走出经济危机先要解决政治危机

A crisis of global capitalism has thrown up a crisis of global politics. Or perhaps it has been the other way round. In truth, the direction of causality scarcely matters. The important point is that only good politics has the capacity to clear up the mess left by bad economics.

全球资本主义危机催生了全球政治危机。又或者反言之，政治危机导致了经济危机。事实上，哪个是因，哪个是果，一点都不重要。重要的是，只有好的政治制度才能清理坏经济制度留下的烂摊子。

The future could look brighter. From Washington to Beijing, Berlin to Buenos Aires, everyone signs up to the fact of economic interdependence. But even as the synchronised slump has underlined the implications of this integration, it has turned politics inwards. Voters want shelter from the global storms. Talk of a new architecture for the international system does not quell the anger of the dispossessed and unemployed.

未来可能看上去比较光明。从美国到中国、从德国到阿根廷，每个国家都签名同意了经济相互依赖的事实。但正当同步发生的经济萧条凸显出这种一体化的含义之际，政治也被卷了进来。选民们希望避开这场全球风暴。对构建新国际体系的讨论无法平息失去房屋和工作的人的愤怒。

For two decades the prosperity that flowed from globalisation, albeit often unevenly distributed, seemed to assure its forward momentum. The world has fallen off the bicycle. The financial crash has exposed the failures and fragilities of globalisation. The unanswered question is whether governments can build a framework to restore its political legitimacy.

20年来，全球化带来的经济繁荣——尽管通常分配不均匀——似乎保证了其向前发展的势头。世界已经从这辆“自行车”上摔了下来。金融危机已经暴露出了全球化的失败和脆弱。一个未得到解答的问题是，政府是否能够建立一个框架来恢复政治合理性。

The present international system is a relic of a bygone era – of a time when the world was described by the competing ideologies of liberal democracy and communism, and when the institutions charged with what passed for global governance were the preserve of the rich nations of the west. The fall of the Berlin Wall was held to mark the triumph of this Washington consensus. The collapse of Lehman Brothers last autumn marked its demise.

当前的国际体系是过往时代的遗迹——一个被形容为自由民主和共产主义意识形态之争的年代，一个负责制定全球治理规则的机构全都是西方富裕国家的领地的时代。柏林墙的倒下被认为是上述“华盛顿共识”(Washington consensus)胜利的标志。而雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)去年秋季的倒闭则标志着它的死亡。

Some hope the Group of 20 summit of world leaders in London early next month will provide a new answer. The G20, it is said, could turn the rising powers of the east and south into stakeholders in a refurbished global order. Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister and the summit host, has promised governments will at last bring to bear the “global solutions” needed to resolve the economic crisis. After a period of apparent indifference, Barack Obama's new US administration has said it is prepared to show leadership.

一些人希望下月初在伦敦举行的20国集团(G20)全球领导人峰会，会提供一个新的答案。据说，20国集团可能会将东方和南部的新兴国家变成全球新秩序的利益相关者。英国首相戈登•布朗(Gordon Brown)将主持此次峰会。他已承诺，各国政府将最终利用应对此次经济危机所需的“全球性解决方案”。在经历了表面上漠不关心的一段时期后，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)领导的美国新政府已表示，准备发挥其领导作用。

Supporters suggest the G20 could eventually emerge, in a manner of which the Austrian statesman Metternich would have approved, as a global concert of powers: Americans and Asians, Europeans and Africans, Latin Americans and Antipodeans would all sit down to safeguard prosperity and settle conflicts.

支持者们表示，20国集团最终可能会以世界各国协作的面貌出现：美国人和亚洲人、欧洲人和非洲人、拉美人和北美人将一起坐下来维护繁荣并解决冲突。奥地利政治家梅特涅(Metternich)也将同意这种方式。

This enterprise, though, has already hit an embarrassing snag. Diplomats charged with the meeting's preparation confide that, contrary to popular belief, the G20 summit is, well, not really a G20 summit.

然而，该计划已经遇到了令人尴尬的障碍。负责此次峰会准备工作的外交家表示，与普遍的看法相反，20国集团峰会并非20个国家参加的峰会。

It is true that heads of government from all points north, south, east and west will converge on London. For reasons too complicated to explain in this space, 28 delegations have been invited – 23 (or is it 24?) national leaders as well as the heads of organisations such as the International Monetary Fund.

确实，来自地球东西南北各国的政府首脑将齐聚伦敦。出于诸多过于复杂无法在这里解释的原因，28个代表团受邀参加此次峰会——包括23（或者24？）位国家领导人以及国际货币基金组织(IMF)等机构的主席。

This numerical confusion, though, does not explain why the event is officially named the London (as opposed to the G20) summit. The problem is rather more substantive. Strange though it seems, there is as yet no agreement among the attendees that the G20 actually exists.

然而，这种数字混乱并没有解释为何此次峰会在官方被称为伦敦峰会（而非20国集团峰会）。这个问题更为重要。尽管看似奇怪，但与会者迄今尚未就20国集团是否真正存在达成一致。

If this sounds surreal, let me refine the last statement. The G20 has long met at the level of finance ministers and central bankers. It has a rotating chairmanship and a secretariat.

如果这听上去有些超现实，那么让我来提炼一下最后一句吧。长期以来，20国集团一直在财长和央行行长级别的会议上碰面。各国轮流担任主席和秘书长。

But there is no consensus that the group should reach beyond the financial and the economic to become a permanent political institution. To the contrary, some rich nations – Japan and Italy spring to mind – fear regular meetings of G20 leaders would undermine the G8 industrial nations. Others think a G13 – the G8 plus the five biggest emerging nations – would be a more effective global forum.

但尚未达成共识的是，20国集团是否应超越金融和经济领域，成为永久性的政治组织。相反，一些富国——日本和意大利的名字在脑海中闪现——担心，20国集团定期会议将破坏八国集团(G8)。其他人认为，13国集团(G13)——八国集团加上5个最大新兴国家——将成为更有效的全球论坛。

The temptation is to laugh at the bureaucratic imbecility of such wrangling. Who but the diplomats could care about the precise number after the “G”; or whether we should talk about the London or the G20 summit? What matters surely is that governments, rich and rising, pull in roughly the same direction.

人们不禁嘲笑这种争论的官僚愚蠢之处。除了外交家，谁会关心G后边的确切数字；或者谁会关心我们是应讨论伦敦峰会还是20国集团峰会呢？重要的问题肯定是富有和正崛起的政府差不多往同一个方向努力。

Sad to say, however, this argument is a painfully perfect metaphor for the more profound confusion and competition standing in the way of effective international co-operation.

然而，遗憾的来说，这种看法是一个完美的令人痛苦的比喻，体现了阻碍国际有效合作的更为深刻的混乱和竞争。

It is one thing for political leaders to agree that safeguarding globalisation requires more coherent international governance. After all, prominent among the causes of the financial crash was the failure of politics to keep up with economic integration. Global markets ran far ahead of the capacity of governments to oversee, even to understand, them.

政治领袖同意，捍卫全球化需要更为一致的全球管理，这是一回事。毕竟，在此次金融垮台的原因中，一个突出的原因是政治未能跟上经济一体化的步伐。全球市场远远领先于政府监管甚至理解市场的能力。

It is quite something else, however, to proceed from this analysis to an accord on how power and responsibility should be shared in a new international system. The rich nations are reluctant to give up their power in the institutions they created in the middle of the past century; the rising powers, notably but not solely China and India, ask why they should be stakeholders in a system in which they have so small a stake.

然而，从这种分析出发，到就如何在一个新的国际体系分担权力和责任达成一致，这就是另外一回事了。富国不愿放弃它们在其上个世纪中叶创建的机构中的权力；新兴国家（尤其但不单单是中国和印度）提出，它们为什么应该在其权益如此之小的体系中担当利益相关者。

Thus the US still bridles at any suggestion it should accept arrangements that would limit its national freedom of action. Europeans are more adept at speaking the language of inclusion but, clinging on to the illusions of past greatness, they too find it hard to cede power. Why else would Benelux still have more votes at the IMF than China?

有人建议，美国应接受安排，限制其国家行动自由。美国对这些建议嗤之以鼻。欧洲人更善于说出包容的语言，但仍坚守着过去辉煌的幻想。它们也发现很难放弃权力。比利时-荷兰-卢森堡联盟在IMF的投票权为何高于中国？

The hesitations are not only on the side of the old powers. China wants influence without responsibility: to prosper from international order without shouldering the burdens of sustaining it. India, for all its determination to be recognised as a great power, is overtly contemptuous of anything beyond a narrowly drawn definition of its national interest.

踌躇犹豫的并非只有过去的那些大国。中国希望在不承担责任的情况下施加影响；在不承担维持全球秩序的责任的情况下从国际秩序中繁荣。尽管印度决心被视为一个强国，但它公然轻视任何超出其被狭义定义的国家利益以外的事情。

Reconciling these conflicting interests and anxieties is not a realistic task for a single, or even several, summits, whether of the G20, G13 or some other combination. As with much else in the world today, the pace of progress will depend on the US – the insufficient but still indispensable power.

对于单独一次甚至几次峰会（不管是20国集团峰会、13国集团峰会还是其它峰会）而言，协调这些互相冲突的利益和担忧并非一个现实的任务。由于如今全球还有很多其它任务，前进的步伐将取决于美国——这个不胜任但仍不可缺少的大国。

Those looking for a grand design for the international order are destined to be disappointed. The best one can hope for perhaps is a patchwork of “Gs” in which responsibility and power are more widely distributed. The signs from Washington, and from Beijing, are not all discouraging. Next month's summit, whatever it is called, might make a start.

那些为全球秩序寻找宏伟计划的人注定要失望。人们能够期待的最好的事情是修补“类似的集团峰会”，让责任和权力得到更广泛分配。来自华盛顿和北京的迹象并非全都令人沮丧。下月的峰会（不管它的名字是什么）可能是一个开端。