MTI素材积累：美国头号经济强国的地位还能保持多久？
Whatever their political party, American leaders have generally subscribed to one of two competing economic philosophies. One is a small-government Jeffersonian perspective that abhors bigness and holds that prosperity flows from competition among independent businessmen, farmers and other producers. The other is a Hamiltonian agenda that believes a large, powerful country needs large, powerful organizations. The most important of those organizations is the federal government, which serves as a crucial partner to private enterprise, building roads and schools, guaranteeing loans and financing scientific research in ways that individual businesses would not.
美国领导人无论属于何种政治党派，一般只会追随两种相互对立的经济学派。一种是主张小政府的杰弗逊流派，该派痛恨大规模，认为繁荣来自独立的商人、农民与其他生产者之间的竞争。另一种是汉密尔顿流派，坚信一个强大的国家需要强大的组织机构。机构中最为重要的是联邦政府，是私营企业至关重要的合作伙伴，修建公路与学校、提供贷款，资助科研，所采取的方式个体企业难以企及。
Today, of course, Republicans are the Jeffersonians and Democrats are the Hamiltonians. But it hasnt always been so. The Jeffersonian line includes Andrew Jackson, the leaders of the Confederacy, William Jennings Bryan, Louis Brandeis, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. The Hamiltonian line includes George Washington, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, both Roosevelts and Dwight Eisenhower.
当然，到了今天，共和党人就是杰弗逊派，民主党人则是汉密尔顿派。但也并非总是如此。属于杰弗逊流派的就有安德鲁杰克逊(Andrew Jackson)、南部邦联各领导、威廉詹宁斯布赖恩(William Jennings Bryan)、路易斯布兰代斯(Louis Brandeis)、巴里戈德华特(Barry Goldwater)与里根(Ronald Reagan)。属于汉密尔顿流派的也有乔治华盛顿(George Washington)、亨利克莱(Henry Clay)、林肯(Abraham Lincoln)、威廉麦金利(William McKinley)，老、小罗斯福(西奥多罗斯福、富兰克林罗斯福)与艾森豪威尔(Dwight Eisenhower)。
Michael Linds Land of Promise uses this divide to offer an ambitious economic history of the United States. The book is rich with details, more than a few of them surprising, and its subject is central to what is arguably the single most important question facing the country today: How can our economy grow more quickly, more sustainably and more equitably than it has been growing, both to maintain the United States position as the worlds pre-eminent power and to improve the lives of its citizens?
迈克尔林德(Michael Lind)的《希望的乐土》(Land of Promise)以此作为分界线，写出一部宏阔的美国经济史。该书史料丰富，其中不少令人惊喜，而其主题则对可谓美国今日面对的唯一至关重要的问题影响重大：我们的经济怎样才能更快、更持续与更公平地发展，从而保持美国作为世界强国的地位并改善本国国民的生活?
Lind, a founder of the New America Foundation in Washington and the author of several political histories, acknowledges from the beginning that his thesis will make some readers uncomfortable. In the spirit of philosophical bipartisanship, it would be pleasant to conclude that each of these traditions of political economy has made its own valuable contribution to the success of the American economy and that the vector created by these opposing forces has been more beneficial than the complete victory of either would have been, he writes.
林德是华盛顿新美基金会的创始人，著有多部政治史书籍，在本书中一开始他便坦承，自己的论点会使一些读者不太舒服。本着哲学两派的精神，这些政治经济学流派对美国经济的成功各自做出了有价值的贡献，相互对立的作用力所产生的动力比任何一方的完胜更为有利，做出如此结论自然皆大欢喜，他在书中写道。
But that would not be true, he continues. What is good about the American economy is largely the result of the Hamiltonian developmental tradition, and what is bad about it is largely the result of the Jeffersonian producerist school.
但其实不是这样，他接着写道。美国经济的优点，主要缘于汉密尔顿一派的发展观，而其缺点则大多源自杰弗逊一派的生产观。
Hamiltonian development built the Erie Canal, the transcontinental railroad, the land-grant universities and the Interstate highway system. In the process, the United States became a giant, interconnected market, a place where companies like Standard Oil, General Motors, John Deere and Sears Roebuck could thrive. The government and the American military in particular also played the most important role in financing innovation at its early stages. The industries that produced the jet engine, the radio (and, by extension, the television), radar, penicillin, synthetic rubber and semiconductors all stemmed from government-financed research or procurement. The Defense Department literally built the Internet.
汉密尔顿发展观修建了伊利运河(Erie Canal)、横穿大陆的铁路、政府无偿赠地的大学和州际公路系统。在此过程中，美国成为一个巨大的、相互连接的市场，一个诸如美孚(Standard Oil)、通用汽车(General Motors)、强鹿(John Deere)与西尔斯-罗巴克公司(Sears Roebuck)等公司得以繁荣发展的地方。美国政府尤其是美国军方在发展的早期，在资助创新方面也发挥了至为重要的作用。那些生产出喷气发动机、收音机(以及后来的电视机)、雷达、青霉素、合成橡胶与半导体的行业，均源自政府资助的研究或采购。而互联网根本就是国防部建的。
The United States is like a gigantic boiler, Sir Edward Grey, a British foreign secretary during World War I, said, according to Winston Churchill. Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate. Linds aim is to make Sir Edwards point in the active voice: the government has often lighted the flame, and big business has often generated the power.
据丘吉尔的说法，一战时期的英国外交大臣爱德华格雷爵士(Sir Edward Grey)曾经说过，美国就像一个巨大的锅炉，一旦锅炉生了火，它所产生的能量就无限了。林德的目的在于用主动语态表达爱德华爵士的观点：政府通常点火，而大型企业则常常产生能量。
And Lind has a strong case to make. He cleverly notes that Jeffersonians themselves often have a change of heart when they find themselves running the country and responsible for its well-being. As president, Jefferson altered his position on federal support for canals, roads and manufacturers. His successor, James Madison, signed a bill creating a national bank, having previously denounced the idea. The leaders of the Confederacy, after decrying centralized power, realized they needed an economic machine to finance a war and started a crash program of state-guided industrialization from above that was more Hamiltonian than Hamilton, Lind writes. Modern Jeffersonians, like Reagan and George W. Bush, have campaigned on spending cuts, only to expand government while in office.
而林德也有充分的理由为自己辩护。他敏锐地指出，杰弗逊派自己在治理国家并为国家谋福祉时，常常也会改变态度。身为总统，杰弗逊在联邦对运河、公路与生产厂商的支持上，改变了自己的立场。杰弗逊的继任，詹姆士麦迪逊(James Madison)，签署了一项建立一家国家银行的法案，而他此前却是痛斥这种设想。南部邦联各领导，在公开反对中央集权之后，意识到他们需要一台经济的机器以支撑一场战争，并开始了一个自上而下政府引导的工业化速成项目，这种做法比汉密尔顿还要有过之而无不及，林德写道。现代的杰弗逊一派，如里根与乔治W布什，在任期间，都曾主张削减开支，意在扩张政府的范围。
For all its logical rigor, however, the books thesis does suffer from one basic flaw. Lind never quite explains how the United States has ended up as the richest large country in the world, with per capita income about 20 percent higher than Swedens or Canadas, almost 30 percent higher than Germanys and almost 500 percent higher than Chinas. If anything, other countries have pursued more Hamiltonian policies in many ways than the United States, without quite the same success.
然而，该书尽管逻辑严密，但其主题却有一个基本的缺陷。林德从未解释清楚美国何以成为世界上最富有的国家，人均收入比瑞典或加拿大高出20%，比德国高出将近30%，而比中国高出将近500%。说起来，其他国家在许多方面，实行的政策比美国更具汉密尔顿一派的特征，却未取得同样的成功。
What, then, can explain American economic exceptionalism? Education plays an important role (and receives only sporadic mention in the book). This country long had the most educated, skilled work force in the world, which, as other economic histories have persuasively shown, helped American workers to be among the best paid.
那么，什么才能解释美国经济的独树一帜呢?教育起了一个重要的作用(但在书中却只偶尔提到)。美国在世界上曾经拥有教育程度最高、技能最为熟练的劳动力，这一点，正如多种经济史令人信服地所证明的，使得美国工人收入最好。
Beyond education, the United States also has a culture that is arguably different from that of any other power more individualistic, more risk-taking, more comfortable with the workings of the market. If you were looking for a name for this culture, you might choose Jeffersonian.
教育之外，美国还有可谓不同于其他任何一个强国的文化更具个人主义倾向，更富冒险精神，更愿意接受市场规律。如果你要为这个文化找一个名字，或许你会选择杰弗逊(Jeffersonian)。
Lind, I expect, would dispute that a Jeffersonian culture has played a major role in creating prosperity. Yet readers will emerge from the 586 pages of Land of Promise, despite its many charms, without hearing an argument that fully engages with its opponents.
我在想，林德或许会对杰弗逊式的文化在创造繁荣过程中发挥了主要的作用表示异议。然而，读者在看完长达586页的《希望的乐土》之后会觉得，尽管该书有不少魅力，却未曾听到林德与其对手展开全面的论战。
American economic history, in Linds telling, has been a series of three revolutions and counterrevolutions, with each revolution tied to an actual war. The economic decision that awaited the victorious founders in the 1780s was whether to create a system that complemented the British economy by providing resources for Britains emerging industries and customers for its products, or to create a full-blown national competitor.
在林德看来，美国的经济史就是三次革命与反革命，每次革命都伴随着一场真实的战争。在1780年代，等待凯旋的建国之父们要做的经济决策，就是究竟该建立一个体制，通过为英国新兴的行业提供资源以及为其产品提供客户，以此与英国经济相补充，还是建立一个完善的国家竞争对手。
Southerners, understandably, preferred a partnership, since they had the resources, particularly cotton. The Southern view was also informed by centuries of history in which global living standards had been largely unchanged. In this zero-sum, Malthusian world, a simple agrarian economy made sense. It seemed to maximize individual freedom and avoid the pollution and concentration of power that industry brought. While we have land to labor, Jefferson wrote in 1782, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench.
南方自然喜欢合伙关系，因为他们拥有资源，尤其是棉花。南方的观点也受数百年的历史影响，在这几百年里，全球的生活水准基本上没有什么变化。在这一得失所系的马尔萨斯世界里，简单的农耕经济合情合理。这种经济似乎使个体自由得以最大化，同时也避免了工业带来的污染与权力集中。当我们有地要耕种，1782年杰弗逊写道，那就永远别指望看到我们的公民在工作台前忙碌。
Hamiltonians put more faith in economic change and progress. They subscribed to the ideas of John Locke, the pre-eminent political philosopher of the American Revolution, in which military power stemmed from economic growth and population growth. Hamiltonians encouraged the immigration of inventors and skilled workers (Hamilton himself was an immigrant) and pushed public support for infant industries as well as tariffs to protect them. They also advocated a modern, centralized financial system to pay for the needed investments.
汉密尔顿派更多地信奉经济变化与进步。他们赞成约翰洛克(John Locke)这位著名的美国革命的政治哲学家的思想，即军事力量来源于经济增长与人口增长。汉密尔顿派鼓励投资者与技术工人的移民(汉密尔顿自己就是一位移民)，推动公众支持新兴产业以及意在保护它们的关税。他们还提倡现代而集中的金融体制，以此为必要的投资埋单。
The grander ambitions of the Hamiltonians largely won out, but the victory was temporary. Even as the country benefited enormously, some people did not. The changes also threatened entrenched interests and stoked classically American fears of centralization. Soon Andrew Jackson, more Jeffersonian than the namesake, was on the counterattack, opposing federal road building and closing the national bank.
汉密尔顿派更为宏伟的目标基本胜出，但这场胜利是暂时的。即便是在这个国家受益极大的时候，依然有一些人并未获益。这些变革也威胁到固有的利益，并激起美国对集权的典型的恐惧。结果，没过多久，比杰弗逊还要杰弗逊的安德鲁杰克逊，便开始反击，反对联邦修建铁路，并关闭了国家银行。
These cycles have continued, more or less, for 200 years. Lincoln a state legislator during Jacksons time who fought for federal investment was the great Hamiltonian of the 19th century. After the South left the Union, Lincoln, with the backing of Congress, was able to undertake an investment bonanza that Southern representatives had blocked, building rail lines, roads and colleges. Many of these programs would ultimately help industrialize the South.
如此循环往复，差不多有200年了。林肯，杰克逊时代的一位州议员，力主联邦投资，是19世纪重要的汉密尔顿分子。在南方离开联邦之后，林肯得到国会的支持才得以实现南方代表曾经阻碍的投资繁荣，修建铁路、公路与大学。其中许多项目最终有助于南方的工业化。
Hamiltonians, obviously, did not always make the right investments. The first aviator the federal government backed was Samuel Pierpont Langley, the director of the Smithsonian Institution, whose test flights crashed into the Potomac. But the cost of such failures paled next to the returns of the successes. The military soon became the Wright brothers first client and allowed them, and American aviation more generally, to flourish before a private market for it existed.
显然，汉密尔顿派所作的投资并非总是正确。联邦政府资助的第一位飞行员是史密森学会(Smithsonian Institution)主任萨缪尔皮蓬特兰利(Samuel Pierpont Langley)，他在试飞时飞机堕入波托马克河。但与成功所带来的回报相比，这类失败的成本就显得微不足道了。军方很快就成了莱特兄弟的第一个客户，并使得莱特兄弟以及美国航空在航空私有市场出现之前就繁荣起来。
Among the joys of Linds book are small, little-known stories like the one about the Wright brothers that have clear relevance today. I expect I will be returning to the index of Land of Promise with some frequency. Another joy is Linds attempt to rehabilitate figures to whom history has not been kind. McKinley may have had some cronyism problems, yet he also fought to modernize the American economy and was ahead of his time on civil rights. Wall Street tycoons of the 19th century like J. P. Morgan may have been rapacious, yet they also provided crucial financing for inventors like Thomas Edison. Even Herbert Hoover, whom Lind criticizes for the usual reasons, receives praise for creating the (albeit too modest) forerunners of the New Deal and World War IImobilization.
林德此书乐趣不少，其中便有不大为人熟知的小故事，如上所述莱特兄弟的故事，这些故事今天依然有其相关性。我希望以后会不时翻阅《希望的乐土》的索引。另一乐趣就是林德试图为历史对之不太仁慈的那些人物平反。麦金利或许有过一些任人唯亲的问题，但他也力图使美国经济现代化，并在民权方面走在他所处的时代前面。19世纪华尔街巨头如摩根(J. P. Morgan)或许贪婪成性，但他们也为诸如爱迪生等发明家提供了关键的资助。即便是林德在书中照例受到批评的胡佛(Herbert Hoover)，也因产生了新政的先驱(尽管还过于谨慎)及二战动员而受到赞誉。
That mobilization provided the most important Hamiltonian victories since Lincolns time. A generation of bipartisan presidents afterward, from Harry Truman to Gerald Ford, largely accepted the world Roosevelt left them. Then came the Great Dismantling, to use Linds term, when first Jimmy Carter and, much more aggressively, Reagan moved toward a less centralized, more laissez-faire economy. These decades have seen far slower income growth for most Americans than the previous century.
这一动员为汉密尔顿派带来了自林肯时代以来，最为重要的胜利。此后一代的两党总统，从杜鲁门(Harry Truman)到杰拉尔德福特(Gerald Ford)，大多接受了罗斯福身后的世界。然后就是林德所说的大拆除(Great Dismantling)，先是吉米卡特(Jimmy Carter)，而后更为激进的是，里根走向中央集权日益弱化、 更为自由放任的经济制度。对大多数美国人来说，这几十年的收入增长比前一个世纪还要慢。
The chapters on the most recent years are a fairly standard liberal version of events, with deregulation and modern finance as the main antagonists. If you think airline deregulation was an abomination because service can be wretched and airline bankruptcies are common, you will like Linds telling. If you instead prefer to concentrate on the fact that middle-class Americans can now afford to fly regularly or that air travel has never been safer, you will not be persuaded.
有关最近几年的章节，则颇为中规中矩，其主要对手就是撤销价格管制与现代财政。如果你觉得解除航空价格管制令人厌恶，因为航空服务可能因此变差，而且航空破产司空惯见，那你就会喜欢林德的表述。反之，如果你更喜欢关注美国中产阶级现在能够有钱坐飞机这一事实，或者航空旅行从来没有现在安全，那你就会觉得难以令人信服。
But Lind ends on a stronger note. The major problems facing the United States today, he argues, are ones that demand Hamiltonian solutions. True innovation, of the kind that lifts living standards for the masses, cannot come from lone inventors. It requires resources that only large organizations have. It also requires skilled people, be they well-educated natives or immigrants admitted because of the skills they can bring.
但林德此书结尾更为强劲有力。他认为，美国当今面临的主要问题，需要的是汉密尔顿一派提供的解决方案。真正的创新，能够提高大众生活水准的那种，不可能来自单个的发明家。它需要的资源，只有大型机构才有。它还需要技术工，无论是受过良好教育的本土人士，还是因为自身具有技术而被接纳的移民。
The notion that the United States has stopped making many large-scale investments that bring great returns is not, in Linds view, surprising. American economic history tends to run in cycles. Yes, our roads and bridges are dilapidated. Our broadband infrastructure is not quite world-class. Our schools, including many colleges, can no longer claim to be the finest. But the economic need for change will eventually create the political will for it. Land of Promise ends on as optimistic a note as the title suggests, though it also acknowledges that failure is an option.
美国已经不再从事带来大回报的许多大规模投资，这种观念在林德看来，并不令人惊奇。美国经济的历史是风水轮流转。没错，我们的公路与桥梁破损了。我们的宽带基础设施也不是世界级别的。我们的学校，包括大学在内，再也不能自称是最好的了。但经济对变革的需求最终会产生政治变革的意愿。正如书名所示，《希望的乐土》以乐观的调子结尾，尽管该书承认失败也不是没有可能。
David Leonhardt, the Washington bureau chief of The Times, won a Pulitzer Prize last year for his columns on the economy.
戴维李哈德(David Leonhardt)是《纽约时报》驻华盛顿分社社长，去年因经济专栏文章获普利策奖。