Free markets and the decline of democracy（自由市场和民主的衰退）

“Adam Smith’s ahistoric view”: John Kay engraving, 1790. Wikicommons/United States Library of Congress. Public domain.

“亚当·斯密的非历史观”：John Kay雕刻，1790年。维基共有/美国国会图书馆。 公共区域。（备注：亚当斯密是现代经济学创始人）

It is difficult to find a major country in which democratic institutions are not under stress, in many cases under aggressive attack. The United States has a profoundly anti-democratic regime. In Europe long-standing authoritarian tendencies have enjoyed a quantum leap under the neoliberal austerity regime fostered by the German government under cover of the European Commission.

很难找到一个民主机构没有受到压力的主流国家，在许多案例下民主都被激进的攻击。美国有一个极度反民主的政权。在欧洲，在德国政府在欧盟委员会的掩护下推动的新自由主义紧缩政权下，长期以来的独裁趋势已经有了巨大的飞跃。

The draconian austerity measures that were imposed on Greek citizens represent an obvious and shocking example of the mainstream authoritarian trend in Europe.   Authoritarian movements and political parties hold power in Austria, Italy, Poland and Hungary. Outside the EU, efforts of the government of Europe’s most populous country, Russia, to undermine democracy domestically and in the rest of Europe are well-documented.  The few developments in major countries supportive of democracy come in Spain where the Socialists hold government and the progressive and participatory Podemos is a strong political force; and the shift of the British Labour Party to social democracy with the imminent possibility of an election victory.

强加给希腊公民的严厉紧缩措施是欧洲主流专制趋势的一个明显的和令人震惊的例子。威权运动和政党在奥地利，意大利，波兰和匈牙利掌权。 在欧盟之外，欧洲人口最多的国家俄罗斯政府在国内和欧洲其他地区破坏民主的行径都有充分的记录。在主流国家支持民主的少数发展来自西班牙，社会主义者控制政府，进步和参与性的Podemos是一股强大的政治力量; 英国工党转向社会民主主义，即将有可能获得选举胜利。

Beyond North America and Europe no major country counters the authoritarian trend, not China, where the government oversees a transition from socialist to market authoritarianism. Superficial flowering of democratic participation in Brazil and India proved short-lived, with a rightwing semi-legal coup undermining representative institutions in the former, and the ruling government in India fostering ethnic-religious intolerance.  In VietNam where I have worked for 25 years, an authoritarian government has completed a transition from central planning to capitalism only slightly less repressive than in China. The Philippines’ democratic institutions, dubious in the past, now suffer under the most brutal regime in Asia.

除了北美和欧洲之外，没有一个主要国家反对威权主义趋势，中国也没有，在中国政府负责监督从社会主义到市场威权主义的过渡。 民主参与在巴西和印度的表面开花被证明是短暂的，右翼的半合法政变破坏了前者的代议制，而印度的执政政府则助长了种族—宗教不容忍。在我工作了25年的越南，一个威权独裁政府已经完成了从中央计划到资本主义的过渡，其压制性仅略低于中国。 过去可疑的菲律宾民主体制现在受到了亚洲最残酷政权的折磨。（备注：看起来作者很不了解中国，中国从来都不是社会主义，而是国家资本主义，越南也是国家资本主义。）

“Bourgeois democracy”

“资产阶级民主”

What is the source of this twenty first century tendency to authoritarianism?  The end of WWI, now 100 years past, ushered in authoritarian regimes provoked by the excesses of capitalism. The Great War, as my parents named it, was the most catastrophic conflict in human history. Ten years later came the most devastating economic crisis the world had known. The excesses of capitalism and the apparent incapacity of representative governments to contain those excesses induced many, especially in Europe, to dismiss “bourgeois democracy” as degenerate and dysfunctional. As the Great War ended, revolutionaries in Russia overthrew capitalism and pledged a governance system in the interests of the working-class and peasantry. The promise and hope for popular democracy went unfulfilled as the workers’ state transformed into thinly disguised authoritarian rule.

这种二十一世纪威权主义趋势的根源是什么？ 距离第一次世界大战的结束已经过去了100年，迎来了由过度的资本主义激活的威权独裁政权。 正如我的父母所说，一战是人类历史上最具灾难性的冲突。十年之后，发生了世界上最具破坏性的经济危机。资本主义的过度行为以及代议制政府明显无力控制这些过度行为，导致许多人，特别是在欧洲，将“资产阶级民主”视为退化的和功能失调的。随着一战的结束，俄罗斯的革命者推翻了资本主义，并承诺建立一个符合工人阶级和农民利益的治理体系。随着工人国家转变为威权独裁统治的薄弱伪装，大众民主的承诺和希望落空了。

In Italy, Germany and Japan discrediting of “bourgeois democracy” led to unabashed dictatorships that celebrated their authoritarian nature. The regimes proved appallingly successful not only in crushing labor movements but also in rolling back the principles of the Enlightenment. Destruction of these savage regimes required a war even more catastrophic than the 1914-1918 conflict.

在意大利，德国和日本对“资产阶级民主”的诋毁导致了毫不掩饰的独裁政权，这些独裁政权颂扬了他们的威权性质。 事实证明，这些政权不仅在破坏劳工运动方面，而且在从启蒙运动的原则倒退方面都被证明是令人震惊的成功。破坏这些野蛮政权需要一场比1914—1918年冲突更具灾难性的战争。

The “inner nature of capital”

“资本的内在本性”

In the wake of economic depression, fascism, war and the consolidation of the Soviet Union, whose military had borne the major burden of the war against fascism, there developed a near-consensus among mainstream political parties in the United States and Europe. Over thirty years of economic catastrophe, dictatorship and war demonstrated even to major elements of the capitalist class the need to manage capitalism. During its brief life this consensus maintained that stability and consolidation of capitalism required control mechanisms to prevent the excesses of the economic system, excesses generated by competition, what Marx called “the inner nature of capital”.

在经济萧条，法西斯主义，战争和苏联的巩固之后（苏联军队承担了反法西斯战争的主要负担），在美国和欧洲的主流政党中几乎形成了共识。 三十多年的经济灾难，独裁统治和战争甚至向资产阶级的主要元素展示了管理资本主义的必要性。 在其短暂的生命中，这种共识认为，实现资本主义的稳定和巩固需要控制机制来防止经济体系的过度行为，这是由竞争所产生的，马克思称之为“资本的内在本性”。

In the immediate aftermath of WWII this recognition of the excesses of capitalism appeared even in the foremost economics journal of the time, The Economic Journal.  In 1947 the British economist K. W. Rothschild wrote an article that should be on the reading list of every progressive course in microeconomics,

在第二次世界大战刚刚结束之后，即使在当时最重要的经济学期刊“经济日报”中也出现了对资本主义过度行为的认识。1947年，英国经济学家K. W. Rothschild写了一篇文章，而该文章应该列入微观经济学的每一个进步课程的阅读清单，

…[W]hen we enter the field of rivalry between [corporate] giants, the traditional separation of the political from the economic can no longer be maintained… Fascism…has been largely brought into power by this very struggle in an attempt of the most powerful oligopolists to strengthen, through political action, their position in the labour market and vis-à-vis their smaller competitors, and finally to strike out in order to change the world market situation in their favour…

…… 当我们进入[公司]巨人之间的竞争领域时，政治与经济的传统分离就再也无法维持……法西斯主义……在很大程度上是通过这场斗争来实现的。 强大的寡头垄断者通过政治行动增强他们在劳动力市场中的地位以及与较小的竞争对手的关系，最后为了将世界市场形势改变为符合他们心意的而攻击……

…The imperialistic aspects of modern wars or armed interventions must be seen as part of a dynamic market theory just as the more traditional ‘economic’ activities like cut-throat pricing…For there is no fundamental difference between the two. (Rothschild 1947, 319)

……现代战争或武装干预的帝国主义方面必须被视为动态市场理论的一部分，正如更为传统的“经济”活动，如割喉定价……因为两者之间没有本质区别。 （Rothschild 1947,319）

The rise of financial capital since the 1970s has returned us to the capitalist authoritarianism that flourished in the 1920s and 1930s. Market competition is the source of authoritarian rule, and by its nature competition among oligopolies extends to social and political conflict.

自1970s以来金融资本的崛起使我们回到了1920s和1930s时蓬勃发展的资本威权主义。市场竞争是威权独裁统治的源泉，其本质上是垄断寡头的竞争延伸到社会和政治冲突中。

The current authoritarian tide in European and the United States comes from the excesses generated by capitalist competition, unleashed and justified now not by fascism but by neoliberalism.  Neoliberalism pretentiously claims to be the guarantor of freedom – “free markets, free men” was the title of Milton Friedman’s infamous lecture to London businessmen in 1974. Reality is quite the contrary. Neoliberal market re-regulation over the last thirty years has destroyed freedom.

欧洲和美国目前的威权独裁主义浪潮来自资本主义竞争所产生的过度行为，而现在不是通过法西斯主义而是通过新自由主义来释放和合理化过度行为。新自由主义无耻的声称自己是自由的保障—“自由的市场，自由的人”是米尔顿弗里德曼在1974年对伦敦商人的臭名昭著的演讲的标题。事实恰恰相反。过去三十年来新自由主义市场的重新管制毁灭了自由。

“Re-regulation”

“重新管制”

I am careful to use the term “re-regulation” not “de-regulation”.  During the New Deal period, and during the European post-war social democratic and Christian Democratic consensus, governments regulated capital in the specific sense of limiting its freedom of movement. Tariffs and “non-tariff barriers”, limitations on conversion of national currencies and strict oversight of financial institutions constrained the form and intensity of competition. The explicit purpose of these policies was to prevent the “free flow of goods”, to restrict capital’s cross-border mobility, and narrowly contain financial speculation.

我谨慎使用“重新管制”一词而不是“取消管制”。 在新政时期，以及欧洲战后社会民主党和基督教民主党的共识中，政府在限制其行动自由的特定意义上管制了资本。关税和“非关税壁垒”，对本国货币兑换的限制以及对金融机构的严格监督限制了竞争的形式和强度。这些政策的明确目的是防止“财富自由流动”，限制资本的跨境流动，并狭窄地遏制金融投机。

The neoliberal re-regulation does not merely reverse regulation of capital. Neoliberal re-regulation replaces progressive containment of capital with legal rules that actively facilitate the collective power of capital and undermine the collective power of labour.  Neoliberal re-regulation is not the negation of restrictions on capital. Rather, it is the implementation of active policies to limit the scope for governments to act and intervene in economic, social and political spheres.

新自由主义的重新管制不仅仅是反转了对资本的管制。新自由主义的重新管制取代了逐步控制资本的法律规则，积极增强资本的集体力量，并破坏了劳工们的集体力量。新自由主义的重新管制不仅仅是否定对资本的限制。相反，新自由主义正是实施积极的政策来限制政府在经济，社会和政治领域采取行动和进行干预的范围。

Neoliberal re-regulation… is the implementation of active policies to limit the scope for governments to act and intervene in economic, social and political spheres.

新自由主义的重新管制……是实施积极政策，限制政府在经济，社会和政治领域采取行动和进行干预的范围。

During the New Deal and social democracy in Europe governments regulated capital. In the neoliberal era capital regulates government.

在新政期间和欧洲的社会民主政府管制资本。 在新自由主义时代，资本管制政府。（备注：准确来说，欧洲并没有出现过社会民主政府，战后的欧洲一样是凯恩斯主义政府，不过相比当时的美国更靠近社会主义。）

The central purpose of neoliberal re-regulation is to remove economic policy from control by representative democracy. This requires not only economic re-regulation but also social and political re-regulation.

新自由主义的重新管制的核心目的是将经济政策从代议制民主的控制中移除。这不仅需要经济上的重新管制，还需要社会和政治上的重新管制。

“Ordoliberalism”

“秩序自由主义”

Perhaps the clearest example of enforcing limits on representative government is the right-wing German economic ideology “ordoliberalism”.  The term combines two words, “order” and “liberalism”.  This is not a philosophy of de-regulation; rather it is a philosophy of restricted democracy that advocates strict rules – “order” – to limit governments from enacting legislation that deviates from neoliberal principles.

也许对代议制政府强加限制的最明显例子是右翼德国经济意识形态“秩序自由主义”。这个词结合了两个词，“秩序”和“自由主义”。 这不是一种取消管制的哲学; 相反，它是一种限制民主的哲学，它倡导严格的规则—“秩序”—限制政府制定偏离新自由主义原则的立法。（备注：当这种限制被打破而又无法短期内在民主框架内重新被建立时，新自由主义者就会选择毁灭民主，例如芝加哥学派对右翼独裁者皮诺切特的支持。）

Ordoliberalism’s combination of neoclassical economics and emphasis on the state establishing rules to enforce that ideology yields an explicitly anti-democratic system of governance that is now deeply embedded in the two major treaties that serve as the constitution of the European Union. The current German government has spent over a decade successfully inducing other EU governments to legislate limits on their legal scope to design and implement economic policy. Examples of the ordoliberalism approach in the United States are the legislation setting the public debt ceiling and central bank inflation targeting.

秩序自由主义将新古典经济学与强调国家建立强制执行意识形态统治的规则相结合，产生了一种明确的反民主的治理体系，现在已深深植根于作为欧盟宪法的两大条约中。目前的德国政府已经花了十多年时间成功地促使其他欧盟国家政府立法限制其设计和实施经济政策的法律范围。美国的秩序自由主义方法的例子是制定公共债务上限和央行通胀目标的立法。

Media control

媒体控制

The most odious re-regulation in the interests of capital has been legal measures to weaken trade unions and other popular organizations and movements.  Central to that weakening has been the consolidation of financial capital’s control of the media, itself facilitated by legal changes. This control of the means of communication is central to the re-regulation process that liberates capital. Media control facilitates the propaganda to minimize and deflect criticism, even recognition, of the criminal excesses of capitalism. Imposing legal and extra-legal limits to personal freedom in the neoliberal era derives both ideologically and in practice from the dogma of market freedom.

为资本利益而进行的最可恨的重新管制是削弱工会和其他大众组织和运动的法律措施。这种弱化的核心是巩固金融资本对媒体的控制，这本身就是由法律改变促成的。这种对通信手段的控制对于释放资本的重新管制过程至关重要。 媒体控制促进宣传，以最大限度地减少和转移对过度的资本主义犯罪的批评甚至承认。 在新自由主义时代对个人自由施加法律和法律之外的限制，这在意识形态和实践中都源于市场自由的教条。

Democratic facade

民主前线

Imposing legal and extra-legal limits to personal freedom in the neoliberal era derives both ideologically and in practice from the dogma of market freedom. Adam Smith’s ahistoric view that markets arise as a “consequence of a certain propensity in human nature… to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another” could not be further from the reality of capitalism. So-called free markets must be enforced, enforcement achieved by re-regulation by capital. Over the last forty years this re-regulation involved a decommissioning of representative government while maintaining it as a rhetorical facade.

在新自由主义时代对个人自由施加法律和法律之外的限制，在意识形态和实践中都源于市场自由的教条。 亚当·斯密的非历史观认为，市场是“人性中某些倾向的结果……运输，物物交换，和将一件物品交换为另一件物品”，这种观点不可能远离资本主义的现实。必须强加所谓的自由市场，通过资本的重新管制实现执法。 在过去的四十年里，这种重新管制涉及代议制政府的退役，同时将其作为一种修辞立场。

The active regulation of market processes in the United States in the 1930s and Western Europe after WWII suppressed the authoritarian tendency inherent in capitalism.  The re-regulation by capital, especially financial capital, unleashed that authoritarianism.  The emergence of finance capital, so-called financialization, brings to full expression the anti-democratic nature of market processes.

1930s的美国和二战后的西欧对市场进程的积极监管压制了资本主义固有的威权独裁主义趋势。资本的重新管制，特别是金融资本，释放了威权独裁主义。金融资本的出现，即所谓的金融化，充分体现了市场进程的反民主本质。

At the outset of the twenty first century the great oligopolies and powerful industrial corporations about which Rothschild wrote no longer drive the destructive force of capitalist competition. Finance capital not the huge industrial predators of the twentieth century drive competition in this the globalized twenty-first century. The hegemony of finance capital brings forth overtly authoritarian political dictatorship undisguised by democratic trappings.

在二十一世纪初，Rothschild所写的巨大的垄断寡头和强大的工业公司不再是推动资本主义竞争的破坏性力量。在这个全球化的二十一世纪，金融资本而不是二十世纪的巨大工业掠食者驱动竞争。金融资本的霸权带来了毫无掩饰的没有民主外衣的威权独裁政治。

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/john-weeks/free-markets-and-decline-of-democracy