原文链接：https://www.principles.com/the-changing-world-order/#introduction
中文翻译：https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/120139256
As you know for the last couple of years I have been observing a number of big important developments that concerned me that hadn’t happened before in my lifetime but did occur in the 1930-45 period and a number of times before then. They are the confluence of 1) big wealth, values, and political gaps, 2) zero or near-zero interest rates in the three major reserve currencies making monetary policy ineffective, 3) large debts, and 4) emerging conflicts between a rising world power (China) that is challenging an existing power (the US). Because of these concerns, over the last 18 months I have been studying the impact of these forces and the rises and declines of past leading empires and their reserve currencies. These studies led me to believe that when the next downturn came along there was a significant risk that we would see similar events to those that happened in 1930-45 (and many times before that for similar reasons), which would lead to a big shift in the world order. Then the coronavirus and its impacts on the economy and markets came along, so we are now in a downturn and facing these circumstances.
在过去的几年里，我一直在观察一些我一生中从未发生过的事情，类似的事情在1930-1945年期间曾经发生，在那之前也发生过很多次。
这些事情包含以下几个因素:1)巨大的财富、价值观和政治差距;2)三种主要储备货币的零利率或接近零利率使得货币政策失效;3)巨额债务;4)正在崛起的世界大国(中国)与现有大国(美国)之间的冲突。
Because doing this study helped me put what is now happening in economies and markets in perspective, and because I want to pass along what I learned to you, I will send it to you in weekly releases starting later this week. Sharing it this way will allow me to fix up the study as we go along, while still handling my most important responsibilities as a CIO of Bridgewater. If you’re interested in a heads up on when I release this content, along with other articles on the economy and markets, you can sign up for my new LinkedIn newsletter or by email at principles.com.
在过去18个月里，我一直在研究这些因素的影响，以及过去主要帝国及其储备货币的兴衰。
这些研究让我相信，当下一次经济衰退来临的时候，我们很有可能会看到类似于1930- 1945年发生的情形，这将导致世界秩序发生剧变。
紧接着冠状病毒爆发，对经济和市场产生重大影响，我们现在正处于一个低迷期。
做这项研究可以帮助我正确地看待经济和市场中正在发生的事情，我也想把我学到的东西传递给你们，之后我将每周更新。希望这些内容可以帮助大家了解历史，理解当下。
I believe that the times ahead will be radically different from the times we have experienced so far in our lifetimes, though similar to many other times in history.
我认为，未来的时代将与我们迄今为止所经历的时代完全不同，尽管我们所经历的时代与历史上许多其他时代有着相似。
I believe this because about 18 months ago I undertook a study of the rises and declines of empires, their reserve currencies, and their markets, prompted by my seeing a number of unusual developments that hadn’t happened before in my lifetime but that I knew had occurred numerous times in history. Most importantly, I was seeing the confluence of 1) high levels of indebtedness and extremely low interest rates, which limits central banks’ powers to stimulate the economy, 2) large wealth gaps and political divisions within countries, which leads to increased social and political conflicts, and 3) a rising world power (China) challenging the overextended existing world power (the US), which causes external conflict. The most recent analogous time was the period from 1930 to 1945. This was very concerning to me.
我之所以这样认为，是因为我在18个月前进行了一项研究，这个研究包括了帝国的兴起和衰败、各国的储备货币以及经济市场，在这其中我看到了一些我在有生之前都没有发生过的不同寻常的情况，但我知道这曾经在历史上多次发生。最重要的是，我看到：
1）高负载水平和极低的利率限制了中央银行刺激经济的有效性 2）较大的贫富差距和国家内部的政治分歧导致社会和政治冲突增加 3）一个正在崛起的世界大国（中国）正在挑战过度扩张的现有世界大国（美国），而导致的外部冲突。最近一次类似的历史时期是1930年到1945年。这让我很担心
As I studied history, I saw that this confluence of events was typical of periods that existed as roughly 10- to 20-year transition phases between big economic and political cycles that occurred over many years (e.g., 50-100 years). These big cycles were comprised of swings between 1) happy and prosperous periods in which wealth is pursued and created productively and those with power work harmoniously to facilitate this and 2) miserable, depressing periods in which there are fights over wealth and power that disrupt harmony and productivity and sometimes lead to revolutions/wars. These bad periods were like cleansing storms that got rid of weaknesses and excesses, such as too much debt, and returned the fundamentals to a sounder footing, albeit painfully. They eventually caused adaptations that made the whole stronger, though they typically changed who was on top and the prevailing world order.
这些糟糕的时期就像一场净化风暴，扫除了缺陷和过度行为（比如过多的债务），回归基本面，尽管这个过程是痛苦的。它们最终会使整个世界变得更加强大，尽管这通常会动摇曾经主导世界秩序的世界第一强国地位。
The answers to this question can only be found by studying the mechanics behind similar cases in history—the 1930-45 period but also the rise and fall of the British and Dutch empires, the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties, and others—to unlock an understanding of what is happening and what is likely to happen.[1] That was the purpose of this study. Then the pandemic came along, which was another one of those big events that never happened to me but happened many times before my lifetime that I needed to understand better.
为了找到这个问题的答案，只能通过研究类似过往时期背后的机制——1930 – 1945年期间，英国和荷兰帝国的兴衰、中国王朝的兴衰，以及其他——这使得我们可以更好的理解现在正在发生和未来可能发生的事情。
这就是本次研究的目的。然后世界级大流感来袭，这是另一个我从未经历过的大事件，但在过往历史中曾经发生过很多次，我需要进一步的了解。