The economic system question revisited
指出将美国、英国、德国、日本等现代经济体简单视为“市场经济”是一种过度简化,实际上这些经济体在组织商品和服务供给时广泛混合了市场与非市场机制,忽视这一点会阻碍解决表现不佳领域的问题。
Abstract The core argument of this paper is that thinking of modern economies, like that of the United States, the UK, Germany, and Japan, as “market” economies—a view presented in most of the standard economic texts that provide populations with their economic education—greatly oversimplifies the complex and varied ways that these economies actually use to organize and govern provision of the great variety of goods and services that serve their multiple needs and wants. These economies certainly do make extensive use of for-profit firms selling their wares on markets. However, even in sectors where market mechanisms are central, there almost always are important non-market mechanisms involved as well. And for many of the most important goods and services these economies provide and use, non-market institutions are central and market mechanisms secondary. It is important to recognize the oversimplification. It makes dealing with the problems in sectors whose performance is widely judged to be unsatisfactory much more difficult to resolve adequately.