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【原文标题】THE GLOBAL ECONOMY WON'T RECOVER, NOW OR EVER
【中文标题】资本主义世界经济不会复苏
【登载媒体】外交政策
【来源地址】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/unconventional_wisdom?page=0,9
【转载来源】http://www.globalview.cn/ReadNews.asp?NewsID=23639
【译 文】
包括经济学家、政界人士、专家学者在内,几乎各个地方的所有人都同意,世界至少从2008年就陷入某种经济困境。几乎所有人似乎都认为,今后几年,世界将以某种方式摆脱困境而“康复”。毕竟,下降趋势之后总会出现上行趋势。人们提出的补救办法五花八门,但都抱有一种根深蒂固的信念:这套体制将保持其根本特征并维系下去。
但这是不对的。一切体制都有寿命。在其进程太偏离平衡时,它们就会发生无序波动并分成两支。我们的现存制度(我所说的资本主义世界经济)已经存在了大约500年,涵盖全球也至少有100年。这种制度运转得非常好。但是,像所有制度一样,它已经偏离平衡越来越远。现在,它已经距离平衡太远了,以至于发生结构性危机。
问题在于,各种生产的基本成本都大幅增加。现在出现各种各样的人员支出,非熟练工人、干部、高管等。生产者把生产成本转嫁给其他人时也出现一些费用,比如消毒、能源更新和基础设施。世界的民主化导致不断增加的教育需求、提供医疗卫生的需求和保证终身收入的需求。要满足这些需求, 各种税收就会明显增加。这些费用的总额已经越过一定界限,使资本无法真正积累。那么,为什么不直接提高价格呢?这是因为价格有一定的界限,不能突破。这称作需求弹性。结果就是利润越挤越少,最后到得不偿失的地步。
结果我们将目睹各种无序的波动: 经济的、政治的、社会文化的。这些波动无法简单地通过公共政策加以控制。其结果就是对各种短期决策不断加深的疑虑,以及各种各样忙乱的调整。当我们寻找办法应对恐怖主义、气候变化、瘟疫以及核扩散构成的险恶的不确定性时,疑虑本身也不断产生新的疑虑。
唯一确定的就是,当前这套制度无法继续下去。现在的根本政治斗争无关于资本主义能否生存下去,而是围绕哪种制度将取代资本主义。目前有两种选择,一是建立一套新制度,这套新制度将复制现行制度中的等级体系和两极分化等某些关键特征；二是建立相对民主平等的制度。
世界经济在二战后(大致说来是1945年到1970年)惊人扩张,接下来则经历很长的经济停滞期,增长的基本来源是持续负债支撑的过度投机。最新的金融危机没有搞垮这套制度,而只是暴露出它缺乏效力。我们最近经历的“困难”只是世界体系自1970年前后开始经历的繁荣与衰退周期的倒数第二个泡沫。最后一个泡沫将是国家债务,包括那些所谓新兴经济体的国家债务,最终导致破产。
多数人不承认或拒绝承认这些现实。承认我们生存其中的历史制度发生结构性危机而难以存在下去是令人痛苦的。
与此同时,这套制度按照公认的规则继续进行。我们召开二十国集团会议寻求徒劳的共识。我们在各种市场上投机。我们以任何可能的方式“发展”经济。这一切只会加重结构性危机。真正的行动——即有关应该创造何种新制度的努力——则在其他地方。
【原文】
Virtually everyone everywhere-economists, politicians, pundits -- agrees that the world has been in some kind of economic trouble since at least 2008. And virtually everyone seems to believe that in the next few years the world will somehow "recover" from these difficulties. After all, upturns always occur after downturns. The remedies recommended vary considerably, but the idea that the system shall continue in its essential features is a deeply rooted faith.
But it is wrong. All systems have lives. When their processes move too far from equilibrium, they fluctuate chaotically and bifurcate. Our existing system, what I call a capitalist world-economy, has been in existence for some 500 years and has for at least a century encompassed the entire globe. It has functioned remarkably well. But like all systems, it has moved steadily further and further from equilibrium. For a while now, it has moved too far from equilibrium, such that it is today in structural crisis.
The problem is that the basic costs of all production have risen remarkably. There are the personnel expenses of all kinds -- for unskilled workers, for cadres, for top-level management. There are the costs incurred as producers pass on the costs of their production to the rest of us -- for detoxification, for renewal of resources, for infrastructure. And the democratization of the world has led to demands for more and more education, more and more health provisions, and more and more guarantees of lifetime income. To meet these demands, there has been a significant increase in taxation of all kinds. Together, these costs have risen beyond the point that permits serious capital accumulation. Why not then simply raise prices? Because there are limits beyond which one cannot push their level. It is called the elasticity of demand. The result is a growing profit squeeze, which is reaching a point where the game is not worth the candle.
What we are witnessing as a result is chaotic fluctuations of all kinds -- economic, political, sociocultural. These fluctuations cannot easily be controlled by public policy. The result is ever greater uncertainty about all kinds of short-term decision-making, as well as frantic realignments of every variety. Doubt feeds on itself as we search for ways out of the menacing uncertainty posed by terrorism, climate change, pandemics, and nuclear proliferation.
The only sure thing is that the present system cannot continue. The fundamental political struggle is over what kind of system will replace capitalism, not whether it should survive. The choice is between a new system that replicates some of the present system's essential features of hierarchy and polarization and one that is relatively democratic and egalitarian.
The extraordinary expansion of the world-economy in the postwar years (more or less 1945 to 1970) has been followed by a long period of economic stagnation in which the basic source of gain has been rank speculation sustained by successive indebtednesses. The latest financial crisis didn't bring down this system; it merely exposed it as hollow. Our recent "difficulties" are merely the next-to-last bubble in a process of boom and bust the world-system has been undergoing since around 1970. The last bubble will be state indebtednesses, including in the so-called emerging economies, leading to bankruptcies.
Most people do not recognize -- or refuse to recognize -- these realities. It is wrenching to accept that the historical system in which we are living is in structural crisis and will not survive.
Meanwhile, the system proceeds by its accepted rules. We meet at G-20 sessions and seek a futile consensus. We speculate on the markets. We "develop" our economies in whatever way we can. All this activity simply accentuates the structural crisis. The real action, the struggle over what new system will be created, is elsewhere. |
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发表于 2011-1-14 14:44
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