America’s Opportunity City 美国的机会之城 作者：Joel Kotkin, Tory Gattis @ 2014-夏 译者：尼克基得慢（@尼克基得慢） 校对：babyface_claire（@许你疯不许你傻） 来源：City Journal，http://city-journal.org/html/america%E2%80%99s-opportunity-city-13662.html Lots of new jobs and a low cost of living make Houston a middle-class magnet. 许多的新工作和低廉的生活成本使得休斯敦成为一个对中产阶级有着强大吸引力的城市。 David Wolff and David Hightower are driving down the partially completed Grand Parkway around Houston. The vast road, when completed, will add a third freeway loop around this booming, 600-square-mile Texas metropolis. David Wolff和David Hightower正驱车行驶在部分完工的环休斯敦花园大道上。完工之后，这条宽阔道路会成为围绕这座蓬勃发展的600平方英里德州大城市的高速公路第三环。 Urban aesthetes on the ocean coasts tend to have a low opinion of the flat Texas landscape—and of Houston, in particular, which they see as a little slice of Hades: a hot, humid, and featureless expanse of flood-prone grassland, punctuated only by drab office towers and suburban tract houses. 住在海岸城市的唯美主义者通常不喜欢平坦的德州地貌——尤其是休斯敦的地貌，他们将之视为一小片地狱：一片炎热潮湿且毫无特点的广阔区域，有洪水泛滥的草地，点缀着单调的办公大楼和郊区风格的大片房屋。 But Wolff and Hightower, major land developers on Houston’s outskirts for four decades, have a different outlook. “We may not have all the scenery of a place like California,” notes the 73-year-old Wolff, who is also part owner of the San Francisco Giants. “But growth makes up for a lot of imperfections.” 但是作为从业四十年的休斯敦郊区主要土地开发商，Wolff和Hightower有着不同的观点。“我们或许没有像加州那样的全部景色，”同时也是旧金山巨人队的共有者的73岁的Wolff提到。“但是经济增长弥补了许多不完美之处。” A host of newcomers—immigrants and transplants from around the United States—agree with that assessment. Its low cost of living and high rate of job growth have made Houston and its surrounding metro region attractive to young families. According to Pitney Bowes, Houston will enjoy the highest growth in new households of any major city between 2014 and 2017. 许多新来者——外国移民和美国本土移居者——都同意Wolff的评价。低生活成本和高职位增长率使休斯敦和周围城区对年轻家庭很有吸引力。据Pitney Bowes公司预测，2014年到2017年期间，休斯敦将会享有所有大城市中最高的新住户增长率。 A recent U.S. Council of Mayors study predicted that the American urban order will become increasingly Texan, with Houston and Dallas–Fort Worth both growing larger than Chicago by 2050. 最近一份美国市长委员会的研究预测，美国的城市秩序越来越德州化，休斯敦和达拉斯-沃思堡（Dallas–Fort Worth）的城市规模在2050年前都会超过芝加哥。 The Grand Parkway, Wolff points out, continues Houston’s pattern of outward development. The vast ExxonMobil campus being built in the far northern suburbs—and surrounded by its own master-planned community, Springwoods Village—will eventually be the nation’s second-largest office development, after Manhattan’s Freedom Tower. Houston is already home to numerous planned communities with bucolic-sounding names: Cinco Ranch, Bridgeland, Sienna Plantation, the Woodlands, and Sugar Land. Wolff 指出，花园大道延续了休斯敦的外向型发展模式。位于北部远郊正在修建的巨大的埃克森美孚校园最终将会成为仅次于曼哈顿自由塔的美国第二大办公楼, 周围环绕着埃克森美孚自己总体规划的社区，Springwoods Village。休斯敦已经拥有众多名字听起来田园风格的规划社区：Cinco Ranch, Bridgeland, Sienna Plantation, the Woodlands, 和Sugar Land。 “Open space is the most precious amenity,” says Wolff, a primary developer of the Energy Corridor, a Houston neighborhood boasting 22 million square feet of office space and housing the headquarters of such key energy firms as BP America, ConocoPhillips, and CITGO. “What we are creating here is a place where business can grow and people can afford to live. This is the key to Houston.” Indeed, the Houston model of development might be described as “opportunity urbanism.” “开放空间是最宝贵的生活设施”， 作为Energy Corridor——一个休斯敦社区，拥有2200万平方英尺办公空间并且容纳了诸多重要能源公司的总部，如BP美国、康菲和CITGO——主要开发商的Wolff 说道。“我们在这正在创造的是一个商业能发展、人们能有钱生活的地方。这是休斯敦的关键所在。”确实，休斯敦发展模式可以被描述为“都市化机会”。 Houston’s economic success over the past 20 years—and, more remarkably, since the Great Recession and the weak national recovery—rivals the performance of any large metropolitan region in the United States. For nearly a decade and a half, the city has been adding jobs at a furious pace—more than 600,000 since early 2000, and 263,000 since early 2008. 休斯敦过去20多年的经济成功——并且从大衰退和疲弱的全国性复苏以来越发明显——超过了美国任何其他大都市区的表现。在大约15年时间里，这座城市以极快的速度创造着工作机会——2000年初以来超过60万，2008年初以来为26.3万。 The greater New York City area, by contrast, has added just 103,000 jobs since 2008, and Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Philadelphia remain well below their 2008 levels in total jobs. In fact, Los Angeles and Chicago, like Detroit, have fewer jobs today than they did at the turn of the millennium. 对比之下，规模更大的纽约都市区自2008年以来仅创造了10.3万份工作机会，而且洛杉矶、芝加哥、凤凰城、亚特兰大和费城的总工作机会远低于它们2008年的水平。事实上，正如底特律那样，洛杉矶和芝加哥现在拥有的工作机会已经少于世纪之交那时了。 And many of Houston’s jobs pay well. Using Praxis Strategy Group calculations that factor in the cost of living as well as salaries, Houston now has the highest standard of living of any large city in the U.S. and among the highest in the world. Indeed, the average cost-of-living-adjusted salary in Houston is about $75,000, compared with around $50,000 in New York and $46,000 in Los Angeles. 而且很多休斯敦的工作薪水颇高。根据实践战略集团（Praxis Strategy Group）的推算，同时考虑生活成本和薪资，休斯敦目前拥有全美所有大城市中最高的生活标准，而且也是全世界最高的城市之一。事实上，休斯敦按生活成本调整后的薪水是大约7.5万美元，相比之下纽约为约5万美元，洛杉矶为4.6万美元。 Personal household income has risen 20 percent since 2005 in Houston, compared with 14 percent in New York, 11 percent in Los Angeles, and less than 9 percent in Chicago. Former Federal Reserve economist Bill Gilmer notes that, except during the energy bust of the mid-1980s, Houston’s per-capita income growth has outpaced the nation’s since the late 1960s. 从2005年以来，休斯敦的个人家庭收入已经上涨20%，相比之下纽约为14%，洛杉矶为11%，芝加哥为不到9%。前美联储经济学家Bill Gilmer提到，自1960年代末以来，除1980年代中期能源业危机期间【编注：原油价格在1979年第二次石油危机期间升至顶峰，1982年开始下跌，1986年暴跌至1973年第一次能源危机前的水平，此后直到2005年之前始终未能回到历史最高点。】，休斯敦的人均收入增长已经超过了全美水平。 Not surprisingly, given Houston’s reputation as an oil town, much of the job growth in its metro region (known as Greater Houston) is tied to energy—particularly, to the technological revolution now reshaping that industry. Once widely derided as a “colony” of California- and New York–based companies, Houston has increasingly become the location of choice for American energy firms. 不出所料，考虑到休斯敦作为石油城的名声，这一都市区（被称为大休斯敦区）相当部分的工作机会增长跟能源有关——特别是跟正在重塑该行业的技术革命【编注：即页岩革命】有关。虽然曾被广泛嘲笑为总部设在加州和纽约的公司的“殖民地”，休斯敦已经越来越多的成为美国能源公司的总部所在地。 In 1960, for example, Houston was home to only one of the nation’s top energy firms; by 2013, it was home to 22 from the Fortune 500, more than all other cities combined—and that doesn’t include major non-headquarter locations for ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP. This past spring, Occidental Petroleum, Los Angeles’s last major energy firm, announced plans to move to Houston’s Uptown district, near the famed Galleria. 例如在1960年，仅有一家美国顶级能源公司的总部设在休斯敦；截至2013年，22家世界五百强企业总部设在休斯敦，超过其他城市的总和——这还不包括作为埃克森美孚、壳牌、雪佛龙和BP的主要非总部所在地。今年春季，作为洛杉矶最后一个大能源公司，西方石油公司宣布了迁往休斯敦城郊区域的计划，靠近著名的Galleria商场。 Since 2001, the energy industry has been directly responsible for an increase of 67,000 jobs in Houston, and it now employs more than 240,000 people in the area. These jobs include many technical positions, one reason that the region now boasts the highest concentration of engineers outside Silicon Valley. 从2001年开始，休斯敦的能源产业已经直接产生了6.7万份工作的增长，现在该区域的能源行业已经雇佣了超过24万人。这些工作包含了许多技术岗位，一个原因就是这一区域的工程师密度现已成为硅谷之外最大的了。 Since 2001, Houston has seen a 24.1 percent growth in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) employment, compared with less than 5 percent growth in New York and San Francisco. The jobs should keep coming: Gilmer estimates that $25 billion to $40 billion in new petrochemical facilities is on its way to Greater Houston. 自从2001年以来，休斯敦在STEM（科学，技术，工程和数学）雇佣上经历了24.1%的增长，相比之下纽约和旧金山增长率不足5%。工作机会还会增长：Gilmer推测将有250亿到400亿美元的新建石化设施会在大休斯敦地区崛起。 “Oil and gas used to feel old, but that’s changing,” suggests Samina Farid, cofounder of Merrick Systems, a 25-year-old oil-services firm with 45 employees. “Younger people are coming into the business because they see opportunities to use new technologies that can really make a difference.” Farid’s firm is one of the thousands of smaller companies—including a group of new, tech-savvy start-ups—that serve the energy industry. “石油和天然气以前给人感觉很老气，但是它们正在改变，” Merrick Systems的联合创始人Samina Farid提到，Merrick Systems是一家拥有45名员工和25年历史的石油服务公司。“年轻人正加入能源行业，因为他们看见了应用能真正带来改变的新技术的机会。” Allison Lami Sawyer, the 29-year-old president of Rebellion Photonics, is part of a movement of younger professionals clustering in the area, many of them in the city’s inner ring. “I came here kicking and screaming,” said the British-educated Alabama native, whose nine-person company, mostly engineers and scientists, provides image-sensing equipment to firms such as Exxon. “But this was the place to be—it works well to be in the oil and gas capital of the world if that’s who you are selling to.” Allison Lami Sawyer，29岁的Rebellion Photonics总裁，是往该区域聚集的年轻专家中的一员，大部分年轻专家住在城市内环。“我当初很不情愿地来到这里，”这位受英式教育的亚拉巴马州土著说道，他的九人公司主要由工程师和科学家构成，为埃克森之类的公司提供图像传感设备。“但这是休斯敦以前的情况——如果你想在石油天然气的资本世界中兜售产品，休顿斯是理想之地。” Houston has embraced not only the energy industry’s white-collar professional jobs but also its well-paying blue-collar industrial positions. The city has seen a surge in mid-skills jobs (usually requiring a certificate or a two-year degree) in fields such as manufacturing, logistics, and construction, as well as energy. 休斯敦不仅拥有能源行业白领专家的工作机会，也拥有薪资不菲的蓝领产业工人职位。这座城市见证了诸如制造业、物流业、建筑业和能源业等领域内中等技能工作（通常要求一份执照或者两年的学位）的爆发性增长。 Many of these jobs pay more than $100,000 a year, and since 2007, according to calculations derived from the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Praxis Strategy Group’s Mark Schill, Houston led the 52 major metropolitan areas in creating them, at a rate of 6.6 percent annually. In contrast, these jobs have declined by more than 10 percent in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, which have not been friendly to such industries. 很多这类工作的年薪超过十万美元，而且根据实践战略集团（Praxis Strategy Group）的Mark Schill对劳工统计局数据的分析，休斯敦从2007年起就以每年6.6%的中等技能工作增长率领跑52个大都市区。相比之下，纽约、洛杉矶、芝加哥和旧金山的此类工作已经减少了超过10%，这几个地区一直对这些行业不友好。 Trade is robust. The Port of Houston, connected with the Gulf of Mexico by the 50-mile Houston Ship Channel, is now the nation’s Number One export hub, feeding off the energy revolution and expanding economic exchange with Latin America. Mexico and Brazil are by far the port’s largest trading partners. 贸易正如火如荼。休斯敦港通过50英里的休斯敦航道与墨西哥湾相连，得益于能源革命和与拉美经济交流的扩大，现已成为美国的头号出口中心。墨西哥和巴西是目前休斯顿港的最大贸易伙伴。 Houston’s port business has grown almost fourfold since 2000—far faster than either New York’s or Los Angeles’s. Port officials estimate that the trade sector contributes $500 billion in economic activity and more than 1 million jobs to the state of Texas annually. 休斯敦的港口生意自2000年以来几乎已经增长四倍——远快于纽约和洛杉矶的港口。港口官员认为，港口贸易部门为经济活动贡献了5000亿美元的产值，而且每年为德州增加100万工作机会。 Houston is also home to the Texas Medical Center, the largest concentration of hospitals and research institutions in the world and, by itself, the metro region’s third-largest source of jobs—employing 106,000 people, including 20,000 physicians, scientists, and other professionals. 休斯敦也是德州医学中心（TMC）——世界上最大的医院和研究机构综合体的所在地，此中心也是该都市区第三大工作来源——雇佣了包括2万名医生、科学家和其他专家在内的10.6万人。 Fifty-two separate medical institutions are located on the campus, equal in size to Chicago’s Loop. It currently has over 28.3 million square feet of office space, more than the downtowns of both Houston and Los Angeles. By the end of 2014, TMC top officials predict, the area will be the nation’s seventh-largest business district. 52个单独的医疗机构位于与芝加哥环区同等规模的园区内。它目前拥有超过2830万平方英尺的办公空间，比休斯敦和洛杉矶的商业区都大。TMC的高级官员预测，这一区域将在2014年末成为美国第七大商业区。 Houston is neither the libertarian paradise imagined by many conservatives nor the antigovernment Wild West town conjured by liberals. The city is better understood as relentlessly pragmatic and pro-growth. 休斯敦既不是许多保守派想象中的自由意志主义者的天堂，也不是自由派臆想的反政府狂野西部城镇。这座城市更应被理解为是冰冷的实用主义的和促进经济增长的。 Bob Lanier, the legendary three-time Democratic mayor who steered the city’s recovery from the 1980s oil bust, when the metro region bled more than 220,000 jobs in just five years, epitomized this can-do spirit. Bob Lanier 是这种充满干劲精神的典型代表，当1980年代的休斯敦地区在短短五年内减少了超过22万份工作时，这位连任三届传奇般的民主党市长带领这座城市从石油业危机中恢复过来。 Lanier was more interested in building infrastructure and promoting growth than in regulation and redistribution. That focus remains strong today. “Houston is getting very comfortable with itself and what it is,” says retired Harris County judge Robert Eckels. “We are a place that has a big idea—supporting and growing through private industry, and that’s something everyone pretty much accepts.” Lanier更喜欢修建基础设施、促进经济增长，而不是推动立法、实行再分配。这种偏向现在仍然很强烈。“休斯敦对于自身现状很满意，”退休的Harris县法官Robert Eckels说道。“我们是一个有远大理想的地方——通过支持私营企业来实现自身发展，这是这里每个人都深以为然的道理。” Low taxes are part of that idea. Texas has no income tax, as Governor Rick Perry frequently points out to businesses in other states, and its average state and local tax burden is 11th-lowest in the nation. New York, New Jersey, and California, by contrast, impose the three highest state tax burdens in the nation. 低税也是这理念的一部分。正如德州州长Rick Perry经常给其他州的生意人所说的那样，德州没有所得税，而且它的平均州税和本地税负担是全美第11低的。相比之下，纽约、新泽西和加州是全美州税负担前三名。 The friendly tax environment is one reason that Houston ranked as the most affordable city to do business in a recent survey of global metropolitan areas by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Partnership for New York City. It means a lot more money in their employees’ pockets, too. A family of three making $150,000 moving from New York City to Houston would save upward of $8,000 in taxes, an analysis conducted by the District of Columbia found. 最近由普华永道（PricewaterhouseCoopers）和纽约合伙人（the Partnership for New York City）发起的全球都市区调查中，休斯敦被评为最容易做生意的城市，其中一个原因就是友好的税收环境。这也意味着更多的钱落进雇员的口袋里。一份由哥伦比亚特区主持的分析报告发现，一个从纽约搬到休斯敦的收入15万美元的三口之家可以省下高达八千美元的税费。 An even bigger component of Houston’s growth, however, may be its planning regime, which allows development to follow the market instead of top-down government directives. The city and its unincorporated areas have no formal zoning, so land use is flexible and can readily meet demand. 然而，休斯敦的经济增长可能更多来自它的规划制度，遵从市场规律而不是自上而下的政府指令来促进发展。休斯敦和周围未并入地区没有正式的边界，所以土地使用很灵活而且能很好地迎合需求。 Getting building permits is simple and quick, with no arbitrary approval boards making development an interminable process. Neighborhoods can protect themselves with voluntary, opt-in deed restrictions or minimum lot sizes. Architect and developer Tim Cisneros credits the flexible planning system for the city’s burgeoning apartment and town-home development. 获得建筑许可简单迅速，没有专横的审批委员会使得土地开发变成没完没了的恼人流程。社区可以通过自愿的可选的限制性契约或者最小批量方法来保护自己。建筑师兼开发商Tim Cisneros将这座城市迅速崛起的公寓和联排住宅的开发归功于灵活的规划系统。 “There are a lot of people who come here for jobs but don’t want to live, at least not yet, in the Woodlands,” he notes. “We can respond to this demand fast because there’s no zoning, and approvals don’t take forever. You could not do this so fast in virtually any city in America. The lack of zoning allows us not only to do neat things—but do them quickly and for less money.” “有很多人为工作来到这里，但却不想住在伍德兰（Woodlands），至少现在还不想。”他提到。“我们可以迅速对这种要求做出回应，因为这里没有区域划分，审批也不会耗时太久。事实上，你在美国任何其他城市都不可能如此快速地获得审批。无区域划分让我们不仅做实事，而且做得迅速且省钱。” The flexible planning regime is also partly responsible for keeping Houston’s housing prices low compared with those of other major cities. On a square-foot basis, according to Knight Frank, a London-based real-estate consultancy, the same amount of money buys you almost seven times as much space in Houston as it does in San Francisco and more than four times as much as in New York. (See “Houston, New York Has a Problem,” Summer 2008.) Houston has built a new kind of “self-organizing” urban model, notes architect and author Lars Lerup, one that he calls “a creature of the market.” 相比其他大城市，灵活的规划制度也在某种程度上使得休斯敦房价较低。据位于伦敦的不动产咨询公司Knight Frank统计，以每平方英尺计，你花同样的钱在休斯敦能买的空间几乎七倍于旧金山，四倍于纽约。（参阅“休斯敦，纽约有一个问题”，2008年夏。）建筑师兼作者Lars Lerup表示，休斯敦已经建立起了一种新型的“自组织”城市模式，他称之为“市场的产物”。 Some cities—such as Los Angeles—grow as a progression of larger communities around a relatively small core. Others—such as New York and Chicago—form dependent communities surrounding a dynamic central core. Houston is different: it revolves around a patchwork of centers, such as the aforementioned Woodlands, home to some 40,000 residences and more than 50,000 jobs. 一些城市——比如洛杉矶——发展成一系列围绕相对较小中心的较大社区。其它城市——比如纽约和芝加哥——则形成了依赖并围绕唯一动态核心的社区。休斯敦与两者都不同：它是围绕着一系列中心的拼图，比如说之前提到的拥有4万居民和超过5万份工作的伍德兰（Woodlands）。 Other centers exist within the city limits, but Houston also retains a strong core that never imploded, as did those of so many American cities. The city turns the whole debate that dominates urban thinking today—whether to grow the suburbs or downtown—on its head. Rather than advocate one kind of housing, Houston prides itself on providing choices. 城市边界内还有着其他中心，但是休斯顿也保留了一个从未衰退的强大核心区，正如许多美国城市那样。这座城市让左右今日城市思维的整个辩论——是发展郊区还是中心商业区——变得易如反掌。休斯敦自豪于提供各种住房选择，而不是大力推进任何一种住宅形式。 In fact, as the city’s outer suburban ring has grown—last year attracting roughly 80 percent of all new home buyers—the downtown has also boomed. The city’s vibrant inner ring, notes demographer Wendell Cox, grew 3 percent during the last decade—four times the average in the top 15 metropolitan areas and more than Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia. 事实上，随着城外的郊区不断发展——去年吸引了约80%的新房买家——城区也在繁荣向前。人口统计学家Wendell Cox提到，这座城市生机勃勃的内环在过去十年增长了3%【编注：大概是指人口增长。】——4倍于15个大都市区的平均水平，也高于芝加哥、洛杉矶、纽约和费城。 “Most cities would die for our in-fill,” says Jeff Taebel, director of Community and Environmental Planning at the Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC). No one would mistake downtown Houston for midtown Manhattan, true; but it represents 6 percent of the region’s jobs—a proportion 2.5 to 4.5 times greater than one finds, say, in downtown Los Angeles or Phoenix. Houston’s experience refutes the popular notion that urban density and central city development require heavy regulation. “大部分城市都会渴望我们这种重建”休斯敦-加尔维斯顿地区议会（HGAC）中的社区与环境规划主任Jeff Taebel说到。没人会把休斯敦市中心误认为曼哈顿中心区，前者确实不如后者繁华；但是休斯敦市中心贡献了整个区域6%的工作机会——这一比例是洛杉矶或费城市区的2.5-4.5倍。休斯敦的经验驳斥了城区密度和中心城区发展需要严厉管制的流行观念。 Houston’s housing-market flexibility has also benefited some of the city’s historically neglected areas. The once-depopulating Fifth Ward has seen a surge of new housing—much of it for middle-income African-Americans, attracted by the area’s long-standing black cultural vibe and close access to downtown as well as the Texas Medical Center. 休斯敦房地产市场的灵活性也有益于部分历史上被忽略的地区。曾经人口负增长的第五区现在新房激增——很多新房都是为中等收入的非裔美国人所有，他们被该区长久的黑人文化氛围和靠近市区与德州医疗中心的位置所吸引。 Rather than worry about gentrification, many locals support the change in fortunes. “In Houston, we don’t like the idea of keeping an image of poverty for our neighborhood,” explained Rev. Harvey Clemons, chairman of the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation. “We welcome renewal.” 许多当地人都支持这种财富转变，而不是去担心衰败社区的中产化升级会排挤贫穷居民。“在休斯敦，我们不喜欢那种保持自己社区贫穷形象的想法，”第五区社区重建局的主席，牧师Harvey Clemons解释道， “我们欢迎事物更新。” By allowing and encouraging development in the inner ring and on the fringe, the city increases its attractiveness to younger people, who want to live close to the urban core, while also providing affordable suburban housing. “Houston thrives because it has someplace for young people to stay inside the city but also offers an alternative when they get older. Just because you grow up doesn’t mean you have to leave the region,” notes Gilmer, now head of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston. 通过允许、鼓励内环和外围的发展，这座城市提高了对于那些想住在市中心附近的年轻人的吸引力，同时也为提供了其他人负担得起的郊区住房。“休斯敦之所以繁荣发展是因为它既提供了年轻人在城里生活的地方，也提供了当他们变老时的去处。你变老了并不意味着你必须要离开这城市，”休斯敦大学的区域预测学会会长Gilmer说到。 Houston’s explosive economic growth has engendered another kind of boom: a human one. Between 2000 and 2013, Greater Houston’s population expanded by 35 percent. In contrast, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago grew by 4 percent to 7 percent. 休斯敦经济的爆发式增长已经产生了另一种形式的迅速发展：人口的增长。2000年到2013年期间，大休斯敦地区的人口增加了35%。相比之下，纽约、洛杉矶、波士顿、费城和芝加哥仅增长了4-7%。 These figures reflect emerging migration patterns. Texas once sent large numbers of people to California and the East Coast, but now, considerable numbers of New Yorkers, San Franciscans, and Los Angelenos are picking up stakes and heading for Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. 这些数字反映了正在浮现的移居模式。德州曾有很多人去往加州和东海岸，但是现在，相当数量的纽约人，旧金山人和洛杉矶人正带着财产向休斯敦、达拉斯、奥斯丁和圣安东尼奥进发。 As it grows, Houston’s ethnic demography is shifting. Two decades ago, Houston struggled to attract foreign-born immigrants, as did Texas generally. But since the 1990s, Texas’s immigration rates have surpassed the national average. 随着休斯敦的发展，它的少数种族人口也在转变。二十年前，休斯敦很难吸引到外国移民，整个德州也普遍如此。但是自从1990年代以来，德州的移民率已经超过全国平均值。 Over the past decade, Houston added 440,000 foreign-born residents, the second-most in the country, while New York, with more than three times the population, added 660,000. In a dramatic sign of changing trends, Houston attracted more than three times as many foreign-born immigrants as did Los Angeles, which is more than double its size. 在过去十年里，休斯敦增加了44万外国出生的居民，数量全国第二，而有着超过三倍人口的纽约增加了66万。这种变化趋势的重要信号就是，休斯敦吸引了超过洛杉矶三倍的外国移民，而洛杉矶的规模是休斯敦的两倍。 “This is the big deal for immigrants,” suggests HGAC’s Taebel. “We are a very attractive place for working-class people to settle.” The immigrant surge has turned what was once a conventional Southern city into a multiracial melting pot. “这对移民来说是件大事，” HGAC的Taebel表示。“我们是一个非常吸引工薪阶层人们前来定居的地方。”激增的移民已经把一座曾经保守的南方城市转变为多种族熔炉。 Indeed, a 2012 Rice University study claimed that Greater Houston is now the most ethnically diverse metro region in America, as measured by the balance between four major groups: African-American, white, Asian, and Hispanic. Hispanics alone constitute nearly half the core city’s population, while the Asian population has surged almost fourfold; whites constitute barely a quarter of the total. The entire Greater Houston metro region—roughly 6.3 million people—is now 60 percent nonwhite, up from 42 percent in 1990. 事实上， 2012年莱斯大学的一份研究声称，通过衡量四个主要族群之间的平衡：非裔美国人、白人、亚裔和拉丁裔，大休斯敦区现已成为美国种族多样性程度最高的都市区。仅拉丁裔就贡献了核心城区人口的近一半，同时亚裔人口激增了几乎四倍；白人仅占总人口的四分之一。整个大休斯敦都市区——大约630万人——在1990年有42%是非白人种族，如今增长到了60%。 Houston’s new diversity is not confined to one neighborhood or district. Suburban Sugarland is over 35 percent Asian and home to one of the nation’s largest and most elaborate Hindu temples. “This place is as diverse as California,” notes David Yi, a Korean-American energy trader who moved to the city from Los Angeles in 2013 and lives in the suburb of Katy, west of the central core. 休斯敦如今的种族多样性并不局限在一个社区或者区域。郊区的糖城超过35%都是亚裔，还拥有美国最大最精美的印度寺庙之一。“这地方跟加州一样多元化，”韩裔美国能源交易商David Yi提到，他于2013年从洛杉矶搬到休斯敦并住在中心区西侧的凯蒂城（Katy）郊区。 “But it is affordable, with good schools. Our kids, who are learning Spanish, can afford to stay and have a house, which is not the case in California.” Pearland, located 17 miles south of downtown, has also become a draw for upwardly mobile minorities and immigrants. “但是这边房子是能支付得起的，而且有着很好的学校。我们正学习西班牙语的孩子也有能力留在这里并买套房子，而加州情况就不一样了。”位于市中心以南17英里的梨城也成为了吸引向上流动的少数族裔和移民的地方。 “This is very different from Dallas, where I grew up, which was very segregated,” notes African-American entrepreneur Carla Lane, president of Lane Staffing, which works with energy, construction, and other local firms. “My daughter has a totally different experience—many of her friends are white, Hispanic, or Asian. Living out in Pearland, you can have that experience, and then you cross Highway 6 and you see people with big hats, boots, and straw in the mouth. That’s Houston to a tee.” “这里与我从小长大的达拉斯很不同，达拉斯是各自独立的，”非裔美国企业家、Lane Staffing公司主席Carla Lane说到，Lane Staffing与能源、建筑和其他当地公司都有合作。“我女儿有着完全不同的经历——她的很多朋友是白人、拉丁裔或者亚裔。在梨城生活，你会有这样的体验，当你越过6号高速公路，你会看到戴着大帽子、穿着大靴子、嘴上还有稻草的人们。这恰恰就是休斯敦。” Immigration is driving growth but also creating new challenges. Though skilled immigrants are beginning to flock to Houston, observes former state demographer Steven Murdock, Texas’s immigrants also include many lower-skilled workers, primarily because of the state’s proximity to Mexico. 移民促进了经济增长但是也带来了新的挑战。虽然如前联邦人口统计学家Steven Murdock观察的那样，技术移民正开始蜂拥向休斯敦，但是德州的移民里也包括很多低技能工作者，主要因为德州靠近墨西哥。 Leaders in the petrochemical and construction industries complain about looming shortages in the skilled trades. A dearth of plumbers and electricians is already affecting construction of new housing, offices, and industrial facilities, impinging on developers’ ability to expand, despite a thriving housing market. 石化和建筑行业的领导者抱怨即将到来的技术行业人才短缺。尽管房地产市场火爆，但管道工和电工的短缺已经影响了新房子、办公室和工业设施的建设，限制了开发商扩大生产的能力。 “We have all these jobs but not the people in the pipelines,” says Marshall Schott, associate vice chancellor at Lone Star community college. “Sure, we have need for more geologists and engineers; but by an order of magnitude, we need skilled workers such as welders and machinists. These jobs pay $80,000 a year, a lot better than being a barista at Starbucks.” “我们有这些工作机会却没有可用之人，”孤星社区大学的助理副校长Marshall Schott说。“我们确实需要更多地质学家和工程师；但是我们更需要十倍数量的技术工人，如焊工和机械工。这些工作年薪8万美元，比在星巴克当一个咖啡师要好多了。” To address these shortfalls, many companies have invested in workforce training programs, some in collaboration with local high schools as part of “cooperative education,” where students go to school part-time and work part-time. “This is a typically Houston solution—very pragmatic,” Mike Temple, director of the Gulf Coast Workforce Board, points out. “We are trying to tell kids that it’s not only what you know but also what you can do.” 为了解决这些短缺问题，许多公司已经投资了劳动力培训项目，一些与当地高校合作作为“共同教育”的一部分，这些项目的学生半工半读。“这是很典型的休斯敦式解决方法——很务实，”墨西哥湾沿岸劳动力委员会主管Mike Temple指出。“我们正尽力告诉孩子，你不仅要懂得知识，也要运用。” Enrollment at Houston’s largest community college, Lone Star, has exploded 58 percent, to 78,000 students, in just the past five years, and the college expects it to reach 100,000 students by 2018. 休斯敦最大社区大学，孤星社区大学的注册人数在过去5年暴涨了58%，达到了7.8万名学生，而且它预期2018年会达到10万名学生。 Often attacked for under-investing in education, Houston has actually shown encouraging educational progress. Many of the schools in the outer rings, often predominantly white and Asian, perform well in state performance rankings. Houston Independent School District, the largest district in Texas and seventh-largest in the country, has won the Broad Prize for urban education twice. 虽然常被批评对教育缺乏投资，但休斯敦事实上已经显示出了在鼓励教育上的进展。外环的很多以白人和亚裔为主的学校在联邦成就排名中表现不错。作为德州最大、全国第七大的学区，休斯敦独立学区已经两次赢得城区教育大奖了。 Houston has also been called “the Silicon Valley of education reform,” with several highly successful charter school networks such as KIPP, Harmony, and YES Prep setting up shop in the city. 休斯敦也被称为“教育改革的硅谷”，有一些十分成功的特许学校网络在城里了设立办事处，如KIPP、 Harmony和 YES Prep。 These schools and others within the Houston Independent School District will have much to do with Houston’s future success, which, in Murdock’s view, will come down to “how well minorities are going to do.” Murdock is optimistic, in part, because Houston’s minorities share the city’s basic culture of faith in hard work as a means of upward mobility. 这些学校和其他休斯敦独立学区内的学校跟休斯敦未来的成功息息相关，在Murdock看来，这也会影响到“少数族裔未来的表现”。在某种程度上，Murdock对此持乐观态度，因为休斯敦的少数族裔继承了这座城市的基本文化，相信向上层流动的方法就是努力工作。 According to Rice University’s Houston Area Survey, 85 percent of Houstonians—including 79 percent of blacks and 89 percent of Hispanics—agreed with the statement “if you work hard in this city, eventually you will succeed.” Nationwide, this sentiment is shared by only 60 percent of those surveyed. 根据莱斯大学的休斯敦地区调查，85%的休斯敦人——包括79%的黑人和89%的拉丁裔——同意“如果你在这座城市努力工作，最终你会成功”的说法。而全国范围内，这种观点只有60%的被调查者认同。 Not everyone is impressed by Houston’s growth and prospects. Critics dismiss the city’s development model as a disaster for the environment, quality of life, and civic culture. For the most part, they regard Houston as a cultural desert—a throwback to the sprawling postwar model of many American cities. “When one asks to see the social center of Houston,” scoffs architect Andrés Duany, “one is taken to the mall.” 休斯敦的发展和前景并没有让所有人都印象深刻。批评者将这座城市的发展模型斥为一场环境、生活质量和城市文化的灾难。多数情况下，他们都将休斯敦视为文化沙漠——倒退回了许多美国城市战后那种无计划模型。“当有人想要看休斯敦的社会中心，”建筑师Andrés Duany嘲弄道，“他就会被带去商场。” But such statements don’t reflect a city where opportunity urbanism is shaping an impressively vibrant cultural landscape. A 2012 survey by Economic Modeling Specialists International (EMSI) of the city’s creative economy found 146,000 jobs, generating an annual economic impact of $9.1 billion. 但是这些说法并不能反映这座城市的真实情况，注重机会的城市化正塑造一种其勃勃生机令人印象深刻的文化地貌。一份2012年由国际经济建模专家（EMSI）对城市创新经济的调查发现了14.6万份工作，每年产生了91亿美元的经济效益。 Houston is projected to have the largest gain in arts-related jobs by 2016 of any city in the study. Arts and culture expenditures totaled almost $1 billion per year in 2010, with total event attendance topping 16 million—numbers sure to grow, with almost 150,000 people per year moving into Greater Houston. 研究预测，到2016年休斯敦在艺术相关工作上的收益会超过所有被调研城市。2012年全年的艺术和文化支出总计约10亿美元，活动参与总人数以1600万高居榜首——随着每年大约15万人移居大休斯敦地区，这个数目肯定还会增加。 The city boasts permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts, including opera, ballet, symphony, and theater, and its theater district has more seats than any rival in the country, except for New York’s. Houston’s 18 museums attract 8.7 million visitors a year. This is no cultural backwater. 这座城市在所有主要的表演艺术领域都涌现了大批常驻专业公司，包括歌剧、芭蕾、交响乐和戏剧，并且它的剧院区拥有的座位比除纽约外的任何城市都要多。休斯敦的18个博物馆每年吸引870万游客。这才不是文化的倒退。 With their higher real incomes and lower taxes, Houstonians dine out substantially more than residents of any other major American city—and they’ve got lots of options. “You used to go to New Orleans for food and music,” notes Chris Williams of Lucille’s, a cutting-edge Houston restaurant that serves sophisticated Southern food. “Now you go down the block.” 因为有更高的收入和更低的税费，休斯敦人外出用餐的次数明显多于其他任何美国城市的居民——而且他们有多样的选择。“你过去习惯去新奥尔良寻访美食和音乐，”Lucille’s餐厅的Chris Williams说到，Lucille’s是休斯敦一家提供精致南方食物的高端餐厅。 Taylor Francis, a 24-year-old advertising executive who moved recently from the Bay Area, points to restaurants like Underbelly, a popular Beard Prize–winning restaurant in the fashionable Montrose district. “My friends in the Bay Area rarely go out because it’s too expensive,” he said. “All their money goes to rent—but here, I can live in a roomy place and go out. There’s something attractive about that.” Taylor Francis是一位24岁的广告经理，刚从湾区搬到休斯敦，他指着类似Underbelly（一家很受欢迎的位于时髦的蒙特罗斯区的餐厅，曾获Beard奖）的餐厅说，“现在你只需走过街区就能找到美食。”他说：“我在湾区的朋友很少外出娱乐，因为太贵了。所有的钱都用来付房租了——但是在这里，我可以住在宽敞的地方，也可以外出娱乐。这点很吸引人。” Houston’s leaders hope to lure more young people like Francis away from coastal cities such as Portland, Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. The city is building one of the nation’s most extensive bike systems and constructing a $215 million park system along its long-disdained bayous. 休斯敦的领导人希望吸引更多的像Francis这样的年轻人远离像波特兰、波士顿、纽约和洛杉矶这样的沿海城市。这座城市正在打造全国最大规模之一的自行车系统，而且沿着长时间被鄙弃的长沼建设着价值2.15亿美元的停车系统。 Marcus Davis, who grew up in the hardscrabble Fifth Ward, says that growth is simply part of the Houstonian ethos. “This place is pure opportunity, including for African-Americans,” he said at his successful and usually crowded restaurant, the Breakfast Klub, just outside downtown. 在贫瘠的第五区长大的Marcus Davis说，追求增长已是休斯敦人精神特质的一部分。“这地方是真正的机会之城，即使对非裔美国人来说也是，”他在自己位于市中心外的餐厅Breakfast Klub里如是说，该餐厅很成功且常常人满为患。 Davis’s customer base includes young professionals and middle-class families. “This is a place where everyone wants to figure out how to do business. And since Houstonians like to do things over food, having a restaurant can be very lucrative.” Davis的顾客组成中包括年轻专家和中产之家。“这是一个人人都想搞清如何做生意的地方。因为休斯敦人喜欢做跟食品相关的事情，所以开家餐厅是十分有利可图的。” The growth-friendly attitude is what holds everything together in Houston, and it will be crucial whenever the next slowdown comes—when oil prices could drop, say, to below $100 a barrel. It remains to be seen whether a large influx of newcomers to Greater Houston from the ocean coasts will clamor, as they have elsewhere—notably, in Colorado—for a more controlled, high-regulation urban environment. 增长友好的态度将休斯敦的一切凝聚在一起，无论下次的增速减缓发生在何时，这态度至关重要——比如说，当油价降至低于100美元一桶时。从沿海城市移居到大休斯敦地区的大批新来者是否会像别的地方一样，特别是科罗拉多，引发对城市环境更多管控的呼吁？尚不得而知。 For now, though, most Houstonians see the city as a place that works—for minorities and immigrants, for suburbanites and city dwellers—and few want to fix what isn’t broken. “The key to Houston’s future is to keep thinking about how to be a greater city,” notes David Wolff as he passes a new set of towers off the Grand Parkway. “This road, it wouldn’t be built in many places. People might talk about these things, but in most places, they don’t get done. In Houston, we don’t just talk about the future—we’re building it.” 然而就现在而言，大多数休斯敦人都认为这城市运转正常——对于少数族裔和移民，对于郊区居民和城市居民来说都是如此——无人想去修复那未坏的东西。“休斯敦的未来关键在于要不断思考如何成为一座更伟大的城市，” 当David Wolff在花园大道上经过一幢幢新大楼时说道。“在许多地方，这条路根本不会建成。人们或许会谈论这些事情，但是大多数地方都不会真正实施。在休斯敦，我们不仅仅谈论未来——我们正在创造未来。” Joel Kotkin is a City Journal contributing editor and the R. C. Hobbs Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University. Tory Gattis writes the Houston Strategies blog, which covers topics including transit, economy, quality of life, city identity, and development and land-use regulations. Joel Kotkin是《城市杂志》的特约编辑，同时也是查普曼大学城市研究R. C. Hobbs研究员。Tory Gattis撰写了《休斯敦策略》博客，主题涵盖了运输、经济、生活质量、城市身份和发展与土地使用规则。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

When Courts Compete for 'Business,' Liberty Wins 当法庭之间争夺“生意”时，自由就是赢家 作者：Sheldon Richman @ 2015-12-06 译者：Luis Rightcon（@Rightcon） 校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 来源：Reason，https://reason.com/archives/2015/12/06/competition-produces-liberty Those who insist that market anarchism cannot work because it lacks a monopolistic court of final jurisdiction are wrong. 那些坚持认为市场无政府主义因为缺乏垄断性法庭的终审管辖而行不通的想法是错误的 Considering that what liberty we continue to enjoy in the West is a product in large part of competing legal institutions operating within overlapping jurisdictions hundreds of years ago, it's curious that so many libertarians still believe such an order—an essential feature of free-market, or natural-law, anarchism—would be inimical to liberty. Why wouldn't that which produced liberty be up to preserving it? 考虑到我们在西方所持久享受的自由其实很大一部分是数百年前管辖界限互相重叠的司法制度之间相互竞争的结果，很奇怪的是，现在却有许多自由意志主义者依然相信这样一种秩序——核心特征是自由市场、或自然法、或无政府主义——将对自由不利。为什么那些产生了自由本身的事物无法承担起维持自由的责任呢？ When I say that competition produced liberty, I of course do not mean that liberty was anyone's objective. Yet liberty emerged all the same, as if by an "invisible hand." That's how things often work. Good (and bad) consequences can be the result of human action but not of human design (to use a favorite phrase of F. A. Hayek's, which he borrowed from the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson). 当我说竞争产生自由时，我当然并不是说自由是谁人的目标。然而自由还是一样产生了，就像一只“看不见的手”创造出来的一样。这就是很多情况下事物的运作方式。好的（和坏的）后果可能是人类行为而不是人类设计的结果（这是哈耶克从著名苏格兰启蒙主义思想家Adam Ferguson那里借用的口头禅）。 We should be delighted to know that something so wonderful as liberty can emerge unintentionally. It should give us hope for the future; if the libertarian movement is deficient, we need not assume that liberty has no chance. (I have more to say about liberty as an unintended consequence in the context of Magna Carta here.) 得知像自由那样美好的事物会非意图地产生，我们应该感到高兴。这会给我们的未来带来希望；如果自由意志主义运动是有缺陷的，我们却不必认为自由已经没有了机会。（关于自由在《大宪章》语境中是个意外产物，我还有更多的话要说，戳这里。） Many authors from the 18th century onward have written about the unintended good consequences of competition, i.e., the absence of central control. They emphasized that in the West the rivalries between church and state, between nobles or parliament and crown, and between nation-states yielded zones of liberty that endure to this day, however diminished in particular matters. 18世纪以来，许多作者已经描写过竞争（即中央控制的缺失）所带来的意外好处。他们强调，西方世界中教会和世俗国家的斗争，贵族或议会和王权的斗争，以及民族国家之间的斗争，产生了延续至今的自由空间，不管这一空间在一些特定方面衰减得有多么厉害。 Competition among legal institutions—courts and bodies of law—within overlapping jurisdictions played a large role in this centuries-long beneficent process. These of course are not examples of anarchism; on the contrary, states existed. But competitive overlapping legal regimes are an element of market anarchism. 管辖界限互相交错的司法制度——各法庭和各法体【编注：一个法体是指有着独特渊源和内在一致性的一组法律规则，比如衡平法、海事法、战争法分属不同法体。】——之间的竞争在这场持续数个世纪的有益历程中扮演了重要角色。这些当然不是无政府主义的例证，恰恰相反，国家是存在的。但是司法制度之间的交叉竞争是市场无政府主义的一个组成元素。 So where a state coexisted with a polycentric legal order, we may say, with Bryan Caplan, that there existed "less than the minimum" state, that is, something that fell short of the nightwatchman state favored by limited-government libertarians. 所以当一个国家存在一种多中心的法律秩序时，我们可以用Bryan Caplan的话来说，这里就存在着一种“比最小国家更弱一点”的国家，也就是说，比喜欢有限政府的自由意志主义者所期待的守夜人政府更弱一点的东西。 A good place to read about competition in law and dispute resolution is Todd J. Zywicki's highly accessible Northwestern University Law Review article "The Rise and Fall of Efficiency in the Common Law: A Supply-Side Analysis." Todd J.Zywicki发表在Northwestern University Law Reviews上的文章“普通法中的效率兴衰史：一种供给侧分析”是一篇了解法律和争端解决机制中的竞争情形的深入浅出的文章。 An important feature that "influenced the common law's evolution," Zywicki writes, "was the competitive, or 'polycentric,' legal order in which the common law developed. During the era that the common law developed, there were multiple English courts with overlapping jurisdictions over most of the issues that comprise the common law. As a result, parties potentially could bring a particular lawsuit in a variety of different courts. In turn this created competition among these various courts for business." 一个“影响到了普通法进化的重要特征”，Zywicki写到：“是竞争性的，或者说是“多中心”的法律秩序，普通法就是在其中演化的。在普通法产生的时代，在构成普通法的绝大多数问题上都有很多管辖界限重叠的英格兰法庭（存在竞争）。结果就是当事人有可能从很多不同的法庭中选择一个来进行特定的诉讼。于是，这些法庭之间就产生了生意上的竞争。” The idea of courts competing for "business" sounds strange to modern ears, but it was commonplace before the 20th century. (The extent of private arbitration in international commerce is largely unappreciated.) 对于现代人来说，法庭在“生意”方面进行竞争这个想法听起来很怪，但是在二十世纪之前这是很常见的。（在这方面，私人仲裁在国际贸易中的普及程度并没有受到应有的注意）。 Zywicki's paper shows that the common law, which featured this competition, was efficient in the eyes of those who used its services. Monopoly is inefficient even (especially?) in matters of security, dispute resolution, and justice. Moreover, it's a mistake, as Hayek explains in Law, Legislation, and Liberty (volume 1)  to assume that government is the source of law. Zywicki的论文指出，有这种竞争特色的普通法在那些使用其服务的人们眼中是有效的。垄断性司法甚至（或者说尤其是？）在安全、调解纠纷和司法制裁方面都是效率低下的。此外，哈耶克在《法律、立法与自由》中指出，认为政府是法律源头的想法是极其错误的。 Moves away from competition and the common law, then, aren't adequately explained by shortcomings in its services to its consumers. Political ambition provides a more satisfactory explanation. (In the case of the criminal law, see this.) 因此，对司法竞争性与普通法传统的偏离，单从当事人所得服务有所欠缺这一角度是不能充分解释的。政治野心是一个更为令人满意的解释（至于刑法的情况，参见这里） Zywicki draws on the legal historian Harold Berman, who wrote, "Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the Western legal tradition is the coexistence and competition within the same community of diverse jurisdictions and diverse legal systems." Zywicki引用了法律史学家Harold Berman的话：“也许西方法律传统的最与众不同之处在于多样化的司法管辖权和多种法律体系在同一个共同体内部共存和竞争。” The legal philosopher Lon L. Fuller went further: "A possible objection to the view [of law] taken here is that it permits the existence of more than one legal system governing the same population. The answer is, of course, that such multiple systems do exist and have in history been more common than unitary systems." (Emphasis added.) 法哲学家Lon L.Fuller进一步指出：“对这种（法律）概念的一个可能的反对意见是，它允许多个司法体系管辖同一个人群。当然，对此的回答是：这样的重合体系确实存在，并且在历史上比一元化的（司法）体系更为常见”。 The limited-government libertarian who insists that market anarchism cannot work because it lacks a monopolistic court of final jurisiction is like the apocryphal aerodynamicist who calculated that a bumblebee couldn't possibly fly. One needed only to point out the window, saying, "Behold!" Likewise, the anarchist need only point to history. 有些相信有限政府的自由意志主义者坚持认为，市场无政府主义行不通，因为它缺乏能够实行最后裁决的垄断性法院。这就像假冒的空气动力学家计算得出大黄蜂根本无法飞起来一样。实际上我们只需要朝窗外指指说：“看呐！”。同样，无政府主义者只需要拿出历史事实。 Berman also wrote (quoted by Zywicki), "The same person might be subject to the ecclesiastical courts in one type of case, the king's courts in another, his lord's courts in a third, the manorial court in a fourth, a town court in a fifth, [and] a merchants' court in a sixth." This sounds as though the courts were not really competitive, but rather that the variety of courts constituted specialization and a division of labor. Berman又写道（引用自Zywicki）：“同样的一个人可能在某种案子中服从于宗教法庭，在另外一种案子中则可能服从国王的法庭，也可能是其领主的法庭，又可能是庄园的法庭，城镇法庭，甚至是商人法庭。”听起来好像各个法庭并不存在真实的互相竞争关系，不同法庭之间存在专业区分和劳动分工。 But that inference would be wrong. To see this we may turn to a keen contemporaneous observer, Adam Smith. In The Wealth of Nations Smith notes that despite a de jure division of labor, courts in fact competed with one another, even to the point of entrepreneurially finding ways to lure cases from other courts. 但是这样的推断是错误的。为了了解这一点，我们可以求助于同时代的一位敏锐观察者，亚当·斯密。在《国富论》中，斯密提到，尽管从法理上来说，法庭之间存在劳动分工，但事实上他们是相互竞争的，竞争甚至到了多方钻营以从其他法庭中诱拐案件的程度。 Why do this? Because the courts obtained their revenues from fees paid by parties to cases. The more cases a court heard, the more money it earned, a state of affairs that Smith, no anarchist of course, approved of: "Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them." 为什么要这样做呢？因为法庭的经费来自案件各方所支付的费用。一个法庭开审的案件越多，那么得到的金钱就越多，斯密当然不是一位无政府主义者，但他赞成这样的一种状态：“公共服务办好才给予酬劳，并且按勤勉的程度决定酬额，这样才能办好。” Smith described the legal environment of his day: 斯密这样描述他那个时代的法律环境：

The fees of court seem originally to have been the principal support of the different courts of justice in England. Each court endeavoured to draw to itself as much business as it could, and was, upon that account, willing to take cognisance of many suits which were not originally intended to fall under its jurisdiction. 英格兰各法院最初似乎主要仰赖于法院诉讼费。各法院都尽可能兜揽诉讼事件，那怕本来不是归自己管辖的案件，也乐于受理。例如，单为审理刑事案件而设的高等法院，居然接受民事案件，而以原告声称被告对他所行不义是犯了非法侵害罪或轻罪为受理的口实。 The court of king's bench, instituted for the trial of criminal causes only, took cognisance of civil suits; the plaintiff pretending that the defendant, in not doing him justice, had been guilty of some trespass or misdemeanour. The court of exchequer, instituted for the levying of the king's revenue, and for enforcing the payment of such debts only as were due to the king, took cognisance of all other contract debts; the plaintiff alleging that he could not pay the king because the defendant would not pay him. 王室特别法院的设立，本来单是为了征收国王收入和强制人民偿清对于国王所欠债务的。但它后来居然受理关于一切其他契约债务的诉讼，原告陈诉的理由是，被告不偿还对他的债务，所以他不能偿还对国王的债务这个理由。 In consequence of such fictions it came, in many cases, to depend altogether upon the parties before what court they would choose to have their cause tried; and each court endeavoured, by superior dispatch and impartiality, to draw to itself as many causes as it could. 由于这种种的假托，结果许多案件，究竟归哪个法院审理，全由诉讼当事人选择，而各法院要想为自己方面多多招徕诉讼案件，也在审理上力求迅速公平。 The present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps, originally in a great measure formed by this emulation which anciently took place between their respective judges; each judge endeavouring to give, in his own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy which the law would admit for every sort of injustice. [Emphasis added.] 英格兰今日的法院制度，是值得赞赏的，但一探其究竟，恐怕在很大程度上须归因于往昔各法院法官的相互竞争，对一切不正当行为，各个力求在自己法院就法律许可的范围内给予最迅速最有效的救济这个事实。

Zywicki also quotes from Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence: Zywicki也引用了斯密在《法学讲稿》中的话：

Another thing which tended to support the liberty of the people and render the proceedings in the courts very exact, was the rivalship which arose betwixt them. 另一件倾向于支持人民的自由和使得法庭程序更为严谨的事务，是法庭之间的竞争关系。

It may be argued that the state provided a backdrop to the competitive legal order, such that a forum of last resort was always available. This argument loses its force, however, when one realizes, as Edward Stringham teaches, that private dispute-resolution procedures arose in matters where states abstained from involvement, such as the nascent stock markets. (For more on the weakness of the "shadow of the State" argument, see this.) 有人可能会认为，竞争性的法律秩序总有国家站在后面，因此终极的裁决平台总是存在。然而，就如Edward Stringham教导的那样：当国家放弃参与时，私人的纠纷解决程序才会出现，就像最初的股票市场那样。只要意识到这一点，上述论调就变得苍白无力。（关于“国家的影子”论调的弱点，详见这里）。 "In short," Zywicki sums up, "a market for law prevailed, with numerous court systems competing for market share in order to increase their fees. This competitive process generated rules that satisfied the demand of consumers (here litigants) for fairness, consistency, and reasonableness." “总而言之，”Zywicki总结道：“法律市场繁盛起来了，很多法庭系统为市场占有率和从中所获费用进行竞争。这一竞争过程产生了符合顾客（这里指诉讼当事人）对公平性、一致性和合理性的需求的规则。” Bumblebees fly and reasonably pro-freedom dispute resolution emerges without the state, no matter what a cloistered theoretician may think. 不论纸上谈兵的理论家们怎样思考，大黄蜂会飞，公道的、促进自由的纠纷解决方式无需国家也能产生。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

Schizophrenia: No Smoking Gun 精神分裂症：缺乏“冒烟”的确凿证据 作者：Scott Alexander @ 2016-01-11 译者：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 校对：小册子（@昵称被抢的小册子） 来源：Slate Star Codex，http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoking-gun/ [Note: despite how some people are spinning this, tobacco is still really really bad and you should not smoke it] 【请注意：尽管许多人言之凿凿，但烟草真的真的还是很不好，不应该抽烟。】 I. Schizophrenics smoke. A lot. Depending on the study, about 60-80% of schizophrenics smoke, compared to only about 20% of the general population. And they spend on average about 27% (!) of their income on cigarettes. Even allowing that schizophrenics don’t make much income, that’s a lot of money. Sure, schizophrenics are often poor and undereducated and have other risk factors for smoking – but even after you control for this, the effect is still pretty strong. 精神分裂症患者抽烟，而且很多。根据某项研究，大约60%至80%的精神分裂症患者会抽烟，与之相比，总人口中只有约20%。而且，他们在烟草上的花费大约占到其收入的27%（！）。即便考虑到精神分裂症患者收入不高，这也是一大笔钱。无疑，精神分裂症患者通常都很穷、受教育程度不高，并且还有其他导致其吸烟的风险因素，但即便把所有这些都加以控制，精神分裂症与抽烟之间的统计关系还是很强。 Various people have come up with various explanations. Cognitively-minded people say that schizophrenics smoke as a maladaptive coping strategy for the anxiety caused by their condition. Pharmacologically-minded people say that schizophrenics smoke because smoking accelerates the metabolism of antipsychotic drugs and so makes their side effects go away faster. Pragmatically-minded people say that schizophrenics smoke because they’re stuck in institutions with nothing to do all day. No points for guessing what the Freudians say. 许多人已经为此提出过许多各种解释。关注认知的人说，精神分裂症患者抽烟，是对该疾病所致焦虑的不良应对策略。关注药理的人会说，他们抽烟是因为抽烟会加快抗精神病药物的代谢，从而能够促使其副作用更快消失。更为务实的人会说，他们抽烟是因为他们被困在了整日无所事事的社会福利机构里面。猜测弗洛伊德主义者的说法就没必要了。 But all these theories have problems. Sure, schizophrenics are often institutionalized, but even the ones at home smoke a lot. Sure, some schizophrenics are often on antipsychotics, but even the ones who aren’t on meds smoke a lot. Sure, schizophrenics are anxious, but we don’t see people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder having 80% smoking rates. 但所有这些理论都存在问题。毫无疑问，精神分裂症患者通常都被社会福利机构收容，但即便是那些散居在家的也抽很多烟。毫无疑问，有些精神分裂症患者经常服用抗精神病药，但即便是那些不服药的也抽很多烟。毫无疑问，精神分裂症患者很焦虑，但我们并没有在患有广泛性焦虑障碍的人群中看到80%的吸烟率。 As usual, I’m more biologically-minded, so I find it interesting that some of the genes that most commonly turn up as linked to schizophrenia – especially CHRNA3, CHRNA5, and CHRNA7 – are in nicotine receptors. Indeed, some of them are also the genes identified as risk factors for smoking. 我素来更倾向从生物学方面考虑，所以我发现了一个有趣之处，那就是部分最经常被与精神分裂症联系在一起的基因，特别是CHRNA3、CHRNA5和CHRNA7，都能在尼古丁受体上找到。 Further, there’s a lot of evidence that schizophrenic people actually feel better and have fewer symptoms when they’re smoking. Further, schizophrenics tend to gravitate toward cigarettes with higher nicotine content, and smoke them in ways that maximize nicotine absorption. 实际上，部分此类基因同时也被确认为影响吸烟的风险因素。此外，大量证据表明，精神分裂症患者在吸烟时确实会更加舒坦、更少症状。此外，精神分裂症患者一般会较喜欢尼古丁含量更高的烟草，而且吸烟时会设法尽量吸收更多的尼古丁。 It seems like part of the problem with schizophrenia is that the brain’s nicotine system isn’t working well. Smoking supplements nicotine and makes the system run smoother, so schizophrenics feel better when they smoke and continue to do so. This is the widely accepted self-medication hypothesis. 精神分裂症的问题似乎部分在于患者大脑的尼古丁系统运转不良。吸烟能够补充尼古丁，从而让这一系统运转更加顺畅，所以精神分裂症患者在吸烟时会感觉更加良好，并且乐此不疲。这就是受到广泛认同的“自发用药假说”。 I like this because it’s a really elegant example of…I don’t know what you’d call it…memetic evolution? Nobody knew that nicotine helped schizophrenia, nobody told the schizophrenics that, but they sort of naturally gravitated to an effective treatment for their condition by going in the direction of things that make them feel better, even going so far as to unknowingly gravitate toward cigarette brands with more nicotine. 我喜欢这一假说，因为它真是模因进化（我不知道你们如何称呼它）的一个极好例证。原先并没人知道尼古丁有助于缓解精神分裂症，没人这么告诉患者，但他们通过追随让他们感觉良好的事物，可以说是自然地找到了有效的治疗方法，甚至不自觉地偏爱尼古丁含量更高的烟草品牌。 They did all of this before psychiatry had any idea why they were doing it, and in the face of constant protests that it was stupid and useless. This should be a warning to anyone who’s too quick to tell patients that their coping strategies are maladaptive. 早在精神病学对其做法之缘由有任何了解之前，他们就已经在这么做了，尽管当时人们一直批评这种做法既愚蠢又无用。有些人会过于仓促地认为患者的应对策略调整不佳，上述事实应当能让这些人引以为戒。 But there’s a much more important question here: does smoking cause schizophrenia? How about prevent it? 但此处还有一个更为重要的问题：吸烟会导致精神分裂症吗？又会不会防止精神分裂症呢？ II. First, the causation argument. Gurillo et al do a meta-analysis and conclude that “daily tobacco use is associated with increased risk of psychosis and an earlier age of onset of psychotic illness. The possibility of a causal link between tobacco use and psychosis merits further examination”. That is, schizophrenics are already smoking much more at the moment their schizophrenia starts. This suggests that maybe smoking is helping to cause the schizophrenia? 首先来看因果论证。Gurillo等人做了一个荟萃分析，得出结论认为：“每日使用烟草与精神病风险的增加和精神疾病发病年龄的提早均有关。烟草使用和精神病之间存在因果关系的可能性还需要进一步研究。”也就是说，精神分裂症患者在初次发病时就已经在大量抽烟了。这是否意味着吸烟有可能增加患精神分裂症的风险？ All nice and well, except for a few things. First, this study ignores the possibility that the genes that cause schizophrenia might also cause increased smoking, even though we have some evidence that this is true (actually, it doesn’t ignore this, it mentions it, but uses it as a reason why a schizophrenia-smoking link is more plausible). 听上去很好，就是有一点点问题。首先，该研究忽略了一种可能性，即导致精神分裂症的基因可能也会导致烟瘾增加，而我们在这方面有一些证据。（实际上该研究并没有忽略这种可能性，而是有所提及，但只是把它作为精神分裂症与吸烟有关联这一说法更可信的理由）。 Second, we know that people who will later develop schizophrenia are seen as kind of odd even before they come down with the disease, and it’s possible that they’re already in some unusual brain state that smoking helps relieve. Third, this study is not controlled – meaning that we’re totally helpless before factors like “people destined to later develop schizophrenia are often poor, and poor people smoke more”. 第二，我们知道，有些后来得了精神分裂症的人早在得病之前就看起来似乎有点奇怪，可能那时候他们的大脑就已经处于某种不正常状态，而吸烟能帮助缓解这种状况。第三，该项研究没有进行对照控制，也就是说如果把某些因素考虑进去，比如“后来注定会得精神分裂症的人通常很穷，而穷人通常抽烟更多”等，我们就无力回答。 And fourth, another study shows exactly the opposite. 还有，第四，另一项研究有完全相反的发现。 Zammit et al (thanks to @allfeelsallthetime for the tip) looks at 50,000 teenage Swedish conscripts, then follows them throughout their lives to see which ones do or don’t get schizophrenia. They find that without adjusting for confounders, smokers are more likely to get schizophrenia. Zammit等人（感谢网友@allfeesallthetime提示）选取了50000个应征入伍的瑞典青少年，然后终身追踪他们，观察哪些会得精神分裂症，哪些不会。他们发现，如果不就混杂因子【编注：混杂因子是指同时导致A与B两个因子，从而使得A与B表现出相关性的因子。】作出调整，吸烟者便看起来更可能得精神分裂症。 But when you do adjust for confounders, smokers are less likely to get schizophrenia, (hazard ratio 0.8, p = 0.003) and heavy smokers are much less likely to get schizophrenia (hazard ratio 0.5)! A dose-dependent relationship was found between smoking and protection from schizophrenia. This is really interesting. 但如果你就混杂因子作了调整，吸烟者得精神分裂症的可能性相对就会较低（风险比为0.8，p=0.003），而重度嗜烟者患精神分裂症的可能性相对而言非常低（风险比为0.5）！在吸烟与避免精神分裂症之间居然找出了这种与剂量相关的关系，真是非常有意思。 Why do we find such different results from these two studies? The only explanation I can think of is that the second study controls for various factors including cannabis use, personality variables, IQ, past psychiatric diagnoses, and place of upbringing (thanks @su3su2u1 for the tip) and the first study controls for zilch. 为什么两项研究会得出如此不同的结论？我能想到的唯一解释就是，第二项研究对照控制了许多不同因素，包括吸食大麻、个性差异、智商、既往精神病诊断史、成长地点等（感谢网友@su3su2u1提示），而第一项研究没做任何控制。 In fact, we find that the second study’s uncontrolled numbers are not that different from the first study’s uncontrolled numbers, and that the only difference is that the second study then went on to control for confounders and get the opposite result. Controlling for more things is not always better, but controlling for a few things that previous studies and common sense suggest are very relevant is pretty superior to just leaving the data entirely unprocessed. Advantage very much second study. 实际上，我们发现第二项研究中未进行控制的因子数目跟第一项研究中未进行控制的因子数目没有多大出入，两者唯一的差别就是第二项研究进一步控制了混杂因子，然后就得出了相反的结论。控制的因子并不总是越多越好，但对此前研究和基本常识都认为，对非常相关的一些事项进行控制，比对数据完全不加任何处理的做法要好得多。第二项研究因而拥有压倒优势。 III. Unlike certain people on Facebook, I fucking hate science. Let me explain why. 跟Facebook上的某些人不同，我真他妈讨厌科学。让我来解释解释。 The first study here, Gurillo et al, was published ten years after the second study. Since it is a meta-analysis, it included the second study in it. The authors of the first study definitely read the second study. They just didn’t care. 此处提到的Gurillo等人所做的第一项研究，发表于第二项研究完成后的10年之后。由于它是一个荟萃分析，所以它的对象包括了第二项研究。该研究的作者们必定读过第二项研究。他们只是毫不在乎。 Nowhere in the first study does it say “By the way, we read this other study that got the opposite results from us, let’s try to figure out why, oh, it was because they controlled for things and we didn’t, maybe that should call our findings into question.” 第一项研究从未在任何地方说过：“此外，我们读到了另外一项研究，其结论与我们的正相对立；我们来看看原因是什么，哦，原来是因为他们对一些事项进行了控制而我们没有，这也许会对我们的发现构成质疑。” You know what they did do? They listed the second study as finding that smoking increased schizophrenia risk, because the rules of their meta-analysis said they would only take uncontrolled data, and so they did. You can read this entire study, which cites the second study no fewer than six times, without hearing at all about the fact that the second study got the opposite result using likely better methodology. 你知道他们实际干了什么吗？他们将第二项研究列为吸烟增加精神分裂症患病风险的发现之一，因为他们做荟萃分析的一项原则是只采用未控制的数据，他们也真是这么做的。你们可以读读其全文，它引用第二项研究不下六次，但在任何地方你都看不到它提及第二项研究利用可能更好的方法得出了完全相反的结论这一事实。 Then they go on to conclude that: 然后，他们在结论中说：

Cigarette smoking might be a hitherto neglected modifiable risk factor for psychosis, but confounding and reverse causality are possible. Notwithstanding, in view of the clear benefits of smoking cessation programs in this population, every effort should be made to implement change in smoking habits in this group of patients. 吸烟可能是引发精神病的可改造风险因素之一，这一点迄今为止一直为人所忽略。但是，混杂偏差和反向因果关系也有可能存在。尽管如此，考虑到在这一人群中实施戒烟计划的明显好处，我们应该全面努力，促使这一病患群体改变吸烟习惯。

Clear benefits! Every effort! Aaaaaaah! 明显好处！全面努力！啊哈哈哈哈！ I mean, I know where they (and the Lancet editors, who write a glowing comment backing them up) are coming from. Smoking is bad because lung cancer, COPD, etc. But now we have these things called e-cigarettes! They deliver nicotine without tobacco! As far as anyone knows they carry vastly less risk of cancer, COPD, etc. If nicotine actually prevents schizophrenia rather than causing it, that is the sort of thing we should really want to know. And instead we’re just getting this “We should make schizophrenia patients stop smoking, because smoking is bad”. 我说，我知道他们（以及《柳叶刀》的编辑们，他们写了篇热情洋溢的评论支持前者）的出发点在哪儿。吸烟不好，因为会导致肺癌、慢性阻塞性肺炎等等。但我们现在已经有了所谓的电子烟！它们无需烟草就能提供尼古丁。如果尼古丁确实会预防而不是导致精神分裂症，这种事应该是我们确实想要明白知晓的。但是，我们听到的却是这样一些话：“我们应该让精神分裂症患者停止抽烟，因为抽烟不好。” Look. I am not going to come out and say that there’s great evidence that nicotine decreases schizophrenia risk. There’s one study, which other studies contradict. I happen to think that the one study looks better than its competitors, but that’s my opinion and I have nowhere near the evidence I would need to feel really strongly about this. 注意，我不是跳出来说有很强的证据表明尼古丁有助于减少精神分裂症患病风险。有一项研究这么说，还有许多研究跟它有抵触。我只是凑巧觉得，这项研究似乎比其他研究做得更好，当然这只是我的个人看法，要说我对这一想法的信念有多强烈，那根本还缺乏必要的证据支持。 But I feel like we are very far from the point where we know enough to be pushing people at risk of schizophrenia away from nicotine, and light-years away from the point where we can use phrases like “clear benefits”. 但是，我也认为，要说我们已经具备了足够的知识，以催促有精神分裂症患病风险的人远离尼古丁，那我们现在还差得远；要说使用“明显好处”一类的说法，那我们还差着很多光年。 Possibly I am an idiot and missing something very important. But if this is true, I wish the authors of the new study, and the editors of The Lancet, would have acknowledged the existence of the conflicting study and patiently explained to their readership, many of whom are idiots like myself, “Here’s a study that looks better than ours that seems to contradict our results, but here’s why our study is nevertheless far more believable.” That’s all I ask. 也许我是个笨蛋，忽略了一些非常重要的事情。但如果真是如此，我就希望上述新研究的作者们，以及《柳叶刀》的编辑们，能够承认与他们有相互冲突的研究存在，并能耐心地向读者们解释，因为许多读者跟我一样是笨蛋。“有项研究看起来比我们做得好，结论与我们的相反，但我们的研究仍然更可信，理由如下。”这才是我希望看到的。 No matter how much of an idiot I am, I can’t possibly imagine how that wouldn’t be a straight-out gain. 不管我有多么傻，我也根本无法想象，这么做怎么会不是一件彻头彻尾的好事。 PS: Cigarette smoking definitely decreases your risk of Parkinson’s Disease. Parkinson’s is similar to schizophrenia in that both involve dopamine. But schizophrenia involves too much dopamine and Parkinson’s too little, so the analogy could go either direction. 附：吸烟绝对会减少你患帕金森症的风险。帕金森症跟精神分裂症有些类似，两者都涉及到多巴胺。只是，精神分裂症是多巴胺过多，而帕金森症则是过少，所以该类比可以指向两个方向。【译注：即吸烟可能会减低，也可能会增加精神分裂症的风险。】 PPS: Tobacco smoking is definitely still bad! Nothing in here at all suggests that tobacco smoking has the slightest chance of not being a terrible decision! 又附：吸烟仍然绝对有害！本文没有任何地方说吸烟有可能不是个糟糕的决定，没门。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

沙特阿拉伯可能会在美国石油行业崩溃之前倒下 Saudi Arabia may go broke before the US oil industry buckles 作者：Ambrose Evans-Pritchard @ 2015-8-5 译者：Veidt（@Veidt) 校对：Tankman 来源：每日电讯报，http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/oilprices/11768136/Saudi-Arabia-may-go-broke-before-the-US-oil-industry-buckles.html If the oil futures market is correct, Saudi Arabia will start running into trouble within two years. It will be in existential crisis by the end of the decade. 如果石油期货市场是对的，那么沙特阿拉伯将会在两年之内开始陷入麻烦。这个国家将会在这个十年的尾声时陷入一场生存危机。 The contract price of US crude oil for delivery in December 2020 is currently $62.05, implying a drastic change in the economic landscape for the Middle East and the petro-rentier states. 目前2020年12月交付的美国原油期货价格是每桶62.05美元，这个价格体现了中东地区和石油租利国家经济版图的一场剧变。 The Saudis took a huge gamble last November when they stopped supporting prices and opted instead to flood the market and drive out rivals, boosting their own output to 10.6m barrels a day (b/d) into the teeth of the downturn. 沙特人在去年11月【译注：本文作于2015年，此处指2014年11月】开始了一场豪赌，他们停止了对石油价格的支撑，转而选择在市场上倾销以挤出竞争对手，他们在市场急转直下的时候将自己的原油产量提升到了每日106万桶。 Bank of America says OPEC is now "effectively dissolved". The cartel might as well shut down its offices in Vienna to save money. 美国银行认为OPEC目前“实际上已经解体了”。这个垄断联盟也许会关闭它在维也纳的办公室以节省资金。 If the aim was to choke the US shale industry, the Saudis have misjudged badly, just as they misjudged the growing shale threat at every stage for eight years. "It is becoming apparent that non-OPEC producers are not as responsive to low oil prices as had been thought, at least in the short-run," said the Saudi central bank in its latest stability report. 如果这么做的目的是打击美国的页岩产业，那么沙特人就犯了个大错，就像他们在过去八年中的每个阶段都错判了成长中的页岩产业的威胁一样。“很显然那些非OPEC产油国对于低油价的反应并不像我们之前所设想的那样剧烈，至少在短期内是这样，”沙特央行在最近的稳定性报告中表示。 "The main impact has been to cut back on developmental drilling of new oil wells, rather than slowing the flow of oil from existing wells. This requires more patience," it said. 这份报告称：“（这项政策）的主要影响是减少了新油井的开发钻探量，而并非降低现有油井的生产速度。这需要更多的耐心。” One Saudi expert was blunter. "The policy hasn't worked and it will never work," he said. 一位沙特专家则更加直白。“这项政策显然没起作用，而且它也永远起不了作用，”他说。 By causing the oil price to crash, the Saudis and their Gulf allies have certainly killed off prospects for a raft of high-cost ventures in the Russian Arctic, the Gulf of Mexico, the deep waters of the mid-Atlantic, and the Canadian tar sands. 通过让油价崩溃，沙特人和他们的海湾盟友们显然杀死了那些试图在俄罗斯北极地区，墨西哥湾，大西洋中部深海和加拿大油砂中提炼原油的昂贵冒险活动。 Consultants Wood Mackenzie say the major oil and gas companies have shelved 46 large projects, deferring $200bn of investments. 咨询公司Wood Machenzie表示，大型油气公司们已经将46个大型项目束之高阁，这推迟了大约2000亿美元的投资支出。 The problem for the Saudis is that US shale frackers are not high-cost. They are mostly mid-cost, and as I reported from the CERAWeek energy forum in Houston, experts at IHS think shale companies may be able to shave those costs by 45pc this year - and not only by switching tactically to high-yielding wells. 沙特人所面临的问题是，美国的页岩油气生产商们的成本并不高。正如我在休斯顿举办的CERAWeek能源论坛上所报告的，这些公司中的大多数成本都处于适中的水平，IHS公司的专家们认为这些页岩油气公司也许能在今年将这些成本削减45个百分点——而这并不仅是靠战术性地转向那些高产的油井来做到的。 Advanced pad drilling techniques allow frackers to launch five or ten wells in different directions from the same site. Smart drill-bits with computer chips can seek out cracks in the rock. New dissolvable plugs promise to save $300,000 a well. "We've driven down drilling costs by 50pc, and we can see another 30pc ahead," said John Hess, head of the Hess Corporation. 先进的井台批量钻探技术让页岩油业者能在同一处钻探点打出5口或10口不同方向的油井。植入了计算机芯片的智能钻探装置能够自动发现岩层中的裂缝。最新的可溶解油栓技术有望为每口油井节省30万美元的成本。“我们已经将钻探成本降低了百分之五十，而且我们认为目前的成本还有百分之三十的下降空间，”Hess集团总裁John Hess表示。 It was the same story from Scott Sheffield, head of Pioneer Natural Resources. "We have just drilled an 18,000 ft well in 16 days in the Permian Basin. Last year it took 30 days," he said. 先锋自然资源公司总裁Scott Sheffield也持相同看法。“我们最近在16天内在二叠纪盆地钻出了一口深达一万八千英尺的油井。而在去年，这样的工程还需要花上30天，”他说。 The North American rig-count has dropped to 664 from 1,608 in October but output still rose to a 43-year high of 9.6m b/d June. It has only just begun to roll over. "The freight train of North American tight oil has kept on coming," said Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobil. 北美工作中的钻机数量从去年十月的1608台下降到了目前的664台，但原油产量却在今年六月升至43年来的最高水平——每日960万桶。而这仅仅只是个开始。“运送北美页岩油的货运火车正源源不断地开来，”埃克森美孚公司总裁Rex Tillerson表示。 He said the resilience of the sister industry of shale gas should be a cautionary warning to those reading too much into the rig-count. Gas prices have collapsed from $8 to $2.78 since 2009, and the number of gas rigs has dropped 1,200 to 209. Yet output has risen by 30pc over that period. 他说，页岩气作为姊妹行业其适应能力应该引起那些过多关注钻机数量的人们的深切警醒。天然气价格已经从2009年的8美元暴跌至目前的2.78美元，而工作中的天然气钻机数量则从当时的1200台降至了目前的209台。但产量却在同一时期上升了超过三十个百分点。 Until now, shale drillers have been cushioned by hedging contracts. The stress test will come over coming months as these expire. But even if scores of over-leveraged wild-catters go bankrupt as funding dries up, it will not do OPEC any good. 直到目前，页岩钻探者们一直受到了对冲合约的保护。而未来的几个月中，随着这些合约到期，真正的压力测试将会到来。但即便这些过度使用杠杆的风险弄潮儿最终因为资金枯竭而破产，OPEC也无法从中得到任何好处。 The wells will still be there. The technology and infrastructure will still be there. Stronger companies will mop up on the cheap, taking over the operations. Once oil climbs back to $60 or even $55 - since the threshold keeps falling - they will crank up production almost instantly. 油井仍然在那里。技术和基础设施也仍然在那里。更加强大的公司将会廉价扫货，并接管他们的生意。一旦油价重新回到每桶60美元甚至55美元——这个阈值正在持续降低——他们将会立即重新启动钻机开始生产。 OPEC now faces a permanent headwind. Each rise in price will be capped by a surge in US output. The only constraint is the scale of US reserves that can be extracted at mid-cost, and these may be bigger than originally supposed, not to mention the parallel possibilities in Argentina and Australia, or the possibility for "clean fracking" in China as plasma pulse technology cuts water needs. OPEC目前面临着一个挥之不去的困境。每一波油价上涨就会被一波美国原油产量的激增抵消。对此的唯一限制是全美能够以适中成本开采的原油总储量，而这个数字则很可能比人们之前设想的要大，更不用提在阿根廷和澳大利亚的那些类似的可供开采储量，还有中国未来因等离子脉冲技术降低了对水量的需求，实现“清洁开采”的可能性。 Mr Sheffield said the Permian Basin in Texas could alone produce 5-6m b/d in the long-term, more than Saudi Arabia's giant Ghawar field, the biggest in the world. Sheffield先生表示，单单是德州的二叠纪盆地在长期内的日产出量就能达到500到600万桶，而这个数字比目前世界上最大的石油产区——沙特阿拉伯的大Ghawar油田的产出还要大。 Saudi Arabia is effectively beached. It relies on oil for 90pc of its budget revenues. There is no other industry to speak of, a full fifty years after the oil bonanza began. 沙特阿拉伯这艘大船实际上已经搁浅了。这个国家预算收入中的90%都依赖石油。而在经历了整整50年的石油大繁荣之后，它并没有发展出任何其它值得一提的产业。 Citizens pay no tax on income, interest, or stock dividends. Subsidized petrol costs twelve cents a litre at the pump. Electricity is given away for 1.3 cents a kilowatt-hour. Spending on patronage exploded after the Arab Spring as the kingdom sought to smother dissent. 该国的国民不需要为他们的收入，利息或者股利交税。在加油站可以用每升12美分的补贴价格购买汽油。每千瓦时的电价仅仅是1.3美分。在“阿拉伯之春”开始之后，由于王室试图平息民间的不满情绪，该国用于收买支持的开支也迅速地增长。 The International Monetary Fund estimates that the budget deficit will reach 20pc of GDP this year, or roughly $140bn. The 'fiscal break-even price' is $106. 据国际货币基金组织估计，沙特的财政赤字将在今年占到GDP的20%，也就是大约1400亿美元。而让该国的财政收支达到均衡的油价水平是每桶106美元。 Far from retrenching, King Salman is spraying money around, giving away $32bn in a coronation bonus for all workers and pensioners. 而当今沙特国王萨勒曼却完全没有想要缩减开支的意思，反而四处撒钱，单单是在一次加冕礼上，他就为全国的所有工人和退休者发放了320亿美元的奖金。 He has launched a costly war against the Houthis in Yemen and is engaged in a massive military build-up - entirely reliant on imported weapons - that will propel Saudi Arabia to fifth place in the world defence ranking. 此外，他还对也门的胡塞武装发动了一场代价高昂的战争，并且大肆扩张军备——沙特的军备完全依赖从外国进口武器——这会使沙特的军费开支排到全球第5位。 The Saudi royal family is leading the Sunni cause against a resurgent Iran, battling for dominance in a bitter struggle between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East. "Right now, the Saudis have only one thing on their mind and that is the Iranians. They have a very serious problem. Iranian proxies are running Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon," said Jim Woolsey, the former head of the US Central Intelligence Agency. 沙特王室还需要肩负领导逊尼派对抗东山再起的伊朗的重任，为争夺霸权，整个中东地区的逊尼派和什叶派之间展开了艰苦的斗争。“现在沙特人满脑子都只想着一件事情，那就是来自伊朗人的威胁。他们面临着一个非常严峻的问题，伊朗的代理人目前正控制着也门，叙利亚，伊拉克和黎巴嫩，”美国中央情报局前任局长吉姆·伍尔西表示。 Money began to leak out of Saudi Arabia after the Arab Spring, with net capital outflows reaching 8pc of GDP annually even before the oil price crash. The country has since been burning through its foreign reserves at a vertiginous pace. 在“阿拉伯之春”发生后，资本开始流出沙特阿拉伯，即使在油价崩溃之前，每年资本净流出也占到了GDP的8%。从那时开始，该国的外汇储备就以惊人地速度直线下降。 The reserves peaked at $737bn in August of 2014. They dropped to $672 in May. At current prices they are falling by at least $12bn a month. 沙特的外汇储备在2014年8月达到峰值7370亿美元。而到今年5月，这个数字下降到了6720亿美元。以目前的汇率计算，沙特的外汇储备每月至少会下降120亿美元。【编注：2016年4月 已降至5720亿美元】 Khalid Alsweilem, a former official at the Saudi central bank and now at Harvard University, said the fiscal deficit must be covered almost dollar for dollar by drawing down reserves. 沙特央行的一位前任官员Khalid Alsweilem（目前在哈佛大学担任研究员）表示，沙特政府财政赤字中的几乎每一美元都需要以外汇储备的同等下降为代价来弥补。 The Saudi buffer is not particularly large given the country's fixed exchange system. Kuwait, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi all have three times greater reserves per capita. "We are much more vulnerable. That is why we are the fourth rated sovereign in the Gulf at AA-. We cannot afford to lose our cushion over the next two years," he said. 在该国的固定汇率体系之下，留给沙特人的缓冲余地并不是很大。科威特，卡塔尔和阿布扎比所拥有的人均外汇储备是沙特的三倍。“我们相对而言要脆弱得多。这就是为何我们的主权债评级在海湾地区只排第四，评级水平也仅是AA-。在未来两年中，我们承受不起失去外汇储备缓冲的后果，”他说。 Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook to "negative" in February. "We view Saudi Arabia's economy as undiversified and vulnerable to a steep and sustained decline in oil prices," it said. 标普在今年二月将沙特主权债务的评级展望降为“负面”。“我们认为在油价持续急剧下降的过程中，沙特阿拉伯的经济没有多元化，并且十分脆弱，”标普在他们的报告中表示。 Mr Alsweilem wrote in a Harvard report that Saudi Arabia would have an extra trillion of assets by now if it had adopted the Norwegian model of a sovereign wealth fund to recyle the money instead of treating it as a piggy bank for the finance ministry. The report has caused storm in Riyadh. Alsweilem先生在哈佛大学的一份报告中写道，如果沙特之前采用挪威的主权财富基金模式让外汇储备循环投资，而不是像他们所做的那样仅仅把它当作财政部的一头现金奶牛，目前沙特阿拉伯的资产也许会多出1万亿美元。这份报告在沙特首都利雅得引发了风暴。 "We were lucky before because the oil price recovered in time. But we can't count on that again," he said. “上一次我们很幸运，因为油价适时地恢复了。但是这次我们不能再次指望同样的事情会，”他说。 OPEC have left matters too late, though perhaps there is little they could have done to combat the advances of American technology. OPEC做出反应时已经太晚了，虽然即使早一些意识到问题，他们也做不了太多事情来对抗美国的技术进步。 In hindsight, it was a strategic error to hold prices so high, for so long, allowing shale frackers - and the solar industry - to come of age. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. 事后看来，让油价在如此长的时间维持在这么高的位置实际上是一个战略性错误，这样那些页岩油气的勘探者们——还有太阳能产业——就能够成长壮大。一旦被放出来，你就无法再将精灵放回瓶子里了。 The Saudis are now trapped. Even if they could do a deal with Russia and orchestrate a cut in output to boost prices - far from clear - they might merely gain a few more years of high income at the cost of bringing forward more shale production later on. 沙特人如今陷入了困境。即使他们能与俄罗斯达成一致共同减产以支撑油价——虽然这样的愿景目前看来一点也不清晰——这也仅仅能让他们享受多几年的高收入，而这样做的代价却是在未来面临更多的页岩油产出的竞争。 Yet on the current course their reserves may be down to $200bn by the end of 2018. The markets will react long before this, seeing the writing on the wall. Capital flight will accelerate. 而如果当前的趋势维持下去，沙特的外汇储备将在2018年底前降至2000亿美元以下。一旦前景明白无误了，市场会在它成为现实前就早早做出反应。资本外流将会加速。 The government can slash investment spending for a while - as it did in the mid-1980s - but in the end it must face draconian austerity. It cannot afford to prop up Egypt and maintain an exorbitant political patronage machine across the Sunni world. 沙特政府可以在一段时间内削减资本开支——就像它在1980年代中期所做的那样——但最终它将面临严峻的紧缩。沙特将无法负担起支撑埃及政权并在逊尼派穆斯林世界里维持一台昂贵的资助机器的开支。 Social spending is the glue that holds together a medieval Wahhabi regime at a time of fermenting unrest among the Shia minority of the Eastern Province, pin-prick terrorist attacks from ISIS, and blowback from the invasion of Yemen. 庞大的社会开支是将一个仍然处在中世纪状态的瓦哈比政权维系在一起的粘合剂，这个政权正面临着东部省份的什叶少数派中正在发酵的动荡，ISIS时而发动的针刺般的恐怖袭击，还有入侵也门所带来的反作用力。 Diplomatic spending is what underpins the Saudi sphere of influence in a Middle East suffering its own version of Europe's Thirty Year War, and still reeling from the after-shocks of a crushed democratic revolt. 庞大的外交开支则是维系沙特在中东地区影响力的基础，而目前中东地区正在经历着类似欧洲“三十年战争”般的苦难，同时还在蹒跚地试图爬出镇压民主反抗运动带来的余震。 We may yet find that the US oil industry has greater staying power than the rickety political edifice behind OPEC. 我们也许会发现，虽然同样处在低谷中，但相比OPEC身后的那座虚弱的政治大厦，美国的石油行业其实拥有着更强的生命力。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

It may be baby talk, but ‘parentese’ is an infant’s pathway to learning the language, international study shows 跨国研究表明：“妈妈语”虽然萌萌哒，但却是婴儿学习语言的必经之路 作者：Joel Schwarz @ 1997-7-31 译者：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 校对：Drunkplane（@Drunkplane-zny） 来源：UWToday 网址： http://www.washington.edu/news/1997/07/31/it-may-be-baby-talk-but-parentese-is-an-infants-pathway-to-learning-the-language-international-study-shows/ Parentese, the exaggerated, drawn-out form of speech that people use to communicate with babies, apparently is universal and plays a vital role in helping infants to analyze and absorb the phonetic elements of their parents’ language. An international study shows that infants are so good at analyzing this speech that by the age of 20 weeks they are beginning to produce the three vowel sounds common to all human languages — “ee,” “ah” and “uu.” 妈妈语，指的是人们在和幼儿交流时使用的那种夸张、拖长的说话方式。它似乎是普天下皆有的现象，而且在帮助婴儿分析和掌握父母语言的语音要素方面发挥着关键作用。一项跨国研究表明，婴儿分析这种说话方式的能力极高，以至于他们在20周那么大时就开始发出所有人类语言都共有的三个元音，即ee，ah和uu。 “Parentese has a melody to it. And inside this melody is a tutorial for the baby that contains exceptionally well-formed versions of the building blocks of language,” explains Patricia Kuhl, a University of Washington neuroscientist. Kuhl recently headed a team of nine researchers from the United States, Russia and Sweden investigating how infants master the complex task of acquiring speech. Their findings are being published in tomorrow’s issue (Aug. 1) of the journal Science. “妈妈语具有内在的韵律。对幼儿的辅导就藏在这一韵律之中，其内容包括了语言基本材料的极为成熟的形式”，华盛顿大学神经系统科学家Patricia Kuhl如此解释道。Kuhl近来带领一个9人团队对婴儿如何得以完成学会说话这种复杂任务进行了研究，研究者分别来自美国、俄罗斯和瑞典。他们的发现将于明天（8月1日）发表于《科学》杂志上。【编注：注意本文发表于1997年。】 The new study examined differences in how American, Russian and Swedish mothers speak to their infants and to other adults. The study shows that parentese is characterized by over- articulation that exaggerates the sounds contained in words. Mothers in the study were, in effect, sounding out “super-vowels” to help their infants learn the phonetic elements of language, says Kuhl, who is the chair of speech and hearing sciences and the William P. and Ruth Gerberding professor at the UW. 这项新研究考察了美国、俄罗斯和瑞典的妈妈们在和她们的婴儿说话时跟她们和其他成人说话时的区别。研究表明，妈妈语的特征是夸张发音，对词语中的音素进行夸张。Kuhl说，实际上，被研究的妈妈们都会发出“超级元音”来帮助她们的孩子学习语言中的语音要素。Kuhl在华盛顿大学担任言语及听觉学院主席，同时还是该校的“盖博丁夫妇”讲席教授。 “In normal, everyday speech adults generally race along at a very fast pace,” Kuhl says. “But we know it is easier to understand a speaker when they stretch out sounds. That’s why we tend to speak more slowly and carefully to increase understanding when we teach in the classroom or talk to strangers. We also do this unconsciously with babies, giving them an improved verbal signal they can capitalize on by slowing down and over articulating.” “在正常的日常交谈中，成年人一般都会以非常快的速度放连珠炮”，Kuhl说。“但我们知道，如果说话者拉长声音，就更容易被人听懂。这就是为什么我们在进行课堂教学或和陌生人说话时会把话说得更慢更仔细，这是为了增进理解。面对幼儿时，我们也会下意识地这么做。通过放慢语速、夸张发音，我们向幼儿提供了一种改良过的语言信号，以便他们利用。” The mothers in the study were not aware of what they were doing, she says, and so parentese was produced unconsciously and automatically. “When women across three different cultures, speaking three different languages, show the same pattern when speaking to their infants, biology is telling us something about it’s necessity and value to their babies. It’s our job to figure out why they do it and what it’s good for,” Kuhl adds. 她还说，被研究的妈妈们对于自己的作为并没有自觉意识，因此妈妈语是无意识、不经意产生的。“来自三种不同文化、使用三种不同语言的妇女在和她们的婴儿交谈时都呈现出同一种模式，这是生物学在向我们透露某些东西，关乎其必要性及其对幼儿的价值。我们的任务就是要搞清她们为什么要这么做以及这么做的好处”，Kuhl补充说。 To explore differences in the way people communicate with infants and adults, 10 women from each of the three countries were first recorded talking for 20 minutes to their infants, ranging in age from two to five months. Then they were recorded in conversation with an adult. 为了查明人们与婴儿及他们与成人交流时的区别，研究者首先对分别来自上述三国的各10位妇女与其婴儿的交谈进行了20分钟的录音，婴儿年龄从2至5个月不等。然后又录制了她们与某一成人的谈话。 In both cases, the mothers were told to talk naturally and were given a small list of target words containing the three common vowel sounds and asked to include them in the conversations.. The selected English words were “bead” for the “ee” sound, “pot” for “ah” and “boot” for “uu.” Similar common words were selected in Russian and Swedish. The three languages were chosen because they represent substantially different vowel systems occurring in human languages: Russian has five vowels, English has nine vowels and Swedish has16. 在两种情形中，妈妈们都被要求进行自然交谈，并拿到了一份简短的目标词汇表，这些词汇都包含有常见的三种元音。妈妈们被要求在对话中使用到这些词汇。被选中的英文单词包括bead（含元音ee），pot（含元音ah）和boot（含元音uu）。俄语和瑞典语中也选的是类似的常见词汇。之所以选这三种语言，是因为它们代表着人类语言中存在本质区别的不同元音体系：俄语有5个元音，英语有9个，而瑞典语有16个。 The more than 2,300 recorded target words spoken by the subjects were then isolated and acoustically analyzed by spectrograph. This analysis showed speech directed at infants had more extreme or stretched out vowel sounds than speech with an adult. This was true among all 30 mothers across the three languages, says Kuhl. 然后，研究者把研究对象说过且被录制的2300多个目标词汇单独提取出来，并用声谱仪对之进行声学分析。分析表明，跟对成人说的话相比，对婴儿说的话中包含有更过分或更为拖长的元音发音。Kuhl说，使用三种语言的30位母亲全都如此。 The use of parentese seems to benefit infants in three ways, she believes. It makes the sounds of vowels more distinct from one another, and it produces expanded vowel sounds not produced in ordinary adult conversations. This exaggerated speech allows mothers to produce a greater variety of vowel pronunciations without overlapping other vowels. Kuhl相信，使用妈妈语似乎会从三种途径有利于婴儿。它能使元音发音彼此之间区分得更为清楚，同时能发出成人们在日常对话中不会发出的拖长元音。这种夸张的说话方式能让妈妈们发出更为多样化的元音读法，且不与其它元音重叠。 To speak, an infant must be able to reproduce the appropriate features of individual phonetic elements using a tiny vocal tract which is about only one-quarter the size and lacks the same frequency range of an adult’s. The exaggeration of parentese helps the infant separate sounds into contrasting categories and helps the baby distinguish between different categories, she believes. 婴儿的小声道在大小上只有成人的大约四分之一，缺乏成人所具备的那种频率范围。为了说话，婴儿必须要用这种声道来再现每个语音要素的恰当特征。Kuhl相信，妈妈语的夸张发音能帮助婴儿将声音分为对比鲜明的类别，并帮助他们区分不同类别。 “What infants are doing with this information is not memorization. Their minds are not working like a tape recorder,” says Kuhl. “Because their mouths and vocal tracts can’t form the same sounds as adults, they have to transform adult sounds to frequencies they can use. So they must be analyzing speech.” “针对这些信息，婴儿们做的并不是熟记。他们的心智并不像是录音机那样运转”，Kuhl说。“因为他们的小嘴和小声道无法发出成人那样的声音，他们必须将成人的发音转化为他们能够使用的频率。因此，他们必定分析发声。” Babies’ brains, like their bodies, need to be nourished, she says, and parentese provides them with “essential nuggets” of information about language that their lightning fast brains analyze and absorb. 她说，幼儿的大脑跟他们的身体一样需要滋养，而妈妈语则为他们提供了语言信息的“基本材料”，以便他们能用其闪电般快速运转的大脑进行分析和吸收。 The use of parentese seems to be universal, she says, and parents don’t have to worry about learning it when they take a newborn home from the hospital. 她说，使用妈妈语似乎是普天下共有的现象，父母们把新生儿从医院抱回家后并不需要担心如何学会妈妈语。 “Moms, dads, caretakers, younger siblings and even college students who were handed a baby in the classroom have been observed speaking parentese. Talking that way seems to be a natural communications mode we all use. That means parents don’t have to work hard at this. Just by talking and communicating with their infants they are playing a vital role without being aware of it,” Kuhl says. “人们已经发现，妈妈、爸爸、保姆、小哥哥小姐姐都会说妈妈语，甚至是在课堂上被塞给了一个小宝宝的大学生也是如此。以这种方式说话似乎是我们所使用的一种自然的交流模式。这就是说，父母们无需在这方面用功。只要和他们的婴儿说话交流，他们就在不自觉的扮演一个关键的角色”，Kuhl说。 Collaborating researchers in the study come from the Early Intervention Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Stockholm University in Sweden. The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. 参与本研究的合作研究者分别来自俄罗斯圣彼得堡的早期介入研究所和瑞典斯德哥尔摩大学。研究得到了美国国立卫生研究院、加拿大社会科学与人文研究委员会及瑞典银行三百年基金会的基金资助。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

Remember the Common Law 勿忘普通法 作者：Jim Harper  @ 2016-4 译者：小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子) 校对：小橘子 来源：Cato Institute，http://www.cato.org/policy-report/marchapril-2016/remember-common-law Good economists are familiar with Frédéric Bastiat’s parable of the broken window, which illustrates that visible economic activity may have unseen costs. When a broken window leads to the purchase of a new window, it’s easy to think that the broken window helped society by increasing production and trade. In fact, breaking a window makes society worse off; wealth has been destroyed, not increased. Bastiat’s essay on this topic was titled “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.” 优秀的经济学家都熟知弗雷德里克•巴斯夏的破窗理论，这个理论说明了，在可见的经济活动之下，可能潜藏了不可见的成本。打破一扇窗户，就要买一扇新的，所以人们很容易认为，通过促进生产和贸易，打破窗户会改善社会境况。而实际上，打破窗户使社会境况恶化了；财富被破坏了，而不是增加了。巴斯夏给讨论此问题的那篇论文起的标题正是“看得见的和看不见的”。 A similar dynamic exists in the legal world. Legislative and regulatory processes are easy to see. Elections routinely draw public attention to legislative and administrative government. Elected and unelected regulators have media operations to tell reporters what they are doing. Common-law rules, on the other hand, are mostly unseen. Legal doctrines such as property and contract emerged quietly from series of court decisions over decades and even centuries, so they often go unconsidered and unspoken. Many people may believe that legislation and regulation do most of the work of ordering society. 在法律领域，类似的情况也同样存在。立法与监管程序是显而易见的。大选会定期让民众注意到立法与行政机构，选举的与非选举的官员会通过媒体来阐述他们的举措。相比之下，普通法下的规则绝大部分是看不见的。有关财产与契约等范畴的法律原则，在数十年甚至数百年来的法庭判例中悄无声息地形成，因此往往既不为人留意，也未经言明。许多人可能会认为，规范社会的，主要是法典与规条。 Libertarians should remember the common law and generally prefer it. The common law process for making the rules of a free society has much to commend it. And where it falls down, it is more readily fixable than legislation and government regulation. 自由意志主义者应该谨记普通法，并将其置于优先地位。普通法体系在形成自由社会规则方面确有不少令人赞许之处。而且与成文法和行政规制体系相比，普通法在其失足跌倒之处也更便于调整修正。 American law students learn early that the common law is an important inheritance from England that differs from the civil-law tradition dominant on the European continent. In the common-law tradition, the basic rules that govern our interactions arise from years of experience over generations. Our forebears learned that justice is served and benefits accrue when people avoid violence, stick to their promises, and allocate things in an orderly way. 美国法学学生很早就认识到普通法体系是继承自英国的一项重要遗产，该法系与欧洲大陆盛行的民法传统大相径庭。在普通法传统下，基本法律规范由一代代人的长期经验积累而来。我们的祖先发现，当人们免于暴力，信守承诺，分配有序时，正义便得到伸张，福祉便得到增长。 The law of battery, contract law, and property law all emerged as common practice solidified into common law. It’s often called “judge-made” law, but at its best common law is “judge-found” law— that is, judges discover law in common practices that are deeply ingrained in society. 有关殴打的法律、契约法以及财产法，都是由惯例凝结固化而成的普通法。普通法常被称为“法官制造的”法律，但最恰当的说法应该是“法官发现的”法律——意思是说，法官们发掘出社会上根深蒂固的惯例中所蕴含的规则。 In contrast, the source of rules in civil-law countries is the code books issued by rulers and governments. Civil codes establish the rules governing contracts, trade, property, criminal law, and so on. The civil-law tradition extols the great law-givers—Solon, Hammurabi, Napoleon—who wrote down the law codes purporting to govern their societies. 对比之下，民法体系国家的规则来源是统治者与政府颁布的法律条文。有关契约、商业、财产、刑法等各方面的规则，均由民法法典确立。民法传统推崇伟大的立法者——梭伦、汉穆拉比、拿破仑——他们一手制订治理社会的法典。 But the founding of civil law is something of a myth. In the times when civil law originated, the bulk of most populations was illiterate. These citizens did not have copies of the civil codes that purported to govern them. The civil-law tradition relies on the fiction that certain powerful men produced laws—but they actually arose like common law from the time-worn habits and customs of their subjects. 然而，民法起源于一个神话。在民法最初形成的时候，大部分民众还是文盲，他们并没有读过那些用来管辖他们的民法法典。民法传统建基于强人立法的虚构故事——实际上它们和普通法一样，源自于古老的习惯与惯例。【编注：作者的意思大概是，有关强人立法的虚构故事为民法赋予了其被广泛接受所需的权威性。】 Part of the genius of the common law is its mix of adaptability and consistency. When new circumstances arise, common-law courts, urged on and educated by the parties to disputes, adapt existing rules in ways that they believe produce the most just and fair outcomes. 普通法的优越之处，部分表现在它在适应性和连贯性之间的平衡。当新的环境条件出现时，普通法的法庭在争讼各方的敦促与启发下，会灵活理解运用现有规则，以期达到一个他们都认为公正公平的结果。 They look for comparable cases in their own and other jurisdictions to learn what adaptation of existing law will produce the best results. Over time, new doctrines emerge and old ones may die out. But at any given time there is a stable rule-set people can use to organize their lives and business activities. 法庭将在本身与其他司法管辖区中查找可供比附的案例，以研究如何调整现有规则才能达致最佳的结果。随着时间的推移，新的法律原则形成，旧的则被淘汰。但在任何一个时间点上，人民生活经商都有一套相对稳定的规则可供遵循。 THE COMMON LAW OF PRIVACY 有关隐私的普通法 The field of privacy protection illustrates how common law develops. In 1890 a Harvard Law Review article entitled “The Right to Privacy” made the original argument that law should address privacy. Samuel Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, later to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, catalogued the legal doctrines that might control certain abuses of private life arising from photography and mass circulation newspapers. They argued that the law should explicitly protect privacy. 普通法规则的发展演变，从保护隐私领域就可觅一斑。1890年，一篇刊载在《哈佛法学评论》上题为《隐私权》的文章首次提出，法律需要处理隐私问题。萨缪尔•沃伦与后来成为美国最高法院大法官的路易斯•布兰代斯，整理出了能够制止因拍照和大发行量报纸而引致侵犯私生活的法律原则。他们认为法律应明确保护隐私。 Over time, a new branch of common law was born. Courts across the country began to recognize privacy torts—legally recognized wrongs that give victims of privacy invasions the right to sue invaders. In 1960 eminent legal scholar William L. Prosser documented how privacy as a legal concept had come to constitute four distinct torts: intrusion upon seclusion or solitude, or into private affairs; public disclosure of embarrassing private facts; publicity that places a person in a false light in the public eye; and appropriation of name or likeness. 随着时间推移，普通法的一个新分支出现了。全国的法庭都开始承认隐私侵权——从法律上确认侵犯隐私是错的，受害者可以控告侵权者。1960年，杰出的法律学者威廉•普罗萨总结了隐私权这一法律概念，并界定了四种不同的侵权类型：侵扰他人独处或私人领域；曝光令人困窘的私人信息；不当报道，以造成对个人的错误印象；盗用人名等个人标记。 The common law of privacy continues to develop and advance. In 1998, the Minnesota Supreme Court recognized invasion of privacy as a tort in that state for the first time. The case was Lake v. Wal-Mart Stores. The defendant’s photo-developing shop failed to deliver two women their vacation photos, but an employee distributed a photo of the two showering together, spurring the court to adopt the “public disclosure” branch of the privacy torts. 有关隐私权的普通法不断地发展和推进。1998年，明尼苏达州最高法院首次裁定侵犯隐私在该州构成民事侵权行为。该案为“莱克诉沃尔玛”（Lake v. Wal-Mart）案。被告的照片冲印店未能交付两位女顾客度假时拍的照片，但被告的一名员工却对外散布了这两名女顾客一起淋浴的照片。法庭认为此举适用于隐私侵权分类中的“公开泄露私人信息”。 Like most law, the privacy torts work in the background, through the threat of lawsuits and not actual days in court or big damage awards. The rarity of lawsuits under the privacy torts may show how consistent these baseline privacy rules are with society’s general mores. Some would argue, of course, that they’re not strict enough and that debatable uses of information should produce successful privacy lawsuits more often. Legal evolution will decide who is right. 与大多数的其他法律一样，隐私侵权的法规在社会背景中默默运作，通过潜在的诉讼威胁，而不是大量的实际庭审或高额赔偿来发挥作用。有关隐私侵权的实际案件之少，可能正说明了保护隐私的法律规则与社会上普遍的道德观念高度一致。当然，可能有些人会认为这些法规不够严厉，信息的争议性使用应该产生更多的隐私案胜诉。孰是孰非，在法律演变中自有定夺。 Privacy law may be in tension with free speech and the First Amendment, so it’s not clear that the privacy torts are a permanent fixture in the common-law pantheon. On the other hand, privacy-law professors and others often use the phrase “privacy harm” in a tacit effort to impress into common language— and ultimately common law—that more offenses against privacy or data security should be recognized as legally actionable harms. It’s all part of a quiet but important debate about our privacy values and what may become our privacy laws. 隐私法也许与言论自由和宪法第一修正案有一定的矛盾，因此隐私侵权能否成为普通法神殿的永久基石之一，并未有定论。而在另一方面，隐私法领域的教授与其他学者经常引用“隐私伤害”来试图与普通用语挂钩——最终与普通法挂钩——并试图将更多侵害隐私或信息安全的行为纳入可采取法律行动的伤害行为。 这些争论虽然悄然进行，但对于我们确立有关隐私的价值观，以及确立针对隐私的法律，都非常重要。 But people don’t often ask how common law torts, property rights, and contracts protect privacy. They ask: “What will Congress and our state legislatures do?” Legislation and regulation get most of the attention. 但人们并不会经常过问，隐私权如何得到普通法的侵权法、财产法，以及契约法的保护。他们会问：“国会和我们的州立法机构会怎么做？”。引人注目的是立法与规制。 The top-down process that established federal privacy regulation of health information illustrates some differences between understated common-law development and cacophonous civil-law-style rule-writing. 有关健康信息隐私的联邦管制规则，是通过一个由上至下的程序确立的，从中可以看出低调的普通法发展与喧闹的民法式规则制定之间的某些区别。 In 1996 Congress revamped the rules around health insurance. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) also addressed health privacy, but it didn’t set new privacy rules. Instead, Congress instructed the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make recommendations about the privacy of individually identifiable health information. It told HHS to go ahead and write privacy regulations based on those recommendations if Congress did not act. 1996年，国会对有关医疗保险的法规进行修订。《健康保险隐私及责任法案》（HIPAA）也涉及健康隐私，但其并未对隐私做出新规定。相反，国会要求卫生及公共服务部（HHS）部长就个人可辨识医疗信息的隐私提供建议，并指示HHS，如果国会没有采取相应行动，该部可根据这些建议撰写隐私相关规定。 When HHS reported back to Congress, it downplayed many safeguards for privacy that already existed. These included medical ethics, explicit and implied contract rights, malpractice claims, and state privacy torts— non regulatory privacy protections that got only a few cryptic lines buried deep in the report. In addition to largely ignoring them, HHS advocated eliminating some of them. 此后，当HHS向国会汇报时，对已有的隐私保护措施予以淡化处理，这些措施包括医疗道德，明确及隐含的契约权利，针对专业失当的索赔，以及各州的隐私侵权法——即非行政的隐私保护，仅在报告的某个角落以寥寥数行隐晦提及。HHS不仅对其几近无视，甚至建议将它们当中的一部分予以剔除。 Today, with the HIPAA privacy regulations in place, people seeking health care sign a lot of forms and see a lot of notices discussing health privacy—but it’s not at all clear that their privacy is well protected. The HIPAA rules preserved and helped solidify behind the- scenes information-sharing practices in the health care industry that may or may not serve consumers and society well. Every year, it seems, there is less and less of a free market in health care to test for and discover consumers’ true interests in health privacy and every other dimension of health care. The common law of health privacy is widely ignored. 如今，由于HIPAA的隐私条文已付诸实施，人们接受医疗保健服务需要签署大量表格，阅读大量讨论健康隐私的告示，但他们的隐私是否得到很好的保障，却根本不清楚。医疗行业幕后的信息共享机制未必能很好地满足消费者和社会整体的要求，而HIPAA的条文则保护了这一机制，并使之更加稳固。年复一年，自由的医疗保健市场似乎正在日益萎缩，我们难以探知与发掘消费者在健康隐私乃至医疗保障其他方面的真正利益之所在。健康隐私方面的普通法原则被普遍忽略了。 INDUCTIVE COMMON LAW VS. DEDUCTIVE REGULATION 归纳式的普通法与推论式的立法 Common law is inductive. Building on experience in case after real-world case, common- law courts accrete knowledge about the rule-set that best serves society. Because rule development occurs with reference to real life cases, it takes advantage of local knowledge about the precise disputes that occur. This allows better approximation of what the truly just rules will be for most cases. 普通法是归纳性的。在众多真实案例的经验基础上，普通法法庭在不断积累认知，寻求最适合社会的法则。由于规则在参照真实案例的过程中发展，其优势是能够利用实际发生的真切争议中所包含的局部知识。在绝大多数情况下，这种方式都能达致较为接近公平法则的效果。【编注：此处作者援引的是哈耶克在1948年的论文《社会中的知识利用》中阐述的思想，哈耶克认为，中央计划者或理性建构者的根本困难在于，无法收集和利用作出正确决定所需的分散的局部知识。】 Hayek emphasized the value of local knowledge in economic decision making. He also emphasized the distinction between common law and top-down legislation in his three-volume work Law, Legislation and Liberty. The Italian lawyer Bruno Leoni is another great thinker in this area. His book Freedom and the Law extolled the virtue of English common law compared to Roman jus civile. The two systems have very different ways of developing rules. Common-law systems hew closer to common justice. 哈耶克强调过局部知识对于经济决策的重要价值，也在他的三卷本著作《法律、立法与自由》中强调了普通法与由上至下立法的区别。意大利律师布鲁诺•莱奥尼在这一领域也颇有研究，他在其著作《自由与法律》中赞扬了英式普通法较之罗马市民法的优点。两套体系在发展法规方面大相径庭，普通法更倾向于追求常理上的正义。 Legislation and regulation more often produce rank re-ordering of rights and liabilities because legislation is deductive. At a single point in time, based on all the knowledge it has drawn together at that moment, a legislature establishes the rule-set that it believes to make the most sense. This is often what it perceives as pleasing the most— or the most important—constituencies. That imperative to please constituencies means that the information legislatures codify often comes from well-organized interests with substantial resources. Special- interest pleading is a hallmark of legislation and regulation. 由于立法是演绎性的，因此权利与义务的轻重经常通过订立法律与规章来编排。在某个给定的时点上，立法机关基于当时所知，建立一整套它认为最合理的法规。这又被认为是在迎合最多数或者最重要的选民。迎合选民，意味着立法机关为之编写法规的诉求，经常会来自于掌握重要资源的有组织团体。因而，制定法律与规章带有满足特殊利益诉求的印记。 Judges in common law courts have fewer of the perverse incentives that legislators and regulators do, particularly when judges are appointed for life terms. A tenured judge gets professional acclaim from developing a reputation for fairness, from clearing dockets, and from suffering few reversals in higher courts. Judges generally don’t anticipate growing their courts’ budgets, getting post-service perks, or being re-installed in office due to the outcomes in their cases, as legislators and regulators often do. Legislation and regulation are systematically subject to a kind of intellectual corruption in which self interest diverges from the public interest. 与立法者和监管者相比，普通法法庭的法官带有的不当动机较少，尤其当法官职位是终身制的时候。为赢得专业上的赞誉，一个终身制的法官需要建立断案公正的名声，避免案件积压，以及减少其裁定被高一级法院推翻的案件。与立法者和监管者不同，法官一般来说并不需要担心他们的判决会对法庭的收入，个人离任津贴，或者恢复职位造成影响。而立法与监管机构则由于自身利益与公众利益有所偏离，容易系统性的滋生智识上的腐败。 WRITING THE RIGHT RULES 编写正确的规则 Rules produced by the deductions of legislators and regulators don’t always fail, of course, and they aren’t always wrong. But it is better to arrive at just rules through a long, society-wide deliberation than through a legislative debate. To illustrate this subtle point, consider the rules that govern the liability of interactive computer services like YouTube, Yelp, craigslist, and Facebook. 当然，立法者与监管者通过推导演绎编写的规则并非必然失败，也并非总是错的。但为了得到公正的规则，经由全社会参与的长期讨论始终还是比经由立法辩论为好。为了体现这当中的微妙之处，让我们来研究规管诸如YouTube、Yelp、Craigslist和Facebook等电脑互动服务供应商之责任的规则。 In the mid-1990s courts were considering whether interactive online services would be considered publishers of the information people uploaded and posted to them. If they were publishers, websites might be liable for defamation and other causes of action because of the material users contributed to them. Had this rule taken hold, operators of online services would probably have allowed only tightly controlled and monitored interactions among users. The rollicking, interactive Internet we know today would have been sharply curtailed. 1990年代中期，法庭在研究在线互动服务是否应该被视为其用户张贴上载信息的发布人。如果是的话，这些网站可能将会因为其用户所提供的信息，而负上诽谤及其他法律责任。如果确立了这一规则，在线服务运营商就很可能会对用户间的交流进行严密的控制与监视，我们今天所见到的生动活泼、积极互动的互联网必将大打折扣。 In response to this concern, Congress passed legislation saying that interactive computer services are not publishers or speakers of any information others provide using their services. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is one of the most important protections for online speech in the United States. 出于这一顾虑，国会通过法案表明，电脑互动服务供应商并非其用户上载信息的发布人或发言人。《通信规范法案》（CDA）第230条，便是美国网上言论最重要的保障之一。 But CDA section 230 is often talked about as an “immunity” Congress gave to online service providers, a carve-out from general liability rules, put in place to advance a certain public policy goal. The perception of CDA section 230 as a special-interest favor means that other interests are on relatively strong footing when they come to Congress seeking to overturn it. Today, CDA section 230 is under attack from groups who would like to see it reversed. The rule against liability for online service providers would be stronger if courts had arrived at a rule of “no liability” based in considerations of natural justice. 但CDA第230条经常被认为有异于一般的责任条款，是国会旨在推动某一特定的公共政策，而赋予网络服务运营商的“豁免权”。该条款给人以一种照顾特殊利益的印象，这意味着当其他利益的代表寻求在国会推翻这一条款的时候，将会有较强的理据。如今，一些持反对立场的团体正在挑战该条款。如果在线服务供应商的“免责”是经由法庭考虑自然正义原则之后确立的话， 该规则就将会有较强的说服力。 When the rules that organize our society are temporal products of legislation, they may always be “in play” for a legislative reversal. Online service providers must always remain vigilant in Washington, D.C., for attempts to undercut their special “immunity.” The rules that govern online liability were established quickly, which is good, but they are less settled than they otherwise would be, and there is one more reason for private businesses to maintain a stable of lobbyists and lawyers in Washington. 如果规制社会的规则是因应时势的立法产物，那么这些规则就处于一种随时可能被立法推翻的状态之下。在线服务供应商就必须在华盛顿特区保持高度警觉，以防有人破坏他们的特殊“豁免权”。迅速订立规制网上责任的规则是好事，但这些规则的认受性本来可以更高一些，而且这也为私营企业在华盛顿豢养着一班说客和律师提供了多一个理由。 There is no guarantee, of course, that the common-law rule would be the same right now as what CDA section 230 produced. The common-law process might still be searching for the right rule. Common-law development would probably find, though, that online service providers are not liable for the acts of others. 当然，普通法体系下订立的规则，未必就和CDA第230条的内容一样。在普通法程序下，我们可能仍在寻找恰当的规则，当然，普通法体系很可能会认为在线服务供应商无需为他人的行为负责。 FAR FROM PERFECT, BUT BETTER IN PRACTICE 虽远未完美，但在实践中占优 This is no argument that common-law courts are perfect. They are not. It takes a very long time for just rules to be found out and settled on through common-law development. Elected judges often have incentives to please powerful constituencies. The class-action mechanism is prone to abuse and often used to reward plaintiffs’ lawyers. Punitive damages are too often a source of windfalls to lucky plaintiffs. The rules about who pays for litigation may be changed to improve the delivery of justice in the courts. 没有人会认为普通法法庭运作得很完美。并非如此。在普通法体系下，确立公平规则，并得到认受，需要很长的时间；选举产生的法官常有动机去迎合强大的利益团体；集体诉讼机制容易被滥用，而且常常有利于原告的律师；幸运的原告经常从惩罚性赔偿中大捞一票；为了正义能更好地在法庭上体现，诉讼费用的分担规则可能需要进行修改。 But these challenges are more correctable than the dynamics in legislation and regulation. Public choice economics teaches that actors in all these rule-making processes will pursue their own self-interest, but the interests of legislators and regulators are likely to diverge from justice more often than the interests of judges. 但这些难题，要比立法与规制过程中的纠葛易于解决。公共选择经济学指出，在规则制定的过程中，相关各方会追求自身的最大利益，但与法官比起来，立法者与监管者的利益很可能更容易与社会公义有分歧。 There is a fair argument that legislation and government regulation create certainty, which may make it worthwhile to accept their many costs. This is particularly acute in the area of high tech, where the application of common law may be unclear. 一种意见认为，明文立法与政府规章带来了确定性，因此随之而来的众多代价也就变得可以接受。这不是没有道理，特别在普通法的适用性并不明确的高科技领域，这显得尤其突出。 But regulation produces certainty in theory better than it does in practice. Witness the recent “BitLicense” fiasco in New York State. When Bitcoin, a digital currency, first captured public attention a few years ago, New York superintendent of financial services Ben Lawsky saw it as an opportunity to make his mark in a hot new area. He proposed an ill-defined “BitLicense” that would require registration of Bitcoin businesses in New York. During the rule-making process, his office declined to release “research and analysis” backing the necessity of a BitLicense, in violation of New York’s Freedom of Information Law. 成文法规理论上能带来确定性，但在实践中却未必。近来“比特登记证”（BitLicense）在纽约州的惨败便是一例。当电子货币比特币在几年前引起公众关注的时候，纽约金融服务主管本•洛斯基将其视为他在这个炙手可热的新领域留名的机会。他提议推出含混不清的“比特登记证”条例，要求纽约的比特币业务进行注册登记。在条例制定过程中，他的部门不惜违反纽约的《信息自由法》，拒绝提供与证明“比特登记证”之必要性相关的“研究与分析”。 The final “BitLicense” was a hodgepodge of regulations like the ones that burden the mainstream financial services sector. They were an ill fit with this emerging technology and a hindrance to innovation because they drove up the cost of starting new businesses. They didn’t acknowledge the technology’s inherent capability to provide consumer protections that surpass existing financial services. Shortly after the “BitLicense” was finalized, Lawsky stepped down from his post to establish a financial regulation consultancy. 和那些为主流金融服务增加负担的规章一样，最终出台的“比特登记证”条例是个大杂烩。这些条例完全不适应这一新兴技术，并且因提高创业成本而妨碍了创新。它们无视新技术内在的保护消费者的能力，这种保护超越了现有的金融服务。“比特登记证”条例推出不久，洛斯基就下台创立了一家金融监管咨询公司。 Today, it is anyone’s guess whether and how the New York Department of Financial Services will amend or enforce the technology- specific regulation that Lawsky produced. The “BitLicense” did not create certainty about the rules of the road for Bitcoin businesses in New York, and it did not create an upwelling of Bitcoin business activity in New York. America’s financial capital appears to be ceding ground on financial innovation to London, in the birthplace of common law. 今天，大家都在猜测纽约的金融服务管理局是否会修订或者执行洛斯基留下来的这一针对特定科技的条例，以及具体如何修订或执行。“比特登记证”并没有为比特币业务在纽约的发展之路带来确定性，也没有令比特币业务在纽约蓬勃发展。美国的金融之都在金融创新方面似乎正在让位于伦敦，普通法的发源地。 Common-law rules foster innovation because they allow anyone with a new idea or process to experiment with it, subject only to background rules, such as “stick to your promises” and “do no harm.” There are no forms to fill out or licensing fees. There is no oversight body that must examine how an innovation fits into pre-existing regulation. “Permissionless innovation” does mean some more risk to consumers and society, but our experience with high tech shows just how great the reward is when behavior is controlled with light-touch, simple, fair common-law rules. 普通法规则有利于创新，因为它允许人们去试验新主意和新方法，只要遵守诸如“履行承诺”、“避免伤害”等基本规则即可。不需要填表格，不需要付牌照费，也没有监管部门去检验一项创新在现行规章下如何自处。“免许可创新”的确意味着消费者和社会将面对较高的风险，但经验已经告诉我们，当我们的行为处于简单、公平的普通法规则的规制之下时，高科技将会给我们带来多么巨大的回报。 The United States and England today live under a dual system. In many areas, they continue to enjoy the benefits of the common law. But legislatures increasingly insert themselves, making temporal judgments that rejigger the rules that people and businesses must live by. In many fields, people look to legislation and regulation first, rather than examining how time-honored rules can be adapted to solve new problems. 现今的美国与英格兰生活在一个双重体系之下。在很多方面，她们继续享受着普通法的益处。但立法机关正不断强化自己的作用，用世俗的判断来改变日常生活与商业活动所需遵守的规则。在很多领域，人们首先寄望于立法与规管，而不是去审视自古以来的规则可以如何调适，以解决新生的问题。 Legislatures and regulatory agencies have a lot of smart people working in them. They universally believe they are pursuing the best interests of their jurisdictions. But the system they work in has perverse incentives, and they have little of the knowledge that common-law processes gather and pass down through the ages. “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience,” wrote jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in his 1881 book, The Common Law. 立法机关与监管部门当中不乏能人，他们普遍认为他们在为其辖区的最大利益而努力。但他们所供职的体系有着不当的激励，并且他们对普通法体系经年累月累积传承下来的知识知之甚少。法学家小奥利佛•温德尔•霍姆斯在他1881年所著的《普通法》一书中写道，“法律的生命从不在于逻辑，而在于经验，” The common law is an important part of structuring and ordering a free and prosperous society. It is preferable to legislation and government regulation. Even when we confront new problems, we lovers of liberty should remember the common law. 构建与规范一个自由繁荣的社会，普通法体系乃重要一环，它比成文的法律与政府规章更为可取。即便遭遇新的挑战，热爱自由的我们也不应该忘记普通法。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

【2016-07-27】 @whigzhou: Yes,Minister里描绘的那种官僚机构捕获权力，事务官戏弄选举官员的情况，在美国不太严重，原因可能是大量非官方智库和游说机构的存在，将政治纲领转变成可操作的具体法案，是桩繁重的技术活，许多智库和游说机构就是帮政客干这活的，如果这些活都被拿政府经费的研究机构包揽了，情况就完全不同。 @whigzhou: 所以尽管游说活动有种种不好，那也比用官办研究机构取代它们好，这是反对由政府资助研究活动的最重要理由，哪怕资助的是貌似与政治无涉的自然科学研究，最终也会变成权力捕获者，比如暖球党。 @whigzhou: 由此想到的一个问题是，川普上台后会找谁来干这活呢？那些多年来大力主张自由市场的保守派智库，难道真能厚着脸皮去帮川普草拟法案如何将关税提高到40%，如何惩罚拒绝将工厂搬回来的公司？如何解除美国对盟国的安全责任？依我看，他只能去左派那里找了。

【2016-07-27】 狄宇宙在《古代中国与其强邻》中提出的观点很有意思，列出的事实很明显，但之前好像没见过讨论， 1）秦赵燕三国在战国后期对北方非华夏的游牧或畜牧民族发动了大型征伐，将控制线向北推进了数百公里， 2）秦赵燕的长城远非农耕与草原的生态边界，而是大幅远离这条边界，深入草原，特别是赵长城， 3）所以长城并非防御性策略的结果，而是扩张政策的结果， 4）秦统一后延续了这一扩张政策，但随后局面发生了逆转， 5）秦汉之际和汉前期是一个华夏大幅退缩的阶段， 6）武帝发动的大型战争是对此退缩的反弹，其对非华夏区的征伐规模此后任何华夏政权再也没达到过。 说几点我的看法： 1）统一集权帝国抵御游牧入侵的能力不如割据状态，原因之一是因为他不敢把重兵放在远离权力中心的边境上，蒙恬是第一个例子， 2）统一集权帝国对进攻性政策的意愿也弱于割据的边缘国，因为和亲纳贡政策对它来说相对成本更低，而边地的相对价值也更低， 3）汉武的成就看来是个特例，这一特例之所以出现，有两个较明显的原因：A）帝国历史不长，人口压力尚轻，因而可动员资源较多，B）伴随大型帝国的和平化时间较短，战士禀赋尚未大幅削弱， 4）唐帝国勉强维持了那么久而没被冲垮，是因为它的集权程度不太高，后期近乎于割据状态， 5）明帝国看起来是个反例，可能的解释是：A）小冰期游牧势力大幅退缩，B）迁都北京+大运河部分解决了（1）所提到的难题 @黄章晋ster: 处于割据对立时，很容易形成普鲁士林立的情形，一旦统一为一个中央集权帝国，大约百年后就进入无人知兵、柔弱不武的军力下滑通道。 @whigzhou: 对 @黄章晋ster:一个超大帝国保持稳定，只能依靠一个庞大的具有相同信仰的文官和精英建立统一认同才能做到，而这个组织系统和它的价值观必然是排斥职业军人的。这样的帝国几亿人和几千万并无区别。但在一个军事贵族集团统治的农业社会，有五百万人就足够对付铁木真了。 @whigzhou: 贵帝国的历史就是一个不断打压尚武文化的历史，到最后军户甚至都变成贱籍了  

【2016-07-25】 @whigzhou: 以统计学方法为主导的研究有个问题是，容易让人忽视一些有着根本重要性但又缺乏统计差异的因素，比如身高，在一个儿童营养条件普遍得到保障的社会，研究者可能会得出『营养不是影响身高的重要因素』的结论，并且这一结论可能在很多年中都经受住了考验，直到有一天，某一人群经历了一次严重营养不良…… @whigzhou: 在可控实验中，此类问题可以通过对营养条件这一参数施加干预而得以避免，但社会科学领域常常不具备对参数进行任意干预的条件，只能用统计学方法来模拟可控实验，可是当某些变量的采样值缺乏多样性时，这一模拟便无法进行，于是便留下了盲点。 @whigzhou: 近年来有很多针对国别的政治学研究，量化了很多指标，统计学工具也用的挺熟练，但我总有种感觉，一些基本背景条件似乎没有得到足够关注，比如拿破仑战争之后各国政治的一个基本背景是英帝或美帝的存在，这一条件如此普遍而牢固乃至观察不到差异，一旦消除，会动摇多少结论呢？ @whigzhou: 让问题变得更棘手的是那些存在足够大差异但『边际影响率从某个阈值开始骤减』的变量，比如钙摄入量与身高的关系，在『从零到适宜值』这个区间，钙摄入对身高影响显著，而从适宜值往上，边际影响率急减，几乎没影响，此时更容易得出错误结论。 @慕容飞宇gg: 是。类似的各种公立学校和私立学校的比较也存在类似问题，现有的结论都只适用于现在90%的学生上公立学校的基本背景。对李伯儒主导的学界来说这个基本背景是理所当然的。 @whigzhou: 嗯 @whigzhou: 我们经常听到诸如『某一特性差异60%归因于基因，40%归于环境』之类的说法，仿佛这一归因比例是某个固有值似的，而实际上，这些比例当然高度依赖于目标人群的生存条件，你把一个群体的铅污染全部消除，智力的环境影响『比重』立马就降低了。 @whigzhou: Taleb的《黑天鹅》想要谈论的就是这个主题，可是他太笨了，写了厚厚一本看起来很哲学的砖头书，结果也没说清楚。  

【2016-07-23】 @linsantu 发表了博文《科学家和哲学家的宗教信仰》（6月24日改自去年知乎回答，7月10日发表于腾讯大家）一我们生活在一个科学主义的时代，科学家（尤其是自然科学家）常常被视为理性与真理的化身。因此一般人在讨论“神 http://t.cn/R5gmmgp @Drunkplane-zny: @whigzhou 辉总也许会对这文章感兴趣。我感觉挺有趣的。 @whigzhou: 这主要是个文化现象，不从文化方面入手没啥意思 @whigzhou: 我见过一些信仰调查问卷，基本观感是，通常它们的问题都问的很蠢，让我无从回答，比如『你认为上帝存在吗？』这种问题，若不澄清其操作性含义，便毫无意义，『你有宗教信仰吗？』也差不多，『你觉得下列哪顶帽子更适合你：无神论者、怀疑论者、不可知论者、基督徒……』稍微好一点，但信息量也不大。 @whigzhou: 假如1950年的一位数学家说自己是基督徒，2010年的一位数学家说自己是无神论者，依我看，这一不同表态对于我们判断他们在基本哲学立场上有何差异毫无帮助。 @whigzhou: 因为如何表态主要取决于他们是否喜欢『基督徒』和『无神论者』这两个词所沾上的文化气味 @whigzhou: 宗教信仰主要是一种文化认同，跟哲学立场没什么关系，或者说两者间关系是高度任意的，『全知全能的上帝规定了物理定律并通过这些定律运行世界』和无神论有什么经验上可辨认差异吗？反之，无神论者照样可以相信灵性、感质和各种天钩。 @whigzhou: 所以，假如你要把宗教当成一个哲学问题来问，那么你的问题就不能这么幼稚或暗含立场，假如你要把它当成文化认同问题来问，那么像『你经常去教堂吗？』『假如你没受过洗，你会在未来受洗吗？』『你常阅读圣经吗？』『教会生活对你重要吗？』『你希望自己的葬礼遵循基督教仪轨吗？』之类的问题会更好。 @whigzhou: 当代美国社会的语境中，信仰问题其实已经收窄到了其伦理方面，即，争议参与者所关切的，主要是其伦理方面，其中要点可表述为：在判定某一人类行动应该与否时，除了个人欲望、理性及其集体表达之外，是否存在某个更高（或最高）的外部指引，若是，它具体给出了哪些指引？ @whigzhou: 多数坚守信仰者所意图坚守的，其实是这个，尽管他们自己往往也表达不清楚。  

【2016-07-21】 @海德沙龙: 《牛仔：备受排挤的濒危物种》 2014年的内华达『邦迪对峙』和今年初的俄勒冈占领行动，让牛仔这个久已被遗忘的群体又进入了公众视野，本文是一位俄勒冈牧场主写给《华盛顿邮报》的一封信，讲述了近年来联邦政府的土地与环境政策如何影响着他们的生计。 @海德沙龙: 牧场主处境恶化只是这场对抗的背景之一，更大的背景是日益膨胀的国家主义与美国传统价值观的对立，『邦迪对峙』得到了众多民兵组织的支持，这些民兵组织代表了自由、独立、自治的古老美国传统，通过支持牧场主的行动，他们展示了不惜以武力对抗联邦政府权力扩张的决心。 @whigzhou: 牧区与深红区高度重合 @whigzhou: 牛仔最多的落基山东麓各州（爱达荷、蒙大拿、怀俄明、犹他）既是保守派势力最稳固的州，也是共和党初选中川普输的最惨的州，这不是巧合 @whigzhou: 90年代以来，美国学术界急剧左倾，但这一倾向并非均匀分布，左倾最严重的是新英格兰地区的大学，而落基山东麓各州的大学是唯一的例外，保守派比例不降反升，不想放弃学术的保守派都跑那儿去了 @whigzhou: 从下图可见，美国学术界近二十年的左倾化主要是新英格兰大学贡献的 http://t.cn/RtAxkDi Figure 2. Regional Ideological Variations of Americas Professors: 1989 – 2014 @whigzhou: 美国校园的革命小将再这么闹下去，说不定到最后就是这些对学术最没兴趣的落基州保存了美国的学术和思想自由，这不由让人想起瑞士，很难说瑞士山民对金融业有什么兴趣，但正是瑞士山民的彪悍、独立和对自由的执着，在动荡年代为欧洲金融业保存了一个避难所。  

【2016-07-18】 @whigzhou: 凯末尔主义终结之后，土耳其的一些可能发展：离开北约（主动或被动），占领叙利亚的部分地区，攻击伊拉克库尔德地区，在高加索和中亚扶植马仔因而与俄国发生冲突，为争夺中东霸权而与伊朗和/或沙特发生冲突…… @whigzhou: 七年前的诺贝尔和平奖不愧为史上最具预见性和最具激励效果的诺贝尔奖～ @龙与羊驼: 凯末尔主义是和纳赛尔一样的工业党，为什么不能被终结？经济只有自由化才能最终推动政治自由化，不自由的经济根本不可能推进政治社会风气的开放。 @whigzhou: 绿化是『一颗要命丸』，都不用第二颗，跟这个抉择相比，其他都不重要了 @whigzhou: 宪政基础是根，经济表现是果，经济政策、自由化、私有化，都只是小枝桠而已，都是很容易逆转的事情，花枝插在花瓶里不也能绚烂几天嘛，鸟用 @blue-tomato: 像土尔其这么大的一个国家，而且是一个有着一定经济能力的宪政民主国家，还需要依靠军队的协助才能摆脱宗教（绿化）的入侵，这是否说明绿化的强大与及宪政民主的无能呢？ @whigzhou: 说明宪政存续条件之苛刻 @blue-tomato: 非常有意思。如果是这样，谁人可以在规则既定的条件下，推翻规则，扮演最后的救世主，而且有充足的理由得到人们的信任？貌似魔兽里的守护者最终却是引进兽人的作恶者 @whigzhou: 以前是英帝，后来是美帝，现在，恐怕已经没了 @whigzhou: 多年来我已反复强调宪政基础相对于中短期变革与增长的重要性，复习一下：《从摊贩胜诉看印度法治》 《不必对南非期望太高》 《下一块金砖在哪里？》 @安德鲁杰克逊蓝卫兵:但是弗里德曼说只要经济自由，社会必定开放，政治必定自由，这个怎么讲？ @whigzhou: http://headsalon.org/archives/7107.html  

【2016-07-15】 @whigzhou: 神速，脱欧大臣David Davis公布了离欧经济战略 http://t.cn/R5FEuRb Trade deals. Tax cuts. And taking time before triggering Article 50. A Brexit economic strategy for Britain @_bear_:新上任的女首相怎么样？从就任演讲看似乎并不怎么靠谱呢 @whigzhou: 立场跟卡梅隆差不多，你觉得不靠谱的地方（我猜）其实是延续了卡梅隆的纲领，即在社会议题上彻底放弃保守立场（效果是消灭了这些议题），福利问题上从撒切尔立场后撤，走所谓『一族』路线 @whigzhou: 除了这几点，在自由贸易、财政开支、税收、管制等议题上，都算得上亲市场，比川普好多了 @whigzhou: 我的理想人选是最撒切尔主义的Michael Gove，可惜党内支持不足，Gove是那种会向医疗和教育这两个福利主义坚固堡垒发动攻击的人，这对于卡梅隆和梅姨都是不可想象的，目前政治气候下可能也得不到支持，而目前这个大转变最需要的是党内团结，所以我觉得在可能结果里，梅姨还是相当理想的。 @whigzhou: 最可喜的是，梅姨在脱欧问题上完全没有拖泥带水，这一点从原帖所转声明中可以看得很清楚，几个日程期限设定都比之前大家预期的要早 【2016-07-17】 @whigzhou: 梅姨废掉了暖球部，表态支持低价能源开发，赞 http://t.cn/Rthcb1C @whigzhou: 梅姨组建的脱欧三驾马车非常给力，脱欧注定会占据这届政府的大部分注意力，她在社会议题上的倾向就没那么重要了，形势所迫，在经济方面恢复信心将是优先考虑，只要她显示出对这点的领悟，便值得看好  

【2016-07-16】 @whigzhou: 昨天跟熊也聊天时我说，川普只要不支持贸易保护和15美元最低工资，还是可以赢得我支持的，福利主义是慢性病，可以慢慢治，贸易保护和高额最低工资则是速效自杀丸，后者尤烈，而且川普粉一直没想明白一件事：贸易保护是吸引低技能移民的大功率吸尘器，你把劳动密集型工厂都弄回来，拉美移民必定暴增。 @whigzhou: 北美自由贸易协定的一个后果就是大幅降低了墨西哥移民，近两年甚至已转为净流出，一旦实施贸易保护，这一趋势立刻逆转。  

【2016-07-16】 @方悄悄诺娃 有人问：你这样张口闭口小粉红，你跟小粉红有什么区别？ 区别很明显啊……我从没逼人表过态，也没去别人微博底下骂过街……小时候被人踩了一脚，我哭了，我妈妈问我是不是很疼，我说他为什么不跟我说对不起……然后那人听见了就跟我说“对不起”，我就哭着说“没关系”啊……我哪有小粉红万分之一的战斗力，不要谬赞我了。 @sw小橘子: 词的褒贬，是随着词所指对象的属性而变迁的。本来是褒义的词，长期用在卑劣的事物上，就带上了贬义。本来是贬义的词，长期用在价值链上游，就带上了褒义。那么，“小粉红”是如何成为贬义词的呢？ @whigzhou: 可不是嘛，whig/tory/yankee最早都是骂人话，只有最自信者才能欣然接受这些贬义绰号 @whigzhou: 英国人在这方面最豁达，美国黑人的称呼已经换了那么多个了，最后都没变成好词，negro在60年代还是中性词，约翰逊政府的官方文件里还这么叫，现在已经变成禁用词了 @whigzhou: 连Iron Lady都是俄国人叫出来的 @whigzhou: 马丁路德金在1963年那篇演讲里还把自己的民族称为Negro @whigzhou: 针对美国白人的蔑称不计其数，craker, okie, redneck, hillbilly，也没见受者满地打滚，很多人反而欣然受之引以为豪，最露骨的词是white trash，80年代很多南方白人作家自称white trash，1986年还出了本《白垃圾烹饪》，热卖