阅读提示：中文在上，对照英文在下。

几年前，我曾与一些欧美政策制定者同桌吃饭，有美酒佳肴相伴，宾客们相谈甚欢。聊着聊着，话题转向了希腊。“你知道什么才能解决那儿的问题吗？”一位经济学家开怀大笑道：“度假营！”

A couple of years ago, I was chatting with some American and European policy makers over a lively, wine-fuelled dinner when the topic turned to Greece. “You know what would solve the problems there?” one of the economists declared, grinning broadly. “Holiday camps!”

“度假营？”我困惑地问道。这位经济学家用餐巾作演示，提出了这个想法。他的计划分为两步。第一步需要动用些德国纳税人的钱，建造或翻新希腊那些美不胜收的度假胜地，只雇佣当地劳动者。然后再指定第二笔纳税人资金，用于给德国退休人士发放度假代金券，让他们能够享有一个费用全包的假期，但这些代金券只能“花在”希腊那些度假胜地上。

“Holiday camps?” I asked, baffled. Using his napkin to illustrate the point, the economist proposed an idea. It had two parts. The first entailed using a pot of German taxpayers’ money to build or renovate fabulous holiday resorts in Greece, exclusively using local labour. Then a second slug of taxpayer funds would be earmarked to give German pensioners vouchers entitling them to an all-inclusive holiday — but which could only be “spent” at those Greek resorts.

我的这位同席伙伴认为，这个协议将为希腊的经济活力带来亟需的提振，还能迫使德国将一部分盈余现金在境外花掉，从而有助于扭转欧洲内部的经常账户失衡。但他认为这个计划最棒的地方在于，至少与另一个选项——将德国纳税人的钱填到陷入困境的欧元区银行的黑洞里——相比，它为德国纳税人提供了一些他们喜欢，从而有可能在政治上支持的东西。这位经济学家在全桌人的爆笑声中总结道，“如此一来，德国退休人士开心了，希腊服务员也开心了”，这个计划堪称“完美的地中海俱乐部(Club Med)版马歇尔计划(Marshall Plan)”！

That deal would give Greece a badly needed boost of economic activity, my dining companion argued. It would also force Germans to spend some of their surplus cash outside their borders, thus helping to reverse Europe’s current account imbalances. But the best thing of all about the scheme, he argued, is that it would give German taxpayers something they liked — and thus might politically support — at least compared with the other option: pouring taxpayer money into the black hole of troubled eurozone banks. “This way, you get happy German pensioners and happy Greek waiters!” the economist concluded, to howls of laughter, dubbing this “the perfect Club Med Marshall Plan!”

这无疑是个有趣的想法。每当我在饭桌上或是会场讲台上讲起这个段子，总是能活跃气氛。比如本月早些时候，我在阿斯彭理念节(Aspen Ideas festival)上主持一场关于希腊的（激烈）辩论时，随口提到这个凯恩斯主义(Keynesian)的度假营计划，引发了现场亟需的哄堂大笑。

It is certainly a colourful idea. And whenever I relate this story over dinner or from a conference podium, it always lightens the mood. Earlier this month, for example, I chaired a (very heated) debate about Greece at the Aspen Ideas Festival and when I tossed in a reference to this Keynesian holiday-camp plan, it sparked peals of badly needed laughter.

正如玛丽匠格拉斯(Mary Douglas)等人类学家所指出，笑话从来不是无关紧要或疯狂的东西。笑话之所以有感染力、并且好笑，是因为它们颠覆了正常的社会与认知秩序，揭示了我们通常宁愿视而不见的矛盾。因此随着希腊紧张局势持续升级，我们有必要停下来探究一个问题，即为什么这个“地中海俱乐部”版解决方案听上去那么好笑？关于欧洲领导人现在不愿谈论的那些话题，它揭示了什么？

Jokes, as anthropologists such as Mary Douglas have pointed out, are never irrelevant or crazy things; they are powerful — and funny — because they subvert the normal social and cognitive order, revealing contradictions that we usually prefer to ignore. So as tensions keep bubbling around Greece, it is worth pausing to ask why this Club Med concept sounds funny. What does it reveal about the topics that European leaders do not want to talk about right now?

在我看来，这个笑话揭示了两点。第一，欧洲政治经济的一个根本致命缺陷是，选民很难感觉到自己受益于政府四处挥洒的大笔欧元。如果纳税人的钱被用来建造桥梁或资助学校，起码这些东西是看得见摸得着、可以让他们受益的。选民甚至可能还会感激。但把钱投入银行，这就没人能看到了，量化宽松是一种空洞无形的东西。因此，这个用国家资金为老百姓的生活增加乐趣的想法听起来就像个笑话。现如今，幸福快乐被默认为只能从私营部门找到，与欧盟官员无关。难怪选民们不开心。

To my mind, there are two of these. The first is that a fundamental — deadly — flaw in Europe’s political economy is that it is very hard for voters to feel that they are benefiting from all the zillions of euros that governments are chucking around. If taxpayers’ money is being used to build bridges or fund schools, that is something that can be tangibly witnessed and enjoyed. Voters might even feel grateful. But pouring money into banks is not something that anyone can see; quantitative easing is a disembodied, intangible thing. Hence the fact that the idea of using state funds to make people’s lives more enjoyable sounds like a joke; these days, happiness and fun are presumed to be a private-sector experience, not something associated with eurocrats. Little wonder that voters are glum.

关于为什么地中海俱乐部方案如此有感染力的第二个原因，是我们似乎很难想象欧元区各国政府会为集体利益亲密无间地合作。理论上，单一货币体系想实现良好运行效果，最好的、事实上也是唯一的方法就是，欧洲内部能够拧成一股绳，像一个整体经济区那样运行，每个区域都能专注于自己最擅长的领域，让劳动力和资本往需要的地方流动，就像亚当斯密(Adam Smith)关于劳动分工的概念所描述的那样。

But the second reason why the Club Med idea is striking is that it seems impossibly difficult to imagine the eurozone governments working together seamlessly for the common good. In theory, the best — or indeed only — way that a single-currency regime can function well is if Europe runs itself as a single, cohesive economic area, where each region can specialise in what it does best, with labour and capital moving to suit, echoing Adam Smith’s concept of a division of labour.

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别的地方是有这样的例子的。比如美国佛罗里达州，近几十年来，这个州将自己打造成了所谓的“雪鸟”，即美国北方居民的首选目的地，从而实现了经济繁荣。每年，尤其到了冬季，前往佛罗里达州避寒的“雪鸟”数以百万计，有些人在那儿买了房，或在那儿退休养老。之所以有这么多人这么做，是因为佛罗里达的物价相对便宜，迁入门槛不高，而且在语言、文化、法律制度等方面与美国北方相同。

This happens elsewhere. Think, for example, about Florida. In recent decades, the state has flourished by turning itself into a prime destination for “snowbirds”, or Americans who live in the north. Every year, millions of these snowbirds visit Florida, particularly in winter; some buy homes or retire there. And they do so in large numbers because Florida is relatively cheap and accessible and shares a common language, culture, legal system and so on with the north.

欧洲也有“雪鸟”，看看地中海海滩上坐着的那些苍白的英国人、德国人和瑞典人就知道了。但欧洲的“雪鸟”现象没有应有的那样盛行，因为文化、语言和法律上的差异持续存在。事实上，2010年代伊始，德国前往希腊的游客人数急剧下降。虽然去年游客数量有所回升，但眼下的危机似乎再一次把游客们吓跑了。希腊和德国的有钱人反倒是纷纷涌向迈阿密等地购买房产。

European snowbirds exist too; look at those pale Brits, Germans and Swedes sitting on Mediterranean beaches. But the snowbird phenomenon does not flourish as much as it could, because of continued cultural, linguistic and legal divides. Indeed, German tourist visits to Greece fell sharply at the start of this decade. And while visits rebounded last year, the current crisis seems to be scaring tourists away again. Instead, rich Greeks and Germans have been flocking to buy property in places such as Miami.

这对希腊而言是痛苦的，因为旅游业占了希腊国内生产总值(GDP)的五分之一。这也与经济意义上让欧元区行得通所必须发生的事情恰好相反。所以才有了那位经济学家关于地中海俱乐部版马歇尔计划的笑话。

This is painful for Greece, which draws a fifth of its GDP from tourism. But it is also the opposite of what needs to occur, in an economic sense, to make the eurozone work. Hence my dining companion’s joke about the Club Med Marshall Plan.

他的玩笑话有朝一日会成为现实吗？几乎肯定不会。如果有人建议强行将德国退休人士送到希腊度假，这个人会被抗议声淹没的。但欧洲的情况越糟糕，我们就会越需要疯狂的想法，甚至是笑话。而这不止因为我们需要笑一笑，还因为笑话揭示了政客们没有在谈论的事，即，如果欧元区计划想要有成功的那一天，欧洲必须出现认知和文化上的飞跃。不管德国退休人士去不去地中海海滩度假。

Might this ever happen? Almost certainly not: if somebody suggested forcibly bussing German pensioners to Greece for holidays, they would get shouted down. But the worse things get in Europe, the more we need crazy ideas, if not jokes. And not just because we need to laugh, but because jokes reveal what politicians are not talking about: namely, the cognitive and cultural leap that must occur in Europe if that eurozone project is ever going to truly fly. With or without those German pensioners on the beach.