cost of breaking the law is low or the law is beneficial, and the number of illegal activities increases. All in all, if my country regulates the credit rating industry, the credit rating industry will fall into a "regulatory vicious circle" and form a "cloaking ugliness effect". In the end, the credit rating industry itself will also be dishonest, and the society will lose confidence in the credit rating industry. Without a credit evaluation industry with fair competition and healthy development, it is impossible to truly establish an effective social credit system.

Second, it is necessary to clarify the status of the government in the credit evaluation industry. The government should not directly carry out credit evaluation, and the government must not be an athlete in the credit evaluation industry.

There is no doubt that the development of China's credit system and credit system construction today requires the care and support of government departments and government personnel. But the government and its staff must realize that the role of the government is not unlimited. According to the experience of developed countries, although the government plays a key role in the construction of the credit system, its role is limited, and its functions are mainly reflected in legislation and supervision. We can see that various government departments are now participating in credit evaluation to a high degree. At present, there are industry and commerce departments, economic and trade departments, taxation departments, and technical supervision departments that have carried out credit evaluation. In the future, there may be labor departments (for labor wages) and health departments ( Carry out credit evaluation for food hygiene) public security departments (for public security), etc.

There are several disadvantages of government participation in credit evaluation:

1. The collection, collation, analysis and evaluation standards of departmental credit records are basically not public, and other market economy participants cannot obtain corresponding data and then make corresponding judgments. This evaluation conclusion lacks comprehensiveness and rationality. Its so-called authority is only because it is a government department, but it is not recognized by society and the market.

2. The credit evaluation behavior of government departments is also a specific administrative behavior in law, but this specific administrative behavior has no legal basis. From the point of view of the rule of law, the government's administrative actions must be authorized by law, so the legitimacy of this credit rating behavior should of course be questioned. In practice, there have been cases of suing government functional departments for evaluation behavior. For example, a consumer brought the Quality Supervision Bureau to court for purchasing fake goods in a certain shopping mall, because the Quality Supervision Bureau issued the honorary certificate and plaque of "Shopping Safe Shopping Mall" to the shopping mall.

3. The government participates in credit evaluation based on national reputation, and does not reject the needs of some government departments to shape their own image and pursue their own "political achievements" or so-called industry or departmental interests. They do not hesitate to use credit evaluation as a means to realize their own purpose, which ultimately damages the image and credibility of the country.

4. The participation of government departments in credit evaluation has disrupted the fair competition order of the credit evaluation industry, and ultimately damaged the development of the credit evaluation industry and the establishment of a social credit system.

Third, governments at all levels should not develop state-owned credit rating agencies.

The construction of my country's credit system and credit system has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life. Some government departments and local governments have correctly played government functions and played a positive role in promoting the construction of credit system and credit system. However, there are also individual government departments that appear to be "offside" and directly establish sole proprietorship or controlling credit rating companies, which violates the law of market economic development and the spirit of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

The Sixteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that the state-owned economy can only be used in strategic high-tech fields, public goods and services, infrastructure, natural monopoly fields, basic research and applied basic research that enhance the stamina for the development of advanced productive forces Concentration or establishment of scientific research fields related to national security, but must gradually withdraw from the general competitive industry. As we all know, the credit evaluation industry or credit evaluation industry does not belong to the strategic high-tech field, nor does it belong to the natural monopoly field, nor is it considered infrastructure, let alone the scientific research field of basic research and applied basic research . As for the fact that it belongs to the field of public products and services, that's a bit of a point, but it should be a public institution, not an enterprise. It can be seen that the credit evaluation industry is a general competitive industry, and state-owned enterprises should have withdrawn from it. However, individual government departments directly established or controlled credit rating companies, not only did not withdraw from the industry that should exit, but entered against the wind.

The experience of economic development in some countries tells us that in order to improve economic efficiency and the vitality of enterprises, enterprises that belonged to monopoly industries have introduced competition mechanisms one after another. The credit evaluation industry originally belonged to a competitive industry, and the practice of some government departments in our country is to introduce a monopoly mechanism into a competitive industry.

This kind of offside behavior by individual government departments may cause very serious consequences:

1. It runs counter to the idea of reform and will lead credit intermediaries astray. It not only does not withdraw from the field where state-owned assets should withdraw, but enters forcefully; it not only fails to improve the competition mechanism in competitive industries, but introduces a monopoly mechanism. The result of doing so will lead China's credit intermediary enterprises to a retrogression, that is, a wave of state-owned enterprises will be set off in the credit evaluation industry. This will cause two direct consequences: First, enterprises will turn government functions into their own monopoly advantage and establish their own monopoly position in the credit market. Second, it will squeeze the living space of private credit enterprises and put them in a difficult situation for survival.

2. Confuse national credit with corporate credit. According to the successful experience of developed countries, the construction process of the social credit system and the development process of credit intermediaries should be determined by the operation of the market, not the result of government leadership. To be operated by the market means that the public resources of the government should be opened to the society and to credit intermediary enterprises within a certain range; credit evaluation companies should be established by private capital, because only such credit intermediaries are independent and impartial , in order to truly adhere to the principle in the credit evaluation and gain the trust of the public; the credit evaluation of any enterprise should be competed by many enterprises, and must not be monopolized by one enterprise. The government-dominated credit intermediary industry will definitely lead to many disadvantages in this industry. One serious consequence is to confuse government credit with corporate credit, making the public mistake the evaluation of credit evaluation companies for government evaluation, so that if something goes wrong, the government will have to take the blame Take responsibility.

3. The common problems of state-owned enterprises will inevitably appear in state-owned credit institutions. There are many problems in state-owned enterprises, and it is very difficult to reform them now. When new state-owned enterprises are established in the credit intermediary industry, problems will inevitably arise, and reforms will have to be carried out at that time. For the evaluated object, there is still room for action, and in the days to come, it will be difficult to stop the phenomenon of cheating and asking for high-level evaluation results.

Fourth, the state should ensure the integrity and ease of inquiry of the credit information of state departments.

Some credit information of enterprises is held in different national departments, and the state should ensure that this part of credit information is complete and easy to query. For example, the penalties issued by the industry and commerce and technical supervision departments and the judgments of the courts should be fully preserved and easily searched. Complete preservation means to preserve everything, not only Zhang San's but not Li Si's. At the same time, we must also recognize the limited role of credit information of the state department, and do not blindly exaggerate or over-believe its role in the credit system. Determine whether the company is honest with customers or has the ability to perform contracts.

Fifth, the state and governments at all levels and their departments should not formulate credit standards to ensure that the scientific nature of credit standards can be directly tested by the market.

In the documents of some government departments, especially local government departments, as well as in the papers of some experts or research institutions, we regret to see the planning of government departments to formulate credit standards. We think this is incorrect. The reasons are as follows:

1. The credit standards formulated by the government do not conform to international practice, and it is difficult to obtain universal recognition in the world, which affects the international competitiveness of Chinese enterprises. Internationally, except for the mandatory standards formulated by the state itself according to law (such standards are gradually decreasing), they do not review or publish and approve the standards formulated by social organizations, but are directly tested by the society and the market. Social organizations that formulate standards are often composed of outstanding professionals or professional organizations in the industry who have a sense of social responsibility and are enthusiastic about public welfare. More than 270 standards currently popular in the world are almost all formulated by civil society organizations. These standards are directly tested by the society and the market, and their authority comes from the scientific nature and advanced nature of the standards themselves, not from the government or other departments of the country. recognition or mandatory impetus.

2. The government's formulation of credit standards not only increases the government's human and financial burden, but also makes it difficult to guarantee the scientific and advanced nature of the standards. In other countries, the government does not participate in the formulation of many standards because the inertia of government departments often makes standards lag behind, and similar situations have occurred in China.

3. If the credit standard formulated by the government is mandatory, it will be in conflict with the current law and the spirit of the rule of law; if it is a recommended standard, some government departments will also make it mandatory in a disguised form driven by interests Standards affect the free choice of enterprises and individuals, damage the fair competition and healthy development of the credit evaluation industry, and further damage the construction of the social credit system. Moreover, if the credit standards formulated by the government are unscientific, it will damage social and economic development and affect the credibility of the government.

4. The government's establishment of credit standards is contrary to the spirit of "building a limited government" and "building a government ruled by law" proposed by the State Council, which is not conducive to the development of the innovative spirit of the people, and is not conducive to the realization of the goal of "innovating the country". Both theory and practice have proved that when the power of the government increases, the power of the people will retreat. According to the spirit of "limited government" and "rule of law government", the government should not intervene in matters that citizens, legal persons or other organizations can independently decide; the government should not intervene in matters that can be effectively regulated by the market competition mechanism; industry organizations or intermediary agencies can conduct self-discipline management It is inappropriate for the government to intervene in matters that can be solved by administrative organs after the fact, and it is not appropriate for the government to intervene in advance for matters that can be resolved by administrative agencies using other administrative management methods such as post-event supervision. These spirits and principles have also been clearly established in the form of law in the Administrative Licensing Law.

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