Joseph Stiglitz Only Government Can Save Capitalism

相信只有政府才能拯救资本主义的经济学家

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/books/review/joseph-e-stiglitz-people-power-profits.html

作者：丹尼尔·W·德雷兹纳 2019 年 5 月 10 日

PEOPLE, POWER, AND PROFITS，Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent 

《人员、权力和利润, 不满时代的进步资本主义》 作者：约瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨

在华盛顿共识的鼎盛时期，绕城公路的一项有趣的消遣就是温和地嘲笑约瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨。 专家们很容易放弃他享有盛誉的奖项（诺贝尔经济学奖）和职位（世界银行首席经济学家、比尔·克林顿经济顾问委员会主席），并认为他关于“市场原教旨主义”的警告是过分夸张的。 2004 年，金融专栏作家塞巴斯蒂安·马拉比 (Sebastian Mallaby) 将斯蒂格利茨描述为“就像一个男孩，在一栋精致的房子的地板上发现了一个洞，然后不断地大喊大叫并指着它。” 十五年后，资本主义建造的房子显得相当破旧。 也许，只是也许，更多的人应该认真对待斯蒂格利茨。

这无疑正是现为哥伦比亚大学经济学教授的斯蒂格利茨在他的最新著作《人民、权力和利润》中所希望达到的目标。 他认为美国的资本主义体系已经崩溃，需要政府的帮助才能重新站起来。 《人、权力和利润》建立在斯蒂格利茨早期作品的基础上，并增加了一些相当大的野心。 他在序言中写道：“这是一个重大变革的时代。 渐进主义——对我们的政治和经济体系的微小调整——不足以完成手头的任务。” 他在引言中补充道：“失败的不仅仅是经济，还有我们的政治。 我们的经济分歧导致了政治分歧，而政治分歧又加剧了经济分歧。”

斯蒂格利茨对美国经济问题的诊断对于任何关注这些辩论的人来说都会有熟悉的感觉。 游戏规则有利于富人而不是穷人。 这加剧了经济不平等，并增加了各行业领先企业的市场力量集中度，从而减缓了广泛的生产率增长。 这些公司和富有的个人正在将他们的财富转化为政治权力，进一步修改规则以巩固他们的最高地位。 他们主张减税并放松对除知识产权之外的一切事物的管制。 任何依赖公共教育、工会或社会安全网等反补贴机构的人都会遭受损失。

“人、权力和利润”超越了诊断和治疗。 斯蒂格利茨计划的核心是加强国家实力。 “认为政府是问题而非解决方案的观点是完全错误的。 相反，我们社会的许多（如果不是大部分）问题，从过度污染到金融不稳定和经济不平等，都是由市场造成的。” 他提出了一系列改革，包括对基础研究等公共产品的大量投资、对企业更严格的监管以及维护和保护投票权的措施。

《人民、权力和利润》的一个残酷讽刺是，在主张自由市场已经衰落的同时，斯蒂格利茨正在一个极其拥挤的市场中竞争。 类型为“美国怎么出了问题？” 过于拥挤； 我们生活在一个作家告诉美国人我们不再生活在黄金时代的黄金时代。 鉴于关于这个主题的书籍太多，斯蒂格利茨的书是否脱颖而出？

他的书的相对优势之一是，虽然斯蒂格利茨拥有无可挑剔的经济资历，但他也认识到他的职业的一些盲点。 他正确地观察到，标准经济学教科书大量谈论竞争，但很少谈论经济实力。 他还擅长驳斥有关市场奇迹和政府失败的陈词滥调。 例如，他指出，社会保障管理局在支付退休福利方面比私人养老金更有效率。

然而，如果斯蒂格利茨将注意力集中在政策袋中最尖锐的论点上，他可能会做得更好。 例如，他讨论了对碳或金融交易征税“可以同时提高经济绩效和增加收入”的想法。 这听起来像是拉弗曲线的进步二重身，也就是说，这个概念将是良好的政策和良好的政治。 斯蒂格利茨应该把它卖掉； 相反，他在一页里轻松浏览了一遍。

他的其他一些想法似乎不太经过深思熟虑，或者更具政治毒性。 例如，在反垄断方面，他鼓励先发制人的原则：“对合并的监管必须考虑到市场未来可能的形态。” 这需要相当大的远见，因此斯蒂格利茨在 75 页后承认了一个问题：“关于市场将向何处发展，往往没有完美的信息，而世界却与我们的预期不同。” 他未能解释监管机构将如何处理这一难题。 斯蒂格利茨的另一个想法是建立一个可以使用个人国税局的公共抵押贷款融资系统。 和社会保障数据——在当前低信任度的政治环境中听起来令人不快。

事实上，我希望斯蒂格利茨认真对待他认真对待政治的承诺。 在某种程度上，“人民、权力和利润”排除了普遍基本收入的想法，因为必要的增税在政治上是不切实际的。 这是书中唯一一次斯蒂格利茨似乎在思考任何渐进的政策改革如何用经济学的语言来说是“激励相容的”。 没有讨论任何民意调查数据或其他指标来衡量公众对他的想法的支持程度。

每一位 2020 年民主党总统候选人的政策中心都应该明智地仔细研究“人民、权力和利润”并挑选最好的想法。 其他读者应该随意更广泛地浏览该类型。

丹尼尔·W·德雷兹纳 (Daniel W. Drezner) 是弗莱彻法律与外交学院国际政治学教授。 他的最新著作是《创意产业：悲观主义者、党派人士和财阀如何改变创意市场》。

本文的一个版本于 2019 年 6 月 30 日出版

An Economist Who Believes Only Government Can Save Capitalism

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/books/review/joseph-e-stiglitz-people-power-profits.html

Joseph E. StiglitzCredit...Stephanie Mei-Ling for The New York Times

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By Daniel W. Drezner  May 10, 2019

PEOPLE, POWER, AND PROFITS
Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent  By Joseph E. Stiglitz

A diverting Beltway pastime during the heyday of the Washington Consensus was to gently mock Joseph E. Stiglitz. It was remarkably easy for pundits to wave away his prestigious awards (Nobel Prize in Economics) and positions (World Bank chief economist, chairman of Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers) and dismiss his warnings about “market fundamentalism” as overripe hyperbole. In 2004 the financial columnist Sebastian Mallaby described Stiglitz as “like a boy who discovers a hole in the floor of an exquisite house and keeps shouting and pointing at it.” Fifteen years later, the house that capitalism built looks rather shabby. Maybe, just maybe, more people should have taken Stiglitz seriously.

This is certainly what Stiglitz, now a professor of economics at Columbia, is hoping for with his latest book, “People, Power, and Profits.” He argues that the American system of capitalism has fallen down and needs government help to get back up again. “People, Power, and Profits” builds on Stiglitz’s earlier work and adds some pretty big ambitions. In the preface, he writes: “This is a time for major changes. Incrementalism — minor tweaks to our political and economic system — are inadequate to the tasks at hand.” In the introduction, he adds: “It is not just economics that has been failing but also our politics. Our economic divide has led to a political divide, and the political divide has reinforced the economic divide.”

Stiglitz’s diagnosis of what ails the American economy will have a familiar ring to anyone who has followed these debates. The rules of the game have been stacked in favor of the haves over the have-nots. This has widened economic inequality and increased the concentration of market power among leading firms in every sector, slowing down broad-based productivity growth. These firms and wealthy individuals are converting their riches into political power, further revising the rules to entrench their position at the top. They advocate for tax cuts and the deregulation of everything except intellectual property rights. Anyone who relies on countervailing institutions, like public education, labor unions or social safety nets, loses out.

“People, Power, and Profits” goes beyond diagnosis to treatment. At the core of Stiglitz’s plan is the strengthening of the state. “The view that government is the problem, not the solution, is simply wrong. To the contrary, many if not most of our society’s problems, from the excesses of pollution to financial instability and economic inequality, have been created by markets.” He proposes a whole host of reforms, including significant investments in public goods like basic research, more stringent regulation of firms and measures to preserve and protect the voting franchise.

A cruel irony of “People, Power, and Profits” is that in arguing the free market has declined, Stiglitz is competing in an extremely crowded marketplace. The genre of “How has America gone wrong?” is overstuffed; we are living in a golden age of authors telling Americans that we no longer live in a golden age. Given the plethora of books on this topic, does Stiglitz's stand out?

One of his book’s comparative advantages is that while Stiglitz has impeccable economic credentials, he also recognizes some of his profession’s blind spots. He observes, correctly, that standard textbook economics talks a lot about competition but little about economic power. He also excels at swatting away bromides about the miracles of markets and the failures of governments. He notes, for example, that the Social Security Administration is far more efficient at disbursing retirement benefits than private pensions.

Stiglitz could have done much better, however, if he had narrowed his focus to the sharpest arguments in his policy quiver. For instance, he discusses the idea that taxes on carbon or financial transactions “can simultaneously increase economic performance and raise revenue.” This sounds like the progressive doppelgänger of the Laffer Curve, that is, a concept that would be good policy and good politics. Stiglitz should be selling the hell out of it; instead, he breezes through it in one page.

Some of his other ideas seem less thought out or more politically toxic. On antitrust, for example, he encourages a doctrine of pre-emption: “Regulation of mergers must take into account the likely future shape of markets.” This would require considerable foresight, so it is a problem that 75 pages later Stiglitz allows that “often there is far from perfect information about where a market will be evolving, and the world turns out to be different from what we expected.” He fails to explain how regulators would handle this conundrum. Another of Stiglitz’s ideas — a public mortgage financing system that could access an individual’s I.R.S. and Social Security data — sounds unpalatable in the current low-trust political environment.

Indeed, I wish Stiglitz had taken seriously his pledge to take politics seriously. At one point, “People, Power, and Profits” rules out the idea of a universal basic income because the necessary tax increases would be politically impractical. That was the only moment in the book in which Stiglitz seemed to think at all about how any progressive policy reform would be, to use the language of economics, “incentive compatible.” There is no discussion whatsoever of polling data or other metrics to gauge public support for his ideas.

The policy shop of every 2020 Democratic candidate for president would be wise to pore over “People, Power, and Profits” and cherry-pick its best ideas. Other readers should feel free to browse the genre a bit more widely.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. His most recent book is “The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats Are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas.”

A version of this article appears in print on June 30, 2019