Martin Wolf Says Unpredictable US Superpower Terrifies Global Order

马丁·沃尔夫：不可预测的美国超级大国令全球秩序生畏 尽管面临战争与关税，在潜在增长动能的支撑下，世界经济依然保持强劲；但相较于市场扰动，美国捉摸不定的外交政策构成了大得多的生存风险。 在本期节目中，《金融时报》评论员马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）分析了全球市场在面对不断升级的中东冲突、美国关税及政治动荡时所展现出的惊人韧性。他剖析了欧洲深层的结构性脆弱性，以及对日益难以预测的美国超级大国的依赖。此外，沃尔夫深入探讨了共和国衰落的历史规律，并警告通用人工智能（AGI）是一场危险的浮士德式交易，可能威胁到人类的主体性与生存。 尽管包括美以与伊朗战争在内的全球不稳定局势持续存在，但得益于对政策可能转向（即“塔可策略”）的预期以及全球经济的结构性调整能力，全球市场依然保持着非同寻常的韧性。 (4:12) 从历史上看，全球经济增长具有极强的基线支撑，自1950年以来，全球GDP仅在两年（2009年和2020年）出现过负增长。 (9:47) “解放日”（Liberation Day）之后的美国关税并未重创全球贸易，这归功于通过越南和墨西哥等中间国进行的大规模贸易转移，以及针对特定企业的关税豁免。 (13:30) 欧洲对美国安全承诺的信任已遭到严重侵蚀，加之其高度依赖美国的防务、贸易和技术基础设施，使欧洲大陆深陷脆弱境地。 (20:00) 民主公民身份本质上要求对边界进行管控，这使得完全开放边界的概念与正常运转的宪政共和国无法相容。 (25:00)

Martin Wolf argues that while the global economy exhibits unexpected structural durability against geopolitical shocks and tariffs, the United States has evolved into an unpredictable, personalist superpower. This erratic posture, compounded by internal ideological polarization, leaves strategically dependent allies like Europe dangerously exposed and creates profound governance voids ahead of existential technological disruptions. Macroeconomic Durability Against Geopolitical Shocks (4:12) Despite escalating conflict in the Middle East threatening the Strait of Hormuz—which conveys approximately one-fifth of global oil output—financial markets have remained largely indifferent. Wolf explains that investors largely treat the turmoil as manageable 'sound and fury,' relying on the expectation that Donald Trump will seek an exit strategy before inflicting catastrophic damage (the 'Taco' strategy) alongside the global economy's capacity to adjust energy routes and demand. Citing Angus Maddison's historical datasets, Wolf observes that global economic growth is the baseline condition of modern society, contracting in only two years since 1950 (2009 and 2020) and typically expanding between 2% and 4% annually. Similarly, sweeping US tariffs failed to trigger global contraction due to widespread policy carve-outs and rapid trade diversion. Rather than ending global commerce, intermediate countries like Vietnam and Mexico absorbed and redirected supply flows previously moving directly from China and Canada into the United States. Protected by weak global labor power and the insulation of mega-cap technology corporations from physical supply-chain tariffs, baseline global growth remains unlikely to fall below 1% to 1.5% even during severe downturns. Europe's Structural Vulnerabilities and Post-Imperial Traps Europe faces acute strategic vulnerability because it spent the post-WWII era outsourcing its defense, technology infrastructure, and trade stability to American protection. Wolf emphasizes that European nations cannot realistically pivot to autocratic powers like Russia or China, yet they remain incapable of independent action. If the US unilaterally curtailed access to critical digital infrastructure and cloud systems, the continent would be practically helpless. This dependency is deepened by internal fragmentation, as centrist integrationists seeking a unified European coalition constantly clash with right-wing nationalists clinging strictly to individual state sovereignty. Wolf points to post-Brexit Britain as a cautionary example of a mid-sized power misjudging its global leverage. The promise that leaving the European Union would unlock lucrative bilateral trade deals—such as an elusive US free trade agreement—proved to be an illusion. In reality, Britain confronts the identical structural headwinds facing continental Europe, including deindustrialization, fierce Chinese competition, and heavy welfare burdens, while paradoxically experiencing record-high immigration levels outside the EU framework. The Emergence of a Bewildering American Superpower (50:00) Wolf identifies the erosion of predictable American governance as a primary source of global anxiety, noting that an erratic superpower is far more destabilizing than a predictable authoritarian rival like China. Operating with the personalist authority of an absolute monarch, Trump conducts foreign policy on personal dominance and transactional dealmaking. This approach collides with contradictory factions within his political orbit, which splinter between 19th-century Palmerstonian realism, religious-crusader militarism, and outright isolationism. This personalist model explicitly rejects Madisonian constitutional principles designed to constrain majority tyranny through institutional checks and balances. Drawing parallels to the decay of the Roman Republic, Wolf warns that viewing electoral victory as an absolute mandate to dismantle institutional norms transforms the US from a guarantor of the global rules-based order into an unpredictable, resentful actor operating outside established legal frameworks. Ideological Exhaustion Versus Polarized American Politics (55:00) The transatlantic divide reflects a fundamental difference in historical memory. Having endured centuries of catastrophic bloodshed—including the Thirty Years' War, which killed roughly 30% of Germany's population, and the devastation of two World Wars—European political culture after 1945 became deeply exhausted by ideological fanaticism. This collective trauma drove Europe to construct a post-ideological order prioritizing bureaucratic stability, pragmatic compromise, and institutional limits on inflammatory hate speech to prevent renewed violence. Conversely, because the United States suffered comparatively few casualties on its domestic soil—with the Civil War accounting for the vast majority of its historic military deaths—it lacks Europe's visceral wariness of ideological extremism. Consequently, European observers view contemporary American polarization and ethno-national populist movements with alarm, fearing the US is casually reviving historical grievances that proved catastrophic to control once unleashed. Artificial Intelligence and the Loss of Agency (60:00) Wolf characterizes the accelerating race toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as an existential Faustian bargain where humanity trades core agency and social stability for commercial wealth and computational power. Driven by a handful of corporate tech leaders and shielded from effective regulation by intense international competition, AGI creates acute systemic hazards, including the autonomous generation of lethal pathogens and uncontrolled bot networks capable of overwhelming human oversight. Alluding to the 'Butlerian Jihad' in Frank Herbert's *Dune*, Wolf suggests future generations may conclude that intelligent thinking machines should have been outlawed entirely. While acknowledging that an outright shutdown of AGI development is politically impossible and anticipating that advanced AI could eventually replace cognitive professions like economic commentary, Wolf warns that current developers are ignoring fundamental safeguards, such as Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics, in their rush toward machine dominance. Wolf leaves unresolved whether constitutional democracies and international alliances can survive simultaneous pressures from domestic populism, American unilateralism, and unconstrained technological disruption. While economic systems remain structurally resilient against immediate shocks, the absence of predictable American leadership deprives the global order of its foundational anchor.

《金融时报》首席经济评论员马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）指出，尽管地缘冲突与贸易壁垒不断升级，全球经济与金融市场仍展现出超乎预期的底层韧性；然而，美国在民粹主义侵蚀下正演变成一个行为不可预测、摆脱制度约束的超级大国，给其盟友欧洲与全球秩序带来了深刻的恐慌。 全球经济韧性与关税政策的实际漏洞 (4:12) 尽管美以与伊朗爆发冲突并波及占全球原油产出约五分之一的霍尔木兹海峡，且新关税政策频出，但金融市场依然表现冷淡，标普500指数甚至创下历史新高。沃尔夫援引亚当·斯密关于“一个国家经得起大量损耗”的论断指出，全球经济存在强大的结构性韧性。根据经济史学者安格斯·麦迪森（Angus Maddison）的数据，自1950年以来全球经济仅在2009年与2020年发生过收缩，常态增速基本维持在2%至4%之间。投资者押注于所谓的“塔可策略（Taco Strategy）”，即预期特朗普政府在面对彻底灾难时会选择妥协退让。 针对贸易壁垒，沃尔夫分析称关税并未演变成全行业无差别的毁灭性打击，而是表现出高度的不对称性与可谈判性。诸多跨国巨头获得了特例豁免（例如苹果公司），特定商品也通过外交斡旋豁免。根据国际货币基金组织（IMF）的数据，虽然中美与美加之间的直接贸易受挫，但供应链迅速通过越南、墨西哥等中介国进行“贸易转移”。加之劳工议价能力偏弱以及科技巨头对关税具备天然防御力，全球贸易系统在动荡中展现出强大的适应能力。 欧洲的战略脆弱性与后意识形态困境 欧洲在当前的动荡中处于极度被动的弱势地位。沃尔夫指出，欧洲在经历三十年战争、法西斯主义等数个世纪的残酷流血冲突后，对意识形态狂热产生了彻底的疲惫感，二战后转向追求宽容、技术官僚制和跨国规则治理。为换取安全，欧洲将自身防务、关键科技（尤其是底层云计算服务）以及贸易体系全面托付给美国。当美国提出在霍尔木兹海峡受阻时向欧洲提供石油，欧洲深感这属于“制造危机后又兜售解药”的不可预测行为，双方互信已彻底破裂。 目前欧洲面临既不愿依附中俄、自身又缺乏技术与军事实力的双重僵局。一旦美方在数字基础设施上实施单边切断，欧洲几乎毫无招架之力。与此同时，内部主权分歧掣肘了欧盟的统一决策。沃尔夫特别提到英国脱欧是一次“小国误判自身体量”的空想，脱离欧盟并未换来预期的美英自由贸易协定或全球灵活性，英国反而承受着与欧洲大陆完全相同的去工业化压力、竞争困境及技术短板。 美式超级大国的不可预测性与宪政侵蚀 (50:00) 沃尔夫强调，全球当前最大的不安全感并非来自外部挑战者，而是来自美国自身的蜕变。与目标明确、行事具备可预测性的中国不同，一个实力极度强大却行为混乱、充满怨恨情绪的美国是“令人极度恐慌的超级大国”。特朗普展现出的执政倾向更接近早期专制君王或亨利八世，试图摆脱国内法治与多边体系的束缚，采取赤裸的个人化双边交易，并将选举胜利等同于不受任何制约的绝对权力，这彻底颠覆了旨在防范“多数人暴政”的麦迪逊式宪政制衡框架。 美国内部的执政联盟呈现出深层次的分裂与矛盾：一极是具有技术宗教般热情的亿万富豪精英，另一极则是渴望回归传统性别与宗教秩序的保守派群体，底层还附着大量心怀不满的选民。其外交路线同样在帕麦斯顿式的现实主义、宗教十字军主义与孤立主义之间剧烈摇摆。由于美国本土未曾经历过欧洲那般浩劫性的意识形态屠杀，其社会对政治两极化风险缺乏足够的敬畏，正将危险的历史冲动释放到全球地缘政治舞台。 人工智能加速与通用智能的生存危机 (60:00) 在探讨科技未来时，沃尔夫将人工智能的狂飙突进定性为人类文明的一场“浮士德交易”——人类正在以自身的能动性、劳动价值和生存意义为代价，换取空前的算力与财富承诺。通用人工智能（AGI）若在所有认知维度上彻底超越人类，将带来严重的生存级灾难，包括催生不受控的致命病原体或自主机器人对人类社会的剥夺。 沃尔夫批评当下全人类在少数几位科技巨头的盲目驱动下“漫步跳入”未知的深渊，甚至完全抛弃了阿西莫夫设定的机器人安全法则。他借用科幻小说《沙丘》中全面禁止思考型机器的“巴特兰圣战（Butlerian Jihad）”指出，如果百年后人类文明依然存续，后人回望这段历史时，或许会意识到人类当初唯一正确的自救方式，应是联合立法彻底取缔智能机器的研发。 沃尔夫的研判勾勒出当代世界的核心悖论：虽然市场与全球生产网络在短期冲击下依然具备韧性，但维系战后繁荣的基础——可预测的美国领导地位与宪政秩序——正在加速瓦解。面对无序扩张的科技革命与大国权力的不可预测性，过度依赖外部保护的欧洲与全球治理体系正面临系统性的制度重构压力。

## Background 本期节目由彭博社（Bloomberg）旗下的播客《Odd Lots》于2026年5月14日在其RSS及网页平台发布。节目简介指出，在经历了2025年特朗普全面关税冲击与2026年美以伊战争等重大变局后，全球大宗商品价格走高，但金融市场却异乎寻常地持续创新高；节目邀请《金融时报》首席经济评论员马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf），共同探讨市场与混乱现实脱节的原因、美国所掌控的“令人恐惧”的超级力量、碎片化欧洲的战略困境以及AI带来的浮士德交易。 ## TL;DR 节目深入剖析了金融市场为何能在波斯湾战火与地缘狂风暴雨中保持冷酷韧性，指出市场押注特朗普在极限施压后终将寻找下台阶（TACO理论），加之全球经济对原油依赖度下降以及AI变革的利润预期支撑了基本面。沃尔夫从历史长周期回顾了欧洲如何在内部残酷竞争中崛起、又因两次世界大战的毁灭性浩劫而丧失强权意志并全方位依赖美国，揭示出当下的欧洲在面对无法预测的美国与数字化断供风险时陷入了无处可退的脆弱境地。对话进一步解构了特朗普政治联盟内部前沿资本与复古神权之间的荒诞割裂，并警告美国撕毁自身所建国际秩序的不确定性构成了全球最危险的火药桶；最后，沃尔夫以古典学与科幻小说的视角，将不受规管的通用人工智能（AGI）竞速定性为人类以自身灵魂与生存意义为代价的终极“浮士德交易”。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场对话在英式幽默的睿智机锋与深沉厚重的历史苍凉感之间自如切换。两位主持人轻松幽默的捧哏与调侃，恰到好处地烘托出沃尔夫作为古典学者与资深宏观评论家的厚重底色；随着话题从当下的市场脱节推移至罗马帝国陨落、三十年战争的人口毁灭以及大屠杀创伤，谈话氛围逐渐笼罩上一层严肃乃至冷峻的危机感。聆听体验仿佛置身于牛津大学的历史学术沙龙，在博通古今的宏大坐标系中，既有对荒诞现实政治的辛辣解构，也有对人类漫不经心走向技术失控与秩序解体的深切忧虑。 ## Bulletin - `05:22` 金融市场对美以伊战火脱敏创出新高，主要归因于押注“特朗普临阵退缩（TACO）”的地缘政治预期、现代经济对原油依赖度的结构性下降，以及 AI 驱动的科技巨头超强盈利支撑。 - `10:00` 全球经济展现出极强的抗冲击弹性，自 1950 年以来仅在 2009 年与 2020 年出现过年度负增长；差异化关税引发的跨国转口贸易与大企业特例豁免，大幅稀释了贸易保护主义的实质破坏力。 - `22:45` 跨大西洋信任基础面临瓦解，欧洲不仅在防务与能源上面临严峻考验，其底层云计算和数字技术全栈高度受制于美国，在遭遇美国单边霸权冲击时陷入无处可退的战略死胡同。 - `52:30` 相比战略目标清晰可预测的中国，手握全球终极金融特权与军事破坏力、内部却深陷极化撕裂且政策反复无常的美国，已演变成当今全球秩序中最危险的不可预测变量。 - `01:02:15` 人工智能是人类用灵魂与存在意义换取无尽算力的“终极浮士德交易”，在激烈的商业与地缘竞速下已完全无法规管，黑箱决策与问责真空构成了生存级的文明威胁。 ## Key takeaways - `05:22` 市场对地缘危机冷酷乐观的核心推演，在于投资者押注白宫会依循 TACO 规律主动寻找台阶下，同时实体经济对霍尔木兹海峡受阻等单点断供具备较强的管道替代与需求压缩韧性。 - `10:00` 世界经济具有承受巨大破坏的深厚容量，IMF 数据表明美中直接贸易缩减已被经由越南、墨西哥的转口贸易填补，系统本身具备强烈的自我修补与绕道渗透机制。 - `14:48` 关税壁垒充满私下博弈空间，如苹果公司供应链获得的个案豁免，叠加科技巨头凭借定价权转嫁成本，使得大盘盈利在宏观动荡中依然保持高韧性。 - `20:00` 欧洲战后数十年的和平繁荣建立在对美全方位依赖的温床上，这导致其在面对一个不可预测且诉诸强权的美国政府时，缺乏任何即时的自主替代方案。 - `27:00` 民主语境下的公民身份本质上是排他性的社会契约，国家必须具备清晰的准入边界，激进左翼倡导的开放边界主张动摇了民主宪政国家的存续基石。 - `30:00` “胜选即代表拥有绝对权力”的新民粹威权理念，正在摧毁以麦迪逊分权制衡为核心的现代宪政原则，滑向排斥制度约束的民选独裁陷阱。 - `32:30` 欧洲近代崛起的秘诀在于共享基督教文明下的“多国血腥竞争与碎片化”，这种机制加速了军事、制度与思想的演进，但最终在全民动员的民族主义下引爆了自毁式的两次世界大战。 - `35:00` 两次大战与集中营浩劫彻底摧毁了欧洲的自信心与道德底线，欧洲大陆自此阉割了自身的“强权政治意志”，将其彻底托付给美军的安全庇护伞。 - `38:00` 欧洲各国右翼势力本质上是本土保护主义而非欧罗巴联邦主义，在缺乏查理曼式强力统合者的情况下，欧洲难以在短时间内凝聚出独立统一的超级大国战略力量。 - `45:00` 英国脱欧是“未意识到自己是小国”的典型幻想，脱欧后非但未能达成美英全面自贸协定，反而接纳了创纪录的非欧移民，并未摆脱欧洲共有的去工业化与科技软肋。 - `47:32` 特朗普的政治联盟充斥着根本性割裂，将痴迷前沿技术的硅谷资本、渴望复古的神权保守派与深怀怨气的底层大众勉强维系在个人崇拜之下。 - `50:00` 特朗普的权力观高度类似于古代专制君王，追求不受任何制度约束的“朕即法律”，在对外关系上仅承认等级尊卑与纯粹的臣服服从。 - `55:00` 从古典学视角看，当下的美国如同晚期罗马共和国向帝制滑落，特朗普式领导风格体现出共和国制度崩溃与凯撒主义重临的历史特征。 - `57:30` 欧洲战后的去意识形态化与宽容体制并非软弱，而是经历三十年战争与两次大战千万级屠杀后，文明在深重创伤下建立的防御性政治耗竭共识。 - `01:05:00` 面对 AGI 碾压人类智力的生存拷问以及算法自主杀戮武器的前景，整个人类社会在缺乏制度防线的情况下正任由少数几家科技巨头漫不经心地主导狂奔。 - `01:07:44` 美元全球储备货币地位赋予了美国长期维系巨额财政赤字的无上特权，然而美国国内主流政治力量却被深重的受害者心态主导，意图摧毁这套令自身获益最深的国际架构。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `00:00` 现场活动公告与重返伦敦的“英音智者”传统 节目开场带来了一则线下活动通告：Odd Lots 主持人 Joe Weisenthal 与 Tracy Alloway 将于 5 月 28 日晚 7 点在纽约市的 City Winery 举办现场直播秀（Live Show）。两人调侃道，这类线下活动不仅是为了让听众见到主播，更关键的是让社群成员能够“走入现实世界（IRL is the new URL）”，互相结识并交流。本次活动将聚焦非常契合纽约本土气质的主题——“交易的未来”（The Future of Trading），更多票务与嘉宾细节随后将在彭博官网及社交平台公布。 镜头随后切换到伦敦演播室。两位主持人延续了春季造访伦敦的固定惯例——去年他们是在 4 月到访，而今年则是 5 月。Joe 幽默地分享了一个节目制作的“幕后机密”：每当国际局势发生重大地缘政治剧变、让人感觉历史迎来关键拐点时，他在办公室里总会忍不住对 Tracy 说：“你知道我们现在真正需要什么吗？我们需要找一位带着浓重英国口音的老先生来做一期节目。”Tracy 笑着拆台称 Joe 彻底泄露了 Odd Lots 的嘉宾邀约秘籍——不必在乎具体是谁，只要是那种带着历经风浪的智慧与宏大历史视野的长者，就足以完美契合这种厚重的历史时刻。 这位“完美人选”正是《金融时报》（Financial Times）首席经济评论员马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）。作为全球最著名的地缘政治与地缘经济评论家之一，他已经成为主持人在混乱时代中最倚重的把脉者。 --- ### `03:45` 从2025年关税动荡到2026年伊朗战局 回顾上一次对话，时间还要追溯到 2025 年 4 月，当时特朗普政府刚刚公布了席卷全球贸易伙伴的“解放日关税表（Liberation Day tariff schedule）”，整个金融市场陷入了极致的疯狂震荡之中。然而仅仅过去一年，到了 2026 年 5 月，局势已经演变成美以与伊朗爆发全面战争、美欧同盟裂痕加深等更加严峻的重大地缘危机。 对比当前的战争状态，2025 年春季那种单纯由关税引发的惊涛骇浪，如今看来甚至带有一种“古朴而温和（quaint）”的荒谬意味。地缘政治板块以按月甚至按周的频率剧烈位移，可令人费解的是，当下的金融市场不仅没有陷入预期的极度恐慌，反而呈现出异乎寻常的平静与脱节。 --- ### `05:22` 喧哗与骚动：为何金融市场对“梦魇战局”无动于衷？ 马丁·沃尔夫随后接入对话。面对主持人将其迎入节目的调侃，他风趣地回应道：“非常高兴能填补一个我自己都不知道存在的细分需求。”随后，Tracy 抛出了核心矛盾：沃尔夫此前曾公开将当前的伊朗冲突定性为一种“梦魇般的场景（nightmare scenario）”，但就在上周五，标普 500 指数（S&P 500）却再度创下历史新高。面对如此割裂的表象，市场的定价逻辑究竟是什么？ 沃尔夫借用莎士比亚《麦克白》中的传世名句给出了精辟的诊断：市场看待当下的地缘危机，就像看待“一个傻子讲的故事，充满了喧哗与骚动，却毫无意义（a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing）”。他认为，市场之所以能保持冷酷的乐观，主要基于两大维度的推演： ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 市场无视伊朗危机冲击的推演逻辑 accDescr: 展现市场之所以无视地缘危机的两大支柱：TACO政治预期与实体原油替代韧性。 subgraph LogicA ["支柱一：政治博弈预期（TACO 假说）"] A1["特朗普临阵退缩（TACO 理论）"] --> A2["单方面宣布胜利并寻求下台阶"] A2 --> A3["地缘冲突短期降温<br/>避开全球性毁灭浩劫"] end subgraph LogicB ["支柱二：宏观与原油韧性"] B1["霍尔木兹海峡受阻"] --> B2["管道替代与全球需求压缩"] B2 --> B3["原油占全球GDP比重大幅下降"] B3 --> B4["实际油价尚未达到不可承受高位"] end subgraph TechSupport ["基本面支撑底座"] T1["AI与颠覆性技术革命"] --> T2["企业盈利预期保持坚挺"] end LogicA --> Market["市场无视恐慌<br/>股指创历史新高"] LogicB --> Market TechSupport --> Market ``` - **第一，“TACO”理论与政治下台阶**：沃尔夫引用其《金融时报》同事罗伯特·阿姆斯特朗（Robert Armstrong）提出的著名命题——“特朗普总是临阵退缩（Trump Always Chickens Out, TACO）”。投资者普遍押注特朗普绝不会真的引爆全球毁灭性危机，而是会像以往一样，在造成一定破坏并让美国显得颇为滑稽之后，单方面“宣布胜利”并主动叫停战事以寻找收场方案。目前战火暂歇的态势表明白宫正极力寻找终局，唯一的变数仅在于对手是否愿意配合演完这场戏。 - **第二，全球经济对石油供应中断的强悍适应力**：即使霍尔木兹海峡承载的约占全球五分之一的原油运输永久性受阻，世界经济也不会因此彻底脱轨。长期来看，中东可以通过加快兴建陆路管道绕过海峡，全球消费端也能随时间压缩需求。与五六十年前相比，原油在现代全球经济中的权重已大幅缩水；扣除通胀后，当前的实际油价在历次石油危机的长周期坐标系中根本算不上骇人听闻。 - **第三，非对称伤害与技术革命托底**：在各大经济体中，实现能源自给的美国受到的伤害实质上最为轻微，这本身就是白宫敢于涉险的潜在算计；真正的输家是严重依赖外部能源的欧洲与中国（而这两者恰恰都不是特朗普偏爱的对象，甚至他可能更青睐中国而非欧洲），俄罗斯则坐收渔利。更重要的是，市场当前聚焦于底层极具颠覆性的技术变革（以人工智能为主导），这种对企业盈利长期坚挺的强烈预期，足以抵消潜在温和衰退带来的负面扰动。 Joe 随后接话表示，尽管莎翁那句“喧哗与骚动，毫无意义”常被用来调侃金融媒体每天喋喋不休的代码与文字输出，但身处 5 月 4 日这个录制节点，直面各大媒体惊悚的战争头条与连创新高的股票牛市，这种巨大的割裂感依然令人感到不可思议。 ### `10:00` 世界经济惊人的韧性与“一个国家能承受极大的败落” 面对过去一年半里接踵而至的冲击——从“解放日”（Liberation Day）、美联储主席鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）面临传票风波，再到美以与伊朗爆发战争，全球经济展现出的抗跌能力令人大跌眼镜。主持人提到，过去在大学攻读国际关系学时，教科书和教授们反复强调国际经济对不稳定和混乱极度厌恶，然而眼下即便身处地缘与政治狂风暴雨之中，全球经济列车却依旧轰隆向前，市场与现实之间似乎存在着深刻的脱节。马丁·沃尔夫对此深有同感，并援引了英国现代经济学之父亚当·斯密（Adam Smith）的一句名言：“一个国家能承受极大的败落”（There is a great deal of ruin in a nation）。当年有人曾向斯密哀叹北美殖民地的丧失对英国是毁灭性的悲剧，而斯密以此回应；如今沃尔夫认为，这句话同样适用于全球经济——“世界经济具有承受巨大破坏的容量”。 沃尔夫分享了他在历次演讲中最喜欢引用的一项统计数据：根据著名经济史学家安格斯·麦迪森（Angus Maddison）的历史数据体系，自1950年以来的大半个世纪里，全球经济真正出现萎缩的年份仅仅只有两年。这两次都是众所周知的危机节点：一次是2009年全球金融危机（由于当时中国等新兴市场仍高速增长，全球萎缩幅度几乎接近于零），另一次则是2020年新冠疫情的全面爆发。除此以外，全球经济几乎始终保持着每年2%至4%的稳定增长。这种强大韧性的底层动力在于，世界上所有具备分量的经济体本质上都处于“增长模式”之中，市场主体不断生产人们所需的商品，并为了满足市场需求而大举投资；正如凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）所强调的，投资是拉动总需求的核心引擎。沃尔夫回忆自己在20世纪70年代作为年轻经济学者经历过两次石油危机，当时恶性通胀肆虐，保罗·沃尔克（Paul Volcker）随后通过激进紧缩在美引发衰退，但这从未演变成全球性的全面倒退。 针对当前的动荡局势，沃尔夫认为各项政策充斥着莎士比亚式的“喧哗与骚动”（full of sound and fury），但在实际执行层面却留有极大的缓冲空间。以特朗普的关税政策为例，假若真正实施一刀切的35%或40%全面关税，全球贸易确实会遭遇毁灭性打击；但现实中关税的落地极不均衡，主要针对中国等特定原产地，这反而催生了前所未有的“贸易转移”（trade diversion）。中国商品开始借道越南、墨西哥等第三国曲线进入美国。国际货币基金组织（IMF）在近期的《世界经济展望》中用详实图表证实了这一点：尽管美中、美加之间的直接双边贸易缩减，但替代渠道迅速补位，整个贸易网络展现出高度的渗透性与弹性。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 贸易转移机制流程 accDescr: 特朗普差异化关税政策如何通过第三国中转与企业游说豁免弱化了对全球经济的实际冲击 subgraph Tariffs["非均匀关税冲击"] A["高额双边关税<br/>（针对中国等原产地）"] B["未实施全球统一无差别高关税"] end subgraph Channels["转口与企业豁免"] C["转口贸易激增<br/>（经由越南、墨西哥等国）"] D["企业单独谈判豁免<br/>（如苹果公司供应链豁免）"] end subgraph Outcome["宏观经济结果"] E["跨国供应链保持渗透性与弹性"] F["避免全球贸易断崖式崩塌"] end A --> C B --> C D --> E C --> E E --> F ``` - **历史罕见的萎缩年份**：1950年至今，全球实际GDP仅在2009年与2020年出现过负增长。 - **常态化增长中枢**：正常年份世界经济增速几乎始终锚定在2%至4%的区间内。 - **结构性替代效应**：IMF数据显示，双边直接贸易下滑被第三方转口贸易的爆发式增长所填补，系统本身具备强烈的自我修补能力。 --- ### `14:48` 关税漏洞、科技巨头的护城河与特朗普的“亨利八世”国王梦 除了贸易转移，关税政策的另一个安全阀在于广泛的企业特例与私下豁免。沃尔夫指出，特朗普政府针对特定企业进行了频繁的关税协商，例如对严重依赖海外供应链的苹果公司（Apple）网开一面，使得整个贸易壁垒千疮百孔、充满可商榷的空间。此外，尽管波斯湾的战火推高了国际油价，但当今全球经济对原油的依赖度已远低于上世纪70年代，能源结构的多元化削弱了石油危机的杀伤力。沃尔夫预计，高油价固然会拖累经济，全球增长可能放缓至1%到1.5%左右，但这绝非末日崩盘。从企业利润看，全球范围内劳工谈判力量处于弱势，大企业有充足的定价权来维持生存；中小企业或许深陷泥潭，但主导全球利润大盘的科技巨擘（Tech Colossi）几乎毫发无损。 谈及政策的随意性与豁免权，主持人和沃尔夫展开了一段充满英式幽默的调侃。主持人打趣道，由于近期特朗普据称在英国国王查尔斯三世的请求下豁免了英国威士忌的关税，看来特朗普也像美国大众一样无法抗拒英国腔的魅力，整场节目似乎可以只引用英国历史学家和经济学家的观点。沃尔夫大笑反问：“除了英国的，还有别的经济思想家吗？”随后沃尔夫深入分析了特朗普对权位和皇室排场的迷恋，提到特朗普曾在社交媒体上吹捧“两位国王并肩”，绝非戏言，他骨子里渴望的就是君临天下。 不过沃尔夫辛辣地指出，特朗普心仪的偶像绝非遵循现代立宪礼仪的“可怜的查尔斯国王”，而是英格兰历史上的绝对君主亨利八世（Henry VIII）。亨利八世做出了英国君主历史上最重大的抉择——脱离罗马天主教会，立自己为教会最高领袖，并拥有接连将不顺从的顾问送上断头台的绝对权威，这种说一不二的独裁权力和排场正是特朗普所梦寐以求的。沃尔夫调侃称，特朗普大概恨不得把白金汉宫连根拔起直接搬到华盛顿特区中央；主持人也附和道，特朗普对白宫椭圆形办公室的大肆翻修，其金碧辉煌的风格确实宛如欧洲古典宫殿的翻版。 - **关税豁免个案**：苹果公司通过游说成功规避了可能造成重创的零部件关税；英国威士忌等特殊品类也通过高层个人关系获得免税待遇。 - **大企业与劳工格局**：劳工组织议价能力低迷压低了企业的要素成本，确保了跨国巨头在宏观动荡中维系强劲的净利润率。 - **波斯湾地缘冲突评估**：尽管美以伊战火推升大宗商品价格，但全球能源体系脱碳与多元化已降低了单位GDP的能耗与石油依赖度，不至于重演20世纪70年代的全面滞胀停滞。 ### `20:00` “信任我们”的破产与欧洲的能源安全困局 在由美以对伊战争引发中东局势巨变之后，特朗普公开向欧洲放话：如果欧洲无法从波斯湾获得石油，大可以转向美国购买。然而这种表态在欧洲引发了极为复杂的反应——毕竟这场能源供应链危机在很大程度上正是美国自身政策所致，而美国随后却摆出一副救世主的姿态要求欧洲将能源安全托付给自己。主持人以英式含蓄调侃欧洲人普遍将特朗普视为“有些难以预测”，而马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）则直言不讳地指出，所谓“信任我们”的前提在欧洲乃至全球范围内早已彻底破灭。在沃尔夫看来，反复无常与不可预测正是特朗普核心的行为模式（modus operandi），他乐于在两个极端之间制造意外，因此如今在欧洲没有任何人会真正相信来自这届美国政府的任何承诺。 这种互信崩塌之所以令欧洲倍感绝望，是因为欧洲在二战后数十年的和平繁荣中，对美国形成了全方位、深层次的绝对依赖。两次世界大战不仅在物质上重创了欧洲各大主要强国，更彻底摧毁了欧洲大陆的自信心，使其陷入极度的精神颓丧。战后欧洲从防御体系、贸易投资，到高科技基础设施乃至现代自由民主制度，几乎全盘仰赖美国输入。当时的欧洲对这种安排感到非常满意并安于现状，但当这种长期依赖遭遇突变时，带来的便是“灾难性的震荡”。 - **不可预测性作为武器**：特朗普的核心行事逻辑即打破常理，在两极震荡中让对手和盟友措手不及，导致其承诺在欧洲的信用度彻底归零。 - **深层制度依赖**：战后欧洲外包了几乎所有核心安全与科技资产，从未真正自主建立应对极端地缘冲突的自给自足体系。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 战后欧洲对美依赖路径与安全困境 accDescr: 展示欧洲从二战后全方位依赖美国，到遭遇特朗普政策冲击后陷入无处可退的脆弱地缘处境。 subgraph HistoricDependency["战后依赖的形成"] direction TB A["两次世界大战摧毁欧洲元气"] --> B["全面依附美国安全伞"] B --> C["外包科技栈、国防与能源安全"] end subgraph CurrentShock["特朗普冲击与失信"] direction TB D["特朗普将不可预测性作为手段"] --> E["'信任我们'基础彻底瓦解"] E --> F["对美数字化与能源依赖成为致命软肋"] end subgraph GeopoliticalImpasse["欧洲的战略死胡同"] direction TB G{"寻找替代方案？"} G -->|"倒向中国"| H["不可行且意愿极低"] G -->|"倒向俄罗斯"| I["绝对不可能"] G -->|"内部团结自立"| J["历史宿怨未消、缺乏互信"] end HistoricDependency --> CurrentShock CurrentShock --> GeopoliticalImpasse ``` --- ### `22:45` 遭遇“施暴配偶”：欧洲惊人的脆弱性与战略死胡同 沃尔夫打了一个尖锐的比喻：如果说特朗普第一任期还只是让欧洲感到雷声大雨点小（尽管叫嚣退约，但内阁充斥着欧洲熟悉的建制派面孔，未真正动摇 NATO 或贸易框架），那么当前的第二任期则带来了一场真正的认知地震——这就像欧洲相伴数十年的“信赖配偶”突然撕下面具，变成了一个“诉诸暴力的恶霸（violent bully）”。欧洲陷入了深刻的心理休克，更糟糕的是它根本无处可去、无家可归。欧洲不可能选择倒向普京统治下的俄罗斯，对深化对华关系的意愿同样极低，而自身又根本不具备在防务和尖端科技上独立生存的能力。 欧洲的脆弱性在数字领域体现得尤为惊人。沃尔夫指出，只要试想一下，如果美国政府决定切断欧洲访问美国数字化全栈（digital stack）——包括底层云计算平台、主流软硬件生态及核心算力网络，欧洲的整个现代社会运转将瞬间瘫痪。面对这一生存级别的风险，欧洲至今仍处于“不知道自己该怎么办”的懵懂初期。各个成员国之间价值取向迥异、历史包袱沉重，甚至彼此之间依然缺乏信任——欧洲漫长而惨烈的内部冲突史从未真正远去，使得整个欧洲大陆目前陷入了空前的“思想与道德混乱”。 - **两届任期的温差**：特朗普第一任期被欧洲视为“充满喧哗与骚动，但未实质破坏秩序”；而新任期则彻底颠覆了跨大西洋联盟的底层契约。 - **数字化“命门”受制于人**：欧洲自身缺乏本土超大规模云服务商与底层科技栈，若美国利用科技霸权施加断供制裁，欧洲缺乏任何即时替代方案。 - **内部缺乏凝聚力**：成员国间各自打着历史与利益算盘，难以迅速就自主化防务或统一地缘战略达成一致。 --- ### `25:00` 言论自由悖论与公民边界契约的双重批判 特朗普政府对欧洲提出了两大尖锐批判：一是抨击欧洲在“言论自由”上的压制与审查，二是将宽松的“移民政策”斥为欧洲文明衰败的罪魁祸首。针对言论自由，沃尔夫指出美国政府的指责本身充斥着双重标准与伪善，但在具体事实上，部分欧洲政府（包括英国）确实在以防范“仇恨言论（hate speech）”为名走得太远。他强调，无论是在大学校园等私立机构还是在公共舆论广场，任何人“都没有不受冒犯的权利（you don't have a right not to be offended）”。 然而，欧洲在言论监管上的谨慎根植于其惨痛的历史教训。沃尔夫以万斯（J.D. Vance）2025年在慕尼黑安全会议上的演讲为例指出，美国政客热衷于向德国人说教言论自由，但德国人深知历史的代价——如果当年德国魏玛共和国能及时制止希特勒散布极端言论，将其长期关押而非轻易释放，整个二十世纪的惨剧或许就能避免。绝对言论自由的教条在现实中存在严重风险，即便是标榜自由的特朗普政府自身，实际上也对许多言论抱有极强的压制意图。 - **言论冒犯与历史教训**：公民没有“不受冒犯”的特权，但欧洲对特定极端煽动性言论的立法禁止，是基于防止极权与法西斯主义死灰复燃的惨烈历史代价。 - **万斯慕尼黑演讲的交锋**：美国保守派政客指责欧洲言论管束过严，却忽视了欧洲对于防范历史重演的防御性民主制度设计。 --- ### `27:00` 民主国家的排他性本质与边境管控危机 转向文明衰退与移民问题时，沃尔夫承认特朗普政府的批评触及了核心现实。沃尔夫在其著作中曾深入阐述，一个国家（尤其是民主政体）的核心定义之一正是“拥有清晰的边界”。民主语境下的公民身份（citizenship）在概念上本质就是“排他性的（exclusive by definition）”——普世价值固然可以放之四海，但公民身份所附带的权利与契约绝非普世共享。这一政治哲学渊源可以一路追溯到古希腊城邦和古罗马共和国对公民地位与民主制度的定义。 因此，如果一个国家放弃边境控制，未能确保长久居留者是通过正当的政治协商程序被“选择”进入共同体的，这从根本上构成了对“公民身份社会契约”的违背。沃尔夫直言，许多普通公民完全有正当理由主张“不能任由全世界所有人自由迁徙至此”，因为不受控制的移民规模必然带来巨大的社会与经济承载危机。他尖锐地批评了部分所谓“进步主义左翼（progressive left）”主张实质性废除边境的极端立场，明确指出这种激进观念与现代民主宪政国家的根本存续逻辑是水火不容的。 - **民主公民身份的排他性**：民主国家依赖特定的政治共同体与社会契约，这决定了公民权必须具备严格的准入边界。 - **古希腊罗马的共和渊源**：边界与公民资格自古典时代起就是城邦治理的基石，放弃边境控制即瓦解了公民自治的前提。 - **对进步派边境观的批判**：抹杀边界的意识形态主张破坏了社会信任与契约结构，导致欧洲传统选民对主流体制产生深层信任危机。 ### `30:00` 民主的蜕变：当选是否等同于拥有一切权力？ 马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）深入剖析了当今民主制度面临的根本性危机。他指出，过去一些以公民身份为基石的民主观念遭遇了重大侵蚀，这无疑是一个巨大的错误。但眼下令他更为忧虑的，是特朗普（Donald Trump）阵营及其推崇的威权领导人（例如欧尔班·维克多 Viktor Orbán）所倡导的新型民主概念——即“只要胜选上台，所做的一切在定义上就是民主的”。沃尔夫直言，这种逻辑与现代宪政的核心基石，特别是詹姆斯·麦迪逊（James Madison）强调的“防止多数人的暴政”（tyranny of the majority）原则水火不容。 在共和国制度中，最本质的支柱是限制权力的制度机制。即使候选人以微弱优势赢得了多数（而事实上他们往往连多数都未曾获得），也绝不意味着可以肆意妄为。沃尔夫担忧，在过去的二三十年甚至更长的时间里，这种排斥制度制衡的意识形态在左翼与右翼中死灰复燃。虽然这不能直接等同于二战时期那种极端的极权主义，但如果批评现有制度的目的是滑向普京（Vladimir Putin）所热衷的“单一族裔民族主义独裁”（ethno-national dictatorships），那绝对是误入歧途。 主持人随即插话指出，当下似乎已形成一种刻板印象：无论全球局势发生什么变化，欧洲总是被视作最大的输家。主持人问道，在欧洲长期苦于无法实现战略自主、难以协调各国利益的背景下，如果美国的压力反倒成为外部催化剂，迫使欧洲团结起来，欧洲是否有可能在这场危机中凝聚出更统一的中央策略与战略自主？ 沃尔夫坦言，这确实是一种可能，也是他自己以及几乎所有欧洲朋友由衷期盼的景象。然而，要理解为何实现这一点极其困难，必须回溯欧洲深刻而悲剧性的漫长历史。 --- ### `32:30` 欧洲崛起的历史密码：分裂与竞争的双刃剑 沃尔夫回顾了自己撰写过的一篇令他倍感自豪的专栏文章，讲述欧洲如何重塑了全球秩序。在六七百年前，欧洲在地理上仅仅是欧亚大陆伸出的一个边缘半岛，微不足道。然而就是这样一片边缘地带，最终征服了世界的大部分区域，在思想、文化、科学和政治层面彻底改写了人类历史，并孕育了庞大的帝国体系——其中就包括美国的诞生。这一切究竟是如何发生的？ ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 欧洲分裂竞争模型与历史演变 accDescr: 展示欧洲因基督教共享文明与地缘分裂引发竞争崛起，随后演变为民族主义、导致两次世界大战自毁并依赖美国的历史进程。 subgraph Phase1["历史优势：分裂与竞争机制"] A["罗马帝国崩溃后：基督教共享文明与地缘碎片化"] B["邦国间无休止冲突与军备演进"] C["思想与科技避难流动（一国压制、他国接纳）"] A --> B A --> C end subgraph Phase2["现代化与自我毁灭"] D["工业革命与普遍征兵制：全民民族主义动员"] E["两次世界大战与集中营惨剧：欧洲自我毁灭"] B & C --> D D --> E end subgraph Phase3["战后困境与现状"] F["丧失自信与强权意志，全面托付给山姆大叔"] G["当下抉择：温和中间派 vs 各国右翼民族主义"] E --> F F --> G end ``` 沃尔夫总结道，自罗马帝国灭亡后，欧洲历史的核心特征就是：**共享同一种基督教文明，但在政治上高度碎片化**。各国在永无休止的冲突与博弈中演进，将争斗与军事能力打磨到了登峰造极的地步。令人震惊的例子随处可见——比如18世纪中叶，区区数千名英国人竟然就此逐步征服了庞大的印度。与此同时，分裂也带来了思想和科学的蓬勃发展：当某个国家试图压制某种异端思想时，学者与观念便迅速逃往邻国避难。 沃尔夫指出，正是欧洲的“分裂”成就了它的辉煌，而中国长期的“大一统”反而因为缺乏这种激烈的外部与内部竞争机制，一度受到抑制。欧洲文明正是构建在统治者之间以及国家内部的激烈角逐之上的。 --- ### `35:00` 两次大战的幻灭与“山姆大叔”的庇护伞 这种长期激烈的国家竞争，随着工业革命和现代国家的建立迎来了质的突变。民族主义成为了动员全民的最强手段，彻底取代了以往依靠职业军人或特定阶级作战的模式，法国开创的“普遍征兵制”更是将战争升级为全民动员体制。然而，这种登峰造极的民族主义最终滑向了灾难的深渊——两次世界大战将欧洲炸得粉碎。 沃尔夫动情地回忆，自己出生于二战刚结束不久的年代，亲眼目睹了欧洲大陆自我毁灭的创伤。摧毁欧洲的不是海外殖民地，而是欧洲人自己；死亡集中营的出现彻底击垮了欧洲人的自信心、自我认同与道德价值底线。此后，各大殖民帝国的瓦解也是因为欧洲列强自身实力消耗殆尽，再也无力维系海外统治（而美国在背后乐见其成且坚决支持非殖民化）。 浩劫之后，欧洲国家深刻意识到必须改弦易辙。他们面临着一个核心悖论：必须联合，但彼此依然是保留着各自语言、历史与文化的独立民族国家。因为彼此之间充满戒心、不再信任自己（唯独英国因孤悬海外免遭沦陷，自认为可以游离其外），欧洲大陆做出了历史性抉择： - 放弃内部互相争霸的帝国冲动与争斗； - 将安全与防卫彻底托付给仁慈慷慨的“山姆大叔”（美国）； - 在战后几十年里，心安理得地在美军的羽翼下享受和平。 如今，国际局势巨变，外界突然要求欧洲重新站起来成为拥有强大军队、意志坚定的超级大国。沃尔夫直言：“我们根本不相信那套东西。欧洲人上次尝试追求权力意志（Wille zur Macht）时，差点把整个世界都给炸飞了。”这种惨痛的历史梦魇至今仍深植于欧洲的集体无意识中。 --- ### `38:00` 查理曼缺位：谁来领导统一的欧洲？ 面对欧洲未来究竟能否走向战略自主的疑问，沃尔夫坦言自己无法给出确切答案，因为眼下整个欧洲正陷入深层的路线拉锯，主要被两股截然相反的力量撕扯： | 政治阵营 | 核心主张与诉求 | 面临的根本局限 | |:--- |:--- |:--- | | **温和中间派 / 自由主义阵营** | 主张建立更高效、更具整合度的欧洲，以俱乐部形式推动渐进式一体化，增强整体行动力。 | 缺乏建立真正超级国家的决心与政治铁腕，手段过于温和、软弱，不具备帝国式的强悍意志。 | | **右翼民族主义阵营**（如法国勒庞等势力） | 主张重塑国家主权、推行贸易保护主义与反移民，强调民族国家至上。 | 本质是法兰西或特定国家本位，根本不是“泛欧洲民族主义者”；无法像美国的特朗普或万斯（JD Vance）那样凝聚出大国认同。 | 沃尔夫援引一位欧洲著名政客的名言自嘲道：“在欧洲，只有两种国家：一种是小国，另一种是还不知道自己是小国的小国。”欧洲若想真正成为铁板一块的超级大国，历史上唯有查理曼（Charlemagne）或拿破仑（Napoleon）这样具备绝对意志的强人才能推动——而历史上最后一个妄图建立全欧统治意志的，其实是想要建立德意志帝国的希特勒（Adolf Hitler）。 现如今，欧洲绝不可能再诞生这样的人物。未来欧洲若能被逼出独立的战略自觉与统一身份，唯一的外部驱动力可能就是美国政策的大转向：美国人明确告知欧洲“你们别再指望我们了”，甚至在防务与经贸上敲打欧洲，迫使其自食其力。 --- ### `42:00` 英国脱欧的虚妄主权与小国迷思 访谈转入当下最现实的反例——英国脱欧（Brexit）。主持人提问：欧洲大陆试图淡化民族国家的约束，而英国原本就较晚加入欧盟，如今彻底脱离了欧洲体系。理论上英国重新获得了梦寐以求的“完全主权”，但英国用这份主权干了什么？当前英国与欧洲大陆所面对的增长乏力与社会撕裂并无二致，究竟是什么在阻碍英国的发展？ 沃尔夫犀利地指出，英国正是“那个不知道自己其实是小国的小国”最典型的写照。脱欧派当初向选民兜售脱欧愿景时，最重要的口号之一便是“脱欧可以阻断移民涌入”。然而现实极其讽刺：在脱离欧盟后，英国反而极其惊人地接纳了比以往任何时期都更多的非欧洲全球移民，所谓的主权幻觉在现实经济与地缘政治规律面前被击得粉碎。 - **历史透视**：欧洲长达数百年的全球领先地位建立在“文化共享下的多国血腥竞争”机制上；一旦竞争机制被极端民族主义演化为两次世界大战的灾难，欧洲便彻底阉割了自身的“强权政治意志”。 - **现实困境**：欧洲各国的右翼力量并不是欧罗巴联邦主义者，而是各顾各的本土保护主义者，缺乏构建统一对外力量的政治聚合力。 ### `45:00` 英国脱欧的虚妄幻想与欧洲共性 马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）尖锐地指出，英国民众在脱欧问题上彻头彻尾地“被兜售了一套谎言”（sold a bill of goods）。脱欧派曾信誓旦旦地承诺，摆脱欧盟枷锁的英国能够凭借一己之力敲定大量惊艳的贸易协议，其中最关键的画饼就是与美国签署一份全面的双边自由贸易协定（FTA）。然而，这显然没有发生，英国最终拿下的不过是几份微不足道的边缘协议。问题的核心在于，单打独斗的英国本质上只是一个二流小国，所谓脱欧后就能重获巨大选择空间、实现自身转型并彻底重塑与世界关系的构想，纯粹是一场脱离现实的幻想。 与此同时，英国与其欧洲邻国之间存在着极高的共性。尽管英国的福利国家制度相对欠发达，但它与欧洲共同面对着相似的深层顽疾：去工业化、应对中国制造业竞争的巨大压力，以及在核心前沿科技领域的普遍软弱。沃尔夫指出，从宏观格局来看，“英国不过是另一个欧洲国家”（Britain is just another European country），除了两者之间隔着一条小小的英吉利海峡、从而保留了独立地位之外，英国经济面临的机遇与挑战与欧洲大陆毫无二致。 纵观当下的英国政坛，没有任何一位政治领导人能提出一套根本性的全新运作模式来扭转国家颓势。即便未来是由奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）抑或绿党的扎克·波兰斯基（Zack Polanski）入主唐宁街10号，英国面临的困境也只会更加暴露无遗。当下的英国政坛缺乏任何自洽的长期战略，因为这些深层次的经济和结构性矛盾已经变得异常棘手。 - 英国脱欧承诺的“美英自由贸易协定”彻底落空，仅达成少数无关痛痒的边缘贸易协定。 - 英国在科技软肋、去工业化冲击以及应对中国商品竞争方面，与法德等欧洲大陆国家面临完全相同的困境。 - 英国政界缺乏真正具有连贯性且能够落地的问题解决方案。 --- ### `47:32` 特朗普联盟的怪诞拼盘：前沿资本、神权怀旧与底层怨气 当被问及特朗普（Donald Trump）政府及其领导下的美国究竟在追求一个怎样的世界格局时，沃尔夫坦言自己几乎“哑口无言”。要在这套政治机器中理出一条自洽的战略脉络极其困难，其根源在于：特朗普本人的行事风格与魅力，同他捏合在一起的政治联盟之间存在着巨大的断层与割裂。 这个支持联盟在文化和思想层面显得极其怪异、自相矛盾： 1. **超级富豪与前沿资本家**：其中聚集了一大批极其富有、掌控巨大商业帝国的商界领袖，部分人对未来科技抱有一种近乎宗教式的狂热崇拜。 2. **神权复古派与文化保守主义者**：另一端则是执念于倒退回过去的思想家与保守人群，他们渴望重建神权国家架构，试图在男女关系、种族秩序上恢复极度陈旧的传统行为范式。 3. **庞大的底层不满群体**：基底是海量对现实极其不满的平民大众，其中绝大多数是男性与老年人。 这种“耀眼的新潮前沿”与“陈腐的旧日神权”被生硬地捆绑在一起。除了一同狂热效忠特朗普个人之外，这个广义上的 MAGA 运动内部缺乏任何连贯统一的诉求，运动参与者本身甚至都不知道整个国家真正该走向何方。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 特朗普政治联盟的异质构成 accDescr: 展示以特朗普个人为核心，维系着诉求相互冲突的三个不同利益群体。 subgraph Core["核心纽带"] T["唐纳德·特朗普<br/>（个人魅力与绝对服从）"] end subgraph Factions["异质联盟派系"] F1["前沿资本巨头<br/>（拥有对未来科技的宗教式狂热）"] F2["基督教神权/文化保守派<br/>（渴望倒退回旧时代等级与范式）"] F3["边缘化不满阶层<br/>（以年长者与男性为主的庞大怨气群体）"] end T --- F1 T --- F2 T --- F3 ``` --- ### `50:00` “朕即法律”：特朗普的古代君王式统治哲学 在特朗普眼中，权力的逻辑其实非常原始而直接：他骨子里追求的就是“成为国王”。他渴望成为那个“我的话就是法律”（my word is law）的至高统治者，希望统治一个不受任何外部或内部法律、规则或制度约束的绝对国家。沃尔夫指出，这种统治心理并不新鲜，法国的“太阳王”路易十四、甚至农业时代初期的任何埃及法老都能完全理解这种纯粹的独裁意图。 在这一底层渴望之外，特朗普几乎没有任何成体系的意识形态。他的核心行为准则高度双边化且讲究等级尊卑——在任何一对一的关系中，必须由他来当绝对的主宰，对方必须展现出绝对的臣服；一旦对方（无论是委内瑞拉的马杜罗还是伊朗的阿亚图拉）表现出所谓“不敬”，他就会毫不犹豫地挥舞权力大棒加以惩罚。 围绕在他身边的核心幕僚同样意识形态分崩离析： - **19世纪大国均势派**：一部分智囊倾向于将美国打造成19世纪帕麦斯顿时期的英国——“没有永远的盟友，没有长久的敌人，只有永恒的利益”，以绝对现实主义对待世界； - **基督教十字军派**：例如被提名的皮特·海格塞斯（Pete Hegseth），带有狂热的基督教圣战者色彩； - **纯粹孤立主义派**：以 JD·万斯（JD Vance）等人为代表，主张战略收缩与彻底本土化。 沃尔夫强调，这本质上就是特朗普一个人的政党。其行动全凭本能与经验主义，缺乏深厚的知识根基，甚至充斥着无知。他会极尽所能地滥用大国权力，但“谢天谢地的是，一旦碰壁受挫，他又会迅速抽身撤退”。 --- ### `52:30` 最可怕的超级大国：不可预测的系统摧毁者 沃尔夫发出了沉痛而尖锐的警告：美国当前的状态是“令人恐惧的”（terrifying）。美国不仅是全球最重要的国家，更是二战后整套国际秩序的奠基者与总担保人——而且这套制度在过去几十年里给美国自身带来了无比辉煌的成功。从外部视角看，如果把美国的国力比作罗马帝国，它如今正处于全盛的公元二世纪，但美国国内却陷入了歇斯底里、急于推翻一切自建秩序的狂躁之中。 即便未来某场大选导致特朗普下台，也绝不可能瞬间恢复全世界对美国的信任。因为世界各国已经看清，这套极端政治机制并不是偶发的意外，它已经内生于美国的政治肌理之中，不可能轻易消除。沃尔夫在美国生活过十年，长期近距离观察其政治生态，如今美国的演变令他深感匪夷所思。 一个陷入混乱且无法预测的超级大国，对全世界而言是最大的噩梦： - **关于中国**：国际社会虽然普遍对中国模式心存戒备，甚至“没有人真正喜欢中国”，但至少北京的治理模式、体制运作与战略意图是透明且可预测的，其他国家知道该如何与之打交道、如何共存。 - **关于美国**：手握全球最恐怖破坏力与金融霸权的美国，如今变成了一个完全令人捉摸不透的庞然大物。其国内充斥着相互仇视、对外部世界充满敌意的割裂群体，这种缺乏理智与连贯性的巨大不确定性，构成了全球地缘政治中最危险的火药桶。 ### `55:00` 罗马帝国的幽灵：从尼禄到大共和国的终结 对唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）行为逻辑的讨论，自然引向了对古代历史的对照。在马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）看来，只要承认特朗普的行事方式并不遵循常规意义上的理性，很多事情便说得通了；若真要在历史上寻找一个与其神似的统治者，他首先想到的是罗马皇帝尼禄（Nero）。播客主持人随即打趣道，这恰好切中了中年男性无法避开的“罗马帝国情结”梗。沃尔夫笑称自己并非跟风，而是早年在牛津系统研读过古典学，常年阅读古希腊语与拉丁语原典，因此罗马帝国的兴衰一直深植于他的思维框架中。 这种古典学视角直接塑造了他对美国当代政治最精准的预言。沃尔夫回忆起自己在 2016 年 3 月为《金融时报》撰写的关于特朗普的首篇专栏文章，标题直截了当地写道：“特朗普正是伟大共和国走向终结的方式”（"Donald Trump is how great republics meet their end"）。在这篇文章中，他将特朗普与尤利乌斯·恺撒（Julius Caesar）及奥古斯都（Augustus）终结罗马共和国的历史进程相提并论，但他讽刺地补充道，罗马的奠基者们显然比特朗普要“聪明得多”（far cleverer）。 主持人顺势探讨欧洲的文化根基：欧洲在列国竞争中崛起，但也依托于共同的基督教文明背景；如今欧洲深陷世俗化与自由主义的乏力之中，几乎没人再去教堂。主持人提问，欧洲未来若想重塑自身的凝聚力与精神轴心，是否需要重新拾起基督教这一赋予平等权利与自由主义理念的历史土壤。 - **古典政治隐喻**：沃尔夫认为理解特朗普需要打破现代工具理性的框架，将其置于帝国黄昏与狂悖君主（如尼禄）的镜鉴之中。 - **2016 年专栏预言**：在特朗普赢得大选数月前的 2016 年 3 月，沃尔夫便发表重磅评论，直言其代表着共和国政治机制的瓦解与凯撒主义的重临。 --- ### `57:30` 意识形态的枯竭：欧洲从血腥狂热中习得的创伤与宽容 面对“重燃基督教精神能否拯救欧洲”的设问，沃尔夫给出了极具历史厚重感的否定回答。他强调，过去两百年乃至整个近代史最核心的教训在于：欧洲几乎孕育了人类所有的意识形态——从正教会、天主教、新教等无休止纷争的基督教分支，到后来的社会主义、共产主义与法西斯主义。每一次意识形态的狂热崛起，带来的都是欧洲大地上毁灭性的浩劫。最具代表性的是 17 世纪初爆发的三十年战争（Thirty Years' War），这场打着宗教旗号的大屠杀夺走了当时德意志地区近 30% 的人口。在欧洲历史上，只要人们开始无比狂热、坚定不移地信仰某种宏大教条，最终必然会演变为对异见的残酷清洗和屠杀，犹太人的悲惨遭遇更是其中的极端注脚。 这种被血海淹没的惨痛历史，使得经历过二战与大屠杀浩劫的欧洲人在战后产生了深层的“意识形态精疲力竭”（ideological exhaustion）。欧洲人主动放弃了狂热的执念，因为他们深知每一次宏大意识形态的狂欢，最终都会以集体屠杀（mass murder）收场。沃尔夫直率地对比了欧美两地的历史代价：美国除了那场“本应通过尽早废除奴隶制而避免的愚蠢内战”之外，本土并未遭受过太多真正的毁灭，美国历史上所有战争死亡总人数大约在一百万到一百五十万人左右；而在欧洲大陆，因战争与意识形态死亡的人数高达数以千万计。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 欧洲意识形态狂热与历史创伤循环 accDescr: 展示狂热意识形态如何引发毁灭性屠杀，并最终促成战后欧洲的政治疲惫与宽容共识。 subgraph Ideology ["意识形态狂热阶段"] A["狂热的绝对信仰<br/>(宗派战争 / 法西斯 / 极权主义)"] --> B["非我族类的敌我划分<br/>(寻求屠杀异见者的借口)"] B --> C["毁灭性浩劫与流血牺牲<br/>(如三十年战争、两度世界大战)"] end subgraph Exhaustion ["战后欧洲反思阶段"] C --> D["意识形态极度疲惫<br/>(深知狂热必导向屠杀)"] D --> E["建立防御性宽容共识<br/>(排斥狂热者，维持去意识形态化)"] E -.->|"代际遗忘与激进思潮重燃"| A end ``` 正因如此，沃尔夫指出欧洲老一辈人对狂热意识形态抱有天然的警惕。然而如今看着大洋彼岸的美国沉迷于极化与激进信念，在他眼中，这就像一群人正跃跃欲试地想要因为邻居的观点不同、肤色不同或阵营不同而大开杀戒。欧洲依靠“宽容”（toleration）来压制极端，但这种脆弱的机制难以持久，年轻一代因遗忘历史正重新滑向意识形态狂热。沃尔夫意味深长地类比道，中国民众之所以在根本上接受当下的执政秩序，也是因为体制保障了运转且避免了重演动荡的疯狂；饱尝创伤的文明都极力避免滑入狂热的深渊，因为一旦开启杀戮之门，人类将永远找不到停止的开关。 - **三十年战争的人口毁灭**：17 世纪的宗教战争导致德意志地区约三分之一的人口丧生，确立了欧洲对宗教教条杀戮的终极恐惧。 - **伤亡数字的残酷对比**：美国历次战争死亡人数总计约 100 多万至 150 万人（含南北战争），而欧洲死于战火与意识形态浩劫的人数以数千万计。 - **欧洲文明的创伤记忆**：战后欧洲的“去意识形态化”与世俗宽容并非软弱，而是背负着累累白骨与屠杀创伤后所做出的自我保护。 --- ### `01:02:15` 人工智能与浮士德交易：无法规管的仆人与人性的危机 话题从历史的长周期转向塑造未来社会契约的核心变量——人工智能（AI）。主持人提问，当技术不仅开始自动化工作，甚至开始全面介入并自动化人类文化时，国家、公民与政治权威之间的社会契约将面临怎样的剧变？ 沃尔夫将人类对 AI 的追逐定义为“终极的浮士德交易”（the ultimate Faustian bargain）。正如魔鬼向浮士德许诺无尽的财富与力量，换取的代价却是他永恒的灵魂与存在的真谛，这场交易在文学与历史上从来没有好结局。人类凭借惊人的创新力创造了前所未有的财富与认知，但同时也始终在毁灭的悬崖边缘跳舞。上一次让人类产生类似深层恐惧的还是核武器的诞生——当年爱因斯坦等顶尖物理学家在亲眼目睹核爆后，对自己亲手释放的恶魔感到战栗不已。 在沃尔夫看来，今天的 AI 正在上演完全相同的剧本：人类自以为创造出了一个无所不能的“仆人”，但这个造物不仅具备取代人类各领域能力的天赋，甚至在某种意义上拥有统御人类的潜能。沃尔夫早在三四年前初涉该领域时便清醒地意识到，AI 将在现实中被证明是“完全无法规管的”（completely unregulatable）。企业间近乎歇斯底里的竞速与地缘博弈彻底瓦解了监管可能；更为致命的是，深度介入 AI 的现代制度将面临空前的“问责真空”（unaccountability），因为决策不再是由任何具体的、可追责的人类个体做出。这一技术变革对人类经济、社会结构乃至“人类自我认知”的冲击，其量级远非过往任何一次工业或技术革命所能比拟。 - **浮士德隐喻的核心**：人类用自身的“灵魂与意义”去交换机器带来的“无限算力与产出”，结局往往伴随着灾难性的反噬。 - **无法规管与问责缺失**：由于激烈的全球商业和战略竞争，AI 无法受到实质性约束；而机器算法的黑箱决策彻底颠覆了现代文明赖以运转的责任追究机制。 ### `01:05:00` 通用人工智能的生存危机与《沙丘》式的警示 马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）直言，虽然人工智能技术目前展现出极大的辅助价值与前景，让人类得以完成过去无法企及的事情，但一旦通用人工智能（AGI）成为现实，且机器在智力层面全面碾压人类，人类就将面临根本性的生存拷问：“人类存在的意义究竟是什么？（what is humanity for?）”伴随而来的还有近在咫尺的具象威胁：人类根本无法控制的致命病原体研发，以及由纯粹算法控制的自主杀戮机器部队——血肉之躯在全自动化的庞大“机器人军队”面前将毫无招架之力。令人不寒而栗的是，整个人类社会正漫不经心、毫无防备地（insouciantly）在这条轨道上跳舞狂欢，而领舞的仅仅是四五家科技巨头公司的少数天才。沃尔夫坦言，出于一个拥有孙辈的老人的直觉，他内心的真实想法是“这一切都应该被立刻叫停”，但这在现实中显然绝无可能发生。 商业层面上，这场变革将是颠覆性的。沃尔夫甚至带着一丝自嘲预言，十年之后财经界或许再也不需要像他这样的评论员了，因为计算机的分析写作水平将远胜于他，尽管那种人性的智力乐趣会大打折扣。当前政治体制的撕裂与失能，使得全球根本无法集中精力去研判和防范这一最大的威胁。人类历史上曾经历过文字的发明、活字印刷术的推广以及互联网的诞生等几次深远洗礼，但人工智能的冲击很可能会超越以往所有技术革命的总和。作为弗兰克·赫伯特（Frank Herbert）科幻巨作《沙丘》（*Dune*）的忠实读者，沃尔夫特别提到了小说中人类推翻并永久禁绝一切“思考机器”的“巴特兰圣战”（Butlerian Jihad）；他感慨道，如果一百年后人类依然幸存，人们回望当下时很可能会痛心疾首地感叹：“我们当初真该那样做。” - **科技狂澜的掌舵者**：整个人类社会在缺乏制度防线的情况下，几乎全盘受制于四五家科技巨头与其极少数技术精英的推进节奏。 - **科幻经典的现实映射**：除了《沙丘》的机器禁令，沃尔夫还表达了对艾萨克·阿西莫夫（Isaac Asimov）及其“机器人三定律”的推崇，批评当前的人工智能狂飙中几乎没有任何决策者在认真践行或思考这些伦理法则。 --- ### `01:07:44` 播客总结：美元特权、撕裂的政治联盟与意识形态耗尽的欧洲 马丁·沃尔夫连线结束后，主持人乔·威森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）与特蕾西·阿洛威（Tracy Alloway）意犹未尽，感叹整场对话信息量极为丰富，让人仿佛回到大学课堂听了一场高水准的历史讲座。特蕾西打趣道，两人刚从马德里赶到伦敦，如果接下来再去里斯本、巴黎和布鲁塞尔，就能凑齐一趟完整的欧洲殖民帝国历史之旅，甚至提议将伦敦录音变成每年春季的固定节目。话题随即转回沃尔夫在节目中给出的深刻洞见，尤其是他对美元霸权与美国国内民怨的反思：尽管承担全球储备货币角色确实有其成本，但它赋予美国的特权同样极其巨大——特别是能够长期维系巨额财政赤字的无与伦比的能力。因此，对于外部世界而言，最不可思议的事情在于，为什么会有那么多美国人抱有如此深重的受害者受虐心态（grievance），甚至激进到想要亲手炸毁这个在过去数十年里令他们获益远超全球任何国家的国际体系。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 播客复盘核心议题逻辑关系 accDescr: 展示美元霸权悖论、特朗普阵营内部矛盾以及欧洲后意识形态官僚体制的逻辑关联 subgraph US ["美国内部机制与悖论"] A["美元储备货币特权<br/>（巨额财政赤字支撑）"] --> B["强烈的国内受害者情绪<br/>（试图砸碎现有国际体系）"] B --> C["特朗普联盟内部撕裂"] C --> C1["彼得·蒂尔式<br/>前沿AI技术至上世界"] C --> C2["传统选民<br/>重返1950年代怀旧诉求"] end subgraph EU ["欧洲大陆的路径选择"] D["经历两次世界大战浩劫"] --> E["意识形态彻底耗竭<br/>（对宏大叙事深感幻灭）"] E --> F["后意识形态超国家实验<br/>（依靠文牍、监管与官僚程序）"] end ``` 两位主持人进一步探讨了沃尔夫对未来政治与地缘局势的犀利剖析： - **特朗普联盟的内在矛盾**：在这个政治联盟内部，存在着根本性的认知撕裂——一端是以彼得·蒂尔（Peter Thiel）为代表、推崇前沿 AI 技术的硅谷激进科技资本，另一端则是极度渴望时光倒流、重返 1950 年代传统工业与社会模式的基层保守派选民，两者的愿景截然相反。 - **欧洲对“意识形态”的彻底耗尽**：外界常常调侃欧盟沉迷于没完没了的文件、调研报告、行政指令和繁复监管，但沃尔夫点出了其悲壮的历史底色——这不仅仅是为了建立防止二战重演的协调机制，更是因为欧洲在经历狂热意识形态带来的毁灭性灾难后，陷入了“意识形态的彻底耗竭（complete exhaustion of ideology）”。现代欧盟实际上是一场试图构建“后意识形态超国家实体”的庞大历史实验，而这种高度依赖官僚治理的模式是否拥有终期，仍有待历史检验。 节目最后，主持人例行向听众致谢，呼吁大家关注制作团队成员，并订阅彭博终端的每日通讯与 Discord 社区讨论，随后以品牌赞助口播正式收尾。 ## Notable quotes > `00:00` 你知道我们现在真正需要什么吗？我们需要找一位带着浓重英国口音的老先生来做一期节目。 — Joe Weisenthal > `05:22` 一个傻子讲的故事，充满了喧哗与骚动，却毫无意义（a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing） — Martin Wolf > `10:00` 一个国家能承受极大的败落（There is a great deal of ruin in a nation） — Adam Smith > `22:45` 诉诸暴力的恶霸（violent bully） — Martin Wolf > `25:00` 没有任何人拥有不受冒犯的权利（you don't have a right not to be offended） — Martin Wolf > `35:00` 我们根本不相信那套东西。欧洲人上次尝试追求权力意志（Wille zur Macht）时，差点把整个世界都给炸飞了。 — Martin Wolf > `38:00` 在欧洲，只有两种国家：一种是小国，另一种是还不知道自己是小国的小国。 — Martin Wolf > `45:00` 英国不过是另一个欧洲国家（Britain is just another European country） — Martin Wolf > `55:00` 特朗普正是伟大共和国走向终结的方式（Donald Trump is how great republics meet their end） — Martin Wolf > `01:02:15` 终极的浮士德交易（the ultimate Faustian bargain） — Martin Wolf > `01:05:00` 人类存在的意义究竟是什么？（what is humanity for?） — Martin Wolf ## Mentioned Martin Wolf, Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway, Donald Trump, Jerome Powell, Robert Armstrong, Adam Smith, Angus Maddison, John Maynard Keynes, Paul Volcker, Apple, Charles III, Henry VIII, J.D. Vance, Adolf Hitler, Viktor Orbán, James Madison, Vladimir Putin, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, Zack Polanski, Louis XIV, Lord Palmerston, Pete Hegseth, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Nero, Albert Einstein, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Peter Thiel, Bloomberg, Financial Times, City Winery, IMF, Macbeth, Dune ## Video description <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true" data-pm-slice="1 1 []">Last year, when we talked to Martin Wolf, the global order seemed like it was being upended after President Trump unveiled his sweeping tariffs against nearly every US trading partner. A lot has happened since then. In fact, April 2025 seems almost quaint when compared to 2026 so far, from the Supreme Court's tariff ruling to the US-Israel war with Iran. The war's effect on the world's economy is at once stunning and utterly strange: even as the prices of major commodities &mdash; oil chief among them &mdash; rise, the markets seem unaffected, closing at record levels in recent weeks. Today we speak with Wolf, the chief economics commentator for the Financial Times, about all this chaos and why, so far, it seems disconnected from the logic of the market. There is, he says, a great deal of ruin in the world economy, but growth remains a constant fact of life. Why is that? There's no straightforward answer, but to begin understanding how we got here, Wolf takes us to the early 20th century and paints us a picture of the world after the two World Wars. We also talk about the "terrifying" power that the US wields over the globe, how a fragmented Europe is navigating anxious relationships with both the US and China, the Faustian bargain AI represents, and much more.</p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true">Read more:<br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-13/oil-inventories-fall-at-record-pace-on-iran-war-shock-iea-says?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Oil Inventories Falling at Record Pace on Iran War, IEA Says</a><br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-13/iran-war-delays-undersea-internet-cable-projects-in-persian-gulf?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Undersea Internet Cable Projects Are Getting Tangled in the Iran War</a></p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true">Only <a href="http://Bloomberg.com" data-inline-card="" data-card-data="">http://Bloomberg.com</a> subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at&nbsp; <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots</a></p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true"><a href="http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter</a><br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><strong data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="strong">Join the conversation:</strong> <a href="https://discord.gg/oddlots" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">discord.gg/oddlots</a></p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/c68ed904-5c11-44f9-909c-b44a00200c14/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[0:00] Joe Weisenthal: 你知道我们现在真正需要什么吗？我们需要找一位带着浓重英国口音的老先生来做一期节目。 [5:22] Martin Wolf: 一个傻子讲的故事，充满了喧哗与骚动，却毫无意义（a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing） [10:00] Adam Smith: 一个国家能承受极大的败落（There is a great deal of ruin in a nation） [22:45] Martin Wolf: 诉诸暴力的恶霸（violent bully） [25:00] Martin Wolf: 没有任何人拥有不受冒犯的权利（you don't have a right not to be offended） [35:00] Martin Wolf: 我们根本不相信那套东西。欧洲人上次尝试追求权力意志（Wille zur Macht）时，差点把整个世界都给炸飞了。 [38:00] Martin Wolf: 在欧洲，只有两种国家：一种是小国，另一种是还不知道自己是小国的小国。 [45:00] Martin Wolf: 英国不过是另一个欧洲国家（Britain is just another European country） [55:00] Martin Wolf: 特朗普正是伟大共和国走向终结的方式（Donald Trump is how great republics meet their end） [62:15] Martin Wolf: 终极的浮士德交易（the ultimate Faustian bargain） [65:00] Martin Wolf: 人类存在的意义究竟是什么？（what is humanity for?）

[4:12] Martin Wolf: There's a great deal of ruin in a country. [40:00] Martin Wolf: In Europe, there are small countries, and small countries that don't realize they're small. [50:00] Martin Wolf: A completely bewildering superpower is absolutely terrifying. Nobody likes China, really, but they know what it's about. It's predictable... It's very difficult to live with a country with this power, which is as completely bewildering as this one has become.

[0:00] Whatever your goal, trade show giveaways, client gifts, or team gear, 4imprint has the promo products to match. With thousands of options, from apparel and drinkware to tech and totes, it's easy to find the right fit for your brand and budget, with standout choices at every price point. And with their 360-degree guarantee, you can be 4imprint certain your order will show up just right, right on time. Explore more at 4imprint.com. 4imprint. 4certain. So there's a lot of noise about AI. But time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions. Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth, and Michigan delivers on that promise. From emerging startups to global enterprises, Michigan offers what executives value most a resilient innovative ecosystem diverse communities that attract top talent and a quality of life that supports work balance With our unified Team Michigan approach businesses scale faster and compete at the highest level Michigan, pure opportunity. Seize your opportunity at michiganbusiness.org. Hello, OddLots listeners. I'm Joe Weisenthal. And I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, we're going to be doing another live show, this time once again in our hometown of New York City. That's right. On the evening of May 28th from 7 p.m., we will be at City Winery with a fantastic lineup of guests. Yeah, I really like our live show. There are a great chance to meet the listeners. There are a chance for listeners to meet us. And actually, more importantly, listeners to hang out with other listeners and, you know, all that community stuff. All that community stuff. And I think we're going to talk a lot about the future of trading because that is a very New York City topic. Still figuring out the exact schedule. But, yes, if you'd like to come to our live OddLod show at City Winery in New York City on May 28th, go find details at Bloomberg.com slash OddLods or look on either one of our Twitter handles. There are plenty of spaces to find it, and we'd love to see you there. That's right. Get offline and interact with some actual human beings and do some of that community stuff We look forward to seeing you there IRL is the new URL Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news hello and welcome to another episode of the all thoughts podcast i'm tracy allaway and i'm joe weisenthal joe we are we're back in london we're making a tradition back in london uh we were here last spring that last year is april this time it's may but uh i like the idea let's do a recurring spring trip to London. Now, when you're in London, do you feel the urge to sort of stroke your beard and think about geopolitics? Can I say, well, yes, for sure. But as you can confirm, anytime there's like some big, you know, there's something feels pivotal or historical geopolitical. I turn to you in the office. I say, you know what we really need? We really need like an episode with the old guy with a British accent. Like some moments, that's just what it calls for. You gave the secret away You gave the secret all lots booking process away It doesn really matter who it is per se but it like there a certain type of guest that like this is what this moment calls for Someone with wisdom someone with perspective All right. Well, you've given it away at this point, but we are back here for our yearly check in with Martin Wolf, who is, of course, the chief economics commentator over at the Financial Times. One of the most famous geopolitics, geoeconomics commentators of all time and someone who is really good to talk to when we're living through these potentially historic, capital H, historic events on what seems to be more than a yearly basis at this point. So the last time we spoke to him was in April of 2025, and it was just after the Liberation Day tariff announcements. Now we're here in May 2026 and we have the Iran situation going on. We have headlines about further fracturing of U.S.-Europe relations. I mean, all of these potentially pivotal moments seem to be happening on a sort of monthly, if not weekly, basis at this point. Absolutely right. And as you mentioned, when we were here last year, it was in the immediate wake. I mean, I think maybe even just a week after the – or a few days after the Liberation Day tariff schedule had come out. It was still during that period of absolutely insane volatility. And there is a lot of [5:00] The sense in which, I mean, the pure volatility currently is not actually like it was back then. But at the same time, perhaps probably because we're in the middle of a war, ceasefire aside, April 2025 feels a little quaint compared to where we are right now. Isn't that something? Yeah. Everything's relative, I guess. OK, well, on that note, why don't we bring in our perfect guest, older gentleman, older British gentleman with a British accent per Joe's description. That's my request. Martin Wolf, thank you so much for coming back on Odd Laws. Well, I'm very glad to fill a niche I didn't know you had. You truly are the perfect guest, though, because, you know, again, a lot of people have described you as one of the most important economics commentators of all time. And so I think it's great that we get you back to opine on some of these very big events that we're seeing. Speaking of large events, you have described the Iran situation as a nightmare scenario. Walk us through what you're thinking there, because when I look at some of the headlines around markets at the moment, the S&P 500 closed at a record on Friday, it doesn't seem like markets are aligned with that particular point of view What going on Well I suppose there so many different aspects of this I been thinking of this wonderful Shakespearean line, life being a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. So one feels that when markets are looking at this, they feel this is full of sound of fury, but it doesn't signify anything. And there are, I think, two possible reasons for that. One is the famous taco line from my dear colleague, Robert Armstrong, that Trump always chickens out. So in the end, he's not going to blow up the world. He's going to find a way out of this, which will have done some damage. It will make, I think, the US look fairly ridiculous, but it can be forgotten. It will declare victory and stop. And I think that's still perfectly plausible, a perfectly reasonable view because he's already sort of stopped the fighting and it feels like he's looking desperately for an end game. The question is whether the other side will play ball and that is still to be seen. And then there the other possibility that in the end if the oil were lost as it were forever the world will adjust to that Yes, the output that goes through the straits is very large, but in the longer run, a lot of it can go through pipelines. They can build these. It will take quite a while, and the world can compress this demand in time. It might take a few years, the world growth will be lower. But what we're losing is about a fifth world output. Oil is much less important than it used to be. 70 years ago, prices have risen. But actually, if you look at real terms of the long history of oil prices since the first oil shock, they're not sensationally high. And so we will adjust to it. And we're very good at adjusting to it. The Gulf will end up as a different place because it will be exporting the same way. But it's not enough to derail the world economy. And incidentally, the country that is likely to be the least damaged of the major ones is the US, which is not not a coincidence. After all they wouldn have started it if that weren at the back of their minds China will be damaged Russia is benefiting But I don think that going to bother Mr Trump So in the end the losers are Europe and China not favorite his favorite countries I think that on the whole, Mr. Trump prefers China to the Europe. But the and the world economy will continue. And there's this huge technological upheaval going on, which is very much what the markets are talking about, which looks transformative. So I think the market's assumption that the profitability of companies is going to be fine. The world will have possibly a recession, but that's not the end of the world. The world has recessions, probably not even zero growth, and life goes on. I'm glad that when you reference Shakespeare and sound and fury signifying nothing, you were not referring to our conversation, et cetera. Always something, though, that I'm anxious about with respect to our business because as we type and talk, I was like, what does it really matter? All that being said, you mentioned the profitability of companies and if profits stay high, the stocks stay high, and it's all very explicable. One has to admit, or you have to admit, like sitting here today, recording this May 4th, you have to admit it's pretty surprising, isn't it? Like if you knew all the headlines [10:00] for the last year and a half between Liberation Day and a subpoena for Chairman Powell and this war. The early existence is pretty surprising. Yeah, this is what I don't get. So I think I mentioned this the last time we spoke, but both Joe and I did international relations at university, and we were told over and over again that the global economy does not like instability. It doesn't like chaos. And yet here we are in the midst of a lot of chaos and things are more or less chugging along there's this disconnect right yes i think that's right and and the there's been a greater disconnect that i would have expected as the and so i've more than once used another famous quote from a british author of course it has to be given the intro yeah adam smith there's a great deal of ruin in a in a country Yeah. Which was, if I remember correctly, actually said in response to somebody saying that the loss of the American colonies was a tragedy, a catastrophe for this country. And I think that the context I believe that the context in which you said there is a great deal of ruin in a country So there a great deal of ruin in the world economy I have a favorite statistic which I use in many of my presentations because it surprised me so much when I looked at it So since 1950, on the data from Angus Madison must be right, there have only been two years in which the world economy shrank. Two. And they're both perfectly obvious. One was 2009. And even then, it shrunk barely. It was close to zero because China was still growing. Lots of countries were still growing. And the other was the pandemic, 2020. Otherwise, the world economy grows. And nearly always between 2% and 4%. It's changed over time. Why? Well, because everybody matters is in a growth mode. I could go through what's driving it. I looked at this actually after the pandemic. I said, how often is it that we've had a genuine recession, a decline in GDP? Now, this isn't GDP per head. There will be more often times when GDP per head shrank But basically the world economy is unbelievably robust And that because lots of people are providing stuff people want There are markets They produce for the markets. They invest to produce for the markets. Investment is very important as a driver of demand, as Cain said. And so it takes something really enormous to stop it. I went through the two oil shocks of the 70s. I was already a working economist, and they were big shocks, and we got terrible information. inflation and all the rest of it. Volcker came along, and yes, he did cause a recession in the US, but it wasn't global. So I think we have to start off by saying the world economy is incredibly resilient. The second thing is that, and that's why I use the full of sound and fury, if you look at the actual policies that we've ended up with, they're sort of designed, I'm sure they're not not really to hurt. So the protection is very uneven. This was part of, I wrote about this before Trump got into office. And that creates the opportunity, is designed in the system for trade diversion, right? Now if he just put up an average tariff of 40 or 35 a lot of trade would disappear But that not what he did He ended up with imposing very high tariffs on some origins China still has very high tariffs. But the trade diversion has been phenomenal. So trade goes through Vietnam. It goes through Mexico. And the IMF had a very nice chart on that in the latest World Economic Outlook, which basically showed that, yes, direct trade between the US and China shrunk, direct trade between US and Canada shrunk, but other people are taking its place. And in some sense, it was designed to be porous. Then there are all sorts of exceptions that he's negotiated in return for who knows what with sundry companies like Apple. Apple would have been very badly hit. So it's all very porous and it's all negotiable. So it's not as serious as all that. And then the shock in the Gulf is significant. but oil isn't as important as it used to be as we discussed the energy system has changed across much of the world and this will be accelerated of course but that's for the future and prices have gone up there will be a slowdown i'm absolutely sure we might get close you know really bad really [15:00] The world economy grows at one, one and a half percent, but it's not a catastrophe. And finally, profits are robust because, let's face it, worldwide, labor is weak. So companies can manage their affairs in a way to ensure that they survive. I'm sure lots of, I haven't looked at this, I'm sure lots of small and medium-sized businesses are very badly affected. But the colossi that are generating most of the profits, particularly the tech colossi, they're not affected by this. This is at least expose, perhaps not as surprising as one might have thought. There's a great deal of ruin in the world economy. We should see if we can do this entire episode only referencing British historians and economic thinkers. Are there any others? You know, one of the things you mentioned, those exceptions that, you know, last week, I think Trump announced that they made a little carve out for UK whiskey or something like that on request of the king. So therefore, much like us, Trump is a sucker for the British accent. Clearly, it was the king and everything. He's like, all right, I'll cave on that. Yeah, I think that is something. Yes he also a sucker for people who have grand positions Didn he Yeah that positions Didn he have some sort of maybe it was true social or something else when he referred to there being two kings together? That was, I'm sure, not a joke. I think he would like to be king. But when I think about the king he would most like to be, I immediately come to Henry VIII, who was our real king, who made probably the single most important decision made by any English monarch, namely to leave the Catholic Church and make himself head of the church. I think Donald Trump would quite like that, don't you think? And he was an absolute monarch who chopped the heads of one advisor after another. I think he quite liked that. So, yeah, he likes the idea of being a king. Now, our poor King Charles doesn't isn't like that, but at least he's sort of connected to that. So I can see the glamour and he lives in palaces. I mean, don't you think he'd rather like to Mr. Trump would like to move Buckingham Palace to Washington and put it in the middle? I think the Oval Office makeover is very reminiscent of a classic European style palace I thinking of a particular French one Whether you're planning a big tech event, launching a new campaign, or just stocking up on team gear, finding the right promotional products makes all the difference. 4imprint offers thousands of options, from on-trend apparel and premium drinkware to tech, totes, and giveaways, so you can find the right fit for any audience, purpose, or budget. You can customize it all, your logo, your message, your look, and many items come with no setup charge to help you save. And if you're really watching the bottom line, you'll find standout choices at every price point so you can make a real impact while staying on budget. Plus, you'll get expert help, fast turnaround times, and their 360-degree guarantee. So you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive on time and look exactly right. Whatever your goal, 4imprint makes it easy to find your perfect promo match. Explore the possibilities today at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, 4certain. Support for this show comes from public If you actively involved in your portfolio you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions Buying the dip manually sweeping idle cash putting on a hedge On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the risk. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand, but by embedding AI across HBs. [20:00] HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. Setting aside interior decorating, and Joe knows that I could certainly talk about this for much longer. But, you know, you mentioned this idea of Trump as king, and you also mentioned this idea of trade adaptations. And one of the things that's happened since the Iran situation is Trump has come out and said, well, if you can't get oil from the Gulf, and you're Europe, you can come to the U.S. and get oil from the U.S. And I'm very curious how statements like that play on the ground in Europe, given that on the one hand, this is a situation caused by the US. I think it's fair to say that Europeans regard Trump as somewhat unpredictable. Somewhat. Somewhat. I'm doing an impersonation of British understatedness here. And then his message to Europe is basically, well, you know, trust us for your energy security. Yes Well I think the Trust Us has definitively gone That hardly news I think that true worldwide I just trying to think does anyone actually trust this guy Because being untrustworthy seems to me the core of his modus operandi. I mean, he wants to surprise people, and he does in both directions. So nobody in Europe believes now that there's any promise that will come for this administration that is to be believed. And I think that's true pretty well for everybody. That's understandable because it's consistent with the evidence and the behavior and even what he says. However, Europe is in a very, very unfortunate position, which is that it grew so dependent on America for so long that pretty well all its structures, its defense system, very obviously, but also the things it didn't bother to produce itself. For instance the whole tech array the trade relations the investment relations and of and the sort of liberal democracy they imported This all came from America I mean we wrong to say that it wasn't there. A lot of this wasn't there before in different ways. But after the war, the first and second together, it was so shatteringly demoralized as a continent and so damaged. and go through the damage done to all the different major countries, that the U.S. became the core of every aspect of security. Believe, trust, they were very, very content with this. So whether they were naive or not, very interesting question, it's all come as a colossal shock. Now, Trump won was when the first administration of Trump was a wake-up call, but in the end, it wasn't so bad. They felt, oh, well, full of sound and fury, but didn't signify that much. In the end, he didn't do much. He didn't change trade policy, didn't withdraw from NATO. He filled his administration with the sort of people we familiar with we like and trust those sorts of Americans This is a shock I don think it should have been a shock but this is a shock And in the first year when suddenly you know, your trusted spouse, as it were, and that very much the relationship, turns around and becomes a violent bully, you're sort of in shock. But worse, you don't know where to go and live. Who do you get to, who's your alternative? Do you want to become friendly with China? Not really. Do you want to become friendly with Putin? Absolutely not. And are we strong enough to survive on our own in all these different dimensions? Of course not. The vulnerability of Europe is staggering. Just think what would happen if the American administration had decided, if it could decide that, to just close off our access to the American digital stack, as it were. Cloud computing, all the rest of it. So then the question is, well, what do you do? And I think they're still really and truly the Europeans at an early stage of deciding what they want to do. And they find it difficult to agree. Very difficult. There are so many of them with different attitudes, values, historical relations. They don't trust one another. Very important point, by the way. You know, the European history is not so far beneath the surface. So. [25:00] I think we are there at the stage of absolute intellectual, moral confusion, but they don't trust Trump. I mean, you sort of anticipated where I was going to go with my next question, because, you know, you've written about the threat to democracy that both in Europe and the U.S. that you perceive the Trump administration as posing. And you mentioned that perhaps Trump actually prefers China to Europe at this point. And it seems like, as you've written, the administration seems to have two specific big critiques of Europe. One is a particular conception of free speech, which the administration does not perceive Europe as upholding. And then, of course, immigration, which they would associate with civilizational decline and so forth. Interestingly, in your writing, you acknowledge that both of those – they're strains or they're kernels to both critiques that the European government has to take seriously, border control, maintaining those liberal values around speech. How much harder does it or like how does Europe chart a path while also taking into account those factors which may have some grain of reality to them Well one of the problems we have is we don feel looking at the whole range of what going on in the United States that this administration really does believe in free speech It's a particular conception. To put it mildly, quite a bit of hypocrisy going on. I don't think I need to lay that out for your audience. But there are, I suppose, a number of different elements in this story. I think that the administration is right, but I don't think they're honest in their critique. But some governments, my own included, have gone too far in protecting people from what is called hate speech. and that there is a perfectly good argument that both in private institutions, universities and so forth, and in public, you don't have a right not to be offended. That is clear. However my view also is that there are some forms of speech that European history we see where it goes with American history suggests are profoundly dangerous. And the one I used in my example of this is that if you're lecturing Germans on the import, which is started in the most notorious start of this was Vance's speech in Munich last year, in 2025. Well, the Germans feel that it really would have been a pretty good thing if they'd stopped Hitler saying some of the things he said. Indeed, if they'd removed him and put him in prison for a very long time and not instead of just letting him out when he was put in prison. So there are questions of how far you allow speech to be free. It's a fine doctrine, But it seems actually the administration to believes there are lots of things we really don't want people to say. So that's an issue there. But I think there's a critique there on the civilizational thing. I think and I wrote this in my book that one of the things that define a state and certainly a democratic state is the possession of borders A state and citizenship which is associated with a state in a democratic context is exclusive by definition. The values may be universal, but citizenship is not by definition. And we get that going all the way back to the beginning of these ideas in our ancient world, the Greeks and Roman view of what a republic or a democracy was. So I think that not controlling your borders and making sure that the people who come to live in it, particularly the people who come to live in it permanently, are people you've chosen. It's been a political process in which you've chosen them is essentially in violation of the citizenship compact. And I wrote that at length. And I think it's perfectly understandable why many citizens would feel we don't want everybody in the world to come here. It would create some very, very big problems. And I think the view on the parts of the left, quote unquote, progressive left, that borders should basically be abolished is not compatible. [30:00] with the survival of any form of democratic notion grounded to citizenship. So I'm very clear that was a big mistake. What worries me more about the concept of democracy that is emerging, which you see in the Trump camp and you saw in some of the people he admired, like Viktor Orban, is the idea that if you are elected, anything you do by definition is democratic and that is absolutely incompatible inconsistent with obviously the four the core premises of the constitution particularly what we would think of as the madisonian principles that there is such a thing as the tyranny tyranny of the majority so even if somebody has a majority very rare that they do that doesn't entitle them to do whatever they want. Constraining institutions are the core of a republic, the Republican idea. And I am concerned that ideologies that reject that on the left and the right have been reborn over the last 20 or 30 years perhaps a bit longer And that what the Second World War was fought against in a very extreme form So I not comparing them with that And so while I agree that there are important elements of the critique, which are serious, and we should take seriously, which I've mentioned, that the critique doesn't seem to me to be coming from an honorable place if the aim is to preserve republics. If the aim is to preserve ethno-national dictatorships, which Mr. Putin would certainly agree with, then that's something else. But that's not my side. I feel like it's become a cliche at this point to, you know, no matter what happens in the world, people always seem to say Europe is like the loser. Yeah it bad for Europe right Is there a sliver of hope down the line If we think that one of the things that Europe has struggled with is you know strategic autonomy and managing all these different national interests And if we think that you know maybe the US emerges as a force for Europe to you know unite against or maybe encourage it motivate it to develop some form of like centralized strategy or autonomy Couldn we see like a more united Europe out of the situation Well, that's one possibility. And it's a possibility that pretty well everyone who's a friend of mine who's European, and I suppose I'm one, would want to see. I think it's important to understand why it's so difficult. And this gets back to the sort of like the historical tragedy of Europe. How did it get to be where it is? I wrote one column on this, which I'm particularly proud of it. So I will repeat some of the argument. The essentially that Europe transformed the world. It's absolutely unambiguously the case. This peripheral, you can call it the continent, really just a promontory of Eurasia, six or 700 years ago, was pretty irrelevant. And it ended up conquering most of the world and completely transforming the world intellectually culturally scientifically and politically by creating these vast empires And one product of which was the United States And how did this happen Well there are many arguments about this There was a shared civilization and profound political rivalry That the one core element of European history since the fall of the Roman Empire is that it was Christian and divided. And so the European states evolved in conflict. and they became very, very, very good at it, extraordinarily good at it, so good at it that once they really got going, they ended up by conquering so much of the world. It's still very shocking that they did. I still think, think of how few thousands of English people succeeded in conquering India in the middle of the 18th century. It's completely freakish. So this This fragmentation was a core of it, and the cultural development, the scientific was also the core of that, because when there was a problem with one state trying to suppress certain sorts of thinking, people moved everywhere, somewhere else, or the ideas moved somewhere else. So there is this idea, which I think is right, that the division of Europe actually made it. I think this is a very, very powerful idea. [35:00] And correct, China's unity held it back because it didn't allow for this competition. Europe was built around competition among the states, among the rulers and within them as a result, partly because of this. I won't go through all that because it takes too long. So then at the end of this magnificent process, not surprisingly, when the modern states were emerging after the Industrial Revolution, nationalism became the way of mobilizing the people. For the first time, you really created mobilized societies. Before that, the armies were predominantly professional or class based armies. The French really invented the universal conscription state. And this culminated in the two world wars, which completely shattered Europe. It shattered its idea of itself, its confidence in itself, and its values, because look what happened in the death camps. So Europe's triumph ended up in a catastrophe. And that's what Europeans are. I old enough to remember all this I was born in just after the war Not the colonies surely Not the colonies It was actually Europe itself that destroyed itself In the end, by the way, that led to the direct liberation of all the empires because they didn't have the power anymore to do it. And America was very keen on it. Absolutely right, by the way. So anyway, Europe said after that, we have to be something completely different. This is really important. We have to be something completely different. But the most important, we need to unite. But we're still state member states. We have different histories, languages, cultures and so forth. We can't get rid of that. So we must cooperate. We want someone to look after us. That was the US. We don't trust ourselves. We've lost trust in ourselves. Very important. The British least which this because they got through it. So they decided that they would, they feel we can be outside it. We're an island. But the others, the enemies are just across the border, everywhere. Go back to that, the end of the world. So we left everything to Uncle Sam because he was a kind, generous uncle. We made a few mistakes. But basically, we trust it. That how we got to where we are This is my 10 history of Europe Now suddenly you saying you want us to become a superpower You want us to be a great power with an army and a will And we don't trust any of that stuff. The last time we tried to do that, we blew up the world. This is not nothing. It's still there. The desire, the will to power, the famous Dretton, isn't really there. So that gets to the answer to your question. What do I think will happen? And I think that's exactly the struggle now, because you could see, in a sense, there are two forces in Europe today. One is a centrist, liberal, rather mild desire to create an effective Europe, which isn't really a state, but is more of one than now. That's the center. and the other side of the right wing nationalists. But the right wing nationalists are nationalists. They're not European because when you start going back to who the nation is, you go back to France. Less Germany but it gonna happen Italy is a peculiar story I won go into that But in France the French right is nationalist protectionist It doesn see itself as Europe There aren't any nationalists in the sense that Vance is a nationalist or Trump is a nationalist who are European nationalists. It doesn't think that's an exciting. There are, but there aren't many and in political will terms then you have this either mild centralizing desire to pull together be a more effective club you which i would like to see or it's yes we would like to be a great power game but it's the nation and as one famous european politician once said in europe there are small countries and small countries that don't realize they're small and so if you honestly ask me how this will play out? I have no idea. And I don't think anyone does. I know what I would like to see. I've indicated it. But that may not be what is possible. What you really need is a European Charlemagne or Napoleon. And that doesn't come out of this because there isn't a European with that will. The last European at the will to make Europe. [40:00] was Hitler. That's what he wanted to do. It would have been a German Reich. And before that was Napoleon. And before that, Louis XIV briefly mentioned. So I think the question of what Europe's future is, what it can be, given its history of fragmentation and the extraordinary life that came out of this fragmentation, I think it's just not at all clear. But there's no doubt that America is helping. If it does develop an independent sense of itself with its own institution, sense of destiny, sense of identity, very difficult in a multinational state like this, entity like this, then it will be because the Americans are saying, you can't trust us yeah we're going to beat you around uh the head if you don't sort yourself out maybe that will count whether you planning a big tech event Thank you Thank you. for certain. Support for the show comes from public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions, buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash putting on a hedge On public you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf Just describe what you want to do in plain English like if the VIX hits 25 buy a put option on the S 500 Or if my cash balance goes above move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks and freed thousands of hours for strategic work Now we helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off deep in the work that moves the business Let create smarter business IBM That's a fantastic sort of overview of the history and the core challenge. I'm curious, look, predicting the future is impossible, so maybe we'll just stick to the present and the past. The UK left Europe. So the UK left this sort of structure that was put in place to sort of denationalize the continent and so forth. We did join late. Join late. Not accidentally. But also, like, okay, so the UK in theory has more sovereignty now than it had when it was part of the EU. What's it doing with that sovereignty? Because it doesn't look like it's been able to put it, you know, it looks like more or less the struggles of continental Europe and the UK are more or less shared. Well, what's what's holding the UK back? It's a perfect example of a of a small country that didn't realize it was a small country. They thought the people who sold this, yeah, sold this in part because they said this will stop all these immigrants. It turned out actually we could do a stupendous job of accepting immigrants from everywhere else in the world as soon. [45:00] We stopped the Europeans, so they were sold a bill of goods on that. It was pretty obvious. They were told we would be able to do all sorts of wonderful deals on our own, and we've done a few minor deals. One of the deals we were promised was a free trade deal with America. That certainly didn't happen. The point is, Britain on its own is a minor power. So the idea that the liberating ourselves from the EU will mean that we would suddenly have huge choices to transform ourselves and our relationship to the world was a fantasy. Now, that's one side. The other side of it is, of course, that a very large part of what we had in common with Europe, the welfare state. We had a relatively undeveloped one, but we have it in common. The problems of our economy, deindustrialization, the difficulty of coping with Chinese competition, for example, become more obvious. There are weakness in technology. We share with Europe. Britain wasn different from and therefore didn have completely different options from European countries We very similar The Germans and they all different in a certain way have different strength But actually in the big picture, Britain is just another European country. What else could it be? Look at its history. The only difference is it's got this tiny little waterway between us. And that's preserved independence. I'm not saying it's nothing, but essentially the opportunities and the challenges for the British economy, essentially those of Europe. And leaving the EU hasn't suddenly given us an enormous number of new opportunities which allow Britain to transform itself. And certainly no British political leader, and I can say this with some confidence, looking at the whole lot, have any fundamentally new ways of operating here, which are going to transform the performance of the country. And that's become more and more obvious, And it will be even more obvious if Nigel Farage or Zach Polanski becomes the next prime minister. Nobody offers a coherent strategy for solving the problems of Britain as they are now. And it's partly because they've actually genuinely become very, very difficult. Since we been talking sort of broad strokes history throughout this Yes Can you give us your thoughts on like what is the world that the U is ultimately working towards in as much as you can try to eke out a coherent strategy from the Trump administration Like what is it that they are working towards I'm almost speechless in response to that very very good question because it's very difficult part of the problem I think is I see a separation between Donald Trump as a person very him, obviously charismatic and exciting, and his views of the world, from that of the various different elements of the coalition that he's put together, which is a pretty strange coalition, pretty intellectually, culturally. It includes, obviously, a very large number of spectacularly wealthy and powerful business people, some of whom have a religious belief in the future. And at the other hand it includes intellectual elements and people who have a religious belief in the past I mean pretty obvious they want to go back to a theocratic state or theocratic state structures They want to establish, reestablish patterns of behavior and relations between men and women, between races and so forth, which is sort of old fashioned. So there's a blistering new and a crusted old, as it were, trying to work together here. There are intellectual elements and then relatively small numbers, I presume, and a huge mass of very dissatisfied people, particularly as far as I can see men and old people. What do these people have in common? So to answer the question, what do I think America's about? I don't know because I don't think the MAGA movement broadly defined, if I can use that word, knows what it wants. Because I'm not saying that individuals, people don't, but they don't share anything that is completely... Other than their affinity for Trump. What? Other than their affinity for Trump. So if I understand this view, what they might share, [50:00] And as long as somebody like Trump is there, Trump wants to be king. I think it's pretty clear. He wants to be a man who says, my word is law. It's pretty obvious. He wants to rule a state which is free to do anything, which is anything he wants, and is bound by no constraint or law or rules, external or internal. And Lou Couture would have understood this. I mean, it's perfectly understandable. This is how much of humanity was ruled since the agrarian age. Any Egyptian pharaoh would have understood this. So he wants that. He has no ideology really beyond that, except it is very, very important to make clear in every bilateral agency, he thinks bilaterally, that he's the boss and the others aren't. And so he will throw his weight around, particularly against anybody who thinks he's essentially not showing improper respect in various different ways. So Maduro so the mullets And that important The only constraint is my own sense of morality Well you work out what that means So that is what he wants what he wants to be And he will naturally respect people who are like him The the movement, I think, has multiple different objectives. Some of them would like the United States, which coincides with Trump, to the United States to be a 19th century great power. Like Britain in 1850, Palmerstonian Britain. We have no friends, no permanent enemies. We have permanent interests. That would be a more intellectual version of this. And obviously, lots of them think that. But some of them pretty well. Obviously, Hegseth is a Christian crusader. That's a completely different set of ideological aims. Vance seems to be an isolationist. So there's nothing coherent there. And so in the end, when I look at this, I think this is Trump's party. And with Trump, what you will get is action, but not intellectually grounded, pretty ignorant. He will use a lot of power If he doesn work he will withdraw Thank heavens That what I see It doesn seem to me that we looking at the US under this regime and looking at the people around that has a coherent sense as a whole of what it wants to be and what it wants to do that's terrifying because it is the most important country in the world it is the guarantor of the system which i like to point out worked sensationally well for the u.s so one of the most astonishing thing to me is that if you look at it from outside the u.s i mean i think it makes incredible mess of its own policy and politics it could do much better but the u.s is a spectacular success why as everybody wants to change everything. It seems very difficult to understand. You know, if you compare it with the Roman Empire, the United States is sort of in the second century. So what's the problem? But this U.S. is what I see now. It could change, presumably, though I have no idea whether it could change durably. And this is my last point. It was very much a part of my new postscript for my book. you won restore confidence in the rest of the world that the US sort of knows what it doing and what it about has a coherent sense of itself just by a defeat in one election Because that not it That not over You have to think that this has become unthinkable And it doesn't seem to me likely looking at it. So the honest truth, and I'm someone who lived in America for 10 years, I'm a foreigner, but I lived there, followed it closely. The place has become completely bewildering. And a completely bewildering superpower is absolutely terrifying. Nobody likes China. Nobody, really. But they know what it's about. It's predictable. You know how the regime works. You know how the system works. You know what she's trying to do. That one can live with. It's very difficult to live with a country with this power, which is as completely bewildering as this one has become. And I've tried to give you some sense of how I think about it. And in the end, what I do is see an incoherent movement of people full of resentments and hatreds, including amongst one another, but also against other Americans, the rest of the world, and Trump, who is... [55:00] Sort of, you can make sense of him as long as you accept he doesn't operate in a way that one would normally think of as rational. So when I think of a ruler, I mean, like him, I think of Nero. You know, there's a million ways we could, I have a million things I could ask you. Isn't that your cue to ask about Roman Empire history? Isn't that, you're a middle-aged guy, like, come on. That's true, you know what, I haven't gone through that phase yet. I have a, you know, you said. I studied Roman history. You did? I studied classics. So I read a lot of ancient Greek and Latin. So you are always, in fact, thinking about the Roman Empire. The first and best column by far I wrote about Donald Trump. It was in March 2016 when I said, Donald Trump is how great republics meet their end. That was the headline. And it compared him with the Caesars, Julius and Augustus, who basically ended the Roman Empire. But they were far cleverer. You know you mentioned that Europe excelled during a period in which there was competition among states but also the shared and you used the word the Christian civilization When I think, you know, you mentioned... They did have 250 years of religious war along with that period. But I'm curious, you mentioned the sort of like the mild liberal, you know, not quite a European nationalism, but this like sort of mild liberal desire for some sort of Europe that exists. You know, one thing I think like, should there be maybe philosophically, maybe in practice, like, would it go along well with the revived Christianity in Europe? Because when I think about secular liberal Europeans, one thing is like nobody goes to church. But historically, a lot of liberal ideas were, you know, co-located, so to speak, with Christian ideas, particularly around sort of like equal rights. And there's a lot of framing. Does that could that underpin or could that be a tailwind for a sort of reinvigorated Europe if it found that sort of spiritual vector again? One of the things that I think is very important which I didn stress in the history of the last what 200 years particularly the 20th century is Europe spawned a lot of ideologies To say the least. Spawned all of them. so obviously every variety of christianity you can imagine yeah which they happily fought over for much of their history orthodoxy catholicism protestantism and so forth and of course socialism communism fascism the dominant ideologies of the world and one of the things that happened as a result of the religious wars, which were devastating. Arguably the most destructive single war in European history, though it's in a particular place based in Germany, was the 30 Years' War of the early 17th century. And I believe something like 30% of the population was killed. And it was many other things but it was also a religious war So that was the 17th century when everybody The problem is when everybody really believes in something they often find an excuse for killing people who don Yeah. And I won't even talk about what happens to Jews. And then, of course, the same thing happened with nationalism, which led to some pretty spectacular wars and communism. That was more mass murder internally so europeans became and this is part of i think european culture civilization after the second world war became exhausted with that ideology yeah we wanted to stop that because when we i think it was very widely shared whenever we got one of these we ended up with mass murder. And the truth is, nothing bad has ever happened to the US except your idiotic civil war, which should never have been fought because the civil because slavery should have just been abolished by then it wasn't justifiable. So the point is, but one of my favorite statistics, I can't remember the exact figures. But if you compare the number of Americans who died in war. I think it's somewhere over a million, including the Civil War, a million and a half. You can probably give me the exact figures. [60:00] In Europe, it's many tens of millions. So the idea of really believing in things, really, really believing in things to the point that you actually want to go and kill people who don't share those beliefs, which is where it seems to go, is very, very frightening. Now, the younger generation now may now have forgotten enough history to start it again. So it might it might happen. But that was a dominant part. Yes, we wanted to defend ourselves against communism because it was one of those ideologies, European ideologies, that had gone wrong pretty obviously. We had realized, most of us, Stalin's death camps meant in terms of deaths. So Europeans didn't want that. And we look at I'm when I say we are I look at these Europe Americans now with enthusiasm for ideology and for passionate belief. And also all I see is people who want to come and kill their neighbors because they have the wrong views or they're the wrong color or they're the wrong whatever. And that Europe That European history Hecatombs Now the problem with that is if you carefully toleration is your dominant mode You can accept everybody except the intolerant and you crowd them out That doesn last. As you rightly say, sooner or later, people start getting passionate beliefs again, and we may be moving in that direction. But I'm one of those people who thinks once you're in that mode, it's very difficult to find the off switch because sooner or later, everyone around you starts thinking, looking like an enemy. And so I don't want to go that. And most Europeans of my generation or even somewhat younger don't want to go that because we bear the scars. And I think in a different way, why do the Chinese in the end accept the current regime? Because it works and it doesn't kill them all and they don't want to lunatic again. So we're not going to become go where you are because we tend to think where you're going could ultimately lead you to some very very dark places I wasn expecting this conversation to be so sort of state in many ways but since we gone in this direction and since again we talking about the long arc of history here and society can you talk a little bit about the impact of AI on, you know, if we think about the social contract between a state's population and its political authority, what does it mean when work starts to be automated, when maybe culture becomes more automated? I realize this is a very general big picture question, but if anyone can respond to this, you can. Well, I think of this as the ultimate Faustian bargain. The devil promises infinite wealth and power to Faust in return for his immortal soul, which is in some sense his meaning. And he makes the bargain and it doesn't end well. So we have been fantastically innovative and creative and we have in the process made ourselves vastly wealthier and wiser in some obvious ways but we're always skirting the brink of catastrophe as a result and the last thing that really motivated people around those lines was nuclear weapons created and people like Einstein got terribly frightened about what they created Well I think of AI that way We have made a Faustian bargain and we have created a servant quote unquote with the capacity to replace us or even in some way to dominate us Where this will end up, I don't know. But it seems to me there are a number of absolutely terrifying dangers. I think and I thought for the first time I read about it three or four years ago that it was going to prove completely unregulatable. It would the competition process and so forth. It would make institutions that used it unaccountable in some profound way because decisions were not being taken by anyone you can hold to account. It would create transformation in our society, in our economy and in our sense of ourselves, which was unavoidably just of an order of magnitude different from anything that had come before. And in the short to medium run, a lot of this would fall. [65:00] very helpful, very encouraging. We will enjoy it. We will be able to do things we couldn't do otherwise. But if we do get to artificial general intelligence, and it's absolutely clear that the machine dominates humanity in terms of what it can do intellectually in every possible way, then there is an existential question, obviously, is what is humanity for? and what will human beings think therefore? So when I thought about this, and I believe it's like the other obvious dangers, the creation of pathogens we can't possibly manage, the creation of armies, AI-run armies, which are completely bot armies, which could control human population with just flesh and blood. All this is absolutely terrifying. And we're dancing into this, and Soussi Ant-Li under the direction of four or five geniuses in their companies. And that's what's happening. My instinct, probably those of an old man with grandchildren, is it should all be closed down. But of course, it's not going to happen. I do think it transformative I think it going to be transformative in business It pretty clear they going to be powerful business models I can perfectly well understand that 10 years from now there will be no Martin Woltz because the computer will do it so much better There be less fun. But I think we just have to say we are stepping into the unknown. We should do our best to work out what our big dangers are and focus on them. With our current politics, that's impossible, clearly impossible. I think it is a huge moment in human history, possibly the single most important invention. And there have been some very, very important ones. And human humanity will change profoundly. Humanity was changed by writing profoundly. It was transformed by publishing, by the ability to print. It was transformed by the internet. I think this is probably more important than all of these put together, but I'm not sure. But my instinct is, I'm a great fan of Frank Herbert, the June books, particularly June itself, and his idea that at some point in the past, there was something called the Butlerian Jihad in which at the end of which machines that think were banned I wouldn be terribly surprised if 100 years from now people, if there are people still around, will say, we should have done that. Well, Dune references were also not where I was expecting this conversation to go. Science fiction is better on this sort of stuff than anything else. As a great science fiction writer, Asimov is another of my fans my heroes, sorry he wrote wonderfully the laws of robotics and nobody seemed to be thinking about those either we should get a list of recommended sci-fi books from Martin and put it in the newsletter we'll follow up with you afterwards Martin Wolf, another amazing conversation thank you so much for coming back on All Thoughts well certainly not what I expected thank you so much we'll chat with you again next spring Okay. Joe, that was fascinating. Indeed. I feel a little bit like I was back at university getting a history lecture I also just realized since we come to London from Madrid Yeah We could hit maybe four I want to say four more European cities and get a complete European colonial tour I would love to. I go to Lisbon, Paris. Yeah. Brussels. That's three. We really need, we need to make a, we need a European tour. We need a, we need to make this a recurring spring trip to London. And there was so much in that conversation that was interesting. I do think so. I do think Martin hit on something. And it's funny because this came up in our conversation from last year as well, where we were talking about the dollar reserve system and the idea that, like, yes, OK, there are downsides to having the world's reserve currency. But there are also a lot of upsides, including being able to run a massive fiscal deficit. But like his point that it's difficult to understand why so many Americans in particular are so aggrieved as to want to blow up an existing structure that compared to the rest of the world seems to have benefited them enormously. I love his point about this sort of like – and it raises some questions about the short-term future like just a few years from now. So like what is the Trump coalition for example? [70:00] Really big difference between the AI focused Peter Thiel world versus some of the people who would like a world to go back to the 1950s and so forth. Another thing that I hadn't really appreciated until he articulated it on the Europe question. You know, when we joke about the EU and they love their documents and their reports and their studies and regulations and stuff like that. But this sort of not just, OK, let's put in some mechanisms to avoid World War II again or something like that. But this sort of the complete exhaustion of ideology. Yeah, I think there's something to that. It's such an interesting framing. It's like every time we've gotten into some new ideology, it like ends terribly. So it's like let's make the attempt of sort of creating a post-ideological super state somewhere. It's such an interesting framing. And like, I don't know, like maybe it's that was maybe that's an experiment with a finite, finite time span. I guess we'll find out. Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. You can follow me at Tracy Allaway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Armand, Dashiell Bennett at Dashbot and Kevin Lozano at Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And for more Odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg.com slash Odd Lots. We have a daily newsletter on all of our episodes, and you can chat about all these topics 24-7 in our Discord, discord.gg. And if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you want us to do a science fiction review with Martin Wolf, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad-free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening. Thank you Whatever your goal, trade show giveaways, client gifts, or team gear, 4imprint has the promo products to match. With thousands of options, from apparel and drinkware to tech and totes, it's easy to find the right fit for your brand and budget with standout choices at every price point. And with their 360-degree guarantee, you can be 4imprint certain your order will show up just right, right on time. Explore more at 4imprint.com. 4imprint. 4certain. When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation. Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut. Welcome to Alaska Airlines. We're now flying to London. So enjoy a cup of tea in your lie-flat suite and get ready to experience all London has to offer. Lie back, relax, and let your dreams take flight. Welcome to Alaska Airlines.