The Intrinsic Essence of Capital Expansion
Capital comes from commodity economy, which is produced in the process of money getting rid of commodity trading and becoming an independent factor of production. The pursuit of profit and efficiency makes capital play an important role in stimulating economic growth. Capital can promote enterprises to expand reproduction, exert scale effect, optimize resource allocation efficiency, improve total factor productivity, stimulate consumption and support innovation. In addition to economic attributes, capital is the product of certain historical stage, certain social and historical social relations of production, with social and political attributes. Capital is not only a social relationship, but also a social force that dominates resources. The power of capital domination is mainly manifested in three aspects: first, the right to dominate natural resources; The second is the control of production capacity; The third is the dominance of social relations. Value-added is the nature of capital. In order to obtain more surplus value, capital gains excess income by controlling social relations. In order to realize the infinite expansion of capital, capital will continuously bring a large number of social resources and population from the backward economic system to the advanced economic system, and constantly pursue the monetization of the life world, thus realizing the maximization of capital's pursuit of surplus value. In Das Kapital, Marx quoted Tojo Tannin's exposition: "Capitalists are afraid of no profit or too little profit, just as nature is afraid of a vacuum. Once there is a proper profit, capital will be bold. " It can be seen that expansibility is the living state and internal essence of capital.
The infinite expansion of capital gives full play to the characteristics of capital as a social force that dominates resources. Capital will continue to pursue the monetization of the life world, promote social progress and trigger a series of economic and social problems. Western countries use capital hegemony to allocate various resources around the world, suppress other countries' economies, interfere in other countries' politics, and seriously affect other countries' national security and stability. Enterprises use capital to suppress competitors and seek industry monopoly, which disrupts the market competition order and reduces the efficiency of resource allocation. A few people use the capital market to create wealth illegally or improperly, which has achieved a surge in personal wealth, widened the gap between the rich and the poor and intensified social contradictions.
The Internal Logic and Performance of China's Capital Operation
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, capital has become an important driving force for China's economic and social development, and China's economic and social development conforms to the logic of capital movement. Under the guidance of the economic catch-up strategy, a relatively complete industrial system in line with social mass production was quickly established, and the state power represented by the household registration system and the price dual-track system initially completed the original accumulation of capital. After the reform and opening up, the development of commodity economy and the establishment of socialist market economic system provided a broader stage for capital movement, and China economy entered a new stage of development.
First, capital helps the socialist market under the leadership of the party to concentrate on doing great things. The biggest advantage of the Socialism with Chinese characteristics system is the leadership of China's * * * production party, which has the advantage of concentrating on doing great things. The integration of the logic of capital operation and the socialist market economy has given full play to the scale effect and achieved many great events that have been tried but failed in the past. This is not only reflected in the major national strategies and key projects such as the construction of special economic zones, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the West-to-East Gas Transmission Project, the Three Gorges Project, the western development, the construction of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the precise poverty alleviation, but also in the emergency treatment and prevention of major disasters such as post-disaster reconstruction and epidemic prevention.
Second, capital is conducive to promoting the improvement of total factor productivity. While pursuing profit maximization, capital constantly improves the production technology and management level, which not only promotes the promotion of the whole social productivity, but also promotes technological innovation and other activities. Funds run between different market entities through different intermediaries, which revitalizes existing funds and improves the efficiency of fund use. Since the reform and opening up, China's total factor productivity has maintained an average annual growth rate of 2.5% or even 3%.
Third, capital is conducive to promoting the growth of social wealth. Capital improves the vitality of market players, stimulates the potential production capacity of the market and improves the overall wealth level of society. People's growing material and cultural needs and backward social production are no longer the main social contradictions, and China has entered the ranks of middle-income countries. In 2020, China's GDP exceeded 1000 billion yuan, ranking second in the world, and its per capita GDP exceeded $65.438+0 million, and its global ranking continued to rise.
However, the profit-seeking and greed of capital will not be erased by the socialist system. The expansion of capital has penetrated into all fields of society, especially the combination with public power, which has caused various moral anomie events in the market economy in recent years, mainly in real estate, compulsory education and training, entertainment circles, Internet platform companies and other fields. For example, the default of Evergrande Real Estate, the suspension of Ant IPO and Didi's listing in the United States are all related to the disorderly expansion of capital. From the international experience, the disorderly expansion of capital is a * * * problem and a staged performance of economic development. With the continuous growth of a country's economy, more and more capital is accumulated, the labor force is relatively insufficient, the capital is relatively abundant, and the ability of capital to allocate resources is enhanced. Some industries with insufficient supervision or weak supervision or industries with natural monopoly properties are easily manipulated by capital, which has become a powerful weapon to crowd out other competitors, seriously disrupting market order and hindering high-quality economic development. The economies of developed countries such as the United States have also experienced the stage of disorderly capital expansion, such as the early Standard Oil, Morgan's financial empire, the recent Microsoft of Bill Gates, and now Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. The most important thing is how to deal with it correctly, turn negative into positive, turn passive into active, and give full play to the positive role of capital. In view of the monopoly hegemony of capital, the United States passed the Sherman Act, the first anti-monopoly law in history, on 1890, which was revised continuously in the later period. But the adverse effects of capital expansion have never stopped. Although the anti-monopoly law apparently eliminated the monopoly of American capital on the industry, capital constantly broke through the restrictions of the anti-monopoly law through the form of * * * shareholding.
The disorderly expansion of China's capital in the new development stage is unique. Compared with the American anti-monopoly law, China promulgated the anti-monopoly law on 202 1. At this time, China's economy is different from previous years, and it is even different from the situation in the United States at that time. The economic environment at home and abroad has undergone major changes.
First, the market operation mechanism has undergone major changes. A new round of application of big data, 5G and artificial intelligence has subverted the traditional economic cornerstone. Artificial intelligence, pricing algorithm, online trading and competition, which are in the stage of continuous evolution and optimization, have brought us into a brand-new field. The attribute of market competition seems to be the same as we used to know, but its function is far less than before. The role of competition is being replaced by the "digital hand" controlled by capital hegemony, and the harm of disorderly expansion of capital is not the same.
Second, the market environment has undergone major changes. China's economy has entered a stage of high-quality development, with scientific and technological innovation as the core driving force to promote economic growth, and the pressure of economic structure optimization and upgrading is even greater. COVID-19 has a strong epidemic prevention and control, China's economy is stable for a long time, and the expectation of RMB appreciation makes foreign exchange management more difficult. At the same time, trade protectionism is on the rise, trade frictions are escalating, financial sanctions are gradually replacing trade sanctions as a new means of international conflicts, and economic uncertainty is increasing.
Third, the tentacles of capital are constantly expanding. Capital hegemony touches every aspect of life, which can be closely related to the bottom people buying food and high-end group consumption. On the one hand, a large amount of capital enters Internet platform companies, making full use of the natural monopoly nature of Internet companies and using unfair competition to suppress counterparties. The super platform under the monopoly of capital, with its strong market power and dominant position, has risen as a gatekeeper, which has seriously touched national security. On the other hand, through the cross-use of funds, the nesting of credit layers, the overlapping of equity pledges, the frequent asset evaluation, the idling of funds in the financial system and the illegal financing business between various platform companies and local financial asset trading places, once the disorderly expansion of capital is combined with the Internet financial platform, the single financial risk of micro-market and institutional entities is likely to evolve into a regional and systematic financial risk, which seriously threatens financial security, stability and social unity.
Countermeasures and suggestions
First of all, the government needs to show a "tangible hand". At present, the global economy is undergoing a transformation from the invisible hand of the market to the digital hand. The digital economy represented by the Internet and financial technology naturally has monopoly attributes, which is consistent with the monopoly hegemony of capital. Traditional economic theory tells us that monopoly is inevitably uneconomical and belongs to market failure, which requires the intervention of the tangible hand of the government. With the help of big data technology, the government can use its control over public and digital resources to start wise supervision and play a useful role for the government.
Clarify the economic function orientation of the central and local governments. A clear definition of the government's economic function is helpful for market participants to implement self-restraint economic behavior within the institutional framework. The government's economic function is not clear, and it is easy to go to two poles, either managing everything or not. The reason behind the phenomenon of disorderly expansion of capital belongs to the latter. The laissez-faire of capital has caused the chaos and failure of the market. Unclear positioning of economic function will also cause problems such as poor policy implementation effect and high implementation cost. The economic function of local governments is to promote economic growth, and there is great competition among regions. In order to obtain more resources and higher economic growth, local policies on capital operation are relaxed, and the risk of capital operation in some areas is rising. The central economic work is to develop the economy on the premise of stability and security, and the goals of the central and local governments are inconsistent, which leads to the reduction of the effect of preventing the disorderly expansion of capital. Judging from the current policy documents to prevent the disorderly expansion of capital, they are mainly at the national level, and there are few documents at the provincial level. China has not yet established relevant government functional institutions to formulate, implement and serve the policies for the orderly operation of social capital. It is suggested that relevant parties should establish a responsibility mechanism and system to prevent the disorderly expansion of capital, co-ordinate the process and results, promote the supervision of industry capital operation, realize the synchronization and orderly development of industry norms and industries, control disorder, and promote the healthy development of various capital norms.
The government should be the maker of digital economy planning and development. It is a fact and necessity that the digital economy will become the main engine of future economic development. The government should raise the development of digital economy to the national strategic level, do a good job in the top-level design at the macro level, actively assume the responsibility of policy makers in the development planning of digital economy, have the control and distribution rights of digital resources, and avoid micro-subjects being led by hegemonic capital. Data collection by leading Internet platforms and super platforms may shape the image of an economic maker, but its leader is not the government, but the professional and technical personnel within the monopoly enterprise. If the monopoly enterprise has a controlling position in the market, based on the pursuit of excess monopoly profits, the market clearing price may be higher than the perfectly competitive price. Since online car sharing platform companies without cars or drivers can determine the benchmark price and premium range of services, the government can also follow the example of enterprises to use big data to determine market prices and use similar administrative means to monitor industry prices and behaviors. For example, 20 1 1, the Los Angeles government launched the "Los Angeles Parking Plan", trying to adjust the parking fee as needed by using the intelligent parking lot management system. In order to achieve the goal of efficient use of parking spaces, the local government used wireless parking sensors for 8200 parking spaces distributed in urban streets and alleys. By collecting parking space data in real time through sensors, the system will adjust the parking fee in real time according to the change of parking demand of drivers at different times and in different areas. Where the parking space is tight, the parking fee will gradually increase until the parking space in this area is vacant for a long time; Where parking spaces are loose, parking fees can be appropriately reduced or exempted. The "demand feedback" pricing system initiated by Los Angeles is a successful application of data-driven municipal management widely accepted by the government. Therefore, in the data-driven economic environment, the government's potential for wise supervision of capital is unlimited. The government should grasp the opportunity, essence and scope of intervention, build a healthy virtual competition framework, protect privacy and empower consumers from design, welcome new market participants with different motives, and try to review algorithms under capital operation.
The second is to continue to play the role of the "invisible hand" of the market. Market is the cornerstone of micro-subject, and it plays an irreplaceable role in resource allocation. The optimal allocation of resources can be achieved through the price mechanism. As one of the factors of production, capital also conforms to the general law of market operation. How to make full use of the "invisible hand" of the capital market is the key to crack and prevent the disorderly expansion of capital, and it is also the key to improve the national governance capacity and improve the governance system. Only submissive micro-subjects can form rational use of capital.
Comprehensively clean up and rectify all kinds of financial chaos. 20 1 1 in order to clean up and rectify the illegal problems of various local financial trading places and prevent the disorderly establishment and expansion of various trading places, the system of "inter-ministerial joint meeting to clean up and rectify various trading places" led by the CSRC and attended by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the People's Bank of China, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and other ministries and commissions comprehensively cleaned up and rectified the chaos in local trading places. With the end of the country's clean-up and rectification of illegal fund-raising, a large number of Internet platform companies have moved their businesses to trading places, causing problems for stakeholders in trading places and risk accumulation. It is suggested to continue to clean up and rectify all kinds of local trading places, adhere to the basic principle of not involving stakeholders, and not issue financial products or provide licensed financial institutions with channel business to bypass supervision.
Reduce the financial leverage ratio of various enterprises. The registered capital is strictly regulated, and the registered capital escapes. Go to hell, a problem enterprise with false capital injection. Strictly limit the expansion multiple of capital, clarify the equity relationship between parent company and subsidiary company, and restrict enterprises from establishing hierarchical relationship motivated by credit expansion. Strictly limit the pledge of equity and establish a strict review system of equity pledge. Severely crack down on all kinds of financial product innovations without basic assets in the name of financial technology, including excessive innovation of products and businesses, and prevent capital from idling in the financial system.
Guide capital to actively participate in areas that are in line with national policy orientation. Actively guide capital into areas that meet the development direction of Socialism with Chinese characteristics and the needs of high-quality economic development, clarify the orientation of national policies, and innovate ways to serve REITs and other entities and industries. It is necessary to use capital in the cutting edge and strengthen capital support for the real economy, high-end manufacturing, biomedicine, new materials, information hardware, CNC machine tools, rural revitalization, prosperity and environmental protection.