（接上）

Deregulation has also allowed the UK to become a global centre for financial fraud. A 2016 report estimated that financial fraud costs the UK ￡193bn per year — more than the entire budget of the National Health Service. Margaret Hodge, the former head of the UK’s Public Accounts Committee, named Britain as “the country of choice for every kleptocrat, crook and despot in the world”. In one high profile case that demonstrated this role London now serves, the city was at the centre of a massive Russian money-laundering scheme where Russian insiders laundered as much as $80 billion in dirty money, passing it through fictitious companies registered in London.


放松管制也使英國成為全球金融欺詐中心。2016 年的一份報告估計，金融欺詐每年給英國造成 1930 億英鎊的損失——超過英國國民健康服務(wù)體系的全部預(yù)算。英國公共賬目委員會前主席瑪格麗特·霍奇稱英國是“世界上所有貪腐統(tǒng)治者、騙子和獨裁者的首選國家”。一起備受矚目的案件表明了倫敦現(xiàn)在扮演的這一角色，該市是俄羅斯大規(guī)模洗錢計劃的中心，俄羅斯內(nèi)部人士通過在倫敦注冊的虛構(gòu)公司洗錢，洗錢金額高達 800 億美元。

The City of London — the deregulated, semi-independent financial district of London — is also at the centre of the world’s “shadow banking” economy, which is now estimated to account for half the world’s assets. Britain has created, since the 1950s, a deeply complex financial ecosystem which makes use of deregulated offshore British jurisdictions like the Cayman Islands and Jersey, allowing the world’s super rich to hide their wealth and business activities from tax and regulation.


倫敦金融城是倫敦不受監(jiān)管的半獨立金融區(qū)，也是世界“影子銀行”經(jīng)濟的中心，據(jù)估計，目前影子銀行經(jīng)濟占世界資產(chǎn)的一半。自 1950 年代以來，英國創(chuàng)造了一個極其復(fù)雜的金融生態(tài)系統(tǒng)，利用開曼群島和澤西島等不受監(jiān)管的英國離岸司法管轄區(qū)，讓世界超級富豪能夠隱藏他們的財富和商業(yè)活動，逃避稅收和監(jiān)管。

Deregulation by the British government of the “Eurodollar market” of offshore trading — done consciously at a time of British colonial decline to try and maintain British financial power — allowed the City of London to become “the main nerve centre of the darker global offshore system that hides and guards the world’s stolen wealth.” The City of London thus benefits from depriving the world of hundreds of billions in lost taxation and facilitating fraud and deceit on a massive scale.

英國政府放松對離岸交易“歐洲美元市場”的管制——這是在英國殖民衰落時期有意識地采取的措施，目的是試圖維護英國的金融實力——這使倫敦金融城成為“隱藏和守護世界被盜財富的黑暗全球離岸體系的主要神經(jīng)中樞” 。因此，倫敦金融城從剝奪世界數(shù)千億美元的稅收損失和大規(guī)模欺詐和欺騙中獲益。
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An overlooked way in which financialisation drags down the rest of the economy is in how the rentier state treats the national currency. The attempt to make Britain a hub for inflows of foreign money has made successive governments want a “strong” or overvalued pound sterling relative to other currencies.

金融化拖累經(jīng)濟其他部分的一個被忽視的方面是食利國家如何對待本國貨幣。為了使英國成為外國資金流入的樞紐，歷屆政府都希望英鎊相對于其他貨幣“堅挺”或被高估。

The effect of this overvalued pound contributed substantially to the decline of British manufacturing — exporters suffer from an overvalued currency, as their products become less affordable to other countries. From 1950 to 1970, Britain’s share of the world’s manufacturing fell from 25% to 10%. While this has often been presented as an inevitable feature of modernisation, in the same period Germany grew its share from 7% to 20%. The key difference is that in Germany, monetary policies have consciously been set to favour the growth of industry, whereas Britain has treated industrial interests as subordinate to finance and banking.

英鎊高估的影響在很大程度上導(dǎo)致了英國制造業(yè)的衰落——出口商遭受貨幣高估的困擾，因為他們的產(chǎn)品在其他國家變得難以負擔。從 1950 年到 1970 年，英國在全球制造業(yè)中的份額從 25% 下降到 10%。雖然這通常被認為是現(xiàn)代化的必然特征，但在同一時期，德國的份額從 7% 增長到 20%。關(guān)鍵的區(qū)別在于，德國的貨幣政策有意識地傾向于支持工業(yè)增長，而英國則將工業(yè)利益視為從屬于金融和銀行業(yè)。

In leaning on finance to replace the economic growth once provided by industrial output and innovation, Britain followed the course of other once great empires. Previous capitalist hegemons like Genoa and the Netherlands also encouraged financial speculation and tried to build their economies on usury as they went into decline.


英國依靠金融來取代曾經(jīng)由工業(yè)產(chǎn)出和創(chuàng)新帶來的經(jīng)濟增長，這追隨了其他曾經(jīng)偉大的帝國的腳步。熱那亞和荷蘭等前資本主義霸權(quán)國家在衰落時也鼓勵金融投機，并試圖依靠高利貸來建立經(jīng)濟。
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For Britain, this has allowed the country to maintain a level of economic might that its citizens were accustomed to, but this is a precarious state of affairs. The economist Philip Pilkington explains how this affair with international finance works:

對于英國來說，這使得該國能夠維持其公民習慣的經(jīng)濟實力水平，但這是一種不穩(wěn)定的狀態(tài)。經(jīng)濟學家菲利普·皮爾金頓解釋了這一國際金融事件是如何運作的：

Britain is allowed to run large trade deficits because its trade partners are keen to hold British-domiciled financial assets. This in turn allows Britons to live beyond their means. Foreigners send Britain goods they would otherwise be unable to afford, Britain sends sterling in return and instead of dumping sterling onto foreign exchange markets — thereby driving down its value and rendering the goods less affordable for Britons — the foreigners buy British financial assets. Britain is a potentially rather low-income country living the life of a high-income country, and the whole show is kept on the road by the financiers in the City. A clever arrangement — but clearly an unstable one.

英國之所以能夠出現(xiàn)巨額貿(mào)易逆差，是因為其貿(mào)易伙伴熱衷于持有英國境內(nèi)的金融資產(chǎn)。這反過來又使英國人入不敷出。外國人向英國提供他們原本買不起的商品，英國則向其提供英鎊，而外國人并沒有將英鎊拋售到外匯市場——這會壓低英鎊價值，使英國人買不起這些商品——而是購買英國的金融資產(chǎn)。英國是一個潛在的低收入國家，卻過著高收入國家的生活，而整個局面都由金融城的金融家們掌控著。這是一個聰明的安排——但顯然是不穩(wěn)定的。

There is already reason to think this precarious relationship is in jeopardy. The rich are fleeing the UK in droves — 9,500 millionaires are set to leave the UK in 2024. The UK is only behind China worldwide for millionaire emigration, but outpaces it per capita by a factor of 14.

已經(jīng)有理由認為，這種不穩(wěn)定的關(guān)系正處于危險之中。富人正成群結(jié)隊地逃離英國——預(yù)計到 2024 年，將有 9,500 名百萬富翁離開英國。英國的百萬富翁移民數(shù)量僅次于中國，但人均移民數(shù)量卻是中國的 14 倍。

At the same time, many heavy hitters within the British economy are being sold to American capital. Blackrock has just finalised a deal to acquire the UK-based data provider Preqin for $3.2 billion. To economists like Pilkington, this is another phase in Britain’s long decline and retreat from the world stage, the final consolidation of a post-war settlement which made the UK a subordinate partner to the United States:

與此同時，英國經(jīng)濟中的許多重量級機構(gòu)正在被出售給美國資本。貝萊德剛剛敲定以 32 億美元收購英國數(shù)據(jù)提供商Preqin的交易。對于皮爾金頓這樣的經(jīng)濟學家來說，這是英國長期衰落和退出世界舞臺的另一個階段，也是戰(zhàn)后協(xié)議的最終鞏固，該協(xié)議使英國成為美國的從屬伙伴：

In the Eighties and Nineties, Britain managed to carve out a place in the world by becoming a major financial centre. But it has long been well-known that the City of London is just an outpost of Wall Street. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the City has waned in importance with more and more British companies being listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Now the financialised British economy is being actively weaponised against the country to asset-strip its companies and place them under American ownership.

20 世紀 80 年代和 90 年代，英國成功成為世界主要金融中心，在世界占據(jù)一席之地。但眾所周知，倫敦金融城只是華爾街的前哨。自 2008 年金融危機以來，隨著越來越多的英國公司在紐約證券交易所上市，倫敦金融城的重要性已逐漸減弱?，F(xiàn)在，金融化的英國經(jīng)濟正被積極用作對付該國的武器，以剝離其公司的資產(chǎn)并將其置于美國手中。

Left Behind
A 2022 piece in the Financial Times painted a bleak picture of the economic reality for most Brits that is masked by popular measures of economic health like GDP. Although Britain has many wealthy people, the average person is not very well off compared to other developed countries. In fact, the lowest-earning bracket of households in Britain were 20% worse off than their counterparts in Slovenia. The British middle class is also rapidly declining in its living standard relative to the rest of Europe:

留下來
《金融時報》 2022 年的一篇文章描繪了大多數(shù)英國人經(jīng)濟狀況的慘淡圖景，而這一圖景被 GDP 等流行的經(jīng)濟健康狀況指標所掩蓋。盡管英國有很多富人，但與其他發(fā)達國家相比，普通人的生活水平并不高。事實上，英國收入最低的家庭比斯洛文尼亞的家庭收入低 20%。與歐洲其他國家相比，英國中產(chǎn)階級的生活水平也在迅速下降：

In 2007, the average UK household was 8 per cent worse off than its peers in north-western Europe, but the deficit has since ballooned to a record 20 per cent. On present trends, the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024, and the average Polish family will move ahead before the end of the decade.

2007 年，英國家庭的平均收入比西北歐國家低 8%，但此后這一差距已飆升至創(chuàng)紀錄的 20%。按照目前的趨勢，到 2024 年，斯洛文尼亞家庭的平均收入將超過英國家庭，而波蘭家庭的平均收入將在 2030 年前超過英國家庭。

Britain is, in the authors words, a poor country with some very rich people. Another way to put it might be that Britain is poor country with one very rich region. Data presented by the same author shows that removing London would take 14% off average British living standards, enough to leave the remainder of Britain poorer than every state in the US.

用作者的話來說，英國是一個貧窮的國家，但有一些非常富有的人。另一種說法可能是，英國是一個貧窮的國家，但有一個非常富裕的地區(qū)。同一位作者提供的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，如果去掉倫敦，英國人的平均生活水平將下降 14%，足以讓英國其他地區(qū)比美國每個州都窮。

This reflects how much Britain’s general decline has been masked by the growth of finance capitalism. The British economy has been stagnant since the 2008 financial crisis. In the period since, real wages have declined by 3%. For comparison, real wages in Germany grew by almost 9% in the same period. This has been coupled with a cost of living crisis and persistently high inflation since 2021, as well as a rising cost in rents. More than a third of people in Britain spend over half their income on rent, 80% spent over a third. Here too, the shift to a rentier economy has been devastating.

這反映出英國的普遍衰退在多大程度上被金融資本主義的增長所掩蓋。自 2008 年金融危機以來，英國經(jīng)濟一直處于停滯狀態(tài)。自那以來，實際工資下降了 3%。相比之下，德國的實際工資在同一時期增長了近 9%。與此同時，自 2021 年以來，生活成本危機和持續(xù)的高通脹以及租金成本的上漲也隨之而來。超過三分之一的英國人將收入的一半以上花在房租上，80% 的人將收入的三分之一以上花在房租上。從這里看，向食利經(jīng)濟的轉(zhuǎn)變也是毀滅性的。

In the general election that won her power in 1979, one of Margaret Thatcher’s more popular promises was the “right to buy”, promising over 5 million tenants of social housing the right to buy their home from the local authorities at much reduced rates. The average discount obtained by those availing of the scheme was 44%, an amazing bargain considering how much the value of many of these houses would inflate since — in southern England in 1981 the average valuation of a Right to Buy property was just under ￡20,000. Most sales were financed by lending.


在 1979 年贏得大選的大選中，撒切爾夫人最受矚目的承諾之一就是“購買權(quán)”，承諾 500 多萬社會住房租戶有權(quán)以大幅降低的價格從地方當局購買住房。該計劃的受益者獲得的平均折扣為 44%，考慮到許多此類房屋的價值會大幅膨脹，這驚人的便宜——1981 年在英格蘭南部，購買權(quán)房產(chǎn)的平均估值略低于 20,000 英鎊。大多數(shù)銷售都是通過貸款融資的。

This policy embodied Thatcher’s ethos as much as any, flogging off public resources at a discount, funded by private credit, and instilling in the millions of new homeowners a spirit of risk-taking individualism and independence from the welfare state.

這項政策充分體現(xiàn)了撒切爾夫人的精神：以折扣價出售公共資源，由私人信貸提供資金，并向數(shù)百萬新房主灌輸一種敢于冒險的個人主義和獨立于福利國家的精神。

In the following decade, rents rose substantially on those who did not avail of the Right to Buy. In effect, poorer renters subsidised through higher rents the ability of their wealthier neighbours to become homeowners. Since Right to Buy, the number of social housing available has plummeted, as has building of these houses. 40% of ex-council flats sold through statutory Right to Buy are now private rental properties. So, while lower-middle class Britons got to experience affordable home ownership in the 1980s, millions of younger people now exist in precarity around housing, forced into overly expensive privately rented accommodation with no hope of affording a home.

在接下來的十年里，沒有享受購買權(quán)的人的租金大幅上漲。實際上，較貧窮的租房者通過提高租金補貼了較富裕的鄰居成為房主的能力。自購買權(quán)頒布以來，可用的社會住房數(shù)量急劇下降，這些房屋的建設(shè)也急劇下降。通過法定購買權(quán)出售的 40% 的前政府公寓現(xiàn)在是私人出租物業(yè)。因此，雖然中下階層的英國人在 1980 年代體驗到了負擔得起的房屋所有權(quán)，但數(shù)百萬年輕人現(xiàn)在卻生活在住房方面岌岌可危的境地，被迫住在過于昂貴的私人出租房屋中，沒有希望買得起房子。

The scheme also took away power from local authorities, who can now do little about local housing problems other than turn to the London government. This was one of the largest privatisation schemes ever undertaken, a major step in the transition to a rentier economy, and a classic example of politicians cashing in on short term gain at the expense of long-term concerns. Much like the cash giveaway taken from North Sea oil, Thatcher’s government took from future generations for short term abundance.

該計劃還剝奪了地方當局的權(quán)力，現(xiàn)在地方當局除了求助于倫敦政府外，幾乎無力解決當?shù)刈》繂栴}。這是有史以來實施的最大私有化計劃之一，是向食利經(jīng)濟轉(zhuǎn)型的重要一步，也是政客以犧牲長期利益為代價謀取短期利益的典型例子。就像從北海石油中獲取的現(xiàn)金一樣，撒切爾政府從子孫后代手中奪取了短期的富足。

Of course, no housing crisis can be explained just by looking at supply, and housing is one of the sectors of the economy most clearly affected by decades of mass-immigration.

當然，僅從供應(yīng)角度無法解釋任何住房危機，而且住房是受數(shù)十年來大規(guī)模移民影響最明顯的經(jīng)濟部門之一。