作家尼尔·弗格森（Niall Ferguson）说，全球经济重心从西方转向中国等新兴经济体的速度令人震惊。弗格森是哈佛大学历史学教授，曾在2008年总统大选中为共和党总统候选人约翰·麦凯恩担任顾问。他说：“如果你回想一下1978年当你还是少年的时候，当时美国人的平均富裕程度是中国人的22倍，而现在还不到他们的5倍。全球不平衡出现了令人惊奇的缩减，而这一切实际上发生在仅仅30年的时间内。”
弗格森上周接受记者的采访，就全球经济的题目进行了详谈。
问：西方衰落的根本原因是什么？
答：在我们的有生之年，西方的支配地位将会终结。而在此之前的500年里，情况完全不是这样，那时西方富甲一方。非常奇怪的是，自从上世纪70年代起，这种历史趋势发生了逆转。
借助汲取他人的大量真知灼见，我认为这里有两个过程在起作用。其一是世界其他地区———以中国为首———一直在下载我们的杀手级应用程序。他们一直在模仿西方运行良好的东西，尤其是在商业领域。而这应当受到赞颂。看到中国和印度这样的国家主要通过复制西方的做事方式使数亿人脱贫是一件了不起的事情。
但是我认为还有另外一个过程在起作用，而且这个过程在某些程度上是独立的———那就是西方不那么擅长充当西方了。过去500多年在西方一直奏效的东西现在运转不那么顺畅了。研究这个问题的一个途径是寻找西方经济体出现故障的原因。原因不只是发生了金融危机以及银行家都是贪婪之徒。原因要比这深刻得多。
问：为什么西方经济体表现得如此糟糕？
答：考察这个问题的一个办法是弄清为什么众多经济体———除日本之外大多是西方国家———正在被有些情况下超过国内生产总值100%的债务所压垮？预料这种债务在美国还将进一步上升。简单的答案是认为存在政府挥霍的严重问题，但是我认为这不是正确的答案。思考这个问题时可以是把债务当作是对未来的征税。而过去二三十年里我们所看到的西方世界的巨额债务累积反映出的是当代人与下一代人之间的一种违约。这些债务是留给未来的沉重负担。我认为这就是西方世界出现发展放慢的原因，因为这些债务负担对经济活力产生了巨大的制约。
问：为什么这一代人决定不顾今后几代人的死活呢？为什么我们变得如此自私？
答：我认为在某种程度上这是一种文化的变迁。我们已经远远背离了在工业化、海外扩张———更不用说大规模战争———的辉煌时期曾经成为西方特征的面向未来的自我牺牲理想。于是在一定程度上出现了一种趋向“自我一代”的文化变迁———立刻消费，活在当下。但是我认为问题还不仅限于此。
我认为在二战之后，多数西方国家决定建立十分慷慨的福利国家制度，以便把富人拥有的资源转移到穷人身上。这种制度运转得十分出色。在这些制度被引入的时候，它们确实降低了那些国家的贫富差距。但是随着时间推移，福利制度以一种令人意外的方式变得机能失调起来。在某种程度上它成为了自己胜利的牺牲品：它在延长寿命方面如此成功，以至于在财务上无法独善其身，除非对像退休年龄等规定作出重大改变。
福利制度在财政上变得越来越难以支撑，结构性财政赤字就出现了。
这就是说即便在经济增长良好的时候赤字也会出现。我认为这是正在导致西方放慢发展的一个更为深刻的症结。
问：结束这样一个阶段是否需要某种像“财政悬崖”———或主权债务危机———那样的东西？
答：欧洲的经验表明，在危机出现之前什么都解决不了。这场危机是从西班牙、希腊、爱尔兰等国开始的，我认为它很快会蔓延到法国。到某个时刻，人们可以想像这样的危机会发生在日本身上。我认为迟早它也会在美国发生。
问：那么西方在经济层面上需要进行什么样的结构调整？
答：是啊，我想需要认识到的最重要的事情是问题不只在于税收和支出。我认为最好对社会赖以运转的制度构架提出更深层次的质疑。对我来说，西方与其他地区之间最深刻的反差之一是在西方国家像法治之类的东西———如规章制度、官僚体制等———正在变得越来越累赘。
问：你是指它们正在阻碍发展吗？
答：确实如此。我说的是我在新书《大退化》中提出的主要论点之一，即美国的法治正在成为律师们的法治。律师行业已经成为形成商业成本的主要原因。我们有一套非常复杂的规章制度和一个非常像寄生虫的律师行业，这个行业靠私营部门养活。如果没有庞大的法规部和律师团队，任何一个大型机构都几乎不可能正常运转。而这些全都是无效成本。它们根本不会提高经济的生产率。
问：在中国挑走西方最出色的东西的同时，你认为他们是否也同样会陷入西方式的挥霍无度———这是不是一种进化的相似性？
答：这是可能的。他们还有一些差距。短期来说，我认为中国面临的最大问题是法治，而不是民主。更为重要的是中国能否过渡到一个法治真正起作用的体制。这对于中国迅速成长的中产阶级来说十分重要。
不难看出中国需要做什么，但它能否在政治上做到这一点，能否克服既得利益集团的阻挠，我真的不知道。
中国正在出现的这个庞大的中产阶级是经济迅速发展的直接结果之一。从历史上看，如果你考察西方的经验，你会发现中产阶级是最早推动法治、代表制政府及新闻自由的力量———这些都是中产阶级想要的东西。如果你是农民或产业工人，你真的不会关心这些东西。我认为随着中产阶级在中国的成长，它不可避免地将会开始表现出中产阶级的一贯举止。（翻譯：新华国际）
尼尔·弗格森（Niall Ferguson），英国籍苏格兰人，英国当代著名历史学家。他是哈佛大学历史学与金融学教授，牛津大学高级研究员，斯坦福大学胡佛研究所高级研究员。著有《货币崛起：金融如何影响世界历史》(The Ascent of Money)、《文明》、《帝国》、《罗斯柴尔德家族》等。
Niall Ferguson: 'West less good at being
West'
From Andrew Stevens, CNN
November 26, 2012
(CNN) -- The
speed at which the global economy has pivoted from the West to emerging
economies like China is astounding, says author Niall Ferguson.
"If you think
back to 1978 when I was a teenager, the average American was 22 times richer
than the average Chinese. And today it's less than five times," said
Ferguson, a Harvard history professor and a former adviser to 2008 Republican
Party presidential candidate John McCain. "That's an amazing reduction in
the global imbalance and it's happen in the space really of 30 years."
"The West is
at a different phase of development -- economically, demographically -- and
it's also at a different place culturally from these countries that are
emerging from various forms of economic control -- whether the bureaucratic
system of post-Raj India or the communist system that was gradually dismantled
economically in China after 1978," he said. This is bringing back one of
the most remarkable shifts in the global balance of economic power."
Ferguson sat down
last week with CNN's Andrew Stevens in detailed talk on the global economy.
What are the
underlying reasons for the decline of the West?
In our lifetime
Western ascendancy is coming to an end, after 500 years, when the story was the
great divergence -- when the west got much richer than everybody else. And it's
extraordinary that really since the 1970s, this historical tide has turned.
I think there are
two processes at work here. One is the rest of the world -- led by China --
have been downloading our killer applications. They have been imitating the
things that work well in the West, particularly in the realm of business. And
this is to be celebrated. It's great to see countries like China and India
lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty by essentially copying
Western ways of doing things.
But I think there
is another process at work, which is in some ways independent -- the West is
becoming less good at being the West. The things that worked well in the West
for over half a millennia don't work so well now. And one way of looking at it
is to say: Why is it that the Western economies have malfunctioned? It's not
just that there ways a financial crisis and bankers are terrible people. It's
much more profound than that.
Why are Western
economies performing so badly?
One way of thinking
about this is to ask why so many economies, most of them Western -- Japan is
the exception -- are currently crushed by debt, which in some cases exceed 100%
of GDP? And these debts are forecast to rise even further in the U.S. The
simple answer is to say there is a terrible problem of government extravagancy,
but I don't think that's the right answer. One way of thinking about this is to
say that debt represents a tax on the future. And the big accumulation of debt
that we've seen over the last 20 or 30 years in the Western world reflects a
breach of contract between the current generation and the next generations. And
these debts represent a big burden on the future. And that is one reason I
think we've seen a slowdown in the Western world because these burdens of debt
act as a major check on economic dynamism.
Why has this
generation decided to ignore future generations? Why have we become so selfish?
At some level I
think it's a cultural shift. We've moved a long way from our ideals of
self-sacrifice for the future that characterized the West during its hay days
of industrialization, overseas expansion -- not to mention large-scale warfare.
So there's partly been a cultural shift towards the 'me generation' -- consume
now, live in the present. But I think it's slightly more than that.
I think what
happened after World War II was that it was decided in most Western countries
to create pretty generous welfare states that were going to exist to transfer
resources from the rich to the poor. And that worked pretty well. It did reduce
inequality in those countries when these systems were introduced. But over time
the welfare state has become dysfunctional in a surprising way. But in a way it
became a victim of its own success: It became so successful at prolonging life,
that it becomes financially unsustainable, unless you make major changes to
things like retirement ages. And everywhere you see the same basic story,
whether you're looking at northern Europe, southern Europe, or north America --
welfare states become harder and harder to finance, and structural budget
deficits emerge.
That's to say
deficits that are there even when the economy is growing well. And I think
these are symptoms of a more profound problem that is causing the Western
slowdown. Contrast that with the story in Asia, where welfare states, let's say
in China, are much less well developed.
Is it going to
take something like a fiscal cliff -- a sovereign debt crisis -- to bring this
period to an end?
The European
experience suggests nothing gets done until there is a crisis. And this crisis
has begun in countries like Spain, Greece, Ireland, and I think soon it will
spread to France, as people begin to realize that the French position is
actually no better than the other Latin European countries. At some point one
can imagine a crisis like that happening in the most developed Asian economy,
Japan. And I think sooner or later it may end up happening in the U.S. Although
I must say I'm becoming less and less sure that will happen soon. There are
things happening in the U.S. that make it quite different, in the sense for
example that the demographics are not so bad -- partly because of immigration
-- and also interestingly the U.S. is about to have the most amazing free lunch
on the back of shale gas and shale oil. The US economy is going to get a really
big shot in the arm.
U.S. set for
fracking bonanza, says historian Ferguson
What then is the
restructuring that needs to happen at an economic level in the West?
Well, I think the
most important thing to recognize is that it's not just about taxing and
spending. If you define this too narrowly in fiscal terms then you end up in
the mess that southern Europe is in -- trying to balance the budget, even as
your economy is shrinking. It's better I think to ask questions of a more
profound nature about the institutional framework within which society
operates. To me one of the most profound contrasts between the West and the
rest is that things like the rule of law -- regulation, bureaucracy -- are
becoming more burdensome in Western countries, even as they are becoming less
burdensome in emerging markets.
You mean they are
getting in the way of development?
They really are. I
mean one of the main arguments that I make in my new book, "The Great
Degeneration," is that the rule of law in the US is becoming the rule of
lawyers. The legal profession has become a very major source of cost for
business. You have very complex regulation and a very parasitic legal
profession, and it battens off the private sector. It's almost impossible for
any major organization to function without a huge compliance department and
teams of lawyers. And that is all just dead cost. It doesn't really add to the
productivity of the economy.
And I think that's
one of the things that I am trying to focus on: Why is our regulation so
over-complicated? Why does the tax code occupy shelves, rather than just a few
pages? And why is it that if you want to regulate the financial sector, you
need a bill that is 2000-plus pages long? If we could aspire for greater
simplicity and transparency in the tax code and most regulation, I think there
would be real benefits.
As China cherry
picks the best of the West, do you think they may also fall into Western
excesses as well: Is this an evolutionary likelihood?
It's possible.
They have some way to go. Short-term, I think the biggest problem facing the
Chinese is the rule of law question. It's not the democracy question. It's more
-- can China transition to a system in which the rule of law really works? That
matters a lot for China's rapidly growing middle class. They want security for
their property. They do not want to feel that they could have their property
confiscated by an all powerful party at the drop of a hat.
It's not difficult
to see what China needs to do, but whether it can do it politically, whether it
can override the vested interests, or not, I really don't know.
If you think about
it China is acquiring this huge middle class that's one of the direct
consequences of rapid growth. And historically if you look at the Western experience
it's the middle class that starts to push for rule of law and representative
government and freedom of the press -- those are middle class things to want.
You really don't worry about those things if you're a peasant or an industrial
worker. It's inevitable I think that as this class grows in China, it will
start to behave in the ways that middle classes always behave. And the
Communist Party is not well set-up to meet those demands.
