【英语生活】与需求饱和无关

The beginning of a new year should be a good time for business leaders to reflect on how they are seen by the educated but non-specialist public, for instance the arts community. A typical talk on BBC's Radio Three might start by bemoaning the consumer society, with its passion for shopping and the rush to make pointless purchases. It might then bemoan the nervous strain in the quest for economic growth and the lack of time or energy for more worthwhile activities. But then comes a more interesting twist. All this frenzy of pointless activity is required, it is said, to keep the economy going. Without it, the implication is, production would dry up and jobs disappear, and we would wallow in semi-permanent depression.

The contention is that the economy would collapse if we ceased to demand more and more, a belief sometimes called the saturation bogey. Many practical businessmen, who have no time or inclination for political economy, suppose that we must go on churning out more and more to survive, whether or not we enjoy the process. The US president Calvin Coolidge remarked in 1926: “The chief business of the American people is business.”UK politicians used to ask what would happen when every family in the country had two cars.

The clue to the whole matter is provided, as so often, by a dictum from Adam Smith: “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of production; and the interests of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.” To demonstrate the falsity of the belief that we must continue to feed the productive machine with ever more ridiculous demands, let me indulge in a brief thought experiment.

Let us take a medium-sized, western economy with no major population change and negligible net migration or other problems. What might then happen if a majority of people were to turn their backs on further improvements in their real spending? The basic answer is that, in this no-growth new world, people could enjoy the fruits of technological progress with a mixture of increased leisure and a more congenial and relaxed working life. The reduction in labour input would be voluntary and completely different from what happens in an economic slump.

Some political economists have looked forward to this state of affairs. John Stuart Mill regarded what he called the “stationary state” as a delight rather than a disaster. He could not believe that the perpetual struggle to get on and elbow other people out of the way was other than a temporary phase in humanity's progress. Keynes also looked forward to such a world (in his essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”) when “we shall honour the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things: the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.” He allowed for the persistence of a minority of people who would feel satisfaction only if their behaviour made them feel superior to their fellows, “but the rest of us would no longer feel under any obligation to applaud”.

There is another view, stated most eloquently by Joseph Schumpeter. As he put it: “Capitalism is by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is, but never can be, stationary.”

Let us concede at once that the resulting system would not look much like capitalism as we know it. But even in such a society there would be great advantages in retaining competitive markets based on private ownership. Those who have now, belatedly, discovered Schumpeter and quote him out of context do not realise that, writing in the 1940s, he expected entrepreneurial capitalism to have died out long ago and replaced by some variant of state socialism. He failed to see how unworkable the latter would be. Like many other seers he was an excellent analyst, but a poor prophet.

As soon as we add more realistic conditions, the saturation bogey becomes more and more remote. Even if demand for conventional consumer goods were to peak, there might still be demand for more public services and more expenditure to relieve poverty at home and abroad. Most western countries are likely to see net immigration for the foreseeable future, which would bring with it opportunities for new investment without any need for whipping up artificial needs and anxieties. This is not to speak of devoting a margin of extra production to dealing with environmental threats, whether or not of a global warming variety.

Above all – and this is what may unite the different visions – a postmodern economy will still need (that much over-used word) flexibility. It must be ready to switch resources to meet terrorist threats, outside aggression or all manner of dangers not as yet foreseen. Economic growth need not just consist of trinkets or lavish parties for billionaires.

The present danger for policymakers and opinion leaders is to confuse a straightforward economic slowdown with the saturation of wants. An economic slowdown, this year or next, would be due to now well-ventilated fears: of consumers and governments getting further into debt, and of credit risk by financial institutions. It would have almost nothing to do with a retreat from the consumer society. But it is worth examining what the latter would be like, if only to avoid misdiagnoses of our present situation.

对于商业领袖而言，新年之初应该是一个好时机，可以用来反思自己在公众心目中的形象——这些公众指的是那些受过教育但又不是同行专家的人，例如艺术圈人士。英国广播公司(BBC)广播3台的一个典型谈话节目，可能会以对消费者社会的哀叹拉开序幕，谈论人们的购物激情以及匆忙进行那些毫无意义的购买。随后，它可能哀叹追求经济增长的紧张压力，以及缺乏时间与精力来进行更有价值的活动。但这里出现了一个比较有意思的矛盾。据说，为了保持经济发展，所有这些无意义活动背后的疯狂都是必要的。言下之意是，如果没有这些活动，生产会停顿，工作岗位会消失，而我们将受困于近乎永久的衰退之中。

其中的论点是，如果我们停止需求越来越多的产品，经济将崩溃。这一理念有时被称为饱和恐惧(saturation bogey)。许多很现实的生意人无暇也无意关注政治经济，但他们认为，不管我们喜不喜欢这一过程，为了生存，我们必须继续生产越来越多的产品。美国总统卡尔文•柯立芝(Calvin Coolidge)曾在1926年表示：“美国人民的要紧事就是做买卖。”英国政治家曾经问道：如果每个英国家庭都有两辆轿车将会怎样？

如同很多时候一样，亚当•斯密(Adam Smith)的一句格言为整个问题提供了线索：“消费是一切生产的唯一目的；而生产者的利益，只有在其成为促进消费者利益的要素时，才应当加以关注。”一种思维认为，我们必须不断以越来越无理性的需求来“喂养”生产机器。为了展示这一思维的错误，请让我来进行一个短暂的思想实验。

让我们以一个中型规模的西方经济为例。在这个经济体中，不存在重大人口变化或其它问题，净移民数额很小。如果大多数人拒绝增加自己的真实开销，会发生什么事情？基本答案是，在这个无增长的新世界里，人们会享受到科技进步的果实，将拥更多的闲暇时间，并有一个更加惬意与放松的工作生活。劳动力投入的减少将是自愿的，完全不同于经济衰退时的情况。

一些政治经济学家一直在期盼着这种情况的发生。约翰•斯图亚特•穆勒(John Stuart Mill)认为，自己所说的“定态”(stationary state)是好事而不是坏事。他相信，无休止的努力奋斗并将他人从自己前进的道路上挤开，只是人类发展史中的一个短暂阶段。凯恩斯(Keynes)也期盼着这样一个世界（在他的《我们子孙后代的经济可能性》(Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren)一文中），到那时“我们将尊重那些令人愉快的人们，他们能够从事物中直接获取快乐：就像那田野中的百合花，既不用辛苦劳作，也无需为五斗米而折腰。”他可以容忍一小撮人的顽固态度，这些人只有在自己的行为让自己感觉高人一等时才能感到满意，“但我们其余人不再感到有必要去为他们鼓掌喝彩”。

约瑟夫•熊彼特(Joseph Schumpeter)则颇为巧妙地表达了另外一种观点。如他所述：“资本主义的本质是一种经济变化的形态或方法，从来不是，也永远不能一成不变。”

我们必须承认，按照上述观点形成的系统，看上去不会很像我们已知的资本主义。但即使是在这样一个社会中，保留基于私人所有制的竞争性市场，也会带来巨大的好处。那些现在才迟钝地看到熊彼特，并断章取义地引用他的名言的人们没有意识到，他在上世纪40年代曾经在著作中预言道，企业家资本主义(entrepreneurial capitalism)不久将会为某种形式的国家社会主义所取代。他未能预见到后者是多么不中用。如同很多其他人一样，他是一个优秀的分析家，却是一位糟糕的预言家。

一旦我们加入更多现实条件，饱和恐惧就离我们越来越远了。即使常规消费品的需求出现回落，社会可能还需要更多的公共服务，在国内外消除贫困方面也需要更多支出。在可以预见到的未来，大多数西方国家可能出现净入境移民，这将带来新投资机会，而无需激发虚假的需求和恐慌。这还不算将额外产出的一部分投入在处理环境威胁上——不管是全球变暖还是其它问题。

最重要的——而这可能各种不同看法的共同点——一个后现代经济体仍将需要灵活性（这是个使用过于频繁的词汇）。它必须准备好将资源转向应对恐怖分子威胁、外来侵略或各种我们仍然无法预见的危险。经济增长需要的不仅是小玩意或亿万富翁的奢华派对。

政策制定者和民意领袖目前的危险在于将简单的经济减速与需求饱和混为一谈。不管今年还是明年，经济减速的原因将是我们已经熟知的一些担心：消费者与政府逐渐陷入更深的债务，以及金融机构的信贷风险。这与消费者社会的萧条基本无关。但对此进行分析、搞清它到底是什么样子，还是有价值的——即便这样做的唯一用途，就是避免对当前问题做出错误判断。

译者/李碧波