经济增长与马克思主义视角下的收入和财富分配

Economic Growth,Income and Wealth Distribution:A Marxist Perspective

本文构建了一个理论模型,试图应用马克思经济学的基本原理和方法研究当前资本主义生产方式下收入和财富分配不均等的形成机制,以及这种分配不均等和经济增长的关系。本文的分析框架具备了马克思主义经济学的主要特征,包括阶级分析、劳动价值论和资本雇佣劳动等,又结合了当代资本主义经济制度的某些特征,放宽了现有文献中"工人阶级无任何储蓄"的假设,所得到的结论可以在一定程度上解释1940年以来以美国为代表的发达资本主义国家的财富和收入分配情况,对于分析我国在社会主义初级阶段、多种所有制并存、多种分配方式并存条件下收入和财富分配不均等问题的成因和治理也有借鉴意义。

Summary： This paper applies the principles and methods of Marxist economics to investigate the formation mechanism of unequal distribution of income and wealth and its relationship with economic growth under the current capitalist mode of production. The analytic framework of this paper possesses the main characteristics of Marxist economics, including class analysis, labor value theory, and capital hiring labor. To incorporate the new characteristics of the contemporary capitalist system, we relax the assumption in the literature of ＂no savings in the working class＂. The resulting conclusions support important arguments by Marx, such as ＂capitalists intend to take residual value as much as possible＂, ＂accumulation, i. e. , the capitalization of the residual value, is the capitalist-specific behavior＂, ＂the only source of accumulation is the residual value,＂ and ＂the relative impoverishment of the proletariat＂. These conclusions can partially explain the wealth and income distribution of the U.S. and other developed capitalist countries since 1940. Meanwhile, it provides significant implications for analyzing the causes and governance of the unequal distribution of income and wealth in the primary stage of socialism in China. We assume two types of agents, workers and capitalists, to hold different initial capital endowments. The capitalists own the capital of the whole society, while the workers do not have any capital. The workers face ＂extreme poverty＂. With the increase in labor productivity and economic growth, workers＇ possession of capital or wealth remains zero. The capital or wealth of the whole society is owned by the capitalists and continues to grow, while the wealth gap between the two classes grows. Although the increase in labor productivity raises the physical salary of workers, the value of the labor force remains the same, and thus the capitalists continue to gain more residual value without raising the level of exploitation. This finding can better explain the long-term trends of worker wages among the major capitalist countries since the 20th century, especially after World War II. If we consider the basic economic assumptions, economic agents with high initial capital endowment always dominate in social and economic life. These agents have more income, consumption, and wealth and work less. Such situations do not change over time. This finding provides a theoretical basis for the ＂heritage- based capitalism＂ or ＂food-born＂ society as pointed out by Piketty （2014）. The socioeconomic status of children under the capitalist mode of production largely depends on the socioeconomic status of their family. Finally, this paper points out that, unlike the definition of income and wealth distribution in Western economics, from the Marxist perspective the income, consumption, and wealth of economic agents should match with their labor supply. The main contribution of this paper is as follows. It distinguishes the laboring process from the value formation process in commodity production and defines a more general linear homogeneous production function. This analytical framework leads to conclusions consistent with Marx＇s theoretical views, such as capitalist representative agents, the labor theory of value, the relative poverty of the working class, and the organic composition of capital. Moreover, it is easy to expand the analytical framework by introducing various macroeconomic policies. The policy implication of this paper is that, in the absence of government intervention, the free market economy based on private ownership increases the income and wealth gap between workers and capitalists, and deviates from just income and wealth distribution from the Marxist perspective. To solve the current inequality of income and wealth distribution at this development stage in China, we must fully explore the superiority of the socialist system. On one hand, we can replace labor tax with capital tax in a reasonable tax system by setting up a tax rate structure that achieves equal distribution of income and wealth based on the Marxist perspective. Progressive taxation of capital gains and real estate are examples of this. On the other hand, we must keep developing state-owned enterprises, making them bigger and stronger and improving their efficiency, so that they can be helpful in narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor.