本帖最后由 满仓 于 2011-8-29 14:17 编辑
【中文标题】麻烦凑在一起了
【原文标题】All Together Now
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【原文作者】THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/opinion/sunday/friedman-all-together-now.html?_r=1&ref=china
想办法保住你的职位、捂紧你的钱包吧。冷战结束之后，全球秩序靠四大协定紧紧维系在一起。如今四大协定几乎同时失效，亟待重建。它们是否真的会得到重建，以及重建的方式如何——当然首先是从美国开始——将在很大程度上决定你钱包你装的是什么东西，以及你能否保住自己的工作。
让我用你能听懂的语言再阐述一遍吧：欧盟垮掉了；阿拉伯世界垮掉了；中国的增长模式遭遇到前所未有的压力；美国靠信用支持的资本主义制度经历了一次惊心动魄的心脏病，需要全盘的重新考量。对以上任何一个方面进行改造都是庞大的工程，同时做这四件事——还是在一个从未如此联系紧密的世界上——是令人难以想象的。我们再一次面临《创世亲历记》，但这次创的是什么世？（译者注：《Present at The Creation》是美国国务卿、坚定的反共分子艾奇逊的回忆录。）
让我们先看看世界加油站中东的局势。利比亚刚刚加入到突尼斯、埃及和也门的行列，罢黜了他们的独裁统治者，叙利亚和伊朗也在蠢蠢欲动，觊觎先行者的榜样。几乎所有的中东独裁者都被罢免，强迫分享他们手中的权力。旧秩序不复存在，这种秩序的基础是紧握石油收入、甘享权力的国王和军事独裁者——保护他们地位的是装备精良的军队和警卫——以及对社会重要阶层的收买。如今，阿拉伯年轻一代的崛起让这种保护伞不复存在，他们能够看到普通民众的生活方式，不再愿意接受社会底层的生活、没有教育、失业、没有尊严和没有权力的状态。旧的中东秩序是靠铁拳政策和大笔黑金把多民族、多宗教的人口结合在一起，尽管它已经崩溃，但是这些国家需要很长的时间，才能与社会公众在没有铁拳制度的情况下建立起新的社会制度。愿望美好，道路坎坷。
向北看，欧盟和欧元区有一个多么美好的设想啊：让我们组建一个金融联盟吧，统一货币，各个国家决定自己的财务政策，只要大家发誓像德国人一样工作和节约就好。啧啧，太美妙了，似乎不是现实世界的产物。一些欧洲国家的大宗政府福利项目缺少了当地产品所带来的资金支持，最终造成政府债台高筑。大部分债主都是欧洲银行，贷款方不得不揭竿而起。北欧那些既有生产又有储蓄的国家正在与挥霍无度的家伙们——葡萄牙、意大利、爱尔兰、希腊、西班牙——研究一项新的协议。德国似乎不会退出欧盟，因为它的出口有一大部分都被那些挥霍无度、毫无竞争力的国家所吸纳。北欧国家试图强迫这几个国家接受一些严厉的、条文明确的制度。但是，这几个国家能在多大程度上接受清贫的生活方式，尤其是在社会经济形势进一步恶化的情况下？难怪伦敦人会上街闹事。无论怎样，欧盟将会变得更小、更紧凑。这种混乱、影响世界的变化过程尚未让市场付出代价。
转向东方，中国所依赖的模式是建立在蓄意降低的货币价值、出口型生产、本土低消费和高额储蓄的基础上。共产党因此掌握了与人民谈判的筹码：我们赐予你工作和更好的生活条件，你要让我们继续执政。然而这样的筹码目前却遇到了挑战。中国的美国和欧洲市场失业率居高不下，导致北京的低货币、低消费、高出口模式在世界上难以持久。中国必须在机会失去之前跻身发达国家的行列。它必须摆脱父母攒钱养孩子，孩子攒钱伺奉父母的模式。为了实现这个目的，它必须走出组装、复制、生产的经济模式，进入知识、服务、创新的经济模式。这需要更多的自由和法制，你其实可以看到对此越来越多的需求。有时候，必须要有所放弃。
至于美国，我们在近几十年里，通过信用消费经济实现了繁荣，并且通过使用激素（便捷的信用系统、次级抵押贷款和施工项目）而不是踏踏实实地锻炼肌肉（教育、技能培训和创新）来维持一个中产阶层。我们陷入了一个深洞，唯一的出路是结合抑制消费、增加税收、税制改革，以及对基础设施、教育、研究、生产投资的新政策。但时，这样的新政没有出现在任何一个党派的议程当中。两个党派要么紧密合作、制定新政，要么干脆出现一个新党派，要么我们痛苦的生活将令人更加难以忍受。
世界同时经历着这么多复杂的变故，失业率和经济环境又如此恶劣，世界最重要的支柱——美国——保持稳定就变得无比重要。如果我们不采取类似备战时那样统一的行动，我们就不仅仅是在延长美国危机持续的时间，而且是在促成一个全球危机的形成。
原文：
HOLD onto your hats and your wallets. Since the end of the cold war, the global system has been held together to a large degree by four critical ruling bargains. Today all four are coming unstuck at once and will need to be rebuilt. Whether and how that rebuilding happens — beginning in the U.S. — will determine a lot about what’s in your wallet and whether your hat flies off.
Now let me say that in English: the European Union is cracking up. The Arab world is cracking up. China’s growth model is under pressure and America’s credit-driven capitalist model has suffered a warning heart attack and needs a total rethink. Recasting any one of these alone would be huge. Doing all four at once — when the world has never been more interconnected — is mind-boggling. We are again “present at the creation” — but of what?
Let’s start with the Middle East, the world’s oil tap. Libyans just joined Tunisians, Egyptians and Yemenis in ousting their dictator, while Syrians and Iranians hope to soon follow suit. In time, virtually every Middle East autocrat will be deposed or forced to share power. The old model can’t hold. That model was based on kings and military dictators capturing the oil revenue, ensconcing themselves in power — protected by well-financed armies and security services — and buying off key segments of their populations. That lid has been blown off by an Arab youth bulge that today can see just how everyone else is living and is no longer ready to accept being behind, undereducated, unemployed, humiliated and powerless. But while this old Middle East system — based on an iron fist and a fistful of petro-dollars holding together multiethnic/multireligious societies — has broken down, it will take time for these societies to write their own social contracts for how to live together without an iron fist from above. Hope for the best, prepare for anything.
Farther north, it was a nice idea, this European Union and euro-zone: Let’s have a monetary union and a common currency but let everyone run their own fiscal policy, as long as they swear to work and save like Germans. Alas, it was too good to be true. Large government welfare programs in some European countries, without the revenue to finance them from local production, eventually led to a piling up of sovereign debt — mostly owed to European banks — and then a lender revolt. The producer-savers in northern Europe are now drawing up a new deal with the overspenders — the PIIGS: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. It is unlikely that the Germans would just break out of the European Union, since a good chunk of their exports go to those overspending, uncompetitive countries. Instead, the northern Europeans are trying to force stronger, rule-based discipline on the PIIGS. But how much more austerity can these countries absorb, especially if there are further social stresses from deeper recessions? More than Londoners will take to the streets. One way or another, the European Union is going to get smaller or tighter, but in the process it could go through a chaotic, world-shaking transition that is not priced into the market yet.
Going East, China has been relying on a model built on a deliberately undervalued currency and export-led growth, with low domestic consumption and high savings. This has allowed the Communist Party to sustain a unique bargain with its people: We give you jobs and rising standards of living, and you give us power. This bargain is now under threat. Persistent unemployment in China’s American and European markets is making Beijing’s undervalued-currency/low-consumption/high-export model less sustainable for the world. China also has to get rich before it gets old. It has to move from two parents saving for one kid, to one kid paying for the retirement of two parents. To do that, it has to move from an assembly-copying-manufacturing economy to a knowledge-services-innovation economy. This requires more freedom and rule of law, and you can already see mounting demands for it. Something has to give there.
As for America, we’ve thrived in recent decades with a credit-consumption-led economy, whereby we maintained a middle class by using more steroids (easy credit, subprime mortgages and construction work) and less muscle-building (education, skill-building and innovation). It’s put us in a deep hole, and the only way to dig out now is a new, hybrid politics that mixes spending cuts, tax increases, tax reform and investments in infrastructure, education, research and production. But that mix is not the agenda of either party. Either our two parties find a way to collaborate in the center around this new hybrid politics, or a third party is going to emerge — or we’re stuck and the pain will just get worse.
When the world is experiencing so many wrenching changes at once — with already high unemployment and weak economies — the need for America, the most important pillar of all, to be rock solid is greater than ever. If we don’t get our act together — which will require collective action normally reserved for wartime — we are not going to just be prolonging an American crisis, but feeding a global one.
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发表于 2011-8-29 14:12
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