经济学人175周年：重建自由主义宣言 [美国媒体]

The Economist at 175

经济学人175周年

A manifesto for renewing liberalism

重建自由主义宣言

Success turned liberals into a complacent elite. They need to rekindle their desire for radicalism

成功使自由主义者变成自满的精英，他们需要重燃激进主义的欲望



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.

自由主义造就了当代世界，当代世界却在背叛自由主义。在美国和欧洲，自由派精英遭到普遍反抗，他们被视为自私自利，没有能力或不愿意解决平民的困境。在其他地区，25年来迈向自由与开放市场的态势已发生逆转，就连不久将成为世界最大经济体的中国也表明专制可以繁荣。

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.

经济学人对此深感忧虑。175年前，本刊的创办目的是支持自由主义——既不是美国大学校园里的左倾“渐进主义”，也不是法国评论家设想的右倾“超自由主义”，而是全面致力于个人尊严、开放市场、有限政府，并坚信辩论与改革能使人类进步。



Laurels, but no rest

不可固步自封

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.

但政治哲学不能沉湎于过去的荣耀：它们必须确保更美好的未来。自由民主面临着迫在眉睫的挑战，西方选民开始质疑这套制度是否为他们服务以及是否公平。去年民调显示，只有36%德国人、24%加拿大人、9%法国人相信下一代人将比父母过得更好。在35岁以下的美国年轻人当中，只有三分之一认为生活在民主社会是至关重要的；欢迎军人政府的人口比例从1995年7%增至去年18%。据非政府组织“自由之家”透露，在过去12年里，全球的公民自由和政治权利出现倒退。2017年，71个国家倒退，只有35个国家进步。

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.

在这种态势下，经济学人依然相信自由思想的力量。在过去六个月里，我们通过网络文章、辩论、播客、电影的方式纪念本刊创办175周年，探讨如何应对自由主义受到的批评。就这一议题，我们发表了自由复兴宣言——为人民服务的自由主义。



An engine of change

变革引擎

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.

真正的自由主义者认为，社会能够自下而上逐渐向好的方向发展。他们不同于革命派，因为反对强迫个人接受他人的信念；他们不同于保守派，因为坚信集权的贵族统治和等级制度往往成为压迫人民的根源。

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.

因此，自由主义开始成为一种令人焦躁不安的世界观。但在过去几十年里，自由派太过安逸于权力，结果失去了改革动力。执政的自由派精英自以为掌管着健康的贤能体制，并且获得了特权，实际并非完全如此。

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.

从最好的方面来看，贤能体制的竞争精神造就了盛世和许多新思想。政府以追求高效和经济自由为名开放市场竞争。种族、性别、性取向对进步的阻碍从未像今天这么小，全球化使新兴市场的数亿人摆脱了贫困。

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.

但是，执政的自由主义者总是逃避猛烈的创造性破坏。法律等轻松的工作受到愚昧法规的保护；大学教授一边宣讲开放社会的优点，一边却在享受终身教职；金融家在金融危机最严峻的时刻逃过一劫，他们的雇主靠纳税人出钱救助；全球化原本是为了创造足够的利益去帮助损失者，但很少有人看到回报。



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.

当今的自由主义贤能体制与对自由的包容性定义格格不入。统治阶级活在泡沫中，他们就读同一所大学，相互联姻，同住一条街道，在同一屋檐下工作。远离权力的大多数人满足于日益进步的物质繁荣，但2008年金融危机使生产力停滞和金融紧缩，就连这样的希望也总是破灭。

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.

这是选民对主流政党的忠诚度下降的一个原因。英国保守党可能是历史上最成功的政党，如今他们的筹资更多来自死人的遗嘱，而不是活人的馈赠。1990年，统一的德国举行首次民选，传统党派赢得80%选票；最新民调显示他们仅赢得45%选票，而极右、极左党派、绿党总共赢得41.5%选票。

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.

民众反而正在退缩，寻求以种族、宗教、性取向界定的群体认同，导致的结果是第二个原则“共同利益”碎片化。身份证治是对歧视的有效回应，但随着身份的增加，每个群体会与所有其他群体在政见上发生冲突。辩论无法产生有用的妥协，而是沦为部落暴行。尤其是右翼领袖，他们利用移民引发的不安全问题来激起民众支持，利用左翼自以为是的政治正确性观点使选民产生一种被轻视的感觉。结果造成政治极化，有时导致政治瘫痪，有时导致多数人暴政。在最坏的情况下，助长极右翼独裁者的气焰。

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.

在地缘政治上，自由主义者也在输掉这场辩论。在19和20世纪，先有英国海军霸权，后有美国经济与军事崛起，自由主义在这种背景下得到广泛传播。如今随着俄罗斯的蓄意破坏，中国彰显日益增长的全球实力，自由主义民主正在发生倒退。美国没有维护二战结束后亲手建立的盟友体系和自由主义制度，而是一直在忽视，甚至在唐纳德·特朗普总统的领导下攻击自由主义民主。



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.
重拾信念

自由主义者必须通过遏制自身的特权来重拾对个人尊严和自力更生的信仰。他们必须停止嘲笑民族主义，提出自己的民族主义主张，赋予其包容性的公民自豪感。他们不应该将权力赋予集权部门和不负责任的技术官僚，而应该交给行政区和市政府。美国不应该将地缘政治视为大国之间的零和斗争，它必须利用相辅相成的三位一体力量：军事力量、价值观、盟友。

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.

最优秀的自由主义者都很务实，并且适应力强。在一战之前，西奥多·罗斯福向掌管着美国大型垄断企业的强盗大亨开刀。尽管许多早期的自由主义者担心暴民统治，但他们接受民主。上世纪30年代发生经济大萧条后，他们承认政府在经济管理方面的作用有限。二战后为了终结法西斯主义和红色主义，自由主义者设计了福利国家。

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.

自由主义者应拿出同样的干劲来应对当今的挑战。如果他们占据上风，那是因为他们的思想在传播自由与繁荣方面具有无与伦比的能力。自由主义者应接受批评，将辩论视为新思想的源泉，新思想将再次激发行动。他们应拿出勇往直前、时不我待的精神来对待改革，尤其是年轻人应该赢得自己的世界。

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.

175年前，经济学人创刊时的第一任编辑詹姆斯·威尔逊做出承诺：“智慧之间的激烈碰撞推动进步，懦弱与毫无价值的愚昧阻碍进步”。我们再次承诺让智慧相互碰撞，并号召五湖四海的自由主义者与我们一同携手并进。


guest-amjinewsSep 14th, 11:29
Reading this article was very nice, amazing. I was a marxist in the begin of 2000 years, but when I began studying the liberalism and reading the liberal autors, I changed my convictions. I'd like to know about the autor of article. Who is he (or she)?

这篇文章写的非常好，太赞了。我在本世纪初是一个马克思主义者，但当我开始研究自由主义，读过自由主义者所写的文章后，我改变了信仰。我很想了解这篇文章的作者，这篇文章谁写的？

guest-ajjlmjmoSep 14th, 13:41
This reads like something out of 1935 Germany - We the righteous should reinforce our military might so to bring our superior philosophy to others at the end of a gun.It's truly frightening - and thank goodness liberalism is fading away along with communist, fascist, nationalist, etc ideologies.

这篇文章给我的感觉好像出自1935年的德国，我们这些正义人士应加强军事力量，以便用枪口逼着别人接受我们优越的思想。
这实在太恐怖了，谢天谢地，随着红色主义、法西斯主义、民族主义等意识形态并行天下，自由主义正在逐渐消亡。



Strait_ForwardSep 14th, 18:47
The Economist:
"LIBERALISM made the modern world, but the modern world is turning against it."
Liberalism was taken over by Bolshevists. The modern world simply wants its robbed values back, and keep the democratic values and freedoms those phony "liberals" try to take away from them.
When universities, "liberal" media outlets, or political parties accept only the expressions of the formal party-line, and stop tolerating diverse opinions - from supporting Trump, through rejecting climate change alarmism, to support to Israel - then they invite an action from free-minded people who insist on maintaining the values of democracy, and freedom of expression.

“自由主义造就了当代世界，当代世界却在背叛自由主义”。

布尔什维克主义者接管了自由主义，当代世界只想拿回被人抢走的价值观，坚守那些伪“自由主义者”想要阉割的民主价值观与自由。
每当大学、“自由”媒体机构、政党只接受正规路线的表述，不再容忍不同意见时，诸如支持特朗普、反对气候变化的危言耸听、支持以色列，他们就会招致那些坚持民主价值观和自由言论的开明人士的反击。

B. HotchkissSep 16th, 14:08
"Only a third of Americans under 35 say that it is vital they live in a democracy . . . ."

“只有三分之一35岁以下的美国人表示生活在民主社会至关重要……”

Why is this statistic surprising? Representative democracy with universal suffrage is an experiment just under a hundred years old -- without considering votes for women, just over 150. From a global perspective, the results have definitely been mixed. Even people with no knowledge of recent world history could reasonably wonder about politics in the United States.

为什么这一数据令人吃惊？实行普选的代议民主制只是一项不足100年的试验，如果不考虑女性选举权的因素，也顶多150多年历史。从全球角度来看，试验的结果绝对是喜忧参半。就连不了解世界近代史的人也可能合理地质疑美国政治。

Proponents of democratic systems ought to be prepared to advance practical arguments -- they have some very good ones. Instead, discussions are pervaded with something that can only be described as mysticism. The virtues of democracy are treated as something handed down from the mount, without a possibility of bad results. Though demonstrated often enough in practice, they are considered aberrations.

民主制度的支持者应准备好提出务实的观点，他们的一些观点非常好。相反，讨论中充斥着神秘主义。民主的优点被视为与生俱来的，不可能产生坏的结果。但事实足以证明，这些优点被视为不正常现象。

The proponents ought also be prepared to discuss realistically the conditions necessary for democratic systems to produce good results. Yet later in the article, there is a paragraph that recognizes the dangers of identity politics, but examines immigration only as something that gives right-wing demagogues material with which to work. Where does the author think ethnic and religious groups originated? Some of these differences arose in place, but much of the diversity and multiculturalism that is the other side of identity politics is the result of migration.

民主制度的支持者应准备好务实地探讨民主制度产生好结果的必备条件。然而，文章后面有一段意识到身份政治的风险，仅仅认为右翼利用移民问题来蛊惑人心。那么作者以为种族和宗教组织从何而来？有些差异是在当地产生的，但身份证治的另一面——多样性和多元文化大部分是移民的结果。

Good government requires responsible behavior by those to whom power is entrusted, resulting in peaceful acquiescence to governmental actions by the population. No system can guarantee this result. I am certainly not advocating some non-democratic system as more likely to do that in advanced economies. But i think discussions of these issues ought to center on how to obtain good results instead of working from an assumption that good results are bound to follow if everybody gets to vote.

优秀的政府要求被赋予权力的执政者做出负责任的行为，使得民众默默支持政府的行动，但任何制度都无法确保这样的结果。我当然不是在鼓吹非民主制度，发达国家的人更有可能这么做。但我认为在探讨这些问题时，应该把重心放在如何产生好结果上，而不是基于所有的人都有投票权就必然产生好结果的假设。

guest-ameanasnSep 15th, 15:47
Long and confused article. Some thoughts:

这篇文章又长又令人费解，说说我的看法：



Liberalism in normal definitionis not the societal liberalism promoted by the current TE. Unrestricted diversity and competition of lifestyles normally produces internal violence. There is little evidence that it raises living standard on a par with economic competition. What TE calls cultural freedom increasingly means oppression. Opinions and lifestyles of the majority are supressed arguably not to offend the small minority. Examples range from campuses in the U.S. banning conservative speeches to governments of the EU supressing opposition to immigration of millions.

自由主义的常规定义并不是经济学人提倡的社会自由主义。不受限制的多样性和不同生活方式的竞争往往导致国内暴力冲突。没有证据表明人类的生活标准会随着经济竞争同步提高。大多数人的见解和生活方式受到打压，可以说是为了避免激怒少数族群，这样的例子比比皆是：美国大学禁止发表保守性言论，欧洲各国政府打压数百万移民的反对力量。