收入不均和贫困不能怪市场

    上周，我有幸受邀到梵蒂冈为250多名经济学家、基金经理和学者做演讲，内容是自由市场和商业实践。我在演讲中强调，我们不该因为现代社会的不公和收入差距而继续怪罪于市场。

    相反，我们应该共同关注怎样利用这个强大的体系去解决世界上最紧迫的社会问题。

    首先我们可以看到，贸易是人类活动的基石。它是如此的重要，以至于亚当•斯密在《国富论》中说以物易物的交易方式也许是人区别于动物的主要标志之一。从这个意义上讲，自由市场以及赋予其生命的公司和人都是人类社会和生活的基本要素。

    我认为，2015年我们面临的核心问题是很少有人认识到市场（乃至于创造并利用市场的公司）并不是收入差距或社会不公的根源。长期以来，人类社会也好，动物社会也好，一直都由不同的阶层组成，这种现象远早于全球资本市场的诞生。适者生存概念并非以市场为基础，它是一条自然法则。即便在今天，一个婴儿出生在哪里，父母是谁等不确定因素对其生存和发展的影响仍可能超过其他任何可衡量因素。

    市场带来的其实是效率。它是迄今为止人类找到的最高效的资源创造和分配机制。在人类摆脱贫穷、延长寿命、打破重重障碍的发展历史上，市场可以说是最成功的社会结构——比政府、文明社会和宗教都更为成功。仅在过去20年里，就有近10亿人通过自由经营的企业摆脱极端贫困。我经常想，人们为什么还期望市场来缩小贫富差距或者提高道德水平呢？这似乎是一种超能力。2003年，我和约翰•乔斯特及杰夫•普费弗两位教授一起写了一篇论文，探讨了“公平市场意识形态”的倾向。事实上，市场不可能对公平和正义的存在或缺失而负责。它们本身也不存在公平或不公平、道德或不道德的问题。市场就是市场，就像人的生命就是生命一样。

    商业可以创造利润，同样也可以按照所有者期望的程度来改善社会福利。在这方面商业是很有效的。任何企业主都可以选择压缩利润来提高工资，创造更好的工作环境并促进岗位培训。他们可以给慈善基金捐款，或为社区、地区组织和非政府组织无偿提供产品或服务，也可以对社区再发展以及环境可持续项目投资。实际上，股东们也可以通过选择持有哪家公司的股票来实现这一切。

    问题在于，迄今为止，我所知道的大部分投资者，或者应该说大部分人，在进行投资决策时都选择了追求利润最大化，而不是促进社会福利。这是因为大多数人都希望投资为自己带来更多的财富，也希望更早地退休。

    不过，对于商业活动是否有潜力解决贫穷和贫富不均等最紧迫的社会问题，我比以前任何时候都要乐观。这不仅是因为我们看到了过去15年间的进步，也因为越来越多的年轻人开始选择去那些社会目标清晰的公司工作，比如联合利华、培生或爱立信。它们都是市值数十亿美元的跨国公司,而非小型企业或小众企业。它们的首席执行官均公开承诺，既要创造更多的利润，也要创造更大的社会价值。

    通过有意识的选择，通过企业所有者、股东、投资者和员工的选择，我们每个人都有能力通过市场来构建一个更好的世界。但要做到这一点，我们必须通过对话（比如上周在梵蒂冈的那次对话）让人们了解到，除了创造利润，对于那些希望把社会原则放在首要位置的公司来说，建立资金池很重要。

    毕竟，只有通过人类的干预和人类的自由意志，我们才能为公平、道德和平等概念赋予生命。而这一过程则体现在我们每个人在日常生活中如何待人接物、如何开展工作，以及作为社会群体的一份子在互动和决策时力争表达怎样的价值观。（财富中文网）

    本文作者为西北大学凯洛格商学院院长。

    译者：Charlie

    审校：夏林

    I was honored to be invited to the Vatican last week to speak to more than 250 delegates from economists to fund managers to academics on free markets and the practice of business. As my remarks stressed, we need to stop blaming markets for the social injustices and income inequality of the modern age.

    Instead, we need to come together to focus on how we can use this powerful mechanism to address the world’s most pressing social issues.

    It’s helpful to start with the observation that trade is a cornerstone of human activity – so much so, that Adam Smith argued in The Wealth of Nations that the human propensity to barter is perhaps the primary activity that distinguishes men from animals. In this sense, free markets – and the firms and people who give them life – form the very fabric of human society and life.

    The core challenge in 2015, I believe, is that that too few people remember that markets (and by extension the companies that create and use them) are not the source of social inequality and injustice in the world. Human (and animal) societies have long organized around status hierarchies, well before the existence of global capital markets. Survival of the fittest is not a market-based concept, it is a nature-based concept. Even today, the simple luck of where and to whom a baby is born (human or animal) will have more impact on that being’s likelihood of surviving and thriving than just about any other measurable factor.

    What markets do bring to the table is efficiency. They are the most efficient mechanism humans have found for creating, distributing and allocating resources. They are arguably the most successful social structure in human history at lifting people out of poverty, extending life expectancies and breaking down barriers – more successful than governments, civil society and religions. In the past 20 years alone, nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty through the practice of free enterprise as noted in this article.I have often wondered why people also expect markets to be an equalizing or moral force – possessing seemingly supernatural powers. I wrote a paper with John Jost and Jeff Pfeffer back in 2003 exploring the tendency toward “fair market ideology.” The reality is that markets have no claim on fairness and justice, nor the lack thereof. They are not in and of themselves fair or unfair, moral or amoral. They simply are – just as human life is.

    Businesses can be used to promote social good, in addition to profit, as much as their owners choose. And they can do it in powerful ways. Any business owner can choose to reduce profits in order to pay higher wages, create better working conditions, and enhance job training. They can contribute to a charitable foundation or offer goods and services on a pro bono basis to communities, religious organizations and NGOs. They can invest in community redevelopment and environmental sustainability. Indeed, stockholders can also make these choices by picking which companies they own.

    The challenge is that to-date the majority of investors, and indeed the majority of people I know, have chosen to maximize profit over social good in their investment decisions. This is because most people I know want to earn more money rather than less on their investments. They want to retire sooner rather than later.

    That said, I am more optimistic than I have ever been about the potential for business to address the world’s most pressing social issues – including poverty and inequality. I’m encouraged not only by the progress we’ve seen in the past 15 years, but by the fact that more and more of our young people are seeking work in for-profit companies that articulate a clear social purpose – companies like Unilever, Pearson or Ericsson. These are not small enterprises or niche players. They are multi-billion dollar global corporations, whose CEOs have publicly committed to delivering both greater social value and profit.

    Through conscious choice — through our decisions as business owners, shareholders, investors, and employees — we each have the power through markets to create a better world. But to do that, we must use conversations like the one at the Vatican last week, to show people the importance of creating investment pools for companies that seek to bring social principles to the forefront, in addition to profit making.

    After all, it is only through human intervention, human free will, that we give concepts of fairness, morality and equality life. We each do this by how we treat people, how we undertake our work, and in the values we strive to embody in our social group memberships, interactions and decisions each day.

    Sally Blount is the Dean of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.