【经济学人20120121】从中国和俄罗斯，到中东和巴西，国家资本主义不尽相同

满仓

【中文标题】从中国和俄罗斯，到中东和巴西，国家资本主义不尽相同
【原文标题】A choice of models Theme and variations State capitalism is not all the same
【登载媒体】经济学家
【原文链接】http://www.economist.com/node/21542924




来到中国的游客都会误以为这是个标准的资本主义国家。大城市中点缀着星巴克和金考；报纸上报道小生意人被高利贷追杀；商界精英在贴着深色玻璃膜的奔驰汽车中四处奔波；他们的妻子和小蜜在“狗伽”课堂里度过无聊的下午——宠物狗也可以参加的瑜伽课。

但是这种资本主义又表现得极为特殊。公司老板经常在互为竞争对手的公司间跳来跳去，没有任何理由；公司总部的办公室专门为武装警察预留空间。进一步观察你会发现更奇怪的事情。Richard McGregor在《党》一书中提到，中国50来岁的大老板在办公室的彭博机和家人照片旁边都摆着一个“红机器”，它能直接（加密）连线共产党的高层。

所谓的“党国”，在国家资本主义世界中无与伦比的经济模式中施加了一定的影响力。党在大部分大型公司——无论是国有企业还是私人企业——中安排了自己的耳目，他们有自己的办公室和员工档案。它控制企业领导人的任命，在国有企业中，甚至决定勤杂工的人选。它召开反映上级意见的会议、宣布决定，尤其是人事任免方面的决定。它经常参与商业决策，与管理团队共同控制工人的薪水。

党国通过两家机构施展其力量：国有资产监督管理委员会（SASAC）和共产党组织部。SASAC持有很多大型公司的股份，是世界上最大的持股股东，也是最卓越的国家资本主义机构。它力推党的政策，通过调整投资组合创造出巨型国有企业，它监管下的公司从2003年的198家减少到今天的121家。它通过规范薪酬标准来贯彻党的“和谐社会”政策。2009年，国有企业老总的平均薪酬为88000美元，其中中国移动老总最高，为182000美元。国有企业中的高薪现象已经成为了社会不和谐的因素之一。

SASAC或许只是个纸老虎，它多年来试图迫使国有企业给政府分得更多利润，但收效甚微。同样，没人相信国企老板们名义上的薪水与他们真实的收入有任何关系。但是，谁也不敢把“纸老虎”这个词用在组织部身上。毛主席在1924年建立的这个部门，已经成为世界上最强大的人力资源机构。它负责任免中国有限公司的所有高层人士。2004年，它重新安置了三家最大电信公司的领导；2009年，它让三家最大规模航空公司的老板相互轮换；2010年，它在三家最大石油公司的管理层上故计重施，每一家公司都是世界500强企业。即使最成功的国有企业顶级领导，第一身份也必须是党内干部，第二身份才是商人。相比于国际市场，他们更关心取悦党内的领导。

党国通过建立“垂直型”的企业模式来加强其掌控的力量。在大部分新兴市场中（包括隔壁的香港），企业模式都是“水平”的：公司向周边业务延伸——电信公司涉及酒店业、造船公司进入房地产领域——以便于维系并开发地方关系。而中国的企业只关注某种特定的产业。党国通过合同和上市等手段，鼓励企业间的合并，形成产业集团。它还鼓励企业成立子公司，比如一家国内的控股公司、一家财务公司、一家研究所和一家外国分部。SASAC一般持有100％控股公司的股份，而这家控股公司可能会持有海外分部的一部分股份，比如60％。这样，一家产业集团就有可能形成完全不同的产业倾向：以控股公司的身份面对内地市场；以海外分部的身份面对国外市场。这还让党国可以全面掌控公司的全部经营链。中国石油看起来像是一家标准的西方公司，在纽约证券交易所上市，但它实际上是中国石油天然气集团公司这家大集团的海外分部，只不过是藏身于北京的一条巨龙探在海外的头颅。

首席资本家——克里姆林宫

在俄罗斯，过去十年见证了国家权力的显著加强。在叶利钦的“野蛮私有化”年代，这种国有模式是必然会失败的。克里姆林宫把散落在各地的小公司集合成全国大企业。苏联民用航空总局吸纳了90年代分崩离析的地方航空公司；俄罗斯科技部兼并了数百家公司，其中很多与科技行业都不沾边，形成了一个庞大的集团。政府还把90年代已经私有化的产业收归国有：俄罗斯石油公司从国家首富米哈伊尔•霍多尔科夫斯基手中收购了尤科斯石油公司；俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司从阿布拉莫维奇手中买下西伯利亚石油公司。

俄罗斯得以再次站在国家经济的制高点，这次是通过手里的股权，而不是通过行政命令。政府持有国家最大、最具战略意义的公司的大量股份，包括俄罗斯国家石油运输公司、一家飞机制造商苏霍伊、俄罗斯石油公司、俄罗斯储蓄银行、电器巨擎联合能源系统、苏联民用航空总局和俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司。

克里姆林宫还对俄罗斯的寡头伸出魔爪，杀一儆百的做法让本应转型为私人公司的企业成为政府的一部分。对霍多尔科夫斯基先生的残忍迫害和监禁让人们变得顺从，政府动不动就挥舞沾满血迹的大棒来让寡头们俯首帖耳。他们恭顺地替政府为公共服务埋单（比如2014年的冬季奥运会），并远离政治。

私有企业的寡头在国家经济中被政府的官僚所取代，他们大部分都是前克格勃官员，与弗拉基米尔•普京关系紧密，这些人在过去十年中逐渐积累手中的权力（并非企业的个人股票）。现任总理普京先生是俄罗斯国家发展银行的监理董事长。副总理伊戈•塞钦是俄罗斯石油公司的总裁，直到总统梅德韦杰夫在去年命令所有政府部长级官员辞去国有公司董事局的职位。俄罗斯有限公司的总裁是普京，克格勃内部人员占据了其董事会大部分席位，公司的目的是控制这个国家所有利润丰厚的财产，从石油、天然气到核能、钻石、金属、军火、航空和运输。

最终的结果是一种极为特殊的资本主义，经济被几家巨型公司主导，被一批安全官员掌控。两家国有企业俄罗斯储蓄银行和俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司占据了俄罗斯股市交易量的一半以上。即使克里姆林宫不采取如此冷酷的手段，俄罗斯的资本主义也会逐渐收缩和集中。占据这个国家GDP20％和出口额60％的石油和天然气公司，在大经济环境下必将兴旺发达。糟糕的基础设施导致了纵向一体化的发展，例如，冶金公司买下码头，确保他们可以按时收到货物。尽管如此，如此巨大的政治权力集中在极少一部分人手中，更加速了集中的进程。

这种典型的俄罗斯式资本主义却很好地迎合了国际市场。石油和天然气公司在海外购买了一些小公司，并且在证券交易所上市。2006年7月，俄罗斯石油公司在伦敦证券市场抛售了15％的股份，收获现金110亿美元。俄罗斯的帝王财富尤其喜爱购买外国公司，部分原因在于俄罗斯本土的商业环境过于浑浊了。俄罗斯商人也喜欢在国外购买房产，尤其是伦敦。

石油国家资本主义

油和水无法混合，但是油与政权可以很好地结合，形成石油国家资本主义。几十年来，中东的帝王们用油让他们的国家财源滚滚。但是如今，其中一些人正在采取更复杂、更引人注目的方式来管理经济，迎接更加专业的管理方式。

迪拜的酋长阿勒马克图姆家族成立了迪拜世界——一家巨型的国有控股公司，来经营他们的项目。沙特人把他们最大公司的日常管理工作交给专业的管理人士，包括阿拉伯－美国石油公司和沙特基础工业公司。这个石油与政权的结合体还成为国家发起的现代化进程的热心践行者。阿勒马克图姆家族一直试图在新领域发展，因为石油不可能永远维持他们的经济，它现在占酋长国GDP的5％。他们为迪拜建造了一个世界级的机场、一个重要的金融区、一片“知识村”和“硅谷中心”。即使那些保守的沙特阿拉伯人也宣称在打造4个科技型城市。

但是，海湾的现代化模式遭到两个我们熟悉因素的困扰——任人唯亲和泡沫。专业管理人士对于皇室成员损害公司的行为束手无策。巴林的海湾航空公司和科威特航空公司负债累累。为了建造世界第一高度的摩天大楼和棕榈状的人造岛屿，迪拜世界积累了800亿美元的债务。迪拜在等待临近城市阿布扎比的拯救。

任人唯亲和腐败现象在其它中东国家造成了更恐怖的危害。在埃及，阿拉伯春天之前的总统穆巴拉克把国有企业的管理权交给无能的人，确保他的亲信在私有化过程中有大笔收益。在阿尔及利亚，国有企业是国家援助的无底洞，而且其实际产量仅为生产能力的一半。在叙利亚，排名前250位的国有企业多年来一直处于崩溃的边缘。

少数人投资的庞然大物

巴西是国家资本主义阵营中最激进的分子，它的民主体制中包含很多盎格鲁－撒克逊资本主义的特色。但它值得关注的原因主要有两点：首先，它是国家资本主义的风向标，90年代私有化的先行者现在强迫它最大的矿产公司——淡水河谷保留其不再需要的工人，还迫使一批小企业在接受补贴的情况下合并。其次，它发明了国家资本主义工具箱中最锐利的新武器。

巴西的现代史几乎就是追求国家驱动的现代化历史。80年代初的一项调查显示它有超过500家国有企业。巴西在90年代开始私有化进程，目的是应对极度通货膨胀、贸易赤字和机构硬化。但是在最近，它转变了方向。政府把大量资源投入到一批国有大型企业中，尤其是自然资源和电信公司。它还实施了一项新的产业政策，用政府间接拥有公司的方式替代直接占有，即通过巴西国家发展银行（BNDES）和它投资的下属公司（类似BNDES）作为投资渠道。它通过获取各类不同公司的股票，把大量散户的股权收归到少数人手中。巴西教育发展研究所的Sergio Lazzarini和哈佛商学院的Aldo Musacchio管这种模式叫做“少数人投资的庞然大物”。

这种少数股东模式有一些优点。它限制了政府利用国有企业来回报管理者和追求社会政策的能力，个人股东无力兴风作浪。但它也让国家通过手中的现金获取额外的影响力。2009年，BNDES与其类似公司的股票总金额为530亿美元，仅占股市总量的4％，但国家有绝对的话语权。Lazzarini和Musacchio在一项深入的调查中发现，在1995年到2003年圣保罗政权市场中交易的296家公司，都利用这种模式增加的资产净值。巴西的公司通常不会更多地投资提升生产力的设备，因为资本市场尚欠发展。国家控股公司给他们提供了紧缺的资金。



然而，这种充满智慧的国家资本主义模式目前因过分激进的行为而遭遇到威胁。2007年11月，巴西国家石油公司探测到大西洋海地的石油蕴藏量，政客的头脑中立即充满了宏伟的项目计划。世界权力中心从美国向中国的转移，也让很多巴西人相信未来是国家资本主义的天下。结果出现了一系列不明智的干涉行为。政府强迫巴西国家石油公司与价格昂贵的本地设备供应商合作，尽管其实力没有得到印证。它不顾Roger Agnelli出色的业绩，解除了他淡水河谷CEO的职务。它还强迫一些公司进行合并，形成国家大型企业：食品产业的BRF（萨迪亚和佩尔迪冈）、电信领域的Oi（被迫并购巴西电信）、造纸业的Fibria（VCP和Arucruz）。即使再高端的国家资本主义模式也经不起过分狂热的政客的肆意胡为。

新贵

各种类型的国家资本主义都有一个共同点：政客的影响力远比自由资本主义国家中深远。在独裁政权中，他们大笔一挥就可以重组整个产业。即使在巴西这样的民主国家，他们也可以任意摆布大型公司。在中国，党内官员发现他们竟然在经营着国家最大的公司（国有企业的老总通常也是党内高官）。在俄罗斯，他们一边运做着大公司，一边在内阁中就职。但毫无疑问的是，这些庞然大物都有其局限性。

国有企业通常有绝对的运作自由度。麻省理工学院教授Edward Steinfeld曾经在一家中国海外石油公司任职多年，他这样描述公司与共产党老板的关系：“不是自上而下强硬的管理，而是含糊的信号、模棱两可的指示，甚至彻底的沉默。”

这些企业还可以对所谓的政治领导人施加强大的影响力。中国的国有企业成功地粉碎了让他们多缴纳利润的企图。在国家资本主义社会中，国有能源公司当然比私有能源公司在自由资本主义国家中，更能影响能源政策的走向。俄罗斯人在酒过三巡之后，会跟高兴地和你讨论是克里姆林宫操纵俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司，还是后者操纵前者。

国有企业还锻造出更成熟的一代经理人，这些人在世界上最好的公司中学习商业，在海外工作，比他们的前辈有更开阔的国际视野。中欧国际商学院的Katherine Xin说，国有企业希望它们的经理具备世界级的教育背景。宝钢在过去十年来派遣其高层管理人员进修MBA课程，它还引进了瑞士IMD商学院的专家，为其特制课程。中国石油天然气集团公司自1999年开始派高管到美国学习MBA。Xin女士说，中文版的《哈佛商业评论》是国有企业高层们的必备书籍。

新一代的管理人在公司和政府间的角色转换过程中，也在改变着公共服务领域的管理。目前，有17名中国著名政治领导人在大型国有企业中任高层领导，有27位知名商界领袖在党中央任职。如果国家资本主义允许政治塑造公司，那么它也应当允许公司改变政治。




原文：

IT IS EASY for a casual visitor to China to be fooled into thinking that he is in a normal capitalist country. The big cities are dotted with Starbucks and Kinkos. The newspapers run stories about small businesspeople falling prey to loan sharks. Business executives are whisked around in Mercedes cars with blackened windows. Their wives and mistresses idle their afternoons away in doga classes—yoga that includes the pet dog.

But the form of capitalism on display is highly idiosyncratic. Company bosses are routinely moved to rival companies without any explanation. Company headquarters have space set aside for representatives of the armed forces. And the deeper you look, the queerer things become. In his indispensable book, “The Party”, Richard McGregor points out that the bosses of China’s 50-odd leading companies all have a “red machine” sitting next to their Bloomberg terminals and family photographs that provides an instant (and encrypted) link to the Communist Party’s high command.

What might be called “the party state” exercises a degree of control over the economy that is unparalleled in the rest of the state-capitalist world. The party has cells in most big companies—in the private as well as the state-owned sector—complete with their own offices and files on employees. It controls the appointment of captains of industry and, in the SOEs, even corporate dogsbodies. It holds meetings that shadow formal board meetings and often trump their decisions, particularly on staff appointments. It often gets involved in business planning and works with management to control workers’ pay.

The party state exercises power through two institutions: the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) and the Communist Party’s Organisation Department. SASAC, which holds shares in the biggest companies, is the world’s largest controlling shareholder and the state-capitalist institution par excellence. It has been spearheading the policy of creating national champions by consolidating and pruning its portfolio: the number of companies under its supervision has declined from 198 in 2003 to 121 today. It has also been implementing the party’s policy of creating a “harmonious society” by regulating pay. In 2009 the average SOE boss earned $88,000 and the highest-paid, the chairman of China Mobile, $182,000. High pay in SOEs has been a big source of disharmony.

SASAC can be something of a paper tiger. It has been trying for years to force the SOEs to pay higher dividends to the government, with only limited success. Similarly, nobody believes that the SOE bosses’ nominal pay bears any relation to their real remuneration. However, nobody would apply the term “paper tiger” to the Organisation Department. Created by Chairman Mao in 1924, it has become the world’s mightiest human-resources department. It appoints all the senior figures in China Inc. In 2004 it reshuffled the heads of the three biggest telecoms companies. In 2009 it rotated the bosses of the three biggest airlines. In 2010 it did the same to the chiefs of the three biggest oil companies, each of which is a Fortune 500 company. Even the most successful top executives of China’s SOEs are cadres first and company men second. They care more about pleasing their party bosses than about the global market.

The party state has reinforced its power by creating “vertical” business groups. In most emerging markets (including Hong Kong next door) business groups are “horizontal”: companies sprawl into adjacent businesses—telecoms companies into hotels, shipping companies into property—in order to exploit their local connections. In China business groups focus on particular industries. The party state encourages companies to band together into industry clusters by giving them preferential access to contracts and stockmarket listings. It also encourages them to establish subdivisions such as a domestic holding company, a finance company, a research institute and a foreign division. SASAC typically owns 100% of the shares in the holding company. The holding company in turn owns a smaller proportion of shares—say 60%—in the foreign division. This makes it possible for business groups to present lots of different faces—for instance, an inward-looking one in the form of the holding company and an outward-looking one in the form of the international division. It also allows the party state to exercise control of an entire chain of companies. Thus PetroChina might look like a regular Western company, with a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. But in fact it is the international division of a huge group called China National Petroleum Corporation, the foreign head of a dragon whose body and raison d’être lie in Beijing.

The Kremlin as capitalist-in-chief

In Russia the past decade has seen a remarkable strengthening of the power of the state, which during Boris Yeltsin’s period of “wild privatisation” looked as if it might crumble. The Kremlin has turned scattered companies into national champions. Aeroflot reabsorbed regional airlines spun off in the 1990s. Russian Technologies rolled up hundreds of state companies, many of which had little to do with technology, into a vast conglomerate. The government has also renationalised industries that were privatised in the 1990s. Rosneft, an oil company, took over most of Yukos from Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, and Gazprom bought Sibneft from Roman Abramovich.

As a result the Russian state once again controls the commanding heights of the economy—only this time through share ownership rather than directly. The state holds huge chunks of the shares of the country’s biggest and most strategic companies, including Transneft, a pipeline company; Sukhoi, an aircraft-maker; Rosneft; Sberbank; Unified Energy Systems, an electricity giant; Aeroflot; and Gazprom.

The Kremlin has also established control over Russia’s oligarchs, reducing once-mighty rottweilers to shivering chihuahuas and transforming supposedly private companies into organs of the state. The brutal persecution and imprisonment of Mr Khodorkovsky helped to instil obedience, and periodically the state waves a bloody stick at the oligarchs to keep them in their place. They dutifully pick up the tab for public works (such as the 2014 Winter Olympics) and keep out of politics.

The private-sector oligarchs have been replaced at the heart of the economy by state-sector bureaugarchs, most of them former KGB officials who have close ties with Vladimir Putin and have spent the past decade steadily accumulating power (though not personal stakes in the businesses). Mr Putin, currently the prime minister, is chairman of the supervisory board of Vnesheconombank, a state development bank. Igor Sechin, the deputy prime minister, was chairman of Rosneft until Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, ordered government ministers to step down as chairmen of state companies’ boards of directors last year to tidy things up. Such people form the board of Russia Inc, a company that is headed by Mr Putin, dominated by the KGB and dedicated to controlling the country’s most lucrative assets, from oil and gas to nuclear power, diamonds, metals, arms, aviation and transport.

The result is a highly unusual form of capitalism, dominated by a handful of gigantic firms and controlled by a clique of security officials. Two state-controlled companies, Sberbank and Gazprom, account for more than half of the turnover of the Russian stock exchange. Russian capitalism would have been concentrated even if the Kremlin had not been so ruthless. Oil and gas companies, which account for 20% of the country’s GDP and 60% of its exports, thrive on economies of scale and scope. Poor infrastructure encourages vertical integration; for example, metal companies have been buying ports to ensure that they can get their goods out on time. Still, having so much political power in so few hands has enormously increased this concentration.

This quintessentially Russian form of state capitalism has nevertheless been embracing the global market. Oil and gas companies have been buying similar firms abroad or listing on foreign stock exchanges. In July 2006 Rosneft raised $11 billion by selling 15% of its shares on the London stock exchange. Russia’s sovereign-wealth funds have been particularly keen on buying foreign companies, in part because Russia’s own business practices are so murky. And Russian businesspeople have bought lots of property abroad, particularly in London.

Petrostate capitalism

Oil and water may not mix, but oil and royalty mix very well to create petrostate capitalism. Middle Eastern monarchs have been using oil to keep themselves in funds for decades. But these days some of them are taking a remarkably sophisticated approach to managing their economies, embracing professional management.

The al-Maktoums, who rule Dubai, created Dubai World, a huge state-owned holding company, to run their projects. The Saudis have handed the day-to-day management of their biggest companies, Saudi Aramco and Saudi Basic Industries, to professional managers. The petro-royals have also become enthusiastic practitioners of state-sponsored modernisation. The al-Maktoums have been trendsetters because they never had much oil to begin with. It now accounts for under 5% of the emirate’s GDP. They have provided Dubai with a world-class airport, an important financial hub and a scattering of “knowledge villages” and “silicon centres”. Even conservative Saudi Arabia claims to be building four tech-enabled cities.

But the Gulf model of modernisation from above has been plagued by two familiar curses, cronyism and bubbles. There is only so much that professional managers can do to prevent the local royals from damaging the region’s companies. Bahrain’s Gulf Air and Kuwait Airways have been albatrosses. Dubai World accumulated $80 billion in debt building the world’s tallest skyscraper and a palm-shaped artificial island. The state of Dubai had to be rescued by neighbouring Abu Dhabi.

The problems of cronyism and corruption have proved even more toxic in other parts of the Middle East. In Egypt Hosni Mubarak, the president until the Arab spring, handed the management of the state companies to incompetent people while making sure his cronies did well out of privatisation. In Algeria SOEs are notorious dens of patronage and typically run at only 50% of capacity. In Syria the overwhelming majority of the country’s top 250 SOEs have been in the red for many years.

Leviathan as a minority investor

Brazil is the most ambiguous member of the state-capitalist camp: a democracy that also embraces many of the features of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. But it is worth examining for two reasons. First, it is a weather vane for state capitalism, a leading privatiser in the 1990s that is now forcing its biggest mining company, Vale, to keep workers it does not need, and obliging a bunch of smaller companies to embark on subsidised consolidation. And second, it has invented one of the sharpest new tools in the state-capitalist toolbox.

Brazil has spent most of its modern history in pursuit of state-driven modernisation. A survey in the early 1980s showed that it had more than 500 SOEs. Brazil launched a privatisation drive in the 1990s to deal with hyperinflation, surging deficits and general sclerosis. But more recently it has moved in a new direction. The government has poured resources into a handful of state champions, particularly in natural resources and telecoms. It has also produced a new model of industrial policy: replacing direct with indirect government ownership through the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES) and its investment subsidiary (BNDESPar); and swapping majority for minority ownership by acquiring shares in a broad spectrum of different companies. Sergio Lazzarini, of Brazil’s Insper Institute of Education and Research, and Aldo Musacchio, of Harvard Business School, have christened this model “Leviathan as a minority shareholder”.

This minority-shareholder model has several advantages. It limits the state’s ability to use SOEs to reward clients or to pursue social policies. Private shareholders have just enough power to kick up a fuss. But it also gives the state more influence for its money. By 2009 BNDESPar’s holdings were worth $53 billion, or just 4% of the stockmarket. Yet the state spoke with a loud voice across corporate Brazil. Messrs Lazzarini and Musacchio have also shown, in a detailed study of 296 firms traded on the São Paulo stock exchange between 1995 and 2003, that this model can increase firms’ returns on their assets. Brazilian companies typically underinvest in productivity-boosting equipment because the capital markets are so underdeveloped. State holdings provide them with money that they cannot get elsewhere.

Yet this clever version of state capitalism is currently in danger of overreaching itself. Petrobras’s discovery, in November 2007, of huge deposits of oil buried deep beneath the Atlantic seabed has filled politicians’ heads with dreams of grand projects. The shift in the world’s balance of power from America to China has also helped to persuade many Brazilians that the future lies with state capitalism. The result has been a burst of unwise interventionism. The government is trying to force Petrobras to use expensive local equipment suppliers despite doubts about their competence. It removed Roger Agnelli from his post as CEO of Vale despite his outstanding record. It has also taken to creating national champions through forced mergers: BRF (Sadia and Perdigão) in the food sector; Oi (which was made to buy Brasil Telecom) in telecoms; Fibria (VCP and Arucruz) in pulp and paper. Even the most sophisticated models of state capitalism are not safe from over-zealous politicians.

The new elite

These varieties of state capitalism all have one thing in common: politicians have far more power than they do under liberal capitalism. In authoritarian regimes they can restructure entire industries at the stroke of a pen. Even in democratic ones like Brazil they can tell the biggest companies what to do. In China party hacks can find themselves running the country’s biggest companies (and SOE bosses sometimes get big jobs in the party). In Russia they may be running the biggest companies while also sitting in the cabinet. But there are nevertheless limits to Leviathan’s power.

State-owned enterprises often have a good deal of operational freedom. Edward Steinfeld, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who spent many years serving on the board of China National Offshore Oil Corporation, recalls that the company’s relationship with its political bosses had “less to do with rigid top-down control than with mixed signals, ambiguity and even outright silence”.

Such enterprises can also wield a lot of influence over their supposed political masters. China’s SOEs have successfully frustrated attempts to make them pay more dividends. State-owned energy companies arguably have more influence over energy policy in state-capitalist countries than private energy companies have in liberal countries. Over a drink Russians will happily speculate about whether the Kremlin runs Gazprom or Gazprom runs the Kremlin.

State-owned enterprises are also producing a more sophisticated generation of managers: people who have learned about business in the world’s best business schools, who have worked abroad and have a far less blinkered view of the world than their predecessors. Katherine Xin, of China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, says that many SOEs want their managers to have a world-class business education. Baosteel has been sending its senior managers on executive MBA courses for more than a decade. It also brings in academics from Switzerland’s IMD business school to provide tailor-made courses. CNPC has been sending high-flyers to get MBAs in America since 1999. Ms Xin points out that the Chinese version of the Harvard Business Review is a must-read in the upper echelons of state-owned companies.

Members of this new generation of managers are changing the management of the public sector, too, as they alternate between the corporate domain and government. There are currently 17 prominent Chinese political leaders who have held senior positions in large SOEs. Conversely, 27 prominent business leaders are serving on the party’s Central Committee. If state capitalism allows politicians to shape companies, it also allows companies to shape politicians.

lilyma06

貌似最近关于“国家资本主义”的文章很多~

whyjfs

所谓的“党国”，在国家资本主义世界中无与伦比的经济模式中施加了一定的影响力。党在大部分大型公司——无论是国有企业还是私人企业——中安排了自己的耳目，他们有自己的办公室和员工档案。它控制企业领导人的任命，在国有企业中，甚至决定勤杂工的人选。它召开反映上级意见的会议、宣布决定，尤其是人事任免方面的决定。它经常参与商业决策，与管理团队共同控制工人的薪水
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这个纯属扯淡

一家国资委控股的企业，如果是10万-20万人的规模，副部级，一般只有董事长和总经理由国资委任命，其它的副总一级不清楚，更低一级的由董事长和总经理任命，或者是单位组织部任命（但这其实是个形式），和国资委没有一点关系