秩序的解耦#8：普世的，太普世的 辉格 2017年3月3日 在部落社会，人们在与自己人（即所在部落的其他成员）和外人交往时，奉行着完全不同的伦理标准，对外人的痛苦与不幸所抱的同情心，伤害或欺骗他们时产生的负罪感，都要弱得多，在目睹他们被欺凌时，更少出手相助匡扶正义的义务感，当他们做出（在自己看来）有悖伦理的事情时，也更少施以惩罚、加以阻止或纠正的冲动（这是一种基于蔑视的宽容——他们根本不算人，所以有此非人举动我也不必大惊小怪）。 随着群体间交往增多，大范围和平秩序的建立，伦理上的内外之别已逐渐削弱，但它从未完全消除，即便到近现代，一些历史上国家权力鞭长莫及或法律不彰的地区，西西里，巴尔干，闽南，菲律宾，索马里，宗族组织和部落主义仍然盛行，这些地方因而也盛产组织严密的黑帮，其特点是内部有着良好规范，充满合作互助友情关爱，对外则冷酷无情毫无底线。 这些反面案例提醒我们，不分亲疏的普遍正义感是晚近才出现的道德情感，是自文明起源以来人们在流动性大社会长期生活的产物，并非由人类古老天性所保证。 对陌生人态度的改变，首先源自安全感的提升；对特定事物的恐惧是可以习得的，多数灵长类都怕蛇，但并不都是天生就怕，有些猴类幼年时不怕蛇，直到有一天看到成年猴对蛇做出惊恐反应，从此学会，但并不是说这些猴类对蛇没有某种先天倾向，它们很容易学会怕蛇，一次观察即可学会，却不容易以同样方式学会怕其他东西；事实上，一些实验显示，灵长类头脑中似乎有一个“蛇探测器”，让它们能够敏锐的从杂乱背景中发现蛇形物，远比发现其他形状的物体更敏锐，这也解释了为何它们在看到长辈的惊恐反应时，能迅速领会到惊恐的对象是什么。 对人类来说，最危险的动物显然是其他人类，但同时，最亲密的伙伴也是其他人类，因而关键在于如何区分安全的和不安全的人类；在游团或村庄这样的小型社会，这问题可以通过熟识关系轻松解决，谁是朋友，谁是仇家，谁是性格乖张凶暴的恶人，大家都很清楚，偶尔有陌生人到来，也可依据将他带进来的那个人对他的态度而判定，如果没有证据表明他是友善的，就一律视为危险分子。 所以小社会的人总是对新来者表现出强烈的好奇心，小孩会躲到大人身后，直到从大人的态度中重新获得安全感，新人到来的消息会迅速传遍整个村庄，人们贴在门缝上扒在窗户上，急切捕捉任何有助于弄清其底细的线索，热烈讨论每个细节，主人也会觉得有义务向邻居们说明客人的背景，人们如此积极的获取有关一个人的信息，就是为了将他做出适当的归类，以便采用适当的策略处理与他的关系（戒备，攻击，示好，漠视）。 可是在更大的社会中，这套方法就不怎么管用了，你没工夫弄清那么多人的背景，就算弄清了也记不住，于是我们转而采用贴标签归大类的省力办法，而其中最重要的一个类别，就是我们文化上的同类，即和我们有着相同的语言、背景知识、信仰、历史记忆、亲属系统，遵循着同样的习俗、交往礼仪和其他社会规范的人类。 当我们将一个人认定为文化同类，那么即便与他未曾谋面，也可相信能够从他的举止中推断其动机和信念，通过交谈了解其意图和需要，即便有分歧冲突也有协商的可能，总之，他们是可以沟通的，可以被我们的理由与愿景打动的，有道理可讲的，可以理喻的。 和蛇探测器一样，我们头脑中也有一个文化同类探测器；当小型社会向部落、酋邦和早期国家发展时，各种身份符号被创造出来，以方便人们将共同体伙伴识别为同类，随着共同体扩大，被归为同类的人越来越多，遍及人们能够感知的整个世界，而异类只存在于遥远的边疆，或那些被征服而未被同化的少数族群之中，多数时候，他们只是一面可以从中照出文化自我的镜子，而不再是一种需要时刻警惕的威胁。 正是在这一历史阶段——时间上可粗略对应于卡尔·雅斯培（[[Karl Jaspers]]）所称的轴心时代（[[Axial Age]]）——，人类道德心理发生了一次重大转向，一种新的道德情感首先在流动的精英阶层中浮现，随后又因他们的影响力而主导了整个社会的道德氛围。 这些精英的一个重要来源，是未能继承家业或权力的王族或贵族子弟，虽然他们在族内的地位有所跌落，但仍有机会获得良好的教育并建立广泛的社交网络（因为贵族的通婚和社交圈子都比平民更广泛更有价值），家族的财富和社会资本让他们得以自如的游走于各城邦或小国之间，或以一技之长服务于大小君主，或自立门户，招纳门徒，行侠仗义，传道授业，著书立说。 他们于是面临一个问题：在脱离了原有的家族和地方社区之后，如何为自己建立声望，以获得合作伙伴（特别是他们所服务的君主）的尊敬与信任？在以往的低流动社会，这些很大程度上是由共同体成员身份自动保证的：因为我成长并生活于这样的群体中，必定会被教会遵循这些规范，任何偏离都会立即遭受其他成员的惩罚或孤立，你可以相信我不会那么做，是因为我从未被允许那么做，我对这些禁忌的恐惧如此强烈，以至于我根本不会那么做，这跟我个人的品性关系不大。 对于游走四方的精英士子和工商业者，这些因素（群体所强加的义务和禁忌，对神灵的畏惧，从小沉浸在特定文化中所养成的习惯）仍然起作用，但越来越缺乏说服力，因为他们各自出身群体的不同习俗和信仰，各自畏惧的不同神灵，对个体行为究竟有多大约束力，在他人眼里都是可疑的，更可疑的是，在脱离原有群体之后，这些约束是否还会延续？那些据说如此偏爱和眷顾特定群体的神灵，其法力真的会超出信奉它的地方吗？ 为解决这个问题，他们必须寻找一种新的、无关特定文化的理由来博取他人的尊敬与信任，他们找到的是普遍人性与个人品德，逻辑是这样的：无论来自何方，我们都有着相似的情感，都能理解同情他人的欲望和痛苦，所以只要一个人心地善良，通情达理，便可按一些极为简单、并且从人类同情心可自然引出的原则——比如己所不欲勿施于人——来指导自己该如何行事，才不会伤害到他人。 于是问题转向：如何让人相信你果真拥有这样的品德？为此，人们创造出了各种美德展示（[[virtue signalling]]）系统，向饥民施粥，为乞丐洗脚，替病人吸脓血，以展示自己的同情心，戒断肉食，禁欲独身，衣衫褴褛甚至裸身跣足，以展示自己克制贪欲（这被认为是众多恶行的根源）的能力，主动置身险境，承受痛苦，残毁肢体，以展示自己的坚忍和毅力：我连这样的痛苦都能忍受，还有什么原则不能坚持？什么誓言不能遵守？什么使命会被我辱没？ 展示信号的成本必须足够高才显得可信，和动物的禀赋展示信号（比如羚羊通过炫耀性跳跃告诉捕食者：看，我身手这么敏捷，劝你还是去追别人吧）一样，美德展示也会引发军备竞赛，竞相攀比令其变得越来越极端，当然，绝大部分人无法负担那些极端的形式，但他们可以将其作为代理展示手段，通过赞美、追随、资助、膜拜践行这些极端方式的僧侣和圣徒，可以在众人心目中营造一种自己和他们共享着同样价值与美德的印象。 美德展示可能是真实的，也可能是虚假或夸大的，但无论它是否真实，都会推动舆论氛围的转变，被颂扬的美德成为新的评价标准，通过社会压力而改变人们的行为，最终将其确立为社会规范。 从习惯性的循规蹈矩到自觉的善行义举，从群体强加的义务到个人的品德展示，从基于恐惧的顺服到主动的原则坚守，从功利性的泛灵信仰到非功利性的道德神崇拜，从不同文化孕育的多样习俗到基于一般原则的普遍伦理，从亲疏有别的部落主义到一视同仁的一般正义感，这一系列转变导致了人类道德体系的升级，变得更为普世化，这一体系（连同国家所维持的法律秩序）让文化各异的地方社区得以结成大型共同体。 普世化转变与社会流动的关系，从各大文明的历史中不难看出，希腊哲学的兴起于学者在各城邦间的流动，儒家学说形成的时间也与士人阶层开始周游列国相契合，基督教向普世宗教的转变正是基于散布于希腊罗马世界的犹太社区摆脱旧习俗的需要，这些犹太人都聚居于高流动性的大城市，并以流动性职业为生，近代欧洲启蒙运动中普世主义的再度兴起，与商业繁荣、城市扩张、印刷术，以及知识精英经由旅行、沙龙和通信所结成的交流网络（所谓[[Republic of Letters]]）脱不了关系，当今西方普世主义与民族主义和特殊主义的较量中，前者在大都市赢得了最多的支持者。 普世主义（[[universalism]]）在人类社会的文明化进程中功不可没，一个容易观察到的例证，是文明地区残酷行为的普遍减少和慈善活动的普遍增加，早期国家极为盛行的人牲献祭和人殉，到古典时代已基本废止，肉刑也逐渐减少直至销声匿迹，各大宗教都倡导慈善义举，无论是否真心诚意，统治者们也都努力将自己装扮成普世道德的守护者，早期宗教中那些暴戾乖张的神灵逐渐被改造得面目和善。 然而，尽管有这些好处，普世主义往往会走过头，裹进一些不切实际乃至有害的想法；诚然，人类有着许多共同天性，这些共性让有着不同族群渊源和文化背景的人们有可能在一些基本道德原则上达成一致，进而基于这些原则发展出让共同生活成为可能的伦理与法律体系，或者将既已存在的体系变得相互兼容，假如普世主义的含义到此为止，那是可以成立的，并且恰好体现了人类社会的进步历程。 但事实上它已被赋予了更多内涵，首先是性善论：人类天性是善良的，一些社会之所以陷于罪恶与黑暗之中，只是因为良心被无知所蒙蔽，所以，只要多一些教育，长一些见识，多一些理性与科学，去除一些蒙昧，让人类天性充分发展，那么个体良心就会自动汇集成公共之善，实现普遍正义。 其次是自然权利论：一些基本权利是与生俱来的，一些基本的道德与法律规则（包括上述自然权利的内容）是不言自明的，这两者都不是任何人类制度所创造的，而是依自然与人类的本性而自动确立，有些地方权利遭受践踏，道德原则被破坏，只是因为世间（不知何故）还有一些坏蛋恶棍、暴君、邪恶势力，以及善良人的无知与软弱，所以，只要除掉一些恶人，推翻几个暴君，增加一些理性，权利便可得到保护，正义即可得以伸张。 从以上两点，又顺理成章的推演出政治上的世界主义（[[cosmopolitanism]]）：全体人类，无论源自哪个种族或民族，有着何种文化背景，身处何种社会，都拥有同样的善良天性，保有同样的天赋权利，认可并乐意遵守同样的基本规则，赞赏同样的普世价值，所以，只要给他们机会（这通常意味着只须解除殖民者或专制暴君的压制），都能建立起效果相似的法律与政治制度，来维护这些权利与规则。 这进而意味着，保护自然权利与普世规则的宪政与法律制度，是文化中性的，它们在一些国家首先建立，并不是因为那里的人民在心理和文化上有何特殊之处，只不过各民族在走向人类终极命运的道路上有些快慢先后而已，所以，那些先行一步的国家大可听任其人口之种族与文化构成被任意替换，而不必担心现有制度会因此而被侵蚀垮塌。 这一切听上去很美好，却是完全错误的；孤立的看，人人都爱权利与自由，列出一份权利清单去问他们喜不喜欢，或许会听到异口同声一片亚克西，但一个人热爱自己的权利，并不等于他会尊重他人的权利，在人类相互杀戮了几十万年之后，说他们突然变得如此善良，以至出于本性（而非制度约束）就愿意尊重他人权利了，这断难让人相信。 权利并非由天而降，而是从人类个体与群体之间竞争与合作的博弈均衡中浮现，并由一整套制度确立和保障（这一过程并未完结，新型权利仍在不断创生），其中由国家权力所支持的司法系统起了关键作用，但国家同时也是侵犯个人权利的最危险组织；如何建立一个足够强大，有能力抵御外敌，维持和平，执行法律的国家，同时又将其随时可能伸进私人生活的手牢牢捆住，并确保其巨大权力不落入独夫或帮派之手？ 国家起源之后的数千年中，这问题始终未被解决，直到宪政在金雀花王朝的英格兰得以建立；近代以来，钦羡或震惊于英美的成就，各国群起效仿，但在英语国家之外，复制成功者只是少数，有些仿制品在现实中达到了近似的效果，但并未证明能够自我维持，因为它们始终寄生于先由英国后由美国所主导的国际秩序之中，一旦这一秩序瓦解，其宪政能否延续，至少是可疑的。 建立和维持宪政之所以困难，一是因为达成权力制衡结构本身就是小概率事件，二是因为制衡结构必须长期存在才能成为各方的可靠预期，才能制度化为宪政，才能培养出温和保守、善于妥协的政治传统，以及珍视并积极捍卫这些传统的舆论氛围和公民美德——特别是在社会精英中间。 重要的是，这些作为宪政与法治之土壤的美德，与各大文明中普遍受推崇的那些美德十分不同，有些甚至在直觉上相互冲突；劫富济贫的佐罗，支持穷人赖账的法官，绕过司法程序惩治贪官的明君，在几乎所有文明中都广受赞誉，为平息民怨而插手地方事务破坏其自治权，动用强权的废除鄙俗陋习，不顾议事程序雷厉风行的推进受民众欢迎的改革，也同样备受称颂。 同情弱者，温和谦让，诚实守信，友爱互助，痛恨贪腐，这些能直接带来可欲结果的一阶美德，是容易被理解和赞赏的，因而不难成为普世价值，然而推动和维护宪政所需要的，更多的是二阶美德，它们首先为良好的制度创造条件，然后由这些制度产生可欲结果，这一间接迂回的关系不容易凭常识得到理解或为直觉所接受，只有长期沉浸于孕育它们的特定文化传统之中，才能加以赞赏和珍视，并内化为信仰和价值观。 就算能帮穷人摆脱困苦，也不能支持他赖账，就算法官做出了被众人视为不公的裁决，也要支持司法独立，就算地方政府昏庸无能，也要支持地方自治，就算某本著作充斥着错误荒唐庸俗乏味的无稽之谈，也要支持言论与出版自由，就算灾民身处水深火热之中，未经州长请求也不能把军队开进灾区，就算你相信强迫制药厂低价卖药可以拯救大批病人，也要反对政府剥夺私人财产权，就算你认为阿米绪孩子受教育太少，也要支持宗教自由，也要反对政府将监护权从父母手中夺走…… 正因为需要这些远非普世的特殊美德，宪政体制并不是文化中性的，许多守护着美国人自由的美德——比如对持枪权的热爱与执着——，在美国以外很少得到同情，世人对宪政这棵果树结出的果实大流口水（在这一点上，普世主义确实没错），却常常对果树之根和它深植于其中的文化土壤懵然无知甚或嗤之以鼻，这样你就很难相信，他们仅仅依靠自己也同样能把果树种活养好。 过去二十多年的全球化浪潮曾让许多人产生了世界大同即将到来的感觉，可不是嘛，跨越数万公里的远洋运输成本甚至已低于数十公里的陆地运送，高速互联网完全消除了通信的距离差异，来自千百个民族的数十亿人，有史以来首次真切体会到共同生活在一个高度流动性的全球社会中的感觉，呼吸着同一片自由空气，享受着前所未有的繁荣，谁会不喜欢？谁又肯放弃这样的美好？ 也许不会放弃，但可能会丢失，与澳洲大陆隔绝之后的塔斯马尼亚人，逐渐丢失了几乎所有工具制作技能，那显然不是他们想要放弃的，他们只是不具备保有这些文化元素的条件，甚至有意识、有组织、真心诚意的努力维护也未必成功，高举《人权宣言》的法国革命政府很快变成了一部恐怖专政机器，雅各宾党人对自由与权利的热情、真诚，其个人品格的廉正无私，都是毋庸置疑的，罗伯斯庇尔在年轻时还为坚守反对死刑原则而辞去了刑事法庭法官的职务，可是在掌握权力之后，实现美好理想的努力一步步发展成对反对者的血腥屠杀，短短一年内将四万多人送上了断头台。 当今全球市场的运行，端赖于美国霸权所保障的世界和平秩序，只有宪政国家才会将霸权用于支持市场秩序，而非用于掠夺和征服，然而也正因此，世人常常无视或遗忘这一基础的存在，因为掠夺征服是看得见的，对市场秩序的基础性支持则不容易看见，而且越是可靠就越不容易被看见，或许只有当这一支持被撤回时，人们才会在一片惊恐中恍然大悟，就好比静静躺在大洋深处的海底光缆，只有当它断掉时才会引起世人注意。  

【2017-05-02】 @whigzhou: 铁取代青铜可能从两方面削弱了对长距离贸易的需求：1）铁矿分布广泛，2）青铜的两种主原料铜和锡很少共存一地，而冶铁只须一种矿物。这一削弱，加上铁器的廉价易得，或许部分解释了青铜文明在地中海世界的崩溃，因为铁器普及让旧精英阶层对矿产地和贸易路线的控制变得一文不值，也不再能独占武器优势。 ​​​​ @太文公_96861: 廉价技术普及进而贵族精英阶层遭受打击。步兵取代骑士好像也这样。是不是伴随着政治平民化的过程？然后海上民族入侵了。 @whigzhou: 对。有人确实认为希腊民主和铁代铜有关系，无论这一点是否成立，对大规模步兵的需求与政治平民化的关系是明确的 @whigzhou: 在考虑人工智能的制度后果时，这也是不可忽视的一条线索，普选权和福利制度曾经是换取大规模动员能力的代价  

【2016-07-01】 @whigzhou: 澳洲的强制投票制创造了很多娱乐性政党。 ​​​​ @熊也餐厅:不去登记就可以不用投票。登记了不投以前是罚款五十澳元，现在怎么样就不知道。 @whigzhou: 不登记只是让政府可能开不了罚单而已，没有这样的豁免，我查过 @空的发狂WALLE:强制公民履行政治义务，为什么？ @whigzhou: 从实际效果上看，明显的结果是提高左派得票率，比民主党用大巴将本来不会投票的人一车车拉到投票站的效果好5倍，瑞士的一个案例显示，强制投票可将左派得票率提高20% @whigzhou: 澳洲各州中，政治倾向最左的塔斯马尼亚也是执行义务投票法最起劲的州，2010年大选后开出了5000张罚单 @熊也餐厅: 懒惰的右派不会因此而获利吗？ @whigzhou: 总体上不会，投票意愿低的人里总体上左派比例高得多，否则为啥民主党出动大巴共和党不这么做呢  

【2017-02-23】 @研二公知苗 不少人在讲移民问题时，都忽略社会，文化和政治成本，只讲纯经济收益。讲经济收益时，理论上，无论是受高等教育的合法移民还是从事低端工作的非法移民带来的纯经济收益理论上都是正的。但是这种收益不是一些人描绘的帕累托改进。相反，这种收益实际上带有很强的再分配性质。尤其是考虑到非法移民增加了低端工作岗位的供给，压低了低端岗位的工资，实际上是一种带有劫贫济富性质的再分配。 @whigzhou: 你说的是分配效应，distributive effect，不是再分配，后面这个词要难听得多 @whigzhou: 贸易开放、技术进步、资源发现，都有很强的分配效应，但不是再分配，后者是对由市场机制分配的要素报酬通过非市场手段进行人际转移 @whigzhou: 制度和政策上无视分配效应，是自由市场原则的要点之一，否则贸易保护、卢德分子、行会特权、工会垄断，就都有了位置 @研二公知苗: 但现实中，自由市场的运行还是需要政治上的保障。对受损者的补偿就是为了使得自由市场的基本原则在政治上具有可持续性。 @whigzhou: 妥协让步当然可以，但让步不能通过修改自己的是非观来进行，『你欠我100，还不起？好吧，那就免掉你30』vs『你欠我100，还不起？好吧，那就算你只借了70』  

【2017-02-21】 ​​​​@whigzhou: 如果让你列出五件东西，没了它们美国（在你眼里）就不再是美国了，你会选哪五件？我的选择：持枪权，[[stand your ground]]，陪审团，最高法院，州权。 @都市学派:宪法必须排第一。 @whigzhou: 宪法很难判定怎么算『没了』，我列的五件都很容易判别 @慕容飞宇gg:辉总的意思是没了其中一件还是全部没了？ @whigzhou: 每少一件就更远离一点啊（幸亏我不是本质主义者） @银色子弹V5: 那不也很好嘛，变成加拿大了 @whigzhou: 说到点子上了，没这些就是加拿大了，我之所以选这几件，不是说其他（比如言论自由、私人财产权）不重要，而是认为这些才是让美国比盎格鲁世界乃至自由世界的其他部分更自由的东西，是特别美国的东西  

Aid and Politics 援助与政治 作者:Angus Deaton @ 2013-08-16 译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 校对:辉格(@whigzhou) 来源:Princeton University Press,http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s2_10054.pdf To understand how aid works we need to study the relationship between aid and politics. Political and legal institutions play a central role in setting the environment that can nurture prosperity and economic growth. Foreign aid, especially when there is a lot of it, affects how institutions function and how they change. Politics has often choked off economic growth, and even in the world before aid, there were good and bad political systems. 要理解援助是如何运作的，我们需要对援助与政治之间的关系做一番研究。在创造恰当环境以促进繁荣和经济增长方面，政治和法律制度扮演着关键的角色。外国援助，特别是大额外国援助，会影响制度的运作及其变迁。政治向来能阻碍经济增长，即便是在援助流行以前，世上也既有好的政治体系，也有坏的。 But large inflows of foreign aid change local politics for the worse and undercut the institutions needed to foster long-run growth. Aid also undermines democracy and civic participation, a direct loss over and above the losses that come from undermining economic development. These harms of aid need to be balanced against the good that aid does, whether educating children who would not otherwise have gone to school or saving the lives of those who would otherwise have died. 但是，外国援助的大规模流入恶化了地方政治，损害了促进长期增长所必须的体制。援助还会破坏民主和公民参与，这种直接损失比破坏经济发展所导致的损失更为严重。援助的这些危害需要与援助所带来的好处进行平衡考量，不管这些好处是给那些原本无法上学的孩子提供教育，还是挽救原本会死去的生命。 From its beginnings after World War II, development economics saw growth and poverty reduction as technical problems. Economists would provide the knowledge that would tell the newly independent rulers how to bring prosperity to their people. If development economists thought about politics at all, they saw politicians as the guardians of their people, motivated by the promotion of social welfare. Politics as an end in itself, as a means of civic participation, or as a way of managing conflict was not part of their operations manual. 自二战结束后发展经济学建立伊始，这门学科就将经济增长和减少贫困视为技术问题。经济学家会向新近获得独立的统治者们提供知识，告诉他们如何为自己的人民带去繁荣。如果说发展经济学家思考过任何政治问题，那就是将政客们看作是人民的守护人，他们的动机是促进社会福利。政治，无论作为目的本身、作为公民参与手段，还是作为冲突管理方式，都不曾体现于他们的操作手册中。 Nor would development experts much concern themselves with the fact that, in many cases, the governments through which they were working had interests of their own that made them improbable partners in a broad-based development effort. There have been dissenting voices over the years, but it is only relatively recently that mainstream development economics has focused on the importance of institutions, including political institutions, and on politics itself. 发展专家们也不太关心这一事实：在许多情形下，他们的工作所需借力的那个政府，自身也拥有利益诉求，因而不太可能在一个牵涉广泛的发展计划中当好合作伙伴。历年来，持不同意见的声音一直都存在，但直到相对晚近时，主流的发展经济学才开始集中关注包括政治制度在内的制度的重要性以及政治本身。 Economic development cannot take place without some sort of contract between those who govern and those who are governed. The government needs resources to carry out its functions—preserving territorial integrity and maintaining its monopoly of violence, at the very least, and beyond that providing a legal system, public safety, national defense, and other public goods—and the resources that these functions require must be raised in taxes from the governed. It is this need to raise taxes, and the difficulty of doing so without the participation of those who are taxed, that places constraints on the government and to some extent protects the interests of taxpayers. 如果在统治者和被统治者之间不存在某种形式的契约，那么经济就不太可能得到发展。政府需要资源才能执行其功能——至少需要保持领土完整、维持垄断暴力，更进一步则需要提供法律体系、公共安全、国防和其他公共物品。而维持这些功能所需要的资源则必须从被统治者头上以税收形式获得。正是这种征税需求，再加上如果没有征税对象参与，税收很难征得，这就给政府施加了约束，并在一定程度上保护了纳税人的利益。 In a democracy, direct feedback from the electorate evaluates the government’s performance, in effect a sort of project evaluation on the programs that are carried out using taxpayers’ money. While this sort of feedback works best in a democracy, the need to raise funds exists every where, and it will often constrain the ruler to pay attention to the demands of at least some of the population. One of the strongest arguments against large aid flows is that they undermine these constraints, removing the need to raise money with consent and in the limit turning what should be beneficial political institutions into toxic ones. 在民主国家，直接来自选民的反馈可以评估政府的表现，实际上就是对那些用纳税人的钱实施的项目进行评估。虽然这种反馈只在民主国家才运作得最好，但是筹集资金的需要到处都存在，而这通常都会约束统治者，迫使他们关心至少人口中一部分人的需求。反对巨额援助涌入的最强论点之一就是：援助会破坏这种约束，移除征得同意以筹集资金的必要性，在极端情况下还会将本来有益的政治制度变成有害的。 Without an adequate capacity to tax, a state denies its citizens many of the protections that are taken for granted in the rich world. They may lack the protection of the law, because the courts do not work or are corrupt, and the police may harass or exploit poor people instead of protecting them. People may be unable to start businesses, because debts are not paid and contracts are not enforced or because civil “servants” extort bribes. They may face threats of violence from gangs or warlords. They may lack clean water or minimal sanitation facilities. There may be local endemic pests that threaten them and especially their children with medically preventable but potentially fatal diseases. They may lack access to electricity, to functioning schools, or to a decent health service. All of these risks are part of what it means to be poor in much of the world, all are causes of poverty, and all are attributable to the lack of state capacity. Anything that threatens that capacity is inconsistent with improving the lives of poor people. 如果缺乏足够的征税能力，国家就不会向其国民提供富裕世界的人认为理所当然的许多保护措施。他们可能会缺少法律保护，因为法院不起作用或者腐败不堪。警察也可能骚扰或剥削穷苦人群，而不是给他们提供保护。人们可能没法做生意，因为欠债可以不还、契约无法执行，或者因为人民“公仆”会索取贿赂。他们还可能面临黑社会或军阀分子的暴力威胁，可能缺少淡水或最基本的卫生设施。也可能存在地方性的病害虫，给他们、特别是他们的孩子带来潜在致命的疾病威胁，尽管它们医学上完全可以预防。他们可能得不到电力供应，没有学校，或者适当的医疗服务。在世界的许多地区，所有这些风险正是贫穷这一词汇的部分内涵所在，也都是贫困的原因所在，并且都可归因于国家能力的缺乏。所有一切损害这一能力的事物，都与改善穷人生活这一目的相悖。 The argument that aid threatens institutions depends on the amount of aid being large. In China, India, or South Africa, where ODA in recent years has been less than 0.5 percent of national income, and only occasionally more than 1 percent of total government expenditures, aid is not important in affecting government behavior or the development of institutions. The situation is quite different in much of Africa. Thirty-six (out of forty-nine) countries in sub-Saharan Africa have received at least 10 percent of their national income as ODA for three decades or more. 援助危及制度这一论点能否成立，取决于援助量的大小。在中国、印度或南非，近年来的政府开发援助（ODA）都只相当于国民收入的不到0.5%，而且只是偶尔才会占到政府财政支出总量的1%以上，因此援助在影响政府行为或者制度变迁方面并不重要。但在非洲的大部分地区，情况则截然不同。撒哈拉以南非洲（49国之中）有36国的国民收入中至少10%来自于ODA，这种情况已延续长达三十年甚至更久。 Given that ODA comes to governments, the ratio of aid to government expenditure is larger still. Benin, Burkina Faso, the DRC, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Uganda are among the countries where aid has exceeded 75 percent of government expenditure for a run of recent years. In Kenya and Zambia, ODA is a quarter and a half of government expenditure, respectively. 考虑到ODA是流向政府的，因此援助在政府支出中所占比例会更高。贝宁、布基纳法索、刚果（金）、埃塞俄比亚、马达加斯加、马里、尼日尔、塞拉利昂、多哥和乌干达等国所接受的援助最近连续多年占到政府开支的75%以上。在肯尼亚和赞比亚，ODA分别是政府开支的四分之一和二分之一。 Given that much of government expenditure is pre-committed and almost impossible to change in the short run, for these countries (and others for which the data are not available) discretionary expenditures by governments are almost entirely dependent on funds from foreign donors. As we shall see, this does not mean that the donors are dictating what governments spend—far from it. Yet the behavior of both donors and recipients is fundamentally affected by the existence and magnitude of these aid flows. 考虑到大部分政府开支都有预定用途，短期内不太可能改变，因此这些国家（以及数据尚不可得的其他一些国家）政府的自由开支几乎就全部依赖于外国援助者手中的资金。我们将看到，这并不意味着援助者能够决定政府把钱花在哪里——远非如此。不过，援助者和受援者的行为都从根本上受到这类援助资金的存在与规模的影响。 Aid is not the only way in which rulers can rule without consent. A commodity price boom is another. One famous example comes from Egypt in the mid-nineteenth century. Then, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, with its insatiable demand for cotton, the two main sources were the American South and Egypt, and Egypt’s sales of cotton accounted for most of its trade with the outside world. Egypt’s ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha, often described as the founder of modern Egypt, paid only a fraction of the world price to the fellaheen who produced the cotton, and he and his court became fabulously wealthy on the proceeds. 援助并不是统治者不经同意而实现统治的唯一途径。大宗商品价格飙升也是。一个著名的例子是19世纪中期的埃及。在这个工业革命的鼎盛时期，市场对棉花的需求无穷无尽，主要的棉花产地有美国南部和埃及，而埃及的棉花销售占了该国对外贸易的绝大部分。当时的埃及统治者穆罕默德·阿里帕夏（常被称为现代埃及的奠基人）只给种植棉花的农民支付世界市场价格的一个零头，自己及朝廷则因棉花收益而富得流油。 The American Civil War tripled the world price in only three years, and under Ali’s successor Isma’il Pasha, this led to what a British report later described as “fantastic extravagance,” while “immense sums were expended on public works in the manner of the East, and on productive works carried out in the wrong way or too soon,” including the Suez Canal. The scale of the spending was so great that it could not be supported even by the wartime cotton price, and Isma’il borrowed on the international capital market. When the price of cotton collapsed after the war, there were riots, armed intervention, and ultimately foreign occupation by Britain. 因美国发生内战，世界棉花价格三年内翻了三倍。在阿里的继任者伊斯梅尔帕夏治下，这种价格飙升导致了一份英国报告后来所称的“极端挥霍”，“发挥东方国家风格，公共工程靡费巨资，生产性项目上的巨额开销要么方向错误，要么上马太快”，其中包括苏伊士运河的开凿。开支规模如此巨大，以至于连战时棉花价格都难以支撑，伊斯梅尔只能向国际资本市场借款。随着战后棉花价格暴跌，埃及出现暴乱，接受武装调停，最后引来英国的占领。 Cotton prices rose from $9.00 for 112 pounds in 1853 to $14.00 in 1860, to a peak of $33.25 in 1865, and they fell to $15.75 in 1870. One might have thought that the foreign lenders—if not Isma’il—would have understood the trouble that lay ahead, but then, as now, the lenders could rely on another government—Britain—to protect and recover their investments. Yet this story of catastrophe is not without its bright side; the Suez Canal, after all, was a useful investment whose benefits need to be counted. 棉花价格从1853年的每112磅9美元上升到1860年的14美元，再于1865年攀至最高价33.25美元，然后在1870年回落到15.75美元。你也许会想，即便伊斯梅尔想不到，那外国放款人本来总该能认清即将发生的麻烦。但那个时候跟现在一样，放款人可以依靠另外一个国家——英国——来保护和收回自己的投资。当然，这场灾难并非全无是处；苏伊士运河毕竟是个有用的投资，其好处需要承认。 There are many parallels between commodity price booms and foreign aid. One is that cash flows come and go in a way that is divorced from domestic needs or domestic politics. In the cotton boom, the cause was the Civil War in America; with aid, it is the economic and political conditions in the donor countries, or international events such as the Cold War, or the war on terror. That aid stimulates government expenditure has been repeatedly documented, and, as in the Egyptian case, the government is freed of the need to consult or to gain the approval of its people. 大宗商品价格和外国援助之间存在许多相似之处，其中之一就是：现金流的进出与国内需求或国内政治脱节。棉花热的原因是美国内战；援助则视乎援助国的经济政治状况，或如冷战一类的国际事件，或反恐战争。援助会刺激政府开支，此类事例史载不绝，如埃及案例所显示的，此时政府已不再需要征询民众意见或寻求民众认可。 With state-owned mines, a high world price, an unlimited supply of poor workers, or a well-funded army, a ruler can stay in power without the consent of his people. With sufficient foreign aid, the ruler can even do without the mines, as eventually happened in Zaire under Mobutu. Aid from abroad kept the regime in business, and most of the aid went to doing so, so that when the regime eventually fell, there was little left, in Swiss bank accounts or elsewhere. 如果统治者拥有国有矿藏，国际市场价格高企，贫穷工人源源不断，或军队资金充裕，那他就能无需其人民同意而掌握大权。若有充足的外国援助，统治者甚至可以无需占有矿藏，蒙博托治下的扎伊尔最终就是如此。外国援助维持着政权运转，而且绝大多数援助款都被用在这方面，所以最终政权垮台时，不管是瑞士的银行账户还是别的什么地方，全都所剩无几。 Of course, with aid the government has a responsibility to the donors, and, unlike in the Mobutu case, which was driven by Cold War geopolitics, one might hope that the donors have the interests of the people in mind. But as we shall see, there are good reasons why this does not work in practice; the motivation of the donors helps much less than one might think. 当然，接受援助的政府对援助者负有责任，而且与冷战地缘政治所导致的蒙博托案例不同，你可能觉得，援助者心中会考虑人民的利益。但我们将看到，有很多可信的理由使得实情并非如此。援助者的动机助益不大，比你想象的要小得多。 Aid, like commodity price booms, can have other unhappy effects on local institutions. Without unrestricted inflows, governments not only need taxes, but also need to be able to collect them. The huge oil revenues in the Middle East are partly responsible for poor democratic institutions in the oil-producing countries. In Africa, presidential systems are common, and an externally funded president can govern through patronage or military repression. Parliaments have limited power; they are rarely consulted by the president; and neither parliaments nor judiciaries have power to rein in the presidency. There are no checks and balances. In extreme cases, large external flows, from aid or commodity sales, can increase the risk of civil war, because rulers have the means to avoid sharing power, and because the value of the inflows gives both sides a prize that is worth fighting over. 跟大宗商品价格飙升一样，援助可能对当地制度造成不幸的影响。如果没有源源不断的资金流入，政府不仅仅需要税收，而且需要有能力征税。中东地区产油国缺少民主，部分原因就在于它们拥有巨额石油收入。总统制在非洲很流行，一个得到外部资金支持的总统能够通过政治分赃或军事镇压维持统治。议会权力有限；总统很少征求其意见；不管是议会还是司法机关都无力约束总统。没有分权制衡。在极端情况下，大额的外部资金流入，不管是来自援助还是来自商品销售，都可能增加内战之危，因为统治者有办法拒绝分享权力，也因为流入资金庞大到值得双方不惜为之一战。 Why does accountability to the donors not replace accountability to the local population? Why can’t the donors withhold aid if the president refuses to consult parliament, declines to reform a corrupt police force, or uses aid flows to bolster his own political position? 那么，为什么受援国统治者对本国人民负责的必要性（因外国援助而放松之后）无法由他们对援助者负责的必要性所取代呢？如果总统拒绝与议会磋商，拒不改革腐败的警察机关，或者使用援助资金来巩固自身政治地位，为什么援助者不能暂停援助呢？ One problem is that the donor governments and their constituents—the ultimate donors—can’t make the right calls because they do not experience the effects of aid on the ground. Even when the crunch comes, and the donors see what is happening, it is rarely in the interests of the donor countries to withhold aid, even in the face of egregious violations of agreements, however much they may have wished to do so in advance. 困难之一是：援助国政府及其选民——也就是最终的援助者——并不能做出正确的决策，因为他们并没有亲自体验援助的影响。即便危机降临，援助者看清了正在发生的事，哪怕恶性违反协议的行为当面发生，暂停援助也很少会符合援助国的利益——无论事前他们是多么渴望这么做。 It is the local people, not the donors, who have direct experience of the projects on which aid is spent and who are in a position to form a judgment. Such judgments will not always be well informed, and there will always be domestic debate on cause and effect and on the value of specific government activities; but the political process can mediate these normal divergences of views. For foreign donors or their constituents—who do not live in the recipient countries—there is no such feedback. They have no direct information on outcomes; they must rely on the reports of the agencies disbursing the aid, and so tend to focus on the volume of aid, not its effectiveness. 只有当地人民，而不是援助者，才能直接体验援助款所支持的那些项目，也才有资格做出判断。这类判断并不总是信息周全的，对于特定政府活动的原因结果及其价值，国内也总是存在争议，但政治进程能够调和这类常规的观点分歧。然而对于外援国或他们的选民而言，由于他们并不生活在受援国，就不存在这种反馈。对于结果，他们没有直接的信息来源，他们必须依赖负责分配援助的各种机构所提供的报告，所以会倾向于更加关注援助的体量，而不是其效力。 The aid agencies, in turn, are accountable to their ultimate donors, and there is no mechanism that holds them responsible if things go wrong for the recipients. I once asked an official of one of the most prominent non-governmental aid agencies in which part of the world she spent most of her time. “The West Coast”—which turned out not to be Africa, but the United States, where several of the agency’s largest donors lived. As we have already seen, World Bank officials have long moved on to other things by the time the effects of their handiwork become visible. There is no responsibility of donors to the recipients of their aid. 而援助机构则是对最终援助者负责，如果受援者那里出了问题，并没有什么机制来追究援助机构的责任。我曾问过某著名非政府援助机构的一个官员，她在世界上什么地方呆的时间最长久。答案是“西海岸”——不是非洲西海岸，而是美国西海岸，该机构几位最大的援助者就住在那里。正如我们所见，早在他们的劳动效果显现之前很久，世界银行的官员们就已经忙别的事去了。援助者对于受援者并没有负什么责任。 Sometimes the agencies know that aid is going wrong and are alarmed by what they see, but can do nothing about it. The director of one national aid agency gave me a bloodcurdling account of how aid funds had gone to gangs of murderers—people who had already carried out one massacre and were training and arming themselves to return to finish the job. I asked him why he continued to supply aid. Because, he replied, the citizens of this country believe that it is their duty to give and will accept no argument that aid is hurting people. The best that he could do was to try to limit the harm. 有时候，援助机构知道援助已出了问题，并且已经对所见所闻感到忧虑，却什么也做不了。某国家援助机构的主任曾向我提供过一份令人毛骨悚然的记录：援助资金到了谋杀团伙的手里，这些人已经实施过一次大屠杀，现在正在加强训练和武装，准备杀回去把事情做个彻底。我问他为什么还要继续提供援助。他回答说，因为本国公民相信提供援助是他们的义务，并且拒不接受任何指出援助正在害人的观点。他能做的，只是尽力减少伤害。 Even when donors know what conditions ought to be imposed, they will often be reluctant to penalize recipient governments who flout them. Donors may threaten punishment to induce good behavior, but when the good behavior is not forthcoming they may be reluctant to take action if the penalties harm themselves or their constituents. 即便援助者知道应该施加何种限制条件，但当受援政府无视这些条件的时候，通常援助者也会对是否惩罚左右迟疑。援助者可能会以惩罚相威胁的方式来诱导良好的行为，但如果好行为迟迟不出现，且如果真正施加惩罚会伤及自身或本国选民，他们可能又会迟疑。 This would hardly apply to the arming of murderers, but it can be a problem in lesser cases. In effect, aid conditionality is “time-inconsistent,” a favorite term of economists: what you want to do in advance is no longer in your interests after the fact. The governments who are receiving aid understand this very well; they can call the donor’s bluff and ignore the conditions with impunity. 在武装谋杀犯问题上，这种情况当然不太可能发生，但在其他没那么严重的事情上，则可能成问题。实际上，援助的限制条款具有“时间不一致性”（这是经济学家爱用的一个词汇）：在木已成舟的情况下，你原先想做的事已经不再符合你的利益。接受援助的各国政府深知这一点，他们面对援助者的虚张声势，会直接要他们摊牌，从而能无视限制条件而不受任何惩罚。 Why the reluctance to enforce conditionality? 为什么在执行限制条件上产生迟疑？ The economist Ravi Kanbur was the World Bank representative in Ghana in 1992. He was called upon to enforce conditionality by withholding a tranche of a previously agreed loan in response to the government having violated the agreement by awarding an 80 percent pay increase to public-sector workers. The tranche was large, almost an eighth of Ghana’s annual import bill. Opposition to the cut-off came from many sources, not just the government of Ghana. Many innocent bystanders would be hurt, both Ghanaians and foreign contractors, who would likely not be paid. 经济学家Ravi Kanbur曾于1992年担任世界银行驻加纳代表。由于加纳政府违反协定，给公共部门工作人员增加了80%的工资，Kanbur接到呼吁，要求他执行限制条款，暂停拨付贷款协议中的一笔款项。这笔款项数额巨大，大约是加纳年度进口额的八分之一。反对中断贷款的呼声此起彼伏，加纳政府只是其中之一。许多无辜旁人，包括加纳和外国的承包商，都有可能受到伤害，因为他们可能将收不到工程款。 More fundamentally, the normal, good relations between the donors and the government would be disrupted, threatening not only the government but also the operations of the aid industry itself; “the donors control so much in the way of funds that to stop these, at any rate to stop them sharply, would cause major chaos in the economy.” In effect, it is the aid industry’s job to disburse funds, and its operatives are paid to do so and to maintain good relations with its client countries. A face-saving compromise was eventually reached, and the loan went ahead. 更为根本的是，援助国与加纳政府的正常友好关系可能受到破坏，不仅会危及加纳政府，而且也会危及援助行业本身的运转。“援助者对资金运作有很大控制，以至于如果停止贷款，至少停贷过于突然，将会给经济造成重大混乱。”实际上，援助行业的任务就是分配资金，从业人员拿着薪水就是要做好这一本职工作，并与客户国维持良好关系。最终，双方保存体面，达成妥协，贷款得以继续发放。 Kenya provides another example of the dance among donors, the president, and parliament. The donors periodically become exasperated by the corruption of the president and his cronies, and they turn off the flow of aid. Parliament meets and starts discussing how to raise the revenue required for the government to meet its obligations. The donors heave a huge sigh of relief—they too are under threat if the aid ceases to flow—and turn the taps back on; parliament is shuttered until the next time. Government ministers also sigh with relief and order up the latest-model Mercedes from Germany; the locals refer to these wealthy beneficiaries as the “WaBenzi.” 关于援助者、总统和议会之间的这种委蛇周旋游戏，肯尼亚也是个例子。援助者总是会周期性地被总统及其党羽的腐败激怒，然后暂停援助。此时议会就会召开，开始商量如何增加政府收入，以满足政府履行义务的必需用度。援助者会大松一口气，然后又把水龙头打开——因为如果援助真正停止，他们也会面临威胁。于是，议会就可以关门歇业了，直到下次再发生类似事情。政府的部长们也会大松一口气，又开始从德国订购最新型号的奔驰汽车。当地人管这些富裕的受益者叫做“奔驰族”。 The award for sheer creativity might go to Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, president of Mauritania from 1984 to 2005. He adopted a pro-Western stance and in 1991 abandoned his previous support for the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Even so, in the early 1990s, his domestic repression became too much for donors, and aid was withdrawn. Real political reforms were begun—at least until the president had the brilliant idea of becoming one of the few Arab countries to recognize Israel. The aid taps were reopened and the reforms rescinded. 绝对原创奖可能还是要颁给1984至2005年任毛里塔尼亚总统的马维亚·乌尔德·西德·艾哈迈德·塔亚。塔亚1991年采取了亲西方的立场，放弃支持伊拉克的萨达姆·侯赛因政权。即便如此，90年代初他在国内的镇压行动对援助者来说仍属过分，援助因此而撤销。此时，真正的政治改革拉开大幕，改革至少维持到了总统突发奇想，成为承认以色列的极少数阿拉伯国家之一。援助龙头重新打开，改革又被废止了。 Domestic policies in the donor countries can also make it difficult to turn off aid. Government aid agencies are under pressure from their domestic constituencies to “do something” about global poverty —a pressure that is stoked by a well-intentioned but necessarily poorly informed domestic population—and this makes it hard for government agencies to cut back on aid even when their representatives on the ground know that it is doing harm. Politicians in both donor and recipient countries understand this process. 援助国的国内政策也可能使停止援助面临阻碍。国内选民会向政府援助机构施加压力，要求他们为全球贫困“做点事”。这些国内民众虽然满怀好意，但在信息掌握上却总是非常缺乏。他们把这压力之火烧得通红，使得政府机构难以切断援助，即便它们在当地的代表知道援助正在害人。 Recipient governments can use their own poor people as “hostages to extract aid from the donors.” In one of the worst such cases, government officials in Sierra Leone held a party to celebrate the fact that UNDP had, once again, classed their country as the worst in the world and thus guaranteed another year’s worth of aid. 受援国政府能把自己的贫困人口当做“从援助国身上索取资金的人质”来使用。塞拉利昂的政府官员是此类案例最糟糕的表现之一，在联合国开发计划署再次将该国列为世界最差国家，因此保证了该国下一年度的援金之后，他们居然开了一个派对来庆祝。 On the other side, donor politicians can give aid to buy political credibility at home when they are deeply unpopular for unrelated reasons; they too will oppose the cessation of aid, even when it is clearly being misused. When this happens—as it did with British aid during the Kenyan elections in 2001, when aid was used to subvert the elections and preserve the power of a corrupt elite—Africans suffer to burnish the tarnished reputations of Western politicians. 另一方面，如果援助国的政客因为其他一些无关原因而非常不受欢迎，他们也可能通过提供援助来收买国内政治信用。因此即便援金明显遭到滥用，他们也会反对停止提供。比如英国在肯尼亚2001年大选期间提供的援助就是如此，当时援金就被用于颠覆选举，帮助腐败精英维持大权。此类事情发生时，相当于非洲人民为了擦洗西方政客的声名污点而受苦受难。 Lyndon Johnson helped hype a largely nonexistent famine in India in order to distract attention from the Vietnam War, not to mention to gather support from American farmers by buying their crops. The givers and receivers of aid, the governments in both countries, are allied against their own peoples. All that has changed from colonial times is the nature of what is being extracted. 为了把民众视线从越南战争上面引开，林登·约翰逊不仅帮助印度虚假宣传了一场基本上并不存在的大饥荒，还通过收购美国农民的农产品来收买支持。援助的提供者和接受者，即两国政府，联合起来欺瞒自己的人民。与殖民时代相比，唯一的变化只是它们索取的东西性质不同了。 There are also practical reasons that restrict the ability of donors to enforce conditionality. Aid is fungible; a recipient can promise to spend aid on health care and do so with projects that would have been undertaken in any case, freeing up funds for nonapproved purposes. It is often difficult for donors to monitor such diversions. The aid industry is competitive, and if one country refuses to fund another will often step in, with a different set of priorities and conditions. The donor who tries to enforce conditions is then shut out and may lose political influence or commercial opportunities, with no compensating gain. 也有一些实践上的原因会限制援助国执行限制条款的能力。援助具有可替代性；比如受援国可以先承诺将援助用于医疗保健，然后用即使没有援助本来就会实施的项目来履行承诺，从而腾挪资金用于未经授权的项目。援助者很难对这类腾挪实施监督。援助行业充满竞争，某国拒绝提供援助，另一国就会带着一套新的政策偏好和限制条款来插手。于是，试图执行限制条款的援助国会被拒之门外，可能会丧失其政治影响力或商业机会，而且得不到补偿。 Aid agencies have recently tried to move away from conditionality, and their language has moved toward an emphasis on partnership. The recipient proposes a plan according to its own needs, and the donor decides what to finance. Of course, none of this disposes of the reality that the donors are responsible to their constituents in the rich world, and that the recipients, knowing this, will design plans that mimic just what they think the donors would have proposed on their own—a process that has been aptly described as “ventriloquism.” It is not clear what sort of partnership is sustainable when one side has all the money. 近来，援助机构已在试图放弃限制条款，转而强调伙伴关系。受援国会根据自身需要提出一份计划，然后由援助国来决定向哪些提供资助。当然，这些都无法绕开援助者需对身处富裕世界的本国选民负责这一现实，受援者深知这一点，因此他们在提出计划时会刻意鹦鹉学舌，提出在他们的心目中援助国自身可能设想出的方案。这一过程已经被人恰当地称为“腹语术”。在一方拥有全部资金的情况下，我们想不出何种伙伴关系才是可持续的。 Politics and politicians, doing what they regularly do, undermine aid effectiveness, but it works the other way too: aid flows undermine the effectiveness of politics. Donors decide matters that should be decided by recipients; even democratic politics in donor countries has no business deciding whether HIV/AIDS should be prioritized over antenatal care in Africa. Conditionality violates national sovereignty. 政治和政治家的惯常行事准则会破坏援助的有效性，但事情也可能在相反方向上发生：援助资金会破坏政治的有效性。本应由受援者决定的事，变得由援助者来决定了。即便是援助国的民主政治也没有理由来决定非洲国家是否应将艾滋病优先于产前保健考虑。限制条款侵犯国家主权。 Imagine a well-funded Swedish aid agency coming to Washington, D.C., and promising to pay off the national debt and fund Medicare for fifty years. The conditions are that the United States abolish capital punishment and fully legalize gay marriage. Perhaps some governments are so dysfunctional that such violations have little cost to their populations. But taking a country into foreign receivership is hardly a good start on building the kind of contract between government and governed that might support economic growth over the long haul. It is not possible to develop someone else’s country from the outside. 试想，如果瑞典一家资金充裕的援助机构跑到华盛顿来，承诺帮我们清偿所有国家债务，并会援助国家医疗保险五十年，条件是美国废除死刑，并将同性结婚全面合法化。也许有些国家政府确实无能透顶，因而此类侵犯行为并不会对该国人民造成什么损害。但是，一国接受外国的托管，对于建立政府与人民之间的契约关系而言并不是什么好开头，而这种契约关系从长远来看可能有助于经济增长。不可能从外部来发展别国。 We have already seen that it is difficult to give convincing evidence of the effects of aid on economic growth, and the same applies when we look at the effects of aid on democracy or on other institutions. Yet once again, we have the fact that small countries that get a lot of aid also tend to be less democratic; sub-Saharan Africa is the least democratic area of the world, and the one that receives the most aid. Countries that receive aid from their ex-colonists are not the most democratic. Perhaps most interesting is a counterpoint to Figures 1 and 2: there has been an upsurge not only in growth but also in democracy in Africa since the cut in aid that followed the end of the Cold War. As always, there are other possible explanations for these facts, but they are what we would expect if democracy were undermined by foreign aid. 之前我们已经提到，关于援助对经济增长的效用，我们拿不出什么有说服力的证据。同样，援助对民主或其他制度的效用也是如此。不过，我们这里又有一个事实：接受大量援助的小国也趋向于更不民主；撒哈拉以南的非洲是全世界最不民主的地区，同时也是接受援助最多的地区。接受原殖民母国援助的国家并非最民主的。最有意思的可能是图1和图2【译注：原文无图，略】的对比：随着冷战结束后援助的减少，非洲不但出现了经济上升，而且出现了更多的民主政体。当然，对于这类事实，总是有其他可能的解释。但是如果民主会受到外援的破坏，这一事实就与我们的预期一致了。 The antidemocratic aspects of foreign aid have been exacerbated by the long-held donors’ belief that aid—and economic development itself—is a technical issue, not a political one. In the hydraulic theory (recall, we are just fixing the plumbing), there can be no legitimate dispute over what needs to be done. This belief has led donors and advisers to ignore or be impatient with local politics. 外援的反民主面向还被援助者长期持有的一种信念加剧了：他们相信援助和经济发展本身都只是技术问题，而非政治问题。在水力学理论（记住，我们不过是在修理水管）看来，关于我们需要做什么，没有什么值得争论的。这一信念导致援助者和建议者都对当地政治置之不理或毫无耐心。 Worse still, the donors have often deeply misunderstood what people needed or wanted. Population control is the worst case; to the donors it was obvious that if there were fewer people each person would be better off, while to the recipients, the opposite was just as obviously (and correctly) true. Western-led population control, often with the assistance of nondemocratic or well-rewarded recipient governments, is the most egregious example of antidemocratic and oppressive aid. Effective democracy is the antidote to the tyranny of foreign good intentions. 更糟的是，关于人民需要什么或渴望什么，援助者通常误解甚深。人口控制就是最糟糕的例子：在援助者看来，很显然人口更少则人均状况就会更好，但是在受援者看来，相反的看法【编注：即人口多没坏处】同样显而易见且真确无误。西方人推动的人口控制，通常伴随着非民主或受益丰厚的受援国政府的协助，是援助之反民主和压迫性的最恶劣例证。有效的民主是外国善心暴政的解毒剂。 The anthropologist James Ferguson, in The Anti-Politics Machine, one of the greatest books about aid and economic development, describes a large Canadian-funded development project in Lesotho in the 1980s that was based on a profound misunderstanding of the way the economy functioned; what in reality was a reservoir of labor for the South African mines was reimagined as a textbook subsistence-farming economy. 人类学家詹姆斯·弗格森在《反政治机器》这本有关援助和经济发展的杰作中，为我们描绘了1980年代在莱索托实施的一项由加拿大资助的发展项目，该项目从根本上就对经济运转方式存在深刻误解。该国经济模式实际本来应是南非矿业的劳动力储军，却被臆想为一种教科书式的自给农业经济。 The agricultural investment projects designed for the imagined economy were about as likely to be successful as a project to grow flowers on the moon. The project administrators—busily fixing the plumbing—remained unaware of how the project was being manipulated by the ruling party for its own political purposes and against its political opponents. In the end, there was no development or poverty reduction, only an extension of the state’s monopoly of political control, an anti-politics machine that made an extractive elite even less responsive to its people. 为这种想象的经济所设计出来的农业投资项目，其成功的可能性就跟在月球上栽花差不多。该项目被执政党操纵，以实现他们自身的政治意图，压制政治对手，而忙于修水管的项目管理人员自始至终对此毫不知情。最后，项目得到的并不是发展或贫困减少，而只是加强了国家对政治控制的垄断性质，催生了一种反政治的机器，这种机器使得榨取型精英对其人民甚至更加漠视。 The technical, anti-political view of development assistance has survived the inconvenient fact that the apparently clear technical solutions kept changing—from industrialization, planning and the construction of infrastructure to macroeconomic structural adjustment, to health and education, and most recently back to infrastructure. That the ideas kept changing did nothing to imbue the developers with humility or uncertainty, nor did the sensitivity of the fashions to first-world politics appear to undercut the technical certainty of the aid industry. The antipoverty rhetoric of the World Bank when Lyndon Johnson was U.S. president was replaced by the “getting prices right” rhetoric when Ronald Reagan was president. “Our” politics seems to be a legitimate part of development thinking, while “their” politics is not. 发展援助问题上的这种技术性、反政治的观点始终存在，尽管我们面临一个尴尬事实：看似显然的技术解决方案经常在变，从工业化、计划和基础设施建设变成宏观经济结构调整，又变成健康和教育，最近又回到基础设施。想法一直在变，但这并没能促使开发人员保持谦逊或心生犹疑，发生在第一世界政治领域中的潮流敏感似乎也没能减少援助行业的技术自信。林登·约翰逊担任美国总统期间由世界银行提出的反贫困辞藻在罗纳德·里根当政时期被“矫正价格”的辞藻所取代。“我们的”政事似乎在发展思考当中理所应当占据一席之地，而“他们的”政事则并不如此。 Aid and aid-funded projects have undoubtedly done much good; the roads, dams, and clinics exist and would not have existed otherwise. But the negative forces are always present; even in good environments, aid compromises institutions, it contaminates local politics, and it undermines democracy. If poverty and underdevelopment are primarily consequences of poor institutions, then by weakening those institutions or stunting their development, large aid flows do exactly the opposite of what they are intended to do. It is hardly surprising then that, in spite of the direct effects of aid that are often positive, the record of aid shows no evidence of any overall beneficial effect. 毫无疑问，援助和由援金所资助的项目助益良多；世上多出了许多公路、大坝和医院，没有援助是不可能的。但援助的负面影响始终存在；即便实施环境友好，援助也会损害制度、污染当地政治，且会破坏民主。如果说贫困和欠发达首先是因为制度糟糕，那么通过削弱此类制度或阻碍其正常发展，大规模援助资金的实际效果确实事与愿违。因此，尽管援助的直接效果通常都是正面的，但援助史上并没有证据表明它们总体上带来了有益效果，对此我们不必感到惊讶。 The arguments about foreign aid and poverty reduction are quite different from the arguments about domestic aid to the poor. Those who oppose welfare benefits often argue that aid to the poor creates incentives for poor behavior that help to perpetuate poverty. These are not the arguments here. The concern with foreign aid is not about what it does to poor people around the world—indeed it touches them too rarely—but about what it does to governments in poor countries. The argument that foreign aid can make poverty worse is an argument that foreign aid makes governments less responsive to the needs of the poor, and thus does them harm. 关于外国援助与减少贫困之间关系的论争，与关于针对穷人的国内援助的论争颇为不同。反对福利津贴的人通常论证说，援助穷人会激励穷人做出使得贫困得以长期维持的行为。我们这里的论证则与此不同。在外国援助问题上，我们所关注的并不是它们对世上的穷人起到了什么作用——实际上援助极少触及穷人——而是它们对贫穷国家的政府起到了什么作用。外国援助会使得贫困恶化这一论点说的是，外国援助会使得受援国政府更加漠视穷人的需求，从而对他们造成损害。 The harm of aid—even in the presence of some good—poses difficult ethical problems. The philosopher Leif Wenar, criticizing Peter Singer’s vision, with which I began this chapter, notes that “poverty is no pond”; Singer’s analogy is not helpful. Those who advocate more aid need to explain how it can be given in a way that deals with the political constraints. They should also think hard about the parallels with the colonialism that came before the era of aid. 援助的危害——即使也会有某些好处——提出了一些伦理难题。本章开头，我曾引用过哲学家彼得·辛格的设想【译注：本文是作者著作The Great Escape第7章的一小节。第7章开头数页，作者曾提到辛格的著名比喻：由于我们所需要付出都很小，拒绝援助非洲儿童的伦理错误就跟拒绝挽救池塘落水儿童一样。而我们离非洲较远、离落水儿童较近这一事实并不会造成什么伦理上的区别】。莱夫·韦纳对此提出批评，他说“贫困并非池塘”，辛格的比喻并没有什么用。鼓吹加大援助的人需要解释，援助如何以一种能够考虑政治约束的方式分发。他们也应该努力思考，援助与援助时代之前的殖民主义之间的对比。 We now think of colonialism as bad, harming others to benefit ourselves, and aid as good, hurting us (albeit very mildly) to help others. But that view is too simple, too ignorant of history, and too self-congratulatory. The rhetoric of colonialism too was all about helping people, albeit about bringing civilization and enlightenment to people whose humanity was far from fully recognized. This may have been little more than a cover for theft and exploitation. 我们现在觉得殖民主义是坏的，只是损人利己，而援助则是好的，是损己（尽管很轻微）利人。但这种观点过于简化，对历史过于无知，同时也过分自夸。殖民主义的论调一样说的全是帮助他人，虽然只是要把文明和启蒙带给其人性尊严远远还未被承认的人们。这种说法有可能仅仅只是偷盗或剥削的文过饰非。 The preamble to the charter of the UN, with its ringing and inspiring rhetoric, was written by Jan Smuts, premier of South Africa, who saw the UN as the best hope of preserving the British Empire and the dominance of white “civilization.” Yet at its worst, decolonization installed leaders who differed little from those who preceded them, except for where they were born and the color of their skins. 联合国宪章的序言部分用语响亮且令人振奋，其作者南非前总理杨·史末资可是将联合国视为维持大英帝国和白人“文明”统治地位的最大希望所在。然而，在最糟糕的情形中，殖民地独立后上台的领导人跟他们的前辈并没有什么不同，区别只在于出生地点和皮肤颜色。 Even today, when our humanitarian rhetoric acts as a cover for our politicians to buy themselves virtue, and when aid is our way of meeting our moral obligations to deal with global poverty, we need to be sure that we are not doing harm. If we are, we are doing it for “us,” not for “them.” 即便是在今天，当人道主义辞藻被我们的政客用来为自己购买德性名声时，当援助被我们当成是履行自己对于全球贫困所负道德义务的手段时，我们也需要明确，我们并没有在害人。如果我们确实在害人，那援助就只是为了“满足自己”，而不是为了“帮助他人”。 （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——

【2016-09-14】 @whigzhou: 有些历史学家（特别是历史决定论者）喜欢用个体生命周期类比文明和国家的兴衰存亡，类似的，组织理论里也有『制度疲劳』的说法，对这种拟人化说辞总是要严加警惕，不过有些类比也并非毫无道理，比如『年轻』『成熟』『衰老』这组概念，确可运用于政权，至少适用于我们见过的政权类型中的大多数。 ​​​​ @whigzhou: 容易想到的几种导致政体衰老的机制：1）委托代理关系中的军备竞赛，多层级组织总是面临委托代理问题，层级越多越严重，一个成功的新政权必定找出了某些办法控制这个问题不严重到拖垮整个体制，问题是，委托代理双方的营私/反营私斗争是一场逐步升级的军备竞赛，新制度起初运行良好，但针对它的营私策略逐渐被开发出来之后，便日益朽坏，一个显著的例子是官僚系统的腐败 @whigzhou: 2）激励资源耗尽，新政权的领导者手里有着大量资源用于奖励下属和盟友，但这些资源通常两代之内就耗尽了，要维持最初激励效果，要么持续扩张，要么定期清洗 @whigzhou: 3）禀赋稀释，第一代掌权者总是有某些过人之处，否则就不会上台了，这些禀赋随着代际更替会逐渐稀释，无论何种更替制度，这种稀释总会发生，世袭制下，强人的儿子未必是强人，指定继任制，蒙择的可能是马屁精，考试选拔制，胜出的可能是无能学霸，竞争制，上位的是赢不了外敌的内斗高手…… @whigzhou: 4）团队松散化，这是代际更替导致的另一个问题，统治团队的前几代成员之间往往有很近的血缘、姻亲、战友、恩荫关系，除非定期清洗，否则这些关系必定岁代际更替逐渐疏远，从而弱化团队合作 @whigzhou: 5）和平化，长期和平化无论在个体还是组织层面，都将削弱战斗禀赋和战争能力，最终无法抵御外敌 @whigzhou: 6）人口压力，社会剩余率降低，政权可支配资源减少，  

The Window Tax: A Tale of Excess Burden 窗户税：税收超额负担的一个案例 作者:Timothy Taylor @ 2015-11-06 译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 校对:龙泉(@L_Stellar) 二校:慕白(@李凤阳他说) 来源:Conversable Economist,http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-window-tax-tale-of-excess-burden.html For economists, the "excess burden" of a tax refers to the idea that the cost of a tax isn't just the amount of money collected--it's also the ways in which taxpayers alter their behavior because the tax has changed their incentives. A moderately well-known classroom and textbook example is the "window tax," first imposed in England in 1696 by King William III, and not definitively repealed until 1851. The excess burden of the window tax was that lower-income people ended up living in rooms with few or no windows. 经济学家用税收“超额负担”指称这样一种概念：纳税的成本并不只在于所缴税费的数额——还在于纳税人受缴税影响而做出的行为改变。一个大家比较熟知的例子，就是课堂上常提到的“窗户税”。该税从1696年在威廉三世命令下开征，直到1851年才彻底消失。这里的超额负担在于，低收入人群就此选择生活在很少或没有窗户的房间里。 Wallace E. Oates and Robert M. Schwab review the history of the window tax and provide actual estimates of how it affected the number of windows per house in their article, "The Window Tax: A Case Study in Excess Burden," which appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives (where I have toiled in the fields as Managing Editor since 1987). Wallace E. Oates 和Robert M. Schwab在《经济展望杂志》（2015/冬）的《窗户税：超额负担之案例分析》一文中回顾了窗户税历史，并给出了其影响家庭平均窗户数的估测值（我自1987年起担任杂志总编）。 The article popped back into my mind earlier this week when I learned that Oates, a highly distinguished economist based at the University of Maryland since 1979, died last week. One of Oates's specialties was the area of local public finance, and his 1972 book on Fiscal Federalism, is a classic of that subfield. 前几天，我听说Oates已于上周去世，心里不禁又浮现起这篇文章。这位卓越的经济学家自1979年起一直任教于马里兰大学。他擅长的领域之一是地方公共财政，其1972年出版的《财政联邦主义》正是这一领域中的经典。 Here are some facts about the historical window tax, courtesy of Oates and Schwab. 下面引用Oates与Schwab写到的一些历史。

• William III intended it as a temporary tax, just to help out with the overhang of costs from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the most recent war with France. But it ended up lasting 150 years.
• 威廉三世原本只是为了摆脱1688年光荣革命和上一次英法战争带来的财务超支而暂时实行窗户税，不料它最后却延续了150年。
• "An important feature of the tax was that it was levied on the occupant, not the owner of the dwelling. Thus, the renter, not the landlord, paid the tax. However, large tenement buildings in the cities, each with several apartments, were an exception. They were charged as single residences with the tax liability resting on the landlord. This led to especially wretched conditions for the poor in the cities, as landlords blocked up windows and constructed tenements without adequate light and ventilation ..."
• “该税的一个重要特征是：征收对象是住户而非房产所有者。因此，纳税人是租户而非房东。不过城区多套房公寓楼是例外。收税官将多套间整体看做单元住宅向房东征税。这就使得城市贫民的生活状况非常悲惨，因为房东们会把窗户封起来，所修套间的光照和通风都不足……”
• The window tax was thought of as improvement on the "hearth tax," that Charles II had imposed in 1662. "The tax was very unpopular in part because of the intrusive character of the assessment process. The `chimney-men' (as the assessors and tax collectors were called) had to enter the house to count the number of hearths and stoves, and there was great resentment against this invasion of the sanctity of the home. The window tax, in contrast, did not require access to the interior of the dwelling: the “window peepers” could count windows from the outside, thus simplifying the assessment procedure and obviating the need for an invasion of the interior."
• 窗户税是被当作“炉灶税”的一个改良版本而提出来的，后者由查理二世于1662年开征。“炉灶税极度招人厌，部分原因在于评估过程的侵犯性。‘烟囱工’（当时对估税员和收税员的称呼）必须进到房间里面数壁炉和火炉的数目。对于这种侵犯产权神圣性的做法，人们怨声载道。与之相比，窗户税则不需要进入住所内部：‘窥窗工’从外头就可以数清窗户数目，从而简化了评估程序，无需再闯进房内。”
• The window tax was intended as a visible measure of ability to pay: that is, a high-income person would live in a place with more windows than a low-income person. But at the time, it was widely recognized that windows were a very imperfect proxy for wealth. Adam Smith wrote about this problem of window tax in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations: “A house of ten pounds rent in the country may have more windows than a house of five hundred pounds rent in London; and though the inhabitant of the former is likely to be a much poorer man than that of the latter, yet so far as his contribution is regulated by the window-tax, he must contribute more to the support of the state.”
• 窗户税的本意是用有形的手段判断有支付能力的人：即高收入者所住之处的窗户多过低收入者。但在当时，普遍认为，拿窗户作为财富的表征并不十分完善。亚当·斯密1776年在《国富论》中就窗户税的这一问题写道：“乡间10镑租金的房屋，有时比伦敦500镑租金房屋的窗户还要多。前者的住户比后者的住户通常要穷得多，但尽管如此，只要是由窗户税来规定捐额，前者就得贡献更多金钱以支援国家。”
• When the rates on the window tax went up, it was common for owners of homes and apartments to block or build over many or all of their windows. The results on human well-being were severe. "A series of studies by physicians and others found that the unsanitary conditions resulting from the lack of proper ventilation and fresh air encouraged the propagation of numerous diseases such as dysentery, gangrene, and typhus. ... A series of petitions to Parliament resulted in the designation of commissioners and committees to study the problems of the window tax in the first half of the 19th century. In 1846, medical officers petitioned Parliament for the abolition of the window tax, pronouncing it to be `most injurious to the health, welfare, property, and industry of the poor, and of the community at large'."
• 一旦窗户税的税率上涨，宅子和公寓的所有者定会大量甚或全部封堵或筑死其窗户。人的福祉受到严重影响。“医疗工作者和其他许多人所做的一系列研究发现，缺乏适当通风和新鲜空气的不卫生环境，助长了如痢疾、坏疽和斑疹伤寒等众多疾病的蔓延……议会收到大量请愿书。于是在19世纪上半叶，众多专员和委员会得以受指派着手研究窗户税的问题。1846年，卫生部门官员向议会申请废除窗户税，称其‘对于贫民及整个社群的卫生、福祉、产权和勤勉极其有害’。”
• Here's Charles Dickens writing in 1850 about the window tax in Household Words, a magazine that he published for a number of years: “The adage ‘free as air’ has become obsolete by Act of Parliament. Neither air nor light have been free since the imposition of the window-tax. We are obliged to pay for what nature lavishly supplies to all, at so much per window per year; and the poor who cannot afford the expense are stinted in two of the most urgent necessities of life.”
• 1850年，查尔斯·狄更斯在他多年主持出版的杂志《家常话》中如此描写道：“‘像空气一样自由’这条谚语已经因议会而过时。自窗户税开征后，无论是空气还是光线都不曾免费过【译注：“自由”与“免费”的英文都是free】。我们被迫为大自然慷慨的恩赐付费，只要时间、窗户还在，而无法承担这笔开支的穷人，只能在这两样至关紧要的生活必需品上节约。”

Oates and Schwab work with a mix of data on the number of windows in a sample of houses in Shropshire and economic theory about household behavior when confronted with taxes to generate an admittedly rough estimate that on average, collecting a certain amount of money through the window tax created an excess burden--in terms of the costs of living in a place with fewer windows--equal to an additional 62% of the value of the tax. Oates和Schwab将什普罗郡样本住宅的窗户数据和面对个税居民行为经济理论结合起来，得出一个粗略的估计：整体说来，因窗户税那笔钱产生的超额负担——就人们选择住在窗户较少的住所这一行为成本而言——相当于税赋的62%。 Oates and Schwab ask why the window tax lasted so long, give its many problems, and offer an appropriately cynical answer: "Perhaps the lesson here is that when governments need to raise significant revenue, even a very bad tax can survive for a very long time." 既然窗户税问题如此之多，Oates和Schwab就追问为何它能持续如此之久。他们给出的回答是一种恰到好处的冷嘲：“也许，此处的教益就是，如果政府需要显著增加收入，那么即便是极为恶性的税种也能存活很长一段时间。” I didn't know Oates personally, but I had one other job-related interaction with him back. Along with his work in local public finance, Oates was also well-known as an environmental economist. His 1975 book, The Theory of Environmental Policy (written with William Baumol) was highly influential in setting the direction of what at the time was a fairly new and growing field. 我私下里和Oates并无深交，但之前曾因工作关系和他有过另外一次互动。除了在地方公共财政领域的成绩以外，Oates还以环境经济学家的身份知名。他1975年的著作《环境经济理论与政策设计》（与William Baumol合著）影响极大，为当时这个相当年轻、正在成长的领域设定了方向。 In 1995, Oates was a co-author in one of the most downloaded and cited exchanges the JEP has ever published on the subject of what is sometimes called the "Porter hypothesis." 1995年，以人称的“波特假说”为主题，Oates与人合作，为《经济学展望杂志》写了一篇文章，成为该刊史上下载和引用得最多的文章之一。 Michael Porter made the argument--bolstered by a large number of case studies, that when environmental goals are set in a strict way, but firms are allowed flexibility in how to achieve those goals in the context of a competitive market environment, firms often become quite innovative in meeting those environmental goals. 以大量案例研究为支撑，迈克尔·波特提出了如下论点：当环境目标被严格设定且企业在竞争中可以灵活发挥时，企业为达成这些目标通常会变得富有创造性。 Indeed, Porter argued that in a substantial number of cases, the innovations induced by the tough new environmental rules save enough money so that the rules end up imposing no economic costs at all. In the Fall 1995 Journal of Economic Perspectives, Michael E. Porter and Claas van der Linde make their case in "Toward a New Conception of the Environment-Competitiveness Relationship," (9:4, 97-118). 事实上，波特认为，在相当多的案例中，由严厉的环保新规所引发的创新能够省出足够的款项，使得这些规定最终不增加任何经济成本。在《经济展望杂志》1995/秋，波特和Claas van der Linde通过《环境/竞争力关系新概念一探》（9:4, 97-118）一文对此作了论述。 The authorial team of Karen Palmer, Wallace E. Oates, and Paul R. Portney respond in "Tightening Environmental Standards: The Benefit-Cost or the No-Cost Paradigm?" (9:4, 119-132). Oates and his co-authors took the position that while the costs of complying with environmental regulations do often turn out to be lower than industry predictions that were made when the rule was under discussion, it goes too far to say that environmental rules usually or generally don't impose costs. I wrote about some more recent evidence on this dispute in "Environmental Protection and Productivity Growth: Seeking the Tradeoff" (January 8, 2015). Karen Palmer、Wallace E. Oates和Paul R. Portney用《强化环保标准：收益/成本范式还是零成本范式？》（9:4, 119-132）一文做出回应。Oates和共同作者们的立场是：尽管遵守环保规制的成本最终总会低于起初制定时的业界预测，但却不能说它往往或一般情形下不会增加成本。我曾就此讨论提供了一些最新佐证，见《环境保护与生产率增长：寻找权衡》一文（2015-01-08） （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——

【2016-08-10】 @海德沙龙 《噩梦般的底特律教育系统》 底特律自70年代以来就在持续衰败，居民不断逃离，工厂和住宅区一个个沦为废墟，犯罪率攀至榜首，随之一起沦落的还有它的公立教育系统，学生大量流失，出勤率、毕业率和学习成绩快速下降，然而这些学校的开支却并未减少，它正在从一个教育机构变成教师救济所… @whigzhou: 选择机制总会起作用，问题是在哪个层次上起作用，假如你阻止自由市场在个体和企业层次上起选择作用，那么其他选择机制便会在产业、组织、城市、地区、国家等层次上起作用。  

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——

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——

【2016-07-18】 @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  

【2016-07-12】 @whigzhou: 日本封建系统区别于西欧封建系统的一个重要方面，是缺乏教会和自由市镇这两类契约主体，相应的，后来的宪政结构中也缺少这两条腿，日本的产业界多半由贵族和武士阶层转变而来，并且转变过程很短，保留了许多封建特性，这对日本社会影响深远，政治结构，产业模式，财阀体系，企业文化中，皆可看出痕迹。 @琉璃魄新年要认真: 近代以来上级武士从政居多，下级武士“创业”也是成功者寥寥，居于财阀顶点的三井和住友都是商业世家，三菱创始人来自地下浪人，安田是从两替店小伙计干起的足轻之子，谁都算不到封建传统上去。 @whigzhou: 嗯嗯，原po说『贵族直接转变成财阀』不太对，说『财阀克隆了封建结构』可能更准确 @琉璃魄新年要认真: 这要看怎么定义这两种主体了，就组织形态和实际效果来说，日本从来就不缺少宗教和商业性质自治体，即使近世统一时期也有门前町，檀家体系以及城下町，只不过近似于英国存在着统合自治体的“王权”。 @whigzhou: 谢指教～我的意思是宗教和工商业者没有像西欧那样被纳入封建结构 @whigzhou: 比如在英格兰，起初修道院长/主教以封臣身份领有土地，在与土地相关的封建权利/义务方面，其地位与其他封臣一样，市镇以特许状取得自治地位，也成为封建结构的一个常规主体，后来，两者分别通过在上院的席位和下院的代表而在宪政结构中取得地位 @whigzhou: 相比之下，日本的宗教团体和工商业者似乎没有类似的政治组织资源，他们或许也有组织，但并未进入封建结构，因而只能以非制度性的关系依靠某位领主，比如三菱之于土佐，三井之于幕府，其组织模式也在相当大程度上克隆了土地贵族，而不像自由市镇那样自有一套。  

【2016-06-26】 @whigzhou: @sw小橘子 问我『制度决定下限，文化决定上限』这句话是不是我说的，我说这么格拉德维尔的话不像是我说的，不过这句话确实道出了一些真相，并且和我的社会进化理论相合，我的理论就是雪球模型，从人性到文化到基础政治结构到制度到可见的繁荣状况，每一外层的可能性皆受制于内层的性质与禀赋， @whigzhou: 所以从短期看，内层结构的性质限制着外层的可能性，而从长期看，特定性质的外层的持续存在，对内层也构成了选择压力，因而也改变着内层的性质，我将这一改变称为（广义的）鲍德温效应。 @whigzhou: 我也曾为这套理论找过一句格拉德维尔式的警句『英国人无论到哪里都能建立起自由社会，德国人和日本人无论到哪个自由社会都会成为模范公民，犹太人和华人无论到哪个自由社会都比其他民族会挣钱……』，无奈还是不够短不够朗朗上口。 @whigzhou: 还要加上后半句『在长期经历不同制度之后，香港文化已不同于广州文化，东德人也已不同于西德人，北朝鲜人更不同于南朝鲜人』 @whigzhou: 有关个人认知能力和人格特质的研究很多，但针对族群比较的研究还很少，历时性的研究则更少，所以我们远未弄清那些特质（及相应的遗传基础）在支撑着宪政、法治、宽容、开放等文明的关键元素，但我们可以设想一下，某些重要特质的改变可能会引出何种结果。 @whigzhou: 不妨从一个分歧最小的特质开始，假如英国人的IQ分布拉低两个标准差，顶级科学家就消失了，再拉低一个标准差，整个科学社区就没了，这大概不会有疑问， @whigzhou: 再考虑经验开放性，假如一个民族的经验开放性的统计分布拉低两个标准差，该民族就不会有出色艺术家了，再拉低一个标准差，所有艺术活动都消失了，这一点不太确定，或许经验开放性不是很好的指标，但我很确信必定可以找到某项特质来评估这一点 @whigzhou: 再考虑法治，法治能够存续的前提是绝大多数人在绝大多数场合愿意自觉遵守规则，否则再强大的司法机器也没用，那么一个族群的尽责性分布拉低两个标准差结果会如何？情绪稳定性也拉低两个标准差呢？ @whigzhou: 道德感又如何？普通法的要义便是：凭良心和常识即可自行判断某一行为是否正当，在一个普遍缺乏道德感的群体，这样的体系能够存续吗？道德感无关于人格特质吗？ @沉默的马大爷: 智商拉低两个标准差，意味着有一半人是弱智，别说科学社区，整个社会都崩溃了。。大部分族群差异达不到这个量级，组内差异一般要高于组间差异 @whigzhou: 两个标准差是夸张了点，但绝非不现实，请看右表 http://t.cn/hByJ2N 不许随便说人弱智，人家要不高兴的 @whigzhou: 确实，消灭顶级科学家大概一个标准差就够了