Seeing some people discussing the spirit of contracts, I will provide a neutral assessment:
The premise of the spirit of contract is the existence of grassroots guarantees. In the absence of grassroots guarantees, the spirit of contract does not exist; there is no distinction between East and West on this matter, as countless incidents of fraud, genocide, etc., can be found throughout the histories of both East and West.
What is grassroots guarantee? It is violence. In a western film's small town, the police station is what maintains order. Without a police station, there is simply no order, let alone contracts.
Under the same conditions of violence at the grassroots level, why did the West develop 'contracts' while the East leans more towards rule by man? This is a question worth exploring. I believe it is a matter of business models. In an agrarian society, everyone is self-sufficient; what need is there for 'contracts'? However, in a commercial society, the lack of contracts greatly limits business development.
This is like in 'Water Margin', where 'righteousness' is hard currency; with 'righteousness', killing and arson are trivial matters. What is 'righteousness'? It is mutual protection, not betraying each other, not making the worst choice in the prisoner's dilemma, but instead choosing the optimal solution for the prisoners.
The righteous way emphasizes 'benevolence', which is a solution to the game theory between the righteous and the wicked. Benevolence is one-sided kindness; if I am good to you, how can you rebel? Quickly forget your tedious 'righteousness' and tell me who intercepted the birthday tribute. The problem with 'benevolence' is that resources are limited while demands are infinite. You can only give more benefits to a part of the people; 'benevolence' is favoritism.
Thus, there is 'Dao', 'When the Great Way is abandoned, there are benevolence and righteousness', which indicates that the Great Way and benevolence and righteousness are in conflict. What is Dao? It is 'I don't care about you; whatever happens, happens.' I don't care about anything; let the world return to its origin. Of course, in practice, it is impossible to truly not care about anything; if you don't care about anything, aren't you just an ordinary person? The 'sage' in practice tries to manage as little as possible, focusing on being lazy. A typical example is Emperor Wen of Han, who, through 'letting be', allowed the Han dynasty to have lasting legitimacy for 800 years (Western Han + Eastern Han).
But the essence of 'Dao' is to relinquish power, allowing self-organization to fill space and self-competitive. If self-organization is quite corrupt, then the common people will also live poorly. Thus, 'law' emerged. Under heaven, there is no land that is not the king's. Under heaven, everyone must obey my 'law' - this is Qin.
In modern society, if you look closely, it is merely about finding a balance among the three dimensions of 'benevolence', 'Dao', and 'law'.
This is the impossible triangle of government organization 😂.