英文部分来自 Economist 杂志.. 12月10日的期刊..
翻译仅作学习之用.. 感谢阅读喔 -v-
CHARLES KOCH may well be the most demonised businessman in America, with his younger brother, David, a close second. Journalists argue that he is the mastermind of the country’s vast right-wing conspiracy. Lunatics have made death threats. The ultra-rich, particularly those who made their original fortunes in oil and gas, are supposed to make amends by giving their money to liberal causes. The Kochs have instead spent hundreds of millions backing conservative political causes (though Charles Koch has no love for Donald Trump), lobbying for lower taxes and attacking the idea of man-made global warming.
说到全美最被妖魔化的商人，Charles Koch可能当仁不让，而他弟弟 David 大概位列第二。 记者们认为他是本国右翼阴谋的大策划者，疯子们甚至发出了死亡威胁。超级富豪们，尤其是那些在石油和天然气中积累了原始财富的人，应该通过在自由主义上花钱来弥补。 Kochs却反其道而行之，他把数亿美元都花在游说降低税收和攻击人为全球变暖的观点上 ，以此支持保守的政治原因（虽然 Charles Koch 并不喜欢 Donald Trump ）。
背景知识
这里有个梗，因为Donald Trump也是支持这两个政治观点的，作者在括号里解释Koch并不是因为支持Trump的政见才出钱的，Koch 只是 Koch。
Mr Koch doesn’t come across as Dr Evil. True, the headquarters of Koch Industries is a collection of black boxes outside Wichita, Kansas; the security screening is rigorous. But its CEO has more of the air of a university professor. Despite his $40bn fortune, he lives in a nondescript neighbourhood in one of America’s most boring cities, puts in nine or more hours a day in the office and lunches in the company canteen. He doesn’t seem that interested in his surroundings: complimented on the firm’s art collection, he says his wife takes care of that sort of thing. What he is really interested in is books and ideas.
Koch 并不是什么魔鬼博士（这里是和第一句的demonised呼应，解释这人并不是传统认知中的妖魔），诚然Koch工业的总部就是Knasas州的Wichita以外安检严格的黑盒子集合，但它的CEO却是个这样的大学教授：尽管他有400亿美元的财富，他住在美国最无聊的城市中，一个不起眼的街区，每天在办公室工作九个小时以上，在公司餐厅吃午饭，他对周围的环境漠然初之：赞扬公司艺术藏品的时候，他说都是他的妻子在管这些东西，他真正感兴趣的是书和想法。
It was as an engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s that he first fell in love with ideas. There he hit on the subject that has preoccupied him since: why some human organisations flourish while others stagnate. He gorged on the Austrian school of economics—F.A. Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter and, his personal favourite, Ludwig von Mises, Hayek’s mentor. He devoured American polemicists such as F.A. “Baldy” Harper, whose treatise of 1957, “Why Wages Rise” (because of productivity improvements by workers, not union action), he describes as “life-changing”.
作为一个20世纪50年代在麻省理工学院就读的工程系学生，他一开始醉心于一些想法。在那里，他开启了从那以来一直关注的话题：为什么一些人类组织得以蓬勃发展，而其他人则停滞不前。他汲取了奥地利经济学派—— F.A. Hayek,Joseph Schumpeter以及他个人最喜欢的，Hayek 的导师Ludwig von Mises 。他向 比如 F.A.“Baldy”Harper 这类美国的辩论家饱学诸多，这个人1957年发表了一篇论文“为什么涨薪”（这是由于工人的生产力改善，而不源自工会行动），他将此描述为“人生变革”。
Since then his reading has taken him far and wide. The bookshelves in his office are stuffed with works of history, biographies and the latest titles with big ideas. He is surprisingly keen on Howard Gardner, a quintessential Harvard-Yard liberal, and his theory of multiple intelligences (linguistic, musical and interpersonal among them). But Mr Koch found the answer to his question about how organisations prosper by reading the classical liberals: he regards the “spontaneous order” of the free market—the notion that systems are best left to correct naturally, free of human intervention, with the price mechanism allocating resources to the most efficient use—with the same awe with which he regards the natural order of the universe.
从那时开始，阅读充实了他。他办公室的书架上放满了历史、传记和最新标题与伟大想法的作品。令人吃惊的是，他欣赏 Howard Gardner，一个典型的哈佛大学自由主义者和他的多元智能理论（语言、音乐和人际关系）。而Koch发现了通过阅读古典自由主义来振兴组织的问题的答案：他认同自由市场的“自发秩序”这个概念——体系最好自然运作，少了人类的干预，价格机制将资源分配给最有效的使用 - 他对宇宙的自然秩序报以同样的敬畏。
Mr Koch has used his reading to forge a theory of management which the Charles Koch Institute, his think-tank-cum-philanthropic outfit, has trademarked as market-based management or MBM. The main idea is that market signals should operate just as vigorously within organisations as between them. Workers should be paid according to the value they add rather than their position in the hierarchy. Koch Industries keeps base pay low (it is regarded as just a down-payment on the year’s value-added reward) and workers are often paid more than their bosses. Companies should grant “decision rights” to those employees who have records of making choices that boost profits.
Koch先生以他的阅读积淀 在他的智囊团和慈善机构 Charles Koch研究所内创造了一个管理理论，这个理论已被注册为市场化管理或MBM。核心思想是市场信号在组织内部应该像在它们之间一样有力地运行。工人应该根据他们增加的价值，而不是他们在层次结构中所处的位置来获取报酬。Koch 工业集团提供了较低的底薪（它被视为只是一个年初的增值奖励的首付），工人经常赚得比他们的老板还要多，公司应该给那些有提高利润的记录的员工“决策权”。
As Mr Koch’s philosophy took shape, so his company boomed. When he took over as chief executive from his father in the late 1960s Koch Industries was a small company centred on oil and gas with $200m in yearly sales and 650 employees. Today it is the second-largest private firm in America, with $100bn in annual revenues and more than 100,000 employees. It is one of the world’s largest commodities traders, operates three ranches covering more than 460,000 acres, processes some 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day and produces a wide range of materials such as paper towels, nylon and spandex. Koch Industries estimates that its value has increased over 4,500 times since 1960, outperforming the S&P 500 index by a factor of nearly 30.
随着Koch的理念逐步形成，他的公司也在蓬勃发展。当他在20世纪60年代从他父亲手中接任首席执行官时，Koch工业只是一家以石油和天然气为中心的小公司，年销售额2亿美元，员工650名。到了今天，它已经是美国第二大私营公司，年收入1000亿美元，员工超过10万人。它是世界上最大的商品贸易商之一，经营着面积超过46万英亩的三个牧场，每天处理大约60万桶原油，生产比如纸巾、尼龙和氨在内的各种材料。粗略估计，Koch 工业自1960年以来，其价值增加了4500多次，超过标准普尔500指数将近30倍。
背景知识
标准普尔500（Standard & Poor's 500，S&P 500），又译为史坦普500，是一个由1957年起记录美国股市的平均记录，观察范围达美国的500家上市公司。标准普尔500指数的组成股票是由一个委员会选择并会更换股票。这个运作模式较接近道琼斯工业平均指数，不过它的严格性却不同于一般的其他指数，其他指数都是少见严格的。也正因为标准普尔500指数评选公司的严格，它的股市代表性极强，甚至足以显示美国经济的兴衰。
Yet MBM has attracted remarkably few imitators. Mr Koch says that Morning Star, a California-based tomato producer, has also experimented, independently, with an internal-market system, but that hardly suggests a fashion. One reason may be that Koch Industries is based in the Midwest, away from the great business-theory factories such as Harvard or Stanford. Another is that it is easy to imagine MBM degenerating into a time-consuming bureaucracy. In any case, the firm’s success probably owes as much to Mr Koch’s managerial drive as to MBM (insiders joke that Koch stands for “keep old Charlie happy)”, and to two big insights: that its core competence in processing, transporting and trading can be applied to a wide range of commodities; and that the Midwest is full of first-class engineers and technicians educated in places like Murray State University and the University of Tulsa.
然而MBM已经吸引了一些效仿者。 Koch先生说，加利福尼亚州的番茄生产商晨星也独立地尝试了内部市场制度，但这基本不代表一种潮流。一个原因可能是Koch工业公司位于中西部，远离了诸如哈佛或斯坦福等商业理论产地。另一个原因是，很容易想象MBM会变成一个耗时的官僚机构。不管怎样，公司的成功可能归功于 Koch 用MBM进行的管理驱动（内部人士有个玩笑就是，Koch代表“ 让老 Charlie 开心”），还有两个明显的理由：其处理、运输和交易的核心能力可应用于广泛范围的商品，而中西部地区拥有在Murray 州立大学和 Tulsa 大学等地受过教育的一流工程师和技术员们。
Even if MBM is not quite the magic formula that Mr Koch claims, however, it serves two clear purposes. It provides a diverse and rapidly growing company with a glue. Koch employees speak of MBM with the same enthusiasm that General Electric’s employees once talked about Six Sigma. Unsurprisingly, many have read Mr Koch’s books on MBM, “The Science of Success” (2007) and “Good Profit” (2015). For the less scholarly, MBM is funnelled into ten “guiding principles” (such as “principled entrepreneurship”) printed on coffee cups and posters throughout the group.
即使MBM不是Koch号称的神奇公式，但它有两个明确的目的，它提供一个多样化和快速成长的有粘性的公司。 Koch员工谈到MBM时也有着同样的热情，通用电气的员工曾经谈及六标准差。不出所料，许多人都读过Koch先生关于MBM的书，一本是“成功的科学”（2007年），一本是“好利润”（2015年）。而不那么学术的，MBM融入的方式是被印在整个集团的咖啡杯和海报的十个“指导原则”上（比如“基本创业精神”）。
背景知识
六标准差（英语：Six Sigma，6 sigma），又译为六西格玛，用于流程改善的工具与程序，是商业管理的战略之一。
His philosophy also keeps the firm focused on Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction. Mr Koch is good at spotting opportunities (buying Georgia Pacific, a pulp and paper firm, in 2005 for $21bn, produced a spell of fast growth). Less obviously, he is always pruning businesses that start to fade. Koch Industries could easily have been a low-growth energy company stuck in the middle of the Great Plains. That it has instead succeeded in doubling its earnings every six years or so since the 1960s is thanks in large part to Mr Koch’s unconventional and scholarly mind.
他的思维也使公司专注于Schumpeter 的创造性破坏理论， Koch先生善于发现机会（在2005年花210亿美元购买了一家纸浆和纸张公司Georgia Pacific，如同魔法一般的飞速增长）。相对低调的是，他总是精简开始衰败的企业，Koch工业可能很容易成为一个卡在大平原中央的低增长能源公司。1960年代以来，它成功地将其收益每六年增加一倍，而这很大程度上都要归功于Koch先生的不走寻常路和学者思维。
背景知识
creative destruction 创造性破坏理论是伟大的经济学家Schumpeter 最有名的观点，这是其企业家理论和经济周期理论的基础。在他看来，“创造性破坏”是资本主义的本质性事实，重要的问题是研究资本主义如何创造并进而破坏经济结构，而这种结构的创造和破坏主要不是通过价格竞争而是依靠创新的竞争实现的。每一次大规模的创新都淘汰旧的技术和生产体系，并建立起新的生产体系。
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