高级口译真题2014:中国是自由市场的典范吗？

中国是自由市场的典范吗？

I don’t know why I get so annoyed by these endless debates over the “lessons” of the “Chinese miracle,” but I do. Here is  Ezra Klein  (and Matt Yglesias):

我也不明白为何自己对无休无止关于“中国奇迹”和“中国范例”的争论不胜其烦，但事实就是这样。以下是艾兹拉克莱恩(以及扬格里萨斯）在这方面的评论：2

“Something that emerges quite quickly and a bit unexpectedly from being taken around on an economics-focused tour of China is that the Chinese economic miracle is really a great deal less of a ‘free market’ miracle than the conventional understanding in the United States would suggest,” writes Matthew Yglesias. That’s definitely correct, though it’s worth wondering why anyone thinks of China as a free-market success story.

“对于全世界瞩目的中国经济方面的研究中迅速产生出来的预料之外的观点就是中国经济的奇迹更多是美国传统观念中的奇迹，而非是自由市场的奇迹。”扬格里萨斯写道。这固然没错。但值得我们思考的是为什么所有人都认为中国是自由市场成果的案例。1

It would really help if people stopped calling one of the poorest economies in East Asia a “miracle.”  The problem seems to be that people insist on thinking in binary terms; free market or communist, successful or unsuccessful.  Here’s what really going on.

如果人们不把东亚最穷的国家之一称作“奇迹”可能会没那么别扭。但问题，人们似乎总喜欢在二元关系下思考：自由市场抑或共产主义；成功抑或失败。而以下才是事实的真相：1

2

1.  In 1979 China had an incredibly inefficient communist system and was poorer than India, poorer than sub-Saharan Africa.  It was an almost completely statist economy with incomes below 10% of US levels.

1.1979年，中国的共产主义体系丝毫不起作用，经济状况甚至比印度和黑非洲更为落后。在几乎完全中央集权式的经济体制下，中国人均收入低于美国人均水平的10%。1

2.  China has moved to a mixed economy.  These reforms might allow China to eventually reach something like 60% of America’s per capita GDP (which isn’t very impressive.)  During the transition from Maoism to this mixed economy, China can expect to grow really fast.   There is no miracle here; all the other capitalist East Asian economies also grew fast during earlier decades.  Chinese incomes will plateau well below US levels without further market reforms.  If they take further market reforms (and it seems almost certain they will) then they may plateau at 80% of US incomes, like some other developed economies.  If they go toward a low tax, relatively free market model (such as Hong Kong), they might even surpass the US some day.

2.中国开始向混合经济发展。这样的变革或许能让中国的人均GDP最终达到像美国人均60%的水平（这一结果并不惊人。）在从毛式经济向混合经济的转变过程中，中国迅速崛起。此时中国并无所谓奇迹可言------其他东亚经济体在20世纪头几十年同样增长迅速。如果没有进一步的市场改革，中国人的收入也只能止步于美国人均水平之下；如果中国进一步进行市场改革（似乎这是毋庸置疑的），那么他们的人均人收入将和其他发达经济体一样，可能达到美国水平的80%；如果中国意欲降低税收，实现基本自由的市场模式（如香港市场），中国人均收入甚至可能有朝一日超越美国。1

3.  East Asian countries with Confucian cultures that have much fewer SOEs are much richer than China, just as you’d expect.

3.如人们所料，其他遵从儒家文化的东亚国家，国有企业越少的国家经济情况比中国更好。

4.  East Asian countries with more SOEs than China (North Korea and Vietnam) are poorer, just as you’d expect.

4. 如人们所料，国有企业比中国多的国家（如北韩和越南），经济状况越落后。

5.  Regions of China dominated by SOEs (i.e. the Northeast) have grown slower, just as you’d expect.

5. 如人们所料，在中国，国有企业占主导地位的地区发展得更缓慢。

6.  Regions of China dominated by private business, rather than SOEs (Zhejiang) have grown fastest, just as you’d expect.

6. 如人们所料，在中国，私营企业占主导地位的地区（浙江）发展得最快。

What’s so hard to understand?  SOEs are usually inefficient.

这并不难理解------这是国有企业效率低下的后果。

Of course there are many other complications:

当然问题也并非那么简单：

1.  The inefficiency of SOEs is not due to government ownership, but rather government subsidies and barriers to entry.  Without those factors, SOEs can be highly efficient (see Singapore.)

1.国有企业的低效并非源于政府的所有权，而是由于政府财政补贴以及垄断。如果没有这些因素，国有企业也可以十分高效（如新加坡）。

2.  There may be areas (such as transport) where the government should be involved.  Ezra Klein mentions how good the Chinese government is at building infrastructure, and I agree.  But that has nothing to do with whether the Chinese system of heavy state involvement in manufacturing and services is wise.  It isn’t.

2. 政府或许确实应该涉足某些领域（如航空业）。艾兹拉克莱恩提到中国政府非常善于基础设施方面的建设。这点我承认。但这并不能说明中国政府过多干涉制造业和服务业的行为是明智的。我认为这并不可取。

3.  In a related post, Tyler Cowen makes a very good point:

3.在相关问题上，泰勒·考恩提出了非常好的见解：

It’s also possible that the successes of state ownership “decay” with time, as was arguably the case with the French model before the privatizations and has been the case with NASA in the United States.

国有制很有可能会随着时间推移而衰退-----正如法国私有化之前的模式，以及美国航空航天局的例子。

I strongly agree.  This is one factor that hurt the Soviet economy over time.

这一点我完全赞成。这也正是当时逐渐损害苏联经济的一个因素。1

So to summarize, to the extent that China is a free market, it is an economic success, and to the extent it is statist, it is mostly a failure (excluding some sectors like transport.)  But the question “Is the Chinese miracle due to a free market economy?” is nonsensical.  It isn’t a miracle at all; it is a country rapidly transitioning from being extremely poor to having a so-so economy.  That is all.

总而言之，就中国的市场自由化程度而论，中国是经济成功的范例；但从中央集权化的方面而言，中国几乎可以说是失败的（包括交通等领域）。像“中国的奇迹是否源自于自由的市场经济呢？”这样的问题是荒谬的。中国完全不能算是一个奇迹，它只能算是一个从极端贫穷的状态发展到经济状况还不错的国家。仅此而已。

I want to personally apologize to Ezra Klein for the exasperated tone of this post.  His post is no worse than 1000 other similar posts; I’m not even sure he disagrees with me.  Indeed the conventional view in the US is wrong, just as he says.  It’s just that I just get annoyed seeing the debate constantly framed this way.

我想就以上激烈的言辞向艾兹拉克莱恩表示歉意。他的观点跟其他成千上万类似的观点并无区别。我甚至不确定他会否定我的观点。正如他所言，美国传统的观点是错误的。我不满的只是反反复复看到同样的争论。

BTW, Tyler also links to this Yglesias post:

此外，泰勒也对扬格里萨斯的观点发表了看法：

By the lights of the American conventional wisdom, this whole situation seems mostly like a warning sign—beware! you’re violating the terms of The Washington Consensus!—but nobody can doubt that they’ve had a great run for the past 20 years. What’s more, though the prevailing policy consensus in the United States would lead you to believe that a country with France’s policies would necessarily be a basketcase, France is itself a very successful and prosperous nation and society. A crucial difference, however, is that the French economy takes place against the backdrop of the kind of social welfare provision that you see in all different kinds of European countries, something that’s overwhelmingly lacking in China.

以美国传统观念来看，一切似乎是个警告-------小心！你已经违背了华盛顿的共识。-------但没有人会怀疑自己过去二十年的思维取向的正确性。此外，虽然美国在政策方面的普遍共识认为，一个采用法国政策的国家注定是失败的。但事实是，法国本身是一个非常成功以及繁荣的国家和社会。其中最重要的区别在于，法国的经济是产生在欧洲各国完备的社会保障体系下，而这种社会保障体系在中国完全不存在。

There is some truth to this, but one shouldn’t push this comparison too far.  The French state does seem to handle its duties better than almost any other bureaucracy.  But let’s not forget that France also has a very strong private sector.  China would have to do a massive amount of privatization to approach French levels of state ownership in manufacturing and services.  France has private banks that lend to private firms (something pretty rare in China.)  And the fact that even Mitterrand privatized French SOEs in the 1980s suggests that the French recognized that the old model was slipping.  At some point the Chinese will have built up their infrastructure, and investment will slow sharply.  Consumer spending will rise.  At that point they’ll be much better off with a free market model, as compared to an SOE-dominated model. 

这样的论点有一定的道理，但这样的比较也不完全确切。法国比其他国家在政府管理方面确实更加成功。但不要忘了，法国的私有领域同样十分发达。要实现法国在制造业和服务业的国有水平，中国需大量进行私有化。法国设有专向私企贷款的私有银行（而私有银行在中国十分少见）。甚至20世纪80年代密特朗私有化国国有企业的例子也表明了法国认识到旧有的模式已经过时。某一天中国也将建立起自己的基础设施，投资大幅下降,消费者的消费开始增长。到那时，与现在国有企业占主导地位的模式相比，中国在自由市场的模式下将会更加繁荣。

One other point.  Yasheng Huang (who knows much more about this than I do) argues that the infrastructure projects that impress Western businessmen, and even Western liberals, are very anti-egalitarian.  He argues that more free market reforms are needed to improve life for the rural population, whereas instead the rural people are being exploited to build fancy 325km trains, maglevs, and ultra-stylish airports.  Something to think about.  Anyone who reads Huang will come away with a much different impression of China from what’s presented in the news media.

另一方面。黄亚生（他在这方面的研究比我更多）认为让西方商界甚至西方自由主义者赞叹的中国基础设施建设是违反平等主义的。他提出，中国需进一步进行自由市场改革来提高农村人口的生活水平，而不是剥削农村人口来修建325千米长的铁路线，地铁线，新型机场。这都是我们要思索地问题。看过黄亚生文章的人会对中国的现状产生与现在媒体所报道所不同的思考。undefined