Читать книгу Standing on the Sun - Christopher Meyer - Страница 21

What is it exactly that changes when a system like capitalism evolves? Economist Paul Romer addresses this question in the theory of history he is developing. A new theory of history sounds awfully ambitious, and it is, but Romer brings it down to two forces. Change in human society, he says, is the result of fresh ideas, and those come in two flavors: technologies and rules. “Technologies are just ways to rearrange physical objects to make them more valuable to us,” he explains, and “rules are just ways to structure the interactions that people have with each other, to get the most value out of those interactions.”⁴ Ideas of both kinds are easily spread, and they often go hand in hand. The constant quest to gain value on both fronts propels civilization forward.

At the level of an economy, a rule might be a matter of law or it might be less formally stored in culture, values, and norms. Romer cites, for example, the social repercussions that followed as people in communities got past their sense—their internalized rule—that if they were harmed by someone the right response was to exact vengeance. When a new rule took hold—that instead of meting out retribution they should seek compensation—civilization advanced. “If a man is wronged and retaliates by burning his antagonist's house down, there is a net loss to the economy,” Romer explains. “If he instead sues for the value of the house and prevails, there is a transfer with no overall cost.” (Legal costs were presumably de minimis at the time.)

We're in full agreement with the emphasis Romer places on rules in his theory of history. The march of technology is stunning and constantly commented upon, but it is only half of the force that advances civilization. The new possibilities created by technological progress must be navigated with new rules. This, we think, is appreciated on a very deep level, even if it is rarely articulated as well as it has been by Romer. It's why many people relish what John Maynard Keynes said about the power of new mental models:

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.⁵

So let us point out that capitalism is nothing but a set of rules, some explicit but most implicit. The rules dictate the conduct of exchanges, economic and otherwise, among owners, managers, citizens, and the state. Some of these rules turn out to serve society better than others. For example, in the introduction we mention the question of how a capitalist society should deal with an entrepreneur whose venture fails. If a business goes bankrupt, it might be considered fair to hold its founder completely accountable for the loss. Those who can't repay their investors or vendors might justifiably be sent to debtors' prison. On the other hand, throwing a borrower in jail, in addition to the costs of incarceration, removes the possibility of repayment—and meanwhile deprives society of whatever business venture that bold risk taker, now wiser, might have pursued next.

Developing bankruptcy protections as an alternative to debtors' prison is one of the steps in the more general shift Romer noted from vengeance to compensation. It was logical to realize that treating debt as a sin meant taking potentially productive assets out of the labor force and paying to imprison them. In a society that prized innovation, it made more sense to acknowledge that debt happens and devise a system for dealing with it productively. The rules changed, and capitalism adapted.