從可口可樂到華盛頓共識 Coca Cola's success reflects the best and worst of free markets

I cannot say I am a regular drinker of Coca-Cola. But, on a hot summer afternoon, even for me, there is sometimes nothing like cold Coke — especially if I can have it with ice, as I find the drink a little too sweet on its own: “Delicious! Refreshing! Exhilarating! Invigorating!” as one of its earliest advertising slogans from the 1880s went.

我不能說我是個常喝可口可樂(Coca-Cola)的人。但是，在炎熱的夏季午後，即使是我有時也會覺得什麼都比不上冰可樂——尤其是我能配着冰塊一起喝的時候，因爲我覺得這種飲料本身有點太甜了：“美味！提神！振奮！暢爽！”19世紀80年代可口可樂最早的廣告口號之一是這麼說的。

Coca-Cola is arguably the best-known American export. For some, such as the youth of the Soviet Union, it was the symbol of freedom. For others, such as the left in India, it symbolised what is wrong with America — consumerism and, worse, commercial manipulation of consumer taste. In 1977, in a highly symbolic move, the Indian government cancelled the licence for a Coca-Cola factory when it refused to go into a joint venture with a local company (equally symbolically, Coca-Cola came back to India in 1993, soon after the country’s economic liberalisation).

可以說，可口可樂是最有名的美國出口產品。對一些人來說，比如當年蘇聯的年輕人，可口可樂是自由的象徵。對其他人來說，比如印度的左翼人士，可口可樂象徵着美國的問題——消費主義，以及更糟糕的，對消費者口味的商業操縱。1977年，印度政府採取了一個極具象徵意義的舉措——撤銷一家可口可樂工廠的許可證，因爲其拒絕和一家本土企業合資（同樣富有象徵意義的是，1993年可口可樂在印度經濟自由化後很快重返該國）。

Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine; the name is said to derive from the sources of the two key ingredients — the coca leaf (which gave cocaine) and the kola nut (which gave caffeine). This is not surprising, given that cocaine was not an illegal substance in the 19th century — Queen Victoria and Thomas Edison are known to have been consumers of Vin Mariani, wine infused with coca leaves.

過去可口可樂含有可卡因；據說可口可樂的名字就源於兩種關鍵成分——古柯葉（coca leaf，含有可卡因）和可樂果（kola nut，含有咖啡因）。考慮到19世紀時可卡因並不是非法物品——據悉維多利亞女王和托馬斯ㄠ迪生(Thomas Edison)都喝加入了古柯葉的馬里亞尼酒(Vin Mariani)——可口可樂曾經含有可卡因並不讓人驚訝。

Coca leaves have been chewed by Andean peasants for ages, to relieve pains while working in an oxygen-poor atmosphere. Cocaine also reduces appetite, so it helps them subsist without food. Thus coca consumption is a normal part of their lives and many of them grow coca.

古往今來，安第斯山的農民都依靠咀嚼古柯葉來緩解在氧氣稀薄的環境下勞作的痛苦。可卡因還能降低食慾，因此能幫助農民在沒有食物的情況下堅持一陣。因此，攝入古柯葉是他們日常生活的一部分，該地區的許多農民都種植古柯。

Evo Morales, the Bolivian president and the second indigenous president of a Latin American country (after Benito Juárez, the Mexican president of the 19th century), was a coca farmer himself. He came to political prominence through his campaign against the forceful eradication of coca farming, which the Bolivian government was pursuing in the late 1990s and the early 2000s with strong support from the US, as part of its war on drugs.

拉美第二個本土出身的總統（第一個是19世紀的墨西哥總統貝尼託胡亞雷斯(Benito Juárez)）、玻利維亞總統埃沃莫拉萊斯(Evo Morales)過去也是種植古柯的農民。20世紀90年代末到21世紀初，作爲其反毒品鬥爭的一部分，美國強力支持玻利維亞政府推行強制取締古柯種植的政策，莫拉萊斯因開展反對該政策的活動而在政壇上聲名鵲起。

In 2005, Morales became president on the wave of protest against the so-called Washington Consensus policies of fiscal retrenchment, trade liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation that had ill served his country in the preceding two decades. The Washington Consensus policies are so named because they are advocated by the three most powerful economic organisations in Washington DC: the US Treasury, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

2005年，莫拉萊斯在抗議所謂的“華盛頓共識”(Washington Consensus)政策——財政緊縮、貿易自由化、去監管化和私有化——的浪潮中當上總統。此前的20年裏，這些政策在他的國家產生了不好的效果。之所以被稱爲華盛頓共識政策，是因爲它們得到華盛頓三個最強大經濟機構的倡導：美國財政部(US Treasury)、國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)和世界銀行(World Bank)。

Upon becoming president, Morales nationalised the natural gas industry, the country’s main export industry. He went on to nationalise electricity, water, mining and the railways, while increasing welfare spending. The initial prediction was of dire economic disaster but Bolivia’s performance defied such predictions. After Morales came to power, its per capita income growth accelerated — from 1.5 per cent a year during the 1990s to 3.3 per cent between 2005 and 2013. The country has also seen a dramatic fall in income inequality.

一當上總統，莫拉萊斯就將該國主要的出口產業天然氣行業國有化。之後他又將電力、水、礦業和鐵路行業國有化，同時提高了福利支出。外界最初的預測是玻利維亞將陷入嚴重的經濟災難，但玻利維亞的表現打破了這些預測。在莫拉萊斯執政後，玻利維亞的人均收入增長加速——從上世紀90年代每年增長1.5%加速至2005年到2013年間每年增長3.3%。該國的收入不平等程度也大幅下降。

Bolivia isn’t the only country in Latin America that has defied the Washington Consensus and improved its economic performance. Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela have all ditched Washington Consensus policies and have seen both accelerated economic growth and reduced income inequality.

玻利維亞不是唯一在抵制華盛頓共識的情況下改善了經濟表現的拉美國家。阿根廷、厄瓜多爾、烏拉圭和委內瑞拉都拋棄了華盛頓共識政策，這些國家都在加快經濟增長的同時，減輕了收入不平等。

I am not saying everything is peachy in those Latin American countries. In particular, Venezuela has serious macroeconomic imbalances, although they have improved recently, while Argentina is haunted by its past debt crisis. More worryingly, much of their economic growth has been due to the commodity price boom — fuelled by China’s super-growth, which is coming to an end — rather than industrial development. So there is a serious question about the sustainability of their growth.

我並不是說這些拉美國家的一切都很美好。尤其是委內瑞拉存在嚴重的宏觀經濟失衡（儘管最近有所改善），而阿根廷受到過去的債務危機的困擾。更讓人感到憂慮的是，這些國家的經濟增長大部分是因爲大宗商品熱潮——靠中國的超快增長拉動，而這種增長正失去勢頭——而不是工業發展。因此其增長可持續性存在嚴重問題。

However, these countries’ experiences show how the Washington Consensus policies have failed developing countries. That most of the fastest-growing developing countries outside Latin America, such as China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Uzbekistan, haven’t even adopted Washington Consensus policies in the first place corroborates this observation.

然而，這些國家的經驗表明了華盛頓共識政策未能在發展中國家奏效。拉美之外的大多數增長最快的國家，比如中國、越南、緬甸、埃塞俄比亞和烏茲別克斯坦，從未採納華盛頓共識政策，這個事實支持上述說法。

The continued success of Coca-Cola shows that a successful product requires happy customers. Unable to make its customers happy, the Washington Consensus policy package, once so dominant, looks set to disappear into the shadow of history.

可口可樂的持續成功表明，一種產品的成功有賴於顧客的快樂。一度佔如此支配地位、但最終無法讓顧客滿意的華盛頓共識政策，看起來必將消失在歷史的陰影之中。