Ma Liang
He is a full-time researcher at the National Institute of Development and Strategic Studies, Chinese Min University, and a professor at the School of Public Administration
The 21st meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform deliberated and adopted the Opinions on Strengthening Anti-Monopoly and Deepening the Implementation of Fair Competition Policies, proposing to strengthen anti-monopoly, further promote the implementation of fair competition policies, promote the formation of a fair competition market environment, create a broad development space for all kinds of market entities, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, better protect consumer rights and interests, and build a new development pattern, promote high-quality development, and promote common prosperity.
The precondition for the operation of the market economy is fair competition between enterprises and the survival of the fittest. When the market tends to be concentrated for some reason, problems such as monopolies, oligopolies and unfair competition will appear, and bring harm to economic operation, scientific and technological innovation and social equity. Monopoly enterprises may abuse their dominant market position to manipulate prices, so that the legitimate rights and interests of consumers are infringed, and a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises cannot enter the industry to participate in competition; monopolies will also make capital and power highly concentrated to a small number of people, widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Therefore, anti-monopoly is not only an economic issue, but also a social issue, but also a political issue. Only by strengthening anti-monopoly can we substantively promote common prosperity.
If in the past, China's market monopoly was mainly manifested as the division of regional markets brought about by administrative intervention and local protectionism, then the current market monopoly is closely related to the rise of the platform economy. It should be affirmed that the platform economy has played an active role in promoting scientific and technological progress, prospering the market economy, facilitating people's lives, and participating in international competition, and has also made contributions to national strategies such as innovation and entrepreneurship, targeted poverty alleviation, rural revitalization, and common prosperity. However, the natural attributes of the platform economy are economies of scale and network effects. With the involvement and blessing of capital, the platform economy pursues the principle of winner-take-all and one-size-fits-all, making the problem of monopoly and unfair competition increasingly prominent.
Whether it is "choosing one of the two", or unfair price competition, whether it is "big data killing", or personal information leakage, it can be said that it is a series of market failures brought about by the monopoly of the platform economy. When platform enterprises have the right to live and kill, and adopt the attitude of "those who follow us and those who oppose us perish" for small and medium-sized enterprises, the platform economy will go in the opposite direction of its original intention, posing a threat to a diversified and healthy and dynamic market economy.
The meeting of the Deep Reform Commission stressed that it is necessary to coordinate development and safety, efficiency and fairness, vitality and order, domestic and international, adhere to the equal emphasis on regulatory norms and the promotion of development, both hands must be hard, clear rules, draw the bottom line, and set up a "traffic light". This means to promote the development of the platform economy in the norms, improve in the development, and achieve a dynamic balance between healthy norms and efficient development.
Interviewing, removing shelves, and imposing huge fines on platform enterprises is not the purpose, but to guide them to uphold the concept of science and technology for good, tolerate the common development of more small and medium-sized enterprises, and promote the common prosperity of the whole society. It is necessary to make the platform economy move from "no grass under the big tree" to "good shade under the big tree", provide development space for more scientific and technological innovation and new business models, drive the coordinated development of small and medium-sized enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households, and let consumers win more new consumption dividends.
In the future, it is crucial to accelerate the improvement of a series of basic systems, such as the market access system, the fair competition review mechanism, the fair competition supervision system in the digital economy, and the prevention and suppression of the abuse of administrative power to eliminate and restrict competition, so that anti-monopoly policies can have more hands.
At the same time, we must also be vigilant against new problems brought about by government failure. Compared with platform enterprises with deep wealth and strong strength, the regulatory resources, talents and capabilities of government departments are still far from enough, the lag, powerlessness and ineffectiveness of supervision are still very prominent, and the predictability and transparency of supervision are not enough. It is necessary to embrace new regulatory concepts such as responsive supervision, forward-looking supervision, agile supervision, smart supervision, and behavior supervision, introduce and innovate regulatory tools that adapt to the new economic form, avoid regulatory failures, and enable regulatory departments to better meet the market supervision requirements of the new era.
(Originally published in Half Moon Talk, No. 19, 2021)
Source: Half Moon Talk
WeChat Editor: Tu Cheng
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