【经济学人20120121】国家资本主义的崛起
本帖最后由 woikuraki 于 2012-3-31 15:26 编辑【中文标题】国家资本主义的崛起
【原文标题】The rise of state capitalism
【登载媒体】经济学家
【原文链接】http://www.economist.com/node/21543160
新兴国家中的新经济模式将引发越来越多的问题。
过去15年以来，一些令人瞩目的公司总部点亮了新兴国家的大城市。中国中央电视台大楼就像一个巨大的外星人在北京的地平线上横行；马来西亚石油公司的88层总部石油双塔，直刺吉隆坡的星空；银行业巨头VTB的办公楼坐落在莫斯科的金融核心地带。这些都是标志一种新的混合体公司崛起的纪念碑，他们归国家所有，像私人跨国公司一样运作。
国家资本主义并不是一个新名词——想想东印度公司。但是，正如我们这期特别报道所指出的，它正在经历一个激动人心的复兴过程。在90年代，大部分国有公司在新兴市场中顶多算是政府的一个部门。我们预计，随着经济逐渐成熟，政府会将其关闭或私有化。但他们丝毫没有出现功成身退的迹象，无论在主要行业中（按储备量计算的世界上10大石油和天然气公司，全部是国有）还是主要市场中（国有公司占中国股市价值的80％，占俄罗斯股市价值的60％）依然高歌猛进。而且它们开始变得咄咄逼人，在几乎任何一个新兴产业中都出现了这些庞然大物。例如，中国移动有6亿客户。从2003年到2010年，国有公司占据了新兴国家外国直接投资总额的三分之一。
当西方惊恐不已而新兴市场歌舞升平时，中国人不再把国有公司当作是通往自由资本主义道路上的小小驿站，他们认为这是一个可持续发展的模式。他们觉得自己已经改造了资本主义，让它运作得更好，一大批新兴国家也愿意跟随中国人的脚步。从90年代就拥护自由市场观点的巴西政府，现在也有一些类似的企业，比如巴西国家石油公司，并且还强迫小企业联合。南非也在尝试这种模式。
这种发展模式提出了两个问题。它究竟有多成功？其后果是什么，包括对新兴市场和其它国家的影响？
收益递减定律
国家资本主义的支持者认为，这种模式不但稳定，还可以确保经济增长。俄罗斯在90年代由叶利钦主导的野蛮私有化过程，让很多新兴国家警醒，同时也确立了一种观点，即政府用来缓解资本主义和全球化带来的紧张局面的手段，不仅限于提供道路、桥梁等硬件基础设施，还包括提供旗舰公司这类软件基础设施。
于是，这一理念的早期拥护者——新加坡李光耀政府——在欢迎外国公司、拥抱西方管理理念的同时，依然占有公司的大部分股份。现在，中国是先行者。它的政府与企业之间的紧密关系，必将成为下周国际精英在瑞士度假胜地达沃斯会面时的热门话题。在聚会的西方人中，政府代表通常会与私人企业持相反的观点，但中国的两方代表意见完全一致，甚至会持有同样的爱国主义论据。
这种崭新的模式，与英国和世界其它国家在半个世纪前灾难性的国有化活动不同。中国的大型建设公司在全世界各地赢取合同，最优秀的国有企业目光远大，用大把外汇兼并外国公司，并以此获得宝贵的技术。政府有选择地入股各类企业。总体来说，中国政府放松了对经济的管制，政府机构只关注那些具备成功优势的产业。
百花齐放
然而，近距离观察这种模式会发现其弱点所在。一旦政府青睐某些企业，其它公司就遭了殃。2009年，中国移动和中国石油这两大巨头的盈利达330亿美元，高过中国前500名私有企业的盈利总和。国有巨头吸纳大量资本和人才，却并不像私有企业那样好好利用。有研究显示国有企业的资本利用率和增长率均低于私有企业。在很多国家，娇生惯养的国有大型企业为建造豪华的办公楼一掷千金，而私有企业却在为资金问题苦苦挣扎。
运作国有企业的代价有可能会提高。国有企业擅于模仿和复制，部分原因在于他们可以利用政府的影响力来掌控技术，但当他们需要提出自己的想法时，往往不那么具有竞争力了。国有公司所采取的冒险举措比小公司少得多，世界上最伟大的创新和发明往往都来自小型企业。
这种模式也无法确保其稳定性。国家资本主义只有在具备足够能力的政府管理下，才会运作良好。很多亚洲国家都具有强大的官场文化，而南非和巴西没有。印度煤炭公司绝非效率的典范。所有的国家资本主义都更加偏爱有关系的内部人士，而不是擅于创新的外部人士。在中国，受过高等教育的太子党攫取了大笔利益；在俄罗斯，前克格勃官员、所谓的“官僚寡头”，占据了克里姆林宫和这些企业。因此，这种模式造就了裙带关系、不公平分配和不满——就像穆巴拉克的国有资本主义在埃及的结局一样。
新兴国家通常都会利用政府的力量让经济启动，想想50年代的日本和韩国、19世纪70年代的德国、甚至独立战争之后的美国。但是假以时日，这些国家都毫无例外地发现这种模式的缺陷。中国人应当明白，学习历史最好的方法是观察其长期趋势。
但是，这种模式的弱点在多年后才会显现出来，与此同时，它有可能造成各种各样的问题。新兴市场的投资者需要格外小心，有些人可能会像投资公司一样把赌注押在政府身上。国家资本主义政府是善变的，他们很少关注小股东的利益。还有一些人会发现他们的子公司或者合资公司惹恼了政府的宠儿。
另一个问题是这种模式对全球贸易体系的影响，当颇有希望的共和党竞选人准备在入主白宫第一天就宣布中国为汇率操纵者时，这个体系已经面临着危机。如果一些公司公开或者私下得到一国政府的支持，我们就很难保证贸易的公平性。对于一些国家资本主义力量把持贸易制度为其公司谋利的行为，西方政客早已失去了耐心。
在那些期望跻身世界强国的新兴国家看来，国家资本主义无疑具有强大的吸引力，它能让你立即具备私有企业需要花费多年才能建立起的影响力。但它的危害超过了它的优势。无论为自身福祉还是为国际贸易秩序的利益考虑，国家资本主义的践行者们应当开始减持所青睐企业的股份，并把他们交给私人投资者。如果这些企业真像他们所号称的那样优秀，那么他们就不应当再需要国家的扶持了。
原文：
The spread of a new sort of business in the emerging world will cause increasing problems
OVER the past 15 years striking corporate headquarters have transformed the great cities of the emerging world. China Central Television’s building resembles a giant alien marching across Beijing’s skyline; the 88-storey Petronas Towers, home to Malaysia’s oil company, soar above Kuala Lumpur; the gleaming office of VTB, a banking powerhouse, sits at the heart of Moscow’s new financial district. These are all monuments to the rise of a new kind of hybrid corporation, backed by the state but behaving like a private-sector multinational.
State-directed capitalism is not a new idea: witness the East India Company. But as our special report this week points out, it has undergone a dramatic revival. In the 1990s most state-owned companies were little more than government departments in emerging markets; the assumption was that, as the economy matured, the government would close or privatise them. Yet they show no signs of relinquishing the commanding heights, whether in major industries (the world’s ten biggest oil-and-gas firms, measured by reserves, are all state-owned) or major markets (state-backed companies account for 80% of the value of China’s stockmarket and 62% of Russia’s). And they are on the offensive. Look at almost any new industry and a giant is emerging: China Mobile, for example, has 600m customers. State-backed firms accounted for a third of the emerging world’s foreign direct investment in 2003-10.
With the West in a funk and emerging markets flourishing, the Chinese no longer see state-directed firms as a way-station on the road to liberal capitalism; rather, they see it as a sustainable model. They think they have redesigned capitalism to make it work better, and a growing number of emerging-world leaders agree with them. The Brazilian government, which embraced privatisation in the 1990s, is now interfering with the likes of Vale and Petrobras, and compelling smaller companies to merge to form national champions. South Africa is also flirting with the model.
This development raises two questions. How successful is the model? And what are its consequences—both in, and beyond, emerging markets?
The law of diminishing returns
State capitalism’s supporters argue that it can provide stability as well as growth. Russia’s wild privatisation under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s alarmed many emerging countries and encouraged the view that governments can mitigate the strains that capitalism and globalisation cause by providing not just the hard infrastructure of roads and bridges but also the soft infrastructure of flagship corporations.
So Lee Kuan Yew’s government in Singapore, an early exponent of this idea, let in foreign firms and embraced Western management ideas, but also owned chunks of companies. The leading practitioner is now China. The tight connection between its government and business will no doubt be on display when the global elite gathers in the Swiss resort of Davos next week. Among Westerners there, government delegates often take the opposite view to those from the private sector: Chinese delegates from both sides tend to have the same point of view, and even the same patriotic talking-points.
The new model bears little resemblance to the disastrous spate of nationalisations in Britain and elsewhere half a century ago. China’s infrastructure companies win contracts the world over. The best national champions are outward-looking, acquiring skills by listing on foreign exchanges and taking over foreign companies. And governments are selective in their corporate holdings. Overall, the Chinese state has loosened its grip on the economy: its bureaucrats concentrate on industries where they can make a difference.
Let a thousand mobiles bloom
Yet a close look at the model shows its weaknesses. When the government favours one lot of companies, the others suffer. In 2009 China Mobile and another state giant, China National Petroleum Corporation, made profits of $33 billion—more than China’s 500 most profitable private companies combined. State giants soak up capital and talent that might have been used better by private companies. Studies show that state companies use capital less efficiently than private ones, and grow more slowly. In many countries the coddled state giants are pouring money into fancy towers at a time when entrepreneurs are struggling to raise capital.
Those costs are likely to rise. State companies are good at copying others, partly because they can use the government’s clout to get hold of their technology; but as they have to produce ideas of their own they will become less competitive. State-owned companies make a few big bets rather than lots of small ones; the world’s great centres of innovation are usually networks of small start-ups.
Nor does the model guarantee stability. State capitalism works well only when directed by a competent state. Many Asian countries have a strong mandarin culture; South Africa and Brazil do not. Coal India is hardly an advertisement for efficiency (see article). And everywhere state capitalism favours well-connected insiders over innovative outsiders. In China highly educated princelings have taken the spoils. In Russia a clique of “bureaugarchs”, often former KGB officials, dominate both the Kremlin and business. Thus the model produces cronyism, inequality and eventually discontent—as the Mubaraks’ brand of state capitalism did in Egypt.
Rising powers have always used the state to kick-start growth: think of Japan and South Korea in the 1950s or Germany in the 1870s or even the United States after the war of independence. But these countries have, over time, invariably found that the system has limits. The Chinese of all people should understand that the best way to learn from history is to look at its long sweep.
But it may take many years for the model’s weaknesses to become obvious; and, in the meantime, it is likely to cause all sorts of problems. Investors in emerging markets, for instance, need to watch out. Some may be taking a punt on governments as much as companies. State-capitalist governments can be capricious, with scant regard for minority shareholders. Others may find their subsidiaries or joint ventures in emerging markets pitted against state-backed favourites.
Another concern is the impact of the model on the global trading system—which, at a time when the likely Republican nominee for president wants to declare China a currency manipulator on his first day of office, is already at risk. Ensuring that trade is fair is harder when some companies enjoy the support, overt or covert, of a national government. Western politicians are beginning to lose patience with state-capitalist powers that rig the system in favour of their own companies.
For emerging countries wanting to make their mark on the world, state capitalism has an obvious appeal. It gives them the clout that private-sector companies would take years to build. But its dangers outweigh its advantages. Both for their own sake, and in the interests of world trade, the practitioners of state capitalism need to start unwinding their huge holdings in favoured companies and handing them over to private investors. If these companies are as good as they boast they are, then they no longer need the crutch of state support.
页:
[1]