美国家庭住户债务增长的成因与影响——一个政治经济学的分析

构成美国经济增长动力的"大众高额消费"背后是"家庭住户高额债务"。工人负债支付劳动力生产费用,典型表现在信用卡购买日常生活资料和支付生活费用(含医疗费用)、底层工人家庭利用次级贷款购买住房、工人子女借贷支付公立高等教育费用。在对平均利润率趋向下降的规律起反作用的各种原因里,"把工资压低到劳动力的价值以下"是最显著的一个。为了解决再生产出来的价值的实现,即剩余价值的实现的问题,把工人必要的消费基金的一部分转化为资本授予的信用就成为资本主义生产关系再生产的条件。家庭住户债务深刻地影响着资本主义的生产和积累:债务使工人不得不承受更高的剥削率,增加了剩余价值的生产;劳动力生产费用的一部分转化为资本的利息。借贷消费在流通领域暂时缓解剩余价值实现的困难;在生产领域使分配制度进一步极化,生产过剩的矛盾和社会撕裂的矛盾不可避免。

Causes and Impact of the US Household Debt Growth:An Analysis of Political Economy

Underlying the"high mass consumption",which constitutes a stimulus to the US economic growth,is the"high household debt".Workers have to borrow to pay the labor production costs,which is typically manifested in their purchase of daily living materials and payment of living expenses(including medical expenses)by credit cards,the purchase of housing by bottom-class workers’families with subprime loans,and working-class children’s payment of public higher-education expenses by loan.Among the various factors counteracting the law of declining average profit margins,"pushing wages below the labor force value"is the most significant one.In order to solve the problem of realizing the value of reproduction,i.e.the realization of surplus value,converting part of the necessary consumption fund of workers into the credit granted by capital has become a condition for the reproduction of capitalist relations of production.Household debt has profound impact on the capitalist production and accumulation.Because of debt,workers have to endure a higher rate of exploitation,which increases the production of surplus value.Part of labor production costs is converted into capital interests.Borrowing for consumption temporarily alleviates the difficulty of realizing surplus value in the field of circulation.In the field of production,it further polarizes the distribution system.As a result,the contradictions concerning overproduction and social tearing will be inevitable.