Joseph Stiglitz 只有政府才能拯救资本主义

 

相信只有政府才能拯救资本主义的经济学家

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

书评 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 By Joseph E. Stiglitz

我们都感觉到美国经济及其政府向大企业倾斜，但正如约瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨在他的新书《人民、权力和利润》中所解释的那样，情况很严峻。 少数公司已经主导了整个经济部门，导致不平等加剧和增长缓慢。 这就是金融业成功制定自己的法规的方式，科技公司在几乎没有监督的情况下积累了大量个人数据，以及我们的政府谈判的贸易协议未能代表工人的最大利益的方式。 太多人通过剥削他人而不是通过创造财富来获得财富。 如果不采取措施，新技术可能会让情况变得更糟，加剧不平等和失业。

斯蒂格利茨认为，财富和生活水平提高的真正来源是基于学习、科学技术的进步以及法治。 他表明，对司法机构、大学和媒体的攻击破坏了长期以来构成美国经济实力和民主基础的机构。

尽管我们今天可能感到无助，但我们远非无能为力。 事实上，经济解决方案往往是非常明确的。 我们需要利用市场的好处，同时抑制市场的过度行为，确保市场为我们——美国公民——服务，而不是相反。 如果有足够多的公民团结起来支持本书中概述的变革议程，那么创建一个能够重建共同繁荣的进步资本主义可能还为时不晚。 斯蒂格利茨展示了如何让所有人再次过上中产阶级生活。

对自由市场原教旨主义可预见的危险和进步资本主义的基础《人民、权力和利润》的权威描述向我们展示了陷入危机的美国，但也为我们度过这个充满挑战的时代指明了道路。

We all have the sense that the American economy—and its government—tilts toward big business, but as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains in his new book, People, Power, and Profits, the situation is dire. A few corporations have come to dominate entire sectors of the economy, contributing to skyrocketing inequality and slow growth. This is how the financial industry has managed to write its own regulations, tech companies have accumulated reams of personal data with little oversight, and our government has negotiated trade deals that fail to represent the best interests of workers. Too many have made their wealth through exploitation of others rather than through wealth creation. If something isn’t done, new technologies may make matters worse, increasing inequality and unemployment.

Stiglitz identifies the true sources of wealth and of increases in standards of living, based on learning, advances in science and technology, and the rule of law. He shows that the assault on the judiciary, universities, and the media undermines the very institutions that have long been the foundation of America’s economic might and its democracy.

Helpless though we may feel today, we are far from powerless. In fact, the economic solutions are often quite clear. We need to exploit the benefits of markets while taming their excesses, making sure that markets work for us—the U.S. citizens—and not the other way around. If enough citizens rally behind the agenda for change outlined in this book, it may not be too late to create a progressive capitalism that will recreate a shared prosperity. Stiglitz shows how a middle-class life can once again be attainable by all.

An authoritative account of the predictable dangers of free market fundamentalism and the foundations of progressive capitalism, People, Power, and Profits shows us an America in crisis, but also lights a path through this challenging time.

<<<<<<>>>>>>

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“美国出了什么问题？” 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。 他还擅长驳斥关于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》。

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
371页。W.W. 诺顿公司。 27.95 美元。

人民、权力和利润：不满时代的进步资本主义

People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent

https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/people-power 

约瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨 2019 年 4 月 23 日
         
审稿人：克雷格·R·罗奇

约瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨是美国顶尖的经济学家之一。 他是诺贝尔经济学奖获得者，曾任克林顿总统经济顾问委员会主席、世界银行首席经济学家。 正如他 95 页的脚注中列出的数百个来源所证明的那样，他是一位多产的作家，读者广泛。

鉴于这些凭据，读者可能会对他在书中使用的激烈的党派言论感到惊讶。 斯蒂格利茨显然不是特朗普总统或任何共和党政治家或商人的粉丝。 他写道，“绝大多数共和党人都赞同特朗普的偏执、厌女症、本土主义和保护主义”，并且对增加预算赤字表示满意，以赢得“对富人和企业的减税以及放松管制”。 他认为美国正在“演变成 1% 的经济体和民主国家，为 1% 的人服务，为 1% 的人服务”。

斯蒂格利茨在书的结尾处写道，他的目的是提出“另一种议程——人们可以称之为进步议程……”，他揭示了对党派言论的一种解释。 。 。 我相信这可以成为新民主党的共识。”

为了制定这一议程，斯蒂格利茨对美国资本主义的失败提出了广泛的声明，并提出了一系列政策来解决这些失败。 不过，他的论点有时也会出现令人惊讶的地方。 例如，斯蒂格利茨建议我们“驳斥这样一种观点，即因为美国赢得了冷战，美国的经济体系（自由市场资本主义）就取得了胜利。”

他认为，“与其说自由市场资本主义已经证明了其优越性，不如说共产主义失败了。” 更令人惊讶的是，他认为中国“有中国特色的社会主义市场经济”为美国提供了一种充满活力的替代愿景。 他的结论是“我们需要埋葬我们对经济体系的傲慢态度。”

斯蒂格利茨指出，经济增长缓慢是美国资本主义的失败之一。 他表示，美国的经济增长已从1947年至1980年的每年3.7%放缓至1980年至2017年的每年2.7%。他还指出，美国的人均GDP并未位居世界前列。 美国中央情报局报告称，按照购买力平价计算的人均GDP，美国排名世界第19位。

然而，这份名单并不是同类比较，因为没有一个国家的规模和多样性能超过美国。 中央情报局的数据将列支敦士登、卡塔尔、挪威和科威特等国家排在美国之前。斯蒂格利茨所描述的中国是“动态替代”，根据中央情报局的数据，中国排名第 105 位，人均 GDP 比美国低 72%。 斯蒂格利茨还看到了中国的其他积极因素：“中国现在是世界上最大的经济体……” 。 。 它现在比美国储蓄更多、制造更多、贸易更多。”

美国资本主义的其他经济失败包括“未能很好地处理从制造业经济向服务业经济的转型，未能驯服金融部门，未能妥善管理全球化及其后果，最重要的是，未能应对日益严重的不平等” ”。

这些失败的原因是什么？ 斯蒂格利茨强烈地认为，主要原因是“从市场力量开始的剥削？” 市场集中度导致市场力量，斯蒂格利茨提供的数据显示集中度不断增加。

他写道，“我们在有线电视、互联网或电话服务方面面临的有限选择中看到了这一点。 三家公司在社交网站上占有 89% 的市场份额，在家居装修商店上占有 87% 的市场份额，”等等。 此外，金融还引发了严重的问题，斯蒂格利茨写道，“金融是造成当今经济、社会和政治困境的核心。”

应该采取什么措施来解决美国资本主义的这些失败？ 从广义上讲，斯蒂格利茨主张在任何时候都需要更多的政府，因为资本主义导致了“太多的污染、不平等和失业，但基础研究却太少”。 此外，他认为政府必须监管私人市场：“原因很简单：一个人的行为会影响他人，如果没有监管，这些影响就不会被考虑在内。”

斯蒂格利茨呼吁加强政府的六项具体变化：需要投资于知识、规划城市化、应对全球气候变化； 应对日益复杂的经济； 应对经济变革； 并管理全球化。

斯蒂格利茨的一连串政策建议涵盖了很多领域，其中一些建议比其他建议更详细、表述更清楚。 例如，他指出“近几十年来的问题是劳动力参与率和生产率都表现不佳。” 对于劳动力参与，他提出了更多“家庭友好政策”，例如“更好的家庭休假政策”。

对于生产力而言，“垄断企业创新的动力较小”，因此“遏制市场力量”成为议程的一部分。 斯蒂格利茨多次讨论了针对垄断的反垄断政策。 值得注意的是，他认为我们不希望允许高度集中的公司通过收购来“阻止竞争”。 在这种背景下，他建议政府可能会更仔细地审视 Facebook，并要求其“剥离 Instagram 和 WhatsApp”。

至于解决不平等问题，斯蒂格利茨列举了提高最低工资和提高所得税抵免等政策。 他最广泛、或许也是最激进的政策建议是创建“公共选择”。 他表示，“通过公共选择，政府创建了一个替代性的基本计划来提供健康保险、退休年金或抵押贷款等产品。” 他写道，“公共部门和私营部门之间的竞争将打破市场力量的后盾。”

最终，斯蒂格利茨认为，投资于“知识、学习和科学技术进步”是“一个国家财富的真正来源”。 他以罕见的、积极的语气结束了演讲，得出的结论是“现在拯救资本主义还为时不晚。”

克雷格·R·罗奇 (Craig R. Roach) 是一位叙事非小说类作家。 他的著作《简单电气化：从本杰明·富兰克林到埃隆·马斯克改变了世界的技术》（BenBella Books，2017 年）荣获 2018 年 Axiom 商业图书奖金奖。

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?

By Daniel W. Drezner  May 10, 2019

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

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

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.”

People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent

https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/people-power

Joseph E. Stiglitz April 23, 2019
         
Reviewed by: Craig R. Roach

Joseph E. Stiglitz is one of America’s top economists. He is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Clinton as well as the chief economist for the World Bank. As evidenced by the hundreds of sources listed in his 95 pages of footnotes, he is a prolific writer and widely read.

Given these credentials, readers might be surprised by the heated, partisan rhetoric he employs throughout his book. Stiglitz clearly is not a fan of President Trump or just about any Republican politician or businessperson. He writes that “the vast majority of the [Republican] party went along with Trump’s bigotry, misogyny, nativism, and protectionism,” and were fine with increased budget deficits, to win “tax cuts for the rich and corporations, and deregulation.” He opines that America is “evolving into an economy and democracy of the 1 percent, for the 1 percent and by the 1 percent.”

Stiglitz reveals one explanation for the partisan rhetoric when he writes near the end of his book that his intent is to present “an alternative agenda—one might call it the progressive agenda . . . that I believe can serve as a consensus for a renewed Democratic Party.”

To create that agenda Stiglitz puts forth a wide-ranging statement on the failures of American capitalism, and he offers a litany of policies to address those failures. Again, though, he sometimes goes to surprising places with his arguments. For example, Stiglitz recommends that we “dismiss the view that because the US won the Cold War, America’s economic system [free-market capitalism] had triumphed.”

He argues that “it was not so much that free-market capitalism had demonstrated its superiority but that communism had failed.” Even more surprising is his view that China’s “‘socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics,’ has provided a dynamic alternative vision to that of America.” He concludes that “we need to bury our arrogance about our economic system.”

Stiglitz points to slow economic growth as one of the failures of American capitalism. He states that America’s economic growth has slowed from 3.7% per year from 1947 to 1980, to 2.7% per year from 1980 to 2017. He notes, too, that America’s per capita GDP is not the top ranked in the world. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency reports that, based on GDP per capita on a purchasing power parity basis, the U.S. ranks 19th in the world.

This list, however, is not an apples to apples comparison, as no country as large or diverse ranks above the U.S.; the CIA data lists countries like Liechtenstein, Qatar, Norway, and Kuwait ahead of the U.S. China described by Stiglitz as a “dynamic alternative” is ranked 105th according to the CIA with a per capita GDP that was 72 percent less than the U.S. Still, Stiglitz sees other positives for China: “China is now the largest economy in the world . . . it now saves more than the US, manufactures more, and trades more.”

Other economic failures for American capitalism include “the failure to handle well the transition from a manufacturing economy to a service-sector economy, to tame the financial sector, to properly manage globalization and its consequences, and most importantly, to respond to the growing inequality.”

What are the causes of these failures? Stiglitz feels strongly that chief among the causes is “exploitation, beginning with market power?” Market concentration leads to market power and Stiglitz offers data showing increasing concentration.

He writes that “we see it in the limited choices we face for cable TV or the Internet or telephone services. Three firms have an 89 percent market share in social networking sites, 87 percent in home improvement stores,” and so on. In addition, finance caused serious problems, and Stiglitz writes that “finance was central to the creation of today’s economic, social, and political malaise.”

What should be done to address these failures of American capitalism? Broadly, Stiglitz makes a case for more government at every turn because capitalism has led to “too much pollution, inequality, and unemployment, but too little basic research.” Moreover, he argues that government must regulate private markets: “the reason is simple: what one person does affects others, and without regulations those effects won’t be taken into account.”

Six specific changes motivate Stiglitz’s call for more government: the need to invest in knowledge, plan for urbanization, combat global climate change; deal with an increasingly complex economy; address economic change; and manage globalization.

Stiglitz covers a lot of territory with his litany of policy proposals and some proposals are more detailed and more clearly stated than others. For example, he states that “the trouble in recent decades is that neither labor force participation nor productivity have been doing well.” For labor participation he proposes more “family-friendly policies” such as “better family leave policy.”

For productivity, “monopolies have less incentive to innovate,” so “curbing market power” is part of the agenda. Stiglitz discusses antitrust policy aimed at monopolies at several points. Notably, he argues that we do not want to allow highly concentrated firms to “forestall competition” through acquisitions. In this context he suggests the government might look at Facebook more carefully and require it to “divest itself of Instagram and WhatsApp.”  

As to fixing inequality, Stiglitz cites policies such as a higher minimum wage and a higher earned income tax credit. His broadest and, perhaps, most aggressive policy proposals are to create a “pubic option.” He states that “with a public option, the government creates an alternative, basic program to provide products like health insurance, retirement annuities, or mortgages.” He writes that “competition between the public and private sectors will break the back of market power.”

Ultimately, Stiglitz believes that investing in “knowledge, learning, and advances in science and technology” are the “true source of a country’s wealth.” He closes on a rare, positive note concluding that “it is still not too late to save capitalism from itself.”

Craig R. Roach is an author of narrative nonfiction. His book Simply Electrifying: The Technology that Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk (BenBella Books, 2017) won a 2018 Axiom Business Book Award Gold Medal.