Nigel Lawson was the longest serving as well as the most controversial of Margaret Thatcher’s chancellors. His inaugural Adam Smith Lecture (reprinted in the January issue of Standpoint) shows him true to form. It is entitled “Five Myths and a Menace”. His menace is – or should be to Financial Times readers – the least controversial of his assertions. It is that of a “recrudescence of protectionist sentiment that threatens to repeat the disaster of the 1930s”. The “myth” on which I wish to concentrate is his fifth – that big current account imbalances are unnatural and dangerous. He is broadly right, but the argument needs to be taken further.
在瑪格麗特•撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)的內閣大臣中，尼格爾•勞森(Nigel Lawson)是任期最長、最有爭議的一位。從他的首次「亞當•史密斯演講」(Adam Smith Lecture)中可以看出，他還是老樣子。演講題爲《五個謊言和一個威脅》(Five Myths and a Menace)，《立場》雜誌(Standpoint) 1月刊對全文進行了轉載。他所講的威脅是他所有主張中爭議性最小的——對英國《金融時報》的讀者而言應該是這樣。這種威脅指的是「有可能再現上世紀30年代災難的保護主義情緒重新抬頭」。我想重點探討的「謊言」是他列出的第五個：龐大的經常賬戶失衡是有違規律且危險的。他基本上說的不錯，但應進一步進行論證。