Paul w. McCracken 资本主义能生存下去吗

Paul w. McCracken 资本主义能生存下去吗

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AEIReprint104.pdf?x85095

资本主义能生存下去吗？

保罗·麦克拉肯, 经济学家，1969 年至 1971 年担任理查德·尼克松总统时期的总统??经济顾问委员会主席。他在尼克松政府成立之初就带头制定经济政策。1976 年，他当选为美国统计协会会员。
Economist， was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors from 1969 to 1971 under President Richard Nixon. He took the lead in developing economic policy at the outset of the Nixon administration. In 1976 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

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从历史上看，乐观主义一直是美国人对前景的态度。而且有充分的理由。这种乐观主义具有强烈的意识形态成分。美国人一直坚信，我们自己的国家是建立在高尚的概念和思想的基础上的，这些概念和思想注定会推动人类前进。其他国家是地理和历史的偶然事件，由一些根本无关紧要的因素决定，例如难以穿越的河流或山脉，或者那天恰好吹向有利于国王海军的方向的风。

我们自己的国家并非如此。我们的先辈“在这片大陆上建立了”一个新国家，致力于激励世界并改变历史进程的原则。也许 1976 年美国建国两百周年的雄辩口号已经在我们的记忆中消退，让我们再次怀着敬畏之心回忆起《独立宣言》或《宪法》中阐述这个国家意义的文字。当然，我们的开国元勋们也有自己的缺点。

例如，托马斯·杰斐逊可以写下“人人生而平等，造物主赋予他们若干不可剥夺的权利”，而同时却没有将这一概念扩展到自己的奴隶身上。然而，这些话并非毫无意义。事实上，他们和那个新国家启动了强大的力量，大大扩展了人们的自由范围，人们可以在其中以他们认为好的方式生活。然而，我们的传统乐观主义是基于更多实际问题，而不是高尚情操。简单来说，美国经济一直运转良好。它有着令人惊叹的记录，证明了它有能力提高物质生活水平，并将这一进步的成果传播得越来越广泛。如果商务部国民收入司在世纪之交就存在的话，据估计，该司将报告 1900 年的 GNP 为 190 亿美元。到 1977 年，我们的 GNP 为 19000 亿美元。现在，这百倍的增长确实令人印象深刻，除非人们惊恐地认为其中大部分都是由于价格上涨造成的。而美国的价格水平在本世纪一直呈明显上升趋势。就这一点而言，我们能够衡量的能力远比看似精确的指数所暗示的要有限，即 1900 年的美元到 1977 年已经失去了约 90% 的购买力。准确地说，自本世纪初以来，美国的价格水平已经上涨了约 9 倍。然而，在人口增长不到三倍的时期，我们的实际产出和实际收入仍然增长了 11 倍。

用更有意义的术语来说，美国经济每一代都在使物质生活水平翻一番。快速地环顾世界或回顾历史就足以提醒我们，自古以来，这种翻番并不是人类任何重要群体的命运。

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在历史上取得如此成就的这个经济体系是什么？它会生存下来吗？哪些发展引发了人们对其生存的质疑？这些问题现在被提出来，而且人们的不安感越来越强烈。

虽然术语争论从来都不是有趣的，但一开始就必须澄清一个棘手的问题。我们的经济通常被称为资本主义在行动，但这个词有多种含义。有一个技术事实，即随着每个人在工作中使用的资本越来越多，生产变得更加“资本主义”。从这个意义上讲，所有经济体，包括共产主义经济体，都变得更加资本主义，从这个技术意义上讲，资本主义肯定会生存下来。韦氏未删节词典第二版在其对资本主义的第一个定义中提到了这个技术含义。资本主义这个词也有贬义的含义，韦氏在其第二个或道德含义中提到了这一点——即资本、权力和影响力掌握在少数人手中的状态。第一个定义是正确的，但并不特别有趣。第二个定义被定义打败了。只有第三个定义，这个词才开始具有组织经济活动的过程或系统的概念，暗指依赖在竞争市场中运营的私营企业来生产商品和服务的经济体。当然，我们必须清楚，我们正在研究的生存前景是什么。我们在这里探讨的生存可能性的制度是第三种意义上的资本主义，但它可以更有意义地被称为自由的、市场组织的经济制度。事实上，它将

简单地称其为自由经济并不为过，与国家组织的经济体系形成对比，后者实际上按照其固有逻辑是不自由的，因为个人自由受到严重限制。另一方面，自由经济依靠消费者在开放和竞争的市场中自由表达的偏好来决定生产什么，原则上也赋予人们自由决定在哪里贡献生产努力的自由。

为什么这种自由经济的生存存在不确定性？如果表现出执行和交付确保生存的能力，该系统肯定会生存下来。正如已经指出的那样，它使这个国家每一代人的物质生活水平翻了一番。此外，该系统的固有或内部逻辑将使我们期待这种表现记录。我们也许有必要探索一下期待这一结果的原因。它在历史上之所以有效，原因之一是，这种自由开放的制度使社会能够利用任何地方都不存在的全部知识和创造力。这似乎比《资本主义能生存吗？》137 更为根本。在集中组织的自上而下的系统中，只有那些处于顶层的人所掌握的有限知识和创造力才能得到实现。然而，历史的教训清楚地表明了创新思维的来源。新的和更好的想法往往不是来自顶层，甚至不是来自所谓的逻辑来源。汽车工业不是从货车和马车公司中产生的。铁路没有把旅行的公众送上飞机。现代手持计算器奇迹不是由早期制造这些机械计算庞然大物的公司开发的。机械表行业也没有开发和投放数字表。充满活力和创新精神的经济体系必须足够自由和开放，以允许那些认为自己有新想法的人尝试，即使这个想法似乎来自一个不太可能的来源。如果新想法是失败的，就像大多数情况一样，创新者可能会在冒险中失去一切，但相对于社会资源而言，这些筛选过程的社会成本可以忽略不计。简而言之，我们在这里也有一个有效的淘汰程序。虽然新想法、新创意和新产品的创始人满怀信心地期望它们能拯救世界，而这些新创意、新创意和新产品实际上代表着一种进步（一种新产品，或者一种从根本上更便宜地制造旧产品的方法），但有些新创意是好的，还有一些新创意是如此根本，以至于可以彻底改变经济。良好的经济体系也必须组织起来，以便更好的新事物能够占上风。系统必须构建为确保今天更好的新产品必须成为明天的标准，而今天的标准，也就是明天的过时产品，必须从经济中消除。自由市场组织的经济体系对这个问题有一个答案，即开放和竞争的市场。如果消费者能够在这些开放和竞争的市场中自由表达他们对新产品的偏好，那么即使面对根深蒂固的现状，新产品仍将占上风，因为现状坚定而真诚地认为旧的既定方式和产品是最好的。蒸汽机车制造商确实确信柴油发动机永远不会成为牵引火车的可行动力源，因此柴油机车是在传统行业之外率先发明的。发明机械冰箱的不是旧冰公司。经济进步——事实上，一般意义上的进步——是一个人们自由选择的新事物取代旧事物的过程。这是一个持续的解体主义的动态过程。熊彼特在一章意味深长的标题中称之为“创造性破坏的过程”。1 如果这一切都是自由运作的，那么选择和决策的过程必须是开放的。它们不能受统治者的控制。这是自由或市场组织的经济体系相对于其主要竞争对手——管理经济活动的国家组织体系的固有优势之一。在自由经济体系中，那些有新想法的人可以自由地尝试它们（成功的人将获得丰厚的奖励），人们可以自由地采纳它们——让它们胜过旧的想法——如果他们更喜欢它们的话。另一方面，国家组织的经济是一个许可证、执照和来自高层的法令的体系——无论国家拥有生产资料，还是政府管理经济生活的细节。不可避免的是，在官僚机构中，必须获得执照或许可证才能开展新事物，而这些机构往往会反映并成为既定方式的囚徒做事的技巧。

而且它们会反映出通常的建制派对完全不同的新产品或程序的厌恶和怀疑。联邦钟表部（当然是机械的）不会赞成拟议的数字手表，因为地位、权力和工作会转移到另一个部门。

人们几乎可以想象，在一个由国家组织和管理的经济体（尽管名义上是私营企业）中，政府相关官员与惠普或德州仪器的特使之间的对话，惠普或德州仪器的公司正试图获得所需的许可，以生产曾经令人震惊的电子计算器。

“您正在申请生产计算器的许可证？”GA12 问道。

“是的，先生。我公司的产品远远优于今天可以买到的产品。你看……”，公司特使热情地开始说道。

“贵公司，”政府打断道，“当然，在生产计算器方面有经验，否则您不会在这里，尽管我们没有向您颁发必要许可证的记录。” 这位公司的英雄听出了他那熟练的语气，那种傲慢和指责的混合。

I. J. A. Schumpeter，《资本主义。社会主义与民主》（Harper & Row，1942 年），第七章，第 81-86 页。

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“嗯，不能，”他回答道，在椅子上有点不安地动了动。 “不，我们根本没有做过那件事。你看——”“好吧，我想你有一个机器样品，虽然我当然明白，”政府的声音中第一次出现了一丝善意，“你很难指望随身携带这么重的东西。”“哦，但我有。在这儿，”我们的英雄急切地回答道，同时把它从外套口袋里拿出来。 “那！年轻人，”政府以他最忙碌和重要的人的方式剪辑出来，“在我的部门，我们总共拥有 2,519 年的计算器使用经验。我们中的任何一个人都可以准确地告诉你，一台好的现代计算器需要多少轴、齿轮、轮子和其他零件。你拿着的那个小盒子——为什么，它甚至不够大，放不下马达。听我的劝告，作为一个在计算器上度过职业生涯的人，回家吧，不要再用恶作剧来打扰这里的重要人物。下次我们可能不会那么有耐心。”幸运的是，我们的经济不需要如此官僚的程序，结果是这些可以放在外套口袋里的小计算器确实比过去的庞然大物具有更强的计算能力，而且它们的价格只是旧机器的一小部分——已经成为今天的标准。执照和许可证经济不仅仅是无法跟上快速发展的新事物。

与通过非人性化市场中的出色表现获得成功的系统相比，这种系统为腐败提供了更大的空间。如果获得成功的途径是通过获得许可证或执照，那么授予这种许可就具有价值，而另一方面有人愿意付出代价也就不足为奇了。在所有涉及所谓不当付款的各种各样的公司和案例中，都有一个普遍的共同点。这些付款的接受者通常是政府官员，他们的点头是卖方获得成功的途径。

许多国家都可以看到围绕政府管理经济生活细节而产生的腐败现象。 “苏联经济，”该国一位前官员评论道，“将继续被庞大的商品和服务黑市所腐蚀——这是一个完全平行的非官方、非法经济，有自己的法律和规范，还有一批苏联地下百万富翁。”2“即使私下说的话有十分之一属实，这个国家也正处于道德危机的阵痛之中……当邪恶之花四面开花，当寄生虫、中间人和打手猖獗，而诚实的工人越来越难以维持生计时，想象一个公正的社会能够成长是愚蠢的。”3 1974 年，《印度时报》的编辑就印度政府对经济生活进行详细管理的结果发表了评论。政府通过许可证和许可对经济生活细节的管理在美国也没有产生明显不同的结果。 “几乎每座摩天大楼的建成，世界上最著名的天际线的改变，几乎每座褐砂石建筑的翻新或餐厅的扩建，都会有非法贿赂，每笔贿赂金额从 5 美元到 10,000 美元不等。”•

这些腐败行为普遍与政府管理细节的经济有关，这是该过程的固有性质所决定的。这些腐败行为的发生率

在通过开放和激烈竞争的市场组织起来的经济体和部门中，这种趋势明显减弱，这也是可以预料的，因为对于它们来说，由非个人的市场力量评估的绩效决定了成功。
最后，像我们这样的自由市场组织的经济体系的进步记录显示出另一个特点，这个特点既引人注目，又经常被忽视甚至不相信。我们的市场组织的经济体系所产生的这种进步的主要受益者是广大人民，而不是社会贵族——是群众，而不是阶级。我们直观地看到了这一点。如果经济史上的伟大人物，如西尔斯和罗巴克先生、亨利·福特、塞巴斯蒂安·S·克雷斯基或杰西·彭尼，都大张旗鼓地把他们的努力瞄准“更好的人”，即马车贸易，他们就会淡出历史的遗忘，而这将是这种愚蠢行为不可避免的报应。因为

他们很聪明，所以他们把精力集中在普通民众身上，那里有巨大的市场。简而言之，我们制度的关键在于我们依靠企业的智慧，而不是他们的

2. Boris Rabbot，《致勃列日涅夫的一封信》，纽约时报杂志，1977 年 11 月 6 日，第 60 页。

3. 纽约时报，1974 年 2 月 14 日，第 3 页。

4. David K. Shipler，纽约时报，1972 年 6 月 26 日，第 1 页。

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仁慈，以确保对普通民众及其需求给予特别的关怀。例如，在密歇根州，福特和雪佛兰分部对他们的公司来说比林肯水星和凯迪拉克分部重要得多。
不管经济体系的说教如何，经验证据非常清楚，在提高物质生活水平和广泛传播这一进步成果方面，市场组织的经济体系表现出色。我们直观地从某些国家组合中看到了这一点。韩国经济的成功故事是韩国，而不是朝鲜。台湾的人均收入现在是中国大陆的几倍。德国经济奇迹发生在德意志联邦共和国，而不是东德。事实上，柏林墙是国家组织的经济和政治体系失败的纪念碑。其中一些代表经济成功故事的国家不是政治民主国家，但拥有国家组织的经济体系的国家都有统一的威权政府。四、然而，通过开放和竞争的市场组织经济活动的自由主义体系正日益处于守势。很难从本世纪甚至过去十年左右的历史大趋势中得出任何其他结论。当然，也有一些风向相反。印度推翻了甘地独裁政府，其经济哲学高度国家化，这可能推动了这个大国朝着更有利的方向发展，但也可能是一时之举，对历史的基本方向影响不大。当人们被问及不同职业的声望时，商人和银行家的排名并不高。他们最大的安慰是，他们通常比政客的得分略高。5
有几阵相反的阵风，但普遍的风向似乎明显是朝着支持对制度生存的悲观结论的方向吹的。为什么经验证据似乎在另一边，但结果却如此？
5. 例如，参见《公众舆论》，1978 年 3 月至 4 月，第 36 页。
142 Paul W. McCracken
最明显（也许最不重要）的原因是，在某些人看来，该系统的记录可能就是这样。对某些人来说，大萧条是历史上的一个重要纪念碑，表明如果没有受到非常详细的政府管理，自由开放的竞争经济将如何运作。这是工业世界普遍存在的经济制度，20 世纪 30 年代的工业国家陷入了严重的经济困境。这是不可否认的。而且，在过去十年左右的大部分时间里，通货膨胀和失业问题同时困扰着自由市场经济。这些发展并没有改善自由经济体系的声誉，这似乎足够清楚，甚至可以理解。当然，它们并不是对系统的控诉，因为这些问题的根源是政府对经济政策的管理不善，而不是经济系统本身固有的特征。例如，正是货币政策导致了银行系统的崩溃，到 1933 年，货币供应量缩减到比维持 20 世纪 20 年代的合理充分就业和价格稳定所需的水平低约 40% 的水平。经济政策

这些国家的经济停滞，中断了 1969 年至 1971 年物价水平恢复到更稳定水平的运动，并牢牢固定了公众对高通胀的预期。这给我们带来了通货膨胀和失业。虽然这些发展“展示了系统运作的方式”的说法经不起仔细分析，但不可否认的是，这些发展已经导致公众对经济体系的支持减少。
v
市场组织经济体系消亡的一个更全面、更根本的案例取决于所谓的黑格尔必然过程学说。这里会想到两个名字。首先，马克思。马克思主义者和“我们其他人”都很难仔细研究马克思为系统消亡提出的理论案例。对于马克思主义者来说，这将是将圣经视为学术著作。对于其他人来说，仔细研究马克思的理论似乎表明，马克思对本质上是梅菲斯托菲利斯的、应该立即谴责的东西给予了尊重和冷静的处理。
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然而，马克思的结论确实有经济理论的基础。他的书不仅仅是另一本启示录。它基于李嘉图的劳动价值论——产品的价值与生产它们所需的劳动量成正比。劳动的价值（工资）也是生产它所需的劳动。因此，剩余价值将不断增长，即产出价值与工资（生产劳动所需的劳动价值）之间的差距。由于这种劳动价值论意味着工资将稳定在生产所需劳动力供应所需的生存水平，因此工资将落后于为经济总产出提供市场所需的购买力。因此，资本主义经济将经历反复出现的供大于求和萧条，在扩张阶段，帝国主义不断加大压力，要求为剩余产品寻找国外市场。因此，资本主义经济的商业周期与战争之间也建立了一种关系。6 因此，根据马克思的观点，资本主义进程的固有性质将导致其自身崩溃，从而迎来共产主义。对马克思著作的彻底分析将远远超出本章的范围，但重要的是，在马克思华丽的词藻和经文中，可以找到理论分析，这种分析得出的结论是，自由主义、市场组织的经济体系注定会消失，就像它之前的体系注定要让位于资产阶级资本主义一样。他的理论和神学著作对历史进程产生了深远的影响，这一点显而易见，即使他关于剩余价值的基本理论预测了所谓的工人阶级将日益贫困化（用熊彼特造的词来说），这与历史事实截然相反。资本主义或市场组织的经济体系根据其固有逻辑，倾向于产生更平等的实际收入分配，经验证据表明，事实上它就是这样运作的。熊彼特最谨慎地发展了黑格尔进程的展开将意味着资本主义的消亡的理论——这在他的《资本主义、社会主义和民主》（第一本）中有所体现。他不是社会主义者。事实上，他偶尔会被批评为过于保守（或许部分原因是他偶尔会轻蔑地谈论当时哈佛大学经济系同事们的“凯恩斯主义苗圃”）。7 正如他自己所观察到的：“如果医生预测他的病人会马上死去，这并不意味着他希望这样。”8 资本主义也不会因为失败而消亡。他指出，如果实际收入在 1928 年（大萧条开始前的最后一年）后的半个世纪内继续以历史速度增长，“这将消除按照目前的标准可以称为贫困的一切，即使在人口的最底层，病理情况除外。” 9 事实上，1978 年美国的实际人均收入将与他所预测的水平相差 2% 或 3%——这一水平将“按照目前的标准”消除贫困。

资本主义不会生存，不是因为它失败了，而是因为它成功了，而且它的成功

消费将启动导致其灭亡的力量。对于熊彼特来说，资本主义戏剧的核心驱动过程是创新——任何“以不同的方式做事”。它可能是一种新产品、一种新的生产方法、一种新的营销方式。创新不是发明。只有当某样东西开始具有经济现实时，它才成为创新。蒸汽机的发明几乎没有经济意义，直到有人把它们结合起来，创造了铁路行业。构成创新的不是内燃机的发明，而是汽车的创造。他们没有发明零售业，但 J. C. Penney 和 Sebastian S. Kresge 以其全新的营销方式，是创新者，就像汽车行业的亨利·福特或阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆一样。

创新者或企业家是原动力。他们是将全新和不同的东西带入经济的人。

风险很大，但成功的回报也很大。此外，在资本主义的鼎盛时期，企业家获得了与社会主要推动者相称的赞誉和声望。 Cap7. 我记得他曾说过，他可以在两周内学会“凯恩斯主义托儿所”一年课程中包含的所有经济学知识。
8. J. A. Schumpeter，上文，第 61 页。
9. 同上，第 66 页。
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当时，资本主义，即市场组织的经济体系，也有让新的和更好的东西在整个经济中传播的答案——即开放和竞争的市场，消费者可以自由选择。因此，新的和更好的东西可以取代和消灭旧的。
然而，熊彼特在这个过程中看到了什么，会让它走向自己的死亡？只有将经济视为随时间推移而展开的动态过程，而不是静态快照，才能理解经济。

资本主义的成功导致了现代大公司的出现。这些大公司反过来又拥有内部资源来进行研究和产品开发，而这些研究和开发以前是个人企业家的职能。因此，非常规工作已变得常规化。“由于资本主义企业凭借其成就，倾向于使进步自动化，我们得出结论，它倾向于使自己变得多余——在自身成功的压力下分崩离析。”10 因此，资本主义的消亡是因为它成功了，而不是因为它失败了。

随着创业功能的自动化，企业家作为个人的社会角色也将变得不那么重要，而体现资本主义制度及其成功的本质的功能也变得过时了。
此外，资本主义要兴起，就必须打破对旧制度的忠诚，但“资本主义不仅打破了阻碍其进步的障碍，也打破了防止其崩溃的飞拱。”11 因此，对资本主义制度及其制度日益增长的敌意并不是外部莫名其妙地降临到它身上的。这是可以从黑格尔进程的内在逻辑中预料到的。

熊彼特对资本主义本质的“愿景”是深刻的，正是这种“愿景”使得资本主义在推动经济变革和进步方面如此成功。有了这种愿景，我们可以开始更好地理解自由经济运动的动态——以及为什么尽管有相反的言论，但自由的、市场组织的经济体系比国家组织的经济体更有能力实现动态进步和提高人们的生活水平。然而，熊彼特的分析存在问题。他本人强调，经济不应以静态或静止图像的形式来看待，而应随着时间的流逝而展开，他脑海中对大型公司及其研究工作的静止图像使他高估了现有公司中创新的自动化程度。自他的书首次出版以来的几十年中，一些重大创新反映了企业家和创新的核心作用，正如他为资本主义鼎盛时期所概述的那样。施乐、宝丽来、惠普、德州仪器——这些都是自《资本主义、社会主义与民主》出版以来的“新秀”。这些公司主要不是由成熟的大型公司催生的，而是由高度个性化的企业家精神催生的。证据尚未表明，试图将既定机构内的进步过程内化或官僚化的社会很容易在促进经济发展方面取得巨大成功。
VI
如果要通过客观比较在提升和丰富物质生活水平方面所表现出的表现来决定这个问题，

自由的、市场组织的经济体系对公民的忠诚有着明确的要求。无论是历史上实际运作的不完善，还是某种黑格尔的不可避免的过程学说，似乎都不足以解释这个体系是不安、不确定和逐渐消退的忠诚的继承者。显然，我们必须进一步探究。如果我们对一些看似深奥的哲学问题进行短暂的探索，我们就会对这一现象有所了解。追溯到它的基本原理，我们在这里看到的反映了在美国舞台上所谓的大陆自由主义对有时被称为古典自由主义的统治地位。这里所说的自由经济将其思想血统追溯到后者。与这一哲学传统有关的名字是休谟、洛克、伯克和亚当·斯密。 12 根据后一种哲学，在权力有限的政府框架内，人们可以自由地运用他们的知识和创造力，并通过开放和竞争的市场自由表达他们的偏好。12. 最清晰的阐述之一可以在 Walter Lipmann 的《美好社会》（Grosset and Dunlap，1943 年）中找到。

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确保最好的东西会占上风。因此，人们通常会成为知识和创造力的集合的受益者，而这种知识和创造力在任何地方都不会全部存在。而且会有一个过程来确保新的和更好的东西会占上风。

然而，对于通往美好社会的正确道路，还有另一种看法。在这里，人们会想到孔多塞、伏尔泰和卢梭这样的名字。因此，它并不比所谓的自由主义更新，自由主义将其思想血统追溯到阐述古典自由主义的作家。事实上，那些呼吁政府对经济进行更详细管理的人的守护神很可能是科尔伯特，他是亚当·斯密之前一个世纪的法国财政部长。虽然他因重商主义倡导净出口盈余而广为人知，但他真正应该以试图实施最详细的经济监管而闻名——一如既往，意图良好，结果却很糟糕。13
这种替代或大陆自由主义认为美好社会的正确蓝图是纯粹理性的产物或创造。美好将由智力、纯粹理性设计和绘制。然后，政府将实施蓝图。它也相信政治民主，但不一定是范围和权力有限的政府（如替代哲学中的那样）。显然，美国的社会和经济政策在过去几十年中越来越多地反映了所谓的大陆哲学，而且很明显，这两种哲学具有一些重要而不同的含义。这里所说的古典传统中的自由主义并不声称知道最终结果的正确蓝图是什么，但它确实知道实现最终结果的过程。在一个范围和权力有限的政府提供的框架内，通过人们普遍发挥创造力和知识，将会出现一种丰富性和多样性，这是任何个人或团体都无法想象和设计的。古典自由主义的重点是手段，而不是目的，以及对政府范围的适当限制，以使创造性和动态过程发挥作用。对于大陆替代方案，由于纯粹理性使我们能够知道结果，因此重点在于足够的权力（特别是政府权力）来实施那些被赋予这种责任的人所构想的蓝图。并且，在政府权力的支持下，对不符合蓝图的事物将持怀疑态度。因此，随着流行的当代美国哲学更多地转向“大陆”的多样性——尽管重申一下，它实际上比古典自由主义更古老——知识分子和政府之间结成了一个非常强大的联盟。知识分子会认为自己对善的观念优于大众的观念。因此，他们天生就对人们的创造力和偏好自由发挥所产生的模式持怀疑态度。此外，知识分子可以理解地认为，如果纯粹理性是美好社会的蓝图，那么知识分子（大概是社会中有能力的人）将对结果产生不成比例的影响。

政府范围的扩大实际上也是有利的——至少，只要我们实际上没有转变为由独裁政府管理的国家组织经济。这是真的，因为政府成为知识分子的主要劳动力市场，

大学产品（学生）的定价。

美好社会蓝图的一个主要特点是，人们越来越不愿意接受“机会均等”的概念，以及其必然结果，即成功之路是通过在开放和竞争的市场中表现。这种新教伦理方法对经济（以及生活的其他方面）的失宠可能在一定程度上反映了宗教的萎缩，宗教剥夺了我们世俗哲学的道德和精神基础。它的道德原理已经崩溃。欧文·克里斯托！指出，“社会批评家一直在警告我们，资产阶级社会依靠传统宗教和传统道德哲学积累的道德资本生活，一旦这些资本耗尽，资产阶级社会就会发现其合法性更加值得怀疑。”1<

也许基本的变化是从机会均等转变为最终结果平等的目标。克里斯托弗·詹克斯、詹姆斯·科尔曼和约翰·罗尔斯等人的名字会浮现在脑海中。15
最近，亚瑟·奥肯在他的戈德金讲座上提出了
14. 欧文·克里斯托！，“资本主义、社会主义和虚无主义”，《公共利益》，1973 年春季，第 22 页。
15. 克里斯托弗·詹克斯，《不平等：对美国家庭和学校影响的重新评估》（Basic Books，1972 年）；詹姆斯·科尔曼，“平等的学校或平等的学生”，《公共利益》，1966 年夏季；约翰·罗尔斯，《正义论》（哈佛大学出版社，1971 年）。
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社会政策平等主义倾向的有力论据。16

在一定程度上，这种转变反映了这样一种怀疑：精英统治与世袭特权制度之间的区别并不像人们想象的那样明显。成功人士往往会将更好的家庭生活、更重视教育、更多的高等教育经费以及更高的智商等优势传给他们的后代。而现在有大量证据表明，学校教育似乎对缩小儿童之间的成就差距几乎没有什么作用。对某种尚未完全定义的平等、平等接受教育机会的巨大希望，似乎并没有像人们满怀信心地预期的那样，在结果方面有所保证。这反过来又导致一些人越来越相信，物质生活收入的差异可能并不像新教伦理向我们保证的那样，反映出不同程度的勤奋、努力和美德的回报。它们更接近于代表运气的随机因素。正是运气而不是优越的品德，让一些孩子生活在有利于成就的家庭，而让其他孩子处于母亲甚至无法确定父亲身份的境地。
随着宗教的衰落，以及经验证据表明，生活中不同的物质回报与获得机会的程度并没有那么紧密的联系，我们经济体系的一些基本哲学基础正在动摇。
引用丹尼尔·贝尔的话：“在人类意识的本质中，道德公平的体系是任何社会秩序的必要基础；为了合法性的存在，权力必须得到正当化。最终，正是道德观念——对什么是可取的观念——通过人类的愿望塑造了历史。” 17
随着基本自由的经济秩序的基本原则处于守势，并失去了道德和宗教支撑，新的目标和宗旨的大门已经打开，这些目标和宗旨将获得拥护，并且只能通过政府权力来实现。18 机会平等即使不是不可避免的，至少也是极有可能的。

结果平等理论的自然趋势是国家对我们生活的控制大大扩大。

16. Arthur Okun，《平等与效率》（布鲁金斯学会，1975 年）。

17. Daniel Bell，《论精英统治与平等》，《公共利益》，1972 年秋季，第 47-48 页。

18. 参见 Robert H. Bork 的精彩论文《民主政府能否生存？》，1976 年 4 月 24 日提交给美国哲学学会（油印版）。

150 Paul W. McCracken
结果平等并不容易定义（事实上，可能根本无法定义）。它不可能“自然而然”地发生。因此，这一目标的最终结果必然是，大量官僚机构试图定义和实施结果平等这一难以捉摸的概念（并在此过程中互相踩脚）。
VII
正是这一点引发了一些关于自由主义制度在现代世界中生存的最紧迫的问题。在大多数工业国家，政府支出与国民收入之比一直在上升，对于一些国家来说，这一比例现在已达到或超过 50%。
对于美国来说，1972 年至 1977 年政府支出的增长相当于 GNP 增长的 40%，而对于像荷兰这样的国家，这一数字将达到 70% 以上。

这些总体预算数字虽然令人印象深刻，但却低估了政府在管理经济生活细节方面的爆炸性扩张。对美国来说，一个粗略但可能更准确的指标是《联邦公报》上印刷拟议新法规所需的页数增加。这是一个增长指数——本十年间，每年增长约 25%，每三年翻一番。
这些发展的不利影响显然已经开始显现。证据似乎表明，生产率的趋势增长率已从历史水平每年 21% 下降到约 11%。随着时间的推移，看似微小的差异变得巨大。如果在本世纪，这种较低的增长率一直存在，那么今天的普通家庭（以今天的价格计算）将试图用大约一半的当前收入来平衡预算。
政府范围的扩大确实导致自由经济的运作更加僵硬。规模较小和较新的公司在报告和法规的泥潭中生存的能力较弱。如果要取得进步，就必须大力挑战大公司的建制主义立场，因此，大公司获得了更安全的市场地位，但这种地位无论多么舒适，都不利于创新或“创造性破坏过程”。
19. 参见沃伦·纳特 (Warren Nutter) 的《西方政府的增长》(美国企业公共政策研究所，1978 年)。
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官僚机构天生倾向于谨慎行事，但安全和保障并不是动态环境的特征。
此外，政府实施的蓝图本质上过于简单。丰富的多样性和多样性是少数高层人士无法管理甚至构想的。它将发展自己的既得利益和对新事物和意料之外事物的真诚敌意。
此外，政府的结构从来不会强制人们仔细、同时权衡成本和收益——而这在企业管理中更具有内在要求。如果人们因为一种获批的药物而死亡，FDA 将在国会委员会面前受到严厉批评，但他们不会为那些因为延迟批准一种所需药物而死亡或遭受痛苦的人负责。EPA 通过制定环境规则来优化其状况；不利的能源后果——其裁决不是它的问题。
最后，重申一下，随着所需许可证和执照价格的确定，政府管理的经济体系倾向于普遍的腐败。因此，即使股票证书上的名字仍然是 John Doe 而不是山姆大叔，政府管理的经济也会具有国家组织体系的大多数不愉快的特征。
事实上，即使是民主的政治形式也会变得不那么重要。如果公民的生活实际上被一个既不受公众控制也不受民选官员控制的官僚机构编织的网络所笼罩，那么公民在几个选举职位中分别选择两个人的权利可能会开始显得越来越无关紧要。而自由经济面临的最大危险，用麦克阿瑟将军的话来说，不是它会被公民公开判处死刑，而是它的形式仍然存在而本质却消失了。

VIII

读者可能会觉得这一章有点阴郁，有时甚至有点丧葬。自由经济体系的生存存在着严重的问题和担忧，肤浅的乐观是没有意义的。同时，我们必须假设人们并不是海洋中无助的筹码。我们未来的经济体系，就像过去一样，将反映我们所做的选择。它不会是黑格尔进程的必然结果。还有两组强有力的令人鼓舞的预兆。
152 Paul W. McCracken
首先，反对政府扩张的阻力现在开始增强。国会议员的生存依赖于感知国内的动向，而国会现在正遵循更严格的预算程序。这一程序不稳定且漏洞百出，但正在产生一些效果。对公共支出施加直接宪法限制的提议正在各州获得支持。一开始，在政府领域，初出茅庐的普通民众无法与组织严密、目标明确的利益集团抗衡，但一旦公众决定的凝聚过程开始，结果将是不可抗拒的。
其次，一些令人耳目一新的逆流正在知识界吹拂。大学和学院已成为不断扩张的政府及其慷慨和权力的受益者，而

这与迫使我们走向

更美好社会（大概是由学术界的知识分子制定的蓝图）的政府权力一起，似乎是一种非常友好的安排。但我们现在发现，

一个告诉我们生产什么、开什么车、穿什么的政府，也看到了

没有理由不告诉我们要教什么、要雇谁，以便为一个更美好的世界提供教育。简而言之，教育工作者也正在认识到，自由社会对政府范围和政府形式的关注并不是孤立的。

更根本的是，现在在知识领域又出现了思想的竞争。思想市场一度几乎被论文、文章和书籍所主导，这些论文、文章和书籍呼吁更多的政府计划、更多的政府对经济生活细节的管理、通过公共预算实现消费和投资的社会化。这种倾向并没有消失，但现在在知识界，发表关于通过自由市场组织的经济体系实现目标的文章、文章和书籍也是值得尊敬的。

随着思想市场上的竞争日益激烈，资本主义——即通过开放市场组织经济活动的自由主义体系——可能仍会生存下来。事实上，如果它不复存在，政治民主也将不复存在。

Can Capitalism Survive?

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AEIReprint104.pdf?x85095

Paul McCracken，

Economist， was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors from 1969 to 1971 under President Richard Nixon. He took the lead in developing economic policy at the outset of the Nixon administration. In 1976 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Optimism historically has characterized the attitude of Americans
about their prospects. And there have been good reasons. This
optimism has had a strong ideological component. There has always
been a firm American belief that our own nation was formed on the
basis of noble concepts and ideas that were destined to move
mankind forward. Other nations were geographic and historical
accidents, determined by factors of such fundamental inconsequentiality as rivers or mountain ranges that were hard to cross or winds
that happened to blow that day in a direction favorable to the king's
navy.
Not so our own country. Our forebears "brought forth upon this
continent" a new nation committed to principles that would inspire
the world and alter the course of history. And perhaps the generous
supply of eloquent bicentennial rhetoric in 1976 has by now receded
sufficiently in our memories for us to recall again with a sense of
awe that prose in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution which articulated what this nation was to be all about. Our
Founding Fathers, of course, had their own fallibilities. Thomas
Jefferson, for example, could pen the words "that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights" without at the same time doing much to extend
this concept to his own slaves. They were not, however, meaningless
words. Indeed, they and that new nation set in motion powerful
134
Can Capitalism Survive? 135
forces producing a vast extension of the range of freedom within
which people could live their lives in ways that to them seemed good.
Our traditional optimism, however, has been based upon much
more practical matters than noble sentiment. The American economy has, quite simply, worked. It has had an awesome track record of
demonstrated capability for raising material levels of living and
diffusing the fruits of this progress more and more widely. If the
National Income Division of the Department of Commerce had
existed at the turn of the century, it is estimated that the Division
would have reported a GNP for 1900 of $19 billion. By 1977 our
GNP was $1,900 billion. Now that hundred-fold rise would be
impressive indeed, except for the awe-restraining thought that much
of it is to be explained by higher prices. And the U.S. price level has
been on a decidedly rising trend in this century. As best this can be
measured, and our ability to do this is far more limited than
seemingly precise index numbers imply, the dollar of the year 1900
had by 1977 lost about 90 percent of its purchasing power. To be
precise, the U.S. price level has had about a ninefold rise since the
turn of the century. That still leaves us, however, with an elevenfold
increase in real output and real income during a period when our
population did not quite triple.
To put all of this into more meaningful terms, the American
economy has been delivering a doubling of material levels of living
every generation. A quick mental glance around the world or back
through history is enough to remind us that such a doubling has not
been the lot of any consequential proportion of humanity since the
beginning of time.
II
What is this economic system which has delivered such a performance through history? Will it survive? What are the developments raising questions about its survival? These questions are now
being asked, and with a growing sense of unease.
While terminological arguments are never interesting, a troublesome problem must be clarified at the outset. Our economy is often
referred to as capitalism in action, but this word has a variety of
meanings. There is the technical fact that as more and more capital
is used per person at work, production becomes more ·"capitalistic."
In that sense all economies, including communist economies, are
136 Paul W. McCracken
becoming more capitalistic and in that technical sense capitalism
will certainly survive. The second edition of Webster's unabridged
dictionary alludes to this technical meaning for its first definition of
capitalism. The word capitalism also ranges into meanings with a
pejorative implication, and Webster alludes to this for its second or
moral meaning-namely, a state where capital, power, and influence are in the hands of a few. The first definition is true and not
particularly interesting. The second is defeated by definition.
It is only with the third definition that the word starts to take on
the concept of a process or system for organizing economic activity,
alluding to economies which depend upon privately owned enterprises operating in competitive markets to produce goods and
services.
It is, of course, important that we be clear about what it is whose
survival prospects we are examining. The system whose possibilities
for survival we are exploring here is capitalism in this third sense,
but it could more meaningfully be called the liberal, marketorganized economic system. Indeed, it would not be amiss to call it
simply the liberal economy, in contrast to the state-organized
economic system, which in reality and by its own inherent logic is
illiberal in the sense that personal freedom is severely circumscribed. The liberal economy, on the other hand, relies on the
preferences of consumers freely expressed in open and competitive
markets to determine what is produced, and it in principle accords
to people freedom also to decide where they will contribute their
productive efforts.
Ill
Why is there uncertainty about the survival of this liberal economy? If demonstrated capacity to perform and deliver assured
survival, the system would certainly survive. It has, as already
pointed out, delivered a doubling of material levels of living every
generation in this country. Moreover, the inherent or internal logic
of the system would lead us to expect this track record of demonstrated performance. And it may be useful for us to explore a bit the
reasons for expecting this result. One source of its effectiveness
through history is that such a free and open system enables society
to take advantage of an aggregate of knowledge and creativity that
does not exist in its totality anyplace. This is more fundamental than
Can Capitalism Survive? 137
it seems. In the centrally organized, top-down systems, it is only the
limited knowledge and creativity encompassed by those at the top
that can be implemented. Yet the lessons of history are clear about
the sources of innovative thinking. New and better ideas often do
not come from the top or even from so-called logical sources. The
automobile industry did not emerge from the wagon and carriage
companies. The railroads did not put the traveling public into
airplanes. The modern hand-held calculator marvels were not developed by companies that earlier made those mechanical calculating
behemoths. Nor did the mechanical watch industry develop and
place on the market the digital watch.
The dynamic and innovative economic system must be sufficiently
free and open to permit those who think they have a good new idea
to try it out even if it seems to have emerged from a quite unlikely
source. If the new idea is a dud, as most are, the innovator may lose
his all in the venture, but relative to society's resources generally
these social costs of the sorting-out process are negligible. We have
here also, in short, an efficient weeding-out procedure.
While the proportion of new ideas, ideas and products which their
progenitors confidently expect will save the world, that do actually
represent an advance (a new product, or a fundamentally cheaper
way of making an old product) is low, some new ideas are good, and
a few are so fundamental as to revolutionize the economy. The good
economic system must also be organized so that the new which is
better can prevail. The system must be structured to assure that
today's new which is better must become tomorrow's standard, and
today's standard, which is tomorrow's archaic, must be expunged
from the economy. The liberal, market-organized economic system
has an answer for this problem-namely, open and competitive
markets. If consumers free to express their preferences in these open
and competitive markets like the new product, it will prevail even in
the face of an entrenched status quo implacably firm and sincere in
its belief that the old, established ways and products are best. The
manufacturers of steam locomotives were genuinely certain that
diesel motors would never be a practicable source of power for
pulling trains, and the diesel locomotive thus was pioneered from
outside the conventional industry. It was not the old ice companies
who brought forth the mechanical refrigerator.
Economic progress-and, indeed, progress generally-is a process
by which the new that people freely choose displaces the old. It is a
dynamic process of continuing disestablishmentarianism. Schum-
138 Paul W. McCracken
peter called it, in the pregnant title of a chapter, "The Process of
Creative Destruction." 1 And if this is all to work freely, the
processes of choice and decision must be open. They cannot be
under the control of the establishment.
This is one of the inherent superiorities of the liberal or marketorganized economic system relative to its major competitor, the
state-organized system for managing economic activity. In the
liberal economic system those with new ideas are free to try them
out (with substantial rewards to those who succeed), and people are
free to adopt them-to make them prevail over the old-if they like
them better. The state-organized economy, on the other hand, is a
system of permits and licenses and edicts from on high-this
whether the state owns the means of production, or whether government manages the details of economic life. Inevitably the officialdom and bureaucracies from which a license or permit must be
obtained in order to get going with something new would tend to
reflect and be a prisoner of the established ways of doing things.
And they would reflect the usual establishment aversion and skepticism about a wholly different and new product or procedure. A
Federal Department of Watches-mechanical, of course-would
not look with favor on a proposed digital watch-with the transfer
of status, power, and jobs to another department.
One can almost imagine the colloquy in a state-organized and
managed economy (though nominally private enterprise) between
the pertinent official in government and an emissary from HewlettPackard or Texas Instruments whose company is trying to get the
needed permit to go into production with the once-startling idea of
an electronic calculator.
"You are applying for a permit to produce calculators?" the GA12 asks.
"Yes, sir. My company has a product vastly superior to what can
be bought today. You see ... ," begins the Company Emissary with
enthusiasm.
"Your company," interrupts the Government, "of course, has
experience in the production of calculators or you would not be here,
though we have no record of having issued to you the necessary
license." The tone of voice, a well-practiced blend of condescension
and haughty accusation, is not lost on our hero from the company.
I. J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism. Socialism and Democracy (Harper & Row,
1942), Chapter VII, pp. 81-86.
Can Capitalism Survive? 139
"Well, no," he replies shifting a bit uneasily in his chair. "No, we
haven't been in that business at all. You see-"
"Well, I suppose you have a sample of your machine, though I
understand, of course," and for the first time there is a hint of
benignity in Government's voice, "that you could hardly be expected
to carry a heavy thing like that around with you."
"Oh, but I do have it. Here it is," eagerly responds our hero, as he
takes it out of his coat pocket.
"That! Young man," clips out Government in his most 1-am-abusy-and-important-man manner, "in my department we collectively represent 2,519 years of experience with calculators. Any one of
us could tell you exactly how many shafts and gears and wheels and
other parts are required for a good modern calculator. That little
box you hold-why, it is not even large enough for the motor. Just
take my advice, as one who has spent his professional career in
calculators, go back home and don't bother important people here
again with practical jokes. Next time we may not be so patient."
Fortunately ours is not an economy which requires such a
bureaucratic process, and the result is that these little calculatorswhich can be put in a coat pocket, do have vastly more computational capability than the behemoths of yesteryear, and whose price tags
are a fraction of those attached to the old machines-have become
today's standard.
The economy of licenses and permits has more than just an
arthritic inability to keep up a fast pace of new things to trouble it.
Such a system offers vastly more scope for corruption than one in
which the route to success is via superior performance in impersonal
markets. If the route to success is through obtaining a permit or
license, the grant of such permission has value, and it should come
as no surprise that on the other side there will be those ready to pay
the price. In all of the heterogeneous array of companies and
instances involving so-called improper payments, there has been one
pervasive common element. The recipients of these payments have
usually been government officials whose nod of approval was the
route to success for the sellers.
Illustrations of the corruption that develops around government
management of the details of economic life can be drawn from
numerous countries. "The Soviet economy," observed a former
official of that country, "will continue to be corrupted by an
enormous black market in goods and services-a whole parallel,
140 Paul W. McCracken
unofficial, illegal economy with its own laws and norms and its crop
of Soviet underground millionaires." 2
"Even if one-tenth of what is said in private is true, the country is
in the throes of a moral crisis .... It is moronic to imagine that a
just society can grow when [es f/eurs du mal-the flowers of evilbloom on all sides and when parasites, contact-men, fixers and
hatchet-men flourish while honest workers find it increasingly hard
to make both ends meet." 3 Thus in 1974 did the editor of the Times
of India comment on the results of that government's detailed
management of economic life.
Nor does government management of the details of economic life
by licenses and permits produce discernibly different results in the
United States. "Hardly a skyscraper is built, scarcely a change is
made in the world's most celebrated skyline, hardly a brownstone is
renovated or a restaurant expanded without the illegal payoffs,
ranging from $5 to $10,000 each."•
That these corrupt practices are pervasively associated with an
economy whose details are managed by government is to be expected by the inherent nature of the process. That the incidence of these
corrupt practices is markedly less in economies and sectors organized through open and vigorously competitive markets is also to be
expected since for them performance evaluated by the impersonal
forces of markets determines success.
Finally, the record of progress in liberal, market-organized economic systems such as ours has displayed another characteristic that
is as notable as it is often ignored or even disbelieved. The major
beneficiaries of this progress generated by our market-organized
economic system are the people at large, not the patricians of
society-the masses, not the classes. We see this intuitively. If such
great names in economic history as Messrs. Sears and Roebuck or
Henry Ford or Sebastian S. Kresge, or J.C. Penney had gone highhat and aimed their efforts at the "better people, " the carriage
trade, they would have faded into the historical oblivion which
would have been the ineluctable reward of such foolishness. Because
they were smart, they aimed their efforts at the common people
generally, where the great markets are. The key to our system, in
short, is that we rely on the intelligence of businesses, not their
2. Boris Rabbot, "A Letter to Brezhnev," New York Times Magazine, November
6, 1977, p. 60.
3. New York Times, February 14, 1974, p. 3.
4. David K. Shipler, New York Times, June 26, 1972, p. 1.
Can Capitalism Survive? 141
benevolence, to assure a particular solicitude for ordinary people
and their needs. In Michigan, for example, the Ford and Chevrolet
divisions are far more important to their firms than the LincolnMercury and Cadillac divisions.
Whatever the catechistic rhetoric about economic systems, the
empirical evidence is overwhelmingly clear that the superior performance in lifting material levels of living and diffusing the fruits
of this progress broadly has been turned in by the market-organized
economic systems. We see this intuitively in certain pairings of
countries. The Korean economic success story is South Korea, not
North Korea. Per-capita income in Taiwan is by now a substantial
multiple of that in mainland China. The German economic miracle
occurred in the Federal Republic of Germany, not in East Germany.
Indeed, the Berlin Wall stands as a monument to the failure of
state-organized economic and political systems. Some of these
countries which represent economic success stories are not political
democracies, but countries with state-organized economic systems
have uniformly authoritarian governments.
IV
Yet the liberal system of organizing economic activity through
open and competitive markets is increasingly on the defensive. It is
difficult to look at the broad movements of history during this
century or even during the last decade or so and arrive at any other
conclusion. There are, of course, a few whiffs of breezes blowing the
other way. The overthrow in India of the Gandhi authoritarian
government, with its heavily state-organized orientation of economic
philosophy, may have nudged that major country in a more favorable direction, but it may also have been an accident of the moment
with little impact on the basic direction of history. When people are
asked about the prestige of different occupations, businessmen and
bankers do not rank well. Their major consolation is that they
usually manage to achieve a slightly better score than politicians.5
There are a few contrary gusts, but the prevailing winds seem
clearly to be blowing in a direction lending support to pessimistic
conclusions about the survival of the system.
Why is it working out this way when the evidence of experience
would seem to be on the other side?
5. See, for example, Public Opinion, March-April 1978, p. 36.
142 Paul W. McCracken
The most obvious (and perhaps least significant) reason is to be
found in the way the system's record might appear to some. To
some, the Great Depression stands as a major monument in history
to the way the free and open competitive economy works out if it is
not subjected to quite detailed government management. It was the
prevailing economic system in the industrial world, and the industrial countries in the 1930s were in grave economic trouble. That is all
undeniable. And it is also true that simultaneous problems of
inflation and unemployment have afflicted the liberal market economies for much of the time during the last decade or so.
That these developments have not improved the reputation of the
liberal economic systems seems clear enough and even understandable. They are not an indictment of the system, of course, since the
sources of these problems have been government's mismanagement
of economic policy, not characteristics inherent in the economic
system itself. It was monetary policy, for example, that permitted
the collapse of the banking system and a shrinkage of the money
supply to a level by 1933 roughly 40 percent below that which would
have been required to continue the reasonably full employment and
price stability of the 1920s. And it was economic policies in these
countries that interrupted the 1969 to 1971 movement back to a
more stable price level and firmly fixed public expectations of high
inflation. This has given us both inflation and unemployment. While
the charge that these developments "show the way the system
works" will not survive careful analysis, it cannot be denied that
these developments have contributed to an erosion of public support
for the economic system.
v
A more sweeping and fundamental case for the demise of the
market-organized economic system rests on what might be called
the Hegelian doctrine of inevitable processes. Two names would
come to mind here. First, Marx. It is difficult for both Marxians and
"the rest of us" to examine carefully the theoretical case that Marx
made for the demise of the system. For the Marxians that would be
treating sacred scriptures as scholarly writing. For others a careful
examination of Marx's theories would seem to suggest respectful
and dispassionate treatment of what is inherently Mephistophelian
and ought to be denounced out of hand.
Can Capitalism Survive? 143
Marx's conclusions, however, did have an underpinning of economic theory. His was not just another book of Revelations. It was
based on Ricardo's labor theory of value-that the values of
products are proportional to the quantity of labor required to
produce them. The value (wages) of labor is also the labor required
to produce it. Thus there will be a growing surplus value, the gap
between the value of output and wages (the value of labor required
to produce the labor). Since this labor theory of value means that
wages would settle to the subsistence level required to produce the
needed supply of labor, wages would thus fall behind the purchasing
power required to provide a market for the economy's total output.
The capitalist economies, therefore, would experience recurring
gluts and depressions and during the expansion phase growing
imperialistic pressures to find foreign markets for the surplus
output. Thus a relationship was also established between business
cycles in the capitalist economies and wars.6 The inherent nature of
the capitalistic process thus, according to Marx, would lead it to its
own collapse, ushering in communism.
A thorough analysis of Marx's writings would extend well beyond
the scope of this chapter, but it is important to see that amidst
Marx's florid phrases and scriptures there is to be found a theoretical analysis, and it is an analysis leading to the conclusion that the
liberal, market-organized economic system is inevitably doomed to
disappear just as what preceded it was bound to give way to
bourgeois capitalism. That his theoretical as well as his theological
writings have had a profound effect on the course of history seems
evident enough, even if his basic theory of surplus value with its
prediction of a growing immiserization (to use Schumpeter's manufactured word) of the so-called working class is quite flatly contradicted by the facts of history. The capitalistic or market-organized
economic system by its inherent logic tends to produce a more equal
distribution of real income, and the empirical evidence suggests that
in fact it has worked out that way.
It was Schumpeter who developed most carefully the theory that
the unfolding of the Hegelian process would mean the demise of
capitalism-this in his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (first
6. It was N. D. Kondraticff, of course, who did the empirical work to establish the
case for the existence of these long waves. Sec N. D. Kondraticff, "The Long Waves
in Economic Life," Review of Economic Statistics. November 1935. It was first
published as "Die Langen Wellen dcr Konjunktur." Archiv fur Sozia/wissenschaft.
December 1926. and translated into English by W. Stolpcr.
144 Paul W. McCracken
published in 1942, but perhaps more read today than when it was
first published). He was not a socialist. Indeed, he was occasionally
criticized for being too conservative (perhaps in part because he
occasionally spoke a bit contemptuously about the "Keynesian
nursery" inhabited by his Harvard colleagues then in the Economics
Department).7 As he himself observed: "If a doctor predicts that his
patient will die presently, this does not mean that he desires it." 8
Nor was capitalism going to expire because it had failed. He
pointed out that if real incomes continued to rise during the half
century after 1928 (the last year before the descent into the Great
Depression began) at historical rates, "this would do away with
anything that according to present standards could be called poverty, even in the lowest strata of the population, pathological cases
alone excepted." 9 In fact real per-capita income in the United
States in 1978 will be within 2 or 3 percent of the level which he
projected-a level which would abolish poverty "according to present standards."
Capitalism would not survive not because it has been a failure but
because it has been a success, and its success would set in motion
forces that would cause its demise. The central actuating process in
the drama of capitalism for Schumpeter was innovation-any "doing things differently." It might be a new product, a new method of
production, a new approach to marketing. Innovation is not invention. Something becomes innovation only when it starts to have
economic reality. The invention of the steam engine had little
economic significance until some people put it all together and
created a railroad industry. It was not the invention of the internalcombusion engine but the creation of the automobile that constituted innovation. They did not invent retailing, but J. C. Penney and
Sebastian S. Kresge with their wholly new approaches to merchandising were innovators just as literally as Henry Ford or Alfred P.
Sloan in the automobile industry.
The innovators or entrepreneurs are the prime movers. They are
the ones who bring into the economy the wholly new and different.
The risks are great, but the rewards of the successful are also large.
Moreover, in the heyday of capitalism entrepreneurs received the
accolades and prestige befitting the prime movers in society. Cap7. I remember his comment that he could learn in a fortnight all of the economics
contained in a year's course taught in "the Keynesian nursery."
8. J. A. Schumpeter, op. cit., p. 61.
9. Ibid., p. 66.
Can Capitalism Survive? 145
italism, the market-organized economic system, then also had the
answer to getting the new and better diffused across the economy
generally-namely, open and competitive markets in which consumers are free to make their choices. Thus the new and better could
supplant and extinguish the old.
What did Schumpeter see in this process, however, that would
make it work out to produce its own death? The economy can be
understood only if we see it as a moving picture of a process
unfolding through time rather than as a snapshot, a still picture.
The very success of capitalism has led to the emergence of modern
large corporations. These large corporations in turn have the resources in house to do the research and product development that
formerly had been the function of the individual entrepreneur. The
nonroutine has thereby become routinized. "Since capitalist enterprise, by its very achievements, tends to automatize progress, we
conclude that it tends to make itself superfluous-to break to pieces
under pressure of its own success." 10 Thus the demise of capitalism
would occur because it succeeded, not because it failed.
With this automatizing of the entrepreneurship function, the
social role of the entrepreneur would thus also be of diminishing
importance as the individual and the function that epitomized the
nature of the capitalistic· system and its success became obsolescent.
Moreover, for capitalism to emerge it had to break down loyalties to
the old established institutions, but "capitalism thus broke not only
the barriers that impeded its progress but also flying buttresses that
prevented its collapse." 11 Thus the growing hostility to the capitalist
system and its institutions is not something inexplicably visited upon
it from the outside. It is something that could be expected from the
internal logic of the unfolding Hegelian process.
Schumpeter's "vision" about the nature of capitalism which has
made it so successful in generating economic change and progress is
profound. With this vision we can begin to understand better the
dynamics of the liberal economy in motion-and why, in spite of
rhetoric to the contrary, the liberal, market-organized economic
system has been more capable of dynamic progress and of lifting
levels of living for people generally than the state-organized economies. There are, however, problems with Schumpeter's analysis.
Himself emphasizing the importance of seeing the economy not in
10. Ibid., p. 134.
11. Ibid., p. 139.
146 Paul W. McCracken
static or still-picture terms but as a process unfolding through time,
his mind's-eye still-picture of large companies with their research
efforts led him to overestimate the extent to which innovation had
been automated within existing companies. Some of the major
innovations during the decades since his book first appeared have
reflected the central role of entrepreneurs and innovation just as he
outlined it for the heyday of capitalism. Xerox, Polaroid, HewlettPackard, Texas Instruments-these are some of the "new boys on
the block" since the publication of Capitalism, Socialism and
Democracy. And these were not primarily spawned by established
large companies but by highly individualized entrepreneurship. The
evidence does not yet suggest that societies which try to internalize
or bureaucratize the processes of progress within established institutions are apt to be highly successful in promoting economic development.
VI
If the issue is to be decided by an objective comparison of the
evidence about demonstrated performance in lifting and enriching
material levels of living, the liberal, market-organized economic
system has a clear claim to the citizenry's loyalties. Neither the
imperfections of its actual operations through history nor even some
sort of Hegelian doctrine of ineluctable processes would seem to be
sufficient to explain the fact that the system is the legatee of uneasy,
uncertain, and eroding loyalties.
Apparently we must probe further. We gain some perspective on
this phenomenon if we take a brief excursion into what may seem to
be some esoteric matters of philosophy. Traced back to its fundamentals, what we see here reflects the ascendancy in the American
scene of what might be called continental liberalism over what is
sometimes called classical liberalism. What has been called here the
liberal economy traces its intellectual lineage to the latter. Names
that would come to mind incident to this philosophical tradition are
Hume, Locke, Burke, and Adam Smith. 12 According to this latter
philosophy, within the framework of a government of limited power,
people would be free to use their knowledge and creativity, with
preferences freely expressed through open and competitive markets
12. One of the most lucid expositions is to be found in Walter Lipmann, The Good
Society (Grosset and Dunlap, 1943).
Can Capitalism Survive? 147
assuring that the best would prevail. Thus people generally would be
the beneficiary of an aggregate of knowledge and creativity that
would not exist in its totality anyplace. And there would be a process
to assure that the new and better would prevail.
There was, however, an alternative view of the proper route to a
good society. Here such names as Condorcet, Voltaire, and Rousseau would come to mind. Thus it is no newer than so-called
liberalism tracing its intellectual ancestry back to writers articulating the case for classical liberalism. Indeed, the patron saint of those
urging much more detailed government management of the economy might well be Colbert, finance minister in France a century
before Adam Smith. While he is widely known for his mercantilistic
advocacy of a net export surplus, he really should be known
primarily for attempting to administer the most detailed regulations
of the economy-with, as usual, good intentions and arthritic
results. 13
This alternative or continental liberalism saw the proper blueprint
for the good society as the product or creation of Pure Reason. The
Good would be designed and blueprinted by the intellect, by Pure
Reason. Government, then, would implement the blueprint. It also
believed in political democracy, but not necessarily government of
limited scope and power (as in the alternative philosophy).
It is clear that U.S. social and economic policy has increasingly
during the last decades come to reflect the so-called continental
philosophy, and it is also clear that these two philosophies carry with
them some important and different implications. Liberalism in what
has been called here the classical tradition does not profess to know
what the proper blueprint is for the end result, but it does know the
process for achieving it. Within a framework provided by a government of limited scope and power, there would emerge, through the
exercise of creativity and knowledge of people generally, a richness
and diversity that could never be conceived and designed by any
individual or group. The emphasis of classical liberalism is on
means, not ends, and on proper limitations to the scope of government so the creative and dynamic process will work. With the
continental alternative, since Pure Reason would enable us to know
the ends, the emphasis is on sufficient power (including particularly
government power) to implement the blueprint conceived by those
entrusted with such responsibility. And there will be skepticism,
13. C. W. Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism (Columbia
University Press, 1939).
148 Paul W. McCracken
backed up by the power of government, about things that do not fit
the blueprint.
Thus, as the prevailing, contemporary American philosophy has
shifted more toward the "continental" variety-though, to repeat, it
is really more ancient than classical liberalism-an enormously
powerful alliance was forged between intellectuals and government.
Intellectuals would consider their own conceptions about the good to
be superior to those of the masses. They are inherently, therefore,
skeptical about the patterns that would emerge from the free play of
people's creativity and preferences generally. Moreover, intellectuals understandably assume that if Pure Reason is to blueprint the
good society, intellectuals (being, presumably, the able people in
society) will thereby have a disproportionate influence on the
outcome.
And the growing scope of government is practically congenial
also-at least, so long as we do not actually metamorphose into a
state-organized economy run by an authoritarian government. This
is true because government becomes a major labor market for
intellectuals and for their university products (students).
A major feature of the blueprint for the Good Society has been a
growing disinclination to accept the concept of "equality of opportunity" and its corollary that the route to success is through performance in open and competitive markets. The disfavor into which this
Protestant Ethic approach to the economy (and to other aspects of
life also) has fallen may in part reflect the atrophy of religion, which
has robbed our secular philosophy of its moral and spiritual foundation. Its moral rationale has crumbled. Irving Kristo! has pointed
out that "social critics have been warning us that bourgeois society
was living off the accumulated moral capital of traditional religion
and traditional moral philosophy, and that once this capital was
depleted, bourgeois society would find its legitimacy even more
questionable." 1<
Perhaps the basic change has been from equality of opportunity to
the objective of equality of end results. Such names as Christopher
Jencks, James Coleman, and John Rawls would come to mind.15
More recently, Arthur Okun in his Godkin lectures presented a
14. Irving Kristo!, "Capitalism, Socialism, and Nihilism," The Public Interest,
Spring 1973, p. 22.
15. Christopher Jencks, Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and
Schooling in America (Basic Books, 1972); James Coleman, "Equal Schools or
Equal Students," The Public Interest, Summer 1966; and John Rawls, A Theory of
Justice (Harvard University Press, 1971 ).
Can Capitalism Survive? 149
tightly argued case for an egalitarian-orientation of social policy.16
In part this shift reflects the suspicion that a meritocracy tends to be
less distinguishable from a system of hereditary privilege than had
been supposed. The successful tend to pass on to their offspring the
advantages of a better home life, more emphasis on education, more
means to finance higher education, and perhaps a higher IQ. And
there is now substantial evidence that schooling seems to do surprisingly little to narrow disparities in achievement among children. The
great hope for equality in some not fully defined sense, equal access
to education, seems to promise less in the way of results than had
been confidently expected.
This in turn has led to a growing conviction on the part of some
that differences in the material emoluments of life may not after all,
as the Protestant Ethic assured us, reflect the rewards for different
degrees of diligence and effort and virtue. They more nearly
represent random elements of luck. It is the luck of the draw and not
their superior virtue that put some children in homes favoring
achievement and put other children in a situation where their
mothers could not even be sure about the identity of the fathers.
With religion on the wane and with empirical evidence suggesting
that the differing material rewards of life are not so closely
associated with the degree of access to opportunity, some basic
philosophical foundation blocks of our economic system are shaking.
"In the nature of human consciousness," to quote Daniel Bell, "a
scheme of moral equity is the necessary basis for any social order;
for legitimacy to exist, power must be justified. In the end it is moral
ideas-the conception of what is desirable-that shape history
through human aspirations." 17
And as the fundamental tenets of the basically liberal economic
order have found themselves on the defensive and minus their moral
and religious buttresses, the door has come open to new goals and
objectives that would gain allegiance and could be implemented only
by government power.18 That equality of opportunity was if not
inevitable at least highly probable.
The natural drift of the equality-of-results doctrine is in the
direction of a large expansion of state control over our lives.
16. Arthur Okun, Equality and Efficiency (Brookings Institution, 1975).
17. Daniel Bell, "On Meritocracy and Equality," The Public Interest, Fall 1972,
pp. 47-48.
18. See the brilliant paper by Robert H. Bork, "Can Democratic Government
Survive?," presented to the American Philosophical Society, April 24, 1976 (mimeographed).
150 Paul W. McCracken
Equality of results is not easily defined (probably, in fact, impossible
to define). It is not apt to happen "naturally." The end result of this
objective is inevitably, therefore, a large array of bureaucracies
trying to define and implement the elusive concept of equality of
results (and in the process stepping on each other's toes).
VII
It is this that raises some of the most urgent questions about the
survival of the liberal system in the modern world. In most industrial
countries the ratio of government outlays to national income has
been rising, and for some it is now at or above the 50 percent zone.
For the United States the rise in government outlays from 1972 to
1977 was equal to 40 percent of the rise in GNP, and this figure
would range up to something over 70 percent for a country like the
N etherlands.19
These overall budgetary figures, impressive as they are, understate the explosive expansion in the extent to which government has
moved toward managing the details of economic life. A crude but
probably more accurate index for the United States is the increase
in the number of pages in the Federal Register required to print
proposed new regulations. Here has been a growth index-rising
during this decade at about a 25 percent per year rate, a rate that
doubles every three years.
The adverse effects of these developments are apparently already
beginning to show up. The evidence seems to suggest that the trend
rate of growth in productivity has dropped from its historical level of
2Yi percent per year to about I Yi percent. Seemingly small differences loom large over time. If during this century this lower rate had
prevailed, the average family today (and with today's prices) would
be trying to balance its budget with about half its current income.
The growing scope of government does produce a more arthritic
operation of the liberal economy. Smaller and newer firms have less
capability to survive the morass of reports and regulations. The
larger firms, whose establishmentarian position must be challenged
vigorously if there is to be progress, are thereby accorded the more
secure market position which, however comfortable, is not conducive
either to innovation or to "the processes of creative destruction."
19. See Warren Nutter, "Growth of Government in the West" (American
Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1978).
Can Capitalism Survive? 151
Bureaucracies inherently tend to play it safe, but safety and security
are not characteristics of a dynamic environment.
Moreover, government-implemented blueprints are inherently
simplistic. A rich variety and diversity cannot be managed or even
conceived by the few at the top. It will develop its own vested
interests and honest hostility about the new and unanticipated.
Moreover, government is never structured to force a careful and
simultaneous weighing of costs and benefits-as is more inherently
required of business managements. The FDA will be excoriated
before a congressional committee if people die because of an
approved drug, but they are not held responsible for people who die
or suffer because of delays in approving a needed drug. EPA
optimizes its situation by rules for the environment; the adverse
energy consequences?
its rulings are not its problem.
Finally, to repeat, overnment-managed economic systems tend
toward pervasive co ruption as prices get established for needed
permits and licenses. Thus a government-managed economy can
come to have most of the unhappy features of state-organized
systems even if the name on the stock certificate remains John Doe
and not Uncle Sam.
Indeed, even the political form of democracy can then come to be
of diminishing significance. The right to choose between two people
for each of a few elective positions may then begin to appear to the
citizen as increasingly irrelevant if de facto his life is enmeshed in
webs spun by a bureaucracy that is controlled neither by the public
nor their elected officials. And the great danger for the liberal
economy is not, to paraphrase General MacArthur, that it will
receive an overt death sentence from the citizenry but that its form
remains while its essence fades away.
VIII
This chapter may appear to the reader to be a bit somber, perhaps
even a bit funereal, at times. There are serious questions and
concerns about the survival of the liberal economic system, and
there is no point in shallow optimism. At the same time we must
assume that people are not helpless chips on the ocean. The
economic system we have in the future, as in the past, will reflect the
choices we make. It will not be the ineluctable result of a Hegelian
process. And there are two powerful sets of encouraging omens.
152 Paul W. McCracken
First, resistances against the expansion of government are now
beginning to stiffen. The Congress, whose members depend for their
survival on sensing vibrations back home, is now following a more
disciplined budget process. The process is wobbly and leaky, but it is
having some effect. Proposals to impose outright constitutional
limitations on public spending are gaining support in states. At the
outset the inchoate general public is no match in the government
arena for strongly organized and focused interest groups, but when
the jelling processes of public determination start, the results can be
irresistible.
Second, some refreshing crosscurrents are now blowing across the
intellectual scene. Colleges and universities have become beneficiaries of an expanding government with its largesse and power, and
this together with the government power that would force us to a
Better Society (presumably blueprinted by intellectuals in academe)
seemed to be a highly congenial arrangement. But we now find that
a government which tells us what to produce and drive and wear
also sees no reason not to tell us what to teach and whom to hire in
order to have education for a Better World. Educators also, in short,
are learning that a liberal society's concerns about the scope of
government as well as the form of government are not compartmentalized.
More fundamentally there is now again in the intellectual domain
competition of ideas. The idea market was once virtually dominated
by papers and articles and books calling for more government
programs, more government management of the details of economic
life, greater socialization of consumption and investment through
public budgets. This orientation has by no means disappeared, but
in intellectual circles it is also respectable now to produce articles
and papers and books on seeking the realization of objectives
through the liberal market-organized economic system.
With competition in the marketplace for ideas becoming increasingly vigorous, capitalism-i.e. the liberal system of organizing
economic activity through open markets-may yet survive. Indeed,
if it does not, neither will political democracy.