문화, 비공식제도 그리고 제도의 경쟁

Culture, informal institution and institutional competition

Object of this paper is to clarify the nature of informal institutions which derive from culture and to show a method for social and economic reform. The one of the most serious errors of reform policy implemented by the government consists of neglecting civil law according to the thought on supremacy of public law over civil law. This thought takes also no notice of spontaneously grown informal institution. It ignores systematically the importance of the cultural institutions for social and economic order which are formed spontaneously in the time-honoured social process and does not acknowlege that most of socially usefull institutions are not artificially made for known purposes, but come into being spontaneously. Culturally inherited institutions contain knowledge that numerous generations have acquired and learned, thereby sorted out in the social process. We can say that they are container of wisdom of our ancestors. Therefore government should not arbitrarily reform these institutions and cannot do. Instead, government should a high regard for the institutional framework within which informal institutions are able to be generated spontaneously, competing freely among themselves. The very framework is civil law. Economic and social reform conforming to the thought on supremacy of public law break down spontaneously grown informal institutions, and destruct above all sincerity, honesty, sense of responsibility, etc., that is to say, civil virtues, which are indispensible for free society.