管理学大师谏言中美竞争

你对2012年的大选不抱什么希望？

    我希望媒体严肃起来，不要再把老太太被推下悬崖（奥巴马攻击共和党当政会损害老年人利益——译注）作为竞选广告的噱头。要我说，就是奥巴马自己把那13个老太太推下悬崖的。没人想听到坏消息，说某些人再也享受不到福利了，但我们必须要削减政府的社会职能。最高法院批准了奥巴马的健保方案，迫使人们购买保险，他们其实就在批准国家资本主义。

那你又说中国强制要求公司购买再生性能源，还取得了成功。

    中国人确实成功了。他们的政府由技术专家来领导。他们的政治体制更像是精英政治。他们有长期的计划。而在我们的体系里，唯一的政治信条就是“只要再多活一天。”我们应该认识到我们其实已经有工业政策了，只需把政客踢到一边就好。我支持建立一个新的政府机构：联邦工业政策委员会，职责就是和中国展开战略竞争。这个机构将包含商业部、美国贸易代表处、专门行业监管机构、环保署、职业安全和健康署以及其它相关部门。这样一来，企业在寻求批准、授权或其它政府许可时，就能及时获得一站式的服务。

你好像并不支持任何一个党派。

    我不站队。作为一个商学院教授，你会以为我完全支持自由放任。但我会从战略角度看问题。我是一个战略家，我在想：我们可能在教育领域超过13亿中国人吗？还别提他们拥有尊师重教的儒家传统。罗姆尼和瑞安在他们拯救美国的计划中提到改善教育，我觉得那纯粹是装腔作势。就算我们能够把每个人都培训成软件工程师，他们的每项创新发明都会在几分钟之内遭遇中国人的盗版。两党都在兜售他们的教育方案，只是为了迎合大众的口味。如果你相信我们凭着3亿左右的人口，就能在教育领域超过13亿中国人，那简直就是种族主义的想法。他们1%最聪明的人必然比我们最好的1%要聪明得多，这就是（自然界的）平均法则。

You don't have a whole lot of hope for the 2012 election cycle?

    I'm hoping that the press will get serious and not allow these ads where they're pushing grandmothers over the cliff. Instead, say, let's look at what should be the Obama ad where he's pushing 13 grandmothers over the cliff. Nobody wants to hear the bad news that some people aren't going to get their benefits any more, but we really need to downsize the social side of our government. When the Supreme Court approved Obamacare, forcing people to buy things, they essentially approved state capitalism.

But you mention that China forces companies to buy renewables with good results.

    The Chinese make it work. Their government is run by technocrats. Their political system is more of a meritocracy. They have a long-term plan. In our system, the mantra in politics is, "Just survive one more day." We should recognize that we already have industrial policy and take politicians out of it. I'm arguing for a new agency, a Federal Industrial Policy Board, that would be responsible for a more strategic approach to competing with China. It would encompass the Commerce Department, the U.S. Trade Representative, industry-specific regulatory agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and others to create a one-stop-shop for businesses seeking approvals, licenses, and other government permissions in a timely manner.

Your views don't seem to line up with either party.

    I don't fall into the party line. You'd expect me as a business professor to completely be laissez-faire. But I'm looking at it as a strategist. And as a strategist I'm thinking: Can we out-educate 1.3 billion people? Especially people who have Confucian values that put honor on education and respect educators? Romney and Ryan talk about improving education in their plan for the United States, and I believe that's a lot of hokey. Let's suppose we can train everybody to be software engineers. Every innovation they make is going to be copied within minutes by the Chinese. Both parties tout education because it sounds great to people, but it's almost a racist thought to think that we have 300 or so million Americans, and we're going to out-educate the Chinese when they have 1.3 billion people. Their top 1% of smart people are going to be a lot smarter than our top 1%, just by the law of averages.