印度和中国的精英与西方的精英一样如饥似渴地借用新自由主义的话语，把印度和中国近年的经济增长归功于他们在上世纪80－90年代实施的自由市场体制。但即使只对这一主张做初步的分析，就能发现这是把复杂的政治和经济现实简单化了。

卡尔·马克思在19世纪中期称，欧洲殖民者尽管腐败、暴力，但却是“历史不自觉的工具”，将会把印度和中国推向现代化。他描述了落后的“亚细亚生产方式”，其特征是私人所有制的缺失，以及集中、严格的政府形式，这种政府妨碍了革新与现代化。

这一观点引起了爱德华·赛义德（Edward Said）的抨击，他称马克思是那种把印度和中国强纳入欧式人类进步叙述方式的东方学家，这种叙述方式为欧洲人设计，并为欧洲人服务。然而马克思对于亚洲的描述影响并不大，反倒是近来西方的另一种说法非常流行，即自由市场资本主义已最终将印度和中国从它们亚细亚式的长年沉睡中唤醒。

如果说印度和中国的崛起显得突兀的话，那只是因为不久之前，在西方的想象中印度还是一个贫穷、落后、经常发生暴力事件的国家。而有着几百万贫困人口和平等派共产主义政权的中国，似乎陷在更深的黑暗里。

然而今天我们突然听说，印度和中国都是经济巨人，因为效仿了欧洲的现代化模式而正在驱动世界的经济增长。后冷战时代这一关于全球化的意识形态最早是由弗朗西斯·福山提出的，他在1992年的《历史的终结》一书认为，以私人产权、自由市场和定期选举为基础的西方自由民主制将会成为历史发展的终点。这一颇具科技意味的论点在每年的达沃斯论坛上被奉为神明，在全世界商人们的讨论中广为传播，逐渐塑造了西方政治、商业和媒体精英们的信仰和政策。

然而这种做法，这种试图以抬高西方看似独特的自由市场资本主义和民主理念来解释以及改变世界的做法，近来似乎遇到了麻烦。自由放任资本主义实验的失败在俄罗斯催生了威权主义的右翼政权，在拉美催生了民粹主义的左翼政权。极端伊斯兰主义近年来的崛起和伊拉克战争，使得那种全世界都在奔向胜利的西方价值观的怀抱的图画，显得更加模糊了。

尽管如此，东方最大的两个国家的迅速崛起似乎印证了美国专栏作家托马斯·弗里德曼（Thomas Friedman）明确表达的理念：全球化的自由市场资本主义和民主制将会使世界许多人享受到目前在西方社会已经实现的物质丰富、政治稳定和社会保障水平。

这似乎是一种慷慨大度、乐于助人的美好精神，表达了愿意和东方分享西方好运的希望。但今天的中国向西方公司提供了超过拥有10亿消费者的深具诱惑力的市场，同时还提供了似乎无穷无尽的廉价劳动力，印度亦是如此。

印度和中国的精英与西方的精英一样如饥似渴地借用新自由主义的话语，把印度和中国近年的经济增长归功于他们在上世纪80－90年代实施的自由市场体制。但即使只对这一主张做初步的分析，就能发现这是把复杂的政治和经济现实简单化了。

印度取得最引人注目成就的时间是从1951年到1980年，在那之前它遭受了200多年系统性的殖民掠夺，实际上是被去工业化了。到1980年印度的年平均经济增长率为3.5％，和世界大部分国家的成绩相当。印度的社会主义经济体制虽然备受指责，但在那段时间里却为构建该国工业能力创造了条件。

许多关于中国的流行文学、例如张戎最近写的毛的传记，似乎让人觉得中国在1949年的共产主义革命后毫无建树，只是陷在一场场的灾难里。事实上，1952年－1978年，在计划经济体制下，中国的国民收入翻了5倍。尽管工资不高，但福利体制（即著名的“铁饭碗”）保障了永久性就业、养老金、医疗和其他福利，带来了高度的个人安全感。

上世纪80年代开始的经济改革集中于发展沿海地区的出口导向产业。这使中国成为一个巨大的为西方提供廉价商品的“血汗工厂”，但也使其年均增长率达到10％。这看似要归功于市场的无形之手，但就像在其他被称为“亚洲虎”的经济体一样，中国政府在严密管制着国内产业、国际贸易和投资，同时也维持着对公共服务的控制。

然而意在为城市地区创造财富的经济改革却打碎了“铁饭碗”，造成了严重的通货膨胀。根据自由市场论者的要求进行的权力向地方政府的下放导致了腐败的泛滥。福利制度的崩溃激发了严重不满，通货膨胀率在毛时代一直保持在2％以下，在1989年初则达到了25％。中国现在是世界上贫富分化最严重的国家之一，甚至比美国都要严重。

在印度也是如此，不计代价地追求经济增长产生了一批光鲜的精英阶层，却深化了早已严峻的社会和经济不平等。医疗和初级教育设施的状况恶化。经济增长局限于城市中心，没有带来很多的工作机会。高达三分之一的印度人生活在赤贫状态。共产主义武装活动已经在一些人口最多、同时也是最贫穷的省份爆发。

然而，正在走向现代化的印度和中国已经成为西方精英存在主义和意识形态上自我假设的论据，任何挑战他们信条（自由市场和民主）或者显示问题复杂性的东西，都倾向于被他们忽略。

新东方学对印度和中国现象的再度解释忽视或者故意隐瞒了两国历史的一些重要方面。它也未能认真对待现代化进程中一些痛苦而悲剧性的事件。西方媒体中时而会看到一些灾难事件，例如过去15年间在克什米尔造成8万多人死亡的暴力活动、中国的环境破坏以及大量农民失去土地，但这些都被解释为发展的逻辑而一笔带过，这种发展的逻辑正是欧洲史的特征。

但西方自身也开始感受到这场转型带来的痛苦，中国对能源的渴求提升了油价，中国廉价的出口伤害了一度强劲的意大利和德国经济，也导致美国的白领工人失去工作。另一方面，欧洲自身在转型到当前的稳定和富裕程度的过程中所经历的不仅仅是痛苦，而是包含了帝国式的征服、种族清洗、许多地区战争和两次大战，在这一过程中数以亿计的人被杀害或驱逐。

在一个能源有限的世界上，当印度和中国带着它们消费主义的中产阶级崛起的时候，很容易想象，让上个世纪陷于严重暴力的经济斗争和军事冲突，也可能殃及这个世纪。有一种希望在推动着无尽的经济增长，即印度和中国的数十亿消费者有一天能够享受欧洲人和美国人的生活方式，无论如何这是荒谬和危险的幻想。那将使地球环境陷于破坏，而且注定要在成亿计的穷人中蓄积无政府主义的愤怒与失望。

印度和中国的许多知识分子和活动家每天都在思考这一现代化的挑战，他们知道如果不能解决它将会带来什么灾难。与此同时，我们这些生活在西方的人最好打碎这种新东方主义的幻象——在那些西方根据自我感觉、出于自身利益对东方的描述中，这是流传最广的一个。因为这个世纪的和平依赖于印度和中国找到一条较少灾难性的道路来实现现代化。

（ 译自《卫报》2006年1月10日 原题为《西方对中印崛起的观点是种自我假设》，原文见：http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1794502,00.html）

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The western view of the rise of India and China is a self-affirming fiction

Both made their most impressive gains when they rejected the free market. They need a new way of becoming modern

Pankaj Mishra
Saturday June 10, 2006
The Guardian

In the mid-19th century Karl Marx claimed that European colonisers, though corrupt and violent, were the "unconscious tool of history" that would propel India and China into modernity. He described the backward "Asiatic mode of production", defined by the absence of private ownership and the presence of a rigid, centralised form of government that prevents change and modernisation.
Such views prompted Edward Said to denounce Marx as an orientalist who had subsumed India and China into a narrative of human progress designed by and for Europeans. But nothing Marx said about Asia would ever be as influential or widely disseminated as the recent idea in the west that free-market capitalism has finally awakened India and China from their long Asiatic slumber.

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If the rise of India and China seems dramatic, it is because not so long ago India appeared in the western imagination as a poor, backward and often violent nation. With its needy millions and Luddite communist regime, China seemed sunk even deeper into darkness.
Now, abruptly, we are told that India and China are economic giants, driving world growth by converging on the European model of modernity. Francis Fukuyama first outlined this post-cold-war ideology of globalisation by claiming in his 1992 book, The End of History, that western liberal democracy, based on private property, free markets and regular elections, was the terminus of historical development. Consecrated annually in Davos, and circulated in business-class lounges around the world, this quasi-teleological view increasingly shapes the beliefs and policies of western political, business and media elites.

The attempt to explain - and change - the world by exalting the apparently unique western virtues of free-market capitalism and democracy may seem to have run into problems lately. Failed experiments with unfettered capitalism have helped install authoritarian rightwing and populist leftwing regimes in Russia and Latin America respectively. The recent irruptions of radical Islam, and the war in Iraq, have muddied further the image of a world rushing to embrace victorious western values.

Nevertheless, the abrupt rise of the two biggest countries of the orient reaffirms the faith expressed eloquently by the American columnist Thomas Friedman: that globalising free-market capitalism and democracy will enable much of the world's population to reach the summit of material plenitude, political stability and social security, where western societies apparently reside.

It would be nice to imagine the spirit of altruism behind this generous desire to share the west's good fortune. But today China offers western corporations a tempting market of more than a billion customers and a seemingly endless source of cheap labour, as does India.

Indian and Chinese elites borrow no less eagerly than their western counterparts from the discourse of neo-orientalism as they attribute India and China's recent economic growth to the free markets they embraced in the 80s and 90s. But even a casual glance at their claims will reveal them to be caricatures of a complex political and economic reality.

India registered its most impressive gains from 1951 to 1980, after emerging from more than two centuries of systematic colonial exploitation, during which it was, in effect, deindustrialised. Until 1980 India achieved an average annual economic growth of 3.5% - as much as most countries achieved. In this period India's much derided socialistic economy also helped create the country's industrial capacity.

Much popular literature about China, such as Jung Chang's recent biography of Mao, makes it seem as though China did little after the communist revolution in 1949 but lurch from one disaster to another. In fact, China's national income under a planned economy grew fivefold between 1952 and 1978. Though wages were low, the welfare system - the famous "iron rice bowl" - guaranteed lifetime employment, pensions, healthcare and other benefits that created a high degree of personal security.

Economic reforms in the 80s focused on boosting export-oriented industries on the coast. They made China a huge sweatshop for the west's cheap goods and gave it an average annual growth of 10%. It may be tempting to credit the invisible hand of the free market for this, but, as in the so-called "Asian tiger" economies, the Chinese state has carefully regulated domestic industry and foreign trade and investment, besides maintaining control of public services.

However, economic reforms, geared to creating wealth in urban areas, have smashed the iron rice bowl and caused severe inflation. The devolution of power to provincial governments, as demanded by free-marketeers, has led to unchecked corruption. The protests in Tiananmen Square, seen by many outside China as demands for western-style freedom and democracy, were fuelled by mass rage at the dismantling of the old welfare state: inflation, for instance, reached 25% in early 1989 after remaining well below 2% for much of the Maoist era. China is now one of the most unequal countries in the world, even more so than the US.

In India, too, the pursuit of economic growth at all costs has created a gaudy elite but also widened already alarming social and economic disparities. Facilities for healthcare and primary education have deteriorated. Economic growth, confined to urban centres, is largely jobless. Up to a third of Indians live with extreme poverty and deprivation. And militant communist movements have erupted in the poorest, most populous states.

Still, modernising India and China have become sources of existential and ideological self-affirmation for western elites, who tend to ignore anything that challenges their articles of faith - free markets and democracy - or suggests an arduous complexity.

The neo-orientalist reconceptualising of India and China ignores or suppresses large aspects of their recent history. It also fails to reckon fully with the tortured and often tragic experience of modern development. The disasters occasionally seen in the western media - the violence in Kashmir that has claimed more than 80,000 lives in the last decade and a half; the destruction of the environment and the uprooting of nearly 200 million people from their rural habitats in China - can be explained away by reference to the logic of development as manifested in Europe's history.

But the west itself has begun to feel the pain of this transition, as China's hunger for energy raises the price of oil; its cheap exports undermine the once-strong economies of Italy and Germany; and it puts white-collar workers out of jobs in America. It is also true that Europe's own transition to its present state of stability and affluence was more than just painful. It involved imperial conquests, ethnic cleansing and many minor and two major wars - involving the murder and displacement of countless millions.

As India and China rise with their consumerist middle classes in a world of finite energy resources, it is easy to imagine that this century will be ravaged by the kind of economic rivalries and military conflicts that made the last century so violent. In any case, the hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth - that billions of customers in India and China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans - is an absurd and dangerous fantasy. It condemns the global environment to early destruction, and looks set to create reservoirs of nihilistic rage and disappointment among hundreds of millions of have-nots.

Many intellectuals and activists in India and China grapple with this challenge of modernity every day, knowing well the disasters that lie in wait if they fail. In the meantime, we in the west will do well to dismantle the illusions of neo-orientalism - the most powerful and far-reaching yet of the many accounts of the orient shaped by western self-perceptions and self-interest. For peace in this century depends on India and China finding a less calamitous way of becoming modern.

· Pankaj Mishra's new book is Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond
kannauj@gmail.com