阿根廷超级山寨大卖场模式出口美国？

    8月30日，阿根廷一位名叫豪尔赫•卡斯蒂略的企业家将在靠近西部酒都门多萨的地方推介一个新的大型购物商场。到10月份开业时，它将容纳约600个摊位，其中大多数摊位将租给小型家庭式成衣作坊。这正是试图创造就业机会和推动经济发展的政客和商人们所推崇的做法。

    但在卡斯蒂略这里，一切都不同寻常。这个圆胖的男人有着一副能划伤玻璃的尖利嗓子，他偏爱Members Only风格的夹克衫，和已故作家埃尔莫尔•伦纳德笔下构想的一位卡车司机工会官员（出自小说《Unknown Man #89》——译注）颇为相似。

    当他在当地门多萨上电视时，当地商会的负责人指责他偷税漏税，还参与不正当竞争。警方也屡次突击搜查他在布宜诺斯艾利斯的购物商场，没收盗版CD和DVD。此外，美国贸易代表办公室（U.S. Trade Representative，简称USTR）也已经“褒奖”了那个名叫La Salada的商场，把它列入了“恶名市场名单”（Notorious Markets List）。

    若不是卡斯蒂略已经瞄准迈阿密作为他的下一站，他的故事很可能也就只是当地新闻而已了。La Salada既是阿根廷各种问题的缩影，也彰显了化腐朽为神奇的妙招。它座落在一个破旧的街坊，旁边是一条被工业污染的臭水河。商场里到处是假冒产品，几乎没有商户交税，而且它跟《疯狂的麦克斯》(Mad Max)系列电影一样，十分混乱。

    同时，它创造了一个扁平化且直接面向消费者的模式，提供了亟需的就业机会，是让经济免于崩盘的一个成功的临时解决方案。而且，它可能恰恰为打造实体版的亚马逊（Amazon）提供了思路。此外，在像中国这样的发展中国家，随着中产阶级群体的壮大，它让我们得以一瞥品牌的未来。

    不过，我们先来了解一些历史：在洛马斯•德萨莫拉镇上，里亚丘埃洛河把布宜诺斯艾利斯和它南边的郊区隔开。那里曾经是一片天然热海水游泳池，当地人也曾去那里取水。后来，里亚丘埃洛河逐渐受到上游工厂的径流污染；浴池里充斥着有毒泥状物质；人们开始对它敬而远之。

    接下来让我们快进到20世纪90年代，也就是卡洛斯•梅内姆总统的镀金时代。在梅内姆废除贸易壁垒，把比索兑美元的汇率一比一固定之后，当地生产商顿时失去了竞争力。随着产业倒闭，当地批发商和零售商付给纺织品裁缝们（通常是玻利维亚移民）的钱越来越少，而且迟迟不付。因此，在La Salada水池旁边的市场上，生产商开始直接向消费者出售他们的成衣。

    “我以前是做鞋子的，”56岁的卡斯蒂略说，他目前是Punto Mogote仓库的管理股东，这个仓库是组成La Salada的三大仓库之一。“我以前把鞋子卖给鞋店，鞋店卖给客户。我收到货款的时间没有定数，30天、60天、90天、120天或150天，都有可能。” 

    On August 30, an Argentine entrepreneur named Jorge Castillo will present a huge new mall near the western wine capital of Mendoza. When it opens in October, it will house some 600 stalls, most of which will be rented by small and home-based clothing workshops. It's just the kind of enterprise that's typically celebrated by politicians and businesspeople for creating jobs and boosting the economy.

    But with Castillo, nothing is normal. A rotund man with a voice that can scratch glass and a propensity for Members Only-style jackets, he resembles a Teamsters official as imagined by the late Elmore Leonard.

    When he went on local Mendoza TV, the head of the local chamber of commerce accused him of evading taxes and engaging in unfair competition. Police have repeatedly raided his mall in Buenos Aires to confiscate counterfeit CDs and DVDs. And the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has paid that mall -- named La Salada -- the dubious compliment of putting it on its Notorious Markets List.

    This would be local news save for one thing: Castillo has set his sights on Miami for his next site.

    La Salada epitomizes both Argentina's problems and its improvisational genius. It sits in a run-down neighborhood bordering a river fetid with industrial pollution. It's full of rip-offs. Few of its vendors pay taxes. And it's as chaotic as a Mad Max sequel.

    At the same time, it is a successful ad-hoc solution to an economic collapse, a flat, direct-to-consumer model that provides desperately needed jobs, and it might just show the way to a brick-and-mortar version of Amazon. Moreover, as a middle class rises in developing countries like China, it offers a glimpse into the future of brands.

    But first, a bit of history: In the town of Lomas de Zamora, alongside the Riachuelo river that divides Buenos Aires from its southern suburbs, there once were a series of natural thermal salt-water pools where locals went to "take the waters." Over time, the Riachuelo grew polluted with runoffs from the factories upstream; the baths filled with toxic gunk; and people stopped going.

    Fast-forward to the 1990s gilded age of President Carlos Menem. After Menem dropped trade barriers and pegged the peso one-to-one to the dollar, local manufacturers could not compete. With the industry in tatters, local wholesalers and retailers paid textile sewers -- often Bolivian immigrants -- little and late, so the manufacturers began selling their clothing direct to consumers in markets near the pools of La Salada.

    "I used to make shoes," says Castillo, 56, who is the managing shareholder at Punto Mogote, one of the three gigantic warehouses that make up La Salada. "I sold them to shoe stores, and the shoe stores sold them. I got paid whenever, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, 150 days."