Establishing and Improving a System of Joint Incentive for Honesty and Joint Punishment for Dishonesty: A Chinese Solution to Citizen Dishonesty

According to Max Weber’s ideal type analysis methodology, citizen dishonesty in contemporary Chinese society can be classified into two types: one by ordinary citizens and the other by public figures. Ordinary citizens’ dishonesty leads to a magnified adverse effect of “bad money drives out good” and deconstructs the social credit system. Meanwhile, public figures’ dishonesty not only damages society’s interests but also degrades people’s sense of identity with social ethics, triggering ethics and trust crises. In contemporary China, citizen dishonesty is the result of the transformation from a traditional acquaintance society to a modern stranger society as well as the transformation from a planned economy to a market economy. Establishing and improving a System of Joint Incentive for Honesty and Joint Punishment for Dishonesty is a Chinese solution to citizen dishonesty in contemporary China from the perspective of institutional innovation.