论重商主义在荷兰率先崛起中的作用

On the Role of Mercantilism in the Pioneering Rise of the Netherlands

荷兰是开放的“首个现代经济体”,自由贸易论的早期倡导也部分来自荷兰,世人因此相信,荷兰的率先崛起与重商主义无涉无缘。细查历史却可发现,荷兰在快速发展中同样采用了关税保护、产业扶植、政府干预等重商主义政策工具,借此形成的强大生产效能才是它奉行自由贸易的实力基础。荷兰事实上超前践行了重商主义所蕴含的赶超发展要诀:致力于在更具报酬递增潜力的工商业中培植自身比较优势,借助外来移民大力集聚能加速经济崛起的先进生产要素,注重通过技术模仿、进口替代和自主创新去增强产业竞争力。其后来走向相对衰落,是因为英法等国实行了更严格的重商主义,而荷兰却经历了产业脱实向虚、技工和资金流散、企业精神丧失、创新动力萎缩等“富贵病”,从而与重商主义背道而驰。

As the Netherlands was“the first modern economy”and an early advocate of free trade,people tend to believe that its rise to prominence had nothing to do with mercantilism.A closer look into history.however,reveals that the Netherlands in its rapid development also employed such mercantilist policy tools as tariff protection,industrial encouragement and government intervention,and that its free trade was after all based on the strong productive efficiency nurtured by mercantilism.Indeed,the Dutch implemented precociously the catch-up development strategies inherent in mercantilism:cultivating comparative advantages in industries of increasing returns;attracting migrant factors of production to accelerate industrial upgrading;enhancing economic competitiveness through imitation,innovation as well as import substitution.As for its decline,it was a relative one engendered mainly by the more aggressive mercantilism that Britain and France practiced while the Netherlands was to experience its“the rich's disease”,such as de-industrialization,the dispersion of skills and capital,and the loss of entrepreneurship and inventiveness,all running counter to mercantilist principles.