????如果把全世界的財富和收入平均分配，同時全球經(jīng)濟維持如今的效率不變，那么每個人每年的收入將為約1萬美元，個人財富為3.45萬美元。如果按美國政府對“貧困”的定義，世界上的每個人都將生活在貧困線以下。

????這是個很簡單的數(shù)學(xué)問題，任何一個人在勾勒全球經(jīng)濟革命時，或許都應(yīng)該算算這筆帳。可惜，經(jīng)濟史學(xué)家德克?菲利普森在新作《重大的小數(shù)據(jù)：GDP是怎樣統(tǒng)治世界以及我們該如何應(yīng)對》中，并沒有算過這道題。對整部作品及其讀者來說，這一疏忽的后果很嚴(yán)重。

????菲利普森承認(rèn)，從“創(chuàng)造的財富與自由”這個角度衡量，“歷史上沒有哪種（經(jīng)濟）系統(tǒng)”能和資本主義體系媲美。但他主張，現(xiàn)在應(yīng)該開始放棄資本主義，或者大刀闊斧地改造它，讓它徹底改頭換面。

????菲利普森反對當(dāng)前經(jīng)濟體制的觀點似曾相識。他認(rèn)為，全球經(jīng)濟一心追求增長，富裕經(jīng)濟體的民眾工作過重、壓力過大，一味看重物質(zhì)獲取和職場晉升這些并不會真的讓人幸福的事。而在貧困經(jīng)濟體，即便世界上“可供分配的物資已經(jīng)綽綽有余”，那里的人們每天還在為滿足基本生存所需而奮斗。這一論斷并未引入實據(jù)。

????菲利普森在書中指出，也許最讓人擔(dān)心的是，雖然經(jīng)濟不斷增長，卻無法實現(xiàn)環(huán)境可持續(xù)性發(fā)展。要不了多久，當(dāng)今模式下的經(jīng)濟增長將導(dǎo)致巨大的資源匱乏，人類的子孫后代會比今天變得更窮。

????以上觀點盡管并非菲利普森獨創(chuàng)，但值得我們所有人重視。即便不認(rèn)同菲利普森對資本主義諸多缺陷嚴(yán)重性開出的診斷，資本主義者如果希望其經(jīng)濟體系有光明的未來，都必須努力應(yīng)對系統(tǒng)的許多不足并著手解決問題。但是菲利普森的書也有個無可救藥的缺點：在批評資本主義體系時，他將其與一個我們用來理解資本主義系統(tǒng)的統(tǒng)計數(shù)據(jù)——GDP聯(lián)系在一起。他在書中這樣寫道：

????“我們現(xiàn)如今最重要的經(jīng)濟表現(xiàn)指標(biāo)（GDP）完全無法顯示生活質(zhì)量是否得到改善，經(jīng)濟活動是否切實可行。GDP數(shù)據(jù)只能告訴我們生產(chǎn)了多少東西，有多少資金交易。因此，世界各國在大力推進的實質(zhì)上都是欠缺考慮的盲目增長，是越來越危險的增長。而且各國如此選擇多是出于主觀愿望。”

????這種分析正好本末倒置。現(xiàn)代經(jīng)濟增長是因為人們碰巧對此一致認(rèn)同，而不是因為70年前西蒙?庫茲涅茨等經(jīng)濟學(xué)家創(chuàng)立了一個量化經(jīng)濟增長的方式。而多數(shù)人認(rèn)同的原因在于，經(jīng)濟增長良好絕對是好消息。我們都聽說過一句俗語：天下沒有免費的午餐。從現(xiàn)實主義角度出發(fā)，這話聽上去沒錯，但也不總是如此。事實上，生產(chǎn)率增長創(chuàng)造了數(shù)不勝數(shù)的免費午餐。用物理學(xué)的概念解釋，增長就像一部機器，可以用同樣的努力獲得更多的成果。

????當(dāng)然，資本主義有時也會成為有害的力量。經(jīng)濟增長有時并非創(chuàng)新就能產(chǎn)生，還需要以環(huán)境惡化或者榨取勞動者價值為代價。可是，解決這些問題不能依靠停止測算經(jīng)濟增長，而應(yīng)該推出對癥下藥的經(jīng)濟激勵措施，比如征收碳排放稅，或者制定法律禁用童工。

????If you divided up all the wealth and income in the world evenly and, somehow in the process, the global economy remained as efficient as it is today, each person would earn about $10,000 per year and have $34,500 in wealth. In other words, everyone in the world would be in poverty, at least by the U.S. government’s definition of the term.

????This is the sort of basic math you would hope someone would do if he were imagining a global economic revolution. It’s the sort of basic math Dirk Philipsen, economic historian author of the new volume, “The Little Big Number: How GDP Came to Rule the World and What to Do about It,” doesn’t do. And the book–and its readers–suffer greatly for this omission.

????Though Philipsen admits that “no system in history” can compete with capitalism in terms of “the amount of wealth and freedom created,” he argues it’s time to leave capitalism behind, or at least transform it so radically so as to leave it unrecognizable.

????Philipsen’s argument against our current economic system is a familiar one. He argues that the global economy’s obsession with growth has left people in the rich world overworked and overstressed, focused on material acquisition and career advancement that doesn’t actually make us happy. The poor, meanwhile, spend each day fighting for basic survival, despite the fact that the world “has more than enough material goods to go around.” This claim goes unsubstantiated.

????Perhaps most worryingly of all, the author argues, constant economic growth simply isn’t environmentally sustainable. Before long, all this growth is going to lead to so much resource depletion that it will leave future generations much poorer than we are today.

????The above points, while not original, are important for all of us to take seriously. Any capitalist who hopes to see his economic system continue into the future must grapple with the system’s many flaws and help to fix them, even if he doesn’t agree with Philipsen’s diagnoses of the magnitude of capitalism’s defects. The irredeemable flaw of Philipsen’s book is that he conflates his criticism of the capitalist system with one statistic–GDP– that we use to understand the system. He writes:

????Our most important performance measure [GDP] says nothing about whether quality of life is improving, or even if our activities are viable. It only tells us about how much stuff was produced, and how much money has exchanged hands. As a result, cultures around the world promote, quite literally, blind and mindless growth–and increasingly dangerous growth. And they do so largely of what they subjectively want.

????This analysis gets it exactly backwards. Modern economies growth because it happens to be the thing we (mostly) all agree on, not because economists like Simon Kuznets helped invent a way to measure it 70 years ago. That’s because when growth goes well, it is an unalloyed good. We’ve all heard the aphorism, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” While this saying sounds true in its hard-headed realism, it’s actually often not. In fact, productivity growth has created more free lunches than can be counted.It is like a simple machine in physics, a force that enables us to create more with the same amount of effort.

????Capitalism, of course, can sometimes be a pernicious force. Economic growth can sometimes come at the cost of environmental degridation or human exploitation rather than innovation. But the solution to these problems is not to stop measuring economic growth, but to create economic incentives, like carbon taxes or laws against child labor, that can address these problems.