《資本主義將如何終結》 陳詞濫調卷土重來
Cometh the hour, cometh the cliché.
每當時機來臨，同樣的陳詞濫調就會捲土重來。
In the case of Wolfgang Streeck, an influential German sociologist who is emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, that cliché is the end of capitalism.
對科隆的馬克斯.普朗克社會研究所(Max Planck Institute)名譽主任、有影響力的德國社會學家沃爾夫岡.施特雷克(Wolfgang Streeck)而言，這個陳詞濫調就是資本主義的終結。
Countless intellectuals, including Karl Marx, have forecast the imminent or at least inevitable end of capitalism.
包括卡爾.馬克思(Karl Marx)在內，有無數知識分子預言過資本主義會很快（或者至少將最終不可避免地）終結。
Capitalism has always survived.
資本主義卻一直存活下來。
This time, argues Streeck, is different.
然而，施特雷克認爲，這一次，情況是不同的。
Capitalism will for the foreseeable future hang in limbo, dead or about to die from an overdose of itself but still very much around, as nobody will have the power to move its decaying body out of the way.
資本主義將在可預見的未來處於一種混沌不明的狀態，或是已死，或是即將死於自身的過度發展、但因爲沒人有能力將其腐朽的身軀挪開而仍明顯活着。
How Will Capitalism End?, a collection of somewhat overlapping essays.
《資本主義將如何終結》(How Will Capitalism End?)是一部由多篇有些相互重複的論文集結而成的著作。
Envisages a society devoid of reasonably coherent and minimally stable institutions capable of normalising the lives of members and protecting them from accidents and monstrosities of all sorts.
本書預見了一個這樣的社會，這個社會缺乏一套較爲協調並具備最低限度穩定性的機構，來維持社會成員生活的正常化並保護他們免受各類意外事件和可怕之物的傷害。
This will offer rich opportunities to oligarchs and warlords, while imposing uncertainty and insecurity on all others, in some ways like the long interregnum that began in the fifth century CE and is now called the Dark Age.
這樣的社會將給寡頭和軍閥提供豐富的機會，同時讓其他所有人陷入不確定和不安全的狀態，從某種程度上，這個社會就像是始於公元5世紀、現在被稱爲‘黑暗時代’(Dark Age)的那段漫長的過渡期。
Streeck is a mixture of the analyst, the moralist and the prophet.
施特雷克集分析者、道德家和預言家於一身。
As an analyst, he challenges the stability of democratic capitalism.
作爲分析者，他質疑民主制資本主義的穩定性。
As a moralist, he dislikes a society founded on greed.
作爲道德家，他厭惡一個建立在貪婪之上的社會。
As a prophet, he declares that the wages of this sin are death.
作爲預言家，他宣稱這種罪惡的報應就是死亡。
Streeck does not believe in the inevitable arrival of a socialist paradise.
施特雷克並不相信社會主義天堂必將到來。
On the contrary, his is a dystopian vision in which capitalism perishes not with a bang, but a whimper.
相反，他設想的資本主義的滅亡將是反烏托邦式的——不是伴隨着一聲巨響，而是伴隨着一聲嗚咽。
Since, he argues, capitalism can no longer turn private vice into public benefit, its existence as a self-reproducing, sustainable, predictable and legitimate social order has ended.
他主張，因爲資本主義無法再將私人惡行轉化爲公共利益，其作爲一種自我繁殖、可持續、可預測以及合法的社會秩序的存在就終結了。
Capitalism has become more capitalist than is good for it.
資本主義已經變得太資本主義，到了對其自身有害的地步。
The postwar marriage between universal-suffrage democracy and capitalism is ending in divorce, argues Streeck.
施特雷克認爲，戰後普選民主和資本主義的聯姻正走向破裂。
The path leading to this has gone via successive stages: the global inflation of the 1970s; the explosion of public debt of the 1980s; the rising private debt of the 1990s and early 2000s; and the subsequent financial crises whose legacy includes ultra-low interest rates, quantitative easing, huge jumps in public indebtedness and disappointing growth.
通向這個結局的道路經歷了幾個連續的階段：上世紀70年代的全球通脹；上世紀80年代的公共債務爆炸式增長；上世紀90年代和2000年代初的私人債務上升；之後的金融危機（其後果包括超低利率、量化寬鬆、公共負債大幅攀升以及令人失望的經濟增長）。
Accompanying capitalism on this path to ruin came an evolving fiscal crisis of the democratic-capitalist state.
在這條通往毀滅的道路上，伴隨資本主義的是民主制-資本主義國家不斷演變的財政危機。
The earlier tax state became the debt state and now the consolidation state (or austerity state) dedicated to cutting deficits by slashing spending.
早期的稅收國家變成了債務國家，現在則變成致力於通過降低開支來削減赤字的整固國家（也就是緊縮國家）。
Three underlying trends have contributed: declining economic growth, growing inequality and soaring indebtedness.
有三種潛在趨勢促成了這種情況：經濟增長走下坡路、不平等的加劇和債務的激增。
These, he argues, are mutually reinforcing: low growth engenders distributional struggles, the solution too often being excessive borrowing.
施特雷克認爲，這三種趨勢相互強化：低增長引起了分配方面的困難，解決方法往往是過度借貸。
His views on the absurdity of quantitative easing as a palliative mirror those of the Austrian economists he despises.
他認爲量化寬鬆作爲一種權宜之計是荒謬的，他的這一觀點與他所藐視的奧地利經濟學家一致。
This is not the only case in which Streeck echoes rightwing views: his discussion of increasing female participation in the labour market, for example, finds much to regret and nothing to celebrate in this trend.
這不是施特雷克唯一與右翼觀點一致的地方：比如，他對提高女性勞動參與率的討論得出的結論是，這種女性勞動參與率提高的趨勢帶來很多壞處，沒有絲毫好處。
In one of his few telling phrases, he describes the response of ordinary people to pressures on them as coping, hoping, doping and shopping.
施特雷克爲數不多的精闢表述之一，是把普通人對壓力的反應描述爲應付、期盼、嗑藥和購物。
But, above all, Streeck stresses the dire consequences of an out-of-control financial system, a predatory tax-evading and tax-avoiding plutocracy, the transfer of substantial parts of the public realm into private hands and resulting corruption of political and economic domains.
但最重要的是，施特雷克強調失控的金融體系、充斥着逃稅避稅的掠奪性的富豪統治、將大部分公共領域轉入私人之手以及因此導致的政經領域的腐敗，帶來極爲嚴重的後果。
Streeck also writes devastatingly and cogently on the euro as an assault on democratic politics.
施特雷克也對歐元進行了強有力又令人信服的論述，他認爲歐元是對民主政治的一次衝擊。
Germany, he argues, on account of its regained economic power after 2008 and as the main beneficiary of the EMU [economic and monetary union] due to its export strength . . . de facto governs the EMU as a German economic empire.
德國，他表示，由於其在2008年以後恢復了經濟實力，以及該國因爲出口強勁是歐洲貨幣聯盟(EMU)的主要受益者……在事實上統治着歐洲貨幣聯盟，使其成爲了一個德國經濟帝國。
The eurozone, notes Streeck, seeks to bring together countries with irreconcilably different economic cultures.
施特雷克指出，歐元區尋求將多個經濟文化存在差異的國家團結在一起，而這些差異是不可調和的。
A democratically legitimate resolution of the resulting tensions is impossible.
要通過民主上具備合法性的方式消除由此產生的緊張局面是不可能的。
The euro will either fail or survive as an undemocratic structure subservient to the whims of the financial markets and managed by a technocratic central bank and a hegemonic Germany.
歐元將要麼滅亡，要麼以一種不民主的結構存續下去，屈從於變化多端的金融市場，由技術官僚掌控的央行和佔據霸主地位的德國來管理。
Streeck’s views on the folly of the euro are convincing, but the forecast that today’s Europe will end up in something like the Dark Ages seems ludicrous.
施特雷克關於歐元這種機制很愚蠢的觀點令人信服，但預測今天的歐洲將落入類似黑暗時代的境地似乎就有點荒謬了。
Contemporary Europeans enjoy standards of living, life expectancies, personal freedoms and levels of security that people of the Dark Ages or indeed of the Roman empire could not even imagine.
當代歐洲人所享受的生活水準、預期壽命、個人自由和安全水平，都是黑暗時代乃至羅馬帝國的人根本無法想象的。
Moreover, pace Streeck, today’s world does not consist only of failures.
此外，恕我直言，今天的世界並非只有失敗。
He notes, correctly, that the emergence of the globalised market economy has reduced the effectiveness of the mid-20th-century compromise between democracy and national capitalism.
施特雷克指出全球化市場經濟削弱了20世紀中期民主制與國家資本主義所達成的妥協的有效性，這一點是正確的。
But his enthusiasm for deglobalising capitalism misses altogether the immense opportunities increased trade and foreign direct investment have brought, notably to China and India.
但他對於去全球化資本主義的熱情完全忽視了貿易和外商直接投資(FDI)的增加所帶來的巨大機會，尤其是對中國和印度而言。
In addition, while the trends and stresses in the functioning of the contemporary market economy and its relationship with democratic politics are part of the story, they are not the whole of it.
此外，雖然當代市場經濟的運行中的趨勢和壓力，以及當代市場經濟與民主政治的關係是事情的一部分，但卻不是事情的全部。
Streeck is right that no stable equilibrium exists in any society.
施特雷克有一點說的很對，那就是任何社會都不存在穩定的均衡。
Both the economy and the polity must adapt and change.
無論是經濟還是政治都必須適應和改變。
Yet the relationship between democracy and capitalism is not, as Streeck seems to believe, unnatural.
然而，民主和資本主義之間的關係並不像施特雷克似乎認爲的那樣不自然。
On the contrary, both systems derive from a belief in the role of people as active citizens and economic agents.
相反，這兩種體系都源於一種將人視爲活躍的公民和經濟主體的信念。
In the former role, they make decisions together; in the latter, they make decisions for themselves.
在前一種角色中，人們共同做決策；在後一種角色中，他們爲自己做決策。
The boundaries and modes of operation of both systems are open to constant renegotiation.
這兩種體系的邊界和運行模式都能夠接受不斷的修訂。
But both are essential.
但兩者都必不可少。
Moreover, democracy cannot function without a market economy.
此外，沒有市場經濟，民主制度就無法正常運行。
The alternative — a thoroughly politicised economy — cannot function properly: just look at today’s Venezuela.
而另一個選擇，即徹底政治化的經濟體制，無法正常運轉：看看今天的委內瑞拉就明白了。
The market protects democracy from becoming overstretched, while democracy provides a legitimate framework for the market.
市場能防止民主變得不堪重負，而民主則爲市場提供了一個合法的框架。
Just as the market economy is the least bad way to generate prosperity, so is democracy the least bad way to manage social conflicts.
正如市場經濟是創造繁榮的糟糕程度最輕的方式，民主也是管理社會衝突的糟糕程度最輕的方式。
Furthermore, in today’s world, it is not capitalism that is in imminent danger, but rather democracy.
此外，在當今世界，面臨緊迫危機的並非資本主義，而是民主。
A predatory form of post-democratic capitalism, not the end of capitalism, is the threat.
人們面臨的威脅不是資本主義的終結，而是掠奪式的後民主制下的資本主義。
Correspondingly, authoritarianism seems a far greater peril than the anarchy of a dark age.
相應地，威權主義似乎也比黑暗時代的混亂狀態危險得多。
The challenges we confront in bringing finance under control, rebalancing corporate governance, remedying inequality, sustaining demand and, above all, managing the tensions between the democratic nation state and the global market economy are genuine.
在一些事情上，我們的確面臨挑戰：讓財政狀況重新變得可控、重新平衡公司治理、糾正不平等、支撐需求，以及最重要的，管理民主的民族國家與全球市場經濟之間的緊張關係。
The answers should include a modicum of deglobalisation, notably of finance, and greater co-operation among democratic governments, notably on taxation and the provision of global public goods.
解決方案應該包括以下兩點：略微去全球化，尤其是在金融方面；加強民主政府之間的合作，尤其是在稅收、全球公共品的提供方面。
Will this be difficult? Yes.
這會很難麼？是的。
Will the answers work forever? No.
這些方案會永遠有效嗎？不會。
Is the task possible? Absolutely, yes.
這個任務可能完成嗎？絕對可能。
Streeck condemns this technocratic-voluntaristic doability worldview as hopelessly naive.
施特雷克譴責這種技術官僚-意志論式的‘能做到’的世界觀簡直天真到無可救藥。
Such defeatism before supposedly unmanageable social forces is characteristic of a certain sort of intellectual.
在看似無法管理的社會力量面前繳械投降是一類知識分子的特徵。
But the doability worldview saved civilisation in the middle of the 20th century.
但正是這種‘能做到’的世界觀在20世紀中期拯救了文明。
It can (and must) do so again, even if its old institutional bases, particularly trade unions and political parties, have weakened.
這種世界觀能夠（而且必須）再次做到這一點，即使其過去的機構基礎，尤其是工會和政黨的力量都弱化了。
How Will Capitalism End? provides not so much a convincing forecast as a warning.
與其說《資本主義將如何終結》做了一個令人信服的預言，不如說它發出了一個警告。
Its analysis is exaggerated and simplistic.
該書的分析有所誇大，並且過於簡單化。
Streeck correctly identifies some disturbing trends.
施特雷克指出了一些令人不安的趨勢，這是正確的。
Nevertheless, the history of the 20th century shows we do not have to be victims of forces beyond our control.
然而20世紀的歷史表明，在不受我們控制的力量面前，我們並非註定成爲受害者。
We can choose the worse, or the better.
我們可以選擇更壞的處境，也可以選擇更好的處境。
We should choose the better.
我們應該選擇後者。
