Mexico's Carlos Slim is now the richest man in the world, or so Fortune magazine has told us. His ascension is fascinating. This is not only because he is extraordinarily rich. It is also because the manner in which he has accumulated his wealth tells us much about the capitalism that is spreading across the globe.

Estimated at $59bn, Mr Slim's fortune is equal to 6.6 per cent of Mexico's gross domestic product. Bill Gates, in contrast, at about $56bn, is worth a mere 0.4 per cent of US GDP. Even at its peak John D. Rockefeller's wealth was less than 2 per cent of US GDP. The richest person in the US would need $900bn to possess the same wealth, relative to US GDP, as Mr Slim does relative to Mexico's.

Does this extraordinary accumulation of wealth in a single man's hands matter? One reason someone might think so is that it implies extraordinary inequality. If, for example, one assumed a real return of 6 per cent a year, the Slim family's permanent income would be $3.6bn a year. On World Bank figures, the average income of Mexico's poorest 10 per cent was $1,200 per head in 2005. So the Slim family's permanent income equals the current incomes of 3m of Mexico's poorest people. I am no egalitarian. But this surely needs some justification.

Furthermore, vast concentrations of wealth are sure to have political consequences, inciting corruption and populism. Thus, it seems sure to weaken both the legitimacy and effectiveness of fragile democracies.

These dangers are evident. But one can counter that the drive to accumulate wealth is the spur to entrepreneurship. It matters, therefore, how far wealth is generated in competitive as opposed to relatively protected markets.

How, then, did Mr Slim make his fortune? A part of the answer is that he is a businessman with an eye for opportunity. What, however, was his most important opportunity? In Mr Slim's case, the gold-mine was Teléfonos de México, or Telmex, in which he obtained a controlling stake from the government in 1990.

Telmex has proved to be a licence to print money, a description once used of ITV, the UK's first commercial television station. When privatised, Telmex was given what amounts to six years of exclusivity. Moreover, as Brian Winter of USA Today points out, Telmex still controls 92 per cent of the country's fixed-line market.* According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Mexico has some of the highest telephone charges among its members, both for fixed lines and mobile telephony. Mr Winter reports that voice-over-internet providers, Vonage and Skype, have accused Telmex of intentionally blocking access to their sites, to protect its long-distance services.

Telmex denies these charges. But two points are clear: Telmex is an extremely profitable privatised quasi-monopoly; and Mr Slim's ownership has catapulted him from being rich to enormously wealthy. No British government could have allowed an individual to become so rich from a single privatisation.

Thirty nine of the 100 richest people in the world, according to Forbes, are Americans. Interestingly, the fortunes of all these people together amount to only 4.5 per cent of US GDP and, so, to relatively less than Mr Slim's in Mexico. These American super-rich made (or inherited) their money from many different activities (including technology, media, retail and resorts). But it did come from success in competitive markets. Even where this position is controversial, as in the case of Microsoft, most (though not all) would agree that the company played a useful role in standardising products in a dynamic new industry.

To put the point bluntly, there exist more or less useful ways of making a fortune. The least useful are through political connections; the most useful are in competitive markets. These different ways of becoming very rich correspond broadly to the distinction between “limited access” and “open access” economic and political orders made in a paper co-authored by the Nobel-Laureate Douglass North that I cited earlier this year (“As long as it is trapped, the bear will continue to growl”, February 21 2007).**

Are the vast fortunes being made in emerging economies the result of productive entrepreneurship or of rent-seeking? The answer to this question depends on where the economies are likely to go. The bigger the fortunes made by extracting rent from uncompetitive markets, the greater the resistance to the introduction of fiercer competition and so the weaker competition itself is likely to be. As I learnt in Mexico just over a week ago, knowledgeable observers partly ascribe the country's weak growth to the lack of robust competition across the economy. Guillermo Ortiz, governor of the central bank, is known to share this view. Mr Winter also notes that investment in information and communications technology is only 3.1 per cent of Mexico's GDP, against 6.7 per cent in Chile, 6.9 per cent in Brazil and 8.8 per cent in the US.

Thus, Mexico retains many characteristics of a limited access order. Other important emerging economies do, too. As many as 14 of the 100 richest individuals in the world are Russians, with an aggregate wealth equal to 26 per cent of the country's GDP. After the US, no other country has so many people in this list. So how did they make their money? The answer is that they appropriated much of the wealth of a collapsing superpower.

In his article, Mr Winter worries that “as the core of the global economy shifts to countries with weak rule of law and institutions, connections to government, rather than entrepreneurial skill, are becoming the quickest and most effective route to wealth”. Fortunately, there are many counter-examples, such as Azim Premji of Wipro, the Indian software company. Moreover, even where the origin of the fortune rests in connections, the new owners are likely to use their assets more skilfully than governments. Mr Slim's Telmex is an example. The Russians' companies are, too.

Yet concerns remain. A capitalism that generates vast wealth, partly on the back of political connections, and rewards those who resist competition is likely to generate the social and political drawbacks of the system without many of the offsetting gains. Not all capitalisms are created equal. Those who support the market economy must never forget this.

* How Slim Got Huge, Foreign Policy, November/December 2007; ** A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History, NBER working paper 12795, December 2006, www.nber.org

墨西哥的卡洛斯•斯利姆(Carlos Slim)如今是全球首富，至少《财富》杂志(Fortune)是这么说的。他的发迹极具魅力，这不仅是因为他极其富裕，还因为他积累财富的方式告诉了我们很多关于正在全球蔓延的资本主义的真相。

斯利姆的财富估计为590亿美元，相当于墨西哥国内生产总值(GDP)的6.6%。相比之下，比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)约560亿美元的财富，仅相当于美国GDP的0.4%。即便是在顶峰时期，美国首富约翰•D•洛克菲勒(John D. Rockefeller)的财富也不足美国GDP的2%。要想让自己的财富相对于美国GDP的水平达到斯利姆相对于墨西哥GDP的水平，美国首富需要拥有9000亿美元的财富。

如此惊人的财富积聚在一个人手中，这有关系吗？有人之所以会这么想，一个理由是这谕示着极度的不均等。例如，如果有人假设一年的实际回报率为6%，那么斯利姆家族永久的收入是每年36亿美元。世界银行(World Bank)数据显示，2005年，墨西哥10%最贫困人口的平均收入为每人1200美元。因此，斯利姆家族的永久收入相当于墨西哥300万最贫困人口当前的收入。我不是均等主义者。但这样的贫富差距肯定需要一些存在的理由。

此外，财富高度集中肯定会带来政治方面的后果，激起腐败和民粹主义。因此，这似乎肯定会削弱脆弱民主政体的合法性和效力。

这些风险显而易见。但可能有人会反驳说，积累财富的动力源自创业冲动。因此，财富在多大程度上产生于竞争市场，而非受到相对保护的市场，这一点很重要。

那么斯利姆是如何获取财富的？部分答案是，他是一位着眼于机会的商人。不过，他最重要的机会是什么？在斯利姆的情况中，他的金矿是墨西哥电话公司(Telefonos de Mexico)，他于1990年从政府手中获得了该公司的控股权。

事实已经证明，墨西哥电话公司无异于一张印钞执照（人们曾这样比喻过英国首家商业电视台ITV）。在进行私有化时，墨西哥电话公司得到了总共6年的独家经营权。此外，正如《今日美国》(USA Today)的布赖恩•温特(Brian Winter)所指出的那样，墨西哥电话公司至今仍然控制着该国92%的固话市场*。经合组织(OECD)表示，墨西哥固话和手机的某些费率在其成员国中是最高的。温特报道称，Vonage和Skype等互联网电话提供商已指责墨西哥电话公司故意屏蔽其网站，以保护自己的长话服务。

墨西哥电话公司否认这些指控。但有两点是清楚的：墨西哥电话公司是一家利润极高的私有化准垄断企业；斯利姆的所有权使他从有钱人一跃成为超级富豪。任何一届英国政府都不可能允许某个个人单凭一次私有化过程就变得如此富有。

《福布斯》杂志(Forbes)的数据显示，在全球排名前100位的富豪中，有39人是美国人。有趣的是，所有这些人的财富加起来仅相当于美国GDP的4.5%，因此也相对低于斯利姆在墨西哥的财富。这些美国超级富豪从许多不同的活动中（包括科技、媒体、零售和旅游胜地）赚取（或者继承）了他们的财富。但它确实来自在竞争市场上的成功。即便在这一点有争议的情况下（例如微软），多数人（虽然不是全部）也会认同，在一个生机勃勃的新行业，这家公司在产品标准化方面扮演了有益的角色。

坦率地说，世界上存在一些或有益或无益的赚钱方式。最无益的是通过政治关系，最有益的则是在竞争市场中。成为超级富豪的这些不同方式，基本符合诺贝尔经济学奖得主道格拉斯•诺斯(Douglass North)在与他人合著的一篇论文中提出的“受限通路”和“开放通路”经济及政治秩序之间的差别——我今年早些时候援引过这篇文章（“As long as it is trapped, the bear will continue to growl”，2007年2月21日）**。

新兴经济体中创造的巨额财富是生产性创业行为的结果，还是寻租的结果呢？这个问题的答案取决于经济体的可能走向。在非竞争市场中寻租赚取的财富越多，对引入更激烈竞争的抵制就越强烈，竞争的水平也就可能越弱。正如我1周之前在墨西哥得知的那样，知情的观察家将墨西哥经济增长缓慢的部分原因，归结于整个经济体缺乏强劲的竞争。据悉，墨西哥央行行长古莱罗•奥特兹(Guillermo Ortiz)也赞同这一观点。温特还指出，信息和通讯技术的投资仅占墨西哥GDP的3.1%，而智利、巴西和美国的比例分别为6.7%、6.9%和8.8%。

因此，墨西哥仍然保有受限通路秩序的许多特征。其它重要的新兴经济体也是如此。在世界最富有的100个人中，有14名是俄罗斯人，他们的财富总和相当于俄罗斯GDP的26%。除了美国以外，没有其它国家有如此多的富豪入围。那么，他们是如何赚钱的呢？答案是他们侵吞了一个崩溃的超级大国的大量财富。

在他的文章中，温特担心，“随着全球经济核心转移至法治和制度较薄弱的国家，与政府的关系，而非企业家技能，正在成为最快和最有效的致富途径”。幸运的是，还有许多反例，例如印度软件公司Wipro的阿齐姆•普莱姆基(Azim Premji)。此外，即使在财富来自关系的国家，财富的新所有者可能也会比政府更娴熟地运用他们的资产。斯利姆的墨西哥电话公司就是一个例子。俄罗斯人的公司也是如此。

然而，担忧仍然存在。一个巨额财富的创造部分源自政治关系并向抵制竞争的人提供回报的资本主义制度，有可能产生社会和政治弊端，而没有产生许多抵消弊端的益处。并非所有的资本主义都“生而平等”。那些支持市场经济的人千万不要忘记这一点。

* 《斯利姆是如何强大起来的》(How Slim Got Huge)，《外交政策》(Foreign Policy)，2007年11月/12月刊；

** 《人类历史与制度变迁》(A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History), 美国国家经济研究局(NBER)工作论文12795，2006年12月，www.nber.org

• 6小时掌握学英语的秘诀！——点击看答案
• 专治男女记不住单词的秘密