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  3. Economists have long been a natural constituency in favor of growth. Since even the richest country has limited resources, the c

Economists have long been a natural constituency in favor of growth. Since even the richest country has limited resources, the c

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问题     Economists have long been a natural constituency in favor of growth. Since even the richest country has limited resources, the central economic problem is choice; Shall we fund tax cuts for the rich or investment in infrastructure and research and development, war in Iraq or assistance for the poor in developing countries and our own? By providing more total resources, growth should, in theory, make these choices less painful.
    The United States, however, has powerfully demonstrated that while growth increases supply, it also raises aspirations. Choices that rich countries have to make thus seem to be no easier than those confronting poor countries, even though the tradeoffs are more heart-wrenching in the case of the poor. Brazil, for example, must choose whether to use its limited health budget to pay full-market price for AIDS drugs; some AIDS victims may live as a result, but people in need of other health care will die, because money that could have been spent on their needs is simply not there. More growth-provided resources, in this instance, mean the difference between life and death.
    Still, growth has had its critics. There is a well-developed populist antigrowth literature concerned with, among other things, the impact of growth on the environment and on poverty. Historically, economists have questioned whether, at least in the early stages of development, growth is accompanied by societal goods such as greater equality and a better environment. Nobel Prize-winning economist Simon Kuznets (西蒙-库兹列茨) argued, based on experiences largely before World War II, that there is an increase in inequality in the early stages of development. Arthur Lewis, another Nobel economist, went further: greater inequality, he argued, is necessary to generate the savings that growth requires. A later generation of economists has posited the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve: the early stages of growth cause environmental degradation, not environmental health.
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答案 长久以来，经济学家支持经济增长似乎是自然而然的。即使是最发达国家，拥有的资源也有限，因此，核心经济问题是如何选择。是减少税收、维护富裕阶层的利益，还是将税收投资于基础设施以及各项研究与发展?是参加伊拉克战争还是帮助发展中国家及本国贫困人口摆脱贫困?经济增长能增加资源总量，因此从理论上讲，它应该使国家在做以上选择时有更大余地。 然而，美国的情况却清楚地表明，在经济增长、资源总量更丰富的同时，国家希望实现的目标也越多。发达国家做选择时，似乎并不比那些面对贫困的国家更为容易，虽然后者在贸易上处于弱势。例如，巴西在安排健康预算时必须做出选择，是否应该把有限的预算投入到艾滋病患者的治疗上。一些艾滋病患者可能会因此活下来，但其他需要健康护理的病人却可能死去，因为原本应该花在他们身上的预算却花在艾滋病患者身上。在这种情况下，经济增长意味着生或死。 当然，也有人对经济增长的作用提出质疑。经济增长对众多事物，诸如对环境和贫困的影响，已遭到不少平民论者充分的研究和批判。从历史角度看，经济学家怀疑，经济的增长，至少在经济发展早期，是否会给社会带来福利，例如更多公平、优越的环境。诺贝尔经济学奖获得者西蒙?库兹列茨曾分析，根据以往(主要是二战以前)的经验，在经济发展早期，社会的不公平现象有所增加。另一位诺贝尔经济学奖得主阿瑟?刘易斯进一步得出结论：社会的不公平是经济增长所需原始积累的产生条件。以后的经济学家则证实了“环境库兹涅茨曲线”的存在：早期的经济增长会导致环境恶化，而不是环境优化。
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