布萊恩·帕爾默：中國為何不再有饑荒？

Brian Palmer是美國知名網絡雜誌Slate的首席講解員，也是《華盛頓郵報》的專欄作家。4月2日，他在Slate發表文章《中國為何不再有饑荒？——擺脱兩千年饑荒的兩種對立解釋》，肯定基礎設施建設等成就對中國農業奇蹟的巨大貢獻，而將傳統解釋，稱為“像自由市場哲學家米塞斯寫的一個童話”。

1958年10月，北京新橋賓館。員工們在賓館大院內建起一個簡陋的鍊鋼爐。

觀察者網翻譯全文如下：

散文家傑拉德早就説過，美國的歷史總有一天會淪為憲法、爵士樂和棒球。如果有人在30年前提出中國歷史的同樣總結，這三樣很可能是長城、毛澤東思想和饑荒。在過去的2000年裏，中國幾乎每年都遭受饑荒。在始於1876年的兩年饑荒中，嚴重乾旱殺死了多達1300萬中國人。1927年的饑荒奪走了600萬人的生命。在1929年，1939年和1942年也有顯著饑荒……中國饑荒的原因各不相同，從旱情下囤積到在食品採購政策上的可怕錯誤，這項錯誤從種植者嘴邊取走食物，導致死亡集中在傳統農業區。

在中國歷史上的多數時候，饑荒也只是比正常狀況更嚴重些。近至上世紀70年代末，中國人口的30%為營養不良。穀物提供了中國人絕大多數的熱量。5歲以下的孩子每3個人中就有1個生長發育遲緩。

簡直難以置信，今天的中國已經變得多麼不同。到2005年，只有不到十分之一的中國人營養不良。在過去的三十年，肉類消費量幾乎增加了一倍，水果消費量增加了兩倍多。出生體重上升，今天和20世紀70年代相比，6歲兒童的身高平均增長2英寸（觀察者網注：約5釐米）。先放下一會兒這些難以置信的事實，中國用不足世界10%的耕地餵養了佔世界20%的人口，還有充足的剩餘食物出口。食物為中國奇蹟推波助瀾。

中國是如何從艱難生存發展到當今的年年有餘糧？箇中存在兩個長短不一的故事版本，其差別具有重要意義——尤其是對美國人。

簡短的版本讀起來就像自由市場哲學家路德維希·馮·米塞斯寫的一個童話。中國農民在毛澤東領導下進行了組織，土地集體所有。不顧市場信號或個人的特殊技能，集體的管理者做出種植決定和指派工作。在收穫時，集體以固定價格出售其作物的一部分給國家，然後基於工作時數將剩餘的分給農民。努力工作改變個體命運的農民非常少，無人勤勞耕種，農場效率不高。

在1978年一切都變了。小崗村集體暗自同意去走資本主義道路。他們的產量飆升得厲害，抓住了保守的中共當局的注意。小崗村這些異見者擔心他們會被處決。然而，北京非但沒有懲罰小崗村這一英雄集體，反而認識到了他們的天才，並採取改革。中國各地的農户取得了小塊土地的準所有權，並獲得了更多的自由在公開市場上出售他們的收成。包產到户的變化創造了對積極工作的激勵，和對未來生產力的投資。從此，每個人都過上了紅紅火火的生活。

你經常可以在媒體上聽到這個版本的故事。美國國家公共廣播電台把小崗村的秘密協議描繪成解放5億中國人擺脱貧困的催化劑。中國科學院的黃季焜和斯坦福大學經濟學家斯科特·羅澤爾在給世界糧食計劃署的報告中寫道，改革的影響“已經不能更戲劇性”，“崛起於農村經濟的活力是中國經濟改革其餘部分的觸發器之一。”

中國奇蹟的資本主義童話版本對世界其他地區有一個相當簡單的教訓：創建正確的激勵，以勤奮和人類的聰明才智便可以解決所有其他問題。“我們都暗暗競爭，”一個小崗村農民告訴美國國家公共廣播電台。“每個人都想生產上超過別人。”當人們談論這個版本的中國奇蹟，其含義是，資本主義本身就是奇蹟。

這個故事有很多真相。1970至1978年，農業生產力上升為每年微薄的2.7%。在接下來五年的改革中，增速攀升至7.1%，國民生產總值也飆升。改革鼓勵農民家庭的個別成員採取了非農就業，農村地區呈現了多元化，家庭收入得到了提升。

然而，故事的全貌遠比資本主義童話更復雜。這包括深謀遠慮的規劃、鉅額基礎設施投資和國家補貼等。它不會給你西方哲學勝利了的温情脈脈和沾沾自喜。但你也該不妨一聽。

事實上，1978年之前，中國政府就意識到集體農業生產效率低，並實施一系列將在數年後奏效的變革。50年代開始，中央政府就致力於將中國的耕作方式帶入20世紀。在徹底改造農業科技前，中國僅有18%的農田得到灌溉。農業“去集體化”的十多年前，中國就開始大力投資水利基礎設施，如今，中國超過一半的農民都在水田內耕作，使中國成為世界上灌溉最集中的農業經濟體之一。與此同時，中國加快對高產糧食、水果和蔬菜新品種的研究。許多新品種直到上世紀70年代後期即將實施資本主義式改革時才研發成功。

另外，中國政府增加用於收購農民糧食的資金，增幅為25%。僅此一項政策就使中國農民大幅增收。許多農民將增收資金用於購買當時大規模進入市場的化肥，這就進一步提高了農業生產率。

幸運也是中國農業激增的一個重要原因。從1982年起，中國碰到了一些史上最好的耕種氣候。忽略這點就人為高估了80年代初的生產力，也誇大了基礎設施投資和資本主義改革的積極效果，除非你認為是上帝保佑了資本主義改革。當氣候轉而惡化，之後幾年生產率減速了。

學者們繼續爭論中國農業的轉變多大程度上是由於資本主義的激勵結構，有多少是早期投資的結果，又有多少是氣候造成。有人説結束集體耕作佔了生產力提高近四分之三的功勞，也有人説不超過三分之一。

將中國的糧食革命視為童話未嘗不可，但我們必須正確理解這個故事的寓意。改變激勵機制並非把任何落後經濟體轉變為全球巨人的魔法。基礎設施投資、研發和將資金放入勞動者的口袋也能創造奇蹟。

（英文原載Slate網站，原標題：Why Does China Not Have Famines Anymore？；觀察者網孫珷/譯。翻頁請看英文原文）

  Why Does China Not Have Famines Anymore？

By Brian Palmer

Essayist Gerald Early said that the history of the United States will one day be reduced to the Constitution, jazz, and baseball. If someone had made the same summary of Chinese history 30 years ago, the trio would likely have been the Great Wall, Maoism, and famine. Over the past 2,000 years, China has suffered almost one famine per year. Severe drought killed as many as 13 million Chinese in the two-year famine beginning in 1876. The 1927 famine killed as many as 6 million. There were significant famines in 1929, 1939, and 1942. The Great Famine, which began in 1958 and lasted three years, was probably the deadliest famine in human history, killing between 30 and 45 million people. The causes of Chinese famines have varied, ranging from drought to hoarding to Mao Zedong’s horrifically misguided food procurement policy, which took food from the mouths of the people who grew it, concentrating deaths in traditional farming areas.

For most of China’s history, famine was just an extreme version of the normal state of affairs. As recently as the late 1970s, 30 percent of China’s population was undernourished. Grains supplied the overwhelming majority of their calories. One in 3 children under the age of 5 had stunted growth.

It’s almost hard to believe how different today’s China has become. By 2005, fewer than 1 in 10 Chinese people were undernourished. Consumption of meat nearly doubled and fruit consumption more than tripled in the past three decades. Birth weights have risen, and the average 6-year-old child is two inches taller today than in the 1970s. (Pause on that incredible fact for a moment.) China feeds 20 percent of the world’s people using less than 10 percent of arable land, with plenty of food left over to export. Food has fueled the Chinese miracle.

How did China go from barely surviving to a nation with a food surplus? There’s a short version and a long version, and the difference really matters—even for Americans.

The short version reads something like a fairy tale written by free-market philosopher Ludwig von Mises. Chinese farmers under Mao were organized into collectives that worked common land. The manager of the collective made planting decisions and assigned duties, paying no heed to market signals or the particular skills of individuals. At harvest time, the collective sold a portion of its crop to the state at fixed prices, then divided up the remainder among the farmers based on the number of hours worked. Hard work changed an individual farmer’s fortunes very little, so no one worked very hard and the farms weren’t very productive.

Everything changed in 1978. A collective in the village of Xiaogang secretly agreed to go capitalist. The group’s output surged so dramatically that it caught the attention of the evil communist authorities. The Xiaogang dissidents feared they would be executed. Rather than punish the heroic Xiaogang collective, however, Beijing recognized their genius and adopted reforms. Farming families across China took quasi-ownership of plots of land and were granted more freedom to sell their yields on the open market. That single change created incentives to work hard and make investments for future productivity. And everyone lived prosperously ever after.

You hear this version of the story quite often in the media. NPR portrayed this secret agreement in Xiaogang as the catalyst that lifted 500 million Chinese out of poverty. Jikun Huang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Stanford economist Scott Rozelle wrote in a report for the World Food Programme that the impact of the reforms “could not have been more dramatic” and the “rise in the vibrancy of the rural economy was one of the triggers of the rest of the economic reforms in China.”

The capitalist fairy tale version of the Chinese miracle has a rather simple lesson for the rest of the world: Create the right incentives, and hard work and human ingenuity will solve all the other problems. “We all secretly competed,” a Xiaogang farmer told NPR. “Everyone wanted to produce more than the next person.” When people talk about this version of the Chinese miracle, the implication is that capitalism itself is miraculous.

There’s a lot of truth to this tale. Agricultural productivity rose at a meager 2.7 percent per year from 1970 to 1978. In the five years following the reforms, the growth rate surged to 7.1 percent. Overall GDP also spiked. The reforms encouraged individual members of farm families to take up non-agricultural employment, diversifying and lifting household incomes in rural areas.

The full story is far more complicated than a simple capitalist fairy tale, though. It involves prudent planning, heavy investment in infrastructure, and state subsidies. It doesn’t give you that warm, self-satisfied feeling of Western philosophical triumph. But you ought to hear it anyway.

In fact, Chinese authorities recognized the poor productivity of their farming collectives long before 1978 and set in motion a series of changes that would take years to pay off. Beginning in the 1950s, the central government worked to bring Chinese farming practices into the 20th century. Just 18 percent of Chinese farmland was under irrigation at the beginning of the technological overhaul. Heavy investment in water infrastructure began more than a decade before de-collectivization. Today, more than one-half of Chinese farmers work irrigated fields, making the country one of the most intensively watered farming economies on the planet. At the same time as the investments in irrigation began, China accelerated research on new varieties of grains, fruits, and vegetables that could, when paired with improved irrigation, produce more food on less land. Many of these varieties didn’t become available until just before the capitalist reforms of the late 1970s.

Chinese central planners can also take credit for some of the investments made by Chinese farmers themselves. Around the time of the reform, the Chinese government increased the amount it paid farmers for their crops by around 25 percent. In a single year, Chinese farm income surged massively due almost exclusively to government policy. Many of the farmers put some of their capital windfall toward the purchase of chemical fertilizers, which flooded the Chinese market around the same time, further enhancing productivity.

Sheer luck played a major part in the incredible Chinese agricultural surge as well. Beginning in 1982, China saw some of the best years of farming weather in recorded history. Unless you think that was God’s way of endorsing the capitalist reforms, that change artificially inflated early 1980s productivity and magnified the positive effects of both the infrastructure investments and the capitalist reforms. Productivity decelerated a few years later, when the weather took a turn for the worse.

Scholars continue to argue over how much of China’s agricultural turnaround was due to the capitalist incentive structure, how much resulted from earlier investments, and how much was a trick of the weather. Some say the end of collective farming accounted for nearly three-quarters of the improvements in productivity, while others say it was responsible for no more than one-third.

It’s fine to treat China’s food revolution as a fairy tale. The changes were so dramatic that it’s hard not to. But let’s make sure we get the moral of this story correct. Changing the incentives isn’t a magic trick that can turn any lagging economy into a global juggernaut. Investment in infrastructure, research and development, and putting money into the pockets of workers work wonders as well. And a little sunshine doesn’t hurt, either.