【经济学家20120128】中国繁荣之悖论
本帖最后由 woikuraki 于 2012-3-31 16:46 编辑【中文标题】中国繁荣之悖论
【原文标题】The paradox of prosperity
【登载媒体】经济学家
【原文链接】http://www.economist.com/node/21543537
在中国继续崛起的过程中，它必须改变运作如此完美的模式。
在这一期杂志中，我们用一系列文章来专门关注中国。自从1942年我们全面、详细地报道美国之后，这还是第一次用这样的方式来专注某一个国家。主要原因是，中国已经成为了一个经济强国，其军事力量已经足以让美国坐立不安。我们对中国的兴趣还在于其政治方面：这个国家的统治方式与全球通行惯例背道而驰，无论是战后的日本还是当今的印度，都与中国大相径庭。中国必将在未来很长一段时间里继续让世界着迷、焦虑。
仅在20年前，中国还算不上一个全球超级力量。1989×××之后，这个国家的经济改革进程遭到了保守派的威胁，并且被国际社会所孤立。到了1992年，已故的邓小平就像一个帝王履行仪式一样，到思想最开放的省份进行了一次“南巡”。这个塑造了现代中国的人对改革表达了极为明确的支持态度，这是他职业生涯中的神来之笔。从此，经济的变化一日千里。
与发达国家经济发展的黄金时期相比，中国的发展让我们看到了更多的冷酷和无情。社会在浮华的表面下痛苦地呻吟——邓在多年前巡视过的广东省乌坎村的骚乱、四川藏族人聚居区的民族紧张气氛、房地产泡沫破裂的恐怖感，所有这些都显示出，历史的必然发展让共产党的工作难于上青天。
党在多年的成功经验里总结出一成不变的管理方式，那就是管制。于是，那些异见人士——比如余杰，被公安人员折磨后从中国逃往美国——频繁遭到骚扰，这种行为引起的反作用让党的工作更加难以开展。它现在需要深谙“放手”的艺术。
中国的第三次革命
问题又回到了邓的思想上，也就是说如果没有经济发展，共产党就会像苏联和东欧国家一样成为历史。他抛弃了腐朽的政治理念，用新型的经济理论取而代之。党内各级干部用巨大的热情，一心一意地重塑中国，西方人借此机会接触到一些专制体制的内情。他们不但改革了中国那些规模大得异乎寻常的国有企业，还让一些知识界精英有机会掌权。
政治掌权下的市场改革取得了巨大的成功，中国在过去二十年里的发展程度超过了历史上任何一个阶段的经济发展。平均每年经济增长10％，4.4亿人口脱离贫困——历史上从未出现过如此庞大的脱贫现象。
但随着中国继续崛起，这种模式不可继续沿用了，因为中国和整个世界都在变化。
中国成功度过了全球经济危机，但是为了保持可持续性增长，中国的经济需要从投资和出口转向本地消费。这种转型取决于经济增长战利品的合理分配制度。当前，中国的银行把工人们的储蓄大把塞在国有企业手中，剥夺了工人消费能力，也让私有企业失去了发展资金。因此，当让中国经济腾飞的资源——比如廉价的土地和劳动力——逐渐稀缺之后，政府的大笔资金等于打了水漂。放松对金融体系的管制可以让消费者有更强大的消费实力，还可以更合理地分配投资。
即使目前相对缓和的发展速度也造成了一些社会不安定因素，很多人认为这个国家宏伟的发展成果中，只有极小一部分落入人们的口袋中。在城市里工作的农民工被看作是二等公民；他们没有机会享受医疗和教育服务；地方政府肆意攫取土地是底层愤怒的主要导火索；无节制的工业化进程毒害了农作物和居民；腐败愈加嚣张。和以前不一样，愤怒的人们现在可以在互联网上相互沟通。
党内官员认为不安定因素是自由主义的危险迹象。人口流动或许可以帮助中国保持增长，但也蕴含着不稳定因素。工人们的抗议会破坏生产计划，威胁到繁荣的前景。基层社会的躁动有可能导致社会混乱。在新一届领导人即将上台之际，官员们对这些危险因素极为敏感。
这种对加紧控制的偏执是可以理解的，也不仅仅是出于利己的考虑。爱国人士令人信服地说，大部分人都有足够的个人生存空间，相比与社会稳定和自由权力，他们更看重前者。毕竟，阿拉伯春天在中国没有掀起任何波澜。
然而，有些权力在中国人看来还是需要的。农民工在全国流动时，希望保留有限的教育、医疗和养老金权力。扩大各级组织的自由度，会帮助而不是阻碍国家的经济发展。工会将阻止突然、自发性的罢工，以保证生产活动的审理进行。压力集团会严密监控腐败行为。寺庙、修道院、教堂和清真寺劝导富裕的中国人行善。宗教和文化组织让人们了解到，超越无休止追求经济发展的人生意义。
当前的任务
中国血腥的发展道路让共产党最害怕社会混乱。但是，历史还提供了其它的先例，痴迷于绝对权力的人往往到头两手空空。党内的情况已经逐渐发生了变化，因此矛盾之处就是中国为了成功，必须否定自己成功的道路。
对这个问题感兴趣的不仅仅是外国人，还包括中国本土的知识分子。无论中国今后依然保持独裁、封闭的状态，还是分裂后各自发展，还是像我们所希望的那样，变得更加自由、更加繁荣，都不仅仅决定了中国的未来，也将左右全球的发展方向。
原文：
IN THIS issue we launch a weekly section devoted to China. It is the first time since we began our detailed coverage of the United States in 1942 that we have singled out a country in this way. The principal reason is that China is now an economic superpower and is fast becoming a military force capable of unsettling America. But our interest in China lies also in its politics: it is governed by a system that is out of step with global norms. In ways that were never true of post-war Japan and may never be true of India, China will both fascinate and agitate the rest of the world for a long time to come.
Only 20 years ago, China was a long way from being a global superpower. After the protests in Tiananmen Square led to a massacre in 1989, its economic reforms were under threat from conservatives and it faced international isolation. Then in early 1992, like an emperor undertaking a progress, the late Deng Xiaoping set out on a “southern tour” of the most reform-minded provinces. An astonishing endorsement of reform, it was a masterstroke from the man who made modern China. The economy has barely looked back since.
Compared with the rich world’s recent rocky times, China’s progress has been relentless. Yet not far beneath the surface, society is churning. Recent village unrest in Wukan in Guangdong, one province that Deng toured all those years ago; ethnic strife this week in Tibetan areas of Sichuan; the gnawing fear of a house-price crash: all are signs of the centrifugal forces making the Communist Party’s job so hard.
The party’s instinct, born out of all those years of success, is to tighten its grip. So dissidents such as Yu Jie, who alleges he was tortured by security agents and has just left China for America, are harassed. Yet that reflex will make the party’s job harder. It needs instead to master the art of letting go.
China’s third revolution
The argument goes back to Deng’s insight that without economic growth, the Communist Party would be history, like its brethren in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. His reforms replaced a failing political ideology with a new economic legitimacy. The party’s cadres set about remaking China with an energy and single-mindedness that have made some Westerners get in touch with their inner authoritarian. The bureaucrats not only reformed China’s monstrously inefficient state-owned enterprises, but also introduced some meritocracy to appointments.
That mix of political control and market reform has yielded huge benefits. China’s rise over the past two decades has been more impressive than any burst of economic development ever. Annual economic growth has averaged 10% a year and 440m Chinese have lifted themselves out of poverty—the biggest reduction of poverty in history.
Yet for China’s rise to continue, the model cannot remain the same. That’s because China, and the world, are changing.
China is weathering the global crisis well. But to sustain a high growth rate, the economy needs to shift away from investment and exports towards domestic consumption. That transition depends on a fairer division of the spoils of growth. At present, China’s banks shovel workers’ savings into state-owned enterprises, depriving workers of spending power and private companies of capital. As a result, just when some of the other ingredients of China’s boom, such as cheap land and labour, are becoming scarcer, the government is wasting capital on a vast scale. Freeing up the financial system would give consumers more spending power and improve the allocation of capital.
Even today’s modest slowdown is causing unrest (see article). Many people feel that too little of the country’s spectacular growth is trickling down to them. Migrant workers who seek employment in the city are treated as second-class citizens, with poor access to health care and education. Land grabs by local officials are a huge source of anger. Unrestrained industrialisation is poisoning crops and people. Growing corruption is causing fury. And angry people can talk to each other, as they never could before, through the internet.
Party officials cite growing unrest as evidence of the dangers of liberalisation. Migration, they argue, may be a source of growth, but it is also a cause of instability. Workers’ protests disrupt production and threaten prosperity. The stirrings of civil society contain the seeds of chaos. Officials are particularly alive to these dangers in a year in which a new generation of leaders will take power.
That bias towards control is understandable, and not merely self-interested. Patriots can plausibly argue that most people have plenty of space to live as individuals and value stability more than rights and freedoms: the Arab spring, after all, had few echoes in China.
Yet there are rights which Chinese people evidently do want. Migrant workers would like to keep their limited rights to education, health and pensions as they move around the country. And freedom to organise can help, not hinder, the country’s economic rise. Labour unions help industrial peace by discouraging wildcat strikes. Pressure groups can keep a check on corruption. Temples, monasteries, churches and mosques can give prosperous Chinese a motive to help provide welfare. Religious and cultural organisations can offer people meaning to life beyond the insatiable hunger for rapid economic growth.
Our business now
China’s bloody past has taught the Communist Party to fear chaos above all. But history’s other lesson is that those who cling to absolute power end up with none. The paradox, as some within the party are coming to realise, is that for China to succeed it must move away from the formula that has served it so well.
This is a matter of more than intellectual interest to those outside China. Whether the country continues as an authoritarian colossus, stagnates, disintegrates, or, as we would wish, becomes both freer and more prosperous will not just determine China’s future, but shape the rest of the world’s too.
谢谢楼主，辛苦了！
还有个小关注，就是能否把这一系列文章翻译好贴出来呢？
本人英语能力实在有限，爱莫能助，也仅能表达一点精神上的问好。
再一次感谢，我收藏了！ 百乐门 发表于 2012-2-16 10:13 static/image/common/back.gif
谢谢楼主，辛苦了！
还有个小关注，就是能否把这一系列文章翻译好贴出来呢？
本来觉得这一系列文章的主题都是老生常谈。既然有人关注，我找时间译出来吧。 满仓 发表于 2012-2-16 11:11 static/image/common/back.gif
本来觉得这一系列文章的主题都是老生常谈。既然有人关注，我找时间译出来吧。 ...
要是没什么新意就算了，太耽搁楼主时间，就不必了，谢谢哈 进来看一眼 满仓 发表于 2012-2-16 11:11 static/image/common/back.gif
本来觉得这一系列文章的主题都是老生常谈。既然有人关注，我找时间译出来吧。 ...
谢谢楼主，辛苦了！兼听则明。有则改之，无则加勉。谢谢楼主辛勤劳动，让小acer多学习啦。 “因此矛盾之处就是中国为了成功，必须否定自己成功的道路”
尽管立场不同的人会对这句话得出截然不同的解读与结论，但无疑文中的这个观点是极有深度、极有见解的。
在中国自己，未必会用“否定”这样直白的字眼或者行为，更大的可能是修正、修正再修正，但最终的结果无疑是“否定”。
感谢楼主！ 这个真该好好学习
页:
[1]