Unconventional Economic Wisdom
发展经济要选择左翼党派
Joseph E. Stiglitz
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纽约——左翼和右翼党派都说要支持经济发展。那么选民在选择左翼或右翼执政时，是否只是在选择不同的经济管理团队而已？
但愿这个问题是如此的简单！问题的部分原因是纯粹的幸运。低廉的能源价格、快速的创新步伐和以越来越低的售价提供高质量产品的中国推动了20世纪90年代美国经济的发展。所有这些因素共同作用才造就了低通胀和经济的快速发展。
功劳恐怕不应属于克林顿总统和时任美联储主席的阿兰·格林斯潘——但有一点可以肯定，那就是糟糕的政策可以把事情搞乱。恰恰相反，我们今天所面对的困境——能源和食品价格居高不下和金融系统摇摇欲坠——在很大程度上恐怕是糟糕的政策使然。
事实上，差异巨大的不同发展策略所产生的效果也千差万别。首要的不同在于如何看待经济的发展。发展经济并不是增加国内生产总值这么简单。经济发展必须能够持续：建立在环境恶化、举债消费或者稀缺自然资源滥用基础上的经济发展如果没有收益再投资，就不是可持续发展。
经济发展还必须惠及大众，至少让多数人利益均沾。涓滴经济学根本不起作用：在国内生产总值增长的同时多数民众的生活水平甚至可能还不如从前。近年来美国的经济发展就既不能持续也不能惠及公众。绝大多数美国人现在的生活水平还不如7年之前。
但我们不一定要以牺牲平等为代价才能够换取经济的发展。政府可以通过扩大波及面来改善经济发展的效果。一个国家最有价值的资源是它的民众。因此有必要确保每个人都能发挥自己最大的潜力，这就要让所有人都能平等地享受教育资源。
现代经济还需要冒险。如果能建立起好的安全网络，个人就更愿意承担风险。如果没有好的安全网络，国民就有可能在面对国外竞争时要求政府保护，而社会保障的效率与保护主义不可同日而语。
未能实现社会团结还会让我们付出其他代价，特别是消耗在财产保护和罪犯监禁上面的社会和私人资源。估计在几年时间内，美国安全行业的就业人数就会超过教育行业。把犯人在监狱里关押一年的费用可能超过在哈佛学习一年。美国人的人均产值在世界各国之中排名前列，因此把两百万美国人关押在监狱里的费用应视作对国内生产总值的削减，而这笔开支实际却被算成了对国内生产总值的贡献。
左翼和右翼势力的第二个重要差别与国家在经济发展中所起的推动作用有关。左翼认为政府在提供基础设施、教育、技术开发甚至是发挥企业家作用方面都起着至关重要的作用。政府奠定了互联网和现代生物技术革命的基础。在19世纪，接受美国政府赞助的大学所进行的研究为农业革命打下了基础，而后再由政府将这些先进技术推广到成百上千万的美国农户。小企业贷款不仅在新企业创业阶段发挥了关键作用，而且在缔造新行业方面所发挥的作用也不可或缺。
最终的差异似乎颇为怪异：左派势力现在理解市场，理解自己能够而且应当在市场中发挥的作用。而右派势力，特别是美国的右翼，却不懂这个道理。新一代的右派势力，以布什－切尼政府为例，实际上是老一代法团主义的老调重弹。
这些人并不是自由主义者。他们信奉由强大的国家掌握生杀予夺的行政大权，但却用这样的大权来捍卫既得利益，根本不在意市场原则能不能得到发展。这样的实例数不胜数，包括为大型企业化农场提供补助、为保护钢铁行业征收关税、最近还包括为贝尔斯登、房利美和房地美的巨额债务买单。但夸夸其谈和现实情况之间永远存在差距：保护主义在里根治下得到了快速发展，其中也包括对日本汽车实行所谓的自愿出口限制。
恰恰相反，新一代左翼势力试图发挥市场的作用。不受束缚的市场本身并不能很好地运转——这一结论在目前的金融灾难中再次得以凸显。市场的捍卫者有时也承认市场会出现失灵，甚至是灾难性的失灵状况，但他们声称“自我修复”功能是市场的特点。在大萧条期间，我们曾经听到过同样的说法：政府不需要采取任何行动，因为从长远来看市场能恢复到最佳的就业状态。但正如约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯的名言所说的那样，从长远来看我们恐怕已经完蛋。
市场在有意义的时限内无法自我修复。即使灾难的起因是银行家的过度贪婪或证券市场和评级机构对风险的错误判断，也没有一个国家的政府可以眼睁睁看着国家陷入危机或衰退而坐视不管。可如果经济住院的账单需要由政府来支付，他们必须采取行动让经济不那么容易住院。右翼势力解除管制的魔咒根本不对，我们现在正在为此付出代价。而且生产率损失的价值会相当可观，也许只在美国就将超过1，5000亿美元。
右翼经常把自己的学术源泉归结于亚当·斯密，但斯密在承认市场力量的同时，也承认市场的作用有限。即便在斯密生活的年代，企业已经发现它们可以通过合谋抬价更容易地攫取利润，而不必非得依靠更为高效的创新生产。制定强大的反托拉斯法律特别重要。
举办派对轻而易举。在短时间内，人们都感觉心满意足。可是相比之下，促进可持续发展却相当困难。今天，与右翼势力相比，左翼拥有一套完整的日程表，这张日程表不仅关注经济的发展，而且也关注社会的公正。对选民来讲，做出选择并不太难。
Joseph E. Stiglitz，哥伦比亚大学教授，2001年诺贝尔经济学奖得主。他与琳达·比尔梅斯共同撰写了《三万亿美元的战争：伊拉克冲突的真正代价》。
版权所有：Project Syndicate，2008。
www.project-syndicate.org
翻译：许彬彬
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petersalonius 03:39 06 Aug 10
Dr. Stiglitz writes about achieving sustainable "growth" -- while we are facing depletion of the geological energy subsidies (fossil and nuclear), and other looming resource scarcities. It is these TEMPORARY energy subsidies and abundant natural resources that facilitated the unsustainable exponential "growth' we have enjoyed since the beginning of the 19th century when we no longer were dependent solely on the energy we received from the Sun.
Rather than sustainable "growth", we now require sustainable CONTRACTION in order to achieve a long term ability of the human family to [again] function within the limits of solar energy and to glean its sustenance from global ecosystems without mining them into unproductive wastelands.
I invite you to read my treatise on the overshoot of carrying capacity that has been developing for 10,000 years as humans have mined and diminished the very resources upon which they are dependent for their sustenance. I wish I had known about “the quinacrine pellet method of nonsurgical permanent female contraception – QS” --- ----------------------- see: www.isafonline.org ----- that appears to offer a very efficacious method of fertility control by individuals who are convinced that this is the right thing to do --- when I wrote the article (see URL access below).
I have been interested in the relationship between agriculture and population growth since about 1969, and I started writing about the necessity to curb population growth BEFORE the new ‘green revolution’ crop varieties were released by Norman Borlaug and his compatriots. Borlaug himself opined that the new crop wheat and rice varieties ,being produced by CYMITT in Mexico and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines in the early 1970s, were only stop gap measures – and that the necessity to constantly increase food production would never end if global population growth was not halted.
I believe that we are now seeing the ramifications of a global 10,000 year old debt crisis (PONZI SCHEME) characterized by the creation of money that supposedly represented actual wealth = the ability to produce food and fibre for the needs of the Earth’s human population. This 10,000 year old ‘PONZI SCHEME’ has incorrectly assumed that environmental services such as soil fertility and other supposedly renewable natural resources were externalities with infinite capacity that need not be accounted for.
I have proposed that humanity “overstepped” the long-term sustainable productive capacity of the soils upon which it relies for its sustenance as soon as cultivation agriculture was adopted.
My thesis suggests the first and most important resource humans have used non renewably (long before fossil fuel depletion/peak oil) is the arable soil on the planet; soil mining by cultivation agriculture began ~ 10,000 years ago. This is the culmination of my ~ 40 year investigation into the relationship between humans and their supporting ecosystems. If my thesis is correct -- then the 'population bomb', that continues to make natural resource management problematic, exploded a long, long time ago, see:
‘Long term agricultural overshoot’
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6048
My 'guesstimate' for sustainable human numbers in the 100s of millions, if correct, suggests that the present global population has so far overshot the carrying capacity of its supporting ecosystems that most analyses of the relationship of excessive human numbers to SPECIFIC ASPECTS of environmental damage are simply indulgent academic exercises - AND - that the concept of further "growth" is an uninformed pipe dream.
There are more people on the planet (and have been for millennia) than it can sustainably support.
Many of us have concluded that even TWO CHILD FAMILIES -- that would only slowly stabilize the human population -- are not an adequate response to this problem; we require the VOLUNTARY adoption of NO or ONE CHILD PER FAMILY behavior to orchestrate the Population DECLINE that is necessary now.
Comments, constructive criticisms and suggestions are welcome
Peter Salonius
522 route 8 HWY
Durham Bridge
New Brunswick
E6C 1K5 Canada
petersalonius@hotmail.com