Re-design GDP (1) / 重寫GDP (上)

When it comes to measuring economic indicators, most people will probably think of GDP — Gross Domestic Product:

The GDP definition is maintained by several countries and international economic organizations. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines GDP as “a measure of gross production equal to the sum of gross value added by all residents and institutional units engaged in production and services (plus any taxes and minus any subsidies),” about products not included in the value of their output)”. An International Monetary Fund publication states, “Gross domestic product measures the monetary value of final goods and services purchased by end users and produced by a country during a specific period (such as a quarter or a year) Production.

So how to calculate GDP? There are two approaches commonly used in academic circles:

Income method:
GDP = gross labor income + gross owner’s surplus + gross self-employment income + (tax — subsidy) + depreciation

Expenditure method:
GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Exports — Imports

This is not an economics lecture, and the calculation of GDP is not the purpose of in-depth study, but we can think about it in one way. The basic principles of GDP under the income method are as mentioned in the previous article:

The value of a certain commodity/service = labor value (gross labor income + gross self-employment income*) + rent-seeker’s expected remuneration (gross owner’s surplus + gross self-employment income* + depreciation) + material cost

*Part of the gross self-employment income may be included in the value of labor force, or it may be included in rent-seeker compensation, depending on the nature, but remembering this variable characteristic may be one of the keys to ensuring sustainable economic development.

The material cost here can be broken down again into labor value + rent-seeker’s expected remuneration, so we understand the income method:
The value of a certain good/service = labor value + rent seeker’s expected return

To put it simply, the economic output within a region, that is, GDP in a broad sense, can indeed be broken down into these two elements (taxes and subsidies will offset each other in the long run).

Such a broad sense of GDP illustrates the differences in the basic values ​​of the two camps during the Cold War. The liberal economic camp believed that labor and rent-seekers competed freely in the market, while the communist social camp believed that rent-seekers should not exist. Just let the value of a certain good/service = the value of labor force.

This article does not argue about what is right and what is wrong. There are very few people in the world who believe in areas with only rent-seekers or only workers. Even the experience of the 70 years after the war tells us that the balance between the two may be the key to economic development.
In the past, the proletarian society and planned economy led by the Communist International deliberately eliminated the role of rent-seekers. Society can indeed operate, but without competition for the time value of money, people will lose their expectations for the future in the long run. One day’s labor = all economic value.

Such a society may seem harmonious and stable, but it lacks resilience and elasticity. When an unplanned event occurs, there is no plan and no tools available, and it will fall into a long-term stability. However, an unexpected event may cause the system to collapse.

The mainstream society of the current free economy is exactly the opposite. In order to build a resilient society, the government responds by inflating the time value of rent-seekers. However, the consequence of excessive use of such tools is that the expected returns of rent-seekers have grown too large, almost completely overwhelming them. The value of labor has been reduced, leading to social class disparity, the gap between rich and poor, and social antagonism, which has further extended to political instability and geopolitical confrontation.

To put it simply, the mentality and concept of advocating reliance on passive income or FIRE may be a concrete manifestation of the deterioration of the phenomenon. How can we allow a society to obtain considerable expected returns without labor?

The main arguments in the book Le Capital au xxie siècle are mentioned:

If the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the economic growth rate (g), wealth will be concentrated. Piketty argued that in the long term, this would lead to concentration of wealth and economic instability.

Therefore, balancing the expected remuneration of rent-seekers and the labor value of workers may be the key or even the most important issue in economic development. Currently, the two most important topics for central banks in various countries are unemployment rate and interest rate. The former focuses on the employment status of workers, while the latter has a substantial impact on expected rates of return.

However, the difficult point lies in that when the employment situation is poor and rent-seeking costs are reduced by lowering the risk-free interest rate, improving employment will also significantly increase the operating surplus of rent-seekers, thereby once again worsening wealth distribution. On the contrary, when the employment situation is hot, raising interest rates to suppress the operating surplus of rent-seekers will also affect some workers, thereby reducing the value of labor.

The cleverness of this is that workers and rent-seekers are actually a symbiotic relationship in economic production. Therefore, how to suppress the interests of one party without affecting the other party. In the end, only the great transfer method of economics is left. — Taxes and subsidies. However, this approach is mostly effective in the short term, and will be transferred to all stakeholders in the symbiotic relationship again in the long term, and the final effect will tend to be ineffective.
So what should we do? Trying to answer such a complex social question will be left to the next article.

Because there is another important question that has not even been added, that is, does the value of a certain commodity/service only require workers and rent-seekers? What about the earth’s environment without social legal person status?

Among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations, those directly related to the natural environment include 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, and 15. However, there is nothing related to the environment in our GDP statistics. For example, the value of coffee beans = the labor value associated with planting and harvesting + the capital and expected returns invested in coffee planting and roasting sites, but ignores the cost of restoring the natural environment to its original state.

The result of long-term neglect of environmental value is that it is transferred to consumer surplus or business surplus. To put it simply, we eat the earth in vain. This is not the worst thing. The products with no economic value produced after eating in vain are disposed of at will, and expecting the earth’s environment to resolve itself.

Are human so hateful? Just imagine how the garbage generated every day is dealt with? Will the garbage disappear naturally if it is handed over to the trash can or cleaning staff? Who is working hard to solve it? How much price have we paid?

The entire chain of links from mining to recovery, the relevant costs should be included in GDP, that is:

The value of a certain commodity/service = labor value + rent seeker’s expected return + the environmental recovery cost of the commodity/service

From then on, the entire value transfer is complete, the economy is circulated, the environment is regenerated, and the human intelligence matures.

Then, we will discuss in the next article how workers, rent-seekers, and the natural environment can establish a cyclical symbiotic relationship rather than an antagonistic competitive relationship.

說到衡量經濟的指標，多數人應該都會想到 GDP - Gross Domestic Product 國內生產毛額 :

GDP 定義由多個國家和國際經濟組織維護。經濟合作暨發展組織（OECD）將GDP定義為「生產總量衡量標準，等於所有居民和從事生產和服務的機構單位的總增加值之和（加上任何稅收，並減去任何補貼） ，關於不包含在其產出值中的產品）」。國際貨幣基金組織的一份出版物指出，「國內生產總值衡量的是最終用戶購買的最終商品和服務的貨幣價值，該最終商品和服務由一個國家在特定時期（例如一個季度或一年）生產。

那麼要如何計算GDP呢? 學術上常用的兩種取向 :

收入法 :

GDP = 勞動力收入毛額 + 業主剩餘毛額 + 自營收入毛額 + (稅 - 補貼) + 折舊

支出法 :

GDP = 消費 + 投資 + 政府支出 + 出口 - 進口

這裡並非經濟學講堂，GDP的計算不是深究目的，然而我們可以從其中一種方式來思考。收入法的GDP基本原理如同上一篇文章提到的 :

某一商品/服務的價值 = 勞動力價值(勞動力收入毛額+自營收入毛額*) +尋租者預期報酬(業主剩餘毛額+自營收入毛額* + 折舊) + 物料成本

*部分自營收入毛額可能被納入勞動力價值，也可能納入尋租者報酬，依照不同性質而定，但先記住這個可變的特性，也可能是確保經濟永續發展的關鍵之一。

而這邊的物料成本又可以再一次的拆解成 勞動力價值+尋租者預期報酬，因此我們把透過對收入法的理解 :

某一商品/服務的價值 = 勞動力價值 + 尋租者預期報酬

簡單來說一個區域範圍內的經濟產出，也就是廣義上的GDP，的確是能拆解成這兩個元素(稅金與補貼長遠來看會互相抵消)。

而這樣廣義的GDP，闡述了冷戰時期兩個陣營基礎價值觀的差異，自由經濟陣營認為勞動力與尋租者自由地在市場上競爭，而共產社會陣營則是認為不應該有尋租者的存在，讓 某一商品/服務的價值 = 勞動力價值 即可。

本文沒有要爭論孰是孰非，世界上也很少極端信奉只有尋租者或是只有勞動者的區域，甚至戰後70年的經驗告訴我們，兩者的平衡或是經濟能發展的關鍵。

過去共產國際主導的無產階級社會與計畫經濟，刻意的消除了尋租者這個角色，社會的確可以運作，但缺乏了對貨幣時間價值的競爭，長久發展人們會失去對未來的期待，日復一日的 勞動=所有經濟價值。

這樣的社會看似和諧穩定但缺乏韌性與彈性，在計劃外事件發生時，沒有規劃也沒有工具可用，會陷入一種長期穩定，但遇上一次不可預期的事件就可能導致系統崩潰。

現行自由經濟的主流社會則恰恰相反，為了建立有韌性的社會，政府以尋租者的時間價值膨脹來應對，然而過度使用這樣工具的後果就是尋租者的預期報酬成長太大，幾乎完全壓倒了勞動價值，導致社會階層落差，貧富差距、社會對立，進而延伸到政治不穩定與地緣政治對抗。

簡單來說，鼓吹依賴被動收入或是FIRE的心態與觀念，可能都是現象惡化的具體表現，我們怎麼允許一個社會可以不需勞動而獲取可觀的預期報酬?

在21世紀資本論一書中的主要論點提到 :

如果資本的收益率（r）大於經濟增長率（g），財富就會集中。皮克提提出，長期來看，這將導致財富集中和經濟不穩定。

因此，平衡尋租者的預期報酬與勞動者的勞動價值，或許才是經濟發展的關鍵甚至最重要課題。目前各國中央銀行最重要的兩個課題便是失業率與利率，前者關注勞動者就業狀況，後者則對預期報酬率有實質影響力。

然而困難的點落在，當就業狀況不佳時，透過降低無風險利率來降低尋租成本時，改善就業同時也會造就尋租者的營業剩餘大幅增加，因此再次惡化了財富分配。反之，就業狀況熱門時，透過提高利率來抑制尋租者營業剩餘同時也會影響部分的勞動者，進而降低勞動價值。

箇中的巧妙就在於，勞動者與尋租者其實是經濟生產的共生關係，所以如何能夠在抑制其中一方利益時，卻又不影響另一方，最終只剩下經濟學的乾坤大挪移搬運法 - 稅與補貼。但這種做法多半是短期有效，長期會再次轉移到共生關係的所有利害關係人身上，最終效果會趨於無效。

那該如何呢? 嘗試回答這樣複雜的社會問題，要留到下一篇文章再來討論了。

因為還有一個重要問題甚至還沒被加入，那就是某一商品/服務的價值只需要勞動者與尋租者嗎? 沒有具備社會法人身分的地球環境呢?

聯合國訂定的永續發展目標(SDGs)17項目標中，直接跟自然環境有關的就有6、7、12、13、14、15，然而我們的GDP統計中，卻沒有任何跟環境有關。舉例來說，咖啡豆的價值 = 種植與採收相關的勞動價值 + 投入咖啡種植與烘焙場域的資本與預期報酬，卻忽略了還原至原本樣態自然環境所需的代價。

長期忽視環境價值的結果就是轉移到了消費者剩餘或是營業剩餘之中，簡單的說就是我們白吃了地球，這還不是最糟糕的，白吃後產生的無經濟價值產物，又被隨意處理，期待地球環境自行解決。

人們有這麼可惡嗎? 試想每天產生的垃圾都怎麼被處理呢? 交給垃圾桶或清潔隊垃圾就會自然消失嗎? 又是誰在努力解決呢? 我們付出過多少代價呢?

從開採到回復的整串鏈結，相關的代價應該要被納入在GDP之中，也就是 :

某一商品/服務的價值 = 勞動力價值 + 尋租者預期報酬 + 該商品/服務在環境回復代價

自此，整個價值傳遞才算完整，經濟得以循環，環境得以再生，人類的心智得以成熟。

那麼，我們將再下集文章中來討論，勞動者、尋租者、自然環境，三者如何建立循環的共生關係，而非對立的競爭關係。