馬凱碩  美國不再是民主國家，而是富權國家

美國不再是民主國家，而是富權國家！馬凱碩在牛津辯論解析：美國民主已經不再起作用，普通人民的收入在降低，壽命也比很多發展中國家低，

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtHM1BRHJy8

讓我們明確一點：美國是一個偉大的國家。令人驚奇的是，50多年前美國就將人類送上了月球，至今無人複製。令人驚奇的是，美國在各個領域獲得的諾貝爾獎比任何其他國家都多。所以，爭論的焦點不在於美國是否是一個偉大的國家，而在於它的民主製度是??否正在走向衰敗。

作為一個在70年代和80年代訪問過美國超過50年的人，我可以告訴你，我對美國非常了解，我在美國結過兩次婚，所以我很了解這個國家。我可以告訴你，它曾經是一個幸福的國家。
但正如你從今天的辯論中看到的，它不再是一個幸福的國家。所以我想嚐試解釋並回答三個問題，以支持“美國是一個正在衰敗的民主國家”這一論斷：首先，它是如何衰敗的；其次，它為什麽衰敗；第三，有沒有解決辦法？我想談談解決辦法，因為我們希望美國成功，我們不希望美國失敗。所以，首先要回答的問題是：問題是為什麽它會失敗？從最基本的意義上來說，它確實失敗了。記住民主的目標是什麽？民主是民有、民治、民享的政府。判斷一個民主國家成功與否的標準，是它是否成功地提升了人民的生活水平。長期以來，美國一直在提升人民的生活水平，但後來卻停止了。數據令人震驚。讓我引用托馬斯·皮克蒂在2018年發表的一篇重要論文。他說，美國底層50%人口的收入停滯不前，而頂層1%人口的收入卻在飆升，形成了鮮明的對比。對於美國底層50%人口來說，他們的稅前收入份額從1970年的21%下降到2014年的13%，而頂層1%人口的收入份額在同一時期從9%上升到20%。看看差距吧。就家庭財富而言，頂層家庭持有的家庭財富份額。 1% 的 0.1% 從 8.9% 上升到 13.6% 6%，而底層 50% 的人口所占比例從 3.8% 下降到 2.5%。因此，你可以看到，人們並沒有從民主中受益。我希望我能用幻燈片的形式向你們展示這一點。
幻燈片顯示，1970 年，中等收入人群，也就是大多數美國人，占總收入的 62%，到 2020 年，這一比例從 62% 下降到 42%，而高收入人群的比例從 29% 上升到 50%。顯然，根本上出了問題。順便說一句，其結果是，人們正在遭受苦難。
你甚至可以在昨天馬丁·沃爾夫在《金融時報》的專欄中看到，他談到了美國經濟的非凡活力和美國人民的苦難。你知道令人震驚的是，美國是唯一一個預期壽命正在下降的主要發達國家。相信我，領先指標
之一一個社會福祉的領先指標是預期壽命。世界上大多數國家，包括貧窮的發展中國家，預期壽命都在上升，而美國卻在下降。我可以告訴你，就連非常保守的英裔美國曆史學家尼爾·弗格森也發表了一篇文章，說：“嘿，如果你看看美國的社會指標，它就像舊蘇聯一樣。”這難道不令人驚訝嗎？這表明民主正在失敗。數據是不可否認的。最大的問題是，它為什麽會失敗。正如你所知，美國人民每天都在大聲疾呼，他們去投票站投票，發表意見，做所有的事情，但什麽都沒有改變。為什麽現在沒有改變呢？這是一個非常重要的觀點，我要在這裏強調，當你看到民主國家不關注人們走到投票箱前填表並說“我投票給我的政府，我做出我的選擇”的儀式時。深入研究，你會發現，盡管有所有這些民主儀式和活動，但一切都沒有改變，因為政府已經被控製了。它是如何被控製的？讓我引用普林斯頓大學兩位經濟學家馬丁·吉蘭斯和本傑明·佩奇的話。順便說一句，他們提供了大量數據，你可以在我的書《中國一號》中找到很多這樣的數據。我花了很多時間來解釋這是怎麽發生的。他們說，當經濟精英的偏好和有組織的利益集團的立場被控製在普通美國人的偏好範圍內時，普通美國人的偏好似乎對公共政策的影響微乎其微，幾乎為零，在統計上不顯著。此外，經濟精英的偏好（用我們的代理變量衡量）——富裕公民的偏好——對政策變化的影響遠比普通公民的偏好更獨立。在美國，我們的研究結果表明，多數人
並不能統治政策，至少在大多數公民不同意的情況下，多數人不能真正決定政策結果。經濟精英或有組織的利益集團通常會失敗。“聽聽美國的情況，我們的調查結果表明，多數人並不統治，當多數人的偏好對政府決策沒有影響時，你怎麽能稱自己為民主國家？但令人驚訝的是，大多數人並沒有意識到這一點，因為它以一種非常謹慎的、隱秘的方式發生著，你永遠不會在頭條新聞中看到它，你也不會在一些報紙上看到它，但它是真實存在的，因此，正如美國有史以來最受尊敬的美聯儲主席、我的好朋友保羅·沃爾卡所說：“實際上，美國已經變成了一個富豪統治的國家。” 讓我明確一點，富豪統治從定義上來說不是民主國家，所以，當你談論一個失敗的民主國家時，你麵臨的是一個非常嚴峻的挑戰。現在我們能解決這個問題嗎？我真的相信它可以解決，但因為它是如此深刻和結構性，你必須找到它的結構性根源。我會很快講完，因為我時間不夠了，我隻想提一下，你必須在某種程度上回顧美國偉大哲學家的智慧，我深入研究過約翰·RWS和約翰·RS。他們在《正義論》一書中指出，隻有當底層10%的人也看到自己受益時，你才能證明增加富人收入的合理性。所以，如果你想給富人更多，那就去做吧，但要確保底層的收入也能增加。這意味著，當你談論你最重要的理想時，這一點至關重要。不要隻關注自由，因為18、19世紀來到牛津的偉大哲學家們總是談論自由和平等，但每個人都忘記了“平等”這個詞。如果你想創建一個讓大多數公民，尤其是底層50%的人真正感受到幸福的社會，讓他們覺得自己也是社會的共同所有者，那麽就應該創造對大多數人有利的安排，這就是民主應該做的。通過投票支持這項提案，你知道你在做什麽。你正在幫助美國說“醒醒吧，是時候改變了。

let's be clear about one point the United States of America is a great country what's amazing is that over five decades ago the United States sent a man to the moon and no one else has copied it amazing the United States has won more Nobel prizes in every field than any other country has so the debate is not about whether or not America is a great country it is a great country the debate is about whether or not it democracy is failing
and I can tell you as someone who's been visiting the US for over five decades now the 70s 80s I got to know it very well i got married there twice so I know the country well and I can tell you that it used to be a happy country
but as you can tell from today's debate it is no longer a happy country so what I what I'll try to do is to try and explain answer three questions in support of the proposition that America is a failing democracy first how is it failing two why is it failing and three is there a solution and I want to talk about the solution because we want America to succeed we don't want America to fail so the question first question is why is it failing and it's failing in the most basic sense remember what is the goal of a democracy a democracy is a government of the people by the people for the people and the way you judge whether or not a democracy has succeeded or failed is whether or not it has succeeded in lifting up its people and for a long time the United States kept lifting up its people and then it stopped doing so and the data is quite stunning let me quote one important paper by
Thomas Pikerty in 2018 and he says that the stagnation of the bottom 50% of America's population contrasts sharply with the upurge of income of the top 1% for the bottom 50% of America's population their share of pre-tax income declined from 21% to 13% in from 1970 21% to 13% 2014 and the share the income the top 1% increased from 9% to 20% in the same period see the disparity and in terms of household wealth the share of household wealth held by the top one was 1% 0.1% went from 8.9% to 13.6% 6% while the share held by the bottom 50% went down from 3.8% to 2.5% you can see therefore that the people are not benefiting from democracy i wish I could show you this in the form of SL
in on a form of a slide where it shows that in 1970 the middle income population the majority of Americans
held 62% of the uh income went down from 62 to 42% in 2020 while the upper income went up from 29% to 50% so clearly something fundamentally has gone wrong and the result of this by the way is that people are suffering
and you can see even in yesterday's column by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times where he talks by the way about the extraordinary dynamism of the American economy and the suffering of the American people and you know what's shocking the United States of America is the only major developed country where life expectancy is going down trust me the leading indicators
one of the leading indicators of the well-being of a society is life expectancy and in most countries in the world including the poor developing countries life expectancy is going up in United States is going down and I can tell you even the very conservative British American historian Nile Ferguson came out with an article saying "Hey if you look at the social indicators of the United States it's like the old Soviet Union." Isn't that amazing that shows you therefore that democracy is failing the data is undeniable big question is why is it failing and here as you know the American people are speaking out every day they go to the election booths they vote they speak they do everything and nothing changes why not now this is a very important point I'm going to emphasize here when you watch and see democracies do not pay attention to the rituals of people going to the ballot box stuffing it and saying "I am voting my government i'm making my choice." Look deeper because you will find as you look deeper that despite all these rituals and activities of democracy nothing changes because the government has been captured how is it captured let me quote to you
two Princeton University economists
Martin Gillans and Benjamin Page and by
the way they give extensive data you can get a lot of this data in in my book Has China One i devoted a lot of time to explaining how this happened and they say when the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule near zero statistically non-significant impact
upon public policy furthermore the preferences of economic elites as measured by our proxy the preferences of affluent citizens have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do and listen to this in the United States our findings indicate the majority
does not rule at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes when a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests they generally lose." Listen to this in the United States our findings indicate the majority does not rule how can you call yourself a democracy when the preferences of the majority have no impact on the decisions of the government but what's amazing is most people are
not aware of this because it has happened in a very
careful subterranean fashion you never see it in the headlines you don't see it in the some in the papers too but it's real and therefore the result of this is as probably the most respected ever head of the Fed of the United States was a good friend of mine Paul Vulkar and he said "Effectively functionally the US has become a plutoaucracy." And let me make it very clear a plutoaucracy is by definition not a democracy so therefore you're dealing when you talk about a failing democracy here you're dealing with a very serious challenge now can we solve this problem i actually believe it can be solved but because it is so deep and structural you have to find the structural roots of
it and I'm going to rush since I'm out of time i just going to mention you have to go back to in some ways the wisdom of the great philosophers that United States had and one whom I studied a lot was John RWS and John RS said in his book theory of justice that you can justify increasing income for the more affluent only if the bottom 10% also see a benefit for them so if you want to give more to the affluent go ahead but make sure the bottom rise but that means this is very fundamental when you talk about your most important ideals focus not just on freedom because the great philosophers the great philosophers who came to Oxford in the 18th 19th century always spoke about freedom and equality everybody forgets the word equality that's so fundamental if you want to create a society where the majority of citizens especially the bottom 50% feel a real sense of well-being feel that they are also co-owners of the society create arrangements that work for the majority that's what democracy is
supposed to do and by voting for the proposition
you you know what you're doing you're helping America to say "Wake up it's time for a change