Why the Shackled American Market Remains Freer Than China’s

Yang Xinghua & Timothy Huang
10月1日
讀畢需時 24 分鐘

By Yang Xinghua & Timothy Huang

近来，坊间流行着一种说法：自由取决于对财产权的保护程度，进而，对财产权权能的干预越少，就越自由。由此得出的结论是，在左翼思潮下对于房地产、医疗、教育、以及各种商业经营施加了种种限制的欧美各国，已经比不上中国自由。在本文中，我将这种观点称之为“中国市场优势论”。

本文将驳斥这一观点。此类说法陷入了片面的“免于干涉之自由”的陷阱，忽视了自由的其他重要侧面。在财产权权能的发挥程度与消极自由之间建立线性关系的尝试是缺乏合理依据的。这一论点在认识到欧美左派对自由市场的危害上是正确的，但是其结论将会错误地增强世界对于中国经济体制的信心。在“何者更好”上取得正确的共识是十分重要的。

一、免于支配的自由——一种共和主义的自由观

自以赛亚·伯林以来，积极自由与消极自由的二分便深入人心。前者要求积极的自我控制和自主性，后者则要求消极的免于干涉、限制和阻碍。然而，昆汀·斯金纳等当代共和主义学者并不认可纯粹的消极自由观念。他认为，“支配性权力的存在本身便是对自由的减损”；他们要求免于支配的自由，而非“欺骗性的”免于干涉的自由。^[1]

这一“free from what”的问题本是政治哲学领域的一个细小分支，然而，前述论点显示出，其在判断中美市场自由程度的问题上忽视了免于支配的自由的重要性，从而导致其结论在原理和事实上都出现重大错误。

因此，这里需要对这种要求免于支配之自由的共和主义自由观作简要介绍。正如佩蒂特所观察到的，主人和奴隶之间的关系是一个具有代表性的支配性的例子（佩蒂特，1997）：主人对奴隶拥有专断的权力，但是，主人确实有可能出于怜悯、容忍或其他原因而极少干涉他们。他认为，奴隶永远不会自由，即使他们的主人几乎不利用他们的专断权力，换言之，因为支配性的存在，他们是不自由的，但奴隶不一定受到干涉（佩蒂特，1997；斯金纳，2008）。这表明，在主体不自由的极端例子中，支配可以独立于干涉而存在。佩蒂特进一步补充说，“如果一个人在某些活动中没有占被支配性地位——如果他们不受专断性的干涉——那么无论他遭受多少非专断的干扰或阻挠，他都有保留了自由的感觉”（1997年：26）。因此，结论是，干涉本身不能导致自由的丧失。

斯金纳补充道，

“……鉴于这种分析，很容易理解为什么这些学者坚持认为，如果你受到别人的任意权力，你因此失去了你的自由。原因很简单，你不再能够按照自己的意志和欲望去做或忍耐。原则上，你的任何行动都不能有这种特征。当你行动时，你总是通过你所生活的权力下的主人或统治者的默许。正如西德尼所指出的，你只能按照‘王子的恩典行事，无论他给予什么，他都可能撤销’（1990：17）。但正如西德尼已经告诉我们的，自由包括拥有独立意志，这样任何‘既不能处置他自己也不能处置物品，只能按照主人的意志享受一切’的人都必然生活在奴役中（1990：17）”（斯金纳，2008：89）

他们的观点并非无懈可击，但是，非支配性自由的概念可以提供宝贵的见解，尤其是洞察自由如何在专断权力下受到限制，而干涉不是唯一可以导致主体不自由的因素。因此，在尚未就两种自由观念做出取舍性的比较时，我们在判断何者的市场更自由时，既应考虑市场主体受到的干涉，又要考虑市场主体受到的支配。尤其是，下文将指出，市场主体受到的支配性权力影响对自由的减损，要比单纯的政府直接干预大得多，也普遍得多。

据此，我们可以解释，为什么“中国市场优势论”是错误的。这种说法的经常援引几个典型案例是房地产税、医疗服务市场化、以及劳动法。下文将分别予以论述。

二、支配性权力下的市场

“中国市场优势论”反复提及中国与西方国家房地产市场的境况对比。例如，其中一篇文章问道：为何永久产权的土地，却只能卖出非常低的价格？“比如，澳洲一个大型农场有20万公顷，售价7500万澳元，平均每平米合计人民币一毛八分钱。一亩地才卖124元人民币。离地球灭亡还有几十亿年吧，一年一平米产出1毛钱，一平米也得值几亿啊，为什么一平米只卖一毛八？”

作者自问自答：“要搞清这个问题，就需要回到一个经济学的基本概念，那就是贴现率。”根据作者的理论，之所以永久产权的土地和房产卖不出高价，甚至不如内地和香港70/75年产权的价格，归根结底是因为房产和土地在未来的主观价值无限趋近于零；这还不够，由于房产税的普遍存在，拥有房产、地产等于把自己投入“割肉机”，加速了房产价值归零的趋势。“房产税之所以伤害力大，因为他影响所有人对长久未来的预期……不少华人跑到美国去投资房产，大多后悔，因为中国城市房产的价值其实更高。”

我在《为什么房地产税没有让房价归零》一文中已经指出，贴现率并不是经济学概念，而是会计学概念；主观价值理论中关于人的时间偏好的理论与对于特定未来商品现值的会计学处理方法是完全不同的，混淆二者将得出所有物品的交换价值均为零的荒谬结论。

但在本文中，我将着重考量这种观点的另一侧面，即房地产税是政府对房地产市场的重拳干涉，极大地减损了房屋和土地产权的价值，限制了其产权的权能（包括维护、出售、租赁等），这导致实行房地产税的房地产市场的自由程度不及未实行房地产税的市场。

诚然，如果被提出的问题是：房地产税是否损害了房地产市场的自由，那么答案无疑是肯定的。任何税收都或多或少地、直接间接地、明里暗里地损害了自由，这是毫无疑问的。如果美国废除房地产税，那么明日的美国房地产市场一定比今日更自由；如果中国实行房地产税，那么明日的中国房地产市场一定不如今日自由。这是毫无疑问的。

然而，这里的问题是，房地产税的有无是否独自决定了两国房地产市场的自由程度？首先，我们需要认识到，房地产税不是政府干预房地产市场的唯一手段。在实行土地公有制的国家，政府通过控制土地供应和设立建设、使用、交易条件，一样对房地产所有权/使用权的权能构成了重大的干涉。如果开发商竞得了一块土地使用权，却需要按照政府对楼层、形式、间距、绿地面积、保障房配套、人防工程等的要求进行建设，并按照政府对房屋装修、总价、购房资格分配、签约流程等的规定进行销售，或者购房者需要按照限购政策、户籍、名下财产、社保缴纳等要求获得购买资格，购房后需要按照政府制定的标准（而非与物业管理者或相关供应商协商、也无关具体的物业服务质量）缴纳物业费、取暖费、水电费，按照政府的要求限制使用、出售与出租，与房产对应的学区、医疗等资格和隐形福利可由政府随意更改，这无论如何不能被解释为比房地产税下的市场更自由。

更重要的是，从免于支配的自由的观点看，上述法律、法规、规章、政策等文件的出台，具有极大的任意性，既极少经过正当程序，也无需受到房地产所有权/使用权人的制约。产权人/使用权人完全处于政府的任意性支配权力下，自身的土地和房屋的财产安全无法得到保障，这种对自由的侵犯无疑比房地产税更甚。如果提出，以房地产公允价值的1%/年缴纳保护费，以换得前述事项的确定性，恐怕极少有权利人拒绝。

“中国市场优势论”经常援引的另外一个领域是医疗服务。长期以来，欧美国家受到福利主义的影响，大肆增加公共医疗开支，构建了几乎免费的公立医疗体系，但其服务质量和效率也逐渐饱受诟病。“中国市场优势论”的鼓吹者们在批判公立医保制度时提到，

“好医生将离开公立医院，离开医保体系，要想得到好的医疗服务，没问题，去私立吧，别指望医保能报销了；不太好的医生，将在医保体系里混日子，得过且过，既然你把医生当作非正常人，各行各业提供服务的人可以赚钱，医生老师是不能赚钱的，那他们就真正变成非正常人，躺在那里混体制混饭吃。”

如同上文关于房地产税的论述一样，如果被提出的问题是，西方国家普遍实行的福利医疗制度及其附带的医师跨区域执业限制、漫长的GP预约与床位分配机制等是否损害了医疗的自由，那么答案无疑是肯定的，公立医疗和公立医保制度扭曲了医药服务市场的价格信号，限制了供应，用行政手段抑制需求，无疑是对自由市场的重大侵害，也是服务质量滑坡的诱因之一。

然而，这是否意味着，只实行有限的基本医保制度和运用经济手段反哺医疗机构的中国医疗市场就更加自由呢？同样的分析逻辑是：我们需要关注干涉手段的多样性，以及医疗服务主体受到的支配性影响。

一方面，有限的基本医保制度固然比福利/全民免费医疗制度在税收和财政开支上的负面影响要小得多，但是就其对医疗服务市场的自由度而言，他们都在很大程度上限制了医生使用药品的种类，在中国又额外增加了中成药的限制。不使用这些并不完美适配的药物，就不能享受医保。这一情况在世界各地各种程度的公立医疗保障制度下都是通用的，与医疗保障的程度和范围并无直接关系。

另一方面，医疗服务市场的行政管理体系是不可忽视的支配性权力。它不仅包括对执业医师和医疗服务机构的管制，也包括对药品行业的管制和扭曲。医师的执业报酬体系经常处于灰色地带，并且受到医院和行业主管部门的双重管制，药品行业更是在产业政策下被不断扭曲，相关企业既无力自主研发，也缺乏合理和稳定的政策预期。

医疗市场的自由程度，可以从患者的医疗体验探知一二。尽管中国患者在公立医疗系统中更容易、更快捷地获得医疗服务，但是其选择却十分有限，在廉价公立医疗和顶尖私立医疗之间，也缺乏价格适中的替代服务，愿意支付平常挂号费五倍十倍的价格的患者，不得不和普通患者及黄牛党去争抢号源。而由于医生、药品制造商都依赖于且最终面向医院而非患者，服务提供商之间的竞争也是几乎不存在的。

因此，医疗福利差仅仅只是福利差而已，实在无需苦中作乐，自欺欺人。

“中国市场优势论”的第三个基础是劳动力市场的自由度，但我们很难将其与所谓的“低人权优势”区别开。一个普遍的错误理论是，基于劳资双方的合同自由，政府对雇佣关系限制越多，劳动力市场就越不自由；这种限制可以表现为最低工资、福利要求、税收规定、工作细节限制等。

然而，政府对劳动关系的限制的直接和最终表现，就是劳动力价格的普遍上涨，而低人权优势恰好在其相对面：劳动力价格的普遍降低且显著低于世界市场的价格，从而导致雇主企业的人力成本大大低于平均值，从而取得竞争优势。“中国市场优势论”在劳动力市场方面必然不是说，劳动力市场的自由度与劳动力的价格成反比，但从其现有论述而言，似乎正是此意。其所谓的政府对劳动力市场的干预措施无一不是直接和大幅导致了劳动力价格的上涨。

或许我们可以认为，雇主企业额外付出的劳动力成本是其在不自由的劳动力市场雇佣员工的必然代价。但是，工资、福利、税务安排、细节限制等事项，也并非不能由劳资双方自由协商而确定。政府对此等事项的干预，如同对任何其他事项的干预，就其本身而言的确对自由产生了负面影响，但在区分它们的来源之前，我们并不能说，较高水平的工资、福利、优惠税务安排等，导致了对自由的减损，更不能说，劳动者工资高、福利好的地区，劳动力市场自由度就低。

这种理论的根本性和有害的错误在于，它将劳动者和雇主的关系错误地理解为零和博弈，似乎，劳动者的福利多一分，雇主的自由就少一分，如果这一福利是政府要求的，那就等于政府在侵害劳动力市场的自由，这种要求越多，市场自由度就越低。然而，雇主也好，雇员也好，在政治经济自由的问题上，他们均是作为公民处于同一条战线，公民的（消极）自由多一分，政府的权力就少一分；^[2]雇主和雇员是自由结合、相互合作的关系，他们通过彼此提供资本、技术、生产条件、劳动力、知识、经验等，共同创造财富，按照约定分配。他们并不从彼此身上赚钱。

在这个基础上，我们仍要进一步区分，政府对劳动力市场的干预和支配如何分别损害了劳动力市场的自由。我们非常熟悉西方那一套劳动者福利制度，政府通过对最低工资、福利、税收（抵扣）、工作限制等事项进行立法或行政层面的强制，损害了劳动者和雇主的契约自由。然而，当且仅当劳动者和雇主的自由协商的结果落于法律和行政要求的红线之外时，它们才损害了劳动力市场的自由。尽管我们并不能否认政府横插一脚本身便是对自由的限制，但是规定腾讯或阿里的员工时薪不低于10元人民币/小时，又有什么意义呢？政府干预对劳动力市场自由度的负面影响虽然是现实的，但并非普遍的；劳动力的市场价格越高的地区，同等的法律和政策对劳动力市场自由的减损就越小。

但是，就政府对劳动者和雇主以及其合同关系的支配性权力而言，其对自由的限制就普遍得多了。例如，政府通过工作签证的签发限制本国企业雇佣外国劳动者，而工作签证的签发完全处于一国主权的任意性和支配性下。又例如，政府（甚至与司法机关串通）对雇员的性别比例、种族比例、宗教比例等进行的明示或默示的要求，其合规性几乎取决于政府的一念之间。再例如，政府通过税收征管政策和福利缴纳制度，直接影响了劳资双方的合同关系，工资发放的方式，以及劳动者实际获得的工作报酬的数额。除此之外，行政力量背书的各种工会组织肆意和愚蠢的社会运动，通过绑架整个地区的劳动者，损害绝大多数雇主和劳动者的自由，从而为自身的小群体牟取利益；行政力量背书的各种所谓劳动者权益监管组织或纠纷解决机构，在司法途径之外另立山头，对劳资纠纷任意做出符合其主观倾向的裁决和处理。

上述事项，无一不比所谓法定最低工资、福利制度、工作限制等更普遍、更严重、更肆意地损害者劳动力市场的自由，也非中国能够幸免。

综上所述，如果深刻观察支配性权力对市场的影响，不难发现，政府的直接干预措施仅仅是减损自由的一小方面，仅以此类干预措施以偏概全地宣称何者市场更自由，是缺乏依据的。

三、存量与变量不可偏废

我们固然应该反对任何对自由市场的干预和支配，但是，具体干预措施或支配状态的具体影响，并不足以得出自由与否或何者更加自由的结论。

一方面，干涉与支配都是损害自由的典型情形，它们彼此独立（至少根据相关领域学者的观点如此），且无高下之分，其自由主要以干涉形式受到限制的市场，与其自由主要以支配形式受到限制的市场，没有办法进行定量的比较。尽管共和主义者与纯粹的消极自由的支持者都宣称其自由观是“更好的”，即使自由观真有高下之分，我们也不能说，在“更好的”自由观下受到限制、而在“不那么好”的自由观下不受限制的市场，它享受的是虚假的自由，或它比反例更不自由。

另一方面，政府对市场的干预，是自由市场的变量，干涉与支配都是一种减损自由的情形，某一市场受到的自由减损更多，并不代表着它就比自由减损更少的市场更加不自由，因为它们受到干预前的基础状态是不同的。这也正是“瘦死的骆驼比马大”的道理。因此，以政府对市场的干涉和支配为视角，可以研究具体的公共政策对自由的影响，进而以某种政治理论为基础对这些公共政策进行价值评判，但是，如果不研究特定干预措施实行之前的市场的基础自由状态，在逻辑上，我们就无法仅以干预措施作为比较不同市场自由程度的依据。

因此，无论“中国市场优势论”的宣扬者们如何对美国等西方国家的市场干预政策极尽嘲讽，其唯一正面作用无非是使人们意识到天下乌鸦一般黑而已，它既无法改变这些国家即使饱受左翼思潮摧残也仍然要自由得多的事实，也将导致本不自由的中国市场借机更加固步自封。

A Starved Camel Is Still Bigger Than a Horse

— Why the Shackled American Market Remains Freer Than China’s

By Yang Xinghua & Timothy Huang

Recently, a popular view has circulated: freedom depends on the degree of protection for property rights; consequently, the fewer interventions in the powers attached to property rights, the greater the freedom. The conclusion then drawn is that, under left-wing currents of thought, the various restrictions imposed on real estate, healthcare, education, and diverse forms of commercial operation in Europe and the United States make them less free than China. In this article, I refer to this view as the “Chinese Market Superiority Thesis”.

This article will refute that view. Such claims fall into the one-sided trap of “freedom as non-interference”, overlooking other important facets of freedom. The attempt to establish a linear relationship between the exercise of the powers of property rights and negative liberty lacks a sound basis. While this line of argument is correct in recognising the harm done by Western leftists to the free market, its conclusion would wrongly bolster global confidence in China’s economic system. After all, reaching the right consensus on “which is better” is still of great importance.

I. Freedom as Non-Domination — A Republican Conception of Liberty

Since Isaiah Berlin, the dichotomy between positive and negative liberty has taken deep root. The former calls for active self-mastery and autonomy, while the latter requires the passive absence of interference, constraints, and obstacles. However, contemporary Republican theorists such as Quentin Skinner do not accept a purely negative concept of liberty. They hold that “the very existence of dominating power diminishes freedom”; they demand freedom from domination, rather than the “deceptive” freedom from interference.

This “free from what” question was originally a small subfield within political philosophy. Yet, as the aforementioned argument as mentioned earlier shows, ignoring the aspect of freedom as non-domination when judging the relative freedom of the Chinese and American markets leads to serious errors both in principle and in fact.

Hence, a brief introduction to this republican conception of liberty as freedom from domination is needed. As Pettit observes, the relationship between master and slave is a representative instance of domination (Pettit, 1997): the master holds arbitrary power over the slave, and yet it is indeed possible that, out of pity, tolerance, or other reasons, the master rarely interferes with them. He argues that the slave is never free, even if the master scarcely exercises arbitrary power; in other words, because domination exists, the slave is unfree, though the slave is not necessarily interfered with (Pettit, 1997; Skinner, 2008). This shows that, in the extreme case of an unfree subject, domination can exist independently of interference. Pettit further adds, “If a person does not occupy a dominated position in certain activities—if they are not subject to arbitrary interference—then however much non-arbitrary disturbance or obstruction they suffer, they still retain a sense of freedom” (1997: 26). The conclusion, therefore, is that interference as such does not suffice to cause the loss of freedom.

Skinner adds:

“…In light of this analysis, it is easy to see why these scholars insist that, if you are subject to another’s arbitrary power, you thereby lose your freedom. The reason is simple: you can no longer act or forbear according to your own will and desires. In principle, none of your actions can bear that character. When you act, you always do so by the forbearance of the master or ruler under whose power you live. As Sidney pointed out, you act only ‘by the prince’s grace; whatever he bestows he may also revoke’ (1990: 17). But as Sidney has already told us, liberty includes having an independent will, so anyone who ‘can neither dispose of himself nor of his goods, but enjoys everything only according to the will of his master’ must necessarily live in servitude (1990: 17)” (Skinner, 2008: 89).

Their view is not unassailable, but the concept of non-dominating liberty can offer valuable insights—especially into how freedom is constrained under arbitrary power, and into the fact that interference is not the only factor that can render a subject unfree. Thus, before making a decisive comparison between the two conceptions of liberty, when judging which market is freer we should consider both the interference to which market actors are subject and the domination they face. In particular, as argued below, the reduction of freedom caused by dominating power over market actors is far greater—and more pervasive—than mere direct government interference.

On this basis, we can explain why the “Chinese Market Superiority Thesis” is mistaken. Its proponents frequently invoke several stock cases: property tax, the marketisation of healthcare services, and labour laws. Each will be discussed in turn below.

II. Markets Under Dominating Power

The “Chinese Market Superiority Thesis” repeatedly contrasts the state of China’s property market with that of Western countries. For example, one article asks: why is land with perpetual freehold sold only at very low prices?

“For instance, a large farm in Australia covers 200,000 hectares and is priced at 75 million Australian dollars. On average, that amounts to just RMB 0.018 per square metre—only RMB 124 per mu. There are still billions of years left before the Earth’s extinction: if a square metre generates RMB 0.1 of output per year, then a square metre ought to be worth billions. Why, then, does it sell for only 0.018 RMB per square metre?”

The author then answers his own question: “To clarify this issue, we need to return to a basic concept of economics, namely the discount rate.” According to the author’s theory, the reason land and housing with perpetual tenure fail to fetch high prices—sometimes even lower than properties with 70/75-year leases in mainland China and Hong Kong—is ultimately that the subjective future value of property and land tends towards zero; furthermore, due to the widespread existence of property tax, owning property or land is equivalent to throwing oneself into a “flesh-shredding machine”, accelerating the trend towards zero. “The destructive force of property tax lies in its effect on everyone’s long-term expectations… Many Chinese who have gone to the United States to invest in property mostly regret it, because the value of urban property in China is actually higher.”

In my article “Why Property Tax Hasn’t Sent House Prices to Zero”, I have already pointed out that the discount rate is not an economic concept but an accounting one; the theory of human time preference within subjective value theory is entirely different from the accounting method of calculating the present value of specific future goods, and confusing the two yields the absurd conclusion that the exchange value of all goods is zero.

In this article, however, I focus on another aspect of that view, namely the claim that property tax is a heavy-handed government intervention in the real estate market that greatly diminishes the value of housing and land rights, and restricts their incidents (including maintenance, sale, and leasing), thereby rendering property markets with property taxes less free than those without.

Certainly, if the question posed is: does property tax impair freedom in the property market? The answer is undoubtedly yes. Any tax, more or less, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, damages freedom—this is beyond doubt. If the United States abolished property tax, then tomorrow’s American property market would surely be freer than today’s; if China introduced property tax, then tomorrow’s Chinese property market would surely be less free than today’s. This is beyond doubt.

However, the issue here is whether the presence or absence of property tax alone determines the relative extent of freedom of the two countries’ property markets. First, we must recognise that property tax is not the only instrument by which the government intervenes in the property market. In countries practising public ownership of land like China, the government, by controlling land supply and setting conditions for construction, use, and transaction, likewise imposes major interference on the incidents of property/usage rights in real estate. If a developer secures a land-use right but must build according to government requirements concerning floor count, form, spacing, green coverage, affordable housing quotas, and civil defence works; if sales must follow government rules on interior fit-out standards, total pricing, purchaser eligibility allocation, and signing procedures; if buyers must satisfy purchase restrictions, household registration, existing assets, and social insurance payment requirements to qualify; if, after purchase, fees for property management, heating, and utilities are paid according to government-set standards (rather than negotiated with managers or suppliers, and regardless of the actual quality of services), and use, sale, and leasing are restricted at the government’s discretion; if school catchment, healthcare entitlements, and other qualifications and implicit benefits associated with the property can be altered at will by the government—then in no sense can this be explained as a market freer than one merely subject to property tax.

More importantly, from the perspective of freedom as non-domination, the enactment of the above laws, regulations, rules, and policies is highly arbitrary, seldom passed through due process, and need not be constrained by the owners/users of real estate. Right-holders are wholly subject to the government’s arbitrary, dominating power; the security of their land and housing assets cannot be guaranteed. Such encroachments upon freedom are indisputably more severe than the property tax. If it were proposed that one pay an annual “protection fee” of 1% of a property’s fair value in exchange for certainty on the foregoing matters, few right-holders would refuse.

Another frequently cited field by proponents of the “Chinese Market Superiority Thesis” is healthcare. For a long time, Western countries, influenced by welfarism, have dramatically increased public medical spending and built near-free public health systems, whose service quality and efficiency have increasingly been criticised. When attacking public medical insurance, advocates of the thesis say:

“Good doctors will leave public hospitals and the insurance system. Want high-quality care? No problem—go private, but don’t expect reimbursement from public insurance. The not-so-good doctors will idle away their days within the insurance system. Since doctors and teachers are treated as if they shouldn’t earn money while other trades can, they truly become ‘abnormal’, lying there to muddle along and live off the system.”

As with the discussion of property tax above, if the question is whether the welfare/near-universal healthcare systems common in Western countries—and their attendant restrictions on cross-regional practice, lengthy GP appointments, and bed allocation mechanisms—damage the freedom of healthcare, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Public hospitals and public insurance distort price signals in the medical services market, restrict supply, and administratively suppress demand, undoubtedly inflicting major harm on the free market and contributing to declining service quality.

However, does this mean that China’s healthcare market—operating with only a limited basic insurance scheme and using economic instruments to support medical institutions—is thereby freer? The same analytical logic applies: we must pay attention to the diversity of interference mechanisms and to the dominating influence upon healthcare providers.

On the one hand, while limited basic insurance certainly has a far smaller negative impact on taxation and public spending than welfare/universal free healthcare, when it comes to the freedom of the medical services market, both significantly restrict the range of medicines doctors may use, with China additionally imposing constraints around traditional Chinese patent medicines. Without using these imperfectly matched medicines, one cannot benefit from insurance. This situation is common across the world under public healthcare systems of varying scope, and it has no direct relation to the precise level and coverage of medical protection.

On the other hand, the administrative governance system of the healthcare market constitutes an indispensable dominating power. It includes regulation of practising physicians and medical institutions, as well as control and distortion of the pharmaceutical industry. Physicians’ remuneration systems often operate in a grey zone and are subject to dual control by hospitals and supervisory departments. The pharmaceutical industry has been repeatedly distorted by industrial policy, leaving enterprises unable to conduct autonomous R&D and lacking reasonable and stable policy expectations.

The degree of freedom in the medical market can be gleaned from patients’ experiences. Although Chinese patients can access services more easily and quickly within the public system, their choices are very limited. Between cheap public provision and elite private care, there is a lack of mid-priced alternatives. Patients willing to pay five or ten times the standard registration fee must still compete with ordinary patients and scalpers for appointments. And because doctors and drug manufacturers both depend on—and ultimately serve—hospitals rather than patients, competition among providers is virtually non-existent.

Thus, poorer healthcare welfare is merely poorer welfare; there is no need to sugar-coat hardship and deceive oneself.

The third foundation of the “Chinese Market Superiority Thesis” concerns the freedom of the labour market; yet it is hard to distinguish this from the so-called “low human-rights advantage”. A common but erroneous theory holds that, based on contractual freedom between labour and capital, the more restrictions the government imposes on employment relations, the less free the labour market becomes; such restrictions can take the form of minimum wages, benefit requirements, tax rules, and constraints on work details.

However, the direct and ultimate manifestation of government restrictions on labour relations is a general rise in labour prices. The “low human-rights advantage” lies precisely on the opposite side: a general depression of labour prices well below the world market level, enabling employers’ labour costs to be far lower than average and thus to gain a competitive advantage. The “Chinese Market Superiority Thesis” cannot be saying that labour-market freedom is inversely related to the price of labour, but from its present arguments, that seems to be the implication. Every one of its cited government interventions in the labour market directly and substantially raises labour prices.

Perhaps we may say that the extra labour costs paid by employers are the necessary price of hiring in an unfree labour market. Yet wages, benefits, tax arrangements, and detailed restrictions are not necessarily beyond the reach of free negotiation between labour and capital. Government interference in such matters, like interference in any other, indeed has a negative impact on freedom in itself; but before distinguishing their sources, we cannot claim that higher wages, better benefits, or favourable tax arrangements diminish freedom—still less can we claim that where workers’ pay is high and benefits generous, labour-market freedom is low.

The fundamental and harmful error here is to misconstrue the relationship between workers and employers as a zero-sum game, as if a gain in workers’ welfare necessarily entails a loss in employers’ freedom, and if such welfare is mandated by government, it thereby infringes market freedom—the more the mandates, the lower the freedom. Yet employers and employees, on matters of political and economic freedom, stand on the same front as citizens: a gain in citizens’ (negative) freedom is a loss in government power. Employers and employees are freely associated, mutually co-operating parties who together create wealth by contributing capital, technology, production conditions, labour, knowledge, and experience, and who distribute it by agreement. They do not “earn from each other”.

On this basis, we must further distinguish how government interference and domination of workers, employers, and their contractual relations respectively restrict freedom in the labour market. We are very familiar with Western welfare arrangements for workers: by legislating or administratively mandating minimum wages, benefits, tax (deductions), and work constraints, the government infringes upon the contractual freedom of labour and capital. However, only when the results of free negotiation fall outside the legal and administrative red lines do these measures restrict freedom in the labour market. While we cannot deny that any governmental intrusion is itself a constraint on freedom, what is the practical meaning of stipulating that Tencent or Alibaba must pay no less than RMB 10 per hour? The negative impact of government interference on labour-market freedom is real but not universal; the higher the market price of labour in a region, the smaller the reduction in freedom caused by the same laws and policies.

By contrast, as for the government’s dominating power over workers, employers, and their contracts, the restriction of freedom is far more pervasive. For example, by controlling the issuance of work visas, a government restricts domestic firms from hiring foreign workers, and visa issuance lies wholly within a state’s arbitrary sovereign discretion. Or again, explicit or implicit requirements regarding employees’ gender, race, or religion—sometimes in collusion with judicial authorities—are deemed compliant or not almost at the government’s whim. Further, through tax enforcement and social insurance contribution systems, the government directly affects contractual relations, the mode of wage payment, and the actual amount of remuneration workers receive. Beyond this, various trade unions buttressed by administrative power mount arbitrary and foolish social movements that, by hijacking the labour force of an entire region, damage the freedom of the vast majority of employers and workers in order to secure benefits for a small clique. Likewise, so-called supervisory bodies for workers’ rights or dispute-resolution agencies, backed by administrative power, set up parallel fiefdoms outside judicial channels and render arbitrary decisions aligned with their subjective inclinations in labour disputes.

None of the above is less pervasive, less serious, or less wanton in harming labour-market freedom than statutory minimum wages, benefit systems, or work restrictions—and China is by no means exempt.

In sum, a deep observation of the impact of dominating power on markets reveals that direct governmental interference is but a small part of the reduction of freedom. To generalise from such measures alone and declare one market freer than another is unfounded.

III. Stock and Flow Must Both Be Considered

While we ought to oppose any interference with and domination over the free market, the specific impacts of particular interventions or states of domination are insufficient to yield conclusions about whether a market is free or which is freer.

On the one hand, both interference and domination are paradigmatic forms of harm to freedom; they are independent of each other (at least according to scholars in the field), and neither is inherently superior. A market whose freedom is mainly restricted by interference and one whose freedom is mainly restricted by domination cannot be quantified and compared. Even if republican and purely negative conceptions of liberty both claim to be “better”, and even if one conception truly were better, we still cannot say that a market restricted under the “better” conception while unrestricted under the “less good” conception enjoys a spurious freedom—or that it is less free than its counterpart.

On the other hand, government interference with the market is a variable in the free market. Both interference and domination are forms of freedom-reduction. A market suffering greater reductions in freedom does not thereby become less freer than a market suffering less reduction, because their baseline states of freedom prior to intervention are different. This is precisely the sense in which “a starved camel is still bigger than a horse”. Therefore, viewing matters solely through the lens of governmental interference and domination may help us study the impact of specific public policies on freedom and, on the basis of some political theory, to evaluate them. But unless we also examine the baseline freedom of a market before particular interventions are implemented, we cannot, as a matter of logic, use interventions alone as the basis for comparing the degrees of freedom across markets.

Accordingly, however strenuously the advocates of the “Chinese Market Superiority Thesis” ridicule market-intervention policies in the United States and other Western countries, the sole positive effect is merely to make people aware that “all crows are equally black”. It cannot alter the fact that, even after being ravaged by left-wing currents, those countries remain far freer; nor can it do anything but encourage China’s already unfree market to become even more closed and complacent.

^[1] 关于这一争论，可参见Skinner, Quentin (1998). Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge.以及Skinner, Quentin (2002). “A Third Concept of Liberty.” Proceedings of the British Academy, 117, 237–68. 以及菲利普·佩蒂特的相关著作Pettit, Philip (1997). Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford；Pettit, Philip (2001). A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency. Oxford；Pettit, Philip (2002). “Keeping Republican Freedom Simple: On a Difference with Quentin Skinner.” Political Theory, 30, 339–56.