風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
擊敗中國
大衛·P·戈德曼 04.12.2022
美國需要積極的產業政策來贏得第四次工業革命。
編者按
以下是克萊蒙特研究所華盛頓研究員 David P. Goldman 在全國保守主義會議上的評論記錄。 可以在此處找到原始視頻。
我們需要重建美國經濟，而我們隻能通過激發美國人想象力的有遠見的戰略來做到這一點，例如肯尼迪登月計劃或裏根戰略防禦計劃。
簡而言之：數據表明特朗普的對華政策是災難性的失敗。 恕我直言，如果我們得到更多這樣的結果，我們將會遭遇更多災難性的失敗。 我們現在從中國的進口比 2018 年 1 月特朗普征收關稅時多了 30% 以上。 關稅是處理此類問題的一種非常糟糕的方式：它們對微觀經濟傾銷問題很有幫助，但在宏觀層麵上卻非常無效。 在技術壓製方麵，中國建設了全球70%的5G網絡，並正在第四次工業革命的基礎上繼續建設應用。
我們可以比中國做得更好。 我們比中國更有能力創新。 但我們並沒有這樣做，因為我們被技術官僚精英壓垮了，他們榨幹了美國經濟的精髓，創造了巨大的財富，但所做的事情在很大程度上損害了我們的利益。 隻有聯邦政府的幹預，即產業政策，才能扭轉這一局麵。
這不是一個典型的自由主義解決方案。 產業政策是危險的——它們會導致尋租行為、腐敗和國家權力過多。 但在戰爭中它們就變得必要了，而我們的經濟狀況相當於一場戰爭。
最讓我擔心的是，那些花費 6 萬億美元進行永久戰爭並通過浪費我們的資源來摧毀我們軍隊的傻瓜將引導我們與中國發生對抗，這將導致一場沒有人能贏的戰爭。 如果我們將這 6 萬億美元中的十分之一花在高科技武器上，我們就不會擔心中國的超高速導彈或其他類似的東西。
然而，如果你試圖強迫台灣獨立，任何想要統治中國的中國政府都會采取軍事行動，無論是否是共產黨。 中國共產黨是共產黨，就像黑手黨是天主教徒一樣：他們非常認真地對待它，但它沒有什麽實際意義。
要管理一個中華帝國，就必須鎮壓叛亂省份，因此我們對台灣唯一能做的就是保持戰略模糊性並提高中國人以武力奪取台灣的代價，而我們目前沒有辦法阻止這一點 核戰爭。 勸阻他們不要這麽做，維護台灣民主，走好底線。 約翰·博爾頓會強行提出這個問題，並導致很多人喪生——如果你不相信我，請閱讀斯塔夫裏迪斯海軍上將的精彩驚悚片《2034》。劇透警告：我們炸毀了他們的一些城市，他們炸毀了我們的一些城市，然後 我們又回到了原點。
大躍進
現在讓我談談第四次工業革命，這是這裏真正關鍵的。 竊取數據無法贏得戰爭。 他們不是被間諜贏得的。 他們憑借深入的後勤保障和獲勝的意願而贏得勝利。 第一次工業革命始於詹姆斯·瓦特 (James Watt) 於 1776 年出售他的第一台商用蒸汽機。第四次工業革命始於中國通過將人工智能應用於海量數據集來預測潛在的疫情爆發並使用法醫測試和選擇性封鎖來應對 COVID-19 大流行。 以阻止疫情蔓延。 所以中國是第一個走出疫情的工業國家。
結果，他們的相對實力有了質的飛躍，他們現在正在著手推出與之相關的技術。 這是真正的科幻小說——我們談論的是 5G，它允許工業機器人組在車間進行通信並自行編程。 智能物流允許跟蹤單個物體從礦山到工廠、倉庫到運輸、返回倉庫、到卡車、裝載到自動駕駛車輛上並全程受控。 它允許人工智能服務器優化城市交通，並將每位乘客和包裹與交通工具相匹配。 它允許大豆植株底部的傳感器與無人機進行通信，無人機提供肥料和農藥，並指導自動拖拉機收割它們。 我們正在談論像第一次和第二次工業革命那樣的生產力爆炸式增長。
我們贏得了第二次工業革命。 現在聽聽中國人對此是怎麽說的：邁克爾·白邦瑞認識的將軍是一回事。 但現在負責中國經濟政策的人是我認識的人，因為我在華爾街與他們共事。 他們是在美國接受教育的、徹底現代的技術官僚，他們的野心有如珠穆朗瑪峰那麽大。 其中一位名叫林毅夫的人。 他曾任世界銀行首席經濟學家，擁有博士學位。 他擁有芝加哥大學博士學位，剛剛寫了一本關於為什麽中國將引領第四次工業革命的書。
林說，我們對美國的立場就像19世紀美國對英國的立場一樣。 英國擁有所有技術。 托馬斯·愛迪生沒有發明燈泡：英國物理學家約瑟夫·斯旺發明了燈泡。 愛迪生偷了它，被起訴並不得不支付巨額和解金。 愛迪生所做的是創建了一個工業規模的實驗室，對 5,000 種材料進行了研究，直到他們找到了比 Swan 壽命長十倍的燈絲，使其具有商業可行性。
安德魯·卡內基生產的鋼鐵比世界上任何人都多——他並沒有發明貝塞麥工藝。 約瑟夫·貝塞麥做到了。 英國擁有所有技術； 美國要麽借用它，要麽買它，要麽偷它，並有企業家和物流來深入實現它。 這就是中國如何看待自己對抗美國的。
林毅夫說：他們會試圖鎮壓我們。 他們不希望我們崛起，就像英國試圖壓製德國和美國一樣。但看看我們的人力資本。 人力資本是技術的驅動力。 中國每年培養的工程師數量是我們的 7 倍，STEM 博士數量是我們的 3 倍； 他們有14億人口。
是的，中國文化確實容易產生因循守舊的傾向。 但在這麽多人中，絕對有很多傑出的創新者。 這就是我們所麵臨的。 超高速導彈在戰略上並不那麽重要，但它確實代表了我們開始認識到，是的，他們可以創新。 有一些關鍵技術領先我們很多年。
因此，盡管我支持特朗普總統，盡管我兩次投票給他，盡管我為他辯護，使其免受所有邪惡的深層國家攻擊，但當特朗普說中國人隻是通過從我們那裏偷東西而達到他們的地位時……最重要的是 中國人從我們這裏偷走了一個讓裏根革命成功的偉大想法：這個想法就是你可以擁有雙重用途技術，既可以給你紐扣槍，又可以給你黃油。 它們促進平民生產力。 你在軍隊中使用它們，但它們的成本是其本身的十倍——就像阿波羅計劃那樣，就像戰略防禦計劃那樣。 數字時代的每一項發明，無一例外，都是始於 DARPA 項目。 它們全部由國防部資助。
再次偉大
那時我們有一個由哈羅德·布朗或詹姆斯·施萊辛格這樣的人管理的國防部，他們利用國防預算來挑戰物理學的極限，以便更好地贏得戰爭。 他們讓企業家將這些東西商業化，不是通過押注於企業家，而是通過承擔基礎研究的成本。 就是這樣。
現在我們的五角大樓對於國防承包商來說基本上是一個巨大的豬肉桶，他們年複一年地出售同樣的 20 年前的垃圾，對創新沒有興趣。 中國人效仿了美國的做法：他們想成為冷戰中的裏根，對抗僵化的蘇聯。 現在，他們不像我們那麽擅長，我的觀點是我們沒有什麽可學的：我們隻需要記住。
當我還是個孩子的時候，你知道在裏根第一屆政府期間，我為國家安全委員會做了一些谘詢。 我寫了一篇小論文，後來變成了裏根的演講，說 SGI 會像阿波羅計劃一樣收回成本。 我們相信這一點。 我們創新了。
那麽：我們需要什麽？ 我們需要產業政策。 在美國精英將一切都轉向軟件並摧毀我們的技能基礎、我們的工業社區、我們的製造公司等20年後，將需要大約一萬億美元和10年的時間來重建我們的工業基礎。 一萬億美元——這並不是很多錢。 我們需要像北歐人那樣的學徒計劃，讓那些可能浪費時間做性別研究專業的孩子，教他們一門可能賺三倍錢的行業。 例如，德國汽車工人的收入是美國汽車工人的兩倍。
我們需要像艾森豪威爾在人造衛星發射後推出的國防教育法案，為人們提供工程獎學金和其他超出國防要求的獎學金，而不是批判性研究理論。 我們知道所有這些事情，因為我們已經完成了其中的每一件事情。
我們需要像艾森豪威爾在人造衛星發射後推出的國防教育法案，為人們提供工程獎學金和其他超出國防要求的獎學金，而不是批判性研究理論。 我們知道所有這些事情，因為我們已經完成了其中的每一件事情。 我們隻需要撣掉舊想法，讓樂隊重新團結起來。 我要告訴你們的是，保守派運動需要一個積極的計劃，一套解決方案來激勵美國人民，激發他們的想象力，就像肯尼迪在指向月球時所做的那樣，就像裏根在承諾保衛祖國免受侵害時所做的那樣。 敵方彈道導彈。 我們需要積極的觀點，我們需要一種能做的方法，我們需要在美利堅合眾國為世界開拓未來的良好記錄中找到它。
大衛·P·戈德曼 (David P. Goldman) 是《亞洲時報》的副主編、克萊蒙特研究所的華盛頓研究員以及《法律與自由》雜誌的資深撰稿人。
5G中國精英產業創新技術
Beating China
America needs a proactive industrial policy to win the fourth industrial revolution.
The following is a transcript of comments by Claremont Institute Washington Fellow David P. Goldman at the National Conservatism Conference. Video of the original can be found here.
We need to rebuild the American economy, and we can only do that with a visionary strategy that galvanizes the imagination of Americans, like the Kennedy Moon Shot or the Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative.
Let’s put it very simply: the numbers show that the Trump policy toward China was a catastrophic failure. And with all due respect to Curt Mills, if we get more of that we’ll have more catastrophic failure. We’re now importing over 30% more from China than we did in January 2018 when Trump imposed tariffs. Tariffs are a really lousy way of dealing with this kind of problem: they’re good for micro-economic dumping issues, but they’re very ineffective at a macro level. As for technology suppression, China built 70% of the world’s 5G networks and is proceeding to build the application on top of that which constitutes the fourth industrial revolution.
We can do better than China. We’re better equipped to innovate than China. But we’re not doing so, because we’re crushed by a technocratic elite which has sucked the marrow out of the United states economy and generated enormous wealth doing things that, for the most part, harm us. Nothing short of an intervention by the federal government, namely an industrial policy, will turn that around.
That’s not a classically liberal solution. Industrial policies are dangerous—they lead to rent-seeking behavior, corruption, and too much state power. But in a war they become necessary, and we’ve got the economic equivalent of a war going on.
The thing that worries me the most is that the knuckleheads who spent $6 trillion on forever wars and gutted our military by frittering away our resources will steer us into a confrontation with China that will lead to a war that nobody can win. If we spent a tenth of that 6 trillion on high-tech weaponry, we wouldn’t be worrying about China’s hypervelocity missiles or anything else like that.
Whereas if you try to force the independence of Taiwan, any Chinese government that wants to rule China will use military action, Communist or not. The Chinese Communist party is Communist the same way the Mafia is Catholic: they take it very seriously, but it is of very little practical importance.
To run a Chinese empire you have to suppress rebel provinces, and so the only thing we can do with Taiwan is to maintain strategic ambiguity and raise the price of the Chinese taking it by force, which we have no means to stop at this point short of a nuclear war. Dissuade them from doing it, maintain Taiwanese democracy, and walk the fine line. John Bolton would force the question and get a lot of people killed—if you don’t believe me read Admiral Stavridis’s marvelous thriller 2034. Spoiler alert: we blow up a bunch of their cities, they blow up a bunch of our cities, and we’re back to square one.
The Great Leap Forward
Now let me talk about the fourth industrial revolution, which is what’s really critical here. Wars are not won by stealing data. They’re not won by spies. They’re won by logistics in depth and the willingness to prevail. The first industrial revolution began when James Watt sold his first commercial steam engine in 1776. The fourth industrial revolution began when China responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by using artificial intelligence applied to massive datasets to predict potential outbreaks and use forensic testing plus selective lockdowns to shut down the pandemic. So China was the first industrial country to come out of the pandemic.
As a result they had a quantum leap in their relative power, and they are now proceeding to roll out the technology associated with this. This is the real science fiction stuff—we’re talking about 5G permitting groups of industrial robots to communicate on the shop floor and program themselves. Smart logistics allow individual objects to be tracked from mine to factory to warehouse to ship, back to warehouse, to truck, loaded onto autonomous vehicles and controlled all the way. It allows AI servers to optimize urban traffic and match every passenger and package to a conveyance. It allows sensors at the base of soybean plants to communicate with drones that deliver fertilizer and pesticides and direct autonomous tractors to harvest them. We’re talking about an explosion of productivity like that of the first and second industrial revolutions.
We won the second industrial revolution. Now listen to what the Chinese say about this: the generals whom Michael Pillsbury got to know are one thing. But the people running Chinese economic policies now are people I know, because I worked with them on Wall Street. They’re U.S.-educated, thoroughly modern technocrats with ambition the size of Mount Everest. One of them is a fellow named Yifu Lin. He was chief economist of the World Bank, has got a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and he just wrote a book about why China is going to lead the fourth industrial revolution.
Lin says, we’re in the same position against America that America was against England in the 19th century. England had all the technology. Thomas Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb: Joseph Swan, a British physicist did. Edison stole it, got sued and had to pay out a gigantic settlement. What Edison did was create an industrial-scale laboratory which went through 5,000 materials until they found the filament that would make it last ten times longer than Swan, making it commercially viable.
Andrew Carnegie made more steel than anyone in the world—he didn’t invent the Bessemer process. Joseph Bessemer did. England had all the technology; America either borrowed it, bought it, or stole it and had the entrepreneurs and the logistics to realize it in depth. That is how China sees itself against the United states.
Yifu Lin says: they’re going to try to suppress us. They don’t want us to rise, just the way England tried to suppress Germany and the U.S. But look at our human capital. Human capital is what drives technology. China is producing 7 times as many engineers as we are per year and 3 times as many STEM Ph.D.’s; they have 1.4 billion people.
Yes, it’s true that Chinese culture tends to produce conformism. But among that many people, you do have a lot of brilliant innovators in absolute terms. So that’s what we’re up against. The hypervelocity missile is not that important strategically, but it did represent a point at which we began to understand that yes they can innovate. There are some key technologies where they are years ahead of us.
And so, though I support President Trump, though I voted for him twice, though I defended him against all of the nefarious deep-state attacks, when Trump said that the Chinese just got where they were by stealing stuff from us…the main thing the Chinese stole from us was the great idea that made the Reagan revolution work: the idea that you can have dual-use technologies which both give you button guns and butter. They foster civilian productivity. You use them in the military, but they pay for themselves 10 times over—just like the Apollo program did, just like the strategic defense initiative did. Every single invention of the digital age, no exceptions, started with the DARPA project. They were all funded by the Department of Defense.
Great Again
That was when we had a Department of Defense run by people like Harold Brown or James Schlesinger, who used the defense budget to push the envelope of physics, the better to win wars. They got entrepreneurs to commercialize these things not by betting on the entrepreneurs, but by covering the costs of the fundamental research. That’s it.
Now we’ve got a Pentagon that’s basically a giant pork barrel for defense contractors who sell the same 20-year-old garbage year in and year out and have no interest in innovating. The Chinese have stolen the American approach: they want to be Reagan in the Cold War against a sclerotic Soviet Union. Now, they’re not as good at it as we are, and my argument is we have nothing to learn: we only need to remember.
When I was a kid, you know back during the first Reagan Administration, I did some consulting for the National Security Council. I wrote a little paper which made it into a Reagan speech, saying, SGI will pay for itself just like the Apollo program did. We believed that. We innovated.
So: what do we need? We need an industrial policy. it’s going take about a trillion dollars and 10 years to rebuild our industrial base, after 20 years of the American elite shifting everything to software and destroying our skill base, our industrial communities, our manufacturing companies, and so forth. A trillion dollars—that’s not a lot of money. We’re going to need apprenticeship programs like the northern Europeans to take kids who might be wasting their time doing a gender studies major and teach them a trade where they’ll probably make three times as much money. German auto workers make twice as much as American auto workers, by way of example.
We need a defense Education Act like Eisenhower introduced after Sputnik, something that gives people scholarships for engineering and other things which beat National Defense requirements, as opposed to critical studies theory. We know all these things because we’ve done every single one of them. We only have to dust off the old ideas and get the band back together. And what I put to you is that the conservative movement needs a positive program, a set of solutions to galvanize the American people, capture their imagination as Kennedy did when he pointed to the moon, as Reagan did when he promised to defend the homeland against enemy ballistic missiles. We need a positive view, we need a can-do approach, and we need to found it on the proven track record of the United States of America in pioneering the future for the world.
David P. Goldman is deputy editor of Asia Times, a Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute, and a senior writer for Law & Liberty.The American Mind presents a range of perspectives. Views are writers’ own and do not necessarily represent those of The Claremont Institute.
The American Mind is a publication of the Claremont Institute, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated to restoring the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. Interested in supporting our work? Gifts to the Claremont Institute are tax-deductible.
