第一次世界大战期间，凯恩斯曾在出任政府顾问，参与过最终向德国索取惩罚性赔款的凡尔赛和谈。

　　The experience was dispiriting for Keynes, who wrote a number of scathing essays in the 1920s, pointing out the risks of the agreement and of the post-war economic system more generally.

　　这段经历令凯恩斯大失所望，促使他在20年代写了一系列尖锐的文章，从更为宏观的角度，指出了这些协议以及战后经济体系的风险。

　　Frustrated by his inability to change the minds of those in power, and by a deepening global recession, Keynes set out to write a magnum opus criticising the economic consensus and laying out an alternative.

　　出于对自己改变当权者思想的无能为力以及日渐加深的全球衰退的受挫感，凯恩斯开始着手撰写一部批判经济共识并提出了一种替代共识的巨著。

　　He positioned the “General Theory” as a revolutionary text—and so it proved.

　　他对《通论》的定位是一份革命性文件——而且它也证明了自己的确如此。

　　The book is filled with economic insights.

　　该书充满了经济学的真知灼见。

　　Yet its most important contribution is the reasoning behind the proposition that when an economy is operating below full employment,

　　然而，它最重要的贡献却是其论点——当经济体在完全就业之下运行时，

　　demand rather than supply determines the level of investment and national income.

　　是需求而非供给决定投资和国民收入水平——背后的推理。

　　Keynes supposed there was a “multiplier effect” from changes in investment spending.

　　凯恩斯认为，存在着一种来自投资开支改变的“乘数效应”。

　　A bit of additional money spent by the government, for instance, would add directly to a nation's output (and income) .

　　例如，由政府支出的一点额外的钱会直接增加一国的产出（和收入）。

　　In the first instance, this money would go to contractors, suppliers, civil servants or welfare recipients.

　　首先，这些钱会流向承包商、供应商、公务员或者福利受益者。

　　They would in turn spend some of the extra income.

　　继而，他们会把这些额外收入中的一部分花出去。

　　The beneficiaries of that spending would also splash out a bit, adding still more to economic activity, and so on.

　　这种支出的受益者也会花一部分，令经济活动在逐步增加，以此类推。

　　Should the government cut back, the ill effects would multiply in the same way.

　　如果政府削减开支，不良效应会同样成倍放大。

　　Keynes thought this insight was especially important because of what he called “liquidity preference”.

　　由于他称之为“流动性偏好”的原因，凯恩斯认为这种真知灼见非常重要。

　　He reckoned that people like to have some liquid assets on hand if possible, in case of emergency.

　　他指出，人们喜欢尽可能地在手里有一些流动资产，以备急用。

　　In times of financial worry, demand for cash or similarly liquid assets rises; investors begin to worry more about the return of capital rather than the return on capital.

　　金融动荡时期，对于现金或者类似的流动资产的需要上升；投资者开始更多地为资本的收回而不是收益而担忧。

　　Keynes posited that this might lead to a “general glut” : a world in which everyone tries to hold more money, depressing spending, which in turn depresses production and income, leaving people still worse off.

　　凯恩斯认为，这可能会造成某种“普遍性过剩”：一个人人都想持有更多现钱的世界，它压制了开支，继而又压制了生产和收入，让人们过得越来越差。

　　In this world, lowering interest rates to stimulate growth does not help very much.

　　在这个世界中，降低利率以刺激增长起不到太大的作用。

　　Nor are rates very sensitive to increases in government borrowing, given the glut of saving.

　　同时，由于储蓄过剩，利率对于政府举债行为的增多也不是特别敏感。

　　Government spending to boost the economy could therefore generate a big rise in employment for only a negligible increase in interest rates.

　　因而，以刺激经济体为目的政府支出，仅仅因为可以忽略不计的利率上升，就可能带来就业的大幅上升。

　　Classical economists thought public-works spending would “crowd out” private investment; Keynes saw that during periods of weak demand it might “crowd in” private spending, through the multiplier effect.

　　古典经济学家认为，公共项目开支会“挤出”私人投资；凯恩斯则认为，在弱需求期间，它可能透过乘数效应“挤入”私人开支。

　　Keynes's reasoning was affirmed by the economic impact of increased government expenditure during the second world war.

　　二战期间，凯恩斯的推理为增加了的政府开支的经济影响所证实。

　　Massive military spending in Britain and America contributed to soaring economic growth.

　　英美两国大规模的军事开支带来了狂飙突进的经济增长。

　　This, combined with the determination to prevent a recurrence of the Depression, prompted policymakers to adopt Keynesian economics, and the multiplier, as the centrepiece of the post-war economic order.

　　这种增长，加之防止大萧条卷土重来的决心，一度令决策者将凯恩斯经济学和财政乘数奉为战后经济秩序的核心。

　　Other economists picked up where Keynes left off.

　　其他经济学家沿着凯恩斯的思路走了下去。

　　Alvin Hansen and Paul Samuelson constructed equations to predict how a rise or fall in spending in one part of the economy would propagate across the whole of it.

　　阿尔文·汉森和保罗·萨缪尔森构建了一些描述经济体某一部分支出的涨跌如何扩展至整个经济体的等式。

　　Governments took it for granted that managing economic demand was their responsibility.

　　各国政府想当然地把治理经济需求当成了他们的责任。

　　By the 1960s Keynes's intellectual victory seemed complete.

　　到上世纪60年代，凯恩斯的学术胜利似乎完整了。

　　In a story in Time magazine, published in 1965, Milton Friedman declared (in a quote often attributed to Richard Nixon) , “We are all Keynesians now.”

　　在《时代》杂志于1965年发表的一篇文章中，米尔顿·弗里德曼（在经常被当成是尼克松的一句引语中）宣称：“我们现在都是凯恩斯主义者。”

　　But the Keynesian consensus fractured in the 1970s.

　　但是，凯恩斯主义共识在上世纪70年代崩塌了。

　　Its dominance was eroded by the ideas of Friedman himself, who linked variations in the business cycle to growth (or decline) in the money supply.

　　它的支配地位逐渐被将商业周期的变化与货币供应的涨跌联系起来的弗里德曼自己的思想所蚕食。

　　Fancy Keynesian multipliers were not needed to keep an economy on track, he reckoned.

　　他指出，推崇凯恩斯乘数已经不再为保持经济正常运转所必需。

　　Instead, governments simply needed to pursue a policy of stable money growth.

　　相反，政府只需要一种稳定的货币增长政策。

　　An even greater challenge came from the emergence of the “rational expectations” school of economics, led by Robert Lucas.

　　随着以罗伯特·卢卡斯为首的“理性预期”学派的出现，一种更大的挑战也随之而来。

　　Rational-expectations economists supposed that fiscal policy would be undermined by forward-looking taxpayers.

　　理性预期学派的经济学家认为，财政政策会被具有前瞻性的纳税人所瓦解。

　　They should understand that government borrowing would eventually need to be repaid, and that stimulus today would necessitate higher taxes tomorrow.

　　这些纳税人应当懂得，政府借的钱终归需要偿还，今天的刺激会使得明天的更高的税收成为必需。

　　1.ended up 终结

　　例句:How would I manage if I ended up being a carer for my child and husband?

　　如果为了照顾孩子和丈夫我得结束我的职业生涯，我能做得到吗？

　　2.point out 指出；指明

　　例句:Can you point out the hotel on this map?

　　你能指出这家旅馆在地图上的位置吗？

　　3.fiscal policy 财政政策

　　例句:Fiscal policy uses budget deficits or surpluses to promote economic stability and growth.

　　财政政策利用预算赤字或剩余来促进经济的稳定和发展。

　　4.pick up 捡起；接人

　　例句:We drove to the airport the next morning to pick up Susan.

　　我们第二天早晨开车去机场接苏姗。