Sitting in Paris bracing for the next French political crisis, I found a strangely fascinating table from the IMF. It gives government spending as a percentage of GDP for dozens of countries. Clustered at the top are several isolated microstates: Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Dominica and Micronesia. Counting only countries with populations over 150,000, the biggest spender was Ukraine, at 74 per cent of GDP. Fair enough — it’s fighting an invasion. But next in the table, at a stonking 57 per cent, is a country at peace (except with itself): France.
在巴黎靜等法國陷入下一場政治危機之際，我發現了國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)編制的一個表格，它以某種奇特的方式引人入勝。該表列出了數十個國家的政府支出與國內生產總值(GDP)之比。排名靠前的幾個國家都是孤立的微型國家：基里巴斯、馬紹爾群島、多米尼加和密克羅尼西亞。如果只統計人口超過15萬的國家，支出最多的國家是烏克蘭，政府支出相當于GDP的74%。這情有可原——該國正在抵抗一場入侵。但緊隨其后的是一個處于和平狀態（暫且不算國內的黨派紛爭）的國家，政府支出高達GDP的57%，那就是法國。