It is an age, most tellingly, of proliferating new terminology.	更贴切地讲，这是一个新词泛滥的年代。


For example, we now have “synthetic biology” to describe a hybrid of biology and chemical engineering in which scientists create biological systems that are not found in nature.	比方说，我们现在有了形容生物及化学工程混合研究的“合成生物学”，该学科科研工作者能够创造自然界不存在的生物系统。


Man-made cells can now be inserted into humans.	人造细胞现在可以植入人体。


In 2010, the biologist Craig Venter created the first fully synthetic and self-replicating cell.	2010年，生物学家克雷格·文特尔首次创造出自我复制的全合成细胞。


In another hybrid discipline, “molecular computing,” organic or artificial enzymes are programmed to conduct complex calculations faster than silicon chips.	在另一混合学科“分子计算”领域，为有机或人工酶编程进行复杂运算的速度比硅芯片快得多。


The field could provide an avenue, alongside 3D silicon chips, for maintaining – or even accelerating – the pace of Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors on the integrated circuits used by computers doubles every two years.	上述领域可以在3D硅芯片以外提供保持、甚至是加速摩尔定律的途径，摩尔定律指出电脑所使用的集成电路晶体管数量每两年将会增加一倍。


Humans’ biological hybridization with technology also requires new vocabulary.	人类通过技术手段进行的生物杂交也需要新的词汇。


At the MIT Media Lab, double-amputee Hugh Herr has pioneered “biomechatronics,” which combines biology, mechanical engineering, and electronics to invent efficient, lifelike prosthetics.	在麻省理工学院媒体实验室，双侧截肢患者休·赫尔开创了融合生物、机械工程和电子工程的“生物机电工程”，并由此创造出高效，逼真的假肢系统。


Some believe that Herr’s work heralds an age of bionic superhumans.	有人认为赫尔的工作预示着仿生超人时代的来临。


Moving from muscles to the mind, brain-computer interface technologies have advanced significantly in recent years, giving rise to “neuro-prosthetics,” which has already enabled paraplegics to navigate a computer mouse with their thoughts and monkeys to operate a giant robotic arm.	脑机接口技术近年来从肌肉到头脑取得了显著的进展，进而引出了既能让截瘫患者用意念操控鼠标、也能让猴子操作巨型机械臂的“神经假肢”系统。


Scientists are now working to pinpoint the neuro-chemistry of thought and emotions so accurately that new technologies could be developed to allow humans to communicate them silently.	科学家们现在正全力确定人类思想和感情的神经化学变化，以便研发出不借助语言即可沟通思想的全新技术。


With scientists working tirelessly to refine such technologies, the public must become more knowledgeable about their socioeconomic implications.	在科研工作者孜孜不倦改进相关技术的同时，公众必须更加了解它们的社会经济影响。


Neither of the existing paradigms for assessing individual potential – intelligence quotient and emotional quotient – can assess a person’s ability to compete against the growing “robo-collar” workforce.	以智商和情商为代表的评估个人能力的现有范例均无法有效评估人能否与日渐壮大的“机器领”劳动大军相抗衡。


Industrial robots are now displacing Foxconn workers making iPhones in China; Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci robot reduces the need for surgical assistants in operating rooms; and the Engkey robot teaching English in South Korea may gradually fill the 30,000 teaching positions that Westerners there currently occupy.	工业机器人正取代富士康工人在中国生产iPhone； Intuitive Surgical公司的达芬奇机器人降低了手术室对手术助理的需求；


Increasingly sophisticated algorithms are replacing currency traders, paralegals, and even news reporters.	在韩国教授英语的Engkey机器人或许会逐渐填补西方人目前占据的30,000个教学岗位。 日渐复杂的算法正在取代外汇交易员、律师助理，甚至记者。


Competing with the increasingly competent robotic labor force will require people to enhance their “technology quotient.”	与能力越来越强的机器劳动力竞争需要人们提高自己的“技术智商”。


Societies and governments must drive this shift by boosting technology’s role in both the form and content of educational curricula.	社会和政府必须通过提升技术在教育课程内容和形式中的运用来推动上述转型过程。


Improved technological capacity would not only help citizens to compete for jobs; it would help countries thrive in the new global environment of increasing hybridization.	提高技术能力不仅能帮助市民参与就业竞争； 还能帮助国家在日趋混杂的新全球环境中实现繁荣。


The rise and fall of empires has long been considered a geopolitical matter, based on factors such as military assets, resource endowments, and population size.	建立在军事资产、资源禀赋和人口规模等因素基础上的帝国兴衰一直被划归地缘政治事务的范畴。


Likewise, geo-economic calculations of relative GDP, terms of trade, and foreign-exchange reserves carry significant weight in determining the balance of power.	同样，相对GDP、贸易条件和外汇储备的地缘经济计算在决定权力平衡时起到至关重要的作用。


But all of these metrics fail to account for factors like research and development, technological innovation, and commercialization, which are now more indicative of future success than nuclear arsenals or economic size.	但所有指标均未考虑到研发、技术创新和商业化等因素，而目前这些因素与核武库或经济规模相比更能反应出未来的成功。


Indeed, the Hybrid Age is shaping up to be an era of “geo-technology.”	事实上，混合时代正逐步形成标志性的“地质技术”。


The stakes of geo-technological competition are higher than ever.	地质技术竞争的重要性超过以往任何时候。


Cyberwarfare is proving to be as threatening to political and economic stability as conventional military conflict.	事实证明网络战对政治经济稳定的威胁丝毫不亚于常规军事冲突。


At the same time, technologies like water filtration systems, drought-resistant seeds, renewable energy, and the Internet have the potential to fulfill the basic needs of a crowded planet better than any empire could.	同时，水资源过滤系统、抗旱种子、可再生能源和互联网等现代技术完全可以比任何帝国更好地满足我们这个拥挤星球的基本需求。


Many historical periods have been named after imperial hegemons: Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana.	罗马和平、不列颠和平、美式和平等诸多历史时期均以帝国霸权来命名。


Some believe that, with the rise of China, Pax Sinica is next.	有人相信随着中国的崛起，中式和平将成为今后的主流。


But these eras have been characterized by conquest and exploitation, not peace.	但所有这些时代的共同特点不是和平，而是征服和剥削。


Perhaps what comes next will be a fundamental break from the past, a truly modern era of Pax Technologica.	也许人类今后要与过去彻底决裂，开启真正意义上的现代技术和平。


The Idle Fireman	无所事事的消防员


WASHINGTON, DC – One of the IMF’s main purposes is to “give confidence to members by making [its] general resources temporarily available to them.”	华盛顿特区－国际货币基金组织（IMF）的主要目的之一是，“使其成员国可以临时性地获得其普通资金从而给予它们信心”。


However, its members are increasingly facing capital volatility, and there is a sharp decline in the use of Fund resources.	但是，国际货币基金组织的成员国越来越多地面对资金波动，而在使用基金的资金方面却有急剧的下降。


Ironically, this is happening at a moment when the Fund should want to be lending: it is awash in liquidity and has almost no sources of income other than repayment of its loans.	具有讽刺意味的是，这发生在国际货币基金组织应该希望借出资金的时候：它流动性充裕，并且除了成员国偿还其贷款外几乎没有其他的收入来源。


If the IMF had to live up to private-sector standards, it would create a new instrument that would meet members’ potential demand for short-term liquidity.	如果国际货币基金组织不得不达到私营部门的标准，它就可能会创设一个满足其成员国潜在短期流动性需求的新工具。


Alas, there is no urge to do this.	但是，它没有这样做的紧迫性。


Until a year ago, the IMF used to congratulate itself for running out of clients.	直到一年前，国际货币基金组织已经习惯于庆祝自己没有顾客了 。


An idle fireman looked desirable.	一个无所事事的消防员看起来是可取的。


But the situation is different now.	但是，现在情形不一样了。


There is a fire out there, but no one is calling the fire brigade.	外面起火了，但是没人打电话给消防队员。


Only Georgia, not surprisingly, is asking for help.	只有格鲁吉亚请求国际货币基金组织的帮助，这并不令人奇怪。


Potential borrowers have been accumulating massive reserves and pooling them regionally to protect themselves against shocks and speculative capital, but not at the Fund’s urging.	潜在的借款国已经积累了巨量的资金储备，并在一定区域内汇集这些储备以使自己免于外部冲击和投机资本的危害，但是这不是在国际货币基金组织的敦促下完成的。


On the contrary, accumulating reserves beyond a certain threshold carries a high opportunity cost and suggests the need to let the currency appreciate.	相反，积累超过一定数量的资金储备会付出很高的机会成本，并且暗示该国需要让货币升值。


The implication is that potential borrowers are not absorbing as many imports as they could and not relying, as they should, on the multilateral pooling of reserves that the Fund is meant to use to “give confidence” to its members.	这意味着，潜在的借款国没能充分吸收它们可以吸收的进口商品，并且没有按照应该的那样，依靠国际货币基金组织打算使用的为其成员国“提供信心”的多边资金储备积累。


So what’s wrong with the fireman?	所以，消防员出了什么问题呢？


The traditional model of trading financial support for conditionality does not bode well with emerging economies that, despite having strong macroeconomic fundamentals, still need help to cope with external shocks.	传统的用金融援助交换贷款条件的模式，对尽管有很强的宏观经济基本面，但是仍然需要帮助以应对外部冲击的新兴经济体来说，不是一个好兆头。


“Giving confidence” to this sort of customer requires the capacity to provide quick, automatic, meaningful, and front-loaded financial support; otherwise, accumulating reserves and pooling them in regional agreements will still look like a more reliable option.	“给予信心”给这种国家需要提供迅速、自动、有价值的以及前载型（front-loaded）的金融援助的能力； 否则，积累储备资金并用区域协议加以汇集仍然看起来像是一个更可靠的选择。


But the IMF is in no position to provide such support.	但是，国际货币基金组织没有条件来提供这种援助。


Its financial support is limited to a percentage of members’ quotas, which do not reflect their potential borrowing needs.	国际货币基金组织的金融援助受到其成员国配额一定的百分比的限制，而这并不能反应它们潜在的借款需求。


Unfortunately, a recently approved reform, despite being marketed as a strategic improvement, has only benefited a few, and far too little.	不幸的是，最近批准的一项改革措施，尽管该改革措施被作为一个战略改进加以宣传，只会使很少一些国家得到非常少的益处。


According to the “new quota formula,” members that issue international reserve currencies still appear to be those with more “potential need to borrow” from the IMF.	根据“新配额规则”，发行国际储备货币的成员国似乎仍然是那些对国际货币基金组织有更多“潜在借款需求”的成员国。


This is laughable.	这是很可笑的。


So this brings us to the need to increase “normal” access limits.	所以，这使我们有必要增加“正常的”配额限额。


In 2003-2004, arguably the last period in which the Fund had to provide meaningful assistance to members, approximately 80% of the volume of financial support was provided on an “exceptional” basis, defined as more than 300% of quotas.	在2003年到2004年年间，可能是国际货币基金组织不得不为其成员国提供有价值的帮助的最后阶段，提供的金融援助数额的约80%建立在“例外”基础上，超过配额的300%。


Needless to say, “exceptional” access comes at exceptional financial and political costs.	毫无疑问，“例外”配额必须有额外的金融和政治代价。


No wonder, then, that members rely more on their capacity to accumulate reserves than on the Fund’s ability to provide opportune, affordable, and reliable financial support.	那么，难怪比起依靠国际货币基金组织提供快速、不太昂贵以及可靠的金融援助来，其成员国更多的依靠它们自己的能力来积累储备资金。


The Fund has no instrument to provide short-term liquidity to emerging markets facing capital volatility.	国际货币基金组织没有为面临资金波动的新兴市场提供短期流动性的工具。


In today’s crisis, we have seen some agile and creative reactions from central bankers in advanced economies.	在当前的危机中，我们已经看到一些发达经济体的中央银行官员作出了灵活而具有创造性的反应。


They stepped beyond their mandates to provide quick financial support to investment banks, mostly by supplying private banks with liquid instruments in exchange for longer-term and less liquid assets.	他们超越职权范围，主要用通过为私营银行提供流动性工具以换取长期和流动性较差的资产的方式，为投资银行提供迅速的金融援助。


Why couldn’t the Fund do the same thing for central banks from developing countries and emerging economies?	为什么国际货币基金组织不能为发展中国家和新兴经济体的中央银行做同样的事情呢？


If the IMF is to provide short-term liquidity to members in need, a crucial question that must be resolved is whether such financial assistance should be available only to those with strong macroeconomic fundamentals.	如果国际货币基金组织打算为有需要的成员国提供短期流动性，一个必须解决的至关重要的问题是，这样的金融帮助是否只应该被提供给具有很强的宏观经济基本面的国家。


Overly strict qualification criteria are likely to deter members that may need this kind of support most from applying for it; but overly loose criteria may stigmatize potential users.	过于严格的条件标准可能阻止最需要这种援助的成员国申请援助，但是过于宽松的标准又可能使潜在的援助使用者蒙上污名。


The Fund could solve this dilemma by applying an insurance-like approach.	国际货币基金组织可以通过使用一种保险式的方法来解决这个两难问题。


All members would, in principle, be eligible, but premium rates would be differentiated and established on the basis of quantitative criteria.	原则上，所有的成员国都有资格申请，但是，申请的费率将会被区分开，并在定量标准基础上确定下来。


The scale of premium rates would need to be transparent but the actual cost of access for individual members would remain strictly confidential (as in any insurance contract).	申请费率水平是要保持透明的，但是单个成员获取资金的实际成本将继续严格保密（像任何保险合同做的那样）。


Admittedly, this would require departing from the Fund’s traditional lending in exchange for conditionality.	诚然，这需要越出国际货币基金组织传统的贷款换条件的模式。


It could also require some adjustments to the Fund’s Charter, but so what?  The recently approved reforms already require changes to the IMF’s “Articles of Agreement.”	这也需要对国际货币基金组织的章程作出一些调整，但是，那又怎么样呢？ 最近批准的改革已经需要对《国际货币基金组织协定》作出一些改变。


Some argue that furnishing members with rapid and front-loaded liquidity insurance would encourage irresponsible policies or reckless borrowing.	有些人辩称，为成员国提供迅速和前载型的（front-loaded）流动性保险可能会鼓励不负责任的政策或轻率的借款。


Admittedly, it could help members cope better with volatility and, therefore, be more open to inflows of short-tern capital, but this need not result in bad policies.	诚然，它可以帮助成员国更好地应对波动性，并因此使它们对短期资本的流入持更开放的态度，但是这不是必然会导致很坏的政策。


Given the Northern Rock and Bear Stearns bailouts, overplaying the “moral hazard” argument here sounds hypocritical.	考虑到挽救罗森若克银行和贝尔斯登的行动，在这里夸大“道德风险”的观点听起来是很伪善的。


If the IMF fireman remains idle, it is not because of a lack of fires, but because neighbors, rather than relying on the fire brigade, are protecting themselves.	如果国际货币基金组织这个消防员继续无所事事，这不是因为没有火灾，而是因为邻居们在自己保护自己，而不是依靠消防员。


This undermines the IMF’s relevance and is at the root of the early repayments that have left the Fund with almost no income.	这削弱了国际货币基金组织的在这类问题上的相关性，并且是使国际货币基金组织几乎没有收入的提前还款的基础。


The IMF must change this.	国际货币基金组织必须改变这一点。


“Normal access” should be raised to levels that are concomitant with members’ potential need to borrow, and a new liquidity line to provide reliable and meaningful front-loaded financial support should be created.	“正常额度”应该被提高到与成员国潜在的借款需求相适应的水平，并且应该建立新业务以提供可靠和有价值的前载型（front-loaded）金融援助。


This would make emerging markets and developing country members regard reserve accumulation as expensive and extravagant, thereby helping to liberate those resources to help the world economy overcome today’s crisis.	这会使新兴市场和发展中国家成员认为积累储备资金非常昂贵而且浪费，因此而帮助它们释放这些资金从而帮助世界经济克服现在的危机。


The Ill Wind from the West	来自西方的灾难


NEW DELHI – At the nadir of the financial crisis four years ago, many Asian governments came to believe that robust growth had led to a near-“decoupling” of their economies from the West and its ongoing problems.	新德里—在4年前金融危机处于谷底的时候，许多亚洲国家相信稳健的增长已让它们的经济与西方和伴随西方的问题一起“脱钩”了。


But now, as the eurozone teeters and America’s recovery weakens, Asia, too, is showing signs of faltering.	但如今，随着欧元区的摇摇欲坠和美国复苏的疲软，亚洲也显现出步履蹒跚的迹象了。


Some Asian politicians will, quite conveniently, blame the West for any softening of growth.	一些亚洲政客会很自然地将任何增长疲软迹象的责任推给西方。


But their failure to pursue necessary structural reforms and economic opportunities is equally responsible, if not more so, for the region’s growing travails.	但他们在采取必要的结构性改革、争取经济机会方面的无能同样是亚洲地区陷入增长困境的重要原因。


Consider India.	就拿印度来说吧。


According to the forecaster International Market Assessment, “capital flows that have dried up are not…a reflection of global market conditions,” but of a loss in confidence among investors, arising principally from fiscal mismanagement, which has led to “price instability, falling investments and eventually a decline in…growth.”	根据预测机构国际市场评估（International Market Assessment，IMA）的说法，“资本流枯竭……所反映的并不是全球经济状况”，而是投资者信心缺失，其主要原因是财政管理失当导致的“价格不稳定、投资下降和最终出现的……增长下降”。


With the “government in dormancy,” IMA concludes, “India is quickly losing the plot.”	由于“政府不作为”，IMA推论说，“印度正在快速失速。 ”


India’s situation is indeed worrisome.	印度的状况确实令人担忧。


Double-digit food-price inflation has been accompanied by debate about the share of Indians living below the poverty line, and, indeed, where the poverty line should be drawn.	食品价格通胀达到了两位数，人们对有多大比例的印度人生活在贫困线以下甚至贫困县应该划在什么水平争论不休。


Official statistics use an average daily income of 32 rupees ($0.57) a day to separate the merely poor from the desperately impoverished.	官方统计采用平均日收入32卢比（0. 57美元）作为穷人和贫困的分界线。


Instead of addressing the central paradox of contemporary Indian society – poverty amidst plenty – India’s government has buried its head in the sand.	印度政府并没有着手解决当代印度社会的核心难题——充裕社会中的贫困——反而当起了把头埋在沙子里的鸵鸟。


It proclaims bold reforms, which it then repudiates before the ink is dry.	它号称要采取大手笔改革，但改革方案墨迹未干就被否决了。


Even worse, growing official corruption is sapping private-sector dynamism.	更糟糕的是，日渐严重的官员腐败正在侵蚀私人部门的活力。


But India is not alone in stumbling.	但印度并不是唯一一个步履蹒跚的国家。


China, too, is fearful of a growth slowdown and rising wage inflation.	中国也在担心增长放缓和工资膨胀。


In response, China’s central bank is lowering interest rates to spur domestic investment, and the resulting depreciation of the renminbi’s exchange rate has helped to keep exports afloat.	中国人民银行为此采取了降低利率以刺激国内投资的应对措施，人民币汇率也有所贬值，以助出口复苏。


But China’s import figures for the first half of this year have virtually flat-lined, suggesting that Chinese firms are not investing in new equipment – and thus that China’s economy may hit the doldrums soon.	但中国上半年的进口量基本持平，显示中资企业并未投资于新设备，中国经济可能不久就会遭遇停滞。


Although their political systems are mirror opposites, there are striking parallels in some of China’s and India’s deepest structural problems.	中国的政治制度与印度截然相反，但两国在最深层次结构性问题方面惊人地相似。


Both countries undertook reforms – China in the 1980’s and India in the 1990’s – that decentralized decision-making, and both progressed rapidly.	两国都采取了分散化决策的改革——中国在20世纪80年代，印度在90年代，并取得了快速的进步。


India was compelled by its democracy to pursue a politically decentralizing route, yet much economic decision-making authority remained embedded in New Delhi’s ossified bureaucracy, retarding growth.	在民主制度的推动下，印度的政治决策分散化了，但相当多的经济决策当局仍嵌在新德里僵硬的官僚体制中，阻挠着经济增长。


By contrast, China achieved economic decentralization, but preserved centralized political power, transferring economic-management responsibilities largely to provincial officials, which has created its own imbalances.	相反，中国实现了经济分散化，但保留了中央政治集权，经济管理责任大体上被下放到省级，而这导致了中国自身的失衡问题。


Thus, even as China is compelled to shift from exports to domestic consumption in order to sustain growth, India continues to rely on inward investment, exports of services and raw materials, and lower fiscal and current-account deficits to maintain its growth course.	因此，中国为了维持增长被迫从出口转向国内消费，而印度继续依赖内部投资、服务和原材料出口以及财政和经常项目赤字维持增长态势。


But its most damaging deficit is to be found in governance, as is true of China, where the Bo Xilai scandal has exposed the pathological underside of China’s vaunted technocratic leadership.	但其最危险的赤字存在于治理之中。 中国也是如此，薄熙来丑闻便暴露了中国自我标榜的技术专家治国论背后的问题。


Elsewhere in Asia, structural problems are also mounting.	其他亚洲国家的结构性问题也在日益严重。


In Vietnam, inflation has hovered near 20% or more, with the government seemingly unwilling to embrace deeper reforms.	在越南，通胀率徘徊在20%或以上的水平，政府对于采取进一步改革似乎并不请愿。 泰国没完没了的政治斗争让其经济无法提速；


Thailand’s interminable political imbroglio has left its economy at stall speed; the reformist zeal of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has petered out in his second term following the departure of Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati; and Japan seems to remain in a state of suspended animation.	随着财政部长穆里亚尼的辞职，进入第二个任期的印尼总统苏西洛也失去了改革热情； 而日本看起来要继续在了无生气中挣扎。


Europe’s malaise, and the resulting rise of populist politics, suggests that Asia’s governments can ill afford to sit on their growth laurels.	欧洲的动荡以及由此产生的民粹主义政治的抬头表明，亚洲政府不能继续躺在增长功劳簿上睡大觉了。


Indeed, they should heed a recent comment by Oxford University’s Pavlos Eleftheriadis about a Greek electorate “livid at being led by those who dishonestly caused the problem.”	事实上，牛津大学教授Pavlos Eleftheriadis最近对某希腊选民的评论应该引起亚洲领导人的注意：“对接受不诚实地引发问题的人领导怒不可遏”。


Indeed, according to Eleftheriadis, tax collectors in Greece today are confronted by bull-whip-wielding citizens.	事实上，根据Eleftheriadis的说法，希腊税务官如今正面临着挥舞着大棒的公民。


That sounds a lot like India nowadays.	这听起来与印度何其相像。


There are bold ideas in circulation in Asia that could sustain and promote growth.	亚洲不乏维持和刺激增长的大胆相反。


The recent decision by the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea to launch talks on a trilateral free-trade agreement among, respectively, the world’s second, third, and 12th largest economies is certainly audacious, though reaching an agreement between two of Asia’s great democracies and China will likely make the failed Doha Round of global trade talks seem simple.	最近，中国、日本和韩国领导人决定就三边自由贸易协定展开对话，这三个国家分别是世界第二、第三和第十二大经济体，因此这一想法不可谓不宏伟，尽管亚洲两大民主国家与中国之间形成协议可能会让失败的世贸谈判多哈回合显得颇为愚蠢。


But India is nowhere to be seen in all of this.	但印度看不到任何类似迹象。


Indeed, with Burma’s economy opening to the world, India ought to be taking the lead in seeking to stimulate South Asian growth and economic integration, for only by doing so can it anchor its neighbor within the region.	事实上，随着缅甸���济的对外开放，印度应该当先寻求刺激南亚增长和经济一体化，光是考虑到这样能稳固其地区邻国就值得这样做。


Yet, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently visited Burma, he had little to offer aside from the usual investment proposals.	然而，首相辛格最近在访问印度时并没有拿出常规投资项目之外的计划。


A bold initiative toward Bangladesh would also yield a strongly positive impact on growth, and yet nothing is happening there, either. 	大胆地提出与孟加拉国的合作也能产生非常有效的增长效应，但在这方面印度也一直踯躅不前。


With the major emerging countries, particularly China and India, already in trouble, Asia can expect to be hit hard if the euro sinks.	主要新兴国家，特别是中国和印度，仍陷于麻烦之中，在这样的情况下，欧元崩溃可能会对亚洲造成严重影响。


Before that happens, governments must seize the policy initiative, thereby strengthening global financial markets’ confidence in Asia’s ability to withstand the ill wind from the West.	在这一幕发生之前，各国政府必须抓住政策主动权，从而强化全球金融市场对亚洲抵御西方灾难的能力的信心。


A Metaphor for Obama	奥巴马的比喻


NEW HAVEN – As US President Barack Obama begins his second term, he needs a simple way to express his vision and policies for the economy – a metaphor around which support for his policies might crystallize, thereby boosting his administration’s political effectiveness.	纽黑文——在美国总统奥巴马开始其第二任任期之际，他需要用简单的方式来表述他的目标和经济政策——上述比喻理应聚拢支持其政策的力量，从而提高政府的执政效率。


So, what makes a successful metaphor work?	那么，究竟是什么造就了成功的比喻？


The 2008 Obama campaign used the slogan “Change we can believe in.”	2008年奥巴马的竞选口号是“我们可以相信的变革”。


But “change” is not a metaphor for a new government: it does not stand for any policies.	但新政府以“变革”为喻并不恰当：因为它并不代表任何政策。


Nor does “Hope” or “Yes we can!”	“希望”或“我们能做到！ ”也同样如此。


The 2012 Obama campaign used the one-word slogan “Forward!”	2012年奥巴马的竞选口号选用 “前进！ ”一词。


Once again, it signifies nothing about policies or their underlying philosophy.	但这个词同样代表不了政府的基本理念和政策。


Every politician, whether liberal or conservative, wants to move forward, not backward.	自由或保守派的所有政治家都希望前进，而不想倒退。


Obama’s slogans are examples of “dead metaphors”: they are not part of an overall conceptual scheme.	奥巴马的竞选口号就是人们所说与整体概念架构无关的“死喻”。


By contrast, in the 1930’s, President Franklin Roosevelt used a metaphor that remains very much alive today.	相比之下，富兰克林·罗斯福总统在20世纪30年代所用的比喻今天依然充满活力。


The idea of a “new deal” was conceived during his first presidential election campaign in 1932, though at the time he was still very vague about what the term stood for.	1932年他首次竞选总统期间就提出了“新政”的概念，虽然那时候他也并不清楚这个词的涵义。


Apparently, Roosevelt, or his speechwriters, borrowed it from A New Deal, a book by Stuart Chase that was published in 1932 and adapted the same year into a cover story for the magazine The New Republic.	显然，罗斯福及其撰稿人借用了斯图尔特·蔡斯1932年出版的著作《新政》，这本书让1932年成为《新共和》杂志的封面故事。


Chase described his new deal in general terms as “the drastic and progressive revision of the economic structure, avoiding an utter break with the past.”	蔡斯将新政笼统地描述为“在避免和过去彻底决裂的前提下大刀阔斧地改良经济结构”。


And, while the book’s specific policy proposals bear little resemblance to Roosevelt’s subsequent actions, the title had an intrinsic appeal that he must have recognized.	尽管这本书提出的具体政策与罗斯福的后续措施并无相似之处，但罗斯福肯定注意到了书名所蕴含的感染力。


The New Deal created an image of a commercial transaction, like the buyout of a company or an incentive package for executives – something that contracting parties bargain over and agree to.	新政（交易）建立的形象是商业交易，比方说企业收购或者高管激励——签约双方可以在讨价还价之余达成一致。


It is not imposed.	任何一方都不能将意愿强加给另一方。


By calling it a “deal,” Roosevelt made clear that the plan was not anti-business: it sounded like an offer to work, to participate, to seize an opportunity.	之所以称之为“交易”，罗斯福明确指出施政计划具有商��性质：它更像邀请你参与工作，抓住机遇。


And, because deals can be good or bad, fair or exploitative, the word “new” provided metaphoric depth, suggesting that Roosevelt’s deal was better, fairer, and more attractive.	而且既然是交易就有好有坏，有公平也有榨取，“新”这个字眼暗示了比喻的深度，表明罗斯福新政更好、更公平，也更有吸引力。


The metaphor, overwhelmingly endorsed by voters, stood for Roosevelt’s mandate to fix the ailing economy along lines that were innovative but still essentially capitalist.	这项比喻赢得了压倒多数选民的认可，代表罗斯福的目标是以本质上不违反资本主义的创新方法来挽救疲弱的经济。


Some of his administration’s initiatives, such as the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, seemed anti-business to some at the time, but have long since been accepted as a boon to competition and dynamism by hemming in unfair or manipulative behavior.	罗斯福政府的某些举措，如设立证券交易委员会（SEC）当时在某些人看来似乎有反商业的嫌疑，但打击不正当及操纵行为今天却早已被公认为能够促进竞争和活力。


Metaphors, it turns out, are not just words.	事实证明比喻不光是说说而已。


Modern neuroscience is revealing that metaphors are intrinsic to creativity, for their use activates diverse regions of the brain associated with their multiple meanings.	现代神经学证明比喻是创造力的核心因素，因为它们能够激活与多重涵义相关的不同大脑分区。


Good metaphors are those that set off the right intuitive connections in our brains.	好的比喻在头脑中激起恰当的直觉联系。


For example, much progress in understanding sound and light resulted when scientists imagined them in terms of sea waves.	比如科学家将声光想象为海浪就将对声光的理解推进了一步。


Formulating a good metaphor for Obama’s second term is itself a task for intuitive creative thought that entails rethinking what he will propose in his second term.	确定奥巴马第二任期的恰当比喻本身就要运用直观创造性思维考量他在连任后提出的计划。


A good metaphor might embody the idea of an “inclusive economy.”	好的比喻可能体现一种“融合经济”的理念。


The word “inclusive” resonates strongly: Americans do not want more government per se; rather, they want the government to get more people involved in the market economy.	“融合”这个词能引起强烈的共鸣：美国民众并不希望政府过于强大，而是希望政府能让更多人参与市场经济。


Opinion polls show that, above all, what Americans want are jobs – the beginning of inclusion.	民意调查显示美国人尤其关注就业，而创造就业机会恰恰可以视为融合的开始。


The parallel to Chase’s book today is the 2012 bestseller Why Nations Fail by the economist Daron Acemoglu and the political scientist James Robinson.	今天堪与蔡斯著作媲美的是由经济学家达龙·阿西莫格鲁和政治学家詹姆斯·罗宾逊合著的2012年畅销书《国家为什么失败》。


Acemoglu and Robinson argue that in the broad sweep of history, political orders that include everyone in the economic process are more likely to succeed in the long term.	达龙·阿西莫格鲁和罗宾逊认为在波澜壮阔的历史长河中，让所有人参与经济过程的政治秩序从长远看更有可能取得成功。


The time seems ripe for that idea, and it fits with the triumph of inclusiveness symbolized by Obama himself.	上述理念的时机似乎已经成熟，并且与奥巴马本人所代表的融合的胜利完全相符。


But another step in metaphor-building is needed to encapsulate the idea of economic inclusion.	但确定纳入经济融合理念的比喻还需要另外一个步骤。


The biggest successes of Obama’s first term concerned economic inclusion.	经济融合是奥巴马首任期间最重要的成功。


The Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is providing more people with access to health care – and bringing more people to privately-issued insurance – than ever before in the United States.	纵观美国历史，《平价医疗法案》（“奥巴马医疗法案”）成功地将更多人纳入私人保险系统，并使更多人能够享受医疗保健服务。


The Dodd-Frank financial reforms created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so that privately issued financial products would serve the public better, and created incentives for derivatives to be traded on public markets.	多德－弗兰克金融改革创建了消费者金融保护局，从而使非公开发行的金融产品能更好地为公众服务，同时也创造出在公开市场交易衍生品的激励机制。


And he signed the JOBS Act, proposed by his Republican opponents, which aims to create crowdfunding Web sites that allow small investors to participate in start-up ventures.	他还签署了由共和党对手提出的《就业机会法案》，目的是成立集资网站，让中小投资者参与创办企业。


We have not reached the pinnacle of economic inclusion.	我们还远没有达到经济融合的顶峰。


There are hundreds of other possibilities, including improved investor education and financial advice, more flexible mortgages, better kinds of securitization, more insurance for a broader array of life’s risks, and better management of career risks.	还有成百上千种可能性有待探索，包括改进投资者教育和金融咨询、灵活运用抵押贷款、深入推进证券化、提供更多种多样的生活保险及更好地管理职业风险因素。


Much more progress toward comprehensive public futures and derivatives markets would help, as would policies to encourage the emerging world to participate more in the US economy.	在完善公共期货及衍生产品市场方面的进展将有所助益，此外还有鼓励新兴国家更多参与美国经济的政策。


(Indeed, the inclusion metaphor is essentially global in spirit; had Obama used it in the past, his economic policies might have been less protectionist.)	（其实，融合的比喻从本质上来讲具有全球性，如果奥巴马过去就信奉这种精神，他的经济政策中可能会少些保护主义因素。 ）


The right metaphor would spin some of these ideas, or others like them, into a vision for America’s future that, like the New Deal, would gain coherence as it is transformed into reality.	恰当的比喻能将上述或其他类似理念融入美国未来的愿景，而上述愿景将像新政一样确保可以连贯实现。


On January 29, Obama will give the first State of the Union address of his new term.	1月29日，奥巴马将发表新任期的首篇国情咨文。


He should be thinking about how to express – vividly and compellingly – the principles that have guided his choices so far, and that set a path for America’s future.	他应当思考怎样生动而令人信服地表达迄今为止指引他的原则，并确定美国未来的道路。


The IMF as Global Financial Anchor	The IMF as Global Financial Anchor


Today’s financial market turmoil has exposed weaknesses in the current global financial system, of which many were known but went unaddressed.	当今金融市场的动荡暴露了当前全球金融体系的弱点，人们都知道这些弱点但是并没有加以解决。


This lack of action reflects the increased complexity and linkages of the global financial system, and the absence of an effective anchor for financial stability.	这一缺乏行动反映了全球金融体系的复杂性和相互联系，并且表明金融稳定缺乏一个有效的依靠。


Restoring financial market confidence has had to rely on liquidity injections by major central banks.	恢复金融市场的信心不得不依赖于主要大国中央银行注入流动资金。


While this appears to have been successful, questions remain as to whether the turmoil could have been averted and its impact mitigated.	这一措施尽管看起来是成功的，但是金融动荡是否可以避免及其影响是否可疑减缓尚且存有疑问。


The IMF can play an important role in this regard, owing to its truly global perspective – one that encompasses both advanced economies and emerging and developing economies, which are increasingly integrating into the global financial system.	国际货币基金组织由于其货真价实的全球性视野可以在这一方面发挥重要作用。 该组织包含发达国家以及新兴和发展中国家，而后者则日益融入全球进入体系。


Moreover, the IMF does not focus on financial markets per se , but has unique expertise on the linkages between the real and financial economy.	而且，该组织并不关注于金融市场本身，但是却在实际经济和金融经济的联系上具有独一无二的专长。


Finally, the IMF’s perspective is universal, looking across sectors and markets.	最后，该组织放眼各个领域和市场，其视野也就无所不包。


So far, the Fund has not fully exploited its unique position, because it has often been passive in reaching out, giving clear messages, and making recommendations to its members.	目前为止，该组织尚未完全利用其独特的地位，因为它一贯懒于主动向其成员国发出明确的信息和提出建议。


But the current financial market turmoil has shown that there are regulatory and supervisory gaps and poorly understood international linkages that call for a global response.	但是目前的金融市场动荡已经表明存在监管差距以及人们对于国际联系一知半解，因此需要全球性的对应措施。


We believe that the IMF needs to move decisively on financial stability issues and be more proactive to help prevent and mitigate future crises.	我们相信国际货币基金组织需要在金融温度问题上果断行动，在帮助防止和缓解将来的危机上更为主动。


The IMF should work closely with the Financial Stability Forum, the Bank for International Settlements and other relevant international bodies.	它应该与金融稳定论坛、国际清算银行以及其他有关组织密切合作。


To strengthen the Fund’s financial stability role, we propose action in three related areas.	为了增强该组织金融稳定的作用，我们建议在三个有关领域采取行动。


First, the IMF should promote financial stability through multilateral surveillance.	第一，该组织应该通过多边监控来促进金融稳定。


It should be positioned at the center of international financial markets and provide an analytical platform, not only for central banks and finance ministries, but also for regulators, standard setters, and market participants.	它应该处于国际金融市场的中心，并且不仅仅为各国中央银行和财政部、同样也为监管机关、标准制定者以及市场参与者提供分析平台。


In particular, the Fund should enhance its understanding of the links between supervisory frameworks and macroeconomic conditions, including balance-of-payments and exchange-rate developments, by leveraging the wealth of cross-country information and expertise that it acquires through missions to its 185 members.	特别是，该组织应该通过发挥其驻在185个成员国代表处而获得的大量跨国信息和专长的杠杆作作用来改进理解监管框架和宏观条件的联系，包括收支平衡以及汇率发展变化情况。


This would enable it to identify macroeconomic threats to stability and encourage best practices for supervisors and regulators.	这将会使得其确认宏观经济中对稳定的威胁并且鼓励监管机关采取最佳实务。


Building on its research, the IMF could contribute more to the debate on the macroeconomic and financial implications of private equity, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds, and develop practical recommendations to enhance their contribution to international financial stability.	该组织可以根据其研究来为有关私人募股、对冲基金以及国家财富基金的宏观经济和金融影响的辩论做出贡献，并且制定实际的建议来提升其对国际金融稳定的贡献。


Second, the IMF should promote financial stability through bilateral surveillance.	第二，国际货币基金组织应该通过双边监控促进金融稳定。


It needs to rethink how to address financial stability in its day-to-day work with members.	它需要重新考虑如何在其与成员国的日常工作中处理金融稳定问题。


Financial sector analysis should become fully integrated into the IMF’s surveillance activities.	金融部门分析应该完全融入该组织的监控活动之中。


The IMF should also be more proactive and speak with greater candor in systemically important countries, where shortcomings in financial supervision and crisis management have appeared.	国际货币基金组织还应该更为主动，在体制上重要的国家更为直言不讳。 在这些国家中，金融监管和危机管理的缺点已经显现出来。


It should assist emerging economies in shaping sound domestic financial markets.	它应该帮助新兴经济体国家建立合理的国内金融市场。


These steps would require the IMF mission teams to become more diverse, bringing financial sector expertise in addition to the traditional macro and fiscal skills.	这些步骤要求国际货币基金组织的专家团队更为多样化，除了传统的宏观和财政技能外，还应该带来金融部门的专长。


The Fund needs to hire more financial sector experts, relying less on academic professionals.	该组织需要招聘更多的金融部门专家，减少对学术专业人士的依赖。


Third, the Fund should assist members who have well-defined programs for liberalizing and integrating their economy into the global financial system.	第三，该基金应该帮助项目规划完善的成员国将它们的经济实行自由化并融入全球金融体系之中。


It should consider developing appropriate liquidity instruments to give confidence to emerging market economies that may be affected by a crisis beyond their control, rather than forcing them to build up ever-larger reserves or resort to regional arrangements for self-insurance.	它应该考虑制定适当的流动资金手段来增强那些可能受到超出其控制范围的危机的影响的新兴市场经济体以信心，而不是���使它们建立更大的储备或者转向地区性安排来自我保险。


Action in these three areas would help to create a multilateral institution with the authority and expertise to advise countries on supervisory and regulatory issues of systemic importance.	在这三个方面采取行动将会帮助建立一个多边的机构，该机制具有在向各国提供体制上重要的监管问题上提供建议的权力和专长。


The current turmoil highlights the international financial system’s need for such an institution.	当前的动荡突出了国际金融体系需要这样的机构。


The members that we represent – advanced and emerging countries in Asia and Europe – want to play a role in re-establishing a strengthened IMF at the heart of the international monetary system.	我们所代表的各成员国包括先进国家和亚洲和欧洲的新兴国家，它们想要在国际货币体系的中心重新建立强化的国际货币基金组织上发挥作用。


The IMF Is Bleeding Argentina to Death	IMF的放血疗法


When Argentina's financial crisis first exploded, I pinned the primary responsibility on Argentina itself, rather than on international institutions such as the IMF.	阿根廷金融危机于半年前爆发时，我的看法是阿根廷自己要负主要责任。


Now, half-a-year later, the balance of responsibility needs to be reconsidered.	但是，现在我们需要重新考虑一下责任问题。


Even though Argentina is, in the last analysis, mainly responsible for its fate, the IMF is not helping.	虽然归根结底还是应由阿根廷对自己的命运负责，但是国际货币基金组织也并未起到好的作用。


The problem is not only, or even mainly, the IMF's delay in providing money to Argentina. The bigger problem is the paucity of correct ideas coming from the IMF.	问题不仅仅在于甚至不主要在于国际货币基金组织拖延向阿根廷提供资金，更大的问题在于国际货币基金组织所提的建议乏善可陈。


The IMF lacks a clear idea about what to do in Argentina. It continues to pound on one theme alone: that Argentina's economic crisis is the result of fiscal profligacy, the result of a government living beyond its means.	国际货币基金组织并不明确应该对阿根廷做什么，而只是一味地强调，阿根廷经济危机是由于政府对财政经费挥霍无度造成的，是政府不量入为出的结果。


So it emphasizes the need for Argentina to cut budget expenditures.	因此它强调阿根廷要削减预算开支。


As Argentina's crisis worsens, indeed with output possibly collapsing by 10 to 15% this year and with unemployment soaring, the IMF keeps asking for deeper cuts.	哪怕阿根廷危机进一步恶化，今年的GDP值可能负增长10％～15％，失业人数骤增，国际货币基金组织仍再三要求阿根廷政府削减开支。


This is something like the 18 th century medical practice in which doctors "treated" feverish patients by drawing blood from them, weakening the patients further and frequently hastening their deaths.	这就像是18世纪医生们通过放血“治疗”发烧病人的所谓疗法，结果却是使病人病情加重，且常常加速病人的死亡。


This IMF approach was abandoned in rich countries about seventy years ago during the Great Depression.	富裕国家们自己早在大约70年前的大萧条后便已摒弃了目前国际货币基金组织对阿根廷采取的方法。


When output crumbled due to a profound banking and financial crisis (linked to the collapse of the gold standard), tax revenues plummeted in the US and Europe, and conservative governments tried to cut budget spending to limit budget deficits.	当时，重大银行及金融危机导致产出骤减（与金本位制崩溃相联系），美国和欧洲的税收锐减，政府试图通过削减预算开支限制预算赤字。


As they cut, output fell further and economic misery deepened.	然而越是减少支出，产出就越低，经济困境也越深。


In 1936, John Maynard Keynes demonstrated the futility of trying to balance the budget in the midst of an economic depression.	直到1936年，凯恩斯揭示了在经济不景气时试图平衡预算纯属徒劳无益的道理。


The IMF is tragically ignoring this logic in Argentina.	国际货币基金组织却不幸在阿根廷的问题上忽视了凯恩斯。


Argentina's widening budget deficit is mainly the result of its economic collapse since 1999, not the cause of it.	阿根廷的预算赤字日益扩大，主要是1999年以来阿根廷经济崩溃的结果，而非阿根廷经济崩溃的原因。


The deficit was relatively mild until 1999, when the economy went into recession.	1999年经济陷入衰退前，阿根廷的赤字一直比较适度。


Yes, budgetary waste exists, but it is not the cause of an extreme macroeconomic crisis.	预算浪费的问题的确存在，但不是这场宏观经济极端危机的根源。


The recession was mainly caused not by budgetary spending, but rather by Brazil's sharp devaluation of its currency in February 1999, a step which made Argentina's own Peso uncompetitive and led investors (rightly, it turned out) to expect a similar devaluation in Argentina.	经济衰退并非主要由预算开支引起，而是由1999年2月巴西货币大幅贬值造成。 巴西货币大幅贬值使阿根廷比索失去了竞争力，导致投资者（结果被证明是正确地）预期阿根廷货币也会出现类似的贬值。


As investors fled the country because of fear of devaluation (in a period in which the Argentine Government was promising never to devalue the peso, fixed at one-to-one with the US dollar), interest rates rose and bank deposits fell. This deepened the recession in 2000 and 2001 and led to a rising budget deficit because of declining tax revenues.	投资者惧怕货币贬值而从该国撤资，这导致阿根廷货币利率提高，银行存款减少，使经济在2000年和2001年愈发陷入衰退，并由于税收减少导致预算赤字增加。


Argentina's Government of the time (under President de la Rua) and the IMF tried the Depression-era false "cure" of budget cuts, but there was no way that austerity could keep up with falling tax revenues.	当时的阿根廷德鲁阿政府和国际货币基金组织尝试过大萧条时期削减预算的假“疗法”，然而财政紧缩根本跟不上税收的降幅。


The budget deficit continued to widen as the economy collapsed.	随着经济崩溃，预算赤字依然不断扩大。


The correct approach to solving Argentina's problems in 2001, and now, would have been to end speculation over devaluation.	在2001年秋天之时，解决阿根廷问题的正确方法应是制止对货币贬值的投机行为。


I favored the approach of "dollarization", or replacing the Peso by the US dollar and thereby ending the fear of a future change of the exchange rate.	我支持“美元化”（以美元取代比索）的方法，以消除人们对未来汇率变动的恐惧。


Instead, the government closed down the banking system, so that depositors could no longer convert their pesos into dollars!	相反地，阿根廷政府却关闭了银行系统，使储户无法再将手中的比索换成美元。


Closure of the banking system led to a full collapse of confidence in the country.	关闭银行系统导致阿根廷国内信心全面崩溃。


Now, Argentines are emigrating to Europe and the US in large numbers and are trying to convert Pesos to dollars at any opportunity.	目前大批阿根廷人向欧洲和美国移民，并抓住一切机会将比索兑换为美元。


The Peso is collapsing in value, and the bank system remains frozen.	比索的价值正丧失殆尽，银行系统仍被冻结。


The economy is "dead in the water."	经济状况如一潭死水。


The correct move now is to restore confidence in the banking system and the currency.	目前的正确措施仍然应是恢复人们对银行系统和货币的信心。


This can best be accomplished by dollarizing the economy, just as Argentina should have done last fall.	为此，最好的方法仍是使经济美元化。


In addition, the international community should offer emergency funding to help provide deposit insurance for the banking system, thereby re-establishing a modicum of confidence in financial institutions.	此外，国际社会应该提供救急资金，帮助为银行系统提供存款保险，使人们重新树立对金融机构的哪怕是一点点信心。


International banks in Argentina should work with the Government to restore banking functions within days, not months.	跨国银行应与阿根廷政府通力合作，在数日内而非数月内恢复银行的正常运行。


Argentina should be given a year's full suspension of payments on its foreign debts, to be followed by a deep reduction in overall indebtedness.	阿根廷的外债应被给予一年的全面偿付延期，之后大幅减少其债务总额。


With banks reopened, a currency that works, and suspension of debt servicing, some short-term IMF loans could boost confidence and help the country overcome its crisis of confidence.	有了重新开业的银行、发挥作用的货币和偿债延期，国际货币基金组织提供一些短期贷款就可以增强人们的信心，帮助阿根廷克服信心危机。


Only then should the Government pledge a responsible path of budget spending, but not extreme cuts.	只有到那时，政府才应被要求承诺负责地制定预算支出，而不是极端地削减开支。


Instead, the IMF recommends antiquated and phony solutions.	与之相反，国际货币基金组织的建议却是过时的伪方法。


By focusing on the budget deficit, it is chasing symptoms, not causes.	国际货币基金组织强调预算赤字，其实是治标不治本。


It is putting forward economically and politically impossible recommendations, telling Argentina to cut public services to the extreme, when schools and hospitals are already on the verge of collapse.	国际货币基金组织提出的建议在经济上、政治上都不可行，在阿根廷的学校和医院都几近崩溃的边缘时却劝其将公共服务减至最少。


For centuries, doctors weakened or killed their patients in large numbers through bleeding, until medicine became a science.	在医学尚未成为一门科学前的数个世纪，医生们采用放血疗法，导致无数病人病情加重乃至不治而亡。


It is high time that the IMF approach its mission scientifically and recognize that it is on the wrong track in Argentina.	现在是国际货币基金组织以科学的方法执行其使命的时候了，国际货币基金组织应该认识到在阿根廷的问题上它走入了误区。


As a result, the IMF must increasingly share responsibility and blame for Argentina's havoc.	因此，对于阿根廷的灾难，国际货币基金组织应该越来越多地承担责任。 â


The IMF’s America Problem	国际货币基金组织面临的美国问题


The IMF’s meeting this spring was lauded as a breakthrough, with officials given a new mandate for “surveillance” of the trade imbalances that contribute significantly to global instability.	国际货币基金组织今年春天的这次会议被誉为是一次突破，因为基金组织的官员们将要对贸易不平衡这个引起全球动荡的主要因素进行新的“监控”。


The new mission is crucially important, both for the health of the global economy and the IMF’s own legitimacy.	就全球经济的健康发展以及国际货币基金组织自身的合法性而言，这一新的使命具有特别重要的意义。


But is the Fund up to the job?	但是，基金组织是否有能力承担这一工作呢？


There is obviously something peculiar about a global financial system in which the richest country in the world, the United States, borrows more than $2 billion a day from poorer countries – even as it lectures them on principles of good governance and fiscal responsibility.	在全球经济体系中，美国这个最富有的国家每天向其他国家的借款要超过20亿美元——尽管他们已经接受过关于良好管理原则以及财政责任的教育。


So the stakes for the IMF, which is charged with ensuring global financial stability, are high: if other countries eventually lose confidence in an increasingly indebted US, the potential disturbances in the world’s financial markets would be massive.	因此，对于肩负着保证全球经济稳定的国际货币基金组织来说，存在着非常高的风险：如果其他国家对债务日益增多的美国失去信心，那么世界金融市场将出现巨大的动荡。


The task facing the IMF is formidable.	国际货币基金组织的任务是非常艰巨的。


It will, of course, be important for the Fund to focus on global imbalances, not bilateral imbalances.	当然，基金组织的重点在于全球性不平衡而非双边贸易不平衡。


In a multilateral trading system, large bilateral trade deficits are often balanced by bilateral surpluses with other countries.	在多边贸易体系中，双边贸易的大额逆差可以通过和其他国家的贸易顺差来弥补。


China might want oil from the Middle East, but those in the Middle East – with so much wealth concentrated in so few hands – might be more interested in Gucci handbags than in China’s mass-produced goods.	中国也许想要中东的石油，但中东那些由少数人掌握巨大财富的国家，也许对古奇手袋更感兴趣而非中国大规模制造的商品。


So China can have a trade deficit with the Middle East and a trade surplus with the US, but these bilateral balances indicate nothing about China’s overall contribution to global imbalances.	因此中国在与中东的贸易中呈现逆差，但与美国贸易则为顺差。 但这种双边贸易平衡并不能体现中国对全球不平衡的总体影响。


The US is jubilant about its success in expanding the IMF’s role, because it thought that doing so would ratchet up pressure on China.	美国对于国际货币基金组织角色的扩展而沾沾自喜，以为这样会给中国施压。


But America’s glee is shortsighted.	但美国人的这种高兴是短视的。


If one looks at multilateral trade imbalances, the US stands head and shoulders above all others.	如果看看多边贸易不平衡的情况，美国比任何国家都要糟糕。


In 2005, the US trade deficit was $805 billion, while the sum of the surpluses of Europe, Japan, and China was only $325 billion.	2005年，美国贸易逆差高达8050亿美元，而与欧洲、日本、中国贸易顺差的总额却只有3250亿美元。


Any focus on trade imbalances thus should center on the major global imbalance: that of the US.	因此，对贸易不平衡的关注焦点应该落在全球主要的不平衡国家：亦即美国。


The task of assessing trade imbalances – whom to blame and what should be done – involves both economics and politics.	对贸易不平衡的评估——谁该受到谴责，应该怎么做——包涵着经济和政治两个方面。


Trade imbalances are the result, for instance, of household decisions about how much to save and how much – and what – to consume.	贸易不平衡是一个结果，比如一个家庭对于要存多少钱，要花多少钱，都花在什么地方等决定的结果。


They are also the result of government decisions: how much to tax and spend (which determines the amount of government savings or deficits), investment regulations, exchange-rate policies, and so forth.	这同时也是政府决策的结果：税收和支出（决定了政府收入与赤字）、投资法规、外汇政策等等。


All of these decisions are interdependent.	所有这些决策都是相互影响的。


For example, America’s huge agriculture subsidies contribute to its fiscal deficit, which translates into a larger trade deficit.	比如，美国巨额农业补贴造成财政赤字，而后转化为更大的贸易赤字。


But agricultural subsidies have consequences for China and other developing countries.	但农业补贴却对中国和其他发展中国家造成了影响。


Were China to revalue its currency, its farmers would be worse off; but in a world of free(r) trade, US farm subsidies translate into lower global agricultural prices, and thus lower prices for Chinese farmers.	如果中国对人民币进行重新评估，其农村状况将进一步恶化； 但在国际自由贸易中，美国农业补贴转化为世界范围内农产品的低价，以及中国农产品的低价。


By extending its largesse to rich corporate farms, the US may not have intended to harm the world’s poor, but that is the predictable result.	美国对于富有的联合农场的慷慨大方，也许并无意伤害世界上的穷国，但这却是可以预见的结果。


This poses a dilemma for Chinese policymakers.	这使中国决策者陷入了两难的处境。


Subsidizing their own farmers would divert money from education, health, and urgently needed development projects.	对自己的农民进行补贴则要转移用于教育、健康和其他急需发展的项目上的资金。


Or China can try to maintain an exchange rate that is slightly lower than it would be otherwise.	或者中国可以将汇率保持在比实际稍低一些的水平。


If the IMF is to be evenhanded, should it criticize America’s farm policies or China’s exchange-rate policies?	如果国际货币基金组织要做到公平，那么是该批评美国的农业政策还是中国的汇率政策？


Ascertaining whether a country’s trade imbalances are the result of misguided policies or a natural consequence of its circumstances is also no easy task.	确定一个国家的贸易不平衡是由于政策失误还是周围环境造成的自然结果，这不是一件轻松的任务。


A country’s trade deficit equals the difference between domestic investment and savings, and developing countries are normally encouraged to save as much as they can.	一个国家的贸易赤字等于内部投资与其储蓄的差额，而发展中国家通常会被鼓励尽可能地储蓄。


Evidently, China’s population has more than responded to such admonitions.	很明显，中国的人口已经超出了对这些警告的反应。


Stronger safety net programs might reduce the need for precautionary savings in the future, but such reforms cannot be accomplished overnight.	更加强大的安全网络体系可以减少做未雨绸缪的储蓄的必要性，但这种改革并非一蹴而就。


Investment is high, but further investment growth risks misallocating money, so reductions in China’s trade imbalance may be hard to achieve.	中国的投资是高额的，但进一步投资增加了资金错误分配的风险，因此降低中国贸易不平衡也许并非易事。


Moreover, a change in China’s exchange rate would do little to alter the multilateral trade deficit in the US.	而且，改变中国的汇率并不能改变美国多边贸易赤字的现状。


Americans might simply switch from buying Chinese textiles to imports from Bangladesh.	美国人可以不买中国的纺织品而去孟加拉进口。


It is difficult to see how a change in China’s exchange rate would have a significant effect on either savings or investments in the US – and thus how it would redress global imbalances.	很难看到中国汇率的改变能够明显影响美国的储蓄或者投资，进而解决国际不平衡的状况。


With the US trade deficit the major global imbalance, attention should focus on how to increase its national savings – a question that US governments have struggled with for decades, and one that was frequently debated when I was chair of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.	由于美国贸易赤字成为一个主要的全球性贸易不平衡，如何增加其全国储蓄则应成为一个值得关注的问题——美国政府已经为此奋斗了几十年，在我就任克林顿内阁的经济顾问委员会主席时，这就是一个经常辩论的话题。


While it’s true that tax preferences might yield slightly higher private savings, the loss of tax revenues would more than offset the gains, thereby actually reducing national savings.	确实，税收优惠可能会提高个人储蓄，但税收上的损失与其收益并不相符，因此全国储蓄实际上是减少的。


We found only one solution: reduce the fiscal deficit.	我们只找到一个解决办法：减少财政赤字。


In short, the US bears responsibility both for trade imbalances and the policies that might quickly be adopted to address them.	简而言之，美国担负着贸易不平衡的责任以及迅速采取政策予以解决的责任。


The IMF’s response to its new mission of assessing global imbalances will thus test its battered political legitimacy.	国际货币基金组织评估全球贸易不平衡的这一新使命便是对其摇摇欲坠的政治合法性的考验。


At its spring meeting, the Fund failed to commit itself to choosing its head on the basis of merit, regardless of nationality, and it did not ensure that voting rights are allocated on a more limited legitimate basis. Many of the emerging-market countries, for example, are still underrepresented.	在春天的这次会议上，国际货币基金组织未能依据能力而非国籍选出领导者，国际货币基金组织并未保证选举权会在一个更大的范围内分配，比如很多正在崛起的国家并未能获得选举权。


If the IMF’s analysis of global imbalances is not balanced, if it does not identify the US as the major culprit, and if it does not direct its attention on America’s need to reduce its fiscal deficits – through higher taxes for America’s richest and lower defense spending – the Fund’s relevance in the twenty-first century will inevitably decline.	如果国际货币基金组织对于全球贸易不平衡的分析不能做到公平，如果不能认出美国是需要负主要责任的国家，如果不能引导人们关注于美国降低财政赤字的必要性——通过对美国富人提高税收并降低国防支出来实现——国际货币基金组织对于21世纪的实质作用将会不可避免的降低。


The IMF’s Lending Overhaul	国际货币基金组织全面革新贷款政策


The International Monetary Fund should be an essential port of call for emerging-market and developing countries facing financing needs.	对于面临资金需求的新兴市场和发展中国家来说，国际货币基金组织（IMF）应该成为一个必不可少的避风港。


With its ability to mobilize large financial resources and buttress policy credibility, the IMF can help mitigate the large economic and social costs often associated with crises.	通过使大量金融资源流动起来，并为政策可信度提供支持，IMF能够帮助降低高额的经济和社会成本，而这些成本常常和危机联系在一起。


Against this background, the world has come together in the midst of the crisis to radically overhaul the framework for IMF lending.	在这样的背景下，世界各国在危机里走到一起，对国际货币基金组织的贷款体系进行了大幅度的全面革新。


Now and in the future, the world needs the IMF to respond flexibly and effectively to its members’ needs.	在此刻以及将来，世界需要IMF组织对其成员的需要作出灵活有效的回应。


First and foremost, our financing packages should be large enough relative to the size of the problem to make a difference.	首先，我们的一揽子资金筹措计划应该具备一定规模，能和问题的大小成比例，这样才可以发挥作用。


In addition, the absence of an IMF insurance facility with acceptable terms has been a major gap in the global financial architecture, especially for the more dynamic emerging-market economies.	此外，我们还缺乏一个IMF的保险机制，这个机制附带可接受的条款。 缺乏这一机制已经成了全球金融架构中的主要缺陷，对于更加生气勃勃的新兴市场经济来说尤其如此。


This is despite all the evidence of the value of early access to IMF financing, before a tough situation deteriorates into a crisis.	不管怎样，这证明了在艰难的局势恶化成为危机之前，IMF资金的尽早介入是具有价值的。


Moreover, while it remains essential to attach policy conditions to IMF-supported programs, they should be focused squarely on solving a country’s critical problems, so that the conditions will be relevant rather than intrusive.	而且，虽然针对IMF支持的项目仍然需要提出附加的政策条件，这些条件应该完全集中在解决一个国家的关键问题，因此这些条件才会是适宜的，而不是干涉性的。


With our members’ support, we are implementing important reforms to our lending policies that will encourage countries to approach the IMF early on, before crises become severe and almost intractable.	在成员国的帮助下，我们将对IMF的贷款政策实施重要的改革，这将鼓励各成员国在危机恶化并且几乎无法控制之前能够尽早向IMF靠拢。


The reform comprises three core elements:	这一改革包括了三大核心因素：


First, policy conditions associated with future IMF lending will be better tailored to country circumstances.	首先，IMF借款的政策条件在将来会更加适应各国的情况。


A new Flexible Credit Line makes high-volume financing available – even before a crisis has struck – without any ex post policy conditionality to qualifying countries with strong economic fundamentals and policy frameworks.	新的“弹性信贷额度”会提供高额贷款，甚至是在危机之前。 而且， 事后 也不会对达到标准的国家实行政策制约：这些国家都具有良好的经济基础和政策框架。


Some observers have dubbed the new facility “EZ loan,” though few countries meeting the qualifying criteria would consider their policy achievements – and their commitment to maintaining that record – anything but “easy.”	一些观察家已经把新的工具称为“容易贷款’，尽管很少有达到合格标准的国家会认为他们在政策上的成功，以及他们坚持达到标准的努力是“容易”的。


For others, conditionality will be more tightly focused on core areas, and “structural” conditions that require hard-to-time legislative measures will be judged in a less formalistic manner.	对于其他国家，制约政策将会更加严密地关注核心领域，IMF 会以一种不那么形式主义的方式来评判“结构性”的条件，这些条件需要通过立法措施来加以实现，但是立法的时间难以确定。


Second, for those not qualifying for the new instrument, the Fund’s workhorse lending facility, the Stand-By Arrangement, will be made more flexible along several dimensions. These include permitting high financial access even before a crisis materializes, and allowing disbursements to be more front-loaded.	第二，对于那些不够资格使用新工具的国家而言，IMF的主力借贷工具—“备用安排”计划—在一些方面将会变得更加灵活，包括甚至在危机形成之前就可以得到巨额金融支持，允许用前期更加从紧的方式来进行支付等。


Third, the amount of lending available from the IMF is being raised substantially.	第三，能够从IMF获得的借款数量也被大幅度提高。


Normal limits on access to IMF resources are being doubled – a development consistent with the growing consensus that the Fund’s lending capacity needs to be at least doubled given the severity of this crisis.	向IMF求援的标准资金限额增加了一倍，这一进展和人们日渐达成的共识相一致，即：考虑到危机的严重性，IMF的借款能力 至少 需要增加一倍。


This is extremely important, since few things are as fatal to the credibility of a policy package as insufficient financing.	这一点至关重要：对于一揽子政策的可信度而言，几乎没有什么比缺乏资金更致命了。


Taken together, these steps address the core problems – the stigma associated in the past with IMF conditionality, the availability of early pre-crisis financing, and the overall size of rescue packages – that have sometimes diminished the effectiveness of the Fund’s role as a crisis lender.	这些步骤同时采用，就可以解决核心问题：和IMF组织制约性相关连的污点，危机前能否提早获得资金，以及一揽子拯救计划的总体规模。 有些时候，上述问题削弱了IMF作为危机时刻的借款者的作用。


Emerging markets that approach the IMF early on for pre-crisis financing will find shelter from the winds of global deleveraging, which in turn will help contain the spread of the crisis.	那些提早向IMF靠拢，在危机前寻求资金帮助的的新兴市场将会得以从全球失衡的风暴中幸免，随后这将有助于抑制危机扩散。


The IMF has already moved quickly to help many of our member countries in this time of crisis, including by protecting social spending in order to cushion the impact of the crisis on the most vulnerable.	在这一危机时刻，IMF组织已经快速前进，为多个成员国提供了帮助，包括采用保护社会开支的方式来缓和危机对最易受伤者的影响。


The lending reforms adopted this week will enable us to be even more flexible and responsive in assisting even more countries.	这周开始进行的借款改革将使我们能够作出更加灵活快速的反应，帮助更多的国家。


At the same time, these reforms are only a part of a much larger plan for IMF renewal.	与此同时，这些改革只是IMF组织大型革新计划的一部分而已。


Still in the pipeline are initiatives to increase concessional lending to low-income countries hit by the crisis, to strengthen the Fund’s surveillance and early warning capacity, and to improve its governance structure in ways that recognize the larger role of emerging-market countries in the world economy.	制定中的创新计划还有：给身陷危机的低收入国家增加优惠借款，加强IMF组织的监管和提前预警能力，承认新兴市场国家在世界经济中的重要地位， 并以此来改善IMF的管理机构。


It is my hope that further action in all these areas will be taken in the coming months.	我希望，以后的几个月我们将在所有这些领域中采取进一步的行动。


Together, they constitute a turning point in the way the IMF works, and will allow it to serve its global membership even better.	这些行动合在一起，会成为IMF工作道路上的一个转折点，并使IMF能为全世界的成员国提供更好的服务。


The IMF’s Half Step	IMF的半步


BOSTON – “What used to be heresy is now endorsed as orthodox,” John Maynard Keynes remarked in 1944, after helping to convince world leaders that the newly established International Monetary Fund should allow the regulation of international financial flows to remain a core right of member states.	波士顿—“过去的异端，现在被认为是正统了，”1944年凯恩斯在帮助说服世界领导人新成立的IMF应该将国际金融流监管视为成员国核心权利后评论说。


By the 1970’s, however, the IMF and Western powers began to dismantle the theory and practice of regulating global capital flows.	但是，到了20世纪70年代，IMF和西方列强开始推翻这一理论，实践全球资本流监管。


In the 1990’s, the Fund went so far as to try to change its Articles of Agreement to mandate deregulation of cross-border finance.	20世纪90年代，IMF甚至试图修改章程，开始指导起跨境金融去监管来。


With much fanfare, the IMF recently embraced a new “institutional view” that seemingly endorses re-regulating global finance.	IMF最近不无自满地采取了新的“制度性观点”，支持全球金融的重新监管。


While the Fund remains wedded to eventual financial liberalization, it now acknowledges that free movement of capital rests on a much weaker intellectual foundation than does the case for free trade.	IMF的目标仍是终极金融自由化，但它现在也承认，资本的自由流动的理论基础要比自由贸易弱得多。


In particular, the IMF now recognizes that capital-account liberalization requires countries to reach a certain threshold with respect to financial and governance institutions, and that many emerging-market and developing countries have not.	特别地，IMF承认，资本账户自由化要求国家在金融和治理制度方面达到一定的门槛，而许多新兴市场和发展中国家尚不能做到这一点。


More fundamentally, the Fund has accepted that there are risks as well as benefits to cross-border financial flows, particularly sharp inward surges followed by sudden stops, which can cause a great deal of economic instability.	更为根本的是，IMF接受了跨境金融流利弊共存的观点，特别是大规模流入之后发生的突然断流，这会造成极大的经济动荡。


What grabbed headlines was that the IMF now believes that countries could even use capital controls, renamed “capital flow management measures,” if implemented alongside monetary and fiscal measures, accumulation of foreign-exchange reserves, and macroprudential financial regulations.	吸引眼球的是，如今IMF认为国家甚至可以动用资本管制——它把这重命名为“资本流管理措施”（CFMM）——如果和货币和财政措施、外汇储备累积和宏观审慎金融监管一起实施的话。


Even under such circumstances, CFMMs should generally not discriminate on the basis of currency.	即使在这样的环境中，CFMM也不应该有货币歧视。


But has the IMF’s reconsideration of financial globalization gone far enough?	但IMF关于金融全球化的反思是不是有点过犹不及？


This month, the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office released an assessment of the Fund’s policy on reserve accumulation that implies that a “one size fits all” approach to reserve accumulation continues to prevail within the organization.	本月，IMF独立评估办公室发布了一份对IMF储备累积政策的评估报告，报告显示，“放之四海而皆准”的储备累积方法仍在IMF内部占据主流。


Many emerging-market policymakers view accumulation of foreign-exchange reserves during the 2000’s as having insured their countries against exchange-rate volatility and loss of export competitiveness.	许多新兴市场决策者把21世纪第一个十年中的外汇储备累积视为确保国家抵抗汇率波动和出口竞争力下降的秘诀。


Yet the IMF pinned significant blame for global financial instability on this policy.	但IMF认为，该政策是造成全球金融动荡的主要原因。


Not surprisingly, given their decades of experience with the management and mismanagement of capital flows, emerging-market policymakers have been watching the IMF’s “rethink” on these issues very closely.	毫不奇怪，新兴市场决策者在其几十年来管理资本流的经验和教训中一直在近距离目睹IMF对这些问题的“反思”。


From 2009 to 2011, with advanced economies pursuing near-zero interest rates and quantitative easing, yield-hungry investors flooded countries like South Korea and Brazil with hot money, fueling currency appreciation and inflating asset bubbles.	2009—2011年，发达国家采取了零利率和量化宽松，追求收益率的投资者纷纷带着热钱涌向韩国和巴西等国家，造成了货币升值和资产泡沫。


When the eurozone panic ensued in July 2011, inflows came to a halt and fled to the “safety” of the United States, Switzerland, and beyond.	当欧元区恐慌在2011年7月随之而起时，资本流入戛然而止，资本纷纷逃向美国、瑞士和其他“安全”之地。


Unlike in the past, however, emerging and developing countries avoided the worst, precisely because they had learned to accumulate foreign reserves and regulate cross-border capital flows, and to ease such measures to prevent or mitigate sudden stops.	但是，与过去不同，新兴和发展中国家避免了最坏情况，其原因正是它们学会了累积外汇储备和监管跨境资本流，并放松此类措施来防止或减轻突然断流的不利影响。


And yet, despite abundant academic evidence and country experience to the contrary, the IMF remains stubbornly wedded to the idea of eventual capital-account liberalization.	而尽管存在充分的可用于反证的理论证据和国家经验，IMF仍顽固地抱着终极资本账户自由化的观点不放。


In a new study that surveys and updates the economics literature, Arvind Subramanian, Olivier Jeanne, and John Williamson conclude that “the international community should not seek to promote totally free trade in assets – even over the long run – because…free capital mobility seems to have little benefit in terms of long-run growth.”	在一篇对经济学的最新综述研究中��阿尔文·萨博拉曼尼安（Arvind Subramanian）、奥利维尔·吉尼（Olivier Jeanne）和约翰·威廉森（John Williamson）推论道，“国际社会不应该鼓吹资产交易的完全自由化——即使从长期角度看也不应如此——因为……资本自由流动似乎对长期增长没有好处。 ”


Thus, the IMF’s recommendation to use capital controls only after exhausting interest-rate adjustment, reserve accumulation, and prudential regulation is out of step with the profession.	因此，IMF关于在利率调节、储备累积和审慎监管都已用尽的情况下才使用资本管制的建议并不专业。


Indeed, recent work in economic theory shows that capital controls can actually be the optimal policy choice.	事实上，最新的经济理论证明，资本管制在实际中也许是最优政策选择。


For example, the new welfare economics of capital controls views unstable capital flows as negative externalities on recipient countries, which implies that regulations on cross-border flows are the optimal tools to address market failures, improve market functioning, and enhance growth, not worsen it.	比如，资本管制的新福利经济学认为，不稳定的资本流对流入国来说属于负外部性，这意味着跨境流管制是纠正市场失灵、改善市场运行状况、提振（而不是恶化）增长的最优工具。


Indeed, the IMF’s own research shows that countries that deployed capital controls first – or alongside a host of other macroprudential measures – were among the most resilient during the global financial crisis.	事实上，IMF自己的研究表明，一开始就采用，或者与其他宏观审慎措施一起采用的资本管制在全球金融危机期间起到了最强的提振效果。


In many cases, the controls were neither market-based nor temporary.	在许多案例中，资本管制既不是基于市场的，也不是临时性的。


The IMF also fails to appreciate fully that capital flows should be regulated at “both ends,” or at least that advanced-country regulations will not make matters worse.	IMF的另一个失误是没有充分认识到资本流应该在“两端”同时监管，或者说，至少发达国家的监管没有让事情更糟。


IMF research over the last year has outlined circumstances in which industrialized countries should also take part in regulating global capital flows.	IMF对去年的研究列出了工业化国家应该参与监管全球资本流的情形。


But the new view also highlights an important obstacle: many advanced countries’ trade and investment treaties prohibit the regulation of cross-border finance.	但新观点也凸显了一个重要壁垒：许多发达国家的贸易和投资条约禁止监管跨境金融。


The good news is that Article VI of the IMF Articles of Agreement still stands: “Members may exercise such controls as are necessary to regulate international capital movements.”	好消息是IMF章程第六条仍然适用：“成员国可以执行此类管制作为监管国际资本流动的必要手段。


The IMF is making strides in the right direction, but emerging markets will have to remain in the lead.	”IMF正在朝争取的方向前进，但新兴市场将不得不起到领导作用。


They have proven to be the best judges of their economic needs and priorities; as they consider the IMF’s new stance on financial globalization, they should continue to heed their own counsel.	它们已经证明，自己才是本国经济需求和当务之急的最佳判官； 当它们考虑IMF的金融全球化新立场时，它们应该继续据理力争。


The IMF’s Next Mission?	IMF的下一项使命？


The world economy is increasingly threatened by volatile market reactions to global imbalances at a time when the IMF has largely lost its original raison d’être as the world’s central monetary institution.	在国际货币基金组织（IMF）几乎已丧失其起初作为世界性中央货币机构而存在的理由的情况下，世界经济正越来越受到来自对全球不平衡的动荡市场反应的威胁。


These two developments should stimulate the Fund to claim a new purpose as the world’s reserve manager.	这两种情况都应该激励该组织担当起世界储备管理者的新角色。


In the 1960’s, the IMF managed the problems of all the major economies, and in the 1980’s and 1990’s, it developed as a crisis manager for emerging markets.	在1960年代，IMF管理了所有主要经济体的问题，在1980和1990年代，它发展成为新兴市场的危机管理者。


But that job is much harder now, because of the size of some of the big emerging economies.	但由于一些新型经济体的巨大体量，这一任务现在变得更为困难。


And, in any case, the focus of financial nervousness is shifting back to the world economy’s core countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, which are funding large current account deficits with surpluses from much poorer countries.	不论如何，财政紧张的焦点正重新转移到世界经济的核心国家，如美国、英国和澳大利亚，它们都以（比它们）贫穷得多的国家的盈余来延续着自己巨额的经常项目下赤字。


These surpluses reflect high savings rates, both in the private and the public sector, in oil-producing and emerging Asian economies, which have resulted in their rapid accumulation of foreign reserves.	这些盈余反映了在产油和新兴的亚洲国家的私有及公共部门的高储蓄率，其结果是快速积累外汇储备。


But this is hardly a blessing for these countries.	但这对于这些国家而言却并不是件好事。


Their reserves have become so large that even the announcement of a small shift in assets – say, from euros to dollars – can move markets and cause disruptions and panics.	它们的外汇储备变得如此巨大，以至于一个关于资产小幅转换的声明—比如，从欧元到美元—也能震动市场，造成混乱和恐慌。


Like past reserve regimes that offered a choice of assets (for example, the dollar, the pound, and gold in the interwar period), instability is inherent.	与过去提供资产选择（如，美元、英镑和战争期间的黄金）的储备机制一样，不稳定性是沿袭的。


The new surplus countries’ attempts to find alternative reserve assets have been problematic.	新兴盈余国家企图在储备资产上另辟蹊径的尝试也遭遇了不少麻烦。


Most of the attention has been fixed on China’s $1 trillion in reserves, and its efforts to maintain the value of those assets.	最引人注目的是中国1万亿美元的外汇储备及其维持这些资产价值的努力。


Diversification from US Treasury bills by investing some $3 billion in the Blackstone private equity fund this summer was swiftly followed by an embarrassing collapse in value.	为了从美国国库券以外开始多元化，中国今夏向黑石私募股权基金投入30亿美元，但很快就品尝到了投资贬值的尴尬。


On the receiving end, industrial countries’ governments are anxious that new sovereign wealth funds (SWF’s) are being used strategically, rather than simply following the logic of the market.	作为接受方，工业化国家的政府们所顾虑的是新的主权财富基金(SWF)正被战略性地使用，而并非只是遵循市场逻辑。


Even the successful model for SWF’s, Singapore’s Temasek, which for a long time went largely unnoticed, is now attracting a level of attention that its owners and managers never wanted.	就连SWF的楷模，长期低调的新加坡淡马锡，现在也正吸引着其所有者和经理们都不愿面对的注意力。


The growing anxiety is understandable.	这种日益增长的焦虑是可以理解的。


After all, given that emerging market economies’ central banks and SWF’s nowadays effectively dominate capital markets, outcomes no longer result from the interplay of millions of independent guesses, decisions, or strategies.	毕竟，在新兴市场经济体的央行和SWF们有效地主导资本市场的今天，决定结果的因素不再是成百上千万的独立猜想、决策或战略之间的相互作用。


When entities of such a size make decisions, they are bound to act in a strategic way.	当体量如此巨大的实体做出决策时，它们一定会采取战略行动。


All the parties begin to suspect political manipulation.	而所有相关方都开始怀疑其政治操纵的目的。


But the resulting controversies can be resolved, and the political venom neutralized, through surveillance by multilateral institutions that are committed to achieving an overarching good.	但由此造成的争议可以解决，政治上的敌意也是可以化解的。 具体实现方式就是通过致力于实现广大的共同利益的多边机构进行监督。


That should be the IMF’s core function.	这应该是IMF的核心功能。


Today surveillance means, in effect, merely giving advice.	当今的监督实际上就仅仅是提出建议的意思。


But in the 1960’s – when the IMF still supervised the rules of the Bretton Woods order’s par value system before its disintegration in 1971 – surveillance was linked to the Fund’s effectiveness as a major financial intermediary.	但在1960年代—当IMF还监督着布雷顿平价体系（在其1971年崩溃以前）的规则时—监督是和该组织作为一个主要金融调解机构的效率联系在一起的。


The IMF’s ability to give powerful advice to the most important countries, such as the UK, was enhanced by these countries’ dependence on IMF resources.	IMF向如英国等最重要的国家提出强有力的建议的能力由于这些国家对其资源的依赖性而进一步增强。


It was the IMF’s financial power that gave it its bite, and that power was enhanced by Fund borrowing, at first from the G-10, which established the General Arrangements to Borrow.	IMF的影响力来自其金融实力，而这种实力的增强得益于其借款能力。 起初是向设立了《借款总安排》的十国集团借款。


In the years after the collapse of Bretton Woods, the IMF reinvented itself as a principle vehicle for managing the surpluses that followed the oil price shocks of the 1970’s.	在布雷顿森林体系崩溃后的十年里，IMF重新化身为1970年代石油价格震荡所带来的储备盈余的首要管理机构。


It borrowed from the new surplus countries, which thus partly managed their new assets through the intermediation of the IMF.	它向新兴的盈余国家借款，后者也由此通过IMF的调节在一定程度上管理新资产。


As a result, to the Fund could lend to those countries that suffered shocks from the increase in petroleum prices.	其结果就是该组织能向受到石油价格提升冲击的国家发放贷款。


Indeed, a large financial actor can play a stabilizing role.	的确，大型金融机构能够扮演稳定性的角色。


In the past, the counter-cyclical behavior of large private institutions stabilized market expectations during panics.	在过去，大型私营机构的反周期行为在恐慌时期能够稳定市场预期。


The house of Rothschild made the first half of the nineteenth century stable.	洛希尔家族（The House of Rothschild）稳定了十九世纪上半叶。


In the great panics of 1895-6 and 1907, J.P. Morgan calmed the US economy.	在1895-1896和1907年的大恐慌中，J•P•摩根安抚了美国经济。


At the time of the Great Depression in the 1930’s, there was no equivalent power.	而在1930年代的大萧条中，却没有同等的中坚力量。


In 2007, there are some signs that Goldman Sachs feels obliged to lean against the wind in order to stabilize markets.	在2007年，有迹象表明高盛感到为了稳定市场有义务逆风而行。


The IMF could be a powerful financial stabilizer if it managed a significant part of the new surplus countries’ reserve assets, for it would be well placed to take bets against speculators.	如果IMF能够管理新兴盈余国家的相当一部分储备资产，那么它就能成为一个强大的金融稳定者，因为如此一来它就有足够的优势与投机者博弈。


This would ultimately benefit the reserve assets’ owners, who, by virtue of accumulating large surpluses, have a similar interest in world economic and financial stability.	这最终会给储备资产的所有人带来益处。 因为积累了巨额的盈余，它们在世界经济和金融的稳定方面有着相似的利益。


At the same time, the management of reserve assets by an internationally controlled asset manager would remove suspicions and doubts about the use of assets for strategic political purposes.	同时，通过一位受到国际社会监控的管理人来管理储备资产能够消除人们对为了战略政治目的而使用资产的疑虑。


But, to carry out this completely new task, the IMF would need to regain the trust of its members.	但是，要执行这项全新的任务，IMF需要重获其成员国的信任。


The rise in reserves in many Asian countries was a deliberate response to the 1997 financial crisis, which fueled disillusion with the IMF.	许多亚洲国家储备激增是对1997年金融危机的刻意回应。 这场危机进一步加深了它们对IMF的失望。


So, before it could assume the role of global reserve manager, new surplus countries would need substantially more influence over the Fund’s governance.	因此，在IMF履行全球储备管理者的职责以前，新兴的盈余国家需要在该组织的治理方面拥有更多发言权。


Only then could they be confident that they would not be subject to politically motivated manipulation.	只有这样它们才会相信自己不会沦为政治操纵的受害者。


Global Capital Rules	全球资本规则


CAMBRIDGE – It’s official.	美国剑桥—正式宣布了。


The International Monetary Fund has put its stamp of approval on capital controls, thereby legitimizing the use of taxes and other restrictions on cross-border financial flows.	IMF批准了资本管制，从此以后，使用税收和其他手段限制跨境金融流的做法合法了。


Not long ago, the IMF pushed hard for countries – rich or poor – to open up to foreign finance.	不久前，IMF还在大力敦促各国——不论穷富——对外国金融开放。


Now it has acknowledged the reality that financial globalization can be disruptive – inducing financial crises and economically adverse currency movements.	如今，IMF承认了金融全球化可能是破坏性的（导致金融危机和对经济有害的货币波动）这一现实


So here we are with yet another twist in the never-ending saga of our love/hate relationship with capital controls.	在这里，我们还面临另一场从未结束的与资本管制的爱恨纠结。


Under the classical Gold Standard that prevailed until 1914, free capital mobility had been sacrosanct.	在1914年之前的古典金本位下，自有资本流动是神圣不可侵犯的。


But the turbulence of the interwar period convinced many – most famously John Maynard Keynes – that an open capital account is incompatible with macroeconomic stability.  The new consensus was reflected in the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, which enshrined capital controls in the IMF’s Articles of Agreement.	但两次大战间的动荡让很多人（其中最著名的便是凯恩斯）相信，开放资本账户与宏观经济稳定是不相容的。 这一新的一致观点反映在1944年布雷顿森林协议中，将资本管制写入了IMF章程。


As Keynes said at the time, “what used to be heresy is now endorsed as orthodoxy.”	正如凯恩斯在当时所指出的，“从前的异端，现在被视为正统了。 ”


By the late 1980’s, however, policymakers had become re-enamored with capital mobility.	但是，到了20世纪80年代末，决策者对资本流动的迷恋卷土重来。


The European Union made capital controls illegal in 1992, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development enforced free finance on its new members, paving the way for financial crises in Mexico and South Korea in 1994 and 1997, respectively.	欧盟与1992年宣布资本管制为非法，经合组织强迫其新成员国实施金融自由，这为1994年的墨西哥危机和1997年的韩国危机打开了大门。


The IMF adopted the agenda wholeheartedly, and its leadership sought (unsuccessfully) to amend the Articles of Agreement to give the Fund formal powers over capital-account policies in its member states.	IMF对这一日程全盘照抄，其领导人试图（并成功地）修改章程，授予IMF干涉其成员国资本管制政策的正式权力。


As long as it was developing countries that were whipsawed by global finance, it was fashionable to blame the victim.	当受全球金融折磨的只是发展中国家时，将矛头指向受害者成了惯用伎俩。


The IMF and Western economists argued that governments in Mexico, South Korea, Brazil, Turkey, and elsewhere had not adopted the policies – prudential regulations, fiscal restraint, and monetary controls – needed to take advantage of capital flows and prevent crises.	IMF和西方经济学家指出，墨西哥、韩国、巴西、土耳其和其他国家的政府没有采用利用资本流、防止危机所必须的政策——审慎监管、财政克制和货币控制等。


The problem was with domestic policies, not with financial globalization, so the solution lay not in controls on cross-border financial flows, but in domestic reforms.	问题出在国内政策，而不是金融全球化，因此解决办法并不在于管制跨境金融流，而在于国内改革。


Once the advanced countries became victims of financial globalization, in 2008, it became harder to sustain this line of argument.	而到了2008年，发达国家也成了金融全球化的受害者，继续坚持这一论断就变得更加艰难了。


It became clearer that the problem lay with instability in the global financial system itself – the bouts of euphoria and bubbles, followed by the sudden stops and sharp reversals that are endemic to unsupervised and unregulated financial markets.	显然，问题在于全球金融体系本身的不稳定性——层出不穷的狂热和泡沫以及随之而来的不受监管和监督的金融市场常见的突然停止和急剧逆转。


The IMF’s recognition that it is appropriate for countries to try to insulate themselves from these patterns is therefore welcome – and comes none too soon.	于是IMF认识到，将自身与这些模式隔离开的国家是明智的，这一认识是值得欢迎的，很快就流行开来。


But we should not exaggerate the extent of the IMF’s change of heart.	但别夸大了IMF改变的决心。


The Fund still regards free capital mobility as an ideal toward which all countries will eventually converge.	IMF仍认为自有资本流动是所有国家最终都会达到的理想状况。


This requires only that countries achieve the threshold conditions of adequate “financial and institutional development.”	这只需各国达到充分的“金融和制度发展”这一门槛条件即可。


The IMF treats capital controls as a last resort, to be deployed under a rather narrow set of circumstances – when other macro, financial, or prudential measures fail to stem the tide of inflows, the exchange rate is decidedly overvalued, the economy is overheating, and foreign reserves are already adequate.	IMF将资本管制视为最后手段，只有在严格的条件下才能实施，即当其他宏观、财政或审慎措���不能阻挡流入狂潮、汇率显然处于高估状态、经济过热、并且外汇储备充足时。


So, while the Fund lays out an “integrated approach to capital flow liberalization,” and specifies a detailed sequence of reforms, there is nothing remotely comparable on capital controls and how to render them more effective.	那么，IMF给出了“资本流自由化的综合性方针”，并具体给出了改革的详细步骤，既然如此，关于资本管制和如何使其更有效也不具有什么可比性了。


This reflects over-optimism on two fronts: first, about how well policy can be fine-tuned to target directly the underlying failures that make global finance unsafe; and, second, about the extent to which convergence in domestic financial regulations will attenuate the need for cross-border management of flows.	这反映了两方面的过分乐观：首先是关于政策能否得到合理安排以直接针对导致全球金融不再安全的根本性失灵的问题； 其次是关于国内金融监管趋同会将跨境流动的治理需要降低到何种程度的问题。


The first point can be best seen using an analogy with gun controls.	第一个问题可以从枪支管制中得到很好的说明。


Guns, like capital flows, have their legitimate uses, but they can also produce catastrophic consequences when used accidentally or placed in the wrong hands.	枪支和资本流一样，有其合法用途，但在意外情况或落入坏人之手时，也会造成灾难性后果。


The IMF’s reluctant endorsement of capital controls resembles the attitude of gun-control opponents: policymakers should target the harmful behavior rather than bluntly restrict individual freedoms.	IMF不愿支持资本管制的态度就好像是反对枪支管制者的态度：决策者应该将目标定在有害行为，而不是一刀切地限制个人自由。


As America’s gun lobby puts it, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”	正如美国枪支游说团所指出的：“枪支不会杀人，是人杀人。


The implication is that we should punish offenders rather than restrict gun circulation.	”言下之意是，我们应该惩罚罪犯，而不是限制枪支流通。


Similarly, policymakers should ensure that financial-market participants fully internalize the risks that they assume, rather than tax or restrict certain types of transactions.	类似地，决策者应该确保金融市场参与者完全将各自所认定的风险内部化，而不是对特定类型的交易课税或加以限制。


But, as Princeton economist Avinash Dixit likes to say, the world is always second-best at best.  An approach that presumes that we can identify and directly regulate problematic behavior is unrealistic.	但是，正如普林斯顿大学经济学家迪克西特（Avinash Dixit）常说的，世界充其量只能是次优的。 假设我们能够识别和直接监督问题行为的观点是不现实的。


Most societies control guns directly because we cannot monitor and discipline behavior perfectly, and the social costs of failure are high.	大部分社会对枪支实施直接管制，因为我们无法完美监控和约束行为，而监控和约束失败的代价是十分高昂的。


Similarly, caution dictates direct regulation of cross-border flows.	类似地，谨慎决定了对跨境流的直接监管。


In both cases, regulating or prohibiting certain transactions is a second-best strategy in a world where the ideal may be unattainable.	在这两个案例中，监管或禁止某些交易是次优策略，而理想状态是难以达到的。


The second complication is that, rather than converging, domestic models of financial regulation are multiplying, even among advanced countries with well-developed institutions.	第二个问题的难处在于，国内金融监管模式并不在趋同，而是在增殖，即使在制度发达的发达国家间也是如此。


Along the efficiency frontier of financial regulation, one needs to consider the tradeoff between financial innovation and financial stability.	在金融监管的效率前沿，我们需要考虑金融创新和金融稳定之间的权衡。


The more of one we want, the less of the other we can have.	我们对其中之一渴求越大，对另一个所得越小。


Some countries will opt for greater stability, imposing tough capital and liquidity requirements on their banks, while others may favor greater innovation and adopt a lighter regulatory touch.	一些国家会选择更大的稳定性，对银行实施严厉的资本和流动性要求； 而其他国家偏好更多创新，监管更宽松。


Free capital mobility poses a severe difficulty here.	自由资本流动在这里形成了一个重大难题。


Borrowers and lenders can resort to cross-border financial flows to evade domestic controls and erode the integrity of regulatory standards at home.	借款人和贷款人可以利用跨境金融流规避国内管制，破坏国内监管标准的完整性。


To prevent such regulatory arbitrage, domestic regulators may be forced to take measures against financial transactions originating from jurisdictions with more lax regulations.	为了防止这类监管套利，国内监管者可能被迫采取措施针对源自监管更宽松地区的金融交易。


A world in which different sovereigns regulate finance in diverse ways requires traffic rules to manage the intersection of separate national policies.	不同主权国家以不同方式监管金融的世界需要交通规则以管理相互独立的国家政策之间的交汇。


The assumption that all countries will converge on the ideal of free capital mobility diverts us from the hard work of formulating those rules.	所有国家都会向自有资本流动的理想状态聚拢的假设会将我们的注意力从努力设计这些规则上移开。


The Immigration Game	移民游戏


Green Papers, as they are called in Europe, or White Papers, as they are known in America and Britain, are often mere rhetorical essays – government-backed studies that state broad principles unlikely ever to be applied in practice.	欧洲所谓的绿皮书、或美英两国所谓的白皮书往往不过是辞藻华丽的文章而已¾政府研究显示全国性的政策很少能够真正实施。


The recent Green Paper released by the European Commission on international migration is no exception.	欧洲委员会最新发布的国际移民绿皮书也不例外。


Indeed, the Paper is a hodgepodge of illogic and half-baked ideas that aims at “launching a public debate” on the issue, “choosing a bottom-up, rather than a top-down approach.”	事实上，这本绿皮书混合了缺乏逻辑和尚未成熟的思想，目的是“发起关于移民问题的公众讨论”，“从中选择一种自下而上、而不是自上而下的解决方法。


But while the objective is to “harmonize policies towards economic migrants across the EU,” the Paper states at the outset that decisions on this matter should remain solely under the jurisdiction of national governments.	”可尽管提出了“在欧洲范围内协调经济移民政策”的目标，绿皮书从一开始就申明上述事务由国家政府全权管辖。


Some of the rules that it proposes are unenforceable – and thus merely a source of red tape for migrants and their employers that would require huge public bureaucracies to administer.	书中提出的有些规定根本无法付诸实施¾因此对移民及其雇主来讲不过又是些需要庞大的官僚机构加以执行的官样文章。


Co-ordination of national migration policies will remain a dream if decisions continue to be kept under the exclusive responsibility of national governments.	如果决策权继续由国家政府掌握，那么协调国家移民政策不过是个梦想。


There is no sign in the EU that national regulations on economic migration are converging.	没有任何迹象表明，欧盟有关经济移民的国家规定正在相互融合。


Policies on migrants are becoming increasingly tough, especially in those countries that already had the most restrictive provisions.	移民政策日益严格，在那些已经有诸多限制的国家尤其如此。


Since 1995, there were 26 reforms of migration policies in the EU-15: two-thirds tightened regulations by increasing procedural obstacles faced by visa applicants, reducing the duration of work permits, or making family reunification more difficult.	欧盟15国自1995年来共有26次移民政策改革：其中三分之二都增加了签证申请人面对的程序障碍，缩短了工作许可的有效时间，抑或增大了家庭团聚的难度。


Countries are getting tougher because migration flows can be diverted across jurisdictions.	各国的移民政策日益严格是因为移民潮能够在不同国家间转移。


This raises concerns among public opinion that migrants rejected by some countries could flood those that do not impose tighter restrictions.	这也使公众担忧被某些国家拒签的移民可能会涌向那些移民政策比较松弛的国家。


Cross-national policy spillovers are frequent.	不同国家的移民政策经常相互影响。


Finland tightened its immigration regulations in 2004, following closely the restrictive stance taken by Denmark in 2002.	受2002年丹麦出台限制政策的影响，2004年芬兰也收紧了本国的移民政策。


Portugal adopted more restrictive provisions in 2001, after Spain implemented a similar reform in 2000.	2000年西班牙实行移民改革后，葡萄牙于2001年也采取了诸多限制措施。


Ireland did the same in 1999, after the UK enacted two reforms in 1996 and 1998 designed to curb immigration.	英国分别于1996和1998年采纳了限制移民的改革措施，而爱尔兰1999年也进行了调整。


This race to restrict pervaded decision-making on transitional arrangements following accession of 10 new members – eight of them postcommunist countries – to the EU last May.	包括8个后共产主义国家在内的10个新成员去年5月加入欧盟后，避免跨国事务决策的相互影响更成了当务之急。


Twelve of the 15 countries reneged on promises not to restrict worker flows from the new members as they realized that Austria and Germany were closing their borders to immigration from their eastern neighbors.	当看到奥地利和德国对来自东侧邻国的移民关闭边境后，15个国家中的12个都不再遵守不限制新成员国人员流动的诺言。


But tight national restrictions do not seem to prevent migration; they only alter the geographical orientation of flows and fuel increases in illegal immigration, thereby inflating the size of the informal economy.	但加强国家控制似乎并不能抑止移民，而只能改变移民潮的地理流向和导致非法移民数量迅速飙升，进而导致非正式经济规模的迅速膨胀。


Indeed, illegal immigration is larger when restrictions to legal migration are tight.	实际上，每当合法移民受到严格限制之际，非法移民的数量就大大增加。


Illegal flows as a proportion of the population are about 25% larger in Europe than in the US; at the same time, legal flows are roughly 25% larger in the US than in Europe.	欧洲非法流动占人口流动总数的比例比美国高大约25%，而与此同时，美国合法的人口流动比欧洲大约也高出25%。


The US also has more realistic migration restrictions than most European countries.	美国的移民限制措施也比欧洲国家更为现实。


Realistic restrictions in Europe can be adopted only by taking into account migration spillovers across jurisdictions, which requires implementing policies that are agreed at the EU level.	只有充分考虑到不同国家间的移民流动，才能确保在欧洲范围内采取现实的管制措施，而实现这样的目标需要整个欧盟采取共同认可的政策。


But national governments remain reluctant to delegate authority: in November 2004, the European Council accepted qualified majority voting on measures concerning illegal migration, but left restrictions on legal migration subject to unanimity rules, as if legal and illegal migration were not merely two sides of the same coin.	但国家政府却一直不愿让出权力：2004年11月，欧盟委员会在应对非法移民时采纳了多数票表决的策略，但在限制合法移民方面却仍然坚持要求全体一致通过，就好像合法和非法移民不是一个问题的两个方面一样。


It states that national governments can better “respond to the specific needs of their labor markets.” It does not stress the obvious advantages of having the EU as a unique player in enforcing border controls, signing cooperation agreements with migrants’ countries of origin, and encouraging the type of flows that are best suited for Europe.	绿皮书不会让欧盟领导人改变主意，书中认为国家政府可以更好地“对本国劳务市场的特殊需求做出反应”，但并没有强调以欧盟为单位执行边境控制、与移民起源国签订合作协议和鼓励最适合欧洲的移民流动形式时有哪些显而易见的好处。


The Green Paper also suggests that, when admitting migrants, member countries “require proof that no one already part of the domestic labor market can fill the vacancy concerned.”	绿皮书还建议在接收移民的时候，各成员国“要证明国内劳务市场的任何部分都不能填补相应的空缺。


It is unlikely that this would be possible even under central planning.	”这样的目标即便在集中控制的体制下也很难达到。


Migrants change jobs twice a year on average, as they “grease the wheels” of European labor markets with their mobility from less to more productive jobs.	移民平均每年换两次工作，并且在从相对低效转向相对高效岗位的过程中润滑着欧洲劳动力市场的“齿轮”。


Should we prevent them from doing so?	难道我们要阻止他们这么做吗？


Similarly, the Paper proposes that the self-employed should be admitted after an evaluation of their business plans.	与此相似，绿皮书提出只有在对商务计划进行评估后自营人员才能被目标国接收。


In Milan this year, more foreigners than Italians registered as self-employed.	今年，在米兰注册自营的外国人比意大利人还要多。


Who will examine their business plans?	谁来检查他们的商业计划？


Even if the Paper’s suggestion were plausible, which it is not, it begs a larger question: should we prevent migrants from taking entrepreneurial risks?	退一万步讲，即便绿皮书的建议可行，我们又面临着一个更大的问题：难道我们要阻止移民创办企业吗？


If taken seriously, these rules will accomplish nothing, except to force migrants and their prospective employers to find other ways to each other.	认真审视起来，除了迫使移民及其可能的雇主令谋它法来逃避执行规定，这些规则不会有任何实际的用处。


The European Commission’s Green Paper on immigration looks like an invitation to join the underground economy.	欧盟委员会有关移民问题的绿皮书看起来更像是一封参与地下经济的邀请函。


The Arab Spring’s Crowd Psychology	阿拉伯之春的群体心理


ABU DHABI – In 1896, the social psychologist Gustave Le Bon warned his contemporaries of the dangers of crowds, writing that, “It is necessary to arrive at a solution to the problems offered by [crowds’] psychology, or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them.”	阿布扎比—1896年，社会心理学家勒庞（Gustave Le Bon）警告他的同时代人大新群体的风险，他写道：“必须就来自（群体）心理的问题给出一个解决方案，要么我们就会被这些问题所毁灭。


As spontaneous protest overtakes organized political movements across the Arab world, the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya’s nascent democracies should heed Le Bon’s warning.	”随着阿拉伯世界自发形成的示威取代有组织的政治运动，刚刚诞生的民主突尼斯、埃及和利比亚领导人应该小心勒庞的警告。


Since crowds took to the streets of Tunis, Cairo, Benghazi, and other Arab cities, toppling decades-old regimes, spectators and analysts have wondered where the Arab world is headed.	自群众走向突尼斯、开罗、班加西和其他阿拉伯城市街头以来、推翻几十年的旧制度以来，旁观者和分析家一直不能确定阿拉伯世界将何去何从。


But they have focused almost exclusively on the events’ political dimension: Who are the leaders, and what are their demands?	但他们的注意力几乎全部集中在这些事件的政治维度上：谁是他们的领袖，他们的需求又是什么？


In fact, the persistence, intensity, and frequency of protests – exemplified in September, when local militia in Benghazi killed US Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens – demonstrate the role that the culture and psychology of crowds are playing in determining the Arab world’s trajectory.	事实上，示威的持续时间、激烈程度和频率——比如9月份班加西地方武装刺杀美国驻利比亚大使史蒂文斯（J. Christopher Stevens）——表明，文化和群体心理在阿拉伯世界事态发展中起着决定性作用。


After decades of authoritarian rule, citizens, frustrated with discredited institutions and paralyzed political parties, have begun to employ social media to organize civil resistance.	在经历了数十年的独裁统治后，阿拉伯人民厌倦了毫无信誉可言的制度和毫无作为的政党，开始通过社交媒体来组织平民抵抗运动。


As a result, countries affected by the Arab Spring now face political spheres that are shaped by crowd dynamics, rather than by genuine political or ideological movements.	结果，受阿拉伯之春影响的各国现在面临着由群体动态，而不是真正的政治和思想运动左右的政治局势。


Indeed, much of what is happening in the Arab world today can be best understood through the study of crowds.	事实上，阿拉伯世界的现状中有很大一部分可以用群体心理研究来理解。


Crowds are the opposite of organizations; rather than being dominated by rigid hierarchies, they are often led by individuals with no formal rank.	群体与组织相反； 他们不是通过僵化的级层控制的，而通常以不分级别的个人为领导。


And, unlike political movements, crowds tend to form quickly and organically, like dark clouds gathering to form a storm, and their objectives are immediate: surround this police station, seize that ministry, etc.	与政治运动不同，群体总是很快而有机地组织起来，就像乌云堆积形成暴风雨那样，他们的目标也极为短浅：包围这个警察局、活捉那位部长，如此等等。


In “crowd politics,” emotions often supersede goals.	在“群体政治”中，情绪通常会压过目标。


Lebanon was perhaps the first Arab country to experience crowd politics.	黎巴嫩可能是第一个经历群体政治的阿拉伯国家。


After Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was assassinated in February 2005, crowds led by various political parties filled Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut.	2005年2月，黎巴嫩总理哈里里（Rafic Hariri）被刺杀后，众多政党领导的群众运动将贝鲁特市中心的烈士广场堵得水泄不通。


But non-organized crowds eventually eclipsed structured groups, becoming a dominant force in Lebanese politics.	但无组织的群众最后还是压倒有组织的集体成为主导黎巴嫩政局的力量。


In fact, Lebanon’s two competing political coalitions, the March 8 alliance and the March 14 alliance, take their names from major crowd gatherings that occurred on those dates in 2005.	事实上，黎巴嫩两大相互竞争的政治联盟——3·8联盟（March 8 alliance）和3·14联盟（March 14 alliance）便是以2005年群众集会日期命名的。


Lebanon’s experience reveals the discord between the psychology of crowds and the goals of the political elites who rally behind them – a conflict that can also be seen in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Tunisia’s Sidi Bouzid, and Tripoli, Libya, where crowds have stormed the parliament building several times in the last few months.	黎巴嫩的经验揭示了群众心理和鼓动群众的政治精英的目标之间的分歧——在埃及解放广场、突尼斯西迪布济德（Side Bouzid）和利比亚的黎波里也可以见到这一现象，群众在过去几个月中数度洗劫议会大楼。


This discord is threatening to derail these countries’ burgeoning democratic processes, owing to growing competition between what Le Bon called the “sovereignty of the crowds” and the sovereignty of political elites.	这一分歧让这些国家方兴未艾的民主进程时刻面临着脱轨危险，因为勒庞所谓的“群众威权”和政治精英威权之间的斗争越来越激烈。


Under these conditions, the real challenge facing the Arab Spring countries, at least in the short term, is not ideological, but institutional.	在这样的环境下，阿拉伯之春的真正挑战并不是思想上的，而是制度上的，至少在短期是如此。


Governments must find a way to prevent small groups from using the crowd effect as political capital, thereby causing crowd sizes to become more decisive than the number of ballots cast.	政府必须找出防止一小撮人利用群体效应作为政治资本的办法，从而防止群体规模膨胀到比选票数量还要大的程度。


But traditional democratic institutions, such as political parties, parliaments, and consultation committees, are not experienced in coping with such challenges.	但传统民主制度，比如政党、议会和顾问委员会并无应对这些挑战的经验。


Social media are both part of the problem and part of the solution.	社交媒体既是问题的一部分，也是解决办法的一部分。


Unlike Eastern Europe in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the crowds of the Arab Spring formed on the Internet before hitting the streets – the first movement of its kind.	与20世纪80年代末、90年代初的东欧不同，在阿拉伯之春中，群体现在互联网上形成，然后才走上街头——这是这种群体运动第一次出现。


The Arab Spring, following the lead of Iran’s Green Movement in 2009, ushered in the era of “iCrowds” – attracted, mobilized, and organized through social media.	继2009年内伊朗绿色运动（Green Movement）之后发生的阿拉伯之春开启了���iCrowd”时代——通过社交媒体吸引、动员和组织。


But social media can also be used effectively to demobilize people, by reducing the chasm between the psychology and power of political leadership and that of the masses.	但社交媒体同样可以通过消弭政治领袖和大众之间的心理和力量差异被用来有效地分散人们。


The emerging political class must improve its understanding of iCrowd politics, and learn to harness the power of tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, apps, and text messages.	新出现的政治阶级必须强化他们对iCrowd政治的认识，学会驾驭Facebook、Twitter、YouTube、博客、应用和手机短信等社交媒体的力量。


In the United States, President Barack Obama’s election campaigns recognized this opportunity, using social media extensively to communicate political messages, and to energize and mobilize supporters.	在美国，总统奥巴马的竞选活动就认识到了这一机会，利用社交媒体全面地传播政治消息以及激发和动员支持者。


Once in office, Obama launched the White House app, designed to give citizens a new way to connect with their leaders in Washington, including updates on the latest events, insight into administration initiatives, and access to high-resolution photos and live streams of White House events.	当选后，奥巴马推出了“白宫”（White House）应用，该应用为公民提供了与华盛顿领导人沟通的新方式，及时更新最新事件、深度了解政府措施，还能获得高分辨率的白宫实时照片和现场直播。


Private enterprises, too, benefit from an understanding of iCrowd politics.	私人企业也可以从理解iCrowd政治中获益。


In their research, Quy Huy and Andrew Shipilov of INSEAD have shown that business leaders who use social media build so-called “emotional capital” within their employees.	INSEAD的胡伊（Quy Huy）和施皮洛夫（Shipilov）的研究证明，使用社交媒体的商业领袖能够在员工中间建立所谓的“情感资本”。


This helps leaders to develop and maintain human bonds with a large group of people, despite the power gap, while making it easier for employees to identify with the organization.	这有助于领袖发展和维持与一大群人的人际关系，尽管他们之间的权力有别，与此同时，也可以让员工更用以地认同组织。


For the Arab world’s new political elites, the lesson is clear: crowd dynamics cannot be ignored.	对阿拉伯世界的新政治精英来说，这其中的经验是显而易见的：群体动态不可忽视。


When observed carefully, social media can be interpreted like clouds portending storms.	仔细观察可以发现，社交媒体就像是预兆暴风雨的乌云。


If detected early enough, solutions can be found to diffuse tempestuous crowds before they inundate fragile new institutions.	如果发现得足够早，是可以找到在有暴乱之势的群体摧毁脆弱的新制度之前找到消散之法的。


Death by Masculinity	死于阳刚


LONDON – News media are constantly reporting ways that everyday activities can damage our health.	伦敦—新闻媒体长年累月地报道着可能伤害我们健康的日常活动。


But perhaps the most far-reaching yet neglected global health risk stems from gender norms.	但也许目前仍被忽视的影响最大的全球健康风险来自性别规范。


Despite overwhelming evidence that gender-based stereotypes and expectations can adversely impact health, gender-related health issues are largely ignored or misunderstood, with international health organizations often limiting gender-specific efforts to women or, even more narrowly, to mothers.	尽管压倒性的证据表明基于性别的成见和期望会给健康带来负面影响，但与性别有关的健康问题仍被大量忽视或误解，国际健康组织通常把针对特定性别的努力限制在女性——甚至更狭隘地，限制在母亲。


And yet, according to the World Health Organization, in all but three countries worldwide, women can expect to outlive men, by up to seven years in Japan or by as little as a year in the poorer countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.	但是，根据世界卫生组织的数据，除了三个国家之外，全世界女性预期寿命都高于男性，其中日本高出7年，撒哈拉以南非洲的穷国则高出1年。


Women’s longer life expectancy has long been linked to differences in “biological pre-disposition,” with theories ranging from the protection afforded by women’s lower iron levels to the absence of “extra” genes on men’s Y chromosome.	长期以来，人们认为女性预期寿命更长与“生物倾向”（biological predisposition）有关，比如女性铁水平较低从而能够提供保护，或者不存在男性Y染色体的“额外”基因等。


But some of the most obvious factors shortening men’s lives are to be found in a more pedestrian, yet politically sensitive, area: the differences in the “appropriate” behaviors for men and women, as dictated by society and reinforced by the market.	但缩短男性生命的最显著的因素来自更无聊但政治上更敏感的领域：男女“合适”行为的不同，这类行为由社会规定，然后由市场强化。


Data published in The Lancet last year show that the top ten most burdensome global diseases are more common in men than women, and often by a large margin.	《柳叶刀》去年发表的数据显示，全球最麻烦的十大疾病在男性中间比在女性中间更加常见，且差距很大。


For example, men die from lung cancer at more than twice the rate of women.	比如，死于肺癌的男性比例比女性高一倍。


Likewise, road injuries and alcohol-related death and disability are responsible for the loss of three times as many potential years of healthy life in men than in women.	类似地，交通事故和酒精相关致死和致残对男性潜在健康生活年限的影响比女性大两倍。


These disparities can be explained largely by the fact that men are exposed to more risks than women.	这些差异在很大程度上可以用男性比女性面临更多风险这一事实来解释。


While there may be a biological component to men’s propensity for risk taking (especially among young men), gender norms reinforce risky or unhealthy behaviors by associating them with masculinity.	男性倾向于冒险（特别是年轻的时候），这或许有生物学方面的原因，但社会规范通过将冒险和阳刚之气相联系助长了高风险和不健康的行为。


Understanding and exploiting gender norms offers commercial benefits.	理解并利用社会规范能带来商业利益。


Given that social norms in much of the world discourage women from smoking, drinking alcohol, and, in extreme cases, driving cars and motorcycles, advertisers in these industries tend to target men.	在世界上大部分地区，社会规范阻止女性吸烟、饮酒，在某些极端情形中，连开车和骑摩托车也不行； 这些产业的广告的目标客户总是男性。


For example, alcoholic-beverage producers are leading sponsors of men’s professional sports, but rarely sponsor women’s sporting events.	比如，酒精饮料厂商是男子职业体育的领先赞助者，但极少赞助女子体育赛事。


Moreover, advertisers often promote a “live fast, die young” philosophy in order to encourage men to ignore their product’s health risks.	此外，广告商往往宣扬一种“人生苦短，及时行乐”的哲学，以鼓励男性忽略产品的健康风险。


While three of the original “Marlboro men” died from lung cancer, their macho spirit endures in tobacco-product advertising in many low- and middle-income countries.	最初的三位“万宝路先生”均死于肺癌，但他们的男子气概仍存在于许多中低收入国家的烟草产品广告中。


Differences in health outcomes are exacerbated further by women’s tendency to use health-care services more than men.	女性比男性更多地使用健康服务，这进一步放大了健康结果差异。


Some of this additional use is due to women’s needs for family-planning or prenatal services, seeking either to prevent or promote reproduction.	女性之所以更多地使用健康服务，部分是因为她们需要家庭规划和产前服务，防止或促进生殖。


But even when health-care use would be expected to be equal, such as care for HIV/AIDS in Africa, gender-based expectations impede HIV-positive men from obtaining antiretroviral drugs proportionate to their needs.	但即便健康服务使用水平相同——比如非洲的HIV/艾滋病案例——基于性别的预期让HIV阳性男性无法获得与需要相配的抗逆转录病毒药物。


Although gender norms are clearly undermining men’s health worldwide, key international organizations continue to disregard the problem or address only those issues that are specific to girls and women when devising strategies to improve global health.	尽管性别规范显然影响着全世界范围男性的健康，但重要国际组织仍无视这一问题，或者在做出改善全球健康建议时只针对女孩和妇女的问题。


The Global Health Initiative, for example, uses American-taxpayer money to offset the “gender-related inequalities and disparities [that] disproportionately compromise the health of women and girls.”	全球卫生行动计划（Global Health Initiative）用美国纳税人的钱弥补“严重危害妇女和女孩健康的与性别有关的不平等性和差异”。


To be sure, girls and women are less powerful, less privileged, and have fewer opportunities than men worldwide.	平心而论，就全世界而言，女孩和妇女更弱小，地位更低，机会也更少。


But that does not justify disregarding the evidence.	但这并不意味着可以忽视证据。


After all, an approach that focuses on the half of the population that takes fewer risks and uses health-care services more frequently cannot be expected to eliminate gender inequalities.	毕竟，专注于世界更少冒险、更多使用健康服务的那一半人口的方法不可能有助于消除性别不平等。


Coping with the emerging social and economic burdens associated with poor health – not least those stemming from aging populations in many countries – requires a new approach to replace the unbalanced, unproductive model that currently prevails.	应对与健康状况不佳有关的社会和经济负担——更不用说许多国家存在的人口老龄化问题了——要求采取新方法取代现行的不平衡的低效模式。


It is time to exchange the gender norms that are undermining men’s health for a social, cultural, and commercial emphasis on healthier lifestyles for everyone.	应该改变危害男性健康的性别规范，替之以从社会、文化和商业上强调一视同仁的更健康的生活方式。


Gender norms are not static.	性别规范不是一成不变的。


Societies, cultures, and potential markets change.	社会、文化和潜在市场时变化的。


For example, patterns of alcohol consumption in Europe are beginning to shift.	比如，欧洲酒精消费模式正在开始改变。


While men continue to drink more – and more often – than women, the frequency with which girls and boys report being drunk is now about the same.	尽管男性饮酒仍比女性多（而且更加普遍了），但女孩和男孩饮酒报告数量已经不相上下。


As Asian and African markets open up, similar social changes may follow as alcohol and tobacco advertisers seek new customers. We need to act now to bring gender justice to global health.	随着亚洲和非洲市场的开放，类似的社会变化也将随酒精和烟草广告寻找新客户而发生。


According to the Roman philosopher Cicero, “In nothing do men approach so nearly to the gods, as in giving health to men.”	罗马哲学家西塞罗说：“没有什么比与人健康更接近神了。


The multi-billion-dollar global health industry appears to have turned Cicero’s maxim on its head, focusing instead on “giving health to women.”	”数十亿美元规模的全球健康产业给西塞罗的格言加上了一个定语：“与女人健康”。


But emphasizing the health of one gender undermines gender equality and misses the point of global health initiatives, which is – or should be – to improve health outcomes for all.	但强调一种性别的健康破坏了性别平等，也不符合全球卫生行动计划的（合理）初衷——改善所有人的健康状况。


Asia’s Resource Scramble	亚洲的资源争夺战


NEW DELHI – Competition for strategic natural resources – including water, mineral ores, and fossil fuels – has always played a significant role in shaping the terms of the international economic and political order.	新德里——由水、矿石和化石燃料等战略自然资源所引发的竞争一直在国际政治经济秩序的形成中发挥重要作用。


But now that competition has intensified, as it encompasses virtually all of Asia, where growing populations and rapid economic development over the last three decades have generated an insatiable appetite for severely limited supplies of key commodities.	但当前竞争已趋于白热化，几乎所有的亚洲国家都牵涉其中，三十年的人口增长和经济快速发展导致这些国家对严重短缺的主要商品胃口越来越大。


Asia is the world’s most resource-poor continent, and overexploitation of the natural resources that it does possess has created an environmental crisis that is contributing to regional climate change.	亚洲是世界资源最贫乏的大陆，对自然资源的过度开采已经诱发了造成地区气候变化的环境危机。