The End of Democratic Capitalism? 民主资本主义的终结？

How Inequality and Insecurity Fueled a Crisis in the West 不平等和不安全如何引发了西方的危机

By Daron Acemoglu 达伦·阿塞莫格鲁（Daron Acemoglu）

The world is in the throes of a pervasive crisis. The gap between rich and poor has widened in most countries. Although industrialized economies are still growing, the real incomes of people working in them have barely increased since 1980, and in some places, such as the United States, the real wages of low-skilled workers have dropped sharply. The economic malaise has a corollary in politics: democracy is floundering. According to Freedom House, more countries have lost freedom than gained it every year for the past 17 years. Authoritarianism seems to be on the rise. For many governments, China’s statist form of capitalism offers a tempting model. Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, has launched the biggest war in Europe since the end of World War II. The twenty-first century so far has been marked by repression, turbulence, and the disintegration of democratic institutions. 世界正处于一场普遍危机之中。贫富差距在大多数国家都在扩大。尽管工业化经济体仍在增长，但自1980年以来，工人的实际收入几乎没有增加，而在一些地方，如美国，低技能工人的实际工资大幅下降。经济困境在政治上也有相应的表现：民主正在陷入困境。根据自由之家的数据，过去17年来，失去自由的国家数量超过了获得自由的国家数量。威权主义似乎正在兴起。对许多政府来说，中国的国家资本主义模式是一个诱人的典范。在普京总统的领导下，俄罗斯发动了自二战结束以来欧洲最大规模的战争。到目前为止，21世纪以来的特点是压制、动荡和民主机构的瓦解。

Two thought-provoking recent books seek to anatomize these pessimistic times in fresh ways. In The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Martin Wolf, a veteran economics commentator at the Financial Times, suggests that the root cause of this malaise lies in the breakdown of the relationship between capitalism and liberal democracy. In A World of Insecurity, the economist Pranab Bardhan argues that the ills plaguing the world are best understood not in terms of inequality but in terms of insecurity—simmering economic and social anxiety about job loss, declining incomes, poverty, and cultural change. 两本引人深思的近期著作试图以新的方式剖析这个悲观时代。在《民主资本主义的危机》一书中，金融时报资深经济评论员马丁·沃尔夫认为，这种困境的根源在于资本主义与自由民主之间的关系破裂。而在《不安的世界》一书中，经济学家普拉纳布·巴尔德汉认为，困扰世界的问题最好不是从不平等的角度来理解，而是从不安全感的角度来理解——人们对失业、收入下降、贫困和文化变革的经济和社会焦虑。

Bardhan opens his book with a warning from the German novelist Thomas Mann, who wrote in 1938 that the biggest mistake that people in democracies can make is “self-forgetfulness.” Mann feared that it was dangerously easy for societies to take democracy for granted, erasing from the collective memory the difficult process of creating the institutions underpinning self-government and assuming that these institutions were invulnerable. This sentiment is shared by both authors. In a slew of countries, people have committed the sin that so concerned Mann, failing to uphold democracy, the duties of citizenship, and the goal of shared prosperity. 巴尔丹在他的书中引用了德国小说家托马斯·曼的警告，曼在1938年写道，民主国家的人们犯下的最大错误就是“自我遗忘”。曼担心社会很容易对民主视而不见，从集体记忆中抹去创造自我管理基础的艰难过程，并认为这些机构是无懈可击的。这种观点得到了两位作者的共鸣。在许多国家，人们犯下了曼如此担心的罪行，未能维护民主、公民责任和共同繁荣的目标。

Politicians, pundits, and the well-off are in shock that their fellow citizens are turning to troubling alternatives to democracy—or, at the very least, to the form of democracy that was offered to them. Democracy is not perfect, these concerned commentators insist, but it is the best option available. Some intellectuals blame democracy’s struggles on the public. People are not mature enough to make democracy work, they claim. In their view, citizens have become incompetent or have succumbed to the lure of authoritarianism in a time of uncertainty. Or as the anti-enlightenment French philosopher Joseph de Maistre expressed it more succinctly, “Every nation gets the government it deserves.” But Wolf and Bardhan have it right: the problem is that institutions have failed people, not the other way around. 政治家、评论家和富人们对于他们的同胞转向令人担忧的民主替代方案感到震惊，或者至少是对他们所提供的民主形式感到震惊。这些关注的评论人士坚称，民主并不完美，但却是目前最好的选择。一些知识分子将民主的困境归咎于公众。他们声称，人们还不够成熟，无法使民主发挥作用。在他们看来，公民已经变得无能或者在不确定的时代屈服于威权主义的诱惑。或者正如反启蒙主义的法国哲学家约瑟夫·德·梅斯特尔更简洁地表达的那样：“每个国家都会得到它应得的政府。”但沃尔夫和巴尔丹是正确的：问题在于制度让人民失望，而不是相反。

Both authors turn to the state for solutions. Bardhan argues that modern societies can reverse this trend by more equitably distributing wealth, using a range of tools, notably universal basic income—a regular payment to all people in a country no matter their means. Wolf thinks the answer lies in strengthening social safety nets and investing in better jobs. Neither author pays sufficient attention to another important fix: regulating technology so that it will improve workers’ productivity rather than eliminate their jobs. Doing so would also help address the grievances that have fueled much dissatisfaction, especially in the hollowed-out industrial heartlands of the West. 两位作者都寄望于国家来解决问题。巴尔丹认为，现代社会可以通过更公平地分配财富来扭转这一趋势，采用一系列工具，尤其是普遍基本收入——即向全国人民定期支付一定金额的收入，不论其经济状况如何。沃尔夫则认为答案在于加强社会保障网和投资于更好的工作机会。两位作者都没有充分关注另一个重要的解决方案：对技术进行监管，使其提高工人的生产力而不是淘汰他们的工作。这样做也将有助于解决那些导致许多不满情绪的不满，尤其是在西方工业中心地带的空心化问题。

But both authors rightly recognize a fundamental obstacle to any solution: all these measures will be difficult to implement if people refuse to trust the very institutions that govern their lives. 但是两位作者都正确地认识到了一个根本障碍：如果人们拒绝相信那些管理他们生活的机构，所有这些措施都将难以实施。

SECURITY DILEMMA 安全困境

The two books begin with a detailed examination of how democracy started to crumble, including the factors that led to heightened inequality, insecurity, and the loss of agency among populations in rich and poor countries alike. They then explain why these tensions have led to an authoritarian turn in places as diverse as Brazil, Hungary, India, Turkey, and the United States. 这两本书从详细考察民主如何开始瓦解开始，包括导致不平等、不安全感和人口在富裕和贫穷国家中失去主权的因素。然后，它们解释了为什么这些紧张局势导致了巴西、匈牙利、印度、土耳其和美国等各地的威权主义转变。

But their explanations differ. Bardhan focuses more on inequality and suggests that as income gaps between the rich and the poor have widened, economic insecurity has risen. His analysis is refreshingly concise and is often backed by recent academic studies. 但是他们的解释不同。巴尔汗更关注不平等，并提出随着富人和穷人之间的收入差距扩大，经济不安全感也增加了。他的分析非常简明扼要，并经常得到最近的学术研究的支持。

Wolf provides a more sophisticated and expansive account, highlighting structural weaknesses in the particular version of democracy that the West has come to practice over the last five decades, a form of governance that has overlooked the poor and the working class. Instead, many democracies have enthusiastically embraced rapid globalization, deregulation, and other arrangements that have favored the interests of capital over those of labor. Leaders claimed that these changes were in everybody’s interest, but in reality, people at the bottom of the social ladder bore the costs and saw few of the gains, especially as democracies failed to strengthen their safety nets to help those falling behind. Wolf correctly identifies the intimate links between the collapse of shared prosperity and the crisis of democracy. Wolf提供了一个更复杂而广泛的解释，突出了西方在过去五十年来实践的民主形式中存在的结构性弱点，这种形式的治理忽视了穷人和工人阶级。相反，许多民主国家热衷于迅速全球化、放松管制和其他有利于资本而不利于劳动力的安排。领导人声称这些变革符合每个人的利益，但实际上，社会阶梯底层的人承担了成本，却很少分享到收益，尤其是在民主国家未能加强社会保障网以帮助那些落后的人们时。Wolf准确地指出了共享繁荣的崩溃与民主危机之间的密切联系。

John Lee 约翰·李

Take the United States. From the early 1940s to the 1970s, the fruits of economic growth were broadly shared. Real wages grew rapidly—on average, by more than two percent every year for both high-skilled and low-skilled workers. And from the end of World War II to 1980, overall inequality fell substantially. Since 1980, however, real wages have continued to rise among workers with postgraduate degrees and specialized skills but have stagnated or even declined for workers, especially men, who have only a high school degree or no degree at all. In the meantime, the share of total income going to the richest one percent of households has nearly doubled—from ten percent in 1980 to 19 percent today. To put it simply, the United States abandoned shared prosperity in favor of a model in which only a minority of people benefit from economic growth while the rest are left in the dust. 以美国为例。从20世纪40年代初到70年代，经济增长的果实得到了广泛分享。实际工资迅速增长，高技能和低技能工人的年均增长率超过2%。从二战结束到1980年，整体不平等程度大幅下降。然而，自1980年以来，拥有研究生学位和专业技能的工人的实际工资继续上涨，而只有高中学历或没有学位的工人，尤其是男性，实际工资停滞甚至下降。与此同时，最富有的1%家庭所占总收入的比例几乎翻了一番，从1980年的10%增加到今天的19%。简而言之，美国放弃了共享繁荣的模式，转而采取只有少数人从经济增长中受益，而其他人则被抛在了后头的模式。

The situation is less dire in many other Western countries, thanks to higher minimum wages, collective bargaining, and social norms against inequality in the workplace. All the same, most industrialized countries have seen the real earnings of low-education workers stagnate or decline while the rich have gotten richer. Given this picture, it is easy to agree with Wolf’s insistence on the culpability of the economy in its failure to deliver the benefits of growth more evenly. 在许多其他西方国家，情况并不那么严峻，这要归功于较高的最低工资、集体谈判以及对工作场所不平等的社会规范。尽管如此，大多数工业化国家的低教育程度工人的实际收入停滞或下降，而富人却变得更富有。鉴于这种情况，很容易同意沃尔夫坚持认为经济在未能更公平地分配增长的好处方面负有责任。

Bardhan, by contrast, argues that the problem is not so much inequality as it is insecurity, a broader angst about material concerns and cultural changes. As a diagnosis, this emphasis is not altogether convincing. Economic insecurity in the United States, for instance, has not increased as much as inequality in the past 50 years. Thanks to a series of social reforms begun by U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, poverty has become much less common since the 1960s. Child malnutrition and poverty declined especially sharply during the pandemic, as the U.S. government bolstered the social safety net, although these improvements have since started to reverse. Over the last half century, the United States has become economically more secure, even as it has become less equal. 相比之下，巴尔德汉认为问题不在于不平等，而在于不安全感，即对物质问题和文化变革的更广泛的焦虑。作为一种诊断，这种强调并不完全令人信服。例如，在过去50年里，美国的经济不安全感并没有像不平等那样增加。由于美国总统林登·约翰逊开始的一系列社会改革，自20世纪60年代以来，贫困现象变得更加罕见。尤其是在疫情期间，由于美国政府加强了社会安全网，儿童营养不良和贫困状况大幅下降，尽管这些改善现在已经开始逆转。在过去的半个世纪里，美国在经济上变得更加安全，尽管不平等程度有所减少。

Bardhan himself does not see economic insecurity as the only cause of democracy’s decline. He suggests that cultural insecurity is also to blame because relatively privileged groups, such as white men in the United States, are feeling threatened by the weakening of old social hierarchies. He is right that the current antidemocratic turn around the world has a major cultural element. But whether cultural insecurity is the right framework to understand it is less clear since several aspects of disruptive social change were even more rapid in Europe and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s—periods in which democracy did not decline significantly. 巴尔丹本人并不认为经济不安全是民主衰退的唯一原因。他认为文化不安全感也是一个原因，因为相对特权的群体，比如美国的白人男性，感到受到了旧社会等级体系的削弱的威胁。他说得没错，当前全球范围内的反民主转变确实有很大的文化因素。但是，是否文化不安全感是正确的框架来理解这一现象还不太清楚，因为在20世纪50年代和60年代的欧洲和美国，社会变革的几个方面甚至更加迅速，但民主并没有显著衰退。

THE ILLUSION OF MERITOCRACY 精英主义的幻觉

Although Wolf forgoes a single organizing label for democracy’s ills, he recognizes that one of their key causes is the loss of democratic citizenship—the idea that for a democracy to work, citizens must assume responsibilities toward their community and institutions. Wolf’s account includes a long history. Ancient Greeks viewed democracy as closely entangled with the duties of citizens, including defending their city or state and helping the people around them. But Western democracy in the late twentieth century became decoupled from the duties of citizenship. Masses were encouraged to exercise democratic power while being absolved from having to make sacrifices for the good of others. 尽管沃尔夫没有给民主的问题贴上一个统一的标签，但他认识到其中一个关键原因是民主公民身份的丧失——即为了使民主运作，公民必须对他们的社区和机构承担责任的观念。沃尔夫的描述包含了一个漫长的历史。古希腊人将民主视为与公民的责任密切相关，包括保卫他们的城市或国家以及帮助周围的人。但是在二十世纪末的西方民主中，公民责任与之脱钩。人们被鼓励行使民主权力，同时免除了为他人利益做出牺牲的责任。

The disconnect became almost farcical during the presidency of George W. Bush. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, while the United States prepared to enter two major wars, the president told Americans what their duty would be. “Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots,” Bush said. “Get down to Disney World in Florida.” Only a small number of people, many from low-income backgrounds, were expected to join the military and risk their lives for their country. The rest were merely asked to overcome their fear of flying to stimulate the economy, without forfeiting their consumption or comfort. In effect, in a time of need, the president called for Americans to be consumers, not full democratic citizens. 在乔治·W·布什总统任期期间，这种脱节几乎变得荒谬可笑。在9/11袭击之后不久，当美国准备参与两场重大战争时，总统告诉美国人民他们的责任是什么。“飞行并享受美国的伟大旅游景点，”布什说。“去佛罗里达的迪士尼乐园。”只有少数人，其中许多来自低收入背景，被期望加入军队并为国家冒生命危险。其他人只被要求克服他们对飞行的恐惧，以刺激经济，而不需要放弃他们的消费或舒适。实际上，在需要的时候，总统呼吁美国人成为消费者，而不是完全的民主公民。

But it is not just neoconservatives and right-wing politicians who have contributed to weakening democratic citizenship. As Wolf emphasizes, many on the left and the liberal middle have called for more open migration into industrialized countries, without reckoning with how this influx would reshape citizenship and democracy. If a large number of immigrants reject some of the foundational values and rights of their host country—such as the freedom to criticize or mock religion—they may be viewed by natives as undermining the nature of the social contract, as has happened in Denmark and France, for instance. It is hard for democracy to function when different constituencies fundamentally disagree about the nature of their republic. 然而，削弱民主公民身份的责任并不仅仅是新保守主义者和右翼政治家的责任。正如沃尔夫强调的那样，左翼和自由派中间派也呼吁对工业化国家进行更加开放的移民政策，却没有考虑这种涌入将如何重塑公民身份和民主。如果大量移民拒绝接受他们所在国家的一些基本价值观和权利，比如批评或嘲笑宗教的自由，他们可能会被本土人视为破坏社会契约的本质，就像在丹麦和法国发生的情况一样。当不同的选民在共和国的本质问题上存在根本分歧时，民主很难正常运作。

Wolf also touches on, but pays insufficient attention to, another aspect of a larger cultural transformation: how the conceit of meritocracy has deepened the anxiety of less well-off workers in the West. If democracies are truly meritocratic, then people who succeed deserve their success, while those who fail deserve their failure. Of course, no society is truly meritocratic. Privilege (or the lack thereof) shapes the lives of most people. As the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel has emphasized, the illusion of meritocracy has had pernicious effects: many Americans who have seen their real incomes decline or stagnate are being told, implicitly or explicitly, that their misfortune is their own fault. It is no surprise, then, that many of those left behind now reject the democratic institutions emblematic of the kind of meritocracy that blames struggling people for their own plight. 狼也提到了一个更大的文化转变的另一个方面，但对此并没有给予足够的关注：精英主义的自负如何加深了西方较为贫困的工人的焦虑。如果民主社会真正实行精英主义，那么成功的人应该是他们成功的原因，而失败的人应该是他们失败的原因。当然，没有哪个社会是真正的精英主义。特权（或缺乏特权）塑造了大多数人的生活。正如哈佛大学哲学家迈克尔·桑德尔所强调的那样，精英主义的幻觉产生了恶劣的影响：许多美国人看到自己的实际收入下降或停滞不前，却被暗示或明示地告知，这是他们自己的错。因此，不足为奇的是，许多被抛在后面的人现在拒绝接受象征着将挣扎的人归咎于自身困境的精英主义的民主制度。

TRUST FALL 信任倒下

Indeed, public trust in the fairness and capabilities of democratic governments has eroded throughout the industrialized world, especially in the United States, although the exact causes of this decline are still poorly understood. It is hard to expect people to fulfill their duties as citizens when their faith in state institutions is so low. Some scholars, such as the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, have blamed the waning of trust in government on the disappearance of local institutions, such as bowling clubs and churches, that served as the connective tissue for communities. With fewer ways to build cooperation and trust at a local level, people may become estranged from all institutions, and particularly from the federal ones that they have always perceived as distant. Other observers emphasize a broader decline in trust: less confidence in the intentions of business partners and neighbors, and less trust and communication between managers and workers. Many people in democracies have ceased to see themselves as part of a community, viewing their compatriots instead as strangers or members of fundamentally opposed groups. 的确，公众对民主政府的公正性和能力的信任在工业化世界中不断削弱，尤其是在美国，尽管这种下降的确切原因仍不为人所知。当人们对国家机构的信任如此之低时，很难指望他们履行公民的责任。一些学者，如哈佛大学政治学家罗伯特·普特南，将对政府信任的减弱归咎于地方机构的消失，例如保龄球俱乐部和教堂，这些机构曾是社区的联系纽带。在地方层面建立合作和信任的途径减少后，人们可能会与所有机构疏远，尤其是他们一直认为遥远的联邦机构。其他观察者强调了信任的更广泛下降：对商业伙伴和邻居意图的信心减少，管理者和员工之间的信任和沟通减少。在民主国家中，许多人已经不再将自己视为社区的一部分，而是将同胞视为陌生人或根本对立的群体的成员。

As both Bardhan and Wolf emphasize, the functioning of state institutions depends on some degree of trust and cooperation from society. In the United States, for example, a historically low 20 percent of the public say that they trust the government to do the right thing most or all of the time. My own work with the political scientist James Robinson has emphasized that democratic institutions can survive only if civil society and state institutions are equally strong. Such a balance can also boost people’s confidence in government. For example, when they believe they can sway governments and elites, citizens feel more comfortable giving such institutions a longer leash to govern. But the balance of power between civil society and the government is precarious and depends on the vigilance and political participation of regular people. Democracy cannot be engineered by clever constitutions; it requires people to get involved in the political process and make their voices heard. 正如巴尔丹和沃尔夫强调的那样，国家机构的运作取决于社会的一定程度的信任和合作。例如，在美国，历史上只有20%的公众表示他们大部分或全部时间都相信政府会做正确的事情。我与政治学家詹姆斯·罗宾逊的研究强调，只有当公民社会和国家机构同样强大时，民主制度才能生存下去。这种平衡也可以增强人们对政府的信心。例如，当人们相信他们可以影响政府和精英阶层时，他们会更愿意让这些机构有更大的自主权来进行治理。但是，公民社会和政府之间的权力平衡是脆弱的，取决于普通人的警觉和政治参与。民主不能仅仅通过巧妙的宪法来实现；它需要人们参与政治过程并发表自己的声音。

Once again, it is possible to see the decimation of trust in institutions as a failing of the people. But Wolf’s argument takes another tack: state institutions abandoned people first. This is clearest in the United States, where politicians, bureaucrats, and influential pundits enthusiastically supported rapid globalization and various forms of free-market fundamentalism that have deepened inequality. For example, U.S. politicians touted both the North American Free Trade Agreement and China’s integration into the World Trade Organization as beneficial not just to U.S. companies but ultimately to all Americans. The same figures also kept reassuring the public that it would soon reap the rewards, thus inflating aspirations and paralyzing efforts to build better institutions to deal with the disruptive effects of new technologies and globalization. Worse, many of these policies were presented as technocratic, scientifically supported truths. This misrepresentation facilitated the acceptance of these policies in the short run. It also further contributed to the decline of trust in state institutions and experts in the longer run. 再次，我们可以看到对机构信任的摧毁被视为人民的失败。但沃尔夫的论点采取了另一种方式：国家机构首先抛弃了人民。这在美国最为明显，政治家、官僚和有影响力的评论家热情支持快速全球化和各种形式的自由市场原教旨主义，加剧了不平等。例如，美国政治家宣扬北美自由贸易协定和中国加入世界贸易组织不仅对美国公司有利，而且最终对所有美国人有益。同样的人物还一直向公众保证，他们很快就能获得回报，从而提高了期望值，使努力建立更好的机构来应对新技术和全球化的冲击变得瘫痪。更糟糕的是，许多这些政策被呈现为技术专家支持的真理。这种误导在短期内促使了这些政策的接受。它还进一步导致了对国家机构和专家的信任下降。

Voting in Limbdi, India, December 2022Voting in Limbdi, India, December 2022 2022年12月，在印度的林布迪进行投票Amit Dave / Reuters 阿米特·戴夫/路透社

Although it is clear that this decline in trust has led people in democracies to lose faith in their institutions, it is less clear why the disenchanted have turned toward right-wing populism and authoritarianism rather than to left-wing alternatives. Wolf and Bardhan suggest a handful of reasons, but neither sufficiently explores the motivating force of nationalism. Wolf mentions the resurgence of nationalism but does not emphasize it as a leading source of democratic erosion. Bardhan has a short chapter on nationalism that does not offer a compelling explanation for its resurgence today. Both writers see resurgent nationalism as a consequence, not a cause, of democracy’s decline. 尽管很明显，信任的下降导致了民主国家的人们对其制度失去了信心，但为什么失望的人们转向右翼民粹主义和威权主义而不是左翼选择，这一点并不太清楚。Wolf和Bardhan提出了一些原因，但都没有充分探讨民族主义的推动力。Wolf提到了民族主义的复兴，但并没有强调它作为民主衰退的主要原因。Bardhan在民族主义方面只有一个简短的章节，对于今天民族主义的复兴并没有提供令人信服的解释。两位作者都将民族主义的复兴视为民主衰退的结果，而非原因。

In truth, a rising tide of nationalism has turned the discontent in both rich and poor countries into support for right-wing populism, especially when skillfully fanned by politicians such as Donald Trump in the United States, Narendra Modi in India, or Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. Regimes dubbed right-wing populist, authoritarian, majoritarian, or religiously conservative, including those in India and Turkey, are actually first and foremost nationalist in their orientation. Leaders exploit patriotic feelings to boost their popularity—and their control over the population. Such is also the case in China, where school curricula and media propaganda have stoked nationalist sentiment. 事实上，民族主义的浪潮已经将富国和穷国的不满转化为对右翼民粹主义的支持，尤其是在像美国的唐纳德·特朗普、印度的纳伦德拉·莫迪或土耳其的雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安这样的政治家巧妙煽动下。被称为右翼民粹主义、威权主义、多数派主义或宗教保守主义的政权，包括印度和土耳其在内，实际上首先是民族主义导向的。领导人们利用爱国情感来提升自己的声望和对人民的控制。中国也是如此，学校课程和媒体宣传煽动了民族主义情绪。

Globalization appears to play a major role in the resurgence of nationalism. It has created new inequalities, by allowing companies to avoid taxes and by failing to contribute to job creation domestically, and has deepened tensions, because it challenges social norms via the spread of ideas through the Internet, movies, television, and music. 全球化似乎在民族主义复兴中扮演着重要角色。它通过允许公司避税和未能在国内创造就业机会，创造了新的不平等，并通过互联网、电影、电视和音乐的传播挑战社会规范，加深了紧张局势。

FEUDAL LORDS AND TECH TITANS 封建领主与科技巨头

Wolf and Bardhan both propose renewed versions of social democracy (although Wolf never uses this term), but there are big differences between the two authors’ suggested fixes. Wolf argues for more equality of opportunity and investment in the welfare state. The centerpiece of his proposals is “good jobs for those who can work and are prepared to do so.” This is consistent with his overall message that citizenship, democratic participation, better institutions, and shared prosperity must be built and maintained in concert. Of course, the difficulty is that nobody has a perfect recipe for creating such good jobs. 沃尔夫和巴尔丹都提出了社会民主主义的更新版本（尽管沃尔夫从未使用过这个术语），但两位作者提出的解决方案之间存在很大的差异。沃尔夫主张更多的机会平等和对福利国家的投资。他的提议的核心是“为那些能够工作并愿意工作的人提供好的工作机会。” 这与他的整体观点一致，即公民身份、民主参与、更好的制度和共同繁荣必须共同建立和维护。当然，困难在于没有人能够提供创造这样好的工作机会的完美配方。

All the same, Wolf is right. Good jobs, which pay high wages and provide a sense of security and purpose, are essential for shared prosperity and democratic citizenship. It was once believed that countries with low inequality, such as Sweden, achieved relative parity through heavy redistribution. Research by the economists Thomas Blanchet, Lucas Chancel, and Amory Gethin published in 2022 shows that this is not the case. Inequality is rooted in countries’ pretax income distributions. For example, because Sweden has strong collective wage bargaining, a more equal distribution of skills across its workforce, and jobs that use these skills, wages are more equal in Sweden than they are in the United States before taxes. 不过，沃尔夫是对的。高薪酬、提供安全感和目标感的好工作对于共同繁荣和民主公民身份至关重要。曾经有人认为，像瑞典这样的低不平等国家是通过大规模再分配实现相对平等的。经济学家托马斯·布兰切特、卢卡斯·尚塞尔和阿莫里·盖丁在2022年发表的研究表明，事实并非如此。不平等根源于各国税前收入分配。例如，由于瑞典拥有强大的集体工资谈判、更均衡的技能分布以及能够利用这些技能的工作岗位，瑞典的薪酬在税前比美国更加平等。

For his part, Bardhan endorses a number of well-known ideas, including the dispersal of power to local governments; more international coordination on combating climate change, pandemics, and tax evasion; stronger efforts to fight corruption; and more public research supporting the development of technologies that will benefit workers (something I have also advocated over the last several years). But his main fix is a universal basic income that pays a certain cash amount to all people. The new wrinkle here is his argument that UBI would be especially powerful in developing countries such as India, where inequality is high and getting higher; public services are inefficiently provided, if at all; and there appears to be little appetite for building a better social safety net. Because Bardhan views economic insecurity as a critical driver of the current democratic crisis, he sees UBI as a potent tool to relieve economic insecurity and thereby bolster democratic institutions. 巴尔德汉先生赞同一些众所周知的观点，包括权力下放给地方政府；在应对气候变化、流行病和逃税方面加强国际协调；更加努力地打击腐败；以及提供更多公共研究支持发展有利于工人的技术（这也是我在过去几年中提倡的）。但他的主要解决方案是实施普遍基本收入，向所有人支付一定金额的现金。这里的新亮点在于他的论点，即普遍基本收入在印度等发展中国家将特别有效，因为这些国家的不平等问题严重且日益加剧；公共服务提供效率低下，甚至根本不存在；而且似乎没有多少意愿建立更好的社会保障体系。因为巴尔德汉将经济不安全视为当前民主危机的关键驱动因素，他认为普遍基本收入是缓解经济不安全、从而加强民主制度的有力工具。

Reacting to exit polls for Turkey's presidential election in Istanbul, May 2023Reacting to exit polls for Turkey's presidential election in Istanbul, May 2023      Hannah McKay / Reuters 汉娜·麦凯/路透社

But UBI is the wrong policy aimed at the wrong problems. The trouble is not just that UBI will be costly but also that it will fail to provide people with the sense that they are contributing to society, which conflicts with the notion of citizenship on which democracy needs to be built. A 2022 study by the economists Reshmaan Hussam, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane, and Fatima Zahra shows the important relationship between psychological well-being and income. The study examined attitudes toward work among Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh. The researchers offered some participants weekly cash and gave others an opportunity to engage in paid work. The researchers found that those who worked reported significantly improved psychological well-being, while those receiving the cash payments without work did not. Despite their poverty and difficult conditions, when given the choice, approximately two-thirds of participants were willing to forgo the cash option to take up employment for lower pay. 但是，普遍基本收入（UBI）是一项针对错误问题的错误政策。问题不仅在于UBI的成本高昂，而且它无法给人们提供一种他们正在为社会做出贡献的感觉，这与民主所需建立的公民身份观念相冲突。经济学家Reshmaan Hussam、Erin M. Kelley、Gregory Lane和Fatima Zahra在2022年进行的一项研究显示了心理幸福感和收入之间的重要关系。该研究调查了孟加拉国南部罗兴亚难民对工作的态度。研究人员向一些参与者提供了每周现金，而给其他人提供了参与有偿工作的机会。研究人员发现，那些工作的人报告了明显改善的心理幸福感，而那些只接受现金支付而不工作的人没有。尽管他们贫困且处境艰难，但在选择时，大约三分之二的参与者愿意放弃现金选择以较低的薪水就业。

UBI reflects a fundamentally defeatist view of the future. It accepts that a large fraction of the population cannot contribute to society, in part because of technological advances. Accordingly, the only way forward is for a small minority to earn all the income and provide crumbs to the rest—a demoralizing conclusion. UBI反映了一种根本上悲观的未来观。它认可了社会中有很大一部分人无法为社会做出贡献，部分原因是由于技术进步。因此，唯一的前进方式就是让少数人赚取全部收入，并向其他人提供一些残羹剩饭，这是一种令人沮丧的结论。

It is also wrong to accept that new technologies and globalization will necessarily create inequality and joblessness. Throughout history, control of technology has determined how the gains from economic growth are shared. When landlords in medieval Europe controlled the most important technology of the era, such as water and wind mills, they ensured that improvements in productivity enriched them, not their workers. In the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, when entrepreneurs rapidly introduced automated production processes and corralled workers, including women and children, into factories, they benefited, while wages stagnated and may even have fallen. 接受新技术和全球化必然导致不平等和失业也是错误的观点。在历史上，技术的掌控决定了经济增长所带来的收益如何分配。当中世纪欧洲的地主控制着当时最重要的技术，如水力和风力磨坊时，他们确保生产力的提高使他们受益，而不是他们的工人。在工业革命的早期阶段，当企业家迅速引入自动化生产过程并将工人，包括妇女和儿童，聚集到工厂时，他们受益了，而工资停滞甚至可能下降。

Fortunately, it is possible to change who controls technology and thus alter its application, especially in terms of whether it will disempower workers and automate work or increase worker capabilities and productivity. The reason Western countries have become much more unequal is that they have allowed a small group of entrepreneurs and companies to set the direction of technological change according to their own interests—and against those of most workers. 幸运的是，我们有可能改变掌控技术的人，并从而改变其应用，尤其是在是否削弱工人权益、自动化工作，还是提升工人能力和生产力方面。西方国家不平等加剧的原因在于，他们允许一小群企业家和公司按照自身利益的方向引导技术变革，而这与大多数工人的利益背道而驰。

Although Wolf’s solutions are on the right track, they do not go far enough. Modern market economies need to be fundamentally reformed; otherwise, companies will continue to overinvest in the kind of automation that replaces workers rather than enhances their productivity. Companies are also likely to double down on massive data collection and surveillance, even though these activities are anathema in a democracy. 尽管Wolf的解决方案走在了正确的轨道上，但它们还不够彻底。现代市场经济需要进行根本性的改革；否则，公司将继续过度投资于那种取代工人而非提高生产力的自动化技术。此外，公司很可能会加大对大规模数据收集和监控的投入，尽管这些活动在民主社会中是令人憎恶的。

It is up to governments to regulate and redirect technological change. If companies continue to automate without investing in training and technologies that could help workers, inequality will continue to worsen, and those at the bottom will feel even more disposable. To prevent such an outcome, policymakers must determine which broad classes of technologies can be helpful to workers and deserve public support. They also need to regulate the tech industry, including its powers to collect data, advertise digitally, and create large language models, such as the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. And the government must give workers a voice in the process of regulating tech companies. That does not mean the government should allow labor unions to block technological change; rather, it should ensure that worker representatives can negotiate how technology is being used in workplaces. 政府有责任对技术变革进行监管和引导。如果企业继续自动化而不投资于培训和技术，以帮助工人，不平等问题将继续恶化，底层人民将感到更加被动。为了防止这种结果的发生，决策者必须确定哪些广泛的技术类别对工人有帮助并值得公共支持。他们还需要对科技行业进行监管，包括其收集数据、数字广告和创建大型语言模型（如人工智能聊天机器人ChatGPT）的权力。政府还必须让工人在监管科技公司的过程中发表意见。这并不意味着政府应该允许劳工工会阻止技术变革；相反，政府应确保工人代表能够就技术在工作场所的使用进行谈判。

But such regulation is very hard to devise because policies over the last four decades have destroyed trust in state institutions. It is even harder when the labor movement has been gutted and the pillars of democratic citizenship have weakened. 但是这样的规定非常难以制定，因为过去四十年的政策已经破坏了对国家机构的信任。而当劳工运动被削弱，民主公民的支柱也变得更加脆弱时，这就更加困难了。

Democratic capitalism is indeed in crisis. Any solution must begin with a focus on restoring public trust in democracy. People in democracies are not, in fact, helpless: there are ways to create a fairer type of economic growth, control corruption, and curb the excessive power of large companies, as the economist Simon Johnson and I have argued. This will not only help reduce inequality and lay the foundations of shared prosperity; it will also demonstrate that democratic institutions work—ensuring that this crisis of democratic capitalism does not spell democracy’s end. 民主资本主义确实面临危机。任何解决方案都必须从恢复公众对民主的信任开始。实际上，民主国家的人民并不无助：正如经济学家西蒙·约翰逊和我所主张的，有办法创造一种更公平的经济增长方式，控制腐败，遏制大公司的过度权力。这不仅有助于减少不平等，奠定共享繁荣的基础，还将证明民主制度的有效性，确保民主资本主义的危机不会意味着民主的终结。