欧洲的黑暗角落（双语）

WHEN history comes to write the tale of the euro-zone crisis, the chief villains, if Europe’s leaders have any say, will be not dissembling Greeks or dithering Germans, but the financial markets. Traders subjected Greece to “psychological terror”, declared George Papandreou, its prime minister. They were “making money on the back of the unhappiness of the people”, lamented Michel Barnier, the European commissioner for the single market. The crisis was blamed on wolf-pack markets (Anders Borg, Sweden’s finance minister), cynical hedge funds, cocky credit-ratings agencies, neoconservative capitalism (José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister), a duplicitous Anglo-Saxon press (Mr Zapatero again), and other wicked forces still.

当历史写到欧元区债务危机的这一页时，如果欧洲的领袖们说说他们眼中的罪魁祸首的话，那将不会是伪装破产的希腊或者迟疑不定的德国，而是金融市场。根据希腊首相帕潘德里欧的说法，投资者们称希腊为“心理恐慌”。欧盟理事会负责统一市场的委员迈克尔 巴尼尔称他们“将自己的收益建立在人们的痛苦之上”。危机被归咎于狼群市场（瑞典财政大臣安德斯 伯格），自私的对冲基金，趾高气扬的信用评级机构，新兴保守资本主义（西班牙首相萨帕特罗），采取双重标准的盎格鲁-萨克森媒体（还是萨帕特罗）和其他不道德的力量。

Not all Europeans demonise the market. Ex-communist Europe, which only recently threw off the command economy, is less hostile. So are the Germans, with their small-business Mittelstand and consensual labour relations. Elsewhere, though, market-aversion seems to go deeper than mere disapproval of extravagant stock options or bonuses (which is common to market-friendly Britain and America too). Fully 29% of Spaniards and Italians, and 43% of the French, told a global poll last October that free-market capitalism was “fatally flawed”. Only 13% of Americans shared that view.

并不是所有欧洲国家都妖魔化市场，刚脱离计划经济的东欧对其敌意较小。同样还有小经济体下统一劳工关系的的德国。其他地方，市场厌恶情绪更深，已不仅仅是取消奢侈的股票期权和奖金（这是在市场友好的英国和美国的做法）。包括29%的西班牙人和意大利人还有43%的法国人在去年十月进行的一项全球调查中表示自由市场资本主义“有重大缺陷”。仅仅13%的美国人这么认为。

Nowhere is contempt for free enterprise, and its linked evils of wealth and profits, more intense than in France. Nicolas Sarkozy has declared laissez-faire capitalism “finished”. Almost alone in Europe, France imposes a yearly “fortune” tax on most biggish assets. In literature and philosophy, from Molière and Balzac to Sartre, the French have denounced the corrupting power of money, and ridiculed the grasping nouveau riche. Today’s bosses, always cigar-chomping, are subject to satire, scorn and even “boss-napping”. Communists, Trotskyites and the New Anti-Capitalist Party are treated not as curiosities, but serious talk-show guests.

现在最痛恨的自由企业，和与之相关罪恶-财富和利润的是法国人。尼古拉斯 萨科奇宣布自由竞争资本主义终结了。在欧洲几乎只有法国每年对巨额资产征收“财富税”。在文学和和哲学领域，从莫里哀到巴尔扎克到萨特，法国人一直在披露金钱的腐蚀作用，和讽刺贪财的暴发户。今天的资本家总是叼着雪茄，成为了讽刺，鄙视甚至工人劫持的对象。共产主义者，托洛茨基主义者和新反资本主义党已经被脱口秀节目视为严肃的嘉宾，而不是之前愤世嫉俗的怪人。

Why is France such an outlier? It could be Catholic guilt, or lingering Marxism (economics textbooks teach pupils about the conflict between capital and labour). It may be the enduring romance of revolutionary rebellion, or the creed—or at least myth—of equality. Whatever its cause, suspicion of wealth is one reason that Mr Sarkozy is in trouble over his party’s links to France’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, the L’Oréal heiress. The same reflex may even inhibit Dominique Strauss-Kahn, boss of the IMF and the Socialists’ most competent leader, from running for the presidency in 2012: he is damaged by his big pay packet and the link to Washington money. “Elsewhere, material success is readily admired…billionaires are applauded (and envied), bosses are acclaimed, self-made men celebrated,” writes Alain Duhamel, a French political commentator. “In France, not at all. Wealth embodies evil, money the devil.”

为什么法国如此特立独行？可能是天主教的罪恶，或者徘徊不去的马克思主义（经济学教科书告诉学生们资本家和劳动者的对立）。也可能是起义和革命的传统，或者对于平等的信仰。不论什么原因，对于财富的怀疑使萨科奇陷入了他所在政党与法国女首富，欧莱雅的老板利利雅娜·贝当古之间的政治献金丑闻。这个问题可能同样影响法国社会主义党最炙手可热的领导者，国际货币基金组织总裁多米尼克 斯特朗思 卡恩的2012年法国总统竞选计划，他的巨额支出和跟华盛顿之间的关系损害了他的形象。“在其他地方，财富成功普遍受到称赞，人们称颂甚至羡慕亿万富翁，企业家受到拥戴，白手起家的人广受欢迎，”法国政治评论员阿莱 杜哈梅尔写到，“在法国一切都变了，财富代表着罪恶，金钱是魔鬼”

Perhaps, however, it is time to let the French, as well as other corners of market-averse Europe, in on a dark secret. The truth is that theirs is a capitalist society. For while Europe’s leaders rail against profits and wealth, its firms stride into new markets and rack up giant profits. Spain’s Inditex dresses men and women in Zara outfits in 76 countries. Belgium’s Anheuser-Busch InBev, which makes Budweiser, is the world’s leading brewer. France boasts more Fortune 500 companies than Germany. A French company, Sodexo, is chief caterer to the American marine corps.

也许，现在是让法国还有欧洲其他对市场不满的国家待到一个黑暗角落里。事实是他们身处一个资本主义社会。在欧洲的政治家们抱怨利润和财富的同时，他们的企业正在努力开拓新兴市场，攫取巨额利润。西班牙的Inditex在76个国家的Zara门店里销售服装，比利时的百威英博是世界领先的啤酒酿造商。法国拥有的财富500公司比德国还多。一家名为Sodexo的法国公司是美国海军陆战队的主要供应商。

Such firms strut unapologetically into China, India and Brazil, vaunting their “sales-driven, consumer-centric” mission to achieve “world-class efficiency”. And (whisper it) they also create the riches that the French, Belgians, Spanish, Greeks and others say they despise (but are happy to redistribute). Fitch, one of the global credit-ratings agencies denounced by Mr Sarkozy, may have its headquarters in New York, but, via a holding company called Fimalac, is actually French-owned.

这些公司趾高气扬毫无歉意的迈进中国，印度和巴西，夸耀他们“以销售为导向，以用户为中心”的理念来获取“世界级的效率”。这些公司也制造了被法国，西班牙，比利时，希腊和其他一些欧洲人鄙视的富人（但他们却乐于看到这样的产业转移）。被法国总统萨科奇批评的全球信用评级机构惠誉国际，虽然总部在纽约，但是却被法国的Fimalac公司控股。

Over the hedge
闪烁其词之后

Does all this matter? Up to a point, corporate profit-seeking and political profit-denunciation can rub along together. The French seem to have no trouble filling up their shopping trolleys with American-branded washing powder or cheap plastic swimming pools made in China, selected from a vast choice stacked in hangar-like suburban hypermarkets. They like the low prices global competition brings them, just not the profits their supermarkets make. Mr Sarkozy can declare that he will “not accept” French carmakers building their products in low-cost European countries in order to sell them in France. But, thanks to the European single market, Renault continues to do so.

到底这些有什么意义？在某种程度上，企业的逐利和政治上的鄙视利润可以归结到一块。法国人认为在市郊超市的购物车里堆满的美国品牌洗洁精，中国制造的便宜塑料游泳池没有任何不妥。他们喜欢全球竞争带给他们的廉价商品，而不是超市赚取的利润。萨科奇宣布他将不会允许法国汽车制造商到低成本的中东欧国家制造汽车再返销法国。但是在欧洲统一市场下，雷诺一直在这么做。

The reason that all this does matter is that France is supplying so many of the new ideas for the European Union. Whether these concern an “economic government” for the euro zone, tax harmonisation, environmental border tariffs or what Mr Barnier calls “a more humane, social Europe”, these tend to drag the whole EU project disproportionately to the left. The worry in Brussels is that when French leaders pander to French fears about “unfair” competition, they are undermining the principle of the single market. Or that when they call for “economic government”, they mean imposing costly social rules on all. Everybody knows that Mr Sarkozy often makes more noise than trouble. But with Europe suffering high unemployment, low growth and belt-tightening austerity, the danger is that such talk slides into growth-choking regulation, if not outright protectionism.

所有这些都至关重要的原因是法国一直为欧盟一体化积极筹划。不论那些关于欧元区经济政府，和谐税，环境边界税的议题还是巴尼尔所谓的“更人性化的欧洲”都将使整个欧盟不成比例的倾向左翼。欧盟高层担心一旦法国领导人迎合了法国人对“不公平竞争”的恐惧，这将从根本上动摇统一市场的原则。或者当他们呼吁“经济政府”时，他们真正想在欧盟推行高成本的社会规则。大家都知道萨科奇经常只是制造噪音而不是麻烦。但是当欧洲深陷高失业率，低增长和加剧的紧缩时，如果不能击败保护主义，这些言论将有可能变为阻碍增长的规制。

At best, too much meddling in markets will condemn Europe to gentle decline. At worst, it will undermine the capitalist enterprises on which its prosperity and social model depend. A few years ago, an ambitious centre-right French politician seemed to agree. “For 25 years, France has never stopped discouraging initiative and punishing success,” he said. “Preventing the most dynamic from getting rich has by consequence impoverished all the others.” His name? Nicolas Sarkozy. 更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

最好的情况下，对市场太多的干涉将使欧洲经济缓慢衰退。在最坏的情况下，它将动摇欧洲财富和社会结构赖以存在的基础资本主义企业。几年前，一位雄心勃勃的法国集权政治家也这么认为，“25年来，法国一直没有停止打击创新和惩罚成功”他说，“阻止最有活力的一群人致富会殃及整个社会。”他的名字：尼古拉斯 萨科奇