假如你不能搬家，你會愿意在第三世界國家成為富人，還是愿意在美國當(dāng)窮人?（上）

T erence Kenneth John Nunis
It is always better to be wealthy, no matter where you are. As long as you have wealth, you have options and opportunities. Poverty robs people of that. One assumption in this question is that being in the US is somehow desirable. That may have been true in the 1950s, and 1960s, when the US lead the world in standard of living. Those times have long passed. In terms of crime ,medical care, education, infrastructure development, and every other major indicator outside weapons development, the US is like a developing nation, not a developed one.
Secondly, the Third World refers to nations that did not officially side with the US and her allies, the First World; and the Soviet unx and her allies, the Second World. This term is a legacy from the Cold War era. Nowadays, many people mistakenly use the term to refer to developing countries, which is itself, a somewhat nebulous term. There are “Third World” nations such as Singapore which have a standard of living that far outstrips the US. There are “Third World” nations such as the UAE, Qatar and Oman that are wealthier than the US per capital GDP.
Even were we to consider the latter meaning of Third World, as a synonym to “developing countries”, to be poor in America is hardly better than being poor in the “Third World”, in places like Rwanda, China or Malaysia, where there are better opportunities for socioeconomic advancement, where gun violence is not at theater level and where medical care is actually reasonably affordable.

無論你在哪里，富有總是更好的。 只要你有財富，你就有選擇和機會。 貧窮剝奪了人們的權(quán)利。關(guān)于這個問題的一個假設(shè)是，在美國的話，生活在某種程度上是可取的。這可能在20世紀(jì)50年代和60年代都是真的，當(dāng)時美國的生活水平一直領(lǐng)先于世界。那些時代已經(jīng)過去很久了。在犯罪、醫(yī)療保健、教育等方面以及在基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施發(fā)展和武器發(fā)展以外的每一個主要指標(biāo)上，美國就像一個發(fā)展中國家，而不是一個發(fā)達(dá)國家。
第二，第三世界是指那些沒有正式站在美國及其盟國第一世界一邊的國家；蘇聯(lián)及其盟國第二世界一邊的國家。這個詞是冷戰(zhàn)時期遺留下來的?，F(xiàn)如今，許多人錯誤地用這個詞來指發(fā)展中國家，這本身就是一個有點模糊的術(shù)語。新加坡等“第三世界”國家的生活水平要遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過美國。 阿聯(lián)酋、卡塔爾和阿曼等“第三世界”國家的人均GDP都比美國富裕。
即使我們把第三世界的后一種含義看作是“發(fā)展中國家”的一個同義詞，在美國貧窮也比不上在盧旺達(dá)等地的“第三世界”貧窮，中國或者馬來西亞，那里有更好的社會經(jīng)濟發(fā)展機會，槍支暴力也不在戰(zhàn)區(qū)水平，而且醫(yī)療費用也是合理且負(fù)擔(dān)得起的。

Allen Lobo, Corporate finance, former physician & research physicist

Allen Lobo，公司財務(wù)，前醫(yī)生和研究物理學(xué)家

Poor in America.
Or in any liberal developed nation for that matter, whether in the West or outside of it.
Before I proceed with explaining why, please allow me to be as clear as I possibly can that I take this question as the choice being put specifically to me (i.e. “Would you rather X or Y…” as opposed to “Is it better in general to be X or Y”).
I cannot speak for all persons, merely for myself.
This matters because each person is born under a unique set of circumstances and hence their prospects and choices, would understandably be different.

選擇在美國貧窮的狀態(tài)。
或者在任何自由主義的發(fā)達(dá)國家中，無論是在西方還是別的地方。
在我開始解釋原因之前，請允許我盡可能清楚地說明一下，我把這個問題看作是特別向我提出的選擇（即“你更愿意是X還是Y…”，而不是“一般來說是X還是Y更好”）。
我不代表所有的人，只代表我自己。
這是很重要的，因為每個人都是在獨特的環(huán)境下出生的，因此他們的前景和選擇會有所不同，這是可以理解的。

Three broad categories in which we all vary - natural talent, lottery of birth (i.e. family, class level, nation) and blind luck. Now since luck by its very nature is an intangible, it cannot be factored in (either favorably or adversely). So I’ll focus on the other two.
I was born with an exceptional amount of the first and a mixed quantity of the second (as for luck, I’d reckon that chance has been kinder to me than for most others).
I grew up in a lower-middle class household in India, but had a very loving and supportive family (and still do). Lower middle-class in India when I grew up in the 80s and 90s would hands down be considered to be decidedly worse than even poor in America in material terms.
To give you some sense of it, I was raised in a tiny apartment, one 300 square foot room for four people. We had space for only one bed for two, no gadgets like vacuum cleaners, washing machines or microwaves, no heating or cooling, no vacations out of town, no more than two toys and two sets of new clothes a year, we ate meat just once a week. That was pretty much all of my childhood until the age of 14.

我們都有不同的三大類——天賦、出生(即家庭、階級、國家)和運氣。既然運氣本質(zhì)上是一種無形的東西，它就不能被考慮進(jìn)去(無論是好的還是壞的)。所以我重點講一下另外兩個。
我從出生以來，就有大量的第一個，第二個是混合的（至于運氣，我想這個機會對我來說比其他大多數(shù)人都要好）。
我在印度的一個中產(chǎn)階級的家庭里長大，有一個非常有愛心和支持我的家庭（現(xiàn)在仍然如此）。我在80年代和90年代長大時，印度的中下階層在物質(zhì)上要比美國的窮人差得多。
給你一點感覺，我是在一個小公寓里長大的，一個300平方英尺的房間，可以住四個人。我們只有一張雙人床的空間，沒有吸塵器、洗衣機或微波爐之類的小玩意，沒有暖氣或制冷，不能外出度假，一年里面不超過兩個玩具和兩套新衣服，我們每周只吃一次肉。 那幾乎是我14歲之前的童年。

But I consider it to have been an immensely happy period of my life.
It isn’t some romanticizing, there were solid reasons why I was fortunate despite all of the above.
I had no dearth of love or attention from my parents (and a solid amount of disciplining as well), a little sister who plainly adored me, plenty of friends, I did very well in school .
Relative poverty matters.
Some might consider this arrogant, but if I could rise from poor in a poor nation to upper middle class in the richest nation on earth, I’ll bet fair money that I would have had an easier time doing the same starting out in a rich nation from that same station in terms of wealth.
Let me put it in another way. The West (Americans specifically) paid for my education and even living expenses in full and I wasn’t even a citizen from their nation. You actually then think I would have been accorded any worse if I had actually been born here?

我認(rèn)為這是我一生中非常幸福的一段時期。
這并不是什么浪漫的事，盡管有上述種種，我還是有充分的理由來感到幸運的。
我并不缺乏父母的愛和關(guān)注（還有嚴(yán)格的要求），一個很崇拜我的小妹妹，有很多朋友，我在學(xué)校表現(xiàn)很好。
相對貧窮很重要。
有些人可能會認(rèn)為這種說法是很傲慢的，但如果我能從一個貧窮國家的窮人上升到地球上最富裕國家的中上階層，我敢打賭，從財富的角度來看，我在一個富裕國家做同樣的事情會更容易。
我換個說法吧。西方(特別是美國人)全額支付了我的教育費甚至生活費，而我甚至不是他們國家的公民。你真的認(rèn)為如果我真的出生在這里，我會得到更差的待遇嗎？

Give a man three things - talent, ambition and a loving family.
You can then put him in most places of the planet as you please, I swear he’ll find a way to make a fist of it. And if he cannot do it in that place, he will find a way somehow to get to another place where he can exploit his abilities.
This isn’t just the case with me but also played out in similar fashion with the two men I love the most - my closest friend and my father. The first who is now a lieutenant colonel grew straight-up in the slums of Mumbai, not in even a shoebox like I did (because at least I lived in one made of brick unlike him).
As for the second, my father grew up in far greater privation. Raised in a remote village in the 50s and 60s in conditions which would make people in the West think that I was plainly making shit up if I were to describe those conditions which are but one generation away among my ancestors.
As bare bones as my childhood might seem to Westerners, I had far more in material terms than Dad who grew up with no electricity, no plumbing, no running water, no electronics (except for a radio), no doctors. Not little or scarce quantities of those, I mean nothing of any of those. Which even the poor in the West could take for granted even in those times.

給一個男人三樣?xùn)|西：天賦，野心和有愛的家庭。
然后您可以隨心所欲地將他放到地球上的大多數(shù)地方，我發(fā)誓他會找到一種方法來握緊他的拳頭。 而且，如果他不能在那個地方做到這一點，他將會找到某種方式前往另一個可以發(fā)揮自己才能的地方。
這不僅可以發(fā)生在我身上，也發(fā)生在我最愛的兩個人身上——我最親密的朋友和我的父親。第一個現(xiàn)在是中校，他是在孟買的貧民窟里長大的，甚至不像我一樣住在“鞋盒”里(因為我至少住在一個不像他那樣的磚造的“鞋盒”里)。
至于我父親是在更加貧困的環(huán)境中長大的。他在50年代和60年代的一個偏遠(yuǎn)的村莊長大，那里的條件會讓西方人認(rèn)為，如果我要描述那些離我的祖先只有一代之遙的條件，那我顯然是在胡說八道。
在西方人看來，我的童年可能是算最基本的，但就物質(zhì)而言，我就比父親擁有的要多得多，父親在成長過程中沒有電，沒有管道，沒有自來水，沒有電子設(shè)備(除了收音機)，沒有醫(yī)生。不是很少或很少的數(shù)量，我指的是任何一個都缺乏。即使在那個時代，西方的窮人也認(rèn)為這是理所當(dāng)然的。

He too cherishes his childhood, but he made a fist of it. My little sister and I have then built up on that foundation which that man laid down with such mettle.
Just so you know I’m hardly some kind of exception in that regard!
But then what about the other option - being rich in a poor nation?
There most certainly are some serious advantages to be had from the “rich person” part of that equation. But also some significant disadvantages to be had from the “poor nation” part of it.
The key thing to understand here is that the advantages are not of much consequence to me, but the disadvantages matter a lot to me.
The advantages largely boil down to two things (as other answers mention here very correctly) -
1. Access to cheap human labor.
2. Ability to flout the law.
As for the cheap labor part, the utility would be marginal for me. I’ve been living on my own and taking care of myself since I was sixteen. I’m used to it by now. Sure it would be nice to be able to hire someone but the fact is that modern gadgets make those things easy in my eyes at any rate.
As for abusing the law, I don’t care for that either. I see no need for it and I don’t like living in places like that because that is always a double-edged sword.

他也很珍惜自己的童年，可是他為此握緊了拳頭。 然后，我和我的妹妹就建立在了他如此勇敢地奠定的基礎(chǔ)之上。
這只是讓你知道我在這方面幾乎不是什么例外！
但是另一個選擇呢——在一個貧窮的國家變得富有？
這個等式中的“富人”部分當(dāng)然有一些很重要的優(yōu)勢。但也有一些明顯的劣勢來自于“貧窮國家”的部分。
這里要理解的關(guān)鍵是，優(yōu)勢對我來說并不重要，但劣勢對我來說卻是很重要的。
優(yōu)勢主要歸結(jié)為以下兩點（其他答案在這里非常準(zhǔn)確地提到了）
1.獲得廉價的人類勞動力。
2.濫用法律的能力。
至于廉價勞動力的部分，作用對我來說是微乎其微的。我從16歲起就一直獨自生活，自己照顧自己。我已經(jīng)習(xí)慣了。當(dāng)然，能雇一個人會很好，但事實是，但事實是，現(xiàn)代的小玩意兒讓這些東西在我眼里無論如何都很容易。至于濫用法律，我也不在乎。我認(rèn)為沒有必要去這樣做，我也不喜歡住在這樣的地方，因為那總是一把雙刃劍。
我眼里無論如何都很容易。

Which brings me to the disadvantages.
No matter how rich you may be in a poor nation, you still have to deal with such things as pollution, lack of infrastructure and corrupt officials. When I visit Mumbai (the place of my birth) every couple of years or so, I see expensive cars still having to drive through narrow streets in thick traffic through thickly polluted air. You can’t just escape all of that. You still need to bribe officials not to get special treatment but even to have them do their regular job (though things are better now than they once were at least in some offices).
No amount of wealth is going to insulate you from all of those things.
Not unless you wall yourself off in some kind of tiny gated community and who the hell wants to live like that? I certainly don’t. I like people, I like being around them, I would hate living in such a proverbial cage of gold, limited in interaction with just a tiny sliver of the population at large.
But the more pernicious part is that while as a rich person you can abuse the law, there are always those above you who can abuse you.
If I am a well-to-do businessman, I could beat my house servant and pay the police. And in the same way the local politician can also have me beaten or rape my wife and pay the police.

這讓我想到了缺點。
在一個貧窮的國家里，不管你是多么富有，你仍然要面對諸如污染、缺乏基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施和面對腐敗官員等問題。當(dāng)我每隔幾年左右到訪孟買（我出生的地方）時，我看到昂貴的汽車仍然不得不在擁擠的交通中穿過那狹窄的街道，穿過污染嚴(yán)重的空氣。你不能逃避這一切。你仍然需要賄賂官員，不是為了得到特殊的待遇，而是為了讓他們做他們的日常工作（盡管現(xiàn)在的情況比以前好了，至少在一些辦公室是這樣的）。
再多的財富也不會讓你遠(yuǎn)離這些東西。
除非你把你自己關(guān)在一個小小的封閉社區(qū)里，可誰會愿意這樣生活呢？我當(dāng)然不喜歡。我喜歡和人聯(lián)系，我喜歡和他們在一起，我討厭生活在這樣一個眾所周知的黃金籠子里，與一小部分人的交往都受到限制。
但更不好的部分是，雖然作為一個富人，你可以擁有濫用法律的權(quán)利，但總是有那些比你更高段位的人可以欺負(fù)你。
如果我是一個富裕的商人，我可以打我的傭人并報警。同樣地，當(dāng)?shù)氐恼鸵部梢詺蛭一蛘邚娂槲业钠拮?，然后去報警?/b>