【每日德鲁克】2026年5月13日

13 May

Protectionism

Some of the greatest impediments to effectiveness are the issues of yesterday, which still confine our vision.

The decline in manufacturing as a creator of wealth and jobs will inevitably bring about a new protectionism. For the first reaction to a period of turbulence is to try to build a wall that shields one's own garden from the cold winds outside. But such walls no longer protect institutions—and especially businesses—that do not perform up to world standards. It will only make them more vulnerable.

The best example is Mexico, which for fifty years from 1929 on had a deliberate policy of building its domestic economy independent of the outside world. It did this not only by building high walls of protectionism to keep foreign competition out. It did it—and this was uniquely Mexican in the twentieth-century world—by practically forbidding its own companies to export. This attempt to create a modern but purely Mexican economy failed dismally. Mexico actually became increasingly dependent on imports, both of food and of manufactured products, from the outside world. It was finally forced to open itself to the outside world, since it simply could no longer pay for the needed imports. And then Mexico found that a good deal of its industry could not survive.

5月13日

贸易保护主义

阻碍效率发挥的一些最大障碍，恰恰是那些属于“昨天”的问题——它们至今仍在局限着我们的视野。

制造业作为财富与就业的创造者，其地位的衰退将不可避免地催生一种新的贸易保护主义。因为面对动荡时期，人们的第一反应往往是试图筑起一道高墙，以此将自家“花园”与外界的寒风隔绝开来。然而，这样的高墙已无法再为那些表现未达世界级水准的机构——尤其是企业——提供庇护；相反，它只会让这些机构变得更加脆弱不堪。

墨西哥便是最典型的例证。从1929年起，墨西哥在长达五十年的时间里奉行着一项刻意制定的政策：建立一个独立于外部世界的国内经济体系。为了实现这一目标，它不仅筑起了高耸的贸易保护主义壁垒以抵御外国竞争，更采取了一项在20世纪世界舞台上堪称独一无二的举措——实际上是明令禁止本国企业从事出口贸易。这种试图构建一个既具现代色彩又纯属“墨西哥制造”的经济体的尝试，最终以彻底的惨败而告终。事实证明，墨西哥反而变得愈发依赖于从外部世界进口粮食及各类工业制成品。最终，由于已无力支付其所需的进口商品费用，墨西哥被迫敞开国门，向外部世界开放。而就在开放之后，墨西哥赫然发现，其国内相当一部分产业已根本无法在市场中存活下去。