Malaria can be brought under decisive control through bed nets, indoor spraying of insecticides, and making medicines freely available to poor people in malaria-prone villages.	人们可以通过蚊帐、室内喷洒杀虫剂以及向容易遭受霍乱侵袭的村庄的穷人免费提供药物来决定性控制霍乱。


In just two days last year, Kenya’s government distributed more than two million bed nets.	去年在仅仅两天时间里，肯尼亚政府发放了2百多万顶帐篷。


Similar mass distribution programs have been implemented in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Togo, Niger, Ghana, and other places.	埃塞俄比亚、卢旺达、多哥、尼日尔、加纳以及其他地方也实行了类似的大规模分发行动。


The results are amazing.	其结果是令人惊讶的。


The poor use the bed nets effectively, and the burden of malaria comes down rapidly.	穷人有效地使用蚊帐，而霍乱造成的负担快速下降。


Likewise, a campaign led by Rotary International and several partners has nearly eradicated polio.	同样，旋转国际以及多个夥伴组织所领导的运动几乎消除了小儿麻痹症。


The number of cases worldwide each year is now in the hundreds, compared to many tens of thousands when the campaign began.	全世界的每年的发病数量是几百个，而在运动开始的时候则有几万个。


Success is being achieved in even the most remote and difficult places, such as the poverty-stricken states of northern India.	即使在最为偏远和困难的地方，例如饱受贫困之苦的印度北部诸邦也取得了成功。


Indeed, India is doing much more with its remarkable National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), which is the single largest mobilization of public health measures in the world.	的确，印度引人注目的全国农村医疗使命(NRHM)是全世界最大的一支公共医疗动员组织，其成就斐然。


An astounding half-million young woman have recently been hired as health workers to link impoverished households and public clinics and hospitals, which are being improved, and to increase women’s access to emergency obstetrical care in order to avoid tragic and unnecessary deaths in childbirth.	最近，有50万名妇女受雇作为医疗工作者将贫困家庭和公共诊所和医院连接起来。 这些诊所和医院得到改善并且提高了妇女获得紧急产科护理的机会，从而避免分娩时悲剧性、没有必要的死亡现象。


Another remarkable success in India is the safe home-care of newborn infants in the first few days of life.	印度的另一个重大成功是在婴儿出生后头几天安全的家庭护理。


Currently, an alarming number of newborns die because of infection, mothers’ failure to breastfeed during the first days, or other preventable causes.	目前，数目惊人的新生儿由于感染、母亲无法在头几天母乳喂养或者其他可以避免的原因而死亡。


By training community health workers, the NRHM has achieved a marked reduction in newborn deaths in Indian villages.	通过培训医疗工作者，NRHM在印度村庄中大量减少了新生儿的死亡。


All these programs refute three widely held myths.	所有这些项目都驳斥了三个流传广泛的错误观点。


The first is that the burden of disease among the poor is somehow inevitable and unavoidable, as if the poor are bound to get sick and die prematurely.	第一个是，穷人疾病的负担不管怎样都是不可避免的，好像穷人注定要得病过早死亡。


In fact, the poor die of known and identifiable causes that are largely preventable and treatable at very low cost.	实际上，穷人死于已知可以识别、而且可以用低代价就可以在很大程度上预防和治疗的疾病。


There is no excuse for millions of deaths from malaria, AIDS, TB, polio, measles, diarrhea, or respiratory infections, or for so many women and infants to die in or after childbirth.	几百万的人死于霍乱、艾滋病、肺结核、小儿麻痹症、麻疹、痢疾或者呼吸感染以及如此众多的妇女和婴儿在分娩当中或者以后死亡是没有道理的。


The second myth is that aid from rich countries is inevitably wasted.	第二个错误认识是，来自富国的援助不可避免地被挥霍掉。


This fallacy is repeated so often by ignorant leaders in rich countries that it has become a major barrier to progress.	富国的领��人不断重复这一谬论，乃至这已经成为进步的主要障碍。


The rich like to blame the poor, partly because it lets them off the hook, and partly because it gives them a feeling of moral superiority.	富人喜欢指责穷人，部分原因是这可以让他们逃避责任，另外这可以给他们道德上的优越感。


But poor countries are capable of establishing effective public health programs rapidly when they are helped.	但是 穷国在得到帮助的时候有能力快速建立有效的公共医疗项目。


Recent success stories have been made possible through a combination of increased spending from poor countries’ budgets, supplemented by aid from rich-country donors.	通过结合穷国预算中增加开支和辅之以富有捐助国家的援助取得了最近的成功。


The third myth is that saving the poor will worsen the population explosion.	第三个错误认识是拯救穷人将会恶化人口爆炸。


But households in the least-developed countries have many children – an average of five per woman – partly because fear of high childhood death rates leads them to overcompensate with large families.	但是，最不发达国家的家庭有许多孩子，平均每个妇女生育五个孩子，这部分是由于儿童高死亡率让她们用大家庭来弥补。


When childhood death rates come down, fertility rates tend to decline even more, since families are now confident that their children will survive.	当儿童死亡率下降的时候，生育律趋向于更大地下降，因为各个家庭有信心他们的孩子可以活下去。


The result is slower population growth.	其结果就是较低的人口增长。


It is time to make good on a basic global commitment – that everybody, poor and rich alike – should have access to basic health services.	现在是履行基本的全球承诺的时候了。 每个人，无论贫富都应该有基本医疗服务。


If just 0.1% of rich-world income were devoted to life-saving health care for the poor, it would be possible to raise life expectancy, decrease child mortality, save mothers in childbirth, slow population growth, and spur economic development throughout the poor world.	如果富有国家的0. 1%的收入用于挽救穷人生命的医疗，就有可能提高寿命预期，降低儿童死亡率，挽救分娩的母亲，降低人口增长并且在整个贫穷世界刺激经济发展。


The success stories in public health for the poor are multiplying.	用于穷人的公共医疗的成功事例层出不穷。


Given the low cost and the huge benefits of supporting such efforts, there is no excuse for inaction.	鉴于成本低廉以及支持这些努力的巨大利益，人们没有理由无所作为。


The Hedge Fund Hegemon	对冲基金霸权


The recent volatility in global capital markets should give pause to those who say German leaders, who have been arguing for greater transparency in global hedge funds, are just sore losers US and UK policymakers, in particular, say the German whining is nonsense, and that hedge funds, along with other new age financial entities such as private equity firms are key innovators in today’s, global economy.	德国的领导人最近在呼吁全球对冲基金要有更大的透明度。 美英政策制定者认为对冲基金和其他像私募股权投资公司等新兴金融实体是当今全球经济的主要创新者。


This debate is at the cutting edge of today’s globalization, yet it is clouded by a healthy dose of national self-interest.	这是在当今的全球化问题上争论最激烈的地方，然而它在相当大的程度上是出于对国家自身利益的考虑。


With New York and London the centers of global finance, the United States and Britain have enormous profits at stake.	因为纽约和伦敦是世界金融中心，所以美国和英国都有巨额的利润在息息相关。


So it is convenient for them to downplay the likelihood that risks to the world’s financial system will be spread more evenly than the benefits.	因此它们很容易就对世界金融体系的风险会比其利益更容易被传播开的可能性轻描淡写。


German leaders, by contrast, must reckon with a populace that is deeply resistant to rapid change, particularly when it involves job cuts.	相反，德国的领导人必须考虑它的民众对于快速的变化有很深的抵触情绪，尤其是它还涉及到工作岗位的减少。


Many German workers believe, as one trade unionist recently lamented, that takeovers are being driven by a philosophy of “buy it, strip it, and flip it.”	正如一位工会主义者所哀叹的，许多德国工人相信，吞并企业背后的驱动哲学就是：购买它，剥光它，然后甩掉它。


To be sure, the profits currently being earned by the leading financial firms are dizzyingly high.	确实，居于前列的金融公司目前所赚取的利润高得惊人。


Goldman Sachs, the venerable Wall Street firm at the epicenter of financial globalization, paid more than $16 billion dollars in compensation to its 25,000 employees in 2006, and spun out another $9 billion for its shareholders – a total that is greater than the annual income of most African countries.	位于金融全球化中心的受人尊敬的华尔街公司高盛2006年向其2万5千名雇员支付了超出160亿美元的报酬，另外还向其股东支付了90亿美元，其总和超过了绝大多数非洲国家的年收入。


The spectacular profits on Wall Street and elsewhere in the financial industry also have a huge macroeconomic impact.	华尔街和其他地区的金融业所赚取的惊人的利润同时也给宏观经济带来了巨大的影响。


The US is running an $800 billion annual trade deficit in traditional goods and services.	美国在传统商品和服务上每年的贸易赤字为8000亿美元。


Yet, because Americans consistently earn a higher return on their investments abroad than foreigners earn on their US investments, US debt is rising at perhaps only half the rate that it might otherwise.	然而，因为美国人在对外投资上始终比外国人在美国的投资赚取高得多的回报，因此美国债务的增长速度也许只有其本应有的一半左右。


Even we economists who believe that global financial innovation yields huge net benefits must admit that today’s hedge fund boom is becoming like the tech bubble.	即便是我们这些相信全球金融创新带来了巨额净利润的经济学家也必须承认，今天的对冲基金繁荣开始有点像高科技泡沫了。


My own recent experience is perhaps emblematic.	我本人最近的经历也许很有点象征性。


An “Eddie” in Los Angeles sent me an email asking if I wanted to serve on the advisory board to his new hedge fund.	洛杉矶的一位“埃迪”给我发了一份邮件询问我是否愿意在他的新成立的对冲基金的顾问委员会任职。


Eddie’s accompanying flattery aside, I would normally trash such a letter, figuring it was a fraud or scam of some kind.	除埃迪的几句奉承话外，一般情况下我会把这种邮件当成垃圾，认定它是某种骗局或阴谋。


However, my curiosity was piqued when I noticed a missing attachment outlining the firm’s planned investment strategy.	然而当我留意到有一份概述该公司所计划的投资战略的附件没有随信发来时，我的好奇心被激发了起来。


I shot a line back, requesting the missing attachment.	我回了一封信，要求把那份忘记发的附件发来。 我真该抑制自己这样的好奇心。


I should have stifled myself: Eddie, figuring he had a live one, sent the missing attachment with a note saying “We are so glad someone of your stature might be interested and, by the way, if you have any friends or colleagues who might be interested, could you please forward this email to them also?”	埃迪，看到有一个人中计了，寄来了那份忘记发的附件，同时告知我“我们非常高兴一位有你这样身份的人会对我们感兴趣。 顺便问一句，你是否有其他朋友或同事也对此感兴趣呢，你可以把这份邮件也转发给他们吗？


The point is that in today’s go-go ultra-high liquidity environment, Eddie was probably successful in raising money with similar techniques.	问题是今天投机性投资超高的流动性环境，使得埃迪运用类似的技术可能会成功地筹集到资金。


Of course, roughly 1,000 of the world’s 9,000 hedge funds went out of business last year.	当然，去年世界上的9000家对冲基金中有大约1000家倒闭了。


The big question is whether this Wild West mentality poses broader risks to the global financial system, particularly given circumstances where a large number of firms are all collectively making the same bet.	一个很大的问题是这种狂野西部牛仔的心理是否对全球金融系统带来了更大的风险，尤其是考虑到为数众多的公司正集中下着同样的赌注。


If they lose, a long string of bankruptcies can cut deeply into banking systems that had generated huge profits by lending to these same hedge funds.	如果它们失败了，那么银行系统将会大量地破产倒闭，虽然它们现在依靠借款给同样这些对冲基金而获得了高额的利润。


At the moment, the most glaring weakness is the so-called “yen carry trade.”	与此同时，最引人注目的弱点在于所谓的“日元带动贸易”。


Hedge funds have borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars at ultra-low interest rate in Japan, and invested the proceeds in countries like Brazil and Turkey, where interest rates are high.	对冲基金从日本以超低的利息借了几千亿美元，然后把它投到像巴西和土耳其这些利率很高的国家。


As long as the yen remains weak, this investment strategy will be a money machine.	只要日元依然保持弱势，那么这种投资战略就会是一台造钱机器。


But if the yen appreciates sharply, as it easily could given Japan’s huge current account surplus, some hedge funds will suffer huge capital losses and the yen carry trade will implode.	但是如��日元大幅升值，考虑到日本的高额国际收支经常项目顺差这很容易做到，那么一些对冲基金就会遭受巨额的资本损失，而日元带动贸易也会崩溃。


And, while today’s main risk is the yen, in a couple months it could be something completely different.	另外，尽管今天的风险在于日元，但是在一两个月间情况可能就会发生完全的变化。


So pressure outside the US and Britain to put the hedge fund industry on a tighter regulatory leash is hardly surprising.	所以人们向美国和英国施加了强大的外部压力要求对对冲基金业实施更严厉的规定就不足为奇了。


The Germans, for example, want to reduce risk by forcing hedge funds to adhere to stricter reporting requirements.	比如，德国就通过强制对冲基金遵守更严厉的报告要求来减少风险。


The funds respond to such proposals by arguing that if they are required to reveal their investment strategies, they will lose their incentive to innovate, and a recent US government report – a multi-agency effort headed by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (formerly of Goldman Sachs) – supports that position.	面对这种要求，对冲基金辩解说如果它们被要求透露它们的投资战略，那么它们就会失去创新的动力。 最近美国政府出台一份报告支持了这种观点。


Greater regulation would be a mistake, the report argues, because the global economy’s best defense against systemic risk is the exercise of common sense and “due diligence” by each and every person who invests or interacts with hedge funds.	该报告由以前在高盛公司任职的财政部长汉克·保尔森所领头的多个部门共同编写。 这份报告辩解说，更严厉的管制是错误的，因为全球经济应对系统性风险的最好防御办法是投资对冲基金或与对冲基金相关的每一个人都运用常识和“尽职”。


In other words, the US is telling investors to carry their own guns, because, as in the Wild West, there might not be a sheriff around to help.	换句话说，美国是在告诉投资者们拿起他们自己的枪，因为在狂野的西部，不会有一位警官在旁边帮你的忙。


But frankly, as we are reminded by recent events, it is hard to see how at least a small increase in transparency can hurt.	但是坦率地说，正如最近的事态所提醒我们的那样，我看不出稍微增加一点透明度会造成什么伤害。


The Germans, in chairing the G8 this year, should not surrender on this issue.	作为今年八国集团主席国的德国不应该在这个问题让步。


No country wants to put itself at the mercy of the likes of Eddie.	没有哪个国家愿意让自己任由埃迪之类的人摆布。


The Hero of His Time	时事英雄


Boris Yeltsin was utterly unique.	鲍里斯·叶利钦绝对是独一无二的。


Russia’s first democratically elected leader, he was also the first Russian leader to give up power voluntarily, and constitutionally, to a successor.	他是俄罗斯第一位民主选举产生的总统，也是第一个依照宪法主动将权力让给其继任者的俄罗斯领导人。


But he was also profoundly characteristic of Russian leaders.	但是同时他又是极为典型的俄罗斯式领袖。


Using various mixtures of charisma, statecraft, and terror, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Alexander II, Peter Stolypin (the last tsar’s prime minister), Lenin, and Stalin all sought to make Russia not only a great military power, but also an economic and cultural equal of the West.	彼得大帝，叶卡捷琳娜大帝，亚历山大二世，彼得斯托里宾（最后一位沙皇的首相），列宁，斯大林这些俄罗斯领导人，都曾将领袖魅力，治国之术，震慑威吓并用，力求将俄罗斯发展成军事强国，并且在经济和文化上也决不逊色于西方国家。


Yeltsin aimed for the same goal. But he stands out from them in this respect: he understood that empire was incompatible with democracy, and so was willing to abandon the Soviet Union in order to try to build a democratic order at home.	叶利钦和他们有着共同的目标，但是有一点与他们不同：他认识到了帝制与民主的不相容性，所以愿意放弃苏联而努力在其国内建立民主制度。


At the height of Yeltsin’s career, many Russians identified with his bluntness, impulsiveness, sensitivity to personal slight, even with his weakness for alcohol.	处于事业顶峰时期的叶利钦在许多俄罗斯人的眼中大胆鲁莽，易冲动，受不得怠慢，而且对酒精极度依赖。


And yet in the final years of his rule, his reputation plunged.	在他任期的最后几年中，他的声誉更是直线下跌。


Only in the last few months of his second presidential term, after he launched the second war in Chechnya in September 1999, did he and his lieutenants regain some legitimacy in the eyes of the Russian public, while causing revulsion among any remaining Western admirers.	直到他总统的第二届任期，在他于1999年九月对车臣发动了第二次战争以后，他和他的幕僚们才在俄罗斯民众中挽回了些许支持，但是这却引起了他的西方崇拜者们的强烈反感。


Despite his caprices, however, Yeltsin kept Russia on a course of broad strategic co-operation with America and its allies.	尽管他本人变化无常，叶利钦却使俄罗斯保持了与美国及其盟友的广泛战略合作。


Although he opposed America’s use of force against Iraq and Serbia in the 1990’s, his government never formally abandoned the sanctions regime against either country.	尽管他反对美国在九十年代对伊拉克和叙利亚动用武力，他的政府从没正式解除对这两个国家的制裁。


Moreover, no nuclear weapons were unleashed, deliberately or accidentally, and no full-scale war of the kind that ravaged post-communist Yugoslavia broke out between Russia and any of its neighbors, although several of them were locked in internal or regional conflict in which Russia’s hand was visible.	而且，俄罗斯没有蓄意或因意外而动用核武器，南斯拉夫共产党垮台后的战争灾难也没有在俄罗斯重演，俄罗斯没有与其邻国之间爆发类似的真正意义上的战争，尽管这些国家陷入的内部或地区冲突中，俄罗斯的插手昭然可见。


The tasks that faced Yeltsin when he attained power in 1991 were monumental.	叶利钦在1991年掌握政权后面临着巨大的任务。


At several crucial moments, he established himself as the only person who could rise to the challenges of transforming Russia from a dictatorship into a democracy, from a planned economy into a free market, and from an empire into a medium-ranked power.	在俄罗斯从独裁制向民主国家，从计划经济转向自由市场经济，从一个帝国向中等国家转变的多个关键时刻，他都是唯一一个能站出来迎击挑战的人。


In 1992, as the emerging Russian Federation teetered on the brink of economic and monetary collapse, he opted for radical reform, prompting a backlash from vested interest groups.	1992年，当新兴的俄罗斯联邦在经济和货币崩溃的边缘摇摇欲坠的时候，他选择了激进的改革，激起了特权阶层的强烈不满。


In the years that followed, he would tilt toward liberal economics whenever he felt powerful enough to do so.	此后的几年中，只要权力允许，他都会倾向于自由经济。


Yeltsin was quintessentially a product of the Soviet system, which makes his turn to democracy and the free market, though imperfect, even more miraculous.	叶利钦是前苏联体制的典型产物，这虽然使他向民主和自由市场经济的转变不够完美，但却更具奇迹性。


The son of a poor building worker, he had a meteoric rise through communist ranks to become party boss in the industrial city of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in the Urals.	作为一个贫穷的建筑工人的儿子，叶利钦在苏共内的职位扶摇直上，成了工业城市斯维尔德洛夫斯克市 （叶卡捷林堡）的第一书记。


Unlike most other party leaders, he was good at talking to ordinary people, a skill that helped him win support and then power later, but he also showed no sign of questioning the Marxist-Leninist gobbledygook that he was required to recite at public events.	和其他的苏共领导人不同，他很善于和老百姓聊天，这帮他赢得了支持以及后来的权力。 但是在公共场合，在他不得不引用马列主义教条的时候，他丝毫没有表现出对其有所质疑。


It was only after Mikhail Gorbachev summoned Yeltsin to Moscow in 1985 that he began to differentiate himself from dozens of other senior party apparatchiks.	直到戈尔巴乔夫1985年将叶利钦调到莫斯科以后，叶利钦才开始表现出与苏共那些老派高官的不同。


Sensing the bitter frustration of Moscow’s middle class-in-waiting, Yeltsin quickly gained a reputation as a harsh, if not always coherent, critic of the party’s old guard.	叶利钦感受到了莫斯科那些有望成为中产阶级的人的痛苦绝望，并迅速奠定了苏共老卫士强烈批判者的声誉，虽然立场并不总是那么一致。


Campaigners for democracy admired Yeltsin’s struggle against the conservatives in the politburo – especially after he was forced out of the party’s inner circle in November 1987.	民主运动的倡导者敬慕叶利钦同政治局那些保守派的斗争，尤其是他在1987年十一月被挤出苏共的核心圈之后。


Determined to outbid Gorbachev as a reformer, he persuaded liberals to overcome their distrust of his provincial manners.	叶利钦决心成为比戈尔巴乔夫更有魄力的改革者，因此努力劝服自由主义者消除了对他的偏狭的疑虑。


They gave him lessons in democratic theory, while he gave them tactical advice.	他们给他上民主理论课，而他给他们出谋划策。


As the Soviet Union steadily disintegrated, with virtually all of its 15 republics straining at the leash, Yeltsin gained the leadership of the largest – the Russian Federation – which placed him in a tactical alliance with independence campaigners in Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Georgia.	在苏联逐步解体，在其十五个加盟共和国全都迫不及待的摆脱其束缚的过程中，叶利钦掌握了最大的加盟共和国—俄罗斯联邦的领导权，并和乌克兰，波罗的海诸国，格鲁吉亚的独立运动者建立起了战略联盟。


By June 1991, after quashing a series of challenges to his leadership, he became the first elected president of Russia; two months later, real power fell into his hands, after the failed putsch against Gorbachev of August 1991 by conservatives seeking to prevent the Soviet Union’s disintegration.	到1991年六月，在平息了对其政权的一系列挑战之后，叶利钦成了俄罗斯第一个民选总统。 两个月后，在保守派于1991年八月发动的企图阻止苏联解体，反对戈尔巴乔夫的暴动失败后，叶利钦掌握了实权。


For most Westerners and many Russians, his finest hour came on August 19th that year, when he stood on a tank outside the Russian parliament and defied the hardliners who had seized power.	对大多数西方人和许多俄罗斯人来说，他最辉煌的一刻是那一年八月19日，他登上俄罗斯议会外的坦克同掌权的硬派作战的时候。


But Yeltsin himself never succeeded in fully throwing off the intellectual shackles of the past.	但是叶���钦本人从没能成功的彻底摆脱过去的意识枷锁。


As president, he talked of economic performance as if it could be improved by decree.	作为总统，他把经济状况的改善说得像是下个指令就能办到的事。


Like most Russians, he wanted the material advantages of capitalism, but had little respect or understanding for the rule of law and dispersion of power, which makes capitalist institutions work.	和大多数俄罗斯人一样，他想要资本主义带来的物质好处，但是对法制和权力分散这些资本主义体制得以运行的保障毫无敬意或了解。


Nevertheless, for most of his presidency, Yeltsin kept alive – albeit with many tactical retreats – the goal of economic reform.	不管怎样，在他任总统期间，虽然有许多战术后退，叶利钦始终没有放弃经济改革的目标。


At some level, he sensed that Russia’s potential could be unleashed only if the government either faced down, or bought off, the special interests – military, industrial, and agricultural – that stood in the way.	在某种程度上，他意识到了只有挫败或买断作为路障的特权阶层—军事的，工业的和农业的—俄罗斯的潜力才能发挥出来。


The economic orthodoxy pursued after the collapse of 1998 laid the groundwork for today’s sustained Russian boom.	1998年俄罗斯经济危机之后推行的正统的经济做法，为俄罗斯现在的持续经济增长奠定了基础。


Yeltsin’s tragedy, and Russia’s, was that, when the country needed a leader with vision and determination, it found an agile political operator instead.	叶利钦的悲剧，也是俄罗斯的悲剧，在于当这个国家需要一个有远见和决断力的领袖时，只找到了一个老练的政治操盘手。


By not permitting Russia to disintegrate into anarchy or leading it back to authoritarianism, Yeltsin kept the way open for such a leader to one day emerge.	叶利钦没有让俄罗斯陷入一盘散沙，也不愿把它带回到以前的独裁状态，他敞开大门，等待那个领袖有一天出现。


Unfortunately, that man is not his handpicked successor, Vladimir Putin, who has only perpetuated the vicious cycles of Russian history.	不幸的是，这个人并不是他亲手指定的继承人—弗拉基米尔·普京，因为普京只是使俄罗斯历史的恶性循环永远延续了下去。


The Hidden Purposes of High Finance	高级金融的潜在内涵


BERKELEY – No one questions the usefulness of “low” finance: the ability to use checks, banknotes, and credit cards rather than having to cart around chests of silver, scales, and reagents to assay purity, and needing armed guards to protect the silver – and more guards to watch the first set of guards – has obvious efficiencies.	伯克利——没有人会质疑使用“低级”金融产品的好处：例如使用支票，现钞和信用卡，比起使用一箱子银子来说，要方便的多。 如果你用银子的话，首先要天枰或试剂来检验它的纯度，然后需要保镖来押运银子，甚至需要更多的保镖来看住原先的保镖等。


So does the ability of households to borrow and lend in order not to be forced to match income and expenditure every day, week, month, or year.	对每个家庭日常开销来说，不需要每天，每周，每月或是每年来平衡收入和支出 。 这样也就方便很多，


But what use is “high” finance?	那么，“高级”金融有什么用处呢？


Economists’ conventional description depicts high finance as providing us with three types of utility.	经济学家传统上给出高级金融如下三个用途。


First, it allows for many savers to pool their wealth to finance large enterprises that can achieve the efficiencies of scale possible from capital-intensive modern industry.	首先，它有利于个人将储蓄提供给大型金融机构，以实现资本密集现代社会规模效应的需求。


Second, high finance provides an arena to curb the worst abuses by managers of large corporations.	其次，高级金融可以防止大型金融机构的管理者滥用他们的权利。


Shareholder democracy simply does not work, but managers’ fear that if the stock price drops too low they will be out on their ears provides a useful restraint.	股东的民主权利显然在这里不起什么作用，当金融机构管理者认为股价会下跌很厉害的时候，他们可能遭受很大的损失，在这里高级金融就提供了一个有效地保证。


Finally, high finance allows for portfolio diversification, so that individual investors can seek high expected returns without being forced to assume large, idiosyncratic risks of bankruptcy and poverty.	最后，高级金融可以使得你的投资多元化。 个人投资者可以寻求高收益的同时，避免巨大损失而导致破产变得一无所有。


But these are the benefits of high finance as they apply to the ideal world of economists – that is, a world of rational utilitarian actors who are skilled calculators of expected utility under uncertainty, who are masters of dynamic programming, and who breathe stochastic calculus in their daily life.	但这些都是在经济学家理想王国里，高级金融才能体现的好处。 ——也就是说每个人都是理性的功利主义者，对不确定性有着精确地计算，可以完全掌握动态的变化，以及在日常生活中可以随机应变地处理问题。


We do not live in such a world.	事实上，我们并没有生活在这个理想王国里。


Economists have spent their lives attempting to evolve theories that would account for how salient features of reality might emerge if we did live in their ideal world, but since we don’t, their theoretical enterprise is of doubtful utility.	如果我们确实生活在理想王国里，经济学家可以不断提升他们的理论，试图解释我们生活中可能遇到的问题。 遗憾的是我们不是生活在理想王国里，所以他们的理论体系存在问题。


It is like describing how one could bake a delicious wedding cake using only honey, bicarbonate of soda, and raw eggplant.	这就像一个人不可能仅仅使用蜂蜜，苏打水和茄子就可以烘烤出一个美味的婚礼蛋糕来那样。


If we take the world as it really is, we quickly see that high finance performs two further tasks that advance our collective economic welfare.	回归现实，我们可以发现高级金融带来的另两点好处。


It induces us to save, accumulate, and invest by promising us safe and liquid investments even in extraordinary times.	第一是它诱使我们储蓄，积累和投资，承诺我们在艰难时期都能给我们带来安全和流动性好的资产。


It also induces us to save and invest as a prerequisite to indulging our love of gambling, and as a byproduct of it.	第二它诱使我们为了更大的收益，甘愿冒一定的风险来购买金融以及衍生产品，有时候甚至可以说是赌博。


It is a fact that we are much happier saving and accumulating, and that we are much more likely to do so when we think that the resources we have saved and accumulated are at hand.	我们似乎喜欢储蓄和积累财富。


It is also true that when we invest our wealth – in Pfizer’s intellectual property, factories in Shenzhen, worldwide distribution networks, or shopping malls in Atlanta – it is not , in fact, at hand.	特别是当我们手头有可以利用资源——辉瑞制药的专利，深圳的工厂，遍布全球的物流网络，或是在亚特兰大的购物中心等——的时候，我们更愿意这么做。 其实，它并不在“手头”。


Our invested wealth can only be made to appear liquid to any one of us, and only if there is no general shift in our collective desire for liquidity.	我们可以投资的财富只能是那些看起来是可以流动的资产，仅仅是我们对流动资金还没有大规模的需求的时候才可能如此。


And it is also a fact that we are happier saving and accumulating if we receive positive and negative feedback on our decisions on a time scale that allows us to believe that we can do better next time by altering our strategy – hence marketwatch.com and CNN/Money.	同样，我们储蓄和积累财富的前提是我们可以吸取成功经验和失败的教训，这样我们下次在做投资的时候可以通过改变战略而做的更好一些——这也是marketwatch. com和CNN/Money节目的作用所在。


Of course investors who believe that their wealth is securely liquid, and that they are adding value for themselves by buying and selling are suffering from a delusion.	当然，前提是投资者相信他们的财富是有流动性和安全的，其实这是他们的一种错觉。


Our financial wealth is not liquid in an emergency.	例如在紧急时刻��金融资产不具有流动性。


And when we buy and sell, we are enriching not ourselves, but the specialists and market makers.	还有当我们在买卖交易的时候，我们一般不能使得自己的财富增值，受益者往往是所谓的专家和市场的操纵者。


But we benefit from these delusions.	但我们也可以从这种错觉中受益。


Psychologically, we are naturally impatient, so it is good for us to believe that our wealth is safe and secure, and that we can add to it through skillful acts of investment, because that delusion makes us behave less impatiently.	从心理学角度来说，人类天生是没有耐心的，所以只有我们相信财富是安全没有危险，我们才可能通过投资的技巧来使其增值。 因为这样的错觉使得我们不那么容易失去耐心。


And, collectively, that delusion boosts our savings, and thus our capital stock, which on turn boosts all of our wages and salaries as well.	所以，如果我们大家都这么想，储蓄就会增加，资本的积累也会反过来提升我们的工资收入水平。


Seventy-three years ago, John Maynard Keynes thought about the reform and regulation of financial markets from the perspective of the first three purposes and found himself “moved toward... mak[ing] the purchase of an investment permanent and indissoluble, like marriage...”	73年之前，约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯在对金融市场的改革和监管时候，提及关于最初提到的三个目的时候说，他的目的是使得“他的投资购买行为转向成永久的和不可分割的，就是婚姻那样。


But he immediately drew back: the fact “that each individual investor flatters himself that his commitment is ‘liquid’ (though this cannot be true for all investors collectively) calms his nerves and makes him much more willing to run a risk...”	”但他立刻说明一个事实“每一个投资者都欺骗自己说他们的资产是可流动的（虽然如果所有投资者想要变现的话，资产就不可能变现。 ）有了这样的前提，他们就可以放心来进行更为大胆的冒险行为。


Moreover, for Keynes, “[t]he game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll...”	凯恩斯进一步指出“职业投资者的游戏对于那些缺乏赌博天分的人来说，很是乏味和非常困难； 同时他必须将此天分运用合理的水平。


It is for these reasons that we have seemed frozen for the past generation or two whenever we have contemplated reforming our system of financial regulation.	在过去一两代人中，不管如何改革金融监管系统，我们都没什么改变。


And it is why, even in the face of a severe financial crisis, we remain frozen today.	所以说，即使我们目前面临如此严重的金融危机，我们依然无动于衷。


The High Cost of Cheap Fashion	廉价时装的高昂成本


OXFORD – I confess: I do it, too.	发自牛津——我坦白：我也做过那种事。


Like most Western women, I do it regularly, and it is a guilty pleasure every time.	跟大多数西方女性一样，我隔一段时间就会做一次，而且每次都有种负罪的快感。


It is hard to listen to one’s conscience when one is faced with so much incredible temptation.	我承认在如此摄人心魄的诱惑面前，一个人是很难去服从自己的良心的。


I am talking, of course, about cheap trendy fashion.	当然，我说的是那些廉价的潮流服装。


I'll visit a Zara – or Hampamp;M, or, now that I am in the United Kingdom for the summer, the amazing Primark – and snap up items that are “cute,” effectively disposable, and so shockingly inexpensive that one does a double take.	我会去逛Zara，还有Hampamp;M，如今我正在英伦消夏，自然也会光顾那些迷人的Primark连锁店——抢购那些“有型有款”，穿过就扔，而且便宜得令人难以置信的时装。


I need to face my addiction – and so do all women like me.	我已经购衣成瘾，我必须与之对抗——跟所有女性一样。


Fashion has been transformed by the recent emergence of retail chains that hire good designers to make throwaway clothing and accessories that are right on trend.	这些服装零售连锁店雇用优秀设计师参与设计，推出一系列穿过就扔的新潮服饰，并因此改变了时装的形式。


This evolution has freed Western women from the tyranny of a fashion industry that in the bad old days would dictate a style, compelling women to invest heavily in updating their wardrobes, and then blithely declare their entire closets obsolete – again and again, with no end in sight.	这场进化解放了西方女性，在过去的那段黑暗的日子里，一切都陷入了某种死循环：时装工业专横地定义何为流行，迫使妇女们花费巨资来更新自己的衣橱，谁知过一段时间后又突然宣布她们的整套装束已经完全过时了……反反复复，无穷无尽。


Enter the mass-production style emporia, and Western women have the seemingly delicious and liberating option of getting this summer's must-have tiny floral retro eighties print sundress – which will look appallingly frumpy by next summer – for $12.	而走进这些大规模生产的时尚大卖场，西方女性能欣然而惬意地找到今夏必备的80年代复古碎花无袖吊带小背心——到明年此时这个款式肯定会显得土气十足——标价仅仅12美元。


They – we – can invest in classic items that don’t age so fast, and absorb these low-cost trendy disposables as the mood hits.	这样她们（也就是我们）就可以花钱配置一些不易过时的经典款式，再根据心情搭配一些廉价且过时即弃的潮流时装。


These stores solve a psychological problem for us, too, since one can shop at length – a pleasure that may well be hard-wired in the female brain, owing to our evolutionary development as gatherers – without feeling sick about one’s overspending by the end of the exercise.	这些商店同时还缓解了我们的某种精神困扰，由于女性是作为采集者而进化的，因此这种大肆购物的行为可以在女性脑部形成持续的快感——而且无需为行为过后的超支而感到沮丧。


But what has been liberating for Western women is a system built literally on the backs of women in the developing world.	然而这套解放了西方女性的系统其实上是构筑在发展中国家妇女的血汗之上的。


How do Primark and its competitors in the West’s shopping malls and High Streets keep that cute frock so cheap?	试问Primark及其竞争者们如何令到这些在西方购物广场和潮流大街上售卖的时髦服装如此廉价？


By starving and oppressing Bangladeshi, Chinese, Mexican, Haitian, and other women, that’s how.	答案就是压榨那些孟加拉、中国、海地等国的妇女。


We all know that cheap clothing is usually made in sweatshop conditions – and usually by women.	众所周知，廉价的服装通常都是在血汗工厂里生产的——而且工人往往是女性。


And we know – or should know – that women in sweatshops around the world report being locked in and forbidden to use bathrooms for long periods, as well as sexual harassment, violent union-busting, and other forms of coercion.	我们也知道——也必须知道——全世界血汗工厂里的女工通常都被封闭在厂区之内，隔好长一段时间才能上一次厕所，还可能遭受性骚扰，工会活动也遭到破坏，还得忍受其他形式的侵犯。


But, like any family secret that would cause us discomfort if faced directly, we Western women turn a blind eye to it.	但正如我们不愿正视所有家庭问题那样，西方女性也选择对这一事实视而不见。


Boycotts of sweated college t-shirts in the United States led to fairer manufacturing practices, and boycotts of coffee and produce, led mostly by women consumers, resulted in fair-trade purchases by major supermarkets.	事实上，美国人曾经对来自血汗工厂的大学T恤衫予以声讨，迫使生产商采用更为公平的生产方式，而主要由女性消费者主导的针对咖啡制品的声讨，则促成了各大超市的“公平贸易”采购行为。


And more affluent women do have a history of effective sweated labor boycotts in the past: in the Victorian era, impoverished women were going blind in the `needle trades', turning out elaborate embroideries for wealthy women, until revulsion on the part of these consumers forced conditions to better.	而更加富裕的女性也有着声讨血汗工厂的光荣历史：在维多利亚时代，贫苦妇女为了一种给富裕妇女绣花的“针头贸易”而逐渐致盲，直到一部分消费者对此表示了反感才迫使贫困妇女的工作状况得到了改善。


By contrast, today, there is no major movement led by developed-world women to stop this global exploitation by cut-rate manufacturers – even though our money is the one tool powerful enough to force manufacturers to change their ways.	反过来，当今并没有一些由发达国家妇女所领导的大型运动来制止由微利生产商所做的剥削行为——即便我们手里的金钱就是迫使这类生产商改变行为模式的最佳利器。


The reason is simple: we like things the way they are.	原因很简单：我们喜欢这种模式。


But it will become increasingly difficult for us to maintain our “out of sight, out of mind” attitude.	但要维持这种“眼不见心不烦”的态度已经越来越难了。


To their credit, women in the developing world – some of the most exploited and coerced women on earth – are raising their voices.	值得称赞的是，那些发展中国家的妇女——世界上受剥削受压迫程度最严重的妇女——已经开始发出自己的声音了。


For example, The Financial Times reported on June 23 that, “Hundreds of Bangladeshi garment factories supplying western buyers such as Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Walmart, and Hampamp;M gradually reopened under heavy police protection…after days of violent protests by tens of thousands of laborers demanding higher wages.”	比如《金融时报》在6月23日就载文披露“在数万名劳工发动持续数日的暴力示威，要求提高工资之后……. 数百家为Marksampamp;Spencer, Tesco, Walmart和Hampamp;M供货的孟加拉服装厂在警方的严密保护下重开。


A thousand riot police used rubber bullets and tear gas on the workers, and hundreds were injured, but they did not back down.	”近千名防暴警察对示威工人发射了橡胶子弹和催泪弹，数百人受伤，但没有人因此退缩。


Most of the two million people working in Bangladesh’s garment industry are women, and they are the lowest-paid garment workers in the world, earning $25 a month.	在孟加拉服装产业中工作的两百万人中绝大多数都是女性，而她们则是世界上薪水最低的制衣工人，每月到手的只有区区25美元。


But they are demanding that their monthly wage be almost tripled, to $70.	如今她们要求将工资上涨三倍到70美元。


Their leaders make the point that, at current pay levels, workers cannot feed themselves or their families.	她们的代表一针见血地指出：在目前的薪酬水平下，她们根本就无法养活自己和家人。


Economists predict that strikes and unrest will escalate in Bangladesh, and also in Vietnam, with even investment bankers quoted by The Financial Times calling wages for women garment workers in these countries “unsustainably low.”	经济学家预计孟加拉的罢工骚乱将逐渐升级，而在越南，《金融时报》引述一位投资银行家的话说这些国家的制衣女工的薪酬“低得无法持续”。


The factories have reopened – for now. But Bangladesh’s government is considering an increase in the minimum wage.	而虽然那些工厂已经重开，但孟加拉政府正在考虑调高最低工资标准。


If it happens, one of the world’s most oppressed legal workforces will have scored a major victory – largely symbolic for now, but one that will inspire other women garment workers around the world to rise up in protest.	如果这能实现的话，世界上其中一支遭受压迫的合法劳动力将取得一场重大胜利——虽然目前主要还是象征意义上的，但也足以激励世界上其他制衣女工奋起争取自己的权利。


Western women, we should challenge ourselves to follow this story and find ways to do what is right in changing our own consumption patterns.	作为西方女性，我们必须挑战自己，正视上述事件，并想方设法改变自己的消费模式。


It is past time to show support for women who are suffering systematic, globalized, cost-effective gender discrimination in the most overt ways – ways that most of us no longer have to face.	对那些公开遭受系统性，全球性且任意的性别歧视的女性给予支持的时代已经过去了——我们大多数人如今也不会遭受类似的歧视。


Let us support a fair-trade economy, and refuse to shop at outlets targeted by activists for unfair employment practices (for more information, go to http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1485).	那么让我们转而支持一个公平贸易的经济模式，拒绝在那些受到反不公平雇佣运动人士锁定的商店购物(更多信息，请查阅http://www. worldwatch.


If women around the world who are held in the bondage of sweated labor manage to win this crucial fight, that cute dress at Primark may cost a fair amount more.	如果全世界那些遭血汗工厂奴役的女工能赢得这场关键的胜利，那么Primark货架上那些时髦服饰的价格将有所提高。


But it already costs too much to the women who can’t afford to feed and house themselves and their children.	但原来的价格已经欠了那些无法为自己和孩子们提供温饱的妇女太多了。


That $3 pair of adorable lace-up sandals?	只卖3美元一双的精致系带凉鞋？


The price – given the human costs – really is too good to be true.	这个价格——考虑到人工成本——实在是低得离谱了。


The High Stakes of Rio+20	Rio+20身负重任


NAIROBI – With just weeks to go before the Rio+20 Earth Summit, many are speculating about how many world leaders will show up and what kind of agreements they might reach on the key agenda items: creating a “green economy” and establishing an “international framework for sustainable development.” It is no coincidence that these two items appear side by side.	内罗毕—距离Rio+20地球峰会召开只有几周时间了，许多人在猜测有多少世界领导人会出席，在关键日程——创造“绿色经济”、建立“可持续发展的国家框架”——方面会形成何种协议。


The term “green economy” was coined years ago – even prior to the first Earth Summit in 1992 – to provide a new lens through which to examine the links between economics and sustainability.	The term “green economy” was coined years ago – even prior to the first Earth Summit in 1992 – to provide a new lens through which to examine the links between economics and sustainability.


But it has gained a new impetus in a world where climate change is already a reality, commodity prices are rising, and basic resources such as clean air, arable land, and fresh water are increasingly scarce.	 “绿色经济”一词提出已经很多年了——甚至要早于1992年首届地球峰会——本意是为了提供考察经济和可持续性之间联系的新视角。 但在气候变化已成现实、商品价格节节攀升、清洁空气、可耕土地和清洁水源日渐稀缺的世界中，绿色经济一词被赋予了新的含义。


A growing body of science, including the United Nations Environment Program’s upcoming Global Environment Outlook-5, is confirming what was glimpsed at Rio 20 years ago.	新的科学成果——包括联合国环境规划署即将发布的全球环境展望第五版（Global Environment Outlook-5）——正在确认20年前Rio 20所发现的问题。


Those who have invested in an economic model and production processes based on nineteenth- and twentieth-century models are perhaps understandably nervous about a paradigm shift.	不难理解，那些投资于以19和20世纪模式为基础的经济模式和生产程序之人或许会对范式改变大为紧张。


But so are some segments of civil society, which are concerned that a transition to a green economy might negatively affect the poor and expose them to greater risks and vulnerabilities.	但同样感到紧张的还有某些公民社会阶层，他们担心向绿色经济的转型会对穷人形成负面冲击，让他们陷入更大的危险和脆弱性之中。


Others question the efficacy of market-based approaches to drive sustainability, because markets can never deliver optimal social and environmental outcomes.	也有人之一市场办法来推动可持续性的效率，因为市场不可能提供最优的社会和环境结果。


Only strong institutions, including regulations and laws, can accomplish this.	只有好的制度——包括监管和法律——可以达到这一目标。


We couldn’t agree more.	我们完全赞成。


The systemic crises in food, fuel, and finance that came to a head in 2008 – and that are ongoing in many countries – have their roots in an economic paradigm that has not accounted for the value of nature and its array of life-supporting services.	2008年爆发并至今仍在众多国家肆虐的的食品、燃料和金融方面的系统性危机的根源在于忽略自然价值和生活支持服务的经济范式。


As the recently released report “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication” shows, the market economy as currently constituted has resulted in the misallocation of capital on an unprecedented scale.	最新发布的报告《走向绿色经济：可持续发展和消除贫困之道》（Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and    Poverty Eradication）现实，现有的市场经济导致了资本前所未有的配置失当。


Indeed, the deep and pervasive market failures – in carbon emissions, biodiversity, and ecosystem services – are accelerating environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and undermining human well-being and social equity.	事实上，市场的大失败随处可见——比如碳排放、生物多样性、生态系统功能等——并在加剧环境风险和生态稀缺，破坏人类福利和社会公平。


That is why the link to governance and institutions at Rio+20 is just as important as the transition to a green economy: markets are human constructs that require rules and institutions to guide not only their direction, but also their boundaries.	这就是为什么Rio+20的把治理与制度联系起来与向绿色经济转型同样重要：市场是一种人造结构，要求规则和制度指导方向并规定边界。


One concern among critics is that a transition to a green economy will essentially monetize nature, exposing the world’s forests, fresh water, and fisheries to the profit-seeking behavior of bankers and traders, whose shortcomings helped to trigger the financial and economic turmoil of the past four years.	批评者的以大胆又是向绿色经济转型免不了会将自然货币化，将全世界的森林、清洁水和渔场暴露在银行家和贸易家的逐利行为之下，而正是后两者的缺陷引发了过去四年来的金融和经济动荡。


But is the question one of monetizing nature, or of valuing nature?	但这个问题到底是给自然标价（monetize），还是为自然估值（value）？


The fact is that nature is already being bought and sold, mined and marketed at knock-down prices that fail to capture its real worth, especially to the livelihoods of the poor.	事实是，自然已经在买卖了，人们以远不能代表其真实价值极低的价格开采和销售着自然，穷人受害尤甚。


In large part, this reflects unregulated or missing markets that fail to capture the values that nature provides to us every day – point emphasized in the G-8+5 project on the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, hosted by the UNEP.	在很大程度上讲，这反映了监管和制度缺失的市场不能体现自然每天向我们提供的价值——这正是联合国环境开发署生态系统和生物多样性经济学G8+5工程所强调的。


In a very real sense, the future of the planet is at stake in Rio.	从极现实的角度讲，地球的未来掌握在Rio手中。


Without a real and lasting solution that recalibrates our current economic thinking at a systemic level, the scale and pace of change could soon push the planet past critical thresholds and make sustainable development everywhere an impossible dream.	如果不能形成现实、持续的办法在系统水平上修正当前的经济思想，按现有变化规模和节奏，地球将很快越过临界值，可持续发展将化为南柯一梦。


Although multilateralism is a slow and often painful process of cultivating consensus, some issues are so large that they transcend any one country.	尽管多边主义是是一个缓慢而痛苦的培养共识过程，但有些问题实在太大，无法在一国的框架内解决。


Why, for example, does the world pursue a paradigm of economic growth that rests upon eroding the very basis of earth’s life-support systems?	比如，为什么世界要追求一种依靠侵蚀地球生命支持系统基础的经济增长范式？


Can wealth be redefined and reframed to include access to basic goods and services, including those provided by nature free of cost, such as clean air, a stable climate, and fresh water?	财富可以被重新定义和界定，从而将获得基本商品和服务——包括清洁空气、稳定气候、清洁水源等自然免费提供之物——包括进来？


Is it not time to give human development, environmental sustainability, and social equity an equal footing with GDP growth?	将人类发展、环境可持续、社会公平置于与GDP增长同样重要位置的时机难道还没有到吗？


All around us, warning lights are flashing yellow, if not red.	环顾全球，警示灯仍然只是黄灯，红灯还没有亮起。


But we know that new technology and innovation are driving changes in the way that energy is produced, how new markets for food and clean water are emerging, and how basic ecological services are now becoming scarce and valued.	但我们知道，新技术和创新正在推动能源生产、食品和清洁水市场以及如今正日渐稀缺和宝贵的基本生态服务的变革。


Rio+20 is a moment for sharing knowledge and experience concerning successful transitions to greener and more resource-efficient economies. It is an opportunity to begin developing the capacity at all levels to transform our economies into engines of growth and jobs that do not deplete our resources or create new liabilities that will be a drag on growth and human health for years to come.	Rio+20是共享知识和经验、促进向更绿色、资源效率更高的经济转型的时刻，一次启动个层面能力开发、让我们的经济增长和就业引擎不再耗尽我们的资源、创造拖累未来增长和人类健康的新负债的良机。


The challenge ahead will be to reconcile the emerging economic reality with the social values and ethics needed to produce a balanced and inclusive green economy.	未来的挑战将是协调新出现的经济现实和产生平衡、普惠的绿色经济所需要的社会价值观和道德观。


That, in the words of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is a “future that we all want.”	用联合国秘书长潘基文的话说，这是“我们都渴望的未来”。


It is a future that could unfold with defining and decisive leadership by world leaders at Rio+20.	这是Rio+20世界领导人界定性的果断领导可以许给我们的未来。


The History at the End of History	历史终结关口的历史


Fifteen years ago in my book The End of History and the Last Man I argued that, if a society wanted to be modern, there was no alternative to a market economy and a democratic political system.	十五年前我在amplt;amplt;历史的终结和最后一个人ampgt;ampgt;一书中论述到，如果社会想要现代化，除了市场经济和民主政治体制之外就别无选择。


Not everyone wanted to be modern, of course, and not everyone could put in place the institutions and policies necessary to make democracy and capitalism work, but no alternative system would yield better results.	当然，并非所有人都想要现代化，而且也不是所有人都可以建立让民主和资本主义运作起来所必需的机制和政策，但是，没有其他体制能够产生更好的结果。


While the “ End of History ” thus was essentially an argument about modernization, some people have linked my thesis about the end of history to the foreign policy of President George W. Bush and American strategic hegemony.	“历史的终结”基本上是有关现代化的论述，有人把我有关历史终结的论文同美国总统布什的外交政策和美国战略霸权联系起来。


But anyone who thinks that my ideas constitute the intellectual foundation for the Bush administration’s policies has not been paying attention to what I have been saying since 1992 about democracy and development.	但是，认为我的观点构成布什政府政策的智识根基的人并没有注意到我从1992年以来一直就民主和发展问题发表的看法。


President Bush initially justified intervention in Iraq on the grounds of Saddam’s programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, the regime’s alleged links to al-Qaida, as well as Iraq’s violation of human rights and lack of democracy.	布什总统最初把萨达姆发展大规模杀伤性武器计划、该政权被指称与基地组织的联系以及伊拉克违反人权和缺乏民主作为入侵伊拉克的理由。


As the first two justifications crumbled in the wake of the 2003 invasion, the administration increasingly emphasized the importance of democracy, both in Iraq and in the broader Middle East, as a rationale for what it was doing.	2003年入侵以后，前两个理由不攻自破，布什政府就越发强调在伊拉克以及中东更大范围内的民主的重要性作为其所作所为的道理所在。


Bush argued that the desire for freedom and democracy were universal and not culture-bound, and that America would be dedicated to the support of democratic movements “with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”	布什说，对自由和民主的欲求是普世的，不受文化的局限，而且美国将会致力于支持民主运动，“最终目标是在我们的世界结束专制”。


Supporters of the war saw their views confirmed in the ink-stained fingers of Iraqi voters who queued up to vote in the various elections held between January and December 2005, in the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and in the Afghan presidential and parliamentary elections.	2005年1月和12月期间，伊拉克选民手指上沾有墨水在不同的选举中排队投票，黎巴嫩发生雪松革命以及阿富汗举行总统和议会选举。 战争的支持者们看到这些，认为他们的观点得到了确认。


Inspiring and hopeful as these events were, the road to liberal democracy in the Middle East is likely to be extremely disappointing in the near to medium term, and the Bush administration’s efforts to build a regional policy around it are heading toward abject failure.	这些事件确实令人鼓舞，充满希望，但是中东地区通往自由民主的道路在近期到中期之间可能会极为令人失望，而布什政府以此为中心确立地区政策的努力正在走向悲惨的失败。


To be sure, the desire to live in a modern society and to be free of tyranny is universal, or nearly so.	的确，想要生活在现代社会和摆脱专制的欲望确实是普世的，或者基本如此。


This is demonstrated by the efforts of millions of people each year to move from the developing to the developed world, where they hope to find the political stability, job opportunities, health care, and education that they lack at home.	每年，数以百万计的人极力从发展中国家移居到发达国家，他们希望在那里找到在祖国所缺乏的政治稳定、工作机会、医疗以及教育。 由此足以验证这一点。


But this is different from saying that there is a universal desire to live in a liberal society – that is, a political order characterized by a sphere of individual rights and the rule of law.	但是，这与普世地想要生活在自由社会是有所不同的。 所谓自由社会，就是一种以个人自由和法治为特点的政治秩序。


The desire to live in a liberal democracy is, indeed, something acquired over time, often as a byproduct of successful modernization.	想要生活在自由社会的欲望是日积月累形成的，这经常是成功现代化后的副产品。


Moreover, the desire to live in a modern liberal democracy does not translate necessarily into an ability to actually do so.	而且，生活在现代自由民主制度中的欲望并不一定转变成为可以实际这样做的能力。


The Bush administration seems to have assumed in its approach to post-Saddam Iraq that both democracy and a market economy were default conditions to which societies would revert once oppressive tyranny was removed, rather than a series of complex, interdependent institutions that had to be painstakingly built over time.	布什政府看起来在后萨达姆时代的伊拉克的对策上假定，一旦压制专制被铲除，社会就会转变到民主和市场经济默认条件之中，而不是一系列长时间费尽周折所建立起来的复杂、相互依赖的机制。


Long before you have a liberal democracy, you have to have a functioning state (something that never disappeared in Germany or Japan after they were defeated in World War II).	早在建立自由民主社会之前必需要有可以运转的国家(德国和日本在二战中战败后并没有丧失)。


This is something that cannot be taken for granted in countries like Iraq.	这在像伊拉克那样的国家是不能想当然就有的东西。


The End of History was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organization.	历史的终结从来没有与具体为美国的社会和政治组织模式联系起来。


Following Alexandre Kojève, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States.	俄裔法国哲学家柯杰夫启迪了我的原始论点。 我跟寻他的思想相信，欧盟要比现代美国更为精确地反映历史终结之时的世界的样子。


The EU’s attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a “post-historical” world than the Americans’ continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military.	欧盟通过建立跨国的法治，试图超越主权和传统大国政治要比美国继续信仰上帝、国家主权以及军事实力更为符合“后历史”世界。


Finally, I never linked the global emergence of democracy to American agency, and particularly not to the exercise of American military power.	最后，我从未将民主在全球涌现和美国代理、特别是美国行使军事实力联系起来。


Democratic transitions need to be driven by societies that want democracy, and since the latter requires institutions, it is usually a fairly long and drawn out process.	民主转型需要想要民主的社会来驱动，而后者要求一定的机制，因此这通常是一个漫长的进程。


Outside powers like the US can often help in this process by the example they set as politically and economically successful societies.	外部大国例如美国可以通过自身作为政治上和经济上都是成功的社会树立榜样来在这一进程中有所帮助。


They can also provide funding, advice, technical assistance, and yes, occasionally military force to help the process along.	它们还可以提供资金、建议、技术援助，还有不时使用武力来帮助这一���程。


But coercive regime change was never the key to democratic transition.	但是，强制性的政权改变从来就不是民主转型的关键所在。


The History Man	历史人物


President George W. Bush is not generally known for his firm grasp of history.	乔治·W·布什总统并非因精通历史而闻名。


But this has not stopped him from using history to justify his policies.	但这并没有阻止他利用历史来为自己的政策进行辩护。


In a recent speech to American war veterans in Kansas City, he defended his aim to “stay the course” in Iraq by pointing out the consequences of the American withdrawal from the war in Vietnam.	近期在堪萨斯城对美军退伍老兵的讲话中，他通过罗列美国从越南战争中撤军所造成的后果来为自己在伊拉克“坚持驻军”的政策进行辩护。


He also mentioned the post-1945 occupation of Japan and the Korean War as success stories in America’s efforts to bring freedom to Asia, and by extension, the world.	他还将1945年后对日本的占领和朝鲜战争作为美国为亚洲、甚至全世界带来自由的成功例证。


Historians, Democrats, and other Bush critics were quick to denounce his speech, particularly his reference to Vietnam, as self-serving, dishonest, and inaccurate.	历史学家、民主人士和其它批评者迅速抨击了布什的讲话，特别谴责他对越南的说法。 在他们看来，布什的评论纯属为私利服务，既不诚实也不准确。


Yet, for once, Bush actually hit upon a historical analogy that was true.	但这一次，布什确实找到了一个正确的历史类比。


Of course, the Vietnam War was different in almost every respect from the war in Iraq.	勿庸置疑，越南战争几乎在方方面面都与伊拉克战争有着很大的差别。


Ho Chi Minh was not Saddam Hussein.	胡志明不同于萨达姆·侯赛因。


In Vietnam, the United States was not invading a country, but defending a corrupt authoritarian ally against an aggressive Communist regime.	在越南，美国不是在入侵一个国家，而是在保护腐败的集权盟友不受强大共产党政权的侵害。


But what Bush actually said was that the US withdrawal from Indochina was followed by a bloodbath in Cambodia, and brutal oppression in Vietnam.	但布什真正表达的却是美国从印度支那的撤退导致了柬埔寨的大规模屠杀，以及越南的残暴镇压。


A withdrawal from Iraq, he implied, would result in similar bloodshed, or worse.	他隐含的意思是，从伊拉克撤军也会导致类似的大规模流血事件，甚至情况还有可能进一步恶化。


That is almost certainly true.	这种情况几乎肯定会发生。


However, what Bush did not say is that neither the mass murders in Southeast Asia, nor the potential mass murders in Iraq, would have occurred without the chaos caused by US intervention.	但布什没有提及的却是如果没有美国入侵所导致的混乱局面，无论是东南亚的大规模杀戮还是伊拉克可能的大规模清洗都根本不会发生。


But what about the Asian success stories, in Japan, Korea, and other places under American protection?	但亚洲的日本、韩国和其它受到美国保护地区的成功故事又将做何解释？


Was Bush right to boast of America’s role in giving these countries their freedom?	布什吹嘘美国带给这些国家自由究竟有没有道理？


As he put it to the Kansas City veterans: “Will today’s generation of Americans resist the allure of retreat, and will we do in the Middle East what the veterans in this room did in Asia?”	正如他对堪萨斯城老兵所说的那样：“今天的美国人能否抵御撤军的诱惑，我们是否会在中东做这里的老兵们曾经在亚洲做过的事情？ ”


What exactly did the US do in Asia?	美国在亚洲究竟做了些什么？


The first few years of the occupation of Japan were indeed a remarkable success for democracy.	最初几年对日本的占领的确标志着民主力量的大获全胜。


Instead of helping Japanese of the old school restore an authoritarian system, General Douglas MacArthur’s administration helped Japanese liberals restore and improve their prewar democratic institutions.	道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟将军的政府协助日本的自由人士恢复和完善战前的民主机构，而不是帮助老派的日本人恢复建立独裁系统。


Trade unions were given more clout.	贸易联盟被赋予了更大的影响。


Women got the vote.	妇女拥有投票权。


Civil liberties were boosted. And the semi-divine Japanese Emperor was brought down to earth.	公民自由获得了长足的发展，半人半神的日本天皇也被剥下了神秘的外衣。


Much of the credit for this goes to the Japanese themselves and to the idealistic, left-leaning New Dealers in MacArthur’s government who supported them.	取得这样的成就大都归功于日本人民自己的力量，还有麦克阿瑟政府中支持日本民主、崇尚理想、拥护日本新政的左翼人士。


When China fell to Mao’s Communists, however, and North Korea got Chinese and Soviet backing for an invasion of the south, democratic idealism was stopped in its tracks.	但当中国在毛泽东的领导下建立起共产党统治、而北朝鲜在中国和苏联的支持下侵入南部的土地，民主理想主义的发展就突然间陷入了停滞。


In Japan, former war criminals were released from prison, “reds” were purged, and right-wing governments led by some of those same former war criminals got enthusiastic American backing.	在日本，从前的战犯被从监狱中释放，“红色力量”遭到清洗、由前战犯领导的右翼政府得到了美国的热情支持。


Democracy, instead of being nurtured, was distorted, with active American encouragement, to make sure the right stayed in power and the left was kept at bay.	在美国的积极鼓励下，民主不但没有得到浇灌，反而遭到了扭曲，这样做的目的只有一个，那就是确保右翼继续执政，而左翼的发展受到遏制。


South Koreans certainly have much to thank the Americans for.	南朝鲜人肯定有理由感谢美国。


Without UN intervention in the Korean War, led by the US, the South would have been taken over by Kim Il Sung, the Great Leader, and their current freedom and prosperity would never have been possible.	没有在美国领导下联合国对朝鲜战争的干涉，南朝鲜就会落到伟大领袖金日成的掌控之中，而它现在的自由和繁荣也就会成为永远的梦想。


But South Korean democracy was not something the US gave to the Koreans, or even always encouraged.	但南朝鲜民主却不是美国赋予朝鲜人的，甚至不是美国一直鼓励的。


From the late 1940’s to the late 1980’s, the US played along with, and sometimes actively backed, anti-Communist authoritarian rulers, who grabbed and consolidated their powers through violent coups and the suppression of dissent.	从20世纪40年代末到80年代末，美国一直容忍、有时甚至是积极支持反共产主义的独裁统治者，这些统治者通过暴力政变和压制反对派攫取并巩固权力。


The same was true in the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Thailand, and, indeed, in the Middle East, where democracy is yet to take root.	菲律宾、台湾、印尼、泰国的状况也十分类似，甚至在尚未建立民主体系的中东地区，局势也大体如此。


As long as the Cold War lasted, US administrations consistently favored military strongmen and civilian dictators in the name of fighting Communism – anything to keep the left down, even the kind of left that would have been regarded as simply liberal in the democratic West.	只要冷战继续下去，美国政府就一直以反对共产主义的名义支持军事强人和平民独裁者——支持任何能够压抑左翼运动的势力，甚至连那种在西方民主世界中会被看作是自由主义的力量也不例外。


True, for most people, life under right-wing Asian strongmen was, on the whole, preferable to life under Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, or even Ho Chi Minh.	没错，对多数人来讲，生活在右翼亚洲强人的统治下总体来讲要强于沦为毛泽东、波尔布特、金日成和胡志明的臣民。


But to call the citizens under Park Chung Hee, Ferdinand Marcos, or General Suharto “free” is an abomination.	但将朴正熙、费迪南德·马科斯或苏哈托将军统治下的人民称为“自由”却是对自由的一种侮辱。


The happy fact that Koreans, Filipinos, Thais and Taiwanese did eventually become free, or at least freer, is not so much to the credit of the US as it is to the people who fought for their freedoms themselves.	韩国人、菲律宾人、泰国人和台湾人最终获得自由、或至少状况改善的令人欢喜的事实与美国并没有太大的关系，而应该归功于这些国家为自由而奋斗的人民。


It was only in the late 1980’s, when the Communist empire was crumbling, that US governments actively backed democratic politicians and demonstrators in Seoul, Taipei, or Manila.	只有在20世纪80年代共产主义王国分崩离析之时，美国政府积极支持了首尔、台北或马尼拉的民主政治家和示威群众。


But the heroes of democracy were Asian, not American.	但民��的英雄不是美国人，而是亚洲人自己。


Bush is right to claim that people in the Middle East would like to be as prosperous and free as the South Koreans, but his notion that the war in Iraq is simply a continuation of US policies in Asia could not be more mistaken.	布什说中东人民希望像韩国一样繁荣和自由是正确的，但他认为伊拉克战争不过是美国在亚洲政策延续的观点却再错误不过。


In Asia, as in the Middle East, US strategy was to prop up dictators against Communism until their own people toppled them.	在亚洲，就像在中东一样，美国的策略都是支持独裁者，反对共产主义，直到那里的人民自己推翻美国支持的独裁政府。


In the Middle East today, it is reckless and radical: invading a country, wrecking its institutions, and expecting that freedom will grow in the ensuing state of anarchy.	在今日的中东，美国行事冒进、不计后果：入侵一个国家、破坏其所有的机构，而后期望在接下来的无政府状态中凭空衍生出自由。


To confuse these different enterprises and pretend that they are the same is not only wrong, but dangerous, and deeply disappointing to those of us who still regard the US as a force for good.	混淆不同的事业、假装它们之间没有区别不仅错误，而且非常危险，而且也令我们这些仍然把美国当作正义力量的民众深感失望。


The Hollow Heart of Medical Science	医学的精神虚空


Why are neuroscientists, molecular biologists, geneticists, and developmental biologists – men and women whose discoveries have forever changed the way we understand ourselves – so uneasy about their futures?	为什么神经学家、分子生物学家、遗传学家和发展生物学家—这些以科研成果永久地改变了我们对自身的认识的男性和女性—对他们的未来却如此彷徨不安？


The crisis in morale among today’s medical scientists stems not from money problems, nor from the stage of development of their fields, nor from the level of research that is being conducted, but from these scientists’ failure to form themselves into proper, humane communities.	这场发生在当今医学科学家之中的士气危机不是由资金问题造成的，也无关该领域所处的发展阶段，更不是因为研究水平，而是因为这些科学家们没有能够在研究过程中结成合适的人道社团。


Low morale results from too little kindness and decency; it is a failure of custom and manners, a loss of social purpose, a diminution of the ability or the will to distinguish right from wrong and then to act rightly.	士气低落的问题缺乏善意和体面； 这是习俗和礼仪的失败，是社会目标的缺失，是辨别对错以采取正确行动的能力或意愿的减弱。


At root, low morale is just a consequence of the indifference of medical scientists, busy in their labs, allowing the social and emotional foundations of their field to rot away beneath them.	归根结底，士气低落只是一个后果，其原因是终日忙碌在实验室中的科学家们的漠然使得其研究领域的社会和情感基础日渐衰败。


The vulnerability of the sciences that focus on the human body and mind lies in the obligation all scientists have to observe their systems with dispassion.	以人类的身体和精神为研究领域的科学的脆弱性在于科学家们所承担的义务，即必须冷静地观察其各自的系统。


In these fields, dispassion requires that the medical scientist ignore his or her own vulnerability of mind and body.	在这些领域中，要做到冷静就需要医学科学家们忽略他或她个人在身体或精神上的脆弱性。


The strain of trying to meet this impossible standard of cool curiosity about one’s own fate imposes an unbearable distance between the scientist of the body and mind, and the body and mind of the scientist.	试图达到这种对自身命运冷静的好奇心的不可实现的标准所带来的压力，使得这些研究身体和精神的科学家和他们自己的身体及精神之间的距离变得难以承受。


Under this strain, medical research scientists are susceptible to the dream that their instruments and procedures have somehow freed them from the limitations of their minds and bodies.	在这样的压力下，医学科学家们容易产生幻想，认为他们的研究工具和过程在一定程度上将他们从自身的精神和身体局限中解脱出来。


The conscious expression of this dream is an obsessive response to the certainty of biological death: the belief that a big enough win in the game of science will beat death itself by conferring a form of immortality on the winner.	对这种幻想的有意识阐释是对生物死亡确定性的一种痴迷的回应：即一个信念，认为这种在科学游戏中取胜的重大意义能使胜利者获得某种形式的永生，从而战胜死亡本身。


Nothing but the thinnest membrane of denial separates the notion of scientific immortality through priority of discovery from this deeper, older, and wholly non-scientific dream of escaping one’s own inevitable death.	将这种通过科学发现优先获得科学永生的概念和这种更深层次、更古老和完全非科学的幻想区分开来的只有一层薄之又薄的否认的隔膜。


Though today’s biomedical science claims to search for repairs of nature’s defects, too many of its practitioners behave as if their real purpose were only to gain the mythical immortality of precedence, at whatever cost to themselves or others.	虽然当今的生物医学号称是在寻求对自然缺陷的修复之道，但其众多从业者的所作所为却似乎表明他们了解自然的真正目的只是为了优先获得神话般的永生，而不管自己或他人要为此付出多大的代价。


Denial of the fear of mortality and projection of the suppressed wish to transcend nature are the marks of a masked effort to create a biomedical science at war with its own stated purposes.	否认对死亡的恐惧和被抑制的超越自然的愿望是在暗中创造一种生物医学的标志。 而这种科学的实质与其宣称的目的相互矛盾。


The problem is not that science and medicine wish to avoid finding cures; it is that they are too strongly motivated by an irrational, unconscious need to cure death to be fully motivated by the lesser task of preventing and curing disease in order to delay their patients’ – and their own – inevitable ends.	而是它们被一种非理性的、治愈死亡的无意识需要过分驱动。 这种动力完全来自于次要的预防和治愈疾病的任务。


The irrational, obsessive promises made by scientists and physicians in the past few decades have, in a way, institutionalized the denial of death.	这项任务的目的只是为了延缓病人不可避免的生命终结，并由此延缓科学家们自身不可避免的死亡。 这些由科学家和医生们在过去几十年里做出的承诺在某种程度上使对死亡的否认制度化了。


But these promises are not sustainable.	但这些承诺是不可持续的。


A humane version of the biomedical sciences would, for instance, acknowledge that it is not about to transcend the limits of the human body, and so it would no longer make promises that it cannot keep.	例如，一种人道的生物医学承认其目的不是超越人体的局限，因而也就不再会做出无法兑现的承诺。


Beyond that, a science that acknowledges an unconscious component in its operations, if not in its methodology, will best serve its practitioners as human beings, as well as being most likely to generate lasting value for the rest of us.	除此之外，能够承认其操作中存在无意识因素的科学，只要这种无意识不存在于其研究方法中，就最有利于其从业人员作为人类大展拳脚，也最能够为我们其他所有人创造具有长期价值。


Such a change cannot happen unless scientists themselves first take the time to consider the consequences of their own behavior toward each other.	如果科学家们自己不能抽出时间考虑他们自身的行为给彼此造成的影响，那么这种变化就不会出现。


We should begin our reforms in the most conservative way, by rediscovering and rededicating ourselves to the meaning of the title we professors hold.	我们可以从一种最为保守的方式开始这种改变，即通过对我们所持有的教授头衔的意义进行再思考。 “教授”这一动作有多层含义：公开确认；


“To profess” has a spectrum of meanings: to affirm openly; declare or claim; to make a pretense of; pretend; to claim skill in or knowledge of; to affirm belief in; to receive into a religious order or congregation; to make an open affirmation; or to take the vows of a religious order or congregation.	接纳某种宗教信仰或组织； 或发誓皈依某种宗教或组织。


Rather than choose among all these current meanings, we might begin by returning to the word from which they all evolved, the Middle English “professen,” to take vows.	除了在这些现行的含义中选择外，我们还可以从回归这一名词最初的意义开始，即中古英语的“professen”，意思是宣誓。


Professors do not deserve the title unless they are willing to take the time and make the effort to openly affirm something beyond their data.	除非教授们愿意花时间公开地肯定一些超越其研究数据的东西，否则他们就配不上这一头衔。


Affirmations and vows are not data-dependent; they are matters of the heart.	确认和发誓不依赖于数据； 它们发自内心。


To be a professor, it seems to me, one must first have something of importance to oneself that needs affirming, and then one must affirm it.	在我看来，作为一名教授首先要有对自己具有重要性的东西需要确认，然后就必须去确认它。


Morale among professors in science will remain low until they decide that their strongest feelings, as well as their best data, should determine professional behavior and professional status.	直到他们承认最强烈的情感和最佳科研数据都是决定职业行为和专业地位的因素之前，从事科研的教授们的士气会仍然低落。


The Hothouse of US-China Relations	中美关系的温室


As Hu Jintao, China’s Communist Party Secretary General and President, prepares to visit the US on April 20, myriad unresolved issues are disturbing Sino-US relations.	随着中共总书记兼国家主席胡锦涛准备于4月20日访问美国，种种悬而未决的问题困扰美中关系。


Debates rage over the bilateral trade balance and revaluation of the renminbi, the status of Taiwan and Tibet, human rights violations, and intellectual property theft.	双方将就双边贸易平衡、人民币升值、台湾和西藏的地位、侵犯人权以及知识产权保护等问题展开辩论。


China’s role in restraining North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and its tense relations with Japan are an additional burden on ties.	中国在遏制北朝鲜的核野心中扮演的角色以及其与日本的紧张关系是双边会谈中的另外两个沉重议题。


There is even disagreement about whether Hu’s trip to Washington is an official “state visit.”	双方甚至还对是否将胡锦涛的华盛顿之行视为正式的“国事访问”存在争议。


These issues will dominate the headlines, but they pale in comparison to another problem that is on neither side’s agenda: global warming.	这些问题将充斥报刊的头版头条，但与另外一个不在双方议事日程上的问题，也就使全球变暖问题相比，这些问题都显得黯然失色。


That is a pity, because as British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently observed, over the long term, “there is no issue more important than climate change,” and there can be no agreement to reduce it “that doesn’t involve China, America and India.”	这是一个遗憾，因为正如英国首相布莱尔最近所说的那样，从长期来看，“没有任何问题比气候变化更为重要”，“没有中国、美国和印度的参与”，不可能达成任何减少气候变化的协议。


Moreover, climate change is no longer such a long-term problem, and only the lunatic fringe remains in doubt about whether the escalating use of carbon-based fuels is responsible for global warming.	而且，气候变化已经不再是一个长期问题，只有极端分子才会仍然怀疑使用量越来越多的碳素燃料是导致全球变暖的罪魁祸首。


Indeed, recent assessments by the British Antarctic Survey suggest that temperatures over the Antarctic have increased 3.6 degrees since the early 1970’s, and that warming is taking place far faster than researchers had hitherto believed.	实际上，英国南极调查局最近的评估显示，自从20世纪70年代以来，南极上空的温度已经升高了3. 6度，变暖速度比迄今为止研究人员所认为的要快得多。


Similarly, the journal Science reports that new studies show that ocean levels may rise much more rapidly and precipitously than anticipated.	同样的，据《科学》杂志报道，新的研究表明海平面上升的速度可能比设想的要迅猛的多。


Although the US and China are the world’s two primary producers of greenhouse gases – the US being the largest – neither has signed the Kyoto Protocol, which commits countries to cut carbon emissions 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-12.	虽然美国和中国是世界上两大主要的温室气体排放国，美国的排放量位居世界第一，但是双方都没有签署京都协定书。 京都协定书要求参与国到2008-2012年时将碳排放量与1990年相比降低5%。


With China and the US out of the picture, the problem will likely get far worse before it gets better.	因为中国和美国置身事外，这个问题很可能在有所改善之前就恶化得一塌糊涂。


The increasing climate-change danger is mainly due to developments in China.	气候变化的危险日益增大的主要原因是中国的发展。


The country derives almost 76% of its energy needs from coal, burning almost 2.2 billion tons of it in 2005, with consumption set to rise to 2.6 billion tons by 2010.	该国76%的能源需求依靠煤炭，2005年燃烧了约22亿吨煤炭，预计到2010年消费量将达到26亿吨。


Moreover, car production soared from only 640,000 in 2000 to 3.1 million by 2005, and annual growth is expected to continue rising by 80%.	此外，汽车生产量从2000年到2005年由640,000辆飙升至三百一十万辆，并且预计将以80%的年增长速度持续增加。


Petroleum independent until 1993, China now consumes more and more imported petroleum every year, and power consumption is predicted to double by 2025, requiring an average of one new coal-fired plant to come on line each week.	1993年以前，中国还无需进口石油，但是现在每年消耗越来越多的进口石油，电力消耗预计到2025年将翻一番，平均每个星期都有一个新的煤炭发电厂建成投产才能满足这种需求。


Small wonder, then, that the water in 75% of China’s rivers is undrinkable, that the country is home to seven of the world’s most polluted cities, and that one can often live in Beijing or Shanghai for weeks without ever seeing the sun.	中国75%的河流中的水不能饮用； 世界上污染最严重的城市有7个在中国；


Indeed, China is on the precipice of becoming an environmental wasteland.	生活在北京或上海的人甚至常常几个星期看不到太阳。 事实上，中国正处于成为生态废墟的边缘。


Unlike George W. Bush’s administration, which remains cavalier in its disregard for the warning signs of climate danger both at home and globally, Hu Jintao’s leadership has begun to evince a hopeful assertiveness, at least in domestic environmental policy.	与布什政府对国内外存在的气候变暖危险信号漠不关心的态度不同，胡锦涛领导的政府已经开始表明其坚定的立场，至少在国内的环保政策上采取了充满希望的做法。


There is a paradox here: while China’s central government is trying to provide national environmental leadership, local governments have often resisted.	这里存在着一个矛盾。 在中国，中央政府一心想要制定国家环保准则，地方政府却往往拒不执行。


In the US, it is the federal government that has been weak – even retrograde – in providing environmental leadership, while states such as California have led the way with higher standards.	在美国，联邦政府在制定环保准则上一直软弱无力，甚至不进反退，而各州却态度积极，以更高的标准走在了前列，例如加利福尼亚州。


While US Vice President Dick Cheney denigrates the idea of energy conservation, China’s leaders have adopted a new five-year plan that commits the country to cut energy use by one-fifth, industrial pollution by one-tenth, and industrial water consumption by one-third.	在美国副总统切尼诋毁能源节约理念的时候，中国的领导已经制定了一个新的五年计划，承诺该国将削减1/5的能源消耗量、1/10的工业污染、1/3的工业水消耗量。


A 12% tax increase has been imposed on gas-guzzling cars, along with reductions for cars with small-engines, and a new 5% tax is being levied on wooden flooring and even chopsticks, which are estimated to use two million cubic meters of timber each year.	对高耗油性汽车的征税已经增加了12%，同时降低小排量汽车的征税。 此外，对木制地板和木制筷子征收5%的税收，这两项估计每年消耗两百万立方米的木材。


Nevertheless, because both Hu and Bush fear the economic effects of reducing their country’s carbon emissions, each has hidden behind the non-participation of the other to justify absence from international efforts and failure to assume a global leadership role.	然而，因为无论是胡锦涛还是布什都担心减少各自国家碳排放量可能带来的经济影响，所以两人都以对方不参与为遮羞布，为自己没有参与国际努力和承担全球领导责任寻找借口，进行辩护。


Having awakened to the environmental threat, the next challenge for Hu is to begin translating some of China’s new awareness and boldness into its foreign policy – exactly what the US has failed to do.	胡锦涛已经意识到环境恶化带来的威胁，其所面临的下一个挑战就是开始将中国新的意识和勇气体现在其外交政策上，这恰恰是美国没有做到的地方。


It would be a pity if China, the new industrial hub of the world, overlooked the benefits of capitalizing economically on the multinational effort to control carbon emissions that is inevitable if the global environment is to remain hospitable.	如果中国这个新的世界工业中心忽视对控制碳排放的多国努力进行经济投资所能获得的利益的话将是一个遗憾。 如果希望继续保持全球适合人的环境，那么这种多国努力就必不可少。


Indeed, any national leadership that anticipates the new research, development, manufacturing, and trade possibilities that will grow out of this new imperative may find itself positioned for exactly the kind of sustained economic growth that every country seeks.	实际上，这种新的需求将产生潜在的研究、发展、制造和贸易价值，任何一个参与此项活动的政府都将会发现本国的经济可持续增长，而这正是每个国家梦寐以求的。


If the US and China were to team up to address the challenge of climate change, the results might not only be a more congenial climate and a better Sino-US relationship, but also new and vibrant economic sectors in both countries.	如果美国和中国携手应对气候变化的挑战，带来的成果可能不仅仅是一个更加宜人的气候和更加美好的中美关系，而且还会给两个国家创造新的充满活力的经济成份。


If climate change were on the agenda for Hu’s upcoming trip, the meeting, whether or not it is designated a “state visit,” could be one of historic consequence.	如果气候变化在胡锦涛即将进行的美国之旅议题表上，那么此次会议无论是否将其定位为“国事访问”，都将会产生重大的历史意义，具有重要的历史地位。 可惜这一切都是假设。


The Hour of the Technocrats	技术官僚时刻


CAMBRIDGE – Greece and Italy, desperate after their gridlocked political systems left them mired in debt and crisis, have both chosen technocratic economists – Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti, respectively – rather than politicians to lead new governments.	坎布里奇——在因政治僵局导致深陷债务和危机而感到绝望后，希腊和意大利均选择了由经济学技术官僚——帕帕季莫斯和蒙蒂——而不是政客来领导新政府。


Both can be described as professors: Monti has been president of Milan’s Bocconi University as well as a European Commissioner, and Papademos has been my colleague at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in the year since he finished his term as Deputy Governor of the European Central Bank.	蒙蒂和帕帕季莫斯都是教授：蒙蒂是米兰博科尼大学校长兼欧盟委员会委员，帕帕季莫斯从欧洲央行副行长位子上卸任后一直是我在哈佛大学肯尼迪政治学院的同事。


Not long from now, both men will most likely provoke headlines such as the following: “Professors Earn ‘A’ in Economics, but Flunk Politics.”	换成是不久前，媒体会用这样的标题攻讦两人：《教授们的经济学是“优”，但政治不及格》。


That will be unfair.	这么说并不公平。


It is not a lack of political ability which will stymie them, but rather a lack of political power.	束缚能力的并非政治能力，而是政治权力。


Monti, despite strong popular support for his technocratic government, does not have a parliamentary majority upon which he can rely.	蒙蒂的技术官僚政府获得了民众的强烈支持，但并未获得所需要的议会多数。


Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has made it clear that he will not set aside his personal political interests for the good of the country.	与此同时，前总理贝卢斯科尼明确表示，他不会为国家利益而放弃个人政治利益。


Papademos has been dealt an even weaker hand.	帕帕季莫斯手上的牌甚至还不如蒙蒂。


Despite his best efforts to insist on a term longer than three months and the ability to appoint some members of his cabinet as conditions for accepting the premiership, in the end he won neither demand.	尽管他竭力坚持三个月以上的任期，并以任命数名内阁成员为继任总理的条件，但最后并未如愿。


The elevation of these two outstanding civil servants comes after a period when other professors have been squeezed out by the political process.	在这两位杰出公务员获得高位之前，他们的学术同侪纷纷被排挤出政坛。


In June, several well-qualified economists from emerging-market countries were passed over in the selection of a successor to Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.	6月，几位新兴市场国家的杰出经济学家在IMF总裁斯特劳斯-卡恩的继任者之争中败北。


In Germany, Axel Weber resigned as President of the Bundesbank and member of the Governing Council of the ECB last January, reportedly because his statements opposing the Banks’ purchases of troubled eurozone countries’ bonds reflected his political naivety.	在德国，去年1月，艾克塞尔·韦伯（Axel Weber）辞去了德国央行行长和欧洲央行治理委员会委员之职，据说是因为其反对欧洲央行购买受困欧元区国家的债务的言论反映了其在政治上的不成熟。


The press could not imagine that a technocrat might voluntarily relinquish a sure shot at a position of great power – successor to Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB President – on a matter of principle.	媒体无法想象技术官僚会因坚持原则自愿放弃唾手可得的大权——韦伯将继任特里谢成为欧洲央行行长。


But that is precisely what Weber did.	但这正是韦伯辞职的原因。


The willingness to give up power if necessary is one of the advantages that professors bring to such positions.	在必要时甘愿放弃权力，这正是教授身居高位的一大优势。


(The ECB presidency then went to another economist and technocrat, Mario Draghi, who is, in fact, the perfect man for the job.)	（欧洲央行行长之职落到了另一位经济学家技术官僚德拉基身上，事实上，他可以说是这一位子的理想之选。 ）


It is a mistake to conflate technocratic elites (those with PhDs or other advanced economics degrees) with other kinds of elites (those with money or power, especially if they inherited one or the other).	将技术官僚精英（他们都拥有博士学位或其他高级经济学学位）和其他种类的精英（他们大多有钱有势，特别是如果钱和势可以继承的话）。


Most economists understood the downside risks of European monetary union.	大部分经济学家明白欧洲货币联盟存在崩盘危险。


It was the politicians who underestimated the technical difficulties when they opted for monetary integration.	而政客在选择货币一体化时低估了技术上的困难。


It goes without saying that academic or technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient to ensure government officials’ success.	毫无疑问，学术和技术专业知识对于保证政府官员的成功来说既不充分也不必要。


Indeed, many of my Harvard colleagues would make terrible policymakers, owing to a lack of leadership, managerial, or other interpersonal skills.	事实上，我的很多哈佛同事从政效果很差，因为他们不是缺乏领导和管理的能力，就是缺乏公关能力。


And many excellent political leaders – for example, George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower, among US presidents – have not been intellectuals.	而许多杰出政治领导人——比如美国总统中的乔治·华盛顿和德怀特·艾森豪威尔——也并非知识分子。


Technocrats can play a useful role as honest brokers when traditional politicians have become discredited or parties are deadlocked.	技术官僚可以在传统政客失去信誉和党争陷入僵局时充当调停人，发挥重要作用。


Moreover, they have the credibility that comes with a lack of desire to be re-elected, either because their term in office has been limited in advance or because they are known to prefer a quiet academic life.	此外，人们相信他们对连任没什么追求，因为他们的任期早已被提前确定，而且人人都知道他们自己更加喜欢平静的学术生活。


Their most obvious advantage is apparent when a country faces problems – for example, proposing economic reforms or negotiating loan terms – that are largely technical.	当一国面临技术含量较高的问题时，技术官僚的优势就显现无疑了——比如在制定经济改革方案和贷款期限谈判方面。


A good precedent in Italy is Carlo Ciampi, who took the reins of government in 1993, after Italy was forced to drop out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and managed to repeal the scala mobile (the wage-indexation system), beat down inflation, and re-board the train of European monetary integration.	意大利前总理钱皮就是很好的例子，他在1993年意大利被迫退出欧洲汇率机制后执掌政府，成功地废除了工资指数调解制度（意大利的工资指数化体系），阻击了通货膨胀，并让意大利重回欧洲货币一体化进程。


Among some technocrats’ obvious disadvantages are lack of managerial experience, lack of perceived legitimacy, and lack of a domestic power base.	技术官僚的劣势也显而易见，比如他们缺少管理经验，缺少被认可的正统性，也缺少国内权力基础。


Monti and Papademos both have managerial experience and, for now, legitimacy.	蒙蒂和帕帕季莫斯均拥有管理经验，并且在当今的背景下也不缺乏正统性。


They will be limited, however, by their inability to command the stable support of a political bloc.	但是，他们仍将会束手束脚，因为他们无法要求政治派系支持自己。


Several current heads of state could be considered technocrats: President Felipe Calderónof Mexico, President Sebastián Piñera of Chile, and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, among others.	一些国家的现任首脑可以被视为技术官僚，如墨西哥总统卡尔德隆、智利总统皮涅拉、利比里亚总统希尔丽夫等。


Nobody could accuse them of having led sheltered lives, or of being unaccustomed to making difficult decisions.	没人能够指责他们生活奢侈，也没有人能够指责他们不适于做出艰难决定。


At the same time, all three received academic training at Harvard.	与此同时，这三人均在哈佛接受国教育。 （卡尔德隆修过我的三门课；


(Calderóntook three courses from me; unfortunately, dealing with violent drug lords was not on my syllabus.)	不过不幸的是这些课程并不包括如何对付暴力毒枭。 ）


Having good international credentials is not always an advantage.	拥有高尚国际证书有时未必是一种优势。


When Sirleaf received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, there was speculation that her good image abroad could hurt her campaign for re-election at home.	希尔丽夫于2011年获得了诺贝尔和平奖，当时人们预测她在国外的盛名可能对其国内连任大计构成阻碍。


Analogously, both Papademos and Monti are certified European Union and eurozone elites, which will help them to obtain support for their countries abroad, but will leave them vulnerable to domestic charges that they are lackeys of foreign powers.	与此类似，帕帕季莫斯和蒙蒂都是工人的欧盟和欧元区精英，这有利于为他们争取外部支持，但也让他们容易受到国内挑战，被指为国外势力的买办。


It is fitting that Rome and Athens, the two seats of classical Western civilization, have turned to these two urbane, erudite men for leadership.	罗马和雅典——西方古典文明的两大起源——的政权将回归温文尔雅、学富五车的精英人士，这不可不谓归得其所。


But neither Papademos nor Monti can work any technocratic magic if they are not given the political tools to get the right policies enacted.	但不管是帕帕季莫斯还是蒙蒂，都不可能在缺乏激活其正确政策的政治工具的情况下施展技术官僚魔术。


The Human Face of Climate Change	气候变化中的人类面孔


A clever new gadget was described in a newspaper a few weeks ago. It pulls water out of the atmosphere and delivers you a glass of clean, chilled H2O.	几周前，报纸上介绍了一种精巧的新玩意儿，可以从空气中抽取水分，给你一杯洁净的凉水。


It’s wonderful what technology can offer for the wealthy.	科技能给有钱人带来的享受真是让人惊叹。


But there is no such luck for millions of Africans who face disruption to the rainfall on which their crops, livestock, and families depend.	但是上百万的非洲居民就没有这么幸运了。 他们的庄稼、牲畜和家人赖以生存的降水面临破坏。


For them, climate change can be expected to bring more erratic and uncertain storms, with no guarantee of water in the well, bucket, and field.	对他们来说，气候变化可能会带来更加异常和无序的风暴，但不一定能将井里、桶里和田野里灌满水。


Water lies at the heart of life, whether for drinking and washing, irrigating crops, watering cattle, or generating power.	水是生活中不可缺少的东西，不论是饮用还是洗涤，灌溉庄稼还是畜养牛羊，或是用于发电。


Those of us who live with wet weather tend to curse it, but if we faced week after week of blistering sun with no prospect of clouds in sight, we would be in real trouble.	住在气候湿润地区的人可能不喜欢它，但是如果在长期经受炎阳的炙烤而看不到云朵，我们就遇到真的麻烦了。


Nearly a billion people on the planet manage their lives with serious water shortages, and their circumstances are only likely to worsen with climate change and rapid urbanization.	地球上有近十亿人在严重的缺水情况下艰难生活，随着气候变化和快速的城市化，这种状况只会日趋恶化。


Governments are currently gathered in Poznan, Poland, to reach agreement on how to address the major challenges that stem from global warming.	当前，许多国家的政府汇集在波兰的波兹南，讨论如何解决全球变暖带来的重大挑战。


We need a deal by the end of 2009 in order to institute more ambitious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.	我们需要在2009年结束前达成协议，制定更大幅度削减温室气体排放的制度。


But the main dealmakers are those nations with the highest emissions, since they are the ones with something to trade.	但是协议的主要制定者正是那些排放量最大的国家，因为他们才有可用来交换的东西。


Most African countries have no voice or bargaining power in the climate change talks and must accept whatever deal is made.	大多数非洲国家在气候变化的对话中没有发言权或讨价还价的能力，不论达成什么样的协议，都只能接受。


Yet many of the highest costs of adapting to changing weather patterns will fall on them.	然而，适应气候变化的许多最昂贵的代价却要落在他们身上。


Where is the justice in this?	这里可有公平可言？


How can it be right that those least responsible for global warming will be the worst hit and the least able to affect the global deal that we need?	对全球变暖责任最小的人将受到最严重的打击，而且最没有能力影响我们所需的全球性协议，这样的事情怎么可能是正确的？


The last few years have shown how everything is interconnected, wherever you are on this planet.	过去几年发生的事情说明，不论你在这个星球的什么地方，一切都是相互关联的。


Biofuel targets set in the European Union, the United States, and China generate a land grab in Mozambique, Colombia, and Cambodia.	欧盟、美国和中国设定的生物燃料目标在莫桑比克、哥伦比亚和柬埔寨引起了地盘的争夺。


Hot money moves out of the sub-prime market into food and other commodities, and suddenly poor city dwellers in the Philippines, Peru, and Cote d‘Ivoire are faced with terrible hunger.	热钱从次贷市场涌入食品和其他商品市场，于是菲律宾、秘鲁和科特迪瓦的城市贫民突然之间面临可怕的饥荒。


Today, no one is immune from climate change.	今天，没有人能逃避气候变化。


The expectation that life will continue along familiar lines is being overtaken by anxiety that the shifts underway will mean huge shocks and difficult adjustments in many parts of the world.	对生活会如常进行的期望正在被眼下的变化会在世界上许多地方带来巨大震动和艰难调整的担心所取代。


Experts predict that parts of Southern Africa will suffer hotter, drier weather patterns, as will the northern Maghreb region.	专家预测，南非部分地区将受到更热、更干的天气侵袭，马格里布地区北部同样如此。


Harvests may halve and rivers on which irrigation and hydropower depend may become a mere trickle.	收成可能减半，灌溉和发电所依赖的河流可能会变成小溪。


On the other hand, too much rainfall can be as bad as too little, especially when it comes out of season.	另一方面，过多的降水可能和过少的降水同样糟糕，特别是在雨季以外的时候。


Parts of East and West Africa are expected to get wetter, with rain falling in heavy, intense storms that not only bring greater risks of erosion, flooding, and crop damage, but also leave people more exposed to malaria and cattle herds to decimation by outbreaks of diseases like Rift Valley fever.	东非和西非的部分地区降水量预计会增加，雨水伴随着强烈的风暴落下，不仅使侵蚀、洪水和庄稼损害的风险增大，而且会增加人类感染疟疾、以及牲畜因裂谷热等疾病爆发而大量死亡的危险。


Sometimes the climate change debate looks very complicated – people risk drowning in an acronym soup, technical fixes proliferate, and experts argue about the right price of carbon and appropriate discount rates.	有时候关于气候变化的争论似乎非常复杂——铺天盖地的首字母缩写词、越来越多的技术调整，专家们还争论适当的碳价格和折扣率。


Yet, within the complexity, there is a very simple truth: for a decade or more, we have known that it was risky to go on emitting greenhouse gases, yet we have utterly failed to take credible steps to stop.	然后，抛开复杂的表面，真相非常简单：十多年前我们就已经知道，继续排放温室气体是非常危险的，然而对此我们完全没有采取任何可靠的遏制措施。


We have sidestepped our duties both to our descendants and to the large number of people alive here and now in other parts of the world who are suffering the consequences of our myopia.	我们逃避了自己对后人的责任，也逃避了对如今生活在世界上其他地方为数众多的、正在承受我们的短视造成的后果的人们的责任。


Western governments are ready to argue with the Chinese and Indians about whether and when the burden of cuts will be spread to emerging economies, but are silent on the much bigger injustice wrought on the world’s poorest people.	西方各国政府准备与中国人和印度人讨论是否以及何时让新兴经济体承担减排的责任��但是对于世界上最贫穷的人们遭受的更加严重的不公却保持缄默。


The human right to water is just one of the rights at risk in a climate-constrained world.	人类对水的权利只是这个气候问题严重的世界上受到威胁的权利之一。


Are we happy to live in a world where the rich can rely on ever more clever technical tricks, while we ignore the right of poor countries and communities to the basic requirements of survival?	生活在一个富人可以依靠越来越精巧而花哨的科技成果的世界上，同时却忽视贫穷国家和人群的基本生存权利，我们是否心安理得？


The Humble Nobility of Elie Wiesel	埃利·维瑟尔谦卑的高贵


PARIS – It begins in a world now gone, lying at the borders of Ruthenia, Bukovina, and Galicia, forgotten places that were the glory of the Habsburg Empire and of European Judaism.	巴黎——这一切起源于一个逝去的世界，这个世界位于罗塞尼亚、布科维纳和加利西亚之间，这片被遗忘的土地曾经是哈布斯堡帝国和欧洲犹太人的荣耀所在。


Seventy years later, all that remains of this world are ruined palaces, empty Baroque churches, and synagogues leveled and never rebuilt.	70年后，这个世界只剩下断壁残垣的宫殿、空空荡荡的巴洛克式教堂以及被夷为平地后再未重建的犹太教堂。


And now it has lost one of its last witnesses: Elie Wiesel.	现在，这个世界又失去了最后一位见证者：埃利·维瑟尔。


Wiesel survived the obliteration of this world, and from it fashioned a second birth, devoting his life, in fear and trembling, to resurrecting those who perished.	维瑟尔在这个消失的世界中顽强地存活了下来，并如凤凰涅槃般浴火重生。 带着恐惧和颤抖，他将自己的第二次生命奉献给这个世界，让那些被毁灭的人得以重生。


That, for me, is what stands out in the life of the author of Night and Messengers of God.	对我而言，正是这些让暗夜和上帝的使者等书的作者显得与众不同。


In the years after 1945, Wiesel rubbed elbows with the greatest of the great.	1945年以后的那些年，维瑟尔的声望直逼那些最伟大的伟人。


He garnered the same vast, worldwide, enduring admiration as Yehudi Menuhin.	他像耶胡迪·梅纽因一样收获了全球民众同样博大而经久不衰的敬佩之情。


But he never stopped being that yehudi, that ordinary Jew, that survivor whose heart would pound as he passed through customs in New York or Paris.	但他从未忘记那个普通犹太人耶胡迪的身份，他只是一个在纽约或巴黎通过海关时仍会紧张到心跳的幸存者。


Wiesel set himself one task, at once impossible and categorical: to become the living tomb, the cenotaph, of the beggars of Sighet, of the comically clumsy ghetto Hasidim, and of the countless campmates who had, in the face of God’s silence, chanted the Kaddish for their own passing.	维瑟尔给自己定下了一个任务，这个任务曾经根本不可能完成：成为锡盖特乞讨者、滑稽笨拙的贫民窟哈希典人以及面对上帝的沉默曾经在走向死亡前为自己念诵悼文的无数同营犹太人活着的纪念碑。


For this, he had only his tongue, and not even his native tongue, but the French that he learned in an orphanage for deported children at age 15 – and later turned into his violin.	为了完成这项任务，他只有依靠自己的语言，尽管这甚至不是他的母语，只是他在15岁那年在被驱逐儿童孤儿院里学到的法文，后来还有他的小提琴。


Without Wiesel, there would have remained no trace of countless lives reduced to ash and smoke.	没有维瑟尔，无数已经灰飞烟灭的鲜活的生命也许留不下任何踪影。


I do not know if Wiesel was a “great” writer.	我不知道维瑟尔是不是“伟大的”作家。


But I am convinced that he, like Benny Lévy, another friend, believed that a Jew of his type does not come into the world to pursue literature as a profession.	但我深信他像我的另一位朋友本尼·勒维一样，相信像他这样的犹太人来到这个世界不是要以文学为手段来谋生。


Wiesel’s work has neither the inaccessible sublimity of Kafka, nor the paradoxically lofty power of Proust.	维瑟尔的著作既没有卡夫卡式的庄严和高贵，也没有普鲁斯特式的充满矛盾的崇高。


It perhaps lacks the laconic grace of Paul Celan, who wrote that, in the country they shared, one finds nothing but books and men.	他的著作也许没有保罗·策兰般的简洁优雅，后者曾写道在他们共同的国家只有书和人。


But he is one of the few to have spoken the unspeakable about the camps.	但他却是揭露集中营难以启齿真相的极少数人。


He shares with Primo Levi and Imre Kertész – how many others? – the terrible privilege of having felt six million shadows pressing against his frail silhouette, in an effort to gain their almost imperceptible place in the great book of the dead.	像普里莫·列维和凯尔泰斯·伊姆雷（还有多少其他人？ ）一样，他们瘦弱的身躯背负着600万犹太人的灵魂，要把他们几乎令人难以觉察的存在写进伟大的死亡之书中。


His other great virtue, perhaps, is having ensured, through his work and henceforth in the minds of those inspired by it, that the dark memory of that exception that was the Holocaust will not exclude – indeed, that the Holocaust requires – ardent solidarity with the victims of all other genocides.	他另外一项伟大的美德或许是通过自己的著作以及受他著作所启迪的头脑确保大屠杀这种异常事件的黑暗记忆不会排除与所有其他种族屠杀受害者团结的热情。


I picture Wiesel in 1979 on the Cambodian border, where I met him for the first time, his familiar mop of hair a jet-black wing hovering over his lean, handsome head.	我曾在1979年柬埔寨边境上第一次描写维瑟尔，他那熟悉而略显凌乱的头发就像乌黑的机翼悬在瘦削、帅气的头颅上空。


He was the first person I heard theorize on the sad imbecility of those who engage in competitive victimhood, those who insist that we have to choose our own dead – Jews or Khmer, the martyrs of this genocide or that.	我记得他首次批判了竞争受害地位者的可悲而愚蠢的理论，这伙人要求我们选择自己的受害者——这次或那次种族屠杀的烈士——犹太人或是高棉人。


I picture him seven years later in Oslo, where I accompanied him to receive the Nobel Prize that he wanted so much.	我记得7年后在奥斯陆再次与他会面，在那里我陪伴他接受了他如此渴望的诺贝尔奖。


At one point his face suddenly darkened as if overtaken by an unexplained anxiety.	有一会儿他的脸色突然变得阴沉，就像因为某种不明的原因而感到焦虑那样。


In his expression – which could change in a moment from joy, gaiety, and mischievous intelligence to the infinite sadness of one who will never recover from having seen the worst that humans can do – the sadness clearly seemed to have won.	悲伤在他的表情中显然已经占据上风——他的神情可以从快乐、喜悦和可爱调皮一瞬间转化成因为目睹人类最残暴的恶行而永远不可能恢复的无边无际的悲伤。


“The Nobel Prize,” he mused, “from now on I’ll be a Nobel prizewinner, but there is only one title that matters, which is Rebbe (teacher), and I know that I am not one.	“诺贝尔奖”，他若有所思，“从现在起我将是一名诺贝尔奖得主，但只有拉比（Rebbe）这个头衔才真正重要，我知道我还不够资格。


I know that I am and will always be no more than the Rebbe’s student.”	我知道自己现在而且将永远是拉比的学生。 ”


Then there was Wiesel’s last meeting with François Mitterrand, the Sphinx, the Machiavelli of the Élysée Palace.	之后还有维瑟尔最后一次与弗朗索瓦·密特朗会面，后者是爱丽舍宫的斯芬克斯和马基雅维里。


In their previous encounters, the villager from Sighet and the bourgeois from the Charentes had engaged, icon to icon, in long and deep exchanges that, I believe, may have kindled some mutual affection.	在之前的见面中，来自锡盖特农村和夏朗德资产阶级的这两位伟人曾经进行过增进双方感情的长时间的深入交流。


Wiesel had the feeling of rediscovering, under the president’s power, something of the priestly concern of Mitterrand’s namesake, François Mauriac, who had taken Wiesel under his wing on his return from Auschwitz and with whom he felt he had helped to mitigate the thousand-year-old strains between Jews and Christians.	在总统的影响下，维瑟尔似乎重温了与密特朗同名的弗朗索瓦·莫里亚克的神圣关怀，莫里亚克在��瑟尔从奥斯威辛返回时为他提供庇护，并以此为缓和犹太和基督徒间长达千年的紧张关系尽了自己的力量。


But, then, in this last meeting, Wiesel learned, bit by bit, that Mitterrand the Marist prince had blithely gone off to play golf the day his loyal lieutenant, Pierre Bérégovoy, committed suicide, and that Mitterrand had continued, to the very last, to defend René Bousquet, head of the Vichy police and denouncer of Jews.	但之后，在最后一次会面时，维瑟尔一点一点了解到密特朗和马瑞斯特王子居然在其忠实副手皮埃尔·贝雷戈瓦自杀那天兴高采烈地去打高尔夫球，而且密特朗直到最后一刻都在为维希警察头目和犹太人的控诉者勒内·布斯凯辩护。


Had Wiesel been deceived or co-opted?	维瑟尔是否受到了欺骗或者参与了阴谋？


He had known court Jews.	他曾经认识被控的犹太人。


And now he had been consecrated as an official Jew, seeming to have forgotten the chilling maxim from Pirkei Avot (“Ethics of the Fathers”): “Seek not undue intimacy with the ruling power.”	现在自己却成了官方犹太人的代表，他似乎没有记住Pirkei Avot（《父辈的伦理》）一书中那句令人毛骨悚然的格言：“切勿与统治者寻求不当的亲密关系。


The fathers knew that the temptation of such consecration is a delusion and a trap.	”父辈们知道这种神圣化背后的诱惑是欺骗和陷阱。


Wiesel’s greatness was to have remained, under all circumstances, one of those humble Jews whom he considered the crown of humanity.	维瑟尔的伟大之处在于无论如何，他从未丧失人性，一直是个谦卑的犹太人。


His nobility consisted in never forgetting the lesson of the Rebbe of Vizhnitz, even after he had donned the robe of the man of letters, that he bore the burden of those, adorned in caftan and fur hat, who had wanted to be as elegant as the Polish nobles who led the pogroms against them.	他的高贵源于他从未忘记维兹尼茨拉比的教训，即使在他穿上学者长袍之后也不例外，他背负着某些人的重担，这些人身着长衣、头戴皮帽，一直想像领导犹太人大屠杀的波兰贵族那样生活得优雅精致。


And I believe that not a day passed in Wiesel’s long life as a celebrated intellectual, honored by great universities and consulted by presidents, without spending at least an hour before a page of the Talmud or the Zohar knowing that initially he would understand nothing of what he read, but that this was the price of the only true celebration.	我相信作为知名学者、著名大学教授和总统顾问，维瑟尔在漫长的一生中从未有过一日未曾花费整整一个小时钻研犹太法典或《光明之书》，因为他知道开始时自己可能一无所知，但这却是真正庆典所要付出的代价。


This was just what his people had done in Sighet, believing that one day the Messiah would come.	犹太人在锡盖特也是如此，坚信有一天救世主会来。


And it is what we do today when we grasp that neither Cambodia, nor Darfur, nor the massacres in Syria, nor the need, anywhere on the planet, to drive out the beast that sleeps in man should divert us from the sacred task of saving what we can of memory, meaning, and hope.	今天我们同样应当如此，相信无论柬埔寨、达尔富尔、叙利亚大屠杀，还是地球上无论哪里赶走人身上的魔鬼都不应让我们把目光从拯救记忆、意义和希望的神圣事业上移开。


That is the lesson of Elie Wiesel.	这就是埃利·维瑟尔的教训。


May it guide us through a time haunted, more than ever, by crime, distraction, and forgetfulness.	愿它能引领我们渡过这个被罪行、干扰和健忘所困扰的令人焦虑的时代。


The Humiliation of Britain	英国的耻辱


BERKELEY – At the end of 2008, as the financial crisis hit with full force, the countries of the world divided into two groups: those whose leaders decided to muddle through, and China.	伯克利——2008年末，在金融危机面目最为狰狞的时候，世界各国分裂为两个阵营：一方在得过且过，另一方是中国。


Only the Chinese took seriously Milton Friedman’s and John Maynard Keynes’s argument that, when faced with the possibility of a depression, the first thing to do is use the government to intervene strategically in product and financial markets to maintain the flow of aggregate demand.	只有中国深入贯彻了米尔顿·弗里德曼和约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯的精神——当面临萧条威胁的时候，当务之急是政府战略性干预产品和金融市场，以维持总需求水平。


Then, at the start of 2010, the countries that had been muddling through divided into two groups: those where government credit was unimpaired continued to muddle through, while countries like Greece and Ireland, where government credit was impaired, had no choice but to pursue austerity and try to restore fiscal confidence.	到了2010年初，当初得过且过的国家又分裂为两大阵营：信誉坚挺的国家继续得过且过，而希腊和爱尔兰等信誉受损的国家别无选择，只能勒紧裤腰带过日子，以重塑财政信心。


Today, another split is occurring, this time between those countries that are continuing to muddle through and Great Britain.	今日，又一次分裂正在酝酿之中：一方在继续得过且过，另一方是英国。


Even though the British government’s credit is still solid gold, Prime Minister David Cameron’s administration is about to embark on what may be the largest sustained fiscal contraction ever: a plan to shrink the government budget deficit by 9% of GDP over the next four years.	尽管英国政府的信誉仍然卓著，卡梅隆政府仍准备推出或许是史上最大的持续性财政紧缩计划：在未来4年削减相当于GDP 9%的政府预算赤字。


So far, China is doing the best in dealing with the financial crisis.	到目前为止，应对危机做得最好的是中国。


The mudding-through countries lag behind.	得过且过国家次之。


And those where confidence in the government’s liabilities has cracked, forcing the government into austerity, are doing worst.	因政府债务信心崩溃而被迫紧缩的国家做得最差。


Now the question is: will Britain – where confidence in the government has not cracked and where austerity is not forced but chosen – join the others at the bottom and serve as a horrible warning?	现在的问题是：英国——在对政府的信心并未崩溃的情况下选择了紧缩——会在应对危机排行榜上沦为末流、成为警告世人的反面教材吗？


Cameron’s government used to claim that its policies would produce a boom by bringing a visit from the Confidence Fairy that would greatly reduce long-term interest rates and cause a huge surge of private investment spending.	卡梅隆政府一贯宣称其政策能够提振信心，从而带来繁荣，显著降低长期利率，促使私人投资支出大量增加。


Now it appears to have abandoned that claim in favor of the message that failure to cut will produce disaster.	现在，卡梅隆似乎抛弃了这一口号，转而宣称削减支出才是正途。


As Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne put it:	用财政大臣乔治·奥斯本（George Osborne）的话说就是：


“The emergency Budget in June was the moment when fiscal credibility was restored.	“6月出台的紧急预算重铸了财政信誉。


Our market interest rates fell to near-record lows.	我们的市场利率降至历史低位。


Our country's credit rating was affirmed.	我们的国家信誉评级得到了巩固。


And the IMF went from issuing warnings to calling our Budget ‘essential’ Now we must implement some of the key decisions required by that Budget.	IMF的态度也从警告转为称赞我们的预算为‘必需品’。 现在，我们必须依据紧急预算的要求做出重大决定。


To back down now and abandon our plans would be the road to economic ruin.”	倒退和抛弃我们的计划只能导致经济动荡。 ”


But if you ask the government’s supporters why there is no alternative to mammoth cuts in government spending and increases in taxes, they sound confused and incoherent.	不过，如果你提问：为什么除了大规模削减政府支出和增税之外就没有其他方法了呢？ 政府支持者便顾左右而言他了。


Or perhaps they are merely parroting talking points backed by little thought.	也许他们并未深入思考过这一问题，只是在人云亦云罢了。


What is so bad about continuing to run large budget deficits until the economic recovery is well established?	维持巨额预算赤字直至经济完全复苏有何弊端？


Yes, the debt will be higher and interest on that debt will have to be paid, but the British government can borrow now at extraordinarily favorable terms.	诚然，债务负担会有所增加，而债务利息也必须支付，但英国政府现的借款条件还颇为宽松。


When interest rates are low and you can borrow on favorable terms, the market is telling you to pull government spending forward into the present and push taxes back into the future.	较低的利率和较宽松的借款条件表明，市场所要告诉你的就是在现在增加政府支出，在未来增加税收。


Advocates of austerity counter that confidence in the government’s credit might collapse, and the government might have to roll over its debt on unfavorable terms.	紧缩政策的支持者会反驳这样会大大损害政府信誉，而当政府欲将债务延期时，宽松条件可能已不再成立。


Worse, the government might be unable to refinance its debt at all, and then would have to cut spending and raise taxes sharply.	更加不利的是，政府可能完全无法对债务进行再融资，届时便只剩下大幅削减支出并增加税收一途。


But that is what the British government is doing now.	但这正是英国政府正在做的事情。


How is the possibility that a government might be forced into radical fiscal consolidation an argument for taking that step immediately, under no duress and before the recovery is well established?	其立刻采取行动——在没有人逼迫、且经济复苏形势亦不明朗的情况下——的理由是英国可能被迫进行彻底财政整合，但这种可能性有多大呢？


To be sure, back in the 1970’s, confidence in the credit of the British government collapsed, forcing it to borrow from the IMF so that spending could be cut and taxes raised gradually rather than abruptly.	让我们回溯到20世纪70年代一探究竟。 彼时，英国政府遭遇了信心危机，被迫向IMF借款，从而得以削减支出并逐渐（而非立刻）提高税收。


But that is why Keynes and Harry Dexter White established the IMF in the first place.	但这正是凯恩是和怀特（Harry Dexter White）设立IMF的初衷。


An IMF program restores confidence in the fiscal soundness of governments that markets distrust. The lending allows the necessary medium- and long-term spending cuts and tax increases to be undertaken at a more appropriate time.	IMF贷款能帮助一国在市场对其失去信任的情况下重铸财政健康度信心，使所需的中长期支出削减和税收增加在一个更为合意的时间段内发生。


Borrowing from the IMF may be humiliating for government officials.	向IMF借钱或许会令政府官员感到蒙羞。


But businesses establish lines of credit for future contingencies all the time, and they don’t think there is anything humiliating about resorting to them when those contingencies come to pass.	但古往今来，决定能够为未来不确定性融到多少资金的关键因素一直是商业，而对商人来说，现实发展态势大过天，蒙不蒙羞的事情不在考虑之列。


And what, really, is so humiliating about borrowing from your own citizens?	既然如此，向自己的人民借点钱又有什么好感到蒙羞的呢？


Britons, as Osborne knows, are willing to lend to their government on an enormous scale – and on terms that are more generous than those on offer from the IMF.	奥斯本心里清楚，英国人愿意向政府提供大笔借款——条件甚至比IMF还要宽松。


And, if one is worried that the British people might change their minds, well, the princes of Wall Street or the barons of Canary Wharf or US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would certainly be willing to sell derivatives contracts to protect Britain against exchange-rate risk for the next several years.	况且，就算英国人民可能改变主意，还有华尔街和金丝雀码头的衮衮诸公呢，还有美国财政部呢，他们巴不得向英国出售可用于规避未来数年汇率风险的衍生品合约呢。


To borrow from your own people is especially non-humiliating when your economy is in depression, when the interest rates at which you can borrow are at near-record lows, and when every economic argument cries out for spending now and taxing later.	当国内经济处于萧条时，当借贷利率正处于历史低位附近时，当所有人都在呼吁现在支出、未来收税时，向自己的人民借钱就愈加和蒙羞扯不上关系了。


What is humiliating is to have a government that cuts a half-million public-sector jobs and causes the loss of another half-million jobs in the private sector.	什么是真正使政府蒙羞之事？ 是削减50万个公务部门职位，是令私人部门再增加50万个失业人数。


In an economy of 30 million jobs, that translates into an increase in the unemployment rate of 3.5 percentage points – at a time when no sources of expanding private-sector demand exist to pick up the slack.	整个英国总共只有3 000万工作人口，公私部门各减50万个工作岗位相当于使失业率提高了3. 5个百分点——而这还发生在私人部门需求扩张无力、不能再经受折腾之时。


Britain’s finest hour this is not.	这可不是英国的光荣。


Hybrid Humans	混合人


SINGAPORE – The election of a new pope always sparks debate about the tension between tradition and modernity in the Catholic Church.	新加坡——新教皇选举总能就天主教会传统与现代间的紧张关系引发辩论。


Perhaps more interesting is the ongoing modernization of the language in which those debates are conducted: Latin.	辩论语言拉丁语的现代化进程或许更富于趣味性。


While Catholic doctrines have evolved slowly, the Latin vocabulary has been expanding steadily in recent years, reflecting the surge of neologisms (new words, usages, and expressions) that has accompanied technology’s increasingly prominent role in people’s daily lives.	虽然天主教教义逐步演化，但拉丁文词汇量近年来稳步扩大，反映出与技术在日常生活中日益突出的作用相适应的新词（新词、新用法和新表达方式）的激增。


The addition of terms like telephonium albo televisifico coniunctum (video telepresence) and usus agonisticus medicamenti stupecfactivi (performance-enhancing drugs) has helped to spark a revival of Latin education in the West, despite growing competition from Mandarin.	面对来自普通话的竞争压力， 新出现的telephonium albo televisifico coniunctum（视频远程监控）和usus agonisticus medicamenti stupecfactivi（体能促进药物）等词汇再次推动了拉丁文教育在西方的复兴。


Likewise, the English language’s ability to produce and absorb neologisms is an important reason why it will endure as the world’s lingua franca.	同样，英语制造吸收新词的能力是其长久以来占据世界通用语位置的主要原因。


The Oxford English Dictionary, now updated quarterly, revised more than 1,900 entries in its March 2011 edition, and added new terms, such as “subdomain,” “dataveillance,” and “geotagging.”	现在每季更新的牛津英语词典在2011年3月的修订版中修订了1，900多条词汇，将“子域”、“数据监控”和“地理标记”等新词纳入其中。


Humans use language to make sense not only of specific concepts, but also of larger scientific, social, and historical movements.	人类不仅利用语言表达具体概念，还以此来描述广义的科学、社会和历史运动。


With technology changing the face – and pace – of such movements, devising terms that capture its far-reaching impact on human life is becoming increasingly important.	随着技术对上述运动外观及节奏的改变，设计出准确描述对人类生活深远影响的新词也越来越重要。


For example, according to Nobel laureate Robert Fogel, medical and nutritional advances since the Industrial Revolution have accelerated and directed the evolutionary process, making modern humans a fundamentally different species from Homo sapiens.	比如按照诺贝尔奖得主罗伯特·福格尔的说法，工业革命以来医学及营养学的进步加速并主导了人类进化，使现代人与智人有了本质上的不同。


In 2011, bio-technology investor Juan Enriquez coined the term Homo evolutis to denote this shift.	2011年，生物技术投资家胡安·恩里克斯创造出Homo evolutis一词来形容这种转型。


But do widely accepted labels like “Information Age” and “knowledge-based society” adequately describe the global movement that is underway?	但是，像“信息时代”及“知识社会”等被广为接受的标签能否真正说明正轰轰烈烈展开的全球运动？


Technology-fueled development is causing historical eras to become cumulative, rather than linear.	由技术推动的发展使得历史时代脱离了线性轨道而产生累积效应。


As the world enters the Information Age, most countries are still experiencing the Agricultural and Industrial Ages.	虽然世界进入了信息时代，但多数国家仍处在农业及工业时代之中。


In order to describe emerging socio-technological patterns – including the merging of scientific disciplines and the fusion of human life with progress in these fields – the current era should be called the “Hybrid Age.”	为了描述新兴的社会技术模式（包括学科合并以及人类生活与上述领域进步的融合），将当今时代称之为“混合时代”最恰如其分。