[转帖] [Buttonwood] [201209.01]Democracies and debt 民主体制与公共债务

http://www.ecocn.org/thread-78096-1-1.html
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Democracies and debt
民主体制与公共债务

Voters are now facing a harsh truth
选民们正在面对严酷的现实

ALMOST half the world’s population now lives in a democracy, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister organisation of this newspaper. And the number of democracies has increased pretty steadily since the second world war. But it is easy to forget that most nations have not been democratic for much of their history and that, for a long time, democracy was a dirty word among political philosophers.

根据经济学人信息部（本杂志的姐妹组织）的资料，目前世界上近一半的人口生活在民主制度下，而且民主国家的数目在二战之后相当稳步地上升。但人们很容易忽略这样两个事实：一、大多数国家实行民主制度的历史并不长；二、在很长的历史时期中，民主在政治哲学家的字典中是个肮脏的词语。

One reason was the fear that democratic rule would lead to ruin. Plato warned that democratic leaders would “rob the rich, keep as much of the proceeds as they can for themselves and distribute the rest to the people”. James Madison, one of America’s founding fathers, feared that democracy would lead to “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property and for any other improper or wicked projects”. Similarly John Adams, the country’s second president, worried that rule by the masses would lead to heavy taxes on the rich in the name of equality. As a consequence, “the idle, the vicious, the intemperate would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them.”

一些政治哲学家之所以不看好民主，原因之一是他们担心民主制度可能毁坏社会。柏拉图曾警告说，民主领导人将“掠夺富人、把社会财富尽可能多地留给自己，只把剩余部分分配给人民”。美国开国先驱之一詹姆斯-麦迪逊担心，民主制度会导致纸币泛滥、债务勾销、财产的平均分配，以及其它各种类似的不当和邪恶的举措。”美国第二任总统约翰-亚当斯同样担心，大众的统治会以平等的名义对富人课以过高的税负，从而，“那些懒汉、恶棍和酗酒者将迫不及待地花天酒地，出卖和消费掉他们名下所有的财产，然后，他们又会要求从那些购买了财产的人手中重新分配。”

Democracy may have its faults but alternative systems have proved no more fiscally prudent. Dictatorships may still feel the need to bribe their citizens (eg, via subsidised fuel prices) to ensure their acquiescence while simultaneously spending large amounts on the police and the military to shore up their power. The absolute monarchies of Spain and France suffered fiscal crises in the 17th and 18th centuries, and were challenged by Britain and the Netherlands which, though not yet democracies, had dispersed power more widely. Financial problems contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

民主制度确实存在缺陷，但其它制度在财政政策上并未表现得更为明智。独裁政体也会通过补贴燃料价格等办法取悦他们的人民，以换取他们的顺从；同时又花大钱在警察和军队上，以巩固自己的权力。十七、八世纪的西班牙和法国的绝对君主政体遭受了财政危机，从而受到来自英国和荷兰的挑战。英荷两国当时虽然还不是民主国家，但比法西两国在政治权力上已经更为分散化。财政困难也是苏联解体的原因之一。

Nevertheless, with much of the democratic world now in the throes of a debt crisis, it is tempting to ask whether the fears of Madison and Adams have come to pass. Given the rise in inequality in America and Britain over the past 30 years, it is hard to argue that democracies have led to the confiscation of private wealth. Quite the reverse: modern American politicians either need to be wealthy, or need the financial backing of the rich.

然而，目前大部分民主国家处于债务危机之中，这个事实促使人们反思：麦迪逊和亚当斯的担心是否仍然没有过时。当然，在过去三十年中，英美两国的不平等现象都在加剧，这很难支持民主制度将导致掠夺私人财产的论断。相反，美国政治家想在选举中获胜，或者自己很有钱，或者得到富人的财务支持。

But there is a broader problem. Modern governments play a much larger role in the economy than the ancient Greeks or the founding fathers could have imagined. This makes political leaders a huge source of patronage, in the form of business contracts, social benefits, jobs and tax breaks. As the late political scientist, Mancur Olson, pointed out, these goodies are highly valuable to the recipients but the cost to the average voter of any single perk will be small. So beneficiaries will have every incentive to lobby for the retention of their perks and taxpayers will have little reason to campaign against them. Over time the economy will be weighed down by all these costs, like a barnacle-encrusted ship. The Greek economy could be seen as a textbook example of these problems.

但是，这里有一个更大的问题。现代政府在经济中起着古希腊人和美国开国先驱们难以想象的巨大作用。通过商业合同、社会福利、工作机会和减税手段等，他们掌握着向民众施惠的巨大资源。正像已故的政治学家曼克尔-奥尔森所说，这些好处对受惠者来说具有极大价值，但每一项好处的成本对于个别普通选民来说又很低。这样，那些受惠者有着强烈的动机去游说政治家来保留自己得到的好处；而纳税人却没有什么动机去反对它们。时间长了，经济就会被这些施惠成本所拖垮，就像一艘船舷结满生物甲壳的大船一样。希腊经济可以看作是这类问题的一个典型例子。

One answer could be to take fiscal policy out of the hands of elected leaders, just as responsibility for monetary policy has been handed to independent central bankers. To some extent, that has been happening. Greece was briefly run by Lucas Papademos, an unelected former central banker, and Italy is still ruled by Mario Monti, a former EU commissioner. These technocrats are, it is assumed, more willing to take unpopular decisions.

不让民选领导人染指财政政策，可能是解决这类问题的一个途径，正像把制定货币政策的责任交给独立的中央银行一样。从某种意义上说，这种情况已经在发生。比如在希腊，非民选的前央行副行长卢卡斯-帕帕季莫斯曾短暂地领导过政府；在意大利，前欧盟委员会委员马里奥-蒙蒂仍然是政府的总理。人们认为，在必要情况下，这些技术官僚更敢于出不受大众欢迎的决策

Another approach, with which America has occasionally flirted, is to pass decisions to a bipartisan commission. (This may be the best answer to the “fiscal cliff” that looms in 2013.) Since the decisions of such a commission, and indeed of technocrats in Greece and Italy, are still subject to a parliamentary vote, democracy is not completely abandoned.

另一种途径，是把财政政策的决策权力交给两党联合组成的委员会。美国人曾不时探讨过这种可能性（这对于将在2013年出现的“财政悬崖”问题可能是最好的解决方案）。不过，这种委员会和希腊、意大利的技术官僚们做出的决定，仍然需要国会投票来批准。因此，民主程序仍然没有完全在决策过程中剔除掉。

For a long time, there did not seem to be any limit to the amount democracies could borrow. Creditors have been more patient with democratic governments than with other regimes, probably because the risk of abrupt changes of policy (like the repudiation of Tsarist debts by Russia in 1917) are reduced. But this has postponed the crunch point, rather than eliminated it—and allowed stable democracies to accumulate higher debt, relative to their GDP, than many, more volatile countries ever achieved. Governments can, as Madison suggested, confiscate the wealth of domestic creditors via inflation, taxes or default. But however often they vote, democracies cannot make foreign lenders extend credit. That harsh truth is now being discovered.

长期以来，在民主体制下，对政府借钱的数量似乎没有任何限制。比起其它类型的政府来说，债权人更乐意借钱给民主政府，原因大概是在民主政府下政策突然变化的可能性会低一些（如俄国人在1917年拒付沙皇政府所欠的债务）。但这只是延缓了问题的爆发而不是根除了问题。比起很多更不稳定的政府，稳定的民主政府会累积起更大的债务（和各自的GDP相比）。如麦迪逊所说, 政府可以通过通膨、税收和债务违约的办法来没收本国债权人的财产，但是，无论他们怎样频繁地投票，民主体制不可能强迫外国的债权人缓解他们的债务。这个严酷的现实正在被人们所意识到。

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