【英语国际】印度莫把增长当必然

The Indian stock market shrugged off the deepening chaos in neighbouring Pakistan to reach yet new highs. There are many signs of a bubble: in Mumbai business news is stock market news and people who know little of business or markets boast of the gains they have made and those yet to come. Yet bubbles can continue until everyone who might be induced into the market has been: there are still many foreign investors who have not discovered India and a vast population of Indians who have not yet discovered financial speculation.So the market may have some way to run, but sooner or later such bubbles burst and that will be the moment for questions about the nature and sustainability of Indian economic growth. Has it really moved permanently beyond the disappointing economic record of the four decades that followed independence?

The particularities of Indian development reflect particularities of Indian society. India is a democracy – by a hair's breadth. Its putative dictator, Indira Gandhi, called a free election in the mistaken belief that she would win it. The aftermath strengthened the endangered democracy. India, which inherited its only national language from its colonial past, is the largest English-speaking country after the US. India has spent more than other poor countries on advanced education relative to elementary education. As a result, there are many well-trained graduates but low levels of general literacy, especially among women. The combination of these factors has important economic implications.

The most common path of economic development, pioneered by the UK and reproduced today in China, draws unskilled labour from agriculture into basic industry. This process raises wages and productivity in agriculture as well as in industry. The new industrial sector creates entrepreneurs who reinvest profits in diversifying their business and in doing so develop the sophistication of their output and their employees' capabilities. Although serious inequalities and hardships are experienced, the long run results leave almost everyone better off.

India's recent trajectory looks different. The sectors that receive particular western attention – such as information technology and financial and other business services – do not attract peasants from the land; they make more effective use of India's graduates. There are spillover effects – because these sectors and the people who work in them need other services – but they are less direct. As industrialisation proceeds, an increasing proportion of the output is for domestic consumption. But there is, or certainly should be, a limit to the capacity of an economy to consume its own business services.

This does not imply that India's path of development may not work. But it is distinctive and, because necessarily export dependent, may not be as robust to developments in the world economy; and it means that, to a greater extent than in China, development will proceed in the cities and leave the countryside where the mass of the population and the persistence of poverty are found relatively untouched. That divergence has political implications.

The shape of Indian democracy bore the marks of the remarkable men who led the country to independence. The continuation of Indian democracy eventually led to the emergence of politicians more representative – less intellectually distinguished, more populist, more self-interested. If it is possible to be optimistic about the future of Indian democracy, it is hard to be equally optimistic about the quality of leadership that democracy will produce. The choice is between dynasties based on preferment and patronage and parties rooted in communal differences. Corruption is entrenched and magnifying tensions between economic and religious groups is an easy route to power.

It is attractive to believe that economic growth in India is inevitable given the potential of its vibrant society and the achievements of individual Indians. But the magnitude of the relative economic failure of both India and China across the 19th and 20th centuries demonstrates that nothing is inevitable. The capacity of politics to get in the way of economic growth has dominated most of the economic history of most of the world.

面对邻国巴基斯坦不断加剧的混乱局势，印度股市并未理会，依然创下历史新高。许多迹象表明，印度股市存在泡沫：在孟买，商业新闻全部是股市新闻，对商业或者股市几乎一窍不通的人，在吹嘘他们已经赚取和尚未赚取的利润。但股市泡沫可能一直持续下去，直至所有可能被引诱进股市的人都投身其中：仍然有许多外国投资者没有看到印度，而且印度人口中仍有很大一部分尚未发现金融投机。



因此，印度的牛市可能还会持续一段时间，但这些泡沫迟早会破裂，届时人们就将对印度经济增长的性质和可持续性提出质疑。印度真的永远摆脱了独立之后40年中令人失望的经济记录了吗？



印度经济发展的特性反应出了印度社会的特性。印度仅仅勉强算得上一个民主国家。其公认的独裁者英迪拉•甘地(Indira Gandhi)曾呼吁进行自由选举，误以为她会赢得选举。其后果是让民主进一步岌岌可危。印度从殖民地历史中继承了唯一的全国性语言，使其成为仅次于美国的第二大英语国家。相对于初等教育，印度在高等教育方面的投入超过了其它贫困国家。因此，印度有很多训练有素的大学毕业生，但其总体文化程度却较低，尤其是在女性中。这些因素综合起来，对经济产生了重要的影响。





经济发展的最通常途径（由英国开创，如今由中国复制）是将非熟练劳动力从农业吸引进基础工业。这一过程能提高农业和工业的工资和生产率。新的工业行业创造出企业家，他们将利润进行再投资，以分散其业务，并通过这种做法，提高其产出的先进程度及其员工的能力。尽管人们会在这一过程中经受严重的不平等和苦难，但长期结果是几乎所有人的境况都将改善。





印度近年来的发展轨迹似乎有所不同。吸引了西方大量注意力的行业（如信息技术、金融和其它商业服务），并未将农民从土地上吸引出来；它们更加有效地利用了印度的大学毕业生。这产生了溢出效应——因为这些行业和从事这些行业的人需要其它服务——但并不那么直接。随着工业化的发展，越来越多的产出用于国内消费。但一个经济体消费其自有商业服务的能力存在、也应当存在极限。





这并非意味着印度的发展道路可能不会成功。但这种发展道路是与众不同的，而且，因为必须依赖出口，因此，它可能不会像世界经济的发展那样强健。此外，这意味着，与中国相比，印度的发展更大程度上将在城市中进行，而人口众多、贫困不已的农村地区相对得不到改善。这种分化具有政治方面的影响。





印度民主的形态，带着曾经领导该国争取独立的伟大历史人物的印记。印度民主的延续，最终导致了更具代表性政治家的出现——在并不聪明出众、更加民粹化、更加自私自利。如果对印度民主的未来发展可能存在某种乐观的话，那么对这种民主将产生的领袖质量，则难以持同样的乐观。摆在人民面前的选项，一边是基于偏爱和恩宠的封建王朝，一边是深植于社会差异的政党。腐败根深蒂固，而放大经济群体和宗教团体之间的紧张关系，是一条获得权力的捷径。





鉴于印度社会生机勃勃的潜力，以及印度个人取得的成就，人们会禁不住认为印度的经济增长是必然的。但印度和中国在19世纪和20世纪相对巨大的经济失败表明，没有什么是必然的。政治干预经济增长的能力，主导了世界多数国家的大部分经济史。

译者/何黎