[转帖] [Book] [2012.10.13]The birth of neoliberalism 新自由主义的诞生

showcraft

http://www.ecocn.org/thread-147633-1-1.html
The birth of neoliberalism
新自由主义的诞生
New brooms
新官上任三把火
How three Viennese thinkers changed the world
三个维也纳智囊是如何改变世界的

Oct 13th 2012 | from the print edition

Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones.
《宇宙的主宰者：哈耶克，弗里德曼，以及新自由主义政治的诞生》 作者：丹尼尔•斯德曼•琼斯

HOW did a few Viennese economists persuade a grocer’s daughter, a former film star and Europe’s greatest chicken farmer to unravel 40 years of state expansion? How did a group of men dismissed as cranks and called neoliberals change world politics for good? Daniel Stedman Jones is the latest writer to tackle the issue. His response is finer than most.
仅仅几个来自维也纳的经济学家，是如何说服一个食品商人的女儿（暗指撒切尔夫人），一个前电影明星（暗指里根总统）和欧洲最伟大的养鸡专业户（暗指安东尼•费舍尔），去向他们揭示四十年里国家是如何扩张的呢？一小群被视为异教徒，亦或被称为“新自由主义者”的人，是如何深远地影响了世界政治的呢？丹尼尔•斯德曼•琼斯是最近在探讨这个话题的人。答案有许多，但他给出的答案也许是最好的。

Neoliberalism originated in Austria. As governments fattened in Britain and America in the 1940s, three men started a lonely battle against the new collective politics. Karl Popper, a philosopher and ex-communist, criticised thinkers from Plato to Marx who valued the collective over the individual. Ludwig von Mises, an economist and former left-winger, said no bureaucracy had the means to restrain itself. Friedrich Hayek said central planning was impossible, because no person, however clever, knew what people wanted.
新自由主义起源于奥地利。上个世纪四十年代，当政府系统被美国和英国养得日益脑满肠肥的时候，有三个人跳了出来，孤零零地抗争着新出现的集体主义观政治。卡尔•波普尔，一个哲学家、前共产主义者，认为包括柏拉图和马克思在内的那些鼓吹集体主义的价值优于个人主义的思想家，是错误的。路德维希•冯•米塞斯，一个经济学家、前左翼分子，宣称没有任何官僚机构是有能力实现自我约束的。弗雷德里希•哈耶克则认为政府的中央计划是没有可行性的，因为他认为没有人能做到——即使最聪明的人——也无法预测人们到底需要什么。

Mr Stedman Jones teases out the professorial squabbles. Hayek and Mises wanted their message to be radical. Popper sought to woo as many as possible, even liberals and socialists. No hardliner, Popper later saw flaws in market ideology, comparing it to a religion. Hayek, ever the Utopian, pressed ahead. He started the Mont Pelerin Society to foster his ideas. Thus was neoliberalism founded. One hitch with writing about it is that the word is frequently misused today. Leftists use “neoliberal” to describe people whom they essentially do not like. Mr Stedman Jones seems to think the word should not be ditched; the original pugilists against state control happily went by that name.
斯德曼•琼斯先生挑出了这其中的学术争论的焦点。哈耶克和米塞斯希望他们所传递的信息能更加激进。波普尔则不断地吸引追随者，人数越多越好，甚至发展到了自由主义者和社会主义者阵营。当然，后来波普尔发现了市场理念的缺陷，尤其是将其置于与宗教相对比之下。哈耶克，一如其理想化的乌托邦一样，则执意坚持下去。为了传播培育他的观点学说，他组建了朝圣山学社。于是“新自由主义”学派应运而生。不过如今用这个词却让我们会联想到其它的东西，因为它被误用得太多了。左翼分子用“新自由主义”这个词来描述那些他们不喜欢的人。然而斯德曼•琼斯先生似乎认为这个词不应该被抛弃，因为那些最早参与抗争来自政府的控制的斗士们很乐意于接受这个称谓。

Milton Friedman, a Chicago economist who headed the second wave of state-bashers, preferred the word “neoliberal” in a 1951 essay entitled, “Neoliberalism and Its Prospects”. He argued for a “middle way” between the enemy of collectivism and the excesses of 19th-century liberalism. Victorian liberals failed to grasp that laissez-faire could produce over-mighty individuals, Friedman thought. The goal should not be laissez-faire, but market competition: this, he said, would protect men from each other.
米尔顿•弗里德曼，一个芝加哥的经济学家，是第二波反对大政府主义运动的领军人物。他在自己1951年的论文中以“新自由主义”这个词来冠名：《新自由主义及其前景展望》。他认为在他的敌人——集体主义，和十九世纪那种过度的自由主义之间，存在着“第三条路”。弗里德曼认为，维多利亚时期的自由主义因为不愿承认放任自流的经济政策会导致过分的个人主义而无法自圆其说。他认为，自由主义的目的并不是导致经济上的放任自流，而是形成市场竞争。他同时认为，也正是因为形成了规范的市场竞争，才能保护人们免遭他人的侵害。

Friedman called for a new liberalism, seeing himself as the heir to Adam Smith, the 18th-century defender of the individual. But the line between Smith and Friedman is not a straight one, as Mr Stedman Jones points out. Smith thought one of the state’s jobs should be to build public works and forge institutions that would otherwise fail under market pressure. Here he sounds more like Franklin Roosevelt. Smith believed the state should fund schools, bridges and roads. Friedman said that was the job of the private sector.
弗里德曼倡导新式的自由主义，并且自诩为那个十八世纪个人主义的捍卫者——亚当•斯密的传人。但是，就如斯德曼•琼斯先生指出的那样，他的观点与亚当•斯密之间并不是完全前后一致的。亚当•斯密认为，政府的任务之一就是负责公共设施和公共制度的建设和打造，因为这些东西可能在市场压力下失灵。在这个问题上他的观点听起来更像富兰克林•罗斯福总统。亚当•斯密认为诸如学校、桥梁和道路等公共事务应该由政府筹资，但是弗里德曼则认为这些事务应该让私人负责。

Neoliberals like Friedman saw economic liberty as the safeguard of all freedoms; a swelling state was the road to tyranny. Smith, by contrast, was no democrat. Less moved by political freedom, he worried that mass suffrage would lead to instability. Mises thought that Smith was a man of his time with no opinions to offer on petrol rationing, say. Reading Smith without studying economics, he said, was like reading Euclid without studying maths.
像弗里德曼这样的新自由主义者视经济自由为一切自由的根本保证，而不断膨胀的国家系统则终将导致暴政。相比较下，亚当•斯密都算不上是民主主义者了。他较少受到政治自由观点的侵润，并担心糟糕的选举会导致社会的不稳定。米塞斯认为亚当•斯密的观点是具有其时代局限性的，譬如，他对于汽油定量配给政策就完全没有概念。米塞斯认为，亚当斯密也仅限于经济学的范畴，读亚当•斯密却不学经济学，就一如读欧几里得却不去学数学一样荒唐。

Hayek wrote that liberalism was too confusing a term, since it had different meanings in Victoria’s England and Roosevelt’s America. But he refused to be called a libertarian (too newfangled) or a conservative (he yearned for change). He preferred Old Whig to new liberal. Friedman also tired of the label “neoliberal”, perhaps because liberalism became tied to the grim culture wars of the 1960s. He happily deemed himself “laissez-faire” in 1976.
哈耶克曾经写道，“自由主义”这个术语的内涵其实非常含糊，因为其在维多利亚时期的英国和罗斯福时期的美国具有不同的意义。同时他自己也不愿意被称作自由主义者（太时髦了）或者保守派（他其实一直在鼓吹着变革）。相对新式自由主义，他更愿意被称作旧辉格党人。弗里德曼最后也厌烦了“新自由主义”这个称谓，这也许是因为自由主义后来和六十年代那场糟糕的文化混战被混为一谈。最后在1976年他开心地认为自己成了“放任自流派”。

How did these ideas become mainstream? Mr Stedman Jones, a London barrister, lays it out like a rugby match. The think-tanks pass to the journalists, who pass to the politicians, who with aid from the think-tanks run with it and score. The think-tanks were the most important. With lectures and publications, they propagated ideas frowned upon at universities and converted the most powerful players in this revolution. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan counted themselves as inspired visitors.
那么，这些观点是如何变成主流的呢？斯德曼•琼斯先生，一位伦敦的律师，认为这就像是一场英式橄榄球赛。智囊们把球传给记者，记者再传给政治家，然后政治家们在智囊们的帮助下一路狂奔并得分。其中智囊们的作用是最核心的。通过讲座和出版物，这些智囊们培育着自己的观点，纵然这些观点可能并不被大学接受，但是他们依然尝试着在自己缔造的革命中游说那些最有权势的选手。玛格丽特•撒切尔夫人和罗纳德•里根总统就觉得自己是受到智囊启发的拜访者。

But there is another reason. Mr Stedman Jones says that if the 1970s had not been so caustic, neoliberalism might have floundered. Previous histories say neoliberals rose because of their political nous, the force of their arguments and the network of institutions. Anthony Fisher, the poultry farmer who founded the Institute of Economic Affairs, is praised as much as Reagan’s speeches. These right-leaning tomes talk more of the heroes’ strengths than their rivals’ weaknesses. But the crisis of the 1970s stimulated new thinking, too.
但还有另外一个原因。斯德曼•琼斯先生认为，要不是上世纪七十年代人们过得如此腐败堕落，新自由主义的道路可能还将更加曲折颠簸一些。以前的故事告诉我们新自由主义的崛起是因为他们的政治理性，观点具有说服力以及遍布的学院网。安东尼•费舍尔，那个筹建了英国经济事务学院的家禽专业户，就像里根总统的演说一样受人褒奖。这些思想右倾的卷轴对于自己英雄的力量的赞赏，要多于对于对手的弱点的揭露。但是七十年代的危机也确实促进了新思想的成长。

“Masters of the Universe” is a little thin on character sketches and economics. But it is a strong work. Mr Stedman Jones offers a novel and comprehensive history of neoliberalism. It is tarred neither by a reverence for the heroes, nor by caricature, for he is a fair and nuanced writer. This is a bold biography of a great idea.
《宇宙的主宰者》这本书也许在经济学和人物性格刻画上要孱弱一些，但是它着实是一本强大的作品。斯德曼•琼斯先生给我们提供了有关新自由主义的不仅新颖而且综合全面的历史。它既不受对英雄们盲目崇拜的侵扰，也不含任何的讽刺和挖苦，因为琼斯先生是一位公平而且工作细致入微的作家。这是一本关于伟大的思想的大写体传记。