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本帖{zh1}由 有香如故 于 2010-6-11 00:30 编辑
Lexington
来克星顿
The open society and its discontents
开放社会及其不满
In his last column, our current Lexington urges Barack Obama to defend the free flow of goods, people and ideas
在{zh1}一行，我们目前的来克星顿力促巴拉克?奥巴马保护商品、人和思想的自由流动
Jun 3rd 2010 | From The Economist print edition
A LONG time ago, the rising seas turned Tasmania into an island. A few thousand inhabitants were cut off from contact with the Australian mainland. Their technology regressed. They forgot how to make bone tools, catch fish and sew skins into clothes. It was not that they grew less intelligent. Their problem was that they no longer had many people to trade with. It took a lot of effort to learn how to carve needles out of bone. So long as there were plenty of people with whom to swap needles for food, it made sense to acquire such skills. But in a tiny, isolated society, there may have been room only for one or two needle-makers. If they both fell off cliffs, the technology died with them. When the first Europeans reached Tasmania, they found natives whose only shields against the winter chill were seal-fat smeared on their skin and wallaby pelts over their shoulders.
很久以前，由于海平面的升高，塔斯马尼亚变成了一座岛屿。数千名居民和澳洲大陆的联系被隔断了。他们的科技退化了。忘记了如何用骨头制作工具、抓鱼以及把兽皮缝制成衣服。这并不是他们变得没以前聪明了。问题是，他们不再能和别人进行贸易往来了。学习如何把骨头雕琢成针，得付出大量努力。可只要得拿针跟很多人交换食物，就得掌握做针的技能。但是，在一个微小而又与世隔绝的社会，或许只有供一两个针匠容身的屋子。假如他们全跌下了悬崖，这种技术也就失传了。当{dy}批欧洲人到达塔斯马尼亚岛的时候，他们发现，当地人仅仅依靠往皮肤上涂抹海豹油脂和肩披沙袋鼠毛皮，来抵御冬天的严寒。
America, at its best, is the opposite of ancient Tasmania: a vast open society through which goods, ideas and people flow freely. “The success of human beings depends crucially, but precariously, on numbers and connections,” argues Matt Ridley, author of “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves” and a former writer for The Economist. Trade allows specialisation. In narrower and narrower fields, people acquire deeper and deeper skills. Through trade, they share them. The fewer barriers there are to the free movement of goods and people, the more opportunities there are for ideas to meet and “have sex”, as Mr Ridley puts it.
充其量，美国只不过是古老的塔斯马尼亚岛的对立面而已：一个广阔的开放社会，商品、思想以及人口能够在其中自由流动。“人类的成功关键（但又不确定地）取决于数量上的优势和相互间的联系，”《理性乐观主义者：繁荣的演变》的作者、曾担任《经济学人》撰稿人的马特?里德利认为。正如里德利所表达的。贸易允许了专门化。人们在越来越窄的领域，获得了越来越深入的技术。而通过贸易，他们能够分享这些技术。商品和人口流动的障碍越少，思想碰到并进行“交合”的机会就越多。
How open does Barack Obama want America to be? The evidence so far is mixed. Last week he ordered another 1,200 national guards to the Mexican border. Was this a shrewd sop to nativists before Mr Obama pushes for a more welcoming immigration law? Or a cynical ploy to woo isolationist votes? Congressional Republicans are in such an obstructive mood that no immigration bill is likely to pass before the mid-term election. Mr Obama has often said he favours reform, but no one knows how much political capital he will invest in its pursuit.
巴拉克?奥巴马想要美国有多开放呢？迄今为止迹象是混杂的。上周，他把又一批1200名国民警卫队员派往墨西哥边境。在奥巴马奋力争取一项更受欢迎的移民法之前，对本土主义者来说，这是一次精明的讨好行为吗？亦或，是令人怀疑的、企图争取得到孤立主义选民支持的策略？国会的共和主义者存心设法阻挠：在中期选举之前，移民法案休想获得通过。奥巴马曾常说他喜欢改革，但没人知道，为了追逐改革，他将会投多少政治资本进去。
Immigration policy is a mess. The process for getting a work visa is so arduous that many bright would-be immigrants give up. The government subsidises foreigners to acquire PhDs at American universities and then kicks them out of the country. The World Economic Forum talks of a “talent crisis”, and predicts that America will have to add 26m workers to its talent pool by 2030 to sustain the economic growth rates of the past two decades. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, describes America’s immigration policy as “national suicide”. In theory, one could lower the barriers to highly skilled workers without tackling the more controversial issue of unskilled migration. But politically, you have to do both together, says Bart Gordon, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee. Hispanic voters want a path to citizenship for their undocumented cousins. An immigration bill needs a broad coalition of supporters to pass, so it will need to offer something for everyone.
移民政策一团糟。获得工作签证的程序极其艰难，因而很多聪明的准移民们都会选择放弃。政府发放津贴给外国人，让他们在美国的大学里攻读博士，之后就把他们踢出美国。世界经济论坛谈论道“人才危机”，并预测，到2030年，美国将须增加2600万工作的人到其人才储备中，以保持此前二十年的经济发展水平。纽约市市长布隆?伯格形容美国的移民政策是“国家xx”。理论上，可以降低高级技术工人的关卡，而不必去解决更具争议的无技术移民的问题。但是在政治上，你必须得两者兼顾，来自田纳西州的民主党国会议员巴特?戈登说道。西班牙裔选民希望他们的无正式文件的同胞们，能有条通往美国公民权的路子。一项移民法案需要支持者广泛的联盟才能获得通过，所以，需要它惠及每个人。
America has not raised barriers to trade 。much on Mr Obama’s watch, but it has not lowered them either. Trade pacts with Colombia and South Korea have been stuffed in the freezer. Average duties have barely budged, calculates Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth College, but that takes no account of trade-distorting subsidies and the “Buy American” bias in public procurement. Mr Obama says he favours open trade, but he has taken some steps backwards, such as slapping tariffs on Chinese tyres. The White House sometimes gives the impression that it sees trade policy as a way to advance environmental and social goals, rather than trade itself, frets Sallie James of the Cato Institute.
美国并未增加贸易壁垒，也没减少。这都在奥巴马的眼皮子底下。和哥伦比亚、韩国的贸易协定已被雪藏了。达特茅斯大学的道格拉斯?欧文计算出，平均关税极少让步，但这并未顾及到贸易扭曲性补贴额和公众采购上“购买美国货”的偏见。奥巴马说他偏爱开放式贸易，但他自己却已在倒行逆施，例如对中国轮胎大量提高关税。白宫有时给人种印象，即它视贸易政策为提升环境和社会目标的途径，而并非贸易本身，卡托研究所的萨莉?詹姆斯说道。
The number of temporary visitors to America (tourists, businesspeople and so on) fell sharply after September 11th 2001, recovered strongly and then briefly fell again when the recession struck. America is a wonderful place to visit, but its border bureaucracy is arguably the worst in the rich world. This is a shame: Simon Anholt, a consultant on national image, finds that foreigners who visit a country in person gain a much more positive view of it, especially if they make friends there.
2001年的911事件后，临时访美者（观光客，商人等等）的数量骤减，后来大大地恢复了，但又因经济衰退而再次短暂地减少。美国固然是个美妙的游览胜地，但经证明，其边境机构在富裕国家中是最差的。这是种耻辱：国家形象顾问西蒙?安霍尔特发现，亲身访问一个国家的外国人对美国得到了一个更加明确的观点，特别是他们在那儿交朋友的时候。
Mr Obama, lift your lamp
奥巴马，举起你的灯
Openness has strategic advantages, too. America’s military dominance cannot last for ever. China is catching up fast. North Korea has the bomb and Iran may soon follow suit. In future America’s global sway will depend less on the threat of force and more on soft power. Fortunately, its charms are more potent than its arms. Foreigners devour American cultural exports, from “Desperate Housewives” to the Harvard Business Review. Young people from traditional societies watch “Friends” and see the possibility of greater independence, of living without parents and uncles breathing down their necks, reckons Martha Bayles of Boston College. Foreign leaders are disproportionately educated at American universities, where they cannot help but notice that political freedom need not spell chaos. If and when China eventually embraces democracy, this will surely be part of the reason.
开放性也具有战略优势。美国不会永远保持军事优势。中国正在迅速地迎头赶上。朝鲜有核弹而伊朗可能不久会步其后尘。未来美国的全球支配地位，不是依靠武力的威胁，而是取决于软实力。幸运的是，它的吸引力比武力还要强大。外国人贪婪地吸收着美国的文化输出，从《绝望的主妇》到《哈佛商业评论》。波士顿大学的玛莎?贝勒斯认为，来自传统社会的年轻人观看《好友》，看到了不和父母同住、也不去仰叔父的鼻息，这样的生活可能更加独立。在美国大学接受了教育的外国{lx}们，多得不成比例，他们不得不去注意到，得到政治自由其实不必招致混乱。假如中国最终拥抱民主，或者说当那种时候，现在所讲的也是一部分原因。
The financial crisis has shown that cross-border flows of money need tighter regulation. It has not undermined the case for the free movement of goods and ideas and people, but many Americans think it has. Openness is unsettling. It provokes fierce opposition. It can be reversed. Ruinous tariffs are easy to impose, as was discovered during the Depression. Foreigners can be mistreated without electoral consequence, since they cannot vote. Yet this would be a colossal mistake. These days it is not only the world’s tired, poor huddled masses who yearn to breathe free. More often, it is the energetic and upwardly mobile. A fifth of China’s graduates say they want to emigrate; few peasants do. The open society needs defenders. So it would be nice if Mr Obama spoke up more often for the ideals etched on a certain statue.
金融危机表明，跨境货币流通需要更紧的管制。这并不有损于商品和思想的自由流通，可很多美国人却认为不是这样。开放性使人不安，激起了强烈的反对。它会被xx。正如在经济萧条期间发现的，灾难性很容易引起关税的强加。因为不能xx，外国人没经过选择结果就会被虐待。然而，这或许是个大错。现在，不光是世间疲惫贫穷杂乱的大众们渴盼自由的呼吸，社会经济也往往需要更多的充满活力的上升。中国有五分之一的研究生想移民；少数农民也这么想。开放社会需要保卫者。所以，假如奥巴马在相关特定法令的想法上，更多地畅所欲言，那将令人欣慰。 |
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