紐約時報報導芮成鋼：Capitalism Finds Voice in China TV

By DAVID BARBOZA，Published: March 15, 2009

BEIJING — At just 31 years old, Rui Chenggang has emerged as the media face of Chinese capitalism: young, smart and, to the dismay of some, deeply nationalistic.
His nightly financial news program attracts 13 million viewers on China Central Television, the nation’s biggest state-run network, where Mr. Rui puts tough questions to Wall Street chiefs and Chinese economists while also delivering a dose of optimism about China’s outlook.
He also writes a popular blog (blog.sina.com.cn/ruichenggang) infused with patriotic rhetoric. And he recently published a book, “Life Begins at 30,” in which he reflects on China’s economic miracle and what he sees as the difficult path ahead.
In a foreword to the book, the president of Yale, Richard C. Levin, calls Mr. Rui “an energetic young standard bearer of the New China.” Some critics are less generous, calling him a tireless self-promoter and a propaganda tool of the Communist Party.
But Mr. Rui (pronounced Ray), who drives a Jaguar to work and wears Zegna suits, says his goals reach beyond media stardom. He wants to use his celebrity to build bridges with the West and help change world opinion about China, which he says suffers because of biased foreign media coverage and the country’s poor training in communication.
“China has a really bad image problem,” Mr. Rui says after a broadcast one evening, while lounging at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. “I’m gathering a group of people and we hope to do something about that.”
Supporters say Mr. Rui’s growing influence among young people is a reflection of China’s development in the 20 years since the government cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square here.
But his efforts fit the Chinese government’s own goal of using the state-controlled media to improve the nation’s image abroad, particularly after last year’s Olympic torch relay was marred by overseas protests.
Beijing is now pushing its big media properties, all of which are heavily censored and operate under the government’s propaganda department, to expand their overseas operations. Under one proposal, China may even create a 24-hour English language news channel to compete with CNN and the BBC, and deliver a more, well, positive view of China’s rise.
Rui Chenggang would appear to be the very model for such national image building.
In late January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, China’s dashing young journalist lined up interviews with some of the biggest names at the event: Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, Craig R. Barrett of Intel and Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group. He trades e-mail messages with the Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, and three times a year, he meets “Henry,” as in Henry Kissinger, he says.
He also says he has vacationed with Chinese policy advisers and hosted programs for China’s top leaders, including President Hu Jintao.
His tone on the air is serious and scripted. Off the air, he sounds like an investment banker who is running for office. He quotes Lao Tzu, makes references to Homer’s “Odyssey,” explains the pitfalls of private equity and analyzes China’s place in the global financial crisis.
“In China, we have neither a financial crisis nor an economic crisis,” he says. “China is going through a serious slowdown. The world is going through a synchronized recession. As a journalist we shouldn’t exaggerate.”
Fluent in English, trained as a diplomat and well-versed in global finance, Mr. Rui often sounds like an activist or cultural critic, pressing readers of his blog and book to value traditional culture and even buy Chinese-made goods.
In 2007, his blog ignited a grass-roots movement that helped push Starbucks out of Beijing’s historic Forbidden City. (Mr. Rui considered it inappropriate to have an American brand there; now Chinese tea is served there.)
Not everyone likes his personal campaigns.
“As a TV host I think he’s not bad,” says Zhan Jiang, a journalism professor at the China Youth University of Political Science in Beijing. “But off the show he’s a bit disgusting. If you protest Starbucks in the Imperial Palace, why don’t you protest speaking English to your Chinese buddy in China? It’s ultranationalism, and too narrow-minded.”
Over the years, Mr. Rui says, he has formulated his own thinking on China’s affairs. While he calls “blind nationalism” a grave danger to China’s development, he worries more about how the foreign media and Westerners misunderstand his country. The People’s Republic of China, he says, is a mere 60 years old, as young as Bill Clinton.
“We’re a toddler and the U.S. is middle-aged,” he says. “We’re young and dynamic, and we have a lot of growing pains. That’s the way you should look at China. Compare China to the U.S. horizontally, and we’re behind; but compare us vertically and we’re making progress.”
Mr. Rui’s progress does mimic that of the country in the last 20 years, when a generation of frustrated, angry yet idealistic youths from the 1980s gave way to a more affluent generation born after the government began its one-child policy.
“In the 1980s, China was going from a process of being closed to being opened, and there was so much uncertainty,” says Yang Xiong, a professor of youth studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “Today, things are quite different. Young people have a lot of opportunities.”
Born in 1977, Mr. Rui is a member of this more privileged generation. He grew up in east China’s Anhui Province, the son of a writer and a dancer. His father was educated at one of the top schools in Beijing and is the author of a 1974 novel, “The Newcomer Xiaoshizhu,” which became a best seller that was later made into an animated movie.
As a child, Mr. Rui says, he was bilingual and bicultural. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday his father read Tang Dynasty poems to him in Chinese. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he listened to stories by Shakespeare and Tolstoy in English.
He studied at the Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, intending to become a diplomat. But everything changed, he says, after he met Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former secretary general of the United Nations, during a visit to his school in the late 1990s.
Mr. Rui recalls asking Mr. Boutros-Ghali which nation he might select if there were a sixth member of the United Nations Security Council. He says Mr. Boutros-Ghali answered “CNN,” saying its influence is bigger than most countries.
And so after graduating in 1999, he took a job at China Central Television, and quickly rose through the ranks, helping establish the network’s first English language channel and serving as a reporter and anchor for “BizChina,” a nightly business news program.
The show gave him access to powerful guests visiting Beijing and helped him win respect overseas. He recently moved to one of CCTV’s Chinese language channels, which is allowing him to broaden his reach and popularity inside China, since his English language channel work was mostly aimed at overseas viewers.
Guo Zhenxi, the president of CCTV’s Channel 2, says Mr. Rui is already making a big difference by helping upgrade financial news coverage during the global crisis, drawing as many as 28 million viewers on a single day, the highest ratings ever for a business show.
“He’s our star anchor,” Mr. Guo says. “For the first time we’re examining the health of the nation with a television program.”
Because his positions often parrot Beijing’s critiques of foreign journalists, Mr. Rui is asked whether he engages in propaganda handed down by the government. He compares it with Fox News coverage of the White House during a Republican administration.
“I hate the word propaganda,” he says.

Capitalism Beyond the Crisis

The New York Review of Books，Volume 56, Number 5 · March 26, 2009
By Amartya Sen

1.
2008 was a year of crises. First, we had a food crisis, particularly threatening to poor consumers, especially in Africa. Along with that came a record increase in oil prices, threatening all oil-importing countries. Finally, rather suddenly in the fall, came the global economic downturn, and it is now gathering speed at a frightening rate. The year 2009 seems likely to offer a sharp intensification of the downturn, and many economists are anticipating a full-scale depression, perhaps even one as large as in the 1930s. While substantial fortunes have suffered steep declines, the people most affected are those who were already worst off.
The question that arises most forcefully now concerns the nature of capitalism and whether it needs to be changed. Some defenders of unfettered capitalism who resist change are convinced that capitalism is being blamed too much for short-term economic problems—problems they variously attribute to bad governance (for example by the Bush administration) and the bad behavior of some individuals (or what John McCain described during the presidential campaign as "the greed of Wall Street"). Others do, however, see truly serious defects in the existing economic arrangements and want to reform them, looking for an alternative approach that is increasingly being called "new capitalism."
The idea of old and new capitalism played an energizing part at a symposium called "New World, New Capitalism" held in Paris in January and hosted by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy and the former British prime minister Tony Blair, both of whom made eloquent presentations on the need for change. So did German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who talked about the old German idea of a "social market"—one restrained by a mixture of consensus-building policies—as a possible blueprint for new capitalism (though Germany has not done much better in the recent crisis than other market economies).
Ideas about changing the organization of society in the long run are clearly needed, quite apart from strategies for dealing with an immediate crisis. I would separate out three questions from the many that can be raised. First, do we really need some kind of "new capitalism" rather than an economic system that is not monolithic, draws on a variety of institutions chosen pragmatically, and is based on social values that we can defend ethically? Should we search for a new capitalism or for a "new world"—to use the other term mentioned at the Paris meeting—that would take a different form?
The second question concerns the kind of economics that is needed today, especially in light of the present economic crisis. How do we assess what is taught and championed among academic economists as a guide to economic policy—including the revival of Keynesian thought in recent months as the crisis has grown fierce? More particularly, what does the present economic crisis tell us about the institutions and priorities to look for? Third, in addition to working our way toward a better assessment of what long-term changes are needed, we have to think—and think fast—about how to get out of the present crisis with as little damage as possible.

2.
What are the special characteristics that make a system indubitably capitalist—old or new? If the present capitalist economic system is to be reformed, what would make the end result a new capitalism, rather than something else? It seems to be generally assumed that relying on markets for economic transactions is a necessary condition for an economy to be identified as capitalist. In a similar way, dependence on the profit motive and on individual rewards based on private ownership are seen as archetypal features of capitalism. However, if these are necessary requirements, are the economic systems we currently have, for example, in Europe and America, genuinely capitalist?
All affluent countries in the world—those in Europe, as well as the US, Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, and others—have, for quite some time now, depended partly on transactions and other payments that occur largely outside markets. These include unemployment benefits, public pensions, other features of social security, and the provision of education, health care, and a variety of other services distributed through nonmarket arrangements. The economic entitlements connected with such services are not based on private ownership and property rights.
Also, the market economy has depended for its own working not only on maximizing profits but also on many other activities, such as maintaining public security and supplying public services—some of which have taken people well beyond an economy driven only by profit. The creditable performance of the so-called capitalist system, when things moved forward, drew on a combination of institutions—publicly funded education, medical care, and mass transportation are just a few of many—that went much beyond relying only on a profit-maximizing market economy and on personal entitlements confined to private ownership.
Underlying this issue is a more basic question: whether capitalism is a term that is of particular use today. The idea of capitalism did in fact have an important role historically, but by now that usefulness may well be fairly exhausted.
For example, the pioneering works of Adam Smith in the eighteenth century showed the usefulness and dynamism of the market economy, and why—and particularly how—that dynamism worked. Smith's investigation provided an illuminating diagnosis of the workings of the market just when that dynamism was powerfully emerging. The contribution that The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, made to the understanding of what came to be called capitalism was monumental. Smith showed how the freeing of trade can very often be extremely helpful in generating economic prosperity through specialization in production and division of labor and in making good use of economies of large scale.
Those lessons remain deeply relevant even today (it is interesting that the impressive and highly sophisticated analytical work on international trade for which Paul Krugman received the latest Nobel award in economics was closely linked to Smith's far-reaching insights of more than 230 years ago). The economic analyses that followed those early expositions of markets and the use of capital in the eighteenth century have succeeded in solidly establishing the market system in the corpus of mainstream economics.
However, even as the positive contributions of capitalism through market processes were being clarified and explicated, its negative sides were also becoming clear—often to the very same analysts. While a number of socialist critics, most notably Karl Marx, influentially made a case for censuring and ultimately supplanting capitalism, the huge limitations of relying entirely on the market economy and the profit motive were also clear enough even to Adam Smith. Indeed, early advocates of the use of markets, including Smith, did not take the pure market mechanism to be a freestanding performer of excellence, nor did they take the profit motive to be all that is needed.
Even though people seek trade because of self-interest (nothing more than self-interest is needed, as Smith famously put it, in explaining why bakers, brewers, butchers, and consumers seek trade), nevertheless an economy can operate effectively only on the basis of trust among different parties. When business activities, including those of banks and other financial institutions, generate the confidence that they can and will do the things they pledge, then relations among lenders and borrowers can go smoothly in a mutually supportive way. As Adam Smith wrote:
When the people of any particular country have such confidence in the fortune, probity, and prudence of a particular banker, as to believe that he is always ready to pay upon demand such of his promissory notes as are likely to be at any time presented to him; those notes come to have the same currency as gold and silver money, from the confidence that such money can at any time be had for them.[1]
Smith explained why sometimes this did not happen, and he would not have found anything particularly puzzling, I would suggest, in the difficulties faced today by businesses and banks thanks to the widespread fear and mistrust that is keeping credit markets frozen and preventing a coordinated expansion of credit.
It is also worth mentioning in this context, especially since the "welfare state" emerged long after Smith's own time, that in his various writings, his overwhelming concern—and worry—about the fate of the poor and the disadvantaged are strikingly prominent. The most immediate failure of the market mechanism lies in the things that the market leaves undone. Smith's economic analysis went well beyond leaving everything to the invisible hand of the market mechanism. He was not only a defender of the role of the state in providing public services, such as education, and in poverty relief (along with demanding greater freedom for the indigents who received support than the Poor Laws of his day provided), he was also deeply concerned about the inequality and poverty that might survive in an otherwise successful market economy.
Lack of clarity about the distinction between the necessity and sufficiency of the market has been responsible for some misunderstandings of Smith's assessment of the market mechanism by many who would claim to be his followers. For example, Smith's defense of the food market and his criticism of restrictions by the state on the private trade in food grains have often been interpreted as arguing that any state interference would necessarily make hunger and starvation worse.
But Smith's defense of private trade only took the form of disputing the belief that stopping trade in food would reduce the burden of hunger. That does not deny in any way the need for state action to supplement the operations of the market by creating jobs and incomes (e.g., through work programs). If unemployment were to increase sharply thanks to bad economic circumstances or bad public policy, the market would not, on its own, recreate the incomes of those who have lost their jobs. The new unemployed, Smith wrote, "would either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence either by begging, or by the perpetration perhaps of the greatest enormities," and "want, famine, and mortality would immediately prevail...."[2] Smith rejects interventions that exclude the market—but not interventions that include the market while aiming to do those important things that the market may leave undone.
Smith never used the term "capitalism" (at least so far as I have been able to trace), but it would also be hard to carve out from his works any theory arguing for the sufficiency of market forces, or of the need to accept the dominance of capital. He talked about the importance of these broader values that go beyond profits in The Wealth of Nations, but it is in his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which was published exactly a quarter of a millennium ago in 1759, that he extensively investigated the strong need for actions based on values that go well beyond profit seeking. While he wrote that "prudence" was "of all the virtues that which is most useful to the individual," Adam Smith went on to argue that "humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit, are the qualities most useful to others."[3]
Smith viewed markets and capital as doing good work within their own sphere, but first, they required support from other institutions—including public services such as schools—and values other than pure profit seeking, and second, they needed restraint and correction by still other institutions—e.g., well-devised financial regulations and state assistance to the poor—for preventing instability, inequity, and injustice. If we were to look for a new approach to the organization of economic activity that included a pragmatic choice of a variety of public services and well-considered regulations, we would be following rather than departing from the agenda of reform that Smith outlined as he both defended and criticized capitalism.

3.
Historically, capitalism did not emerge until new systems of law and economic practice protected property rights and made an economy based on ownership workable. Commercial exchange could not effectively take place until business morality made contractual behavior sustainable and inexpensive—not requiring constant suing of defaulting contractors, for example. Investment in productive businesses could not flourish until the higher rewards from corruption had been moderated. Profit-oriented capitalism has always drawn on support from other institutional values.
The moral and legal obligations and responsibilities associated with transactions have in recent years become much harder to trace, thanks to the rapid development of secondary markets involving derivatives and other financial instruments. A subprime lender who misleads a borrower into taking unwise risks can now pass off the financial assets to third parties—who are remote from the original transaction. Accountability has been badly undermined, and the need for supervision and regulation has become much stronger.
And yet the supervisory role of government in the United States in particular has been, over the same period, sharply curtailed, fed by an increasing belief in the self-regulatory nature of the market economy. Precisely as the need for state surveillance grew, the needed supervision shrank. There was, as a result, a disaster waiting to happen, which did eventually happen last year, and this has certainly contributed a great deal to the financial crisis that is plaguing the world today. The insufficient regulation of financial activities has implications not only for illegitimate practices, but also for a tendency toward overspeculation that, as Adam Smith argued, tends to grip many human beings in their breathless search for profits.
Smith called the promoters of excessive risk in search of profits "prodigals and projectors"—which is quite a good description of issuers of subprime mortgages over the past few years. Discussing laws against usury, for example, Smith wanted state regulation to protect citizens from the "prodigals and projectors" who promoted unsound loans:
A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it.[4]
The implicit faith in the ability of the market economy to correct itself, which is largely responsible for the removal of established regulations in the United States, tended to ignore the activities of prodigals and projectors in a way that would have shocked Adam Smith.
The present economic crisis is partly generated by a huge overestimation of the wisdom of market processes, and the crisis is now being exacerbated by anxiety and lack of trust in the financial market and in businesses in general—responses that have been evident in the market reactions to the sequence of stimulus plans, including the $787 billion plan signed into law in February by the new Obama administration. As it happens, these problems were already identified in the eighteenth century by Smith, even though they have been neglected by those who have been in authority in recent years, especially in the United States, and who have been busy citing Adam Smith in support of the unfettered market.

4.
While Adam Smith has recently been much quoted, even if not much read, there has been a huge revival, even more recently, of John Maynard Keynes. Certainly, the cumulative downturn that we are observing right now, which is edging us closer to a depression, has clear Keynesian features; the reduced incomes of one group of persons has led to reduced purchases by them, in turn causing a further reduction in the income of others.
However, Keynes can be our savior only to a very partial extent, and there is a need to look beyond him in understanding the present crisis. One economist whose current relevance has been far less recognized is Keynes's rival Arthur Cecil Pigou, who, like Keynes, was also in Cambridge, indeed also in Kings College, in Keynes's time. Pigou was much more concerned than Keynes with economic psychology and the ways it could influence business cycles and sharpen and harden an economic recession that could take us toward a depression (as indeed we are seeing now). Pigou attributed economic fluctuations partly to "psychological causes" consisting of
variations in the tone of mind of persons whose action controls industry, emerging in errors of undue optimism or undue pessimism in their business forecasts.[5]
It is hard to ignore the fact that today, in addition to the Keynesian effects of mutually reinforced decline, we are strongly in the presence of "errors of...undue pessimism." Pigou focused particularly on the need to unfreeze the credit market when the economy is in the grip of excessive pessimism:
Hence, other things being equal, the actual occurrence of business failures will be more or less widespread, according [to whether] bankers' loans, in the face of crisis of demands, are less or more readily obtainable.[6]
Despite huge injections of fresh liquidity into the American and European economies, largely from the government, the banks and financial institutions have until now remained unwilling to unfreeze the credit market. Other businesses also continue to fail, partly in response to already diminished demand (the Keynesian "multiplier" process), but also in response to fear of even less demand in the future, in a climate of general gloom (the Pigovian process of infectious pessimism).
One of the problems that the Obama administration has to deal with is that the real crisis, arising from financial mismanagement and other transgressions, has become many times magnified by a psychological collapse. The measures that are being discussed right now in Washington and elsewhere to regenerate the credit market include bailouts—with firm requirements that subsidized financial institutions actually lend—government purchase of toxic assets, insurance against failure to repay loans, and bank nationalization. (The last proposal scares many conservatives just as private control of the public money given to the banks worries people concerned about accountability.) As the weak response of the market to the administration's measures so far suggests, each of these policies would have to be assessed partly for their impact on the psychology of businesses and consumers, particularly in America.

5.
The contrast between Pigou and Keynes is relevant for another reason as well. While Keynes was very involved with the question of how to increase aggregate income, he was relatively less engaged in analyzing problems of unequal distribution of wealth and of social welfare. In contrast, Pigou not only wrote the classic study of welfare economics, but he also pioneered the measurement of economic inequality as a major indicator for economic assessment and policy.[7] Since the suffering of the most deprived people in each economy—and in the world—demands the most urgent attention, the role of supportive cooperation between business and government cannot stop only with mutually coordinated expansion of an economy. There is a critical need for paying special attention to the underdogs of society in planning a response to the current crisis, and in going beyond measures to produce general economic expansion. Families threatened with unemployment, with lack of medical care, and with social as well as economic deprivation have been hit particularly hard. The limitations of Keynesian economics to address their problems demand much greater recognition.
A third way in which Keynes needs to be supplemented concerns his relative neglect of social services—indeed even Otto von Bismarck had more to say on this subject than Keynes. That the market economy can be particularly bad in delivering public goods (such as education and health care) has been discussed by some of the leading economists of our time, including Paul Samuelson and Kenneth Arrow. (Pigou too contributed to this subject with his emphasis on the "external effects" of market transactions, where the gains and losses are not confined only to the direct buyers or sellers.) This is, of course, a long-term issue, but it is worth noting in addition that the bite of a downturn can be much fiercer when health care in particular is not guaranteed for all.
For example, in the absence of a national health service, every lost job can produce a larger exclusion from essential health care, because of loss of income or loss of employment-related private health insurance. The US has a 7.6 percent rate of unemployment now, which is beginning to cause huge deprivation. It is worth asking how the European countries, including France, Italy, and Spain, that lived with much higher levels of unemployment for decades, managed to avoid a total collapse of their quality of life. The answer is partly the way the European welfare state operates, with much stronger unemployment insurance than in America and, even more importantly, with basic medical services provided to all by the state.
The failure of the market mechanism to provide health care for all has been flagrant, most noticeably in the United States, but also in the sharp halt in the progress of health and longevity in China following its abolition of universal health coverage in 1979. Before the economic reforms of that year, every Chinese citizen had guaranteed health care provided by the state or the cooperatives, even if at a rather basic level. When China removed its counterproductive system of agricultural collectives and communes and industrial units managed by bureaucracies, it thereby made the rate of growth of gross domestic product go up faster than anywhere else in the world. But at the same time, led by its new faith in the market economy, China also abolished the system of universal health care; and, after the reforms of 1979, health insurance had to be bought by individuals (except in some relatively rare cases in which the state or some big firms provide them to their employees and dependents). With this change, China's rapid progress in longevity sharply slowed down.
This was problem enough when China's aggregate income was growing extremely fast, but it is bound to become a much bigger problem when the Chinese economy decelerates sharply, as it is currently doing. The Chinese government is now trying hard to gradually reintroduce health insurance for all, and the US government under Obama is also committed to making health coverage universal. In both China and the US, the rectifications have far to go, but they should be central elements in tackling the economic crisis, as well as in achieving long-term transformation of the two societies.

6.
The revival of Keynes has much to contribute both to economic analysis and to policy, but the net has to be cast much wider. Even though Keynes is often seen as a kind of a "rebel" figure in contemporary economics, the fact is that he came close to being the guru of a new capitalism, who focused on trying to stabilize the fluctuations of the market economy (and then again with relatively little attention to the psychological causes of business fluctuations). Even though Smith and Pigou have the reputation of being rather conservative economists, many of the deep insights about the importance of nonmarket institutions and nonprofit values came from them, rather than from Keynes and his followers.
A crisis not only presents an immediate challenge that has to be faced. It also provides an opportunity to address long-term problems when people are willing to reconsider established conventions. This is why the present crisis also makes it important to face the neglected long-term issues like conservation of the environment and national health care, as well as the need for public transport, which has been very badly neglected in the last few decades and is also so far sidelined—as I write this article—even in the initial policies announced by the Obama administration. Economic affordability is, of course, an issue, but as the example of the Indian state of Kerala shows, it is possible to have state-guaranteed health care for all at relatively little cost. Since the Chinese dropped universal health insurance in 1979, Kerala—which continues to have it—has very substantially overtaken China in average life expectancy and in indicators such as infant mortality, despite having a much lower level of per capita income. So there are opportunities for poor countries as well.
But the largest challenges face the United States, which already has the highest level of per capita expenditure on health among all countries in the world, but still has a relatively low achievement in health and has more than forty million people with no guarantee of health care. Part of the problem here is one of public attitude and understanding. Hugely distorted perceptions of how a national health service works need to be corrected through public discussion. For example, it is common to assume that no one has a choice of doctors in a European national health service, which is not at all the case.
There is, however, also a need for better understanding of the options that exist. In US discussions of health reform, there has been an overconcentration on the Canadian system—a system of public health care that makes it very hard to have private medical care—whereas in Western Europe the national health services provide care for all but also allow, in addition to state coverage, private practice and private health insurance, for those who have the money and want to spend it this way. It is not clear just why the rich who can freely spend money on yachts and other luxury goods should not be allowed to spend it on MRIs or CT scans instead. If we take our cue from Adam Smith's arguments for a diversity of institutions, and for accommodating a variety of motivations, there are practical measures we can take that would make a huge difference to the world in which we live.
The present economic crises do not, I would argue, call for a "new capitalism," but they do demand a new understanding of older ideas, such as those of Smith and, nearer our time, of Pigou, many of which have been sadly neglected. What is also needed is a clearheaded perception of how different institutions actually work, and of how a variety of organizations—from the market to the institutions of the state—can go beyond short-term solutions and contribute to producing a more decent economic world.
—February 25, 2009

Notes
[1]Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited by R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner (Clarendon Press, 1976), I, II.ii.28, p. 292.
[2]Smith, The Wealth of Nations, I, I.viii.26, p. 91.
[3]Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie (Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 189–190.
[4]Smith, The Wealth of Nations, I, II.iv.15, p. 357.
[5]A.C. Pigou, Industrial Fluctuations (London: Macmillan, 1929), p. 73.
[6]Pigou, Industrial Fluctuations, p. 96.
[7]A.C. Pigou, The Economics of Welfare (London: Macmillan, 1920). Current works on economic inequality, including the major contributions of A.B. Atkinson, have been to a considerable extent inspired by Pigou's pioneering initiative: see Atkinson, Social Justice and Public Policy (MIT Press, 1983).

要要要·拯救老黄瓜

我更願意聽到，要要要。而不是聽到，不不不。
喊不，是一種被強姦狀態。我要，是一種激情狀態。
《中國不高興》這本書，據出版商說，是《中國可以說不》的升級版。情緒很像被強姦後，“不高興”。一些人，總是在煽動一種強姦氣氛。或許，只是在勾勒這樣的幻覺而已。幻想被強姦。
中國是這個世界的一部分。一隻手對另外一隻手的撫摸，一隻手對身體其他部位的撫摸。
“美國不是紙老虎，是‘老黃瓜刷綠漆’。”
強姦者連紙老虎都不是，不過是一根老黃瓜。
面對一根老黃瓜，不高興了。
“中國不僅要拯救自己，還要拯救全人類。”
包括拯救強姦犯。

拯救老黄瓜？
在喊完不之後，最好喊要。

要，才能拯救人類，拯救老黄瓜。

文明，就是半推半就。

文明，就是兩情相悅。

帝國大廈之巔的功夫熊貓

西方世界到底如何在思考中國?這個話題太龐大。不過，我們可以從權威雜誌《經濟學人》（北美版）梳理出一點點線索。
我們從什麼時候開始呢？因為我們的主線是熊貓，所以這裏首先說說金剛。
2006年1月21日封面，充滿浪漫主義情懷：關注電影新版《金剛》。這部電影，據說讓許多男人都流下眼淚。金剛，是不是預示了一場戰鬥的開場？金剛與誰的戰鬥？或者是金剛、人合力與誰的戰鬥？誰是美女？誰是金剛？
此前一周封面為格林斯潘交棒美聯儲，格林斯潘身穿白色背心，運動短褲，國旗裹踝，在跑道上奮力衝刺。他手拿燃燒的接力棒，標寫著：美國經濟。1月14日這期封面報導標題為：美國的危險時候（Danger time for AMERICA）。
1月7日封面，是：後沙龍時代。
這三期。或許預示，大時代，主角正在登場。危機撲面而來。1月14日封面，右上角導讀第一條是關於中國的新聞：China’s Columbus Beating Map。文章說，哥倫布1492年發現新大陸、迪亞斯1488年發現好望角，麥哲倫1519年環球旅行，這些經典歷史可能會因為新的歷史發現而改變：鄭和才是發現新世界的人。中國在危機前夕，以這樣的身份登場。
2月25日，封面報導是：美國總統布希去了印度。3月4日：伊拉克獨自去戰鬥。這個時候，布希的鐵哥們兒英國首相佈雷爾，就要卸任了，離開他待過兩屆的唐寧街10號。仿佛一切大佬都要退場了。
3月25日，經濟學人似乎在仰天長歎：如何讓中國更富裕？早在2005年11月19日，雜誌把在天安門毛澤東像左右分別添加了同等尺寸的布希和胡錦濤照片，標題為：超級大國會面。
5月6日，內賈德指點天下。經濟學人同樣是在提問：“伊朗核野心勢不可擋？”同樣在嘗試回答。6月10日，記錄紮卡維被擊斃。
值得注意的是，6月17日，主打文章為：不平等與美國夢。此文，或許與奧巴馬當選美國總統、以及之後的資本主義模世論，有那麼一絲理不清的深刻關聯。
金正日以“火箭人”的身份登場經濟學人封面，接下來是“和強大的俄羅斯共處”。“中東迷失”在戰火中。“全球化的未來”，圖片是擱淺的船。
9月2日，經濟學人，紀念了伊拉克戰爭5周年。
10月14日，還是金正日。“誰能阻止他？”
接下來一期，預兆正在變成現實。主標題是：“美國放緩，亞洲購買”。副題為：“美國經濟放緩為什麼不會阻止世界”。山姆大叔，跟在身穿旗袍的亞洲美人後面。山姆大叔扮演的角色：是山城棒棒軍，幫美人兒搬商品。好一幅欣欣向荣的场面！這裏，經濟學人的筆主頗為樂觀。不過，很顯然，他們表達了一個訴求和希望：亞洲來購買，刺激經濟繁榮。伏筆。
11月25日，華爾街的金牛，被紅繩綁架了。副題是：“出了啥問題？”
12月2日，美元上面的華盛頓血淚。主標題：“美國墜落”。
之後，連續5周沒再大規模關注美國經濟。
2007年1月20日，探討全球化過程裏，誰成了富人，誰成了窮人。
3月3日，經濟學人的編輯發現：華爾街在走下坡路了。而且是走的鋼絲。
3月10日， “中國新革命”。拖拉機大叔高舉物權法紅寶書。
3月24日，首次在封面關注美國次貸危機。標題只用trouble這個詞。
4月7日，“全球化反彈”。
4月14日，薩科齊登場，仿拿破崙像。
5月19日，對於我們來說，是關鍵的一期。儘管論調沒什麼新意。熊貓，替換金剛，攀爬在帝國大廈頂部。標題：美國的中國恐懼。
6月30日，山姆大叔不當山城棒棒了，改當拳擊手，四肢碩大，氣勢威猛。標題是：“美國還是NO. 1。”
7月14日，問：歐洲復蘇還能持續嗎？
8月11日，“美國左轉”。
10月13日，主打“中國農民”艱難前途。悲天憫人：城市生長，農民滯後。
11月10日，“穆沙拉夫先生，時間到”。催促巴基斯坦總統下臺。
12月1日，華盛頓駕駛的美元之車在燃燒。“美元恐慌”。這回用詞panic。
12月8日，“廉價食品終結”。
12月22日，耶誕節前夕特刊，毛澤東頭頂紅五星聖誕帽，擔當聖誕老人。
2008年1月12日開始，進入美國大選時間。
1月26日，經濟颶風來了。美國股市接連下挫。
3月1日，俄國熊懷抱油桶，吃油：俄羅斯經濟出問題了。
3月22日，華爾街裂開。即使如此，3月15日，經濟學人依然關注中國的戰略資源追求。14個版面。標題為：中國殖民地。
5月3日，中國以紅色憤怒的龍形象，出現在經濟學人封面。“憤怒的中國”。
5月24日，“通脹回來了”。
7月19日，美國“兩房”出問題了。
7月26日，自由女神癱坐在基座上，“美國不高興”。
8月2日，“中國為自由衝刺”。副題：奧運讓衝刺慢下來。
9月20日，風暴正在吞沒大公司。“下一個是誰？”9月27日，保爾森指著你：我要你的錢！“保爾森的計畫能行嗎?”
10月4日，“世界在深淵邊沿”。
10月11日，“拯救這個體系”。
10月18日，“資本主義觸礁”。
10月25日，“進入風暴”。探討新型市場誰將被捲入危機。
11月1日，奧巴馬翩翩而來。“It’s Time”。11月8日，“遠大前程”，或者叫“巨大期望”，說的還是奧巴馬。
11月15日，“重組全球金融”。
11月22日，“你要的是現金”。
12月6日，“你的儲蓄哪里去了” ？
12月13日，“中國和印度”，講述兩個脆弱經濟體的危機應對能力。熊貓和大象靠肩頂樹。
2009年1月24日，“銀行內幕”。
1月31日，“亞洲震驚”。
2月7日，“經濟民族主義幽靈歸來”。
2月14日，“拯救”，說的是“奧巴馬經濟復興計畫有麻煩”。
2月21日，“製造崩潰”。
東歐經濟動盪正在影響歐洲政局。2月28日，德國總理默克爾、英國首相布朗、法國總統薩科齊為東歐振興計畫而戰。
38個月的時間裏，經濟學人雜誌並沒有向中國發出呼喊，並沒有高聲要求中國拯救世界。
中國商務部長陳德銘在接受中央電視臺記者任永蔚專訪時說：“很多媒體一會兒說我們要救世界，一會兒又說我們造成了世界的經濟失衡的責任、貨幣的超重，它會從兩方面說，我覺得真是無稽之談。”
他还说,我覺得中國確實比過去強大了，整個世界對我們的期望也高了，我們也應該在自己發展中，在國際上盡更多我們的責任和義務。但是把我們捧得很高，把我們像描繪成一個世界的救世主一樣，像“功夫熊貓”一樣能救世界經濟危機是誇大了，因為我們的責任和任務首先是做好本國的事情，我們中國經濟還能在今天穩定發展，那就是對世界經濟最大的貢獻。在這個過程中，我們也盡我們的力量，在貿易、投資方面跟世界多一些合作。
其實沒人說我們能當功夫熊貓。在西方的現實體系裏，不是可愛熊貓，而是讓人恐懼的，或者是悲情的熊貓。
即便是在3月6日世界银行行长佐利克和首席经济学家林毅夫在华盛顿邮报的文章里，我们也沒看到人家對中國的求救。而是要求中國，負責任。
如果实在要畫一幅圖像的話，我想，應該是，山姆大叔調教熊貓，讓他不要搗蛋了，好好練功夫，造福世界。

全球資本主義的未來

這些變化將危及世界管理全球經濟並應對戰略性挑戰的能力：脆弱的國家政權、恐怖主義、氣候變化以及新興大國的崛起

(金融危機席捲全球，重創了歐美銀行體系，也動搖了長期主導西方經濟思維的自由市場觀念。資本主義將走向何方？自即日起，英國《金融時報》邀請全球意見領袖和FT評論家,共話“全球資本主義的未來”。馬丁·沃爾夫的評論是本系列的第一篇，歡迎讀者參與討論ftchinese.editor@ft.com ——編者)

英國《金融時報》首席經濟事務評論員馬丁·沃爾夫(Martin Wolf)， 2009-03-09，譯者/和風、何黎

又一個意識形態上帝失敗了。在過去30年間主導著政策和政治的各種假定，突然間看上去就像革命社會主義一樣過時。
美國保守派英雄人物、前總統羅奈爾得·雷根(Ronald Reagan)曾經譏諷道：“英文中最可怕的九個詞是：‘我來自政府，我來幫忙。'”在西方國家政府向金融體系注入數以萬億計的美元、歐元和英鎊之際，這話似乎已成了遙遠的歷史。

格林斯潘“錯愕”
“政府是壞事；放鬆監管的市場是好事”，這一信念怎能不受打擊？去年10月，艾茵·蘭德(Ayn Rand)的門徒、前些年顯赫一時的央行掌門人艾倫·格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)在美國國會作證時稱，對於放貸機構的自我利益未能保護股東股本，他處於“一種難以置信的錯愕狀態”。
在西方，過去30年間的親市場意識形態，是對人們眼中凱恩斯混合經濟模式失敗的反應，這種模式曾在20世紀50、60和70年代占主導地位。轉向注重市場的模式，被人與1980年雷根當選美國總統和此前一年瑪格麗特·柴契爾(Margaret Thatcher)當選英國首相聯繫起來。其實，當時的美聯儲(Federal Reserve)主席保羅·沃爾克(Paul Volcker)在根治通脹方面的角色也幾乎同樣重要。
但還有更大的事件在塑造著那個時代：中國在鄧小平領導下從計劃經濟走向市場經濟，蘇聯式社會主義在1989年至1991年垮臺，以及印度在1991年後告別內向型經濟政策。中央計畫的死亡、冷戰的結束，以及（最重要的）數十億人加入快速全球化的世界經濟，都是那個時代的亮點。
如今，在巨大全球金融危機和經濟活動同步滑坡的背景下，世界正再次發生變化。金融體系是市場經濟的大腦。如果它需要代價如此高昂的救助，那麼雷根看不起政府職能的理念怎麼站得住腳？如果金融體系已經失敗，人們對市場還能有多少信心？
在這樣的轉捩點上，我們不可能知道自己正走向何處。在混亂的上世紀70年代，很少人猜得到下一個時代將發生的事：馴服通脹、釋放資本主義，以及共產主義的死亡。現在將發生的事，將取決於尚未做出的選擇、仍不可知的衝擊。然而，一場金融崩潰與一次嚴重經濟衰退（如果不是什麼更糟糕的情形）結合在一起，勢必將改變世界。市場的正當性將被削弱。美國的可信度將受到損害。中國的威信將有所上升。全球化本身可能受挫。這是一個動盪的時代。

世界是怎麼走到這一步的？
世界是怎麼走到這一步的？答案是，在很大程度上，自由化時代含有最終導致其滅亡的種子：在那個時代，金融業規模和盈利能力出現巨幅增長，金融創新競相迸發，全球宏觀經濟失衡不斷加大，家庭大舉借債，資產價格出現泡沫。
在美國這個全球市場經濟的核心和當前風暴的中心，金融業債務總額從1981年占國內生產總值22%，飆升至2008年第三季度占117%。在嚴重依賴金融業的英國，金融業債務總額達到GDP的近250%。
馬里蘭大學(University of Maryland)的卡門·萊因哈特(Carmen Reinhart)和哈佛大學(Harvard)的肯尼斯·羅格夫(Kenneth Rogoff)指出，自由化時代也是金融危機格外頻發的時代，自1900年以來只有30年代不屬於這種情況。自由化時代還是資產價格形成大泡沫的時代。新興經濟體的政府通過干預以壓低本國貨幣匯率，並積累外匯儲備，產生了巨額經常帳戶盈餘，他們把這些盈餘，連同私人資本的流入，再迴圈成官方的資本流出：從上世紀90年代末至2008年7月頂峰時期，單是它們的外匯儲備就增加了5.3萬億美元。
除了這些巨額資本流動外，還有若干高收入國家的傳統盈餘，以及石油輸出國家暴增的盈餘，所有這些資本最終都流入少數高收入國家，尤其是美國。在頂峰時期，美國曾吸收世界其他地方過剩儲蓄的70%。
與此同時，在美國國內，家庭債務占GDP的比率從1997年的66%，上升至10年後的100%。英國的家庭債務出現了更大幅度的飆升。家庭債務的激增，得到了具有高度彈性和善於創新的金融體系的支持，在美國還得到了政府計畫的支持。
在此期間，金融業一刻不停地創新。傳奇投資者沃倫·巴菲特(Warren Buffett)曾將衍生品形容為“大規模金融殺傷武器”。他的話至少有一部分證明是對的。2000年後，“影子銀行體系”湧現，傳統銀行業在很大程度上被“生成-分銷”的證券化模式所取代，採用抵押債務債券這樣的結構。這種模式在2007年崩潰。

30年代以來最危險的金融危機
我們正在目擊自上世紀30年代以來最深、最廣泛和最危險的金融危機。正如萊因哈特教授和羅格夫教授在另一篇論文中所指出的，“銀行業危機與產出和就業的深度下滑存在關聯”。這其中有部分原因在於舉債過度的資產負債表：在美國，債務總額達到占GDP略低於350%的歷史頂峰（其中85%為私營部門債務），遠高於1980年的略高於160%。
這場衝擊的可能結局包括：具有大額外部赤字的國家為保持需求而背上巨額且持久的財政赤字；持久的世界經濟衰退；全球國際收支的無情調整；通脹飆升；以及各國求助於保護主義。金融業本身勢必出現最深層次的轉變。高級的現代金融能夠把風險轉移給最有能力管理風險的人，這個命題已經不成立了。相反，在這一體系中，風險被轉移給了最沒有能力理解風險的人。正如沃爾克在去年4月一次發言中所指出的：“簡言之，閃亮的新金融體系，儘管有那麼多才華橫溢的參加者，那麼豐富的回報，卻還是經不起市場的考驗。”
在最近的一篇論文中，英國央行(Bank of England)金融穩定事務執行董事安德魯•霍爾丹(Andrew Haldane)指出了銀行對其應管理的風險的理解有多麼的少。他將這些失敗歸咎於“災難短視”(disaster myopia，指傾向於低估風險)、缺乏對“網路外部性”(network externalities，從一家機構對其他機構的溢出效應)的認識以及“不協調激勵措施”(misaligned incentives，對員工有利，對股東和納稅人不利)。
此次危機過後，我們肯定“不會那麼自豪地看待金融，就像1925年邱吉爾所渴望的那樣。市場將制定嚴酷（即便是暫時的）的紀律。監管也會加強。
不太明確的一點是，決策者是否將考慮結構性補救措施：將多功能商業銀行業務與投行業務分離；或者被迫縮減被視為規模太大或關聯性過於緊密而不能破產的機構的規模和複雜性。有人可能還會設想，隨著政府發揮越來越大的主導作用，大量銀行業活動將回歸本國市場。如果這樣，將出現“放鬆全球化”(de-globalisation)。
此外，邱吉爾還要求工業要變得“更知足”。然而，短期來看，金融體系的崩潰正帶來相反的結果：全球性工業下滑。此外，這正蔓延到實體經濟的所有重要領域，其中許多行業正大聲呼喚援助。
然而，如果金融體系被證明為功能紊亂，那麼我們能在多大程度上依賴股東價值最大化，作為引導企業的方法呢？畢竟，大多數股權掌握在金融機構手中。過去18個月的事件肯定證實了這一觀點的愚蠢之處。許多人會總結道，相對于讓金融參與者或市場淩駕於公司之上，讓公司管理者決定公司的方向是更佳做法。
可能的結果是，政府保護公司不受活躍股東襲擊的意願增強，這些股東包括對沖基金、私人股本及其它投資者。隨著有缺陷的金融業喪失其可信度，市場進程的合理性也受到影響。 自由的“盎格魯-撒克遜”式策略尤其如此。
貨幣政策發生重大變化的可能性也很大。宏觀經濟共識一直支持貨幣和財政政策責任分離、讓財政政策自動發揮作用、央行獨立以及令貨幣政策轉向針對通脹。但由於利率已接近零，貨幣和財政政策之間的區別已消失。更根本的是挑戰在制定貨幣政策過程中忽視資產價格的決定。
許多人辯稱，接替沃爾克的格林斯潘為泡沫以及隨後泡沫的破裂創造了條件。他曾主張，相對於及時發現泡沫並戳破它，在泡沫破裂後收拾殘局更容易一些。在去年11月對這一理論重新進行評價時，美聯儲副主席唐納德•科恩(Donald Kohn)重申了這一傳統看法，不過他流露出了一絲不自在。
科恩現在指出，“考慮到投機性繁榮與蕭條（這可能要經歷數年時間完成）對實體經濟明顯的重要性，在評估經濟前景以及就伴隨而來的合理的政策利率道路進行討論時，央行可能應努力長期保持警惕”。央行必須更進一步，要麼通過貨幣政策，要麼通過監管工具。
然而，巨大的金融危機，再加上嚴重的全球衰退（如果不是更糟糕的話），將造成遠比這些更為廣泛的影響。
記住上世紀30年代大蕭條(Great Depression)時期所發生的事情吧。失業人數增至包括美國在內的重要國家總人口的四分之一。這徹底改變了長達半個世紀的資本主義以及政府的作用，甚至在自由主義民主國家。這導致自由貿易崩潰、社會主義和共產主義的可信度增強並令許多決策者轉向進口替代，作為一項發展戰略。
大蕭條還帶來了仇外情緒和威權主義。被嚇壞的人們變得封閉起來：他們在社會內部以及不同社會之間公開劃清界限。1930年，德國納粹贏得了德國民眾18%的選票；1932年，在大蕭條高潮時期，這一數字曾升至37%。
一個已經能看到的改變是對薪酬的態度。甚至連美國和英國都正對接受援助的機構的薪資水準和結構進行直接控制。從無法想像到變成習慣用了一年時間。同樣明顯的是，對不平等的態度發生了更大變化：作為能力出眾的回報，巨額酬金是可以接受的；但作為對代價高昂的不勝任的補償，那是無法忍受的。對較富裕人士徵收的邊際稅率正再度上升。
然而，另外一個影響是在不安全感方面。把養老儲蓄從政府管理的現收現付(pay-as-you-go)體系轉移到基於市場的體系，其可信度將遠遠不如以前。但諷刺的是，儘管如此，長期投資獲利的機會卻增加了。與市場一樣，政治也做過了頭。
對安全感的追尋將加強政治對市場的控制。轉向政治必須伴隨著轉向國內，而遠離國際。在金融業，這一點已非常明顯。決心援救國內生產商的做法也證明了這點。但保護主義干預可能會遠遠超越目前我們所看到的例子：現在還為時尚早。
這場危機對於新興市場的影響將尤為嚴重：極度貧困人口數量將增加、新興中產階層的規模將減小、同時一些背負債務的新興國家的政府肯定會違約。人們對於本國和全球精英的信心、對於市場甚至重大進展的可能性的信心將下滑，這將對社會和政治造成潛在的破壞性影響。多數新興經濟體對這場危機毫無責任，幫助它們擺脫危機是必要的。
整個西方世界（尤其是美國）影響事件發展的能力也將遭到破壞。西方金融體系的崩潰（而中國的金融體系則在蓬勃發展）標誌著“單極時刻”的結束，這令人羞愧。由於西方決策者步履維艱，他們的可信度也遭到了破壞。誰還相信這些老師？
這些變化將危及世界管理全球經濟並應對戰略性挑戰的能力：脆弱的國家政權、恐怖主義、氣候變化以及新興大國的崛起。從極端意義上來說，幾乎所有人現在都依賴的全球經濟一體化可能會出現倒退。全球化是一種選擇。第一次世界大戰以前歷時幾十年的一體化經濟陷於崩潰。現在這可能會再次發生。
2007年6月19日，我就“新資本主義”撰寫了一篇文章，我注意到，它仍“未經受考驗”。如今考驗已經來臨：它失敗了。金融自由化的時代已經結束。然而，與上世紀30年代不同，現在市場經濟的可靠替代品並不存在，國際合作的習慣根深蒂固。
“我感覺，我們所處的地方已不再是堪薩斯了。”桃樂茜(Dorothy，譯者注：《綠野仙蹤》童話故事中的女主角)說道，此前一場龍捲風把她、她的房子以及她的狗吹到了奧茲城(OZ)。過去30年的世界已消失。在這次金融龍捲風過後，我們將降落至何處，這是我們希望確定的事情。