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印度為什麼趕不上中國？
阿馬蒂亞·森 2013年06月21日
馬薩諸塞州坎布里奇——現代印度在很多方面都是成功的，它
作為世界最大民主國家的稱號並非徒有虛名，它的媒體活躍而自由，印度人每天購買的報紙比其他任何國家都要多。自從1947年獨立以來，新生兒預期壽命從
32歲上升到了66歲，提高了一倍多，經通脹因素調整的人均收入也增長了五倍。最近幾十年，改革將印度一度遲緩的經濟增長率提高到了每年8%左右，然後在
過去兩年又回落了幾個百分點。多年來，印度的經濟增長率在全球大型經濟體中一直僅次於中國，位居第二。印度經濟的增速一直比中國低至少一個百分點。
印度的經濟增速有朝一日超越中國的願望，現在顯得遙不可及。但上述比較並不是印度人最應該擔心的。印度與中國之間更大的差距在於關鍵性公共服務的供應，這些服務的缺失不僅降低了生活水平，而且長期以來一直在抑制增長。
兩個國家的不平等情況都很嚴重，但中國在提高人民預期壽
命、普及教育、提供醫療服務方面，做的比印度要多得多。印度有面向各個層次的出色的精英學校，但年齡在7歲及以上的印度人當中，有近五分之一的男性和三分
之一的女性不識字。而且大多數學校都水平低下，即便在接受了四年學校教育後，只有不到一半的兒童會計算20除以5。
印度或許是世界最大的通用名葯生產國，但是其醫療系統缺乏管理，亂作一團。窮人必須依賴低質量，有時甚至是剝削性的私人醫療服務，因為良好的公共醫療不足。中國將國內生產總值(GDP)的2.7%投入到政府的醫療支出當中，而印度只有1.2%。
印度表現欠佳的原因，可以歸結為沒能從所謂的亞洲經濟發展
榜樣身上吸取經驗。在亞洲經濟發展當中，快速改善人的能力不僅是發展的目標，也是促進高速發展的不可或缺的因素。日本從1868年明治維新(Meiji
Restoration)開始，就成了這種發展模式的先驅。明治維新時期日本下定決心用幾十年時間，建成了一個普遍識字的社會。正如維新的領導人物木戶孝
允(Kido
Takayoshi)解釋的：「我國民眾與當今歐美之人無異，差別全在於是否受過教育。」通過對教育和醫療進行投資，日本也同時提高了生活水平和勞動生產
率，這是政府與市場的協作。
儘管日本在戰爭年月曆經災難，但其發展經驗仍然成立，並且
在戰後受到了韓國、台灣、新加坡，以及其他東亞經濟體的效仿。在毛時代，中國在土地改革，以及基礎教育和醫療方面取得了進展，之後在20世紀80年代早期
開始了市場化改革，中國巨大的成功改變了世界經濟的格局。而印度對這些經驗沒有給予足夠的重視。
民主的印度在為公民提供教育、改善公民的健康水平方面，做
得不如中國好，這會不會讓人大惑不解？或許如此，但其中的緣由未必需要大傷腦筋。民主參與、自由表達和法治在印度基本上已是現實，但在中國很大程度上仍只
是期許。印度在獨立後沒有發生過饑荒，但在1958年至1961年，中國發生了有史以來最嚴重的饑荒，毛澤東發動的大躍進造成了災難性的後果，3000萬
人死亡。不過使用民主手段應對區域性的頑疾，如長期營養不良、醫療系統混亂、學校體系失靈，需要持續的審議討論、政治互動、媒體報道、公眾壓力。簡而言
之，需要更多的民主程序，而不是更少。
在中國，決策是在高層作出的。對於多黨制民主的價值，中國領導人的態度是懷疑，甚至敵視的。但他們一直有力地專註於消除飢餓、文盲和醫療的疏漏。他們在這些方面的建樹值得稱讚。
不民主的體制不可避免具有脆弱性，因為它很難糾正錯誤。異議很危險，承受不公者幾乎沒有伸冤之處，一胎化政策這樣的指令十分嚴酷。然而，中國當下的領導人以極大的決心和高度的技巧，採納了通過改善人的能力來加快發展速度的基本模式。
在印度克服削弱社會發展的不平等，不僅僅有關社會公正。不
像印度，中國並沒有忽視亞洲經濟發展的重要啟示，即通過改善民眾的生活，能夠產生經濟回報，尤其是通過改善社會經濟結構中最底層民眾的生活。印度的經濟增
長，以及通過出口獲得的收入，往往依賴於範圍很窄的有限的幾個行業，如信息技術、製藥和專用化汽車配件。這些產業中許多都需要依靠受過高度訓練的人員，他
們來自受過良好教育的階層。印度要想在生產能力的廣度上趕上中國，就需要在社會的各個階層，提供更多受教育程度更高、更健康的勞動力。中國能夠製造幾乎所
有種類的設備，而且利用的技術越來越多，質量控制也越來越好。印度最需要的是，對於不平等的本質、不平等深重的程度，以及不平等造成的破壞性後果，有更好
的了解，並對此展開公開討論。
阿馬蒂亞·森(
Amartya Sen)是哈佛大學經濟學和哲學教授，諾貝爾經濟學獎得主。他與讓·德雷茲(Jean Drèze)合著有《不確定的榮耀：印度及其矛盾》(An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions)。
翻譯：王童鶴
Why India Trails China
By AMARTYA SEN June 21, 2013
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — MODERN
India
is, in many ways, a success. Its claim to be the world’s largest
democracy is not hollow. Its media is vibrant and free; Indians buy more
newspapers every day than any other nation. Since independence in 1947,
life expectancy at birth has more than doubled, to 66 years from 32,
and per-capita income (adjusted for inflation) has grown fivefold. In
recent decades, reforms pushed up the country’s once sluggish growth
rate to around 8 percent per year, before it fell back a couple of
percentage points over the last two years. For years, India’s economic
growth rate ranked second among the world’s large economies, after
China, which it has consistently trailed by at least one percentage point.
The hope that India might
overtake China one day in economic growth now seems a distant one. But
that comparison is not what should worry Indians most. The far greater
gap between India and China is in the provision of essential public
services — a failing that depresses living standards and is a persistent
drag on growth.
Inequality is high in both countries, but China has
done far more than India to raise life expectancy, expand general
education and secure health care for its people. India has elite schools
of varying degrees of excellence for the privileged, but among all
Indians 7 or older, nearly one in every five males and one in every
three females are illiterate. And most schools are of low quality; less
than half the children can divide 20 by 5, even after four years of
schooling.
India may be the world’s
largest producer of generic medicine, but its health care system is an
unregulated mess. The poor have to rely on low-quality — and sometimes
exploitative — private medical care, because there isn’t enough decent
public care. While China devotes 2.7 percent of its gross domestic
product to government spending on health care, India allots 1.2 percent.
India’s underperformance
can be traced to a failure to learn from the examples of so-called Asian
economic development, in which rapid expansion of human capability is
both a goal in itself and an integral element in achieving rapid growth.
Japan pioneered that approach, starting after the Meiji Restoration in
1868, when it resolved to achieve a fully literate society within a few
decades. As Kido Takayoshi, a leader of that reform, explained: “Our
people are no different from the Americans or Europeans of today; it is
all a matter of education or lack of education.” Through investments in
education and health care, Japan simultaneously enhanced living
standards and labor productivity — the government collaborating with the
market.
Despite the catastrophe of
Japan’s war years, the lessons of its development experience remained
and were followed, in the postwar period, by South Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore and other economies in East Asia. China, which during the Mao
era made advances in land reform and basic education and health care,
embarked on market reforms in the early 1980s; its huge success changed
the shape of the world economy. India has paid inadequate attention to
these lessons.
Is there a conundrum here
that democratic India has done worse than China in educating its
citizens and improving their health? Perhaps, but the puzzle need not be
a brainteaser. Democratic participation, free expression and rule of
law are largely realities in India, and still largely aspirations in
China. India has not had a famine since independence, while China had
the largest famine in recorded history, from 1958 to 1961, when Mao’s
disastrous Great Leap Forward killed some 30 million people.
Nevertheless, using democratic means to remedy endemic problems —
chronic undernourishment, a disorganized medical system or dysfunctional
school systems — demands sustained deliberation, political engagement,
media coverage, popular pressure. In short, more democratic process, not
less.
In China, decision making
takes place at the top. The country’s leaders are skeptical, if not
hostile, with regard to the value of multiparty democracy, but they have
been strongly committed to eliminating hunger, illiteracy and medical
neglect, and that is enormously to their credit.
There are inevitable
fragilities in a nondemocratic system because mistakes are hard to
correct. Dissent is dangerous. There is little recourse for victims of
injustice. Edicts like the one-child policy can be very harsh. Still,
China’s present leaders have used the basic approach of accelerating
development by expanding human capability with great decisiveness and
skill.
The case for combating
debilitating inequality in India is not only a matter of social justice.
Unlike India, China did not miss the huge lesson of Asian economic
development, about the economic returns that come from bettering human
lives, especially at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. India’s
growth and its earnings from exports have tended to depend narrowly on a
few sectors, like information technology, pharmaceuticals and
specialized auto parts, many of which rely on the role of highly trained
personnel from the well-educated classes. For India to match China in
its range of manufacturing capacity — its ability to produce gadgets of
almost every kind, with increasing use of technology and better quality
control — it needs a better-educated and healthier labor force at all
levels of society. What it needs most is more knowledge and public
discussion about the nature and the huge extent of inequality and its
damaging consequences, including on economic growth.
Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate, is a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard. He is the
author, with Jean Drèze, of “An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions.”
