和覆盆子有關的不平等故事

Raspberries are a petit-bourgeois crop, while wheat is a proletarian crop — or so says political scientist James C Scott in his remarkable 1998 book Seeing Like a State. That makes it sound as though Scott is musing on matters of taste. In fact, he’s highlighting the link between what we produce, and the political and economic structures that production makes possible.

覆盆子是小資產階級作物，而小麥是無產階級作物——政治學家詹姆斯?C?斯科特(James C Scott)在他1998年那本《國家的視角》(Seeing Like a State)中這樣說。聽上去斯科特在思考品味問題。事實上，他強調的是，我們生產的東西與這種生產所支撐起的政治經濟結構之間的聯繫。

Wheat is a proletarian crop, says Scott, because it works well on industrial farms. Harvesting can be mechanised. Not so easy with raspberries, which are best cared for on a small farm. They are difficult to grow and pick on an industrial scale.

斯科特稱，小麥之所以是無產階級作物，是因爲它適合工業化農場。小麥可以機械化收割。覆盆子則不然，它最適合由小農場種植，很難工業化種植和採收。

Such distinctions once mattered a great deal. We associate the invention of agriculture with the rise of ancient states but, as Scott points out in a forthcoming book, Against the Grain, much depends on the crop. Wheat is well-suited to supporting state armies and tax inspectors: it is harvested at a predictable time and can be stored — or confiscated. Cassava works differently. It can be left in the ground and dug up when needed. If some distant king wanted to tax the cassava crop, his armies would have had to find them and dig them up one by one. Agriculture made strong states possible, but it was always agriculture based on grain. “History records no cassava states,” he writes.

這種區別一度關係重大。我們將農業的發明與古代國家的興起相聯繫，但正如斯科特在即將出版的新書《Against the Grain》中所指出的，具體作物關係重大。小麥非常適於支撐國家軍隊和稅務稽查員：小麥的收割時間可預測，且可以儲存——便於沒收。木薯則不是這樣。木薯可以留在地裏不收，需要的時候再挖出來。假如遠在天邊的某個國王想要對木薯徵稅，他的軍隊得去把地裏的木薯一個個找到、挖出來。農業讓強大的國家成爲可能，但這農業始終得是種植穀物的農業。“歷史上沒有‘木薯’國家的記載。”他寫道。

The technologies we use have always affected who gets what, from the invention of the plough to the creation of YouTube. Economists know this but our analytical tools are not well-suited to distinguishing wheat from raspberries or cassava. The brilliance of gross domestic product is the way it manages to measure all economic activity with the same yardstick — but that is also, of course, its weakness.

古往今來，我們使用的技術一直影響着誰得到什麼，從犁的發明到YouTube的創建。經濟學家們明白這一點，但我們的分析工具不能很好地區別對待小麥與覆盆子或木薯。國內生產總值(GDP)的妙處在於它能夠用同樣標準測量所有經濟活動——但這同樣也是它的弱點。

Nevertheless, we try. Many researchers have examined whether countries with rich endowments of mineral resources — oil, copper, diamonds — tend to do better or worse as a result. The balance of opinion is that there’s a “resource curse”. Why?

儘管如此，我們嘗試了。許多研究者考察了這個問題：礦產資源（石油、銅、鑽石）豐富的國家，是否傾向於因爲這種先天優勢而發展得更好？普遍的結論是，存在一種“資源詛咒”。這是爲什麼？

Sometimes the problem is obvious enough — for example, natural resources sustained a quarter-century of civil war in Angola, where the government could fund itself with oil while the rebels mined and sold diamonds. Sometimes it’s more subtle: a country that exports a valuable commodity will experience a strengthening of its exchange rate. This makes it harder to sustain any sort of industry that isn’t connected to the commodity itself.

有時候，答案可以說是顯而易見的，例如，在安哥拉，自然資源的支撐使內戰持續了四分之一個世紀——安哥拉政府軍能夠從石油獲得收入，而叛軍開採並出售鑽石。有時候，答案更爲隱祕：出口一種有價值的大宗商品的國家，其貨幣會走強——使得與這種大宗商品沒有關聯的行業更難維持。

Still, we’ve lacked the statistical tools to paint a compelling picture of these issues, important though they seem to be.

話雖如此，我們一直缺乏能夠有力地展現這些問題的統計工具——儘管這些問題看上去很重要。

Now a new research paper from a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tries to explore how the mixture of products a country produces might influence a critical economic outcome: income inequality. The team includes César Hidalgo, author of Why Information Grows, about whose work I’ve written several times. Over the past few years, Hidalgo has been trying to map what he calls “economic complexity”, using statistical techniques from physics rather than economics.

來自麻省理工學院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)的一個團隊發表了一篇新的研究論文，試圖探索這個問題：一個國家的產品結構，如何可能影響收入不平等這個關鍵的經濟結果？這個團隊的成員包括《增長的本質》(Why Information Grows)一書作者塞薩爾?伊達爾戈(César Hidalgo)，關於他的研究我寫過多篇文章。過去幾年裏，伊達爾戈一直在嘗試利用源自物理學（而非經濟學）的統計方法，來測繪他所稱的“經濟複雜度”。

Complexity isn’t straightforward to measure — is a million dollars of reinsurance more or less complex than a million dollars of liquefied natural gas or a million dollars of computer games? Hidalgo’s method looks at a country’s merchandise exports. Sophisticated economies tend to export many different products, including the most complex. Complex products tend to be exported only by a few economies.

複雜度無法直接測量——100萬美元的再保險，是比100萬美元的液化天然氣或100萬美元的電腦遊戲更復雜、還是更不復雜呢？伊達爾戈的方法考察一個國家的商品出口。先進經濟體往往出口許多不同的產品，包括最複雜的產品。複雜產品傾向於只由寥寥幾個經濟體出口。

In previous work, Hidalgo and colleagues have shown that economic complexity is correlated with wealth, but there are some economies that are spectacularly sophisticated but only modestly wealthy (South Korea is one) while other economies are very rich but not especially sophisticated (such as Qatar).

在先前的研究中，伊達爾戈和他的同事們已證明，經濟複雜度與財富存在關聯，但也存在一些非常先進、但只達到中等富裕程度的經濟體（比如韓國），還有一些非常富裕、但並不特別先進的經濟體（比如卡塔爾）。

This new analysis finds a relationship between inequality and lack of economic complexity. Holding other things constant, the simplest economies tend to be the most unequal; the more sophisticated ones tend to be more equal.

這項新的分析發現了不平等與經濟複雜度不足之間的關係。在其他因素不變的情況下，最簡單的經濟體往往是最不平等的經濟體，而最先進的經濟體往往是比較平等的。

It’s raspberries and wheat all over again. Or, if you prefer, the difference between a business such as oil (which employs a few people at high wages), textile work (which generates lots of jobs, but at low wages) and making precision components (which requires many skilled and well-paid workers). The oil-based economy will tend to be the most unequal, while the precision-engineering economy will tend to be the most equal.

這簡直是覆盆子和小麥理論的完全再現。或者，如果你願意，可以把這看成石油業（僱用人數不多但支付的工資很高）與紡織業（創造很多就業但支付低工資）和精密零部件製造業（需要很多高技能、高薪水的工人）之間的區別。基於石油的經濟體往往最不平等，而在精密工程領域拿手的經濟體往往最平等。

There are exceptions: Australia’s economy is surprisingly simple thanks to a dependence on natural resources, but not especially unequal. Mexico is an outlier in the other direction, with a sophisticated but unequal economy.

也有例外：因爲依賴自然資源，澳大利亞的經濟相當簡單，但並非特別不平等。墨西哥是另一個方向上的例外，其經濟先進，但不平等。

This research answers some questions and raises others. There’s a large and unsatisfying literature on the relationship between inequality and growth. Are unequal societies dynamic and entrepreneurial or dysfunctional patron-client states? The MIT study suggests that what’s been missing from these questions is a measure of economic complexity.

這項研究回答了一些問題，同時帶來了其他問題。關於不平等與增長之間關係的文獻數量龐大但差強人意。不平等的社會是充滿活力和創業精神的國家，還是失靈的恩庇-侍從國家？麻省理工學院的這項研究顯示，這些問題一直缺失的是經濟複雜度這個參數。

And what about financial services? They seem both sophisticated and highly unequal — an exception to the rule? Hidalgo’s data are silent on the topic. But Hidalgo himself isn’t persuaded that banking is particularly complex.

還有金融服務業呢？該行業看上去既先進又非常不平等——它是一個例外嗎？伊達爾戈的數據未涉及這個問題。但伊達爾戈本人並不認爲銀行業的複雜度特別高。

“Most countries have financial services,” he tells me. “But few countries know how to design new microprocessors or new medicines.” By that measure, and others, he thinks financial services are cruder than we tend to think. Perhaps. If so, the City of London has more in common with the oilfields of the North Sea than we are inclined to admit.

“多數國家都有金融服務業。”他告訴我，“但沒有幾個國家懂得如何設計新的微處理器或新的藥物。”按這一標準以及其他標準衡量，他認爲金融服務業比我們傾向於認爲的更簡單。如果是這樣，那麼倫敦金融城與北海(North Sea)油田的相似之處比我們傾向於承認的更多。