黑市从业者对世界经济的意义

《连线》杂志（Wired）2012年1月

Not many people think of shantytowns, illegal street vendors, and unlicensed roadside hawkers as major economic players. But according to journalist Robert Neuwirth, that’s exactly what they’ve become. In his new book, Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, Neuwirth points out that small, illegal, off-the-books businesses collectively account for trillions of dollars in commerce and employ fully half the world’s workers. Further, he says, these enterprises are critical sources of entrepreneurialism, innovation, and self-reliance. And the globe’s gray and black markets have grown during the international recession, adding jobs, increasing sales, and improving the lives of hundreds of millions. It’s time, Neuwirth says, for the developed world to wake up to what those who are working in the shadows of globalization have to offer. We asked him how these tiny enterprises got to be such big business.

几乎没有人认为棚户区居民、不法摊贩和无照路边小贩会是主要的经济参与者。但是，根据记者罗伯特.纽沃思（Robert Neuwirth）的说法，这些人现在实际上已经成为了主要的经济参与者。纽沃思在他的《隐形的族群：全球非正规经济的崛起》（Stealth of Nations: The Gobal Rise of Informal Economy）一书中指出，小型、不合法和黑市生意在商业领域总数达到了几万亿美元，全职雇员占全世界工人的一半。再者，他说，这些企业是创业精神、开 拓创新和自力更生精神的重要源泉。在世界经济衰退期间，全球的灰色经济和黑市成长起来，他们增加了就业、提高了薪酬，改善了几亿人的生活。纽沃思说，发达 国家是时候应该了解，那些工作在全球化阴影中的人提供了什么。我们问他，这些微小的企业是如何成就了那么大事业的。

Wired: You refer to the untaxed, unlicensed, and unregulated economies of the world as System D. What does that mean?

连线：你将世界上不纳税、无执照和不受管制的经济称为“D体制”（System D）。它意味着什么？

Robert Neuwirth:There’s a French word for someone who’s self-reliant or ingenious: débrouillard. This got sort of mutated in the postcolonial areas of Africa and the Caribbean to refer to the street economy, which is called l’économie de la débrouillardise—the self-reliance economy, or the DIY economy, if you will. I decided to use this term myself—shortening it to System D—because it’s a less pejorative way of referring to what has traditionally been called the informal economy or black market or even underground economy. I’m basically using the term to refer to all the economic activity that flies under the radar of government. So, unregistered, unregulated, untaxed, but not outright criminal—I don’t include gun-running, drugs, human trafficking, or things like that.

罗伯特.纽沃思：对于自立的或者善于创造发明的人有一个法语词débrouillard。 这是在非洲和加勒比地区后殖民时代演变出来的，特指街头经济，称为l'économie de la débrouillardise，指自主创业经济，或者你可以称它为自己动手（DIY）经济，因为这是对于传统上被称为非正规经济或黑市或者甚至被称为地 下经济活动较少贬义的表述。我使用这个词基本上是指所有的在政府管制之外的经济活动，包括非注册、不受管制，不纳税但又完全不是犯罪的活动。我这里并不包 括贩卖枪支、毒品、人口贩运或者其他此类行为。

Wired: Certainly the people who make their living from illegal street stalls don’t see themselves as criminals.

连线：那些街头摆摊儿谋生的人当然不会认为他们自己有犯罪行为。

Neuwirth: Not at all. They see themselves as supporting their family, hiring people, and putting their relatives through school—all without any help from the government or aid networks.

纽沃思：当然不。他们认为他们自己是在支撑一个家庭，增加就业，并且让他们的亲属上学读书，他们的所有行为都不靠任何的政府或者援助体系的帮助。

Wired: The sheer scale of System D is mind-blowing.

连线：D体制的庞大规模着实令人兴奋。

Neuwirth: Yeah. If you think of System D as having a collective GDP, it would be on the order of $10 trillion a year. That’s a very rough calculation, which is almost certainly on the low side. If System D were a country, it would have the second-largest economy on earth, after the United States.

纽沃思：是的。假如将D体制作为一个整体来看它的GDP，那将是每年10万亿美元。这只是非常粗略的计算，几乎肯定是被低估的。如果D体制是一个国家，它将排在美国之后，是全球第二大经济体。

Wired: And it’s growing?

连线：那它还在增长吗？

Neuwirth: Absolutely. In most developing countries, it’s the only part of the economy that is growing. It has been growing every year for the past two decades while the legal economy has kind of stagnated.

纽沃思：绝对是。在大多数发展中国家，它们是唯一的经济增长的部分。在过去的二十年中，合法的经济在一定程度上停滞不前，而他们每年都在增长。

Wired: Why?

连线：为什么？

Neuwirth: Because it’s based purely on unfettered entrepreneurialism. Law-abiding companies in the developing world often have to work through all sorts of red tape and corruption. The System D enterprises avoid all that. It’s also an economy based on providing things that the mass of people can afford—not on high prices and large profit margins. It grows simply because people have to keep consuming—they have to keep eating, they have to keep clothing themselves. And that’s unaffected by global downturns and upturns.

纽 沃思：因为它完全是基于不受约束的创业精神。依法设立的公司在发展中国家通常必须要遵守各种形式的繁文缛节和遭遇腐败的困扰。D体制规避了所有这些问题。 它也是一种经济，是基于提供大众有能力消费的商品，而不是依赖于高价格和高利润。它的成长简单的理由就是人们需要持续消费，人们必须吃饭，必须买自己要穿 的衣服。他们不受全球经济衰退和复苏的影响。

Wired: Why should we care?

连线：它有那么重要吗？

Neuwirth: Half the workers of the world are part of System D. By 2020, that will be up to two-thirds. So, we’re talking about the majority of the people on the planet. In simple pragmatic terms, we’ve got to care about that.

纽沃思：全球一半的工人都是D体制的一部分。到2020年这个比例将达到三分之二。因此，我们现在讨论的是这个地球上大多数人的问题。从简单务实的角度，我们必须认真对待他们。

Wired: You talk a lot about wares that are sold through tiny kiosks, street stalls, and little informal markets. Where do those goods come from?

连线：你谈到许多商品通过小售货亭、街边小摊儿和小型的非正规市场销售。那么这些商品的来源在哪里？

Neuwirth: The biggest flow of goods is from China. It’s no secret that China is the manufacturing engine of the planet. In a lot of ways, they’re more capitalist than we are. If someone wants something made—even if that person isn’t licensed—a Chinese factory will make it. It’s also easy to deal with China. You can go to the local Chinese consulate and get a tourist visa within a couple of hours. You can’t say the same about coming to the US. So African importers, for instance, travel to China and commission Chinese firms to make goods for them to sell in Africa.

纽 沃思：最大的商品来源地是中国。中国是全球制造业的发动机，这不是秘密。他们在许多方面比我们有更多的资本主义。如果有人想做一种什么东西，甚至如果他没 有执照，中国的工厂就可以造出来。与中国做生意也很容易。你可以到地方上的中国领事馆，两个小时之内就可以拿到去中国的旅游签证。你要到美国来可没这么容 易。比如，非洲的进口商可以访问中国，委托中国的公司为他们生产物品到非洲销售。

Wired: But it’s not all Chinese manufacturers, right? In your book, you write about how huge international corporations want to get their goods into informal markets.

连线：但是，并不都是中国的制造商吧？在你的书中，你写到了有大型的跨国公司都希望他们的商品进入非正规市场。

Neuwirth: Sure. Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive: They sell lots of products through the little unregistered and unlicensed stores in the developing world. And they want their products in those stores, because that’s where the customers are.

纽沃思：是的。宝洁、联合利华、高露洁：他们的许多商品是通过非注册和无执照的商店在发展中国家销售。他们希望他们的产品在这些商店中销售，是因为那里有他们的客户。

Wired: How does that work?

连线：那他们怎样运作的？

Neuwirth: Basically, they hire a middleman. Procter & Gamble, for instance, realized that although Walmart is its single largest customer, System D outposts, when you total them up, actually account for more business. So Procter & Gamble decided to get its products into those stores. In each country, P&G hires a local distributor—sometimes several layers of local distributors—to get the product from a legal, formal, tax-paying company to a company willing to deal with unlicensed vendors who don’t pay taxes. That’s how Procter & Gamble gets Downy fabric softener, Tide laundry detergent, and all manner of other goods into the squatter communities of the developing world. Today, in aggregate, these markets make up the largest percentage of the company’s sales worldwide.

纽 沃思：他们基本上是聘用一家中间商。例如，宝洁公司认识到，虽然沃尔玛是它的单一最大客户，D体制在边缘地区，但如果你把它们加起来，那就是更大的业务 量。因此，宝洁公司决定让它的产品进入这些商户。宝洁公司在每个国家聘用一家当地的分销商，有时有几层的地方分销商，使产品通过合法的、正式的、付税的公 司售出，而这些公司愿意与那些无照、不付税的公司做生意。这就是宝洁公司如何将它的多丽（Downy）织物柔顺剂、汰渍洗衣粉和所有各种其他的产品卖到发 展中国家的贫困居住区的。今天，总体上，这些市场占了这家公司全球销售额的最大比例。

Wired: You write that there are even street-vendor-specific brands.

连线：你写到甚至还有街头商贩特有的品牌。

Neuwirth: Absolutely. A good example is UAC Foods, which is based in Nigeria but active throughout West Africa and traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. It’s a highly formal company that was originally incorporated by the British more than 100 years ago. UAC Foods owns hotels and restaurants, but it also has this product called the Gala sausage roll. You never find Gala being sold in normal stores. It’s sold only by unlicensed roadside hawkers and at roadside kiosks. Basically, UAC recognized that this product wasn’t going to sell well in a normal store. But sausage rolls are in demand where people are on the go, when they need a quick snack on the side of the highway or in a traffic jam. So UAC relies on this informal phalanx of thousands of unregulated hawkers who sell Gala sausage rolls all over the streets of African cities. This is UAC’s distribution channel for this one product.

纽 沃思：当然有。一个很好的例子是UAC Foods，这是一家总部在尼日利亚的公司，但是在西非很活跃，并且是尼日利亚股票交易所的上市公司。这是一家非常正规的公司，100多年前最初由英国人 设立的。UAC Foods 拥有酒店和餐馆，但是它也有一种称为Gala 香肠卷的产品。在一般的商店中你找不到卖Gala产品的。这种产品只有无照的街边小贩和路边商摊上销售。UAC公司认识到，在正规的商店里，这种商品不会 好卖。但是，当人们在路上，在高速公路旁或者交通堵塞时需要来点儿点心，香肠卷是有需求的。因此，UAC公司依赖于几千家无注册商贩的非正规销售渠道，在 非洲的城市各处街道销售Gala香肠卷。这就是UAC公司这种商品的分销渠道。