华盛顿邮报：关于全球化的三种流行误解

equality

提要：关于全球化的影响，当前有三种流行的误解。第一，贸易保护主义者将所有工作岗位的流失都归咎于来自中国的竞争，极力夸大全球化的负面影响，事实上工作岗位的丧失大都是由自身原因造成。第二，低成本国家的廉价产品提高了发达国家低收入者的实际购买力，如仅从中国进口的低价商品就可能使美国低收入人群的生活水平提高5%到10%。第三，发展中国家尤其是中国的巨大市场创造和拯救了发达国家的大量就业机会，但保护主义者却对此绝口不提。

　　（外脑精华·北京）美贸易保护主义者构筑壁垒反对全球化

　　贸易保护主义者正在试图构建新的贸易壁垒以保护美国的就业机会并限制商品流入。在他们看来，推行贸易自由化简直就是一种卖国行径。

　　有些人利用斥责全球化对美国造成的伤害来牟取功名。例如，CNN电视台的评论员卢·多布斯（Lou Dobbs）在每晚专栏节目和撰写的《美国出口——为什么企业的贪婪导致美国就业机会转向国外》一书中对自由贸易喋喋不休地进行抨击。该书在CNN网站打出的促销广告语是：“把美国的就业机会输出到国外的廉价劳动力市场，所威胁到的不仅仅是成千上万的工人和他们的家庭，更是威胁到美国的生活方式”。

　　美国贸易保护主义者对全球化抨击最多的，是指责全球化拉大了美国的贫富收入差距、造成了美国工人收入水平的下降，却让身价百万的企业老板赚得盆满钵溢。在这项指责中，有一部分属实，但多半属于子虚乌有。

　　全球化加剧劳动力竞争

　　发生在许多国家的真实情况是，全球化在增加了企业主和经理人财富的同时，也使普通工人的工资水平有所提高，只不过幅度相对较小。之所以能做到这一点，是因为全球化使大量东欧国家、中国和印度的劳动大军参与到发达国家的就业岗位竞争之中。

　　结果是数百万美国和西欧国家的工人面临着空前激烈的竞争，因为来自其他国家的竞争对手的薪资要求低很多。由于在这一过程中资本竞争激烈程度没有相应增加，因此企业利润比重相对加大，而工人收入所占比重有所减少。富人变得更富，劳动者的整体收入水平也有所提高，但速度较慢。

　　全球化的三种流行误解

　　美国制造业的一些工人，例如那些大型钢厂中生产基本钢材的工人，因大量工作岗位流失到低收入国家而遭受到失业的痛苦。事实上，全球化对美国整个工人阶层和收入分配产生的影响与保护主义者的说法截然相反。关于全球化对民众生活的影响，应该注意到三种流行的误解。要认识分配不公问题，则应从更高的层次上作出判断。

　　第一个误解是贸易保护主义者将所有制造业工作岗位的流失归咎于来自中国的竞争，极力夸大了全球化的负面影响。一些工会领袖和美国政客告诉我们，美国向中国输出了数百万的就业机会，但事实并非如此。

　　研究显示，多数美国工作岗位的丧失是由美国自身原因造成，例如劳动生产率提高。仅在几年前，美国生产一辆轿车需要40个小时的劳动，但现在仅需要15小时，这种转变使劳动力需求大幅减少。贸易保护主义者将此类因素导致的工作岗位减少归罪于中国有失公允。实际上，中国和美国都因生产率提高而遭受到制造业工作岗位大量缩减的打击。而中国减少的工作岗位数量超过了美国的10倍，制造业岗位从1994年的5400万缩减至2004年的3000万，减少了近2500万。

　　其次，需要指出的是居民生活水平可以通过两种途径得到提高。一是通过提高居民的工资水平。二是通过降低商品价格，在居民不增加消费开支的情况下，使他们能购买更多的东西。

　　能够买到质优价廉的中国鞋和低价日本轿车使美国低收入人群的生活水平得到较大的改善。对那些花350美元购买一双Church鞋的华尔街银行家来说受益相对较小，但在Payless、Target及沃尔玛等折扣店希望花25美元而不是50美元购买一双鞋子的大众消费群体却是受益非浅。

　　仅从中国进口低价商品（不考虑全球化带来的其他类似结果）就可能使美国低收入人群的生活水平提高5%到10%。这是任何一项美国福利计划都未实现的了不起的成就。

　　三是保护主义者绝口不提全球化创造和拯救的就业机会。如果通用汽车公司能够逃脱破产厄运（看来很有可能），一个重要原因就是其从中国市场的汽车销售中赚取了巨额利润。庞大的中国市场，以及通过中国分公司对企业扩张和改善经营所作出的贡献，使美国企业创造了许多高水平就业机会，涉及的企业包括摩托罗拉、IBM、卡特彼勒和波音，甚至农业也包括在内。

　　全球化缩小贫富收入差距

　　就分配问题而言，从更高的层次看，全球化使开放经济体加快了提高本国竞争优势的速度，确保这些国家的工作岗位不会流失到国外。近期美国的失业率为4.4%。而在保护主义色彩相对更浓的法国，失业率通常是美国的两倍，主要是由于工人就职于不合理的工作岗位。

　　在仍奉行贸易保护主义的一些国家，例如许多拉美国家，失业率往往奇高，高达40%。而香港和新加坡这样比美国更开放的经济体历史上失业率总是处于较低水平。

　　家庭间收入分配的最大差距体现在家庭劳动力是否处于就业状态，全球化将这种差距缩小到了最小程度。而且，全球化使世界近30亿人摆脱了贫穷，生活水平达到丰衣足食、住房基本得到保障的现代化水平，人均寿命从45岁增加至60岁（上世纪50年代初，中国人均寿命为41岁，而2005年的人均寿命提高到了72.7岁）。这是有史以来全球收入分配差距缩小幅度最大的一次。

　　在东亚地区，日本、台湾、韩国、泰国、马来西亚及印度尼西亚大部分地区由于经济增长迅速，这种贫富收入不均的状况已大为改观。而目前中国广大地区的收入差距也在迅速缩小，这种趋势已经影响到印度和越南，并向全球其他地区扩展。

　　全球经济增速最快的是一些贫穷国家，尤其是印度、中国和印度尼西亚。中等收入国家的平均增速高于富裕国家。换言之，全球收入分配不均的状况正在迅速得到改善。

　　贸易保护将加剧失业问题

　　工人对因产业结构调整而遭受的痛苦进行抱怨是完全可以理解的。对许多家庭而言，长期失业将使他们倾家荡产，将他们的生活变成了一场噩梦。这些家庭遭受的痛苦是不容忽视的。

　　但科学的经济学理论是建立在对事实进行客观分析而并非感情的基础之上。有时候，贸易保护主义者所设想的那种看似“符合常理”的解决方法实际上可能是一种极不明智的举动。即使是再好的愿望最终也可能会带来最糟糕的结果。贸易保护主义者的政策建议将会加剧失业问题。

　　如果越来越多的美国学者和官员片面地夸大全球化造成的不公，从而使美国走上一条增长更迟缓、失业更严重、各国关系更紧张的道路，那么美国决不会从中受益。

　　相反，美国及其领导人应着眼于利用经济处于快速增长的机会，为受到全球化进程影响的劳动者提供教育和和培训机会，使他们在新兴行业能获得就业，从而使劳动者受益于全球化而不是遭受全球化所带来的痛苦。


　　英文原文：Globalization's Unequal Discontents
Protectionists who characterize free trade as almost treasonous are on a crusade to build new barriers around America in an effort to keep jobs in and imports out.

Some have built careers around denouncing the evils of globalization. CNN commentator Lou Dobbs, for example, criticizes free trade on a regular basis on his nightly show and in his book \"Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed is Shipping American Jobs Overseas.\" A promo for the book on the CNN Web site states: \"The shipment of American jobs to cheap foreign labor markets threatens not only millions of workers and their families, but also the American way of life.\"

The most serious critique of globalization is the charge that it promotes inequality, driving down U.S. wages while enriching millionaire corporate executives. This charge is partly true, but mostly false.

The true part is that within many countries, globalization has enhanced the wealth of business owners and managers while providing proportionately less wage growth for ordinary workers. It has done so by expanding the workforce participating in the modern world economy to include much of the populations of Eastern Europe, China and India.

As a result, millions of workers in the U.S. and Western Europe now face more competition than ever before from others willing to work for far lower wages. Capital has not experienced a proportionate increase in competition, so the share of corporate profits has risen and the share of wages has fallen. The rich get richer, while incomes of workers as a whole go up as well, but more slowly.

Some manufacturing workers in the United States -- such as those who labored in huge factories making basic steel -- have suffered as they've seen their jobs leave America for low-wage countries. But for workers as a whole, the truth about globalization and inequality is the opposite of what the protectionists claim. There are three caveats to the steel worker's story and two larger perspectives on inequality.

One caveat is that protectionists enormously exaggerate the negative effects of globalization by attributing virtually all manufacturing job losses to competition with China. We are told by union leaders and some politicians that America is exporting millions of jobs to China. This is absolutely untrue.

Scholarly studies show that most job losses in the United States are attributable to domestic causes such as increased domestic productivity. A few years ago it took 40 hours of labor to produce a car. Now it takes 15. That translates into a need for fewer workers. Protectionists who blame China for such job losses are being intellectually dishonest. In fact, both China and the U.S. have lost manufacturing jobs due to rising productivity, but China has lost ten times more -- a decline of about 25 million Chinese jobs from over 54 million in 1994 to under 30 million ten years later.

A second caveat is that there are two ways to increase people's standard of living. One is to increase their wages. The other is to decrease prices so that they can buy more things with the same amount of money.

The ability to buy inexpensive, quality Chinese-made shoes and Japanese-made cars at lower prices disproportionately benefits lower income Americans. The Wall Street banker who pays $350 for Church's shoes benefits relatively little, but the janitor who buys shoes for $25 rather than $50 at Payless or Target or Wal-Mart benefits greatly.

Lower prices due to imports from China alone -- ignoring all other similar results of globalization -- probably raise the real incomes of lower income Americans by 5 to 10 percent. That's something no welfare program has ever accomplished.

A third caveat is that the protectionists never mention the jobs created and saved by globalization. If General Motors avoids bankruptcy, as seems likely, one important reason will be the profits it has made by selling cars in China. The vast China market, and the ability of American corporations to expand and refine their operations though a division of labor with China, creates many high level jobs in U.S. operations ranging in diversity from Motorola to IBM to Caterpillar to Boeing to farming.

The first of the larger perspectives on globalization is that open economies adjust faster to their real competitive advantages, allowing them to employ their own people. The most recent U.S. unemployment rate was 4.4 percent. France, along with other relatively protected economies, typically has twice as high a proportion of the population unemployed because their workers are stuck in inappropriate jobs.

Still more protected economies, like many in Latin America, often run much higher rates of unemployment -- up to 40%. Economies more open than the U.S. -- like Singapore and Hong Kong -- historically run lower rates of unemployment.

The worst inequality is between families whose breadwinners have jobs and those who don't. Globalization minimizes that problem.

Globalization has brought countries with about 3 billion people from subhuman conditions of life into modern standards of living with adequate food, basic shelter, modern clothing rather than rags, and life spans that are over 60 rather than under 45. （In the early 1950s China's life expectancy was 41 years, in 2005 it was 72.7 years. This is the greatest reduction of inequality that has happened in human history.

In East Asia, this reduction of inequality has resulted from a wave of economic growth that has swept through Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and much of Indonesia. It is rapidly spreading across China, is well on the way in India and Vietnam and is coming to other countries around the world.

The world's fastest growth is occurring in some of its poorest countries, notably India, China and Indonesia. The middle income countries are growing faster on average than the rich countries. In other words, global inequality is declining fast.

It is not surprising when workers in industries undergoing adjustment complain about the pain of change. For many families, prolonged unemployment can wipe out their savings, cost them their homes and turn their lives into a nightmare. The suffering of these families can't be ignored.

But sound economics is based on facts grounded in objective analysis, not on emotion. Sometimes, what seems like a \"common sense\" solution is not really very sensible at all, as is seen with the arguments of the protectionists. Even the best of intentions can, in the end, bring about the worst of outcomes. The protectionists' proposed policies would sharply increase the agony of unemployment.

America will not benefit if an increasing number of opinion leaders and elected officials use exaggerated, partial views of inequality to try to lead us into a future of slower growth, higher unemployment and greater world tensions.

Instead, America and its leaders should focus on how the nation can use the rapidly expanding economy to assist individuals who have suffered from globalization to get the education, training and opportunities in new industries they need to benefit rather than suffer from globalization.

William H. Overholt is Director of the Center for Asia Pacific Policy at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.


来源：华盛顿邮报，2006.12.21，作者：William H. Overholt