公共政策的缺失与当前世界性经济危机

Policy Shortfalls and the World Economic Crisis

以次贷危机为导火索、进而席卷全球的金融海啸,正方兴未艾,引发了世界性的经济危机,各国政府努力救市。媒体和学术界开始从各个角度分析危机的原因所在。列举出来的原因有:市场和公众投资信心降低、克林顿政府的房贷政策、在政府政策压力下从格林斯潘开始的长期的低利率低通胀政策、华尔街的贪婪等等。虽然这些都可以算是原因,但在它们的后面其实有着人们不愿探究的更深层次的原因,包括:多年来美国政府改革路线的失衡、现代资本主义金融体系包括市场经济本身的内生性制度缺陷、深藏于现代西方政治文化与社会治理结构中的脆弱因素、资本主义特质在现代技术条件下对社会提出的新挑战、缺失的公共利益文化等等。重点对后面的几个原因进行阐述和讨论,提请学术界对全球化条件下处于不同发展阶段的国家在自己的公共政策和政府治理改革问题上做更深层次的思考和探索。

The global financial crisis triggered by sub-prime lending crisis is yet to have its full impact felt.While governments in various countries are working hard to bail out the troubled financial institutions and stabilize the market,media and the academic world are starting to look into the causes of this crisis.The listed causes are:lack of market confidence,Clinton's housing policy,long-term low interest rate and low inflation policy,and Wall Street greed.It is true that these are the causes.However,there are causes behind these openly listed causes and they are yet to be discussed and evaluated.They include:the imbalance in American government reform in the past decades,the deep-rooted and innate weaknesses in the heritage of western political culture and its governance structure,the new challenges modern capitalist system has to face at a time of globalization and technological revolution,and a lack of the sense of public interest in the popular culture.This article focuses its discussions on the latter causes.The author argues that in the new context of technological revolution and globalization,governance reform is in need of new strategies and new direction.