[2011.08.06] 马尔萨斯的复仇

引用 seachow 2011-8-5 11:05

这篇文章翻译的非常精彩！
以下这些句子值得玩味：
    A famous bet recalculated
    THE surge in commodity prices over the past decade has revived an old debate.
    Will mankind’s insatiable demands exhaust the planet’s finite resources?
    This led in 1980 to a bet between a prominent ecologist, Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb”, and Julian Simon, an economist at the Cato Institute, a free market think-tank.
    The two camps were dubbed the Malthusians (after a British economist who forecast that population would outstrip food supply) and the Cornucopians, thanks to their belief in endless abundance.
   But Mr Simon also had history on his side: real commodity prices fell steadily throughout the 20th century.
    Mr Simon duly won the bet.
    Furthermore, Jeremy Grantham of GMO, a fund-management group, points out that Mr Ehrlich would have won the original bet were it recalculated today (he is still alive; Mr Simon died in 1998).
    An equally weighted portfolio of the five commodities is now higher in real terms than the average of their prices back in 1980
    But the Malthusians might retort that man’s famed ingenuity has not stopped prices from rising in real terms over an extended period.

引用 kool 2011-8-6 05:10

But Mr Simon also had history on his side: real commodity prices fell steadily throughout the 20th century.

但历史站在 Simon 这边,在整个20世纪,农矿产品的实际价格在稳定的下跌.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager

endless abundance. 无尽的繁荣(?)
无上限恐怕不合适, 这里指的时间,而不是繁荣的程度, 用上限容易误解.

结尾 Place your bets. 我理解成作者邀请读者也参加这个 Simon Ehrlich Wager, 并下注(赌边)

wilder claims - 更离谱(或疯狂?) 的一些论调.
翻译成 "一派胡言"有点过了,虽然错了,但 Ehrlich 一直都是一个很受尊重的学者.

wiki 上有他们两人自己事后的发言, 读起来十分有趣,尤其是 Ehrlich 的
The price of raw and other natural commodities such as oil, gold, and uranium have risen substantially in recent years, due to increased demand from China, India, and other industrializing countries. However, this price increase is not necessarily contrary to Simon's cornucopian theory.
“         More people, and increased income, cause resources to become more scarce in the short run. Heightened scarcity causes prices to rise. The higher prices present opportunity, and prompt inventors and entrepreneurs to search for solutions. Many fail in the search, at cost to themselves. But in a free society, solutions are eventually found. And in the long run the new developments leave us better off than if the problems had not arisen. That is, prices eventually become lower than before the increased scarcity occurred.         ”
—Julian Simon[8]

“         The bet doesn't mean anything. Julian Simon is like the guy who jumps off the Empire State Building and says how great things are going so far as he passes the 10th floor. I still think the price of those metals will go up eventually, but that's a minor point. The resource that worries me the most is the declining capacity of our planet to buffer itself against human impacts. Look at the new problems that have come up: the ozone hole, acid rain, global warming. It's true that we've kept up food production -- I underestimated how badly we'd keep on depleting our topsoil and ground water -- but I have no doubt that sometime in the next century food will be scarce enough that prices are really going to be high even in the United States.”   —Paul Ehrlich

引用 seachow 2011-8-6 10:02

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这个扩展真到位

引用 wanghx777 2011-8-7 11:28

本帖最后由 wanghx777 于 2011-8-7 12:52 编辑

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非常同意您对译文的修改意见！关于wilder claims的翻译，楼主的“一派胡言”属实有点过或者不当，翻译成“离谱或疯狂”更合适，有很多伟大的经济学家的预测是超越某个时代的现实状况的，所以文中对于“获胜”的Simon有“duly won"的措辞,因为说不定在哪个时期，Ehrlich也会“had history on his side",更现实滴说，在当下，美国乃至全世界难道不是处在“资源缺乏的困境”中嘛？所以不能说人家Ehrlich“胡说八道”，Place your bets这句明显是让读者和经济学大师们一起来赌一赌价格的走势，而不是让读者猜经济学家们是怎么想的。
另外个人认为，endless abundance翻译成“持久的、经久不息的、持续的繁荣”更符合原文意思，因为两个学派讨论的焦点的本质是经济能否持续增长，其决定因素是需求还是供给，是人的力量还是自然生态环境的力量。

引用 wanghx777 2011-8-7 11:55

“That coincided with the rise of the ecological movement, many of whose members saw the rise in prices as a sign that growth in the developed world was unsustainable. ”巧合的是，当时正逢生态运动的兴起，许多发达国家那时都把物价上涨看作是经济增长缺乏持续性的标志。
个人认为，楼主对于这句后半句的翻译有一些不妥或者不够准确。物价上涨对于处于不同发展阶段的国家来说意义是不同的：物价上涨对于发达国家来说可能是经济缺乏持续性增长的标志，但对于一些发展中国家来说，物价上涨可能是经济正处于上升趋势的标志，因为经济增长往往伴随不同程度的通货膨胀。所以我认为这句话不是“发达国家认为......",而是“参与运动的成员认为（从定语从句中看出）......"不是“物价上涨是经济增长缺乏持续性的标志”而是“物价上涨是发达国家经济缺乏可持续性的标志”，因此可以这样稍稍修改一下：“巧合的是，当时正逢生态运动的兴起，很多参与该运动的成员认为，物价的上涨预示着发达国家的经济增长将缺乏可持续性。

引用 lh1710 2011-8-7 17:22

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Kool每次点评都能让我受益匪浅，我表示很感激啊！！希望以后继续多多指教哦！

最后一段，作者连用了两个might猜测双方的论点，所以我感觉最后一句是叫读者赌赌看双方是不是会这么说。。。

引用 lh1710 2011-8-7 17:23

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谢谢您的指正！已经改过来了~~

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