哈佛把脉美国政治体系

    美国的政治进程还有希望吗？上周，一群来自哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）的教师参加了在美国首都华盛顿新闻博物馆（Newseum）举行的研讨会。他们讨论的结果是，美国政治进程的前景非常渺茫。包括一位现任参议员和美国劳工总会与产业劳工组织（AFL-CIO）的政策主任在内的一些华盛顿要人也出席了该活动，他们也做出了同样悲观的判断。

    如果你问问哈佛商学院毕业生的意见，你很可能也会得到同样悲观的回答。根据今年一份对10,000名哈佛商学院毕业生进行的调查，美国的政治体系的得分比其他任何机构都要低。约有80%的受访者表示，华盛顿正在拖美国的后腿，导致美国在世界舞台上竞争乏力。

    那么应该怎样应对这种局面？哈佛商学院的教师们似乎采取了一种迂回战术。他们最近发起了一个“美国竞争力项目”（the U.S. Competitiveness Project），主要研究在没有美国政府的帮助下，企业可以自行采取哪些行动来提高美国的竞争力。不过他们也给政府出了一些点子。在上周的活动中，美国竞争力项目的联合主席迈克尔•波特和简•里夫金公布了一项计划，以应对波特所谓的“自二战乃至更早以来，对美国竞争力的最大威胁”。这个计划的未来听起来似乎会硕果累累，不过关键还是在于如何让果实从树上掉下来。

    在哈佛教师们给出的建议表上，以下几项首当其冲：首先要放宽对技术工人的移民限制，简化税收条例，消除漏洞，改善国家的基础设施建设。此外还要制定一个具有可持续发展潜力的预算。在这一点上可以学习之前的鲍尔斯-辛普森计划。该计划本可以有效削减赤字，可惜最终还是惨遭搁浅。

    人们很难对这些提议表示反对。波特指出：“我们通过研究发现，人们在某些领域上存在广泛的共识。”在好几个议题，劳工和业界的意见甚至存在着很大的重合，这种情况就算在假设的条件下都很难实现。哈佛商学院院长尼丁•诺利亚表示：“我们本来以为劳工和业界会在这些问题上存在重大分歧。”不过，广泛的共识并不代表就能轻而易举地催生立法。特拉华州的民主党参议员克里斯•库恩斯表示：“虽然一些领域存在共识，但要想在今天的国会推动立法过关依然很困难。”

    究竟有多难，问问奥巴马总统或白宫发言人约翰•贝纳就明白了。据说他们二人去年7月私下敲定了一个债务方案。不过提案刚一提交到立法程序，就立刻在一片口水声中被打入了冷宫。此事直接导致了美国信用评级的降级，现在美国国会又将针对提高债务限额发起新一轮投票，国会很可能再次上演一模一样的剧情。商业界几乎一致认为，如果美国的主权债务违约，将会对美国经济造成灾难性的影响。不过商业界的共识似乎不会对政界的谈判产生太大影响。

    那么商界自己可以做些什么？哈佛的美国竞争力项目正在推动企业界尽可能地承担起责任。波特表示，这不仅仅是出于慈善的道义，更是由于一个强大的、有竞争力的美国对全球经济有好处，同样也对在全球经济中博弈的企业有好处。不过哈佛的这个工程对那些只想弃船自保的企业来说并不划算。

    Is there any hope for America's political process? Not much, was the answer from the group of Harvard Business School faculty gathered in Washington D.C.'s Newseum last week. Same thing from a panel of D.C. heavy hitters who also showed up for the event, including a sitting U.S. Senator and the director of policy for the AFL-CIO.

    You'll also likely get the same glum response if you ask Harvard's business grads. In a surveyreleased this year of 10,000 Harvard B-school graduates, the nation's political system received worse marks than any other institution. Some 80% of respondents said D.C. was holding the country back from competing on the world stage.

    What to do about it? Faculty members at the Harvard Business School seem to have taken an end-run approach. Their recent major initiative, the U.S. Competitiveness Project, focuses on what businesses can do to improve the United States' standing without Washington's help. But they have some ideas for government, too. At last week's event, the project's co-chairs, professors Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin, unpacked a plan to address what Porter calls the greatest threat to U.S. competitiveness since World War II or before. The agenda they are putting forward is laden with what sounds like low-hanging fruit -- the trick is getting any of those apples to fall from their trees.

    A few priorities topped Harvard's wish list: Ease immigration regulations for skilled workers. Simplify the tax code and eliminate loopholes. Improve the nation's infrastructure. And enact a sustainable budget, possibly one resembling the widely praised but dead-in-the-water Bowles-Simpson plan that would have slashed the deficit.

    It's hard to argue with these proposals. "We've found through our research that there are areas of wide consensus," Porter said. On several of the issues, there's even substantial overlap between labor and industry, an alliance that's hard to forge even in hypothetical terms. "These are divides that we had thought were important divides," says Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria. But wide agreement does not pave an easy path to legislation. "It's very difficult to move from areas of private consensus to actual passage in today's Congress," said Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware.

    Just ask President Obama or House Speaker John Boehner. The two men were said to have privately hashed out a debt deal last July, but the agreement quickly melted in the spotlight once it came time to legislate. The spectacle, which resulted in a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, seems likely to repeat itself this year as Congress moves toward another vote on raising the debt ceiling. There is near-universal consensus in the business world that it would be disastrous for the U.S. economy if the country were to default on its sovereign debt. However, agreement within the business world doesn't seem to have had much of an impact on negotiations so far.

    So what's the business community to do? Harvard is pushing for companies to take on as much social responsibility as they can bear. It's not for the sake of charity, Porter says. It's because a strong and competitive U.S. is good for the global economy as well as the businesses that are based there. The HBS project has determined that it's not cost-effective for companies to simply jump ship, either.