亚尼斯·瓦鲁法基斯：“布雷顿森林体系”瓦解后，美国金融危机导致欧洲政治分裂

There is a gigantic paradox that is hanging over Europe, a continent of 500 million people that is rich financially, technologically, historically, culturally. Nevertheless, Europe is increasingly irrelevant from a geopolitical perspective and falling behind technologically，behind the United States and of curse China. Now why this what is the explanation? Let me start in the year 1950 when our European Union was created.

欧洲被一个巨大的悖论笼罩着：这个拥有5亿人口的大陆，在经济、科技、历史和文化上都非常富裕的大陆。然而，从地缘政治的角度来看却变得越来越无关紧要，在技术上也愈发落后于美国和中国。这到底是为什么呢？让我从1950年说起，也就是欧洲煤钢共同体成立的那一年。

追溯欧盟起源

欧洲煤钢共同体诞生的背景

I’ll make a statement that jars not very nicely with the rest of Europe, but it is true. The European Union was an American project. It was designed and executed by Washington as part of a global plan to ensure that after the war, the second world war, there would be a steady flow of exports from the United States to the rest of the world to Europe and to Japan, to maintain production in the American post war machine.

我将提出一个可能与欧洲大多数的观点不太一致的观点，但这是真实的。欧洲煤钢共同体是一个美国的项目，它是由华盛顿设计并实施的，作为一项美国全球计划的一部分，旨在确保美国在二战后能够持续向世界其它地区、特别是欧洲和日本出口，以维持美国战后经济的生产。

And in order to make this possible, Europe had to be dollarized along with Japan. But unlike Japan, which is a homogeneous country, Europe had to become somehow homogeneous.the result by the early 1950s, is what we now call the European Union which begun the first name of the European Union was the European Community of Coal and Steel. It was a cartel. It was a cartel of heavy industry of big business later, the electrical goods industry came in, the bankers and then the big farmers with the common agricultural policy.

为了实现这一点，欧洲必须与日本一起实现美元化。但与日本不同，日本是一个单一民族国家，而欧洲必须在某种程度上实现同质化。到了1950年代初，我们现在所说的欧洲联盟的前身就应运而生了。欧洲联盟的前身最初的名字是欧洲煤钢共同体。它是一个“卡特尔”组织。它是一个重工业和大企业的“卡特尔”组织，后来还有电器行业、银行家以及大农场主参与进来，形成了共同农业政策。

“布雷顿森林体系”瓦解后

美国金融危机导致欧洲政治分裂

Now a cartel needs a common currency to function. The organization of petroleum exported countries have a common currency. They sell oil in the us dollar. They have a common currency because to maintain a very unbalanced disequilibrium agreement between the members of the cartel, you have to have a common currency. Otherwise, it's very unstable. Between 1950 and 1971, the European union had its common currency. It was the dollar effectively, because we had fixed exchange rates between the dollar, the French franc, even the Greek drachma, the deutsche mark, the Italian Lira, and so on and so forth.

一个“卡特尔”需要共同货币才能运作。石油输出国组织（OPEC）使用美元作为共同货币出售石油，因为维持成员之间不平衡的协议需要这样的货币，否则就会变得不稳定。1950年至1971年间，欧洲共同体实际上使用美元作为共同货币，因为当时美元与法郎、德拉克马、马克和里拉等货币之间有固定汇率。

In 1971, on the 15th of August, president Richard Nixon, who actually made friends with China as well. But just before he did that, he blew up this system whereby you had fixed exchange rates, the Bretton Woods system, essentially, Europe was thrown out of the dollar zone.

1971年8月15日，与中国建立外交关系之前，理查德·尼克松总统叫停了固定汇率的“布雷顿森林体系”，欧洲被排除在美元区之外。

And how did the Americans pay for it with dollars? Effectively, they printed US dollars. And they gave it to the Germans, to the Japanese, to the French, and later to the Chinese in response in exchange for what? In exchange for all this capital that was flooding back into the United states on the back of that capital. There was finance, Asian wall street, played lots of card games, and that came crashing out in 2008.

美国人如何用美元支付？实际上，他们印制了美元。他们把它给了德国人、日本人、法国人，后来给了中国人。作为回应，交换什么？作为回应，所有这些资本回流到美国，因为资本回流。有金融业，亚洲华尔街，玩了很多“纸牌游戏”，这在2008年崩溃了。

And then what happened? The Wall Street banks were in trouble, but that trouble did not compare with a disaster, with a catastrophe for German and French banks. They were completely bankrupt, but we had created a common currency to maintain the cartel, but we had not created a federal state. We didn't have a treasury.

然后发生了什么？华尔街的银行陷入困境，但与德国和法国银行的彻底破产的悲剧相比，这并不算什么。尽管我们创建了共同货币来维持“卡特尔”，但并未建立一个联邦国家，也没有一个联合的财政部。

When you flood the financial sector of Europe with trillions of dollars or euros or whatever, at the same time you impose austerity on the many, the people don't have money, but the rich and the businessmen have money. But they don't want to invest it because they look at everyone and say they won't be able to buy ourselves. So what do they do? They buy back their own shares. You have discontent in the north, in the south, in the east, and in the west. And very soon after that, the discontent brings about political fragmentation. And whereas, once upon a time, we could imagine a federal Europe, a united Europe, the discontent that resulted from the failures of the cartel-like creation of the European Union to adjust to the post-2008 conditions after the Great Financial Collapse of Wall Street.

当你用数万亿的美元、欧元或其它货币淹没欧洲的金融部门，同时又对大众施加紧缩政策时，人民没有钱，但富人和商人有钱。但他们不想投资，因为富人和商人看着大家说，人民无法买到任何东西。那么他们做什么呢？他们回购自己的股票。在北方、南方、东方和西方都有不满情绪。很快，这种不满带来了政治分裂。曾几何时，我们曾设想一个联邦的欧洲，一个团结的欧洲，但由于“卡特尔”式的欧洲联盟未能适应2008年后华尔街大金融崩溃所带来的条件，导致了各种不满情绪。

（本节目播出于2024年10月28日）