What is the economic category?

The so-called category refers to the generalization and reflection of the universal nature of objective things by human thinking. Each discipline has its own basic category.

The category of economics

Since economics cannot judge what is good and what is bad, what does its scope include? The answer is that the category of economics includes three parts.

First, knowing the constraints or rules of the game (this is the property right system or the division of rights between people), we can infer what is the standard of competition. This is a very complicated problem, which is often not easy to deal with, but a master can always do it if he is willing to pay the price. Speaking of it, this is the easiest place in positive economics to distinguish between superior and inferior hands.

The world is like a chess game, and the limited conditions are ever-changing, so it is impossible for any analysis to cover everything. Relevant and important constraints will be extracted and simplified. But what is "relevant" and what is "important", the analyst can't make judgments and choices at will, because by doing so, the analyst can get the conclusions he wants at will. In other words, the choice of constraints requires constraints, and this constraint requires a theory. This in-depth question about methodology will be elaborated in detail when I analyze price control.

The second-this is the easiest part of economics-is based on competition, and economics can infer how people behave, how resources are used, and how wealth or income is distributed. As mentioned above, different standards will lead to different behaviors, and the winners (income distribution) will be different. The above-mentioned examples of housing allocation and queuing shopping belong to this part.

In fact, apart from the development of nearly 30 years, this part of western economics with a history of more than 200 years is desirable (non-values and explanatory ability). The so-called division between income distribution and resource allocation or resource use is the tradition of economics. Even today, economics textbooks are still treated like this.

However, in traditional economics, the analysis of income distribution and resource use is mostly based on the principle that the market price determines the result in the free market. This standard can only appear under the system of private property rights. In other words, traditional economic analysis can explain income distribution and human behavior, but its scope is very narrow. The rules of the game bound by private property rights are only part of the ever-changing rules. If we are familiar with general economics textbooks, no matter how high they are, we can use them to explain the world, and the scope is very small. If you study economics in a rut and read the textbook thoroughly, you may not have a little knowledge, let alone enter the room. Science should be learned and used, especially economics.

Traditional economic analysis is mostly based on market prices, and its scope is very narrow, but this does not mean that economic analysis is powerless to different competition standards. On the contrary, in the past 30 years, the so-called new institutional economics has expanded to various standards with basic economic principles. Different competition rules will certainly have different effects, but they can be handled on the same theoretical basis. As long as the standards of competition can be clearly pointed out, it is not difficult to infer the behavior of income distribution and resource use. In other words, once the relevant rules (restrictive conditions) of the game are defined and the standards of the game are determined, a master can infer the behavior of the game with high accuracy in a few days.

The third part of the economics category is the most difficult. That is to explain how the rules of the game are formed. Why is there a property system in the world? Why is there rent control in Hong Kong? Because the game rules are directly related to the competition rules, this part also explains how the competition rules are determined. Why should the living units of HKU teachers be allocated according to scores? Why does * * * produce China by generations?

How are different property rights systems formed? Why do laws change with time and place? Why is the legislative procedure in Hong Kong different from that in Taiwan Province Province? What is a country? Why are there countries? Why do some countries have constitutions and others don't? Why does Chinese mainland want a united front? These are profound questions.

But strangely, sometimes economists think this is an inscrutable economic problem, while those who don't know economics think it is extremely simple. They like to talk about these problems endlessly, but their "explanation" has nothing to do with science. If you ask Hong Kong legislators: Why pass a law? They can't help talking about Kan Kan. However, if we carefully analyze their "theory", we can usually only get four results: (1) What they say is an ad hoc theory with no universal explanatory power; (2) What they said is tautology, and there is no content at all; (3) What they say is their own value judgment, which has nothing to do with science; What they say is nonsense.

F Hayek once spent a lot of time explaining the third part of economics, but he didn't get much. In the past twenty years, the theory of state has gradually become a hot topic in economics, and many experts have participated in it, including J. Buchanan, G. stigler, G. Becker, H. Demsetz, etc. But they didn't get much. Of course, their other research and gains are many and important. I wrote in "Will China Go to Capitalism?" "In that little book, created a political theory, I consciously satisfied, but only Gauss pays attention to this theory! Although this theory accurately speculates the system transformation of China, it will take a long time to be reliably verified.

Economic Explanation should be the last book on economics that I have written seriously. The profound question about the formation of system or political system-the third part of the above-mentioned economics category-must start with the choice of contract if we want to gain a lot. This is about the relationship between transaction cost and contract, the nature of the company, the structure of the organization and so on. These should extend to the state and the system-keeping the house in order, governing the country and leveling the world. 198 1 year, I took this road and accurately speculated on the system transformation of China. Although it is only this time, it is not convincing enough, but it is still one more time than all experts.

(Article 13 of Economic Interpretation; End of Chapter 3)