15年以后可能会出现人类有史以来最大的转折点。5-7年以后，中国将会成为全球最大经济体。大约15年之后，中国年人均GDP将达到12000美元，根据世界银行标准，这意味着中国将进入发达国家行列。中国如此之大，以至于这些变化将改变世界形势。举个简单的例子，中国人口总计13亿，已经超过了目前所有发达国家人口的总和——11亿。

　　但是这些突破未必一定出现。自1978年以来，中国经历了惊人的经济发展；过去10年的人均GDP和国内消费增速甚至超过了历史上任何其他主流经济体。它能取得这样的成功是因为它采取了1978年邓小平提出的经济政策。但是，现在部分人开始尝试将中国引上；另一条经济发展道路——新自由主义的道路——这个经济主张在其他曾经尝试过的地方均宣告失败。对新自由主义政策过去记录的审视，可以看出中国以及整个世界目前正面临的危机有多大。

　　20世纪80年代新自由主义政策曾应用于拉美国家。结果是10年中拉美国家的人均GDP以平均每年0.5%的速度下降——这被称为是“迷失的十年”。

　　1991年以后，前苏联在完全私有化的基础上，采取了新自由主义这种“休克疗法”。俄国的GDP下降了36%——这是现代社会中主要经济体在和平时期的GDP最大降幅。1998年，俄国男性的平均预期寿命缩短了4年，仅为58岁；而如今俄国的人口仍比1991年少700万。

　　在美国，里根政府也曾采取过新自由主义政策；导致了联邦债务的极速增长，到2008年国际金融危机时达到顶峰。较早时候的美国经济政策的是“凯恩斯主义”时期，从朝鲜战争结束延续至1980年，美国联邦债务的GDP占比从70%降至37%。而在接下来的新自由主义时期，直到2011年，美国联邦债务上涨至GDP的88%。同期，美国GDP的10年移动平均年增速从3.3%下降至1.6%。在新自由主义政策下，美国的经济增长下降了一半，而联邦债务几乎翻了一倍。

　　考虑到新自由主义惨淡的历史记录，与中国的经济增长对比会更显惨淡，因此，怎么还会有人鼓吹中国采取这种错误的政策呢？从理智上看，答案就是，这要么就是对经济事实毫无认知要么就是误解了经济事实。对于后者，一个例子是，有人声称中国的投资效益与美国等经济体对比略显不足，然而事实恰恰相反。早在国际金融危机爆发之前，中国将GDP的4.1%用于投资就可产生1个百分点的经济增长，而美国则需要8.8%，而金融危机之后，美国的情况就更恶化了。

　　新自由主义是错误的经济政策，因为它从根本上拒绝遵循从实际出发的科学规则，用中国话来说就是——它拒绝“实事求是”。就如前哥白尼时期的天文学家一样，因为无法提供地球绕着太阳转的证据，因此他们主张太阳绕着地球转。新自由主义创建了一种根本不存在的经济模式。他们设想了一个有千千万万个自由竞争（所谓的“完全竞争”）的企业组成的经济体，在这个经济体中，价格可以自由上下浮动、投资只占经济总量的很小比例。而现实的经济却根本不是这样。过去300年中，投资规模不断变大，以至于已经达到了GDP总量的20%，甚至是40%。巨大的金融机构不断涌来为这些投资聚积资源——银行业的“大而不倒”已经是世人公认的了；而在一个不鼓励无法控制的冒险主义的自由市场中，这些都是无法实现的。正是由于这些巨额投资，现今世界上的那些最重要的工业——汽车、航空、计算机、金融以及医药——都不是依照“完全竞争”模式运行的，而是垄断或者寡头。因为新自由主义并不依照经济事实，因此它的政策必然是有害的。

　
　　鉴于这个原因，尽管没有完全采取这些政策，但中国经济也被新自由主义的破坏了。例如，2012年初，由于私人投资下降导致全球经济衰退，这给中国经济带来了巨大的负面压力。然而，由于受新自由主义观点的影响——政府应该从经济中“抽手”——中国政府没有及时采取经济刺激方案来对抗这个衰退。幸运的是，2012年下半年，中国政府推出了一个必要的中等规模的政府主导的投资刺激计划，这确保了第三季度经济的稳定，并且也为未来经济加速增长提供了保证。

　　那些新自由主义政策盛行的后果，以及对社会稳定的影响也已经十分明显。例如英国首相卡梅隆鼓吹的“大社会”的理念——政府部门应该不断缩小，由市场和志愿组织提供的社会保障来代替。然而事实却是纯粹的市场操作增加而不是减少了社会不平等，并且也无法提供社会保障。卡梅隆治下社会不平等显著加剧，对这些政策来说，这比那些政治异见以及政府民意支持率的下降更显得讽刺。在中国，现阶段社会不平等愈演愈烈的认识已经达成了广泛的共识，而由于中国之大，对这种不平等的治理比任何一个欧洲国家都难；而施行新自由主义政策可能将不可避免的加剧这种不平等，这不仅可能将对经济不利，同时可能会造成社会和政治的不稳定。

　　然而，新自由主义并不仅仅是想象中的理论。很多人从中得利。在美国，那些在2008年金融危机中保留了私人财富并放任经济衰退的金融机构都从新自由主义政策中获利。

　　有两种人可以从中国的新自由主义政策中获利，因此他们支持这种政策。第一类是中国境内的金融机构。第二类是美国反对新自由主义者们，他们想维持美国的世界最大经济体的地位，尽管不断恶化的统计数据显示这是不可能的。

　　美国的人口仅为中国的23%。美国要维持其全球最大经济体的地位的唯一方法是，永远不要让中国的人均GDP，也就是它的生活标准，达到美国23%的水平。当然，中国人不会同意其生活标准连美国的四分之一都达不到，未来的印度可能也不会答应。中国的人均GDP正在不断向美国靠拢，中国的经济总量无疑将会成为世界最大的，随后会成为世界最强的。而阻止这件事发生的唯一方法是使中国经济增速迅速下降——新自由主义的灾难性后果或可达到这个目的。

　　中国经济迅速增长不仅对其自身有利，也有利于整个人类社会。大约15年之后，当中国达到发达经济体的水平时，世界人口的35%将能享受这一成果——这将是现代历史上首次。当中国离完成民族复兴以及提高人民生活水平的目标已经如此接近时，如果新自由主义阻碍了这一切的发生，这将会是世界历史上最大的悲剧。

备注：此文英文版于2012年11月2日发表于中国日报

 

Note to neo-cons: Earth orbits the sun

 

In the next 15 years one of the greatest turning points in world history can occur. In five to seven years China will become the world`s largest economy. In about 15 years China will achieve the annual $12,000 GDP per capita qualifying it as a developed economy by World Bank criteria. China is so large that these events will change the world. For example, China`s 1.3 billion population is larger than the combined 1.1 billion of all existing developed economies.

 

But these successes are not inevitable. China has enjoyed tremendous economic achievements since 1978, experiencing in the last decade the fastest per capita GDP growth in any major economy in history, and the fastest growth of consumption in a large country. It achieved this because it followed economic policies laid out by Deng Xiaoping from 1978. But now an attempt is being made by some to divert China onto an economic path, neo-liberalism, which has failed wherever it has been carried out. Examining the factual record of neo-liberal policy shows the scale of what is at stake both for China and internationally.

 

Neo-Liberal policies were applied in Latin America in the 1980s. The result was that Latin America`s per capita GDP fell by an average 0.5 percent a year for 10 years.

 

In the former Soviet Union neo-liberal shock therapy, based on full privatization, was carried out after 1991. Russia`s GDP fell 36 percent, the greatest decline of a major economy in peacetime in modern world history. Russia`s male life expectancy fell by four years, to only 58, by 1998 and Russia`s population today is 7 million less than it was in 1991.

 

Neo-liberal policies in the US instigated under Ronald Reagan led to the colossal accumulation of debt that culminated in the international financial crisis of 2008. During the earlier Keynesian period of US economic policy, lasting from the end of the Korean War (1950-53) until 1980, US state debt fell from 70 percent to 37 percent of GDP. During the succeeding neo-liberal period US state debt rose to 88 percent of GDP by last year. Over the same period the 10-year moving average of annual US GDP growth fell from 3.3 percent to 1.6 percent. Under neo-liberal policies US state debt more than doubled, and US economic growth halved.

 

Given neo-liberalism`s disastrous record, which is even starker when compared with China`s growth, how can anyone advocate that China adopt such a failed policy? The answer is that intellectually this can be done only by making no reference to economic facts or by falsifying them. An example of the latter is the assertion that China`s investment is less efficient than that of economies such as the US when the facts show the opposite. Even before the international financial crisis China had to invest only 4.1 percent of GDP to produce each percentage point of economic growth, compared with the 8.8 percent in the US. Since the financial crisis the US position has worsened.

 

Neo-liberalism fails as economic policy because it refuses to follow science`s first rule of starting with the facts, or, in the famous Chinese phrase, it refuses to "seek truth from facts". Rather in the style of pre-Copernican astronomers who insisted that the sun orbited the Earth, because they failed to make measurements showing the Earth circles the sun, neo-liberals construct models of an economy that does not exist. They imagine an economy made up of millions of competitive firms (technically "perfect competition"), in which prices are flexible downward as well as upward, and in which investment is a low percentage of the economy. The real economy is nothing like this.

 

The scale of investment has been rising for 300 years to levels of 20 percent, or even more than 40 percent, of GDP. Huge financial structures were necessarily created to centralize the resources for this. Banks now agreed to be "too big to fail", and which therefore cannot be allowed to operate in a free market without incentivizing uncontrollable risk taking. Due to this high investment the world`s most important industries - automobiles, aviation, computers, finance, pharmaceuticals - do not operate according to "perfect competition" but are monopolies or oligopolies. As neo-liberalism does not correspond to economic reality its policies are necessarily damaging.

 

For this reason, even when not fully adopted, neo-liberalism`s influence damages China`s economy. For example, early this year severe negative pressure on China`s economy occurred due to a downturn in the global economy driven by a fall in private investment. However, due to the influence of neo-liberal views, that the State should "get out" of the economy, the necessary stimulus to counter this was not launched early enough. Fortunately, in the second half of the year, China`s government launched a required medium-scale State-led investment stimulus that stabilized the economy during the third quarter and should now lead to accelerated growth.

 

The consequences for the popularity of those implementing neo-liberal policies, and for social stability, are also clear. For example in Britain David Cameron launched the Big Society, the concept that the state should be small and be replaced in social protection by the market and voluntary organizations. But factual evidence shows that pure operation of the market increases, not decreases, social inequality and fails to provide social protection. The result under Cameron was sharply rising social inequality, ridiculing of his policies even by those not associated with the political opposition, and a collapse in the government`s popularity.

 

In China, where there is a widespread consensus that in the recent period social inequality has gone too far, and which due to size is more difficult to govern than any European state, to embark on neo-liberal policies, which would inevitably increase inequality, would not only be economically damaging but socially and politically destabilizing.

 

However, neo-liberalism is not just an intellectual theory. Many people profit from it. In the US most of those in the finance sector who led its economy to disaster in 2008 retain the private wealth gained from neo-liberal policies.

 

Two groups of people would gain from neo-liberalism in China, and therefore support it. The first are some financial layers in the country. The second are US neo-con circles that aim to maintain the US as the world`s largest economy despite remorseless arithmetic showing this is impossible.

 

The population of the US is only 23 percent of China`s. The only way the US could remain the world`s largest economy is if China`s per capita GDP, and by implication its living standards, never reaches 23 percent of US levels. Quite rightly China`s population will never accept they can only have less than one quarter of the US living standard; nor in the future will India. As China`s GDP per capita moves toward that of the US China`s economy will become first the largest and later the strongest in the world. The only way to stop this is to sharply slow China`s economic growth, neo-liberalism`s disastrous consequences being the way to achieve that.

 

China`s economic rise immensely benefits not only itself but humanity. When, in about 15 years, China achieves advanced economy status, 35 percent of the world`s population, for the first time in modern history, will enjoy the benefits of this. When China has come so close not only to full national revival but to decent living standards for its people it would be one of the greatest tragedies in world history for neo-liberalism to block this.

 

The author is a visiting professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. From 2000 to 2008 he was the economic adviser to the mayor of London. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily. Contact the writer at johnross43@gmail.com

(China Daily 11/02/2012 page9)