看看BBC上英国人的一种观点。关于国家地区兴衰的地理位置观。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11721671
Location, location and how the West was won
By Ian Morris
Professor, Stanford University
Continue reading the main story
In today's Magazine
Should we give up on housework?
The Coventry Blitz 'conspiracy'
7 days news quiz
Are giraffes at risk from lightning?
On his current visit to Beijing, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said China will soon reclaim its position as the world's biggest economy - a role it has held for 18 of the past 20 centuries. But how did the US, Britain and the rest of Europe interrupt this reign of supremacy? It comes down to location.
Why does the West dominate the world?
Europeans have been asking this question since the 18th Century, and Africans and Asians since the 19th. But there is still not much agreement on the answers.
People once claimed Westerners were simply biologically superior. Others have argued Western religion, culture, ethics, or institutions are uniquely excellent, or that the West has had better leaders. Others still reject all these ideas, insisting that Western domination is just an accident.
But in the last few years, a new kind of theory has gained ground.
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What is the West?
Ian Morris
Professor, Stanford University
Distinctive ways of life began emerging in different parts of the world 11,000 years ago, when the first farmers created more complex societies. Great civilizations grew out of the original agricultural cores (in what we now call southwest Asia, China, Pakistan, Mexico, and Peru), all of which steadily expanded as population grew.
The westernmost of the Old World's agricultural cores, in southwest Asia, was the foundation of what we now call Western Civilization. By 500 BC, the Western core had expanded across Europe, its centre of gravity shifting to the Mediterranean cultures of Greece and Rome. By 1500 AD it had expanded still further, and its centre was shifting into Western Europe. By 1900 AD it had expanded across the oceans, and its centre was shifting to North America.
People, it suggests, are much the same all over the world. The reason why some groups stuck with hunting and gathering while others built empires and had industrial revolutions has nothing to do with genetics, beliefs, attitudes, or great men: it was simply a matter of geography.
China and India are, of course poised to pick up the baton of global superpowers, but to explain why the West rules, we have to plunge back 15,000 years to the point when the world warmed up at the end of the last ice age.
Geography then dictated that there were only a few regions on the planet where farming was possible, because only they had the kinds of climate and landscape which allowed the evolution of wild plants and animals that could potentially be domesticated.
The densest concentrations of these plants and animals lay towards the western end of Eurasia, around the headwaters of the Euphrates, Tigris, and Jordan Rivers in what we now call south-west Asia. It was therefore here, around 9000 BC, that farming began, spreading outwards across Europe.
Farming also started independently in other areas, from China to Mexico; but because plants and animals that could be domesticated were somewhat less common in these zones than in the West, the process took thousands of years longer to get going. These other zones of complex agricultural societies also expanded, but the West long retained its early lead, producing the world's first cities, states, and empires.
But if this were all that there was to the story - that the West got an early lead and held onto it - there would be no controversy over why the West rules. In reality, when we look back across history, we see that things were more complicated. Geography determined how societies developed; but how societies developed simultaneously determined what geography meant.
Continue reading the main story
The first city - 6,000 years ago in Iraq
Richard Miles
Archaeologist and historian
The ancient Greeks called it Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers - Tigris and Euphrates. But it is also the land between two seas - the Mediterranean Sea and Persia Gulf. It is also the land between mountain and desert, lagoon and salt marsh. All these geographical features have to be borne in mind when considering the birthplace of the first civilisations.
Geography v history - it's impossible to know which takes precedence. There's no getting away from the brutal facts of nature - rivers that flood will dry up, rainfall that's intermittent, mountains that are impassable, deserts that are hostile.
Applying this kind of analysis to Mesopotamia, where summers are hot, winters are cold and rainfall is low, I'd sum it up like this: difficult but not impossible. No garden of Eden, but no howling wilderness either.
Richard Miles' Ancient Worlds on BBC Two
Explore artefacts in the series
In the earliest days of agriculture, having the right temperatures, rainfall, and topography was all-important. But as villages grew into cities, these geographical facts became less important than living on a great river like the Nile, which made irrigation possible.
As states turned into empires, being on a river began mattering less than access to a navigable sea like the Mediterranean, which was what allowed Rome to move its food, armies, and taxes around.
As the ancient world's empires expanded further, though, they changed the meanings of geography again. The long bands of steppes from Mongolia to Hungary turned into a kind of highway along which nomads moved at will, undermining the empires themselves.
In the first five centuries AD, the Old World's great empires - from Rome in the West to Han China in the East - all came apart; but the political changes transformed geography once again. China recreated a unified empire in the 6th Century AD, while the West never did so.
For more than a millennium, until at least 1700, China was the richest, strongest, and most inventive place on earth, and the East pulled ahead of the West.
East Asian inventors came up with one breakthrough after another. By 1300 their ships could cross the oceans and their crude guns could shoot the people on the other side. But then, in the kind of paradox that fills human history, the East's breakthroughs changed the meaning of geography once again.
Click to play
Click to play
Richard Miles at Tell Brak - a city first excavated by Agatha Christie's husband Max Mallowan
Western Europe - sticking out into the cold North Atlantic, far from the centres of action - had always been a backwater. But when Europeans learned of the East's ocean-going ships and guns, their location on the Atlantic abruptly became a huge geographical plus.
Before people could cross the oceans, it had not mattered that Europe was twice as close as China to the vast, rich lands of the Americas. But now that people could cross the oceans, this became the most important geographical fact in the world.
The Atlantic, 3,000 miles across, became a kind of Goldilocks Ocean, neither too big nor too small. It was just big enough that very different kinds of goods were produced around its shores in Europe, Africa, and America; and just small enough that the ships of Shakespeare's age could cross it quite easily.
The Pacific, by contrast, was much too big. Following the prevailing tides and winds, it was an 8,000-mile trip from China to California - just about possible 500 years ago, but too far to make trade profitable.
Geography determined that it was western Europeans, rather than the 15th Century's finest sailors - the Chinese - who discovered, plundered, and colonised the Americas. Chinese sailors were just as daring as Spaniards; Chinese settlers just as intrepid as Britons; but Europeans, not Chinese, seized the Americas because Europeans only had to go half as far.
Europeans went on in the 17th Century to create a new market economy around the shores of the Atlantic, exploiting comparative advantages between continents. This forced European thinkers to confront new questions about how the winds and tides worked. They learned to measure and count in better ways, and cracked the codes of physics, chemistry, and biology.
As a result, Europe, not China, had a scientific revolution. Europeans, not Chinese, turned science's insights onto society itself in the 18th Century in what we now call the Enlightenment.
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Will China soon rival the US?
Many observers think so, but not George W Bush. In an interview with the Times this week, he said that "internal problems" meant it was unlikely to rival the US any time soon. "Do I think America will remain sole superpower? I do."
The Times [subscription required]
By 1800, science and the Atlantic market economy pushed western Europeans into mechanising production and tapping the power of fossil fuels. Britain had the world's first industrial revolution, and by 1850 bestrode the world like a colossus.
But the transforming power of geography did not stop there. By 1900 the British-dominated global economy had drawn in the resources of North America, changing the meaning of geography once again. The US, until recently a rather backward periphery, became the new global core.
And still the process did not stop. In the 20th Century, the American-dominated global economy in turn drew in the resources of Asia. As container ships and jet airliners turned even the vast Pacific Ocean into a puddle, the apparently backward peripheries of Japan, then the "Asian Tigers", and eventually China and India turned into even newer global cores.
The "rise of the East", so shocking to so many Westerners, was entirely predictable to those who understood that geography determines how societies develop, and that how societies develop simultaneously determines what geography means.
When power and wealth shifted across the Atlantic from Europe to America in the mid-20th Century, the process was horrifyingly violent. As we move into the mid-21st century, power and wealth will shift across the Pacific from America to China.
The great challenge for the next generation is not how to stop geography from working; it is how to manage its effects without a Third World War.
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- Re: 为什么西方会领先;中国是否会崛起?posted on 11/15/2010
地理位置观我还蛮同意的。我一直提地中海,以及北方的波罗的海。但还有许多别的
因素,比一轮新的生命,我以为新近一轮文明是Viking的。
海洋文明吧。比大地更广阔的是海洋,比海洋更广阔的是天空,,,人呢?还是要交流的。
- posted on 11/16/2010
回复 #1 xw
地理位置观我还蛮同意的。我一直提地中海,以及北方的波罗的海。但还有许多别的 因素,比一轮新的生命,我以为新近一轮文明是Viking的。 海洋文明吧。比大地更广阔的是海洋,比海洋更广阔的是天空,,,人呢?还是要交流的。地理环境决定论是老调子了。很重要,但不是最重要的。
非洲也是大西洋沿岸国家,非洲人就没最早踏上美洲。
三十年河东,三十年河西,中国老话我觉得好一些。
中国崛起我觉得是不容质疑的事,现在最忧心的是崛起之后咋办,能否逃脱富不过三代这么个死律。
- posted on 11/16/2010
qinggang wrote:中国崛起我觉得是不容质疑的事,现在最忧心的是崛起之后咋办,能否逃脱富不过三代这么个死律
这还很难讲是不容置疑的事情。恰恰相反,里面大有疑问。是否崛起,必有一个历史标志事件来衡量。一般而言,是关键性的冲突和战役结果。中国不可能避免这一过程。没有广泛的技术革命,抢不来道德意识话语权,你就不可能真正永久性地击败对手。
中国社会刚刚起步就已经弹痕累累,内部千疮百孔。精英摇摆,领袖无为。政体封闭而守旧,愚昧而不善变化。人民在丛林法则中生存,勉强适应,寻找方向。还差得很远。
很高兴看到青岗。问老A好。 - posted on 11/17/2010
回复 #3 令胡冲
这还很难讲是不容置疑的事情。恰恰相反,里面大有疑问。是否崛起,必有一个历史标志事件来衡量。一般而言,是关键性的冲突和战役结果。中国不可能避免这一过程。没有广泛的技术革命,抢不来道德意识话语权,你就不可能真正永久性地击败对手。 中国社会刚刚起步就已经弹痕累累,内部千疮百孔。精英摇摆,领袖无为。政体封闭而守旧,愚昧而不善变化。人民在丛林法则中生存,勉强适应,寻找方向。还差得很远。 很高兴看到青岗。问老A好。我只是初步判断。
至于是否崛起,自己说没用,主要看国际反应。英国、美国上周都有表现。
至于崛起是否要靠某一关键的冲突和战役结果,我觉得这是前核战时代的特点,现在不一定。
中国的政体有弊端,但也大体适合目前的国情,而且适宜后发达社会快速追赶经济。
我有一段没见老A,见了会带好。
- posted on 11/18/2010
前核世界和后核世界其实并没有实质性的差别。核武器互相毁灭只是一层薄纸,并不能保护任何国家,也不可能给中国真正的护卫。
维护和平的唯一手段,是提高自己真实的军事打击能力,并通过实战测试这种能力。中国军力发展仍然不够迅速,无法满足经济贸易的增长需求。而且多年没有实战,没有真正的实战威慑力量。自己也无把握,在实战中,有可能会打成什么样子。别人跟你挑衅开战前,又怎么会三思而行?
我觉得,中国到了应该大力荣军备战的时候。大城市应该开始年度性大规模防空演习,防火防化防核防生物病毒战防IT网络战等等多防演习。而且应该是全体居民参与的实际演习,形成年度实战演习。军队集成作战和军民集成计划。全国设立荣军节日,政府高调向一切外战中军人和遗属后代提供具体医疗保障和公费养老计划。利用媒体营造外战军人的荣誉感。这最终才能形成一种保家卫国的硬实力,为即将到来的社会政体变化做保障,撑起足够的空间来。
过去整整一个半世纪,每当中国社会进行现代转型的时候,就总有外强入侵或军力施压,中国不得不中断复杂的社会转型,生死存亡残酷战争之中,打出了自己的疟气,形成了历史文化中的负面性格。以至与战后也始终无法恢复,常将国家积弱的原因过渡简化理解,片面理解,简单地归咎于是传统的封建政体,外强的残酷入侵,和自己民心的散乱与软弱。难免要去物极必反,幻想着毁灭过去,统一思想,就会尽快脱离苦海,找一条人间捷径。人间哪里会有别人不知道、唯你专用的捷径?
岂不知,强国强文化皆是内外有别,天地之差别。内务纷繁复杂,需要无限的容忍和耐心,在容忍和进取改良中苦苦寻找不断变化的平衡点,不断探索和重新定位国家社会长远利益和当前利益的方向与解读,善于虚心学习他人社会,建立恢弘无序的民间自组织自发展模式,建立海纳百川的胸怀和开放的意识形态体系。对外却应该万众一心,化繁为简,利益鲜明,当仁不让。中国时常难分内外,政治思维单纯愚昧而不善变化和进步,适应力还不够,有可能需要漫长的时间、艰苦的努力,需要相当平顺的空间,来完成这种脱离千年传统的彻底蜕变。没有实战军力给自己的社会蜕变做切实保障,难免再次重蹈覆辙。 - posted on 11/18/2010
令胡可以写军事专著了。青冈说得未必没有道理,诸葛有“天下有变”。刘基有高筑
墙。我想,台海出现好局面,是好事情。。太平洋是谁的内海?当年日本人够疯狂
,给美国佬筑了一道墙。
中国能否崛起,我看语言还成问题。别的,东西竞逐,总是西一边的上手,比如古
希腊对波斯,对印度。古罗马对古希腊,英国对欧陆,美陆对欧陆。当然中国在地
盘上还是美国之西。我看中美合作好过战争,茫茫太平洋,够多少条战船来填?中
国能不能崛起我记得老布什提过中国要能和平崛起便是世界文明的奇迹。
美国佬未必还能过得上个世纪未那样神仙的日子,这是肯定。英国佬还是高高在上
,收高利贷,写书搞教育。夹在中间的海华们,日子过得不坏就是了。
这一点还是要感谢中国的经济奇迹!
- Re: RE: RE: 为什么西方会领先;中国是否会崛起?posted on 11/18/2010
等我拿天中了大奖,有空了,要写一本中西比较政治学. 军事没有意思.
第一手资料,第一手感触已经不少了.历史和理论再看看书就行了,那就是小意思了. - posted on 11/19/2010
xw wrote:
这一点还是要感谢中国的经济奇迹!
既然扯到经济奇迹,也来说两句,不需用一丁点econ 101的基础概念。
根据网络文献,目前中国太子党所控制的金融、外贸、国土开发、大型工程、证券五大领域,应该说是赚钱最快,利润最高的行业,最大效率地附合了资本运转的要求。中国经济节节走高,领先全球,实乃归功于这五大,再加上超国民待遇的外资,以及国营垄断的资源型企业(暂称为独霸天下的七仙魔道)。
如果综合这些行业暴利的根源,我个人来看,不外乎三点:弱势群体的透支、政策程序的透支、以及资源利用的透支(也暂表为三味真火)。任意拿其中一个行业来观察,比如大型工程,从程序操作的黑幕,到克扣拖欠薪水的民工。证券市场,早就是政策性对平民散户的掠夺。再如外贸,同样可以从民工和资源方面来找找。
那么剩下的判断是,三大透支可以持续的时间,也就是中国经济奇迹可以延续的时间。而温家宝口头倡议的政改的终极理想,当然是这三大透支的结束,在此之后,奇迹延续的绝招还在哪里?所以我怀疑政改的动力究竟会来自何方?到底是政改的泡沫先吹起,还是经济的泡沫先破裂,大家不妨两只手掰着指头来数一数,比一比。
- posted on 11/19/2010
老瓦 wrote:
根据网络文献,目前中国太子党所控制的金融、外贸、国土开发、大型工程、证券五大领域,应该说是赚钱最快,利润最高的行业,最大效率地附合了资本运转的要求。中国经济节节走高,领先全球,实乃归功于这五大,再加上超国民待遇的外资,以及国营垄断的资源型企业(暂称为独霸天下的七仙魔道)。
美国没有太子党。那美国是什么人在控制金融、外贸、国土开发、大型工程、证券五大领域?美国独霸天下的七仙魔道是谁呢?我虽然还没有在美国长久地生活,但我也可以给你列几个我自己的理解出来。:))
我不想为中国的忧患现状开脱,也没有这个必要。我只是想说,任何社会都会有这种权贵阶层和被透支的广大打工族。美国比中国相对好不少,但中国也不是就没有希望。 - RE:posted on 11/19/2010
回复 #9 令胡冲
我只是想说,任何社会都会有这种权贵阶层和被透支的广大打工族。美国比中国相对好不少,但中国也不是就没有希望。虽然如此,微妙在程度上的差别,就像有的人可以一辈子艾滋病毒潜伏不发作。
- posted on 11/20/2010
这种说法,也要放在不同的perspective中来看。对中国的现状做一个判断,我最近几年似乎也感觉到,是一件很复杂的事情,难有简单定论。很多方面,难说好坏。
一个问题是,中国是否真得比过去好了,特别是比1978年前好了。不好说,肯定是比过去更开放了,也有了全球商业商业的视野。民众比过去社会思维方式成熟了很多。大多数人都有直接或间接的亲戚朋友在国外生活。城市中很多人都亲身出国旅行。
经济奇迹,确实不好说。从GDP这一单纯简化的数据来讲,过去30年绝对可以称之为一个了不起的古老大国的奇迹。但这是以损失自己子孙赖以生存的资源和环境为代价的。老瓦上面说到透支,这其实才是一种可怕的透支。所以,几乎所有的人都认为,这种单纯的短视发展是不可持续的。
军力建设和实战能力没有跟上,有些滞后,这是一个关系国家生死存亡的一个巨大风险。今后恐怕不得不加速。否则,你30年来高速发展所得的这点财富,也就等于别人强国的道德水平。
政治改革和社会进步没有跟上。创造财富难,但分配财富更困难。分配不合理, 能够导致社会崩溃、国家分裂。而只有西式英美式的民主实践,才能帮助一个大国来回答一个其实无比限复杂的问题,就是,什么才是合理的财富分配。这就是为什么政治改革和英美式得社会实践模式对中国如此的重要。是中国社会进步绕不过去的大道。这个问题是中国所谓一个国家政体存在的另一个涉及生死存亡的关键问题。
两大忧患,现在还在勉强维持,解决和减轻的迹象缓慢。所以说,现在断言是否崛起,还为时尚早。 - posted on 11/21/2010
回复 #11 令胡冲
这种说法,也要放在不同的perspective中来看。对中国的现状做一个判断,我最近几年似乎也感觉到,是一件很复杂的事情,难有简单定论。很多方面,难说好坏。 一个问题是,中国是否真得比过去好了,特别是比1978年前好了。不好说,肯定是比过去更开放了,也有了全球商业商业的视野。民众比过去社会思维方式成熟了很多。大多数人都有直接或间接的亲戚朋友在国外生活。城市中很多人都亲身出国旅行。 经济奇迹,确实不好说。从GDP这一单纯简化的数据来讲,过去30年绝对可以称之为一个了不起的古老大国的奇迹。但这是以损失自己子孙赖以生存的资源和环境为代价的。老瓦上面说到透支,这其实才是一种可怕的透支。所以,几乎所有的人都认为,这种单纯的短视发展是不可持续的。 军力建设和实战能力没有跟上,有些滞后,这是一个关系国家生死存亡的一个巨大风险。今后恐怕不得不加速。否则,你30年来高速发展所得的这点财富,也就等于别人强国的 ...89年的时候,西方不少知名政客和学者都断言,中国经济和社会很快就要出大问题,或者过不了10年。现在20年都过去了,老百姓都觉得和过去比,日子好了不少,目前从普遍的社会观察上看,水泊梁山的故事土壤还没形成。
经济发展是有阶段性的,有些阶段不可逾越,美国早期也是给欧洲卖木头卖棉花的。许多问题中共高层都明了,最近稀土不出口了,力图全面转变经济发展方式是胡温执政最后抓的大事。
合理的财富分配问题不是大事,集权体制做这样的事轻而易举,现在每年对中西部巨额的中央财政转移支付就完全是西方国家做不到的。不搞民主没出路,英美式的西式民主对中国也不合适,还得如何研究取其中。中是大道。
- posted on 11/21/2010
前阵在电视上听到“弯道超车”这个词。
珠三角地区正在结合前期积累的经济优势,密切关注全球产业最新发展态势。深圳最近是出台了一系列扶植新能源、新材料、生物技术、信息互联网技术等方面的政策法规,然后政府再集中优势资金并引导民间资金主攻上述方向。我觉得这个优势是西方政府不具备的,只要政局稳定,前景的可观也是指日可待。
一个崛起的国家机遇无限,从回国创业的人数日增就看出来了,这个国家决不是衰落的迹象,相反,蒸蒸日上。
民心向上,就是好的,我觉得这就是崛起的气象,其实穷富本身倒还都不是什么主要问题。
- Re: world in china orbitposted on 11/21/2010
today wsj had an article on China and asia, from an euro-central view, which is refreshing
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704104104575622531909154228.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLENews - posted on 11/21/2010
=======
This was the ultimate global imbalance, the result of centuries of economic and political divergence. How did it come about? And is it over?
As I've researched my forthcoming book over the past two years, I've concluded that the West developed six "killer applications" that "the Rest" lacked. These were:
• Competition: Europe was politically fragmented, and within each monarchy or republic there were multiple competing corporate entities.
• The Scientific Revolution: All the major 17th-century breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology happened in Western Europe.
• The rule of law and representative government: This optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures.
• Modern medicine: All the major 19th- and 20th-century advances in health care, including the control of tropical diseases, were made by Western Europeans and North Americans.
• The consumer society: The Industrial Revolution took place where there was both a supply of productivity-enhancing technologies and a demand for more, better and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments.
• The work ethic: Westerners were the first people in the world to combine more extensive and intensive labor with higher savings rates, permitting sustained capital accumulation.
==========
这个贴子象是个普通记者的手笔,但能大胆列出西方社会为什么会富强的六点理由,也算是很不简单了。
不过这六点,我觉得还远远不够充分,依旧有一点人云亦云的大众说法,似乎依旧没有触及到西方强盛的根本所在。
这些年我个人感受,英美社会过去400年的强盛,其中两个核心的原因,一是社会自然进化形成的复杂无序的社会构成,二是不受任何强力约束的个人思维和兴趣的充分表达。
前者保证了它的社会不是某一个人或一群人根据某一种或几种理论而单纯人工斧凿出来的简单结构社会。因为理论上讲,任何人的设计能力都是有限的,所以任何人工的社会设计都不可能比自然进化发展的社会,也就是是造物主的最终设计,更接近完美。人的理解力在任何社会也都是非常有限的,人对社会进化方向也就是优化目标本身的理解,也总是有限和变化的。所以,自组织形式的社会进化,才能决定它无尽的生命力,长久的优势。
具体说,中国自秦汉以来直到清末,一直是金字塔的简单政体模式,各级政府部门具有压倒性的对一切社会物质和文化形式的明确控制权和解释权,决定了中国社会长期处于收敛的状态。没有数学的发展,没有科学传统,没有明晰的哲学传统,没有不同的政治意见,没有对存在、宇宙、生命和知识的无限渴望和追求。入仕成了人生俗世的最高追求。
然而,西方在经历文艺复兴宗教革命等以后,原来在社会中起到压倒性意识力量之一的宗教影响力,就被弱化成普通文化传统之一了。更关键的根本性差别在于,西方社会得政府势力一直比较薄弱,对基层社会文化和生活方式没有直接的完全控制权和管理权。所以在其后长达500多年的时间里,社会能力得到了完全自由的、没有明确目标的充分发展。百业兴盛。
所以我个人认为,中国的前途方向似乎比较明确了。社会政体全盘英美化,是在劫难逃。完成如今的工业和商业革命以后,中国不得不抛弃自己简单的千年金字塔形政体传统,来适应复杂的无序社会形式。江山易改,本性难移。不是一个简单的征途。是一个艰难的转折和挑战。要不然,这世界上,所谓“民主”国家无数,真正富民强国的总是屈指可数。学习英美的政体形式很容易,但要象英美一样操纵这种复杂无序的政体,随心所欲地为自己所用,就不是一件简单的事情了。有可能会邯郸学步。但是,自己的步伐缓慢而愚笨,只能永居人后,所以,很可惜,不学,也不是选择。
这大概也回答了长久以来困扰很多人的一个问题,中国能在很短的时间内毫不犹豫、毫无困难地引入从西方引入科学、数学、哲学、技术、医疗卫生、教育体系、媒体报刊以至于包括每个人日常生活、衣食住行等等一起的一切,唯独社会体制的借鉴和引入就困难重重,总有本性在顽抗抵制。不是水土不服的问题,大概也许可能实在是深入社会文化传统DNA的根子上的问题。谨慎一点,也许并不是一个坏事情。台湾走在前面,与中国文化传统类似,至少也是有了一个探路先锋。所以也不是什么吓死人的事情。
- Re: world in china orbitposted on 11/21/2010
令胡看问题很具体。但具体总会有宏观上的不足,比如数目字,这是黄仁宇一直强调
的,可咖啡的政治专家小麦不一定买帐。细想想,政治还是人上人的产业。我一直以
为一个语言太欣赏自己的书法就过分自恋了,但这也许是上等人的产业。现在我在思
考汉语的强势一面,就是稳定。。。
而世界确实是上等人把管的。我等确实只能见到数目字的层次,要不怎么说肉食者谋
之?如果能喝到一碗奥巴马美钞泡饭,或在伊战阿战工事上发一笔财,估计也不在这
议政了:)。
- posted on 11/22/2010
回复 #15 令胡冲
======= This was the ultimate global imbalance, the result of centuries of economic and political divergence. How did it come about? And is it over? As I've researched my forthcoming book over the past two years, I've concluded that the West developed six "killer applications" that "the Rest" lacked. These were: Competition: Europe was politically fragmented, and within each monarchy or republic ...和令狐大哥唱个反调。西方典型的三权分立民主政治模式恰恰是人类智慧设计的结果,而集权制才是自然丛林进化的产物,古代也有希腊民主,但那种民主是很不完善,也不普遍。谈到“社会政体全盘英美化”,第一,不现实,说说可以,没法操作的;第二,copy过来,也玩不转,梁启超早年最推崇民主,到美国转了一圈后,就改主意了。
所提第二点,我没意见,这个恰是中国目前急需补课的,中共精英式的管制模式有大问题,老不让人自由说话。
- Re: world in china orbitposted on 11/22/2010
the author of wsj article is a professor in Harvard ( see the end of the article)
<<这个贴子象是个普通记者的手笔,但能大胆列出西方社会为什么会富强的六点理由,也算是很不简单了。 - posted on 11/22/2010
The US bi-monthly, Foreign Affairs, recently has an excellent analysis of the near future of China
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66865/elizabeth-c-economy/the-game-changer
After decades of following Deng Xiaoping's dictum "Hide brightness, cherish obscurity," China's leaders have realized that maintaining economic growth and political stability on the home front will come not from keeping their heads low but rather from actively managing events outside China's borders. As a result, Beijing has launched a "go out" strategy designed to remake global norms and institutions. China is transforming the world as it transforms itself. Never mind notions of a responsible stakeholder; China has become a revolutionary power.
- posted on 11/22/2010
哈佛教授中普通人思维的毕竟是多数。:)
这种论题,实在是太大。有争论,很难有定论。青岗上面说,三权分立是设计,而中国式的金字塔才是丛林法则的结果。我想了一想,只好折衷:从美国历史看,三权分立有设计的痕迹。而从英国历史看,如今的政体是自然进化的结果。结论,说来比预期的要复杂一些。但美国的强盛还不到一百年的时间,那个设计也是一百五十年以后才开始露出优势的。是否可以说,美国也是个人和民间自然发展的结果。
这种论题,是政治学和历史学中的无价之宝,是对人类社会发展理解的不知天高地厚的过度简化后的尝试。对国家崛起和兴衰的理解,将有可能决定国家的命运。正如前面我引贴文的最后一句话,如果英国人理解对了,那他们有可能理解应该如何逆转这种趋势,逆转中国所谓崛起的命运。如果中国人理解比英国和美国教授更充分和跟本,将能够利用这种理解制定国家发展有效战略,确保和加速这个过程。
当然,设计国运的命题,真理其实总介于不同的理解之间。:) 但我有一种感觉,只有老中,才能更接近对于中国问题的真实理解。
W wrote:
the author of wsj article is a professor in Harvard ( see the end of the article)
<<这个贴子象是个普通记者的手笔,但能大胆列出西方社会为什么会富强的六点理由,也算是很不简单了。 - posted on 11/24/2010
关于金字塔式的稳固社会结构,我以为西方更是。西方的贵族传统深厚,平民与奴
隶大多时间没多少分别,比如说做工,束缚在生计上也一样是经济奴隶。中国六朝
以后,贵族传统就没落了,再加上科举,朝为田舍郎,暮登天子堂。
这些陈寅恪有很好的论述。中国社会结构关健还是太扁平,复合度不够。记得以前
严家其一直提文官政治,这种体系在英国殖民下的香港是的。但中国目前怎么形成
这种官僚体制,社会等级,也许一样取决子老子身上的伤疤和经济大海冶炼。以后
大量的中产阶级形成了,上层社会隐固了,也就是英美式的社会。
但这样和平稳定的发展,也取决于国际因素,不保险。固而上层社会还是要把钱往
外捞,象当年蒋宋孔陈一样。台湾会好多少,我看陈水扁身为总统还不一样?
我胡扯几个字,活越一下此线。让小麦见笑了,笑倒了我不陪:)
- posted on 11/25/2010
China's Treadmill to Hell Goes Into Overdrive: http://www.cnbc.com/id/40253472
Perhaps the biggest irony in global economics right now is the double-standard applied to economic planning.
When the Federal Reserve in the United States tries to ease our economic slump through quantitative easing, we hear cavils about debasing the money supply and distorting the economy. But when the Chinese government, which has inflated its money supply far faster than the US, endorses price controls on consumer goods to tame inflation it gets praised for its action.
Earlier this week, China's State Council announced that it may impose price caps on "important daily necessities." This is a quite typical reaction of a government that has adopted an inflationary monetary policy but wants to avoid the unavoidable consequence of higher prices.
Importantly, it has never, ever worked. What has happened every single time this has been tried is that the government puts the country on a treadmill to economic hell. Inflation leads to higher prices, which leads to price controls. Price controls start at the consumer level but then must be forced ever further backward on the production line. You control the price of food, and soon you have to control the price of fertilizer and fuel used to produce the food.
It doesn't end there. Price controls breed shortages, which leads to government rationing. They also encourage hoarding, which leads to a government crack-down on hoarding.
This is already underway in China. At the same time the State Council indicated it might implement price controls, it announced a new campaign against speculation in vegetables, grain, cooking oil and sugar. Which is to say, it announced that it would begin cracking down on anyone stocking up products in advance of the shortages that will be caused by artificially low prices.
You would think that the long, grim history of price controls would discourage anyone from praising price controls. Instead, China is getting praised for its efforts to "tame inflation."
“This is about the strongest signal the government could give of its determination to slow price rises,” Mark Williams, a London-based economist at Capital Economics Ltd. and a former China adviser for the U.K. Treasury, told Bloomberg. “Whether or not controls end up being widely implemented, the government will hope that the mere fact of the announcement will help to rein in inflation expectations.”
Utter nonsense. Actually, the opposite is likely to happen. Announcing potential price-controls in advance of actually implementing them is probably the worst idea possible. It will encourage hoarding in advance of the controls, which will accelerate rising prices. Because this dynamic is so easy to anticipate, price-controls will actually increase inflation expectations.
In other words, China has adopted a price control policy at war with its monetary policy and that is bound to backfire.
---------------------------------------
是不是所有经济学原理翻成中文后就不再有效? - posted on 11/27/2010
Fidelity's Bolton Defies China Bears With 27% New Fund Return
By William Mellor - Nov 9, 2010 4:00 PM ET Bloomberg Markets Magazine
Anthony Bolton, president of investments at London-based Fidelity Investment Managers, poses on the Bund in Shanghai. Three on the Bund is the perfect venue for a speech by a fund manager who has just staked his reputation on China.
The century-old, neoclassical architectural masterpiece on the waterfront strip that was once Shanghai’s financial district now hosts seven floors of designer fashion and haute cuisine, serving as a shrine to the prosperity of a nation that this year overtook Japan to become the world’s second-biggest economy, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its December issue.
In a packed function room one floor above an Armani boutique and two below French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s restaurant, a well-dressed crowd is entertained by a slide show of celebrities, including Halle Berry and Morgan Freeman, who have shopped and dined there.
Today’s guest radiates a different kind of fame: Anthony Bolton, the slightly built, silver-haired president of investments at London-based Fidelity Investment Managers, who has been described in Chinese tabloids as the God of Stocks. During the 28 years he managed as much as $12 billion running the U.K.-focused Fidelity Special Situations fund, Bolton delivered average annual returns of 19.5 percent -- transforming a 10,000 pound ($16,154) investment in 1979 into 1,494,118 pounds in 2007, according to Christopher Traulsen, director of fund research for Europe and Asia at Morningstar Inc.
Stock-Picking Genius
In Britain, Bolton’s reputation as a stock-picking genius was analogous to that of Peter Lynch, the manager of Boston- based Fidelity Investments’ Fidelity Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990. Fidelity Investment Managers, formerly known as Fidelity International, is an affiliate of Fidelity Investments.
Now, at age 60, Bolton is in China partly to explain to clients why he has made a comeback to bet he can pick winners for the 625 million-pound Fidelity China Special Situations Fund that made its debut in April. Bolton says he’ll be able to find winning stocks that other fund managers have ignored.
So far, that self-confidence has been justified. Anyone who bought into the closed-end fund when it was introduced in April and sold on Nov. 9 would have enjoyed a 27 percent return in less than seven months. Two of his picks, The United Laboratories International Holdings Ltd. and Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd, have almost quadrupled in value since the beginning of the year. Now shares in Bolton’s fund have become so sought-after that they are trading at almost a 10 percent premium to their net asset value, prompting Fidelity to issue a statement on Nov. 9 saying it plans to sell new shares next year, giving priority to existing shareholders.
Growth Run
Bolton’s bullishness on China flies in the face of a market in Chinese shares that, even with a recent surge, has still dragged the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index down 4.3 percent in the year to Nov. 9. Meanwhile a chorus of doomsayers, including fund manager Marc Faber, have predicted on numerous occasions this year that China’s 32-year run of uninterrupted growth could come crashing down under the weight of a property bubble.
For Bolton, a contrarian investor who specialized in finding undervalued European stocks, such an atmosphere of pessimism masks many investment opportunities.
“One of the things I like about China is that there are some great skeptics out there,” he says just before a July signing session for a Chinese edition of his second book, titled “Investing Against the Tide,” (Pearson Education, 2009). “If we were sitting here and China was everyone’s favorite and valuations were high, I would have to temper my optimism.”
Personal Stake
Bolton has much riding on China, where he has plans to manage money until at least 2012. He has staked 2.5 million pounds of his own savings on the fund -- more, he says, than he has ever put into any other Fidelity investment he has managed.
Bolton has also bought a HK$72.8 million ($9.38 million), 2,900-square-foot (270-square-meter) apartment in Hong Kong overlooking Victoria Harbor -- joining a property market that some analysts believe is as overheated as the mainland-Chinese economy. Real-estate prices in the former British colony have soared 50 percent since the start of 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“It is the most expensive thing I have bought in my life,” Bolton says.
Even so, Bolton’s biggest bet may be his reputation.
“People have said to me: ‘Anthony, if it is a success, so what? But if it is a failure, you are going to ruin your record,’” he says. “But in terms of what’s important to me, my reputation is not at the top of my list. I think this is one of the most interesting things I have done in my whole career in investment. You don’t want to get to the end of your life and say, ‘Why did I not have a go at that?’”
Low-Growth World
The fund manager says he doesn’t dispute that China’s economy will slow from the 10 percent annual expansion it has averaged since the late 1970s; it’s just that the global economy will perform even worse.
“In a low-growth world, China’s relative growth will be even more attractive,” he says.
Bolton says China’s economy will be driven in the future more by domestic consumption and services than the exports that made it the workshop of the world. Consequently, he’s buying retailers, auto companies, drug makers and, in defiance of concerns about a potential credit crisis, financial services companies.
Bolton’s confidence stems partly from the conviction that small and medium-sized Chinese companies are less well researched than their Western counterparts and offer big growth opportunities.
Top Ten
In a country that’s now home to some of the world’s largest companies, Bolton has dug out such little-known stocks as CNinsure Inc., an insurance agent and broker in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou that trades on the Nasdaq Stock Market and has a market value of $1.2 billion.
The stock, which has risen 20 percent this year, has featured among Bolton’s top 10 monthly holdings alongside more- predictable bets such as China Mobile Ltd. and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s biggest phone company and bank, respectively. (So far, Fidelity has disclosed only its 10 biggest holdings in the China Special Situations fund in a monthly fact sheet. CNinsure was among the top 10 in July and dropped out of the list in August and September. ICBC also dropped out in September.)
Bolton says he’s excited about CNinsure partly because it reminds him of MLP AG, a German insurance company that he successfully bet on in the 1980s and 1990s.
“History never repeats itself,” he says, using a Mark Twain bromide that’s become a favorite Boltonism. “But it sometimes rhymes.”
Stellar Performer
More dramatic has been the performance of another smaller company featured in Bolton’s top 10 in August and September: United Laboratories, a Hong Kong-listed maker of generic antibiotics and insulin for diabetes sufferers with a market cap of HK$21 billion. Its shares soared 290 percent this year to Nov. 9, making it the best-performing company in the 320-member Hang Seng Composite Index.
“I’m lucky,” Bolton says. “I did not get the whole move, but I got a decent slice of it.”
Bolton’s fourth-biggest holding as of Sept. 30 was carmaker Brilliance China, which manufactures BMW 3 and 5 series sedans in a joint venture with Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and minibuses in partnership with Toyota Motor Corp. Its shares have shot up 267 percent this year to make it the second-best performing Hong Kong composite index stock after United Laboratories.
‘Quiet Assassin’
In the U.K. capital, Bolton was dubbed the Quiet Assassin by London newspapers after leading a 2003 revolt by minority shareholders to successfully block the appointment of Michael Green as chairman of ITV Plc following a 4 billion-pound merger deal that combined the U.K.’s two biggest commercial television broadcasters. Bolton joined with several shareholders in demanding that ITV appoint an outsider as chairman.
“He still has a huge following,” says Colin McLean, chief executive officer of Edinburgh-based investment firm SVM Asset Management Ltd. “China wasn’t the natural place for him, but financial advisers still threw money at him.”
Haig Bathgate wasn’t one of them, even though he had previously invested in Bolton’s U.K. fund.
“Anthony is a great manager of medium- and small-cap stocks in the U.K., but it is a very different discipline to be running a portfolio in China,” says Bathgate, who oversees 600 million pounds as chief investment officer at Edinburgh-based money manager Turcan Connell. “We do not think the performance record is transferable; it is an apple-and-pears comparison.”
London Power
One thing Bolton won’t be able to replicate in China is the power he wielded in the City of London, according to David Webb, a shareholder activist and former director of the Hong Kong exchange.
Now, in the case of half the top 10 companies in his fund, Bolton will be up against a controlling shareholder who wields nearly unlimited power: the government of the People’s Republic of China.
“If they have 51 percent, you can’t win,” says Webb, who runs Webb-site.com, a Hong Kong-based portal that promotes corporate transparency.
Bolton shrugs off that burden, saying it’s the price of investing in China.
“My general bias is to private companies, but in the bigger stocks, you have to buy some state-owned enterprises,” he says.
As he hunts for tomorrow’s winners, Bolton carries two potential handicaps: He doesn’t speak Chinese, and he first visited China beyond Hong Kong only in 2003.
Slow Response
Even with Bolton’s stellar reputation, investor enthusiasm for his China venture took time to materialize. Originally Fidelity said it wanted to raise up to 650 million pounds for the closed-end fund, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in April. The fund attracted only about two-thirds of that amount before the listing, although the market value has since grown to 625 million pounds.
The initial disappointing market response may also be due to the relatively high cost of investing with Bolton. In addition to a total expense ratio of 1.81 percent of net asset value, Fidelity charges a 15 percent performance fee on any returns that exceed a 2 percentage point outperformance of Bolton’s MSCI China Index benchmark.
In contrast, Edinburgh-based Martin Currie Investment Management Ltd.’s $800 million China Fund Inc., which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, charges no performance levy, carries a TER of 1.16 percent and trades at a discount to its net asset value. The Currie fund also discloses to investors all of the stocks it owns and has returned an average of 12 percent a year since it was created in 1992.
‘Big Challenge’
On Nov. 9, Bolton’s fund was trading at 128.7 pence, close to a 10 percent premium to its net asset value. Martin Currie’s China Fund, meanwhile, had risen 24 percent in the year to Nov. 8 and traded at a 3.85 percent discount to its net asset value.
Chris Ruffle, who manages China Fund Inc., says he welcomes the competition and that neither Bolton’s lack of language skills nor late appearance in China should be held against him.
“He’d be the first to say it’s a big challenge, as it is for all of us, but he’s got a big team supporting him,” says Ruffle, a Mandarin speaker who has lived in Shanghai for the past eight years. “Speaking the language is certainly helpful, but it’s not insurmountable. I don’t think he’s coming too late.”
Volatility Shield
Bolton is insulating his fund from mainland China’s stock market volatility by investing two-thirds of his funds in stocks listed in Hong Kong, where the benchmark Hang Seng Index was up 13 percent in the year to Nov. 9 compared with the 4.3 percent fall in Shanghai. Another 15 percent are Chinese stocks listed in the U.S., and 6.5 percent are listed in Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and the U.K.
That leaves less than 10 percent of his fund in so-called A shares -- those listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses.
“I don’t see any need to rush into the A shares,” Bolton says. “Valuations are higher, and quality of information and disclosure is less good.”
Although Bolton says he focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises, he’s also invested in some of the world’s corporate giants. Almost nine percent of the fund has been used to buy shares in the world’s third and sixth biggest banks, HSBC Holdings Plc and Bank of China Ltd. Another 4.5 percent is riding on China Mobile, the planet’s biggest phone carrier.
Single Market Debate
While Bolton made the right call in leaving the U.K., he’s making the wrong one focusing exclusively on China, says Hong Kong-based investor Marc Faber. As the Shanghai stock market dipped, neighboring bourses soared. Stocks in Indonesia jumped 47 percent; Thailand, 43 percent; the Philippines, 40 percent; and Malaysia, 20 percent, this year to Nov. 9.
“I would have chosen a mandate to manage money in Asia, not just China,” says Faber, who oversees $300 million worth of Asian stocks and publishes the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.
Bolton says he only wants to concentrate on one market -- the one most important to the West. “I would rather be at the center than at the periphery,” he says.
That fascination with China drew Bolton away from the beach in front of his vacation villa on the Caribbean island of Antigua that he shares with his wife, Sarah. Bolton’s status in the U.K. fund world was such that when he announced his impending exit from money management in June 2006, his Special Situations Fund was split in two between its U.K. and global assets.
China Bug
Bolton also stayed on for a yearlong hand-over period for the two managers who succeeded him. With his three children grown up, Bolton then switched to a mentoring role at Fidelity, spending more of his time indulging his passion for classical music, which he composes with the help of a computer program named Sibelius.
Two years after giving up running money full time, Bolton caught the China bug during a three-month stint in Hong Kong in 2009 guiding the Fidelity team there.
“I just thought, this is so exciting,” he says. “I think I can bring something to the China story through my experience.”
Of more concern to investors may be how long Bolton stays. He has committed to managing the fund for at least two years but probably won’t still be around for its five-year performance anniversary because he has promised Sarah that their retirement has been postponed, not canceled.
“The most interesting question I have been asked is, ‘Anthony, if the first two years are really bad, will it tempt you to stay on?’” Bolton says. “And I just don’t know the answer to that.”
If the first six months are anything to go by, Bolton will be able to head back to the beach with his reputation enhanced.
To contact the reporter on this story: William Mellor in Sydney at wmellor@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Serrill at mserrill@bloomberg.net.
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(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation