For a long time the debate between free-market and Keynesian economics has raged. But in the 21st century, we need a whole new way of considering the economy.
长期以来，自由市场经济与凯恩斯主义经济间的争论方兴未艾。但是在21世纪，我们需要以一个完全新的方式来对待经济。
Two schools of thought tend to dominate today's economic debates. According to free-market economists, governments should cut taxes, reduce regulations, reform labour laws, and then get out of the way to let consumers consume and producers create jobs.
这两个流派的思想在今天的经济争论中占据了主要地位。若依自由市场经济学家，政府应当缩减税收，减少限制，改革劳动法，然后应该找出让消费者消费和生产者创造工作岗位的方式。
According to Keynesian economics, governments should boost total demand through quantitative easing and fiscal stimulus.
若依凯恩斯主义经济学家，政府应该通过定量宽松的货币政策和财政刺激政策刺激总需求。
Yet neither approach is delivering good results. We need a new 'sustainable development economics', with governments promoting new types of investments.
然而没有一个方法能带来好结果。我们需要一个新的“可持续发展经济模式” ，政府要促进新的投资类型。
Free-market economics leads to great outcomes for the rich, but pretty miserable outcomes for everyone else. Governments in the United States and parts of Europe are cutting back on social spending, job creation, infrastructure investment, and job training because the rich bosses who pay for politicians' election campaigns are doing very well for themselves, even as the societies around them are crumbling.
自由市场经济导致了富人收获了巨量财富，其他人则只获得相当少一部分财富。美国和部分欧洲政府正消减社会开支，工作岗位创造，基础设施投资和职业培训——因为这些为政客选举投资的富裕老板们对自己从来都是最好的，即使是在他们周围的社会正在崩溃的情况下。
Yet Keynesian solutions — easy money and large budget deficits — have also fallen far short of their promised results. Many governments, including Australia, tried stimulus spending after the 2008 financial crisis. After all, most politicians love to spend money they don't have.
至于凯恩斯主义的解决方案，由于召之即来的钱和巨大的预算赤字，其效果远远低于其承诺的。许多政府，包括澳大利亚，在2008年金融危机后尝试着刺激消费。毕竟，大多数政治家是乐于花他们未持有的钱的。
Yet the short-term boost failed in two big ways. First, governments' debt soared and their credit ratings plummeted. Even the US lost its AAA standing. Second, the private sector did not respond by increasing business investment and hiring enough new workers. Instead, companies hoarded vast cash reserves, mainly in tax-free offshore accounts.
然而短期的经济刺激失败在两个大的方面。首先，政府高企的债务和自由落体的信用评级。即使是美国也丧失了AAA的地位。其次，私营部门并不需要为增加商业投资和雇佣足够新员工上负责。与之相对，公司却积聚了巨量的资金。大多数都放在免税的海外账户上。
The problem with both free-market and Keynesian economics is that they misunderstand the nature of modern investment. Both schools believe that investment is led by the private sector, either because taxes and regulations are low (in the free-market model) or because aggregate demand is high (in the Keynesian model).
自由市场经济和凯恩斯经济都拥有一个问题，那就是它们曲解了现代投资的性质。两个流派都认为投资由私营部门驱动。一个因为低税收和低限制而这么认为（自由市场），一个因为巨大总需求而这么认为（凯恩斯经济）。
Yet private-sector investment today depends on investment by the public sector. Our age is defined by this complementarity. Unless the public sector invests, and invests wisely, the private sector will continue to hoard its funds or return them to shareholders in the forms of dividends or buybacks.
然而在今天私营部门的投资是取决于公共部门的投资的。我们的社会是通过这种互补性来定义的。除非公共部门明智的投资，否则这些私营部门会继续揽钱或者以股息、回购的方式回馈他们的股东。
The key is to reflect on six kinds of capital goods: business capital; infrastructure; human capital; intellectual capital; natural capital; and social capital. All of these are productive, but each has a distinctive role.
关键在于六种生产资料：商业资本；基础设施；人力资本；智力资本；自然资本；社会资本。所有这些资本都是生产性的，但是每一个都扮演着特别的角色。
Business capital includes private companies' factories, machines, transport equipment, and information systems. Infrastructure includes roads, railways, power and water systems, fibre optics, pipelines, and airports and seaports. Human capital is the education, skills, and health of the workforce. Intellectual capital includes society's core scientific and technological know-how. Natural capital is the ecosystems and primary resources that support agriculture, health, and cities. And social capital is the communal trust that makes efficient trade, finance, and governance possible.
商业资本包括私人工厂，机器，运输设备和通信设备。基础投资包括道路，铁路，能源，水资源，光导纤维，管道，机场河海港。人力资本则是教育，技能和劳动力的健康。智力资本包括社会核心科学和技术知识。自然资本则是提供农业，健康和城市的生态系统和重要资源。社会资本则是能使交易有效贸易、财政及政府存在可能的公民间的互信。
These six forms of capital work in a complementary way. Business investment without infrastructure and human capital cannot be profitable. Nor can financial markets work if social capital (trust) is depleted. Without natural capital (including a safe climate, productive soils, available water, and protection against flooding), the other kinds of capital are easily lost. And without universal access to public investments in human capital, societies will succumb to extreme inequalities of income and wealth.
这六种形势的资本运作在一个互补的方式下。商业资本没有基础设施和人力资本就不能盈利。没有一个资本市场能够社会运行在社会资本耗尽的情况下。没有自然资本（包括安全的气候，高产的土地，可用的水资源和防范洪水的保护措施），其他种类的资本很容易就消失了。没有在人力资本中普遍的公共投资，社会将会屈服在收入和财富的极端不平等中。
Governments need long-term investment strategies and ways to pay for them.
政府需要长远的投资策略和方式
Investment used to be a far simpler matter. The key to development was basic education, a network of roads and power, a functioning port, and access to world markets. Today, however, basic public education is no longer enough; workers need highly specialised skills that come through vocational training, advanced degrees, and apprenticeship programs that combine public and private funding. Transport must be smarter than mere government road building; power grids must reflect the urgent need for low-carbon electricity; and governments everywhere must invest in new kinds of intellectual capital to solve unprecedented problems of public health, climate change, environmental degradation, information systems management, and more.
投资是一件很简单的事。关键在于发展基础教育，路网，电力网和港口并进入世界市场。然而今天基础公共教育已不再足以应付（其发展）；工人们需要通过职业培训，高级学位和那些综合了公共与私人基金的学徒计划来造就更强的专业技能；电网必须反映低碳电力的迫切需求；并且无论哪的政府都必须投资新类型的智力资本以解决前所未有的公共健康问题、气候改变问题、环境退化问题和信息性管理等问题。
Yet in most countries, governments are not leading, guiding, or even sharing in the investment process. They are cutting back. Free-market ideologues claim that governments are incapable of productive investment. Nor do Keynesians think through the kinds of public investments that are needed; for them, spending is spending. The result is a public-sector vacuum and a dearth of public investments, which in turn holds back necessary private-sector investment.
然而在大多数国家，政府并未领导、指引甚至分享投资过程。他们仅仅在削减。自由市场拥护者声称政府对生产性投资无能为力。凯恩斯经济支持者也不想通过这种必要的公共投资，对他们来说，消费就是支出。最终结果就是公共部门的高高挂起和公共投资的衰亡，这反过来又阻碍了必要的私人投资。
Governments need long-term investment strategies and ways to pay for them. They need to understand much better how to prioritise road, rail, power, and port investments; how to make investments environmentally sustainable by moving to a low-carbon energy system; how to train young workers for decent jobs, not only low-wage service-sector employment; and how to build social capital, in an age when there is little trust and considerable corruption.
政府需要长远的投资策略和方式。他们需要更深刻地明白如何把道路、铁路、电力和港口的投资放在首位；如何通过开发低碳能源系统以使环境方面的投资可持续；如何培养年轻工作者体面地工作而不仅仅只是当低工资的服务业人员；以及如何在一个缺乏信任和拥有相当大腐败的时代里建立社会资本。
In short, governments need to learn to think ahead. This, too, runs counter to the economic mainstream. Free-market ideologues don't want governments to think at all; and Keynesians want governments to think only about the short run, because they take to an extreme John Maynard Keynes' famous quip, "In the long run we are all dead."
总而言之，政府应该学会长远考虑。尽管这违背了我们的经济主流。自由市场拥护者们可是一点也不希望政府能想的长远；凯恩斯主义者只希望政府思考短期内的问题——因为他们笃信凯恩斯的极端名言“长期来看，我们都死了。”
Here's a thought that is anathema in Washington, DC, but worthy of reflection. The world's fastest growing economy, China, relies on five-year plans for public investment, which is managed by the National Development and Reform Commission. The US has no such institution, or indeed any agency that looks systematically at public-investment strategies. But all countries now need more than five-year plans; they need 20-year, generation-long strategies to build the skills, infrastructure, and low-carbon economy of the twenty-first century.
华盛顿有一种可憎的思想，却值得我们认真反思。世界上快速增长的经济体，中国，与公共投资休戚相关的五年计划是由国家发改委管理的。美国没有这种机构，或者实际上没有任何有关公共投资策略的机构。但是所有国家如今都需要比五年计划详细得多的发展计划；他们需要的是二十年，超过一代人的发展计划来建立健全技术工，基础设施以及二十一世纪的低碳经济。
The G20 recently took a small step in the right direction, by placing new emphasis on increased infrastructure investment as a shared responsibility of both the public and private sectors. We need much more of this kind of thinking in the year ahead, as governments negotiate new global agreements on financing for sustainable development (in Addis Ababa in July 2015); Sustainable Development Goals (at the United Nations in September 2015), and climate change (in Paris in December 2015).
最近的G20峰会开始强调把增加基础设施投资作为公共和私营部门的共有责任——终于朝正确的方向上迈出了一小步。我们在未来需要更多的这类思考，比如在15年7月亚的斯亚贝巴的的政府会议将商讨财政和可持续发展协定；可持续发展目标会议（15年9月）和气候变化会议（15年12月）
These agreements promise to shape humanity's future for the better. If they are to succeed, the new age of sustainable development should give rise to a new economics of sustainable development as well.
这些协定承诺要给人类塑造一个更好的未来。如果他们成功，可持续发展的新时代亦会助力经济上的可持续发展。