Joseph Stiglitz Only Government Can Save Capitalism

相信隻有政府才能拯救資本主義的經濟學家

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

作者：丹尼爾·W·德雷茲納 2019 年 5 月 10 日

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

《人員、權力和利潤, 不滿時代的進步資本主義》 作者：約瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨

在華盛頓共識的鼎盛時期，繞城公路的一項有趣的消遣就是溫和地嘲笑約瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨。 專家們很容易放棄他享有盛譽的獎項（諾貝爾經濟學獎）和職位（世界銀行首席經濟學家、比爾·克林頓經濟顧問委員會主席），並認為他關於“市場原教旨主義”的警告是過分誇張的。 2004 年，金融專欄作家塞巴斯蒂安·馬拉比 (Sebastian Mallaby) 將斯蒂格利茨描述為“就像一個男孩，在一棟精致的房子的地板上發現了一個洞，然後不斷地大喊大叫並指著它。” 十五年後，資本主義建造的房子顯得相當破舊。 也許，隻是也許，更多的人應該認真對待斯蒂格利茨。

這無疑正是現為哥倫比亞大學經濟學教授的斯蒂格利茨在他的最新著作《人民、權力和利潤》中所希望達到的目標。 他認為美國的資本主義體係已經崩潰，需要政府的幫助才能重新站起來。 《人、權力和利潤》建立在斯蒂格利茨早期作品的基礎上，並增加了一些相當大的野心。 他在序言中寫道：“這是一個重大變革的時代。 漸進主義——對我們的政治和經濟體係的微小調整——不足以完成手頭的任務。” 他在引言中補充道：“失敗的不僅僅是經濟，還有我們的政治。 我們的經濟分歧導致了政治分歧，而政治分歧又加劇了經濟分歧。”

斯蒂格利茨對美國經濟問題的診斷對於任何關注這些辯論的人來說都會有熟悉的感覺。 遊戲規則有利於富人而不是窮人。 這加劇了經濟不平等，並增加了各行業領先企業的市場力量集中度，從而減緩了廣泛的生產率增長。 這些公司和富有的個人正在將他們的財富轉化為政治權力，進一步修改規則以鞏固他們的最高地位。 他們主張減稅並放鬆對除知識產權之外的一切事物的管製。 任何依賴公共教育、工會或社會安全網等反補貼機構的人都會遭受損失。

“人、權力和利潤”超越了診斷和治療。 斯蒂格利茨計劃的核心是加強國家實力。 “認為政府是問題而非解決方案的觀點是完全錯誤的。 相反，我們社會的許多（如果不是大部分）問題，從過度汙染到金融不穩定和經濟不平等，都是由市場造成的。” 他提出了一係列改革，包括對基礎研究等公共產品的大量投資、對企業更嚴格的監管以及維護和保護投票權的措施。

《人民、權力和利潤》的一個殘酷諷刺是，在主張自由市場已經衰落的同時，斯蒂格利茨正在一個極其擁擠的市場中競爭。 類型為“美國怎麽出了問題？” 過於擁擠； 我們生活在一個作家告訴美國人我們不再生活在黃金時代的黃金時代。 鑒於關於這個主題的書籍太多，斯蒂格利茨的書是否脫穎而出？

他的書的相對優勢之一是，雖然斯蒂格利茨擁有無可挑剔的經濟資曆，但他也認識到他的職業的一些盲點。 他正確地觀察到，標準經濟學教科書大量談論競爭，但很少談論經濟實力。 他還擅長駁斥有關市場奇跡和政府失敗的陳詞濫調。 例如，他指出，社會保障管理局在支付退休福利方麵比私人養老金更有效率。

然而，如果斯蒂格利茨將注意力集中在政策袋中最尖銳的論點上，他可能會做得更好。 例如，他討論了對碳或金融交易征稅“可以同時提高經濟績效和增加收入”的想法。 這聽起來像是拉弗曲線的進步二重身，也就是說，這個概念將是良好的政策和良好的政治。 斯蒂格利茨應該把它賣掉； 相反，他在一頁裏輕鬆瀏覽了一遍。

他的其他一些想法似乎不太經過深思熟慮，或者更具政治毒性。 例如，在反壟斷方麵，他鼓勵先發製人的原則：“對合並的監管必須考慮到市場未來可能的形態。” 這需要相當大的遠見，因此斯蒂格利茨在 75 頁後承認了一個問題：“關於市場將向何處發展，往往沒有完美的信息，而世界卻與我們的預期不同。” 他未能解釋監管機構將如何處理這一難題。 斯蒂格利茨的另一個想法是建立一個可以使用個人國稅局的公共抵押貸款融資係統。 和社會保障數據——在當前低信任度的政治環境中聽起來令人不快。

事實上，我希望斯蒂格利茨認真對待他認真對待政治的承諾。 在某種程度上，“人民、權力和利潤”排除了普遍基本收入的想法，因為必要的增稅在政治上是不切實際的。 這是書中唯一一次斯蒂格利茨似乎在思考任何漸進的政策改革如何用經濟學的語言來說是“激勵相容的”。 沒有討論任何民意調查數據或其他指標來衡量公眾對他的想法的支持程度。

每一位 2020 年民主黨總統候選人的政策中心都應該明智地仔細研究“人民、權力和利潤”並挑選最好的想法。 其他讀者應該隨意更廣泛地瀏覽該類型。

丹尼爾·W·德雷茲納 (Daniel W. Drezner) 是弗萊徹法律與外交學院國際政治學教授。 他的最新著作是《創意產業：悲觀主義者、黨派人士和財閥如何改變創意市場》。

本文的一個版本於 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