英国脱欧，这个国家居然成了最大赢家

在都柏林一个清新的冬日，我和当地软件初创公司Intercom的创始人德斯·特雷诺一起在圣斯蒂芬绿地公园漫步。1916年复活节起义中，这里曾经被反叛者作为阵地，现在则是一片安静而时髦的宜人处所，坐落在一条繁忙商业街的尽头。37岁的特雷诺赞颂了爱尔兰文化的美好：“他们只会叫我们圣人和学者。因为实际情况证明，现在我们需要的就是圣人和学者。”

我们在公园小路上走着，这位科技创业者解释了他为什么相信爱尔兰最近的经济运势不会受到英国脱欧的阻碍。他说：“我们真正的才能就是希望，还有善良。我们不会幸灾乐祸，对于命运如何发挥作用，我们更多的是茫然。凯尔特之虎让我们认识到金钱并不适合我们。更确切的说是套利、抢注网络域名以及愚蠢金钱的那些蠢行不适合我们。”他抬头看着一群天鹅在湖上悠闲地游着，然后深吸了一口公园里清新的空气：“事业更重要，而不是数字。”

文化革命确实帮助爱尔兰提高了国际吸引力。去年，爱尔兰通过公投修改了宪法，使堕胎合法化；仅三年前，它也是通过公投将同性婚姻合法化。爱尔兰政府去年禁止天主教会基于信仰进行招生歧视，而天主教会控制着爱尔兰90%的学校体系。总理瓦拉德卡本身就是社会进步的完美标识，他是同性恋，未婚，还是印度-爱尔兰混血。在这个1993年才将同性恋合法化的国家，38岁的瓦拉德卡已经成为政府首脑。在美国，这相当于第一位黑人总统在1888年，也就是废除奴隶制后不久就入主白宫。特雷诺说：“那些正在为我们的未来而战的都是依然记得过去生活的人。”

不过，爱尔兰自己并非没有问题。收入差距正在扩大（Facebook在爱尔兰的平均年薪为15万欧元，是爱尔兰普通工人的三倍）。爱尔兰37%的外国投资来自于美国，而且仍然容易受到英国经济放缓的影响。同时，英国脱欧对爱尔兰经济的推动也不会永远持续下去。今年2月，欧盟委员会将爱尔兰今年的经济增长预期从4.5%下调至4.1%。罪魁祸首是谁呢？当然是英国脱欧的影响存在不确定性。

On a brisk winter day in Dublin, I join Des Traynor, a founder of local business software startup Intercom, for a midday stroll through St. Stephen’s Green. A onetime foxhole for rebels in the 1916 Easter Rising, the public park is now a tranquil and tony oasis at the end of a busy shopping thoroughfare. Traynor, 37, is extolling the virtues of Irish culture: “Nothing but saints and scholars, they called us. As it turns out, saints and scholars are exactly what we need these days.”

As we walk along the path, the tech entrepreneur explains why he believes Ireland’s recent economic luck goes beyond a Brexit bump. “Our real talent is hope. And kindness. We don’t gloat, more like bemusement at how fate works its way out,” he says. “The Celtic Tiger had us thinking money didn’t suit us. It was more that arbitrage, marketing, cybersquatting, and the stupidity of stupid money didn’t suit us.” He cocks his head at a bevy of swans idling on a lake and pulls in a whiff of fragrant park air. “There’s more to business than numbers.”

A cultural revolution has certainly helped make Ireland more internationally attractive. By referendum, Ireland last year rewrote its constitution to legalize abortion, just three years after it legalized gay marriage, also by referendum. The Irish government last year barred the Catholic Church, which controls 90% of the school system on its behalf, from admissions discrimination on religious grounds. Look no further than Taoiseach Varadkar to mark social progress; he is a gay, unmarried, 38-year-old man of Indian and Irish descent who is the head of government in a country that only decriminalized homosexuality in 1993. In the U.S., this would be the equivalent of the first black president taking office in 1888, not long after the abolition of slavery. “It’s no coincidence,” Traynor says, “that the people fighting for our future here are the ones who can still remember living in its past.”

Ireland is, however, not without its problems. Income inequality is worsening. (At 150,000 euros, the average Facebook salary in Ireland is triple that of the average Irish worker.) With 37% of its foreign investment from the U.S., Ireland remains susceptible to an economic slowdown across the pond. And those Brexit-boosted numbers won’t last forever. In February, the European Commission revised downward its growth predictions for Ireland for the year, from 4.5% to 4.1%. The culprit? Uncertainty about the fallout from Britain’s exit from the EU, of course.