In 2002 I visited Argentina during its freefall. The country had just devalued and defaulted, and the latest president, instead of merely resigning, had fled in a helicopter. Yet Buenos Aires – like Athens today – still looked like a middle-class city. People lived in apartment blocks with doormen and drove to restaurants in imported cars. At dinner one night, a photographer told me that just that day he had realised he’d dropped into the third world. When had it dawned? “When Amazon refused my credit card,” he said.
2002年，我到訪阿根廷時(shí)，該國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)正在“自由落體”。當(dāng)時(shí)的阿根廷，貨幣貶值，債務(wù)違約，前任總統(tǒng)并未僅僅辭職了事，而是乘坐直升飛機(jī)逃離了阿根廷。不過，布宜諾斯艾利斯——與當(dāng)下的雅典一樣——看起來仍像一座中產(chǎn)階級(jí)色彩的城市。人們住在有看門人的公寓樓里，開著進(jìn)口汽車去飯店就餐。一天晚上，一位攝影師在吃飯時(shí)告訴我，就在當(dāng)天，他才意識(shí)到自己已經(jīng)跌入了第三世界。從什么時(shí)間開始的？“在亞馬遜(Amazon)拒絕我的信用卡時(shí)，”他表示。