With the Chinese economy slowing and its stock market bubble bursting, debate is raging inside and outside the country about how to ensure the most populous nation remains the biggest driver of global growth.

随着中国经济放缓和股市泡沫破裂，境内外人士展开了一场激烈辩论，焦点是如何确保这个人口最多的国家继续充当全球增长的最大推动力？

Probably the only thing on which all sides agree is that a return to the collectivist totalitarianism of the Maoist era economics would be a bad idea.

各方唯一同意的一点很可能是，回到毛泽东时代的集体主义/极权主义经济范式将是一个馊主意。

But according to research by four prominent economists, maybe Chinese policymakers should not be too quick to rule that out.

但是，根据四位知名经济学家的研究，中国的政策制定者也许不应太快排除这个选项。

In a paper, the economists, based at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Princeton, Yale and Sciences Po in Paris, have examined productivity and growth rates in China at the height of the Maoist period and extrapolated those to predict how China would grow between now and 2050 had the country returned to those policies. They concluded that the abolition of the private sector in China and a return to a command economy would yield an annual average gross domestic product growth of 4-5 per cent. That is about one percentage point less than the average growth they predict China will achieve if it continues with market-based reforms that began in the late 1970s and that are credited with lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

分别来自达拉斯联邦储备银行(Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)、普林斯顿大学(Princeton)、耶鲁大学(Yale)和巴黎政治学院(Sciences Po)的这些经济学家，在一篇论文中分析了中国在毛时代巅峰时期的生产率和经济增长率，并在外推这些数据的基础上预测：若重拾这些政策，中国经济从现在到2050年将如何增长？他们得出的结论是，若中国废除私营部门，恢复指令性经济体制，将实现4%至5%的年均国内生产总值(GDP)增长。这比他们预测的中国在继续推进始于上世纪70年代末的市场改革情况下将实现的年均增长率低了大约一个百分点；改革被誉为让数亿人摆脱了贫困。

“Our model is essentially an accounting exercise that allows us to uncover the key factors of growth in China during and after the Mao era,” said Aleh Tsyvinski, a professor of economics at Yale and co-author of the report.

“我们的模型本质上是一次会计练习，让我们能够发现中国在毛时代期间和之后的经济增长的关键因素，”耶鲁大学经济学家、报告的作者之一艾勒奇温斯基(Aleh Tsyvinski)表示。

“The main point of our findings is that, contrary to common misconceptions, productivity growth under Mao, particularly in the non-agricultural sector, was actually pretty good.”

“我们的研究结果的要点是，与一般人的误解相反，在毛掌权期间，中国的生产率增长实际上相当不错，尤其是在非农部门。”

Assuming a continuation of current policies, the paper forecasts that the economy will expand by 7-8 per cent for the next decade, slowing to 5.2 per cent on average between 2024 and 2036 and then 3.6 per cent between 2036 and 2050. That is slower than the 3.9 per cent rate it predicts between 2036 and 2050 if China were to return to Maoist policies introduced after the Great Leap Forward, in which 30m people died in a famine that was largely the result of economic mismanagement.

这篇论文预测，假设现行政策得到延续，中国经济未来10年的年均增长率将保持在7%至8%，在2024年至2036年期间放缓至年均增长5.2%，在2036年至2050年期间进一步放缓至3.6%。而根据他们的预测，中国如果重拾大跃进后出炉的毛主义政策，在2036年至2050年期间年均增长率将达到3.9%。大跃进引发了一场大饥荒，导致3000万人丧生，其主要原因是经济上的瞎折腾。

The authors focused on economic factors and did not consider the impact of individual policies or the social costs of Mao’s campaigns and purges, which left millions of people dead, ostracised or imprisoned in gulags.

这几位作者聚焦于经济因素，而没有考虑具体政策的影响，也没有考虑毛发起的运动和清洗所造成的社会代价。当年这些运动和清洗导致数以百万计的人死亡、流放或关押在劳改营。