在暗面掌控美国的1%背后的经济学家 [美国媒体]

Meet The Economist Behind The One-Percent's Stealth Takeover Of America

在暗面掌控美国的1%背后的经济学家

Authored by Lynn Paramore via The Institute for New Economic Thinking,

本文由Lynn Paramore通过新经济思维研究所发表，



Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual linchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean

诺贝尔奖得主詹姆斯·布坎南（ James Buchanan）是科赫资助的攻击民主制度的关键人物，杜克大学历史学家南希·麦克莱恩（Nancy MacLean）认为。

Ask people to name the key minds that have shaped America’s burst of radical right-wing attacks on working conditions, consumer rights and public services, and they will typically mention figures like free market-champion Milton Friedman, libertarian guru Ayn Rand, and laissez-faire economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.

让人们说出影响美国对工作条件、消费者权利和公共服务发动激进右翼攻击的关键人物，人们通常会提到自由市场拥护者米尔顿·弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)、自由主义大师安·兰德(Ayn Rand)、自由放任经济学家弗里德里希·哈耶克(Friedrich Hayek)和路德维希·冯·米塞斯(Ludwig Von Mises)等人。

James McGill Buchanan is a name you will rarely hear unless you’ve taken several classes in economics.And if the Tennessee-born Nobel laureate were alive today, it would suit him just fine that most well-informed journalists, liberal politicians, and even many economics students have little understanding of his work.

詹姆斯·麦吉尔·布坎南(JamesMcGillBuchanan)是一个很少听到的名字，除非你上过几门经济学课程。如果这位田纳西州出生的诺贝尔奖得主今天还活着的话，最有见地的记者、自由派政治家，甚至很多经济学专业的学生对他的研究都不太了解，这对他来说是很合适的。



MacLean’s book reads like an intellectual detective story. In 2010, she moved to North Carolina, where a Tea Party-dominated Republican Party got control of both houses of the state legislature and began pushing through a radical program to suppress voter rights, decimate public services, and slash taxes on the wealthy that shocked a state long a beacon of southern moderation. Up to this point, the figure of James Buchanan flickered in her peripheral vision, but as she began to study his work closely, the events in North Carolina and also Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker was leading assaults on collective bargaining rights, shifted her focus.

麦克莱恩的书读起来就像一个智力侦探故事。2010年，她搬到了北卡罗来纳州，茶党主导的共和党控制了州参众两院，并开始推动一项激进的计划，以压制选民权利，削减公共服务，并大幅削减富人的税收，这震惊了一个长期以来一直是南方温和派灯塔的州。到目前为止，詹姆斯·布坎南(James Buchanan)的形象在她的外围视野中闪烁，但当她开始仔细研究他的作品时，北卡罗来纳州和威斯康星州的事件-州长斯科特·沃克(Scott Walker)领导对集体谈判权的攻击-转移了她的注意力。

Could it be that this relatively obscure economist’s distinctive thought was being put forcefully into action in real time?

这位相对默默无闻的经济学家的独特想法会不会是被强行实时地付诸行动呢？

MacLean could not gain access to Buchanan’s papers to test her hypothesis until after his death in January 2013. That year, just as the government was being shut down by Ted Cruz & Co., she traveled to George Mason University in Virginia, where the economist’s papers lay willy-nilly across the offices of a building now abandoned by the Koch-funded faculty to a new, fancier center in Arlington.

直到2013年1月布坎南去世后，麦克莱恩才能查阅布坎南的论文来验证她的假设。那年，正当政府被特德克鲁兹公司关闭的时候，她去了弗吉尼亚州的乔治梅森大学，在那里，经济学家的论文被巧妙地放置在一座现在被科赫资助的教员遗弃在阿灵顿的一个新的、更豪华的中心的办公室里。

MacLean was stunned. The archive of the man who had sought to stay under the radar had been left totally unsorted and unguarded. The historian plunged in, and she read through boxes and drawers full of papers that included personal correspondence between Buchanan and billionaire industrialist Charles Koch. That’s when she had an amazing realization: here was the intellectual linchpin of a stealth revolution currently in progress.

麦克莱恩惊呆了。那个试图躲在雷达下的人的档案完全没有分类，也没有人看守。这位历史学家突然投入其中，她翻遍了装满布坎南和亿万富翁查尔斯·科赫之间的私人信件的纸箱和抽屉。就在那时，她有了一个惊人的认识：这是目前正在进行的一场秘密革命的智力关键。

A Theory of Property Supremacy

财产至上论

Buchanan, a 1940 graduate of Middle Tennessee State University who later attended the University of Chicago for graduate study, started out as a conventional public finance economist.But he grew frustrated by the way in which economic theorists ignored the political process.

布坎南1940年毕业于中田纳西州立大学，后来在芝加哥大学攻读研究生，起初是一名传统的公共财政经济学家。但他对经济理论家忽视政治进程的方式感到沮丧。



Buchanan’s view of human nature was distinctly dismal.Adam Smith saw human beings as self-interested and hungry for personal power and material comfort, but he also acknowledged social instincts like compassion and fairness. Buchanan, in contrast, insisted that people were primarily driven by venal self-interest. Crediting people with altruism or a desire to serve others was “romantic” fantasy: politicians and government workers were out for themselves, and so, for that matter, were teachers, doctors, and civil rights activists. They wanted to control others and wrest away their resources: “Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves,” he wrote in his 1975 book, The Limits of Liberty.

布坎南的人性观显然令人沮丧。亚当·斯密认为人类是利己主义者，渴望个人权力和物质慰藉，但他也承认同情和公平等社会本能。相反，布坎南坚持认为，人们的主要动机是出于自身利益。将利他主义或为他人服务的愿望归功于他人是一种“浪漫”的幻想：政治家和政府工作人员为自己出外，教师、医生和民权活动分子也是如此。他们想控制他人并夺取他们的资源：“每个人都在寻求对一个奴隶世界的掌控，”他在1975年的书中写道，《自由的限度》.

Does that sound like your kindergarten teacher? It did to Buchanan.

听起来像你的幼儿园老师吗？然而这确实是布坎南说的。

The people who needed protection were property owners, and their rights could only be secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of voters from encroaching on them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a Guarantor of Liberty(1993). MacLean observes that Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm of makers (entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else) His own language was often more stark, warning the alleged “prey” of “parasites” and “predators” out to fleece them.

需要保护的人是财产所有者，他们的权利只有通过宪法的限制才能得到保障，以防止大多数选民侵犯他们。《财产与自由》(1993年)。麦克莱恩认为布坎南认为社会是一个残酷的领域，制造者(企业家)不断被抢夺者(其他人)围困。他自己的语言往往更加鲜明，警告所谓的“寄生虫”的“受害者”以及“掠食者”对他们敲诈。

In 1965 the economist launched a center dedicated to his theories at the University of Virginia, which later relocated to George Mason University. MacLean describes how he trained thinkers to push back against the Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate America’s public schools and to challenge the constitutional perspectives and federal policy that enabled it. She notes that he took care to use economic and political precepts, rather than overtly racial arguments, to make his case, which nonetheless gave cover to racists who knew that spelling out their prejudices would alienate the country.

1965年，这位经济学家在弗吉尼亚大学(UniversityofVirginia)创办了一个致力于他的理论的中心，后来又搬到乔治梅森大学.麦克莱恩描述了他如何训练思想家反击决定取消美国公立学校的种族隔离的“布朗诉托皮卡教育委员会案”（Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)），并对宪法观点和联邦政策提出质疑。她指出，他谨慎地使用经济和政治戒律，而不是公开的种族论点来证明他的论点，尽管如此，这还是给那些知道阐明他们的偏见会疏远国家的种族主义者提供了掩护。

All the while, a ghost hovered in the background — that of John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, senator and seventh vice president of the United States.

一直以来，一个徘徊在后台的幽灵-南卡罗来纳州的约翰·C·卡尔霍恩(John C.Calhoun)，参议员、美国第七任副总统。

Calhoun was an intellectual and political powerhouse in the South from the 1820s until his death in 1850, expending his formidable energy to defend slavery. Calhoun, called the “Marx of the Master Class” by historian Richard Hofstadter, saw himself and his fellow southern oligarchs as victims of the majority. Therefore, as MacLean explains, he sought to create “constitutional gadgets” to constrict the operations of government.

从19世纪20年代到1850年去世，卡尔霍恩一直是南方的一个知识分子和政治强国，用他强大的精力捍卫奴隶制。卡尔霍恩被历史学家理查德·霍夫施塔特(RichardHofstadter)称为“大师阶级的马克思”，他认为自己和其他南方寡头是多数人的受害者。因此，正如麦克莱恩解释的那样，他试图创造“宪法小工具”来限制政府的运作。

Economists Tyler Cowen and Alexander Tabarrok, both of George Mason University, have noted the two men’s affinities, heralding Calhoun “a precursor of modern public choice theory” who “anticipates” Buchanan’s thinking. MacLean observes that both focused on how democracy constrains property owners and aimed for ways to restrict the latitude of voters. She argues that unlike even the most property-friendly founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability.

乔治·梅森大学的经济学家泰勒·考恩（Tyler Cowen）和亚历山大·塔巴罗克（Alexander Tabarrok）注意到了这两个人的亲密关系，预告卡尔霍恩“现代公共选择理论的先驱”，“预见”布坎南的思想。麦克莱恩指出，两人都专注于民主如何约束财产所有者，并试图通过何种方式限制选民的自由。她认为，不像对财产最友善的建国者亚历山大汉密尔顿和詹姆斯麦迪逊，布坎南想要私人的公司权力的精英完全从公共责任释放。

Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions— all these were tactics toward the goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge.

压制投票，改变立法程序，使正常多数不能再占上风，播下公众对政府机构的不信任-所有这些都是实现目标的策略。但圣杯是宪法：修改宪法，你就可以增加和保障富人的权力，这是任何政治家都无法挑战的。

Gravy Train to Oligarchy

走向寡头政治的大手笔



“Friedman was this genial, personable character who loved to be in the limelight and made a sunny case for the free market and the freedom to choose and so forth.
Buchanan was the dark side of this: he thought, ok, fine, they can make a case for the free market, but everybody knows that free markets have externalities and other problems. So he wanted to keep people from believing that government could be the alternative to those problems.”

“弗里德曼是这样一个和蔼可亲、和蔼可亲的人物，他喜欢成为众人瞩目的焦点，为自由市场和自由选择等提供了一个阳光明媚的理由。布坎南是这件事的阴暗面：他想，好吧，他们可以为自由市场辩护，但每个人都知道自由市场有外部性和其他问题。因此，他希望人们不要相信政府可以替代这些问题。”

The Virginia school also differs from other economic schools in a marked reliance on abstract theory rather than mathematics or empirical evidence. That a Nobel Prize was awarded in 1986 to an economist who so determinedly bucked the academic trends of his day was nothing short of stunning, MacLean observes. But, then, it was the peak of the Reagan era, an administration several Buchanan students joined.

弗吉尼亚学派也与其他经济学派不同，它明显依赖抽象理论，而不是数学或经验证据。麦克莱恩说，1986年诺贝尔经济学奖颁发给了一位坚决反对当时学术趋势的经济学家，这简直是令人震惊。但是，那时正是里根时代的巅峰时期，几个布坎南学生加入了政府。

Buchanan’s school focused on public choice theory, later adding constitutional economics and the new field of law and economics to its core research and advocacy. The economist saw that his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on who rules. It was much better to focus on[tr] the rules themselves, and that required a “constitutional revolution.”

布坎南学派专注于公共选择理论，后来在其核心研究和倡导中增加了宪法经济学和新的法律和经济学领域。这位经济学家认为，他的愿景永远不会实现，因为他把注意力集中在谁规则。把注意力集中在规则本身，这就需要一场“宪法革命”。

MacLean describes how the economist developed a grand project to train operatives to staff institutions funded by like-minded tycoons, most significantly Charles Koch, who became interested in his work in the ‘70s and sought the economist’s input in promoting “Austrian economics” in the U.S. and in advising the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

麦克莱恩描述了经济学家是如何制定一个宏大的项目，在由大亨资助的机构中，其中最显赫的是查尔斯·科赫(CharlesKoch)，培训志同道合的的人员，他在上世纪70年代对他的工作产生了兴趣，并寻求经济学家在美国推广“奥地利经济学”和为自由主义智库卡托研究所(Cato Institute)提供咨询意见。

Koch, whose mission was to save capitalists like himself from democracy, found the ultimate theoretical tool in the work of the southern economist. The historian writes that Koch preferred Buchanan to Milton Friedman and his “Chicago boys” because, she says, quoting a libertarian insider, [tr]they wanted “to make government work more efficiently when the true libertarian should be tearing it out at the root.”

科赫的任务是把像自己这样的资本家从民主中拯救出来，他在南方经济学家的工作中找到了终极的理论工具。这位历史学家写道，比起米尔顿·弗里德曼和他的“芝加哥男孩”，科赫更喜欢布坎南，因为她引用了一位自由主义内部人士的话，他们希望“在真正的自由主义者应该从根本上摧毁政府的时候，让政府更有效率地运作。”

With Koch’s money and enthusiasm, Buchanan’s academic school evolved into something much bigger. By the 1990s, Koch realized that Buchanan’s ideas — transmitted through stealth and deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents — could help take government down through incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. The tycoon knew that the project was extremely radical, even a “revolution” in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make his plans sound more palatable.

凭借科赫的资金和热情，布坎南的学术学院发展成了一所更大的学校。到了20世纪90年代，科赫意识到，布坎南的想法-正如麦克莱恩所写的那样，是通过秘密和蓄意欺骗传播的-可以通过媒体几乎不会注意到的渐进式攻击，帮助政府下台。这位大亨知道这个项目非常激进，甚至是治理方面的一场“革命”，但为了让他的计划听起来更受欢迎，他说话就像个保守派。

MacLean details how partnered with Koch, Buchanan’s outpost at George Mason University was able to connect libertarian economists with right-wing political actors and supporters of corporations like Shell Oil, Exxon, Ford, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, and General Motors. Together they could push economic ideas to public through media, promote new curricula for economics education, and court politicians in nearby Washington, D.C.

麦克莱恩详细介绍了如何与布坎南在乔治梅森大学的科赫公司（Koch）合作，将自由主义经济学家与壳牌石油、埃克森美孚（Exxon）、福特（Ford）、IBM、大通曼哈顿银行（Chase Manhattan Bank）和通用汽车等公司的右翼政治行动者和支持者联系起来。他们可以一起通过媒体向公众传播经济理念，推广经济学教育的新课程，以及向华盛顿附近的政客们献殷勤。

At the 1997 fiftieth anniversary of the Mont Pelerin Society, MacLean recounts that Buchanan and his associate Henry Manne, a founding theorist of libertarian economic approaches to law, focused on such affronts to capitalists as environmentalism and public health and welfare, expressing eagerness to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as kill public education because it tended to foster community values. Feminism had to go, too: the scholars considered it a socialist project.

在1997年Mont Pelerin Society成立五十周年之际，麦克莱恩说，布坎南和他的伙伴亨利·曼恩(HenryManne)是自由主义经济法律方法的创始理论家，他们把重点放在了对资本主义者的侮辱上，比如环境主义、公共卫生和福利，他们表示迫切希望摧毁社会保障、医疗补助和医疗保险，并扼杀公共教育，因为它倾向于培养社区价值观。女权主义也必须去做：学者们认为这是一项社会主义工程。

The Oligarchic Revolution Unfolds

寡头革命展开

Buchanan’s ideas began to have huge impact, especially in America and in Britain. In his home country, the economist was deeply involved in efforts to cut taxes on the wealthy in 1970s and 1980s and he advised proponents of Reagan Revolution in their quest to unleash markets and posit government as the “problem” rather than the “solution.”The Koch-funded Virginia school coached scholars, lawyers, politicians, and business people to apply stark right-wing perspectives on everything from deficits to taxes to school privatization. In Britain, Buchanan’s work helped to inspire the public sector reforms of Margaret Thatcher and her political progeny.

布坎南的思想开始产生巨大的影响，特别是在美国和英国。在他的祖国，这位经济学家深深地参与了在20世纪70年代和80年代，他建议里根革命的支持者们解放市场，把政府当作“问题”而不是“解决方案”。科赫资助的弗吉尼亚学校指导学者、律师、政界人士和商界人士对从赤字到税收再到学校私有化的一切问题都采取强硬的右翼观点。在英国，布坎南的工作帮助激励了玛格丽特·撒切尔及其政治后代的公共部门改革。

To put the success into perspective, MacLean points to the fact that Henry Manne, whom Buchanan was instrumental in hiring, created legal programs for law professors and federal judges which could boast that by 1990 two of every five sitting federal judges had participated. “40 percent of the U.S. federal judiciary,” writes MacLean, “had been treated to a Koch-backed curriculum.”

麦克莱恩指出，为了将这一成功付诸实践，布坎南在招聘过程中发挥了重要作用的亨利·曼恩(Henry Manne)为法学教授和联邦法官设立了法律课程，这些课程可以夸口说，到1990年，每5名现任联邦法官中就有2人参加了课程。麦克莱恩写道：“美国联邦司法机构中，有40%的人接受了科赫支持的课程。”

MacLean illustrates that in South America, Buchanan was able to first truly set his ideas in motion by helping a bare-knuckles dictatorship ensure the permanence of much of the radical transformation it inflicted on a country that had been a beacon of social progress. The historian emphasizes that Buchanan’s role in the disastrous Pinochet government of Chile has been underestimated partly because unlike Milton Friedman, who advertised his activities, Buchanan had the shrewdness to keep his involvement quiet. With his guidance, the military junta deployed public choice economics in the creation of a new constitution, which required balanced budgets and thereby prevented the government from spending to meet public needs. Supermajorities would be required for any changes of substance, leaving the public little recourse to challenge programs like the privatization of social security.

麦克莱恩举例说明，在南美洲，布坎南首先能够通过帮助一个赤裸裸的指节专政来真正启动他的想法，从而确保了它对一个曾经是社会进步灯塔的国家所进行的大部分彻底变革的持久性。这位历史学家强调，布坎南在智利灾难性的皮诺切特政府中所扮演的角色被低估了，部分原因在于布坎南不像米尔顿·弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)那样为自己的活动做广告，而是精明地保持沉默。在他的指导下，军政府在制定新宪法时运用了公共选择经济学，这要求平衡预算，从而阻止政府支出以满足公众需求。任何实质性的改变都需要超级多数，使公众几乎没有办法挑战诸如社会保障私有化之类的方案。

The dictator’s human rights abuses and pillage of the country’s resources did not seem to bother Buchanan, MacLean argues, so long as the wealthy got their way.“Despotism may be the only organizational alternative to the political structure that we observe,”[tr] the economist had written in The Limits of Liberty. If you have been wondering about the end result of the Virginia school philosophy, well, the economist helpfully spelled it out.

麦克莱恩认为，这位独裁者对人权的侵犯和对国家资源的掠夺似乎并没有困扰布坎南，只要富人走上了他们的路。“专制主义可能是我们所观察到的政治结构的唯一组织选择，”这位经济学家在信中写道自由的极限。如果你一直在想弗吉尼亚学派哲学的最终结果，好吧，经济学家对此作了有益的解释。

A World of Slaves

奴隶世界

Most Americans haven’t seen what’s coming.

大多数美国人还没看到接下来会发生什么。



She observes, for example, that many liberals have missed the point of strategies like privatization. Efforts to “reform” public education and Social Security are not just about a preference for the private sector over the public sector, she argues. You can wrap your head around those, even if you don’t agree. Instead, MacLean contends, the goal of these strategies is to radically alter power relations, weakening pro-public forces and enhancing the lobbying power and commitment of the corporations that take over public services and resources, thus advancing the plans to dismantle democracy and make way for a return to oligarchy. The majority will be held captive so that the wealthy can finally be free to do as they please, no matter how destructive.

例如，她注意到，许多自由主义者忽略了私有化等战略的要点。她认为，“改革”公共教育和社会保障的努力不仅仅是偏好私营部门而非公共部门。即使你不同意，你也可以考虑这些。相反，麦克莱恩认为，这些战略的目标是从根本上改变权力关系，削弱亲公共力量，增强接管公共服务和资源的公司的游说力量和承诺，从而推进瓦解民主并为恢复寡头统治让路的计划。大多数人将被囚禁，这样富人们才能自由地做他们喜欢做的事，不管有多大的破坏力。

MacLean argues that despite the rhetoric of Virginia school acolytes, shrinking big government is not really the point.The oligarchs require a government with tremendous new powers so that they can bypass the will of the people.This, as MacLean points out, requires greatly expanding police powers “to control the resultant popular anger.” The spreading use of pre-emption by GOP-controlled state legislatures to suppress local progressive victories such as living wage ordinances is another example of the right’s aggressive use of state power.

麦克莱恩认为，尽管维吉尼亚州学校的追随者们都在夸夸其谈，但缩小大政府并不是真正的重点。寡头们需要一个拥有巨大新权力的政府，这样他们才能绕过人民的意愿。正如麦克莱恩指出的那样，这就需要大大扩大警察权力，以“控制由此产生的民众愤怒”。共和党控制的州立法机构普遍利用先发制人的权利来压制地方进步的胜利，如“活工资条例”，这是右翼积极使用国家权力的另一个例子。

Could these right-wing capitalists allow private companies to fill prisons with helpless citizens—or, more profitable still, right-less undocumented immigrants? They could, and have. Might they engineer a retirement crisis by moving Americans to inadequate 401(k)s? Done. Take away the rights of consumers and workers to bring grievances to court by making them sign forced arbitration agreements? Check. Gut public education to the point where ordinary people have such bleak prospects that they have no energy to fight back? Getting it done.

这些右翼资本家能允许私人公司用无助的公民-或者更有利可图的-没有合法身份的移民来填满监狱吗？他们可以，也有。他们有可能通过将美国人转移到不足的401(K)s来策划退休危机吗？完成了。剥夺消费者和工人向法院投诉的权利，让他们签署强制仲裁协议？检查一下。公众教育的胆量，以至于普通民众的前景如此黯淡，以至于他们没有精力进行反击？把它做好。

Would they even refuse children clean water? Actually, yes.

他们会拒绝给孩子喝干净的水吗？事实上，是的。

MacLean notes that in Flint, Michigan, Americans got a taste of what the emerging oligarchy will look like — it tastes like poisoned water. There, the Koch-funded Mackinac Center pushed for legislation that would allow the governor to take control of communities facing emergency and put unelected managers in charge. In Flint, one such manager switched the city’s water supply to a polluted river, but the Mackinac Center’s lobbyists ensured that the law was fortified by protections against lawsuits that poisoned inhabitants might bring. Tens of thousands of children were exposed to lead, a substance known to cause serious health problems including brain damage.

麦克莱恩指出，在密歇根州的弗林特，美国人尝到了新出现的寡头政治的味道-尝起来就像有毒的水。在那里，科赫资助的麦基诺克中心推动立法，允许州长控制面临紧急情况的社区，并让未经选举产生的管理人员负责。在弗林特，一位这样的管理人员将该市的供水系统换成了一条污染的河流，但麦金纳克中心的游说者们确保法律得到了加强，以防止居民中毒可能带来的诉讼。数以万计的儿童他们暴露在铅中，这种物质已知会导致严重的健康问题，包括脑损伤。

Tyler Cowen has provided an economic justification for this kind of brutality, stating that where it is difficult to get clean water, private companies should take over and make people pay for it. “This includes giving them the right to cut off people who don’t—or can’t—pay their bills,” the economist explains.

泰勒·考恩提供了经济理由对于这种暴行，他说，在很难获得清洁水的地方，私人公司应该接管，让人们为此付出代价。经济学家解释说：“这包括让他们有权切断那些不能或不能支付账单的人。”

To many this sounds grotesquely inhumane, but it is a way of thinking that has deep roots in America. In Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative (2005), Buchanan considers the charge of heartlessness made against the kind of classic liberal that he took himself to be. MacLean interprets his discussion to mean that people who “failed to foresee and save money for their future needs” are to be treated, as Buchanan put it, “as subordinate members of the species, akin to…animals who are dependent.’”

对许多人来说，这听起来非常不人道，但这是一种深深扎根于美国的思维方式。在……里面为什么我也不是保守党(2005年)，布坎南认为，对他认为自己是那种典型的自由主义者的无情的指控。麦克莱恩解释说，他的讨论意味着，如布坎南所说，“没有预见到并为未来的需要存钱”的人将被视为该物种的从属成员，类似于…。那些依赖的动物。“

Do you have your education, health care, and retirement personally funded against all possible exigencies? Then that means you.

你的教育、医疗和退休是否有足够的资金来应付所有可能的紧急情况？这说的就是你。

Buchanan was not a dystopian novelist. He was a Nobel Laureate whose sinister logic exerts vast influence over America’s trajectory. It is no wonder that Cowen, on his popular blog Marginal Revolution, does not mention Buchanan on a list of underrated influential libertarian thinkers, though elsewhere on the blog, he expresses admiration for several of Buchanan’s contributions and acknowledges that the southern economist “thought more consistently in terms of ‘rules of the games’ than perhaps any other economist.”

布坎南不是反乌托邦的小说家。他是一位诺贝尔奖得主，其阴险的逻辑对美国的发展轨迹产生了巨大的影响。难怪考恩在他广受欢迎的博客“边缘革命”中没有提及布坎南在一份被低估的有影响力的自由主义思想家名单上，尽管在博客的其他地方，他对布坎南的一些贡献表示钦佩。承认这位南方经济学家“在‘游戏规则’方面的思考比其他任何经济学家都更加一致。”

The rules of the game are now clear.

游戏规则现在已经很清楚了。



Nobody can say we weren’t warned.

没人能说我们从未被警告过。

LetThemEatRand Tue, 09/04/2018 - 20:35 Permalink
But he looks like a decent guy.

但他看起来是个正派的人。

Ward of the Squid Tue, 09/04/2018 - 20:38 Permalink
Pitchforks, lampposts, piano wire.

干草叉，灯柱，钢琴丝。