[转贴]《金融时报》：土地投机毒害全球经济

土地投机毒害全球经济
作者：英国《金融时报》首席经济评论员 马丁•沃尔夫

不能从历史中吸取教训的人注定还要摔跟头。这个道理尤其适用于当前这场席卷整个世界的巨大危机。那么危机背后的教训是什么？答案是由信贷推动的房地产周期。美国、英国、西班牙和爱尔兰的民众全都成为了土地投机者。这种行为的不良影响毒害了世界经济。

我在1984年买下了伦敦的这幢房子。我估计，以今天的价格衡量，当时那幢房子所在的土地价值10 万英镑。如今，其价值大概是这个数字的10倍。而如此大幅的增值，完全不是我个人努力的结果。这是拥有一块土地的回报，是他人的努力使这块土地变得更加值钱，限制重重的规划机制和慷慨的税收规定（房地产税率很低，而增值税则免于征收）又放大了这种效应。我成为一个土地投机者——一个小小的贵族，在这个国家，私人占用他人努力的果实，一向是通向财富的主要途径。这种将土地增值部分据为己有的做法，不仅有失公平：我何德何能，可以坐拥这些额外的财富？而且将造成可怕的后果。

首先，这使得政府必须对努力、独创性和远见卓识征税，以获取资金。对劳动力和资本征税，必然会减少其供给。但土地税只会减少土地所有者不劳而获的收益。

第二，这套体系会催生灾难性的的政治动机。如今，人们要大举借债才能拥有一处居所，所以他们迫切希望享受到价格攀升带来的好处，更会努力避免土地价格下滑。因此，报纸才会为房价攀升欢呼喝彩——而居者有其屋本应是一切福祉之根本。房价上涨的受益者不仅仅是土地投机者；他们还是操纵市场行为的狂热支持者。特别是在英国，他们欢迎通过规划控制，来人为造成土地稀缺的做法。这是财富从年轻无产者向年老有产者转移最重要的方式。在英国政府大臣大卫•维莱茨(David Willetts)的新书中，强调了代际间财富分配的不平等性*。土地市场受到操纵是一个重要原因。

第三，也是最重要的一点，土地投机的机会既会驱动信贷周期，也受到信贷周期的驱动。记者弗雷德•哈里森(Fred Harrison)的新书是一部出色的哀叹史，他在书中指出，这个历时18年的周期是可以预测的，而且也有人预测到（至少他自己就猜中了）**。他指出，本质上，购房者是在向银行租房，以此押注于房价上涨。形形色色的代理机构通过安排、打包以及分销这种投机性交易的果实，获取佣金收入。当市场长时期处于上升趋势（英国最近一次上涨延续了11年），随着信贷和债务的快速增加，所有人都会同时变得富有起来。而一旦市场崩盘，借款人、金融机构和纳税人都会遭受巨额损失。这是一个庞大的金字塔骗局(Pyramid Scheme)，其恶果我们屡尝不止。

长久以来，一直有人试图让我相信，资源租金应该社会化，而不应成为个人所有者的收益。然而，正如哈里森所言，“在这个社会里，我们将私人所得收入（工资与薪酬）社会化，而将社会化收入（来自土地的收入）私有化。”无论人们如何看待这种安排的公平性，其后果已变得令人畏惧。难道我们真的希望，当前这场危机的残垣断壁刚刚清理干净，就再次开启由信贷驱动的新一轮房地产周期吗？

如果说“危机不能白白浪费”，这里有一个紧迫的理由，表明政府应立刻采取行动。将土地的全部租金价值社会化，会摧毁整个金融体系和很大一部分公共财富。但如果将从土地租金中获得的收益社会化，破坏性就会小得多。这或许能浇灭土地投机行为的狂热。同时也能转移税务负担。或许同样重要的是，随着不劳而获的前景不复存在，英国或许能够重新审视其在发展规划方面的立法。有人担心此举会给农村地区造成可怕的后果。然而，值得注意的是，我们需要的很少：仅将伦敦城区半径增加3英里，就能使首都面积扩大50%。难道英国翠绿怡人的土地真的只有这么多吗？

我不指望哪届政府敢于让英国人放弃对土地投机的依赖。但我可以心怀希望。现在是时候进行重大改革了。

*《困顿》(The Pinch)，大西洋书局(Atlantic Books)出版。

**《审讯》(The Inquest)，Discovered Authors出版。

译者/管婧

原文：
WHY IT IS TIME TO PUT A HALT TO THE LAND CYCLE
By Martin Wolf

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. This applies not least to the immense crisis into which the world has fallen. So what lay behind it? The answer is the credit-fuelled property cycle. The people of the US, UK, Spain and Ireland became speculators in land. The toxic waste poisons the world economy.

In 1984, I bought my London house. I estimate that the land on which it sits was worth £100,000 in today's prices. Today, the value is perhaps 10 times as great. All of that vast increment is the fruit of no effort of mine. It is the reward of owning a location that the efforts of others have made valuable, reinforced by a restrictive planning regime and generous tax treatment – property taxes are low and the gains tax free. I am a land speculator – a mini-aristocrat in a country where private appropriation of the fruits of others' efforts has long been a prime route to wealth. This appropriation of the rise in the value of land is not just unfair: what have I done to deserve this additional wealth? It also has dire results.

First, it makes it necessary for the state to fund itself by taxing effort, ingenuity and foresight. Taxation of labour and capital must lower their supply. But land taxes merely reduce the unearned rewards to owners.

Second, this system creates calamitous political incentives. In a world in which people have borrowed heavily to own a location, they are desperate to enjoy price rises and, still more, to prevent land price falls. Thus, newspapers hail upward moves in the price of a place to live – the most basic of all amenities. The beneficiaries are more than mere land speculators; they are also enthusiastic supporters of efforts to rig the market. Particularly in the UK, they welcome the creation of artificial scarcity of land, via planning controls. This is the most important way in which wealth is transferred from the unpropertied young to the propertied old. In his new book, David Willetts, a minister in the UK government, emphasises the unfairness of the distribution of wealth across generations.* The rigged land market is a big cause.

Third and most important, the opportunity for speculation in land both fuels – and is fuelled by – the credit cycle. In a superb new jeremiad, the journalist Fred Harrison argues that this cycle – with a duration of 18 years – was predictable and, by him at least, predicted.** In essence, he notes, buyers rent property from bankers, in return for a gamble on the upside. A host of agents gain fees from arranging, packaging and distributing the fruits of such speculative transactions. In the long upswing (the most recent one lasted 11 years in the UK), everybody becomes rich together, as credit and debt explode upwards. Then, when the collapse comes, borrowers, financial institutions and taxpayers suffer huge losses. This is a giant pyramid scheme, one whose bitter fruit we have seen again and again.

I have long been persuaded that resource rents should be socialised, not accrue to individual owners. Yet, as Mr Harrison remarks, “as a community we socialise our privately earned incomes (wages and salaries), while our social income (from land) is privatised.” Whatever one thinks of the justice of this arrangement, the consequences have become dreadful. Do we want to start yet another credit-fuelled property cycle as soon as the debris of the present one is cleared away?

If “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”, here is an urgent case for action. Socialising the full rental value of land would destroy the financial system and the wealth of a large part of the public. But socialising any gain from here on would be far less traumatic. This would eliminate the fever of land speculation. It would also allow a shift in the burden of taxation. Perhaps as important, with the prospects of effortless increases in wealth removed, the UK might re- examine its planning laws. There is panic about the dire consequences of this for the countryside. It is worth noting, however, how little is needed: an increase of just three miles in the radius of London would raise the capital's surface area by 50 per cent. Would this really be the end of England's green and pleasant land?

I do not expect any government to dare to wean the English from their trust in land speculation. But I can hope. It is time for a radical change.

* The Pinch, Atlantic Books.

** The Inquest, Discovered Authors