175年历史的《经济学人》发文：自由主义复兴宣言
2018年9月16日，星期日
陌上美国
本期“经济学人”杂志发表了一篇文章，关于自由主义复兴的宣言——一种为人民服务的自由主义。此文是该宣言的导读的全文翻译。
原文链接：
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/09/13/a-manifesto-for-renewing-liberalism
自由主义复兴宣言链接：
https://www.economist.com/essay/2018/09/13/the-economist-at-175
自由主义创造了现代社会，但现代社会正在反对它。欧洲和美国正在遭受民众反对自由派精英的阵痛，他们被视为自私自利，无法或不愿意解决普通人的问题。在其他地方，过去25年向自由和开放市场迈进的势头已经被逆转，中国即将成为世界上最大的经济体，也表明dictatorships政权能够蓬勃发展。
对于“经济学人”来说，这是非常令人担忧的。175年前，我们创立了自由主义运动——不是美国大学校园的左派“进步主义”，也不是法国评论家提出的正确的“超自由主义”，而是对个人尊严、开放的市场、有限制的政府的普遍承诺，以及对通过辩论和改革的手段带来人类进步的坚定信念。
LIBERALISM made the modern world, but the modern world is turning against it. Europe and America are in the throes of a popular rebellion against liberal elites, who are seen as self-serving and unable, or unwilling, to solve the problems of ordinary people. Elsewhere a 25-year shift towards freedom and open markets has gone into reverse, even as China, soon to be the world’s largest economy, shows that dictatorships can thrive.
For The Economist this is profoundly worrying. We were created 175 years ago to campaign for liberalism—not the leftish “progressivism” of American university campuses or the rightish “ultraliberalism” conjured up by the French commentariat, but a universal commitment to individual dignity, open markets, limited government and a faith in human progress brought about by debate and reform.
自由主义的奠基者们定会惊讶，如何可以拿今天的生活与19世纪40年代的贫困和苦难相提并论。过去175年，全球人均寿命从不到30岁增加到70岁以上。生活在极端贫困线以下的人口比例，从80％下降到8％；从绝对数量上看，减少了一半；脱贫总人口从大约1亿增加到超过65亿。识字人口比例上升超过五倍，达到80％以上。公民权利和法治比几十年前更加强大。在许多国家，个人现在有更多选择如何且和谁一起生活的自由。
显然，这不是仅仅来自自由主义者的贡献。但是，由于法西斯主义，共产主义和自我主义在19世纪和20世纪的尝试中都失败了，自由主义社会胜出并繁荣起来。在一种或另一种形式中，自由民主开始主导西方，并在全世界得到传播。
Our founders would be astonished at how life today compares with the poverty and the misery of the 1840s. Global life expectancy in the past 175 years has risen from a little under 30 years to over 70. The share of people living below the threshold of extreme poverty has fallen from about 80% to 8% and the absolute number has halved, even as the total living above it has increased from about 100m to over 6.5bn. And literacy rates are up more than fivefold, to over 80%. Civil rights and the rule of law are incomparably more robust than they were only a few decades ago. In many countries individuals are now free to choose how to live—and with whom.
This is not all the work of liberals, obviously. But as fascism, communism and autarky failed over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, liberal societies have prospered. In one flavour or another, liberal democracy came to dominate the West and from there it started to spread around the world.
桂冠，但不能休息
然而，政治哲学和理论不能靠他们过去的辉煌来维系繁荣：也必须能带来更美好的未来。在这里，自由民主面临迫在眉睫的挑战。西方选民已开始怀疑该制度是否适合他们，或者说这是公平的吗。在去年的民意调查中，只有36％的德国人，24％的加拿大人，和9％的法国人认为下一代会比他们的父母更好。只有三分之一的35岁以下的美国人表示，他们生活在民主制度中至关重要；欢迎鹰派军政府的民众比例从1995年的7％增长到去年的18％。根据非盈利组织“自由之家”的分析显示，过去12年来，在全球范围内，公民自由和政治权利有所下降——在2017年，71个国家有所退步，只有35个国家有所进步。
与此相反，“经济学人”仍然相信自由主义思想的力量。在过去的六个月里，我们通过在线文章，辩论，博客和电影来庆祝我们成立175周年。这些文章探讨如何回应对自由主义的批评的声音。在这期杂志中，我们发表了一篇文章，这是一篇关于自由主义复兴的宣言——一种为人民服务的自由主义。
我们的文章阐述了国家如何通过重塑税收，福利，教育和移民政策，来为公民更好地服务。公司垄断持续增长的实力, 富裕城市拒人千里之外的限制, 这些桎梏必须除去，经济才能自由发展。我们敦促西方通过增强军事力量和重振联盟来支持自由世界秩序。
所有这些政策都旨在解决自由主义的核心困难和问题。在苏联解体后的胜利时刻，它偏离和忽视了自己的基本价值观。必须开始自由主义的复兴。
自由主义出现于18世纪后期，是全球在美国独立、法国革命和工商业转型的动荡下应运而生的产物。革命者坚持认为，要建立一个更美好的世界，你首先必须粉碎眼前的这个。相比之下，保守派对所有批着革命外衣的普遍真理都持有怀疑的态度。他们寻求通过控制变革的发生来保留住社会中最好的东西，通常，他们希望这种变革在统治阶级或“高瞻远瞩”的威权领袖的引导下进行。
Laurels, but no rest
Yet political philosophies cannot live by their past glories: they must also promise a better future. And here liberal democracy faces a looming challenge. Western voters have started to doubt that the system works for them or that it is fair. In polling last year just 36% of Germans, 24% of Canadians and 9% of the French thought that the next generation would be better off than their parents. Only a third of Americans under 35 say that it is vital they live in a democracy; the share who would welcome military government grew from 7% in 1995 to 18% last year. Globally, according to Freedom House, an NGO, civil liberties and political rights have declined for the past 12 years—in 2017, 71 countries lost ground while only 35 made gains.
Against this current, The Economist still believes in the power of the liberal idea. Over the past six months, we have celebrated our 175th anniversary with online articles, debates, podcasts and films that explore how to respond to liberalism’s critics. In this issue we publish an essay that is a manifesto for a liberal revival—a liberalism for the people.
Our essay sets out how the state can work harder for the citizen by recasting taxation, welfare, education and immigration. The economy must be cut free from the growing power of corporate monopolies and the planning restrictions that shut people out of the most prosperous cities. And we urge the West to shore up the liberal world order through enhanced military power and reinvigorated alliances.
All these policies are designed to deal with liberalism’s central problem. In its moment of triumph after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it lost sight of its own essential values. It is with them that the liberal revival must begin.
Liberalism emerged in the late 18th century as a response to the turmoil stirred up by independence in America, revolution in France and the transformation of industry and commerce. Revolutionaries insist that, to build a better world, you first have to smash the one in front of you. By contrast, conservatives are suspicious of all revolutionary pretensions to universal truth. They seek to preserve what is best in society by managing change, usually under a ruling class or an authoritarian leader who “knows best”.
变革的引擎
真正的自由主义者认为，社会可以通过自下而上的方式向更好发展。他们与革命者不同，因为他们不强迫任何人接受别人的观点。他们与保守派不同，因为他们认为贵族和等级制度，或者任何权力集中的形式，实际上都是产生压迫的根源。
因此，最初自由主义被当成一种引发焦躁不安和激烈冲击的世界观。然而在过去的几十年里，自由主义者对获得的权力过于自在。结果，他们失去了改革的渴望。执政的自由派精英告诉自己，他们主导着健康的精英管理体系，并且他们已经获得了特权。然而，现实并非那么明确。
在最好的情况下，任人唯贤下的竞争意识，创造了非凡的繁荣和丰富的新思想。以效率和经济自由为名，政府为竞争开辟了市场。种族，性别和性取向不再像过去那样成为限制发展的障碍。全球化使新兴市场的数亿人摆脱了贫困。
然而，执政的自由主义者经常躲避具有破坏性挑战的大风浪。像法律这类的稳定性职业受到陈旧规则的保护。大学教授即使宣扬极自由化的“开放社会”的理论，也依旧不用担心失去终身教职。金融家们制造了最严重的金融危机，而他们的雇主依然可以从纳税人的钱中获救。全球化的本意在于创造足够的收益来帮助失落的人群，但他们中只有少数人得到实惠。
通过各种各样的方式，自由主义的精英走向了故步自封，自我陶醉。最近的一项研究发现，在1999—2013年，美国最负盛名的大学录取的学生，来自收入最高的1％家庭的人数比来自收入最低的50％家庭的总和还多。在1980—2015年，美国的大学学费上涨速度是人均中等收入上涨速度的17倍。 50个最大的城市地区拥有世界人口的7％，创造了40％的经济价值。但是大城市的规划限制，让很多人，尤其是年轻人，丧失去这些地方发展的机会。
拥有统治地位的自由主义者们在保持现状方面变得如此紧张，以至于忘记了激进主义的样子。请记住，在2016年的总统竞选活动中，希拉里·克林顿在局限于枝节问题的过程中，隐藏了对全局思考的不足。2015年杰里米·科尔宾成为英国工党领袖，并不是因为他是一个炫目的政治人才，而是因为他的竞争对手都太平淡无奇。自由派技术官僚设计了无穷无尽的政策解决方案，但仍然对他们应该帮助的人群显得不接地气。这创造了两种人：行动者和光说不练的人，表面文章者和思想家，政策改革者和因循守旧的人。
An engine of change
True liberals contend that societies can change gradually for the better and from the bottom up. They differ from revolutionaries because they reject the idea that individuals should be coerced into accepting someone else’s beliefs. They differ from conservatives because they assert that aristocracy and hierarchy, indeed all concentrations of power, tend to become sources of oppression.
Liberalism thus began as a restless, agitating world view. Yet over the past few decades liberals have become too comfortable with power. As a result, they have lost their hunger for reform. The ruling liberal elite tell themselves that they preside over a healthy meritocracy and that they have earned their privileges. The reality is not so clear-cut.
At its best, the competitive spirit of meritocracy has created extraordinary prosperity and a wealth of new ideas. In the name of efficiency and economic freedom, governments have opened up markets to competition. Race, gender and sexuality have never been less of a barrier to advancement. Globalisation has lifted hundreds of millions of people in emerging markets out of poverty.
Yet ruling liberals have often sheltered themselves from the gales of creative destruction. Cushy professions such as law are protected by fatuous regulations. University professors enjoy tenure even as they preach the virtues of the open society. Financiers were spared the worst of the financial crisis when their employers were bailed out with taxpayers’ money. Globalisation was meant to create enough gains to help the losers, but too few of them have seen the pay-off.
In all sorts of ways, the liberal meritocracy is closed and self-sustaining. A recent study found that, in 1999-2013, America’s most prestigious universities admitted more students from the top 1% of households by income than from the bottom 50%. In 1980-2015 university fees in America rose 17 times as fast as median incomes. The 50 biggest urban areas contain 7% of the world’s people and produce 40% of its output. But planning restrictions shut many out, especially the young.
Governing liberals have become so wrapped up in preserving the status quo that they have forgotten what radicalism looks like. Remember how, in her campaign to become America’s president, Hillary Clinton concealed her lack of big ideas behind a blizzard of small ones. The candidates to become leader of the Labour Party in Britain in 2015 lost to Jeremy Corbyn not because he is a dazzling political talent so much as because they were indistinguishably bland. Liberal technocrats contrive endless clever policy fixes, but they remain conspicuously aloof from the people they are supposed to be helping. This creates two classes: the doers and the done-to, the thinkers and the thought-for, the policymakers and the policytakers.
自由的基础
自由主义者已经忘记了他们的创始理念是对所有人的尊重。“经济学人”的百年社论，写于1943年，当时法西斯战争肆虐全球，我们曾以两个互补的原则来阐述过自由主义。首先是自由：它“不仅公正、智慧而且有利可图......让人们做他们想做的事。”第二个是共同利益：“人类社会......可以成为所有人福利的联合体”。
今天的自由主义对这种包容性的自由定义感到不安。统治阶级生活在泡沫中。他们去同一所大学，互相结婚，住在同一条街上，在同一个办公室工作。远离权力，大多数人预计会满足于日益增长的物质繁荣。然而，2008年金融危机后，出现生产力停滞不前和财政紧缩，导致这一个寄托也常被打破。
这是民众对主流政党（建制派）的信任被削弱的一个原因。英国的保守党，也许是历史上最成功的政党，现在从死去的人的遗嘱中筹集的钱比从活人的礼物中筹集的更多。在1990年，东、西德统一后的第一次选举中，传统政党赢得了80％以上的选票。而最新民意调查显示，他们只有45％的支持率，而极右、极左和绿党的总支持率为41.5％。
相反，人们正在退步到由种族、宗教或性取向所定义的身份政治中去。结果，第二项原则，即共同利益，开始趋向瓦解。身份政治是对歧视的有效回应，但随着各种身份的增加，一个群体的政治利益总会出现与其他所有群体的政治利益相冲突的情况。辩论不是为了产生有效的妥协，反而成为发泄“部落愤怒”的一种渠道。特别是右翼领导人，利用移民中的一些不确定因素，作为煽动支持的一种方式。他们通过冲击部分自信的左翼围绕政治正确的辩论，来挑拨选民失落的情绪。结果是两极分化。有可能会导致社会瘫痪，也可能会导致多数人的暴政。在最坏的情况下，它会使极右翼的威权主义者更加壮大。
自由主义者也在地缘政治上失利。在19世纪和20世纪，自由主义的兴起伴随着英国的海上霸权，和后来的美国的经济和军事崛起。相比之下，自由民主的衰落正在发生，因为俄罗斯扮演着破坏者，而中国则向世界展示其不断增强的全球力量。然而，美国却逐渐忽视了保障自己在第二次世界大战之后，所建立的联盟和自由制度体系。尤其在川普总统的领导下，甚至转入了对这一套的攻击。
这种退缩的冲动是基于一种误解。正如历史学家罗伯特·卡根（Robert Kagan）所指出的那样，美国并不是像往常所假设的那样，从两次世界大战之间的孤立主义转向战后参与以遏制苏联。相反，看到混乱的20世纪20年代和30年代，如何孕育了法西斯主义和布尔什维克主义，政治家们得出的结论是，无领导的世界是一种危险的状态。用美国国务卿迪·安艾奇逊的话来说，美国再也不能坐在客厅里“装满霰弹枪，等待”。
因此，1991年苏联解体并没有使美国突然安全。如果自由主义思想不能领导世界，那么地缘政治可能会退到19世纪的欧洲那样，陷入权力平衡、争夺势力范围的斗争。重现类似于法兰德斯战场那种混乱。即使今天的和平得到维系，自由主义也将受到影响。因为越来越多的对外国敌对势力的恐惧，驱使人们进入强人政治和民粹主义的怀抱。
这是自由重塑的时刻。自由主义者需要少把精力放在将批评者视为傻瓜和偏执狂上，而是关注于纠正自己的错误。自由主义的真正精神不是自我保护，而是激荡和打破旧格局。 当初“经济学人”的成立，是为了废除玉米法。在当时维多利亚时代的英国，该法律规定向进口谷物增税。今天听起来很滑稽。但在19世纪40年代，工厂工人收入的60％用于食品，其中三分之一用于买面包。我们的成立是为了让受苦的部分穷人对抗种玉米的富人。今天，与当时情况类似，自由主义者需要充当对抗特权阶层的预备役力量。
The foundations of liberty
Liberals have forgotten that their founding idea is civic respect for all. Our centenary editorial, written in 1943 as the war against fascism raged, set this out in two complementary principles. The first is freedom: that it is “not only just and wise but also profitable…to let people do what they want.” The second is the common interest: that “human society…can be an association for the welfare of all.”
Today’s liberal meritocracy sits uncomfortably with that inclusive definition of freedom. The ruling class live in a bubble. They go to the same colleges, marry each other, live in the same streets and work in the same offices. Remote from power, most people are expected to be content with growing material prosperity instead. Yet, amid stagnating productivity and the fiscal austerity that followed the financial crisis of 2008, even this promise has often been broken.
That is one reason loyalty to mainstream parties is corroding. Britain’s Conservatives, perhaps the most successful party in history, now raise more money from the wills of dead people than they do from the gifts of the living. In the first election in unified Germany, in 1990, the traditional parties won over 80% of the vote; the latest poll gives them just 45%, compared with a total of 41.5% for the far right, the far left and the Greens.
Instead people are retreating into group identities defined by race, religion or sexuality. As a result, that second principle, the common interest, has fragmented. Identity politics is a valid response to discrimination but, as identities multiply, the politics of each group collides with the politics of all the rest. Instead of generating useful compromises, debate becomes an exercise in tribal outrage. Leaders on the right, in particular, exploit the insecurity engendered by immigration as a way of whipping up support. And they use smug left-wing arguments about political correctness to feed their voters’ sense of being looked down on. The result is polarisation. Sometimes that leads to paralysis, sometimes to the tyranny of the majority. At worst it emboldens far-right authoritarians.
Liberals are losing the argument in geopolitics, too. Liberalism spread in the 19th and 20th centuries against the backdrop first of British naval hegemony and, later, the economic and military rise of the United States. Today, by contrast, the retreat of liberal democracy is taking place as Russia plays the saboteur and China asserts its growing global power. Yet rather than defend the system of alliances and liberal institutions it created after the second world war, America has been neglecting it—and even, under President Donald Trump, attacking it.
This impulse to pull back is based on a misconception. As the historian Robert Kagan points out, America did not switch from interwar isolationism to post-war engagement in order to contain the Soviet Union, as is often assumed. Instead, having seen how the chaos of the 1920s and 1930s bred fascism and Bolshevism, its post-war statesmen concluded that a leaderless world was a threat. In the words of Dean Acheson, a secretary of state, America could no longer sit “in the parlour with a loaded shotgun, waiting”.
It follows that the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 did not suddenly make America safe. If liberal ideas do not underpin the world, geopolitics risks becoming the balance-of-power, sphere-of-influence struggle that European statesmen grappled with in the 19th century. That culminated in the muddy battlefields of Flanders. Even if today’s peace holds, liberalism will suffer as growing fears of foreign foes drive people into the arms of strongmen and populists.
It is the moment for a liberal reinvention. Liberals need to spend less time dismissing their critics as fools and bigots and more fixing what is wrong. The true spirit of liberalism is not self-preserving, but radical and disruptive. The Economist was founded to campaign for the repeal of the Corn Laws, which charged duties on imports of grain into Victorian Britain. Today that sounds comically small-bore. But in the 1840s, 60% of the income of factory workers went on food, a third of that on bread. We were created to take the part of the poor against the corn-cultivating gentry. Today, in that same vision, liberals need to side with a struggling precariat against the patricians.
自由主义者应该充满活力地应对今天的挑战。 如果他们胜出，那将是因为他们传播自由和繁荣的能力无与伦比。
Liberals should approach today’s challenges with vigour. If they prevail, it will be because their ideas are unmatched for their ability to spread freedom and prosperity
自由主义者必须通过遏制自己的特权，重新找到自己对个人尊严和自力更生的信念。他们必须停止嘲笑民族主义(nationalism)，而是打造自由主义特色的民族主义，并用带有包容性的公民自豪感来填补这个概念。他们应该将权力下放到地区和市政当局，而不是在中央部委和不负责任的技术部门中扩大权力。美国不应将地缘政治视为大国之间的零和斗争，而应该利用其军事力量、价值观和盟友，通过强化这种三元组合来稳固地缘政治。
最优秀的自由主义者一直具有很强的务实性和适应力。（历史给出了很多正面的例子。）在第一次世界大战之前，西奥多·罗斯福（Theodore Roosevelt）接管了那些经营美国巨头垄断公司的强盗贵族。虽然许多早期的自由主义者害怕暴民统治，但他们接受了民主。在20世纪30年代的大萧条之后，他们承认政府在管理经济方面的作用有限。第二次世界大战之后，为了遏制法西斯主义和共产主义复辟，自由主义者设计了国家福利系统。
自由主义者应该充满活力地应对今天的挑战。 如果他们胜出，那将是因为他们传播自由和繁荣的能力无与伦比。自由主义者应该勇于接受批评，并将辩论视为给他们的运动带来新思想活力的正面源泉。他们应该大胆而且急切地进行改革。特别是年轻人，他们要去征服未来的世界。
175年前，在经济学人杂志成立的时候，我们的第一位编辑，詹姆斯威尔逊承诺：“这是知识与无知之间的一场郑重较量。知识，推进向前; 而缺乏价值和勇气的无知，阻碍进步。”我们整装待发，再次加入当下的思潮竞争。我们呼吁各地的自由派人士加入！
They must rediscover their belief in individual dignity and self-reliance—by curbing their own privileges. They must stop sneering at nationalism, but claim it for themselves and fill it with their own brand of inclusive civic pride. Rather than lodging power in centralised ministries and unaccountable technocracies, they should devolve it to regions and municipalities. Instead of treating geopolitics as a zero-sum struggle between the great powers, America must draw on the self-reinforcing triad of its military might, its values and its allies.
The best liberals have always been pragmatic and adaptable. Before the first world war Theodore Roosevelt took on the robber barons who ran America’s great monopolies. Although many early liberals feared mob rule, they embraced democracy. After the Depression in the 1930s they acknowledged that government has a limited role in managing the economy. Partly in order to see off fascism and communism after the second world war, liberals designed the welfare state.
Liberals should approach today’s challenges with equal vigour. If they prevail, it will be because their ideas are unmatched for their ability to spread freedom and prosperity. Liberals should embrace criticism and welcome debate as a source of the new thinking that will rekindle their movement. They should be bold and impatient for reform. Young people, especially, have a world to claim.
When The Economist was founded 175 years ago our first editor, James Wilson, promised “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.” We renew our pledge to that contest. And we ask liberals everywhere to join us.