英国退欧是经济长期低迷的结果

When it became clear that the British really had voted to leave the EU, markets around the world dropped to the floor and began twitching. One couldn’t help but be reminded of the collapse of Lehman Brothers almost eight years ago, but perhaps the Brexit vote isn’t so much an echo of Lehman Brothers as a sequel in a long story of economic disappointment.

当事情逐渐明朗化，英国人在公投中真的选择离开欧盟的时候，世界各地的市场暴跌至历史低点，并开始震荡。人们不禁想起了近8年前雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)破产的情形，但与其说英国退欧公投是雷曼事件的再现，还不如说是经济长期以来令人失望的结果。

The 2008 financial crisis shaped the rhetoric of the Brexit debate, of course. Had this vote taken place 10 years ago, the fact that most economists thought that leaving would be an act of awful self-harm would have carried weight. The prospect of investment banks moving their activities to Dublin and Frankfurt would have seemed like a disadvantage, not a two-for-one offer.

当然，2008年金融危机塑造了英国退欧辩论中的言辞。如果这场公投发生在十年前，大多数经济学家认为退欧是一种可怕自残行为的论断肯定会很有分量。投行将业务活动迁到都柏林和法兰克福的前景看起来将是不利的，而不是超级划算。

There is a good argument that, despite the crisis, both economists and banks have something useful to contribute, but that case was never likely to be heard. It was too much to expect a subtle and well-reasoned public debate on the risks and contributions of London as an international banking centre. The most prominent claim of the Leave side — that the UK spends ￡350m a week on EU membership and could spend that on the National Health Service instead — sailed untouched through the campaigning, despite being simply false.

一个合理的观点是，尽管爆发了金融危机，但经济学家和银行都能够做出有益的贡献，只不过人们绝不可能听进去这种观点。指望公众就伦敦作为国际银行业中心的风险和贡献展开微妙而理性的辩论实在有些勉强。退欧阵营最引人注目的主张是，英国每周为欧盟成员国身份支出3.5亿英镑，如果退出欧盟就可以把这笔钱投入到英国国民医保体系(NHS)中——虽然这种说法是错误的，但它依然在整个公投期间盛行。

But some of the seeds of this vote have been growing for much longer in the fertile soil of economic grievance. The UK, like every other major developed economy inside or outside the EU, was growing more quickly per capita before 1973 than afterwards. Slow growth has been the norm across the G7 for four decades. It has been exacerbated in anglophone countries by a sharp increase in top-income inequality in the 1980s and 1990s, which has meant that the benefits of even this modest growth have not been widely felt.

但这次公投的一些种子在充斥着对经济的不满情绪的土壤里生长的时间要长得多。与欧盟内外的其他主要发达经济体一样，英国人均GDP水平在1973年之前比之后发展得快得多。40年来，增长缓慢是7国集团(G7)的常态。在讲英语国家，这一问题因上世纪八、九十年代收入不平等程度急剧上升而恶化——不平等程度加剧意味着，即便经济温和增长，其益处并未被大众感受到。

And so we see a desire to upend the status quo: Brexit, of course, but also the rise of radical politicians from Marine Le Pen in France, Donald Trump in the US and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands on the right, to Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, Trump’s opponent Bernie Sanders and Alexis Tsipras in Greece on the left.

因此我们看到有人想要颠覆现状：退欧，当然还有激进政客的崛起，从法国的马琳•勒庞(Marine Le Pen)、美国的唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)和荷兰的海尔特•威尔德斯(Geert Wilders)这些右翼人士，到英国的杰里米•科尔宾(Jeremy Corbyn)、特朗普的对手伯尼•桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)以及希腊的亚历克西斯•齐普拉斯(Alexis Tsipras)这些左翼人士。

But perhaps there are deeper forces too. In 2005, the Harvard University economist Benjamin Friedman published The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, arguing that times of broad-based economic progress also tended to lead to moral progress, to “greater opportunity, tolerance of diversity, social mobility, commitment to fairness, and dedication to democracy”. Reverse the economic gains and the moral gains may also evaporate.

但或许还有更深层次的影响因素。2005年，哈佛大学(Harvard University)经济学家本杰明•弗里德曼(Benjamin Friedman)发表了《经济增长的道德后果》(The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth)一书。他在书中辩称，当大多数人都感受到经济发展的时候，往往也会导致道德的进步，导致“机遇增加、包容多样性、社会流动顺畅、更愿意维护公平和拥护民主”，相反，如果经济停滞，道德也不会有什么进步。

Friedman argues that we naturally compare ourselves to others. We can compare ourselves to TV celebrities (a recipe for misery, since they are all richer, more famous and better looking than we are) or, as per the platitude, to “those less fortunate than ourselves”.

弗里德曼辩称，我们天生要与他人比较。我们可能与电视明星相比（这是痛苦的来源，因为他们全都比我们更富有、更出名，长得也更好看），或者像老生常谈的那样，和那些不如我们幸运的人相比。

But, usually, we make one of two simpler comparisons. We can feel happy because we’re doing better than we were last year, or we can feel happy because we’re doing better than our neighbours. In good times, everyone can feel happy for the first reason, but not everyone can feel happy for the second.

但我们通常会进行两种更简单的比较。我们可能感到幸福，是因为我们比去年干得好，或者我们感到幸福是因为我们比邻居干得好。在年景好的时候，所有人都因第一个原因而感到幸福，但并非所有人都因第二个原因感到幸福。

When prosperity is broad-based and growing, it’s cheering to look back at how far we have come. We can relax, knowing that we’re earning twice the salary, that we own a larger home, that there are savings and a pension. But in bad times there is little solace to be had by thinking about the past. All we recall is that our younger selves had hair, muscle tone and, above all, a bright future — each of which time has taken away from us.

当我们大多数人都感到日子越来越好的时候，回过头看看我们取得了多大成就会令人振奋。我们可能感到放松，知道我们的薪水是以前的两倍，我们的房子也更大，而且还有储蓄和养老金。但在年景不好的时候，回顾过去没有什么慰藉。我们能够回忆的只是更年轻的自己头发茂盛，肌肉结实，而且最重要的是有光明的未来——所有这些时期都离我们远去。

And so in tough times we resort to the other comparison available to us: are we doing better than our neighbours? When we stop admiring how much the pie has grown, we start fighting each other for a larger slice. Many people who voted to leave did not see EU membership as a joint project for mutual benefit but as a zero-sum game that Britain was losing and Brussels was winning.

因此在艰难时日，我们会寻找其他可比之处：我们比邻居干得好吗？当我们不再想着蛋糕做多大的时候，我们开始彼此争抢更大的份额。许多投票支持退欧的人没有将欧盟成员国身份视为一个有着共同利益的合作项目，而是认为它是一个英国输、布鲁塞尔赢的零和游戏。

 . . . 

……

Economists are naturally inclined to see the world as a place where everyone can prosper. The Trumpish rhetoric of winners and losers is alien — and alarming — to us. But that is the world in which we now live. The economics of Brexit are daunting but, with goodwill on all sides, they are manageable. It is the zero-sum politics that worry me.

经济学家们自然倾向于认为，世界上每一个人都能够获得成功。特朗普式的赢家和输家论让我们感到陌生，而且也令人警惕。但这就是我们现在所处的世界。退欧的经济影响令人生畏，但由于各方都出于善意，它们是可管理的。真正让我担心的是零和政治。

It would be wrong to suggest that economic suffering inevitably produces a backlash. In the UK, the people who have struggled most since the crisis have been the young — and, in a sadly inspiring act, they were the ones who voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU.

有人会说，经济困难必然引发抵制情绪，这种观点是错误的。在英国，自金融危机以来日子最艰难的一直是年轻人，可也正是这些年轻人坚决投票留在欧盟，真是令人遗憾又感到振奋。

Still, the economic backdrop clearly matters, both in its own right and because of its political effects. Those of us who are committed to openness and prosperity for everyone, regardless of their nationality, now have a long campaign on our hands. We should start by accepting that, if we cannot bring back broad-based and growing prosperity to the advanced economies, Brexit will not be the last political shock we must face.

然而，经济背景显然至关重要，无论是从其自身还是其政治影响来说均是如此。我们当中致力于让所有人（无论国籍）享受开放和繁荣的那些人现在要开展一项旷日持久的运动。我们首先应该认识到，如果我们不能在发达经济体恢复广泛和持续的繁荣，英国退欧就不会是我们必须面对的最后的政治冲击。