Refuting "China's Responsibility Theory" against the Financial Crisis

Whether it is a private ownership country or a public ownership country, the purpose of social production is to make goods, and the purpose of making goods is to sell goods and make profits. People have to buy goods in order to make a living, and the purchasing power comes from people's wages and profits. Therefore, there are two essences of social production: one is to make consumer goods, and the other is to make social purchasing power.

In social production, when the manufactured consumer goods and social purchasing power reach a balance, the economy will be in a stable state, and once it is out of balance, the economy will have problems. When the purchasing power of manufactured goods exceeds that of manufactured goods, there will be a backlog of goods, and when the purchasing power of manufactured goods exceeds that of manufactured goods, there will be inflation. To a certain extent, everyone is a capitalist, and the monetary capital we have in the bank will be put into social production through the bank, which will be transformed into social demand capacity. If we want to maintain the balance between commodity supply and social demand, people must put their own profits and wages outside consumption, then fully invest in social production and then transform them into new social needs. But the reality of social production is not the case, and the contradiction between commodity supply and social demand cannot be eliminated.

In the social production under the guidance of traditional economic theory, economic scale is expressed in the form of money, economic growth is accompanied by the same monetary growth, and goods are composed of productive goods and consumer goods. With the economic growth, the total amount of money will exceed the total amount of consumer goods, and these excess money will be converted into wages and profits in the form of financial expenditure (such as various welfare or investment in non-commodity productive fields), and finally into the demand capacity of the whole society, and this process will not increase the supply of goods. In addition, the government's fiscal revenue will also be invested in non-commodity production areas, such as education, medical care, infrastructure and other fields, and eventually transformed into social demand capacity. At this time, the social demand capacity will temporarily exceed the supply of consumer goods.

The reinvestment of profits will also be transformed into wages and profits, while the expansion and reproduction of consumer goods has a lagging effect. In some specific industries, the lag period of commodity output is still very long, such as research and development of new products, fixed capital investment of enterprises, real estate, automobiles and other fields, which are converted into wages and profits at one time, but their consumption cycle is very long. This lag effect will also make the social demand capacity temporarily exceed the supply of consumer goods, resulting in a relative surplus of social demand capacity, which is manifested in the consumption field, that is, inflation. When investment stagnates, the social demand capacity generated in the social production field will drop sharply, while the commodity supply will continue to expand, and finally the contradiction between commodity supply and social demand will break out, resulting in an economic crisis.

Under the market economy, the expanded reproduction of profits is not simply expanded reproduction, and capital always flows to the commodity production mode with low production cost, rather than simply to the commodity production mode with high technical content and high production efficiency. With the economic growth, labor prices began to rise. In order to reduce the production cost of goods, capital began to flow to high-tech production methods. With the rising of labor price, the application of science and technology in the field of commodity production is more and more full. This is what we usually call industrial upgrading. Commodity production is completed by many enterprises, and the production efficiency of each enterprise is different. Under the same price of resources and labor, enterprises with high capital utilization efficiency have high profit rate, which can further promote these excellent enterprises to use their own profits or absorb external capital to expand reproduction. At this time, the same capital can produce more goods, and the increase of goods will make the price of goods begin to decline, and the profit rate of the whole industry will also begin to decline. Some low-efficiency and low-profit enterprises began to lose money and close down. The closure of these inefficient enterprises has provided more funds and market space for outstanding enterprises. With the growth of these excellent enterprises, the productivity level of the whole society has increased rapidly. At this time, mankind can exploit and use more means of production and create more goods with higher utilization rate, which is the fundamental reason for the rapid growth of human wealth due to the expansion and reproduction of surplus value.

In the commodity production of free capitalism, although the profit rate is declining, the total profit will continue to increase with the increase of investment. At this time, the surplus value of various industries will still be invested in the field of commodity production, thus maintaining the balance between commodity production and consumption capacity. When the profit rate of various industries is reduced to a critical point, increasing investment will further reduce the profit rate. At this time, the total profit does not increase, but decreases, so the investment shrinks sharply, which makes the surplus value of various industries stagnate and can no longer be put into the field of commodity production. The imbalance between commodity supply and social demand begins, and then the economy will have problems. If this situation cannot be changed, the economic crisis will break out. The planned economy under public ownership will maintain this simple reproduction, maintain the balance between supply and demand, and thus maintain the balance between production and sales of commodities. This is the advantage of public ownership. The profit-seeking nature of free capitalist production makes this simple circular production never appear, which is the inevitable root cause of the economic crisis of free capitalism.

There is a huge defect in free competition under the market economy, that is, it is not the production efficiency that determines the success or failure of competition, but the production cost of commodities, so the low labor cost will hinder the application of large machines and advanced technologies in commodity production. This situation is most obvious in international trade. Take Sino-US trade as an example. The reason for the huge trade surplus between China and the United States is not that China's production efficiency, level and technology are higher than those of the United States, but that China's labor cost is much lower than that of the United States. Therefore, although China is lower than the United States in production efficiency, level and technology, the production cost of goods is far lower than that of the United States. In the case of a serious imbalance in labor costs, in order to pursue profits, the capital of developed countries will flow to developing countries with low labor costs, which will eventually cause two problems: First, the overall productivity level in the world will be low, so that the production of the same number of consumer goods will consume more means of production and the pollution will be more serious. With the development of economy, serious environmental pollution and waste of production materials will eventually hinder the development of mankind. Second, after a large amount of capital flows to low-cost areas, the total wages paid for producing the same goods will decrease, that is, the global demand capacity will decrease, which will eventually lead to the supply of goods in the whole world exceeding the actual demand of mankind, thus triggering a global economic crisis or recession.

Since the first general economic crisis of overproduction occurred in Britain in 1825, the free capitalist economy has never shaken off the influence of the economic crisis, and the intervals between crises have shown certain regularity. /kloc-in the 0/9th century, an economic crisis occurred almost every ten years, from 1900 crisis to 1937 ~ 65438+. Science and technology used in social production have developed by leaps and bounds. When a key technology appeared, the level of human productivity began to increase rapidly. With the full application of key technologies in the production field, the growth rate of productivity began to slow down or even stagnate. For example, the invention of the steam engine completely changed the mode of production of human beings. With the full application of steam engine technology, the development of the whole society began to slow down or even stagnate. When the invention of internal combustion engine and the technical innovation of chemical industry appeared, the new economic era based on petroleum began, and the world economy began to grow at a high speed. With the full use of these technologies, the development of the whole society began to slow down and stagnate. The birth and application of computers have completely transformed all sectors of social production (including its management), and the overall production efficiency of mankind has been greatly improved, which is the basis for the rapid development of the world economy since the middle of last century. The difference of economic crisis cycle time is mainly determined by the nature of science and technology itself. When the application of science and technology in the commodity field slows down or even stagnates, the profit rate of commodity production will also decrease, while capitalist production with the direct purpose of chasing profits will not carry out capitalist commodity production with profit rate approaching zero, and then investment will decrease sharply, which will lead to the outbreak of contradiction between supply and demand.

/kloc-in the 0/9th century, the capitalist economy was driven by steam engines and coal. Compared with the previous economic model, the commodity production mode of this economy has made a qualitative leap, and the scale of commodity production has increased rapidly, which is the internal fundamental reason for the relative surplus of commodity supply. After entering the 20th century, the capitalist economy began to be powered by internal combustion engines, electricity and oil. At this time, the scale, capacity and speed of commodity production have been greatly expanded, and the time of economic crisis has been shortened accordingly. 19th century is a capitalist economy powered by steam engines and coal, which determines that the economic crisis cycle time of this economic model is about ten years. After entering the 20th century, the capitalist economy powered by internal combustion engine, electric power and oil decided that the economic crisis cycle time of this economic model was 78 years.

1929 ~ 1933 was the most serious crisis, which shocked the whole capitalist world and affected all colonial and semi-colonial countries, and was called the Great Crisis of the 1930s. The internal cause of this great crisis is that after the emergence of scientific and technological innovation based on internal combustion engine, electric power and petroleum, this technology was quickly applied to the social production field, and at this time the management system in the social production field had a major breakthrough. The two most influential breakthroughs are: Henry Ford's mobile assembly line triggered a new industrial revolution, that is, how to make full use of science and technology to make the existing science and technology play the greatest role in social production; Taylor separated management into division of labor, making management a truly independent science. The development of management science has made a qualitative leap in the efficiency of the combination of material capital and human capital. In addition, the economic model based on internal combustion engine, electricity and oil has triggered the climax of infrastructure construction, such as building roads, aircraft factories and power plants. This rapid economic growth has caused a lot of economic bubbles. When both production technology and management technology reached a relative peak and no new breakthrough could be made, the profit rate of commodity production began to drop sharply, and the investment began to drop sharply, so that the social demand capacity shrank sharply, and finally a fierce economic crisis broke out.

Traditional economic crisis: when the investment climax ends, the production of those investment-oriented production enterprises begins to shrink, and the increase of the demand capacity of the whole society will slow down. A large amount of social demand capacity accumulated during the economic boom will keep our consumption for a while and will not shrink immediately. At this time, the total increment of social demand capacity began to be lower than the actual total social consumption. For example, although the unemployed have no income for the time being, they will continue to consume with their previous savings in order to make a living. The precipitated social demand is mainly concentrated in the financial system. This contradiction between supply and demand is first manifested in the financial system, and the scale of deposited wealth begins to shrink (that is, the financial system begins to lose blood). At this time, the first reaction was the stock market crash. There are two main reasons why there is no crisis in banks during this period: first, banks have a certain proportion of capital reserves, and a small amount of blood loss will not bring crisis to banks; Second, the stock market is greatly influenced by psychological expectations. The stock market goes through a boom period, and once it falls, it will cause people to sell too much.

The output of commodity production lags behind investment. At this time, although the investment slowed down, the supply of goods was still increasing, which eventually led to the supply of goods exceeding the capacity of social demand, resulting in a backlog of goods, and problems began to appear in the production and sales of enterprises. Some enterprises began to lose money or even go bankrupt, and the unemployment of workers began to increase, so that the funds flowing back from banks were far less than those flowing out. When the bank's capital reserves were exhausted, the real financial crisis began to break out. The capital reserve ratio of investment banks is relatively low, so the crisis usually breaks out from investment banks first. With the continuous expansion of the crisis, when the crisis is transmitted to commercial banks, a large amount of demand capacity deposited by people will disappear, and the demand capacity of the whole society will shrink sharply and excessively, so that the crisis will be transmitted to the real economy.

The inherent characteristics of the real economy will enlarge the crisis. It is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, when the investment shrinks sharply, the production of the investors will shrink sharply, and the social unemployment rate will start to rise at this time, but the lag of commodity production will not reduce the supply of consumer goods, but will continue to increase in a certain period of time, thus intensifying the contradiction between commodity supply and social demand. Second, in the production and sale of goods, there is a certain amount of inventory, that is, inventory goods. When the social demand decreases sharply, in order to digest the inventory goods, the production of goods will temporarily stagnate. At this time, the unemployment rate of society will be over-amplified, leading to a serious surplus of social demand, and a real economic crisis will break out. Only by digesting the commodity stock can social production be effectively restored. The digestion cycle of inventory goods generally takes 4-6 months. In the digestive period, if a country's financial system and entity enterprises are not greatly damaged, the economy will be weak, so whether a country can successfully survive the digestive period of stock goods is the key period for it to get rid of the economic recession quickly.

Stagflation period: since the 1929 ~ 1933 crisis, Keynes's theory of government intervention has been accepted by people. The essence of Keynes's government intervention theory is that the government provides personal income to the society in the form of transfer payment through various active fiscal policies. The forms of transfer payment are mainly various welfare, social security and investment in non-commodity production fields. For example, increasing investment in non-commodity production areas (such as large-scale infrastructure construction) can' produce' a large number of social needs without increasing the supply of goods, thus temporarily maintaining the liquidity of the financial system and the balance between commodity supply and social demand. The balance between supply and demand can effectively keep the profit rate of enterprises from falling sharply, keep the average profit rate of society above the critical point, and prevent social investment from shrinking and stagnating sharply. After World War II, the American government began to implement Keynes's government intervention policy, and the subsequent intervention policy increased the purpose of preventing excessive investment from overheating the economy, making the increase of social demand more reasonable and lasting, thus making the economic development relatively more stable. For example, before 1929, Americans hardly got any income from the government, and all income was obtained through work and investment in commodity production. By 1999, 13% of Americans' personal income came from the government's transfer payment, which only increased the social demand capacity and did not increase the supply of goods, thus effectively maintaining it.

If there is no technological innovation to maintain the growth of profit rate, the profit rate of final commodity production will be zero, and there will be no expansion of reproduction without profit. At this time, commodity production is a simple production-sales-reproduction mode, and national wealth (commodity production scale) will remain unchanged. The profit-seeking nature of free capitalist production determines that commodity production will not maintain this balance at all. Therefore, any state intervention policy can only delay the outbreak of contradictions, weaken the destructiveness of contradictions and accelerate the recovery after the crisis, but can not eliminate the economic crisis. Stagnation and expansion coexist (stagflation), which is an economic phenomenon after the implementation of Keynesian government intervention policy. In the stagflation period, if the breakthrough new science and technology are applied to the social production field, the economic crisis can be effectively prevented and the social economy will usher in a new round of growth.

For financial institutions, the most stable source of funds is savings deposits, while the United States is a country with a very low savings rate, and sometimes even a negative savings rate. Therefore, low savings rate and excessive consumption are the root causes of the US financial crisis. Those social demand abilities, which were originally intended to balance the lagging commodity supply, were wrongly released in advance, which seriously overheated the national economy (that is, investment and consumption), thus causing the contradiction between commodity supply and social demand to become more prominent. Therefore, when the national economy is overheated, we should pay attention to controlling savings and excessive consumption. For example, when the real estate price rises too fast, the most effective way is to greatly increase the down payment ratio of mortgage loans, thus effectively curbing excessive consumption.

The private ownership of the American financial system is the fundamental reason for the excessively active financial policy in the United States. It's not that Americans don't save, but the profit-seeking nature of privatization makes all American savings released, so that there is basically no net savings rate in the United States. Specifically, it is released through two aspects. First, commercial banks release public deposits into social production and consumption by lending and investing as much as possible; Second, excessive debt bonds and financial derivatives have absorbed a large number of public deposits. This radical financial policy of the United States has released the social demand that should have precipitated in advance, part of which was released as investment capital and the other part as social demand, thus causing serious overheating of the economy.

Once the world economy and investment slow down, the social demand generated in social production will be lower than the actual social demand. At this time, the total amount of money flowing into the financial system will be less than the total amount of money flowing out, and the financial system will begin to lose blood, while the United States does not have a large amount of net savings to maintain the stability of the financial system. In the end, this imbalance will lead to the collapse of the American financial system (that is, lack of liquidity), which is the root cause of the financial crisis. And those dazzling financial derivatives are not the root of the financial crisis, they can only make the financial crisis more intense. The collapse of the financial system will wipe out the accumulated social demand, but the total amount of social demand capacity generated in commodity production is far lower than the total amount of commodity supply, and then an economic crisis will break out in the real economy. For example, if China adopts the proactive fiscal and monetary policy of the United States, it will release net savings of more than one trillion RMB 10, and the scale of commodity production (GDP) in China will be reduced by about 20%, resulting in a serious surplus of commodity production. Once exports and investment decrease, a fierce economic crisis will break out.

As a virtual asset, stock is essentially different from money (including bonds). The market value of stocks mainly reflects the liquidity of money. There are essential differences between stocks with the same market value and currency. The market value of stocks does not reflect the real situation of wealth. It contains a huge bubble, such as the total market value of the two cities from the end of 2007 to 165438+20081October 28. The essence of the stock market: the stock market itself does not directly create wealth. When the net capital inflows stock market, the total market value of stocks will increase, and vice versa. Although the personal market value of money has changed, the overall market value of money in society will not change because of the rise and fall of the stock market. For different individuals, it is only the redistribution of money, so the change of stock market value does not represent the change of social wealth. Law of stock market value change: Stock turnover rate includes net turnover rate and reverse turnover rate. Net turnover rate refers to the turnover rate of stock trading with profit and loss, while the opposite turnover rate refers to the turnover rate of stock trading without profit and loss. If the total market value of the stock market is 30 trillion, and the circulating market value is 10 trillion, when the net turnover rate is 10% and the market value increases or decreases by 10%, only1000 billion monetary funds need to flow in (out), and when the net turnover rate is 1%,

In China on June 365438+February 0, 2005, the total market value of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets was only 3 12 trillion yuan. By June 2008, 65438+1October 1 1, the total market value of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets exceeded 30 trillion yuan, but the actual net monetary capital flowing into the stock market was only about 2 trillion yuan. Although the total market value has evaporated by 20 trillion, the real cash (net outflow) of monetary funds is less than 2 trillion. Therefore, the total market value of 30 trillion yuan is essentially different from currency. It is a virtual asset, which is far from being equal to money and bonds in value. The illusion that the micro-domain (individual) stocks are cashed in makes people ignore the shrinking of the macro-domain (whole) stocks and simply regard the market value of stocks as the same wealth as money. When the stock market is booming, the inflated market value makes listed companies get a lot of money in the stock market and banks, which leads to overheated investment; False inflated market value makes personal consumption confidence over-inflated. For example, a person with a market value of 2 million shares will spend 6.5438+0 million more. However, in the whole macro field, 2 million can only cash out 200,000 or even less, thus causing substantial over-consumption of the whole society. Excessive investment and excessive consumption will eventually aggravate the contradiction between supply and demand, leading to a more serious financial and economic crisis.

The private ownership and profit-seeking of banks in free capitalist countries make them lose their due social responsibilities, which are mainly manifested in two aspects: First, the credit scale cannot be controlled according to the investment situation, so that the social demand capacity released in advance by investment is precipitated in the form of net savings. Excessive credit and investment policies overdraw the future social demand. When investment weakens, the sustained release of commodity supply will eventually lead to financial and economic crisis. Second, the blindness of profit-seeking makes these banks lose the ability to regulate the direction of credit, which will eventually lead to the imbalance between investment credit and consumer credit, investment credit in commodity production and investment credit in non-commodity production. For example, at the climax of investment, bank credit and investment began to flood into the investment field, leading to serious overheating of investment. When the investment ebbs, banks will flood a large amount of social demand generated by investment into the consumption field in the form of credit to maintain the final false prosperity of the economy. Among them, personal mortgage is the most risky because of its large amount, long cycle and luxury. When the social demand capacity released by investment is exhausted, if there is no brand-new technological innovation to drive a new round of investment boom, the contradiction between supply and demand will begin to appear. The initial performance is that the financial system loses blood and the social unemployment rate rises. With the shrinking of virtual assets and the rising unemployment rate, some people began to default on their mortgages. In the case of double blood loss, some radical banks (with high capital utilization rate) will eventually close down because of the low reserve ratio, which is the root cause of the subprime mortgage in the United States.

In addition, the professional manager system linked with profit and income will play a role in fueling the situation. Professional managers pay too much attention to the expansion of enterprises and ignore risks in order to get high salaries. Their short-term expansion and huge profits are obtained by sacrificing the long-term interests of enterprises. This kind of behavior will also aggravate the contradiction between commodity supply and social demand, thus making the crisis come faster and more intense. For example, the investment of Lehman Brothers has serious risks. Even China farmers who don't understand the economy wouldn't lend so blindly, but don't many economists at Lehman Brothers see it? In fact, they are well aware of these risks. Why should they take such a risk? From 2000 to 2007, the total salary of Lehman Brothers President was $350 million. Before the crisis broke out in 2007, he began to sell a lot of Lehman Brothers shares and cashed in more than $200 million, which means that the president of Lehman Brothers has earned nearly $600 million in the last seven years. Over the years, Lehman Brothers executives and experts at all levels have made huge income from venture capital, and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers will not affect their wealth. The excessive expansion of Lehman Brothers' credit has intensified people's excessive consumption of real estate.

After the outbreak of the financial crisis, there are three main ways of intervention in western capitalist countries: active fiscal policy, monetary policy and supply-side school policy. Take the United States as an example: the precipitated social demand ability of the United States has been released in advance, so no matter what intervention policy the United States adopts, the only thing it can do is to print a large number of dollars to realize its intervention policy, and the excessive issuance of money will bring new crises. Therefore, the national intervention policy of the United States can only appropriately reduce the harm of the economic crisis, but cannot eliminate it. For example, through active fiscal policy (such as investment in infrastructure, medical care, education and other non-commodity production fields), the government will eventually transform the excess money into social demand capacity without increasing the supply of goods. The increase of social demand capacity will alleviate the contradiction between commodity supply and social demand to a certain extent, and provide fresh' blood' for the financial system to effectively alleviate the financial crisis. But stagflation is inevitable, because excess money is directly transformed into social demand capacity. Monetary policy is to directly inject a large amount of money into the financial system to maintain the liquidity of the financial system, thus reducing the impact of the financial crisis on the real economy. It takes a process for these excess money to be completely transformed into social demand capacity after it is put into the financial system, so it will not cause stagflation, but it can not effectively alleviate the contradiction between commodity supply and social demand. At this time, deflation and economic recession are inevitable. In addition, when the commodity stock is digested and social production is effectively restored, inflation will reappear as the excess money is gradually transformed into social demand through the financial system. In the field of pure commodity production, the supply of manufactured goods is greater than the social demand for manufacturing. Therefore, all kinds of measures proposed by the supply school to save the stock market and the property market will only aggravate the contradiction between supply and demand, thus making the crisis more serious.

At the end of 2008, China launched a 4 trillion economic stimulus plan, which became the focus of global debate. While making a positive response, experts are also cautious about the China government's ability to raise funds and the effectiveness of the plan. China's proactive fiscal policy is Keynesian on the surface, but its essence is not Keynesian. At the end of September 2008, the balance of local and foreign currency deposits of financial institutions nationwide was 46.68 trillion yuan, the balance of loans was 310.48 trillion yuan, and the net savings was 15.2 trillion yuan. The essence of China's fiscal policy is to gradually release social demand by releasing net bank savings. China will release 10 trillion net savings in the next two years, and the government's investment of 4 trillion is planned economy, that is, the government will invest 40% of the released net savings in non-commodity production areas through financial intervention policies, so that these funds can be transformed into social demand capacity to the maximum extent, so as to maintain the balance between commodity supply and social demand, thus effectively preventing the investment in commodity production areas from overheating. In addition, the government will not directly intervene in the investment of enterprises, but only increase the financial support by relaxing the credit policy. The flow of the 6 trillion capital should be dominated by the market mechanism, which is most conducive to China's industrial upgrading.

China's planned economy is also reflected in the scale and direction of credit in the financial system. When the investment is overheated, the government will precipitate the social demand capacity released in advance by means of credit, so as to properly cool down the economy and prepare for the shrinking investment. For example, in 2007, China government raised the deposit reserve ratio to17,5, which precipitated a large number of social demands in banks, which not only improved the banks' ability to resist risks, but also helped the economy. In addition, by controlling the direction of credit to balance the supply of goods and social demand. The specific policy of China government is to control the balance between commodity supply and social demand by controlling the proportion of investment credit and consumer credit, and controlling the proportion of investment credit in commodity production and investment credit in non-commodity production. This is the fundamental reason why every time the world economy declines, China's proactive fiscal policy can make China's economy get rid of the impact quickly.