【英语社会】先知凯恩斯

“There are today many wellwishers of their country who believe that the most useful thing which they and their neighbours can do to mend the situation is to save more than usual . . . Now in certain circumstances all this would be right, but in present circumstances it is quite wrong. Suppose we were to stop spending our incomes altogether and were to save the lot. Why, everyone would be out of work. And before long we would have no incomes to spend . . . Now is the time for municipalities to be busy and act with all kinds of sensible improvements . . . I read a few days ago of a proposal to drive a great new road, a broad boulevard, parallel to the Strand, on the south side of the Thames, as a new thoroughfare joining Westminster to the City . . . But I would like to see something bigger still. For example, why not pull down the whole of south London from Westminster to Greenwich, and make a good job of it . . . at the same time providing hundreds of acres of squares and avenues, parks and public spaces . . . Is it better that men should stand idle and miserable drawing the dole?” From a radio talk by J.M. Keynes, January 14 1931 (reprinted in Essays in Persuasion).Why is the failure of banks and associated financial institutions a greater threat than would be the failure of other large businesses such as Ford or General Motors? There are two main reasons.

First, these institutions provide the bulk of the money supply. The readiness of individuals and businesses to spend depends on many things – income and assets of all kinds, financial and real. But money holdings are their first line of defence. If their validity is in doubt, people feel not only poorer but also anxious and disoriented. In normal times they vaguely know that banks do not have in their tills currency notes to meet a mass demand for cash from their depositors, but this is mainly an item for general knowledge quizzes. It becomes of supreme importance when the headlines are full of banks in trouble and quite serious people only half-jokingly wonder whether “under the mattress” might not be a better place to keep their immediately available savings.

Second, one can imagine a system whereby savers lent directly only to short-term business and personal borrowers. But this is not all that actually happens. Savers deposit funds that might be quickly required in banks. The latter effectively create the money they lend out. In normal times this roughly balances out through some mixture of market forces and central bank policy. But when banks are afraid to lend, these are not normal times and we risk not just recession, but depression.

The first problem is easier to tackle than the second. The Irish have led the way by their guarantee of all bank deposits as they had already led with their rejection of the totally unnecessary Lisbon treaty. This week's £400bn ($690bn, €510bn) UK programme virtually provides such guarantees. But why only “virtually”?

On the second problem there are many approaches including the state capital holdings in UK banks announced this week and, if necessary, full nationalisation. There are also all kinds of precedents, from the New Deal to Mussolini, of state agencies lending to or acquiring sound non-financial companies in temporary difficulties. These agencies persisted too long and held on to their corporate assets too long. Any human instrument can be misused.

Already there are warnings that all such devices will increase budget deficits and debt. So be it. Maxims about debt that might be prudent for families can be the height of folly for governments. Keynes in the above quotation was writing at the onset of the Great Depression. But can we not act pre-emptively? I realise that people find it psychologically difficult to take on board a crisis that calls for more spending rather than belt-tightening. We had a similar situation on a smaller scale in the US when President John F. Kennedy said: “Ask what you can do for your country” and then struggled to get a tax cut through Congress.

May I end on a personal note? Some friends and colleagues ask if I have not been guilty of trying to dethrone Keynes in favour of Friedman. Not so. On many key issues these two thinkers have been at one against the financial herd. More important: when British “Keynesians” tried to use fiscal and monetary policy without regard to inflation and tried to cure the latter by making unions agents of wage restraint and businesses agents of profit control, I parted company. Recently I supported the Bank of England's disinclination to cut rates against my own instincts when we were faced with rising inflation from energy and commodity prices. These have fallen back sharply under the influence of world recessionary forces and we cannot now wait for the slow process by which these forces work their way into consumer price indices.

The Bank's internationally co-ordinated half a percentage bank rate cut needs to be the first of many – and these must come quickly. It will probably need to be supplemented by a fiscal stimulus. Most of the academic objections to this would be overcome by a temporary indirect tax cut which the UK chancellor of the exchequer can announce any time under “regulator” powers.

“现在有许多人抱有良好的愿望，他们相信，为了改善目前的事态，他们本国以及邻邦所能采取的最有效的办法就是，比往常更节俭一些……诚然，在某些情况下，这种做法是完全正确的，但在目前的情况下，很不幸，这种做法则是完全错误的……假设我们大家把收入全部储蓄起来，完全停止花费。毫无疑问，我们每一个人都会失去工作，而且不久我们也不会再有收入以供花费……现在是时候了，各地方当局应当努力工作、积极行动，争取各方面的切实改进……几天前我曾在报上看到一则建议，说要开辟一条新路、一条宽阔的公路，在泰晤士河南岸，与河岸相平行，作为连接威斯敏斯特与城市中心的一条通道……但我还想看到比这一工程更宏大的计划项目。例如，我们不妨把从威斯敏斯特到格林尼治的整个伦敦南部，彻底改造一番……同时还可以为广场、街道、公园和公共场所留下足够的余地……现在人们靠救济津贴来度日，无事可做，生活郁闷，是不是让他们继续处于这样的境地就好些呢？”* 这些话摘选自凯恩斯(J.M. Keynes) 1931年1月14日的广播演讲稿（收录在《预言与劝说》(Essays in Persuasion)一书中）。为什么银行和相关金融机构的倒闭，要比福特(Ford)或通用汽车(General Motors)等其它大型企业倒闭的威胁大？这里有两个主要原因。

首先，货币供给主要来自金融机构。个人和企业的消费意愿取决于许多因素——收入和各类资产，包括金融资产和实物资产。但持有通货是他们的第一道防线。如果其有效性受到质疑，人们不仅会感到更加贫穷，还会焦虑和迷惘。正常情况下，人们只是模模糊糊地知道，银行柜台里的现钞无法满足储户的大量现金需求，不过这一般只是知识竞赛里的一道题目而已。随着头版新闻充斥着银行陷入困境的消息，当非常严肃的人只是半开玩笑地怀疑，“床垫下”是否确实不是保管随时可用的储蓄的更好地方时，这就变得极为重要了。

其次，你可以设想一个储户只能直接借钱给短期企业和个人借贷者的体系。但实际情况并不完全是这样。储户把可能很快就会动用的钱存入银行，而银行有效地创造出它们借出的资金。正常情况下，通过市场力量和央行政策的组合，这大体能保持平衡。但在银行害怕放贷时，就不再是正常情况，而我们面临的风险不仅是衰退，还有萧条。

第一个问题比第二个容易解决。爱尔兰做出了榜样，为所有银行存款提供担保，正如他们抵制毫无必要的里斯本条约(Lisbon treaty)时所起的表率作用。英国本周启动的4000亿英镑（合6900亿美元）计划，实际上提供了这种担保。但为什么只是“实际上”？

第二个问题有许多解决方法，包括本周宣布的向英国银行注入政府资金，以及必要时的全盘国有化。从罗斯福新政(New Deal)到墨索里尼，政府机构向暂时处于困境的健全非金融公司发放贷款或予以收购，已有各种先例。这些政府机构持续的时间太长，持有其企业资产的时间太长。任何人类工具都可能被滥用。

已经有警告称，所有这些手段将增加预算赤字和债务。那又怎样？适用于家庭的债务格言，对政府而言可能是荒谬绝伦。凯恩斯的上述言论写于大萧条(Great Depression)伊始之际。但是，我们能够不采取先发制人的行动吗？我意识到，人们从心理上很难接受要求增加支出而非勒紧腰带的危机。美国曾出现过规模较小的类似情况，当时，美国总统约翰•肯尼迪(John F. Kennedy)说道：“要问你能为你的国家做些什么”，然后努力促使国会通过减税政策。

我能否以个人之事结束本文？一些朋友和同事问我，是否为摒弃凯恩斯、推崇弗里德曼(Friedman)而感到内疚？不是那样的。在许多关键问题上，这两位思想家一致反对金融群体。更重要的是：当英国的“凯恩斯主义者”试图在不考虑通胀的情况下采用财政和货币政策，并试图通过让工会代理约束工资约束、让企业代理控制利润，由此解决通胀问题时，我与他们存在意见分歧。最近，当我们面临由能源和大宗商品价格引起的通胀上升时，我违背了自己的本能，对英国央行(Bank of England)不愿降息的态度表示支持。在全球经济下滑力量的影响下，这些商品的价格已大幅回落，但这些力量促成消费者价格指数改变的过程是缓慢的，我们现在不能等待。

英国央行的全球协同降息0.5个百分点，应该是众多措施中的第一步——所有措施都必须尽快。它可能需要一项财政刺激政策作为补充。暂时性的间接减税将会消除学术界对此的大多数反对意见，而英国财政大臣随时都可以利用“监管者”的权力宣布减税政策。

*译文摘自《凯恩斯文集：预言与劝说》中译本，由江苏人民出版社出版

译者/陈云飞