自由的未来

• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  In fact, over the centuries, the British monarch’s powers had been so whittled away that by the late eighteenth century, Britain, although formally a monarchy, was really an aristocratic republic, ruled by its landed elite.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  In many ways he was what we would today call a fundamentalist, demanding a more literal interpretation of the Bible. Luther’s criticisms of the papacy were quite similar to those made today by Islamic fundamentalists about the corrupt, extravagant regimes of the Middle East that have veered from the true, devout path.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  Like the clash between church and state, the conflict between the aristocracy and the monarchy is the second great power struggle of European history that helped provide, again unintentionally, the raw materials of freedom.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  Church properties and priests were not subject to taxation—hardly a small matter since at its height the church owned one-third of the land in Europe.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  Whereas Greece gave the world philosophy, literature, poetry, and art, Rome gave us the beginnings of limited government and the rule of law.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  It highlights the central theme of this chapter, which is that liberty came to the West centuries before democracy. Liberty led to democracy and not the other way around. It also highlights a paradox that runs through this account: whatever the deeper structural causes, liberty in the West was born of a series of power struggles.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  For much of modern history, what characterized governments in Europe and North America, and differentiated them from those around the world, was not democracy but constitutional liberalism. The “Western model of government” is best symbolized not by the mass plebiscite but the impartial judge.For decades the tiny island of Hong Kong was a small but revealing illustration that liberty did not depend on democracy. It had one of the highest levels of constitutional liberalism in the world but was in no way a democracy. In fact in the 1990s, as the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong drew near, many Western newspapers and magazines fretted about the dangers of this shift to Hong Kong’s democracy. But of course Hong Kong had no democracy to speak of. The threat was to its tradition of liberty and l...
• 金毓

  2023-11-22
  即使在当时，《大宪章》也是重要的，它是欧洲限制皇家权力的第一份文献。史学家保罗·强森（Paul Johnson）论及《大宪章》，提到：“它足以配称得上是第一部英国统辖境内法典。从它，先是英国，然后是美国，人民的自由才能源源流出。
• 金毓

  2023-11-22
  处死苏格拉底的本质是合乎民主的，但不符合自由。当史家希罗多德说希腊人是“自由的人民”，他指的是希腊人不是被异族征服或控制的奴隶。今天我们会称之为“独立民族”，或是拥有“民族自决”地位。按照此一定义，朝鲜人民今天也是自由的。罗马人强调的是自由的不同面向：即所有公民在法律面前一律平等。这个自由的概念与今天现代西方的自由相近得多了。
• 

  2020-06-24
  政党的衰微2000年12月，佛罗里达州重算选票大战后几天，我间前克林顿的政治顾问，现任美国广播公司主播斯蒂芬诺伯罗斯（ George Stephanopoulos）：“你看2004年民主党还会不会重提戈尔再披战袍，竞选总统？”那个星期周末报刊充斥了各种传闻，民主党主要领袖们想要抛弃戈尔，不让他出马。斯蒂芬诺伯罗斯的回答具有澄清问题真相的效果。他说：“民主党已经不存在了。”他进一步解释如果戈尔想参选，需要筹款，要继续维持高知名度，提高民调数字。做到这些，更多的捐款和新闻报道就会跟着而来。至于党内大佬怎么想，根本无关紧要，因为已经不再有政党了。那些仍然装模作样的大佬们，只是没事找事的过气职业政客而已。”政党于今天的美国政治已经没有真正重要性了。过去一个世代中，政党变得如此公开和分散，以致没有人能控制它。党机器、党组织、党内大倦、义工千部等全都菱缩，不重要了。政党充其量最多只是替上电视的候选人等款的工具而已。如果某位候选人声望高，贏得提名，党就会十分支持。那时候选人可以从党那里稍稍得到多一点的好处，包括组织支持和资源以及捐款人的新名单。事实上，参加初选的候选人发现从体制外打选战对自己更为有利，会带来新鲜感，给人弱者挑战强者，与党机器斗争的印象，可以争取更多的同情票。麦戈文（ George Mcgoverr）、里根和卡特都利用过这个策略。今天同样的策略较
• 

  2020-06-24
  凡是伊斯兰激进主义着人日常政治运作的地方，如孟加拉、巴基斯坦、土耳其等，运气就会很快消磨殆尽。这是确实的。在选举中他们得票都比传统政党低。人们终于了解街道要清理，政府财政要管理，教育水平要维持。教土们能说会道，但是不懂治国。可是不能因为这点，就让埃及和沙特阿拉伯冒20年云霄飞车般政治动荡的危险。只要这些政权肯开放一些政治空间，就能迫使宗教激进主义对手必须面对柴米油盐，而不是天天做梦。他们很快就会钝化其极端激进主义的吸引力。阿拉伯并不是要一夜之间完全民主。但是埃及的人均国民收入近4000美元，已进入转型区，有中产阶级和发达的市民社会。埃及还是不许激进主义参选那一点权力都没有的国会。以政权为对手的作战，不论对手是自由主义者，或是伊斯兰激进主义，结果都有利极端主义的政治集团。约旦和摩洛哥等少数尝试不同做法的阿拉伯国家，容许一些异议分子在体制内，情況好多了。如果阿拉伯政府多包容一些激进分子在体制内，他们就不再被视为远方的英雄，而变成本地普通的政客而已以上所言显示，问题关键不在宗教改革，而是政治和经济改革。把重心放在伊斯兰教变革，根本就摆错了位置。使基督教与现代共存相容，不是要教会接受自由派对神学的解释，而要使教会适应现代化社会周遭的变化。毕竟，许多伊斯兰教反现代的偏见，同样存在基督教里面。《古兰经》谴责借钱收息赌博、食物规定和禁食要求，与《圣经》几乎一样。但是基督徒在现代化的政治经济和社会环境中生活，自然而然调整了他们的信仰。今天的西方宗教是心灵和精神启示的来源，而不完全是每日生活的严格规定。《圣经》仍然谴责手淫放利和穿锦衣华服。可是基督教社会不再视《圣经》在这方面的教义有权威罢了。对于那些说伊斯兰教是不同的。我的回答是，那当然。但是不是不同到在现代化、资本主义、民主社会中，还是不会改变？再次，从理论层面降到事实层面，就有证据可说。土耳其、波斯尼亚、马来西亚以及...
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-16
  The bullet that killed the American political party was the primary election. Parties exist to compete in general elections. So choosing a candidate is the most important decision a party makes. Once that process was taken out of the hands of the party organization and given over to the voter, the party organization became a shell.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-16
  Democracies were governed directly, through popular assemblies, like the city states of ancient Greece—which Madison and many other American founders regarded as turbulent, illiberal, and unstable. For Madison, America was better termed a republic, in which the citizenry delegates the task of governing to its representatives.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-16
  Actually this very fact—that Muslims never had a pope to rebel against—is the very source of the quandary. In the Islamic world, since temporal authority was always dominant over spiritual authority, the issue of separating the two never came up. This meant that rulers and those who opposed them could manipulate the faith in order to serve their own ends. Rulers could always find some priest to legitimate them, and rebels could find inspiration in the words of others. The Saudi king has his clerics; bin Laden has his.There is one exception to this rule, and it is Iran. The Shia tradition, dominant in Iran, does have a clerical establishment; expanded after Khomeini’s revolution, it now has an elaborate hierarchy and a pope-like figure at the top.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  Land reform was one of the keys to economic and political success in East Asia (particularly in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea) and, where it was applied, in Latin America (most clearly in Costa Rica, Mexico, and Chile).Western conservatives often opposed land reform during the Cold War because it sounded vaguely Marxist and its advocates were often left-wingers. But actually it promotes capitalism and thus democracy. Land reform is a crucial step in the process of turning a backward peasant society into a modern capitalist and democratic one. Third World countries where land reform has failed—in parts of Central and Latin America, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and many other African countries—never managed to commercialize agriculture, retained a strong quasi-feudal elite, and thus have had a tor...
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  In the developing world, the state has often had to jump-start capitalism. Again this mirrors the European example, where modern capitalism began with the state taking large tracts of agricultural land from the hands of feudal lords and using it in ways that were more market-friendly. This move broke the back of the large landowners, the most politically reactionary group in society. As important, millions of acres of land were moved out of stagnant feudal estates, where they lay underutilized, and into a market system. The new owners, often the farmers who tilled the land, used the land more efficiently, since they now had an incentive to do so, or they rented or sold the land to someone who would. In other words, it took a massive redistribution of wealth to make capitalism work.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  France placed the state above society, democracy above constitutionalism, and equality above liberty.
• 目送飞鸿

  2024-10-14
  In Germany, by contrast, industrialization was jump-started and prodded by government subsidies, regulations, and tariffs. As a result its bourgeoisie was weak, divided, and subservient to the state and its ruling feudal elite. Marx contemptuously described Germany’s business class as “a bourgeoisie without a world historical purpose.”Germany had a strong bureaucratic tradition of which it was understandably proud. Its state had been far more progressive and efficient at handling many of the problems of industrialization and urbanization—such as public health, transportation, and pensions—than any other European country. But as a result, instead of maintaining independence from state authority, German entrepreneurs eagerly sought favors and honors from the state.
• johnny

  2015-04-19
  搭乘泰坦尼克号头等舱的旅客是当时世界最富有的人，等于当年的福布斯世界富豪排行榜上的人物。阿斯特（john jacob astor）号称是当时美国最有钱的人。他奋力抢路到救生艇旁，让他的妻子有了座位，然后拒绝给自己座位，退后，挥手向太太告别。古根海姆（benjamin guggenheim）同样拒绝接受救生艇座位，把它让给一位妇女，请这名妇女转告他在家的妻子：“告诉我太太，我按正直规则游戏到终点。没有妇女会因为古根海姆是懦夫而被留在船上。”换言之，当世最有权势的人遵守不成文的荣誉行为规范--即使遵守意味着必定的死亡。在华盛顿靠近东波托马克河公园树立着一个不易忘怀的纪念像，一个手臂伸出如耶稣的雕像，在其基座上刻有文辞：“献给泰坦尼克好上勇敢的男人们，他们牺牲生命，以挽救妇女和儿童的生命。”它是25000多名美国妇女自愿捐献树立起来的。。。。。根据生还者的追述，“妇孺优先”原则在高等舱旅客中几乎没有例外全被遵守。