Question 2: What does virtual economy mean?

The report of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "the relationship between virtual economy and real economy" should be correctly handled. At present, there are many sayings about "virtual economy". What is "virtual economy"?

Expert analysis

When discussing "taking a new road to industrialization", the report of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that it is necessary to "correctly handle the relationship between developing high-tech industries and traditional industries, capital-technology-intensive industries and labor-intensive industries, and virtual economy and real economy." Among the personal capital involved here, the "virtual economy" first appeared in the official documents of the party and the state.

"Virtual economy" is a new word that has only appeared in recent years. At present, the research on virtual economy in China is in the ascendant, and it is still in the stage of a hundred schools of thought contending. Even some university professors feel that "the reference to' virtual economy' is rather chaotic now". Generally speaking, it can be summarized into four kinds of statements.

The first kind of understanding

Cheng Siwei's definition

Cheng Siwei's definition is: "Virtual economy refers to the economic activities related to circular movement in which virtual capital mainly relies on the financial system, which is simply based on Qian Shengqian".

Regarding the "circular movement", Cheng Siwei said: At present, the circulation of the virtual economy is to change money into white bars, stocks and bonds in the financial market; Then, at an appropriate time, IOUs, stocks and bonds will be converted back into money and directly converted into Qian Shengqian.

There are three main points in this statement: one is to use "virtual capital" as a definition; The second is to "directly" participate in activities in Qian Shengqian; The third is "in the financial market".

This statement has the greatest impact. This is not because Cheng Siwei is the vice chairman of the National People's Congress, nor because he is a famous economist, but because he is an authoritative expert and leading figure in the study of virtual economy in China. He is also the honorary director of the Virtual Economy and Management Research Center of Nankai University. The center is the first professional research institution named after "virtual economy" in China.

In addition to Professor Li Xiaoxi, director of the Virtual Economy and Management Research Center of Nankai University, there are economists, professors from East China Normal University and Beijing Normal University, Li Yuzhong, Jiang Xiuqian, Department of National Economic Management of Renmin University of China, and Tao from Nanjing Institute of Economics.

The second understanding

Covering the concept of financial industry

Wang Guogang, the financial research center of China Academy of Social Sciences, believes that in economic operation, "virtual economy" is a concept used to describe economic activities formed by holding and trading rights and interests in the form of tickets. In modern economy, it mainly refers to the financial industry. Virtual economy includes not only securities industry, capital market and money market, but also banking industry and foreign exchange market, which is a concept covering financial industry.

Li Jiange, an economic expert, used "economic symbol" and "symbolic economy" to describe "virtual economy", which is actually the same point of view.

Cheng Siwei thinks that virtual economy contains more contents than finance, and some contents in finance do not belong to virtual economy. The essence of venture capital is the combination of knowledge capital and financial capital (equity capital). Intellectual capital is a kind of virtual capital, but it is obviously not included in the financial category.

The third kind of understanding

Economics of Capitalization Movement

The fundamental difference between this understanding and the first understanding is that it pays attention to capital and avoids "virtual capital".

Chen Huai, deputy director of the Institute of Market Economy of the State Council Development Research Center, believes that the fictitious economy is the economy of capitalization movement. Capital moves in the form of value divorced from the real economy, which is the fundamental embodiment of the virtual attribute of the virtual economy. The foundation of the existence and development of virtual economy is property right transaction. The symbol of the high development of market economy is that property rights themselves have become the object of market transactions.

Professor Song of Tsinghua University believes that finance is an important part of virtual economy, and capital market is the core part of virtual economy.

In a post published on the Internet on March 28th, 2003, Final Fantasy X emphasized that to study the virtual economy, we must first study the value of capital. "Capital can also create value".

The fourth understanding

The new economy is a "virtual economy"

The reason for this view is that the starting point of the new economy is virtual space and virtual society. Television is not only a virtual living space, but also a representation of real space. In the network era, this space will not only become an important space for human survival, but also a great wealth of human society.

Jiang Qiping believes that the virtual economy in the sense of reorganizing information space is the virtual economy in the sense of new economy. Putting information space as a framework system on the national economy will form a generalized virtual economy (or information economy). Information space includes manuals; Virtual space, floating space and network society in Castel's trilogy of information age.

The crux of the disagreement

Three kinds of "emptiness"

The crux of different understanding of "virtual economy" lies in that people use the word "virtual" in three senses at the same time.

There are three words in English that we have all translated into "virtual economy". Cheng Siwei has investigated this.

One word is virtual economy, which comes from Marx's concept of "virtual capital". This is Mr. Cheng Siwei's "virtual economy", which refers to the trading activities of virtual capital such as securities, futures and options.

The second word is VirtualEconomy, which mainly refers to the economic operation mode based on information technology, such as e-commerce. , namely "network economy".

The third word is VisualEconomy, which refers to visual economic activities that simulate actual economic activities on a computer.

These three words are easily confused when translated into "virtual economy". Therefore, Mr. Cheng Siwei advocates the translation of "virtual economy", "virtual economy" and "visual economy".

Cheng Siwei's definition of "virtual economy" comes from Marx's concept of "virtual capital". Marx's "virtual capital" is virtual capital in English and fiktivesKapital in German.

Therefore, Cheng Siwei's understanding of "virtual economy" is the virtual economy in English.

According to Marx's theory, the essence of capital can be summarized as two points, one is that it must have value, and the other is that it must produce surplus value. Securities capital itself has no value, but it can produce some form of surplus value, so Marx called it virtual capital. According to Mr. Cheng Siwei, the so-called "emptiness" is because there is a certain similarity between unreal things and real things, so this unreal thing is simulated as a similar real thing.

The problem is that the original meanings of "fiction" in English and "fiktives" in German are false, illusory, fictional and illusory. In Marx's eyes, all speculation, bubbles and even financial crises are caused by the excessive development of virtual capital. Using the virtual economy in the sense of Marx's "virtual capital", it is also easy to dismiss the bubble phenomenon in the monetary economy as a virtual economy, which is equivalent to a bubble economy.

Therefore, Li Jiange and other experts and scholars believe that the English word for the virtualeconomy, which is symmetrical with the real economy, should be Virtual Economy. In the English version of the report of the 16th National Congress published by China, "virtual economy" was used.

Cheng Siwei is honorary director of the Virtual Economy and Management Research Center of Nankai University. In the English name of the homepage of the website, "Virtual Economy" is also used as "virtual economy".

"virtualeconomy" corresponds to English virtual economy, but it also has troubles. In Britain and America, especially in the United States, "virtual economy" refers to "network economy". In the past two years, due to the so-called "virtual economy", the network economy has formed a bubble expansion, and the bursting of the bubble has caused heavy losses to investors. At present, this "virtual economy" is considered as a kind of conceptual speculation and a "mild lie" in the United States.

Therefore, the fourth understanding of "virtual economy" cannot be adopted.

Two characteristics of virtual economy: one is economy, and the other is virtuality.

The so-called economy, that is, value symbols and their exchange are also based on labor value. There is no exchange of value and value, which has nothing to do with economy, so it is not economical. Moreover, the value symbol can also be reduced to a value entity, that is, from virtual to reality. Whether it is paper money, stocks, electronic money or other negotiable instruments, their issuance and circulation are based on value and credibility. They represent real value, represent real value, and can also serve the real economy. As the distribution basis of value symbols, reputation has great acceptance risk.

The so-called virtuality means that its exchange is virtual in form rather than physical, and it only takes the value symbol as the transaction object rather than physical. Virtual economy only trades value symbols, not tangible goods. Paper money is not a value entity, but a value symbol; This symbol is divorced from the value entity and becomes the shadow of the entity value. When value symbols and value entities are separated for a long time, and speculative transactions are completed during this period, this separation becomes another way of existence of value, that is, the free way of existence of value, which is virtual reality. Paper money is the way of existence of this free value, and hot money is the concrete manifestation of their existence. The value of paper money is undeniable. Especially today, the value of paper money is holographic. It is a symbol of a country's reputation and value scale, and also a comprehensive embodiment of a country's comprehensive national strength such as political strength and cultural strength. Only when the country's comprehensive strength, including economic strength, scientific and technological strength, military strength, political strength and cultural strength, is fully strong, the country's currency is a strong currency. Under such circumstances, a country's currency is endowed with more non-objective material labor value, that is, it may be endowed with more political value. When a country's comprehensive strength rises or falls, it may affect the value represented by its currency.

As a manifestation of value, capital can only be classified as virtual economy if it is not exchanged with physical objects, but only with physical objects, that is, value symbols.

Futures contract is only a long-term commodity purchase and sale contract, and the purchase and sale of futures contracts is not a real physical commodity transaction, but can only be classified as virtual economy.

The trading platform based on value symbols belongs to the category of virtual economy. Banks, capital markets, securities markets, foreign exchange markets and futures markets can all be counted as virtual economies.

Information plays an important role in virtual economic activities. Although openness and transparency is a basic principle of developed market economy, there are differences in mastering information. For virtual economy trading activities, information asymmetry has become an important basis for trading profits. A master in virtual economic activities, good at using information, reputation and future prospects to create profits. It is an objective economic phenomenon that information turns into profit. Information is the reflection and crystallization of labor practice in human society, and it is also the product of labor. It should also have value, but its value is difficult to measure accurately and can only be decided by both parties in the transaction process. The identification of information value and the completion of the transaction have completed the transformation of information from non-commodity to commodity. It is the main feature of the information society that information is mined, used and traded in large quantities to create profits.