今日主題：Alaska's bush country 阿拉斯加鄉下，冰原濯濯
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中英文稿：
Alaska's bush country-- Hunting for dividends
阿拉斯加鄉下，冰原濯濯--紅利何去
The virtues and shortcomings of Eskimo capitalism
愛斯基摩資本模式，優耶弊耶
ALASKANS like to talk about how distant the rest of America feels. In downtown Anchorage, with its familiar fast-food restaurants and hotel chains, this line can sound a little affected. Not so in rural Alaska, the swathes of frozen tundra that the state's inhabitants call the bush. In Napaskiak, a village of 400 people on the west coast of the state, it is not unusual to see a black-robed Russian Orthodox priest riding a four-wheeled motorbike with two children and a wife perched on the back.
美國本土鞭長駕遠是阿拉斯加人的老生常談，這種說法要是在安克雷奇市中心卻會讓人有點兒摸不著頭腦，因為這裡速食店林立，連鎖旅館鱗次櫛比。但阿拉斯加鄉 下確是另一番天地，冰凍苔原層層遍佈，當地人稱此為灌木，在西部海岸納帕斯傑克這一400人的村莊，時常可見俄羅斯東正教牧師黑袍素裹，四輪摩托揚長驅 駕，而他的妻子和兩個孩子坐在後座上。
Rural Alaska is different politically, too. In most of the country, the more remote the location the greater hostility to the federal government. Alaska's Eskimos, by contrast, are reliable Democrats, keen on more government. One reason for this is that Washington set up an unconventional experiment in popular capitalism that attracts admiration from development economists and scorn from congressmen in almost equal measure.
阿拉斯加鄉下的政治也是別有風味，多數村莊地域越是偏遠，對於聯邦政府也越敵對，相比之下，阿拉斯加的愛斯基摩人則是最可靠的民主黨人，對於聯邦政府更加 支持，原因之一是華盛頓獨樹一幟採取大眾資本主義，此舉贏得了發展經濟學家的青睞，但與此同時也成為了國會議員的笑柄。
After the discovery of America's biggest oilfield at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, the government needed access to land claimed by the Eskimos in order to build a pipeline, so it made them an offer. They were given 44m acres of land, 1 billion and shares in 12 regional and over 200 village corporations that were created under the deal.It was agreed that the corporations would be favoured for government contracts. These companies now provide a range of services, from running deportation facilities in Texas to providing support for operations in Afghanistan.
1968年，美國最大的油田在普拉德霍灣撥雲見日，當時政府需在愛斯基摩人的領地內建造一條輸油管道，開門見山後，他們得到了4400萬英畝土地，並以此 建立了12所地區企業和200所鄉鎮企業，掌握10億資產和股份，按要求，這些公司要承包政府的工作，如今，這些公司服務範圍十分廣闊，從運營德克薩斯州 的輸送設備到為阿富汗的石油生產提供生產，不一而足。
The work has been lucrative. The value of contracts awarded to native corporations rose from 508m in 2000 to 5.2 billion in 2008, according to a report from the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight. Three of the companies—Arctic Slope, Bristol Bay and NANA—now have annual revenues in excess of 1 billion. The dividends from the shares have not turned all Eskimos into rentiers, but they provide most with enough money to pay their large heating bills.
這是一項油水豐富的工作，一份參議院承包監督委員會的報告顯示，這些公司的承包資產已經從2000年的5.08億上漲到了2008年的52億，其中3家公 司的年收入已經超過了10億，分別是北坡，巴斯托灣和北美報業聯盟。雖說不是所有的愛斯基摩人都靠股息生活， 但這至少讓大部分人都能支付的起供暖費用。
The companies were also charged with stimulating economic development and ameliorating social ills in Eskimo villages. Here, they have been less successful. Some of the problems faced by Eskimos, such as high suicide rates, are common in other isolated northerly places. But other ills are distressingly specific—like the prevalence of domestic violence. Alcohol is partly to blame. Booze cannot be bought or sold in Bethel, the regional hub, but there is a vibrant black market. Alcohol-related injuries are common. Bethel's prison, which has exceeded its capacity, is full of hungover felons.
在愛斯基摩村莊，這些公司在促進經濟發展，緩解社會弊病方面也可圈可點，但這方面的成果並沒有這般顯著，雖說部分愛斯基摩人的問題在其他北方孤地也能找到 印記如高自殺率，但有些問題卻是它“獨具一格”，如內部暴力行為普遍。在這方面酒精要負一部分責任，即使它在地區樞紐伯特利的交易市場上銷聲匿跡，卻在活 躍的黑市上飽受追捧，酒精導致的傷害十分普遍，伯特利的監獄裡塞滿了“醉”犯，已超其負荷。
The smaller villages around Bethel are emptying out. Some of them only became permanent settlements when Alaska's Supreme Court ruled that the government was obliged to educate Eskimo children where they lived, rather than send them off to boarding school. When a school has fewer than ten pupils it closes, taking with it a source of employment. Another reason for the exodus is the price of petrol which, at 10 a gallon in the villages, makes heating a house through the winter and running a snowmobile expensive.
在伯特利周邊，很多小型村莊已是空巢一所，只有阿拉斯加最高法院強制規定愛斯基摩人的孩子必須在居住地就學，而不是去寄宿學校，他們才會迎來永久住民，當 一所學校的學生數量不足十人，他就要倒閉，一大批就業崗位也隨之流失，至此的另一原因是村莊裡10美元一加侖的石油價格，冬季房屋供暖以及雪地摩托的成本 都會因此而十分昂貴。
Yet rural Alaska is doing better than these developments suggest. More than 10% of its inhabitants may not have plumbing, but it is not as poor as many other parts of America. Besides, poverty feels different in a place where summers are spent fishing for wild salmon and autumn is moose-hunting season. Other indicators auger a bright future. The Yupik Eskimos, in Western Alaska, are in the midst of a baby boom: nearly 36% of the people in the area around Bethel are under 18. In the four decades following the Prudhoe Bay find, Alaska's Eskimo population doubled in size. Demographers reckon it will increase by a further 10% by the end of this decade.
但阿拉斯加鄉村的發展遠不止這些表像，雖說它超過10%的居民都沒有管道系統，但與美國其他地區相比，他的富裕程度也是有過之無不及，況且貧窮二字在這樣 一個夏捕野鮭，冬逐駝鹿的地方也是披上了不同的外衣。一些其他的指標也暗示了光明的前景：阿拉斯加西部的愛斯基摩尤皮克人正當嬰兒潮，他們在伯特利周邊有 將近36%的人未滿18歲，在普拉德霍灣被發掘後的40年裡愛斯基摩人的人口翻了一番，人口統計學家估計這一十年末它的人口還將增長10%。
This complicates the way native corporations spread their wealth around. Many Eskimos who were born after the initial distribution of shares own none. About half of the 13 regional corporations have opened their rolls to “born-afters”, but doing this requires a vote from other shareholders that, in effect, dilutes their dividends. The migration of villagers also means that many shareholders no longer live in the places that the corporations were set up to benefit.
這也解釋了當地企業的分紅方式，很多在股份初次分配後出生的愛斯基摩人都不參與分紅，雖說在13所當地企業中將近一半公司的紅利都已對那些後出生的人敞開 大門，但這必須得其他股東的投票通過，這與取締其紅利收入無異。村莊裡的人員流動也意味著很多人都不再待在公司的始發地接受分紅。
The companies are facing challenges in Washington, too. Claire McCaskill, a senator from Missouri who chairs the contracting subcommittee, has criticised the way in which the law allows native corporations to fulfil contracts, some of which attract no other bidders, with subcontractors that do not employ any Eskimos. In one case a native company won a 2 billion contract to manage a satellite programme for the Department of Defence, which it promptly farmed out to Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and General Dynamics. Companies owned by other minorities also receive preferential treatment, but the size of the contracts they can bid on is capped. This is a source of tension between black-owned businesses and their Alaskan competitors.
這些公司也面臨著來自華盛頓的挑戰。密蘇里州議員麥卡斯基爾掌控者契約下屬委員會，他指責法律縱容這些公司一手遮天，有一些公司不再招標，次承包者也不再 雇傭愛斯基摩人，例如，一家當地公司贏得了為國防部運營衛星系統的承包任務後，就立馬委託給了洛克希德馬丁公司，BAE系統公司和通用動力。一些其他少數 民族的公司也會得到優待，但他們可承包的規模有限，這造成黑人企業和他們阿拉斯加競爭者之間關係緊張。
The aim of the corporations, says Ana Hoffman, a Stanford-educated Yupik speaker who runs the Bethel Native Corporation, is to let people choose how they want to live. Some will continue to be subsistence hunters; others will choose to move away. So long as the money from the corporations makes its way back to the Eskimos, the race of their employees should not matter.
伯特利本土公司運營者安娜霍夫曼從斯坦福畢業，說尤比克語，他說公司的目的就是讓人們選擇自己的生活方式，有些人繼續捕獵，有些人選擇搬離，但只要這些公司的收益仍會流入愛斯基摩人手中，公司的競爭便不足一提。
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