资本主义的合法性危机
英国《金融时报》 约翰?普伦德 报道
2012年01月19日 07:13 AM
 

银行家贪婪、高管薪酬过高、增长乏力、失业率居高不下，这些只是最近促使抗议者走上街头，并导致发达世界公众对资本主义变得普遍不满的少数几件事。人们普遍认为，所有形式的资本主义制度均未能兑现预期。

主要英语国家中的企业引发了各种疑虑。在接受Edelman 2011年度信任度调查(Trust Barometer)的美英民众中，不到一半的人相信企业在正确行事。调查结论是，美英在这方面仅略强于俄罗斯。因此有人称，这是一场合法性和企业“经营牌照”遭到侵蚀的危机。

民众的接受（企业成功的基本要素）之所以在英语国家消退，原因是显而易见的。问题的核心是不平等现象日益加剧。总部位于巴黎的发达国家俱乐部——经合组织(OECD)在最近的一篇研究报告中宣称，美国最富有人群“获得了过去30年收入增长的大部分”。英国基本上也是如此。在这两个国家，大部分好处被金融专业人员和企业高管获得。

斯图尔特?兰斯利(Stewart Lansley)最近发表了一本论述不平等的著作*。正如他所言，现代经济似乎由两个轨道组成：超级富人的快轨和其他所有人的慢轨。在2007年之前，慢轨上的那些人利用住房抵押借到更多的钱，因而生活水平不断提高，尽管其实际收入停滞不前。然而，自危机爆发以来，美英房屋业主的实际生活水平面临漫长而又深度的挤压，同时艰难应对空前水平的债务。与此同时，兰斯利称，金融开始扮演新的角色，成为“全球超级富裕精英的现金奶牛”。

在欧洲大陆，不平等加剧的问题没有那么严重，而合法性问题更多的是与欧元区内部失衡的应对方式有关。欧洲北部国家对货币联盟感到不满，因为它允许欧洲南部国家从事被其视为财政挥霍的行为。同时欧洲南部国家和爱尔兰被要求实施极端的紧缩计划，这加剧了它们的主权债务问题。

在以德国为首的政策精英们小步走向把“加大欧洲一体化”作为弥补欧元区内部裂痕的出路之际，远非清楚的是，这是否是欧洲民众想要的。这个庞大的货币实验从一开始就缺乏民主合法性。大西洋两岸目前面临的风险是，渴望机会平等的合理抱负正遭到削弱，同时政治不稳定的威胁日益加剧。对开放贸易和自由市场的支持也受到负面影响。

苦难和金钱动机

对资本主义的不满并非首次出现。实际上，它令人厌烦地反复出现。在工业革命早期，人均收入增长缓慢，工人阶级的苦难与富有制造商的奢华生活形成鲜明对比，这招致了猛烈抨击，查尔斯?狄更斯(Charles Dickens)在《艰难时世》(Hard Times)中就对此大加鞭挞。即使在生活水平普遍提高的时期，大卫?李嘉图(David Ricardo)和卡尔?马克思(Karl Marx)仍然担心，亚当?斯密(Adam Smith)鼓吹的自由市场，能否产生政治上可容忍的收入分配格局。

到19世纪末期，辩论更多地集中在经济高速增长时期美国强盗贵族的不光彩行为所引发的道德问题。财富创造中的金钱动机核心似乎在降低资本主义的合法性——除非富人与社会其他阶层之间存在隐含的社会契约，促使富人减少炫耀并从事慈善事业。

随后，在上世纪不稳定的20年代和“大萧条”的30年代，资本主义的功效和道德基础再次引发问号。F?斯科特?菲茨杰拉德(F. Scott Fitzgerald)在《了不起的盖茨比》(The Great Gatsby)一书中记载爵士乐时代资本主义的道德空虚，与此同时，为混合型经济和更加人性化的资本主义提供理论基础的约翰?梅纳德?凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)，对其所称的“个人主义者的资本主义”和金钱动机提出尖锐批评。苏联首次出现的似乎可成功替代资本主义的模式，以及在德国和意大利发展起来的社团主义方式等竞争性模式，加剧了此类质疑。

那么，如今爆发的不满有什么不同之处？或许最重要的不同之处在于，它并非绝望的产物。曼哈顿祖科蒂公园(Zuccotti Park)和伦敦圣保罗大教堂(St Paul's Cathedral)台阶上的抗议者不需要施粥场，他们自愿住进帐篷，而不像上世纪30年代的许多美国人那样被迫睡在纸板箱聚居地（帐篷城）。

如果领取免费食物的人群没有增长，那是因为在所有发达世界经济体中，资本主义或多或少地因各种形式的社会民主和银行纾困而变得人性化。美国失业率远未达到1933年普遍出现的25%的水平。尽管目前年轻人的失业率高企（尤其是在欧洲南部国家），但与大萧条时期相比，现在有更多针对失业者的安全网。如果说当今的抗议者没有提出任何条理清晰的计划，那么似乎显而易见的是，根本的不满源自有关不公平的观感，而不是真的生活在水深火热之中。

这种不满大多与银行有关。与银行业只从事吸储放贷业务的上世纪30年代不同，现代的银行家从事自己有时也不甚了了的复杂交易。不仅普通人无法理解这些交易的社会效用，甚至英国金融服务局(FSA)主席特纳勋爵(Lord Turner)之类的人也无法理解。特纳勋爵曾出名地宣称，银行业许多部分的规模已经“扩张到超出社会合理的程度”。许多银行表现出漠视客户，而受信义务在监管放松和股东价值革命的浪潮中成为牺牲品。人们普遍相信，银行家变成一个受保护的阶层，无论业绩如何，都有奖金可拿，他们过度冒险，同时依赖纳税人共担损失。与此同时，公众意识到，在更普遍的层面上，高管薪酬很少与业绩挂钩，甚至在盈利下降之际往往照样加薪。

人力资本或“人手”

此类不满并非首次出现。它有些像一战后人们对奸商的痛恨，凯恩斯当时是这样评述的：“企业家蜕变成为奸商，对资本主义制度是一个沉重的打击，因为它打破了让不平等报酬长期存在的心理平衡……企业家的收益只有在与他的活动对社会大致上且在某种意义上做出的贡献有所联系时，才能得到容忍 。”**从这方面考虑，没有人应该对资本主义合法性目前遭受质疑感到意外。称其为“赢家通吃”的资本主义形式是不正确的，因为享有特权的失败者似乎也在享受好处。

不容置疑的新颖之处在于，如今美国企业在裁员方面力度极大，原因是高管薪酬和激励计划与短期业绩目标更紧密挂钩。实际上，美国工人不再被视为人力资本，而只是一项成本，或者是19世纪所称的“人手”。然而，这种对狭隘财务意义上的股东价值的追逐，可能糟蹋最终养老金受益人的价值——原因是大刀阔斧裁员导致扰乱，而形势好转时雇佣和再培训员工需要耗费成本和时间。

这突显出银行业和董事会薪酬问题核心的“代理问题”。管理层（代表高度分散的股权受益人的代理人）问责制度存在根本上的缺陷。尽管公众可能没有意识到责任链薄弱的细节，或者越来越多的投资者（比如高频交易员或对冲基金）无意扮演监督角色，但公众看到了这一切的结果，这个结果正在加剧整个不平等问题。

那么我们应该做些什么？似乎没有什么吸引人的替代模式。尽管西方因亚洲崛起而受挫，但很少有人希望采用共产党领导的中国的混合模式：公有制、竞争激烈的私人市场、大规模的腐败以及比美国还要严重的不平等。至于新加坡的比较廉洁的威权模式，尽管它带来了高速的经济增长，但该国选民已开始对其失去兴趣。西方许多人也不会觉得自由市场的香港是一个舒适的环境。

因此，正如凯恩斯在上世纪30年代所称的那样，真正的问题是如何改进现有的资本主义模式。麻烦在于，在危机之后，宏观政策的弹性降到了最低点，尤其是在美国，分歧极大、僵持不下的辩论取代了大致中间派的政治。根据Edelman的信任度调查报告，无论在美国还是在英国，对“大政府”的不信任程度都高于对企业的不信任程度。与此同时，许多专家认为，改革银行业监管体系的努力，不足以避免一场更大规模的金融危机。

从分利到衰落

如果说研究金融市场脆弱性的专家海曼?明斯基(Hyman Minsky)在危机前为理解事件提供了最好的路线图，而凯恩斯为危机管理提供了最佳指引的话，已故的制度经济学理论家曼瑟尔?奥尔森(Mancur Olson)现在就可能成为管理危机后果的大师。奥尔森辩称，国家走向衰落，原因就在于分利联盟（即特殊利益集团）的游说力量，它们的影响力越来越大，加剧了经济低效率和不平等***。

当奥尔森写下上述文字的时候，主要利益集团是工会和商业卡塔尔。而如今，最显赫的利益集团由华尔街和伦敦的金融专业人员组成。通过竞选资助和政治捐赠，他们为自己买到保护，不用面对恰当的社会问责。对于英国维克斯委员会所提议的那种消除银行业风险的做法，他们继续构成阻碍。

无论在美国还是在欧洲，应对此类利益集团都是政策制定者在危机之后的一个最重要任务，也是应对有关系统合法性的担忧的关键。应对公众刚刚开始的抱怨是另一个任务。套用温斯顿?丘吉尔(Winston Churchill)有关民主的一句名言，资本主义是最糟糕的经济管理形式——除了其它所有尝试过的形式之外。这种苍白赞同之中隐含的公共关系问题，是合法性危机重现的根本原因。

*《不平等的代价》，Gibson Square，2011年出版

**引用自《凯恩斯和资本主义》(Keynes and Capitalism)，罗格?E?巴克豪斯(Roger E.?Backhouse)和布拉德利?W?贝特曼(Bradley W.?Bateman)著，发表在2009年的《政治经济历史》(History of Political Economy)期刊上

***《国家的兴衰》(The Rise and Decline of Nations)，耶鲁大学出版社(Yale University Press)，1982年出版

译者/何黎

2012年01月19日 07:13 AM
 The code that forms a bar to harmony
By John Plender
 

Greedy bankers overpaid executives anaemic growth stubbornly high unemployment – these are just a few of the things that have lately driven protesters on to the streets and caused the wider public in the developed world to become disgruntled about capitalism. The system in all its different varieties is widely perceived to be failing to deliver.

Business in the leading English-speaking countries attracts misgivings. Fewer than half of the American and British people sampled in the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer have faith in business to do what is right. The survey rates the US and the UK only marginally ahead of Russia on this score. So there is talk of a crisis of legitimacy and an erosion of business’s “licence to operate”.

Popular acceptance – which is a basic condition for business success – has waned in the Anglosphere for good reason. At the heart of the problem is widening inequality. In a recent study the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development the club of developed nations declared that the wealthiest Americans “have collected the bulk of the past three decades’ income gains”. Much the same is true of the UK. In both cases most of the spoils have gone to finance professionals and top executives.

As Stewart Lansley author of a recent book on inequality* puts it the modern economy appears to consist of two tracks: a fast one for the super-rich and a stalled one for everyone else. Those in the slow lane enjoyed rising living standards before 2007 despite stagnant real incomes thanks to increased borrowing on the security of their homes. Since the crisis however American and British homeowners have faced a long and deep squeeze on real living standards while struggling to service an unprecedented level of indebtedness. At the same time says Mr Lansley finance has come to play a new role as “a cash cow for a global super-rich elite”.

In continental Europe the increase in inequality is less pronounced and the legitimacy problem has more to do with the way imbalances in the eurozone are being addressed. Northern Europeans resent a monetary union that has permitted southern Europe to engage in what they see as fiscally profligate behaviour while southern Europeans and the Irish are required to submit to extreme austerity programmes that exacerbate their sovereign debt problems.

As the German-led policy elite inches towards “more Europe” as a solution to the fissures in the eurozone it is far from clear that more Europe is what the citizens of Europe want. Democratic legitimacy has been largely lacking from the outset of this gigantic monetary experiment. On both sides of the Atlantic there is now a risk that reasonable aspirations to equality of opportunity are being undermined accompanied by a growing threat of political instability. Support for open trade and free markets is also being adversely affected.

Misery and money motive

The problem of consent in relation to capitalism is nothing new. In fact it returns with nagging frequency. In the early years of the industrial revolution average per capita incomes were slow to rise and the contrast between the plight of the working population and the lifestyle of rich manufacturers prompted savage diatribes such as that of Charles Dickens in Hard Times. Even when living standards did rise David Ricardo and Karl Marx worried whether the free markets trumpeted by Adam Smith could produce an income distribution that was politically tolerable.

By the late 19th century the debate turned more heavily on the moral question posed by the unedifying behaviour of the American robber barons at a time of spectacular economic growth. The centrality of the money motive in wealth creation appeared to detract from capitalism’s legitimacy unless there was an implicit social contract between the rich and the rest of society whereby the wealthy tempered ostentation and engaged in philanthropy.

Then in the unstable 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s the efficacy as well as the moral basis of capitalism was once again called into question. While F. Scott Fitzgerald chronicled the moral vacuity of jazz age capitalism in The Great Gatsby John Maynard Keynes who provided a theoretical basis for the mixed economy and a more humane form of capitalism was notably acerbic on what he called “individualist capitalism” and the money motive. Such questioning was sharpened by the existence for the first time of a seemingly successful alternative to capitalism in the Soviet Union; also of competing models such as the corporatist approaches developed in Germany and Italy.

What then is different about to-day’s outbreak of disaffection? Perhapsthe most important difference is that it is not the product of despair. The people in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park and on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral in London had no need of soup kitchens and took to their tents out of choice unlike many in the 1930s US who slept in cardboard box colonies – Hoovervilles – out of necessity.

If there is no proliferation of soup queues it is because in all the economies of the developed world capitalism has been humanised to a greater or lesser degree by forms of social democracy and by bank bail-outs. Unemployment in the US has gone nowhere near the 25 per cent rate that prevailed in 1933. While there are exceptionally high rates of youth unemployment especially in southern Europe there is more of a safety net for the victims than in the Depression. And if today’s protesters articulate no coherent programme it seems clear that underlying frustrations are to do with perceptions of unfairness not immiseration.

Much of that frustration relates to the banks. In contrast to the 1930s when banking was about deposit-taking and lending modern bankers engage in complex trading that they themselves do not always understand and whose social utility is not apparent to ordinary mortals – or even to the likes of Lord Turner head of the UK Financial Services Authority who famously declared that many parts of the banking business had “grown beyond a socially reasonable size”. Many have shown a disregard for their customers while fiduciary obligation has become a casualty of deregulation and the shareholder value revolution. There is a widespread conviction that these bankers constitute a protected class who enjoy bonuses regardless of performance while relying on the taxpayer to socialise their losses when they have taken excessive risks. At the same time the public is aware that top executive rewards more generally are poorly related to performance and tend to go up even when profits fall.

Human capital or ‘hand’

Such resentment is not completely new. It bears some resemblance to the hostility towards profiteers after the first world war which prompted Keynes to remark: “To convert the business man into the profiteer is to strike a blow at capitalism because it destroys the psychological equilibrium which permits the perpetuance of unequal rewards?.?.?.?The businessman is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what roughly and in some sense his activities have contributed to society.”** On that basis no one can be surprised that the legitimacy of capitalism is currently in question. And it would be wrong to call it a “winner takes all” form of capitalism because privileged losers appear to be making off with the prizes too.

What is unquestionably novel is the ferocity with which US business sheds labour now that executive pay and incentive schemes are more closely linked to short-term performance targets. In effect the American worker has gone from being regarded as human capital to a mere cost or what was known in the 19th century as a “hand”. Yet this pursuit of a narrowly financial conception of shareholder value may destroy value for the ultimate pension beneficiaries – because of the disruption that slashing and burning causes and the cost and time involved in hiring and retraining when conditions improve.

That underlines the “agency problem” at the heart of the banking and boardroom pay sagas. The accountability of management – the agent acting on behalf of the highly dispersed beneficiaries of equity ownership – is fundamentally flawed. While the public may not be aware of the details of the weak chain of accountability or the growing number of investors such as high-frequency traders or hedge funds that have no interest in playing a stewardship role it sees the outcome which contributes to the wider inequality story.

So what to do? It is not as if there are attractive alternative models. While the west is chastened by the rise of Asia few would wish to adopt the communist Chinese mixture of state ownership red-in-tooth-and-claw private markets wholesale corruption and even greater inequality than the US. As for the cleaner authoritarian approach of Singapore despite delivering high economic growth it has started to lose its appeal with the island’s electorate. Nor would many in the west find free-market Hong Kong a comfortable environment.

The real question as Keynes argued in the 1930s is therefore how to improve the existing model of capitalism. The snag is that there is minimal flexibility in macro policy after the crisis especially in the US where broadly centrist politics have been replaced by a polarised stalemated debate. And in both the US and UK there is a greater mistrust of big government according to the Edelman Trust Barometer than of business. Efforts to re-regulate the banking system meantime have failed to convince many experts that an even larger financial crisis can be avoided.

From distribution to decline

If Hyman Minsky the expert on financial market fragility provided the best route map for understanding events before the crisis and Keynes offered the best guide to crisis management Mancur Olson a theorist on institutional economics could now be a posthumous beacon on how to manage the aftermath. Olson argued that nations decline because of the lobbying power of distributional coalitions or special-interest groups whose growing influence fosters economic inefficiency and inequality.***

When he was writing the main interest groups were trade unions and business cartels. Today the pre-eminent interest group consists of finance professionals on Wall Street and in London. Through campaign finance and political donations they have bought themselves protection from proper societal accountability. And they pose a continuing obstacle to the de-risking of banking of the kind recommended by the Vickers commission in the UK.

Tackling such interest groups both in the US and Europe is one of the biggest post-crisis tasks for policymakers and a key to addressing concerns about systemic legitimacy. The inchoate nature of the public’s complaints is another. Not the least of the difficulties to reformulate Winston Churchill’s famous remark on democracy is that capitalism is the worst form of economic management except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. The public relations problem implicit in that pale endorsement is an underlying reason why legitimacy crises recur.

*?The Cost of Inequality Gibson Square 2011

**?Quoted in Keynes and Capitalism Roger E.?Backhouse and Bradley W.?Bateman History of Political Economy 2009

***?The Rise and Decline of Nations Yale University Press 1982