自杀编年史预告：以色列

费尔南德·布罗代尔中心

纽约州宾汉顿大学，美国

Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University

http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm

伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦

（路爱国 译）

评论 第249号

2009年1月15日

自杀编年史预告：以色列

以色列国在1948年5月15日午夜时分宣告了自己的独立。联合国曾投票表决要在英国治下的巴勒斯坦建立两个国家。耶路撒冷城要成为联合国管辖的国际地区。联合国决议获得了广泛支持，特别是美国和苏联的支持。阿拉伯国家则全都对它投了反对票。

以色列国建立60年来，它的生存和扩张有赖于一个由三要素构成的总体战略：强硬军事主义、地缘政治联盟和公共关系。强硬军事主义（即现任总理埃胡德·奥尔默特[Ehud Olmert]所说的“铁腕”）来自于以色列犹太人的民族主义狂热，以及后来（尽管起初并非如此）世界各地犹太社区的强烈支持。

在地缘政治方面，以色列先是与苏联结盟（时间虽短但极其重要），随后与法国结盟（时间较长并使以色列成为核国家），最后（并且最重要地）与美国结盟。这些盟国兼后台通过供应武器给予了最重要的军事支持。但它们也给予了外交/政治支持，而美国还给予了可观的经济支持。

公共关系的目标在于获得世界舆论的广泛同情支持，早年间依靠把以色列描绘成血气方刚的大卫反抗老朽不堪的歌利亚，而后40年则依靠在二战期间纳粹大批清除欧洲犹太人问题上的罪行和怜悯。

以色列战略的所有这些要素在 1948年到1980年间都相当管用。事实上，它们变的越来越有效。但到1980年代某个时点，三个战术中每项战术的利用都开始产生反作用。以色列目前进 入了一个其战略加速衰败的阶段。以色列要推行任何其他战略可能已经太晚了，假如它这样做，它就会在地缘政治上自杀身亡。让我们回顾一下，在以色列力量成功 地上升以及在后来缓慢衰落的过程中，该战略的三个要素是如何互动的。

在以色列建立的头25年，它与阿拉 伯国家进行了4次战争。第一次是为建立犹太国而进行的1948-1949年战争。以色列宣布建立独立国家，巴勒斯坦却没有相应地也宣布建国。实际情况是， 许多阿拉伯国家对以色列宣了战。以色列最初在军事上困难重重。但是，以色列军队比外约旦以外其他阿拉伯国家的军队都更加训练有素。而且，更重要的是，他们 从代苏联行事的捷克斯洛伐克那里获得了武器。

到1949年停战时，以色列军队的 纪律性加上捷克的武器使以色列人赢得了联合国分割提议中没有包含的大片领土，包括西耶路撒冷。其他地区被周边阿拉伯国家并入。大批巴勒斯坦阿拉伯人离开或 被迫离开以色列控制的地区，变成了阿拉伯邻国里的难民，他们的后代今天仍大多生活在那里。他们曾经拥有的土地被以色列犹太人夺走了。

苏联不久就抛弃了以色列。这可能主 要是由于其领导人很快开始担心以色列建国对苏联犹太人态度的影响，从斯大林的观点看，苏联犹太人似乎过于热情，从而潜在地具有颠覆性。相应地，以色列也抛 弃了对冷战中社会主义阵营的所有同情，并清楚表明自己在政治和文化上要完全成为一个西方世界成员的热望。

法国此时正面临其三个北非殖民地的 民族解放运动，它认为以色列是一个有用的盟国。在阿尔及利亚人1954年发起自己的独立战争之后就更加如此。法国开始帮助以色列武装自己。特别是，正在 （不顾美国意愿而）发展本国核武器的法国帮助了以色列发展核武器。1956年，以色列加入法、英对埃及开战。对以色列而言，不幸的是这次战争是不顾美国反 对而发起的，美国迫使所有三个大国结束了战争。

在阿尔及利亚于1962年独立后， 法国失去了对以色列这个关系的兴趣，以色列当时干扰了法国与三个新独立的北非国家重建密切关系的努力。正是在这个时候，美国和以色列相互靠拢建立了密切关 系。1967年，埃及和以色列之间再次爆发战争，其他阿拉伯国家加入埃及一方。在这次所谓“六日战争”中，美国首次向以色列提供军用武器。

以色列1967年的胜利在很多方面 改变了基本局面。以色列轻易获胜，占领了英国托管的巴勒斯坦所有那些它已经占领的部分，再加上埃及的西奈半岛和叙利亚的戈兰高地。在司法上，此时存在着一 个以色列国，再加上以色列占领的领土。以色列开始推行在被占领土建立犹太人定居点的政策。

以色列的胜利改变了世界犹太人的态度，他们此时已经克服了对建立以色列国曾经持有的全部保留意见。他们对以色列的成就非常自豪，并开始在美国和西欧发起强大的政治运动为以色列争取政治支持。一个强调基布兹[以色列集体农场—译注]美德的血气方刚的以色列形象被放弃了，转而把强调大屠杀作为争取世界支持以色列的基本理由。

1973年，阿拉伯国家试图在所谓 赎罪日战争中扭转军事局势。这一次，在美国军事支持下，以色列又取得了战争胜利。1973年战争标志着阿拉伯国家核心作用的终结。以色列能够继续努力获得 阿拉伯国家的承认，它也确实最终得到了埃及和约旦两国的承认，但要让这一点成为保障以色列生存的方式此时已经太迟了。

正在这个时刻，一个真正的巴勒斯坦阿拉伯政治运动即巴勒斯坦解放组织(PLO)产生了，它现在是以色列的主要对手，是以色列需要与之妥协的对手。长期以来，以色列拒绝与巴解组织及其领导人亚西尔·阿拉法特打交道，而宁愿运用铁腕。起先，以色列在军事上是成功的。

铁腕政策的局限性在第一次起义[intifada]中暴露无疑，这是巴勒斯坦阿拉伯人在被占领土上的自发起义，始于1987年，持续了６年。起义的主要成果是双重的。它迫使以色列人和美国与巴解组织对话，这是一个长过程，它导致1993年达成了所谓奥斯陆协议，提出在部分被占领土上建立巴勒斯坦权力机构。

长远来看，奥斯陆协议在地缘政治上 对世界舆论的冲击不如起义重要。大卫-歌利亚形象第一次开始翻转过来。西方世界第一次开始出现对所谓两国方案的实际支持。第一次开始出现对以色列铁腕及其 对巴勒斯坦阿拉伯人所作所为的严肃批评。假如以色列原先严肃对待了以所谓“绿线”[Green Line]为基础的两国方案--即1948-1949年战争结束后的分界线，它或许已经取得了问题的解决。

但以色列总是慢一步。当它能与纳塞尔谈判的时候，它不肯谈。当它能与阿拉法特谈判的时候，它不肯谈。当阿拉法特去世而软弱无力的马哈茂德·阿巴斯继任的时候，更加好斗的哈马斯赢得了２００６年巴勒斯坦议会选举。以色列拒绝与哈马斯对话。

现在，以色列入侵了加沙，试图消灭哈马斯。假如它成功，下一个出现将是什么组织？假如—这种概率更高--它没能消灭哈马斯，一个两国方案现在还有可能实现吗？巴勒斯坦和世界舆论都在转向一国方案。而这当然是犹太复国主义计划的终结。

以色列的三要素战略正在解体。铁腕 不再奏效，正像它对乔治·布什而言在伊拉克没有奏效一样。与美国的关系是否将依然牢固？我怀疑这一点。世界舆论是否会继续同情地看待以色列？看来不会。以 色列现在能不能转向不同的战略，即作为中东有机组成部分而不是欧洲前哨与巴勒斯坦阿拉伯人的军事代表进行谈判的战略？对此而言似乎为时已晚，很可能太晚 了。从而，预告了一个自杀编年史。

[伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦（Immanuel Wallerstein）版权所有，Agence Global负责发行。有关版权和授权，包括翻译和张贴到非商业网站事宜，请与rights@agenceglobal.com、1.336.686.9002或1.336.286.6606联系。在不改动本评论和展示版权所有条件下，允许下载、电子转发或通过电子邮件发送他人。如欲与作者联系，可发邮件给immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu。

每月两次发表的这些评论，旨在从长时段而不是当前头条新闻的角度，对当今世界变化做出反应。]

Commentary No. 249, Jan. 15, 2009

"Chronicle of a Suicide Foretold: The Case of Israel"

The state of Israel proclaimed its independence at midnight on May 15, 1948. The United Nations had voted to establish two states in what had been Palestine under British rule. The city of Jerusalem was supposed to be an international zone under U.N. jurisdiction. The U.N. resolution had wide support, and specifically that of the United States and the Soviet Union. The Arab states all voted against it.

In the sixty years of its existence, the state of Israel has depended for its survival and expansion on an overall strategy that combined three elements: macho militarism, geopolitical alliances, and public relations. The macho militarism (what current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calls the "iron fist") was made possible by the nationalist fervor of Jewish Israelis, and eventually (although not initially) by the very strong support of Jewish communities elsewhere in the world.

Geopolitically, Israel first forged an alliance with the Soviet Union (which was brief but crucial), then with France (which lasted a longer time and allowed Israel to become a nuclear power), and finally (and most importantly) with the United States. These allies, who were also patrons, offered most importantly military support through the provision of weapons. But they also offered diplomatic/political support, and in the case of the United States considerable economic support.

The public relations was aimed at obtaining sympathetic support from a wide swath of world public opinion, based in the early years on a portrait of Israel as a pioneering David against a retrograde Goliath, and in the last forty years on guilt and compassion over the massive Nazi extermination of European Jewry during the Second World War.

All these elements of Israeli strategy worked well from 1948 to the 1980s. Indeed, they were increasingly more effective. But somewhere in the 1980s, the use of each of the three tactics began to be counterproductive. Israel has now entered into a phase of the precipitate decline of its strategy. It may be too late for Israel to pursue any alternative strategy, in which case it will have committed geopolitical suicide. Let us trace how the three elements in the strategy interacted, first during the successful upward swing, then during the slow decline of Israel's power.

For the first twenty-five years of its existence, Israel engaged in four wars with Arab states. The first was the 1948-1949 war to establish the Jewish state. The Israeli declaration of an independent state was not matched by a Palestinian declaration to establish a state. Rather, a number of Arab governments declared war on Israel. Israel was initially in military difficulty. However, the Israeli military were far better trained than those of the Arab countries, with the exception of Transjordan. And, crucially, they obtained arms from Czechoslovakia, acting as the agent of the Soviet Union.

By the time of the truce in 1949, the discipline of the Israeli forces combined with the Czech arms enabled the Israelis to win considerable territory not included in the partition proposals of the United Nations, including west Jerusalem. The other areas were incorporated by the surrounding Arab states. A large number of Palestinian Arabs left or were forced to leave areas under the control of the Israelis and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries, where their descendants still largely live today. The land they had owned was taken by Jewish Israelis.

The Soviet Union soon dropped Israel. This was probably primarily because its leaders quickly became afraid of the impact of the creation of the state on the attitudes of Soviet Jewry, who seemed overly enthusiastic and hence potentially subversive from Stalin's point of view. Israel in turn dropped any sympathy for the socialist camp in the Cold War, and made clear its fervent desire to be considered a full-fledged member of the Western world, politically and culturally.

France at this time was faced with national liberation movements in its three North African colonies, and saw in Israel a useful ally. This was especially true after the Algerians launched their war of independence in 1954. France began to help Israel arm itself. In particular, France, which was developing its own nuclear weapons (against U.S. wishes), helped Israel do the same. In 1956, Israel joined France and Great Britain in a war against Egypt. Unfortunately for Israel, this war was launched against U.S. opposition, and the United States forced all three powers to end it.

After Algeria became independent in 1962, France lost interest in the Israeli connection, which now interfered with its attempts to renew closer relations with the three now independent North African states. It was at this point that the United States and Israel turned to each other to forge close links. In 1967, war broke out again between Egypt and Israel, and other Arab states joined Egypt. In this so-called Six Day War, the United States for the first time gave military weapons to Israel.

The 1967 Israeli victory changed the basic situation in many respects. Israel had won the war handily, occupying all those parts of the British mandate of Palestine that it had occupied before, plus Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Syria's Golan Heights. Juridically, there was now a state of Israel plus Israel's occupied territories. Israel began a policy of establishing

Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

The Israeli victory transformed the attitude of world Jewry, which now overcame whatever reservations it had had about the creation of the state of Israel. They took great pride in its accomplishments and began to undertake major political campaigns in the United States and western Europe to secure political support for Israel. The image of a pioneering Israel with emphasis on the virtues of the kibbutz was abandoned in favor of an emphasis on the Holocaust as the basic justification for world support of Israel.

In 1973, the Arab states sought to redress the military situation in the so-called Yom Kippur war. This time again, Israel won the war, with U.S. arms support. The 1973 war marked the end of the central role of the Arab states. Israel could continue to try to get recognition from Arab states, and it did succeed eventually with both Egypt and Jordan, but it was now too late for this to be a way to secure Israel's existence.

As of this point, there emerged a serious Palestinian Arab political movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was now the key opponent of Israel, the one with whom Israel needed to come to terms. For a long time, Israel refused to deal with the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat, preferring the iron fist. And at first, it was militarily successful.

The limits of the iron fist policy were made evident by the first intifada, a spontaneous uprising of Palestinian Arabs inside the occupied territories, which began in 1987 and lasted six years. The basic achievement of the intifada was twofold. It forced the Israelis and the United States to talk to the PLO, a long process that led to the so-called Oslo Accords of 1993, which provided for the creation of the Palestinian Authority in part of the occupied territories.

The Oslo Accords in the long run were geopolitically less important than the impact of the intifada on world public opinion. For the first time, the David-Goliath image began to be inverted. For the first time, there began to be serious support in the Western world for the so-called two-state solution. For the first time, there began to be serious criticism of Israel's iron fist and its practices vis-à-vis the Arab Palestinians. Had Israel been serious about a two-state solution based on the so-called Green Line - the line of division at the end of the 1948-1949 war - it probably would have achieved a settlement.

Israel however was always one step behind. When it could have negotiated with Nasser, it wouldn't. When it could have negotiated with Arafat, it wouldn't. When Arafat died and was succeeded by the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, the more militant Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. Israel refused to talk to Hamas.

Now, Israel has invaded Gaza, seeking to destroy Hamas. If it succeeds, what organization will come next? If, as is more probable, it fails to destroy Hamas, is a two-state solution now possible? Both Palestinian and world public opinion is moving towards the one-state solution. And this is of course the end of the Zionist project.

The three-element strategy of Israel is decomposing. The iron fist no longer succeeds, much as it didn't for George Bush in Iraq. Will the United States link remain firm? I doubt it. And will world public opinion continue to look sympathetically on Israel? It seems not. Can Israel now switch to an alternative strategy, of negotiating with the militant representatives of the Arab Palestinians, as an integral constituent of the Middle East, and not as an outpost of Europe? It seems quite late for that, quite possibly too late. Hence, the chronicle of a suicide foretold.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

From the Editor

As China racked up an impressive record of economic growth over the last 30 years, a myth sprouted that Beijing had invented a new model for eradicating poverty from the developing world. While other East Asian "miracles" also experienced their own adolescent growth spurts, China was remarkable for the way in which it compressed social and economic change into such a short period, while at the same time the Communist Party fended off demands for political reform. Especially in the last decade, the technocrats dazzled the world by always managing to bring growth in above target.

Now we are learning that the growth, while not exactly a mirage, was unsustainable. As Michael Pettis writes in this issue, in hindsight the decade from 1998-2008 looks more like an aberration than the dawning of a new era. After the 1997 crisis, Asian governments responded by accumulating ever larger foreign-exchange reserves. This fueled a global expansion of liquidity that led to self-reinforcing trends of rising investment in Asia and rising consumption in the U.S.

Stephen Green analyzes China’s predicament and finds that it is much worse than the official statistics would suggest. Various proxy indicators show the economy has fallen off a cliff. Growth in the next year will be well below the level needed to keep mass unemployment at bay.

The point here is not to assign blame, although there are lessons here for policy makers. The immediate priority is what to do now. And Mr. Pettis warns that the bulk of the readjustment is going to fall on China, much as it did on the U.S. in the 1930s. Either domestic demand will pick up to absorb the overcapacity or production will drop.

It is in everybody’s interest to lessen the impact of this transition and avoid a repeat of the spiraling protectionism of the 1930s. Razeen Sally, Fredrik Erixon and Greg Rushford describe the mounting temptation in Asia and the West to go down that road.

A solution will require a more flexible response than we have seen so far from the Hu administration, which as Willy Lam describes seems to be hunkering down with Maoist rhetoric and measures to turn back the clock on already circumscribed civil liberties.

There is still time to do as Mr. Pettis suggests—strike a grand bargain with the U.S. and EU that gives China a couple years’ breathing room, in return for a package of reforms aimed at a long-term rebalancing of the economy. Sure, the chances of this happening are small. But the China model is already finished. The question is whether the country can avoid a decade of lost growth and social unrest.

H.R.

China’s Great Demand Challenge

by Michael Pettis

Posted January 9, 2009

Global balance of payments has been dominated by the trade and investment relationship between two countries, China and the United States. This relationship is now undergoing a major shift; to the extent that their economic policies do not accommodate this shift, they are likely to fail, in much the same way that economic policy failed in the 1930s. The consequence for the world, and especially for China, could be terrible.

China runs a massive trade surplus with the U.S. and, in recycling this surplus, a correspondingly large capital-account deficit. This recycling has been the main source of the global liquidity that has engulfed the world recently, as well as a constraining factor in the global balance of payments. It is impossible for either country to adjust any part of the balance without a major counterbalancing adjustment from the other, but it is far from clear that policy makers on either side, especially in China, have a clear grasp of the issue. The result is likely to be a steep drop in global growth, much of it borne by China, and possibly even a collapse in global trade.

Other countries have played a role in this imbalance, of course, but with a few important exceptions they have fallen broadly into two camps whose characteristics are typified either by China or the U.S. One set of countries, like the U.S., has had booming domestic consumption and high and rising trade deficits. Their highly sophisticated financial systems intermediated the surge in underlying liquidity into the consumer loans that permitted the consumption binge. The second set of countries, like China, have excessively high savings and domestic investment rates, resulting in a huge and rising surplus of production over consumption, the balance of which is exported abroad.

Until recently, excess U.S. demand and excess Chinese supply were in a temporarily stable balance. As part of running a trade surplus, China necessarily accumulated dollars, which had to be exported to (invested in) the U.S. This capital export did not occur in the form of private investment—indeed it was exacerbated by Chinese net imports of private capital—but rather as forced accumulation of foreign-currency reserves, which were recycled back to the U.S. largely in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasurys and other dollar assets by China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China. Since China had effectively pegged its currency to the dollar, the PBoC had no choice but to accumulate reserves in this manner.

The recycling process also functioned as a great liquidity generator for the world. In the U.S. the torrent of inward-bound liquidity boosted real-estate and stock-market prices. As they surged, substantially raising the wealth of U.S. households, these became increasingly willing to divert a rising share of their income to consumption. At the same time rising liquidity always forces financial institutions to adjust their balance sheets to accommodate money growth, and the most common way is to increase outstanding loans. With banks eager to lend, and households eager to monetize their assets in order to fund consumption, it was only a question of time before household borrowing ballooned.

Meanwhile in China, as foreign currency poured into the country via its trade surplus, the PBoC had to create local money with which to purchase the inflow. In China most new money creation ends up in banks, and banks primarily fund investment rather than consumer spending. With investment surging, industrial production grew faster than consumption. A country’s trade surplus is the gap between its production and its consumption, and as this gap grew, so did China’s trade surplus, which resulted in even more foreign currency pouring into the country, thus reinforcing the cycle. In this balance, sometimes dubbed Bretton Woods II, Chinese overcapacity was matched with American overconsumption, and Chinese official lending was matched with U.S. household borrowing. This ensured that the current-account flows were matched with the capital-account flows.

The Great Imbalance

Many analysts think of the U.S. economy as the engine that drives the rest of the world, but this is not always true. Sometimes changes or distortions in one part of the world can force adjustments elsewhere, and as the world’s largest and most open economy, with an astonishingly flexible financial system, it is often the U.S. that absorbs imbalances originating elsewhere.

We see this most obviously in U.S. trade figures. For most of last 60 years, with two exceptions, the U.S. current-account surplus or deficit has remained within 1% of GDP. The first exception occurred in the mid-1980s, when the deficit rose to nearly 3.5% of GDP in 1986-87 before declining sharply and running into a small surplus in 1990. The second began in 1994, around the time of the Mexican crisis, when the U.S. current-account deficit climbed to around 1.6% of GDP, declined for two years, and then took off in 1997-98, after which time it raced forward in straight line to peak at around 6% of GDP.

If the U.S. trade deficit were driven simply by a U.S. consumption binge, as is often claimed, it is hard to see why it would have followed a pattern of general stability over many decades marked by two surges–a small one from 1984-88 and a very large one after 1997. If it was driven by changes in Asian savings and trade policies, this pattern becomes easier to understand. The 1980s surge was driven largely by domestic Japanese policies and conditions and is a fascinating case study in itself, but it is the post-1997 surge that is much more interesting and relevant to the current crisis.

Of course, 1997 was the year in which several Asian countries experienced terrifying financial crises and sharp economic contractions. One of the main lessons Asian policy makers learned was that too much dollar debt and not enough dollar reserves put a country at serious risk of a balance-sheet crisis. To protect themselves from a repeat, many Asian governments engineered trade surpluses and began amassing large foreign-currency reserves by managing trade policy and the value of their currencies.

This resulted in what some have called a global capital-flow "paradox." Historically, capital-poor developing countries have been net importers of capital, but in recent years developing countries have been large and growing net exporters of capital to rich countries. For most of the last 50 years official capital exports, in the form of foreign- currency reserve accumulation, were significantly less than net private-capital imports. But in 1998, official capital exports among developing countries began to take off, and by the following year exceeded net private-capital imports. Since then, except for a small decline in 2001, net capital exports from developing countries surged almost in a straight line to around $700 billion annually (combining $1.2 trillion of reserve accumulation versus $0.5 trillion of net private inflows).

But the global balance of payments must balance. As Asian trade surpluses and net capital exports surged, some other part of the world had to equilibrate these adjustments by running large trade deficits and importing capital. The U.S. did exactly this, and the U.S. trade deficit soared after 1997, while at the same time U.S. household savings collapsed.

Now the party is over. The old balance of payments has broken down, and the world is lurching to find a stable new balance. One necessary consequence of the financial crisis must be an increase in U.S. household-savings rates. Collapsing real estate and stock markets have caused household wealth to decline sharply, and households must save more than ever out of current income to replenish their wealth. But even if consumers wanted to continue spending, American commercial banks–caught in one of the worst credit crunches in recent history–are no longer willing to lend for consumption. The U.S. household savings rate has nowhere to go but up.

By how much will U.S. household savings increase? For most of the past 60 years until the early 1990s, household savings rates have varied between 6% and 10% of GDP, except for a brief period during the economic crisis of the 1970s when household savings went as high as 13% of GDP. In the early 1990s, the savings rate began declining slowly, and then virtually collapsed after 1997 when household savings fell to well under 2% of GDP.

Although we can’t say for sure, it is probably safe to argue that U.S. savings rates will climb back at least to earlier average levels, or even temporarily exceed those levels, as American households rebuild their shattered balance sheets. If they return only to 8%, the midpoint of earlier savings rates, this implies that U.S. household savings must rise by some amount equal to 6% of GDP, or, to put it another way, that all other things being equal, household consumption must decline by at least that amount.

Something must happen to equilibrate this decline in U.S. household consumption. Either consumption in other sectors of the U.S. economy–i.e., the government, since businesses are also contracting–must expand by that amount, or consumption by foreign countries, with China bearing the brunt, must expand by that amount (and foreign savings decline). To the extent that neither happens, global overproduction–which consists mainly of Chinese overproduction–must decline by that amount. This is just a way of saying that if net American consumption declines, either consumption must rise somewhere else, or production must fall.

In the best possible world Chinese consumption would rise by exactly the same amount as U.S. consumption drops, and we would quickly reach a new stable balance, with one major difference: The U.S. trade deficit would decline, and the amount of capital exported by China to the U.S. would decline by exactly the same amount (the PBoC would accumulate fewer reserves). But if that doesn’t happen, total global consumption must decline, and the world economy slow–in fact as it slows global income will decline with it, so that both savings and consumption could decline, trapping the world in a downward spiral of unstable adjustment.

However, given that the U.S. economy is about 3.3 times the size of China’s, and consumption accounts for less than 50% of China’s income, Chinese consumption would have to rise by nearly 40% (or roughly 19% of GDP) in order to accommodate an increase in U.S. savings equal to 6% of U.S. GDP. This is clearly unlikely. Of course there is more to the world than simply U.S. household demand and Chinese government demand. There are several other factors that will affect the adjustment. Among the positive ones:

• U.S. fiscal expansion will absorb some of the decline in U.S. household demand.

• The Chinese trade surplus has been equal to about one-half to two-thirds of the U.S. trade deficit, so in principle China should only absorb that share of the global adjustment, while other surplus countries, especially opec via lower commodity prices, absorb the balance.

Among the negative factors:

• Assuming a 6% increase in U.S. household savings, to 8% of GDP, is probably conservative. Goldman Sachs predicts that household savings will rise to 10% of GDP.

• It is not just U.S. households and the government that matter. U.S. businesses affect demand too, and they are likely to contract, thereby increasing the total contraction in U.S. demand.

• The world’s major economies–Europe, and Japan–as well as many of the smaller economies–Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe–are more likely to exacerbate global demand contraction, with several of them facing capital outflows (and hence a reversal of their trade deficits into surpluses, which adds to global overcapacity).

It’s 1929 Again

Although there are great differences between 1929 and 2008, the global payments imbalances that led up to the current crisis were nonetheless similar in many ways to the imbalances of the 1920s. A few countries, dominated by one very large one, ran massive current-account surpluses and in the process rapidly accumulated reserves. In the 1920s it was the U.S. that played the role that China is playing today. The U.S. economy was plagued in the 1920s with overcapacity caused by substantial increases in U.S. labor productivity. This in turn was a consequence of significant investment in the agricultural and industrial sectors and mass migration from the countryside to the cities.

Although U.S. capacity surged in the 1920s, domestic demand did not rise nearly as quickly. As a consequence, the U.S. ran large annual trade surpluses ranging from 1% to 3% of GDP during the 1920s, or 0.4% of global GDP (China, although only 6% of world GDP, has run trade surpluses of roughly the same magnitude). U.S. overcapacity didn’t matter when there was sufficient foreign demand. It could be exported, mostly to Europe, while foreign bond issues floated by foreign countries in New York permitted deficit countries to finance their net purchases.

But as the U.S. continued investing in and increasing capacity, without increasing domestic demand quickly enough, it was inevitable that something eventually had to adjust. The financial crisis of 1929-31 was part of that adjustment process. When bond markets collapsed as part of the crash, bonds issued by foreign borrowers were among those that fell the most. This, of course, made it impossible for most foreign borrowers to continue raising money, and by effectively cutting off funding for the trade-deficit countries, it eliminated their ability to absorb excess U.S. capacity.

The drop in foreign demand required a countervailing U.S. adjustment. Either the U.S. had to increase domestic consumption, or it had to cut back domestic production, but there was unfortunately more to the crisis than simply the drop in foreign demand. With the collapse of parts of the domestic U.S. banking system, domestic private consumption also fell. The slack in demand should have been taken up by U.S. fiscal expansion, but instead of expanding aggressively, as John Maynard Keynes advised, President Roosevelt expanded cautiously. When the credit crunch came and the world was awash in American-made goods that no one was willing or able to buy, it was unreasonable, as Keynes argued bitterly, to expect the rest of the world to continue purchasing U.S. goods, especially since the financing of their consumption had been interrupted.

Since U.S. production exceeded consumption, the need for demand creation, according to Keynes, most logically resided in the U.S. But Washington had other ideas. In 1927 and 1928 there were already unemployment pressures, and the 1929 collapse in demand exacerbated those pressures. This prompted U.S. senators to respond in 1930 with the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act aimed at boosting demand for domestic production. They attempted to divert demand for foreign goods to U.S. goods–basically to export their overcapacity–and in so doing force the brunt of the adjustment onto their trading partners. Their trading partners, not surprisingly, retaliated by closing their own borders to trade, causing international trade to decline by nearly 70% in three years, thereby shifting the brunt of the adjustment back onto the U.S.

The trade tariff made things worse not just because impediments to trade are costly to the global economy, but rather because it set off a trade war in which other countries forced the U.S. broadly into balance. In two years, U.S. merchandise exports declined 53%, while the trade surplus declined by 63%. Excess production over consumption had to be resolved largely within the U.S., and since much domestic investment had been aimed at the export sector, the collapse in exports brought a concomitant decline in domestic investment. The U.S. either had to engineer a substantial increase in domestic demand by fiscal means, as Keynes demanded, or adjust via a drop in production and employment. It did the latter.

Today China is facing a similar problem. With the collapse of bank intermediation, U.S. households and businesses are cutting consumption and raising savings. This is a necessary adjustment. Most analysts, perhaps thinking they are echoing Keynes’s analysis of the problem in the 1930s, call on the U.S. government to engage in massive fiscal expansion to replace lost private demand. But this is not what Keynes would have recommended. If declining U.S. private consumption is met with increasing public consumption, the world will simply continue playing the game that has already led into so much trouble. The only difference would be that instead of having one side of the global imbalance accommodated by private over-consumption and rising debt, it would be accommodated by public overconsumption and rising debt. Demand must be created by the trade-surplus countries that have, to date, relied on net exports to protect themselves from their overcapacity. They must force demand up quickly in order to close the gap, and since expecting private consumption to rise quickly enough is unrealistic, it has to be public consumption–a large fiscal deficit.

Might China and smaller Asian countries repeat the U.S. mistake of the 1930s? Perhaps. Beijing already seems to be in the process of defending its ability to export overcapacity. Although there has been an attempt to boost fiscal spending, most analysts argue that this so far has been too feeble to matter much. On the other hand it has tried to protect and strengthen its export sector by lowering export taxes and reducing interest costs, which lower the financing cost for producers and have little impact on consumers.

This cannot work for long. The proper place for new demand to originate is, as in the 1930s, in trade-surplus countries. They should be engaged in expanding demand, not expanding supply. If they try to export their way out of a slowdown, there will almost certainly be another trade backlash, in which case the full force of the adjustment will be borne by the trade-surplus countries, again as in the 1930s—with the proviso that although China’s trade surplus as a share of global GDP is comparable to the U.S. trade surplus in the 1920s, China is a much smaller economy, and so its trade surplus represents a much higher share of its GDP.

In order to make the transition workable and avoid trade friction, the world’s major economies must engineer a joint program of fiscal expansion. The trade-deficit countries should expand moderately so as to slow down the adjustment period and to give maximum traction to fiscal expansion on the part of the trade-surplus countries. China must be given at least three or four years to make concerted efforts to boost domestic demand to the point where global imbalances are more manageable.

The problem is that U.S. (and European) demand contraction is occurring at a shockingly rapid pace. There is a real risk that the adjustment process in China will careen out of control. In order to manage this risk, U.S., European, Japanese and Chinese policy makers must quickly come to a firm understanding of how significant the global adjustment is and how dangerous the process will be for China, and design a multiyear plan of demand expansion in which China is given time to adjust its overcapacity. If major economies focus only on domestic adjustment, China will almost certainly choose the path of defending its ability to export overcapacity onto the rest of the world, while the trade -deficit countries will discover the expansionary impact of trade constraints. In that case it is hard to imagine how China and the world can avoid disaster.

Michael Pettis is a finance professor at Peking University and the author of The Volatility Machine (Oxford University Press, 2001).

沁园春·买票

沁园春·买票
春节又到，神州大地，大包小包。望长城内外，人流莽莽。大河上下，民工滔滔。早起晚睡，达旦通宵，欲与票贩试比高。须知晓，看排队人流，一票难保。车票如此紧俏，引无数英雄竞折腰。昔秦皇汉武，只有遁逃；唐宗宋祖，更是没招！一代天骄，成吉思汗，只好骑马往回飙。俱往矣，数春运大军，还在今朝！！

讲来讲去都是废话，除了发达地区的动车组，大部分人坐的还是绿色的破车，但即便是动车，没有配套的软件和服务也是空。问题的关键在于要打破铁道部一股独大，引入竞争机制，一切问题迎刃而解。
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11

这是一个悲哀

最近官报证券日报的一个副编辑以“美国人”攻击谢国忠，这是一个悲哀，使人想起文革：假以意识形态，随便给人扣帽子。还好谢国忠是中国公民，倘若谢 是美国公民，真是跳进黄河洗不清了。一个国家要强大，必须要超越意识形态，具备开放的胸怀，中国自鸦片战争以后，到洋务运动，所谓“洋为中用，国学为体， 西学为用”，长期以来奉行的是极其狭隘的民族主义，即便是到了21世纪，动辄“美国购买中国资产，大幅套现”、“美国次贷是阴谋”，不乏“爱国写手”大书特书，不明就里的民众尽情地在网络宣泄他们在平日里备受压抑的“爱国主义”。

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　　新浪财经讯 2009年1月17日，由第一财经和唯众传播联合主办的“2008中国创业新锐榜颁奖典礼”在上海举行。新浪财经独家视频直播此次会议。北京万通地产公司 董事长冯仑在与新浪财经对话时表示，对于2009年房价走势的判断，面临的一大困难莫过于这个行业逐步陷入道德的陷阱，逐步去市场化，所以价格就变得无法 判断了。

　　冯仑指出，目前政策对于房地产业影响越来越大，事实上政府应该“做保障，剩下的都不用管”。他认为目前房地产市场化程度高的只剩下高端市场，所以2009年会更多的关注商用不动产。(元平 发自上海)

　　以下是新浪财经对话冯仑实录。

　　新浪财经：您对2009年的房价怎么看？万通2009年的房价策略是怎样的？

　　冯仑：实际上现在房地产，特别是住宅，每年大家都会谈一些走势、价格，但是仍然都是猜测，市场、政府、消费者还有企业之间的博弈规则太模糊。就像开运动会，你不知道裁判是什么裁判，不知道运动员怎么跑，不知道观众怎样看，所以预测不准。

　　我对09年整个市场有两个比较担忧的地方。第一是这么多年住宅的政策已经高度的道德化和意识形态化，出现了政策非常紊乱的表现。

　　从这几年来看，大家关于所谓民生保障住房的政策细节和措施，在中国可以找一个人讲得很清楚，几乎已经不可能。原来任志强还可以讲清楚，现在我看任志强也讲不清楚了。这样的情况下，市场逐步脱离了一个理性的商品市场规律，所以我们就越来越难判断了。

　　第二，在住宅方面市场的影响越来越小，政策影响越来越大。去市场化之后，实际上我们就没有价格问题了，你也就不用预测了。

　　09年对价格走势的判断，最困难的莫过于因为这个行业逐步陷入道德的陷阱，逐步又变成了一个去市场化的方式。所以，价格就变成了无足轻重，无法判断了。

　　新浪财经：那作为运动员您准备怎么跑？

　　冯仑：我们现在就看哪里市场大，哪里的政府不破坏市场我们就去哪里跑。

　　新浪财经：哪里市场大？

　　冯仑：中国高端的市场、公寓我们认为相对市场化程度高。商用不动产市场化程度高，这是我们特别要关注的地方。我们希望在这些地方使企业的创新可以得到市场的回馈，可以得到变现的机会。

　　从万通来说是强调通过创新和变革来应对和跨越周期，所以我们会继续在住宅高端市场上耕耘，同时在产品的多样化，我们今天开玩笑，我们的产品都要 戴绿帽子，变成绿色的建筑和绿色的经济，另外更多关注商用不动产，在商用不动产上做更多的努力，使企业逐步可以走到下一个蜜月。

　　新浪财经：那您应该很同意潘石屹关于降低商业物业出租税的那个提案？

　　冯仑：在潘总提案之前，媒体上也在呼吁。因为现在你们应该特别注意到一个特别扭曲的现象，就是万科去年年末交的税近70亿，利润才30多亿。这 样投资者就没有积极性了。有的企业可能会选择逃税，有的还能靠理想支撑，当企业逃税又不能生存的时候，就剩下一个道德诱因了。当一个行业靠道德激励发展的 时候，这个行业除了死亡没有选择。

　　新浪财经：那您觉得政府到底应该做什么？

　　冯仑：政府现在就是做太多了，政府就是做保障，剩下的都不管，现在政府要管公务员、夹心层、改善型住房。政府管太多，结果就是“有多少爱等于幸 福”？所以，最简单的方法就是政府把保障管好，其余统统放好，让市场来做，这样所有的都解决了。就像新加坡政府管保障，剩下的就不管了，也没有说管到这么 多。

冯仑讲的很不错，听来听去也就他和王石实在一点。前段时间地产一放松，各地方政府就纷纷出台，那么高土地转让价已经由买方者承受，还要动用纳税人交的钱补贴公务员——美其名曰“救市”。

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房企总支出近半流向政府

除了2008年房地产市场运行情况外，REICO工作室还对我国房地产开发费用进行了研究分析，从房地产开发企业的总支出角度来看，开发企业的总支 出中有接近一半是向政府的支付，流向政府的比例(包括土地成本和开发销售环节税收)达49.42%，其中土地成本占总支出的30.36%。在房地产开发企 业的总销售收入中，企业剩余(总销售收入减去总成本和税收)占总销售收入的26.14%。“企业剩余收入并不等同于企业利润，因为还要考虑建设周期的问 题，一般项目的建设周期都需三四年。”REICO工作室王震博士说。

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去年年底，美国经济学家克鲁格曼荣获诺奖。凤凰资讯台“开卷8分钟”里面，梁文道专做一集“原来还有一个克鲁格曼”，节目开头很是有趣：

老实说，最近十年读张五常的文章常常会觉得头疼，因为这位据说极有可能要拿到诺贝尔奖的经济学家写自传的兴趣似乎比写经济还大。在谈经济问题时，他会说出“ 中国已形成人类历史上最好制度”之类的怪话；在回忆往事的时候，他却能细致地描述旧作掀起重大影响的过程，不厌其烦地重复佛利民与贝克如何欣赏他佩服他的实例。
好在除了张五常之外，还有其他经济学家写得出一手好文章，能够让你天天追看，例如今年真正得了诺贝尔奖的保罗?克鲁曼（Paul Krugman）。

张五常的大作还是十分有嚼头的，但其博客絮絮叨叨也实在令人受不了。弗里德曼早就不在了，而芝加哥学派和奥地利学派的争论也永远会持续下去。至于张大师是否与诺奖有缘，大概他心有不甘罢。

从张的博客里得知他擅长摄影、书法，最近还为深圳某琴童捧场，多少和艺术沾点边。也见过他的字，远看大效果过得去，但细节没办法谈——这当然也是现代中国书法的普遍问题。好在我们自晋代就出了二王，上千年大师不算多，就那么几个；文人墨客倒是不少，虽算不得一等一，却也自有一番趣味，所以现代人取其情趣亦可。

今天在张的博客看到“《张五常谈书法》视频”，得知其师为上海周慧君。一查周，上海书坛名人，但作品实在不相称。张在视频中大谈米芾，于是乎周学的是米字，而张跟周学顺理成章。

周学米字是显而易见的，但只可惜学了样子，却不得精髓，长划干如枯木，厚处又显单薄；粗处突然转向细处则常常出现破笔——基本功不够，不得调锋之法。大部分人喜米字，易学能出效果，但不知米字圆润细腻之处却不是一朝一夕功夫。从这个角度看，王字之难在于法度太严谨，而颜字浑厚，常人写不得。张学于周，几无精髓，只得皮毛。小聚之时相互吹捧还可以；拿到大庭广众不免贻笑大方。

古巴重返舞台！

费尔南德·布罗代尔中心

纽约州宾汉顿大学，美国

Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University

http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm

伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦

（路爱国 译）

评论 第248号

2009年1月1日

古巴重返舞台！

世界经济/金融危机似乎日甚一日，整个中东地区的政治和军事继续分崩离析，全球都在期待着奥巴马就任总统，在这一切之中，世界很少注意到2008年12月中旬的一个重大地缘政治事件。古巴重返舞台！有4次拉美国家会议在巴西巴伊亚州萨尔瓦多 [Salvador de Bahía]先后举行。按出席国家的数量排序，这些会议是南美共同市场[Mercosur]会议，南美国家组织[Unasur]会议，里约集团[the Grupo de Río]会议，以及拉丁美洲和加勒比海地区第一届高峰会议(西班牙语缩写为CALC)。这些会议的主持人是巴西总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦[Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva]，而“主角”则是古巴。卢拉称之为一场“意识形态飓风”。

让我们看看发生了什么。南美共同市场是巴西、阿根廷、乌拉圭和巴拉圭的共同市场协议，委内瑞拉正在加入进来。五国总统已经宣布，他们将吸收玻利维亚的全部出口产品，因为美国在9月份撤消了该国的优惠关税，表面的理由是玻利维亚没有尽力打击毒品买卖。

这一行动得到了 南美国家组织的支持，这个组织是南美全部12个国家（加上作为观察员的墨西哥和巴拿马）的联盟。更重要的是，南美国家组织同意了巴西的提议，即成立“南美 防御委员会”。仅在去年5月份南美国家组织还曾搁置了这个提议（美国对该提议表示不悦），为此，巴西外交部长塞尔索 阿莫林[Celso Amorim]认为这个决定是“意外惊喜”。他说，这体现了拉丁美洲是拉丁美洲人的拉丁美洲的思想，这与“美洲是美洲人的美洲”的门罗主义口号针锋相对。

然而，真正重要的事件出现在12月16日里约集团会议上。里约集团是1986年建立的拉美政治论坛，到2008年已拥有22个国家，在这次会议上，该集团“一致同意”接受古巴为成员国。作为本届会议主席的墨西哥总统费利佩·卡尔德龙[Felipe Calderón]在全场起立欢呼声中欢迎劳尔·卡斯特罗为代表的古巴“兄弟人民”。论坛随即谴责美国对古巴的禁运，并要求美国必须结束禁运。

卡尔德龙和卡斯特罗举行了私下会见，以便解决卡尔德龙的前任文森特·福克斯[Vicente Fox]所造成的两国关系中的“棘手问题”。会后，卡斯特罗说，现在的关系“非常之好”。两人宣布，他们在2009年将正式进行互访。

达到高潮的会议是拉丁美洲和加勒比海地区所有33国总统的高峰会议，这在历史上是首次。只有三位总统本人没有与会，但借故另外派了人来，他们是哥伦比亚的阿尔瓦罗·乌里韦[Alvaro Uribe]、秘鲁的阿兰·加西亚[Alan García]和萨尔瓦多的埃利亚斯·安东尼奥·萨卡[Elias Antonio Saca]，他们是美国在拉丁美洲最后的坚定朋友。巴西非常希望尽可能多的人与会，以至派出了军用飞机把较穷的中美洲和加勒比海国家的总统空运到会场。

这次会议的意义要看被排除在外的国家。无论美国还是以前的殖民大国西班牙和葡萄牙都没有受到邀请。厄瓜多尔总统拉斐尔·科雷亚[Rafael Correa]说，会议标志着 “傀儡政府” 在拉丁美洲结束了。巴西记者佩佩·埃斯科巴[Pepe Escobar]把它叫做“向奥巴马潜艇发射的一枚水雷”。

这次会议的开会时间并不是偶然的。美洲第五次高峰会议计划于4月份在特立尼达召开。这是克林顿总统1994年发起成立的一个组织。同一批国家和政府的首脑将受到邀请，只不过多了两个国家即美国和加拿大，少了一个国家即古巴。

据说，奥巴马将 在那里面对巴西会议上提出的问题和提议。第一要撤消暂停古巴在美洲国家组织中成员资格的决定，从而把古巴包括进来。卢拉表示，为了改善古巴和美国的关系， 恰恰是美国必须解除禁运从而迈出第一步。第二是重审尚未清偿的国家债务。厄瓜多尔已经宣布延缓进一步偿付债务，说是在偿还了28年债务之后，它仍然欠着同 样数量的债务—这是一个“悲惨的故事”，如科雷亚总统所说。

卡斯特罗说，他 准备与奥巴马直接会谈。“如果他想讨论，我们愿意讨论。要孤立古巴越来越难了。”卢拉挑战奥巴马事实上走得更远。他说，只有在他撤销对古巴封锁的时候，其 总统任期才能真正具有历史意义。与此同时，曾经作为美国后院的拉丁美洲越来越对其他世界大国开放。俄国、中国和伊朗都显著扩大了它们在拉丁美洲的作用。

最近加入进来的是法国。尼古拉·萨科齐总 统于12月22-23日对巴西进行了正式访问。两国不但同意扩大商业往来，而且同意扩大非常重要的军事往来。法国今后将帮助巴西海军建造5艘“新一代”潜 艇，其中包括一艘核动力潜艇，这是拉丁美洲第一艘这样的潜艇。此外，法国同意向巴西转让必要技术，从而，未来巴西能够依靠自身力量建造更多潜艇。法国还将 帮助巴西建造所谓重型直升机，巴西打算成为这类飞机的出口国。

古巴的球、厄瓜多尔的球以及巴西的球现在都到了奥巴马场内。到4月份他必须让我们知道他将如何回应。

[伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦（Immanuel Wallerstein）版权所有，Agence Global负责发行。有关版权和授权，包括翻译和张贴到非商业网站事宜，请与rights@agenceglobal.com、1.336.686.9002或1.336.286.6606联系。在不改动本评论和展示版权所有条件下，允许下载、电子转发或通过电子邮件发送他人。如欲与作者联系，可发邮件给immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu。

每月两次发表的这些评论，旨在从长时段而不是当前头条新闻的角度，对当今世界变化做出反应。]

Commentary No. 249, Jan. 15, 2009

"Chronicle of a Suicide Foretold: The Case of Israel"

The state of Israel proclaimed its independence at midnight on May 15, 1948. The United Nations had voted to establish two states in what had been Palestine under British rule. The city of Jerusalem was supposed to be an international zone under U.N. jurisdiction. The U.N. resolution had wide support, and specifically that of the United States and the Soviet Union. The Arab states all voted against it.

In the sixty years of its existence, the state of Israel has depended for its survival and expansion on an overall strategy that combined three elements: macho militarism, geopolitical alliances, and public relations. The macho militarism (what current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calls the "iron fist") was made possible by the nationalist fervor of Jewish Israelis, and eventually (although not initially) by the very strong support of Jewish communities elsewhere in the world.

Geopolitically, Israel first forged an alliance with the Soviet Union (which was brief but crucial), then with France (which lasted a longer time and allowed Israel to become a nuclear power), and finally (and most importantly) with the United States. These allies, who were also patrons, offered most importantly military support through the provision of weapons. But they also offered diplomatic/political support, and in the case of the United States considerable economic support.

The public relations was aimed at obtaining sympathetic support from a wide swath of world public opinion, based in the early years on a portrait of Israel as a pioneering David against a retrograde Goliath, and in the last forty years on guilt and compassion over the massive Nazi extermination of European Jewry during the Second World War.

All these elements of Israeli strategy worked well from 1948 to the 1980s. Indeed, they were increasingly more effective. But somewhere in the 1980s, the use of each of the three tactics began to be counterproductive. Israel has now entered into a phase of the precipitate decline of its strategy. It may be too late for Israel to pursue any alternative strategy, in which case it will have committed geopolitical suicide. Let us trace how the three elements in the strategy interacted, first during the successful upward swing, then during the slow decline of Israel's power.

For the first twenty-five years of its existence, Israel engaged in four wars with Arab states. The first was the 1948-1949 war to establish the Jewish state. The Israeli declaration of an independent state was not matched by a Palestinian declaration to establish a state. Rather, a number of Arab governments declared war on Israel. Israel was initially in military difficulty. However, the Israeli military were far better trained than those of the Arab countries, with the exception of Transjordan. And, crucially, they obtained arms from Czechoslovakia, acting as the agent of the Soviet Union.

By the time of the truce in 1949, the discipline of the Israeli forces combined with the Czech arms enabled the Israelis to win considerable territory not included in the partition proposals of the United Nations, including west Jerusalem. The other areas were incorporated by the surrounding Arab states. A large number of Palestinian Arabs left or were forced to leave areas under the control of the Israelis and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries, where their descendants still largely live today. The land they had owned was taken by Jewish Israelis.

The Soviet Union soon dropped Israel. This was probably primarily because its leaders quickly became afraid of the impact of the creation of the state on the attitudes of Soviet Jewry, who seemed overly enthusiastic and hence potentially subversive from Stalin's point of view. Israel in turn dropped any sympathy for the socialist camp in the Cold War, and made clear its fervent desire to be considered a full-fledged member of the Western world, politically and culturally.

France at this time was faced with national liberation movements in its three North African colonies, and saw in Israel a useful ally. This was especially true after the Algerians launched their war of independence in 1954. France began to help Israel arm itself. In particular, France, which was developing its own nuclear weapons (against U.S. wishes), helped Israel do the same. In 1956, Israel joined France and Great Britain in a war against Egypt. Unfortunately for Israel, this war was launched against U.S. opposition, and the United States forced all three powers to end it.

After Algeria became independent in 1962, France lost interest in the Israeli connection, which now interfered with its attempts to renew closer relations with the three now independent North African states. It was at this point that the United States and Israel turned to each other to forge close links. In 1967, war broke out again between Egypt and Israel, and other Arab states joined Egypt. In this so-called Six Day War, the United States for the first time gave military weapons to Israel.

The 1967 Israeli victory changed the basic situation in many respects. Israel had won the war handily, occupying all those parts of the British mandate of Palestine that it had occupied before, plus Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Syria's Golan Heights. Juridically, there was now a state of Israel plus Israel's occupied territories. Israel began a policy of establishing

Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

The Israeli victory transformed the attitude of world Jewry, which now overcame whatever reservations it had had about the creation of the state of Israel. They took great pride in its accomplishments and began to undertake major political campaigns in the United States and western Europe to secure political support for Israel. The image of a pioneering Israel with emphasis on the virtues of the kibbutz was abandoned in favor of an emphasis on the Holocaust as the basic justification for world support of Israel.

In 1973, the Arab states sought to redress the military situation in the so-called Yom Kippur war. This time again, Israel won the war, with U.S. arms support. The 1973 war marked the end of the central role of the Arab states. Israel could continue to try to get recognition from Arab states, and it did succeed eventually with both Egypt and Jordan, but it was now too late for this to be a way to secure Israel's existence.

As of this point, there emerged a serious Palestinian Arab political movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was now the key opponent of Israel, the one with whom Israel needed to come to terms. For a long time, Israel refused to deal with the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat, preferring the iron fist. And at first, it was militarily successful.

The limits of the iron fist policy were made evident by the first intifada, a spontaneous uprising of Palestinian Arabs inside the occupied territories, which began in 1987 and lasted six years. The basic achievement of the intifada was twofold. It forced the Israelis and the United States to talk to the PLO, a long process that led to the so-called Oslo Accords of 1993, which provided for the creation of the Palestinian Authority in part of the occupied territories.

The Oslo Accords in the long run were geopolitically less important than the impact of the intifada on world public opinion. For the first time, the David-Goliath image began to be inverted. For the first time, there began to be serious support in the Western world for the so-called two-state solution. For the first time, there began to be serious criticism of Israel's iron fist and its practices vis-à-vis the Arab Palestinians. Had Israel been serious about a two-state solution based on the so-called Green Line - the line of division at the end of the 1948-1949 war - it probably would have achieved a settlement.

Israel however was always one step behind. When it could have negotiated with Nasser, it wouldn't. When it could have negotiated with Arafat, it wouldn't. When Arafat died and was succeeded by the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, the more militant Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. Israel refused to talk to Hamas.

Now, Israel has invaded Gaza, seeking to destroy Hamas. If it succeeds, what organization will come next? If, as is more probable, it fails to destroy Hamas, is a two-state solution now possible? Both Palestinian and world public opinion is moving towards the one-state solution. And this is of course the end of the Zionist project.

The three-element strategy of Israel is decomposing. The iron fist no longer succeeds, much as it didn't for George Bush in Iraq. Will the United States link remain firm? I doubt it. And will world public opinion continue to look sympathetically on Israel? It seems not. Can Israel now switch to an alternative strategy, of negotiating with the militant representatives of the Arab Palestinians, as an integral constituent of the Middle East, and not as an outpost of Europe? It seems quite late for that, quite possibly too late. Hence, the chronicle of a suicide foretold.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

股價、棉花、與尼羅河密碼 V.S. 金融市場、瘋狂、與人性

“股價、棉花、與尼羅河密碼”，原文書名是The (Mis)Behavior of Markets，作者是數學大師Benoit Mandelbort，以科學的觀點讓人了解金融市場的不單純與風險，讓你可能避免虧錢，中文版由早安財經文化於2007年出版；

「愈是了解危險，愈能做好萬全準備。幾個世紀以來，造船的人都知道要怎麼設計船身、船帆才安全，多數時候大海是平靜的，但颱風颶風來臨時，海事景況就迥然不同了。造船的人不能只考慮那95%風平浪靜的日子，還要想到另外5%的狂風巨浪才是對船隻真正的考驗。現在的金融業者和投資大眾就像忽略那5%考驗的造船人，完全無視於風雨來襲的可能性。這本書便是要提醒投資大眾重新看待風險。」、

「義大利政治家馬基維利〈Machiavelli〉：我將她的〈財富〉喻為凶猛的河水，一旦激怒它，它能淹沒廣大的平原，沖毀樹木、建築，甚至移地割山。人人聞之色變，奔逃四散，人們只能屈服在洪水的威力之下，絲毫無力阻擋。雖然如此，人類並非全然無計可施，河水平靜之時，人們可以建築堤防和壕溝，引導暴漲時的水流，也可以減低洪水的破壞力，使災害不至於太嚴重。」、

「世上沒有人是一座孤島，每個事件、每項行動都會對其他人造成影響。混沌理論的信條之一就是：在動態的系統中，任何過程的結果都受到開始的影響。」、

「金融市場的第一個特徵—巨幅波動與不連續性。」、

「金融市場的第二個特徵—群聚現象。」、

「自然界許多現象都是多碎形：多碎形也可以解釋金融市場中價格時而快速變動、時而平淡無奇的形態。」、

「市場是一道激烈波動的湍流：1960年代初期，研究尺度現象與長期相關這兩個湍流的重要特徵之後，我隨即發現，其他許多自然與經濟現象，都有相同的特徵，而這些現象可能會影響價格變動，造成類似的形態。」、

「舉例來說，我發現油礦的分布，有所謂的尺度現象，及小型礦藏很多，而大型礦藏只有少數幾處。」、

「企業界也一樣，一個產業內企業規模的大小，上自微軟、下至無數小型軟體公司，也符合尺度現象。企業規模影響利潤，因此也影響股價。」、

「經濟訊號有種長期相關性：想像一下全球經濟是一間充滿鏡子的房間。所以企業只要發出訊息，就會傳達、扭曲、或減弱整體經濟訊號。這些訊號會隨著時間的過去而減弱，但是可能得耗費數個月、數年甚至數十年的時間，才會弱到完全消失。這，就是經濟的長期相關性：所有事件不管發生多遠、發生在多久以前，都會牽動其他事件的演變。」。

看完了這本書之後你會知道其實金融市場其實越來越複雜，越來越具有人性；

因為它是一個複雜系統，所以自然界的蝴蝶效應也會在金融市場出現；

而尺度現象與長期相關這兩個湍流的重要特徵，可以在許多自然與經濟現象上發現，同樣的人性也是如此，西瓜偎大邊、貧者愈貧富者愈富、趨吉避凶是不是一種尺度現象；龍生龍鳳生鳳、江山易改本性難移、人性本善、人性本惡…等是不是一種長期相關性；

因為金融市場越來越人性化所以它就開始具有瘋狂的本錢，因為人本來就不是理性的，因為市場是人，所以它就有會有巨幅波動和不連續性，就猶如人的一生會經歷生老病死，而sudden death是我們所無法預期的，所以才要透過風險管理的手段，以減低風險的突然發生對其它我們所關心的人事物所帶來的影響。

因為市場是人為的，所以我們要開始強調從業人員的品格，期望透過道德的力量對於市場產生約束力，如此金融市場才能長治久安；或許在評估金融機構的指標中該建立一種道德量尺，或者從其人員進用的嚴謹度和價值標準去評斷這個企業的道德標準。

易曰：正其本而萬物理，失之毫釐，差以千里，故君子慎始。

誠如保德信金融集團執行長John Strangfeld所言「我所堅持的是，無論在市場好或壞，同時要堅守人才品質，並且確保人才品質優先於管理人才的機制。這或許意味著，當競爭對手在市場好的時候追求高獲利，你必須得要接受較低的成長，但對於我來說，這是非常可以接受的交換，因為我相信隨著時間過去，堅守人才品質會比追求高獲利是更好的方式」。﹙摘自商業周刊1102期，page 106﹚

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世界正經歷人性中瘋狂的一面

1102期的商業週刊標題”世界比你想像的瘋狂”，這個就是我們目前正經歷的，所以，Don’t cry over spilled milk。商業周刊請四位國際級的領導人告訴我們該以什麼態度因應。

台積電的張忠謀董事長：

〈1〉告訴大家要學會與「輸」這個字共處，還要能夠輸得起；
〈2〉認為這次的金融危機是個希臘悲劇，命運幾乎都被註定，在不同國家、不同時間其實都是以不同方式再重複，而這齣戲會繼續演下去。〈碎型理論之父Benoit Mandelbrot：這世界遙遠的過去不斷地影響著現在。〉

大前研一：

〈1〉大家應該建立系統性思考找到問題原因〈好主意，但對於如我一般的常人似乎不易做到〉；
〈2〉擔心，無法解決事情必須做點事才行，應該積極學習、繼續挑戰、提升自己〈這個提議倒是比較務實〉。

IBM Samuel J. Palmisano董事長：

〈1〉把學習權交到員工手上，信任員工會做正確的事，並把決策權往下和往外擴展，才能即時應變〈但問題是，你的員工是真的值得信任的嗎？〉；
〈2〉銀行承擔了太多風險，卻又沒有做出適當的管制〈IFRS、BASELⅡ、Fair Value Accounting 期望讓大眾更認識金融業這個黑盒子，並帶來好的改變。〉。

保德信金融集團John Strangfeld執行長：

〈1〉人格與品格比技術更重要。培養具有從心靈服務的人才，確保人才品質優先於管理人才的機制，將是長線成功更好的方式。〈呼應IBM帕米薩諾，找有品格的員工，信賴他，將學習權和決策權下放。〉
〈2〉過去一段時間，很多企業過於重視成長，以至於讓公司成為數字公司，只追求短期內賺到多少錢，多久可以損益兩平，而忽略了人的品格。
〈3〉必須確定你的人才，他不會因為環境改變了，而改變原先作法，開始走捷徑。技巧部分的確非常重要，但如果沒有良好的人格特質，算不上成功。
〈4〉 我所堅持的是，無論在市場好或壞，同時要堅守人才品質，並且確保人才品質優先於管理人才的機制。這或許意味著，當競爭對手在市場好的時候追求高獲利，你必 須得要接受較低的成長，但這是非常可以接受的交換，因為相信隨著時間過去，堅守人才品質會比追求高獲利是更好的方式〈為什麼它會被霸榮週刊喻為”瓦礫堆中 的美玉”，我想對與品格的要求就是The Secret of Prudential Financial〉。

因為異常流行幻象與群眾瘋 狂所造成的困惑之惑，所以更顯得正確的價值觀與正直的重要性，在此，我要推薦兩本書給大家閱讀，期望大家可以透過這兩本書了解市場這齣戲會以何種方式重 現、透過大師之眼建立另一種看事情的角度、終身學習、重新體會品格之重要。這兩本書分別是〈1〉股價、棉花、與尼羅河密碼；〈2〉品格的力量。

〈1〉股價、棉花、與尼羅河密碼，原文書名是The (Mis)Behavior of Markets，作者是數學大師Benoit Mandelbort，以科學的觀點讓人了解金融市場的不單純與風險，讓你可能避免虧錢，中文版由早安財經文化於2007年出版；

「愈 是了解危險，愈能做好萬全準備。幾個世紀以來，造船的人都知道要怎麼設計船身、船帆才安全，多數時候大海是平靜的，但颱風颶風來臨時，海事景況就迥然不同 了。造船的人不能只考慮那95%風平浪靜的日子，還要想到另外5%的狂風巨浪才是對船隻真正的考驗。現在的金融業者和投資大眾就像忽略那5%考驗的造船 人，完全無視於風雨來襲的可能性。這本書便是要提醒投資大眾重新看待風險。」；

更多關於”金融市場、瘋狂、與人性”請連結：http://caffein1975.blogspot.com/2009/01/vs.html

〈2〉品格的力量，一本130多年前的書對照今日的小島政治和世界金融失序後的現狀有如真理般的閃亮，立緒文化在2006年時推出了一本99元的中文普及版；

「一個國家是否偉大，並不取決於它疆域的大小，而是取決於他人民的品格。」 、
「一個偉大的國家領袖在他身後留給國家最寶貴的財富是— 一個毫無瑕疵的生活楷模，是所有後人在形成自己品格時仿效的榜樣。」、
「財富掌握在意志薄弱、缺乏自制、缺乏理性的人手中，只會成為一種誘惑和一個陷阱。它很可能成為對他自己，更經常是對別人無窮災難的根源。」、
「不管多麼微不足道的事情，都不要屈從於它；否則，儘管你可以藐視它，你卻在它的統治之下。」、
「慾望暴君的影響只能透過道德手段—自律、自尊和自制來克服。」。

網路上亦有Character的英文html版本〈http://www.virtuescience.com/samuel-smiles.html〉，希望品格的力量能在今日的社會收激濁揚清之效。

趨勢大師大前研一： 讓自己對於世界大事有觀點

商業周刊 第1102期 2009-01-05 整理者：曾如瑩

大前研一：不要回應或者太快回應一些膚淺的表象，找出事情的原因，分析和洞察。（攝影‧張家毓）

日本管理大師大前研一，見識過石油危機與日本泡沫經濟後，失落的十年如何掙扎存活。面對變動，他建議大家不要太快回應表象，急於找答案，應該建立系統性的思考，找到問題原因，才能盤點機會和優勢，找到商機。

大前直指，金融海嘯讓國際情勢丕變，美國將不再是以前的美國，台灣因為是「過手經濟」，過去利用中國便宜人力出口產品，並未厚植基礎實力，容易在這波消費緊縮中受到影響，必須在危機中思考，可以依靠什麼、緊抓什麼，才不會被淹沒。

他並認為，就算中國經濟成長率只有四到五％，但是這個龐大經濟體不會消失，台灣仍然可以利用中國在調整體質時，獲取商機。

對於個人就算是面臨裁員或者無薪假，大前研一建議，「不要為打翻的牛奶傷心」，應該積極學習，挑戰提升能力。對於即將出社會的年輕人，他建議用網路和雙腳親自確認事實，培養溝通、洞察、探索世界的三種能力，培養出不被淘汰的DNA。以下是專訪內容：

《商業周刊》問（以下簡稱問）：日本在一九九○年代遇過經濟泡沫化，經歷失落的十年，這次全球金融風暴你認為需要多久時間復甦？

大前研一答（以下簡稱答）：需要十年，可能更糟，因為所有政府都在承諾他們無法做到的事情。

你要知道，所有金融危機會經歷三階段，美國在十月時是第一階段；銀行流動性危機，第二階段是銀行活化負資產會遇到困難，因為股價低落，銀行根本無法從股票市場找到新資金，第三是企業倒閉，只有解決三項問題，才可能走上復甦的長路。

問：但是各國政府都在努力救經濟，真的需要十年嗎？

答：處理金融危機有三點原則：第一要視此為系統性問題，而非個別銀行的危機；第二，瞭解會發生什麼慘劇，你才能在第一時間找到解決答案；第三是建立國際組織防範危機再發生。

消費不是首要之事　因為一直花錢就必須有人償還

上面三點美國通通沒做到，美國財政部長鮑爾森 （Hank Paulson）決策時放入太多個人的判斷，只對單一現象（Phenomenon）反應，他讓雷曼破產、拯救花旗銀行，只因為他前老闆魯賓（Robert Rubin）是花旗前財務長，都是個人利害關係。美國政府、機構和學者，到目前為止只有恐慌，即便是克魯曼（Paul Krugman），或者其他學者，都叫大家消費、消費、消費，我們要學小羅斯福政策，這很可笑！根本不是首要之事，因為一直花錢就必須有人償還。

問：所以，問題的來源在美國，解決動能也來自美國？

答：這 是美國犯下的罪，跟他們責怪中國散播病毒、毒奶是如出一轍，美國散布金融有毒物，讓世界陷入恐慌！就像是中國的殺蟲劑餃子，房地美（Freddie Mac）和房利美（Fannie Mae）賣了五兆安全保證給全球，因為標準普爾說這是AAA產品，他們讓金融危機流散到各地。

沒有人知道（美國金融產品）裡面有什麼，就像是中國餃子，根本不知道裡面到底有什麼肉，可能有豬肉、牛肉甚至是兔肉或貓肉。他們必須瞭解，這是美國對全人類犯下最大的罪，美國必須認錯……。

問：如果需要十年才能復甦，台灣會不會走向日本長達十五年衰退期的後路？目前日本已經復甦了嗎？

答：歡迎加入我們的俱樂部（welcome to the club，笑）。但如果你們像日本還算幸運，日本有強勁的支撐底部，不是像海綿彈彈跳跳不穩（手往上往下像在拍海綿）。日本有很多存款，扎實的技術和經營支撐。

台灣沒有，台灣的經濟是「過手（pass through）」經濟，到全世界去買零件，拿到中國製造賣到全球，拿利潤，沒有人真的從零組件做起，除了TSMC或者UMC之外，沒有人真的生產什麼，因此你們才急於利用中國便宜人力和市場。

放輕鬆，問題沒有想像嚴重　台灣應緊盯中國的調整找商機

問：台灣這樣的經濟體，企業和個人如何面對？

答：放輕鬆點。

問：放輕鬆點？

答：放鬆一點，你們的問題沒廣東嚴重，你到廣東看看，他們主要出口到美國，被影響更大，印度更嚴重，因為他們科技公司主要賣東西給美國金融機構，現在這些美國金融機構不買了。

這個時間台灣正好可以思考一下自己的根源。當危機來臨，我們可以依靠什麼，抓住什麼才不會被淹沒？

中國正在做一個大調整，你們應該緊盯中國的調整，假設我是台灣人，我會利用中國的調整找到商機。

問：像是哪些機會？

答：像中國這樣大的經濟體不會消失，只會改變她的體質，單靠自己改變相當困難。如果中國人失業了，他們會開職業訓練課程，再訓練中國人，假設中國失業他們需要提升能力，台灣人會開補習班，你不用擔心，我相信台灣人會從中國的問題裡找到賺錢的機會。

你們也可以更深入看中國內部的需求，將產品和服務輸入中國，這是歐洲、美國和日本想做，但是台灣人更瞭解中國需求，台灣人會講日文、中文和英文，這是黃金組合（Golden combination強調語氣），沒有人可以做到；唯一可以瞭解三個主要市場就是台灣人。

問：你不擔心中國房貸的問題，造成中國經濟縮水？

答：中國地產商應該擔心，但是一般人不需要擔心，中國經濟相較於過去每年成長一一％，即便降低一、兩個百分點，也是很好的經濟體，超出你能吃的範圍了；即便當中國經濟只成長四到五個百分點，台灣還是可以調整腳步，再次定義中國市場，然後獲得利益。

問：其他亞洲地區未來呢？

答：要注意韓國。韓國一直在強調GDP（國內生產毛額）的成長，好幾年前，日本就已經放棄強調GDP的成長，現在我們是第二十名，我們都不再講經濟成長，這意味著GDP已經不重要了，但是韓國還持續強調，希望有七％的成長，GDP成長為全球七大經濟體之一等等。

每 次成長，他們都知道那是經濟泡沫，然後又再次被拉回現實，把重點放在強調GDP是很大的問題，因為他們的經濟成長沒有底部支撐力道；他們沒有人才、基礎建 設，沒有零件製造商，沒有設備製造商，他們到中國生產產品，再賣到其他地方，這都非常虛無，現在他們被拉回現實，發現過去十五年根本沒有什麼成長。

新加坡沒有分析錢從哪裡來　他們開了兩個國際賭場是個笑話

問：你過去認為，新加坡是個很好的貿易商，懂得槓桿出自己最大的好處……。

答：不，現在我認為新加坡正失去競爭優勢，新加坡開了兩個國際賭場是個笑話。

想 想誰會到新加坡賭錢啊？新加坡看到澳門和香港結合，就開始驚慌他們會失去展覽、開會和購物人潮，他們以為自己失去競爭力，但是他們不懂，九成澳門的賭場成 功來自於貪污，一個籌碼就是一千塊，那是一個相當好用的洗錢工具。一般外國旅客只小賭個二十美元，澳門賭場成功是因為這整個機制就是中國洗錢機器，沒有人 願意跟新加坡政府在洗錢上打交道。

我想他們犯的很大的錯誤，就是沒有分析錢從哪裡來，犯了一個歷史大錯。

問：但是不要說是國家政策，商業世界也變化很快，根本很難下對的決定。

答：下決定的基本條件就是瞭解目前狀況，不要回應或者太快回應一些膚淺的表象，你不應該回應表象，因為每個表象都有其原因，像是澳門會興盛，真正的原因是因為中國的貪污文化。

要瞭解並不困難，我就是自己發現的，我用腳來蒐集資料。

問：所以你建議大家不要太快回應現象？

答：正是。

年輕人必備的三個關鍵能力　溝通力、找答案、建立世界觀

問：如果不立即回應外在狀況，那麼如何準備自己，在寒冬下面對未來？

答：第一，現金為王。第二，現在不是跳槽的時機。要投資你自己，尤其要好好檢視你之前所認知的所有事實，建構屬於自己的世界觀。例如，你知不知道因為美國已經不再是以前的美國了，中國也經歷改變，不只是因為金融海嘯，而是中國在奧運後正在定義自己要成為怎樣的角色。

我對台灣年輕人的建議相當簡單，投資自己，讓你在任何國家和狀況都可以成為堅強的領導者，不要把自己局限在台灣。

問：這要建立哪些競爭力？

答：三 種關鍵能力，第一，語言和溝通能力，不止是語言能力，而是理解對方的能力，像是你可以強硬說，「在週三前看完這些東西！」你也可以說「幫我個大忙，下週三 把這些還給我，可以嗎？」同樣一件事，溝通的方式很多，在多重文化、規範和狀況下，擁有溝通能力就等於全部，因為每個人都有不同意見，你必須整合這些意 見，執行，並且達到目的，這是你在商業世界，唯一需要發展能力。

第二，當你有問題，必須找到事實，讓事實說話。在確定你表象的原因和分析之前不要有動作。分析事情的原因，找出最終解決問題的方法，這是黃金能力：不是依賴單一的知識，找出答案的方法才是真正的能力。有時候洞察能力必須跳脫你原本的位階。

溝通能力和解決問題能力後，第三種能力，知道世界正在發生什麼事，讓自己對於世界大事有觀點。第三種能力相當重要，因為可以塑造你的職業生涯計畫和未來計畫，瞭解你想做什麼。

即便到現在我每年都會選擇一個國家，研究這個國家，去年是羅馬尼亞，今年是俄羅斯，下一年是印尼。

問：但是我們必須有意識的去學習解決問題的方法？

答：對，不要只是讀書或者看雜誌，必須有一個主題，做網際瀏覽或者到當地旅遊，然後就會有一個獨特的見解，擁有自己對於世界大事的觀點，相當重要。

另 外，你也許會發現自己還欠缺一兩樣才能，或者想發展第三樣才能，像是除了中、英和日文外，也許你發現自己需要另一個語言，但是你要先有第三種能力（瞭解世 界），因為商業機會永遠都在，如果每個人都在同一個領域找機會，根本沒有商機可言，因為速度快，有錢，最強的人都已經先探索過了，後進者必須在已有的領域 之外探索，為了知道這些商機，你必須有些假設，幸運的是，現在你也可以在網路上蒐集資料，不需要親身旅遊。

問：國際勞工組織曾公布，二○○九年將會有兩億人失業。對於已經被裁員的人，你有什麼建議？

答：那就重新開始。不要擔心重新開始，不是有句話說，不要為了打翻的牛奶悲傷，因為已經打翻了，如果被裁員就被裁員吧！放輕鬆點，你已經辛苦大半輩子了，現在是停下來休息的時候了，你不會餓死，而且你自由了。

被裁員就是學習的好時間　繼續幫明年可能破產的公司更可怕

這是學習的好時間，在日本，被裁員了就是上課，日本有稱為「哈囉！工作」的計畫，我很多朋友去了職業訓練所，學著做木工、縫製地毯、學電腦，繼續幫一家明年可能會破產的公司工作還讓我比較擔心。

問：你對於人們現在遇到的問題很樂觀？

答：在我生活經驗裡，擔心並無法解決任何事，當我試著改進但是仍然沒有幫助，我也會煩惱，但是我從經驗得知，擔心無法解決問題，必須做些事才行。

目前為止，你們很有奮戰精神，永遠可以往上走，對吧？永遠有能力往上走，如果你們停止奮戰、停止提升自己，就完了；如果你想掌握自己生活，必須繼續挑戰，提升自己。

我問你一個問題，你們有個疑似犯罪的總統，在瑞士有大筆非法儲蓄，他們幾乎把錢都搬光，國家的灶腳都被搞亂了八年，你們不也是活下來了？就我來看，沒有比這更糟糕的狀況了（大笑）。

台灣不會死的啦！很多人都說台灣會在五年、十年結束，但是都挺過來了。你們是戰鬥者，台灣是我見過最硬命的國家。

小檔案 _大前研一 [ 隱藏 ]

●一九四三年出生
●曾任麥肯錫分公司社長
●現為商業突破研究學院校長，訓練超過一萬名高階經理人
●出版《思考的技術》、《M型社會》預告中產階級消失趨勢、曾在一九九○年日本泡沫化前率先撰文提出警告

找寻丰胸细腰

简介关于武汉赌马的报道，探讨中国的赌博业的可能

并非赌博，但是运气好的确实能赢点什么

在中国，对于小型投机者来说，机会并不多。因此，当7000武汉居民最近聚集在东方马城跑马场时，他们沸腾不已，沉浸于中央领导阶层所谓的“社会罪恶”之中 。自1949年中国共产党禁止非法赌博以来，在大陆，武汉市民是最早正式获准从跑马场里赢钱的。

麻木的投机者的失望源于缺乏堕落的机会。赌博也曾是被禁止的。现在，去看赛马的人可以在5场比赛的2场中免费挑选一匹马，如果它赢了，就能获得20张彩票刮卡，这彩票使他们有机会赢得3万元人民币（4，400美元）。一个幸运的得主斩获4000元，而大部分人赢得的钱还不够回家的出租车费。亦听到一个从四川坐飞机来的大赢家对自己鼓鼓的钱包的无能骂骂咧咧。

实验性质的11月的赛马会是朝着开放这个国家巨大的赌博市场方向迈出的重大一步。同月，世界扑克联赛向电视观众介绍了中国扑克，即“拖拉机”。随着经济的衰退，政府用意识形态换取经济利益的动机更强烈了。一个中国研究员声称围绕着赛马展开的一个全国性的赌博产业能产生3百万工作岗位和400亿人民币的税收。政府还可能从由地下非法赌博带来的预计每年7000亿的损失中挽回一部分。

但是还需要说服共产党中的保守派。他们认为对大众来赛马说是道德沦丧，是对社会稳定的挑战和向殖民主义的倒退：在20世纪初，不断于往来于长江上的英国商人在武汉设立了跑马场。

武汉新的跑马场会员们有所转变。一个参与者，亦是一个教师出身的企业家，引用了邓小平的一句用于结束道德辩论的名言：“不管黑猫白猫，抓到老鼠就是好猫。” 其他人满怀热情地听取了跑马场评论员的意见：挑一匹头马和挑一个美女一样---找胸大腰细。

跑马场的经营商东方神马集团是港商胡越高所有，这次罕见地得到了中央政府支持，体育部总局副局长敲响了开赛的锣鼓，但它仍恐惧于政府政策的变幻无常。还有一个育马场和训练场在建中，他的可能损失会很大（同样，93名正在当地大学攻读赛马学位的学生也有很大风险）。该集团在过去曾见过赛马活动被叫停，因为伴随的非法赌博太猖獗，特别是2005年在北京的时候。现在他们把“小心为上”视为重中之重。

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保守中國，居然開放賽馬賭博！

作者：經濟學人 　出處：Web Only 2009/01

在中國武漢，最近有7000名當地人聚集在東方馬城，沈迷於中央政府所謂的社會罪惡，他們是共產黨1949年禁止賭博後，第一批在官方認可下，可以在賽馬中贏錢的人。

賭博仍然是禁止的，這樣的方式實驗性非常濃厚，看賽馬的人可以在5場比賽中，挑2場來選一匹馬，不必付錢，如果贏了可以得到20張刮刮樂，有機會刮中最高3萬元人民幣的獎金，但大部分人刮中的獎金連坐計程車回家都不夠。

11月時舉行的賽馬會議，讓中國向開放賭博跨出了重要的一步，同一個月，世界撲克巡迴賽也在電視上，推出了中國撲克（拖拉機）比賽。在經濟衰弱時，政府犧牲意識形態以換取利益，格外引人注目。研究者認為，全國開放賭馬可以帶來3百萬個工作機會，和4百億人民幣的稅收。

不過，這必須要能說服共產黨內的保守派認為賭馬是不道德的行為，是社會穩定的挑戰，也是殖民主義的回頭路，因為英國商人曾在20世紀初期，在武漢進行賭馬。有名賭客引用了鄧小平的話反駁道德問題：「不管黑貓白貓，捉到老鼠就是好貓。」

賽馬的舉辦者東方神馬集團，總裁是香港的企業家胡越高。東方神馬擁有中央少見的支持，但也很擔心政府的變化無常，目前東方神馬正在興建飼馬場和訓練場地，若賽事停止將承受極大的損失，因此其最首要的策略便是小心謹慎。（黃維德譯）

經濟學人英文原文

慢的教育

商業周刊 1102 期推薦

• 出版社：大塊文化
• 作者：歐諾黑
• 出版日期：2009/01/05

現代的父母，除了供給孩子最好的，也要求孩子做到最好。「直昇機式父母」是形容不分晝夜在孩子頭頂上盤旋的父母親。在日本，「教育媽媽」除了睡眠時間之外，每一秒鐘都獻給子女。「怪獸家長」更指稱那些對學校提出不合理要求的家長監護人。不論按哪一種尺度衡量，我們都是在養育人類有史以來最怪異的、最受寵溺的、最被監視的一代。小孩的權益被尊為國際法律，他們就是父母親的宇宙中心。「微觀管理」下培育出來的孩子，到頭來連獨立自主都成了問題。

從小被捧在手心裡長大的人，期待全世界都把他捧在手心裡，如果不是這樣，就會覺得受了虧待。這本書並不是一本親職手冊，而是設法駕馭那些圍繞著孩子的焦慮，重新思考做為一個小孩的意義何在，做為大人的意義又何在，並且找出使兩者調和而不衝突的方法，以及最重要的，如何讓我們的小孩成為從容的一代。

假如你曾經想過給還在媽媽肚子裡的胎兒播放莫札特的音樂，以便及早培養孩子的氣質，或是身負壓力，要給孩子最好的一切、要把孩子變成所有孩子中最好的，因而凡事過問，甚至嘗試幫他們把一切都安排得好好的……那麼，這本書你非看不可。作者在書中細述了逐漸改變的親職和童年，從而認為我們要從根本上做一些修正。如果再這麼焦慮下去，可能錯失家庭生活與孩子成長過程中的一些寶貴的東西。

作者帶我們在歐、亞、美洲走了一圈，找尋一條可在二十一世紀暢行無阻的公式，他整理了許多近期的相關研究，訪問了許多專家、學者，也聽了第一線的家長、教師及兒童們的意見，釐清真正的問題所在，並且試著找出最佳答案。

當培育子女的態度走到極端，就成了「過度親職行為」，因而必須設法駕馭圍繞著孩子的焦慮，重新思考做為一個小孩的意義何在，做為大人的意義又何在。以及最重要的，如何讓我們的小孩成為從容的一代。

我當然不是第一個想拉拔孩子出人頭地的爸爸，做父母的難免都有這個毛病。兩千年前的一位做老師的語言學家奧比留‧普皮勒斯 （Lucius Orbilius Pupillus）就說過，望子成龍太迫切的父母親乃是古羅馬學堂裡的潛在職業災害。如今做父母親的更是時時唯恐埋沒了孩子的天分，我們想要供給孩子最好 的，也要求孩子做到最好。我們希望孩子成為藝術家、學者、運動明星，希望孩子不吃苦、不受挫，一帆風順走完人生。

其實，過動的、忙著打頭陣的，還不止於父母親。上起政府、下至業者廣告，都急於插手安排孩子們的童年。英國國會的一個特殊任務委員會前不久發布警告：有太多兒童夢想成為童話中的公主或足球明星。他們因而提出對策，要為五歲的兒童提供生涯建議輔導。

你不論走到哪兒，聽到的訊息都一樣：童年時間太寶貴了，不能任由孩子自己去過；兒童太寶貴了，不能任其自然發展。各式各樣的干預正在塑造一種新的童年。以前的時代裡，兒童往往要下田和大人一起勞動，工業革命以後兒童又進入工廠。如今我們又步入規畫管理童年的時代。

環顧一下四周就知道，兒童如今成為成人焦慮緣由與干預目標，是有史以來最嚴重的。紐約一位懷孕的友人在電子郵件上說，她每晚要播放胎 教音樂一小時，希望能刺激胎兒的腦發育。在上海，高瞻遠矚的父母親已經幫助幼兒報名參加了「早期ＭＢＡ」教育班。每星期日早上上課的學生們要學習建立團 隊、解決難題、自信自主之重要，班上的學生有些還包著尿片。

現今許多兒童的活動日程表連執行長看到也自歎弗如。幼兒一天之中要趕場上幼兒瑜伽課、幼兒有氧舞蹈課、幼兒手語課。住在加州的一位姬兒‧潘納，買了 一個掌上型電腦給兒子當生日禮物，為的是幫他記得各項課外才藝補習的時間，計有彈鋼琴、學西班牙語、打棒球、踢足球、打網球、游泳、空手道。她說：「他太 忙了，必須學習時間管理。」她這個兒子才十歲。

孩子被數位科技盯牢　像「楚門」一樣完全被監控

即使孩子不是這樣忙個不停，他們閒下來的時候，我們也不讓他們離開視線。我們把全球衛星定位系統（ＧＰＳ）的裝置放在孩子的外套口 袋、書包、制服衣褲裡，就把孩子變成我們在家裡或辦公室工作的電腦螢幕上一閃一閃的亮點。行動電話越來越具有追蹤孩子行跡的功能：孩子只要飄出了指定的 「安全區域」，爸媽立刻收到通知簡訊。安親班和日托中心會安裝網路攝影機，讓父母親走到世界上任何地方都能同步收看孩子的一舉一動。二十一世紀的夏令營也 不再是青少年躲開父母監視的地方了，再偏遠的湖泊森林地區，也能把照片和錄影傳回家裡的收信匣，或貼上網給父母看。科羅拉多的一位有多年夏令營輔導經驗的 人士說：「以前父母親把孩子送進來以後，能收到孩子一張明信片或一通電話，此外沒有別的訊息，就很滿意了。現在的父母親只要一天沒看見孩子在網上露臉，或 是看到了卻發現孩子臉上沒笑容，就會急得抓狂。」

這一代孩子是自己主演《楚門的世界》的第一批巨星，還沒出生就被人用超音波偷窺，被竊聽心跳。據傳，演員湯姆‧克魯斯（Tom Cruise）因為等不及要監控未出生的女兒，自行買了聲波圖機來使用，不顧醫生警告非專業人士操作可能傷害胎兒。嬰兒出生之後，爸媽們又用數位的杜比音 效設備盯牢每一刻。現代的父母就像是狗仔隊，亦步亦趨的守候，手指等在相機快門或是錄影按鈕上，絕不放過珍貴畫面——甚至會設計畫面。我自己有時候也會像 個導演一樣的發號施令：「再做一次剛才那個鬼臉，我再拍一張。」或是：「大家都暫停遊戲，看著我這裡微笑。」

生理早衰、心理失調　從幼兒起就被藥物拴牢

不論按哪一種尺度衡量，我們都是在養育人類有史以來最怪異、最受寵溺、最被監控的一代。這樣究竟是不是件壞事呢？

先從健康說起。小孩子像圈在雞舍裡的肉雞一樣，被餵給高熱量的食物卻缺乏運動，肥胖的狀況已經危及健康。美國業者推出了為肥胖嬰幼兒 設計的超大汽車安全座椅。美國有將近五分之一的兒童是體重過重的，世界上的其他國家也有緊追在後的統計數字。按國際肥胖研究協會 （International Association for the Study of Obesity）的估計，到了二○一○年，歐洲十八歲以下的人口將有三八％是胖子，南北美洲將高達五○％。現在的青少年已經因為過重而有罹患心臟病、第二 型糖尿病、動脈硬化的風險，這些疾病以往都是成年人才會有的。

生理早衰之外，心理方面的問題也不少。憂鬱、自我傷害、暴食或厭食等病例，以及胃痛、頭痛、慢性疲勞等自我引發的病症，在世界各地都 漸漸成為兒科病。根據聯合國公布的報告，目前已有五分之一的兒童患有心理失調，世界衛生組織估計，精神病症將在二○二○年上升到青少年死亡或殘障的五大原 因之列。英國現在每二十八分鐘就有一名年齡在十三至十九歲之間的青少年自殺。日本這個年齡層的孩子比較不傾向自我了斷，而是躲在自己的臥室裡幾星期、幾個 月不出來，甚至有人在自己房間裡一躲就超過一整年。日本專家估計，目前日本這個年齡的宅男宅女已超過四十萬人。其他國家提出的大學生精神崩潰病例統計數 字，也是空前的。十年前，學生進輔導室求助的最常見原因是戀愛感情問題；如今的首要原因是焦慮。曾任美國國家心理衛生中心主任、現任哈佛大學神經生物學教 授的史蒂芬‧海曼（Steven Hyman）說，美國大學生的心理健康已經惡劣到「妨礙大學履行核心使命」的地步。

越來越多的孩子（光是美國就超過六百萬）為了學業不輸人——甚至為了只求混及格——而服用調整行為與情緒的藥品。現在甚至有些嬰幼兒睡前喝牛奶時也 要服下抗憂鬱劑。自一九九三年至今，全世界開立的利他能（Ritalin）、亞天達（Attenta）、服佳能（Focalin）等約束兒童過動行為的處 方，增加至原來的三倍。專家們擔心許多家庭現在正把作用於精神的藥品當成親職工具。一位在紐約豪宅郊區執業的醫生，現在會詢問每一位要求開立利他能處方的 家長：「你要用這個幫誰舒壓，幫小孩子還是你自己？」這種依賴藥物案例激增的現象背後，隱藏著尖銳的反諷：一代曾經藉藥物解放自己的成年人，如今要用藥物 把自己的子女拴牢。

可悲的是，這麼多的「微觀管理」，這樣的寵溺、呵護、用藥，並不能製造出條件頂尖的孩子。世界各地的學校老師都在說，有些學生連安靜坐好、專心聽講都做不到。企業雇主們也在抱怨，許多新進人員欠缺適應彈性、欠缺團隊合作的能力、欠缺學習熱忱。

按照他人理解的成功定義養大的孩子，不被允許失敗，到後來也可能變成眼界狹窄的人。正當全球化經濟迫切需要敢冒險的人才時，我們卻在 教導子女不可冒險，要走別人已經鋪好的大路。現在的年輕人當然還是會叛逆，但是，一九六○、七○年代那種撼動既有政治權威、改造通俗文化的美國校園抗議活 動，已經看不見了。現在的大學生比較在乎的是如何拿出漂亮的履歷表，而不是高舉抗議標語了。教授們眼中的這一代大學生就像蜂巢裡的工蜂，擅長玩制度規定下 的遊戲，卻不會綻放個人的光芒。

為資訊時代重新規畫童年，殊非易事。第一步就是大家一起暫停，也就是說，暫時拋開各種鼓吹宣傳的影響，看清孩子是不是在活受罪。然後 我們就要設法回答一些不容易答出來的問題：什麼時候該鞭策孩子，什麼時候以放手為妙？孩子究竟需要多少自由？多少技能？應該許可孩子嘗試的風險有哪些？

越早積極學習　越容易焦慮、欠缺創意

「及早教育」和「世界和平」一樣，聽來就是理所當然的——誰能反對讓孩子在起跑的時候領先別人一大段？可是，這樣暖房催熟式的成果逃 不出報酬遞減法則的制約。不錯，有些這樣培養出來的孩子——踏進幼兒園的時候就已經能讀有章節的書、會寫自己的名字、對功課表應付裕如——的確令老師讚歎 家長得意。但是他們能就此一帆風順嗎？提早學習能有長遠的收益嗎？其實不然。新近的研究顯示，提早完成學習的進度並不擔保日後名列前茅。美國費城的一項研 究發現，幼兒園時期在積極學習讀、寫、算之中度過的孩子，以及在優閒遊戲中度過的孩子，到七、八歲的時候並沒有明顯可見的學業差距。唯一的差距是，暖房催 熟般提早學習的孩子往往較易產生焦慮，也比較欠缺創意。

雖然有許多人相信，先把字母、數字、形狀、顏色學好是上小學的最佳準備，小一老師們的看法卻不是這樣。他們認為，社會適應良好、懂得 與人分享、有同理心、能聽從教導的孩子，比較能把讀寫算都學好。專家都一致認為，正式教學從六歲時開始成效最好。六歲大的孩子已經比較能夠理解抽象概念， 前兩、三年快慢不一的發展也大致拉平了。六歲以前過早學習讀寫算，可能使孩子對學習產生反感，進而影響到以後的學習意願。

學齡以前的孩子最需要的，似乎是在安全自在的環境中自由探索周遭世界，有故事可聽，能吟謠唱歌，能談天遊戲。他們需要努力、費心、全力以赴，但不是照許多大人想像的那種模式。（本文摘錄自序、第三章）

作者簡介_ 歐諾黑 [ 隱藏 ]

知名記者，目前居住於倫敦。他曾為《經濟學人》、《觀察家報》、《國家郵報》與《休士頓紀事報》等各報刊撰稿。「慢活」的理念風靡全世界，《慢活》一書被翻成30種語言，全球熱賣。