藏拙的伦敦市长非小丑, 而是故作鲁莽
Boris Johnson has a talent for carefully calculated imprudence. The London mayor says, apparently artlessly, things others are advised not to say. The result is that while appearing as a buffoon, he is in fact one of the most thoughtful politicians of our time. These abilities were in evidence last week when he delivered the Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture.
鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)有一种天赋：他表现出的莽撞其实是经过精心设计的。这位伦敦市长会以一种显得很天真的方式，说出其他人都知道不该说的事。结果就是，尽管他看起来像个小丑，但他实际上却是我们这个时代最具洞察力的政治人物之一。他的这种能力在他近日发表纪念玛格丽特•撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)的讲话时得到了清晰的体现。Mr Johnson appeared to regard the observation that Britain had invaded 171 countries as a matter for pride not apology. But since he was clearly not suggesting we should once more adopt this foreign policy, his evident purpose was to wind up critics he knows will not vote for him anyway.
约翰逊称，英国入侵过171个国家。看上去，他似乎把这件事视为一种骄傲，而不是需要道歉的事。然而，由于他明显不是在暗示我们应该再次奉行这种外交政策，因此他的目的显然是想给某些批评者添点儿堵——他知道，这些批评者无论如何也不会把选票投给他。Other headline-grabbing observations were, similarly, truths that these critics think should go unmentioned rather than ones with which they could reasonably disagree. More people do have an IQ below 85 than above 130. (As Mr Johnson doubtless knows, this is a result of the way the statistics are constructed, not a function of the level and dispersion of achievement.)
同样，约翰逊说过的另一些引起轰动的话，其实也是那种批评者们认为不该提及的事实，而不是那种他们能够合理反对的话。智商低于85的人确实比智商高于130的人多。（约翰逊当然明白，这一结果是这种统计的构造方式导致的，而不是成就水平或离差的函数。）
When Mr Johnson said: “After 2008 the left was ushered centre stage, and missed their cue: political history reached a turning point and failed to turn,” he scored a hit against his political opponents. When capitalism finally came to the point of collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions – an event Europe’s left had long anticipated – the policy response of its representatives was, and continues to be, to avert that collapse with lots of public money. Voters responded to this intellectual vacuum by throwing out whichever party – left or right – was in power at the time, and by turning to fringe parties.
约翰逊说：“2008年后，左翼被推上中心舞台，变得忘乎所以：政治历史发展到了一个转折点，但转折却并没有发生。”这番话帮他从政治对手那里赢了一分。当资本主义在内部矛盾的重压下终于临近崩溃时（这是欧洲左翼人士长期以来期盼发生的事件），左翼代表们给出的政策应对是（而且现在依然是）用海量公共资金来避免这一崩溃的发生。对于这一缺乏理智的现象，选民们作出的回应是抛弃了那时掌权的任何党派——不管它是左翼还是右翼——转而求助边缘政党。But it was on inequality that Mr Johnson was most controversial[AND RIGHT?]. “Some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy,” he said. “Keeping up with the Joneses is, like greed, a valuable spur to economic activity.” Yet most critics of capitalism deplore these things rather than deny that they are true.
不过，约翰逊最具争议的话还是有关不平等的言论。他说：“一定程度的不平等对于保持嫉妒心是十分必要的。和贪婪一样，攀比是对经济活动的一种宝贵刺激。”大多数资本主义的批评者谴责这类说法，但并不否认它们说的是事实。Where Mr Johnson is wrong is in suggesting social mobility is what makes inequality tolerable. If medieval peasants did not resent the wealth of the king, it was not because they could imagine themselves as king but because they could not. Political agitation came from those who might be king. Social unrest increased when education and economic change enabled people to aspire to a lifestyle that most could not, in fact, achieve.
约翰逊的错误之处在于，他暗示社会流动性令不平等成为一种可容忍的事情。如果说中世纪的农民不憎恨国王的财富，那并不是因为他们能够想像自己有称王的那一天，而是因为他们不能这么想。政治上的骚动源自那些可能成为国王的人。当教育和经济变革令人们能够对多数人其实无法实现的生活方式产生渴望时，社会动荡就会加剧。Envy is, therefore, indeed both inseparable from economic progress and destructive of social cohesion. Some inequality is inevitable, and there seem to be three principal factors that make it more tolerable.
因此，嫉妒实际上与经济进步和社会凝聚力的瓦解均有不可分割的关系。某些不平等是不可避免的，其之所以更可容忍，似乎是因为下面三个主要因素。Inequality is easier to accept if everyone is becoming better off. Recent dissatisfaction in Britain and the US is significantly attributable to the fact that, while some have grown much richer, median incomes have not increased. The criticism that the rapid economic growth of China and India has been accompanied by rising inequality is mainly made from outside these countries.
首先，如果每个人的境遇都在改善，不平等就更容易被人接受。最近英国和美国国内的不满情绪主要归因于一个事实：尽管有些人的财富大幅增长，国民收入中值却没有上升。相比之下，中国和印度经济快速增长的同时不平等也在加剧，而对这种现象的批评却主要来自这两个国家以外。Inequality is easier to accept if the beneficiaries have benefited people other than themselves. Bill Gates’s extraordinary wealth causes little resentment because he is associated with technological innovations that have transformed business and personal life. Financiers rarely attract similar approval because – sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly – they are suspected of appropriating wealth created by others rather than engaging in genuine wealth creation.
其次，如果不平等的受益者给他人带来好处，而不是只给自己带来好处，这种不平等也更易被接受。比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)的巨额财富几乎没有引起什么不满情绪，因为人们把他与技术革命联系在一起，而技术革命彻底改变了商业面貌和个人生活。金融家很少得到类似的认可，因为人们怀疑他们窃取了他人创造的财富，而不是参与了真正的财富创造——这种怀疑有时候是正确的，有时候却并非如此。And inequality is more tolerable if its beneficiaries behave well. Mr Gates has chosen to devote his Microsoft fortune and his time to philanthropy rather than fly in entertainers and exotic foods for lavish parties. Investor Warren Buffett famously lives in the Omaha bungalow he purchased 50 years ago.
最后，如果不平等的受益者举止得当，人们对不平等的容忍度也会更高。盖茨选择把他的微软(Microsoft)财富和他的时间都奉献给慈善事业，而不是用飞机运送艺人和异国美食，来举办奢侈的聚会。投资家沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)出名的事情则是他一直居住在自己50年前购买的奥马哈平房里。Mr Johnson knows these things. When he muses on whether the widening income gap is the result of “boardroom greed or, as I am assured, the natural and God-given talent of boardroom inhabitants”, he makes clear which side he is on. When he refers to teddy bear braces and young people driving Porsches, it is not with approbation. And when he hopes, somewhat optimistically, that “this time, the Gordon Gekkos of the world are conspicuous not for their greed as for what they give and do for the rest of the population”, he correctly identifies the moral issue at the heart of London’s role as a financial centre.
对于这些情况，约翰逊心知肚明。当他沉思自问收入差距的扩大是源自“高管们的贪婪，还是像我相信的那样，源自高管们天生、天赋的才干”时，他已表明了自己是站在哪一边的。当他提到泰迪熊背带和开着保时捷(Porsche)的年轻人时，他并不是表示对这些现象的认可。当他带着些许乐观情绪希望“这一次，全世界的戈登•盖柯(Gordon Gekko)们不是因他们的贪婪、而是因他们给予他人的东西和为他人做的事而引入注目”时，他正确地认识到了伦敦金融中心角色的核心是道德问题。
