亞當斯密如何看乾隆時代

1776是乾隆41年. 此時的中國進入了康乾盛世的後期.  當時的中國從外表上看是十分強大的. 乾隆24年統一新疆之後，中國的疆域達到了1453萬平方公裏。在他退位做太上皇的乾隆60年時，人口也達到了近3億. 這是中國皇權體係下最後一個強盛時期. 亁隆爺十分得意，他撰寫了《十全記》，記述一生的“十全武功”，乾隆帝因此被稱為“十全老人”. 

 

對這樣一個盛世，萬裏之外生活在同一時代的經濟學家亞當斯密如何看？ 下麵摘錄幾段他在“富國論“中對當時乾隆治下的天朝上國的觀察與分析.

 

首先在“勞工工資“這一章裏他記錄了他的觀察:”China has been long one of the richest, ….  It seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultiva-

tion, industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by travellers in the present times. “ . 從他之前的馬可. 波羅對元代中國的描述到他那個時代的旅行者對乾隆年間天朝的描述幾乎相同這一點，他看出這500年間中國是停滯不前的(long stationary).

 

當時的勞工如何奔波找工作養家糊口？“The accounts of all travellers, …，agree in the low wages of labour, and in the difficulty which a labourer finds in bringing up a family in China. If by digging the ground a whole day he can get what will purchase a small quantity of rice in the evening, he is contented. The condition of artificers is, if possible, still worse. Instead of waiting indolently in their work-houses for the calls of their customers, as in Europe, they are continually running about the streets with the tools of their respective trades, offering their services, and, as it were, begging employment. “

 

下麵這段文字記錄了底層民眾的極貧狀態. 這裏寫的水上人家一直存在到二百多年後的現代. 

 

The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations in Europe. In the neighbourhood of Canton, many hundred, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing-boats upon the rivers and canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty, that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries. 

 

棄嬰與溺嬰.（讀這些描述真是讓人很心疼）

Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them. In all great towns, several are every night exposed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the water. The performance of this horrid office is even said to be the avowed business by which some people earn their subsistence.

 

在“資本利潤“這一章. 他談到當時中國對對外貿易的抗拒性，對窮人的壓製等會在經濟上造成什麽後果. 當時社會流行利率是12%.

 

“China seems to have been long stationary, and had, probably, long ago acquired that full complement of riches which is consistent with the nature of its laws and institutions. But this complement may be much inferior to what, with other laws and institutions, the nature of its soil, climate, and situation, might admit of. A country which neglects or despises foreign commerce, and which admits the vessel of foreign nations into one or two of its ports only, cannot transact the same quantity of business which

it might do with different laws and institutions. 

 

In a country, too, where, though the rich, or the owners of large capitals, enjoy a good deal of security, the poor, or the owners of small capitals, enjoy scarce any, but are liable, under the pretence of justice, to be pillaged and plundered at any time by the inferior mandarins, the quantity of stock employed in all the different branches of business transacted within it, can never be equal to what the nature and extent of that business might admit. In every different branch, the oppression of the poor must establish the monopoly of the rich, who, by engrossing the whole trade to themselves, will be able to make very large profits. Twelve per cent. accordingly, is said to be the common interest of money in China, and the ordinary profits of stock must be sufficient to afford this large interest.”

 

不管各位同不同意亞當斯密的觀察與分析. 重要的是在大約二百五十年前，這些人已經可以係統地看待與分析一個遙遠國度的國情.