为什么墨西哥从来没有发展成为像美国或加拿大那样的第一世界国家?-网帖翻译-龙腾网

Pablo Djankowicz Ruizinowitz
Good question. This, honestly, is a very complex answer—a whole library can be filled with books about why Mexico, and other Latin American nations, did not develop into first world nations. But I will provide a brief outline of the two major factors that retarded Mexican economic development for most of its history as an independent nation.

好问题。老实说，这是一个非常复杂的答案——关于为什么墨西哥和其他拉丁美洲国家没有发展成为第一世界国家的书籍，多到可以塞满一整个图书馆。但我将简要概述在墨西哥作为一个独立国家的大部分历史中阻碍其经济发展的两个主要因素。

Political Instability
The U.S. and Canada have been very fortunate in that they have suffered very little political instability. The worst that happened was the U.S. War of Independence and the U.S. Civil War. But neither of those wars deeply disrupted the historical heart of the American economy—the Northeast and New England. And neither of those wars lasted a long time—the War of Independence lasted all of 7 years (1776 to 1783), and the Civil War only 4 years (1861 to 1865). And soon as those conflicts ended, the U.S. settled back down quickly and peacefully. As a result, the American economy could develop very rapidly due to the highly stable political climate fostered by strong, rational and predictable institutions.

政治不稳定
美国和加拿大非常幸运，因为它们很少遭受政治动荡。他们遇到的最糟糕的政治动荡是美国独立战争和美国内战。但这两场战争都没有深刻扰乱美国经济的历史心脏——东北部和新英格兰地区。而且这两场战争都没有持续很长时间——独立战争持续了整整7年(1776 - 1783)，而南北战争只持续了4年(1861 - 1865)。这些冲突一结束，美国就迅速和平地安定下来。因此，由于强大、理性和可预测的制度所促进的高度稳定的政治气候，美国经济可以非常迅速地发展。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Mexico, on the other hand, suffered from constant political instability from 1811 onward. The Mexican War of Independence was not a straightforward and somewhat disruptive affair like in the U.S.—Mexico’s independence fight from Spain was drawn out and extremely destabilizing to its economy, and lasted 10 years. The heaviest fighting and the biggest material and human losses (which were much higher than in the U.S.) happened in the heart of the Mexican economy—the regions around Mexico City and in the silver-mining regions of central Mexico. So by the time Mexico emerged from the fighting, most of its pre-colonial economy had been shattered.

另一方面，墨西哥从1811年起就一直处于政治动荡之中。墨西哥独立战争不像美国战争那样是一场直接的、具有一定破坏性的战争。墨西哥脱离西班牙的独立战争旷日持久，对其经济造成了极大的不稳定，并持续了10年之久。最激烈的战斗和最大的物质和人员损失(比美国高得多)发生在墨西哥经济的核心地区——墨西哥城周边地区和墨西哥中部的银矿地区。所以当墨西哥从战争中恢复过来的时候，它的大部分前殖民地时期的经济已经被摧毁了。

Then there was the constant political instability after independence—Mexico did not develop a rational and highly predictable form of republican democratic government like in the U.S. or Canada. Since Mexico had been an absolute monarchy under the Viceroys of New Spain (the stand-ins for the Spanish king in Mexico City), and had an established, very conservative and highly reactionary aristocracy, it was very hard to develop a republican democratic form of government in Mexico after independence. That’s because the old aristocracy and the Catholic Church radicalized and militated against massive changes to the old Spanish colonial order. The result—constant and violent swings back and forth from the 1820s to the 1870s (exemplified by coups and counter-coups) between the very conservative aristocracy and Catholic Church in Mexico City and predominantly rural liberals who wanted separation of church and state and real democratic governance where the urban aristocrats did not hold all the power.

然后是独立后持续的政治不稳定——墨西哥没有像美国或加拿大那样发展出一个理性的、高度可预测的共和民主政府。由于墨西哥在新西班牙总督(Viceroys of New Spain，在墨西哥城代表西班牙国王)的统治下是一个绝对的君主政体，并且有一个稳固的、非常保守和高度反动的贵族阶层，因此在墨西哥独立后很难发展出共和民主的政府形式。这是因为旧贵族和天主教会激进地反对西班牙旧殖民秩序的大规模变革。结果是——从19世纪20年代到19世纪70年代(以政变和反政变为例)，政局不停的来回动荡，一方是非常保守的贵族和墨西哥城的天主教会，另一方面是以农村自由主义者为主，他们希望政教分离，实行真正的民主治理，城市贵族不再掌握所有权力。

Rule of Law
I stated above that Canada and the U.S. both had and still have stable political climates fostered by strong, rational and predictable institutions. The most important of these institutions is the rule of law which, in a nutshell, means that there are strong courts that impose equality before the law, political leaders are not above the law, and there is trust that disputes can be adjudicated fairly in the courts through law.

法治
我在上面说过，加拿大和美国过去和现在都有强大、理性和可预测的制度所促进的稳定的政治气候。这些制度中最重要的是法治，简而言之，这意味着有强大的法院，强制法律面前人人平等，政治领导人不能凌驾于法律之上，人们相信纠纷可以通过法律在法院得到公平裁决。

Rule of law is super-important since it means that a) the political system is going to be stable over the long-run and b) commercial contracts can be enforced fairly, meaning that businesses can grow much more quickly and much bigger than otherwise.

法治是超级重要的，因为它意味着a)政治体系将长期稳定，b)商业合同可以公平地执行，这意味着企业可以比其他情况下发展得更快、更大。

For both the U.S. and Canada, the rule of law was imposed very early on in their colonial systems because the English themselves had just come out of a long and drawn-out period in their history where the English monarchy was brought under the power of Parliament and the courts. This started with the English Civil War in the 1640s and culminated in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when Parliament made it very clear to the English kings that it was the one institution that could give and take away power to the crown. The traditions of a strong rule of law, as exemplified by the supremacy of Parliament in English politics and institutions, was transferred and found deep roots in the English colonies of North America.

对于美国和加拿大来说，法治很早就被强加在了他们的殖民体系中，因为英国人自己刚刚结束了一段漫长的历史时期，在这段时期里，英国的君主政体被置于议会和法院的权力之下。这始于1640年代的英国内战，并在1688年的光荣革命中达到顶峰，当时议会非常清楚地向英格兰国王表明，它是唯一可以将权力授予或收回给国王的机构。强有力的法治传统，如议会在英国政治和制度中的至高无上地位，被转移并深深扎根于北美的英国殖民地。

Mexico did not have strong rule of law due to the absolutism of the Spanish monarchy and, by extension, the Spanish Viceroys. In the colonial system in Mexico the Spanish king, his Viceroy in Mexico City and the aristocrats in the Viceroy’s court, were literally above the law. They could take what they wanted, and they could grant favors to whomever they pleased with permission from the Spanish crown. The result—a very weak court system that could not impose equality before the law, political leaders who felt that the laws did not apply to them (thus making dictatorship a lot easier), and little trust that disputes could be adjudicated fairly in the courts through law.

墨西哥没有强有力的法治，这是由于西班牙君主的专制主义，以及西班牙总督的影响。在墨西哥的殖民制度中，西班牙国王，他在墨西哥城的总督以及总督法庭中的贵族，都是凌驾于法律之上的。他们可以得到任何他们想要的东西，他们可以在西班牙国王的允许下给任何他们想要的人恩惠。其结果是墨西哥的法院系统非常脆弱，不能实现法律面前的平等，政治领导人认为法律并不适用于他们(这样使得独裁变得更容易)，很少相信纠纷可以通过法律在法院得到公正的裁决。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

This thus led to a) a political system that was going to be highly unstable over the long run and b) a weak ability for commercial contracts to be enforced fairly, meaning that businesses in Mexico were not able to grow quickly or into huge dimensions like they did in North America.

这就导致了 a)一种长期以来高度不稳定的政治体制，b)公平执行商业合同的能力较弱，这意味着墨西哥的企业无法像北美那样快速发展或规模扩大。

Conclusion
Suffice to say that there are a lot more factors that led to Mexico not developing fast enough to be a first world country. But these are the two big ones that gave the U.S. and Canada a huge edge starting in the 1790s, and that crippled Mexico in its ability to build up the industry and commerce required to become a developed nation.

结论
可以说，有很多因素导致墨西哥发展不够快，无法成为第一世界国家。但正是这两大问题从18世纪90年代开始给了美国和加拿大巨大的优势，也削弱了墨西哥建立成为发达国家所需的工商业的能力。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Patrick Strauss
Mexico enjoys a vast amount of resources, as well as excellent climate. Why cannot it transition into a developed country? After all, there is a considerable amount of exploitable economic activities such as farming, mining, oil extraction, tourism, manufacturing, fishing, to name a few. The answer, as with many other resource-rich developing countries, is that the current and past institutions that govern Mexico have greatly stunted its economic growth.

墨西哥资源丰富，气候宜人。为什么它不能转型为发达国家?毕竟，这里有大量可开发的经济活动，例如农业、采矿、石油开采、旅游业、制造业、渔业等等。就像许多其他资源丰富的发展中国家一样，答案是墨西哥当前和过去的管理体制极大地阻碍了其经济增长。

For almost 300 years, Mexico, like most Latin American countries, was governed under an encomienda system. This system had one sole purpose: to extract as much wealth as possible from the Spanish colonies and redirect it to Spain. Forced labor and arbitrarily high taxes set by governing officials was the norm, and the entire indigenous population was (and still is) incredibly poor. This mass-looting system drained Mexico of a huge chunk of its potential wealth.

在近300年的时间里，墨西哥和大多数拉丁美洲国家一样，都是在一种监护征赋制（西班牙在美洲殖民时期实行的一种劳动制度）下管理的。这个制度只有一个目的:从西班牙殖民地榨取尽可能多的财富，并将其转移到西班牙。强制劳动和政府官员任意设置高昂的税收是常态，整个土著人口都是(现在仍然是)令人难以置信的贫穷。这种大规模的掠夺系统耗尽了墨西哥巨大的潜在财富。

Meanwhile, the English could not do the same, as North America simply did not have a large enough population to subdue. Eventually, the crown even tried to force the colonizers to work, but that too failed. The colonizers’ continuous resistance to attempts of subjugation by their rulers failed, and they were given rights. The colonies had a degree of self-governance, while the population (except of course, black slaves) could pursue any economic endeavor. The colonies would of course evolve into the closest thing to democracy the world had seen at the time. The checks and balances system would block any attempts by the government to unjustly extract wealth from its citizens. People with rights tend to be more inclined to work and produce wealth than slaves and subdued populations. Thus, countries with a high degree of democracy and well-established rights are better off.

与此同时，英国人做不到这一点，因为北美根本没有足够多的人口来征服。最终，国王甚至试图强迫殖民者工作，但也失败了。殖民者的持续抵抗让统治者企图征服他们让他们服从统治的想法失败了，他们获得了权利。殖民地拥有了一定程度的自治权，而居民(当然，黑人奴隶除外)可以从事任何经济活动。这片殖民地当然会演变成当时世界上最接近民主的东西。这种制衡体系将阻止政府不公正地榨取公民财富的任何企图。拥有权利的人往往比奴隶和受奴役的人更倾向于工作和创造财富。因此，民主程度高、权利稳固的国家情况更好。

Eventually, Mexico did achieve independence in 1821. However, the newly-formed country was not a democracy, and would not achieve said status until the year 2000, almost two hundred years later. The country’s early years were marked by a complete lack of governance and the same extractive systems that were rampant during the Spanish colonization. The country was also invaded twice in the 19th century by United States and the France. The former ended up taking half of the nation’s territory. Mexico was then subjected to the Diaz dictatorship that lasted over thirty years. After the Mexican Revolution, the country would not have a stable leader until more than twenty years later (Lazaro Cardenas in 1934).

最终，墨西哥在1821年获得了独立。然而，这个新成立的国家并不是一个民主国家，直到2000年，也就是将近200年后才达到这个地位。这个国家早期的特点是完全缺乏治理，和西班牙殖民时期一样猖獗的开采系统。在19世纪，这个国家还两次被美国和法国入侵。前者最终占领了墨西哥全国一半的领土。墨西哥被迪亚兹独裁统治了30多年。墨西哥革命后，这个国家直到20多年后才有了一个稳定的领导人(1934年的拉扎罗·卡德纳斯)。

Lazaro Cardenas was the first president from the PRI party. All subsequent presidents until 2000 were from the same party, so the country was essentially in a dictatorship for another seventy years. The PRI party is notoriously corrupt (as are the other parties that are currently vying for power). Corruption acts as a sort of tax for economic growth. Theft by all political parties is still rampant, so a significant amount of money that could be used for development is embezzled instead.

拉扎罗·卡德纳斯是革命制度党第一位总统。2000年之前的所有总统都来自这同一个政党，因此这个国家基本上在接下来的70年里都处于独裁统治之中。革命制度党是出了名的腐败(就像其他正在争夺权力的政党一样)。腐败是经济增长的一种负担。各政党的盗窃行为仍然猖獗，因此，大量本可用于发展的资金被挪用。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

For now (and the foreseeable future), Mexico is stuck being a manufacturing (or maquiladora) country that exports negligible amounts of innovation. Foreign companies will set up shop here due to the low wages, so foreign investment does not help very much in that regard. Most of the population is not well-educated, so few skilled workers go into the workforce. As a consequence, the vast majority of the people work low-skill jobs with correspondingly low wages. A good portion of the skilled population will emigrate to countries with more opportunities, which inflicts brain drain .

就目前(以及可预见的未来)而言，墨西哥仍是一个出口创新产品微不足道的制造业(或联营工厂)国家。由于工资低，外国公司会在这里开店，所以外国投资在这方面没有多大帮助。大多数人没有受过良好的教育，所以很少有技术工人进入劳动力市场。因此，绝大多数人只能从事低技能的工作，工资也相应较低。相当一部分技术人口会移民到机会更多的国家，这导致人才外流。

Many look forward to the election that will take place in about 45 days, as it is likely that a president from a new party (MORENA-National Regeneration Movement) will be elected. He might bring some radical change into the country, though many fear that his leftist policies will cause Mexico to spiral down into a chaos similar to Venezuela’s under Hugo Chavez. Only time will tell…

许多人期待将在45天后举行的选举，因为届时很可能会有一位来自新党(morena -民族复兴运动)的总统当选。他可能会给这个国家带来一些激进的变革，尽管许多人担心他的左派政策会导致墨西哥陷入类似乌戈·查韦斯治下的委内瑞拉的混乱。只有时间会告诉我们答案……

EDIT
It looks like the MORENA party (which has now been voted into the presidency and to majority in both houses) has been fined about 10 million USD (197 million pesos) for ‘misusing’ funds destined to the (somewhat) recent earthquake’s victims. There goes any hope I had.

编辑
MORENA党(目前已当选总统，并在参众两院占据多数席位)因“滥用”救灾资金被罚款约1,000万美元(1.97亿比索)。我所有的希望都破灭了。

Further comments
My views regarding this answer have changed somewhat since I wrote it. It has become somewhat popular to blame colonization for the woes and blights of developing countries. However, there are many countries that became succesful even after devastating events in recent memory. Blaming Spain for Mexico’s current state is somewhat analogous to blaming your high school sweetheart for your divorce 30 years later. Indeed, many succesful countries today did not even exist 200 years ago (when Mexico become a country).

补充评论
我对这个答案的看法在我写它之后发生了一些变化。把发展中国家的苦难和衰败归咎于殖民主义已经变得有些流行了。然而，在最近的记忆中，有许多国家在经历了毁灭性的事件之后仍然取得了成功。把墨西哥目前的状况归咎于西班牙，有点类似于把你30年后的离婚归咎于你的高中恋人。事实上，今天许多成功的国家甚至在200年前(当墨西哥成为一个国家时)还不存在。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Tom Lewis
Mexico is in the process of developing into a first rate modern country. I have driven around in the same parts of northern Mexico since the 1960’s. What I see now is light years from what I saw them. Sonoran roads have almost caught up to Arizona's which have actually gone down hill due to massive tax cuts. The two biggest solar farms I have seen are in Sonora. 3rd world Mexico is a myth made in the USA.

墨西哥正处于向一流现代化国家发展的过程中。从20世纪60年代起，我就一直在墨西哥北部的同一地区开车。我现在看到的和我当时看到的相差好几个光年。索诺兰的道路几乎赶上了亚利桑那州的道路，而亚利桑那州的道路由于大规模减税而在走下坡路。我见过的两个最大的太阳能农场在索诺拉，第三世界的墨西哥变成了美国制造的神话之地。

Steven Haddoc
Largely because the British and the Spanish had completely different strategies regarding land ownership.
Under the British system, if you were a freeman (i.e. not an indentured servant) you were entitled to a small land grant, making you an individual land owner. In the early colonial period and in Canada in the late 18th century, this encouraged a lot of individual initiative and quickly built wealth.

这很大程度上是因为英国人和西班牙人在土地所有权方面有着完全不同的策略。
在英国制度下，如果你是自由民(即不是契约仆役)，你就有权获得少量的土地赠予，使你成为个人土地所有者。在早期的殖民时期和18世纪晚期的加拿大，这鼓励了很多个人的主动性，并迅速积累了财富。

In the Spanish system, large tracts of land were given to someone important to do as they wished. If you were a Spanish freeman, the best you could hope for was working on someone else’s land for wages. As the people had no real incentive to improve someone else’s land, the big landowners became rich and powerful, but most people were “peons” and remained so as did their descendants.

在西班牙的制度中，大片土地被分配给重要人物，让他们随心所欲。如果你是一个西班牙自由民，你能期望的最好的事情就是在别人的土地上干活挣工资。由于人们没有真正的动力去改善别人的土地，大地主变得富有和强大，但大多数人是“苦力”，他们的后代也是如此。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

It’s why in many Latin American countries you see calls for “land reform” where large tracts of land are split up and given to individual farmers. However, the cost of setting up these systems is prohibitively expensive.

这就是为什么在许多拉丁美洲国家，你会看到有人呼吁进行“土地改革”，将大片土地分割给农民个人。然而，要建设成这些制度系统的成本是非常昂贵的。

Tom Lewis
First a clarification and an advice NEVER say NEVER, MEXICO it Is on the way.
We are improving day by day (year by Year). some examples:
México (Ramos Arizpe) produce GM cars with better Quality than US (Detroit) . We Have a Better Medical Public Health system than the US, similar to Canada We Have less Unemployment than Canada. We have 5% vs 7% canada

首先澄清和建议一下，不要说的那么绝对，墨西哥已经在路上了。
我们每天(每年)都在进步。举一些例子:
墨西哥(Ramos Arizpe)生产出了质量比美国(底特律)更好的通用汽车。我们有比美国更好的医疗公共卫生系统，类似于加拿大，我们的失业率比加拿大低。我们只有5%，加拿大有7%

Brody Fletcher
One was colonized by Spain. Two were colonized by England…there’s your answer.
The former British colonies (America, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia) are almost all doing VASTLY better than the former Spanish and French colonies.
Even in some of the world’s most volatile spots, you can see the difference.

一个是西班牙的殖民地。两个是英国的殖民地，这就是答案。
前英国殖民地(美国、加拿大、印度、新西兰、新加坡、澳大利亚)几乎都比前西班牙和法国殖民地表现得好得多。
即使在世界上最动荡的一些地区，你也能看到其中的差异。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

In the Middle East, nearly all of England’s former colonies (Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar) are substantially richer and RELATIVELY peaceful compared to the absolute MESS that France (Syria), Portugal (most of Yemen and parts of Iran), and Italy (Libya, majority of Somalia) have left.

在中东，几乎所有英国的前殖民地(以色列、约旦、沙特阿拉伯、科威特、埃及、卡塔尔)都比法国(叙利亚)、葡萄牙(也门的大部分地区和伊朗的部分地区)和意大利(利比亚、索马里的大部分地区)离开后的绝对混乱之地要富裕得多，也相对和平。

In Africa, the three highest countries based on GDP are former British colonies (Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa)—these are three countries on totally different parts of the continent with different resources, that seems like more than a coincidence. And former-British colonies like Botswana, Ghana, Zambia, Uganda, and Kenya (which even put in an Olympic bid) are models of stability and democracy compared to former French colonies like Chad, Niger, Central African Republic, and Congo. [2022upxe: In only the few months since this answer was written, there have been successful coups in former French colonies Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso.

在非洲，GDP最高的三个国家是前英国殖民地(埃及、尼日利亚和南非)——这三个国家位于非洲大陆完全不同的地区，拥有不同的资源，这似乎不仅仅是一个巧合。与乍得、尼日尔、中非共和国和刚果等前法国殖民地相比，博茨瓦纳、加纳、赞比亚、乌干达和肯尼亚(甚至参加了申奥)是稳定和民主的典范。[2022年更新:在写完这篇回答后的短短几个月里，前法国殖民地马里、几内亚和布基纳法索都发生了成功的政变。

Please understand this is not a closet endorsement of colonialism of any kind, and obviously being colonized sucks no matter what. But I do believe you can make an obxtive case that the British were at least remotely interested in setting up the rule of law while they drained a country’s resources, whereas Spain took much more of a “straight plunder” attitude towards their former colonies.

希望大家理解，这不是对任何形式的殖民主义的秘密支持，很明显，被殖民无论如何都很糟糕。但我确实相信，你可以客观地证明，英国人在榨干一个国家的资源时，至少对建立法治有一点点兴趣，而西班牙对他们的前殖民地采取的是一种“直接掠夺”的态度。

They took the money and left the corruption, and Mexico’s single biggest problem to this day is systematic corruption and a near-disdain for functioning systems of government and the rule of law. The worst thing to ever happen to Hong Kong is going from British rule to China (as we’re seeing now) because it meant going from a democracy that respected the rule of law to a dictatorship that plainly does NOT.

他们拿走了钱，却留下了腐败。直到今天，墨西哥最大的问题是系统性的腐败，以及对政府系统和法治的近乎蔑视。对香港来说，最糟糕的事情就是从英国统治到中国(就像我们现在看到的那样)