译者 bladeralien
Capitalism in Crisis is the title of a long series of articles in the Financial Times by many participants. No doubt, the severity of the Great Recession has temporarily weakened the respect for capitalism, for “free” markets, and among other things, for the Chicago school of economics. Yet I will argue that the FT’s title should have had a question mark, as in: Is capitalism in crisis? My answer is that while certain aspects of the economic organization of capitalist countries like the United States should be changed to reduce the chances of future severe recessions, it remains true that economies which are competitive and capitalistic have the best prospects for sizable long-run economic growth.
日前，金融时报发表了一系列题为危机中的资本主义的文章，的确，这次金融危机是挺严重的，使得人们对于资本主义，对于自由市场，对于芝加哥学派都没有那么尊重了。不过，资本主义真的陷入危机了吗？我的回答是，美国这样的资本主义国家的经济组织的某些层面确实需要改变以减少未来发生严重的衰退的机率，然而，竞争以及资本主义仍然是保持经济长期高速增长的最好的方式。
The Great Recession reinforced the lesson of prior panics and financial crises, lessons forgotten during the Great Moderation from about mid 1980s to 2006, that the financial sector has a fundamental built-in instability. In the past this was mainly associated with “runs” on banks, as during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The instability of modern financial institutions is no longer much related to bank runs because of deposit insurance; rather it is mainly the result of the incentive for financial institutions to raise their profits by increasing their assets relative to their capital.
这次金融危机让人们想起了以往的恐慌及金融危机给人们的教训，自二十世纪八十年代至2006年间一直被人们所遗忘的教训，那就是金融部门具有根本的内在的不稳定性。在过去，这种内在的不稳定性往往与对银行的挤兑有关，大萧条的时候就是这样的，不过，由于存款保险，挤兑对于现代的金融机构来说已经不算什么问题了，上述的不稳定性主要是由过高的资产资本比（通过提高资产资本比，金融机构可以增加它们的利润）造成的。
One straightforward way to reduce this instability is to raise capital requirements of banks and other financial institutions. Greater capital would provide banks with bigger cushions if the value of their assets fell as a result of a crisis in asset markets. Any mandated capital/asset ratio should be greater for banks that are considered too big to fail than for other banks in order to make it less likely that larger banks would need a bailout. The United States and Europe have already moved to increase capital requirements for banks. These rules will have to be adapted over time as banks discover ways to mitigate the impact on their lending.
降低这种不稳定性的最简单的一种方式就是要求银行以及其他的金融机构增加它们的资本。如果由于资产市场上的危机导致银行的资产价格下跌，更多的资本会给它们提供更多的缓冲。而相较于其他的银行，那些“太大而不能倒”的银行需要有更高的资本资产比，免得它们陷入困境。美国以及欧洲已经着手增加银行的资本要求了。随着时间的推移，银行会发展出种种手段来规避这些措施对它们的贷款的影响，而这些措施也需要相应的修改。
Asset price bubbles are another issue to deal with. The collapse of the “bubble” in Internet companies in the US during the late 1990s did not have a major impact on the US economy because it affected only a small part of total assets. Similarly, the many bubbles in local housing markets in the past, such as the Florida land boom of the 1920s, greatly affected these local markets, but did not have much affect on the US economy because they were not important to the overall economy. However, unlike these previous local housing booms, the boom from 2002-07 was national, although clearly stronger in certain regions, like Las Vegas, than in other regions. The collapse of this boom had a big enough impact on consumer and bank assets that it did seriously affect the US economy.
另一个需要解决的问题是资产价格泡沫。九十年代末期的互联网泡沫的破灭没有对美国经济造成严重的影响，因为其只影响了总资产的一小部分。过去的一些地方性的房地产市场泡沫，比如说发生在二十世纪二十年代的佛罗里达的那次，也没有对美国经济造成什么影响，因为它们对于整体经济来说并不重要。而二零零二至零七年的这次房地产泡沫却是全国性的（尽管在某些地区，比如说拉斯维加斯，的确要比在其他的地区更为严重），它的破灭严重的影响了消费及银行资产，进而严重的影响了美国的经济。
The boom in housing prices was related to the low interest rates after the early 1990s, and also to the growing number of mortgages that required neither much of a down payment nor decent credit histories. To reduce the likelihood of such housing bubbles in the future, it might be wise to require larger down payments to get mortgages, so that mortgage owners would have more “skin in the game”. Of course, politicians would likely oppose higher down payments because younger and other households with limited capital would find it harder to buy homes.
房地产市场的泡沫与二十世纪九十年代以来的低利率以及既不需要高额的预付款又不需要良好的信用记录的贷款的增加有关，为了防止类似事件在将来的发生，要求借款人支付更高的预付款或许是明智的，这样也可以使得贷款人更多的保留他们的贷款而不是把它们给卖出去。当然了，政客们估计会反对这项措施，因为这使得那些资本有限的人更难买到房子了。
While vast attention has been given to the failures of capitalism after the financial crisis erupted, government “failures” that contributed to and prolonged the crisis have received much less attention. Yet government failures were numerous and important. These failures include the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates low after 2003 even though asset markets were booming, and the many bank regulators and other government officials who cheered on the expansion of bank assets rather than trying to control assets/capital ratios of banks. Government failures also include the congressmen and other government officials who encouraged, and even required, banks to offer mortgages to households with bad credit histories, and to households who could provide only a small amount of equity in their homes. Not the least of government failures are the many state and local governments, and countries like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, that took advantage of the good times preceding the crisis to increase greatly government spending and debt beyond reasonable levels.
金融危机爆发之后，资本主义的失灵受到了广泛的关注，而政府的失灵在导致和延长这次金融危机方面所起的作用却没有受到多少关注，然而政府失灵却是非常常见的，其影响也是不可低估的。二零零三年之后，尽管资产市场上已经出现泡沫了，美联储却依然做出了维持低利率的决定。面对银行的资产的扩张，监管者以及其他的政府官员不仅没有试图控制银行的资产资本比，反而为此而欢欣鼓舞。议员以及其他的政府官员鼓励甚至要求银行向那些拥有不良信用记录或者只有很少的抵押资产的家庭提供贷款。很多州以及地方政府，以及希腊、爱尔兰、葡萄牙这些国家，在危机之前大幅增加政府支出，使得其负债远远的超出了合理的水平。以上所述，不都是政府失灵的例证吗。
It is because of government regulatory failures that I believe the best hope for preventing banks and households from excessively expanding their debt in the future lies in rules, like capital requirements, rather than in greater discretionary power to regulators. Regulators misuse discretionary authority because they often get caught up in the same euphoria that banks and households succumb to. In addition, they sometimes get “captured” by the banks and households they are regulating, and end up being cheerleaders for these sectors.
正是政府管制的失败使得我认为，要防止银行及住户过分的扩张他们的债务，我们需要的是像资本要求这样的规则，而不能寄希望与监管者的自由裁量权。监管者，就像银行和住户一样，也会沉溺于虚幻的繁荣之中，欣喜若狂，误用他们的自由裁量权，有时候，他们甚至会忘记自己的职责，摇身变为啦啦队长，为他们的监管对象而欢呼。
Yet the fact that financial and housing markets did “fail” in the years leading up to the financial crisis (although their failure was partly induced by bad government policies and poor regulatory oversight) does not add up to a crisis in capitalism as a whole. The vast majority of competitive markets in a capitalist economy like that of the United States performed quite well both before and during the crisis.
尽管金融及房地产市场的衰退的确导致了金融危机（部分的由于政府政策的不当及监管措施的疏忽），但这并不意味着作为整体的资本主义的危机。无论在这次金融危机之前，还是在这次金融危机期间，美国式的资本主义经济的竞争性市场都表现的很好。
China’s form of state capitalism is often considered to be a good alternative to competitive capitalism. China has had an astounding economic record during the past 30 years, but the private sector has been the most productive and dynamic part of its economy. China’s growth started when in the late 1970s it opened farming to the private sector. China has steadily increased the share of output produced by the private sector. Public enterprises are still important, but China has grown despite the important of state-owned enterprises, not because of it.
中国式的国家资本主义经常被视为竞争性的资本主义的良好的替代品，的确，在过去的三十年间，中国经济的表现令人震惊，不过私营部门才是中国经济中最富生产力及活力的部分。中国的增长始于二十世纪七十年代末期的农业对私营部门的开放，私营部门的产出也一直在稳步的增加。虽然公有企业在中国的经济中依然占有重要地位，但它们并非经济增长的原因而是其阻碍。
Capitalism lost prestige as a result of the severity of the Great Recession, but so too did governments. I do not believe that capitalism is in a real crisis, partly because the defects in financial and housing markets can be corrected to a significant extent. More importantly, reliance on competitive capitalism has been the only way that countries have been able to reduce poverty and continue to grow over long periods of time. The great majority of developing and other countries will not forget this fundamental reality as the world pulls out of the Great Recession.
由于这次金融危机的严重性，资本主义的声望有所下降，但政府也是这样。我并不认为资本主义真的已经陷入危机了，一方面，金融及房地产市场的缺陷在很大程度上是可以更正的，更重要的是，竞争性的资本主义是摆脱贫困及保持经济长期增长的唯一方式，当世界从这次危机中恢复过来的时候，发展中国家以及其他国家的大众是不会忘记这一点的。
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/82674/253749