So what I'm doing is a thought experiment. Now you may know of or have read this book by this guy. It's probably the first and maybe the only bestseller ever written about economics. And you probably know a bit about what it says. It talks about how nations all over the world will prosper through the individual pursuit of individual profit. Individual profit will be the mechanism for the prosperity of the world. But the funny thing about Adam Smith is that he was a stay-at-home kind of guy. He actually never went further from Edinburgh than France and Switzerland. So my thought experiment is to imagine what would have happened if Adam Smith had visited Africa.
我在做的是 一种思想实验。 你们可能知道或者读过 这个人写的这本书。 这可能是第一本 或者是唯一一本 关于经济学的畅销书。 你们可能都知道里面说的一些观点, 它讲的是世界上的国家如何通过 个人追求自我的利益而实现繁荣。 个人利益就是世界繁荣的机制。 但有趣的是,亚当·斯密 是个喜欢宅在家里的人。 实际上,他离开爱丁堡 去的最多的地方 就是法国和瑞士。 所以我的思想实验是去想象 如果亚当·斯密造访非洲会发生什么。
And fortunately, there's actually an easy answer, because the Arab lawyer and traveler Ibn Battuta traveled down the east coast of Africa in the 14th century, and what he found when he got to Mogadishu was a market, and he wrote about it. And basically, merchant ships came to the harbor, and they weren't even allowed to land. They had to drop anchor in the harbor, and boats came out to them, and locals picked them and said, "You are my guest, I am now your broker." And they had to do business through the local broker, and if they went around that and didn't do business through the broker, they could go to court, and the deal would be canceled, and they would be thrown out of town. And through this mechanism, everyone prospered.
幸运的是,确实有个显而易见的答案, 因为阿拉伯律师和旅行家伊本·白图泰 在14 世纪造访过非洲的东海岸。 当他到达摩加迪休时, 他找到了一个市场, 并且记录了下来。 商船进入港口, 他们甚至不被允许登岸。 他们不得不在港口抛锚, 有小船向他们驶来, 船上的当地人过来迎接,并对他们说: “你们是我的客人,我现在是你的经纪人。” 而他们得通过本地这些经纪人做生意, 如果他们避开这个规则, 不通过经纪人做生意, 他们则必须去法院,交易就会被取消, 然后他们就会被赶出城去。 通过这种机制,每个人都获得了成功。
And so if that was Adam Smith, he might look like this guy and say, "Ah! That's a mutual aid society. That's a share-the-wealth free market." And when I put this question to Christian [Benimana], who had the stage at the beginning of this session, he responded that if Adam Smith had come to Africa, there would have been a sharing economy long before Airbnb and Uber. And that's true. So if we put this to work today, it would be very interesting. There would be a lot of money flowing into the countries. These are just figures of 10 percent of exports in these countries.
如果是亚当·斯密, 他可能会看着这个人说, “啊,那是互助型社会, 是共享财富的自由市场。” 当我把这个问题抛给克里斯蒂安时—— 他在这个环节的开头做了演讲—— 他回应道如果亚当·斯密去过非洲, 可能会发现那里有远早于 Airbnb 和 Uber 的共享经济。 这无疑是真的。 所以如果今天把这应用到工作中, 会显得非常有趣。 可能会有大量的钱涌入这些国家。 这是这些国家出口数字的 10%。
So the interesting thing is that this mutual aid economy still exists, and we can find examples of it in the strangest places. So, this is Alaba International Market. It's the largest electronics market in West Africa. It's 10,000 merchants, they do about four billion dollars of turnover every year. And they say they are ardent apostles of Adam Smith: competition is great, we're all in it individually, government doesn't help us. But the interesting reality is that when I asked further, that's not what grew the market at all. There's a behind-the-scenes principle that enables this market to grow. And they do claim -- you know, this is an interesting juxtaposition of the King James Bible and "How To Sell Yourself." That's what they say is their message. But in reality, this market is governed by a sharing principle. Every merchant, when you ask them, "How did you get started in global trade?" they say, "Well, when my master settled me." And when I finally got it into my head to ask, "What is this 'settling?'" it turns out that when you've done your apprenticeship with someone you work for, they are required -- required -- to set you up in business. That means paying your rent for two or three years and giving you a cash infusion so you can go out in the world and start trading. That's locally generated venture capital. Right? And I can say with almost certainty that the Igbo apprenticeship system that governs Alaba International Market is the largest business incubator platform in the world.
有趣的是,这些经济互助仍然存在, 我们可以在最奇怪的地方 找到这些例子。 这是阿拉巴国际市场, 它是西非最大的电子市场。 有 1 万多个商家, 每年的营业额多达 40 亿美元。 他们说他们是亚当·斯密的忠实信徒: 竞争非常激烈,我们全靠自己, 政府不会出手相助。 但有趣的是,在一番刨根问底以后, 我发现这并非驱动市场发展的原因。 有一些背后的原则 在驱动市场的成长。 他们也确实提到——比如有趣的是, 钦定本圣经和《如何推销自己》 并存于他们的生活。 这是他们话里传达的信息。 但现实中,这个市场是由 共享原则来管理的。 当你问每个商人, “你是如何开始全球贸易的?” 他们说: “当我师傅帮我安排解决时。” 当我终于在脑子里产生这个概念时, 我问道,“这个‘安排’是什么?” 结果发现原来是当你不再是 某个人的学徒时。 这个人需要——“必须”—— 帮你安排好你的事业。 那意味着他们需要 支付你2-3年的租金, 为你提供资金支持, 这样你就可以出去开展贸易了。 这就是本地自发的风险资本。 我几乎可以肯定地说, 管理阿拉巴国际市场的伊博学徒制 是世界上最大的企业孵化器。
And there are other sharing economies that we look for -- merry-go-rounds, which are found in almost every shantytown. They have different names in other cultures; this is the Kenyan name. It's a way of generating cash. It's a kitty -- people throw money into a pot once a week, and once a week, one member of the group gets the money, and they can spend it on whatever they need to.
我们也调查了其他共享经济—— 转马制度,几乎可以 在每一个贫穷角落发现。 这个概念在不同的文化中 有不同的名字,这是肯尼亚的命名。 这是一种产生现金的方式。 人们每周丢一次钱到盆里, 每周,社区中有一个人 可以拿到这笔钱, 可以把这钱花在任何他想花的地方。
And there's also something called "acequias," and that is a Spanish word, but it comes from the North African Arabic; "saqiya" means "water wheel." And what the acequia is is a sharing system for scarce water. It's migrated from North Africa to Spain, and from Spain to the west of the United States, where it still is used. And it shares water by need rather than by who was there first. And contrary, with all due respect, to what Llew [Claasen] said when he talked about blockchains and cryptocurrencies yesterday, there is no tragedy of the commons. People in acequias have been commonly managing scarce water resources for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
还有一种叫做“灌溉水渠”, 这是西班牙语, 但起源于北非阿拉伯语, “波斯轮”意思是“水车”。 灌溉水渠是稀缺水资源的共享系统。 它从北非迁移至西班牙, 又从西班牙到美国西部, 至今仍然在使用。 它是按需共享水资源, 而不是先到先得。 相反,恕我直言,卢·克拉森 昨天提到的区块链和加密货币, 在这一领域并没有 发生公共资源的悲剧。 使用灌溉水渠的人 共同管理稀缺水资源 有着悠久的历史。
So taking this thought experiment, I wanted to go a little bit further and suggest that these things are managed communally, and they are taking care of scarce capital, scarce cash and scarce resources. And it seems to me that we have actually two kinds of capitalism. We have the capitalism of the top up. And these are really interesting statistics, because three one-thousandths of one percent of the Nigerian population controls wealth equal to one-fourth of the GDP of the country. One one-hundredth of one percent of the Kenyan population controls wealth equal to 75 percent of the GDP of the country. That's the capitalism of top up. And everyone else is with this guy, selling board games and bodybuilding equipment in a go-slow on the highway in Lagos. And when you're selling board games and bodybuilding equipment in a go-slow, that traffic jam is really, really, really bad, right?
那么关于这个思想实验, 我想再深入一点, 我建议这些事情可以共同管理, 它们会应对稀缺资本,稀缺现金 和稀缺资源。 在我看起来,我们其实 有两种类型的资本主义。 我们有顶层资本主义。 这里有一些有趣的统计, 因为千分之三的尼日利亚人 控制着相当于该国 1/4 GDP 的财富。 百分之一的肯尼亚人 控制着相当于该国 75% GDP 的财富。 这就是顶层资本主义。 而其他人跟这个人一样, 在拉各斯的慢行高速公路上 销售桌面游戏和健身器材。 而当你在慢行的路上 销售桌面游戏和健身器材时, 说明交通拥堵真的 非常,非常糟糕,对吗?
Those of us in this sphere of the economy are caught in what I call "the capitalism of decay," because there's no way to rise up and get out of it, because they're lacking the resources that we talked about in those sharing economies. And they're tripped up by the thesis of cassava and capitalism, that cassava has to be processed in order not to be poisonous, and I would argue that, similarly, the market economy needs to be processed in order to be fair to everyone.
在这种经济环境中的人 陷入了我称之为 “腐朽资本主义”的环境中, 因为没有办法站起来摆脱它, 因为他们缺少了我们所谈论的 那些共享经济中的资源。 他们被 一个叫“木薯和资本主义”理论绊倒了。 木薯需要处理才不会中毒, 我会争论说,同样, 资本主义也需要处理 才能对每个人公平。
So we have to look at what I call the "bottom down economy." These are these sharing models that exist out there that need to be propagated and used and scaled. OK? And if we propagate these things, we can begin to bring infrastructure to everyone, and that will ensure that communities are leading their own development, which is, I believe, what we need in the world, and, I would suggest, what we need in Africa.
所以我们需要去看看我称之为 “自下而上经济”的概念。 这些现存的共享模型 需要被传播,使用和规模化。 我说清楚了吗? 如果我们推广这些东西, 就可以开始为每个人带去基础设施, 可以确保社区 能够引领自我发展, 我相信这是我们的世界所需要的, 我认为这也是非洲所需要的。
I wanted to quote Steve Biko, and I thought it was really important to quote Steve Biko, because next month, September 12 to be exact, is the 40th anniversary of his murder by the South African state. And you can read the quote. He basically said that we're not here to compete. And I love this quote: "... to make us a community of brothers and sisters jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to the varied problems of life." And he also said that "the great powers of the world have done wonders in giving us an industrial and military look, ..." and we don't have to copy that military-industrialist complex, because Africa can do things differently and restore the humanity of the world.
我想引用史蒂夫·比科的名言, 我觉得在这里引用 他的名言是非常重要的, 因为下个月,准确说是 9 月 12 号, 是他被南非政党谋杀 40 周年的纪念日。 你可以读到那句引言。 大意是说,我们不是为竞争而来。 我喜欢他那句话: “...让我们成为兄弟姐妹, 共同参与寻求生活中 各种问题的综合答案。” 他也说过:“世界的伟大力量 已经创造了工业和军事的奇迹...” 但我们不必去复制 那个军事-工业的发展路径, 因为非洲可以做点不同的东西, 去恢复世界的人性。
And so what I want to suggest here is that we have an opportunity, that we are all here in the mutual landscape to be able to do things, and that the journey starts now.
所以我在想要建议的是, 我们拥有机遇, 我们都在同样的环境中, 我们能够去做一些事情, 现在,这个旅途开始了。
Thank you very much.
谢谢。
(Applause)
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