資本主義のゲノム 国家債務と利益の起源

Prologue

The main purpose of this theory is to explain to the reader that:

-          State debt, accumulating as annual deficit is inevitable and necessary for a proper functioning economy

-          Only countries with trade surpluses or engaging in quantitative easing can have long term balanced
            budgets

-          Having long term trade surplus is not a strategy possible for all at the same time and causes somebody
           else to run a deficit.

-          You cannot decrease state debt without monetary action if you are not ruining your neighbors in the
           process by having trade surpluses.

-          State debt exists as necessary tool to enable creation of savings
           ( employees  - from salaries or entrepreneurs from profit)

-          Without recurring state deficits  there could not be recurring profits, savings.

-          Attempts to decrease state debt without monetary actions are doomed to fail:
           They are in fact the same as attempts to decrease personal savings.

-          Attempts to put a limit on state debt equal to call for ceiling on personal savings, profits.

-          If we want to create profits and save, we have to run deficits

-          It is the state debt that allows the savings to be retained, not the other way around.

-          State debt is not eating out future generations, it is just inevitable mechanism
           how to create profits and savings at present.

The theory also proposes new financial framework, which is based on:

-          Fully digitalized financial system, without any paper money

-          Closed circle of money circulation within defined economic blocs
         ( money is not allowed to leave defined economic bloc)

-          Each such economic bloc is able to tax directly excessive savings through negative retail interest rates
            ( which are not able to escape because of closed block and full digitalization)

The benefits of such system would be:

-          Ability to overcome zero lower bound
            ( situation, when interest rates are near zero and economy is still in depression)

-          New, currently missing tool for central banks to stimulate spending and eliminate unemployment

-          Eliminate need for jobs outsourcing by subsidizing particular industries

-          Ability to eliminate poverty and increase economy growth by providing subsidies above primary productivity

-          Ability to pass smoothly productivity gains to the people as additional free time

-          Ability to eliminate unemployment through managed decreases of productivity offsetted by subsidies

-          Eliminating need for quantitative easing and thus ensuring stability of currencies and international balance

-          Ensuring sustainability of financial system through endless flow of money,
            without grid locks created by excessive hoarding.

2. Profit creation

Profit is the underlying goal for most business entities. But what does it mean to achieve profits in the economy and how such recurring success impacts our financial system? To understand consequences of this process, we have to have a look a bit into very simple accounting rules. Nothing complicated, just necessary basics: Every company that achieves profits has sales which are higher than its costs. Easy, why not?

What constitutes the sales part is not important for now, it is each businessman decision where he/she is going to make business.

What interests us is the costs side.  Costs consist from wages, material, subcontractors and capital costs. It is simplified view but sufficient. Let´s have a closer look at particular costs. If the material is being priced, where is its price coming from? Raw materials, either natural or manufactured are delivered by companies that have employees of their own, are consuming their own subcontractor’s services, material and trying to achieve profits. How the price of coal is determined? Corporation must pay its employees, subcontractors and determine a price that is higher than these costs so it can incorporate also some profit. The same applies for companies providing services, energies and capital as well. The price must be always higher than the sum of costs, including costs for capital.

We can describe it like this

So we can see that all other costs are in fact transformed wage costs and profit. Under subcontracted costs we can understand the broadest category which includes material, services and capital. Costs of subcontract B consists from wages of company B, profit of B and subcontracted costs of other companies allocated for this subcontract. The same way costs of C are made from similar components and so on until the end of the pyramid.

Yes, even the price of capital is in reality determined by cost of labor (bank officials of all kind) and profit (as determined by difference between interest rates for customers and costs of capital from savings or interbank market)

The final effect is that the profit of any company is the difference between sales and wages of people participating on these sales in the broadest sense and profit margin of all subcontractors

For company A to achieve profit it must be so that sales are greater than costs, which means that overall wages, cooperating on such production must be lower than sales.

And here is the catch!!!  If this is the equation of a successful company, how can this production be realized? How can you sell the production when the buying power of all employees, participating on its making is lower than planned sales? If you total all wages paid in the production process associated with this particular production (not just direct wages but also wages of all subcontractors, apportioned to this and providing input like materials, services and machinery) they will be lower than planned sales by exactly planned profit.

The example: 

Company A uses own workers and pays them 100$.
Apart from labor it buys material worth 30$ form company B and uses machinery produced by company C worth 40$ which is planned to be used over 4 years, so its costs are calculated as 1/4^th of 40$ = 10$ per year.

So total costs of A are: 100 + 30 + 10 = 140$

If they plan to achieve profit of 10%, A has to sell whatever they produce for 140 x 1,1=154$

Company B as supplier of material has to make profit as well and if we say the expected profit margin will be as well 10% their paid wages allocated on this delivery cannot be more then 30 / 1.1 = 27$.  If they paid more in wages, they would not achieve their planned margin 10%.

Company C as producer of machinery of longer life span if planning profit has to take into account that the wages paid to their workers have to be calculated in line with expected turnover. So they cannot pay their workers more then 10 / 1.1 = 9$ per year if expected profit margin is again 10%. They will not sell new machine in this micro economy until the old one is fully depreciated and new one is needed by company A. 

The resulting buying power distributed through wages is following:

AD (aggregate demand=buying power) =  100$ (A) + 27$(B) + 9$(C) = 136$

The aggregate supply of products of company A is:AS = 154$.
The difference between AS and AD is 18$, which consists from 14$ (profit A) + 3$ (profit B) + 1$ (profit C)

So the production of company A is going to have some problems being realized as there is simply not enough buying power distributed through wages as is expected to be achieved in sales. This simple example describes the problem with profit and its effects on diminished buying power. The higher the profit margin, the bigger the end difference between available demand and offered supply.

You will say, and correctly that sales are achieved mainly through customers which are not employees. Correct. But these people are employees of some other company as well - and their employer is guided by the same equation. He too wants to achieve profit. Therefore he too, logically sets his prices in a way that his planned sales are higher that collection of his own and transformed wages. Therefore, we can transform the equation of one company into one global equation, describing sum of all sales of all companies in economy:

Example:
We can add additional company D which produces some another product with 1000$ wages and plans profit at margin 20%, so is expecting sales of 1200$.

The available buying power distributed through these two companies is now
1000(D) + 136(A+B+C) = 1136$

The supply is represented by two set of productions valued at 154(A) + 1200(D) = 1354$

Even the second company added substantially more buying power into the system, its collective customers are not able to buy what is offered. The difference between AS(1354) and AD (1136) is again in the profit: 18$(A+B+C) + 200$(D) = 1354$ - 1136$

It could be that well paid employees of company D would buy all production of company A, but in that case there would be insufficient remaining demand(1136 – 136 = 1000$) to satisfy sales of company D. At least not with any profit. If all employees participating in production tree A+B+C would use their wages to complement buying power of employees D, they would be able to buy nearly 95% (1136 / 1200) of production D while maintaining its profit margin but company A would realize no sales at all and end up bankrupt.

The result is striking and surprising for some:

If all people had only employee’s income and sales would be derived from this source only, it would not be possible to achieve it with planned profit as buying power distributed through companies as wages is lower than planned sales.

People are able to buy only as much, as they get through wages and other resources which we call additional. As wages are planned and paid lower as aggregate sales, these sales are not possible to achieve only from the volume of salaries. It is mathematically impossible. How can the system be functioning then? (Because it is functioning, or at least looks so).

高いスキルを持っている人が新たなビジネスを始め、新たな商品を生み出し、そのリスクやイノベーションの対価として利益を享受するというのが、資本主義の大前提である。利益は銀行や資本市場を通じて新たな企業に再投資され、また新たなイノベーションを生み出す。このサイクルは無限に続いていく。成功を収める企業は雇用を創出し、税を納める一方で、成功しない企業は倒産し、顧客によりよいサービスを提供できる企業、資本や資源をより有効活用できる企業に取って代わられることになる。一見、この方程式に誤りはなく、この制度が完全で、人間社会を構築する理想的な方法に思える。

それではなぜ経済恐慌が起こるのだろうか。約30年ごとに株式市場が暴落し、何百万もの人々の貯金がごみくずとなり、多くの人々が失意のままに生きることになるのはなぜなのか。多くの失業者がどんなに職を探しても就職できないのはなぜか。なぜ何十万もの人々が屋根のない場所で生活し、健康保険も使えずに路上で死んでいくのだろうか。21世紀。人間が夢見てきた技術は全て現実のものとなった。コンピュータ、電子顕微鏡。スペースシャトルは人間を宇宙に連れ出した。それでもまだ平和の実現と世界中の人類の繁栄には程遠い。

問題はこの制度そのものにある。各企業の視点からでは分かりづらく、隠れた欠陥、すなわちこの完全なシステムを爆破するようにプログラムされた内蔵式遺伝コードを見つけることは不可能だ。世界規模になって初めて、その問題が徐々に明らかになってくる。その間、そこに問題がないと取り繕うことができる限界まで、病原体は十分に発達する。その病気が末期になったとき、その起源、原因、成長方法、発現機構を理解することが重要となる。もしここで正しい判断をすれば、経済システムを癒すことができる。しかしもし判断を誤ると経済は死んでしまう。これは1930年代の世界恐慌として実際に起こったことなのだ。当時の指導者や経済学者たちの勧告は「緊縮経済」だった。その言葉の下、労働者を解雇し、会社を清算し、農場を一掃した結果は壊滅的だった。経済の停滞、何百万もの失業者、社会のあらゆるレベルで崩壊が起こった。果たして我々はそれを教訓にできただろうか。なぜ当時の判断が過ちであったか、何があのような大恐慌を引き起こしたのか分かっているだろうか。今日の情勢は1930年代を反映しているのだろうか。格言にもあるように、過去に学ばない者は過ちを繰り返すことになる。

観念的な偏見やうわべの話でなく、どのように利益が生み出されるか、利益はどのように累積し分配されるか、資本とは何か、資本主義制度の遺伝的ルールとは何かを一緒に考えていくことにしよう。

3. Additional resources needed for profit creation

What are these additional resources? We shell discuss them in detail:

It is striking discovery, but in reality any profits in economy are achieved only through personal loans, consumption of savings, state transfers and consumption of profits in the form of personal profit spending or pensions.

Savings are from long point of view doubtful source of consumption. Firstly, their volume is finite, secondly the very fact that they exist means that in previous periods people did not realize all their wages into sales and therefore profit in the past was lower by exactly the amount of savings. However subjectively useful, savings are not sustainable source of economic growth, because their volume will eventually shrink to zero. If people would theoretically saved all what they earned in the form of wages and had no other income through loans or transfers, global profit in that year would be zero.

So we get to this: