经济学人199:阿拉斯加乡下 冰原濯濯

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　　阿拉斯加乡下，冰原濯濯

　　Hunting for dividends¹

　　红利何去

　　The virtues² and shortcomings of Eskimo capitalism³

　　爱斯基摩资本模式，优耶弊耶

　　ALASKANS like to talk about how distant the rest of America feels. In downtown Anchorage, with its familiar fast-food restaurants and hotel chains, this line can sound a little affected⁴. Not so in rural Alaska, the swathes of frozen tundra⁵ that the state's inhabitants call the bush. In Napaskiak, a village of 400 people on the west coast of the state, it is not unusual to see a black-robed Russian Orthodox priest riding a four-wheeled motorbike with two children and a wife perched on the back.

　　美国本土鞭长驾远是阿拉斯加人的老生常谈，这种说法要是在安克雷奇市中心却会让人有点儿摸不着头脑，因为这里快餐店林立，连锁旅馆鳞次栉比。但阿拉斯加乡下确是另一番天地，冰冻苔原层层遍布，当地人称此为灌木，在西部海岸纳帕斯杰克这一400人的村庄，时常可见俄罗斯东正教牧师黑袍素裹，四轮摩托扬长驱驾，而他的妻子和两个孩子坐在后座上。

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　　Rural Alaska is different politically, too. In most of the country, the more remote the location the greater hostility⁶ to the federal government. Alaska's Eskimos, by contrast, are reliable Democrats⁷, keen on more government. One reason for this is that Washington set up an unconventional experiment in popular capitalism that attracts admiration⁸ from development economists⁹ and scorn from congressmen in almost equal measure.

　　阿拉斯加乡下的政治也是别有风味，多数村庄地域越是偏远，对于联邦政府也越敌对，相比之下，阿拉斯加的爱斯基摩人则是最可靠的民主党人，对于联邦政府更加支持，原因之一是华盛顿独树一帜采取大众资本主义，此举赢得了发展经济学家的青睐，但与此同时也成为了国会议员的笑柄。

　　After the discovery of America's biggest oilfield at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, the government needed access to land claimed by the Eskimos in order to build a pipeline¹⁰, so it made them an offer. They were given 44m acres of land, 1 billion and shares in 12 regional and over 200 village corporations that were created under the deal.It was agreed that the corporations would be favoured for government contracts. These companies now provide a range of services, from running deportation¹¹ facilities in Texas to providing support for operations in Afghanistan.

　　1968年，美国最大的油田在普拉德霍湾拨云见日，当时政府需在爱斯基摩人的领地内建造一条输油管道，开门见山后，他们得到了4400万英亩土地，并以此建立了12所地区企业和200所乡镇企业，掌握10亿资产和股份，按要求，这些公司要承包政府的工作，如今，这些公司服务范围十分广阔，从运营德克萨斯州的输送设备到为阿富汗的石油生产提供生产，不一而足。

　　The work has been lucrative¹². The value of contracts awarded to native corporations rose from 508m in 2000 to 5.2 billion in 2008, according to a report from the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight¹³. Three of the companies—Arctic Slope, Bristol Bay and NANA—now have annual revenues in excess of 1 billion. The dividends from the shares have not turned all Eskimos into rentiers, but they provide most with enough money to pay their large heating bills.

　　这是一项油水丰富的工作，一份参议院承包监督委员会的报告显示，这些公司的承包资产已经从2000年的5.08亿上涨到了2008年的52亿，其中3家公司的年收入已经超过了10亿，分别是北坡，巴斯托湾和北美报业联盟。虽说不是所有的爱斯基摩人都靠股息生活， 但这至少让大部分人都能支付的起供暖费用。

　　The companies were also charged with stimulating¹⁴ economic development and ameliorating social ills in Eskimo villages. Here, they have been less successful. Some of the problems faced by Eskimos, such as high suicide rates, are common in other isolated¹⁵ northerly places. But other ills are distressingly¹⁶ specific—like the prevalence of domestic violence. Alcohol is partly to blame. Booze cannot be bought or sold in Bethel, the regional hub, but there is a vibrant¹⁷ black market. Alcohol-related injuries are common. Bethel's prison, which has exceeded its capacity, is full of hungover felons¹⁸.

　　在爱斯基摩村庄，这些公司在促进经济发展，缓解社会弊病方面也可圈可点，但这方面的成果并没有这般显著，虽说部分爱斯基摩人的问题在其他北方孤地也能找到印记如高自杀率，但有些问题却是它“独具一格”，如内部暴力行为普遍。在这方面酒精要负一部分责任，即使它在地区枢纽伯特利的交易市场上销声匿迹，却在活跃的黑市上饱受追捧，酒精导致的伤害十分普遍，伯特利的监狱里塞满了“醉”犯，已超其负荷。

　　The smaller villages around Bethel are emptying out. Some of them only became permanent settlements when Alaska's Supreme¹⁹ Court ruled that the government was obliged to educate Eskimo children where they lived, rather than send them off to boarding school. When a school has fewer than ten pupils it closes, taking with it a source of employment. Another reason for the exodus²⁰ is the price of petrol which, at 10 a gallon in the villages, makes heating a house through the winter and running a snowmobile expensive.

　　在伯特利周边，很多小型村庄已是空巢一所，只有阿拉斯加最高法院强制规定爱斯基摩人的孩子必须在居住地就学，而不是去寄宿学校，他们才会迎来永久住民，当一所学校的学生数量不足十人，他就要倒闭，一大批就业岗位也随之流失，至此的另一原因是村庄里10美元一加仑的石油价格，冬季房屋供暖以及雪地摩托的成本都会因此而十分昂贵

　　Yet rural Alaska is doing better than these developments suggest. More than 10% of its inhabitants may not have plumbing²¹, but it is not as poor as many other parts of America. Besides, poverty feels different in a place where summers are spent fishing for wild salmon²² and autumn is moose-hunting season. Other indicators²³ auger²⁴ a bright future. The Yupik Eskimos, in Western Alaska, are in the midst of a baby boom: nearly 36% of the people in the area around Bethel are under 18. In the four decades following the Prudhoe Bay find, Alaska's Eskimo population doubled in size. Demographers²⁵ reckon it will increase by a further 10% by the end of this decade.、

　　但阿拉斯加乡村的发展远不止这些表象，虽说它超过10%的居民都没有管道系统，但与美国其他地区相比，他的富裕程度也是有过之无不及，况且贫穷二字在这样一个夏捕野鲑，冬逐驼鹿的地方也是披上了不同的外衣。一些其他的指标也暗示了光明的前景：阿拉斯加西部的爱斯基摩尤皮克人正当婴儿潮，他们在伯特利周边有将近36%的人未满18岁，在普拉德霍湾被发掘后的40年里爱斯基摩人的人口翻了一番，人口统计学家估计这一十年末它的人口还将增长10%。

　　This complicates²⁶ the way native corporations spread their wealth around. Many Eskimos who were born after the initial distribution of shares own none. About half of the 13 regional corporations have opened their rolls to “born-afters”, but doing this requires a vote from other shareholders²⁷ that, in effect, dilutes²⁸ their dividends. The migration²⁹ of villagers also means that many shareholders no longer live in the places that the corporations were set up to benefit.

　　这也解释了当地企业的分红方式，很多在股份初次分配后出生的爱斯基摩人都不参与分红，虽说在13所当地企业中将近一半公司的红利都已对那些后出生的人敞开大门，但这必须得其他股东的投票通过，这与取缔其红利收入无异。村庄里的人员流动也意味着很多人都不再呆在公司的始发地接受分红。

　　The companies are facing challenges in Washington, too. Claire McCaskill, a senator from Missouri who chairs the contracting subcommittee, has criticised the way in which the law allows native corporations to fulfil contracts, some of which attract no other bidders³⁰, with subcontractors that do not employ any Eskimos. In one case a native company won a 2 billion contract to manage a satellite programme for the Department of Defence, which it promptly³¹ farmed out to Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and General Dynamics³². Companies owned by other minorities also receive preferential treatment, but the size of the contracts they can bid on is capped. This is a source of tension between black-owned businesses and their Alaskan competitors.

　　这些公司也面临着来自华盛顿的挑战。密苏里州议员麦卡斯基尔掌控者契约下属委员会，他指责法律纵容这些公司一手遮天，有一些公司不再招标，次承包者也不再雇佣爱斯基摩人，例如，一家当地公司赢得了为国防部运营卫星系统的承包任务后，就立马委托给了洛克希德马丁公司，BAE系统公司和通用动力。一些其他少数民族的公司也会得到优待，但他们可承包的规模有限，这造成黑人企业和他们阿拉斯加竞争者之间关系紧张。

　　The aim of the corporations, says Ana Hoffman, a Stanford-educated Yupik speaker who runs the Bethel Native Corporation, is to let people choose how they want to live. Some will continue to be subsistence hunters; others will choose to move away. So long as the money from the corporations makes its way back to the Eskimos, the race of their employees should not matter.

　　伯特利本土公司运营者安娜霍夫曼从斯坦福毕业，说尤比克语，他说公司的目的就是让人们选择自己的生活方式，有些人继续捕猎，有些人选择搬离，但只要这些公司的收益仍会流入爱斯基摩人手中，公司的竞争便不足一提。

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