盖茨为缩小贫富差距献策

    比尔•盖茨不赞同法国经济学家托马斯•皮凯蒂的理念，对许多人来说也许并不意外，要知道，盖茨可是《福布斯》杂志（Forbes）评选的全球第二大富豪。

    今年名声大噪的皮凯蒂，在其著作《21世纪资本论》（Capital in the 21st Century）中指出，如果没有全球战争等打破稳定格局的事件，财富会越发集中，这就是资本主义的基本法则。如何解决这一问题？皮凯蒂的建议是征收全球资本税，帮助各国政府更好地掌握财富分配情况，并遏制贫富差距扩大的必然趋势。皮凯蒂认为，贫富差距扩大会影响社会稳定。

    如果《福布斯》富豪榜排名无误，那么真按皮凯蒂的建议开征全球财富税的话，除了世界首富卡洛斯•斯利姆，受打击最大的将非比尔•盖茨莫属。不过，盖茨上周在个人博客上批评皮凯蒂的大作，并不是完全是为了自身利益。毕竟，盖茨已经承诺，在世期间将捐出自己一半财产，这一比例远远高于皮凯蒂建议的1%或2%的财产税。盖茨有意见的，不是超级富豪应该散财的观点，而是皮凯蒂提出的机制以及此机制将形成的诱因。

    “假设有三种不同类型的富人。第一位男士把资金用来发展业务。第二位女士把大多数财产用于慈善。而第三位富人把大部分都用来消费，购入游艇和飞机等。虽然他们拥有的财富确实都造成了贫富不均，但我要说，前两位给社会创造的价值要超过第三位。皮凯蒂应对此加以区分，因为这对政策的影响很大。”

    和皮凯蒂一样，盖茨的目标也是把财产分出去。但他不愿打击那些（像他一样）

    冒着风险、投资于创造价值的企业、通过慈善帮助世界的超级富豪的积极性。那么，盖茨对此有何良策？他认为，应该调整美国税法，从对劳动所得征税变为对消费征税。这听起来像是标准的右翼经济理论。富人和保守经济学家通常都偏好消费税，因为该税种往往具有递减特性。因为无论富人还是穷人，都得消费一定量的产品和服务，而穷人消费占自身收入的比重远高于富人，因此，州政府和地方政府销售税这类消费税对穷人的影响比对富人大。

    但这种情况可以改变。长期以来，包括康奈尔大学（Cornell University）罗伯特•弗兰克教授在内的经济学家，一直倡导采用累进制消费税。他们认为，该税制在消除贫富差距扩大的弊端方面大有可为。弗兰克写道：

    It might not come as a surprise to many that Bill Gates, whom Forbes’ magazine ranks as the second wealthiest man in the world, doesn’t agree with the ideas of French economist Thomas Piketty.

    It’s Piketty, after all, who made a big splash this year with his book Capital in the 21st Century, which argued that it is a fundamental law of capitalism that wealth will grow more concentrated absent destabilizing events like global wars. Piketty’s solution? A global tax on capital that could help governments better understand how wealth is distributed and stem the tide of inevitably increasing inequality, which Piketty believes is socially destabilizing.

    If you believe the Forbes list, there is nobody in the world besides Carlos Slim who has more to lose than Bill Gates if Piketty’s global wealth on tax were to be instituted. But Gates’ critique of Piketty’s work, published Monday on his personal blog, isn’t completely self-interested. After all, Gates has already pledged to give away half his fortune over the course of his lifetime, a much larger amount than the 1% or 2% wealth tax, proposed by Piketty, would confiscate. His problem isn’t with the idea that the super wealthy should spread their fortunes around, but ratherwithPiketty’s mechanism and the incentives it would create:

    “Imagine three types of wealthy people. One guy is putting his capital into building his business. Then there’s a woman who’s giving most of her wealth to charity. A third person is mostly consuming, spending a lot of money on things like a yacht and plane. While it’s true that the wealth of all three people is contributing to inequality, I would argue that the first two are delivering more value to society than the third. I wish Piketty had made this distinction, because it has important policy implications.”

    Gates shares Piketty’s goal of spreading wealth, yet he doesn’t want to discourage the uber wealthy (like Gates) who are taking risks, investing in value-creating businesses, and helping the world through philanthropy. Gates’ solution? Shift the American tax code from one that taxes labor to one that taxes consumption. Now, this sounds like standard, right-wing economic theory. Consumption taxes are usually favored by the wealthy and by conservative economists because they tend to be regressive in nature. Since everyone—rich and poor—have to consume some amount of goods and services, and because the proportion of income spent is much higher for the poor than the rich, consumption taxes like state and local sales tax burden the poor more than the rich.

    But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Economists like Cornell University’s Robert Frank have long advocated for progressive consumption taxes that could do much to solve what they perceive as the ills of growing income inequality. As Frank writes: