【英语生活】全球应该跟谁比竞争力？

There are many specialist terms that have descended into common speech and are used pretty indiscriminately. “Competitiveness” originally had a clear meaning but has now been taken up by politicians and business leaders as an all-purpose slogan. It is a relative concept. We cannot all be competitive against each other. I still remember Emil van Lennep, a former secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, asking: “Against whom should the world be competitive? Against the moon?” If one needed a quick critical reaction to John Redwood's economic report to the Conservative shadow cabinet, it could have been provided by its title, “Freeing Britain to Compete” and its frequently asserted stress on competitiveness. Unfortunately this debatable concept is now too generally accepted in the political world for such repudiation to be feasible. Originally some economists and officials mentally substituted the word “performance”, but now themselves talk of competitiveness, presumably thinking: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This includes some on Mr Redwood's team who surely should have known better.

What is misleading is the transfer to whole economies of concepts relevant to individual businesses or regions. Pepsi has to be competitive with Coca-Cola. Liverpool can try to be more competitive than Manchester in a bid to be the commercial centre of the English North West. German business has become more competitive than Italian business in terms of reducing its costs so that it can secure more orders.

Here we come to the rub of the matter. The competitiveness analysis applies where there is a single currency. If we still had the mark and the lira we could leave the foreign exchange market to sort it out. The exchange rate is a safety valve which allows a country employing it to make up its own mind on its inflation goals and level of business support without worrying about the balance of payments.

The vogue for competitiveness arose in a fixed exchange world. Then if UK products were too expensive, or in other ways unattractive, jobs would be cut and foreign exchange reserves might be lost by the British government, which would then have to embark on one of its notorious stop-go episodes. Edward Heath's decision in 1972 to float sterling, however reluctantly he made it, should have changed all that. Yet even the British Treasury found it difficult to adapt.

Plus ?a change . . . John Redwood, in the foreword to his report, instinctively takes the point and, as one would expect, emphatically repudiates any attempt by the UK to adopt the euro or to follow any kind of exchange rate target. He can see how the balance of payments can take care of itself among the different western currency blocks. But he comes back to competitiveness when dealing with the supposed threat from China and other developing countries.

There is a slightly more sophisticated consideration which is sometimes advanced. Nowadays, direct trade and payments across the exchanges are dwarfed by vastly greater capital flows. So we cannot rely on the exchange rate moving to offset the cost of extra imports. As a matter of fact the disproportion is frequently exaggerated. For a large part of the movements across the exchanges are extremely short-term ones reversed within days or even hours and therefore not on all fours with trade or long-term capital movements. But I do not need to rely on this aspect. Suppose that sterling does not dip in the way required to balance trade flows, possibly because of positive confidence effects or because China and members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are accumulating reserves. So much the better. For then we come near to enjoying the proverbial free lunch: increased absorption of foreign goods and services without having to sacrifice more British products to pay for them. Of course this bonus may not last, but at least time will have been gained for British producers to adjust.

The world is not yet one single economy, but it is moving in that direction. The integration of nations such as China and India into it is the equivalent of multiplying several-fold the amount of unskilled labour relative to the supply of skilled labour and capital. The conventional response is to say that US and European industry needs to move continually upmarket, developing new products and processes, to maintain its position. There are limits to how far this can go. Not everyone can be retrained to undertake high- technology jobs.

Moreover, is it really desirable that everyone all the time should be engaged in non-stop reskilling (misleadingly called “lifelong education”). “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare”? The western response should surely be to keep its own frontiers open to gain the benefits of trade but redistribute income to those who would otherwise lose out. My longtime slogan, coined before the word “globalisation” was invented, has been: “Redistribution yes, equality no.”

有很多专业术语沦入日常讲话之中，而且使用的时候不分青红皂白。“竞争力”本来有明确的含义，现在却被政治家和商业领袖当成了一句通用的口号。它是一个相对概念。我们不可能所有的人都对彼此有竞争力。我还记得前任经合组织(OECD)秘书长埃米尔•范伦内普(Emil van Lennep)问过这么一句话：“世界应该跟谁比竞争力呢？月球吗？”对于约翰•雷德伍德(John Redwood)向保守党影子内阁提交的经济报告，如果有人需要一个快速的批评性反馈，那么可以从报告的标题——“让英国放开手脚去竞争”和报告对竞争力的多次强调中找到答案。不幸的是，这个有争议的概念如今在政界受到太广泛的认可，这样批判它已经不可行了。起初，一些经济学家和官员会在心里把这个词替换成“业绩”，但现在，他们自己也在讲竞争力，大概想的是：如果不能打败他们，就加入他们吧。英国保守党政客雷德伍德团队里有些人就是这样，当然，他们早该想得更清楚些。

起误导作用的是，人们把与个别企业或地区有关的概念转换成了与整个经济体有关的概念。百事可乐(Pepsi)不得不与可口可乐(Coca-Cola)竞争。在争当英国西北部商业中心的过程中，利物浦可以努力变得比曼彻斯特更有竞争力。在削减成本以获取更多定单方面，德国企业已经比意大利企业更有竞争力了。

在这里，我们触到了问题的症结。竞争力分析适用于只有一种货币的地方。如果我们仍然有马克和里拉，我们就可以让外汇市场来进行甄别。汇率是一个安全阀，可以让一个国家借此来决定自己的通胀目标和商业支持水平，而不必担心国际收支。

竞争力时尚兴起于固定汇率环境中。如果英国产品太贵，或者在其它方面缺少吸引力，英国就会裁员，政府或许会失去外汇储备，随后不得不来一段臭名昭著的应变经济政策期。不管有多么不情愿，爱德华•希斯(Edward Heath)在1972年还是决定让英镑自由浮动。这个决定本应能改变全局，但即便是英国财政部(British Treasury)也发现自己难以适应。

万变不离其宗……在报告的前言中，约翰•雷德伍德本能地采取了这个立场，而且，正如你可以预想到的那样，他大力批判了英国在采纳欧元、或遵循任何汇率目标方面的一切尝试。他可以看到，国际收支在不同的西方货币区之间如何能够自我平衡。但是，一讲到中国和其它发展中国家带来的所谓威胁，他就又回到竞争力话题上去了。

有时候，他也会提出更高深一点儿的想法。当今，在庞大得多的资本流面前，跨汇率的直接交易和支付相形见绌。因此，我们不能依靠汇率变动来抵消额外进口的成本。实际上，这种不均衡常常被夸大。多数跨汇率的变动极其短暂，在几天甚至几小时内就会逆转，因此不能与交易或长期资本变动完全保持一致。不过，我不需要依赖这个方面。假定英镑不按平衡交易流所需的方式下跌，可能是出于信心效应，也可能是由于中国和石油输出国组织(OPEC)正在增加外汇储备。这样更好。因为这样我们就离著名的“免费午餐”更近了：吸收更多的外国商品和服务，却不用牺牲更多的英国产品来买单。当然，这种好事可能不会持久，但至少争取到了英国生产商进行调整的时间。

全球还不是一个单一经济体，但正在朝这个方向发展。中国和印度等国家的融入，相当于增加了几倍于熟练劳动力和资本的非熟练劳动力。人们传统的反应是说，美欧的产业要保持自己的地位，需要不断向高端市场进军，开发新产品和新工艺。这种做法能走多远，是有局限的。并不是所有人都能经过再培训，从事高科技工作。

另外，每个人都应该始终不间断地参加再培训（这种做法被误导性地称为“终生教育”），这真的有必要吗？“假如生活充满忧虑，我们无暇驻足凝视”，真的符合人们心意吗？（译者注：选自英国诗人戴维斯(W. H. Davies)的诗《闲暇》(Leisure)）西方的回应当然应该是开放自己的边境，以获得贸易利益，但要将收益再分配给那些不然就会出局的人。我长期以来的口号——在“全球化”这个词发明出来之前就有了——是：“要再分配，不要平等。”

译者/徐柳