英国卫报:走向失控的博姿药妆(20)（在线收听）

Jesse Boot was steeped in a culture that expected much more of its leading businessmen.

杰西·布特浸透在一种文化中，这种文化对它的主要商人期望更多。

In 1919, in the first issue of the company newsletter, the Beacon, Boot wrote to his staff:

1919年，在公司第一期通讯《灯塔》中，布特给他的员工写道：

“Fellowship in recreation, fellowship in ideals, common hope, common sympathies,

“休闲的伙伴关系，理想的伙伴关系，共同的希望，共同的同情，

and common humanity bind us together; and whatever fosters this happy union is valuable.”

共同的人性将我们团结在一起；任何能促进这一幸福结合的东西都是有价值的。”

Today we know to smile at this as paternalism.

今天，我们知道这是一种家长式的管理方式。

Yet we have no popular term to describe the worldview of business leaders such as Pessina.

然而，我们没有一个流行的词汇来描述像佩西纳这样的商业领袖的世界观。

A Yiddish joke has it that to a worm in horseradish the whole world is horseradish.

意第绪语中有个笑话说，对于辣根中的虫子来说，整个世界都是辣根。

When it comes to the culture of modern business, we are that worm.

当涉及到现代商业文化时，我们就是那条虫子。

You hear it when the BBC and the press treat the economy as it were merely a synonym for business – and business as if it were just a synonym for finance.

当BBC和媒体把经济仅仅当作商业的同义词时，你会听到这种说法，而商业似乎仅仅是金融的同义词。

You hear it when the term “entrepreneur” is applied to a carpetbagger with a good PR,

当你听到“企业家”这个词被用来形容一个有着良好公关的冒险家时，

or when chief executives defend corporate tax-dodging as being their duty to shareholders.

或者首席执行官们辩解说，公司逃税是他们对股东应尽的责任。

Jesse Boot reminds us that this was not always so.

杰西·布特提醒我们，情况并非一直如此。

He would surely have recognised some of himself in Stefano Pessina: the wheeler-dealing, the gusto for marketing, the tireless expansionism. Jesse Boot was steeped in a culture that expected much more of its leading businessmen.

他肯定会在斯蒂法诺·佩希纳身上看到一些自己的影子：精明的手腕，对营销的热情，不知疲倦的扩张主义。但是布特浸透在一种文化中，这种文化对它的主要商人期望更多。

The point about Pessina is not that he is uniquely bad, but that he operates in a milieu that asks so little of its capitalists – even when they are reliant on public money.

佩西纳的问题不在于他的坏是独一无二的，而在于他所处的环境对资本家要求甚少——甚至在他们依赖公共资金时也是如此。