Day 6：So what is good? Monopoly or competition
（Wednesday）
各位书友，今天我们一起阅读《Zero to One》第三章ALL HAPPY COMPANIES ARE DIFFERENT 的31-34页。
A legally enforceable monopoly simply for having been the first to think of something.
你如何看待：一个人获得法律保护的独占地位仅仅因为第一个想出好点子。
Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina by observing: “All happy families are alike; each
unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
托尔斯泰在《安娜.卡列尼娜》中以下面这段文字作为开头：“幸福的家庭总是相似的，不幸的家庭各有各的不幸。”
Business is the opposite. All happy companies are different:
each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.
而在商业中，情形恰恰相反。企业成功的原因各有不同：
每个垄断企业都是靠解决一个独一无二的问题获得垄断地位；而企业失败的原因却是相同：他们都无法逃脱竞争。
01 RUTHLESS PEOPLE
The problem with a competitive business goes beyond lack of profits.
竞争企业的问题远不只利润问题。
French chef and winner of three Michelin stars Bernard Loiseau was quoted as saying, “If I lose a star, I will commit suicide.” Michelin maintained his rating, but Loiseau killed himself anyway in 2003 when a competing French dining guide downgraded his restaurant.
法国大厨贝尔纳.洛瓦索是米其林三星得主，他曾这样说：”如果是掉一颗星，我就会去自杀。“洛瓦索保持着他的等级，但是2003年他还是自杀了，因为一家法国餐饮指南调低了其餐厅等级。
The competitive ecosystem pushes people toward ruthlessness or death.
竞争生态系统把人变得冷酷无情，甚至剥夺了人的生命。
Google’s motto—“Don’t be evil”—is in part a branding ploy, but it’s also characteristic of a kind of business that’s successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence.
谷歌的座右铭——”不作恶“，在某种程度上是品牌策略，同时也显示了成功企业的特征——即使严守道德，也不会影响公司的发展。在商界，钱就是一切，或至少是非常重要。
In business, money is either an important thing or it is everything. Monopolists can afford to think about things other than making money; non-monopolists can’t.
垄断者除了想着赚钱外还有余力考虑其他事情，而非垄断者就不行。
In perfect competition, a business is so focused on today’s margins that it can’t possibly plan for a long-term future. Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.
在完全竞争中，企业着眼于短期利益，那么就不可能对未来进行长期规划。想要将企业从每日的生存竞赛中解脱出来，唯一的方法就是：垄断利润。
02 MONOPOLY CAPITALISM
So, a monopoly is good for everyone on the inside, but what about everyone on the outside? Do outsized profits come at the expense of the rest of society? Actually, yes: profits come out of customers’ wallets, and monopolies deserve their bad reputation—but only in a world where nothing changes.
因此，垄断对于产业内的人来说是好事，但是对于产业外的人呢？巨额利润是否来自社会上其他人付出的代价？实际上确实如此：利润都是从消费者的钱包掏出来的，垄断者自然享有坏名声——但只在一成不变的世界里如此。
It’s possible to question whether anyone should really be awarded a legally enforceable monopoly simply for having been the first to think of something like a mobile software design.
有人可能会质疑：仅仅因为第一个想出好点子，比如设计出手机软件，一个人就应该获得法律保护的独占地位吗？
In a static world, a monopolist is just a rent collector. If you corner the market for something, you can jack up the price; others will have no choice but to buy from you.
在静态的世界中，垄断者只是收租人。如果你垄断了市场，你就能抬高产品价格；其他人没有选择，只能从你那里买。
Think of the famous board game，Monopoly game: deeds are shuffled around from player to player, but the board never changes. There’s no way to win by inventing a better kind of real estate development. The relative values of the properties are fixed for all time, so all you can do is try to buy them up.
就像一款有名的桌面游戏：房地契在玩家之间轮转，但是游戏规则从来不会变，你无法通过重新创造一种更好的房地产开发方法来赢得游戏。在游戏中，房地产的相对价值固定不变，所以你能做的就是设法把它们全买下来。
But the world we live in is dynamic: it’s possible to invent new and better things.
Creative monopolists give customers more choices by adding entirely new categories of abundance to the world. Creative monopolies aren’t just good for the rest of society, they’re powerful engines for making it better.
但世界是动态的，我们可以创造更好的新事物。富有创意的垄断者创造出崭新的事物，给消费者更多的选择。有创意的垄断企业不仅对外界社会没有坏影响，相反，它们是使社会更美好的推动力。
Even the government knows this: that’s why one of its departments works hard to create monopolies (by granting patents to new inventions) even though another part hunts them down (by prosecuting antitrust cases).
就连政府也知道这些，因此还专门有部门努力创造垄断企业（授予新发明专利权），尽管也有另外的部门在扼杀它们（实行反垄断措施）。
If the tendency of monopoly businesses were to hold back progress, they would be dangerous and we’d be right to oppose them. But the history of progress is a history of better monopoly businesses replacing incumbents.
如果垄断企业的趋势是阻碍进步，那我们应该抵制这种危险企业。但是进步的历史事实上是垄断企业不断更新换代的过程。
Monopolies drive progress because the promise of years or even decades of monopoly profits provide a powerful incentive to innovate. Then monopolies can keep innovating because profits enable them to make the long term plans and to finance the ambitious research projects that firms locked in competition can’t dream of.
垄断企业推动社会进步，因为数年甚至数十年的垄断利润是有力的创新动机,之后垄断企业会不断创新，因为利润给了它们规划长远未来的资本，它们有能力投资雄心勃勃的研究项目，这些是困在竞争之中的企业想都不敢想的。
So why are economists obsessed with competition as an ideal state? It’s a relic of history. Economists copied their mathematics from the work of 19th-century physicists:
they see individuals and businesses as interchangeable atoms, not as unique creators. Their theories describe an equilibrium state of perfect competition because that’s what’s easy to model, not because it represents the best of business.
既然如此，为什么经济学家却痴迷于企业间的竞争，把竞争当成一种理想状态呢？这是历史遗留下来的问题。经济学家的宪法来自19世纪的物理学家：他们把个人和企业看成可互换的原子，而非独特的创造者。他们的理论描述了完全竞争的平衡态，因为这种平衡态模型很容易建立，而不是因为它代表了企业发展的最佳状态。
But it’s worth recalling that the long-run equilibrium predicted by 19th-century physics was a state in which all energy is evenly distributed and everything comes to rest—also known as the heat death of the universe. Whatever your views on thermodynamics, it’s a powerful metaphor: in business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.
但是值得重提的是，在这种由19世纪物理学衍生出来的长期平衡态中，所有能源都是平均分配的，而且所有事物都趋于静止——也被称为宇宙热寂（当宇宙的熵达到最大值时，宇宙中的其他有效能量已经全数转化为热能，所有物质温度达到热平衡）。不管你怎么看热力学，这都是一个很好的比较：在商界，平衡态即静态，静态就是死亡。
Perfect equilibrium may describe the void that is most of the universe. It may even characterize many businesses. But every new creation takes place far from equilibrium. In the real world outside economic theory, every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot.
完美的均衡可能描述了大部分宇宙的虚无状态，甚至也是许多企业的特点。但是每个新发明的出现都和均衡相差甚远。在经济理论之外的现实世界中，每个企业的成功恰恰就是因为它做了其他企业不能做的事情。
Monopoly is therefore not a pathology or an exception. Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.
因此垄断并不是商界的症结，也不是异常存在，而是每个成功企业的写照。
拓展
热寂理论（Heat Death Theory）是猜想宇宙终极命运的一种假说。根据热力学第二定律，作为一个“孤立”的系统，宇宙的熵会随着时间的流逝而增加，由有序向无序，当宇宙的熵达到最大值时，宇宙中的其他有效能量已经全数转化为热能，所有物质温度达到热平衡。这种状态称为热寂。这样的宇宙中再也没有任何可以维持运动或是生命的能量存在。
热寂理论最早由威廉·汤姆森（William Thomson）于1850年根据自然界中机械能损失的热力学原理推导出的。
本月共读《Zero to One》英文版，长按图片立即加入！
☞ 领读达人：刘亚南
—共读书籍简介—
《Zero to One》涉及哲学、历史、经济等多元领域，解读世界运行的脉络，分享商业与未来发展的落实。该书将帮助我们思考从0到1的秘密，在意想不到之处发现价值与机会。
值得关注的是，这本《Zero to One》绝非学术讨论或者思想大师们的论战，自问世起，它的影响就迅速超越了投资圈，在美国亚马逊图书畅销总榜上跻身前列。