拥有悠久历史的非洲共享经济
日期:2018-07-25 15:18

(单词翻译:单击)

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So what I'm doing is a thought experiment. Now you may know of or have read this book by this guy.
我在做的,是一个思想实验。你们可能知道或读过这个家伙写的这本书。
It's probably the first and maybe the only bestseller ever written about economics.
这可能是畅销书中第一次也是唯一一次出现关于经济的书。
And you probably know a bit about what it says.
你可能多少知道一点它的内容。
It talks about how nations all over the world will prosper through the individual pursuit of individual profit.
它谈的是全世界的国家要如何透过个人对于个人利益的追求来繁荣。
Individual profit will be the mechanism for the prosperity of the world.
个人利益会是世界繁荣的机制。
But the funny thing about Adam Smith is that he was a stay-at-home kind of guy.
但亚当·斯密有一点十分有趣, 那就是,他是个宅男。
He actually never went further from Edinburgh than France and Switzerland.
实际上,他从来没有从爱丁堡去到任何比法国和瑞士更远的地方。
So my thought experiment is to imagine what would have happened if Adam Smith had visited Africa.
所以,我的思想实验是要想象,如果亚当史密斯造访过非洲,会发生什么事。
And fortunately, there's actually an easy answer,
幸运地是,有个很简单的答案,
because the Arab lawyer and traveler Ibn Battuta traveled down the east coast of Africa in the 14th century,
因为阿拉伯律师及旅人伊本巴图塔在十四世纪时,沿着非洲的东岸旅行,
and what he found when he got to Mogadishu was a market, and he wrote about it.
当他到达摩加迪沙时,他发现了一个市场,这成为他的写作素材。
And basically, merchant ships came to the harbor, and they weren't even allowed to land.
通常来说,商人会乘船来到海港,他们甚至不被允许登陆。
They had to drop anchor in the harbor,
他们得要在海港抛下锚,
and boats came out to them, and locals picked them and said, "You are my guest, I am now your broker."
再搭小船出来,当地人会挑选他们,说:“你是我的客人,我现在是你的中介。”
And they had to do business through the local broker,
他们得要透过当地中介来做生意,
and if they went around that and didn't do business through the broker,
如果他们想走别的门路,不透过中介来做生意,
they could go to court, and the deal would be canceled, and they would be thrown out of town.
他们可能要上法庭,且交易就会被取消,他们会被丢出镇外。
And through this mechanism, everyone prospered.
透过这个机制,人人都有赚头。
And so if that was Adam Smith, he might look like this guy and say,
换成是亚当·斯密,他可能就会像这个家伙,说:
"Ah! That's a mutual aid society. That's a share-the-wealth free market."
“啊!那是个互助的社会。那是个财富共享的利伯维尔场。”
And when I put this question to Christian, who had the stage at the beginning of this session,
当我问克利斯汀班这个问题,他在这段议程的开头有上台演说,
he responded that if Adam Smith had come to Africa, there would have been a sharing economy long before Airbnb and Uber.
他的响应是,如果亚当·斯密去过非洲,共享经济的出现就会远比Airbnb和Uber早许多。
And that's true. So if we put this to work today, it would be very interesting.
那是真的。如果我们把它放到现今这个时代,会非常有意思。
There would be a lot of money flowing into the countries.
会有很多钱流入国家。
These are just figures of 10 percent of exports in these countries.
这些数字只是这些国家出口的10%。
So the interesting thing is that this mutual aid economy still exists, and we can find examples of it in the strangest places.
有趣的地方在于,这种互助经济仍然存在,我们能在最奇怪的地方找到例子。
So, this is Alaba International Market. It's the largest electronics market in West Africa.
这是阿拉巴国际市场。它是西非最大的电子产品市场。
It's 10,000 merchants, they do about four billion dollars of turnover every year.
有一万个商家,他们每年的营业额大约是四十亿美元。
And they say they are ardent apostles of Adam Smith:
他们说他们是亚当·斯密的忠诚信徒:
competition is great, we're all in it individually, government doesn't help us.
竞争很好,我们都以个人身分参与其中,政府对我们没有帮助。
But the interesting reality is that when I asked further, that's not what grew the market at all.
但有趣的现实是,当我进一步询问时,发现那完全不是让市场成长的原因。
There's a behind-the-scenes principle that enables this market to grow.
幕后还有些原则在,是这些原则让市场成长。
And they do claim -- you know, this is an interesting juxtaposition of the King James Bible and "How To Sell Yourself."
他们确实宣称--你们知道的,将钦定版圣经与《如何推销你自己》放在一起,是种有趣的并列。
That's what they say is their message. But in reality, this market is governed by a sharing principle.
那就是他们的信息中所说的内容。但在现实中,这个市场是用共享原则来管理的。
Every merchant, when you ask them, "How did you get started in global trade?"
你问任何一位商人:“你何时开始做全球贸易的?”
they say, "Well, when my master settled me."
他们会说:“嗯,当我的师父把我安置好时。”
And when I finally got it into my head to ask, "What is this 'settling?'"
我终于突然想到要问:“这种安置是什么?”
it turns out that when you've done your apprenticeship with someone you work for,
结果发现,在你跟着雇主当学徒的见习期完成之后,
they are required -- required -- to set you up in business.
他们必须要,“必须要” 帮你建立事业。
That means paying your rent for two or three years
那就表示要帮你付两或三年的房租,
and giving you a cash infusion so you can go out in the world and start trading.
给你现金资本,让你可以走出去并开始交易。
That's locally generated venture capital. Right?
那是当地自产的创业投资,对吧?
And I can say with almost certainty that
我几乎可以肯定地说,
the Igbo apprenticeship system that governs Alaba International Market is the largest business incubator platform in the world.
管理阿拉巴国际市场的伊布学徒体制,是世界上最大的创业育成平台。

拥有悠久历史的非洲共享经济

And there are other sharing economies that we look for -- merry-go-rounds, which are found in almost every shantytown.
我们还寻找其他共享经济--几乎在每个贫民区都可以看到“旋转木马”。
They have different names in other cultures; this is the Kenyan name.
在不同的文化中,“旋转木马”有不同的名字,这是肯尼亚的用词。
It's a way of generating cash. It's a kitty -- people throw money into a pot once a week,
它是一种产生现金的方式。共同凑出一笔钱--每周一次,大家把钱投入罐中,
and once a week, one member of the group gets the money, and they can spend it on whatever they need to.
每周一次,团体中的一个成员会去取钱,他们可以把钱花在任何需要的地方。
And there's also something called "acequias," and that is a Spanish word,
还有所谓的“灌溉水渠”,它是西班牙语,
but it comes from the North African Arabic; "saqiya" means "water wheel."
但来自北非的阿拉伯字;“saqiya”意思是“水轮”。
And what the acequia is is a sharing system for scarce water.
灌溉水渠则是种稀少水资源的共享系统。
It's migrated from North Africa to Spain, and from Spain to the west of the United States, where it still is used.
它被从北非移往西班牙,再从西班牙移往美国西部,现在在那里都还有使用。
And it shares water by need rather than by who was there first.
这个系统是根据需求来分享水,而不是根据谁先到。
And contrary, with all due respect, to what Llew said when he talked about blockchains and cryptocurrencies yesterday,
没有不敬的意思,但这和卢克拉森昨天在谈到车链和密码货币时所说的相反,
there is no tragedy of the commons.
没有公地悲剧。
People in acequias have been commonly managing scarce water resources for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
在灌溉水渠中的人,一直都共同管理着稀有的水资源,数百年来都是如此。
So taking this thought experiment, I wanted to go a little bit further and suggest that these things are managed communally,
所以,我把这个思想实验再更进一步,我认为这些东西是以公有的方式来管理的,
and they are taking care of scarce capital, scarce cash and scarce resources.
他们能处理稀有资本、稀有现金以及稀有资源。
And it seems to me that we have actually two kinds of capitalism.
在我看来,我们似乎有两种资本主义。
We have the capitalism of the top up. And these are really interesting statistics,
有“由上而上”的资本主义。这些统计数字很有意思,
because three one-thousandths of one percent of the Nigerian population controls wealth equal to one-fourth of the GDP of the country.
因为尼日利亚人口1%的千分之三所控制的财富等同于该国GDP的四分之一。
One one-hundredth of one percent of the Kenyan population controls wealth equal to 75 percent of the GDP of the country.
肯尼亚人口1%的百分之一所控制的财富等同于该国GDP的75%。
That's the capitalism of top up. And everyone else is with this guy,
这就是由上而上的资本主义。所有其他人就和这个家伙一样,
selling board games and bodybuilding equipment in a go-slow on the highway in Lagos.
在拉哥斯的公路上的缓慢车流中销售桌上游戏以及健身器材。
And when you're selling board games and bodybuilding equipment in a go-slow,
当你在缓慢车流中销售桌上游戏和健身器材时,
that traffic jam is really, really, really bad, right?
塞车状况一定是非常非常糟,对吧?
Those of us in this sphere of the economy are caught in what I call "the capitalism of decay,"
在这层经济中的我们这些人碰到的是我所谓的“衰退的资本主义”,
because there's no way to rise up and get out of it,
因为不可能爬起来,从中脱出,
because they're lacking the resources that we talked about in those sharing economies.
因为他们没有我们在谈那些共享经济时谈到的那些资源。
And they're tripped up by the thesis of cassava and capitalism,
他们被树薯论点以及资本主义给绊倒了,
that cassava has to be processed in order not to be poisonous,
树薯必须要经过处理才不会有毒,
and I would argue that, similarly, the market economy needs to be processed in order to be fair to everyone.
同样地,我的主张是,市场经济需要被处理过,才能对每个人都公平。
So we have to look at what I call the "bottom down economy."
所以我们得要看看我所谓的“由下而下的经济”。
These are these sharing models that exist out there that need to be propagated and used and scaled. OK?
外头还存在有这些共享模型,它们需要被传播、被使用、被扩大。
And if we propagate these things, we can begin to bring infrastructure to everyone,
如果我们传播这些东西,我们就能开始将基础建设带给每个人,
and that will ensure that communities are leading their own development,
那就能确保小区能引领它们自己的发展,
which is, I believe, what we need in the world, and, I would suggest, what we need in Africa.
而我相信,这就是我们在世界上所需要的,并且我认为,它也是我们在非洲所需要的。
I wanted to quote Steve Biko, and I thought it was really important to quote Steve Biko,
我想要引述史蒂夫·比科的话,我认为引述他的话是很重要的,
because next month, September 12 to be exact, is the 40th anniversary of his murder by the South African state.
因为下个月,确切来说是9月12日,就是他被南非国家谋杀的四十周年。
And you can read the quote. He basically said that we're not here to compete.
你们可以读读这句引述。基本上,他说,我们不是来这里竞争的。
And I love this quote: "... to make us a community of brothers and sisters
我很爱这句引述:“...让我们成为一个兄弟姐妹的共同体,
jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to the varied problems of life."
联合起来,一起为人生的各种问题,寻求一个复合的答案。”
And he also said that "the great powers of the world have done wonders in giving us an industrial and military look, ..."
他也说:“世界上的伟大强权已经创造了奇迹,给予我们工业和军事的外表...”
and we don't have to copy that military-industrialist complex,
我们不需复制那军事实业家的情结,
because Africa can do things differently and restore the humanity of the world.
因为非洲能用不同的方式来做事,并恢复世界的人性。
And so what I want to suggest here is that we have an opportunity,
所以,这里我想点出的是,我们有一个机会,
that we are all here in the mutual landscape to be able to do things, and that the journey starts now. Thank you very much.
我们都在这里,有共同的观点去做事情,而那旅程就从现在开始。非常感谢。

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