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传媒英语小课堂 

为什么经济学家对《鲁滨逊漂流记》情有独钟？

背景介绍：

18世纪的英国著名小说《鲁滨逊漂流记》讲述了一个依靠个人力量战胜大自然的顽强者的故事，同时也讲述了一个资本主义原始积累时期资产阶级冒险家的故事。主人公鲁滨逊为了发财致富，冒险出海，遭遇风暴，被海浪冲上孤岛，被迫独立生存。为了活下去，他同自然展开了斗争。这部小说刚一问世，立即成为畅销书。不只是梦想冒险的读者们喜欢读它，无数的经济学家也都喜欢以鲁滨逊为例说明自己的经济学观点，形成了十分有趣的经济学上的“鲁滨逊现象”。

PART.1

   After spending 28 years, two months and 19 days marooned on an island, Robinson Crusoe does not lose his nose for adventure or his “native propensity to rambling”. He crosses the Pyrenees, stalked by “hellish wolves”, witnesses the “pomp and poverty” of China and battles Tartars on the Russian steppe.

   在孤岛上度过了28年零2个月又19天后，鲁滨逊·克鲁索并没有失去对冒险的嗅觉，也没有丢掉“四处游逛的天性”。他在“地狱般的狼群”的追逐下穿越了比利牛斯山脉，目睹了中国的“浮华与贫困”，在俄罗斯大草原上与鞑靼人作战。

   The character’s strangest adventure, however, is none of these. It is surely his centuries-long ramble through the literature of economics. Crusoe has appeared in Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital”, John Maynard Keynes’s “General Theory” and Milton Friedman’s Chicago lectures on “Price Theory”. He has an entry in the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. And he often washes up in economics textbooks.

   然而，这个角色最奇特的冒险并不是这些，而无疑是他几个世纪以来在经济学文献中的漫游。鲁滨逊曾出现在卡尔·马克思的《资本论》、约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯的《就业、利息和货币通论》和米尔顿·弗里德曼在芝加哥主讲的《价格理论》中。《新帕尔格雷夫经济学词典》中有他的条目。而且他还经常冲上经济学教科书的岸头。

   Crusoe’s economic appeal is unsurprising. The sailor spends a few pages escaping pirates and shooting cannibals. But his real battle is against scarcity, which he defeats through careful deployment of the resources at his disposal, including his own labour.

   鲁滨逊对于经济学的吸引力并不让人惊讶。这个水手花了几页的时间逃离海盗并射杀食人族。但真正的战斗是对抗稀缺——他通过仔细部署他所掌握的资源（包括他自己的劳动力）来战胜稀缺性。

PART.2

    After being shipwrecked, Crusoe makes his island prison habitable,even hospitable. Salvaging what he can from the wreck, he fortifies a cave (his “castle”), erects a tent (“my country house”), plants crops, tames goats (and a parrot) and fills his improvised shelves with pigeon, turtle and other foodstuffs.

    在遭遇海难之后，鲁滨逊把他的小岛监狱改造得适合居住，甚至可说宜人。他从沉船中打捞出一些东西，加固了一个山洞（他的“城堡”），搭建了一个帐篷(“我的乡间别墅”)，种植庄稼，驯养了山羊（和一只鹦鹉），在简易架子上摆满了鸽子、乌龟和其他食物。

    Scarcity also stalked Daniel Defoe, the novelist who created Crusoe in 1719. Over a chequered career he traded in bricks, wines, pickles, tobacco and the glands of civet cats. He dabbled in horse-trading. Literally. He defaulted on his debts. Twice. “No man has tasted differing fortunes more,” he wrote. “And thirteen times I have been rich and poor.”

    在1719年创作了《鲁滨逊漂流记》的小说家丹尼尔·笛福也被稀缺所困。在他坎坷的职业生涯中，他做过砖块、葡萄酒、泡菜、烟草和麝猫腺体的贸易。他还搞过马匹交易。他曾债务违约。两次。他写道：“没有人比我更饱尝命运转折，我经历过十三次贫富起落。”

PART.3

     William Forster Lloyd, for example, was keen to show that economics had something to say about value even in the absence of markets and exchange. In a publication in 1834, he pointed out that Crusoe prizes his goods more dearly as they become more scarce (“my ink beginning to fail me”, Crusoe says, “I contented myself to use it more sparingly”). He took that as evidence for the principle of diminishing marginal utility: a second bottle of ink is worth less than the first.

     例如，威廉·福斯特·劳埃德热衷于证明，即使在没有市场和交换的情况下，经济学也能对价值做出解释。他在1834年发表的一篇著作中指出，随着商品变得越来越稀缺，鲁滨逊越来越珍视它们（鲁滨逊说：“我的墨水开始不好用了，我满足于更加节约地使用它”）。他将此作为边际效用递减原理的证据：第二瓶墨水的价值低于第一瓶。

        Crusoe’s economic appeal is unsurprising. The sailor spends a few pages escaping pirates and shooting cannibals. But his real battle is against scarcity, which he defeats through careful deployment of the resources at his disposal, including his own labour.

       鲁滨逊对于经济学的吸引力并不让人惊讶。这个水手花了几页的时间逃离海盗并射杀食人族。但真正的战斗是对抗稀缺——他通过仔细部署他所掌握的资源（包括他自己的劳动力）来战胜稀缺性。

重难点词汇：

maroon[məˈruːn] n. 栗色 v. 使受困；使陷入孤立无援境地

ramble[ˈræmbl] v. 闲逛；漫游 n. 闲逛；漫游；漫步

salvage [ˈsælvɪdʒ] v. 抢救；打捞；挽救；挽回 n. 打捞；挽救

sparingly [ˈsperɪŋli] adv. 保守地；节俭地；爱惜地

       好了，今天的英语小课堂就到这里了。同学们是不是明白了为什么经济学家对《鲁滨逊漂流记》情有独钟。经济学家因为《鲁滨逊漂流记》提供了一个简单而生动的经济情境，使经济学家能够将抽象的理论与具体的情境相结合，深入研究各种经济问题和现象。同学们在生活中也应该学习这种方式去更好地理解知识。