一个经济体系的成败，应当以它对生活在其中的人民的生活所产生的直接影响来衡量。经济增长、财富扩张和金融稳定的指标，应当与社会中民众的困境相关联。经济体系的影响，在此即资本主义，应以它为人民提供的安全感与满足感的程度来衡量。安全感与满足感又可进一步从粮食安全、教育安全、健康安全和人身安全等方面来衡量。衡量该体系稳定性的另一个尺度，是人们对其经济根基所抱持的道德、伦理与意识形态上的信念和信任。

The success or failure of an economic system should be measured by the direct impact it has on the life of the people who live under that economic system. Measures of economic growth, wealth expansion, and financial stability should be correlated to the plights of people in the society. The impact of the economic system, in this case capitalism, should be measured by the level of security and satisfaction provided to the people. The security and satisfaction are further measured in terms of food security, education security, health security, and physical security. Another measure of the stability of the system is the moral, ethical, and ideological conviction and trust in the economic foundation.

在过去的一百年里，主导世界舞台的有两大制度，即资本主义和社会主义。社会主义在二十世纪末之前便以彻底失败而告终，因此本书除非为阐明某一概念而有所需要，否则不予讨论。

Two major systems have dominated the world arena in the last one hundred years, namely, capitalism and socialism. Socialism collapsed before the end of the twentieth century with a complete failure and hence will not be discussed in this book except where it is needed to clarify a concept.

社会主义崩溃之后，资本主义得以主宰全球；世界各地存在着不同形式的资本主义。即便是社会主义的中国，也采纳了一种具有社会主义特色的资本主义。苏联列宁主义式社会主义瓦解之后，资本主义进入了全球经济时代，即官方所称的全球化。全球化将资本主义的影响与作用扩展到了世界几乎每一个角落。最近这场始于美国的金融危机波及欧洲、日本、中国、中东和非洲。对资本主义影响的研究并不局限于某一个国家，而是要在全球范围内加以考察。

After the collapse of socialism, capitalism proceeded to dominate the entire globe; different flavors of capitalism exist in different parts of the world. Even socialist China has adopted a cocialist brand of capitalism. After the collapse of Soviet Leninist socialism, capitalism had entered the era of global economy, more officially known as globalization. Globalization extended the impact and influence of capitalism to almost every corner of the world. The most recent financial crisis, which started in the United States, rippled through Europe, Japan, China, the Middle East, and Africa. The study of the impact of capitalism is not constrained to a particular nation; rather its impact is observed globally.

资本主义对世界整体经济状况所负的责任，是一个公认的事实。全球化使世界资本主义成为事实上的世界经济体系。作为资本主义世界两大主要工具的世界银行和国际货币基金组织（IMF）的活动，直接或间接地决定着发展中国家的经济状况，并对其负有责任。

The responsibility of capitalism to the economic situation of the world at large is an acknowledged fact. Globalization has made world capitalism the de facto economic system of the world. The activities of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the two main instruments of the capitalist world, are directly and indirectly responsible for the economic conditions in the developing world.

国际主义者与资本主义工具国际货币基金组织之间的关系，在世界各地的贫困问题中有大量体现，许多案例和故事都可以说明这一点。其中一个案例在近期的海地大米危机中表现得十分清楚。这场海地大米危机被国际新闻社（Inter Press Service，IPS）刊发的一篇感人文章所讲述。该机构是一家专注于发展与全球化问题、立足南方国家的传播机构。

The relation between poverty in the world at large and the capitalist instrument, the IMF is reflected in numerous cases and stories. One of such cases stands clear in the recent Haiti rice crisis. The Haiti rice crisis is narrated in a moving article, published by Inter Press Service (IPS), a communication institution with focus on development and globalization in the south62.

文章报道了一位有三个孩子的母亲，她说自己已经再也负担不起为三个孩子买米的钱，而这个国家曾经是世界上最大的稻米生产国之一。这位三个孩子的母亲解释了她的困境：一小罐米就要六十五美分，食用油二十五美分，木炭二十五美分。仅有一美元二十五美分（联合国设定的绝对贫困线），甚至连一个孩子的一顿米饭都做不出来。海地是西半球最贫穷的国家，其所消费的粮食大部分依赖进口；这是自由市场政策削弱本国生产的结果。海地总统勒内·préval承认，“廉价的进口大米摧毁了本国生产的大米”。三十年前，海地几乎能够生产其所消费的全部大米。但在20世纪80年代末，军政府在国际货币基金组织（IMF）的支持下开始放开经济，廉价的美国大米随之涌入全国。

The article reports on a woman with three children who says that she can no longer afford to purchase rice to feed her three children in a country which once was one of the largest rice producers in the world. The mother of three explains the dilemma: a little can of rice alone costs sixty-five cents, oil is twenty-five cents, and charcoal is twenty-five cents. With dollar twenty-five cents (the absolute poverty line set by the UN), you can’t even make a rice meal for one child. Haiti, the hemisphere’s poorest country, imports most of the food it consumes; this is the result of free-market policies that have undermined national production. The president of Haiti René Préval recognized that “cheap imported rice destroyed nationally grown rice”62. Thirty years ago, Haiti produced nearly all the rice it consumed. But in the late 1980s, cheap imported US rice flooded the country after a military junta began liberalizing the economy with support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

第一批进口大米由武装车队护送。稻农将进口的美国大米视为对其产量和生计的威胁。事实证明，他们的担忧是有道理的。1994年，一项由国际货币基金组织支持的计划将进口大米的关税从35%削减至3%，为该地区最低水平。一年之内，大米进口量翻了一番。

The first batches of imported rice were escorted by armed convoys. Rice farmers regarded the imported US rice as a threat to their production and livelihoods. As it turned out, their concerns were justified. In 1994, an IMF-sponsored plan cut tariffs on imported rice from 35% to 3%, the lowest in the region. In one year, the amount of rice imports doubled.

当美国政府补贴本国稻农时，其海地同行却因其与国际货币基金组织的协议条款而被禁止这样做。在过去二十年里，海地的稻米产量减少了一半，而进口大米如今主导了市场。对海地的许多人来说，营养不良和饥饿是唯一剩下的选择。

While the US government subsidizes its own rice farmers, its Haitian counterpart was prohibited from doing so under the terms of their agreement with the IMF. Over the last twenty years, rice production in Haiti has been cut in half, while imports now dominate the market. For many people in Haiti, undernutrition and starvation is the only remaining option.

到二十世纪末，据估计，全球有两千万至三千万人在贸易自由化和出口农业的冲击下失去了土地63。1954年以《公法480》（Public Law 480）正式确立的美国国际粮食援助计划，在随后二十年间主导了粮食贸易格局。由美国管理的粮食过剩产品被分配给被视为未来客户的国家。这一粮食出口体制确实以低价主粮冲击了当地农民64。

By the end of the twentieth century, twenty to thirty million people around the world were estimated to have lost their land under the impact of trade liberalization and export agriculture63. The US international food aid program, formalized in 1954 as Public Law 480, dominated the food trade landscape over the next two decades. US-managed food surpluses were distributed to states regarded as future customers. This food export regime indeed undermined local farmers with low-priced staple foods64.

主要影响各国地方经济的工具，一直是世界银行和国际货币基金组织通过所谓结构调整计划（SAPs）实施的干预。结构调整计划以贷款条件的形式提出，要求受援国进行宏观经济政策调整，使其贸易和投资政策自由化。结果，各国政府降低了进口商品的关税，取消了对本地产品（尤其是粮食）的补贴，将大片土地从农业用途转为采矿和石油勘探，并使这些国家陷入难以偿还贷款的困境。最终的结果是，这些国家依赖进口食品和物资，而这些进口几乎都由庞大的资本主义企业所控制。

The main instruments of influencing the local economies worldwide have been the World Bank and the IMF through what is known as the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). Formulated as loan conditions, SAPs mandated macroeconomic policy changes that obligate recipient nations to liberalize their trade and investment policies. As a result, governments reduced tariffs on imported goods, lifted subsidies on local products, particularly food, moved large acreage land from farming into mining and oil exploration, and plunged the nations into difficulty to repay loans. The end result is dependence on imported foods and supplies by giant capitalist corporations.

资本主义在世界上的主导地位及其对世界经济状况的影响，可以从普遍存在的贫困、饥饿、健康流行病以及其他许多方面看出来。

The dominance of capitalism in the world and its impact on world economic conditions are observed in prevalent poverty, hunger, health epidemics, and much more.

在对资本主义基本原则及其政治经济学的讨论中，发现该制度的核心存在若干缺陷和弊端，尤其是稀缺性、价值、价格和私有制等原则。一个存在重大缺陷的制度，在实施过程中，必然会随着时间推移，使生活在这一制度下的人们产生诸多反常现象、危机和陷阱。这一结论遵循第2节所讨论的"过错—错误—失败"模型，也得到了观察结果以及现实生活中的统计数据和资料的支持。

The discussion of the basic principles of capitalism and its political economy revealed several defects and flaws at the core of the system, particularly the principles of scarcity, value, price, and private ownership. The implementation of a system with major flaws is expected to produce over time several anomalies, crises, and pitfalls in the life of people living under such system. This conclusion follows from the fault-error-failure model discussed in section.2. It is also supported by observations and real-life statistics and data.

在接下来的章节中，我们将考察当代资本主义经济体系下的实际数据。数据表明，主要经济原则的理论缺陷已导致严重错误，并持续对世界上极大一部分人口造成巨大的灾难性影响。人们不断尝试并通过救市和政府收购陷入困境的经济实体等强制性干预手段来遏制危机的冲击，希望防止整个资本主义体系的彻底崩溃和失败。

In the next sections, we will examine actual data from the contemporary world conditions under capitalist economic system. The data shows that the theoretical flaws of the major economic principles have led to serious errors that continue to cause huge catastrophic effects on very large segment of the population in the world. Continuous attempts and forced intervention through bailouts and government buyout of failing economic entities are sought to contain the impact of the crisis, hoping to prevent a complete collapse and failure of the entire system of capitalism.