Similarities and differences among planned market, planned mechanism and market mechanism

The real mystery of market economy: the expansion of value production

100 years ago, Marx and Engels said in the Manifesto of the Productive Party: "The bourgeoisie has played a very revolutionary role in history. ..... It proved for the first time what human activities can achieve. ..... The productive forces created by the bourgeoisie in less than a hundred years of class rule have exceeded all the productive forces created by all generations in the past, or even greater. " [1] In his later study of political economy, Marx emphasized the bad aspects of capitalist production by examining the dual historical role of capitalist mode of production, and affirmed the great historical role of capitalism in developing productive forces more than once. [2] He pointed out: "Developing social labor productivity is the historical task and reason for the existence of capital", [3] "Capital is produced, that is, it exists. Only when capital itself becomes a constraint on the development of this productivity itself, capital is no longer such a relationship. " [4] Over the past 100 years since Marx's death, especially since the Second World War, capitalism has made great progress in developing social productive forces, which raises a question to people, that is, by what "magic" does capitalism summon and create such huge social productive forces? This problem is exactly the expansion of value production to be discussed and explained in this section.

Let's first compare the similarities and differences between the bourgeoisie in history and the slave-owning class and feudal landlord class before it. It is generally believed that the bourgeoisie, the slave owner class and the feudal landlord class have played the same role in history, that is, they are all new representatives of productive forces in history. This understanding is good, but it seems too general. It is too general because it is based on the theory of five forms. When we turn our vision from the "five-form theory" to the "three-form theory", we will find that the reason why the bourgeoisie can play a huge historical role is more profound than the general principle that it is the representative of the new productive forces. That is, the bourgeoisie is linked with the commodity market economy, while the slave-owning class and the feudal landlord class are linked with the natural economy, and the historical stages of their movements are completely different. It is these two different modes of social production that determine their great differences in history. In order to further understand this point, we need to compare the differences between natural economy and commodity economy. The fundamental difference between natural economy and commodity economy is that the former is production based on use value, and the manifestation of social wealth is use value; The latter is production based on exchange value, and the manifestation of social wealth is value. People's pursuit and satisfaction with the use value is limited. This is just as Marx said: "If the dominant factor in a socio-economic form is not the exchange value of products, but the use value of products, then surplus labor will be limited by the scope of demand, large or small, and the nature of production itself will not cause unlimited demand for surplus labor." [5] In the natural economy, because the manifestation of social wealth is use value, people's desire for material wealth can only be "enjoyment desire" for specific items. Use value is wealth directly used for daily consumption, and consumption is subjectively limited by human physiological functions and objectively limited by the development degree of specific labor and product forms, so the "desire to enjoy" use value is a relatively limited desire. This relatively limited demand and desire determines that the production in the natural economy can only be a simple copy of the original production, and human society and mankind can only develop at a slow speed. With the development of natural economy into commodity economy, the economic form and production purpose of wealth have changed from use value to value, and the desire for wealth has undergone fundamental historical changes. The concrete and relative "desire to enjoy" has become an abstract and absolute "desire to get rich". Value-added means making money and chasing money. Money is the embodiment of abstract labor and the representative of the whole wealth world; The desire for money is not the desire for specific goods, but the general desire for labor; Not a qualitative desire, but a quantitative desire. Money is not only the object but also the source of the desire to get rich. [6] In short, the desire to get rich with the goal of increasing the value and expanding the amount of money is an endless process from finite to infinite, and it is an absolute and infinite desire. This absolute and endless desire to get rich makes commodity economy, a social production type, contain an inner impulse to develop production indefinitely. Historically, the development of commodity economy has created a capitalist mode of production. The development of capitalist mode of production also provides a stage for fully demonstrating the inherent impulse of commodity economy to develop social productive forces infinitely. Marx had a far-sighted and profound exposition on this, [7] which was also proved by the development of capitalism for hundreds of years. However, in a long historical period, the commodity economy and the capitalist mode of production directly overlap, resulting in a misunderstanding, as if the capitalist mode of production does not depend on the commodity market economy, while the commodity market economy depends on the capitalist mode of production, which leads to the prejudice that the commodity market economy is regarded as a capitalist patent and thus excludes the commodity market economy in socialist countries. Today, when people finally change this prejudice and realize that commodity market economy itself does not have the attribute of social system, we have to re-examine the real mystery of commodity market economy promoting productivity development. This mystery is nothing more than the value production characteristics of commodity market economy. It is the expansion of value production itself that creates the inherent impulse of commodity market economy to develop social productive forces indefinitely.

The most effective way to allocate resources so far.

Social resources are scarce in social and economic activities and economic development. How to allocate social resources effectively and reasonably is a basic proposition of economics, which has always played an important role in economic research. The so-called resource allocation refers to the distribution of various resources in the economy (including manpower, material resources, financial resources and land) in different directions of use. What it wants to study and solve is to allocate scarce resources most effectively in various possible uses under the constraints of established resource conditions and according to the specific technical conditions and economic development level at that time, so that these resources can produce as many products and services as possible for the society. According to the scope of action, resource allocation can be divided into micro-allocation within production units and social allocation between production units. As far as the latter is concerned, according to the basic distribution methods, it can be divided into two social resources distribution methods: one is administrative distribution based on administrative means; The second is market allocation based on market mechanism. An economy that adopts market allocation is usually called "commodity economy" or "market economy"; The economy of administrative distribution is usually called "planned economy", but it is also called "control economy" or "command economy" in comparative economics because it is a vague concept.

Which of the above two distribution methods can allocate social resources reasonably and effectively, or which is better or worse, can only be judged by comparison. From a purely theoretical point of view, the fully conscious resource allocation model, which is accurately calculated and executed by the authoritative organization according to the plan, should be the optimal resource allocation model, because it is the most economical, efficient and non-fluctuating allocation model. However, in order to realize such planned distribution, the following two preconditions must be met: first, the planning organization has all the information (complete information hypothesis) of all economic activities in the whole society, including the status of material resources and human resources, technical feasibility, demand structure and so on. Second, the interests of the whole society are integrated, and there is no single interest subject and different value judgments (single interest subject hypothesis). Whether the former condition is met is related to whether the prepared scheme reflects the objective reality; Whether the latter condition is met is related to whether the plan can be implemented accurately and smoothly. In the foreseeable stage, at least in the primary stage of socialism, the above two conditions are not available. Therefore, adopting this resource allocation method will encounter insurmountable obstacles in information and implementation.

In terms of information mechanism, our era is an era of "information explosion" and rapid change. It is difficult to collect and transmit the massive information of production, circulation, consumption and demand in every corner of the whole society to the planning department in time. Even if it is done, it is impossible to solve an equilibrium equation group containing astronomical numerical variables in one day or one month, turn the calculation result into a unified scheme with interrelated parts and decompose it layer by layer. From the perspective of implementation mechanism, it is almost self-evident that it is more difficult for administrative means to allocate resources. It comes from the basic reality that in the socialist stage, everyone involved in economic activities, including the planners and executors of the plan, has their own interests. This kind of interest often conflicts with the overall interests of society. Therefore, in the process of providing information, making plans and implementing plans, it is inevitable to be consciously or unconsciously influenced by their own local interests and have deviations. Therefore, this condition cannot be met under socialist conditions.

Because there are insurmountable contradictions and difficulties between theory and reality in the planned economy (administrative) mode of allocating resources, it inevitably produces various disadvantages in the actual operation process, such as economic shortage, ups and downs, insufficient economic vitality and so on. This has been proved by the practice of socialist countries. After a long period of slow development and setbacks, people have to give up the administrative planning mode and try to use the market economy as the basic way to allocate resources.

In order to cooperate with the investigation of administrative plan allocation of resources, we also investigated the characteristics of market economy allocation of resources from a purely theoretical point of view. We know that the general characteristics of market economy are based on enterprise autonomy and market relations, and regulated by market mechanism. The so-called market mechanism mainly refers to the price mechanism, supply and demand mechanism and competition mechanism. Under their interaction, the market allocation of resources shows the following characteristics and advantages: first, the decision-making under the market economy is decentralized. Decentralized decision-making makes each economic subject only need to obtain information related to his own production and business activities, but not all the information. This solves the contradiction between the widespread occurrence of information and the demand for centralized collection and processing in socialized mass production. Second, all kinds of resource allocation decisions are not made by administrative power from top to bottom, but are made and voluntarily implemented by the parties to economic activities who pursue maximum utility according to market signals through their own calculations, so there is no difficulty in implementation. Third, the biggest problem in allocating resources in a market economy is whether decentralized decision-making can be coordinated. Under the condition of perfect competition and price reflecting supply and demand, coordination can be carried out. First of all, the interaction of supply and demand forces makes the market supply and demand of a product balanced, and determines the balanced price and output. The adjustment of market mechanism enables manufacturers to produce the varieties and quantities that consumers want, because manufacturers who save production in this way will get rich returns, while inefficient producers will be eliminated, so that waste and inefficiency in production will be reduced to a minimum. Secondly, the price change is an automatic signal to coordinate the activities of various decision makers. Through this coordination, the change of supply and demand can lead to the effective allocation of resources. The specific analysis is as follows: (1) When the market demand of a certain factor exceeds the supply, the price will definitely rise. In this case? The manufacturers who are least in urgent need withdraw from the factor market first, and the manufacturers who are most in urgent need are willing to buy when the price rises, thus promoting demand to adapt to the supply situation. Therefore, scarce resources will be allocated to manufacturers with the highest productivity and profit using these resources. Manufacturers who can't make full and effective use of resources will give up this factor and withdraw from the market because of the price mechanism. (2) The rising price of scarce resources will inevitably lead to the rising price of consumer goods produced by using scarce resources. Therefore, both individual consumers and public consumers will reduce the demand for such consumer goods, thus alleviating the contradiction between supply and demand through the corresponding reduction in demand. (3) The market economy is an open economy, and its opening can make up for the disadvantages of resources with the advantages of resources, that is, through the transformation of resources between regions and countries (under the action of supply and demand law and price mechanism), the problem of resource shortage can be solved.

From the above analysis, we can see that the effective operation of the market economy must also meet two preconditions: first, there are enough enterprises and they can enter freely, and there is no monopoly (perfect competition assumption); Second, the price is flexible enough to reflect the relationship between supply and demand of resources in a timely manner (price sensitivity assumption). Without these two conditions, it is difficult for the market economy to play an effective role in allocating resources. Judging from the actual operation of the market economy, the above two preconditions cannot be fully met. However, unlike the situation under the central planned economy, they may be generally satisfied. For example, under the condition of modern market economy, a perfectly competitive market cannot exist, but monopoly cannot eliminate competition. So an imperfect competitive market, or a competitive market, may still exist. Price can't reflect the relationship between supply and demand of resources immediately, but under the condition of competitive market, it can generally reflect the relative scarcity of various resources, and so on. In addition, there are other defects in the market (which we will describe in the next chapter), but these defects can be made up by government intervention and macro-control to some extent.

Some people may ask, since both planned economy and market economy have defects, isn't it the most reasonable and effective way to allocate resources by combining them? This idea can be understood as a good wish. However, as an economic system, it is fundamentally different whether it is based on planning or market. It reflects two different guiding ideology: the guiding ideology of the planned economy system is that the government has the ability to allocate resources, but the government's strength is insufficient, so it is necessary to give up the site and let the market pick up the missing ones; The guiding ideology of the market-oriented system is that the market can allocate resources, but it has limitations. What the market can't do is done by the government. Visible,

These two systems and two different guiding ideology cannot be reconciled.

In short, although neither of the two resource allocation methods can fully meet the preconditions for its effective operation, this lack is very different, that is, the conditions of the former are completely impossible and the conditions of the latter are possible. Therefore, the way of allocating resources in market economy is more effective and the best way of allocating resources so far.

A New Concept of Fairness: Equal Opportunities

Fairness has always been regarded as the most difficult problem in economics. This is not only because fairness is a historical concept, not abstract, but also because it involves people's value judgment and permeates interest factors.

So far, there are three main principles of fairness that we know: First, the fairness of market economy. In the pre-capitalist era, this fairness was only realized in a very limited scope; In the capitalist era, due to the popularity of commodity economy, it has become a universal principle of the whole society; Second, the fairness of social possession of the means of production. This is the principle realized after capitalism is transformed into socialism; Third, the fairness of free and conscious labor and fully satisfying people's universal needs. Since this is a principle that can only be realized in a capitalist society, only the first two principles of fairness are described here.

The principle of fairness in market economy. The fair principle of market economy is established with the continuous development of commodity economy. Generally speaking, the relationship between goods and money already contains the basic content of this fair principle. First of all, commodity economy is a social form marked by the independence of people based on the dependence of things, which establishes the independence and economic equality of commodity producers; Secondly, it establishes the freedom of economic behavior of commodity producers. Commodity economy is based on independent ownership, with the principle of equivalent exchange and free competition as the conditions. Essentially, it is a free contractual relationship, which requires freedom of will and behavior, that is, excluding super-economic coercion and completely voluntary transactions, and neither party uses violence. In this regard, Marx once made an incisive exposition: "If the economic form and exchange establish the overall equality between subjects, then the content, even if people exchange personal material and material information, also establishes freedom. It can be seen that equality and freedom are not only respected in the exchange based on exchange value, but also the exchange of exchange value is the productive and realistic basis of all equality and freedom. Equality and freedom, as pure concepts, are only a theoretical expression of exchange value exchange; As things developed in legal, political and social relations, equality and freedom are only the foundation of the other side. " [8]

With the full development of commodity economy, in the modern market economy, the equality and freedom generally contained and demanded in commodity-currency relations have evolved into the principle of equality recognized and generally accepted by society, that is, equal opportunities. The so-called equality of opportunity means that every economic subject enjoys equal opportunities to participate, win, choose and be selected in market competition and other occasions. This kind of equality before opportunities does not recognize any differences in race, sex and age, let alone the feudal rank and privilege determined by bloodline, cousins and patriarchal relations. It only recognizes the differences in the ability and efforts of workers to move independently, that is, people with the same ability and efforts can get the same opportunities. Equal opportunity includes at least three aspects: first, the starting point of competition is the same; Second, the same competition rules; Third, there are no artificial obstacles, including monopoly. Therefore, it is essentially an equality of starting point and conditions. It requires everyone to stand on the same "starting line" to participate in market competition, exclude all special rights and oppose all rights attachment. At the same time, equality of opportunity itself is an efficiency principle, which emphasizes not the average distribution of existing wealth, but the constant growth of social wealth and the equality of opportunity for the full development of human beings. Therefore, efficiency priority is the proper meaning of the requirement of equal opportunity.

The first social form for the full development of commodity market economy is capitalist society. With the wage labor system produced by the reduction of labor force into commodities, the equality established in commodity economy has only formal significance. Nevertheless, compared with the inequality based on hierarchical privilege in the pre-capitalist class society, this is still a great progress in history.

The principle of fairness in socialist market economy. The establishment of the socialist system has realized the equality of workers in the possession of means of production. This equality is a qualitative change compared with the wage labor system based on capitalist private possession of means of production. However, because public ownership takes the form of state-owned and state-owned, it takes the form of direct distribution by the government; Because the long-term product economy model and highly centralized and unified planned economy system are incompatible with the actual development level of productive forces, this equality has been deformed in actual operation. Its concentrated expression is the serious egalitarianism at the expense of economic vitality and efficiency. This kind of equal distribution based on the equal political status of social members, that is, egalitarianism, has long been recognized and generally accepted as a principle of fairness in our society, and even strengthened into the superiority of socialism, which has become the psychological accumulation of our nation and has had a serious negative impact on human development in China's economic operation. Today, if we want to develop the socialist market economy, we must conceptually update the egalitarian fairness principle of "eating the same pot". It should be recognized that equal distribution and equal opportunity are two different concepts. Equal distribution is a kind of equal result, which emphasizes the equal distribution of existing wealth and is actually a narrow concept of equality. It has something to do with the egalitarianism of small-scale production, and it is incompatible with the fair principle of market economy based on socialized large-scale production. Therefore, in the primary stage of socialism in China, the realistic principle of social equity can only be the superposition of the principle of equal opportunity in the market economy and the principle of public ownership of means of production. The former is mainly realized through market mechanism in the primary distribution, while the latter is mainly realized through government regulation in the secondary distribution.

Under the condition of socialist market economy, it is very necessary for us to emphasize the concept of equality of equal opportunities in order to eradicate the long-standing narrow egalitarianism traditional concept in China. But at the same time, we should give consideration to the equality of results and prevent polarization to ensure the realization of the goal of social equality. Common prosperity is the basic principle of socialism, and giving priority to efficiency and giving consideration to fairness is the only way for us to achieve common prosperity.

The Source of Life of Market Economy: Economic Efficiency

Since the reform and opening up, "Time is money, efficiency is life", as a brand-new market economy concept, has swept the country rapidly from Shenzhen. It highlights the principle of "efficiency first" in the market economy. If we make another explanation and regard efficiency as the life of market economy, probably no one will object. In fact, efficiency is indeed the source of life in a market economy. The market economy lasted only a few hundred years, and it was efficiency that kept its life alive and made it full of vitality.

The concept of efficiency in economics is actually the rational allocation of resources, which is divided into two levels: the first level is "resource allocation efficiency", which some people call "macro efficiency". It refers to how to allocate limited economic resources among different production units, different regions and different industries, that is, how to effectively allocate each resource in the most suitable use and direction. This level of resource allocation efficiency has been described in the second section of this chapter.

The second level of the concept of efficiency is "resource utilization efficiency", which some people call "production efficiency". This is a narrow concept of efficiency, and what people usually call efficiency refers to this narrow concept of efficiency. Its meaning refers to how a production unit, a region or a department organizes and uses limited resources, so as to give full play to them, so as to avoid waste and produce the most valuable products with established production factors.

The market economy is effective only because it has a competitive mechanism. As the famous economist Mrs Robinson pointed out, the real advantage of the market system is that competition maintains invisible production discipline. In the competition, the survival of the fittest. The standard of survival of the fittest is not subjective, but objective, and its standard is the average consumption level of socially necessary labor or social resources to produce a certain product. Only those who reach or exceed the social average are competitive, otherwise they will be ruthlessly eliminated. Therefore, under the same resource consumption, it is more efficient to produce more and better products needed by society, which is manifested in the law of competition. At the same time, the average consumption level of social necessary labor or social resources is formed through competition, and it is in the process of constant change, which has produced an external pressure on producers, prompting them to constantly update their technologies, adopt new materials and new processes, and improve their management level, so as to continuously reach or exceed the social average level. Finally, the competition between producers and operators will ultimately be reflected through the market. In the market, consumers are the real gods. Whether the value of products and services provided by producers and operators can be realized depends on the "money ticket" of consumers, which forces producers and operators to produce according to the needs of consumers and create new demands acceptable to consumers, so as to achieve the balance between production and consumption and realize the effective and reasonable allocation of resources.

In a market economy, competition is driven by people's pursuit of more income. It will inevitably bring and demand the income gap between people, otherwise there will be no improvement in efficiency and no rational allocation of resources. The market mechanism is like an impartial judge. Whoever has the ability, who is willing to work, who makes more efforts and contributions, will get more rewards. This difference is the secret of the efficiency of market mechanism, which makes people not only get objective material satisfaction from absolute value (remuneration and income), but also get conceptual satisfaction from relative value (compared with other members of the group), thus becoming the motivation to motivate the diligent and the pressure to spur the lazy, thus promoting the improvement of efficiency.

The efficiency of market economy comes from its competitive mechanism. To ensure the smooth progress of competition, it is necessary to establish competition on a fair basis. In the last section, we pointed out that the principle of fairness in market economy is equality of opportunity, and at the same time, equality of opportunity itself is also an efficiency principle. The reason for this is that equality of opportunity itself implies inequality of results, and it "acquiesces that different working abilities are natural privileges". Generally speaking, the normal income inequality caused by equal opportunities is positively related to efficiency. Because in the case of equal opportunities, the difference in income just reflects the size of contribution. Giving higher rewards to those who make great contributions can encourage them to make more contributions, while giving less rewards to those who make little contributions will encourage them to work hard to get more income. In this way, the contribution to society and personal interests will be combined, thus promoting the continuous improvement of the efficiency of the whole society. If, like the egalitarian cauldron under the old system, we do more and do less, do well and do poorly, and do nothing, the result will inevitably seriously dampen people's enthusiasm, stifle people's enterprising spirit and creativity, and cause a stagnant situation that is neither fair nor efficient. As arthur okun, a famous American scholar, said: The most important thing is that the remuneration in the market provides the motivation for work enthusiasm and production contribution. Without these, society has to choose that kind of stimulus again and again-some are unreliable, such as altruism; Some are dangerous, such as collectivism loyalty; Some are unbearable, such as coercion or oppression. Imagine that the country will no longer care about its own achievements and enthusiasm; If this is the case, the living standard of the lower class will decline together with the upper class. "[9]

Of course, if the income gap is too large and exceeds the limit that people can bear, the social status of people of different income classes will change, and even affect social stability, thus leading to a decline in efficiency. In this case, it is necessary for the society to adjust the distribution policy and exchange greater income equality for less efficiency loss. However, this is beyond the scope of the market mechanism. I will elaborate on this point below.