Redesigning Europe’s biggest economy
重新设计欧洲最大的经济体

Unbalanced Germany
失衡的德意志

Aug 6th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Europe’s champion is justly proud of its exporters. It also needs to worry about markets closer to home
欧罗巴之（经济）翘楚理应为其出口商感到骄傲。但它也需要考虑其国内市场。

Michael Morgenstern


IN THE late 1950s Chancellor Konrad Adenauer campaigned by reminding West German voters of their growing, but fragile, prosperity. “No experiments!” was his slogan. Adenauer’s spirit is abroad once more as Germany, united now and infinitely more self-assured, prepares for a national poll in September with a startling lack of audacity.

上世纪50年代末，时任德国总理的康拉德•阿登纳在其竞选活动中提醒西德选民们，繁荣虽日益增长却仍显孱弱。“不要试验！”成了他的竞选口号。今天，统一的德国远比（半个世纪前）自信。然而在该国即将于九月份举行大选之际，大胆进取精神之匮乏让人吃惊，阿登纳式的思潮再次弥漫开来。

To German eyes, the reason to be steady is as plain as the badge on a Mercedes-Benz. The country has had a pretty good crisis. GDP has lurched sickeningly downward, but employment has not. Germany’s economic machine is made of honest iron and steel, not subprime mortgages, collateralised debt obligations and other financial chicanery. Having been concocted in Wall Street and the City of London, the crisis, it is said, has proved the merit of Germany’s solid social-market economy. Indeed, today’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, wants September’s G20 summit in Pittsburgh—just days before the election—to approve a “sustainable” economic charter that enshrines the German approach to taming markets.

在德国人看来，保持稳定的理由之显而易见，就如同梅塞德斯-奔驰轿车上的（车轮）标志之朴实无华。经济危机对德国造成的影响不算太坏。国内生产总值急剧下滑，但就业率还算大致稳定。德国的经济机器是踏踏实实地用钢和铁做成的，而不是次级房屋抵押贷款、担保债务凭证和其他金融欺诈。有人说这场在华尔街和伦敦金融城被调制出来的危机恰好证明了德国稳健的社会市场经济（模式）的优越性。的确，现任德国总理安吉拉•默克尔想让将于九月份在匹兹堡举行的20国集团峰会——该峰会就在德国大选数天前举行——通过一份将德国式市场监管方法庄严载入的“可持续”经济宪章。

Ideological assertiveness makes a change for a country that spent much of the past 15 years debating how far it needed to copy Anglo-American capitalism. But, if you look more closely, the Bundesrepublik does not come out of the crisis quite so well. Just as America and Britain now have to grapple with better ways to regulate financial services, so Germany also faces hard questions, about the lopsided shape of its economy, the need for further painful change, and whether its political parties have the gumption to embrace reform.

在过去的15年中，德国大部分时间里都在就该国需要在多大程度上照搬英美资本主义（模式）而争论不休。对这样一个国家来说，（目前）意识形态上的固执己见是一种改变。然而，如果你更近距离地观察，（就会发现）德意志联邦共和国并没有在这场危机中独善其身。就像美英两国眼下不得不设法找到更好的金融服务监管方法一样，德国也面临着经济形态失衡、需要进行更多痛苦的变革，以及该国各政党是否有致力于改革的进取心等诸多难题。

Wirtschaftsblunder
经济失策

It may seem unfair, but the reason to question Germany’s economy is the dominance of its exporters. Few can look at Germany’s champions without admiring them—not just the giant carmakers that have conquered the world through their engineering excellence, but the pencil-makers, machine-tool designers, printing-press firms and countless other specialists that each lead their niche. Some German companies have been caught up in scandals, a sign perhaps that their corporate governance is not all that it is cracked up to be (see article). Most of them, however, mock the clichés used to deride European business. German exporters are innovators, tough on wages and flexible enough to get the job done. They have stayed competitive against all comers.

或许这似乎不公平，但是对德国经济表示怀疑的理由正是该国出口商的统治地位。很少有人能够不带着羡慕的眼光看待德国的龙头企业——不仅是那些已经征服世界的规模庞大的汽车制造商，还有铅笔生产商、机床设计商、印刷机生产商，以及其他数不清的在各产业中独领风骚的专业化生产商。一些德国企业曾身陷丑闻囹圄，这或许表明它们的企业管理并不如它们吹嘘的那样好。然而大多数德国企业对于那些被用来嘲笑欧洲企业的陈词滥调不屑一顾。德国的出口商是创新者，它们严格控制工资，而在做生意方面却足够灵活。无论跟哪国企业相比，它们都始终保持着强大的竞争力。

Yet Germany’s muscle-bound economy is also a victim of its exporters’ success. Global markets are volatile: the country’s current-account surplus has fallen by more than half from a mighty 8% of GDP in just a year. As the hard-earned surpluses piled up, they were invested in lower-quality foreign assets. Just ask the German banks that gave their money to those sharks on Wall Street, or the firms that splashed out on big acquisitions, like Chrysler. Germany seemed to forget that the point of exports is ultimately to pay for imports (see article).

然而德国缺乏弹性的经济也是其出口商大获成功的牺牲品。世界市场变幻无常：德国的经常帐户盈余在短短的一年时间里从占国内生产总值8%的高位下跌了一半有余。这些辛苦赚来的盈余积累起来后被投资在质量低下的外国资产上。（这一点）只要问问那些把钱借给华尔街骗子们的德国银行，或者那些把大把钞票挥霍在诸如（戴姆勒收购）克莱斯勒的大规模收购上的德国企业（就行）。德国似乎忘记了出口的终极目的是支付进口。

But Germany prefers to save rather than spend. In the boom German consumers stayed at home. Last year consumer spending was only 56% of GDP compared with 70% in America. Puny demand was partly the result of small wage rises, but it was also because Germany’s service sector is underdeveloped. This matters because, although Germany can still export to the rapidly industrialising (and rapidly growing) emerging economies, demand has faded in the far bigger markets in America and Europe. Germany needs to sell services at home to fill the gap.

但是德国偏爱储蓄而非消费。在经济繁荣期德国消费者们却呆在家里。去年消费支出只占德国国内生产总值的56%，而在美国这一比例高达70%。萎靡的需求部分是工资上涨幅度微弱的结果，但同时也是德国的服务业发展滞后所造成的。这一点很重要，因为尽管德国仍然可以向正经历快速工业化（以及正迅速发展）的新兴经济体出口，但在市场规模远大于这些经济体的美国和欧洲，需求却已经衰退。德国需要拉动服务业内需以弥补差额。

Germans will tell you saving is a national obsession that reaches far back into their history. And they do not want more services—they hate getting in help to do the cleaning or put up shelves. Perhaps; but the dearth of spending and new service businesses is also caused by government policy. Germans struggle to create companies. Germany comes 102nd out of 181 countries recently surveyed as places to start businesses by the World Bank. Start-up capital is scarcer than it is elsewhere. There has been deregulation, to lengthen shopping hours and to coax the long-term unemployed back into work. But Germany remains bad at getting women and older people into jobs. Full-time posts are over-protected and generous welfare benefits act as a minimum wage. To cap it all, in 2007 the state squashed consumer demand by increasing value-added tax.

德国人会告诉你储蓄是一项令全体国民着迷的活动，而且可以顺着该国历史追溯到遥远的从前。德国人并不想要更多的服务——他们讨厌找人帮忙做清洁或搭架子。也许如此；但是德国人开支吝啬和新服务企业难得一见也是该国政府的政策造成的。德国人要开一家公司困难重重。世界银行最近在181个国家进行的（哪里最适宜）开办公司的调查中，德国排在第102位。启动资金比别的地方更难找。尽管实行了一些放松监管的举措来延长商店营业时间并劝诱长期失业的人重新回去工作，德国在鼓励妇女和年长者工作方面仍然表现不佳。全日制岗位受到过度保护，而慷慨的福利金则扮演了最低工资的角色。更有甚者，2007年政府提高了增值税率，从而（进一步）遏制了消费需求。

Instead of using the crisis to promote services at home, the coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats has fallen back into bad old habits and used policy to prop up exporters. Germany has 1.4m workers in job-saving schemes which are supposed to tide people over until export demand picks up. It makes sense to preserve skills, but, since export demand will not fully recover, many of these people will end up unemployed. Realising this, perhaps, the SPD this week proposed a “Silicon Valley of environmentally friendly industrial production”—another export-boosting plan. Moreover, this one will happen only if Germany can create and commercialise valuable university research and learn to incubate high-technology start-ups. Young Germans thinking about starting a high-tech business today prefer to go to the real Silicon Valley.

由德国社会民主党和默克尔女士领导的基督教民主联盟组成的执政联盟并没有利用这场危机来推动国内服务业，而是重新退回到原先的坏习惯，利用政策来扶持出口商。德国现有140万人加入了旨在帮助人们度过难关直到出口需求好转的就业保障计划。从保存技能的角度来说这项措施固然有其意义，然而由于出口需求无法完全恢复，很多参加该计划的人最后难逃失业厄运。或许是认识到了这一点，本周社民党提出了“环保型工业生产硅谷”——又一项出口推动计划。此外，这项计划只有在德国能够创造出有价值的大学研究（成果），将其商品化，并学会孕育高科技新企业的情况下才能付诸实施。那些正考虑创办一家高科技企业的年轻德国人眼下更愿意去真正的硅谷。

Time to experiment
是时候试验了

The next government’s main job will be to sort all this out. Yet politicians seem loth even to talk about it. This is partly because German politics is fragmenting and the centre parties are on the defensive (see article). But it is also because voters rejected free-market programmes earlier this decade. In 2005 they punished the SPD for its reforms and, in the general election, Ms Merkel herself for even talking about a radical path.

解决所有这些难题将是下一届政府的主要任务。然而政客们似乎甚至不愿谈论这些问题。这部分是因为德国政治正趋于分裂化，而走中间路线的政党正处于守势。然而这也是因为选民们在本世纪第一个十年之初拒绝了自由市场计划。社民党（执政时）的改革使该党在2005年受到了选民的惩罚，而在那年的大选中，选民们甚至仅仅因为默克尔谈论了激进的（改革）路线就惩罚了她本人。

Yet isn’t politics supposed to be all about the art of persuasion? In the past decade German firms, unions and politicians have set about making their export economy competitive, with spectacular results. Now the country needs to gear up the domestic economy. Politicians often protest that services are for dodgy financiers or downtrodden burger-flippers and that Germany deserves better. As September’s vote draws near, they should think again, if only for the sake of millions of their underemployed compatriots. It is time to experiment.

然而政治不就本该是说服的艺术吗？在过去的十年里，德国企业、工会和政客们致力于让他们的出口型经济获得竞争力，并取得了辉煌的成果。现在，德国需要提升其国内经济。政客们经常抗议说服务业是为诡计多端的金融家们或受压迫的低收入者们准备的，而德国理应得到更好的。随着九月份的大选日益临近，他们应该三思，哪怕是看在他们数以百万计的未充分就业的同胞份上。是时候试验一回了。