2023年经济学人 兴奋剂对经济增长的作用(2)

（单词翻译）

 

 

    This changed when sugar imports from Britain’s colonies increased.

    当从英国殖民地进口的糖增加时，情况发生了变化。

    Annual sugar consumption per person rose from around 5Ibs a year in 1700 to 20Ibs by 1800—several times higher than in continental¹ Europe.

    每年人均糖消耗量从1700年的约5磅增加到1800年的20磅，比欧洲大陆要高出好几倍。

    After 1800 imports then soared as Britons developed a taste for sweet tea and cakes.

    1800年以后，随着英国人爱上甜茶和蛋糕，糖的进口量猛增。

    The change from a fibre-heavy to a sugar-heavy diet, noted² Robert Fogel, a Nobel prize-winning economist³, “raised the proportion of ingested energy that [could] be metabolised”.

    曾获诺贝尔奖的经济学家罗伯特·福格尔指出，从高纤维饮食转变为高糖饮食“提高了可新陈代谢的能量摄入比例”。

    Some observed that a growing share of Englishmen were getting fat.

    一些人观察到，越来越多的英国人变胖了。

    But the imports also gave Britain’s economy a sugar high.

    但进口糖也给英国经济带来了甜头。

    In France in the late 18th century about 10% of people could not work for lack of nourishment⁴.

    在18世纪末的法国，大约10%的人因缺乏营养而无法工作。

    In Britain, by contrast, only the bottom 3% were incapable⁵.

    相比之下，在英国，只有最底层的3%的人无力工作。

    In the 18th century British GDP growth was seven times as fast as France’s.

    在18世纪，英国的GDP增长速度是法国的7倍。

    Fogel reckoned that “bringing the ultra-poor into the labour force [and] raising the energy available for work by those in the labour force” explains about one-third of Britain’s economic growth in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    福格尔认为，“让极度贫困的人进入劳动力大军，并增加可供劳动者使用的能量”带来了19世纪和20世纪英国大约三分之一的经济增长。

    Coffee, meanwhile, pushed the middle classes to do bigger and better things.

    与此同时，咖啡促使中产阶级能够做出更伟大、更好的事情。

    Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University has stressed the importance of a “culture of growth”, the title of a book he published in 2016, in explaining Europe’s industrialisation.

    西北大学的乔尔·莫基尔强调了“增长的文化”的重要性，这是他在2016年出版的一本书的标题，书中解释了欧洲的工业化。

    During this period science became less academic, and more focused on solving real-world problems.

    在工业化期间，科学变得不那么学术，而是更专注于解决现实世界的问题。

    Over time it became the handmaiden of inventions, such as the internal-combustion engine, which massively lifted living standards.

    渐渐地，科学成为了发明创造的基础，如内燃机引擎，这些发明极大地提高了生活水平。

    Coffee houses, which some at the time called “penny universities”, played a crucial role.

    当时的咖啡馆被一些人称为“一便士大学”，这些咖啡馆也起到了至关重要的作用。

    By the early 18th century central London was home to as many as 600 coffee shops.

    到18世纪初，伦敦市中心拥有多达600家咖啡馆。

    The Marine⁶ Coffee House in London was an early location for a set of lectures on mathematics, Mr Mokyr points out.

    莫基尔指出，伦敦的海洋咖啡馆是一系列数学讲座的早期地点。

    The London Chapter Coffee House was the favourite of the fellows of the Royal Society, the intellectual godfathers of the scientific revolution, and was where people gathered to discuss how science could be applied⁷.

    伦敦篇章咖啡馆则是皇家学会会员们的最爱，这些知识分子是科学革命的教父，人们在咖啡馆聚会，讨论如何应用科学。

    Caffeine lubricated the discussion in a way that alcohol—a depressant—never could.

    咖啡因以一种酒精（属于抑制剂）永远无法做到的方式成为了这种讨论的润滑剂。

    The chemical increases both selective attention (focusing on the relevant stimulus) and sustained attention (maintaining it).

    这种化学物质既能增强选择性注意力(关注与主题相关的刺激)，又能增强持续性注意力(维持注意力)。

    This was not the only way in which coffee fuelled growth.

    咖啡推动经济增长的方式不止于此。

    In the 18th century Europe came to rely more heavily on clocks to organise⁸ the timing⁹ of economic activity, and less on the natural rhythms of the human body, as was common in agricultural societies.

    在18世纪，欧洲开始更多地依赖时钟来组织经济活动的时间安排，而不是像农业社会那样依赖人体的自然节律。

    Factories cannot function unless everyone is there at the same time.

    除非所有人同时到达工厂，否则工厂不能开工。

    Yet if people now had to get up at unnatural¹⁰ hours, they needed something to pep them up.

    但如果人们必须在不符合自然规律的时间起床，那么他们就需要一些东西来提神。

    “Caffeine became instrumental to the regimented time of the urban industrialised societies,” according to Steven Topik of the University of California, Irvine.

    “咖啡因对城市工业化社会的统一时间规划起到了重要作用。”加州大学欧文分校的史蒂文·托皮克说。

    The prolonged shortage of ADHD medication has imposed real pain on those who need it to function.

    治疗注意力缺陷的药物的长期短缺给那些需要它来正常生活的人带来了真切的痛苦。

    Fortunately, though, the shortage does now appear to be easing.

    不过，幸运的是，现在短缺似乎确实有所缓解。

    Some pharmacies¹¹ are finally getting drugs back in stock and regulators have removed some medications from their official-shortages list.

    一些药店终于恢复了药品库存，监管机构已将一些药品从官方短缺清单中删除。

    Silicon¹² Valley types have been experimenting with other stimulants¹³, such as nootropics, which are not in shortage.

    硅谷的人一直在试验其他兴奋剂，比如一些聪明药，但这些药品并不短缺。

    American productivity appears, once again, to be rising.

    同时，美国的生产率似乎又有所上升。

    Coincidence?

    所以这是巧合吗？