Paul w. McCracken 資本主義能生存下去嗎

Paul w. McCracken 資本主義能生存下去嗎

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

資本主義能生存下去嗎？

保羅·麥克拉肯, 經濟學家，1969 年至 1971 年擔任理查德·尼克鬆總統時期的總統??經濟顧問委員會主席。他在尼克鬆政府成立之初就帶頭製定經濟政策。1976 年，他當選為美國統計協會會員。
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.

I
從曆史上看，樂觀主義一直是美國人對前景的態度。而且有充分的理由。這種樂觀主義具有強烈的意識形態成分。美國人一直堅信，我們自己的國家是建立在高尚的概念和思想的基礎上的，這些概念和思想注定會推動人類前進。其他國家是地理和曆史的偶然事件，由一些根本無關緊要的因素決定，例如難以穿越的河流或山脈，或者那天恰好吹向有利於國王海軍的方向的風。

我們自己的國家並非如此。我們的先輩“在這片大陸上建立了”一個新國家，致力於激勵世界並改變曆史進程的原則。也許 1976 年美國建國兩百周年的雄辯口號已經在我們的記憶中消退，讓我們再次懷著敬畏之心回憶起《獨立宣言》或《憲法》中闡述這個國家意義的文字。當然，我們的開國元勳們也有自己的缺點。

例如，托馬斯·傑斐遜可以寫下“人人生而平等，造物主賦予他們若幹不可剝奪的權利”，而同時卻沒有將這一概念擴展到自己的奴隸身上。然而，這些話並非毫無意義。事實上，他們和那個新國家啟動了強大的力量，大大擴展了人們的自由範圍，人們可以在其中以他們認為好的方式生活。然而，我們的傳統樂觀主義是基於更多實際問題，而不是高尚情操。簡單來說，美國經濟一直運轉良好。它有著令人驚歎的記錄，證明了它有能力提高物質生活水平，並將這一進步的成果傳播得越來越廣泛。如果商務部國民收入司在世紀之交就存在的話，據估計，該司將報告 1900 年的 GNP 為 190 億美元。到 1977 年，我們的 GNP 為 19000 億美元。現在，這百倍的增長確實令人印象深刻，除非人們驚恐地認為其中大部分都是由於價格上漲造成的。而美國的價格水平在本世紀一直呈明顯上升趨勢。就這一點而言，我們能夠衡量的能力遠比看似精確的指數所暗示的要有限，即 1900 年的美元到 1977 年已經失去了約 90% 的購買力。準確地說，自本世紀初以來，美國的價格水平已經上漲了約 9 倍。然而，在人口增長不到三倍的時期，我們的實際產出和實際收入仍然增長了 11 倍。

用更有意義的術語來說，美國經濟每一代都在使物質生活水平翻一番。快速地環顧世界或回顧曆史就足以提醒我們，自古以來，這種翻番並不是人類任何重要群體的命運。

II

在曆史上取得如此成就的這個經濟體係是什麽？它會生存下來嗎？哪些發展引發了人們對其生存的質疑？這些問題現在被提出來，而且人們的不安感越來越強烈。

雖然術語爭論從來都不是有趣的，但一開始就必須澄清一個棘手的問題。我們的經濟通常被稱為資本主義在行動，但這個詞有多種含義。有一個技術事實，即隨著每個人在工作中使用的資本越來越多，生產變得更加“資本主義”。從這個意義上講，所有經濟體，包括共產主義經濟體，都變得更加資本主義，從這個技術意義上講，資本主義肯定會生存下來。韋氏未刪節詞典第二版在其對資本主義的第一個定義中提到了這個技術含義。資本主義這個詞也有貶義的含義，韋氏在其第二個或道德含義中提到了這一點——即資本、權力和影響力掌握在少數人手中的狀態。第一個定義是正確的，但並不特別有趣。第二個定義被定義打敗了。隻有第三個定義，這個詞才開始具有組織經濟活動的過程或係統的概念，暗指依賴在競爭市場中運營的私營企業來生產商品和服務的經濟體。當然，我們必須清楚，我們正在研究的生存前景是什麽。我們在這裏探討的生存可能性的製度是第三種意義上的資本主義，但它可以更有意義地被稱為自由的、市場組織的經濟製度。事實上，它將

簡單地稱其為自由經濟並不為過，與國家組織的經濟體係形成對比，後者實際上按照其固有邏輯是不自由的，因為個人自由受到嚴重限製。另一方麵，自由經濟依靠消費者在開放和競爭的市場中自由表達的偏好來決定生產什麽，原則上也賦予人們自由決定在哪裏貢獻生產努力的自由。

為什麽這種自由經濟的生存存在不確定性？如果表現出執行和交付確保生存的能力，該係統肯定會生存下來。正如已經指出的那樣，它使這個國家每一代人的物質生活水平翻了一番。此外，該係統的固有或內部邏輯將使我們期待這種表現記錄。我們也許有必要探索一下期待這一結果的原因。它在曆史上之所以有效，原因之一是，這種自由開放的製度使社會能夠利用任何地方都不存在的全部知識和創造力。這似乎比《資本主義能生存嗎？》137 更為根本。在集中組織的自上而下的係統中，隻有那些處於頂層的人所掌握的有限知識和創造力才能得到實現。然而，曆史的教訓清楚地表明了創新思維的來源。新的和更好的想法往往不是來自頂層，甚至不是來自所謂的邏輯來源。汽車工業不是從貨車和馬車公司中產生的。鐵路沒有把旅行的公眾送上飛機。現代手持計算器奇跡不是由早期製造這些機械計算龐然大物的公司開發的。機械表行業也沒有開發和投放數字表。充滿活力和創新精神的經濟體係必須足夠自由和開放，以允許那些認為自己有新想法的人嚐試，即使這個想法似乎來自一個不太可能的來源。如果新想法是失敗的，就像大多數情況一樣，創新者可能會在冒險中失去一切，但相對於社會資源而言，這些篩選過程的社會成本可以忽略不計。簡而言之，我們在這裏也有一個有效的淘汰程序。雖然新想法、新創意和新產品的創始人滿懷信心地期望它們能拯救世界，而這些新創意、新創意和新產品實際上代表著一種進步（一種新產品，或者一種從根本上更便宜地製造舊產品的方法），但有些新創意是好的，還有一些新創意是如此根本，以至於可以徹底改變經濟。良好的經濟體係也必須組織起來，以便更好的新事物能夠占上風。係統必須構建為確保今天更好的新產品必須成為明天的標準，而今天的標準，也就是明天的過時產品，必須從經濟中消除。自由市場組織的經濟體係對這個問題有一個答案，即開放和競爭的市場。如果消費者能夠在這些開放和競爭的市場中自由表達他們對新產品的偏好，那麽即使麵對根深蒂固的現狀，新產品仍將占上風，因為現狀堅定而真誠地認為舊的既定方式和產品是最好的。蒸汽機車製造商確實確信柴油發動機永遠不會成為牽引火車的可行動力源，因此柴油機車是在傳統行業之外率先發明的。發明機械冰箱的不是舊冰公司。經濟進步——事實上，一般意義上的進步——是一個人們自由選擇的新事物取代舊事物的過程。這是一個持續的解體主義的動態過程。熊彼特在一章意味深長的標題中稱之為“創造性破壞的過程”。1 如果這一切都是自由運作的，那麽選擇和決策的過程必須是開放的。它們不能受統治者的控製。這是自由或市場組織的經濟體係相對於其主要競爭對手——管理經濟活動的國家組織體係的固有優勢之一。在自由經濟體係中，那些有新想法的人可以自由地嚐試它們（成功的人將獲得豐厚的獎勵），人們可以自由地采納它們——讓它們勝過舊的想法——如果他們更喜歡它們的話。另一方麵，國家組織的經濟是一個許可證、執照和來自高層的法令的體係——無論國家擁有生產資料，還是政府管理經濟生活的細節。不可避免的是，在官僚機構中，必須獲得執照或許可證才能開展新事物，而這些機構往往會反映並成為既定方式的囚徒做事的技巧。

而且它們會反映出通常的建製派對完全不同的新產品或程序的厭惡和懷疑。聯邦鍾表部（當然是機械的）不會讚成擬議的數字手表，因為地位、權力和工作會轉移到另一個部門。

人們幾乎可以想象，在一個由國家組織和管理的經濟體（盡管名義上是私營企業）中，政府相關官員與惠普或德州儀器的特使之間的對話，惠普或德州儀器的公司正試圖獲得所需的許可，以生產曾經令人震驚的電子計算器。

“您正在申請生產計算器的許可證？”GA12 問道。

“是的，先生。我公司的產品遠遠優於今天可以買到的產品。你看……”，公司特使熱情地開始說道。

“貴公司，”政府打斷道，“當然，在生產計算器方麵有經驗，否則您不會在這裏，盡管我們沒有向您頒發必要許可證的記錄。” 這位公司的英雄聽出了他那熟練的語氣，那種傲慢和指責的混合。

I. J. A. Schumpeter，《資本主義。社會主義與民主》（Harper & Row，1942 年），第七章，第 81-86 頁。

資本主義能生存嗎？139

“嗯，不能，”他回答道，在椅子上有點不安地動了動。 “不，我們根本沒有做過那件事。你看——”“好吧，我想你有一個機器樣品，雖然我當然明白，”政府的聲音中第一次出現了一絲善意，“你很難指望隨身攜帶這麽重的東西。”“哦，但我有。在這兒，”我們的英雄急切地回答道，同時把它從外套口袋裏拿出來。 “那！年輕人，”政府以他最忙碌和重要的人的方式剪輯出來，“在我的部門，我們總共擁有 2,519 年的計算器使用經驗。我們中的任何一個人都可以準確地告訴你，一台好的現代計算器需要多少軸、齒輪、輪子和其他零件。你拿著的那個小盒子——為什麽，它甚至不夠大，放不下馬達。聽我的勸告，作為一個在計算器上度過職業生涯的人，回家吧，不要再用惡作劇來打擾這裏的重要人物。下次我們可能不會那麽有耐心。”幸運的是，我們的經濟不需要如此官僚的程序，結果是這些可以放在外套口袋裏的小計算器確實比過去的龐然大物具有更強的計算能力，而且它們的價格隻是舊機器的一小部分——已經成為今天的標準。執照和許可證經濟不僅僅是無法跟上快速發展的新事物。

與通過非人性化市場中的出色表現獲得成功的係統相比，這種係統為腐敗提供了更大的空間。如果獲得成功的途徑是通過獲得許可證或執照，那麽授予這種許可就具有價值，而另一方麵有人願意付出代價也就不足為奇了。在所有涉及所謂不當付款的各種各樣的公司和案例中，都有一個普遍的共同點。這些付款的接受者通常是政府官員，他們的點頭是賣方獲得成功的途徑。

許多國家都可以看到圍繞政府管理經濟生活細節而產生的腐敗現象。 “蘇聯經濟，”該國一位前官員評論道，“將繼續被龐大的商品和服務黑市所腐蝕——這是一個完全平行的非官方、非法經濟，有自己的法律和規範，還有一批蘇聯地下百萬富翁。”2“即使私下說的話有十分之一屬實，這個國家也正處於道德危機的陣痛之中……當邪惡之花四麵開花，當寄生蟲、中間人和打手猖獗，而誠實的工人越來越難以維持生計時，想象一個公正的社會能夠成長是愚蠢的。”3 1974 年，《印度時報》的編輯就印度政府對經濟生活進行詳細管理的結果發表了評論。政府通過許可證和許可對經濟生活細節的管理在美國也沒有產生明顯不同的結果。 “幾乎每座摩天大樓的建成，世界上最著名的天際線的改變，幾乎每座褐砂石建築的翻新或餐廳的擴建，都會有非法賄賂，每筆賄賂金額從 5 美元到 10,000 美元不等。”•

這些腐敗行為普遍與政府管理細節的經濟有關，這是該過程的固有性質所決定的。這些腐敗行為的發生率

在通過開放和激烈競爭的市場組織起來的經濟體和部門中，這種趨勢明顯減弱，這也是可以預料的，因為對於它們來說，由非個人的市場力量評估的績效決定了成功。
最後，像我們這樣的自由市場組織的經濟體係的進步記錄顯示出另一個特點，這個特點既引人注目，又經常被忽視甚至不相信。我們的市場組織的經濟體係所產生的這種進步的主要受益者是廣大人民，而不是社會貴族——是群眾，而不是階級。我們直觀地看到了這一點。如果經濟史上的偉大人物，如西爾斯和羅巴克先生、亨利·福特、塞巴斯蒂安·S·克雷斯基或傑西·彭尼，都大張旗鼓地把他們的努力瞄準“更好的人”，即馬車貿易，他們就會淡出曆史的遺忘，而這將是這種愚蠢行為不可避免的報應。因為

他們很聰明，所以他們把精力集中在普通民眾身上，那裏有巨大的市場。簡而言之，我們製度的關鍵在於我們依靠企業的智慧，而不是他們的

2. Boris Rabbot，《致勃列日涅夫的一封信》，紐約時報雜誌，1977 年 11 月 6 日，第 60 頁。

3. 紐約時報，1974 年 2 月 14 日，第 3 頁。

4. David K. Shipler，紐約時報，1972 年 6 月 26 日，第 1 頁。

資本主義能生存嗎？ 141

仁慈，以確保對普通民眾及其需求給予特別的關懷。例如，在密歇根州，福特和雪佛蘭分部對他們的公司來說比林肯水星和凱迪拉克分部重要得多。
不管經濟體係的說教如何，經驗證據非常清楚，在提高物質生活水平和廣泛傳播這一進步成果方麵，市場組織的經濟體係表現出色。我們直觀地從某些國家組合中看到了這一點。韓國經濟的成功故事是韓國，而不是朝鮮。台灣的人均收入現在是中國大陸的幾倍。德國經濟奇跡發生在德意誌聯邦共和國，而不是東德。事實上，柏林牆是國家組織的經濟和政治體係失敗的紀念碑。其中一些代表經濟成功故事的國家不是政治民主國家，但擁有國家組織的經濟體係的國家都有統一的威權政府。四、然而，通過開放和競爭的市場組織經濟活動的自由主義體係正日益處於守勢。很難從本世紀甚至過去十年左右的曆史大趨勢中得出任何其他結論。當然，也有一些風向相反。印度推翻了甘地獨裁政府，其經濟哲學高度國家化，這可能推動了這個大國朝著更有利的方向發展，但也可能是一時之舉，對曆史的基本方向影響不大。當人們被問及不同職業的聲望時，商人和銀行家的排名並不高。他們最大的安慰是，他們通常比政客的得分略高。5
有幾陣相反的陣風，但普遍的風向似乎明顯是朝著支持對製度生存的悲觀結論的方向吹的。為什麽經驗證據似乎在另一邊，但結果卻如此？
5. 例如，參見《公眾輿論》，1978 年 3 月至 4 月，第 36 頁。
142 Paul W. McCracken
最明顯（也許最不重要）的原因是，在某些人看來，該係統的記錄可能就是這樣。對某些人來說，大蕭條是曆史上的一個重要紀念碑，表明如果沒有受到非常詳細的政府管理，自由開放的競爭經濟將如何運作。這是工業世界普遍存在的經濟製度，20 世紀 30 年代的工業國家陷入了嚴重的經濟困境。這是不可否認的。而且，在過去十年左右的大部分時間裏，通貨膨脹和失業問題同時困擾著自由市場經濟。這些發展並沒有改善自由經濟體係的聲譽，這似乎足夠清楚，甚至可以理解。當然，它們並不是對係統的控訴，因為這些問題的根源是政府對經濟政策的管理不善，而不是經濟係統本身固有的特征。例如，正是貨幣政策導致了銀行係統的崩潰，到 1933 年，貨幣供應量縮減到比維持 20 世紀 20 年代的合理充分就業和價格穩定所需的水平低約 40% 的水平。經濟政策

這些國家的經濟停滯，中斷了 1969 年至 1971 年物價水平恢複到更穩定水平的運動，並牢牢固定了公眾對高通脹的預期。這給我們帶來了通貨膨脹和失業。雖然這些發展“展示了係統運作的方式”的說法經不起仔細分析，但不可否認的是，這些發展已經導致公眾對經濟體係的支持減少。
v
市場組織經濟體係消亡的一個更全麵、更根本的案例取決於所謂的黑格爾必然過程學說。這裏會想到兩個名字。首先，馬克思。馬克思主義者和“我們其他人”都很難仔細研究馬克思為係統消亡提出的理論案例。對於馬克思主義者來說，這將是將聖經視為學術著作。對於其他人來說，仔細研究馬克思的理論似乎表明，馬克思對本質上是梅菲斯托菲利斯的、應該立即譴責的東西給予了尊重和冷靜的處理。
資本主義能生存嗎？143
然而，馬克思的結論確實有經濟理論的基礎。他的書不僅僅是另一本啟示錄。它基於李嘉圖的勞動價值論——產品的價值與生產它們所需的勞動量成正比。勞動的價值（工資）也是生產它所需的勞動。因此，剩餘價值將不斷增長，即產出價值與工資（生產勞動所需的勞動價值）之間的差距。由於這種勞動價值論意味著工資將穩定在生產所需勞動力供應所需的生存水平，因此工資將落後於為經濟總產出提供市場所需的購買力。因此，資本主義經濟將經曆反複出現的供大於求和蕭條，在擴張階段，帝國主義不斷加大壓力，要求為剩餘產品尋找國外市場。因此，資本主義經濟的商業周期與戰爭之間也建立了一種關係。6 因此，根據馬克思的觀點，資本主義進程的固有性質將導致其自身崩潰，從而迎來共產主義。對馬克思著作的徹底分析將遠遠超出本章的範圍，但重要的是，在馬克思華麗的詞藻和經文中，可以找到理論分析，這種分析得出的結論是，自由主義、市場組織的經濟體係注定會消失，就像它之前的體係注定要讓位於資產階級資本主義一樣。他的理論和神學著作對曆史進程產生了深遠的影響，這一點顯而易見，即使他關於剩餘價值的基本理論預測了所謂的工人階級將日益貧困化（用熊彼特造的詞來說），這與曆史事實截然相反。資本主義或市場組織的經濟體係根據其固有邏輯，傾向於產生更平等的實際收入分配，經驗證據表明，事實上它就是這樣運作的。熊彼特最謹慎地發展了黑格爾進程的展開將意味著資本主義的消亡的理論——這在他的《資本主義、社會主義和民主》（第一本）中有所體現。他不是社會主義者。事實上，他偶爾會被批評為過於保守（或許部分原因是他偶爾會輕蔑地談論當時哈佛大學經濟係同事們的“凱恩斯主義苗圃”）。7 正如他自己所觀察到的：“如果醫生預測他的病人會馬上死去，這並不意味著他希望這樣。”8 資本主義也不會因為失敗而消亡。他指出，如果實際收入在 1928 年（大蕭條開始前的最後一年）後的半個世紀內繼續以曆史速度增長，“這將消除按照目前的標準可以稱為貧困的一切，即使在人口的最底層，病理情況除外。” 9 事實上，1978 年美國的實際人均收入將與他所預測的水平相差 2% 或 3%——這一水平將“按照目前的標準”消除貧困。

資本主義不會生存，不是因為它失敗了，而是因為它成功了，而且它的成功

消費將啟動導致其滅亡的力量。對於熊彼特來說，資本主義戲劇的核心驅動過程是創新——任何“以不同的方式做事”。它可能是一種新產品、一種新的生產方法、一種新的營銷方式。創新不是發明。隻有當某樣東西開始具有經濟現實時，它才成為創新。蒸汽機的發明幾乎沒有經濟意義，直到有人把它們結合起來，創造了鐵路行業。構成創新的不是內燃機的發明，而是汽車的創造。他們沒有發明零售業，但 J. C. Penney 和 Sebastian S. Kresge 以其全新的營銷方式，是創新者，就像汽車行業的亨利·福特或阿爾弗雷德·P·斯隆一樣。

創新者或企業家是原動力。他們是將全新和不同的東西帶入經濟的人。

風險很大，但成功的回報也很大。此外，在資本主義的鼎盛時期，企業家獲得了與社會主要推動者相稱的讚譽和聲望。 Cap7. 我記得他曾說過，他可以在兩周內學會“凱恩斯主義托兒所”一年課程中包含的所有經濟學知識。
8. J. A. Schumpeter，上文，第 61 頁。
9. 同上，第 66 頁。
資本主義能生存嗎？ 145
當時，資本主義，即市場組織的經濟體係，也有讓新的和更好的東西在整個經濟中傳播的答案——即開放和競爭的市場，消費者可以自由選擇。因此，新的和更好的東西可以取代和消滅舊的。
然而，熊彼特在這個過程中看到了什麽，會讓它走向自己的死亡？隻有將經濟視為隨時間推移而展開的動態過程，而不是靜態快照，才能理解經濟。

資本主義的成功導致了現代大公司的出現。這些大公司反過來又擁有內部資源來進行研究和產品開發，而這些研究和開發以前是個人企業家的職能。因此，非常規工作已變得常規化。“由於資本主義企業憑借其成就，傾向於使進步自動化，我們得出結論，它傾向於使自己變得多餘——在自身成功的壓力下分崩離析。”10 因此，資本主義的消亡是因為它成功了，而不是因為它失敗了。

隨著創業功能的自動化，企業家作為個人的社會角色也將變得不那麽重要，而體現資本主義製度及其成功的本質的功能也變得過時了。
此外，資本主義要興起，就必須打破對舊製度的忠誠，但“資本主義不僅打破了阻礙其進步的障礙，也打破了防止其崩潰的飛拱。”11 因此，對資本主義製度及其製度日益增長的敵意並不是外部莫名其妙地降臨到它身上的。這是可以從黑格爾進程的內在邏輯中預料到的。

熊彼特對資本主義本質的“願景”是深刻的，正是這種“願景”使得資本主義在推動經濟變革和進步方麵如此成功。有了這種願景，我們可以開始更好地理解自由經濟運動的動態——以及為什麽盡管有相反的言論，但自由的、市場組織的經濟體係比國家組織的經濟體更有能力實現動態進步和提高人們的生活水平。然而，熊彼特的分析存在問題。他本人強調，經濟不應以靜態或靜止圖像的形式來看待，而應隨著時間的流逝而展開，他腦海中對大型公司及其研究工作的靜止圖像使他高估了現有公司中創新的自動化程度。自他的書首次出版以來的幾十年中，一些重大創新反映了企業家和創新的核心作用，正如他為資本主義鼎盛時期所概述的那樣。施樂、寶麗來、惠普、德州儀器——這些都是自《資本主義、社會主義與民主》出版以來的“新秀”。這些公司主要不是由成熟的大型公司催生的，而是由高度個性化的企業家精神催生的。證據尚未表明，試圖將既定機構內的進步過程內化或官僚化的社會很容易在促進經濟發展方麵取得巨大成功。
VI
如果要通過客觀比較在提升和豐富物質生活水平方麵所表現出的表現來決定這個問題，

自由的、市場組織的經濟體係對公民的忠誠有著明確的要求。無論是曆史上實際運作的不完善，還是某種黑格爾的不可避免的過程學說，似乎都不足以解釋這個體係是不安、不確定和逐漸消退的忠誠的繼承者。顯然，我們必須進一步探究。如果我們對一些看似深奧的哲學問題進行短暫的探索，我們就會對這一現象有所了解。追溯到它的基本原理，我們在這裏看到的反映了在美國舞台上所謂的大陸自由主義對有時被稱為古典自由主義的統治地位。這裏所說的自由經濟將其思想血統追溯到後者。與這一哲學傳統有關的名字是休謨、洛克、伯克和亞當·斯密。 12 根據後一種哲學，在權力有限的政府框架內，人們可以自由地運用他們的知識和創造力，並通過開放和競爭的市場自由表達他們的偏好。12. 最清晰的闡述之一可以在 Walter Lipmann 的《美好社會》（Grosset and Dunlap，1943 年）中找到。

資本主義能生存嗎？147

確保最好的東西會占上風。因此，人們通常會成為知識和創造力的集合的受益者，而這種知識和創造力在任何地方都不會全部存在。而且會有一個過程來確保新的和更好的東西會占上風。

然而，對於通往美好社會的正確道路，還有另一種看法。在這裏，人們會想到孔多塞、伏爾泰和盧梭這樣的名字。因此，它並不比所謂的自由主義更新，自由主義將其思想血統追溯到闡述古典自由主義的作家。事實上，那些呼籲政府對經濟進行更詳細管理的人的守護神很可能是科爾伯特，他是亞當·斯密之前一個世紀的法國財政部長。雖然他因重商主義倡導淨出口盈餘而廣為人知，但他真正應該以試圖實施最詳細的經濟監管而聞名——一如既往，意圖良好，結果卻很糟糕。13
這種替代或大陸自由主義認為美好社會的正確藍圖是純粹理性的產物或創造。美好將由智力、純粹理性設計和繪製。然後，政府將實施藍圖。它也相信政治民主，但不一定是範圍和權力有限的政府（如替代哲學中的那樣）。顯然，美國的社會和經濟政策在過去幾十年中越來越多地反映了所謂的大陸哲學，而且很明顯，這兩種哲學具有一些重要而不同的含義。這裏所說的古典傳統中的自由主義並不聲稱知道最終結果的正確藍圖是什麽，但它確實知道實現最終結果的過程。在一個範圍和權力有限的政府提供的框架內，通過人們普遍發揮創造力和知識，將會出現一種豐富性和多樣性，這是任何個人或團體都無法想象和設計的。古典自由主義的重點是手段，而不是目的，以及對政府範圍的適當限製，以使創造性和動態過程發揮作用。對於大陸替代方案，由於純粹理性使我們能夠知道結果，因此重點在於足夠的權力（特別是政府權力）來實施那些被賦予這種責任的人所構想的藍圖。並且，在政府權力的支持下，對不符合藍圖的事物將持懷疑態度。因此，隨著流行的當代美國哲學更多地轉向“大陸”的多樣性——盡管重申一下，它實際上比古典自由主義更古老——知識分子和政府之間結成了一個非常強大的聯盟。知識分子會認為自己對善的觀念優於大眾的觀念。因此，他們天生就對人們的創造力和偏好自由發揮所產生的模式持懷疑態度。此外，知識分子可以理解地認為，如果純粹理性是美好社會的藍圖，那麽知識分子（大概是社會中有能力的人）將對結果產生不成比例的影響。

政府範圍的擴大實際上也是有利的——至少，隻要我們實際上沒有轉變為由獨裁政府管理的國家組織經濟。這是真的，因為政府成為知識分子的主要勞動力市場，

大學產品（學生）的定價。

美好社會藍圖的一個主要特點是，人們越來越不願意接受“機會均等”的概念，以及其必然結果，即成功之路是通過在開放和競爭的市場中表現。這種新教倫理方法對經濟（以及生活的其他方麵）的失寵可能在一定程度上反映了宗教的萎縮，宗教剝奪了我們世俗哲學的道德和精神基礎。它的道德原理已經崩潰。歐文·克裏斯托！指出，“社會批評家一直在警告我們，資產階級社會依靠傳統宗教和傳統道德哲學積累的道德資本生活，一旦這些資本耗盡，資產階級社會就會發現其合法性更加值得懷疑。”1<

也許基本的變化是從機會均等轉變為最終結果平等的目標。克裏斯托弗·詹克斯、詹姆斯·科爾曼和約翰·羅爾斯等人的名字會浮現在腦海中。15
最近，亞瑟·奧肯在他的戈德金講座上提出了
14. 歐文·克裏斯托！，“資本主義、社會主義和虛無主義”，《公共利益》，1973 年春季，第 22 頁。
15. 克裏斯托弗·詹克斯，《不平等：對美國家庭和學校影響的重新評估》（Basic Books，1972 年）；詹姆斯·科爾曼，“平等的學校或平等的學生”，《公共利益》，1966 年夏季；約翰·羅爾斯，《正義論》（哈佛大學出版社，1971 年）。
資本主義能生存嗎？ 149

社會政策平等主義傾向的有力論據。16

在一定程度上，這種轉變反映了這樣一種懷疑：精英統治與世襲特權製度之間的區別並不像人們想象的那樣明顯。成功人士往往會將更好的家庭生活、更重視教育、更多的高等教育經費以及更高的智商等優勢傳給他們的後代。而現在有大量證據表明，學校教育似乎對縮小兒童之間的成就差距幾乎沒有什麽作用。對某種尚未完全定義的平等、平等接受教育機會的巨大希望，似乎並沒有像人們滿懷信心地預期的那樣，在結果方麵有所保證。這反過來又導致一些人越來越相信，物質生活收入的差異可能並不像新教倫理向我們保證的那樣，反映出不同程度的勤奮、努力和美德的回報。它們更接近於代表運氣的隨機因素。正是運氣而不是優越的品德，讓一些孩子生活在有利於成就的家庭，而讓其他孩子處於母親甚至無法確定父親身份的境地。
隨著宗教的衰落，以及經驗證據表明，生活中不同的物質回報與獲得機會的程度並沒有那麽緊密的聯係，我們經濟體係的一些基本哲學基礎正在動搖。
引用丹尼爾·貝爾的話：“在人類意識的本質中，道德公平的體係是任何社會秩序的必要基礎；為了合法性的存在，權力必須得到正當化。最終，正是道德觀念——對什麽是可取的觀念——通過人類的願望塑造了曆史。” 17
隨著基本自由的經濟秩序的基本原則處於守勢，並失去了道德和宗教支撐，新的目標和宗旨的大門已經打開，這些目標和宗旨將獲得擁護，並且隻能通過政府權力來實現。18 機會平等即使不是不可避免的，至少也是極有可能的。

結果平等理論的自然趨勢是國家對我們生活的控製大大擴大。

16. Arthur Okun，《平等與效率》（布魯金斯學會，1975 年）。

17. Daniel Bell，《論精英統治與平等》，《公共利益》，1972 年秋季，第 47-48 頁。

18. 參見 Robert H. Bork 的精彩論文《民主政府能否生存？》，1976 年 4 月 24 日提交給美國哲學學會（油印版）。

150 Paul W. McCracken
結果平等並不容易定義（事實上，可能根本無法定義）。它不可能“自然而然”地發生。因此，這一目標的最終結果必然是，大量官僚機構試圖定義和實施結果平等這一難以捉摸的概念（並在此過程中互相踩腳）。
VII
正是這一點引發了一些關於自由主義製度在現代世界中生存的最緊迫的問題。在大多數工業國家，政府支出與國民收入之比一直在上升，對於一些國家來說，這一比例現在已達到或超過 50%。
對於美國來說，1972 年至 1977 年政府支出的增長相當於 GNP 增長的 40%，而對於像荷蘭這樣的國家，這一數字將達到 70% 以上。

這些總體預算數字雖然令人印象深刻，但卻低估了政府在管理經濟生活細節方麵的爆炸性擴張。對美國來說，一個粗略但可能更準確的指標是《聯邦公報》上印刷擬議新法規所需的頁數增加。這是一個增長指數——本十年間，每年增長約 25%，每三年翻一番。
這些發展的不利影響顯然已經開始顯現。證據似乎表明，生產率的趨勢增長率已從曆史水平每年 21% 下降到約 11%。隨著時間的推移，看似微小的差異變得巨大。如果在本世紀，這種較低的增長率一直存在，那麽今天的普通家庭（以今天的價格計算）將試圖用大約一半的當前收入來平衡預算。
政府範圍的擴大確實導致自由經濟的運作更加僵硬。規模較小和較新的公司在報告和法規的泥潭中生存的能力較弱。如果要取得進步，就必須大力挑戰大公司的建製主義立場，因此，大公司獲得了更安全的市場地位，但這種地位無論多麽舒適，都不利於創新或“創造性破壞過程”。
19. 參見沃倫·納特 (Warren Nutter) 的《西方政府的增長》(美國企業公共政策研究所，1978 年)。
資本主義能生存嗎？151
官僚機構天生傾向於謹慎行事，但安全和保障並不是動態環境的特征。
此外，政府實施的藍圖本質上過於簡單。豐富的多樣性和多樣性是少數高層人士無法管理甚至構想的。它將發展自己的既得利益和對新事物和意料之外事物的真誠敵意。
此外，政府的結構從來不會強製人們仔細、同時權衡成本和收益——而這在企業管理中更具有內在要求。如果人們因為一種獲批的藥物而死亡，FDA 將在國會委員會麵前受到嚴厲批評，但他們不會為那些因為延遲批準一種所需藥物而死亡或遭受痛苦的人負責。EPA 通過製定環境規則來優化其狀況；不利的能源後果——其裁決不是它的問題。
最後，重申一下，隨著所需許可證和執照價格的確定，政府管理的經濟體係傾向於普遍的腐敗。因此，即使股票證書上的名字仍然是 John Doe 而不是山姆大叔，政府管理的經濟也會具有國家組織體係的大多數不愉快的特征。
事實上，即使是民主的政治形式也會變得不那麽重要。如果公民的生活實際上被一個既不受公眾控製也不受民選官員控製的官僚機構編織的網絡所籠罩，那麽公民在幾個選舉職位中分別選擇兩個人的權利可能會開始顯得越來越無關緊要。而自由經濟麵臨的最大危險，用麥克阿瑟將軍的話來說，不是它會被公民公開判處死刑，而是它的形式仍然存在而本質卻消失了。

VIII

讀者可能會覺得這一章有點陰鬱，有時甚至有點喪葬。自由經濟體係的生存存在著嚴重的問題和擔憂，膚淺的樂觀是沒有意義的。同時，我們必須假設人們並不是海洋中無助的籌碼。我們未來的經濟體係，就像過去一樣，將反映我們所做的選擇。它不會是黑格爾進程的必然結果。還有兩組強有力的令人鼓舞的預兆。
152 Paul W. McCracken
首先，反對政府擴張的阻力現在開始增強。國會議員的生存依賴於感知國內的動向，而國會現在正遵循更嚴格的預算程序。這一程序不穩定且漏洞百出，但正在產生一些效果。對公共支出施加直接憲法限製的提議正在各州獲得支持。一開始，在政府領域，初出茅廬的普通民眾無法與組織嚴密、目標明確的利益集團抗衡，但一旦公眾決定的凝聚過程開始，結果將是不可抗拒的。
其次，一些令人耳目一新的逆流正在知識界吹拂。大學和學院已成為不斷擴張的政府及其慷慨和權力的受益者，而

這與迫使我們走向

更美好社會（大概是由學術界的知識分子製定的藍圖）的政府權力一起，似乎是一種非常友好的安排。但我們現在發現，

一個告訴我們生產什麽、開什麽車、穿什麽的政府，也看到了

沒有理由不告訴我們要教什麽、要雇誰，以便為一個更美好的世界提供教育。簡而言之，教育工作者也正在認識到，自由社會對政府範圍和政府形式的關注並不是孤立的。

更根本的是，現在在知識領域又出現了思想的競爭。思想市場一度幾乎被論文、文章和書籍所主導，這些論文、文章和書籍呼籲更多的政府計劃、更多的政府對經濟生活細節的管理、通過公共預算實現消費和投資的社會化。這種傾向並沒有消失，但現在在知識界，發表關於通過自由市場組織的經濟體係實現目標的文章、文章和書籍也是值得尊敬的。

隨著思想市場上的競爭日益激烈，資本主義——即通過開放市場組織經濟活動的自由主義體係——可能仍會生存下來。事實上，如果它不複存在，政治民主也將不複存在。

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.