What to read about the British economy

Britain used to be the world’s richest country. These six books explain how it came to be, and why it is no longer

原文：

IN RECENT YEARS the British economy has tended to be in the news for

the wrong reasons. Growth has been soggy, inflation has been high and

living standards have been squeezed. Over the past 15 years productivity

growth has stalled and income per person has declined relative to that in

many other developed countries. Brexit is one reason. Another is poor policy

choices that the government made in response to the financial crisis of 2008-09.

The Labour government, elected in July 2024, has made reviving

economic growth its top priority.

近年来，英国经济因为错误的原因出现在新闻中。增长乏力，通胀高企，生活水平受到挤压。在过去的15年里，相对于许多其他发达国家，生产率增长停滞，人均收入下降。英国退出欧盟是一个原因。另一个原因是政府在应对2008-09年金融危机时做出了糟糕的政策选择。2024年7月当选的工党政府将重振经济增长作为首要任务。

学习：

soggy：美 [ˈsɑːɡi] 湿透的；湿漉漉的；湿软的; 用来形容经济增长乏力、疲软、不理想

这里的 “soggy” 用来形容经济增长乏力、疲软、不理想。它通常指增长缓慢且缺乏活力，就像“潮湿”或“湿透”的状态一样，显得沉闷无力。

举例子：

• 英文：The company’s profits have been soggy this year, showing little improvement despite new strategies.
• 中文：尽管采取了新的策略，但公司今年的利润增长乏力，没有明显改善。

在这个例子中，“soggy”表明增长没有达到预期目标，表现得不够强劲。

growth has been soggy：增长乏力

stall：停滞

原文：

Relative economic decline is nothing new to Britain. It has been happening

since the mid- to late 19th century. As the first country to industrialise in the

late 18th century Britain became the richest nation the world had ever seen.

Its lead could never last. In the 20th century Britain became the first country

to deindustrialise on a large scale. The story of how it achieved primacy, and

then lost it, is a fascinating one. What is more, Britain was at the heart of the

first great modern age of globalisation before 1914, and was central to the

next phase of global economic integration, which began in the 1980s. Many,

if not most, of the lessons of British economic history are relevant to the rest

of the developed world.

相对经济衰退对英国来说并不新鲜。自19世纪中后期以来，这种情况一直在发生。作为18世纪末第一个工业化的国家，英国成为世界上有史以来最富有的国家。它的领先优势不会持久。20世纪，英国成为第一个大规模去工业化的国家。它是如何获得首要地位，然后又失去的，这个故事很有趣。此外，在1914年之前，英国处于第一个伟大的现代全球化时代的中心，也是始于上世纪80年代的下一阶段全球经济一体化的核心。英国经济史的许多教训(如果不是大部分的话)也适用于其它发达国家。

The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. By Robert

Allen. Cambridge University Press; 344 pages; $120 and £76.99

原文：

The Industrial Revolution was arguably the single most important process in

human history. The birth of modern economic growth—the ability to

increase productivity and get more output from a given level of inputs—

transformed how people live. In the pre-industrial world living standards

tended to move inversely with the size of the population: as the number of

people rose but the amount of resources did not, income per person would

fall. After the Industrial Revolution that grim calculus changed; both the

number of people and their incomes could rise.

工业革命可以说是人类历史上最重要的进程。现代经济增长的诞生——提高生产率并从给定水平的投入中获得更多产出的能力——改变了人们的生活方式。在前工业化时代，生活水平往往与人口规模成反比:随着人口数量增加，但资源数量没有增加，人均收入会下降。工业革命后，严峻的计算公式改变了；人口数量和收入都会增加。

学习：

arguably：可以论证地；按理说；据称

原文：

Unsurprisingly the nature of this shift and the reasons for it remain the

subject of much academic debate. Robert Allen is the leading proponent of

one school of thinking, which might be termed materialist. He argues that

British entrepreneurs in the late 18th century operated within a unique wage

and price structure. Labour was expensive but capital and energy were

cheap. It therefore made sense to replace labour with capital. The growth of

mills and factories, by this reading, was the simple result of Britain’s cost

structure and the incentives this created. As Mr Allen puts it, “the Industrial

Revolution, in short, was invented in Britain in the 18th century because it

paid to invent it there.”

毫不奇怪，这种转变的性质和原因仍然是许多学术辩论的主题。罗伯特·艾伦是一种思想流派的主要支持者，这种思想可以称为唯物主义。他认为，18世纪晚期的英国企业家在一个独特的工资和价格结构中运作。劳动力昂贵，但资本和能源便宜。因此，用资本代替劳动力是有道理的。从这个角度来看，磨坊和工厂的增长是英国成本结构和由此产生的激励的简单结果。正如艾伦先生所说，“简而言之，工业革命是18世纪在英国发明的，因为在那里发明它是有回报的。”

学习：

materialist：美 [məˈtɪriəlɪst] 唯物主义者；唯物论者

mill：磨坊；磨粉机；工厂；

by this reading: “按照这种解释”或“根据这种解读”

这里的 “by this reading” 表示“按照这种解释”或“根据这种解读”。它用来引导某个特定观点或理论的解释方式，说明一个现象是根据某种特定的理论被理解的。

举例子：

• 英文：By this reading, the company’s failure was not due to poor management but rather to external market conditions.
• 中文：按照这种解释，公司倒闭并不是因为管理不善，而是外部市场环境的原因。

在这个例子中，“by this reading” 表示根据某种特定的分析或解释，公司倒闭的原因是市场环境，而不是管理问题。

The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850.

By Joel Mokyr. Yale University Press; 576 pages; $40. Penguin; £22

原文：

For Joel Mokyr the real driver of the Industrial Revolution is to be found in

the realm of ideas. He emphasises the role of the European Enlightenment.

This created the modern scientific method, which could produce useful

innovations and encouraged a rethinking of institutional structures.

Enlightenment ideas, according to Mr Mokyr, led to a reduction in rent-

seeking by governing elites and to more competitive markets. At the same

time, the spread of Baconian science, a method based on experimentation

and the dissemination of results inspired by the mediaeval philosopher

Roger Bacon, increased the stock of knowledge. England, and later Britain,

was a relatively liberal society in the 18th and early 19th centuries in which

ideas and debate flourished. That encouraged productivity-boosting

innovations, like the development of railways.

对乔尔·莫基尔来说，工业革命的真正驱动力是在思想领域。他强调了欧洲启蒙运动的作用。这创造了现代科学方法，可以产生有用的创新，并鼓励重新思考体制结构。根据Mokyr先生的说法，启蒙思想导致了统治精英寻租的减少和更具竞争性的市场。与此同时，中世纪哲学家罗杰·培根启发的基于实验和成果传播的归纳科学的传播，增加了知识的存量。英格兰，以及后来的英国，在18世纪和19世纪早期是一个相对自由的社会，在那里思想和辩论蓬勃发展。这鼓励了提高生产率的创新，比如铁路的发展。

学习：

in the realm of ideas：在思想领域

dissemination：美 [dɪˌsemɪˈneɪʃn] 传播；宣传；散播

Forging Ahead, Falling Behind and Fighting Back: British Economic Growth from the Industrial Revolution to the Financial Crisis. By

Nicholas Crafts. Cambridge University Press; 160 pages; $95 and £75

原文：

Nicholas Crafts, who died in 2023, was a leading historian of Britain’s

economy. He crammed decades of scholarship into this short book. “Forging

Ahead” sets out how, after the Industrial Revolution, the British economy

briefly dominated the globe. By the end of the 19th century the new

industrial powers of Germany and America were challenging it. Crafts

chronicles the years of decline after the second world war and the recovery

that began in the 1980s and 1990s. Not many books cover 250 years in

fewer than 200 pages without losing crucial details. “Forging Ahead”

succeeds, giving readers the best overview of Britain’s economic rise, fall

and, in the 1980s and 1990s, rebirth. It is less strong on the second decline of

the 2010s.

尼古拉斯·克拉夫特于2023年去世，是英国经济史学家中的佼佼者。他将几十年的学术成果浓缩到这本短小的书中。《勇往直前》讲述了工业革命后，英国经济如何短暂地主宰了全球。到19世纪末，德国和美国这两个新兴的工业强国正在挑战它。工艺品记录了第二次世界大战后的衰落岁月以及20世纪80年代和90年代开始的复苏。没有多少书在不到200页的篇幅里涵盖了250年而不丢失关键细节。《勇往直前》获得了成功，给读者提供了英国经济兴衰以及20世纪80年代和90年代复兴的最佳概览。在2010年后的第二次衰退中，它的表现没那么强劲。

学习：

crammed：塞满的；挤满的；把…塞满；填入；（cram的过去式）

scholarship：奖学金；学术研究；学问；这里不是奖学金的意思

crafts：美 [kræfts] 手艺；工艺；技巧；

rebirth：复兴；再生；重生

Goodbye, Great Britain: The 1976 IMF Crisis. By Kathleen Burk and Alec

Cairncross. Yale University Press; 256 pages; $65 and £44

原文：

The IMF crisis in 1976 is one of the most dramatic episodes in modern

British economic history. In that year concurrent domestic and international

crises forced the government to seek an emergency loan from the

International Monetary Fund to support the value of sterling. The fund

demanded that the government fulfil harsh conditions. The catastrophe still

resonates. Conservative politicians deride the Labour Party for going “cap in

hand” to the IMF. “Goodbye Great Britain”, published in 1992, is the best

book on the crisis. Sir Alec Cairncross, a senior government economist for

many years, understood the dynamics of policymaking. His co-author,

Kathleen Burk, is a historian of international relations who brought to the

book her knowledge of how decisions were made in London and in

Washington, DC, where the fund has its headquarters. It is especially good on

the complex interactions between real-time financial-market developments,

economic data and politics in a crisis. Some elements of the book sounded

eerily familiar during the short crisis caused by Liz Truss’s mini-budget in

September 2022.

1976年的IMF危机是现代英国经济史上最具戏剧性的事件之一。那一年，同时发生的国内和国际危机迫使政府向国际货币基金组织寻求紧急贷款，以支持英镑的价值。基金组织要求政府满足苛刻的条件。这场灾难仍在回响。保守派政客嘲笑工党对国际货币基金组织毕恭毕敬。1992年出版的《再见大不列颠》是关于这场危机的最好的书。多年的资深政府经济学家亚历克·凯恩克罗斯爵士(Sir Alec Cairncross)理解政策制定的动态。他的合著者Kathleen Burk是一位国际关系历史学家，她将自己对伦敦和DC华盛顿(该基金总部所在地)决策过程的了解写进了这本书。它尤其擅长于实时金融市场发展、经济数据和危机中的政治之间的复杂互动。在2022年9月利兹·特拉斯(Liz Truss)的迷你预算引发的短暂危机期间，这本书的一些元素听起来异常熟悉。

学习：

sterling：英镑（英国货币）；英币；

fulfil harsh conditions：满足苛刻的条件

cap in hand： 低声下气地请求帮助

这里的 “cap in hand” 意思是“”，通常带有一种谦卑或屈辱的意味。它暗示当时英国政府不得不屈从于国际货币基金组织的要求，像是带着帽子乞求帮助一样。

举例子：

• 英文: After the company’s bankruptcy, the CEO went cap in hand to the investors, asking for more funding.
• 中文: 公司破产后，CEO 低声下气地向投资者请求更多资金。

deride:嘲笑

eerie：英 [ˈɪəri] 怪异的；令人不安的；阴森的；诡异的

eerily： 怪诞地; 奇异地; 可怕地; 出奇地相似

“eerily” 意思是“令人毛骨悚然地”或“出奇地相似”，通常用于描述某些事情让人感到诡异或者不安，尤其是在一些场景、情况与过去的相似度过高时。

举例子：

• 英文: The silence in the abandoned house was eerily familiar to the horror movies she had seen.
• 中文: 废弃房子里的寂静让她诡异地想起了她看过的恐怖电影。

在原文中，“eerily” 描述的是 2022 年 Liz Truss 的迷你预算危机与1976年的 IMF 危机有令人惊悚的相似之处。

Britain in Decline: Economic Policy, Political Strategy and the British State. By Andrew Gamble. Bloomsbury; 263 pages; £41.99

原文：

Andrew Gamble’s “Britain in Decline” was published in the 1980s and

updated in the 1990s. In many ways, right down to its title, it reflects the

state of thinking about Britain in the 1970s. It puts British economic history

in the context of political economy. It tells the story of the rise of the

industrial and commercial middle class in the 19th century, the entry into

power of the new industrial working class in the 20th century and the

fightback by capital under Margaret Thatcher beginning in the 1980s. For

Mr Gamble, economic developments are ultimately shaped by political

coalitions, which themselves slowly shift in response to structural economic

changes.

安德鲁·甘布尔的《衰落中的英国》于20世纪80年代出版，并于20世纪90年代更新。从许多方面来看，就像它的标题一样，它反映了20世纪70年代人们对英国的看法。它将英国经济史置于政治经济学的背景下。它讲述了19世纪工商业中产阶级的崛起，20世纪新产业工人阶级的掌权以及20世纪80年代玛格丽特·撒切尔领导下资本的反击。对甘布尔来说，经济发展最终是由政治联盟决定的，而政治联盟本身会随着经济结构的变化而慢慢改变。

The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A 20th Century History. By David Edgerton. Penguin; 720 pages; £18.99

原文：

David Edgerton’s history of Britain in the 20th century covers politics,

society and culture but also has a big economic component. It is revisionist

history at its best, politely arguing that the existing consensus on all manner

of topics is wrong. Mr Edgerton believes that other historians have

exaggerated the decline of the post-war years. It is more a story of European

catch-up than of British failure, he writes. He makes the surprising argument

that the warfare state has historically been a much bigger deal than the

welfare state. Even as late as the 1970s defence expenditure was higher than

health spending, Mr Edgerton notes. Perhaps his most interesting idea is that

the “British” economy was only truly British between the 1940s and 1970s.

What came both before and afterwards was a far more globalised version

that cannot be understood without looking outside the country’s borders.

大卫·埃哲顿的《20世纪英国史》涵盖了政治、社会和文化，但也有很大一部分经济内容。这是最好的修正主义历史，礼貌地争辩说，现有的关于各种主题的共识是错误的。埃杰顿先生认为其他历史学家夸大了战后的衰落。他写道，这与其说是英国的失败，不如说是欧洲的追赶。他提出了一个令人惊讶的论点，即战争状态在历史上比福利国家状态更重要。Edgerton先生指出，甚至在20世纪70年代，国防开支还高于医疗开支。也许他最有趣的想法是，“英国”经济只有在20世纪40年代至70年代才是真正的英国经济。之前和之后出现的是一个更加全球化的版本，如果不看看这个国家的边界，就无法理解。

学习：

revisionist：美 [rɪˈvɪʒənɪst] 修正主义的

Also try:

原文：

Campaigning for the election in July 2024 focused on Britain’s economy.

Our coverage of the challenges facing the new government included a leader

outlining how the Labour Party could end stagnation, an article about how

difficult that will be and a post-election leader urging Labour to be bold in

its approach to the economy. Soon after the election we assessed evidence

that growth was bouncing back from a recession in 2023. One way to

improve Britain’s economic performance, we argued, is to improve the

quality of its managers. Our finance and economics correspondent has also

written a history of the British economy, “Two Hundred Years of Muddling

Through”.

2024年7月的竞选活动聚焦于英国经济。我们对英国新 政 府面临的挑战的报道包括一位领导人概述了工党如何结束停滞，一篇关于这将有多困难的文章，以及一位选举后的领导人敦促工党大胆对待经济。大选后不久，我们评估了经济增长在2023年从衰退中反弹的证据。我们认为，改善英国经济表现的一个方法是提高管理者的素质。我们的财经记者也写了一部英国经济史，“勉强应对两百年”。

学习：

muddling through： 勉强度过

这里的 “muddling through” 意思是“应付过去”或“勉强度日”，通常指在没有明确计划或目标的情况下，通过临时的、随意的方式应对复杂或困境。它带有一种不得已而为之的意味，暗示没有通过精心的规划或高效的策略来解决问题，而是仅仅依靠应变和过渡措施。

举例子：

• 英文: Despite the financial challenges, the company managed to keep muddling through the difficult times.
• 中文: 尽管面临财务挑战，公司还是设法勉强度过了困难时期。

后记

2024年9月13日13点09分于上海。