Bill盖茨谈《没有资本的资本主义》
我在哈佛的时候，从大一下半学期开始，就去旁听那些我没有报名的课程，反而不怎么去上那些我报过的课——除了一门名为“Ec 10”的经济学入门课程。我被这个主题迷住了，那位教授非常优秀。他最开始教我们的内容之一就是这个供求关系图。在我上大学的那个年代（比我愿意承认的时间要早很多），这基本上就是全球经济的运行方式：
根据这张图，你可以做出两点假设。第一点，到今天或多或少仍然适用：随着产品需求的增加，供给也会增加，然后价格就会下降。如果价格涨得过高，需求就会下降。两条线的完美交点被称为均衡点。均衡点很神奇，因为它使社会价值最大化。商品价格实惠，数量充足且有利可图。每个人都能有所收益。
第二个可从中得出的假设是，随着供给增加，总生产成本就会提高。想象一下，福特发布了一款新车型。第一辆车的成本要高一些，因为你要花钱去设计和测试。但是之后制造的每辆车都需要一定的原材料和劳动力。你制造的第10辆车的成本与第1000辆车相同。对于主导几乎整个20世纪世界经济的其他事物，包括农产品和实物财产，情况皆是如此。
但软件就不同了。微软可能会耗费巨资来研发新程序的第一个单元，但之后的每个单元几乎都可以零成本生产。与过去为我们的经济提供动力的商品不同，软件是一种无形资产。软件还不是唯一的例子：数据、保险、电子书，甚至电影也差不多。
世界经济中不符合旧的运行模式的部分正不断扩大。这对几乎所有事物都带来了巨大的影响：税法、经济政策、哪些城市发展迅猛，哪些城市就此落后，但总的来说，管理经济的规则没有跟上。这是全球经济中最重要的趋势之一，却没有得到足够的关注。
如果你想明白为什么这一切如此重要，就我所知，乔纳森·哈斯克尔（Jonathan Haskel）和斯蒂安·韦斯特莱克（Stian Westlake）合著的佳作《没有资本的资本主义》（Capitalism Without Capital ，中文名暂译）就能很好地解释这个问题。他们首先将无形资产定义为“你摸不到的东西”。这听上去理所当然，但它指出了无形产品制造业和有形产品制造业运行方式的不同。那些你摸不着的产品具有一系列很不一样的模式，不论是从竞争及风险，还是从你如何为生产这些产品的公司估值方面。
为什么无形产品的投资运作如此不同？乔纳森和斯蒂安给出了四点原因：
1. 这种投资是一种沉没成本。如果你的投资没能成功，那么你也没有像机械设备那样可以出售的实物资产来回收部分成本。
2. 它往往会产生溢出效应，被竞争对手所利用。优步（Uber）最大的优势在于它的驾驶员网络，但是也会常常见到优步司机还同时在Lyft上接单。
3. 它比实物资产更具可扩展性。在花钱做出了第一个产品单元后，接下来的产品就可以近乎无成本的无限复制。
4. 它更有可能与其他无形资产产生有价值的协同效应。乔纳森和斯蒂安以iPod为例：它结合了Apple的MP3协议、小型硬盘设计、设计技巧和与唱片公司的许可协议。
从本质上讲，这些特征不能简单的定义为好或者不好。它们只是与工业制成品的运作方式不同。
乔纳森和斯蒂安以一种直截了当的方式解释了这一切——这本书几乎就像一本不多加评论的教科书。他们不会表现得好像趋势出现了邪恶的变化，或要开出一些难以实现的政策方案。他们只是在花时间说服你为什么这种转变很重要，在这个“Ec 10”课程里教的供求关系图越来越不适用的世界里，他们给各个国家应该怎么做提出了一些更开阔的想法。
这本书令人大开眼界，但并不适合所有人。虽然乔纳森和斯蒂安擅于解释事物，但要理解他们所讲的内容，你需要熟悉一些经济学知识。但是，如果你上过经济学课程或定期阅读《经济学人》的金融版，那么理解他们的主张应该不成问题。
这本书使我更加清楚，立法者需要调整他们的经济政策来适应这些新情况。比如，许多国家用来衡量无形资产的标准有些落后了，因此他们所描绘的经济状况是不完整的。美国直到1999年才将软件纳入GDP计算。即使在今天，GDP也不计入市场研究、品牌和培训等方面的投资——这可都是各个公司巨资投入的无形资产。
我们落后的方面还不止衡量标准的问题——我认为很多国家现在都应该就很多重要的问题进行讨论。商标和专利法是否过于严格或过于宽松？竞争政策是否需要更新？如果是的话，税收政策应该如何变化？在没有资本收益情况下的资本主义世界，什么才是刺激经济的最佳方式？我们需要真正聪明的思想家和经济学家深入研究所有这些问题。《没有资本的资本主义》是我读过的第一本对此问题进行深入解读的书，我认为它应该是政策制定者的必读书籍。我希望将来看到更多这样的书。
投资界需要时间来接纳以无形资产为基础的公司。微软早期，我感觉我是在向人们解释一些对他们来说完全陌生的东西。我们的商业计划需要投资者以前所未有的方式看待资产。他们无法想象我们在长期内能产生何种回报。
在今天看来，还要跟谁解释为什么软件是一种合理投资，这简直难以想象，但自20世纪80年代以来，许多事情都发生了变化。我们思考经济运行的方式，也是时候应该变一变了。
Not enough people are paying attention to this global economic trend
By the second semester of my freshman year at Harvard, I had started going to classes I wasn’t signed up for, and had pretty much stopped going to any of the classes I was signed up for—except for an introduction to economics class called “Ec 10.” I was fascinated by the subject, and the professor was excellent. One of the first things he taught us was the supply and demand diagram. At the time I was in college (which was longer ago than I like to admit), this was basically how the global economy worked:
There are two assumptions you can make based on this chart. The first is still more or less true today: as demand for a product goes up, supply increases, and price goes down. If the price gets too high, demand falls. The sweet spot where the two lines intersect is called equilibrium. Equilibrium is magical, because it maximizes value to society. Goods are affordable, plentiful, and profitable. Everyone wins.
The second assumption this chart makes is that the total cost of production increases as supply increases. Imagine Ford releasing a new model of car. The first car costs a bit more to create, because you have to spend money designing and testing it. But each vehicle after that requires a certain amount of materials and labor. The tenth car you build costs the same to make as the 1000th car. The same is true for the other things that dominated the world’s economy for most of the 20th century, including agricultural products and property.
Software doesn’t work like this. Microsoft might spend a lot of money to develop the first unit of a new program, but every unit after that is virtually free to produce. Unlike the goods that powered our economy in the past, software is an intangible asset. And software isn’t the only example: data, insurance, e-books, even movies work in similar ways.
The portion of the world's economy that doesn't fit the old model just keeps getting larger. That has major implications for everything from tax law to economic policy to which cities thrive and which cities fall behind, but in general, the rules that govern the economy haven’t kept up. This is one of the biggest trends in the global economy that isn’t getting enough attention.
If you want to understand why this matters, the brilliant new book Capitalism Without Capital by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake is about as good an explanation as I’ve seen. They start by defining intangible assets as “something you can’t touch.” It sounds obvious, but it’s an important distinction because intangible industries work differently than tangible industries. Products you can’t touch have a very different set of dynamics in terms of competition and risk and how you value the companies that make them.
Haskel and Westlake outline four reasons why intangible investment behaves differently:
1. It’s a sunk cost. If your investment doesn’t pan out, you don’t have physical assets like machinery that you can sell off to recoup some of your money.
2. It tends to create spillovers that can be taken advantage of by rival companies. Uber’s biggest strength is its network of drivers, but it’s not uncommon to meet an Uber driver who also picks up rides for Lyft.
3. It’s more scalable than a physical asset. After the initial expense of the first unit, products can be replicated ad infinitum for next to nothing.
4. It’s more likely to have valuable synergies with other intangible assets. Haskel and Westlake use the iPod as an example: it combined Apple’s MP3 protocol, miniaturized hard disk design, design skills, and licensing agreements with record labels.
None of these traits are inherently good or bad. They’re just different from the way manufactured goods work.
Haskel and Westlake explain all this in a straightforward way—the book is almost written like a textbook without a lot of commentary. They don’t act like there’s something evil about the trend or prescribe hard policy solutions. Instead they take the time to convince you why this transition is important and offer broad ideas about what countries can do to keep up in a world where the “Ec 10” supply and demand chart is increasingly irrelevant.
The book is eye opening, but it’s not for everyone. Although Haskel and Westlake are good about explaining things, you need some familiarity with economics to follow what they’re saying. If you’ve taken an economics course or regularly read the finance section of the Economist, however, you shouldn’t have any trouble following their arguments.
What the book reinforced for me is that lawmakers need to adjust their economic policymaking to reflect these new realities. For example, the tools many countries use to measure intangible assets are behind the times, so they’re getting an incomplete picture of the economy. The U.S. didn’t include software in GDP calculations until 1999. Even today, GDP doesn’t count investment in things like market research, branding, and training—intangible assets that companies are spending huge amounts of money on.
Measurement isn’t the only area where we’re falling behind—there are a number of big questions that lots of countries should be debating right now. Are trademark and patent laws too strict or too generous? Does competition policy need to be updated? How, if at all, should taxation policies change? What is the best way to stimulate an economy in a world where capitalism happens without the capital? We need really smart thinkers and brilliant economists digging into all of these questions.Capitalism Without Capital is the first book I’ve seen that tackles them in depth, and I think it should be required reading for policymakers.
It took time for the investment world to embrace companies built on intangible assets. In the early days of Microsoft, I felt like I was explaining something completely foreign to people. Our business plan involved a different way of looking at assets than investors were used to. They couldn’t imagine what returns we would generate over the long term.
The idea today that anyone would need to be pitched on why software is a legitimate investment seems unimaginable, but a lot has changed since the 1980s. It’s time the way we think about the economy does, too.