Politically, too, the process of adjustment by deflation in deficit countries is so unpleasant and difficult that many pessimists think it will ultimately prove to be unsustainable.	而从政治上说，赤字国的通缩调整过程将十分痛苦和艰难，以至于许多悲观派认为迟早无法持续下去。


But critics of the euro should take the gold-standard analogy more seriously.	但欧元批评家在用金本位作类比时应该更谨慎些。


Like any system in the real world, it was more complex, more interesting, and also filled with more real policy possibilities than textbook caricatures suggest.	与任何真实世界制度一样，欧元制度的复杂性、趣味性和实际政策可能性都要比教科书上所写的多得多。


First, there was no automatic deflationary pressure following from some alleged peculiarity of the adjustment mechanism.	首先，并不存在因某些所谓的调整机制的特征所导致的自动通缩压力。


The question of overall deflationary – or inflationary – impact depended (and still depends) on the total quantity of money.	整体通缩——或通胀——影响的问题取决于（过去是，现在仍是）货币总量。


Thus, in periods after large new gold discoveries – for example, following the California Gold Rush of 1849, and again in the 1890’s, when new mining techniques opened up South African, Alaskan, and Australian reserves – the classical gold standard had a mild inflationary bias.	因此，在大型新金矿被发现的时期——比如1849年加州淘金热以及19世纪90年南非、阿拉斯加和澳大利亚金矿代因采矿技术进步而得到开发——古典金本位就会出现一定的通胀倾向。


In an era of paper money, however, the link to a physical stock of some precious metal – or, indeed, some other commodity – does not exist, and there should be no reason why a central bank cannot aim at an overall inflation rate.	但是，在纸币时代，币值与某种贵金属（事实上，可以是任何一种商品）的实体存量之间的联系已不复存在，因此，没有任何理由要求央行放弃总体通胀率目标。


In fact, almost all modern central banks, including the European Central Bank, do precisely that.	事实上，几乎所有的现代中央银行，包括欧洲央行在内，均以此目标为己任。


The second lesson to be learned from the gold standard concerns the extent and limits of capital-market integration.	金本位的第二个教训是资本市场一体化的程度边界。


In the early 1990’s, policymakers, market participants, and economists alike simply assumed that the European Community’s “1992 program” – the legislative framework for the single market, and thus for a single capital market – would create a new reality, within which the single currency would work its magic.	20世纪90年代初，决策者、市场参与者和经济学家均认为欧共体的“1992计划”——即单一市场、进而是单一资本市场的法律框架——将创造一个新现实，在单一市场中，单一货币将收到奇效。


From this followed an official obligation to treat all types of risk in the monetary union – bank risk or government risk – as identical.	由此带来的一个正式义务是对货币联盟中所有类型的风险一视同仁，不管是银行风险还是政府风险，统统没有区别。


But the history of the gold standard, and of other large common-currency areas, was more complex.	但金本位——以及其他大型共同货币区——的历史要复杂得多。


Despite the theoretical possibility of capital being sent over vast distances to other parts of the world, much capital remained local.	尽管从理论上说，资本可以到达世界上任何一个偏远角落，但实际上，有大量资本只是在本地活动。


Creditors and banks often preferred to do business with known borrowers, and where local jurisdictions could settle any disputes.	债权人和银行总是偏好于和认识的借款人打交道，也偏爱地方法院能够解决纠纷的地区。


In particular, a critical part of the gold standard was that individual national central banks set their own interest rates, with the aim of influencing the direction of capital movements.	尤其是，金本位的一个重要方面是个体国家央行出于影响资本流动方向的目的自行确定利率。


This became the central feature of the gold-standard world: a country that was losing gold reserves would tighten interest rates in order to attract money.	这也成为金本位世界的核心特征：流失黄金储备的国家会收紧利率以吸引货币。


The gold-standard rules look very different from the modern practice of monetary union, which relies on a single uniform interest rate.	金本位规则与现代货币联盟实践大相径庭，后者建立在单一普遍利率的基础上。


That one-size-fits-all approach meant that interest rates in southern European countries were too low before 2009, and too high in northern Europe.	一刀切意味着南欧国家利率在2009年前一直处于过低状态，北欧这一直处于过高状态。


A gold-standard rule would have produced higher rates for the southern European borrowers, which would have attracted funds to where capital might be productively used, and at the same time acted as a deterrent against purely speculative capital flows.	金本位规则意味着南欧借款人会提高利率，从而将资金吸引到资本生产率更高的地区，与此同时，也能防止纯投机性资本流。


Since the 2008 financial crisis erupted, there has been something of a renationalization of financial behavior in Europe.	2008年金融危机爆发以来，欧洲金融行为出现了某种再国家化的倾向。


Up to the late 1990’s and the advent of monetary union, most European Union sovereign debt was domestically held: in 1998, the overall ratio of foreign-held debt was only one-fifth.	20世纪90年代末进入货币联盟前后，大部分欧元区主权债务都是由国内债权人持有的：1998年，外国债权人债务持有比率只有五分之一。


That ratio climbed rapidly in the aftermath of the euro’s introduction.	引入欧元后，这一比率出现了快速攀升。


In 2008, on the eve of the crisis, three-quarters of Portuguese debt, one-half of Spanish and Greek debt, and more than two-fifths of Italian debt was held by foreigners, with foreign banks holding a significant proportion, especially in the case of Greece, Portugal, and Italy.	2008年危机爆发前夕，葡萄牙债务的四分之三、西班牙和希腊债务的一半以及意大利债务的五分之二多由外国人持有，其中外国银行是大头，特别是希腊、葡萄牙和意大利债。


One consequence of the ECB’s large-scale long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) has been that Italian banks are once again buying Italian government bonds, and Spanish banks are buying Spanish bonds.	欧洲央行的大规模长期再融资操作（LTRO）的一大成果是意大利银行再次开始购买意大利国债，西班牙银行也在购买西班牙债券。


German Economics Minister Philipp Rösler has made the fascinating suggestion that members of the European System of Central Banks should set their own interest rates (though, interestingly, he made this suggestion explicitly as a party politician, not as a government minister).	德国经济部长罗斯勒（Philipp Rösler）给出���一个诱人的建议：欧洲中央银行体系成员应该自行确定利率（不过，有意思的是，他是站在明确的党派政客的立场，而不是政府部长立场上作此建议的）。


Autonomous interest-rate determination would penalize banks that have borrowed in southern Europe from their national central banks.	自主决定利率将惩罚在南欧从当地央行借款的银行。


Meanwhile, the German Bundesbank would have lower rates, but southern European banks would be unlikely to have access to that credit for use in their own markets.	与此同时，德国央行将降低利率，但南欧银行不可能获得此类信用用于本国市场。


There are also signs that individual central banks are using the leeway that they have within the existing framework in order to carry out important policy shifts.	另外，有迹象表明，各国央行正在利用现有框架内的腾挪空间，以避免采取重大政策变化。


The Bundesbank has stated that it will no longer accept bank securities as collateral from banks that have undergone a government recapitalization.	德国央行已宣布它不会再接受已由政府进行资本重组的银行的证券作为抵押品。


The new collateral requirements, together with tentative talk of autonomous interest rates, represents a remarkable incipient innovation.	新的抵押品要求与自主利率的口风试探一起，暗示了一个令人瞩目的创新萌芽。


In the aftermath of the crisis, some policymakers are beginning to see that a monetary union is not necessarily identical with unfettered capital mobility.	危机之后，一些决策者开始认为，货币联盟并不一定意味着无约束的资本流动。


Recognition of diverse credit quality is a step back into the nineteenth-century world, and at the same time forward to a more market-oriented and less distorting currency policy.	承认信用质量的多样性是退回19世纪一步，与此同时，也是迈向更多市场导向、更少扭曲的货币政策的一步。


Different interest rates in different countries might open the door to a more stable eurozone.	不同国家不同汇率或许是通往稳定欧元区之门。


Good and Bad Capitalism	好的资本主义，坏的资本主义


PARIS – The reality of market exchange – direct transactions between merchants and customers – appeared gradually 3,000 or 4,000 years ago.	发自巴黎——市场交易的基本形式——即商人和消费者的直接交易行为——在大约3000~4000年前逐渐形成。


In this novel social relationship, the customer was free to buy whatever he wanted, whenever and from whomever he chose, often bargaining with the seller about the price.	在这种崭新的社会关系当中，买什么，何时买和从谁处买都任由消费者自由选择，还常常能跟卖家讨价还价一番。


Because of these features, the free market is part of a basic freedom that is rooted in everyday life.	而正是这些特性使得自由市场原则成为一种最基本自由的组成部分并深深植根于我们的日常生活中。


It remains dominant today, as all efforts to establish an alternative, even totalitarianism, failed.	时至今日，尽管有许多人努力去寻找另一种模式，甚至尝试运用极权主义来取代这一原则，但最后都以失败告终，自由市场依然占据着支配地位。


Indeed, it has been 20 years since the former communist countries of Eastern Europe rejoined the world of market exchange, a step taken as early as 1946 by social democrats around the world.	事实上，东欧的前社会主义国家重新参与到全球市场交换活动已经有20年的光阴，而全球的社会民主者们则早在1946年就已经开始类似行动了。


For several thousand years, the free market was comprised of individuals: craftsmen, traders, and consumers.	几千年来，自由市场就是由若干独立个体组成：手工业者，商人，消费者。


Capitalism when it arose three centuries ago was simply the same activity on a larger scale.	三百年前兴起的资本主义也不过是在此基础之上但规模更大的活动。


Because of steam engines and electricity, a large number of people were enabled to work together, and corporations could attract a large number of small savers, who became capitalists.	由于蒸汽机和电的应用，大规模的集体工作成为可能，而企业则能够吸引产生大量手中小有积蓄的人，也就是后来的资本家们。


This system is fantastic.	这个体系非常令人惊叹。


By the time of the French Revolution, the standard of living had hardly doubled since the Roman Empire. Today, it is 150 times higher.	因为自罗马帝国时代一直到法国大革命时，人们生活水平的提高还达不到一倍，而如今则比从前整整提高了150倍。


But capitalism is also cruel.	但资本主义也同样是残酷无情的。


At its inception, people were compelled to work 17 hours a day without a day off or retirement. It was a form of slavery.	资本主义初期，人们被迫每天工作17个小时，而且永无休息或退休之日——这简直就是奴隶制！


Thanks to democracy, social struggle, and workers’ unions, together with the political efforts of social democracy, the inhumanity of the system was partly softened.	幸而民主、社会斗争和工人联盟的产生，连同社会民主党的政治努力一道，才令整个系统的非人道之处有所缓和。


Nevertheless, left to itself, the system is unstable.	而就其本身来说，资本主义体制也是极不稳定的。


It undergoes a crisis about once a decade.	大概每过十年，资本主义国家就会遭遇一次经济危机。


The twentieth century’s worst crisis, between 1929 and 1932, caused 70 million workers in Great Britain, the United States, and Germany to lose their jobs (with no unemployment benefits) in less than six months.	比如在1929~1932年间就发生了20世纪最严重的经济危机。 在不到半年时间里，危机就导致了英、美、德三国共7千万工人失业（而且没有失业救济）。


It brought Adolf Hitler to power, leading to a war that left 50 million dead.	危机让阿道夫·希特勒借机上台，并最终引发了第二次世界大战，五千万人罹难。


After the war, the belief that the system needed to be stabilized became widespread.  Eventually, a more balanced system emerged, based on three main institutions: health insurance, Keynesian fiscal and monetary policy to soften the impact of the business cycle, and, of utmost importance, a policy of high salaries and reduction of economic inequality in order to boost household consumption.	最终一个更为均衡的体系随之产生，而这一体系则建立在三个主要制度之上：首先是健康保险，其次可以缓解经济周期冲击的凯恩斯主义财政与货币政策。 而最为重要的第三点，则是旨在推动家庭消费的高工资和消除经济不平等政策。


The achievement was stunning: 30 years of consistent and rapid economic growth, full and permanent employment in all developed nations, and no financial or economic crisis.	这一新体系也随之取得了令人瞩目的成就：在二战后其后三十年间，所有发达国家的经济都获得了持续而迅速的增长，国内就业充分，劳资关系稳固，而且一次金融、经济危机都没发生。


Standards of living rose nearly ten-fold during this period.	在此期间人们的生活水平提高了将近10倍。


Prosperity became the main weapon that ensured the West’s victory over Soviet communism.	财富则成为西方社会同苏联社会主义对抗并最终取胜的最主要武器。


The people of Eastern Europe were eager to embrace this kind of capitalism.	而当时的东欧人也非常渴望能拥有这样的资本主义制度。


Capitalism’s political success, however, came at the very moment when the system was starting to deteriorate.	不过，资本主义的政治胜利到来的一刻，也是在该体系开始走向衰退之时。


High salaries drove growth but reduced earnings.	高工资制度拉动了经济增长，却降低了收入。


Shareholders organized themselves into pension funds, investment funds, and hedge funds. Because of their pressure, employment fell, reducing the share of wages in total national income by 10% over the past 30 years.	于是股东们开始组织起来投资养老基金、投资基金和对冲基金，在这样的压力之下，失业率开始上升，使得过去三十年来工资占国民总收入的比例减少了10%。


In developed nations, the number of the working poor reached 10-15% of the workforce, with another 5-10% of unemployed workers and 5-10% dropping out of  the labor market altogether.	在发达国家内部，有工作但生活依然陷于贫困的劳动者占了总劳动人口的10%至15%，另外还有5%至10%的人靠打散工度日，另有5%到10%的人直接就被逐出了劳动力市场。


Moreover, over the past 25 years, a severe financial crisis – regional or global – has erupted every four or five years.	此外，过去25年中，地区性或全球范围的严重经济危机每4~5年就会爆发一次。


Annual growth fell below 3% on average.	使得各国的年增长率平均起来低于3%。


Today’s crisis was triggered by widespread concealment of bad loans within pools of securities sold all over the world.	而最近这场经济危机，则是由全球发售的债券中所隐含的坏账引发的


The spread of bankruptcies triggered a severe credit crunch, which triggered a deep recession and with it a brutal rise in unemployment.	大规模破产导致了严重的信贷紧缩，由此引发了深层次的衰退和失业率激增。


Capitalism’s three stabilizing devices lost their efficacy.	而上面提到的资本主义三大稳定装置都失去了效力。


While rich countries reacted more quickly and more wisely in stimulating their economies than in 1929, and the hemorrhaging of banks was stanched, this has not been enough to boost growth.	但比起1929年，如今的发达国家反应更加迅速且更为明智，他们颁布政策刺激经济，银行业的大规模倒闭潮亦被遏制，虽然这依然不足以拉动经济的增长。


We are now in a strange period in which governments, bankers, and journalists herald the end of the crisis just because large banks are no longer failing every week.	但我们却正处在一个奇怪的时期，那些政府、银行和记者们都纷纷欢呼着经济危机已近尾声，而理由仅仅是因为每周都不再传出大型银行倒闭的消息。


But nothing has been solved, and unemployment continues to rise.	但其实一切问题都还没有解决，失业率也正在不断增高。


Even worse, the banking sector is trying to take advantage of publicly financed rescue packages to protect its privileges, including immorally huge bonuses and extravagant freedoms to create speculative financial assets with no links to the real economy.	更为严重的是，银行业正试图利用公共财政救济款项来维护其自身的特权，这些特权包括了不道德地发滥发奖金以及创设与实体经济没有任何关联的投机性金融资产。


Indeed, the so-called end of the crisis looks more like a reconstruction of the mechanisms that caused it.	而实际上，所谓经济危机的“结束”，其实倒更像是在重建那个导致危机产生的体系。


Everywhere, economic activity is painfully stabilizing at 5% to 10% below 2007 levels.	时至今日，各地的经济活动都在低于2007年5%到10%的水平上痛苦地徘徊。


The root of the crisis remains the fall in purchasing power on the part of the middle and lower classes, and the collapse of speculative bubbles created by the wealthy classes’ greed for more.	危机的根本性原因在于社会中下阶层购买力的下降，源于那些贪婪的富裕阶级所创造的投机泡沫的破灭。


But if we are to have a system where nearly everybody can become better off, the wealthy cannot become ever wealthier at the same time.	如果我们想创造一个人人都生活无忧的完美体制，那么就必须在这个体制中防止富裕阶级继续暴富。


Otherwise, we can expect a long period of stagnation, punctuated by periodic financial crises.	不然，迎接我们的将是一个漫长且危机不断的萧条期。


In these circumstances, a majority of European voters have recently shown, once again, that they favor the right and its tendency to support the fortune seekers.	但在当今形势之下，大部分欧洲选民却再一次显示出他们对右翼及其所支持的财富投机者的偏好。


A bleak future awaits us.	因此等待着我们的，将会是一个黯淡的前途。


Good and Bad Deficits	好赤字和坏赤字


LONDON – “Deficits are always bad,” thunder fiscal hawks.	伦敦—“凡赤字皆是坏事。 ”这是财政鹰派振聋发聩的声音。


Not so, replies strategic investment analyst H. Wood Brock in an interesting new book, The American Gridlock.	并非如此，战略投资分析师胡德·布洛克（H. Wood Brock）在其颇有意思的新书《美国僵局》（The American Gridlock）中反驳道。


A proper assessment, Brock argues, depends on the “composition and quality of total government spending.”	布洛克指出，对赤字的合理评估取决于“政府支出的构成和质量”。


Government deficits incurred on current spending for services or transfers are bad, because they produce no revenue and add to the national debt.	因经常性服务和转移支出引起的政府赤字是坏赤字，因为它们不能产生收入流，而且会导致国民债务增加。


Deficits resulting from capital spending, by contrast, are – or can be – good.	反之，因资本支出引起的赤字是——或者可以是——好赤字。


If wisely administered, such spending produces a revenue stream that services and eventually extinguishes the debt; more importantly, it raises productivity, and thus improves a country’s long-run growth potential.	只要管理合理，这类支出可以产生收入流，从而维持并最终消灭债务； 更重要的是，这类支出提高了生产率，从而提升了一国的长期增长潜力。


From this distinction follows an important fiscal rule: governments’ current spending should normally be balanced by taxation.	根据这一区分，可以得到一条重要的财政规则：政府的经常性支出一般应该用税收来平衡。


To this extent, efforts nowadays to reduce deficits on current spending are justified, but only if they are fully replaced by capital-spending programs.	从这个角度说，如今各国动手削减经常性支出水平不无道理，但必须将节省下来的支出用于资本支出项目才行。


Indeed, reducing current spending and increasing capital spending should be carried out in lock step.	事实上，削减经常性支出并增加资本支出必须双管齐下。


Brock’s argument is that, given the state of its economy, the United States cannot return to full employment on the basis of current policy.	布洛克的观点是，出于经济状况考虑，美国不可能在经常性政策的基础上回到充分就业状态。


The recovery is too feeble, and the country needs to invest an additional $1 trillion annually for ten years on transport facilities and education.	复苏太疲软，美国至少需要在十年的时间里每年在运输设施和教育方面增加1万亿美元投资。


The government should establish a National Infrastructure Bank to provide the finance by borrowing directly, attracting private-sector funds, or a mixture of the two.	美国政府应该成立一个国家基础设施银行（National Infrastructure Bank），通过直接借款提供融资，吸引私人部门资金，或双管齐下。


(I have proposed a similar institution in the United Kingdom.)	（我已建议英国成立一个相似的机构。 ）


The distinction between capital and current spending (and thus between “good” and “bad” deficits) is old hat to any student of public finance.	资本和经常性支出（亦即“好”与“坏”赤字）的区别对公共财政学来说已是老生常谈了。


But we forget knowledge at such an alarming rate that it is worth re-stating it, particularly with deficit hawks in power in the UK and Europe, though fortunately not (yet) in the US.	但居然有如此之多的人忘记了应该将这一思想重新表述一下，特别是在英国和欧洲财政鹰派炙手可热的情况下（幸运的是，美国还没有出现财政鹰派一统江湖的情况）。


According to proposals agreed at an informal European Council meeting on January 30, all EU members are to amend their constitutions to introduce a balanced-budget rule that caps annual structural deficits at 0.5% of GDP.	1月30日，非正式的欧盟委员会会议通过了一项协议，所有欧盟成员国必须修订宪法，引入平衡预算规则，将年度结构性赤字控制在GDP的0. 5%以内。


This ceiling can be raised only in a deep depression or other exceptional circumstances, allowing for counter-cyclical policy so long as it is agreed that the additional deficit is cyclical, rather than structural.	只有在发生深度萧条或其他反常事件时，这一上限才能做出调整，以便让反周期政策实施足够的长度，使人们一致认为增加的赤字是周期性的，而不是结构性的。


Otherwise, violations would automatically trigger fines of up to 0.1% of GDP.	除此之外，违反这一规定者将自动触发罚款，金额不超过GDP的0. 1%。


The UK is one of two EU countries (alongside the Czech Republic) that refused to sign this “fiscal compact,” acceptance of which is required to gain access to European bailout funds.	英国是两个拒绝签署这一“财政契约”的欧盟国家之一（另一个是捷克）。 （只有接受这一规定，才能获得欧洲援助基金。


But Britain’s government has the identical aim of reducing its current deficit of 10% of GDP to near zero in five years.	）但英国政府自身有一个相同的目标：在五年内将其占GDP10%的经常性赤字减少到零。


An argument commonly heard in support of such policies is that the “bond vigilantes” will demand nothing less.	支持这类政策的声音最常见的观点是“债券维稳”不会要求任何损失。


And the finances of some European governments (and Latin American governments in the recent past) have been so parlous that this reaction is understandable.	此外，某些欧洲国家（以及前不久的拉美国家）的财政状况极其危险，以至于人们认为这样做无可厚非。


But that is not true of the US or the UK, which both have large fiscal deficits.	但对有着巨额财政赤字的美国和英国来说并非如此。


And most countries were adhering to reasonably tight fiscal discipline before the crisis of 2008 undermined their banks, cut their tax revenues, and forced up their sovereign debt.	大部分在2008年危机前坚持较紧的财政纪律的国家，其银行都受到了冲击，其税收收入都出现了下降，其主权债务都发生了危机。


At the same time, we should not attribute current enthusiasm for fiscal retrenchment to such contingencies.	与此同时，我们也不应该将当前对财政紧缩的热情归因于这些突发事件。


At its heart lies the belief that all government spending above a necessary minimum is wasteful.	其核心观点是任何高于必要最小水平的政府支出都是浪费。


Europe has its own Tea Party crackpots who loathe the welfare state and want it abolished or radically pared, and who are convinced that all state-sponsored capital spending is a “boondoggle” – just so many roads, bridges, and railway lines to nowhere that soak up their money in corruption and inefficiency.	欧洲也存在一批茶党空想家，他们厌憎福利国家，希望将这一观念彻底抛弃。 他们认为，任何国家出资的资本支出都“一无是处”——那些一点用处都没有的公路、桥梁和铁路让他们的钱财流进了腐败和低能。


Those who believe this are unfazed by the corruption and waste that characterizes much private-sector spending.	持这种观点的人对于私人部门支出的腐败和浪费视而不见。


And they prefer the total waste of letting millions of people sit idle (Brock reckons that 16% of the American workforce is unemployed, underemployed, or too discouraged to seek work) to the possibly partial waste of programs that put them to work, nurture their skills, and equip the country with assets.	他们宁可让数百万人整天无所事事（布洛克认为，美国16%的劳动力处于失业和半失业状态，或者已经失去了找工作的动力），也不愿看见那些能让他们重新工作、能培养他们的技能、能用资产武装国家的项目。 他们宁可出现全局浪费，也不愿看见局部浪费。


One can criticize details of Brock’s case: a deeper understanding of Keynes would have given him a more persuasive response to the objection that, if state-financed projects were worth doing, the private sector would be doing them.	你或许会批评布洛克观点的某些细节：如果能够根深地理解凯恩斯，他将能更有力地反驳“如果国家出资的项目值得进行，那么私人部门早就在这么做了”之类的诘难。


Before long, we will have to provide answers to these questions, because the pre-slump fiscal rules that the Europeans are vainly trying to strengthen were not up to the job.	要不了多久，我们就不得不回答这些问题，因为危机前欧洲人徒劳地试图不断强化的财政规则并不见效。


We are far from having worked out a post-recession theory of macroeconomic policy, but certain elements are clear.	我们还远没有做出后衰退时代的宏观经济政策，但某些元素已经很显然了。


In the future, fiscal and monetary policy will have to work together: neither on its own can stabilize inherently unstable market economies.	在未来，财政政策和货币政策必须相互配合，不管财政政策还是货币政策，都无法单枪匹马稳定具有内在不稳定性的市场经济。


Monetary policy will have to do much more than it did before 2008 to restrain financial markets’ “irrational exuberance.”	货币政策必须发挥远比2008年之前打的国用，以约束金融市场的“非理性繁荣”。


And we need a new, unambiguous system of fiscal accounting that distinguishes between tax-funded government spending and public spending that pays for itself.	此外，我们还需要一个崭新的、明晰的财政计算体系，区别靠税收融资的政府支出和能自我维持的公共支出。


Above all, we need to recognize that the state’s role goes beyond maintaining external security and domestic law and order.	最重要的是，我们必须认识到，国家的作用并不只是维持外部安全以及内部法律和秩序。


As Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations:	正如亚当·斯密在《国富论》中所指出的：


“The third and last duty of the sovereign....is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual, or small number of individuals; and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual, or small number of individuals, should erect or maintain.”	 “主权国家的第三也是最终职责……是建立和维持公共机构和公共工程，作为伟大社会最高等级的优势所在，这些机构和工程仍摆脱不了以下性质：利润永远不足以抵消某个或某少数个人的支出； 因此它们不可能由某个或某少数个人来建立和维持。


Chief among these public works, for Smith, are those that “facilitate the commerce of any country, such as good roads, bridges, navigable canals, harbors, etc.”	在斯密看来，这些公共工程中最重要者当属“便利一国的商业的设施，比如良好的道路、桥梁、运河、港口等”。


Another piece of forgotten knowledge that Smith also mentions is the importance of education.	另一个斯密提及、但被我们所遗忘的知识是教育的重要性。


He is right to do so, however much today’s deficit hawks seem, by their behavior, to prove the opposite.	斯密的话无比正确，尽管当今预算鹰派正在用行动充当反面例证。


Goodbye to “Globalization”	再见，“全球化”！


FLORENCE – The term “globalization” first swept the world in the 1990’s and reached its highpoint of popularity in 2000 and 2001.	佛罗伦萨——“全球化”一词从20世纪90年代开始风靡世界，并于2000年、2001年红极一时。


In 2001, for instance, Le Monde contained more than 3,500 references to mondialisation.	例如法国《世界报》（Le Monde）2001年使用该词（mondialisation）超过3500次。


But then the figure steadily fell – more than 80% by 2006.	但此后该词见诸报端的频率持续下降，至2006年下降幅度大于80%。


Since the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2007, the word’s usage in major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Financial Times has fallen still further.	而自2007年金融危机爆发以来，世界各大报纸如《纽约时报》、《金融时报》越发不用这个词了。


Globalization is on its way out.	“全球化”正在淡出人们的视野。


A brief history of the concept, and a comparison with another term that also became discredited by overuse, helps to explain what happened.	简要回顾一下这个概念的历史，并且把它同另一个因滥用而没落的词作一番比较，有助于解释上述现象。


The twentieth century’s two most important conceptual innovations, “totalitarianism” and “globalization,” were originally Italian.	20世纪最重要的两个新概念——“极权主义”和“全球化”都源自意大利语。


The first term defined the tumultuous middle of the twentieth century, the latter its benign ending.	前者刻画了那个世纪暴虐的中叶，后者则应和了它柔和的尾声。


“Totalitarianism” finally disintegrated in 1989, and globalization prevailed.	随着1989年“极权主义”的瓦解，全球化开始大行其道。


Both terms originated as criticisms that were supposed to undermine and subvert the political tendencies they described.	这两个词最初都是批判性的字眼，意在驳倒并打垮它们各自所概括的某种政治潮流。


But both ended up being just as frequently and enthusiastically used by the respective tendencies’ proponents.	但后来，那两种政治潮流的拥护者也同样频繁且热忱地使用这两个词。


“Totalitarianism” began its conceptual life in 1923 as a criticism or parody by the liberal writer Giovanni Amendola of the megalomaniacal pretensions of Benito Mussolini’s new regime.	“极权主义”最早出现在1923年，自由派作家阿门多拉（Giovanni Amendola）用它来批评和讽刺墨索里尼新政权那种妄自尊大的自吹自擂。


In the course of a few years, it had become the proud self-definition of Italian fascism, endorsed by Mussolini’s education minister, Giovanni Gentile, who became the official philosopher of fascism, and then incorporated in a ghost-written article by Mussolini himself in the Encyclopedia of Fascism.	过了若干年，它反倒成了意大利法西斯主义颇为得意的自我标识，不仅被墨索里尼的教育部长、意大利法西斯主义的官方哲学家秦梯利（Giovanni Gentile）公开鼓吹，而且出现在墨索里尼为《法西斯主义百科全书》撰写的一个词条里——当然是有人捉刀的。


In both the hostile and the celebratory use of the word, totalitarianism was intended to describe a movement that embraced all aspects of life in what purported to be a coherent philosophy of politics, economics, and society.	不论是用于抨击还是歌颂，极权主义一词都是指一种运动，这种运动自称有一套自洽的政治、经济和社会哲学，统摄了生活的一切方面。 法西斯主义者喜欢把自己想象成全知全能的。


Fascists liked to think of themselves as imbued with total knowledge and total power.	（在西方语言中，极权主义[totalitarianism]有“总体、统摄一切”的涵义——译者）


Today, few know where the term “globalization” originated.	如今，很少有人知道“全球化”这个词的起源了。


The Oxford English Dictionary gives as the earliest reference to its current usage an academic article from 1972.	《牛津英语词典》把现在这种用法的起源追溯到1972年的一篇学术文章。


The word had been used earlier, but in a rather different sense.	其实，在更早的时候就有人使用这个词了，不过意思不太一样。


It was a diplomatic term conveying the linkage between disparate policy areas (for example, in negotiating simultaneously on financial and security matters).	这个词当初是一个外交辞令，婉转地表达“把各自独立的政策领域相互挂钩”的意思（例如，同时就金融事务和安全事务进行谈判。 ）


The OED etymology ignores the non-English origins of the term, which can be found in the inventive linguistic terminology of continental European student radicalism.	《牛津英语词典》忽略了该词的一个非英语词源，那就是欧洲大陆激进学生运动颇具创造力的语汇。


In 1970, the radical left-wing Italian underground periodical Sinistra Proletaria carried an article entitled “The Process of Globalization of Capitalist Society,” which was a description of IBM, an “organization which presents itself as a totality and controls all its activities towards the goal of profit and ‘globalizes’ all activity in the productive process.”	1970年，意大利激进左翼地下刊物《Sinistra Proletaria》发表过一篇文章，题目叫《资本主义社会的全球化进程》，把IBM公司描述为一个“自成一统的组织，其一切活动以盈利为目的，且谋求把生产过程中的一切活动‘全球化’”。


Because IBM, according to the article, produced in 14 countries and sold in 109, it “contains in itself the globalization (mondializzazione) of capitalist imperialism.”	这么说的理由是，文章认为，IBM在14个国家从事生产，在109个国家从事销售，它“内含着资本帝国主义的全球化（mondializzazione）”。


This obscure left-wing publication is the first known reference to globalization in its contemporary sense.	这本默默无闻的左翼刊物是当前意义上的“全球化”一词已知最早的词源。


Since then, the term has had ups and downs. It became increasingly faddish in the 1990’s, but mostly as a term of abuse.	打那时起，该词几经沉浮，到20世纪90年代变得颇为流行，不过基本上是一个骂人的字眼。


In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, anti-globalization demonstrations targeted the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Economic Forum, and McDonald’s.	从20世纪90年代后期到21世纪初，接连爆发了几场反全球化的抗议游行，目标对准世界贸易组织、国际货币基金组织、世界经济论坛和麦当劳。


Globalization was seen at this time – as in the vision of the 1960’s Italian leftists – as the exploitation of the world’s poor by a plutocratic and technocratic elite.	那时候对全球化的看法，正如20世纪60年代意大利左派的观点：全球化是主张金钱统治和技术统治的精英们对全世界穷人的剥削。


But in the 2000’s, the meaning of globalization shifted and began to take on a semi-positive note, in large part because it increasingly looked as if the major winners of globalization included many rapidly growing emerging markets.	然而到了21世纪头十年，全球化的涵义发生了转变，开始带有一种半正面的调子，这种转变的��大一部分原因是，全球化的赢家队伍里，似乎也包含了许多快速成长的新兴市场经济体。


Indeed, countries that had previously been described as “under-developed” or “Third World” were becoming incipient global hegemons.	甚至一些曾被冠以“不发达”或“第三世界”之名的国家，在这个过程中崭露头角，隐然是未来全球霸主。


Moreover, many former critics began to recognize global connectedness as a way of solving global problems such as climate change, economic crisis, and poverty.	此外，一些先前的批评者也开始认识到，更紧密的全球联系也提供了一条途径，有利于解决如气候变化、经济危机和贫困等全球性问题。


Historians have started to project globalization backwards.	历史学家也开始把“全球化”概念投射到历史上去。


It is no longer seen only as a story of the capital-market-driven integration of the last two decades of the twentieth century, or even of an “early wave of globalization” in the nineteenth century, when the gold standard and the Atlantic telegram seemed to unite the world.	全球化的大叙事已经不仅仅是20世纪最后20年由资本和市场促进融合的这么一个故事了，甚至也超越了19世纪的所谓“第一波全球化”，也就是金本位和跨大西洋电报系统把世界联系起来的那个时代。


Instead, the wider and deeper historical vision is of a globalization that encompasses the Roman empire and the Song dynasty, and goes back to the globalization of the human species from a common African origin.	一种更宏阔更深远的历史视野认为，全球化可以把罗马帝国和中国的宋朝包括在内，甚至一直上溯到人类从共同的发祥地非洲向全球扩散的史前时期。


The terms that we use to describe complex political and social phenomena and processes have odd ambiguities.	我们用来概括复杂政治、社会现象和过程的词语总有一种奇特的含混性。


Some concepts that are designed as criticisms are quickly inverted to become celebratory.	某些为了批判而想出来的概念很快就转变成歌颂。


By 2011, anti-globalization rhetoric had largely faded, and globalization is thought of as not something to be neither fought nor cheered, but as a fundamental characteristic of the human story, in which disparate geographies and diverse themes are inextricably intertwined.	到了2011年，反全球化的论调基本上都销声匿迹了，全球化不再被看作是非反抗不可或非拥抱不可的现象，而是被看作人类历史的一个基本特征——不论是地理上的分散还是议题上的多元，终将互相纠缠勾连，变得难分难解。


In short, globalization has lost its polemical bite, and with that loss, its attractions as a concept have faded.	换句话说，全球化已经失去了引发论战的尖锐性，而且随着这种丧失，“全球化”这个概念也就不再那么令人瞩目。


Goodbye to the Dollar?	和美元说再见？


CAMBRIDGE – As the world’s financial leaders meet in Washington this month at the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meeting, perhaps they should be glad there is no clear alternative to the dollar as the global currency standard.	剑桥——值此世界金融领袖本月在华盛顿世界银行－国际货币基金组织年会上举行会晤之际，或许他们应该为没有哪种确定的选择能够取代美元成为全球通用货币而感到庆幸。


If the euro were fully ready for prime time, we might well be seeing it’s dollar exchange rate jump to over 2.00, and not just to 1.65 or 1.70, as it seems poised to do anyway.	如果欧元已经进入了黄金时段，我们就很可能看到它与美元之间的汇率飙升到2. 00以上，而绝不仅是1.


You can’t treat your customers as badly as the United States has done lately if they can go elsewhere.	70这个目标指日可待。 如果客户有其他的选择，那么无论如何也不能像美国不久前那样给予他们最恶劣的待遇。


Over the past six years, the value of the trade-weighted dollar has fallen by more than a quarter, as the US has continued to rack up historically unprecedented trade deficits.	过去六年以来，随着美国不断刷新史无前例的贸易赤字，贸易加权的美元价值已经下跌了超过四分之一。


With a soft economy, a badly compromised financial system, and serious concerns about rising inflation, the long-term dollar trend is downward, however the current crisis ends.	由于经济疲软、金融体系不健全和通胀上升引发的严重忧虑，美元长期呈现贬值的走势，而这一点无论目前危机的结果如何都无法改变。


And it is not over.	而且这还不是全部的问题。


The Federal Reserve’s bailout of the financial system is unlikely to stand up unless banks find fresh capital, and lots of it.	除非银行能找到新资金，而且是大笔的新资金，否则美联储对金融系统的紧急援助计划不太可能经得起考验。


Ultra-rich sovereign wealth funds have the cash to rescue US banks. But they are unlikely to want to do so at this point, even if the US political system allowed it.	超级富有的主权财产基金有足够的钱来拯救美国的银行，但即便美国的政治体系允许，他们也不太可能愿意在此刻出手相救。


Instead, as the credit crunch and housing price decline continue, an epic mortgage bailout appears increasingly likely, possibly costing US taxpayers a trillion dollars or more.	相反，随着信贷危机和住宅价格滑落的不断持续，进行大规模抵押贷款援助似乎越来越不可避免，而这种选择或许会花掉美国纳税人上万亿美元。


The problem is that after so many years of miserable returns on dollar assets, will global investors really be willing to absorb another trillion dollars in US debt at anything near current interest rates and exchange rates?	问题是在这么多年美元资产回报低迷之后，全球投资者是否愿意再按照接近目前的利率和汇率来吸纳价值超过万亿的美元债券？


US debt hardly looks like a bargain right now, even without the sinking dollar.	美元债券现在已经很难吸引投资者，而且即便不存在美元贬值的问题，这一点也无法改变。


Far-flung military misadventures continue to stretch the country’s fiscal resources, with costs potentially running into many trillions of dollars, according a recent study by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz.	远隔重洋的军事灾难不断消耗着这个国家的财政资源，美国人为此付出的代价有可能达到数万亿美元之巨，这一触目惊心的数据来自于琳达·比尔梅斯和约瑟夫•斯蒂格利茨不久前所进行的研究。


Next year will almost certainly see a massive rise in US corporate defaults, even though many firms entered the recession with relatively strong balance sheets.	下一年度美国企业的欠贷比率几乎可以肯定会大幅攀升，尽管许多公司在衰退刚刚开始的时候资产负债表的情况还算乐观。


State and municipal finances are in even worse shape.	州和市一级所面临的财政状况则更为严峻。


With tax revenues collapsing due to falling home prices and incomes, dozens of US municipalities could well go into receivership, as New York City did in the 1970’s.	随着住房价格和居民收入下降所导致的税收崩溃，美国有几十个自治市全部处在破产管理的边缘，这种状况与20世纪70年代的纽约非常类似。


US municipal bonds are already trading at huge risk premia, and the first big government default hasn’t even hit yet.	美国的市政债券已经在以巨额的风险溢价进行交易，而第一次大规模的政府拖欠根本就还没有发生。


Of course, if the dollar were to fall off its perch as the world’s dominant currency any time soon, the euro would be the only serious alternative.	当然，如果美元从世界主要货币的位置上快速跌落，欧元或许就成了唯一严肃的替代选择。


The Yuan may well supplant the dollar in the second half of this century.	人民币很有可能在本世纪后50年取代美元的位置。


But China’s draconian capital controls and massive financial repression currently disqualify it from anchoring the global economic system.	但中国严厉的资本控制和大规模的财政压制使得人民币在目前还不具备稳定全球经济体系的能力。


Fortunately for the dollar, the euro, too, seems to have its problems.	对美元来讲幸运的是，欧元也有其自身的问题。


European banks remain balkanized, with a patchwork of national regulators seeking to promote their own champions.	欧洲国家银行目前仍然是自行其是，有一大堆的国家调控机构相互争夺霸主的地位。


European governments’ debt may all be denominated in euro, but German and Italian debt are hardly the same thing, so the government euro-bond market lacks the depth and liquidity of the US Treasury Bill market.	欧洲政府债务可以全部以欧元计价，但德国债券与意大利债券却有着本质的不同，因此导致欧元政府债券市场缺乏美国短期国债市场的深度和流动性。


Moreover, international investors can buy and sell real estate far more easily in the US than in most of Europe.	不仅如此，国际投资者在美国购买和出售不动产的便利程度要远远超过多数欧洲国家。


And the absence of a Europe-wide fiscal policy creates significant uncertainty about how the European Central Bank would finance itself if it suddenly faced large losses on junk bank debt after a big bailout.	而缺少全欧范围内统一的财政政策导致在大规模紧急援助后突然面对巨额不良债务时，欧洲央行自身的融资渠道还存在很大的不确定性。


But the euro does have growing strengths.	但欧元的实力的确与日俱增。


At current market exchange rates, the European Union is now larger economically than the US.	按照目前的市场汇率计算，欧盟已经超过美国成为全球最大的经济实体。


New central and eastern European members are bringing enormous dynamism and flexibility.	新加入的中东欧成员国带来了巨大的灵活性和发展动力。


At the same time, the ECB has gained considerable credibility from its handling of the global credit crisis.	与此同时，欧洲央行在对全球信贷危机的处理中树立了很高的威望。


Indeed, if the euro zone can persuade Great Britain to become a full-fledged member, thereby acquiring one of the world’s two premier financial centers (London), the euro might really start to look like a viable alternative to the dollar.	事实上，如果欧元区能够说服英国加入成为正式成员，并借此把世界两个主要金融中心之一的伦敦招至麾下，欧元就真有可能成为替代美元地位的合理货币。


In 1971, as the dollar collapsed towards the end of the post-World War II fixed exchange-rate system, US Treasury Secretary John Connally famously told his foreign counterparts that “the dollar is our currency, but your problem.”	1971年，当二战后的美元固定汇率体系崩溃之后，当时担任美国财政部长的约翰•康纳利人所尽知地告诉其他国家的财长，“美元是我们的货币，但同时也是你们的问题。


And the dollar’s exalted global status has survived ever since, despite many episodes of neglect and abuse.	”自此之后尽管忽略和滥用的情况比比皆是，但美元高贵的全球地位却一直得以延续。


World currency standards have enormous inertia.	世界货币标准有着极强的惯性。


The British pound only forfeited its role to the US dollar after more than 50 years of industrial decline and two world wars.	只是在持续超过50年的工业衰退和两次世界大战之后，美元才取代英镑成为全球流通的货币。


But it could happen a lot faster this time.	但这一次周期可能会大大缩短。


As central bankers and finance ministers ponder how to intervene to prop up the dollar, they should also start thinking about what to do when the time comes to pull the plug.	值此银行家和财政部长考虑如何采取干预措施支持美元的时候，他们也应该开始思考当美元角色终结真正到来的时刻，世界货币体系将要何去何从。


Good Governance Begins At Home	良好的管制应当以身作则


The whole sorry Wolfowitz affair looks like it is finally drawing to a close.	整个不幸的沃尔福威茨事件看来终于要结束了。


It is hard to believe that he will stay on much longer at the World Bank, and it is time to start thinking more closely about the future of that institution.	很难相信他还可以在世界银行再呆多长时间，现在是开始更多地思考这一机构未来的时候了。


From the first, I was critical of the way he was chosen because I have long opposed the “old boy” agreement between the United States and Europe, by which the US always appoints the head of the World Bank and Europe the head of the IMF.	从一开始，我就对挑选他担任行长的方式提出批评，因为我长期以来一直反对美国和欧洲之间的“老伙计”协议。 根据这一协议，美国总是任命世界银行行长，而欧洲则任命国际货币基金组织总裁。


This unspoken arrangement dates from the founding of the Bretton Woods institution at a time when colonialism was still alive, and makes no sense in the twenty-first century.	这一默契安排起始于布雷顿森林体系建立的时候，当时，殖民主义依旧存在，但是在二十一世纪就行不通了。


There are reports that European leaders have told the US that if they get Wolfowitz to step down quickly and quietly, they will be allowed to choose Wolfowitz’s successor.	有报道说，欧洲领导人告诉美国说，如果沃尔福威茨快一点安静地下台，那就还是让美国挑选沃尔福威茨的继任者。


It’s easy to see why the US and Europe want to stick to business as usual, but such a deal would amount to a wasted opportunity.	人们很容易就知道为何美国和欧洲想要坚持既往，但是这样的一个交易就会浪费机会。


I can think of no better way to restore confidence in these two venerable institutions than to finally open up the way their presidents are selected.	我无法想出要比开放领导人的挑选方式更佳的办法来恢复对这两大值得尊敬机构的信心。


One of the lessons of the Wolfowitz debacle is that it does actually matter how stakeholders and employees feel about the Bank’s leadership.	沃尔福威茨倒台的教训之一是，利益相关者和雇员们对行长领导如何感觉实际上还是有所作用的。


The world was prejudiced against him from the start because of his involvement in the Iraq War.	由于他卷入伊拉克战争，世界从一开始就对他报以偏见。


But people were willing to give him a chance.	但是人们还是愿意给他一次机会。


Some said that perhaps he would be another Robert McNamara, the US defense secretary who helped mire America in the Vietnam War, but used his service to the Bank as penance.	有人说他或许会成为另一个麦克拉玛拉。 麦克拉玛拉担任美国国防部长期间让美国陷入越战的泥潭，但是却服务于世界银行力图将功补过。


At first, there was reason for hope: Wolfowitz was forceful in arguing for debt forgiveness and an end to agricultural subsidies.	一开始，人们还是有理由报以希望的。 沃尔福威茨大力争取免除债务并且结束农业补贴。


But he also hired old friends and political allies – many of whom did not have experience in development – and sealed himself off from his staff, alienating the very people whose support he needed.	但是他也招募了老朋友和政治盟友，他们中的许多人都没有发展问题的经验。 他还与其手下人马相隔绝，从而疏远了那些他需要得到帮助的人。


As we learned from the case of Larry Summers at Harvard, relationships inside institutions (not just with donors and funders) matter.	正如我们从哈佛大学的萨默斯事件中所了解的那样，机构内部的关系（不仅仅是与捐助者和资助者的关系）十分重要。


In this respect, Wolfowitz, while by all accounts an intelligent and pleasant person, did not do himself any favors.	沃尔福威茨尽管是一个聪明开朗的人，但是在这一方面他并没有给自己创造有利的环境。


Worse, Wolfowitz did not seem to have a grand vision for the Bank. Instead of a development strategy, there was simply an expansion of the anti-corruption agenda initiated by his predecessor, James Wolfensohn.	更加糟糕的是，沃尔福威茨对世界银行看起来并没有宏大的设想，只是扩大了他的前任沃尔福森开创的反腐败议程，而没有发展战略。


As the World Bank’s Chief Economist under Wolfensohn, I had argued that failing to deal with corruption risked undermining growth and poverty alleviation.	我在沃尔福森手下担任世界银行的首席经济学家。 我曾经提出，不对付腐败问题就会可能破坏增长和减少贫困。


By the time I left the Bank, these ideas were widely accepted, and I was pleased that Wolfowitz supported continuing the Bank’s efforts.	在我离开世界银行的时候，人们广泛接受了这些观念，而且我很高兴沃尔福威茨支持继续世行的努力。


But the fight against corruption was always to be only one part of a more comprehensive development agenda that was required.	但是反腐败总归只是所需要的更为全面的发展议程的一部分。


Indeed, aid effectiveness could be undermined just as much by incompetence as by corruption.	实际上，不称职破坏援助效力的程度和腐败一样巨大。


Sadly, the anti corruption agenda of the Bank became politicized.	令人难过的是，世行的反腐议程变得政治化了。


There was a push to give money to Iraq – a country rife with corruption – while other countries were accused of corruption without adequate hard evidence or specific details.	有人推动把钱给伊拉克这一腐败盛行的国家，而其他国家则在没有足够证据或者具体事例的情况下被指为腐败。


And here, too, an opportunity was lost.	在这里也丢失了一个机会。


The aims of the campaign were laudable, but it generated hostility and ill will, undermining its effectiveness.	反腐战役的目标是值得称赞的，但是它却制造了敌意和恶意，从而破坏了它的有效性。


The World Bank, in its efforts to support democracy and good governance, must insist on the highest standards of due process: charges of corruption should be treated seriously, and the evidence turned over to national authorities for use in open, transparent, and independent proceedings.	世界银行在努力支持民主和良好管制中必须坚持法定程序的最高标准。 也就是说，应当严肃对待腐败的指控，有关证据应当移交给有关国家当局用于公开、透明以及独立的程序之中。


This is something for Wolfowitz’s successor to bear in mind.	沃尔福威茨的继任者应当记住这一点。


If anti-corruption campaigns are to be seen as effective, they must be fair and transparent.	要想使得反腐战役看起来有效果，那么它们就必须公平透明。


The same is true of the selection of the World Bank’s president.	在挑选世行行长问题上也是如此。


There is still a chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.	还是有机会转败为胜。


What has been a sad and sorry saga could have a happy ending if Wolfowitz’s successor is chosen in an open, transparent process.	如果在一个公开透明的程序中挑选沃尔福威茨的继任者，那么，这一不幸、令人难过的大事件还是可以满意地收场。


This, one hopes, is the silver lining in the cloud now hanging over the World Bank.	人们希望，这就是世界银行的一线曙光。


Goodluck Nigeria	祝你好运，尼日利亚


LAGOS – The bombs that exploded in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, as the country was celebrating its golden jubilee earlier this month are a disturbing portent of the unprecedented political territory that the country is entering.	发自拉各斯——本月早些时候，在尼日利亚欢庆建国50周年之际，首都阿布贾的炸弹袭击事件却犹如一个令人不安的预兆，预示着这个国家即将卷入一场史无前例的政治风暴当中。


The death last May of Umaru Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s president, upended the informal agreement between members of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to rotate power between northern Muslims and their southern, mainly Christian counterparts.	尼日利亚总统奥马鲁·亚拉杜瓦在去年5月的突然离世打乱了执政的人民民主党党内的非正式协议，该协议约定党内的北方穆斯林派和南部基督教派之间轮流执政。


Yar’Adua’s deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, from the oil-rich Niger Delta in the south, overcame resistance from members of the late president’s cabinet and was sworn in as Yar’Adua’s successor, as stipulated by the constitution.	而古得勒克·乔纳森，这位来自石油资源丰富的南部尼日尔三角洲的总统副手，则成功地压制住了已故总统内阁的反对之声，依照宪法的规定宣誓成为接班人。


In September, he told Nigerians of his intention to run for another presidential term in 2011.	今年9月，他还公开向国民宣布自己将参加2011年的总统竞选以求连任。


President Jonathan’s announcement triggered furious protests from his northern rivals, including Ibrahim Babangida, a former military dictator who reminded him that Olusegun Obasanjo, a southerner, had served as president from 1999, when military rule ended, to 2007, with northern support.	新总统的这一声明激起了其北方政敌的强烈反对，其中包括易卜拉欣·巴班吉达。 这位前军事独裁者提醒乔纳森：当年自南方的奥卢塞贡·奥巴桑乔在北方派系的支持下，在1999年军事独裁结束时当选为总统，一直干到2007年任满结束。


Yar’Adua had completed only three years of his first four-year term when he died, and it was expected that all southerners, including Jonathan, would unite behind another northerner for next year’s vote.	如今来自北方的亚拉杜瓦在其法定4年总统任期内只做了三年就去世了，因此所有人都预料包括乔纳森在内的全体南方派党员将团结在另一位北方派党员的领导下，为后者明年竞逐大选呐喊助威。


But resentment of northerners’ perceived dominance of national politics runs deep in the south, particularly in the Niger Delta, where 50 years of uncontrolled oil production has resulted in polluted farmlands and deepening poverty.	但是北方这种自以为掌控着国内政治的做法换来的却是南方的极力抵制，特别是在尼日尔三角洲地区——在该地区，50多年的滥采石油已经导致了耕地污染，贫穷加剧的恶果。


The ethnic minority groups that inhabit the area complain that the current revenue-allocation formula, which leaves Nigeria’s oil-producing states with only 13% of oil revenue, is grossly unfair and insufficient compensation for the damaged ecology they endure.	世代居住在那里的少数民族指责当前的利润分配方式非常不公平，而且不足以弥补生态破坏给他们带来的灾难。 根据当前的利润分配模式，尼日利亚各产油州仅能获得石油工业总利润的13%。


In January 2006, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a violent organization led by angry Delta youth, began to attack oil installations and the soldiers guarding them.	在2006年1月，由愤怒的三角洲地区青年人组成的尼日利亚三角洲解放运动组织（一个武装暴力组织，简称MEND）开始袭击炼油厂和军方守卫。


MEND and other local groups are demanding that the country return to “true federalism” in the spirit of 1960, and that 50% of oil revenue be retained by the region’s inhabitants.	MEND和其他当地组织要求国家回到根据1960年精神建立的“真正联邦制”，并把石油开发利润的50%留给产油区民众。


Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and founder of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), a grassroots movement in Ogoniland, had called for this as well, before he was hanged by General Sani Abacha’s junta in 1995.	而在1995年，肯萨罗维瓦，这位作家兼奥戈尼人民生存运动（这是一场爆发在奥戈尼兰地区的草根运动）发起人在被萨尼·阿巴查将军的军政府绞死之前，也提出过同样的要求。


Leading voices in the region have come out strongly in Jonathan’s support, and have asked him to ignore northern politicians who insist that the PDP’s power rotation arrangement be respected.	不过，尼日利亚的主流媒体都坚定地支持乔纳森，并要求他不要理会那些要求他遵守人民民主党党内轮流执政协定的北方派。


Delta leaders point out that 2011 is the ‘minorities’ turn to govern the country after being sat upon by the larger ethnic groups since the end of colonial rule in 1960.	而三角洲地区的首脑则指出，自1960年殖民统治结束开始，少数民族一直被多数民族排除在政权之外，2011年也该是“少数民族”主政的时候了。


It is not yet clear whether Goodluck Jonathan will be able to translate this sectional support into enough votes in the party primaries and beyond to retain the presidency.	但目前我们还不清楚，古德勒克能否在党内初选和党派间竞选中把这些支持转变为选票并取得连任。


He has the advantage of a massive war chest, given that Nigeria’s leaders have always done with the public treasury what they liked.	鉴于尼日利亚的总统们总是能随心所欲地支配公共财产，拥有大量的竞选资源是他的优势。


But General Babangida also has deep pockets.	但是，巴班吉达将军同样也财大气粗。


Besides, PDP’s powerful governors, in control of 28 of the country’s 36 states, see Jonathan as an upstart who came from the middle of nowhere to become president.	此外，那些人民民主党内的实力派——他们掌控了全国36个州中的28个——只不过把乔纳森看作是从蛮荒之地爬到总统之位的政治新人。


The powers of the Nigerian presidency are extensive, and Jonathan’s handlers have been dropping loud hints that they will deploy them to whip the governors – including the northerners – into line.	尼日利亚总统的权力是很大的，而乔纳森的助手们也一直暗示他们将会利用这些权力来迫使国内各州执政者——包括北方——站到他们那边来。


Northern PDP leaders, still pressuring the region’s large group of presidential contenders, including Babangida, to agree on who will fight it out with Jonathan, are already looking beyond the primaries.	而北方派的党内领导人一方面向包括巴班吉达在内的国内实力派总统竞选者施压，敦促这些人在由谁来与乔纳森进行竞选的问题上达成共识，另一方面，他们已经开始筹划初选之后的事情了。


They are threatening to take the northern vote to another party if they lose the PDP ticket.	他们威胁说如果得不到人民民主党的支持，就把选票投给其他政党。


This could have far-reaching consequences for the PDP and the country. The PDP, in power since military rule ended in 1999, is widely disliked.	要真的是这样，那将对人民民主党和这个国家产生深远的影响。


Corruption is widespread, and PDP politicians have been unable to deliver the prosperity and improved social services that Nigerians looked forward to following the return of democracy.	自1999年军事独裁结束后，人民民主党开始执政，却无法赢得大多数人的认可。


Indeed, the PDP has been able to retain power only by rigging successive elections, most spectacularly in 2007, when the outgoing Obasanjo foisted Yar’Adua on the party hierarchy.	在民主回归之后，随之而来的却是腐败蔓延，人民民主党的政治家无力给人民带来期望的国家繁荣和社会福利。


The poorly resourced opposition could benefit if the expected northern backlash divides the PDP.	要是北方派如期望那样反水，那将会分裂人民民主党，届时，那些资源贫乏的反对党就能从中渔利。


Nuhu Ribadu, the respected former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has announced his intention to contest the presidency as the candidate of one of the opposition parties.	备受尊敬的前经济与金融犯罪委员会主席努胡·利巴杜已经公开宣布将作为反对党候选人参加总统竞选。


A Muslim northerner, Ribadu enjoys the support of youth and democrats nationwide.	而另一位北方穆斯林人士利巴杜则深受国内年轻人和民主人士的支持。


The latter are regaining confidence in the political process, following the recent appointment of a no-nonsense academic as head of the election commission.	在一位品德高尚的著名学者最近被任命为选举委员会主席后，国内的民主派开始对整个政治进程重拾信心。


Muhammadu Buhari, whom Babangida replaced as military head of state in 1985, is also expected to run, as the nominee of the Congress of Progressive Change.	此外，在1985年被巴班吉达取代成为国家军事领导人的穆罕穆杜·布哈里也表示将作为进步改革国民大会党的提名人参加竞选。


Doubts linger about whether longtime northern PDP leaders, used to cutting midnight deals with their southern counterparts, would break ranks and support Ribadu next year.	不过，对于那些习惯了和南方派私分权力的人民民主党北方派大佬是否会在明年另立山头，转而支持利巴杜，人们还是有很大疑问的。


Conservative northerners also view Buhari, an ascetic politician popular with the region’s poor, with unease.	保守的北方派对布哈里这位奉行禁欲主义，且深受国内穷人支持的政治家也感到心里没底。


Even if they overcome their reservations and back Ribadu or Buhari, and either candidate goes on to beat Jonathan at the polls, angry Delta youths could respond with fresh violence against oil workers, disrupting production.	即便他们真的脱离人民民主党，转而支持利巴杜或布哈里，而且其中一位能在民意调查中打败乔纳森，但愤怒的三角洲青年可能会以袭击石油工人，打乱生产作为回应。


Other trouble spots – central Nigeria, where ethnic tensions are simmering, and the far north, the stomping ground of Boko Haram, a violent Muslim sect – could get sucked into election-related violence.	其他较麻烦的地方——包括尼日利亚中部（那里的民族矛盾较为突出）和北部边境（激进穆斯林派系博科圣地的地盘）——也可能遭受与大选有关的暴力袭击。


With industries collapsing because of constant power outages, unemployment soaring, and cynical politicians forcing their impoverished followers into ethnic and religious laagers, Nigeria’s 2011 elections are shaping up to be a perfect storm.	随着持续的权力斗争导致的工业崩溃，失业率一飞冲天，别有用心的政治家就会迫使他们那些一贫如洗的支持者走上激进宗教主义道路，2011年尼日利亚大选正在孕育着一场巨大的政治风暴。


In the past, Nigeria has always managed to weather its political tempests.	过去，尼日利亚总能从其国内的政治暴风雨中全身而退。


Will it do so again?	那么这一次，它还能成功吗？


Good Policies for Great Countries	给大国献良策


NEW YORK – We are in a protracted period of international transition, one that began more than two decades ago with the Cold War’s end.	发自纽约——自20年前冷战结束以来，国际社会就进入了一个漫长的变革时期。


That era of strategic rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union gave way to one in which the US possessed far greater power than any other country and enjoyed an unprecedented degree of influence.	美苏战略对抗的时代已经一去不返，取而代之的是美国一家独大，对世界各国拥有空前影响力的时代。


That American unipolar moment has given way to a world better described as non-polar, in which power is widely distributed among nearly 200 states and tens of thousands of non-state actors ranging from Al Qaeda to Al Jazeera and from Goldman Sachs to the United Nations.	如今这个美国主导的“单极化”世界已经让位于所谓的“无极化”世界，这是一个权力在200多个国家以及包括从基地组织到半岛电视台，从高盛公司到联合国在内的数千个非国家组织之间广泛分配的世界。


But what distinguishes historical eras from one another is less the distribution of power than the degree of order between and within states.	不过，与其说历史时代的划分是以权力的分配为标准，倒不如说是以国家之间以及国家内部的秩序为标准。


Order never just emerges; it is the result of conscious efforts by the most powerful entities in the world.	秩序从来都不是被凭空出现的，相反，它是世界上最强大的国家之间有意识的共同努力的产物。


While the US remains the world’s most powerful single country, it cannot maintain, much less expand, international peace and prosperity on its own.	尽管美国依然是世界上最强大的单一国家，但它已经无法单靠自身的力量来维持——更别说推动——国际的和平繁荣了。


It is over-extended, dependent upon massive daily imports of dollars and oil, and its armed forces are engaged in demanding conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.	这个国家已经过度扩张，又过度依赖于每天对美元和石油的大量进口，还深陷于阿富汗和伊拉克的军事冲突之中。


The US lacks the means and the political consensus to take on much more in the way of global responsibility. It also lacks the means to compel others to follow its lead.	当前美国已经找不到更多的方法，也缺乏政治共识去承担更多的国际责任，同时，它还缺少促使其他国家听其指挥的手段。


Moreover, contemporary problems – for example, thwarting the spread of materials and weapons of mass destruction, maintaining an open world economy, slowing climate change, and combating terrorism – cannot be managed, much less solved, by any single country.	另一方面，诸如遏制大规模杀伤性武器和原料的扩散，维持一个开放的世界经济，减缓气候变化以及打击恐怖主义等当前重大问题都不是任何单一国家所能处理的，更不用说解决了。


Only collective efforts can meet common challenges; the more global the response, the more likely that it will succeed.	只有依靠集体力量才能应对这些共同挑战。 而全球各国越能协同一致应对挑战，成功的可能性也就越大。


In short, the US requires partners if the twenty-first century is to be an era in which the majority of people around the world enjoy relative peace and satisfactory standards of living.	一句话，为了将21世纪变成全球绝大多数人能够享受相对和平和舒适生活的时代，美国需要寻找盟友。


But the partnerships that prevailed in the Cold War  – between the US, Western Europe, and several Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, and Australia – are no longer adequate.	不过，冷战时代建立起来的那种盟友关系——那种在美国，西欧，以及包括日本，韩国和澳大利亚在内的亚洲国家之间建立的关系——当今显然已经不够用了。


These countries lack the resources and often the will to manage most of the world’s problems.	那些国家缺乏充分的资源，也通常缺少足够的动力来参与和处理大部分全球性问题。


So the old partners need new ones.	为此，旧同盟需要补充新鲜的血液。


Emerging powers have the potential to fill this need.	而新兴的大国正好拥有满足这种需要的潜力。


The question is what China, India, Brazil, and others are prepared to do with their growing strength.	问题是中国，印度，巴西和其他新兴国家准备如何使用它们日益壮大的实力。


What makes a country great is not the size of its territory, population, army, or economy, but how it uses its power to shape the world beyond its borders.	大国之所以成为大国，不在于其国土面积，人口，军事力量或经济实力，而在于它是如何运用自身的力量来塑造其国际环境。


Countries that are strong but still developing tend to regard foreign policy as little more than a hand-maiden of domestic policy and a means to gain access to markets and resources essential for rapid development.	可惜的是，那些实力强大的发展中国家一直倾向于将其外交政策仅仅视为其国内政策的一种辅助，视为其进入国际市场和获取自身快速发展所必需的资源的一种手段。


This outlook is understandable, but shortsighted.	这种行为虽然有它的道理，但却是目光短浅的。


Rising powers can neither insulate nor isolate themselves from what happens beyond their borders.	对于发生在其境外的事情，新兴国家是无法独善其身，不受影响的。


Whether or not they acknowledge it, they have a stake in world order.	不论它们是否承认，它们都与国际秩序息息相关。


Consider China, by many measures the most significant emerging country.	让我们来看看中国这个从各方面来说都是最为重要的新兴大国。


It wants to maintain preferred access to Iran’s energy resources, but if conflict results from Iran’s nuclear aspirations, China will be paying much more for those resources.	它想维持获得伊朗能源的优先渠道，但如果伊朗的核野心最后导致了军事冲突，那么中国将要付出更多才能获得那些能源。


The prospect of a threat to the stability of the greater Middle East and to the flow of oil should give China an incentive to support robust sanctions against Iran.	由此看来，为了降低大中东地区的区域安全及其石油输出安全受到威胁的可能性，中国应该支持针对伊朗的强制制裁。


But it is not clear whether China’s leaders will recognize this and act in their country’s own long-term self interest.	但迄今为止，我们都未能确定中国领导人是否已经意识到了这一点并从其国家长远利益出发采取行动。


The point is not to single out China. Similar questions apply to India and Brazil.	不单是中国，印度和巴西也面临着同样的问题。


And it is not just the developing and emerging countries that must reconsider their approach to the world. The US must do so as well.	而在这一点上，不但那些发展中和新兴大国需要反思它们的外交政策，美国也必须进行自我反省。


While much has been said and written about America’s call for China to become a global stakeholder, China will not simply sign on as a pillar of an American-defined world.	尽管美国在呼吁中国成为全球利益攸关者之一的问题上浪费了很多口舌和笔墨，但并不见得中国会轻易接受拥护一个由美国支配的世界。


It wants to help set the rules and build the institutions for enforcing them.	很明显，中国想要参与制定国际规则并组建落实这些规则的国际组织。


It is up to the US to work with China and others to do this, and this requires America’s openness to others’ preferences and their having a larger role.	美国有责任与中国以及其他国家共同协作，而这就要求美国能够在对待其他国家的偏好和允许它们拥有更大权力的问题上持一种开放的态度。


The empowerment of the G-20 is a step in the right direction, but many more changes are needed, including restructuring the UN, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank so that they, too, reflect the new distribution of power.	虽然美国对G20的授权是迈出了正确的一步，但这还远远不够，还需要更多的改变，包括重组联合国，国际货币基金组织以及世界银行，好让这些机构也能反映出权力的重新分配。


In return, new arrangements should call on emerging countries to contribute more to addressing climate change, paying for peacekeeping and state-building, promoting free trade, and sanctioning those who support terror or develop weapons of mass destruction.	作为回报，新的国际秩序应该要求新兴大国要在解决气候变化，资助维和行动和国家重建，促进自由贸易，以及制裁支持恐怖主义和发展大规模杀伤性武器的组织等方面作出更多的贡献。


This era’s major states, developed and emerging alike, have the ability to reach accord on today’s defining issues.	作为这个时代的主要国家，发达国家与新兴大国有能力在当前的决定性问题上达成共识。


Their willingness to do so will determine when and how this period of global transition ends and what succeeds it.	而它们这样做的意愿将决定着这个全球变革的时代将在何时以及如何结束，同时，也将决定下一个时代的面貌。


Good Times Down Latin America’s Way	拉丁美洲前途光明


MEXICO CITY – For Latin America, 2011 was, in Frank Sinatra’s terms, a very good year – and 2012 doesn’t look like being so bad either.	墨西哥城——对于拉丁美洲而言，2011年按弗兰克•西纳特拉的话来说是非常好的一年，2012年看来也不会差。


For a region not always accustomed to things going well, this is a somewhat strange state of affairs.	对于一个通常不大适应一切顺利的地区来说，这多少显得有些奇怪。


Three elections were held in Latin America in 2011.	2011年，拉丁美洲举行了三场选举。


Two – in Argentina and Peru – went well; the other – in Nicaragua – was marred by egregious fraud and heavy-handed government intervention in favor of the incumbent.	其中两场——在阿根廷和秘鲁——一切顺利，另一场尼加拉瓜的选举遭到了严重舞弊和实施高压政策的政府干预支持现任领导人的破坏。


Still, two out of three is not bad in a region where, previously, if elections were held at all, disputes about the outcomes were the norm.	先前该地区要是举行选举，对选举结果争论不休司空见惯，在三场选举中有两场成功的结果并不糟糕。


In economic terms, high commodity prices fueled strong growth in South America in 2011, and the modest US recovery benefited nearby countries.	在经济方面，2011年，大宗商品的高价格促使拉丁美洲强劲增长，美国经济适度复苏也让邻近的国家受益。


In Chile, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, and, to a lesser extent, Brazil and Colombia, voracious Chinese and Indian demand for raw materials and food boosted foreign reserves, enabled heavy government spending, and sustained high levels of imports.	在智利、秘鲁、阿根廷、乌拉圭、玻利维亚以及相对受益较少的巴西和哥伦比亚，中国和印度对原材料和粮食的巨大需求增加了外汇储备，使政府能够大举投资并支持了高水平的进口。


All this led to average growth rates well in excess of 4%.	这一切促使平均经济增长率大大超过4%。


But it also led to new doubts about the wisdom of reliance on commodity exports.	但是，这也带来了新的疑问，依赖大宗商品出口是否明智。


Chilean economist and politician Carlos Ominami, in his tell-all memoir Secretos de la Concertación, wondered what would happen if China's economy slowed or its real-estate bubble burst.	智利经济学家和政治家卡洛斯•奥米纳米在其无所不谈的回忆录《秘密的联盟》（Secretos de la Concertación）中发出疑问，如果中国经济放缓或其房地产泡沫破灭会出现什么情况。


By the end of the year, this seemed to be happening: commodity prices and growth rates were dropping, and 2012, while still promising strong economic performance, will not match this year's success.	到今年底，这似乎正在发生：大宗商品价格和增长率正在下降，2012年，经济有望继续强劲增长，但是无法与今年的成功相提并论。


Sustained lower prices may bring chickens home to roost.	价格持续下降可能会带来问题。


The outliers were Venezuela, despite high oil prices, and the Caribbean Basin: Mexico, Central America, and the islands.	不受影响的国家有委内瑞拉（尽管石油价格高）和加勒比海盆地地区：墨西哥、中美洲和岛国。


These countries export manufactured goods to the US, on which they also rely for tourism and remittances; they lack either the geography or the geology to become great commodity exporters (or, like Mexico, they export all of their oil to the US).	这些国家向美国出口制造品，还依赖美国带来的旅游和汇款。 它们缺少成为大宗商品出口大国的地理和地质条件（或者像墨西哥，它们把所有石油出口到美国）。


But even the outliers enjoyed decent growth this year.	但是今年，连这些局外国家的经济增长也不错。


If the US avoids a new slowdown, they may do better than South America in 2012.	2012年，如果美国能够避免新的经济放缓，它们的表现可能超过南美洲。


All told, with the exception of 2009, the entire region will have experienced a full decade of uninterrupted growth – something not witnessed since the 1970’s.	总体而言，除了2009年以外，整个地区将实现10年连续的经济增长——自20世纪70年代以来，从未出现过。


The boom fueled expansion of Latin America’s middle classes.	经济繁荣增加了拉丁美洲的中产阶级。


Between 1950 and 1980, most Latin American countries’ middle classes comprised between one-quarter and one-third of the population.	1950年至1980年期间，大多数拉丁美洲的中产阶级人口占到了总人口的四分之一到三分之一。


Then came the debt crisis of the 1980’s, the extreme  structural reforms and financial collapses of the 1990’s, and a new global downturn in 2001.	接着，20世纪80年代出现了债务危机，90年代进行了极端的结构性改革，金融崩溃，2001年，全球经济再次衰退。


Such traumatic events plunged these countries into the so-called “middle-income trap”: unable to grow nor to continue broadening their middle classes.	这些灾难性的事件使这些国家陷入了所谓的“中产阶级陷阱”：无法增长也无法继续扩大其中产阶级。


But, by the second half of the 2000’s, everything changed: prolonged macroeconomic stability, competent center-left or center-right governments, sensible social policies, and global economic growth allowed countries like Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and even Argentina to take the next giant step.	但是，到21世纪下叶，一切都变了：长期稳定的宏观经济、能干的中左翼或中右翼政府、明智的社会政策以及全球经济增长使墨西哥、巴西、智利、乌拉圭，甚至阿根廷等各国能够再迈出一大步。


By 2008 or so, around 55% of these countries’ populations belonged to the middle class, by whatever definition one used.	大约截止2008年，在这些国家的总人口中，约55%属于中产阶级，无论根据谁的定义都是如此。


Access to credit, more jobs, remittances, the commodity boom, and conditional cash transfers enabled millions to purchase a home, a car, and a better life.	畅通的信贷、更多的工作、汇款、大宗商品繁荣以及有条件的现金转账让数百万人买了房子和汽车，过上了更美好的生活。


This was not a middle class modeled on North Atlantic precedents, and its members’ status is precarious and reversible; moreover, their standard of living is well below that of their counterparts in wealthier countries.	这个中产阶级并不是北大西洋中产阶级的复制品，其中产阶级的身份是不稳定的，也是可逆的。 此外，他们的生活水平也远远低于其较富裕国家的同仁。


But a middle class it is.	但是它就是中产阶级。


These middle-income sectors make up an even larger part of the electorate, since their turnout rates are higher than those of the poor.	中等收入的群体在选民中所占的比重较大，因为他们参加投票的比例比穷人要高。


Political candidates must engage them, occasionally pander to them, and tailor their message to them, all of which steers leaders and parties toward moderate positions.	政治候选人必须与他们接触，时不时地奉承他们，给他们发布量身打造的信息，这一切引导领导人和政党采取温和的立场。


There are no guarantees that this will endure, but it is one of the region’s most impressive achievements in recent years.	无法保证，这能持续，但是这是该地区近年来所取得的最引人注目的成就之一。


Latin America will witness two important elections in 2012, in Venezuela and Mexico, and one non-election, in Cuba.	2012年，拉丁美洲将有两场重要的选举——在委内瑞拉和墨西哥——和一场不进行选举的领导人换班——在古巴。


In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez’s opponents will unite behind a single candidate for October’s presidential election.	在委内瑞拉，乌戈•查韦斯的反对派将团结起来支持一位候选人参加明年10月的总统选举。


But everything depends on Chávez’s health, which, like that of Fidel Castro in Cuba a closely guarded state secret.	但是一切都取决于查韦斯的身体状况，这与古巴菲尔德•卡斯特罗的身体状况一样是一个严格保守的秘密。


Will Chávez’s cancer allow him to run (he is as formidable a campaigner as he is a terrible economic manager), win, and govern until 2030?	查韦斯的癌症能让他参加竞选（他是一名势不可挡的竞选人，同时也是糟糕透顶的经济管理者）、获胜并执政至2030年吗？


Will he be a stand-in for his more radical brother (and designated successor), Adán?	他会成为其更加激进的兄弟（和指定继承人）阿丹的替身吗？


Or will he be too ill to participate?	又或者，他因病情过重无法参选？


In that case – and most importantly – would he, Adán, and the entire “Bolivarian” elite accept defeat at the polls?	在这件事上，最重要的是，他、阿丹和整个“玻利维亚”精英层会接受在民调中失败吗？


In Cuba, there will be no elections, but matters may come to a head next year.	在古巴，不会有选举，但是明年也许会出现问题。


Raúl Castro’s economic reforms have either not been implemented, or are not delivering the expected results; the island continues to depend on Venezuelan subsidies, remittances from Miami, and European tourists.	劳尔•卡斯特罗的经济改革要么没有实行，要么没有达到预期的效果； 这个岛国仍然依靠委内瑞拉的补贴、来自迈阿密的汇款和欧洲的游客。


Cuba’s octogenarian ruling brothers cannot last forever.	古巴两位年过八旬的执政兄弟无法永生。


Something may have to give on the island, especially if their Venezuelan benefactor is no longer in power.	这个岛国可能会发生一些事情，尤其是如果他们委内瑞拉的恩人不再执政的话。


Then there is Mexico, which will hold only its fourth democratic election in its history in a context of rampant organized crime, appalling violence, and rising skepticism about President Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs.	再说说墨西哥。 在有组织犯罪猖獗、暴力活动令人恐惧，对费利佩•卡尔德龙总统反毒品之战日益怀疑的情况下，墨西哥将举行有史以来的第四次民主选举。


With three contending parties, a terrible electoral law, no run-off, and condiderable frustration with 12 years of center-right, often ineffective governments, the outcome is highly uncertain.	三个竞选的政党、选举法一塌糊涂、没有第二轮选举、对12年的中右翼政府执政失望透顶、政府常常效率低，因而结果相当不确定。


That said, Mexico’s political institutions have survived hard times, the middle class rejects extremism, and the US is close by.	尽管如此，墨西哥的政治体制挺过了艰难时期，中产阶级反对极端主义，美国就在身边。


One would prefer to see Mexico’s presidential candidates offer platforms with ideas and proposals that respond to the challenges facing the country, but this substance deficit occurs everywhere now, almost all the time.	有人更愿意看到墨西哥的总统候选人能够借此平台提出想法和提议，应对本国面临的挑战，但是现在各地都缺乏这种实质性的东西，几乎也总是如此。


For a region that has suffered so long from frustration and despair over its failures, these are among the best of times.	对于一个长期以来面对失败一直沮丧不已、绝望无助的地区来说，现在处在最好的时期。


Latin America should count its blessings, and remember that nothing lasts forever.	拉丁美洲应该知足了，并且铭记没有什么东西可以常在。


The Tinkerer’s Apprentice	修补匠的学徒


BERLIN – The best inventions are never finished.	柏林——最好的发明永远都不会结束。


When the German engineer Karl Benz invented the first petroleum-powered automobile, he did not just create an engine with wheels; he set in motion an industry that revolutionized the way society was structured.	德国工程师卡尔·本茨发明第一辆石油动力汽车时，他所发明的不仅是带轮子的发动机； 他所驱动的是彻底改变社会结构的全新行业。


Similarly, the English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee did not only build the world’s first Web site. He laid the groundwork for the World Wide Web.	同样，英国计算机科学家蒂姆·伯纳斯·李不仅建成了世界第一家网站，同时也为万维网奠定了基础。


Neither could have anticipated the impact of what he was doing.	这两位先驱都不可能预料到自己所作所为所产生的影响。


If there is one lesson that economic policymakers should heed in 2015 and beyond, it is this: Just as invention is dynamic, so are the industries it creates.	经济决策者在2015年及以后应当吸取如下教训：即诞生于发明的行业就像发明本身一样生机勃勃。


As we learned in 2014, it is a lesson that has yet to sink in entirely.	2014年的经历告诉我们，上述教训尚未被完全记取。


When Google was launched, people were amazed that they were able to find out about almost anything by typing just a few words into a computer.	谷歌推出时，人们惊奇地发现只要往电脑里敲几个字，他们就可以找到想了解的一切。


The engineering behind it was technically complicated, but what you got was pretty rough: a page of text, broken up by ten blue links.	背后的操作机制在技术上非常复杂，但由此得出的结果却相当直接：那就是一页文字，其中包含10个蓝色的链接。


It was better than anything else, but not great by today’s standards.	这确实比什么都好，但按照今天的标准还没有好到极致。


So our co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin – like all other successful inventors – kept iterating.	于是我们的创业合伙人拉里·佩奇和谢尔盖·布林像其他成功发明家一样不断改进。


They started with images.	他们开始引入图片。


After all, people wanted more than just text.	毕竟，人们想要的不仅是文字。


This first became apparent after the 2000 Grammy Awards, where Jennifer Lopez wore a green dress that, well, caught the world’s attention.	2000年格莱美颁奖仪式后上述趋势开始显现，颁奖仪式上珍妮弗·洛佩兹的一袭绿裙吸引了全世界的注意。


At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen.	当时这成了有史以来最流行的搜索热词。


But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: JLo wearing that dress.	但我们却无法为用户提供他们想要的东西：珍妮弗·洛佩兹身着那件裙子。


Google Image Search was born.	谷歌图片搜索应运而生。


Maps are another great example.	地图是另一个典型的例子。


When people search Google for an address, they do not want a link to Web sites that mention the street.	当人们在谷歌上搜索地址时，他们要找的不是提到这条街道的链接。


They usually want to know how to get there.	他们想要知道如何到达那里。


So we built a map that was clickable, draggable, and easy to explore.	于是我们做出了可以点击、拖动和轻松浏览的地图。


Maps have become such an integral part of Google that most users probably cannot imagine it without them.	现在地图已经成了谷歌不可或缺的组成部分，以至于多数用户或许都无法想象没有地图是什么样子。


It has been the same with many of our changes.	我们的许多变化也是如此。


Our searches have gotten better over time.	随着时间推移我们的搜索结果日臻完善。


Google the weather where you live and you will get the forecast for the next few days as the top result, saving you time and effort.	你所在地的谷歌天气能够显示未来数天的预报结果，为你节省了大量的时间和精力。


But Google’s efforts to provide direct answers to questions have fueled complaints at the European Commission.	但谷歌直接回答问题的努力却引来了欧盟委员会的投诉。


Companies like Expedia, Yelp, and TripAdvisor argue that Google searches are depriving their Web sites of valuable traffic, putting their businesses at a disadvantage.	Expedia、Yelp和TripAdvisor这样的企业提出谷歌搜索抢走了他们网站有价值的流量，导致他们的企业在竞争中陷入不劣势。


Instead of us providing you with images, maps, the weather, news, or translated versions of foreign-language sites, they would rather go back to ten blue links.	他们不希望我们直接提供图片、地图、天气、新闻或经过翻译的国外网站，而宁愿退回到10个蓝色的链接。


A few years ago, a lawyer for one of our competitors drew a picture of a coastline with a little island offshore.	几年前，我们某家竞争企业的律师画了一幅画，上面有一条海岸线和零星几个岛屿。


He added a dotted line, explaining that this was the only ferry connecting the island to the mainland.	他又画了一条虚线，说这是连接岛屿和大陆的唯一渡口。


His point was that Google was just like the ferry: the only way to navigate the Internet.	他想说谷歌就像渡船一样，是浏览互联网的唯一方式。


In reality, there are many ways to get around on the Web.	现实是，网上浏览有很多方式。


For news, you might go directly to your favorite news service.	想看新闻可以直接登录喜欢的新闻网站。


If you want to buy something, you might go directly to Zalando or Amazon, where you can research models and prices, get reviews, and pay for your purchase all at once.	如果想买东西，可以直接登录Zalando和亚马逊搜索款型及价格、浏览评论并且付款购买。


The real point is that the economic landscape in which we are operating is not only competitive; it is changing constantly.	问题是我们所处的经济大势不仅充满竞争； 而且变化不息。


This year, our industry reached an important milestone.	今年，我们的行业已经达到了重要的里程碑。


For the first time, people are spending more time on mobile devices than on their desktop computers.	人们在移动端上所花的时间第一次超过台式机。


Time spent on desktops has now fallen to just 40%.	花在台式机上的时间已经降到只有40%。


And people use mobile devices very differently from the way they use desktops.	而且人们使用移动端和台式机时采取截然不同的方式。


Seven out of every eight minutes spent on a mobile phone is spent within an app, and the most popular app in the world is Facebook.	移动端使用时间的八分之七都在使用应用程序，而世界最热门的程序是Facebook。


Many people look at Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon, among others, as companies that no competitor could ever beat.	很多人认为没有竞争者能击败Facebook、谷歌、苹果和亚马逊这样的企业。


I am less certain.	我却不这样认为。


History is full of examples that show that size and past success guarantee nothing.	历史上随处可见���量和过往成功不等于任何保障的例子。


Great companies can be surpassed swiftly.	大公司可以被迅速超越。


Just a few years ago, companies like Yahoo, Nokia, Microsoft, and Blackberry seemed unrivaled.	就在几年前，雅虎、诺基亚、微软和黑莓这样的企业似乎还无可匹敌。


They have all since been disrupted by a new wave of tech companies – Google among them.	从那以后他们似乎被一波高科技企业的浪潮所吞没——谷歌也是新兴的高科技企业之一。


Google works very differently from other companies that have been dubbed “gatekeepers” and that are regulated accordingly.	谷歌与其他被冠以“看门人”称号的公司运作及监管方式有着很大差异。


We are not a ferry, a railroad, a telecommunications network, or an electricity grid with only one line serving you and no competitors allowed.	我们不是一艘渡船、一条铁路、一张电网或电信网，为您提供单向、没有竞争空间的服务。


No one is stuck using Google.	没有人被逼迫使用谷歌。


People have choices, and they exercise them all the time.	人们有选择权，并且可以随时行使。


We know that if we cease to be useful, our users will leave.	我们知道如果我们不再有用，我们的用户就会开始流失。


The barriers to entry are negligible, because competition is just one click away.	行业门槛几乎可以忽略不计，因为我们和竞争对手间只隔一次点击。


Someone in a garage somewhere is gunning for us, and 2015 could be the year that they make their move.	某间车库里有人正在瞄准谷歌，2015年他们就可能采取行动。


I know, because not long ago we were in that garage.	我对这一点心知肚明，因为不久前的我们还待在那间车库。


And I know that the next Google will not do what Google does, just as Google did not do what AOL did.	就像谷歌没有模仿AOL那样，我知道下一个谷歌也不会重复谷歌的道路。


The upheavals resulting from momentous technological change are rarely expected.	人们很少料到重大技术革命所带来的动荡。 电报葬送了邮政。


The telegraph disrupted the postal service.	收音机和电视扰乱了报纸。


Radio and television shook up the newspaper industry.	飞机终结了远洋客轮。


Airplanes ended the age of ocean liners.	发明总是充满活力；


Inventions are always dynamic; that is why the future will always be as exciting as the past.	这也解释了为什么未来永远像过去那样令人振奋。


Education Without Borders	教育无国界


LONDON – As the third anniversary of the start of Syria’s civil war approaches, there is a race against time to deliver a groundbreaking education project to the conflict’s hardest-hit victims – hundreds of thousands of child refugees.	伦敦—叙利亚内战距离第三个年头已经越来越近，为受叙利亚冲突影响最严重的受害者——数十万儿童难民提供创新性教育计划是一场与时间的赛跑。


A shocking three million Syrian children have now been displaced. More than one million of them have fled Syria and are languishing in camps in neighboring countries, particularly Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.	令人震惊的三百万叙利亚儿童目前处于流离失所状态，其中一百多万逃出了叙利亚，正在邻国（特别是黎巴嫩、约旦和土耳其）难民营中艰难度日。


These children are now suffering a third winter away from their homes, schools, and friends.	这些儿童正在苦捱被赶出家园和学校并远离朋友的第三个冬天。


Many are separated from their families, and thousands more join the ranks of displaced persons every day in what is becoming the largest humanitarian catastrophe of our time.	很多人和家庭失散，每天都有数千儿童加入因这场现时代最大的人道主义灾难而加入流离失所大军。


But a pathbreaking initiative in Lebanon, involving teachers, aid agencies, and education charities has opened a small window of hope.	但黎巴嫩的一项开创性计划为他们打开了一扇希望的小窗��该计划包括了老师、援助机构和教育慈善机构。


Amid the chaos of camps, makeshift huts, and destitution, the fight for an important new principle of international aid has begun: even in times of conflict, children must have access to education.	在混乱的难民帐篷、简易住所和屋子缺乏中，已经开始了一场为国际援助新原则而进行的斗争：即使在冲突期间，儿童也必须获得教育。


A century and a half ago, the Red Cross established the norm that health care could – and should – be provided even in conflict zones.	一个半世纪前，红十字会建立了一条规范，冲突区也可以并且应该获得医疗服务。


This principle was carried forward by groups like Médicins sans Frontières, whose doctors have risked their lives for the last four decades to deliver medical care to the world’s most dangerous places.	这条原则被无国界医生（Médicins sans Frontières）等组织发扬光大，在过去四十年里，医生们冒着生命危险前往世界最危险地区行医。


Now Lebanon is the site of a pilot program to advance the idea that providing education for refugee children is equally feasible – and no less important.	如今，黎巴嫩正在成为试验场，推广一个新观念——为难民儿童提供教育也同样是可行的，并且重要性也完全不落下风。


Across 1,500 communities in this troubled, divided country, where Syrian refugee children now make up 20% of the school-age population, the aim is to establish children’s right to education as a humanitarian priority.	该教育计划覆盖饱受战乱和分裂的叙利亚的1,500个社区（难民儿童现占学龄人口的20%），旨在将儿童的受教育权确立为人道主义优先日程。


The typical refugee child spends more than ten years away from home.	一般而言，难民儿童需要十多年才能回到家乡。


And every month that a child is out of school makes it less likely that they will ever return.	而儿童离开学校越久，就越不可能回到学校去。


Three years ago, most Syrian children were at school, and the country had near universal primary education.	三年前，大部分叙利亚儿童都在学校就读，该国基本实现了全民小学教育普及。


Today, millions of children are being denied any chance to realize their talents.	如今，数百万儿童无法获得实现天赋的机会。


The scars will last for decades.	这一创伤会持续数十年之久。


So, in Syria and the surrounding region, there is already a lost generation in the making: children who are now eight and nine and who have never been to school, children condemned to work as child laborers, and hundreds of girls forced into early marriages.	因此，在叙利亚和周边地区，失落的一代正在产生：目前八九岁但从未上过学的儿童、沦为童工的儿童、以及成百上千被迫早早嫁人的女孩。


There are gruesome tales of young people who have been forced to sell their kidneys and other organs simply to survive.	更有大量可怕的传闻说有年轻人被迫为了生存而卖肾和其他器官。


Of course, we must provide food, shelter, and vaccinations.	当然，我们必须提供食品、住所和疫苗。


But, in conflicts like these, the one thing that children need, beyond the material basics, is hope.	但是，在叙利亚内战这样的冲突中，儿童除了需要基本物质条件外，还需要希望。


And it is education that provides children with hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel – hope that they can plan for the future and prepare for jobs and adulthood.	而能给身处黑暗隧道中的儿童带来迎接前方曙光的希望的正是教育，教育能让他们燃起迈向未来、准备工作的希望。


The pilot project in Lebanon, designed by Kevin Watkins of the United Kingdom’s Overseas Development Institute and led by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), creates the opportunity to establish a right to education irrespective of borders.	黎巴嫩的试验计划由英国海外发展研究所（Overseas Development Institute）的凯文·沃特金斯（Kevin Watkins）设计并由联合国儿童基金会（UNICEF）和联合国难民署（UNHCR）领导。


Indeed, it is designed to cater to all 435,000 Syrian child refugees now in the country.	该计划为无国界受教育权创造了机会。


Thanks to a historic agreement with the Lebanese government, places for hundreds of thousands of children can be created within weeks by putting 1,500 of Lebanon’s schools on a double-shift system.	数十万儿童上课所需的场地在几周之内就通过轮班制（double-shift system）在1,500所黎巴嫩学校准备就绪。 这要归功于和黎巴嫩政府签订的一份历史协议。


The scheme is already being piloted in a small village called Akroum in the north of the country.	该计划已在黎巴嫩北部一个名叫阿克罗姆（Akroum）的小村庄试点。


Lebanese children are taught during the first shift, and Syrian children in the second.	黎巴嫩儿童先上课，下课后叙利亚儿童接着上课。


Using the same school for both sets of pupils means that education can be delivered at a cost of only £400 ($670) per child per year.	同一间学校供两组学生使用意味着每位儿童每年的受教育成本只有400英镑。


To secure places for all refugee children, we are seeking $195 million dollars a year for UNICEF and UNHCR, with the plan to be implemented on the ground by NGOs and the Lebanese authorities.	为了保证所有难民儿童都能有地方上学，我们在为UNICEF和UNHCR筹得每年1,950万美元的资金。 计划的具体实施由非政府组织和黎巴嫩当局负责。


The aim is to secure all funding during March, as the world marks the third anniversary of this tragic exodus from Syria.	我们的目标是保证3月份叙利亚流离失所悲剧开始三周年时资金到位。


We have already assembled a coalition of ten donor countries to take the lead, but we need ten more donors to fund the project fully.	我们已经集合了一个由是个出资国组成的联盟来担任领导，但我们还需要十个出资方来满足计划的资金需求。


We are appealing to donors not just to create thousands of school places for desperately needy children, but also to establish a precedent for the 20 million other children driven by violent conflict into displaced-persons camps and shantytowns.	我们恳请出资人不但要为急切需要教育的儿童建设数千学校场所，还恳请他们为其他2,000万因暴力冲突而流离失所、沦落难民营和棚户区的儿童树立先例。


There cannot be universal educational opportunity for the worlds’ children without an agreement that we will cater to children in conflict zones.	没有关于为冲突区儿童提供教育的协议，我们就无法实现全世界儿童都能获得教育机会的目标。


One million Afghan children are in camps along the border with Pakistan.	一百万阿富汗儿童正身处沿巴基斯坦边境而设的难民营中。


Thousands of children in South Sudan still await their first chance to go to school, and schools have yet to be provided for a million more children in the war-torn Central African Republic.	数千南苏丹孩子仍在等待上学的第一天，而在饱受战争摧残的中非共和国也有一百多万儿童无法进入校园。


These children’s chances now depend on showing that we can make progress in Lebanon.	这些孩子的机会现在取决于我们能否在黎巴嫩取得进展。


The UN Millennium Development Goals, adopted in 2000, expire in December 2015, which means that time is running to meet the deadline for achieving the target of universal primary education.	2000年开始的联合国千年发展目标将在2015年12月到期，这意味着实现全民普及小学教育的目标正在快速接近最后期限。


That goal will remain unattainable unless and until we establish the long-overdue principle that a child’s right to education knows no boundaries.	除非我们树立儿童受教育权利不分国界这一迟到已久的原则，否则这一目标就无法实现。


One Hundred Days of Servitude	为奴一百天


LONDON – Demonstrations around the world were held this week to mark the 100th day of captivity for more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.	伦敦—今天，世界各地举行游行铭记200名尼日利亚女学生被伊斯兰极端组织博科圣地（Boko Haram）绑架第100天。


Since their abduction in April, global outrage has not waned; on the contrary, it has spurred a worldwide movement to uphold all girls’ basic rights.	自4月份她们遭遇绑架以来，全球的愤怒之情从未减弱； 相反，还在世界范围内掀起了一场捍卫所有女孩基本权利的运动。


Campaigners from groups fighting child marriage, child trafficking, and child labor, and from groups demanding children’s right to attend school, free of intimidation, have united in the past few days to show the strength of global opinion in favor of universal education and a world free of child slavery.	来自与童婚、拐卖儿童和童工作斗争的组织的宣传者，以及来自主张儿童上学权和免受威吓权的组织的宣传者在过去几天中联合展现了全球对全民教育和不存在儿童奴役的世界的强烈愿望。


But what is of greater long-term significance is that girls themselves are demanding that their rights be taken seriously.	但长期影响力更大的是女孩自身要求她们的权利得到认真对待。 孟加拉国的女孩行动起来，建立无童婚区的运动正在如火如荼地展开；


Girls have mobilized in Bangladesh, where the movement to establish child-marriage-free zones is growing; in India, where the Global March Against Child Labor started; and in Africa, where child protection clubs are being formed in almost every country.	印度的女孩行动起来，开始了全球反童工游行（Global March Against Child Labor）； 非洲的女孩行动起来，几乎每个国家都在建立儿童保护组织。


The first demand is that the Nigerian girls be returned safely to their homes and that schools in Nigeria are made safer and more secure from threats by Boko Haram (whose name means “Western education is a sin”).	第一个要求是尼日利亚女孩们必须被安全送还家中，并且尼日利亚学校应该更安全，免受博科圣地（其名字含义为“西方教育是一种犯罪”）的威胁。


France, the United Kingdom, the United States, China, and Israel have stepped up military and technical support, including the recent provision of helicopters and night-vision equipment for jungle warfare to fight the group, whose campaign of terror has cost 5,000 deaths in the past five years.	法国、英国、美国、中国和以色列提供了军事和技术支持，包括最近为针对博科圣地组织的丛林战所提供的直升机和夜视仪。 在过去五年中，博科圣地组织的恐怖活动造成了5,000人死亡。


In Nigeria alone, six million girls do not attend school; around the world, ten million girls each year become child brides, and seven million school-age girls are full-time workers.	光是在尼日利亚，就有六百万女孩无法上学； 放眼世界，每年有一千万女孩沦为童婚新娘，七百万学龄女孩从事全职工作。


We can no longer assume steady, if rocky, progress toward vindication of girls’ rights.	我们已无法将女孩权利视为稳定甚至当然的进步。


Iraqi legislators are considering reducing the age for child marriage to nine.	伊拉克立法者正在考虑将童婚年龄降低到九岁。


Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology is calling for all age limits on marriage to be abolished.	巴基斯坦伊斯兰意识形态委员会（Council of Islamic Ideology）呼吁废除婚姻的年龄限制。


And India has passed up another chance to outlaw child labor.	印度错过了将童工列为非法的机会。


The rising tide of adolescent rage at child marriage and child labor has yet to trend on Twitter and Facebook.	青少年对童婚和童工的愤怒日益增加，但尚未在Twitter和Facebook上形成气候。


And Bangladesh’s child-marriage-free zone in the Nilphamari region, Indonesia’s child-empowerment groups in the districts of Dompu and Grobogan, Uganda’s child-rights clubs, and India’s Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which combats child slavery, may not be household names.	孟加拉国尼尔帕马里（Nilphamari）地区的无童婚区、印尼栋普（Dompu）和格罗伯甘（Grobogan）区的儿童赋权组织、乌干达的儿童权利俱乐部以及为反对童奴而战的印度Bachpan Bachao Andolan组织都不是家喻户晓的名字。


But the yawning gap between what girls are demanding and the opportunities on offer to them is fueling a liberation struggle led by girls themselves.	但女孩的权利要求和她们所能获得的机会之间的巨大差距正在助长由女孩自身所领导的自由斗争。


Last month, on the “Day of the African Child,” thousands of young people marched on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and took over 20 African and Asian parliaments to demand universal education for girls.	上个月，在“非洲儿童日”（Day of the African Child），数千年轻人在埃塞俄比亚亚的斯亚贝巴举行街头游行，20多个非洲和亚洲议会要求给予女孩全民教育权。


On July 23, girls took to the streets in Pakistan, led by Baela Raza Jamil of Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, which is campaigning for what the Nigerian schoolgirls have lost: the right to an education.	7月23日，女孩们在走上Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi的贾米尔（Baela Raza Jamil）的带领下走上了巴基斯坦街头。 Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi所主张的正是尼日利亚女生所失去的东西：受教育权。


In India, vigils making common cause with the Chibok girls were led by Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which every day rescues children from trafficking and slave labor.	在印度，奇布克（Chibok）女孩在Bachpan Bachao Andolan组织的领导下日夜祈福。 Bachpan Bachao Andolan组织每天都在挽救被贩卖和沦为奴工的儿童。


Girls Not Brides mobilized in 45 countries, reminding its 145 sister organizations around the world that many of the Chibok girls will meet the same fate as the girls they seek to protect.	女孩不做新娘运动（Girls Not Brides）在45个国家动员起来，提醒其遍布全球的145个姐妹组织，许多奇布克女孩将面临与她���所试图保护的女孩相同的命运。


Increasingly, young people around the world see the connection between the abductions in Nigeria, the rape and murder of young girls in India, so-called “honor killings” of Pakistani girls who marry against their families’ wishes, genital mutilation of girls across Africa, and child-trafficking for full-time work, often in slave-labor conditions.	全球年轻人正日益看到尼日利亚绑架案、印度年轻女孩被强奸和谋杀案、巴基斯坦针对拒绝接受家族安排婚姻的女孩的所谓的“荣誉杀戮”、非洲对女孩的阉割以及贩卖儿童充当奴工等现象之间的联系。


Seven decades after the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, girls’ rights are still not taken seriously; so girls are taking action to make themselves heard.	联合国通过世界人权宣言（Universal Declaration of Human Rights）已经过去了七十年，女孩权利仍没有得到重视； 因此女孩们正在采取行动让世界听到她们的声音。


And, slowly but surely, local embryonic civil-rights movements are linking up with global leaders – Girls Not Brides, Walk Free, and A World at School – as part of an emergency coalition to eliminate child labor, child marriage, and educational discrimination against girls.	而仍处于萌芽状态的地方公民权利组织正在缓慢但不容置疑地与全球领导人——女孩不做新娘、自由行走（Walk Free）和学校中的世界（A World at School）等——取得联系，作为消灭童工、童婚和针对女孩的教育歧视的晋级联盟。


The timetable for doing so will be set out at the UN General Assembly in September in the presence of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.	联合国秘书长潘基文将出席9月的联合国大会，为这一目标设置时间表。


Girls should be able to study in a classroom, free of fear and without the need to demonstrate on the streets.	女孩应该坐在教室中学习，应该免受恐慌困扰，也不应该需要上街游行。


This is a basic right; ensuring that it is respected cannot come soon enough.	这是一项基本权利； 保证这项权利受到尊重永远应该成为当务之急。


Putting Education First	把教育放在首位


LONDON – For far too long, the cause of universal education has taken a back seat to other great international movements for change.	伦敦—长久以来，全民教育在重要的国际变革运动中一直叨陪末座。


Now, for two new reasons that lie at the heart of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s launch of the “Education First” initiative, education has returned to its rightful place atop the global policy agenda.	如今，出于联合国秘书长潘基文之所以推出“教育第一”（Education First）计划的两个核心原因，教育回到了它应有的全球政策日程最优先事项的地位。


First and foremost, young people have themselves become the biggest advocates of universal education for girls and boys.	首先也是最重要的，年轻人已让自己称为男生女生全民教育的最大支持者。


Refusing to remain silent while denied opportunity, young people – particularly girls – have launched one of the great civil-rights struggles of our time.	年轻人——特别是女孩——拒绝否定机会、保持沉默，他们掀起了一场现时代人权大斗争。


Few could remain unmoved by the brave fight of the young Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai after the Taliban shot her in the head because she insisted on the right of young girls to an education.	巴基斯坦年轻女孩马拉拉·尤沙夫赛（Malala Yousafzai）因为坚持女孩受教育的权利而被塔利班枪击头部，她的英勇斗争让人无法不动容。


Few have failed to notice the massive public outpouring of support in Pakistan and elsewhere for the cause that she is championing.	没有人不注意到巴基斯坦和其他国家纷纷掀起了支持马拉拉所坚持的运动的狂潮。


Likewise, we have also seen in recent months the creation by schoolgirls in Bangladesh of child-marriage-free zones, aimed at defending the right of girls to stay in school instead of being married off as teenage brides against their will.	类似地，最近几个月，我们还看到孟加拉国女学生成立了无童婚区，该运动旨在捍卫女生留在校园而不被迫在十几岁就违背自身意愿成为新年。


In India, the Global March Against Child Labor, led by the children’s rights advocate Kailash Satyarthi, has rescued thousands of young boys and girls from a life of slavery in factories, workshops, and domestic service, and has ensured that they return to school.	在印度，由儿童权利支持者凯拉什·沙提雅提（Kailash Satyarthi）领导的反童工全球游行（Global March Against Child Labor）救出了数千男孩和女孩，让他们免于被工厂、作坊和家政工作的奴役，并确保他们回到校园。


These demonstrations by girls and boys demanding their right to education have made the fight for basic schooling impossible to ignore.	这些男孩和女孩奋起主张他们受教育的权利的事例让我们再也无法忽略争取基本教育的斗争。


Consequently, every government now feels under even greater pressure to deliver the second of the global Millennium Development Goals (“achieve universal primary education”) by the end of 2015.	因此，各国政府如今面临着更大的压力在2015年底前实现千年发展目标（Millennium Development Goals）第二号目标（“实现全民小学教育”）。


But a second worldwide force also has propelled education to the center of the policy agenda in most countries: the increased recognition of the importance of education by those who examine why countries succeed or fail.	但让教育成为大部分国家政策日程核心的还有第二股全球性力量：考察国家成败原因的学者越来越多地意识到教育的重要性。


For years, academics have debated whether culture, institutions, ideology, or resources cause some countries to lag behind.	多年来，学界就文化、制度、思想和资源是否是导致某些国家落后的原因争执不休。


Today, a growing number of writers, researchers, and policymakers see the crucial link between education and national economic success.	如今，越来越多的作者、研究者和决策者看到了教育和国民经济成功之间的联系。


The deployment of human capital has become an important factor in explaining why some countries remain stuck in a “middle-income trap” and why others cannot break out of low-income status.	人力资本的有效利用已成为解释为何一些国家仍陷于“中等收入陷阱”，而另一些国家可以摆脱低收入地位的重要因素。


And research assessing a country’s human capital now focuses on the quantity and quality of basic skills, qualified graduate manpower, and expertise in research and development.	如今，评估一国人力资本的研究聚焦于基本技能、合格毕业生人力和研发专家的数量和质量。


Putting education first is urgent in view of the scale of wasted talent and potential worldwide.	从全世界的人才和潜力浪费角度规模看，把教育放在首位刻不容缓。


Some 57 million children still do not go to school, 500 million girls will never finish the secondary education to which they are entitled, and 750 million adults remain illiterate.	有5700万儿童仍得不到教育，5亿女孩无法从她们获得了上学权利的中学毕业，7. 5亿成年人属于文盲。


The link between education and economic success makes the delivery of quality schooling and training a hugely important issue for business as well.	教育和经济成功之间的联系意味着建立高品质教育和培训也是极为重要的当务之急。


By 2020, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, we will face the twin problems of a shortfall of up to 40 million high-skill workers and a surplus of up to 95 million low-skill workers.	据麦肯锡全球研究所（McKinney Global Institute）的研究，到2020年，我们将同时面临最高4000万高技能工人的短缺和最多9500万低技能工人的过剩。


By 2030, the global workforce of 3.5 billion will include an estimated one billion workers who lack a secondary education, significantly hindering their countries’ economic prospects.	到2030年，全球劳动力大军将达35亿，其中大约会有10亿工人缺少中学教育，极大地拖累他们所在国家的经济前景。


As a result, without urgent action, businesses are likely to face a huge skills shortage, especially in emerging markets and developing countries, where most economic activity will be concentrated.	因此，如果不立刻采取行动，企业可能面临巨大的技能短缺，特别是新兴市场和发展中国家，而这些国家将是大部分经济活动的中心。


Indeed, the adult illiteracy rate in Somalia is 63%, and 39% in Nigeria; in South Sudan, more girls die during childbirth than complete primary school.	事实上，索马里成人文盲率为63%，尼日利亚为39%，而在南苏丹，完成小学教育的女孩数量还不及死于分娩的女孩数量。


Unless we act, by mid-century the global economy will be characterized by massive waste of talent and unequal opportunities.	除非我们行动起来，否则到本世纪中叶，全球经济将出现大规模人才浪费和机会不平等。


According to new figures from the Wittgenstein Center’s forthcoming book World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century, only 3% of young adults in Mali and Mozambique are projected to have a tertiary education in 2050; the expected proportion is just 4% in Niger, Liberia, Rwanda, and Chad, and only 5% in Malawi and Madagascar.	根据维特根斯坦中心（Wittgenstein Center）即将出版的《21世纪世界人口和人力资本》（World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century）的最新数据，到2050年，马里和莫桑比克年轻成年人中将只有3%可以完成大学教育，尼日尔、利比里亚、卢旺达和乍得只有4%，马拉维和马达加斯加只有5%。


While the projection for North America as a whole is 60%, the forecast for Sub-Saharan Africa is 16%.	而北美洲作为一个整体，这一比例预计将达60%，而撒哈拉以南非洲只有16%。


Such figures reveal a world divided between those who have and those who lack educational opportunity, with huge potential repercussions not only in terms of skill shortages and economic waste, but also in terms of social stability.	这些数字暴露出一个两极分化的世界。 一边是拥有教育机会的群体，另一边是缺少教育机会的群体，其巨大的潜在影响不仅在于技能短缺和经济浪费，还在于社会稳定。


The late US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren’s words in Brown v. Board of Education,which struck down the legal basis for racial segregation in America’s public schools, remain no less relevant today: “It is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.”	已故的美国最高法院首席大法官厄尔·沃伦（Earl Warren）在布朗诉教育委员会案（Brown v. Board of Education，该案取消了美国公立学校中的种族隔离的法律基础）中的话直到今天意义丝毫不减：“任何一个儿童，如果他被剥夺了教育的权利，那么认为他能够在生活中取得成功就是可疑的。


As Warren put it, “Such an opportunity…is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.”	”正如沃伦所说，“这一机会……是一项所有人都必须能够平等地获得的权利。 ”


We have little more than two years to turn basic education from a privilege for some into a right for all.	我们还有两年略多的时间让基本教育从某些人的特权变为所有人的权利。


Secretary-General Ban and I are determined that every day until that deadline in December 2015, we will work as hard as possible to ensure every child is in school.	潘基文秘书长和我决心在2015年12月到期日来临前的每一天都尽可能努力地保证让每一个孩子都走进校园。


Gordon Gekko Reborn	贪婪的土壤


NEW YORK – In the 1987 film Wall Street, the character Gordon Gekko famously declared, “Greed is good.”	纽约——1987年的电影《华尔街》里有个角色叫盖戈登（Gordon Gekko），有一句名言，说“贪婪是好的”（Greed is good）。


His creed became the ethos of a decade of corporate and financial-sector excesses that ended in the late 1980’s collapse of the junk-bond market and the Savings & Loan crisis.	他的信条代表了产业和金融过度繁荣时期的哲学，那一轮过度繁荣早已随20世纪80年代末垃圾债券市场崩盘与储蓄贷款合作社危机（Savings & Loan crisis）走到了末路。


Gekko himself was packed off to prison.	影片中，盖戈登也锒铛入狱。


A generation later, the sequel to Wall Street – to be released next month – sees Gekko released from jail and returned to the financial world.	一代人以后，《华尔街》的续集将于下个月上映，盖戈登刑满出狱，重返金融江湖。


His reappearance comes just as the credit bubble fueled by the sub-prime mortgage boom is about to burst, triggering the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.	他的回归恰逢次贷泡沫破灭前夕，这回这个泡沫的破灭将引发大萧条以来最严重的金融和经济危机。


The “Greed is good” mentality is a regular feature of financial crises.	“贪婪是好的”是历次金融危机中的一种典型心态。


But were the traders and bankers of the sub-prime saga more greedy, arrogant, and immoral than the Gekkos of the 1980’s?	次贷神话的推手们——交易员和银行家是不是比盖戈登那一辈人更贪婪、更自负、更不道德呢？


Not really, because greed and amorality in financial markets have been common throughout the ages.	倒也未必。 贪婪和不道德世世代代伴随着金融市场的发展，司空见惯。


Teaching morality and values in business schools will not tame such behavior, but changing the incentives that reward short-term profits and lead bankers and traders to take excessive risks will.	商学院开几门伦理课，绝不会令这种行为有所收敛，只有扭转“短线盈利能带来奖赏”的错误激励机制才能抑恶扬善，因为正是那种扭曲的机制才令银行家和交易员过度冒险。


The bankers and traders of the latest crisis responded rationally to compensation and bonus schemes that allowed them to assume a lot of leverage and ensured large bonuses, but that were almost guaranteed to bankrupt a large number of financial institutions in the end.	在危机的酝酿阶段，银行家和交易员的行为，只不过是对报酬和分红方案的理性反应而已——当时盛行的报酬方案允许他们采取高杠杆，并报之以高额分红，而这种勾当最后注定会搞垮一大批金融企业。


To avoid such excesses, it is not enough to rely on better regulation and supervision, for three reasons:	要避免再度发生此类过度冒险行为，光靠加强规则和监管还不够，理由有三：


·        Smart and greedy bankers and traders will always find ways to circumvent new rules;	1）精明而贪婪的银行家和交易员总会找到办法钻新规则的空子；


·        CEOs and boards of directors of financial firms – let alone regulators and supervisors – cannot effectively monitor the risks and behaviors of thousands of separate profit and loss centers in a firm, as each trader and banker is a separate P&L with its own capital at risk;	2）每一位交易员和银行家都负责一个独立的损益表，用他自己所能支配的那一份资本去冒险，一个金融企业就好比数千个分散的独立损益单位； 连金融公司的CEO和董事会都无法有效地监控这么分散的风险与决策，更遑论监管者了；


·        CEOs and boards are themselves subject to major conflicts of interest, because they don’t represent the true interest of their firms’ ultimate shareholders.	3）CEO和董事会自身也面临重大的利益冲突问题，因为连他们也无法真正代表终端股东的利益。


As a result, any reform of regulation and supervision will fail to control bubbles and excesses unless several other fundamental aspects of the financial system are changed.	所以，即便是改革法规和监管，最终也无法控制泡沫和过剩，除非改变金融体系的几个根本方面。


First, compensation schemes must be radically altered through regulation, as banks will not do it themselves for fear of losing talented people to competitors.	首先，必须由立法者制定规则，彻底改变金融业的报酬机制，因为害怕竞争者会借机抢走人材，银行自己是不会推动这种变革的。


In particular, bonuses based on medium-term results of risky trades and investments must supplant bonuses based on short-term outcomes.	特别应该引入以高风险交易与投资项目的中期收益为基础的分红方案，补充以短期利润为基础的现行方案。


Second, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking, was a mistake.	第二，当年废除禁止商业银行与投资银行混业经营的《格拉斯—斯蒂格尔》法是个错误。


The old model of private partnerships – in which partners had an incentive to monitor each other to avoid reckless investments – gave way to one of public companies aggressively competing with each other and with commercial banks to achieve ever-rising profitability, which was achievable only with reckless levels of leverage.	废除该法的结果是，老派的私人合伙制世代沿袭的一种传统——合伙人有动力互相监督，避免冒失的投资——让位于上市投行之间，乃至与商行之间的残酷竞争，只有靠大胆采取高杠杆才能在这种利润争夺战中胜出。


Similarly, the move from a lending model of “originate and hold” to one of “originate and distribute” based on securitization led to a massive transfer of risk.	另一个结果是��放贷模式由原来的“发起—持有”转向以证券化为手段的“发起—出售”，导致大规模风险转嫁。


No player but the last in the securitization chain was exposed to the ultimate credit risk; the rest simply raked in high fees and commissions.	最终承担信贷风险的人成了证券化链条上接最后一棒的买家，他们的上家却赚取了大把的佣金。


Third, financial markets and financial firms have become a nexus of conflicts of interest that must be unwound.	第三，金融市场和金融公司已经成为编织起无数利益冲突的一团乱麻。


These conflicts are inbuilt, because firms that engage in commercial banking, investment banking, proprietary trading, market making and dealing, insurance, asset management, private equity, hedge-fund activities, and other services are on every side of every deal (the recent case of Goldman Sachs was just the tip of the iceberg).	这些利益冲突成了金融体系的内在顽疾，因为那些同时从事商业银行、投资银行、私募股权、对冲基金和其他种种业务的公司，在所有的交易中都多方下注。 最近高盛的案子只不过是冰山一角。


There are also massive agency problems in the financial system, because principals (such as shareholders) cannot properly monitor the actions of agents (CEOs, managers, traders, bankers) that pursue their own interest.	金融体系里还大量存在代理人渎职的问题，因为东家（比如股东）无法充分监督代理人（CEO、经理人、交易员、银行家）的行为，对代理人营私徒唤奈何。


Moreover, the problem is not just that long-term shareholders are shafted by greedy short-term agents; even the shareholders have agency problems.	说得更深一点，问题还不仅仅是长期股东被短期代理人忽悠； 甚至连股东都会发生代理人渎职。


If financial institutions do not have enough capital, and shareholders don’t have enough of their own skin in the game, they will push CEOs and bankers to take on too much leverage and risks, because their own net worth is not at stake.	如果金融公司资本金偏低，也就是说股东投进赌局里的本钱并不多，他们就会鼓励CEO和银行家多用杠杆多冒风险，因为就算赌输了，他们自己也不会蚀多少老本。


At the same time, there is a double agency problem, as the ultimate shareholders – individual shareholders – don’t directly control boards and CEOs.	也就是说，两种代理人渎职叠加在一块儿了，终端股东——个人股东对董事会和CEO都无法直接控制。


These shareholders are represented by institutional investors (pension funds, etc.) whose interests, agendas, and cozy relationships often align them more closely with firms’ CEOs and managers.	而原本应该代表这些股东利益的机构投资者（退休基金等等），却由于利益、共事和熟稔，常常跟金融公司的CEO和管理层走得很近。


Thus, repeated financial crises are also the result of a failed system of corporate governance.	所以说，金融危机一再爆发，也是企业治理系统失灵的结果。


Fourth, greed cannot be controlled by any appeal to morality and values.	第四，靠道德和价值观是无法遏制贪婪的。


Greed has to be controlled by fear of loss, which derives from knowledge that the reckless institutions and agents will not be bailed out.	要让贪婪有所收敛，只能利用人们对损失的畏惧，要通过实例让人们得到教训——没有人会为冒失的金融企业和代理人的错误埋单。


The systematic bailouts of the latest crisis – however necessary to avoid a global meltdown – worsened this moral-hazard problem.	次贷危机后系统性地帮助金融企业脱困，已经令这种道德风险问题变得更加严重，就算为了避免全球金融崩溃有必要这样做。


Not only were “too big to fail” financial institutions bailed out, but the distortion has become worse as these institutions have become – via financial-sector consolidation – even bigger.	那些“大到倒不得”的金融公司不仅被轻饶了，而且还靠着金融业巩固政策而变得更大了，扭曲也就更严重了。


If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big and should be broken up.	如果一个金融企业大到倒不得，就该把它拆分了。


Unless we make these radical reforms, new Gordon Gekkos – and Charles Ponzis – will emerge.	除非我们采纳这些彻底的改革方略，否则新的盖戈登和庞齐还会层出不穷。


For each chastised and born-again Gekko – as the Gekko in the new Wall Street is – hundreds of meaner and greedier ones will be born.	抓一个盖戈登，他可能会被改造好，就像《新华尔街》电影里那样，但是金融体系内的病根不除，就会生出千百个更恶劣更贪婪的盖戈登。


Partnership or Putsch?	合作还是暴动？