????隨著政府資產負債規模和國家債務逐年增長，有人開始擔心政府行動主義（government activism）正在全球范圍內扼殺資本主義。但進一步觀察就會發現，情況剛好相反。

????法國經濟學家托馬斯?皮凱蒂的論述涵蓋了大量有關發達國家收入和財富不均的公開討論，他的開創性研究著作《21世紀的資本》（Capital in the 21st Century）英文譯本將在下個月面市。

????也許大家從題目中可以看出，皮凱蒂的研究重點是資本以及隨著時間的推移資本的集中發生了怎樣的變化。我們已經習慣于聽到大量有關收入的經濟新聞。就國家而言，它的收入就是國內生產總值（GDP）。皮凱蒂的這本書一個引人入勝的地方就是，它通過詳盡的全球資本存量數據讓我們對世界經濟有了更完整的認識。

????從資本這個角度出發，我們會了解到目前資本主義在富裕國家的健康情況和狀態，這和只看GDP所得到的結論會有很大不同。大多數美國保守派人士都表示，通過提高政府開支占GDP的百分比，美國政府正在加強對國內經濟的控制。下圖由統計學家、作家內特?希爾提供，它展示的就是這個百分比的長期走勢（其中藍色為權益性項目支出、紅色為國防支出、綠色為基礎設施和服務支出、橙色為利息支出）：

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????As government balance sheets and national debt grow each year, some are fretting that government activism is stifling global capitalism. But look closer and you see that it's quite the opposite.

????Thomas Piketty, the French economist whose work informs much of the public debate over income and wealth inequality in the developed world, will release the English translation of his groundbreaking study, Capital in the 21st Century next month.

????As you can probably glean from the title, Piketty is mostly concerned with the study of capital and how its concentration has changed over time. In the economic press, we're used to hearing a lot about income, which, on a national scale, is gross domestic product (GDP). One of the fascinating things about Piketty's book, however, is that it supplements our understanding of the global economy with exhaustive data about the world's stock of capital, too.

????By looking at capital, we can get a much different picture of the health and well being of capitalism in the rich world today than we do by simply looking at GDP. Most American conservatives claim that the government is gaining more control of the U.S. economy by pointing to the growing share of government spending as a percentage of GDP. Here's a chart from Nate Silver that shows this statistic for the U.S. over time:

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????在英國和法國這樣的國家，政府支出占GDP的比重要高得多，分別為48.5%和56.1%。

????但皮凱蒂的資本數據所描繪的情況和上圖大相徑庭，特別是就法國等經濟體而言。如果按私有資本總量占GDP的百分比計算，大家就會發現，在過去的50-60年里，私人資本的價值經歷了大幅度增長。

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????In countries like Britain and France, the share of GDP made up of government spending is much higher, at 48.5% and 56.1% of GDP, respectively.

????But Piketty's capital data paints a much different picture, especially of economies like France's. If you look at the value of total privately owned capital relative to GDP, you see a country in which the value of private capital has increased significantly over the past two generations:

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