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柯耀教授在《評論彙編》上這篇論文紀念亞當．斯密誕辰300周年。
第一小段概述全球經濟面臨的困局；做為下文列舉斯密對經濟發展兩個卓見的引言。
柯耀教授首先提到斯密強調：
由「分工」而來的「專精」；以及它導致的「生產力」提升。
她接著指出「分工」效應會擴散到該產品的上、下游廠商，從而帶動整個經濟體的動力與發展。她然後提到「產生新內容型人工智慧」對工人可能有的影響。柯耀教授接下來討論工業革命後經濟發展所導致的社會與政治變革；以及當代市場及供應鏈全球化的情況。
由「市場/生產『全球化』」，柯耀教授談到斯密的另一個卓見：
經濟發展的第二個「前置條件」是「競爭」。
「競爭」的長處不只是助長創新和改進，它也幫助擴散經濟發展的成果。道理很簡單：由於財團不能獨佔「生產方式」，它們自然也無法獨佔「生產成果」。她然後陳述了歐、美兩地政府當下「反獨佔」的狀況。
柯耀教授接下來提出她認為較深刻的兩個「政策性議題」來結束這篇論文。
1) 如何決定某些產業(如「大科技」)「專精」和「競爭」的平衡點，以及在不可兼得時兩者取捨的判準。
2) 目前「分工」是否到了極限，如果是，增加競爭度是否能幫助進一步的細緻分工和發展其它新供應地區。
在我看來，這兩個「政策性議題」過於枝節，導致此文有些「虎頭蛇尾」。做為一位頗有地位的經濟學家，要紀念亞當．斯密，至少要分析當前資本主義的「死穴」和可能的解決方案。
索引：
OECD -- 經濟合作暨發展組織
Adam Smith at 300
The tercentenary of Adam Smith’s birth is an opportunity to consider how his insights into the dynamics of economic growth continue to shape our understanding of the world today. But what if the division of labor that underpinned Smith’s theory of growth has reached its limit?
DIANE COYLE, 06/23/23
CAMBRIDGE – This year marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Adam Smith, the founding father of modern economics. It comes at a time when the global economy faces several daunting challenges. Inflation rates are the highest since the late 1970s. Productivity growth across the West remains sluggish or stagnant. Low- and middle-income countries are teetering on the brink of a debt crisis. Trade tensions are rising. And market concentration has increased among OECD countries.
Against this backdrop, Smith’s tercentenary is an opportunity to reflect on his invaluable insights into the dynamics of economic growth and consider whether they can help us understand the current moment.
At the heart of Smith’s theory of economic growth, outlined in the first chapter of his seminal work The Wealth of Nations, is the specialization facilitated by the division of labor. By breaking down production into smaller tasks – a process illustrated by Smith’s famous example of the pin factory – industrialization enabled enormous gains in productivity.
But this process is not confined to individual firms. Since the division of labor, according to Smith, is “limited by the extent of the market,” the market as a whole must expand through exchange. After all, boosting daily widget production from 100 to 10,000 is pointless if no one wants to buy widgets. So, the division of labor is a collective process that involves a continuous process of . When there is a larger supply of affordable widgets, the widget-using sectors of the economy can expand production and reduce prices. Meanwhile, the market’s increased size would allow upstream suppliers of materials required to produce widgets to reorganize production into more specialized tasks.
As the American economist Allyn Young noted in 1928, this is a dynamic story of increasing returns. The growth process is a virtuous circle of structural change that starts slowly and then accelerates, like an avalanche. The Industrial Revolution and the rapid growth of East Asia’s “tiger” economies during the 1980s and 1990s are perfect examples of the process Smith identified. And yet the stagnant growth that has plagued developed economies over the past decade raises the question of whether global progress toward what he described as “universal opulence” has ground to a halt.
Although the division of labor into specialized tasks has often enhanced the skills and expertise of workers, this may not always be the case. The emergence of generative artificial-intelligence models has fueled concerns that employers will use these technologies to deskill human workers and cut costs, prompting calls for regulatory interventions to ensure that AI augments, rather than replaces, human capabilities.
Moreover, while economic growth since the onset of the Industrial Revolution has led to astonishing advances in health and well-being, it is important to recognize that the institutional frameworks and political choices that enabled this progress were the result of intense social struggles.
Another concern that is often overlooked stems from market size. Smith would likely have been shocked by the extent of specialization in the twenty-first-century economy (and probably also pleased with his foresight). Today, manufacturing relies heavily on complex global production networks. Final products such as automobiles and smartphones comprise thousands of components manufactured in multiple countries. Many of the intermediate links in those supply chains are extraordinarily specialized. The Dutch company ASML, for example, is the only producer of the ultraviolet lithography machines needed to produce advanced chips, most of which are manufactured by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
But the widespread nature of this phenomenon suggests that the global market for many products can sustain only a few companies capable of achieving economies of scale. This has long been the case for large manufacturers in sectors such as aerospace, but it increasingly applies to smaller markets for intermediate components.
Consequently, Smith’s other condition for economic growth – the presence of competition – is not met. Competition helps to ensure that economic growth is socially beneficial, because it prevents firm owners from monopolizing the benefits of specialization and increased exchange. As Smith put it in The Wealth of Nations, “In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labor, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so.”
Although the decline of competition has been a growing concern in Western economies over the past few years, the debate has largely focused on high-profile sectors within domestic markets, such as Big Tech. Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have responded to concentration in the tech industry with new laws, such as the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, and tougher enforcement of existing antitrust laws, such as the US Federal Trade Commission’s recent decision to block Microsoft’s takeover of Activision.
The deeper policy question, however, is whether the level of specialization in certain markets has reached a tipping point where there is a trade-off between Smith’s two prerequisites for growth. Has the division of labor reached its limit – and is the need to enhance competition therefore another reason to diversify supply chains and develop new sources of supply of production?
Our Debt to Future Generations
JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ shows that self-identified fiscal hawks are missing the point about “living beyond our means.”
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