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Like most visitors to northern India, I visited the Taj Mahal. Unlike most visitors, I asked economic questions. Reports of his tax policies suggest that Shah Jahan may have appropriated as much as 40 per cent of what we now call gross domestic product to support a lifestyle of exceptional ostentation and self-indulgence. He was overthrown by his son, who was exasperated by his father’s penchant for monumental building, anxious to maximise his own share of the loot and concerned by the scale of the levies on the population. But it was all too late. The Mogul empire was in irretrievable decline.
像大多数前往印度北方的游客一样，我游览了泰姬陵。但与他们不同的是，此行引发了我对经济问题的思考。有关沙贾汗(Shah Jahan)税收政策的报告似乎显示，他可能挪用了40%我们现在所称的“国内生产总值，以支持自己穷奢极侈的生活方式。他最后被儿子推翻，因为小沙贾汗不满父亲对兴建标志性建筑物的嗜好，而且急于尽可能多地捞到自己的那份财富，又对民众承受的沉重税负心怀担忧。但一切为时已晚，莫卧儿王朝的颓势无可挽回。
The activities of Shah Jahan epitomise rent-seeking – the accumulation of a fortune not by creating wealth through serving customers better but by the appropriation of such wealth after it has already been created by other people. Both are routes to personal enrichment and the tension between them has been a dominant theme of economic history. Whenever the balance shifts too far in favour of appropriation over creation, we see entrepreneurial talent diverted to unproductive activity, an accelerating cycle in which political power and economic power reinforce each other – until others become envious of the proceeds of appropriation, and the resentment of the oppressed undermines the legitimacy of the regime. Political and economic instability are an inevitable consequence.
沙贾汗的行为是寻租的典型——积累财富的途径不是通过为顾客提供更好的服务来创造财富，而是将他人已经创造的财富据为己有。两种途径均可实现个人致富，二者之间的紧张一直是经济史上最突出的主题。每当天平倒向挪用财富，轻视创造财富，我们就会看到创业本领转移到非生产活动，导致政治权力和经济权力以越来越快的速度互相强化，直到其他人开始嫉恨挪用财富的所得，被压迫人民的愤怒破坏政权的合法性。政治和经济不稳定成为不可避免的后果。
In modern India, rent-seeking takes the form of endemic corruption and the crony capitalism that describes too-close relationships between big business and the state. Western economies are afflicted with their own versions of crony capitalism. Instinctive corporatism is characteristic of many European states. The US demonstrates an unhealthy affinity between politicians and leaders of finance and business, facilitated by lobbyists and lubricated with campaign finance.
在现代印度，寻租的形式是普遍的腐败和裙带资本主义——大企业和政府的关系过于密切。西方经济体也存在自己的裙带资本主义。本能的社团主义是很多欧洲国家的共同特征。在美国，政客与金融界和商界领袖的关系密切得不正常，游说活动和竞选资助促成了这种不健康的关系。
Barack Obama as US president and Vince Cable as UK business secretary are perceived as unfriendly to business because they have resisted these linkages. But this is to confuse being friendly to business leaders with being supportive of the success of business. If information technology is the big driver of current economic progress, it is also the sector least affected by this growth of corporatism. Successive waves of innovative entry have marginalised established products and corporations and destroyed established market positions.
美国总统巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)和英国商务大臣文斯·凯布尔(Vince Cable)被视为对商界不友好，因为他们反对这种关系。但这种观点将迎合企业领袖与支持企业取得成功混为一谈。如果说信息技术是当今经济发展的重要驱动力的话，那么它也是最不受社团主义兴起影响的领域。创新力量一波接一波涌入，将现有的产品和企业挤到边缘，颠覆已经建立的市场格局。
But in other industries, such as media, pharmaceuticals and defence, mutually enhancing political influence and economic clout allow incumbent companies to maintain their business models and resist disruptive change.
但在媒体、制药、国防等其他行业，政治影响和经济实力的互相促进，使得老牌公司能够维持它们的业务模型，抵御颠覆性的变革。
The primary locus of modern rent-seeking is the overblown financial sector, where burgeoning trade in existing assets has overwhelmed the creation of new wealth, attracting scarce talent from elsewhere and creating instability. One needs only a little imagination to see parallels with the court of Shah Jahan.
现代寻租的主要场所是过度膨胀的金融领域。在这里，对现有资产的活跃交易远远超过了对新财富的创造，从其它领域吸引稀缺人才，制造不稳定。人们不需要有多少想象力，就可看出与沙贾汗宫殿之间的相似性。
The fall of the Berlin Wall was the symbol of the most important economic development of our lifetimes, opening the way to the creation of market economies not just in the former communist states but in countries such as India with great unrealised economic potential.
柏林墙的倒塌象征着我们这一代最重要的经济发展，它为建立市场经济体铺平了道路——不仅是在前共产党国家，还包括印度这样经济潜能巨大的国家。
Yet many misunderstood the lesson of the failure of centrally directed economic systems. Market economies succeed when they advance through disciplined pluralism – the process that gives maximum scope for experiment and innovation, while ensuring that when experiments and innovations fail they are terminated, and that when occasionally they succeed they are imitated. That is the origin of the advances in the IT sector.
然而，很多人误解了中央计划经济体系失败的教训。市场经济在借助“有序的多样化(disciplined pluralism)时能够取得成功。这种过程为尝试和创新赋予最大空间，同时确保失败的尝试和创新被终止，而偶尔成功的尝试和创新得到效仿。这是IT领域发展的起源。
The success of market economies is not achieved by policies that encourage people to be greedy and imposing as few restrictions as possible on what the greediest of them do. That was the world of Shah Jahan and it produced very little in the way of economic advance.
鼓励人们贪婪、并且尽可能不约束最贪婪者的政策，并不能促使市场经济成功。相反，这是沙贾汗的做法，这对经济发展几乎毫无作用。
It did, however, produce the most beautiful building in the world. Perhaps there is a lesson for modern moguls. But the lesson Shah Jahan’s court reveals to the modern policy maker, in India and in the west, is far more important. The excesses of rent-seeking meant the Mogul empire was in effect ended within two generations. The ensuing sacking of Delhi left a political vacuum only filled by the British Raj.
不过，它的确催生了世界上最美丽的建筑。这对现代的那些达官贵人或许有所启示。但沙贾汗的宫殿对当今印度乃至西方的政策制定者却有更重要的教益。过度寻租导致莫卧儿王朝在两代内宣告覆灭。之后对德里城的洗劫留下的政治真空，最后被英属印度填补。
Like most visitors to northern India, I visited the Taj Mahal. Unlike most visitors, I asked economic questions. Reports of his tax policies suggest that Shah Jahan may have appropriated as much as 40 per cent of what we now call gross domestic product to support a lifestyle of exceptional ostentation and self-indulgence. He was overthrown by his son, who was exasperated by his father’s penchant for monumental building, anxious to maximise his own share of the loot and concerned by the scale of the levies on the population. But it was all too late. The Mogul empire was in irretrievable decline.
像大多数前往印度北方的游客一样，我游览了泰姬陵。但与他们不同的是，此行引发了我对经济问题的思考。有关沙贾汗(Shah Jahan)税收政策的报告似乎显示，他可能挪用了40%我们现在所称的“国内生产总值，以支持自己穷奢极侈的生活方式。他最后被儿子推翻，因为小沙贾汗不满父亲对兴建标志性建筑物的嗜好，而且急于尽可能多地捞到自己的那份财富，又对民众承受的沉重税负心怀担忧。但一切为时已晚，莫卧儿王朝的颓势无可挽回。
The activities of Shah Jahan epitomise rent-seeking – the accumulation of a fortune not by creating wealth through serving customers better but by the appropriation of such wealth after it has already been created by other people. Both are routes to personal enrichment and the tension between them has been a dominant theme of economic history. Whenever the balance shifts too far in favour of appropriation over creation, we see entrepreneurial talent diverted to unproductive activity, an accelerating cycle in which political power and economic power reinforce each other – until others become envious of the proceeds of appropriation, and the resentment of the oppressed undermines the legitimacy of the regime. Political and economic instability are an inevitable consequence.
沙贾汗的行为是寻租的典型——积累财富的途径不是通过为顾客提供更好的服务来创造财富，而是将他人已经创造的财富据为己有。两种途径均可实现个人致富，二者之间的紧张一直是经济史上最突出的主题。每当天平倒向挪用财富，轻视创造财富，我们就会看到创业本领转移到非生产活动，导致政治权力和经济权力以越来越快的速度互相强化，直到其他人开始嫉恨挪用财富的所得，被压迫人民的愤怒破坏政权的合法性。政治和经济不稳定成为不可避免的后果。
In modern India, rent-seeking takes the form of endemic corruption and the crony capitalism that describes too-close relationships between big business and the state. Western economies are afflicted with their own versions of crony capitalism. Instinctive corporatism is characteristic of many European states. The US demonstrates an unhealthy affinity between politicians and leaders of finance and business, facilitated by lobbyists and lubricated with campaign finance.
在现代印度，寻租的形式是普遍的腐败和裙带资本主义——大企业和政府的关系过于密切。西方经济体也存在自己的裙带资本主义。本能的社团主义是很多欧洲国家的共同特征。在美国，政客与金融界和商界领袖的关系密切得不正常，游说活动和竞选资助促成了这种不健康的关系。
Barack Obama as US president and Vince Cable as UK business secretary are perceived as unfriendly to business because they have resisted these linkages. But this is to confuse being friendly to business leaders with being supportive of the success of business. If information technology is the big driver of current economic progress, it is also the sector least affected by this growth of corporatism. Successive waves of innovative entry have marginalised established products and corporations and destroyed established market positions.
美国总统巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)和英国商务大臣文斯·凯布尔(Vince Cable)被视为对商界不友好，因为他们反对这种关系。但这种观点将迎合企业领袖与支持企业取得成功混为一谈。如果说信息技术是当今经济发展的重要驱动力的话，那么它也是最不受社团主义兴起影响的领域。创新力量一波接一波涌入，将现有的产品和企业挤到边缘，颠覆已经建立的市场格局。
But in other industries, such as media, pharmaceuticals and defence, mutually enhancing political influence and economic clout allow incumbent companies to maintain their business models and resist disruptive change.
但在媒体、制药、国防等其他行业，政治影响和经济实力的互相促进，使得老牌公司能够维持它们的业务模型，抵御颠覆性的变革。
The primary locus of modern rent-seeking is the overblown financial sector, where burgeoning trade in existing assets has overwhelmed the creation of new wealth, attracting scarce talent from elsewhere and creating instability. One needs only a little imagination to see parallels with the court of Shah Jahan.
现代寻租的主要场所是过度膨胀的金融领域。在这里，对现有资产的活跃交易远远超过了对新财富的创造，从其它领域吸引稀缺人才，制造不稳定。人们不需要有多少想象力，就可看出与沙贾汗宫殿之间的相似性。
The fall of the Berlin Wall was the symbol of the most important economic development of our lifetimes, opening the way to the creation of market economies not just in the former communist states but in countries such as India with great unrealised economic potential.
柏林墙的倒塌象征着我们这一代最重要的经济发展，它为建立市场经济体铺平了道路——不仅是在前共产党国家，还包括印度这样经济潜能巨大的国家。
Yet many misunderstood the lesson of the failure of centrally directed economic systems. Market economies succeed when they advance through disciplined pluralism – the process that gives maximum scope for experiment and innovation, while ensuring that when experiments and innovations fail they are terminated, and that when occasionally they succeed they are imitated. That is the origin of the advances in the IT sector.
然而，很多人误解了中央计划经济体系失败的教训。市场经济在借助“有序的多样化(disciplined pluralism)时能够取得成功。这种过程为尝试和创新赋予最大空间，同时确保失败的尝试和创新被终止，而偶尔成功的尝试和创新得到效仿。这是IT领域发展的起源。
The success of market economies is not achieved by policies that encourage people to be greedy and imposing as few restrictions as possible on what the greediest of them do. That was the world of Shah Jahan and it produced very little in the way of economic advance.
鼓励人们贪婪、并且尽可能不约束最贪婪者的政策，并不能促使市场经济成功。相反，这是沙贾汗的做法，这对经济发展几乎毫无作用。
It did, however, produce the most beautiful building in the world. Perhaps there is a lesson for modern moguls. But the lesson Shah Jahan’s court reveals to the modern policy maker, in India and in the west, is far more important. The excesses of rent-seeking meant the Mogul empire was in effect ended within two generations. The ensuing sacking of Delhi left a political vacuum only filled by the British Raj.
不过，它的确催生了世界上最美丽的建筑。这对现代的那些达官贵人或许有所启示。但沙贾汗的宫殿对当今印度乃至西方的政策制定者却有更重要的教益。过度寻租导致莫卧儿王朝在两代内宣告覆灭。之后对德里城的洗劫留下的政治真空，最后被英属印度填补。
