欧元危机的核心是两种道德观的冲突

Op-Ed Columnist
The Euro’s Morality Lesson
By ROGER COHEN August 08, 2013
专栏作者
欧元危机的核心是两种道德观的冲突
罗杰·科恩 2013年08月08日
KALYVES, Greece — Economics in Germany, it has been noted, is a branch of moral philosophy. Growth is the reward for good behavior. Such virtue includes frugality and avoidance of debt. It goes without saying that, in this view, promoting growth by increasing fiscal deficits is the height of immorality.
希腊卡里弗斯——有人指出，德国经济学是伦理学的一个分支。增长是对良好行为的回报。这种美德包括节俭和不负债。不言而喻，按照这种观点，通过增加财政赤字来促进经济增长是极端不道德的行为。
Economics in Greece is rather different. It is a branch of personal ingenuity. Morally loaded words from the Anglo-Saxon canon like “corruption” and “cronyism” have attached themselves to the Greek approach, but for Greeks following rules was a form of stupidity. If politicians were corrupt, what could be the purpose of personal integrity? Far better, Greeks thought, to trust in “fakelaki” (the little envelope) and “rousfeti” (a political favor for votes) than confuse morality with material advancement.
希腊的经济学十分不同。它是个人聪明才智的一个分支。“***”和“裙带关系”等来自盎格鲁-撒克逊的、充满道德意味的词用来描述希腊的行事风格很贴切，但对于希腊人而言，遵守规则是愚蠢的表现。如果政客们都是***的，那么个人诚信的目的何在呢？希腊人认为，与其把道德与物质利益混为一谈，相信“红包”(fakelaki)和“贿选”(rousfeti)要好得多。
The euro crisis has been many things, among them a reminder of the old adage: Marry in haste, repent at leisure. But at its core lies a crisis of two moralities, northern and southern.
与欧元危机相关的事情很多，包括它还让人想起一条古老的格言：草率结婚后悔多(Marry in haste, repent at leisure)。但欧元危机的核心是南北两种道德观发生了危机。
[要查看本图请先注册并登录]
Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters
希腊公共部门的工作人员在雅典抗议裁员。
It was a German, Martin Luther, who ignited the Reformation with his objections to the papacy’s corruption, the sale of indulgences and the papal authority to absolve sin. A big case of northern probity against southern laxity, frosty rigor against sun-soaked elasticity: the clash of an attempt to hold humanity to a high moral standard with a system taking human fallibility as a starting point.
当年，正是德国人马丁·路德(Martin Luther)反对罗马教皇的***、售卖赎罪券的行为以及教皇赦免罪恶的权力，从而点燃了宗教改革的火焰。 这个著名的案例体现了北方的正直与南方的放纵、冷冰冰的严谨与温暖阳光下的弹性之间的对抗：让人类遵循高度道德标准的努力与一个把人类的不可靠性作为出发点的体制之间的冲突。
A few centuries later along comes a shared currency that tries to unite the Protestant north with the Catholic or Orthodox south, a Europe that went through the Reformation with one that did not. Trouble was inevitable.
几个世纪之后，欧洲出现了一种试图把信仰新教的北方国家和信仰天主教或东正教的南方国家统一起来的货币，一个是经过宗教改革的欧洲，而另一个则没有。麻烦在所难免。
In Greece, as Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the minister of administrative reform and e-governance, put it to me in an interview, the system went like this: “The parties used ministries to reward people. The grand bargain was a job in the public sector for votes. But you needed to be able to finance the system. Fine as long as money was flowing and loans easy. Now that they are not, you have no choice but to be efficient.”
在希腊，正如行政改革和电子政务部长基里亚科斯·米佐塔基斯(Kyriakos Mitsotakis)在采访中告诉我的那样，体制是这样运行的：“各政党利用政府各部来回报自己人。大交易就是政党为了换取选票，在公共部门给人们谋一份职业。但是这个体制需要资金支持。只要资金还在流动，借贷比较容易，就没有问题。但现在情况不是这样，除了提高效率，你别无选择。”
Once you had a job in the public sector, you were, as the Greeks put it, “accommodated,” or in the Italian phrase, “sistemato.” In either country this meant you were integrated for life in a system that allowed you to work a modest amount, enjoy a good pension earlier, perhaps collect a “fakelaki” or two for some favor, and find other work in your ample spare time for extra cash.
一旦你在公共部门获得了一份工作，如希腊人所说，你就“安顿好了”(accommodated)，或者用意大利语来说，就是“到位了”(sistemato)。不论在希腊还是意大利，这都意味着你已经一辈子进入了一个体制，在体制内，你的工作量不会多，可更早享受到可观的养老金，或许还能因为给别人帮忙而得到一两个“红包”，此外，你还可以利用大量空闲时间承接别的工作，额外挣些钱。
This was an elastic but inefficient form of organization. It is also incompatible with a north-south single currency.
这是一种富有弹性但效率低下的组织形式。它与南北共用一种货币的制度也是格格不入的。
Think of Mitsotakis, an engaging 45-year-old Harvard-and-Stanford educated politician, as a man trying to bridge Europe’s moral chasm. A member of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s conservative New Democracy ***, he recently took on what may be the toughest job in Greece: shaking up the public sector. “Reform is difficult and painful,” he said. “I do not always sleep comfortably. But this is necessary.”
有魅力的45岁政治人物米佐塔基斯曾在哈佛大学(Harvard)和斯坦福大学(Stanford)受过教育，我们可以把他看做一个正在尝试弥合欧洲南北道德鸿沟的人。作为总理安东尼斯·萨马拉斯(Antonis Samaras)的保守党派新民主党(New Democracy ***)的成员，他最近接受了或许是希腊最艰巨的工作：整改公共部门。“改革是困难而且痛苦的，”他说。“我时常睡不好觉。不过，这是必要的。”
Under Greece’s deal with international creditors, it has to cut 15,000 public sector workers by the end of next year. Before then, by September, it has to move 12,500 into a “mobility scheme” that gives them eight months to find work in another state department or lose their job (another 12,500 will follow later). Mitsotakis has to accomplish this against the backdrop of an economy whose contraction he called “unprecedented outside a war-hit economy.” Anger on the left and the right (where the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is surging) is virulent. A summer lull will give way to an angry fall.
根据希腊与国际债权人达成的协议，该国必须在明年年底前在公共部门裁员1.5万人。在此之前，截至今年9月，希腊必须把1.25万人转移到一个“流动计划”，给他们8个月的时间在另一个政府部门找到工作，或者失去工作（之后会有另外1.25万人进入这个计划）。米佐塔基斯必须执行这项任务的大背景是，希腊经济正在经历他所称的“除战时经济以外前所未见的”收缩。左派和右派（新纳粹主义的金色黎明党[the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party]势力在激增）都怒不可遏。夏季的平静过后，希腊将引来一个愤怒的秋天。
Still, Mitsotakis believes he has strong backing. “Look, the private sector has taken 1.3 million unemployed since the crisis broke, and there has been basically zero from the public sector. Because the reform was put off, the private sector was taxed and punished as an alternative. There is a silent majority for this reform. We’ve had a state that is way too big — with no meritocracy, no disciplinary activity, and a lot of people entering through the back door. Some employees were even being paid in jail.”
然而，米佐塔基斯仍相信自己有强大的民意支持。“看，自从危机爆发以来，私营部门已有130万人失业，而公共部门迄今基本上无人被裁。由于改革受阻，对私营部门征税和出台惩罚性措施被当作一个替代选择。沉默的大多数支持这项改革。我国的政府部门实在太大了——而且没有选贤任能的制度，也没有纪律行动，很多人都是通过后门进入工作岗位的。有的雇员在监狱里还在拿薪水。”
He held up his mobile device with a screen shot of the documentation for the transfer of a single employee from one provincial town to another. His own signature was on it — along with 15 others! Such bureaucracy is deadening, as well as being a rich potential source of corruption: Of those many signatures, some may come with a price.
他举起自己的移动设备，上面是把一名雇员从一个省级小镇调到另一个小镇的文件。他的亲笔签名就在文件上——上面还有其他15个签名！这样的官僚制度令人窒息，而且很容易成为滋生***的源泉：在这么多签名中，有一些可能是需要花钱买的。
“We can get better value for money and meet the commitments of my country,” Mitsotakis told me. “But our creditors must understand that the main risk today is if they try for more measures — any further attempt to tax incomes will not fly. Austerity has been pushed too far. When our prime minister meets with President Obama this month, one of his main messages will be this.”
“我们可以让同样的资金发挥更大的作用，兑现我国的承诺，”米佐塔基斯告诉我。“但是我们的债权人必须明白，眼下的主要风险在于他们尝试更多举措——任何征收所得税的进一步企图都是行不通的。紧缩政策的实施有些过分。本月，当我国总理与奥巴马总统会晤时，这将是他要传达的主要讯息之一。”
Europe must bridge its moral chasm. Greeks can learn something of economics as moral philosophy. Germans can learn that austerity as economic tool has its limits and that the use of a fiscal deficit to finance growth is not a sin. The euro is also a morality lesson.
欧洲必须弥合它在道德上的鸿沟。希腊人不妨把经济学当作伦理来学。德国人也要明白，把紧缩当作经济工具是有局限的，此外，利用财政赤字来促进经济发展并不是罪过。欧元也是一个道德上的教训。