Consider the food industry, particularly its sometimes-malign influence on nutrition and health. Obesity rates are soaring around the entire world, though, among large countries, the problem is perhaps most severe in the United States. According the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly one-third of US adults are obese (indicated by a body mass index above 30). Even more shockingly, more than one in six children and adolescents are obese, a rate that has tripled since 1980. (Full disclosure: my spouse produces a television and Web show, called kickinkitchen.tv, aimed at combating childhood obesity.)
Of course, the problems of the food industry have been vigorously highlighted by experts on nutrition and health, including Michael Pollan and David Katz, and certainly by many economists as well. And there are numerous other examples, across a wide variety of goods and services, where one could find similar issues. Here, though, I want to focus on the food industry’s link to broader problems with contemporary capitalism (which has certainly facilitated the worldwide obesity explosion), and on why the US political system has devoted remarkably little attention to the issue (though First Lady Michelle Obama has made important efforts to raise awareness).
Obesity affects life expectancy in numerous ways, ranging from cardiovascular disease to some types of cancer. Moreover, obesity – certainly in its morbid manifestations – can affect quality of life. The costs are borne not only by the individual, but also by society – directly, through the health-care system, and indirectly, through lost productivity, for example, and higher transport costs (more jet fuel, larger seats, etc.).
But the obesity epidemic hardly looks like a growth killer. Highly processed corn-based food products, with lots of chemical additives, are well known to be a major driver of weight gain, but, from a conventional growth-accounting perspective, they are great stuff. Big agriculture gets paid for growing the corn (often subsidized by the government), and the food processors get paid for adding tons of chemicals to create a habit-forming – and thus irresistible – product. Along the way, scientists get paid for finding just the right mix of salt, sugar, and chemicals to make the latest instant food maximally addictive; advertisers get paid for peddling it; and, in the end, the health-care industry makes a fortune treating the disease that inevitably results.
Coronary capitalism is fantastic for the stock market, which includes companies in all of these industries. Highly processed food is also good for jobs, including high-end employment in research, advertising, and health care.
So, who could complain? Certainly not politicians, who get re-elected when jobs are plentiful and stock prices are up – and get donations from all of the industries that participate in the production of processed food. Indeed, in the US, politicians who dared to talk about the health, environmental, or sustainability implications of processed food would in many cases find themselves starved of campaign funds.
True, market forces have spurred innovation, which has continually driven down the price of processed food, even as the price of plain old fruits and vegetables has gone up. That is a fair point, but it overlooks the huge market failure here.
Consumers are provided with precious little information through schools, libraries, or health campaigns; instead, they are swamped with disinformation through advertising. Conditions for children are particularly alarming. With few resources for high-quality public television in most countries, children are co-opted by channels paid for by advertisements, including by food industry.
Beyond disinformation, producers have few incentives to internalize the costs of the environmental damage that they cause. Likewise, consumers have little incentive to internalize the health-care costs of their food choices.
If our only problems were the food industry causing physical heart attacks and the financial industry facilitating their economic equivalent, that would be bad enough. But the pathological regulatory-political-economic dynamic that characterizes these industries is far broader. We need to develop new and much better institutions to protect society’s long-run interests.
Of course, the balance between consumer sovereignty and paternalism is always delicate. But we could certainly begin to strike a healthier balance than the one we have by giving the public far better information across a range of platforms, so that people could begin to make more informed consumption choices and political decisions.
Kenneth Rogoff is Professor of Economics and Public Policy
at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the IMF.
Kenneth Rogoff: 患有冠心病的資本主義
法蘭克福——說到改革今天的西方資本主義制度，人們一直對監管體系全面性及系統性的失靈故意視而不見。的確，導致2008年全球經濟心臟病發作的病態政治－監管－金融體制已經引發了眾多討論，上述機制正是引發卡門·萊因哈特和我所謂的“第二次大收縮”的首要因素。需要討論的是，這個問題僅限於金融行業，還是代表了西方資本主義制度更深層次的缺陷？
以食品業為例，該行業有時會給營養和健康目標帶來嚴重的後果。肥胖率激增現在已經成為世界性問題，但在大國裡以美國最為嚴重。據美國疾病控制和預防中心統計，約三分之一的美國成年人體型肥胖（即身體質量指數大於30）。更令人震驚的是，兒童和青少年的肥胖比例超過六分之一，1980年后青少年的肥胖比例比原來增加了兩倍。（信息披露：我妻子制作了一檔名叫kickinkitchen.tv的電視網絡節目，目的就是引導兒童力挫肥胖。）
當然，邁克爾·波林 和 大衛·卡茲等營養健康專家已經極力強調了食品業存在的問題，同樣的問題無疑也引起了很多經濟學家的關注。各種商品和服務領域其他的類似問題還有很多。但這裡我隻想討論食品業與現代資本主義制度普遍問題之間的聯系，上述聯系無疑推動了全球肥胖人數的激增。我還想討論美國政治制度為什麼對這個問題視而不見（盡管第一夫人米歇爾·奧巴馬已經為喚醒人們的認識付出了重要的努力）。
肥胖會在諸多方面影響壽命，其中既包括心血管疾病，也包括某些種類的癌症。此外，病態的肥胖可以影響生活質量。承受肥胖損失的不隻是個人，同樣也包括社會——承受肥胖損失可以直接通過衛生保健系統，也可以間接通過運輸成本增加等生產率損失（如消耗更多航空燃料，座椅加大等）。
但肥胖的蔓延對經濟增長卻鮮有壞處。眾所周知，精加工的玉米食品及大量添加劑是體重上升的主要推手，但從傳統增長核算的角度，它們卻是非常好的東西。大農業種植玉米並從中獲利（通常還能拿到政府補貼），食品加工企業則添加數以噸計的化學品，最終生產的產品讓人成癮，因而也就無法抗拒。整個鏈條中，科學家負責找到精確的鹽、糖和化學添加劑配比使新發明的速食食品最讓人上癮﹔廣告商負責推銷﹔最后，醫療保健業從治療不可避免的疾病中賺取大量財富。
冠狀動脈資本主義是股市的強心劑，股市是上述所有行業企業的雲集之所。精加工食品同樣有利於創造就業，其中也包括研發、廣告和醫療保健等領域的高端就業機會。
因此，還有誰會抱怨？政治家肯定不會，他們因為就業充足、股票上漲而再次當選，而且從參與加工食品生產的所有行業獲得捐贈。事實上，膽敢談論加工食品對健康、環境或可持續發展影響的美國政治家常常會發現自己的競選捐贈幾近枯竭。
誠然，市場力量推動創新，而創新則不斷壓低加工食品價格，即使普通水果和蔬菜的價格不斷上漲。這種說法有一定道理，但卻忽略了市場的極度失敗。
學校、圖書館或健康運動為消費者提供了寥寥可數的寶貴信息，但他們卻被廣告中大量的虛假信息所淹沒。兒童的狀況尤其令人擔憂。由於多數國家缺乏高質量的公共電視資源，由廣告商、包括食品行業贊助的電視頻道不約而同地把目標瞄准了兒童。
除去散播虛假信息，生產企業鮮有動力對自己造成的環境損失成本進行內化。同樣，消費者也鮮有動力對自身食品選擇所帶來的健康成本進行內化。
即使食品業導致生理心臟病、金融業導致經濟心臟病是我們所面臨的唯一問題，情況也已經夠糟糕了。但已成為上述行業標志的病態監管－政治－經濟體制所造成的影響卻遠比這更加廣泛。為保護社會的長遠利益，我們需要建立新的、更好的制度。
當然，消費者主權和家長作風間的平衡總是非常微秒。但我們可以在一系列領域為公眾提供更准確的信息，使人們能開始做出更加明智的消費選擇和政治決策，從而增進上述平衡的健康度。
Kenneth Rogoff，哈佛大學經濟及公共政策學教授，曾任國際貨幣基金組織首席經濟學家。