Buried deep in the Encyclical Letter issued on the eve of the G8 Summit, Pope Benedict XVI warns: “Sometimes modern man is wrongly convinced that he is the sole author of himself, his life and society.” Many would agree that the annual talking-shop for eight rich, northern hemisphere nations taking place in Italy on Wednesday has an inflated view of its own influence – although this sense of self-importance is now diminishing given the powerful unwinding of global economic forces that have been decades in the making. But there are those that go further and reckon the G8 is now almost irrelevant and that the really important economic action is to be found further south and east.
八國集團(G8)峯會前夕，本篤十六世(Pope Benedict XVI)發佈了教皇通諭，告誡：「現代人有時錯誤地深信，他是自己、自己的人生以及社會的唯一創作者。」北半球的八個富國週三將在義大利舉行年度「清談」聚會。很多人認爲，G8峯會把自己的影響力看得過高——儘管幾十年來全球經濟力量的嬗變，使得這種自大感如今已有所減輕。但也有人走得更遠，認爲G8如今算不得什麼，未來真正重要的經濟行動要看南半球和東方。