Why rigged capitalism is damaging liberal democracy
为何受到操控的资本主义正在破坏自由民主
原文：FT.com
https://www.ft.com/content/5a8ab27e-d470-11e9-8367-807ebd53ab77
译文：观察者
https://www.guancha.cn/MaDing-WoErFu/2019_10_12_520968.shtml
Martin Wolf
“While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose,
we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders.”
“虽然我们每家公司都服务于自己的企业目标，但我们对公司的所有利益攸关方都有一个
基本的承诺”
With this sentence, the US Business Roundtable, which represents the chief
executives of 181 of the world’s largest companies, abandoned their
longstanding view that “corporations exist principally to serve their
shareholders”.
汇聚全球181家最大公司首席执行官的“美国商业圆桌会议”通过这句话宣示他们将放弃
“公司存在的价值在于为股东利益服务”的传统观念。
This is certainly a moment. But what does — and should — that moment mean?
The answer needs to start with acknowledgment of the fact that something has
gone very wrong. Over the past four decades, and especially in the US, the
most important country of all, we have observed an unholy trinity of slowing
productivity growth, soaring inequality and huge financial shocks.
这绝对是一个重大时刻。这个重大时刻到底意味着什么呢？这个重大时刻应该意味着什么
呢？要想寻得答案，我们必须首先意识到：一定是哪里出了严重的问题。在过去40年里，
尤其是在美国这个全世界最重要的国家，我们已经看到一个“危险三角”状况的出现：生
产率增长放缓、贫富不均加剧以及严重金融震荡不断爆发。
As Jason Furman of Harvard University and Peter Orszag of Lazard Frères
noted in a paper last year: “From 1948 to 1973, real median family income in
the US rose 3 per cent annually. At this rate…there was a 96 per cent chance
that a child would have a higher income than his or her parents. Since 1973,
the median family has seen its real income grow only 0.4 per cent annually…
As a result, 28 per cent of children have lower income than their parents did.
”
正如哈佛大学的杰森·福尔曼（Jason Furman）和拉扎德公司的彼得·奥斯扎格（Peter
Orszag）在去年共同撰写的一篇论文中所指出的：“从1948年到1973年，美国家庭收入中
位数年均增长3%。在这个增长背景下，96%的美国孩子获得了比其父母更高的收入。然而
从1973年开始，美国家庭实际收入中位数年均增长率仅为0.4%，这造成了28%的美国孩子
的收入比其父母要低”。
So why is the economy not delivering? The answer lies, in large part, with
the rise of rentier capitalism. In this case “rent” means rewards over and
above those required to induce the desired supply of goods, services, land or
labour. “Rentier capitalism” means an economy in which market and political
power allows privileged individuals and businesses to extract a great deal of
such rent from everybody else.
美国经济的表现为何如此令人失望？答案很大程度上在于“收租资本主义”（rentier
capitalism）的兴起。在这里，“租”（rent）的意思是扣除必要的商品、服务、土地和
劳动力成本后所获得的回报。而“收租资本主义”的存在意味着市场和政治力量允许经济
体系中具备特权的公司或个人能够从其他人那里搾取大量的“租”。
That does not explain every disappointment. As Robert Gordon, professor of
social sciences at Northwestern University, argues, fundamental innovation
slowed after the mid-20th century. Technology has also created greater
reliance on graduates and raised their relative wages, explaining part of the
rise of inequality. But the share of the top 1 per cent of US earners in
pre-tax income jumped from 11 per cent in 1980 to 20 per cent in 2014. This
was not mainly the result of such skill-biased technological change.
然而，这并不能为所有令人失望的状况提供解释。正如美国西北大学社会学教授罗伯特·
戈登（Robert Gordon）所言：基础性创新活动在20世纪中叶之后出现了放缓。科技还造
成了社会对大学毕业生的更深依赖，从而推高了他们的相对工资，这能够为贫富不均加剧
提供部分解释。税前收入位居前1%的美国人的收入占全部收入的比例已经从1980年的11%
上升到了2014年的20%，然而这并非技术变革所导致。
If one listens to the political debates in many countries, notably the US and
UK, one would conclude that the disappointment is mainly the fault of imports
from China or low-wage immigrants, or both. Foreigners are ideal scapegoats.
But the notion that rising inequality and slow productivity growth are due to
foreigners is simply false.
如果你去一些国家（比如美国和英国）听一听那里的政治辩论，你会得出“中国进口商品
和低收入移民应该为此负责”的结论。外国人的确是理想的替罪羊。然而贫富不均加剧和
生产率增长放缓又该如何解释呢？把这两个问题的责任推给外国人显然是不合适的。
Every western high-income country trades more with emerging and developing
countries today than it did four decades ago. Yet increases in inequality
have varied substantially. The outcome depended on how the institutions of
the market economy behaved and on domestic policy choices.
如今每一个西方高收入国家与新兴发展中国家之间的贸易额都远非40年前可比。然而西方
各国贫富不均的加剧程度却存在着显著差异，其结果取决于各国市场经济制度的表现如何
以及各国在国内政策上做出怎样的选择。
Harvard economist Elhanan Helpman ends his overview of a huge academic
literature on the topic with the conclusion that “globalisation in the form
of foreign trade and offshoring has not been a large contributor to rising
inequality. Multiple studies of different events around the world point to
this conclusion.”
哈佛大学经济学家埃尔哈南·海尔普曼（Elhanan Helpman）曾就这一课题的大量学术论
文写过一篇综述，他在结尾做出结论：“以对外贸易和外包生产为主要形式的全球化并不
是贫富不均日益加剧的主要原因，对全球许多案例的研究都得出了这一结论”。
The shift in the location of much manufacturing, principally to China, may
have lowered investment in high-income economies a little. But this effect
cannot have been powerful enough to reduce productivity growth significantly.
To the contrary, the shift in the global division of labour induced
high-income economies to specialise in skill-intensive sectors, where there
was more potential for fast productivity growth.
大量制造业转移到国外（主要是中国）也许会略微降低高收入经济体的投资水平，然而这
一效应不足以造成生产率增速的显著下降。与之相反，全球劳动分工的变化会使高收入经
济体更加专注于技术密集型产业，在这类产业里生产率的增长潜力应该更大。
Donald Trump, a naive mercantilist, focuses, instead, on bilateral trade
imbalances as a cause of job losses. These deficits reflect bad trade deals,
the American president insists. It is true that the US has overall trade
deficits, while the EU has surpluses. But their trade policies are quite
similar. Trade policies do not explain bilateral balances. Bilateral
balances, in turn, do not explain overall balances. The latter are
macroeconomic phenomena. Both theory and evidence concur on this.
天真的重商主义者唐纳德·川普认为双边贸易失衡是美国就业岗位流失的主要原因。这位
总统坚持认为，是糟糕的贸易协定造成了贸易逆差。的确，美国总体上存在贸易逆差而欧
盟存在贸易顺差，然而两者的贸易政策却是非常相似的。因此贸易政策是无法为双边贸易
的平衡情况给出解释的；更进一步来说，美国对某一贸易伙伴的双边贸易平衡情况也与美
国整体的贸易平衡情况无关，美国整体的贸易平衡情况属于宏观经济范畴。贸易理论和贸
易实践都为上面的论述提供了支持。
The economic impact of immigration has also been small, however big the
political and cultural “shock of the foreigner” may be. Research strongly
suggests that the effect of immigration on the real earnings of the native
population and on receiving countries’ fiscal position has been small and
frequently positive.
无论外国移民带来的政治和文化冲击有多么强烈，其经济影响其实却小得多。研究结论告
诉我们，外国移民对移民接收国民众的实际收入和该国财政状况所产生的影响并不显著，
而且其影响一般都是正面的。
Far more productive than this politically rewarding, but mistaken, focus on
the damage done by trade and migration is an examination of contemporary
rentier capitalism itself.
关注贸易和移民问题所带来的损害虽然可以获得政治上的回报，然而这样做却是错误的。
与之相比，更加有益的做法其实是对当代“收租资本主义”本身加以审视。
Finance plays a key role, with several dimensions. Liberalised finance tends
to metastasise, like a cancer. Thus, the financial sector’s ability to
create credit and money finances its own activities, incomes and (often
illusory) profits.
金融业在诸多领域扮演着关键角色，而自由化的金融业就像癌细胞一样四处扩散。金融业
创造信贷和资金的能力为其自身的活动、收入和虚幻的利润提供了资金来源。
A 2015 study by Stephen Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi for the Bank for
International Settlements said “the level of financial development is good
only up to a point, after which it becomes a drag on growth, and that a
fast-growing financial sector is detrimental to aggregate productivity growth
”. When the financial sector grows quickly, they argue, it hires talented
people. These then lend against property, because it generates collateral.
This is a diversion of talented human resources in unproductive, useless
directions.
史蒂芬·切凯蒂（Stephen Cecchetti）和艾尼赛·哈鲁比（Enisse Kharroubi）在2015
年为国际清算银行（BIS）撰写的一份研究报告中指出：“金融行业在发展到某一水平之
前对生产率增长是有利的，超出那个水平之后便会成为生产率增长的拖累，快速发展的金
融业对总生产率增长是有害的”。当金融行业快速增长的时候，有才华的聪明人涌入了这
个行业，他们向外发放贷款，因为贷款都是有抵押的。有才华的人却进入不事生产的行业
，这是一种对优质人力资源的错配。
Again, excessive growth of credit almost always leads to crises, as Carmen
Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff showed in This Time is Different. This is why no
modern government dares let the supposedly market-driven financial sector
operate unaided and unguided. But that in turn creates huge opportunities to
gain from irresponsibility: heads, they win; tails, the rest of us lose.
Further crises are guaranteed.
正如卡门·莱因哈特（Carmen Reinhart）和肯尼斯·罗格夫（Kenneth Rogoff）在他们
合写的《这次不一样》（This Time is Different）一书中所指出的，信贷的过度增长几
乎总是会导致危机的爆发。这就是没有任何一个现代政府敢于让由市场驱动的金融产业在
毫无监管的情况下运转的原因。在那样一种不负责任的情形下，会出现巨大的获利空间，
金融业者是注定的赢家，而危机也将进一步深化。
Finance also creates rising inequality. Thomas Philippon of the Stern School
of Business and Ariell Reshef of the Paris School of Economics showed that
the relative earnings of finance professionals exploded upwards in the 1980s
with the deregulation of finance. They estimated that “rents” — earnings
over and above those needed to attract people into the industry — accounted
for 30-50 per cent of the pay differential between finance professionals and
the rest of the private sector.
此外，金融业还助推了贫富不均的加剧。纽约大学斯特恩商学院的托马斯·菲利蓬（
Thomas Philippon）和巴黎经济学院的阿里尔·雷谢夫（Ariell Reshef）在文章中指出
，金融行业专业人士的相对收入在上世纪80年代出现了爆炸式增长，而正是那个时期金融
业被解除了管制。据二人推测，“租”（即超出金融业吸引人们进入该行业工作的基本收
入水平之外的超额收入）在金融行业专业人士和其他私营部门从业者的收入差距中占
30%-50%的比例。
This explosion of financial activity since 1980 has not raised the growth of
productivity. If anything, it has lowered it, especially since the crisis.
The same is true of the explosion in pay of corporate management, yet another
form of rent extraction. As Deborah Hargreaves, founder of the High Pay
Centre, notes, in the UK the ratio of average chief executive pay to that of
average workers rose from 48 to one in 1998 to 129 to one in 2016. In the US,
the same ratio rose from 42 to one in 1980 to 347 to one in 2017.
自1980年以来金融活动的爆炸式增长并没有提高生产率的增速。要说有什么影响，金融活
动的这种爆炸式增长反而降低了生产率的增速，在危机爆发之后尤其如此。与此同时，公
司管理层的工资水平也出现了爆炸式增长，这可以看成是“抽租”（rent extraction）
的一种形式。研究机构“高收入中心”的创始人德博拉·哈格里弗斯（Deborah
Hargreaves）指出：在英国，CEO的平均收入与普通员工的平均收入之比已经从1998年的
48:1扩大至2016年的129:1。在美国，这个比值则从1980年的42:1扩大至2017年的347:1。
As the US essayist HL Mencken wrote: “For every complex problem, there is an
answer that is clear, simple and wrong.” Pay linked to the share price gave
management a huge incentive to raise that price, by manipulating earnings or
borrowing money to buy the shares. Neither adds value to the company. But
they can add a great deal of wealth to management. A related problem with
governance is conflicts of interest, notably over independence of auditors.
美国作家亨利·门肯（HL Mencken）曾写道：“每一个复杂的问题都有一个清晰、简明然
而却错误的答案”。由于公司股价与公司高管个人收入挂钩，他们在提高公司股价方面有
著强烈的动机，他们会通过操纵公司收入或借贷回购股票来达到这个目的。然而这两种做
法对公司价值的提升毫无益处，只有管理层的钱包获得了好处。此外，还有一个与监管有
关的问题会涉及利益冲突——审计部门的独立性。
In sum, personal financial considerations permeate corporate decision-making.
As the independent economist Andrew Smithers argues in Productivity and the
Bonus Culture, this comes at the expense of corporate investment and so of
long-run productivity growth.
总之，管理层个人的利益算计已经对公司决策产生了重大影响。独立经济学家安德鲁·史
密瑟斯（Andrew Smithers）在其《生产率与奖金文化》（Productivity and the Bonus
Culture）一书中指出，这一切“是以公司投资和长远的生产率增长为代价的”。
A possibly still more fundamental issue is the decline of competition. Mr
Furman and Mr Orszag say there is evidence of increased market concentration
in the US, a lower rate of entry of new firms and a lower share of young
firms in the economy compared with three or four decades ago. Work by the
OECD and Oxford Martin School also notes widening gaps in productivity and
profit mark-ups between the leading businesses and the rest. This suggests
weakening competition and rising monopoly rent. Moreover, a great deal of the
increase in inequality arises from radically different rewards for workers
with similar skills in different firms: this, too, is a form of rent
extraction.
也许，一个更加基本的问题在于竞争程度的弱化。哈佛大学的杰森·福尔曼（Jason
Furman）和拉扎德公司的彼得·奥斯扎格（Peter Orszag）指出，有证据显示，与30或40
年前相比，美国的市场集中度出现了上升，进入市场的新公司数量减少，而且新公司在经
济体系中的比例也出现了下降。经合组织和牛津大学马丁学院的研究也指出，领先型公司
与其他公司在生产率和利润率方面的差距一直在扩大，这意味着竞争程度的弱化以及垄断
性“租”的增加。此外，受到不同公司雇佣的具有相似技能的员工获得的待遇不同，这在
很大程度上加剧了贫富不均的状况，而且这也可以看成是“抽租”的一种形式。
A part of the explanation for weaker competition is “winner-takes-almost-all
” markets: superstar individuals and their companies earn monopoly rents,
because they can now serve global markets so cheaply. The network
externalities — benefits of using a network that others are using — and
zero marginal costs of platform monopolies (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Alibaba
and Tencent) are the dominant examples.
竞争程度弱化的一个原因在于“赢者通吃”市场的存在——那些明星企业家和他们的公司
可以获得垄断性的“租”，因为他们能够以很低的成本向全球市场提供产品和服务。网络
外部性（新经济中的重要概念，是指连接到一个网络的价值取决于已经连接到该网络的其
他人的数量。通俗地说，就是每个用户从使用某产品中得到的效用与用户的总数量呈正相
关关系——观察者网注）以及垄断平台（脸书、谷歌等大公司提供的网络平台）的零边际
成本就是这方面的鲜明例证。
Another such natural force is the network externalities of agglomerations,
stressed by Paul Collier in The Future of Capitalism. Successful metropolitan
areas — London, New York, the Bay Area in California — generate powerful
feedback loops, attracting and rewarding talented people. This disadvantages
businesses and people trapped in left-behind towns. Agglomerations, too,
create rents, not just in property prices, but also in earnings.
保罗·科利尔（Paul Collier）在《资本主义的未来》（The Future of Capitalism）一
书中强调称，城市群的网络外部性（the network externalities of agglomerations）
是另一股自然生成的力量。伦敦、纽约和加州湾区等发展成功的都会区都能够生成强大的
闭环反馈机制，从而吸引人才的加入。这让落后地区的产业和人口陷入不利境地。城市群
也能够创造“租”，这“租”不仅包括不动产的升值，还包括收入的增长。
Yet monopoly rent is not just the product of such natural — albeit worrying
— economic forces. It is also the result of policy. In the US, Yale
University law professor Robert Bork argued in the 1970s that “consumer
welfare” should be the sole objective of antitrust policy. As with
shareholder value maximisation, this oversimplified highly complex issues. In
this case, it led to complacency about monopoly power, provided prices stayed
low. Yet tall trees deprive saplings of the light they need to grow. So, too,
may giant companies.
垄断性的“租”不仅是自然生成的、令人忧虑的经济力量的产物，它还是政策的结果。在
美国，耶鲁大学法学教授罗伯特·伯克（Robert Bork）上世纪70年代就提出：“消费者
利益”应该被确立为制定反垄断政策的唯一目的。正如股东利益最大化问题一样，这种观
点也把高度复杂的问题看得过于简单了。按照伯克教授的说法，只要商品价格维持在低位
，垄断性的大公司便不会再觉得有何不妥，然而大树还是会挡住小树苗生长所需要的阳光
，那些大公司也会对刚成立的小企业产生同样的影响。
Some might argue, complacently, that the “monopoly rent” we now see in
leading economies is largely a sign of the “creative destruction” lauded by
the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter. In fact, we are not seeing enough
creation, destruction or productivity growth to support that view
convincingly.
一些人也许会颇为得意地认为，我们在发达经济体所看到的垄断性的“租”不过是奥地利
经济学家约瑟夫·熊彼特（Joseph Schumpeter）所赞颂的“创造性破坏”（creative
destruction）的一种表现而已。然而事实上，我们所看到的创造、破坏或生产率增长等
现象并不足以为上述观点提供令人信服的论据。
A disreputable aspect of rent-seeking is radical tax avoidance. Corporations
(and so also shareholders) benefit from the public goods — security, legal
systems, infrastructure, educated workforces and sociopolitical stability —
provided by the world’s most powerful liberal democracies. Yet they are
also in a perfect position to exploit tax loopholes, especially those
companies whose location of production or innovation is difficult to
determine.
寻租（rent-seeking）的一个令人所不齿的地方在于严重的避税行为。这个世界上最强大
的自由民主国家所提供的安全、法制、基础设施、技能良好的劳动力和稳定的社会环境等
公共产品使得大公司及其股东们深受其益。然而那些公司还是很容易对税收漏洞加以利用
，尤其是那些生产和研发地点难以确定的公司。
The biggest challenges within the corporate tax system are tax competition
and base erosion and profit shifting. We see the former in falling tax rates.
We see the latter in the location of intellectual property in tax havens, in
charging tax-deductible debt against profits accruing in higher-tax
jurisdictions and in rigging transfer prices within firms.
公司税收制度的最大挑战在于税收竞争（指各地区通过竞相降低有效税率或实施有关税收
优惠等途径吸引其他地区财源流入本地区的政府自利行为——观察者网注）、税基侵蚀以
及利润的转移。我们已经在不断降低的税率中看到了税收竞争；此外，我们还在避税天堂
的知识产权申请、为应对在高税率地区的利润飚升而欠下可减税的债务以及在公司内部操
纵转移价格等现象中看到了税基侵蚀和利润转移。
A 2015 study by the IMF calculated that base erosion and profit shifting
reduced long-run annual revenue in OECD countries by about $450bn (1 per cent
of gross domestic product) and in non-OECD countries by slightly over $200bn
(1.3 per cent of GDP). These are significant figures in the context of a tax
that raised an average of only 2.9 per cent of GDP in 2016 in OECD countries
and just 2 per cent in the US.
国际货币基金组织于2015年进行的一项研究显示，税基侵蚀和利润转移使经合组织国家的
长期测算年收入损失了4500亿美元（占其GDP的1%），使非经合组织国家的长期测算年收
入损失了2000亿美元（占其GDP的1.3%）。在2016年经合组织国家GDP增长率2.9%和美国
GDP增长率2%的大背景下，上面的数字可以说是颇为显著的。
Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations shows that US corporations
report seven times as much profit in small tax havens (Bermuda, the British
Caribbean, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Singapore and Switzerland) as in
six big economies (China, France, Germany, India, Italy and Japan). This is
ludicrous. The tax reform under Mr Trump changed essentially nothing.
Needless to say, not only US corporations benefit from such loopholes.
美国对外关系委员会的布拉德·塞特瑟（Brad Setser）指出，根据美国公司的报告，这
些公司在7个避税天堂（百慕大群岛、英属加勒比地区、爱尔兰、卢森堡、荷兰、新加坡
和瑞士）的利润是他们在6个大型经济体（中国、法国、德国、印度、意大利和日本）的
利润的7倍。这是非常荒唐的。川普总统进行的税务改革对这一状况的改善几乎没有产生
任何作用。当然，从这一漏洞中获利的可不仅是美国公司。
In such cases, rents are not merely being exploited. They are being created,
through lobbying for distorting and unfair tax loopholes and against needed
regulation of mergers, anti-competitive practices, financial misbehaviour,
the environment and labour markets. Corporate lobbying overwhelms the
interests of ordinary citizens. Indeed, some studies suggest that the wishes
of ordinary people count for next to nothing in policymaking.
在上述情况下，人们不仅在搾取“租”，他们还通过游说活动制造扭曲和不公平的税收漏
洞、反对针对合并、反垄断、金融不端行为以及对环境和劳动力市场的必要监管在创造“
租”。公司的游说活动击败了普通公民的利益。一些研究报告指出：普通民众的意愿对政
策制定者毫无影响力。
Not least, as some western economies have become more Latin American in their
distribution of incomes, their politics have also become more Latin American.
Some of the new populists are considering radical, but necessary, changes in
competition, regulatory and tax policies. But others rely on xenophobic dog
whistles while continuing to promote a capitalism rigged to favour a small
elite. Such activities could well end up with the death of liberal democracy
itself.
尤其需要指出的是，随着一些西方经济体在收入分配方面拉美化倾向日益明显，他们的政
治也在变得拉美化。一些新的民粹主义者正在将竞争、监管和税收政策领域的激进而必要
的变革纳入考虑。与此同时，其他民粹主义者带着排外的心理继续推动有利于一小部分精
英阶层的受到操纵的资本主义。此类行为可能导致自由民主制度本身的终结。
Members of the Business Roundtable and their peers have tough questions to
ask themselves. They are right: seeking to maximise shareholder value has
proved a doubtful guide to managing corporations. But that realisation is the
beginning, not the end. They need to ask themselves what this understanding
means for how they set their own pay and how they exploit — indeed actively
create — tax and regulatory loopholes.
美国商业圆桌会议”的成员及其伙伴们需要向自己提出一些严峻的问题。他们是对的，最
大化股东利益的行为在公司治理方面的确是值得怀疑的。然而他们在这方面意识的觉醒还
只是迈向问题解决的开始，而非终结。他们需要问自己，当他们为自己的工资制定标准时
，当他们利用乃至积极主动地创造税收和监管漏洞时，上述意识的觉醒到底意味着什么呢
？
They must, not least, consider their activities in the public arena. What are
they doing to ensure better laws governing the structure of the corporation,
a fair and effective tax system, a safety net for those afflicted by economic
forces beyond their control, a healthy local and global environment and a
democracy responsive to the wishes of a broad majority?
他们尤其需要考虑自己的行为在公共舆论中的影响。为了让公司治理有一个更完善的法律
框架、为了公平高效的税收制度的建立、为了让那些受到失控的经济力量影响的人们能够
拥有一张安全网、为了享有一个良好的局部和全球环境、为了建立能够回应大多数民众需
求的民主制度，他们到底都做了什么呢？
We need a dynamic capitalist economy that gives everybody a justified belief
that they can share in the benefits. What we increasingly seem to have
instead is an unstable rentier capitalism, weakened competition, feeble
productivity growth, high inequality and, not coincidentally, an increasingly
degraded democracy. Fixing this is a challenge for us all, but especially for
those who run the world’s most important businesses. The way our economic
and political systems work must change, or they will perish.
我们需要构建一个有活力的、每个人都能够在其中获得利益的资本主义经济体系。然而我
们所看到的似乎是失稳的“收租资本主义”、弱化的竞争局面、乏力的生产率增长、日益
加剧的贫富分化以及退化的民主制度。解决上述问题对我们来说是一个巨大的挑战，对那
些运营著全球最重要大公司的高管们来说更是如此。我们必须改革当下的政治经济体系的
运行方式，否则这个体系将走向终结。