经济学人117:亚洲的兴衰 Boom and bust in Asia

 　　Boom and bust¹ in Asia

　　亚洲的兴衰

　　Going for growth

　　谋求经济发展

　　Explaining Asia’s economic success is as easy as one, two, three

　　亚洲经济成功的秘诀用三点就足以概括

　　Jul 13th 2013 |From the print edition

　　How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region. By Joe Studwell. Grove²;

　　《亚洲是如何运作的——论全球最具活力地区的成与败》，Joe Studwell 著。

　　IN 1989 John Williamson, a British economist³ in Washington, DC, listed ten economic policies that enjoyed the backing of the IMF, the World Bank and many of their clients in Latin America. Whatever the merits of these policies, the “Washington consensus⁴”, as he called it, proved badly named. Its prescriptions⁵—stabilise, privatise and liberalise—have caused no end of controversy⁶. Almost 25 years later, they get another drubbing in Joe Studwell’s provocative⁸ new book, “How Asia Works”.

　　1989年，英国经济学家 John Williamson 在华盛顿提出了十条经济政策，受到了国际货币基金组织、世界银行以及拉丁美洲多国的支持——这也就是他所谓的“华盛顿共识”。事实证明，无论这些政策有何种优点，都远远算不上什么“共识”。“共识”指出要采取稳定化、私有化和自由化的措施，由此引发了无数争议。大约二十五年后的今天，Joe Studwell 推出了一本措辞激进的新书《亚洲是如何运作的》。在这本书里，Williamson 的这些经济政策又一次被批驳得体无完肤。

　　But Mr Studwell’s own manifesto⁹ for economic success does resemble the Washington consensus in one respect: it holds that poor economies can prosper¹⁰ by following a short recipe of tried and tested policies. This is now an unfashionable approach among economists¹¹, who have turned their attention from policies to “institutions”: the social and political constraints¹² that weigh on ministers, whatever policies they avow¹³. Most authors shy away from prescriptions for success, arguing that every development dish is different.

　　然而，就某方面而言，Studwell 本人对经济成功的阐述确实和“华盛顿共识”有几分相似之处：他认为贫穷经济体可以把某些经过尝试和考验的政策当作短期方针，以实现自身的繁荣。可经济学者们如今并不看好这种途径，已经把目光从政策转向了“体制”方面：因为无论政界高官支持何种政策，社会和政治方面的约束总是会让他们裹足不前。很多作家都认为每个国家或地区的发展模式都是与众不同的，不愿意写书来阐述什么经济成功之道。

　　Mr Studwell has no such inhibitions. Asia’s post-war miracle economies emerged, he argues, by following a recipe with just three ingredients: land reform; export-led, state-backed manufacturing; and financial repression¹⁴.

　　Studwell 却没有这种顾虑。他认为，有些亚洲经济体在战后奇迹般地崛起了，而它们成功的秘诀归根结底无非就是三点：一是土地改革；二是由出口带动、由国家支持的制造业；三是金融抑制政策。

　　The process began with the ousting¹⁵ of the landlords. Feudal¹⁶ estates were broken up and divided among small farmers, who also received cheap credit and valuable advice. Smallholder farming requires “grotesque” amounts of labour, Mr Studwell concedes. But that is a good thing, because countries as poor as Taiwan or South Korea were in the 1950s have labour—and only labour—in abundance.

　　这些经济体的崛起是以地主退出历史舞台为起点的。封建式的私有地产被没收并分配给了小农户，同时他们还获得了低息贷款和宝贵的经验。Studwell 承认，小农型耕作需要“令人无法想象的”大量劳动力。但这不失为一件好事：因为在二十世纪五十年代，像台湾或是韩国这样贫穷的地区拥有大批劳动力——除此之外也没有别的了。

　　Tightly planted, closely tended farms coax¹⁷ the best yields out of each parcel of land. This rural bounty¹⁸ then creates room for the next step: export-led manufacturing. The state, Mr Studwell argues, must nurse manufacturers through their infancy¹⁹, helping²⁰ them to learn how to stand on their own feet. This nurture²¹ should, however, be combined with discipline: the state must oblige firms to export. Foreign sales provide an external test of their progress, allowing the state to “cull losers”, even if it cannot pick winners.

　　在这些地区，农场上种满了密密麻麻的作物，又受到了仔细的照料，每一块地都有很不错的产量。而后，这种农业上的富庶为亚洲繁荣的下一步（也就是由出口带动的制造业）创造了空间。Studwell 认为，国家必须在制造业者尚且处于“婴幼儿期”时为它们提供充分的呵护，让它们学会如何去依靠自身力量实现发展。然而，在呵护的同时还需要进行约束：国家必须强制要求这些公司进行出口。对外销量为制造业者的发展提供了一种外在的衡量尺度，让国家得以“淘汰弱者”——即便是在无法挑选出强者的情况下。

　　The final secret of Asian success, Mr Studwell argues, was a cowed financial system. Captive savers, penned in by capital controls, were ripped off by the banks, which paid low interest rates. This allowed the banks to subsidise industrial firms through their years of education.

　　Studwell 认为，亚洲成功的最后一条秘诀就是那种受到国家钳制的金融体系。银行提供的存款利率很低，但储户被资本管制所束缚，除了接受银行的讹诈之外别无选择。这笔资金让银行得以为产业公司提供了数年的“教育经费”。

　　Mr Studwell’s recipe is not original: the formula dates back at least 140 years, he shows, to Japan under the Meiji emperor. Only the first step, smallholder farming, would be backed by this newspaper. But “How Asia Works” is a striking and enlightening book, which reflects the author’s unusual career. Having worked as an analyst²² (for the Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister company) and a consultant²³, he wrote books on China’s seduction of foreign businessmen and Asia’s crony capitalists. Then he went back to school, embarking²⁴ on a doctorate²⁵ at Cambridge, home to a number of unorthodox economists.

　　Studwell 的秘方并非独开先河。他表示这些成功秘诀至少可以追溯到一百四十年前明治天皇统治下的日本。而本报只对其中的第一步（也就是小农耕作）持支持态度。不过，《亚洲是如何运作的》这本书确实富于启迪性，让人耳目一新。它折射了作者不寻常的职业生涯。Studwell 曾经在本报的姊妹公司经济学人信息部担任过分析人士，也曾经从事过咨询工作。他写过几本书，论述过中国对外商的吸引力、以及亚洲的裙带资本家等等。而后他回到校园攻读博士学位，进的正是剑桥大学——这里有很多不拘传统的经济学家。

　　The result is a lively mix of scholarship, reporting and polemic²⁶. Its heart is a historical account of how smallholder farming, export-led manufacturing and financial repression took root in Asia’s miracle economies, such as Japan and Taiwan, but failed to bed down in the Philippines and Indonesia. This is punctuated²⁷ by travelogues²⁸, describing Asia’s landscape of economic triumph and tribulation²⁹, from the kitsch houses of rice farmers in Japan’s Niigata prefecture, who have great agricultural know-how³⁰ but little architectural taste, to the unfinished towers of Jakarta’s Bank Alley³¹, their growth stunted³² by the Asian financial crisis.

　　最终，Studwell 把学术研究、调查报道以及书面论战生动地糅为一体。在一些创造奇迹的亚洲经济体中（比如日本和台湾），小农耕作、由出口带动的制造业以及金融抑制政策是如何植根的？在菲律宾和印度尼西亚，同样的措施又为何没有形成气候？本书重点从历史角度论述了这些问题。书中还穿插了一些游记见闻，描述了亚洲大地上经济繁荣或是衰颓的景象：Studwell 写到了日本新泻县稻农的简陋住所——这些农民有高超的农业技术，却不懂什么建筑美学；也写到了雅加达岸巷里尚未建成的塔楼——由于亚洲金融危机，这些塔楼迟迟未能完工。

　　The most impressive part of the book is the 68 pages of footnotes in which Mr Studwell dips into his trove⁷ of reading and reporting. He includes observations on Javanese chickens, the sex life of a Korean chaebol-founder, the constitutional rules that Meiji-era Japan copied from Prussia and his exchanges with Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s former strongman.

　　本书让人印象最为深刻的部分就是长达68页的脚注。Studwell 读过很多书，也进行过大量报道，在脚注里他粗略提及了一些。他谈到了爪哇人饲养的鸡，谈到了韩国某个财团创始人的性生活，谈到了明治时代日本模仿普鲁士设立的宪章，还谈到了他和马来西亚前铁腕领导人马哈蒂尔?穆罕默德之间的对话。

　　In these notes, Mr Studwell wanders into the weeds of development (quite literally³³: Japanese rice is weeded nine times a year, he writes). But he never gets lost. The three-step doctrine³⁴ he advocates is even shorter than the ten-step Washington consensus he opposes. But it will no doubt prove similarly controversial.

　　在这些脚注中，Studwell 偶尔会提到一些阻碍经济发展的“杂草”（从字面意义上来说，他写到日本的水稻一年需要进行九次除草）。但Studwell 从未偏离主题。相比他所反对的“十步走”式华盛顿共识，他本人提倡的“三步走”主义甚至更为简略。但毫无疑问，二者都将会充满争议。

1 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

2 grove   

n.林子，小树林，园林

参考例句：

• On top of the hill was a grove of tall trees.山顶上一片高大的树林。
• The scent of lemons filled the grove.柠檬香味充满了小树林。

3 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

4 consensus   

n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识

参考例句：

• Can we reach a consensus on this issue?我们能在这个问题上取得一致意见吗？
• What is the consensus of opinion at the afternoon meeting?下午会议上一致的意见是什么？

5 prescriptions   

药( prescription的名词复数 )； 处方； 开处方； 计划

参考例句：

• The hospital of traditional Chinese medicine installed a computer to fill prescriptions. 中医医院装上了电子计算机来抓药。
• Her main job was filling the doctor's prescriptions. 她的主要工作就是给大夫开的药方配药。

6 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

7 trove   

n.被发现的东西，收藏的东西

参考例句：

• He assembled a rich trove of Chinese porcelain.他收集了一批中国瓷器。
• The gallery is a treasure trove of medieval art.这个画廊是中世纪艺术的宝库。

8 provocative   

adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的

参考例句：

• She wore a very provocative dress.她穿了一件非常性感的裙子。
• His provocative words only fueled the argument further.他的挑衅性讲话只能使争论进一步激化。

9 manifesto   

n.宣言，声明

参考例句：

• I was involved in the preparation of Labour's manifesto.我参与了工党宣言的起草工作。
• His manifesto promised measures to protect them.他在宣言里保证要为他们采取保护措施。

10 prosper   

v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣

参考例句：

• With her at the wheel,the company began to prosper.有了她当主管，公司开始兴旺起来。
• It is my earnest wish that this company will continue to prosper.我真诚希望这家公司会继续兴旺发达。

11 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 constraints   

强制( constraint的名词复数 )； 限制； 约束

参考例句：

• Data and constraints can easily be changed to test theories. 信息库中的数据和限制条件可以轻易地改变以检验假设。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史
• What are the constraints that each of these imply for any design? 这每种产品的要求和约束对于设计意味着什么？ 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

13 avow   

v.承认，公开宣称

参考例句：

• I must avow that I am innocent.我要公开声明我是无罪的。
• The senator was forced to avow openly that he had received some money from that company.那个参议员被迫承认曾经收过那家公司的一些钱。

14 repression   

n.镇压，抑制，抑压

参考例句：

• The repression of your true feelings is harmful to your health.压抑你的真实感情有害健康。
• This touched off a new storm against violent repression.这引起了反对暴力镇压的新风暴。

15 ousting   

驱逐( oust的现在分词 )； 革职； 罢黜； 剥夺

参考例句：

• The resulting financial chaos led to the ousting of Bristol-Myers' s boss. 随后引发的财政混乱导致了百时美施贵宝的总裁下台。
• The ousting of the president has drawn widespread criticism across Latin America and the wider world. 洪都拉斯总统被驱逐时间引起拉丁美洲甚至全世界的广泛批评。

16 feudal   

adj.封建的，封地的，领地的

参考例句：

• Feudal rulers ruled over the country several thousand years.封建统治者统治这个国家几千年。
• The feudal system lasted for two thousand years in China.封建制度在中国延续了两千年之久。

17 coax   

v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取

参考例句：

• I had to coax the information out of him.我得用好话套出他掌握的情况。
• He tried to coax the secret from me.他试图哄骗我说出秘方。

18 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

19 infancy   

n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期

参考例句：

• He came to England in his infancy.他幼年时期来到英国。
• Their research is only in its infancy.他们的研究处于初级阶段。

20 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

21 nurture   

n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持

参考例句：

• The tree grows well in his nurture.在他的培育下这棵树长得很好。
• The two sisters had received very different nurture.这俩个姊妹接受过极不同的教育。

22 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

23 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

24 embarking   

乘船( embark的现在分词 )； 装载； 从事

参考例句：

• He's embarking on a new career as a writer. 他即将开始新的职业生涯——当一名作家。
• The campaign on which were embarking was backed up by such intricate and detailed maintenance arrangemets. 我们实施的战争，须要如此复杂及详细的维护准备。

25 doctorate   

n.(大学授予的)博士学位

参考例句：

• He hasn't enough credits to get his doctorate.他的学分不够取得博士学位。
• Where did she do her doctorate?她在哪里攻读博士？

26 polemic   

n.争论，论战

参考例句：

• He launched into a fierce polemic against the government's policies.他猛烈地抨击政府的政策。
• He wrote a splendid polemic in my favour.他写了一篇出色的文章为我辩护。

27 punctuated   

v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物

参考例句：

• Her speech was punctuated by bursts of applause. 她的讲演不时被阵阵掌声打断。
• The audience punctuated his speech by outbursts of applause. 听众不时以阵阵掌声打断他的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

28 travelogues   

n.旅行纪录片( travelogue的名词复数 )；旅行广播节目；游记；关于旅游的讲座

参考例句：

• Cartoons, newsreels and travelogues are short subjects. 动画片、新闻短片和旅行记录片都是短电影片。 来自互联网
• Dickens made a lifetime to build 14 novels, many, short stories and essays, travelogues, drama, variety. 狄更斯一生共创作了14部长篇小说，许多中、短篇小说和杂文、游记、戏剧、小品。 来自互联网

29 tribulation   

n.苦难，灾难

参考例句：

• Even in our awful tribulation we were quite optimistic.即使在极端痛苦时，我们仍十分乐观。
• I hate the tribulation,I commiserate the sorrow brought by tribulation.我厌恶别人深重的苦难，怜悯苦难带来的悲哀。

30 know-how   

n.知识；技术；诀窍

参考例句：

• He hasn't got the know-how to run a farm.他没有经营农场的专业知识。
• I don't have much know-how about engines.发动机方面的技术知识我知之甚少。

31 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

32 stunted   

adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的

参考例句：

• the stunted lives of children deprived of education 未受教育的孩子所过的局限生活
• But the landed oligarchy had stunted the country's democratic development for generations. 但是好几代以来土地寡头的统治阻碍了这个国家民主的发展。

33 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

34 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。