財產權故事：基於博弈論、敘事論和女權主義論視角的分析

Property as Storytelling-- Perspectives from Game Theory, Narrative Theory, Feminist Theory

本文分析了財產的古典經濟分析在論證的關鍵節點轉向演化性敘述故事的原因。經濟分析通常先假定人是自利理性的功利最大化者。但博弈理論純粹自利最大化的行為會導致無法解決參與者必須合作才能使共同利益最大化的情形，這被稱為“囚徒困境”（有時也被稱為“公地悲劇”）。財產權機制本身代表一種“囚徒困境”，人們必須降低個人需求以設定一個運轉正常的財產權制度，在這種制度下每個人的財產都是安全的，人們能夠放心地在他們私有財產上投入時間和精力。但這意味著財產權制度依賴於那些為了共同利益而在個人偏好上讓步的人，這些人不是古典經濟分析理論預先假定的私利理性的功利最大化者。本文認為，這也是財產權的經濟解釋經常尋求敘事方式的原因，也即古典經濟分析中在財產權演化史中出現的一些理論和邏輯的盲點。本文提出女權主義理論和敘事理論，以說明敘事可以發揮這種勸說功能。

This article explores the reasons why standard economic analyses of property often turn to evolutionary story-telling at crucial points in their arguments. Economic analysis generally begins with the premise that people are self-interested rational utility maximizers. In game theory, however, purely self-interested maximizing behavior would result in a failure to solve many instances where cooperative action is necessary to reach the best joint or common outcome for all the participants. Games of this type are often called “prisoner’s dilemmas” (or sometimes “tragedies of the commons”). A property regime itself represents a kind of “prisoner’s dilemma”, where people must moderate their individual demands in order to create a functioning property system in which everyone’s property is secure, and in which people can safely invest time and effort in their individual property. But this means that property regimes depend on a kind of person who moderates his own preferences for the sake of the common good-that is, a person who is not the self-interested rational utility maximizer presupposed by standard economic analysis. The article argues that this is the reason why economic accounts of property so often turn to story-telling-- that is, stories about the evolution of property cover over a crucial theoretical or logical gap in the standard economic accounts. The article draws on feminist theory and narrative theory to show how story-telling can serve this kind of persuasive function.