資本主義將走向終結？

Cometh the hour, cometh the cliché. In the case of Wolfgang Streeck, an influential German sociologist who is emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, that cliché is “the end of capitalism”. Countless intellectuals, including Karl Marx, have forecast the imminent or at least inevitable end of capitalism. Capitalism has always survived. This time, argues Streeck, is different. Capitalism “will for the foreseeable future hang in limbo, dead or about to die from an overdose of itself but still very much around, as nobody will have the power to move its decaying body out of the way”.

每當時機來臨，同樣的陳詞濫調(diào)就會卷土重來。對科隆的馬克斯•普朗克社會研究所(Max Planck Institute)名譽主任、有影響力的德國社會學家沃爾夫?qū)?bull;施特雷克(Wolfgang Streeck)而言，這個陳詞濫調(diào)就是“資本主義的終結”。包括卡爾•馬克思(Karl Marx)在內(nèi)，有無數(shù)知識分子預言過資本主義會很快(或者至少將最終不可避免地)終結。資本主義卻一直存活下來。然而，施特雷克認為，這一次，情況是不同的。資本主義“將在可預見的未來處于一種混沌不明的狀態(tài)，或是已死，或是即將死于自身的過度發(fā)展、但因為沒人有能力將其腐朽的身軀挪開而仍明顯活著”。

How Will Capitalism End?, a collection of somewhat overlapping essays, envisages a “society devoid of reasonably coherent and minimally stable institutions capable of normalising the lives of members and protecting them from accidents and monstrosities of all sorts”. This will offer “rich opportunities to oligarchs and warlords, while imposing uncertainty and insecurity on all others, in some ways like the long interregnum that began in the fifth century CE and is now called the Dark Age”.

《資本主義將如何終結》(How Will Capitalism End?)是一部由多篇有些相互重復的論文集結而成的著作。本書預見了一個“這樣的社會，這個社會缺乏一套較為協(xié)調(diào)并具備最低限度穩(wěn)定性的機構，來維持社會成員生活的正常化并保護他們免受各類意外事件和可怕之物的傷害”。這樣的社會將給“寡頭和軍閥提供豐富的機會，同時讓其他所有人陷入不確定和不安全的狀態(tài)，從某種程度上，這個社會就像是始于公元5世紀、現(xiàn)在被稱為‘黑暗時代’(Dark Age)的那段漫長的過渡期”。

Streeck is a mixture of the analyst, the moralist and the prophet. As an analyst, he challenges the stability of democratic capitalism. As a moralist, he dislikes a society founded on greed. As a prophet, he declares that the wages of this sin are death.

施特雷克集分析者、道德家和預言家于一身。作為分析者，他質(zhì)疑民主制資本主義的穩(wěn)定性。作為道德家，他厭惡一個建立在貪婪之上的社會。作為預言家，他宣稱這種罪惡的報應就是死亡。

Streeck does not believe in the inevitable arrival of a socialist paradise. On the contrary, his is a dystopian vision in which capitalism perishes not with a bang, but a whimper. Since, he argues, capitalism can no longer turn private vice into public benefit, its “existence as a self-reproducing, sustainable, predictable and legitimate social order” has ended. Capitalism has become “more capitalist than is good for it”.

施特雷克并不相信社會主義天堂必將到來。相反，他設想的資本主義的滅亡將是反烏托邦式的——不是伴隨著一聲巨響，而是伴隨著一聲嗚咽。他主張，因為資本主義無法再將私人惡行轉化為公共利益，其“作為一種自我繁殖、可持續(xù)、可預測以及合法的社會秩序的存在”就終結了。資本主義已經(jīng)“變得太資本主義，到了對其自身有害的地步。”

The postwar marriage between universal-suffrage democracy and capitalism is ending in divorce, argues Streeck. The path leading to this has gone via successive stages: the global inflation of the 1970s; the explosion of public debt of the 1980s; the rising private debt of the 1990s and early 2000s; and the subsequent financial crises whose legacy includes ultra-low interest rates, quantitative easing, huge jumps in public indebtedness and disappointing growth. Accompanying capitalism on this path to ruin came “an evolving fiscal crisis of the democratic-capitalist state”. The earlier “tax state” became the “debt state” and now the “consolidation state” (or “austerity state”) dedicated to cutting deficits by slashing spending.

施特雷克認為，戰(zhàn)后普選民主和資本主義的聯(lián)姻正走向破裂。通向這個結局的道路經(jīng)歷了幾個連續(xù)的階段：上世紀70年代的全球通脹;上世紀80年代的公共債務爆炸式增長;上世紀90年代和2000年代初的私人債務上升;之后的金融危機(其后果包括超低利率、量化寬松、公共負債大幅攀升以及令人失望的經(jīng)濟增長)。在這條通往毀滅的道路上，伴隨資本主義的是“民主制-資本主義國家不斷演變的財政危機”。早期的“稅收國家”變成了“債務國家”，現(xiàn)在則變成致力于通過降低開支來削減赤字的“整固國家”(也就是“緊縮國家”)。

Three underlying trends have contributed: declining economic growth, growing inequality and soaring indebtedness. These, he argues, are mutually reinforcing: low growth engenders distributional struggles, the solution too often being excessive borrowing. His views on the absurdity of quantitative easing as a palliative mirror those of the Austrian economists he despises. This is not the only case in which Streeck echoes rightwing views: his discussion of increasing female participation in the labour market, for example, finds much to regret and nothing to celebrate in this trend.

有三種潛在趨勢促成了這種情況：經(jīng)濟增長走下坡路、不平等的加劇和債務的激增。施特雷克認為，這三種趨勢相互強化：低增長引起了分配方面的困難，解決方法往往是過度借貸。他認為量化寬松作為一種權宜之計是荒謬的，他的這一觀點與他所藐視的奧地利經(jīng)濟學家一致。這不是施特雷克唯一與右翼觀點一致的地方：比如，他對提高女性勞動參與率的討論得出的結論是，這種女性勞動參與率提高的趨勢帶來很多壞處，沒有絲毫好處。

In one of his few telling phrases, he describes the response of ordinary people to pressures on them as “coping, hoping, doping and shopping”. But, above all, Streeck stresses the dire consequences of an out-of-control financial system, a predatory tax-evading and tax-avoiding plutocracy, the transfer of substantial parts of the public realm into private hands and resulting corruption of political and economic domains.

施特雷克為數(shù)不多的精辟表述之一，是把普通人對壓力的反應描述為“應付、期盼、嗑藥和購物”。但最重要的是，施特雷克強調(diào)失控的金融體系、充斥著逃稅避稅的掠奪性的富豪統(tǒng)治、將大部分公共領域轉入私人之手以及因此導致的政經(jīng)領域的腐敗，帶來極為嚴重的后果。

Streeck also writes devastatingly and cogently on the euro as an assault on democratic politics. “Germany”, he argues, “on account of its regained economic power after 2008 and as the main beneficiary of the EMU [economic and monetary union] due to its export strength . . . de facto governs the EMU as a German economic empire.”

施特雷克也對歐元進行了強有力又令人信服的論述，他認為歐元是對民主政治的一次沖擊。“德國，”他表示，“由于其在2008年以后恢復了經(jīng)濟實力，以及該國因為出口強勁是歐洲貨幣聯(lián)盟(EMU)的主要受益者……在事實上統(tǒng)治著歐洲貨幣聯(lián)盟，使其成為了一個德國經(jīng)濟帝國。”

The eurozone, notes Streeck, seeks to bring together countries with irreconcilably different economic cultures. A democratically legitimate resolution of the resulting tensions is impossible. The euro will either fail or survive as an undemocratic structure subservient to the whims of the financial markets and managed by a technocratic central bank and a hegemonic Germany.

施特雷克指出，歐元區(qū)尋求將多個經(jīng)濟文化存在差異的國家團結在一起，而這些差異是不可調(diào)和的。要通過民主上具備合法性的方式消除由此產(chǎn)生的緊張局面是不可能的。歐元將要么滅亡，要么以一種不民主的結構存續(xù)下去，屈從于變化多端的金融市場，由技術官僚掌控的央行和占據(jù)霸主地位的德國來管理。

Streeck’s views on the folly of the euro are convincing, but the forecast that today’s Europe will end up in something like the Dark Ages seems ludicrous. Contemporary Europeans enjoy standards of living, life expectancies, personal freedoms and levels of security that people of the Dark Ages or indeed of the Roman empire could not even imagine.

施特雷克關于歐元這種機制很愚蠢的觀點令人信服，但預測今天的歐洲將落入類似黑暗時代的境地似乎就有點荒謬了。當代歐洲人所享受的生活水準、預期壽命、個人自由和安全水平，都是黑暗時代乃至羅馬帝國的人根本無法想象的。

Moreover, pace Streeck, today’s world does not consist only of failures. He notes, correctly, that the emergence of the globalised market economy has reduced the effectiveness of the mid-20th-century compromise between democracy and national capitalism. But his enthusiasm for deglobalising capitalism misses altogether the immense opportunities increased trade and foreign direct investment have brought, notably to China and India.

此外，恕我直言，今天的世界并非只有失敗。施特雷克指出全球化市場經(jīng)濟削弱了20世紀中期民主制與國家資本主義所達成的妥協(xié)的有效性，這一點是正確的。但他對于去全球化資本主義的熱情完全忽視了貿(mào)易和外商直接投資(FDI)的增加所帶來的巨大機會，尤其是對中國和印度而言。

In addition, while the trends and stresses in the functioning of the contemporary market economy and its relationship with democratic politics are part of the story, they are not the whole of it. Streeck is right that no stable equilibrium exists in any society. Both the economy and the polity must adapt and change.

此外，雖然當代市場經(jīng)濟的運行中的趨勢和壓力，以及當代市場經(jīng)濟與民主政治的關系是事情的一部分，但卻不是事情的全部。施特雷克有一點說的很對，那就是任何社會都不存在穩(wěn)定的均衡。無論是經(jīng)濟還是政治都必須適應和改變。

Yet the relationship between democracy and capitalism is not, as Streeck seems to believe, unnatural. On the contrary, both systems derive from a belief in the role of people as active citizens and economic agents. In the former role, they make decisions together; in the latter, they make decisions for themselves. The boundaries and modes of operation of both systems are open to constant renegotiation. But both are essential.

然而，民主和資本主義之間的關系并不像施特雷克似乎認為的那樣不自然。相反，這兩種體系都源于一種將人視為活躍的公民和經(jīng)濟主體的信念。在前一種角色中，人們共同做決策;在后一種角色中，他們?yōu)樽约鹤鰶Q策。這兩種體系的邊界和運行模式都能夠接受不斷的修訂。但兩者都必不可少。

Moreover, democracy cannot function without a market economy. The alternative — a thoroughly politicised economy — cannot function properly: just look at today’s Venezuela. The market protects democracy from becoming overstretched, while democracy provides a legitimate framework for the market. Just as the market economy is the least bad way to generate prosperity, so is democracy the least bad way to manage social conflicts.

此外，沒有市場經(jīng)濟，民主制度就無法正常運行。而另一個選擇，即徹底政治化的經(jīng)濟體制，無法正常運轉：看看今天的委內(nèi)瑞拉就明白了。市場能防止民主變得不堪重負，而民主則為市場提供了一個合法的框架。正如市場經(jīng)濟是創(chuàng)造繁榮的糟糕程度最輕的方式，民主也是管理社會沖突的糟糕程度最輕的方式。

Furthermore, in today’s world, it is not capitalism that is in imminent danger, but rather democracy. A predatory form of post-democratic capitalism, not the end of capitalism, is the threat. Correspondingly, authoritarianism seems a far greater peril than the anarchy of a dark age.

此外，在當今世界，面臨緊迫危機的并非資本主義，而是民主。人們面臨的威脅不是資本主義的終結，而是掠奪式的后民主制下的資本主義。相應地，威權主義似乎也比黑暗時代的混亂狀態(tài)危險得多。

The challenges we confront in bringing finance under control, rebalancing corporate governance, remedying inequality, sustaining demand and, above all, managing the tensions between the democratic nation state and the global market economy are genuine. The answers should include a modicum of deglobalisation, notably of finance, and greater co-operation among democratic governments, notably on taxation and the provision of global public goods. Will this be difficult? Yes. Will the answers work forever? No.

在一些事情上，我們的確面臨挑戰(zhàn)：讓財政狀況重新變得可控、重新平衡公司治理、糾正不平等、支撐需求，以及最重要的，管理民主的民族國家與全球市場經(jīng)濟之間的緊張關系。解決方案應該包括以下兩點：略微去全球化，尤其是在金融方面;加強民主政府之間的合作，尤其是在稅收、全球公共品的提供方面。這會很難么?是的。這些方案會永遠有效嗎?不會。

Is the task possible? Absolutely, yes. Streeck condemns this “technocratic-voluntaristic doability worldview” as hopelessly naive. Such defeatism before supposedly unmanageable social forces is characteristic of a certain sort of intellectual. But the “doability worldview” saved civilisation in the middle of the 20th century. It can (and must) do so again, even if its old institutional bases, particularly trade unions and political parties, have weakened.

這個任務可能完成嗎?絕對可能。施特雷克譴責這種“技術官僚-意志論式的‘能做到’的世界觀”簡直天真到無可救藥。在看似無法管理的社會力量面前繳械投降是一類知識分子的特征。但正是這種“‘能做到’的世界觀”在20世紀中期拯救了文明。這種世界觀能夠(而且必須)再次做到這一點，即使其過去的機構基礎，尤其是工會和政黨的力量都弱化了。

How Will Capitalism End? provides not so much a convincing forecast as a warning. Its analysis is exaggerated and simplistic. Streeck correctly identifies some disturbing trends. Nevertheless, the history of the 20th century shows we do not have to be victims of forces beyond our control. We can choose the worse, or the better. We should choose the better.

與其說《資本主義將如何終結》做了一個令人信服的預言，不如說它發(fā)出了一個警告。該書的分析有所夸大，并且過于簡單化。施特雷克指出了一些令人不安的趨勢，這是正確的。然而20世紀的歷史表明，在不受我們控制的力量面前，我們并非注定成為受害者。我們可以選擇更壞的處境，也可以選擇更好的處境。我們應該選擇后者。

How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System, by Wolfgang Streeck, Verso RRP£16.99/$26.95, 272 pages

《資本主義將如何終結?有關一個失敗體系的論文集》(How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System)，沃爾夫?qū)?bull;施特雷克著，Verso出版社，建議零售價16.99英鎊/26.95美元，272頁