The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers 专制强权的回归 作者：Azar Gat @ 2007-07-01

译者：sheperdmt（@-3co）

校对：Kyo(@tfny.kyo)，沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）

来源：Foreign Affairs， https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2007-07-01/return-authoritarian-great-powers THE END OF THE END OF HISTORY “历史终结”论的终结 【 译注：《历史的终结》是美国学者弗朗西斯·福山（Francis Fukuyama）1989年发表的一篇文章，后又于1992年扩写成书。福山认为自由民主制是人类社会演化的终点。 】

Today's global liberal democratic order faces two challenges. The first is radical Islam -- and it is the lesser of the two challenges. Although the proponents of radical Islam find liberal democracy repugnant, and the movement is often described as the new fascist threat, the societies from which it arises are generally poor and stagnant.

当今全球自由民主秩序面临两大挑战。第一个是伊斯兰极端主义——它的威胁程度相对较小。尽管伊斯兰极端主义的支持者对自由民主制恨之入骨，而且经常有人将这一运动描绘为新法西斯式的威胁，但其生根发芽的社会大多穷困潦倒、停滞不前。

They represent no viable alternative to modernity and pose no significant military threat to the developed world. It is mainly the potential use of weapons of mass destruction -- particularly by nonstate actors -- that makes militant Islam a menace.

它们既不代表通往现代社会的另一条可行道路，也无法对发达国家形成明显的军事威胁。对它们可能会使用大规模杀伤性武器的担忧——尤其是在非国家行动者手中——才让伊斯兰武装算得上一个威胁。

The second, and more significant, challenge emanates from the rise of nondemocratic great powers: the West's old Cold War rivals China and Russia, now operating under authoritarian capitalist, rather than communist, regimes. Authoritarian capitalist great powers played a leading role in the international system up until 1945. They have been absent since then. But today, they seem poised for a comeback.

第二个也是更为显著的挑战，来自崛起中的非民主强权：西方世界的冷战老对手，中国与俄罗斯，它们正处于专制资本主义，而非共产主义政权统治之下。直到1945年以前，专制资本主义强权国家曾在国际体系中占据主导地位，但自那以后便销声匿迹。今天，它们似乎已准备好东山再起。

Capitalism's ascendancy appears to be deeply entrenched, but the current predominance of democracy could be far less secure. Capitalism has expanded relentlessly since early modernity, its lower-priced goods and superior economic power eroding and transforming all other socioeconomic regimes, a process most memorably described by Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto.

资本主义的优势看来牢不可破，而民主制度目前所拥有的主导地位，却远不如前者那样安枕无忧。从现代早期开始，资本主义便所向披靡，其廉价商品和优势经济力量腐蚀并改变了其他一切社会经济制度，对此过程，马克思在《共产党宣言》里有过最令人难忘的记述。

Contrary to Marx's expectations, capitalism had the same effect on communism, eventually "burying" it without the proverbial shot being fired.

然而与马克思的期望截然相反，资本主义对共产主义产生了同样的作用，最终“不费一枪一炮”便将后者“埋葬”了。【 译注：英语世界流传赫鲁晓夫的一句名言：“我们将不费一枪一炮将你们埋葬。”（We will bury you without firing a shot.）然而这句话的真实来源存疑 】

The triumph of the market, precipitating and reinforced by the industrial-technological revolution, led to the rise of the middle class, intensive urbanization, the spread of education, the emergence of mass society, and ever greater affluence.

市场的胜利加速并强化了工业技术革命，也反过来从中得到力量，带来了中产阶级崛起、急剧的城镇化、教育普及、大众社会兴起，以及前所未有的富裕。

In the post-Cold War era (just as in the nineteenth century and the 1950s and 1960s), it is widely believed that liberal democracy naturally emerged from these developments, a view famously espoused by Francis Fukuyama.

在后冷战时代（正如19世纪及1950、1960年代一样），人们普遍认同自由民主制是上述发展的自然结果，这一观点最著名的支持者是弗朗西斯·福山。

Today, more than half of the world's states have elected governments, and close to half have sufficiently entrenched liberal rights to be considered fully free.

如今，世界上有超过一半的国家拥有民选政府，还有接近一半的国家拥有牢固的自由权利，因而足以被视为充分自由的。

But the reasons for the triumph of democracy, especially over its nondemocratic capitalist rivals of the two world wars, Germany and Japan, were more contingent than is usually assumed.

但民主究竟是如何获胜的，尤其是如何在两次世界大战中获胜，如何战胜了非民主的资本主义对手德国和日本，其原因要比普遍认为的更具偶然性。

Authoritarian capitalist states, today exemplified by China and Russia, may represent a viable alternative path to modernity, which in turn suggests that there is nothing inevitable about liberal democracy's ultimate victory -- or future dominance.

今天，以中国和俄罗斯为代表的专制资本主义国家，或许提供了另一条通往现代社会的可行路径，而这反过来说明，自由民主制的最终胜利，或者说未来的主导地位，并非必然之事。 CHRONICLE OF A DEFEAT NOT FORETOLD 实录：无人预见的胜利 The liberal democratic camp defeated its authoritarian, fascist, and communist rivals alike in all of the three major great-power struggles of the twentieth century -- the two world wars and the Cold War. In trying to determine exactly what accounted for this decisive outcome, it is tempting to trace it to the special traits and intrinsic advantages of liberal democracy.

在20世纪的三次主要强权争锋——两次世界大战和冷战——中，自由民主阵营将其对手——专制主义、法西斯主义和共产主义——逐一击败。要确定究竟是哪些因素导致了这一决定性结局，我们很难不从自由民主制的诸多特点和内在优势开始追溯。

One possible advantage is democracies' international conduct. Perhaps they more than compensate for carrying a lighter stick abroad with a greater ability to elicit international cooperation through the bonds and discipline of the global market system.

民主国家的优势之一可能来自其国际表现。或许，借助全球市场体系中建立的种种纽带及互律准则，它们获得了引导国际合作的强大力量，足以补偿了其海外军事力量上的劣势。【 译注：原文carrying a lighter stick语出老罗斯福的巨棒外交：“温言在口，大棒在手。”其中大棒指代军事实力。 】

This explanation is probably correct for the Cold War, when a greatly expanded global economy was dominated by the democratic powers, but it does not apply to the two world wars. Nor is it true that liberal democracies succeed because they always cling together.

这一解释似乎适用于冷战，正是在冷战期间，民主强国主导了大幅扩张的全球经济；但它没法解释两次大战。另一种解释也难以成立：自由民主国家的成功源于它们之间的紧密团结。

Again, this was true, at least as a contributing factor, during the Cold War, when the democratic capitalist camp kept its unity, whereas growing antagonism between the Soviet Union and China pulled the communist bloc apart.

同样，后一解释适用于冷战，至少这是影响因素之一，因为在冷战期间，资本主义民主阵营始终团结一致，而共产主义联盟却因中苏之间日渐增长的敌意而破裂。

During World War I, however, the ideological divide between the two sides was much less clear. The Anglo-French alliance was far from preordained; it was above all a function of balance-of-power calculations rather than liberal cooperation. At the close of the nineteenth century, power politics had brought the United Kingdom and France, bitterly antagonistic countries, to the brink of war and prompted the United Kingdom to actively seek an alliance with Germany.

然而反观一战，战争双方的意识形态分歧却模糊得多。英法协约的签署远非注定；它首先是基于对力量均衡的算计而得出的权宜之计，而非出于共同自由理念所达成的合作。19世纪末，强权政治曾将敌意颇深的英法两国带到战争边缘，致使英国积极寻求与德国结盟。

Liberal Italy's break from the Triple Alliance and joining of the Entente, despite its rivalry with France, was a function of the Anglo-French alliance, as Italy's peninsular location made it hazardous for the country to be on a side opposed to the leading maritime power of the time, the United Kingdom.

自由主义的意大利退出三国同盟，不顾与法国的敌对关系转投协约国阵营，乃是英法结盟的结果。因为意大利身处半岛，与当时的海上第一强国英国抗衡有害无益。

Similarly, during World War II, France was quickly defeated and taken out of the Allies' side (which was to include nondemocratic Soviet Russia), whereas the right-wing totalitarian powers fought on the same side.

类似的，二战中法国迅速战败，就此脱离同盟国（之后非民主国家苏联加入），反倒是右翼极权主义强权全在同一战壕之内。

Studies of democracies' alliance behavior suggest that democratic regimes show no greater tendency to stick together than other types of regimes. Nor did the totalitarian capitalist regimes lose World War II because their democratic opponents held a moral high ground that inspired greater exertion from their people, as the historian Richard Overy and others have claimed.

对民主国家结盟行为的研究显示，民主政体并不比其他类型的政体更倾向团结合作。极权资本主义政权在二战中失败，也不是历史学家理查德·奥弗里（Richard Overy）等人所说的那样，是因为民主国家占据了道德高地，因而能在其人民中间鼓舞动员起更多力量。

During the 1930s and early 1940s, fascism and Nazism were exciting new ideologies that generated massive popular enthusiasm, whereas democracy stood on the ideological defensive, appearing old and dispirited. If anything, the fascist regimes proved more inspiring in wartime than their democratic adversaries, and the battlefield performance of their militaries is widely judged to have been superior.

在20世纪30和40年代早期，法西斯和纳粹思想都是激动人心的新型意识形态，激起了大范围的民众热情，而民主国家则在意识形态上处于守势，面目苍老毫无生气。两者差别恰恰是，法西斯政权在战时比它们的民主敌人更能鼓舞人心，其军队的战场表现也被公认为更加优秀。

Liberal democracy's supposedly inherent economic advantage is also far less clear than is often assumed. All of the belligerents in the twentieth century's great struggles proved highly effective in producing for war. During World War I, semiautocratic Germany committed its resources as effectively as its democratic rivals did.

人们认为自由民主制天生具有经济优势，其实这一点远不如想象中明显。20世纪的几次对抗已经证明，所有交战国都有极强的军事生产能力。一战期间，半独裁的德国可以与其民主对手同样有效地调配资源。

After early victories in World War II, Nazi Germany's economic mobilization and military production proved lax during the critical years 1940-42. Well positioned at the time to fundamentally alter the global balance of power by destroying the Soviet Union and straddling all of continental Europe, Germany failed because its armed forces were meagerly supplied for the task.

在取得最初胜利之后，纳粹德国却在至关紧要的1940至1942年间，经历了经济动员和军事生产上的松懈。当德国已做好准备消灭苏联，彻底打破世界均势、横扫欧洲大陆之际，却因部队供给不足而遭致失败。

The reasons for this deficiency remain a matter of historical debate, but one of the problems was the existence of competing centers of authority in the Nazi system, in which Hitler's "divide and rule" tactics and party functionaries' jealous guarding of their assigned domains had a chaotic effect.

虽然供给短缺的原因至今仍是历史争论的主题，但一个已知的问题是，纳粹党内存在相互争权夺利的多个权力中心。希特勒的“分而治之”策略，以及党务官员对各自职权领地的精心守护，都加剧了其内部混乱。

Furthermore, from the fall of France in June 1940 to the German setback before Moscow in December 1941, there was a widespread feeling in Germany that the war had practically been won. All the same, from 1942 onward (by which time it was too late), Germany greatly intensified its economic mobilization and caught up with and even surpassed the liberal democracies in terms of the share of GDP devoted to the war (although its production volume remained much lower than that of the massive U.S. economy). Likewise, levels of economic mobilization in imperial Japan and the Soviet Union exceeded those of the United States and the United Kingdom thanks to ruthless efforts.

另外，从1940年6月法国沦陷，到1941年12月德军受阻于莫斯科期间，德国全国上下充溢着战争实际已经胜利的情绪。尽管如此，从1942年开始（为时已晚），德国大幅加强了自己的经济动员能力，在军费占GDP的比例上追赶甚至超越了各民主国家（尽管与规模庞大的美国经济相比，其产量仍然十分低下）。相似的情形也发生在日本帝国和苏联，经过残酷努力，两国经济动员水平超越了美国和英国。

Only during the Cold War did the Soviet command economy exhibit deepening structural weaknesses -- weaknesses that were directly responsible for the Soviet Union's downfall. The Soviet system had successfully generated the early and intermediate stages of industrialization (albeit at a frightful human cost) and excelled at the regimentalized techniques of mass production during World War II.

只有在冷战期间，苏联的指令经济体系才显现出不断加深的结构性缺陷——这类缺陷是苏联覆灭的直接原因。苏维埃体系成功到达了工业化的早期和中期阶段（尽管为此付出了可怕的人员代价），并在二战期间出色实现了整编有方的大规模生产。

It also kept abreast militarily during the Cold War. But because of the system's rigidity and lack of incentives, it proved ill equipped to cope with the advanced stages of development and the demands of the information age and globalization.

即使在冷战期间，它的军事建设也并不曾落后。但因为它僵硬死板、缺乏激励，在高级的发展阶段，以及信息时代和全球化的要求面前，这一体系装备不良，无力应对。

There is no reason, however, to suppose that the totalitarian capitalist regimes of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan would have proved inferior economically to the democracies had they survived. The inefficiencies that favoritism and unaccountability typically create in such regimes might have been offset by higher levels of social discipline.

但我们也没有证据认为，如果纳粹德国和日本帝国的极权资本主义政权延续至今，它们的经济实力会逊于民主国家。这样的政权往往徇私泛滥，缺乏监察问责，造成效率低下，但这可以被更高水平的社会纪律所抵消。

Because of their more efficient capitalist economies, the right-wing totalitarian powers could have constituted a more viable challenge to the liberal democracies than the Soviet Union did; Nazi Germany was judged to be such a challenge by the Allied powers before and during World War II. The liberal democracies did not possess an inherent advantage over Germany in terms of economic and technological development, as they did in relation to their other great-power rivals.

由于接纳了更为有效的资本主义经济，比起苏联，这些右翼极权主义强权有可能对自由民主国家构成更有力的挑战；二战结束之前，同盟国就曾如此看待纳粹德国。自由民主制相比其他强权，在经济和技术发展上体现出的内在优势，与德国相比却并不存在。

So why did the democracies win the great struggles of the twentieth century? The reasons are different for each type of adversary. They defeated their nondemocratic capitalist adversaries, Germany and Japan, in war because Germany and Japan were medium-sized countries with limited resource bases and they came up against the far superior -- but hardly preordained -- economic and military coalition of the democratic powers and Russia or the Soviet Union.

那么，究竟是什么原因，使得民主国家在20世纪的三场对抗中都取得了胜利呢？对不同类型的对手，答案不尽相同。战胜同样实行资本主义、但无民主的德国和日本，是因为这两个国家领土面积中等，资源基础有限，却要面对各民主强国及俄国（或苏联）结成的经济和军事联盟，其实力远超前者——尽管这次结盟只是机缘巧合。

The defeat of communism, however, had much more to do with structural factors. The capitalist camp -- which after 1945 expanded to include most of the developed world -- possessed much greater economic power than the communist bloc, and the inherent inefficiency of the communist economies prevented them from fully exploiting their vast resources and catching up to the West.

共产主义的失败则更多出于结构性因素。1945年后，资本主义阵营囊括了几乎所有发达国家，它们比起共产主义阵营拥有强大得多的经济实力，而共产主义经济固有的低效也妨碍了它们充分利用其丰富的资源，拖累了它们追赶西方的步伐。

Together, the Soviet Union and China were larger and thus had the potential to be more powerful than the democratic capitalist camp. Ultimately, they failed because their economic systems limited them, whereas the nondemocratic capitalist powers, Germany and Japan, were defeated because they were too small. Contingency played a decisive role in tipping the balance against the nondemocratic capitalist powers and in favor of the democracies.

苏联和中国加起来面积更大，因而其实力确有潜力超越资本主义民主阵营。中苏最终失败于其经济体系对自身的制约，而德日作为实行资本主义的非民主强权，却因为领土面积太小失败。在打破力量平衡，使天平向民主国家一边倾斜的过程中，偶然因素起了决定性的作用。 AMERICAN EXCEPTION 美国例外论 The most decisive element of contingency was the United States. After all, it was little more than a chance of history that the scion of Anglo-Saxon liberalism would sprout on the other side of the Atlantic, institutionalize its heritage with independence, expand across one of the most habitable and thinly populated territories in the world, feed off of massive immigration from Europe, and so create on a continental scale what was -- and still is -- by far the world's largest concentration of economic and military might.

最具决定性的偶然因素就是美国。盎格鲁-撒克逊自由主义的后裔在大西洋彼岸生根发芽，取得独立，并将自由主义的遗产加以制度化，在地球上最为宜居、同时人烟最稀的土地上纵横扩张，接纳来自欧洲的庞大移民，并在大陆级的规模上，集合起曾经是、现在仍然是全世界最强的经济和军事力量——这一切几乎全是出于历史的巧合。

A liberal regime and other structural traits had a lot to do with the United States' economic success, and even with its size, because of its attractiveness to immigrants. But the United States would scarcely have achieved such greatness had it not been located in a particularly advantageous and vast ecological-geographic niche, as the counterexamples of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand demonstrate.

美国经济的成功，应在很大程度上归功于其自由政体，以及其他结构性特点；甚至美国的规模也与此有关，因为自由主义能吸引大量移民。然而，如果不是位居这块生态和地理条件都极其优越、丰富的土地，美国不太可能取得如今的成就，加拿大、澳大利亚、新西兰就是反例。

And location, of course, although crucial, was but one necessary condition among many for bringing about the giant and, indeed, United States as the paramount political fact of the twentieth century. Contingency was at least as responsible as liberalism for the United States' emergence in the New World and, hence, for its later ability to rescue the Old World.

地理位置确实十分关键，但造就美国这个巨人，造就这个20世纪最为重要的政治实体，所需的必要条件不可胜数，位置不过是其中之一。对于美国在新世界的崛起，以及后来出手挽救旧世界的过程，偶然因素发挥的作用至少并不少于自由主义。

Throughout the twentieth century, the United States' power consistently surpassed that of the next two strongest states combined, and this decisively tilted the global balance of power in favor of whichever side Washington was on. If any factor gave the liberal democracies their edge, it was above all the existence of the United States rather than any inherent advantage.

整个20世纪，美国国力始终领先于世界，实力超过全球第二、三位的总和，因此全球均势的天平不可避免地滑向华盛顿所支持的那一边。如果要为民主阵营略占上风找一个原因，那首先是因为美国的加入，而非民主制度有什么内在优势。

In fact, had it not been for the United States, liberal democracy may well have lost the great struggles of the twentieth century. This is a sobering thought that is often overlooked in studies of the spread of democracy in the twentieth century, and it makes the world today appear much more contingent and tenuous than linear theories of development suggest.

事实上，如果没有美国，自由民主阵营很可能输掉20世纪的三次对抗。这个观点发人深省，却常常被有关20世纪民主扩张的研究所忽略。也正因此，和那些线性发展理论所设想的情况相比，今日世界之存在更像是巧合的产物，也更为脆弱。

If it were not for the U.S. factor, the judgment of later generations on liberal democracy would probably have echoed the negative verdict on democracy's performance, issued by the fourth-century-BC Greeks, in the wake of Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War.

如果没有美国这个因素，后世大概会给自由民主制以负面评价，就像公元前4世纪的希腊人评价败于斯巴达的雅典民主时一样。 THE NEW SECOND WORLD 新第二世界 But the audit of war is, of course, not the only one that societies -- democratic and nondemocratic -- undergo. One must ask how the totalitarian capitalist powers would have developed had they not been defeated by war. Would they, with time and further development, have shed their former identity and embraced liberal democracy, as the former communist regimes of eastern Europe eventually did?

然而对于各社会，无论民主与否，战争都不是唯一的考验。我们应该问一句：如果没有战败，这些极权资本主义国家将如何发展。是否，经过足够的时间和进一步的发展，它们会改头换面，接受自由民主，走上东欧各个前共产主义政权最终选择的道路吗？

Was the capitalist industrial state of imperial Germany before World War I ultimately moving toward increasing parliamentary control and democratization? Or would it have developed into an authoritarian oligarchic regime, dominated by an alliance between the officialdom, the armed forces, and industry, as imperial Japan did (in spite of the latter's liberal interlude in the 1920s)?

一战前的资本主义工业国家德意志帝国，会逐渐加强议会监察制度，继而走向民主吗？还是会像日本帝国一样，受官僚、军队和工业联合把控，变成一个专制主义的寡头政体（即便日本1920年代出现过短暂的自由期）？

Liberalization seems even more doubtful in the case of Nazi Germany had it survived, let alone triumphed. Because all these major historical experiments were cut short by war, the answers to these questions remain a matter of speculation. But perhaps the peacetime record of other authoritarian capitalist regimes since 1945 can offer a clue.

假如纳粹德国幸存了下来，其自由化（相比德意志帝国）的可能性则更渺茫，更别说假如它当初得胜了。战争切断了这些大型历史实验的进程，这些回答永远只能是想象。不过，还有一些专制资本主义国家延续到了1945年之后，它们在和平年代的表现可以提供一条线索。

Studies that cover this period show that democracies generally outdo other systems economically. Authoritarian capitalist regimes are at least as successful -- if not more so -- in the early stages of development, but they tend to democratize after crossing a certain threshold of economic and social development. This seems to have been a recurring pattern in East Asia, southern Europe, and Latin America.

关于这段时期的研究显示，民主政体的经济发展总体而言优于其它制度。在发展的早期阶段，专制资本主义国家也取得了至少不逊于民主国家的成就，但当经济和社会发展越过了某一特定水平，它们就有民主化的趋势。这一模式似乎在东亚、南欧及拉丁美洲反复出现过。

The attempt to draw conclusions about development patterns from these findings, however, may be misleading, because the sample set itself may be polluted. Since 1945, the enormous gravitational pull exerted by the United States and the liberal hegemony has bent patterns of development worldwide.

然而，试图从上述现象中得出任何有关发展模式的结论，可能会误入歧途，因为样本集合本身可能已被污染。自1945年起，美国及自由主义全球霸权所发挥的强大引力，已然影响了世界各国的发展轨迹。

Because the totalitarian capitalist great powers, Germany and Japan, were crushed in war, and these countries were subsequently threatened by Soviet power, they lent themselves to a sweeping restructuring and democratization.

极权资本主义的德日两国被战争击垮，接着又受到苏联霸权威胁，因而走上了彻底的重构和民主化之路。

Consequently, smaller countries that chose capitalism over communism had no rival political and economic model to emulate and no powerful international players to turn to other than the liberal democratic camp. These small and medium-sized countries' eventual democratization probably had as much to do with the overwhelming influence of the Western liberal hegemony as with internal processes.

结果，同属资本主义而非共产主义阵营的小国，没有其他对立的政经体制可以效仿，除了自由民主制，他们在国际舞台上也找不到可以投靠的其它选手。这些中小型国家最终走向民主化，内在发展恐怕只占一半的原因，另有一半则应是西方自由霸权的压倒性影响。

Presently, Singapore is the only example of a country with a truly developed economy that still maintains a semiauthoritarian regime, and even it is likely to change under the influence of the liberal order within which it operates. But are Singapore-like great powers that prove resistant to the influence of this order possible?

当前，经济真正发达同时仍保留半专制主义政权的例子，只有新加坡一个，但即使是新加坡，也可能因为受到它运行于其中的自由秩序之影响而发生改变。但是，有可能存在一种能够对抗该秩序之影响的新加坡式强权大国吗？

The question is made relevant by the recent emergence of nondemocratic giants, above all formerly communist and booming authoritarian capitalist China. Russia, too, is retreating from its postcommunist liberalism and assuming an increasingly authoritarian character as its economic clout grows.

这个问题的意义随着近来非民主大国的兴起愈发明显。突出代表就是放弃共产主义，正在专制资本主义的统治下繁荣发展的中国。同样，俄国也从后共产时代的自由主义之中回归，并且随着经济实力的增长，显现出越来越多的专制主义特征。

Some believe that these countries could ultimately become liberal democracies through a combination of internal development, increasing affluence, and outside influence. Alternatively, they may have enough weight to create a new nondemocratic but economically advanced Second World. They could establish a powerful authoritarian capitalist order that allies political elites, industrialists, and the military; that is nationalist in orientation; and that participates in the global economy on its own terms, as imperial Germany and imperial Japan did.

有人认为，经过内部发展、财富增长及外部影响的共同作用，此类国家可能最终接纳自由民主。或者，它们也可能有足够的实力，创造一个新的第二世界，不实行民主，却有高度发达的经济。它们可以集结政治精英、工业家和军队，建立一个强大的专制资本主义秩序；以民族主义为发展方向；并与帝国主义的德国、日本一样，按照他们自己设定的规则参与全球经济。

It is widely contended that economic and social development creates pressures for democratization that an authoritarian state structure cannot contain. There is also the view that "closed societies" may be able to excel in mass manufacturing but not in the advanced stages of the information economy. The jury on these issues is still out, because the data set is incomplete.

普遍认为，经济和社会发展不断创造趋向民主化的压力，会使专制国家的结构无法承受。还有观点认为，“封闭社会”可能擅长大规模生产，却会在信息经济的高级阶段落到下风。上述问题悬而未决，因为数据资料尚不完整。

Imperial and Nazi Germany stood at the forefront of the advanced scientific and manufacturing economies of their times, but some would argue that their success no longer applies because the information economy is much more diversified. Nondemocratic Singapore has a highly successful information economy, but Singapore is a city-state, not a big country.

德意志帝国和纳粹德国在它们的时代，先进科学和制造业经济都处于世界前列，但有人会说它们的成功无法复制，因为信息经济的细化程度深入得多。新加坡这个非民主国家有十分成功的信息经济，但它只是一座城邦，而非一个大国。

It will take a long time before China reaches the stage when the possibility of an authoritarian state with an advanced capitalist economy can be tested. All that can be said at the moment is that there is nothing in the historical record to suggest that a transition to democracy by today's authoritarian capitalist powers is inevitable, whereas there is a great deal to suggest that such powers have far greater economic and military potential than their communist predecessors did.

先进的资本主义经济能否在专制国家实现，只有等中国的发展到达那一阶段才能得知，而这还要很久。当下只能得出这样的结论：历史记载并未表明今天的专制资本主义大国必然会转向民主，倒是有足够证据说明这些大国有着远超其共产主义前辈的经济和军事潜力。

China and Russia represent a return of economically successful authoritarian capitalist powers, which have been absent since the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945, but they are much larger than the latter two countries ever were. Although Germany was only a medium-sized country uncomfortably squeezed at the center of Europe, it twice nearly broke out of its confines to become a true world power on account of its economic and military might.

1945年德日战败，经济上成功的专制资本主义一度消失过。现在，中俄两国代表了这股力量的回归，并有远超前两者的国家规模。尽管德国只是蜷缩在欧洲中心的一个中等国家，它却因其经济和军事力量之故，有两次几近于突破约束，成为真正的世界大国。

In 1941, Japan was still behind the leading great powers in terms of economic development, but its growth rate since 1913 had been the highest in the world. Ultimately, however, both Germany and Japan were too small -- in terms of population, resources, and potential -- to take on the United States. Present-day China, on the other hand, is the largest player in the international system in terms of population and is experiencing spectacular economic growth.

1941年，日本的经济发展水平仍落后于领先强国，但它1913年以来的增长率一直保持世界第一。然而最终，无论从人口、资源还是潜力来说，德国和日本都太小了，无法与美国抗衡。与之相比，从人口上来说，现在的中国是国际舞台上最重量级的选手，正在经历惊人的经济增长。

By shifting from communism to capitalism, China has switched to a far more efficient brand of authoritarianism. As China rapidly narrows the economic gap with the developed world, the possibility looms that it will become a true authoritarian superpower.

经过从共产主义向资本主义的转变，中国形成了一种远更高效的专制主义。随着中国快速缩小着自己与发达国家间的经济差距，一个真正的超级专制大国也就离我们越来越近。

Even in its current bastions in the West, the liberal political and economic consensus is vulnerable to unforeseen developments, such as a crushing economic crisis that could disrupt the global trading system or a resurgence of ethnic strife in a Europe increasingly troubled by immigration and ethnic minorities.

即使在其当下的西方堡垒之内，自由主义的政治和经济共识在难以预见的发展面前也颇为脆弱，比如可能扰乱全球贸易体系的惨重经济危机，或随着移民不断涌入，少数族裔问题日渐突出，最终种族冲突在欧洲复兴。

Were the West to be hit by such upheavals, support for liberal democracy in Asia, Latin America, and Africa -- where adherence to that model is more recent, incomplete, and insecure -- could be shaken. A successful nondemocratic Second World could then be regarded by many as an attractive alternative to liberal democracy.

假如西方遭此剧变，亚洲、拉美和非洲各地的自由民主拥趸就会动摇（这些地区接受自由民主的时间十分晚近，也不够完备，因而更不稳固）。到那时，一个不实行民主然而经济上成功的第二世界，就会对许多国家形成诱惑，成为自由民主制之外的另一种选择。 MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY 给民主一个安全世界 Although the rise of authoritarian capitalist great powers would not necessarily lead to a nondemocratic hegemony or a war, it might imply that the near-total dominance of liberal democracy since the Soviet Union's collapse will be short-lived and that a universal "democratic peace" is still far off.

专制资本主义超级大国的崛起，并不必然会催生一个非民主国家的世界霸权，也不一定导致战争；然而，这可能暗示着，自由民主制自苏联解体以来所享有的那种近乎完全的支配地位，可能不会长久，而全球范围内的“民主和平”仍将遥不可及。

The new authoritarian capitalist powers could become as deeply integrated into the world economy as imperial Germany and imperial Japan were and not choose to pursue autarky, as Nazi Germany and the communist bloc did. A great-power China may also be less revisionist than the territorially confined Germany and Japan were (although Russia, which is still reeling from having lost an empire, is more likely to tend toward revisionism).

新的专制资本主义强国可能与德意志帝国、日本帝国一样，与世界经济紧密结为一体，而不会像纳粹德国和共产主义阵营那样追求自给自足。一个既已崛起的强大中国，可能不会像领土受限的德日一样奉行修正主义（但仍未从帝国失落的眩晕中恢复的俄国，更有可能向修正主义迈进）。

Still, Beijing, Moscow, and their future followers might well be on antagonistic terms with the democratic countries, with all the potential for suspicion, insecurity, and conflict that this entails -- while holding considerably more power than any of the democracies' past rivals ever did.

但是，北京、莫斯科以及它们未来的追随者极有可能站在民主国家的对立面，因此包含着发生猜忌、不安全和冲突的全部可能，同时它们还拥有民主阵营以往任何对手都不曾拥有过的强大实力。

So does the greater power potential of authoritarian capitalism mean that the transformation of the former communist great powers may ultimately prove to have been a negative development for global democracy? It is too early to tell. Economically, the liberalization of the former communist countries has given the global economy a tremendous boost, and there may be more in store.

那么，专制资本主义会成为更大强权的可能性，是否意味着那些前共产主义大国的转型最终将对全球民主产生负面作用？现在下结论还为时尚早。从经济上来说，前共产主义国家的自由化已极大地推动了全球经济，更不用说这一助力尚未充分释放。

But the possibility of a move toward protectionism by them in the future also needs to be taken into account -- and assiduously avoided. It was, after all, the prospect of growing protectionism in the world economy at the turn of the twentieth century and the protectionist bent of the 1930s that helped radicalize the nondemocratic capitalist powers of the time and precipitate both world wars.

但是，这些国家未来转向保护主义的可能性也应加以考虑，并且小心避免。毕竟，正是由于20世纪初对于世界经济中保护主义会不断增长的预期，以及1930年代的保护主义倾向，才使得当时的非民主资本主义强权趋向激进，并催生了两次世界大战。

On the positive side for the democracies, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire stripped Moscow of about half the resources it commanded during the Cold War, with eastern Europe absorbed by a greatly expanded democratic Europe. This is perhaps the most significant change in the global balance of power since the forced postwar democratic reorientation of Germany and Japan under U.S. tutelage.

从对民主国家有利的一面来看，，苏联及其帝国的解体使莫斯科失去了冷战中拥有的一半资源，东欧被规模大幅扩张的民主欧洲吸收同化。这大概是自德日两国受美国监管，强制进行战后民主转型以来，全球均势最为重要的变化。

Moreover, China may still eventually democratize, and Russia could reverse its drift away from democracy. If China and Russia do not become democratic, it will be critical that India remain so, both because of its vital role in balancing China and because of the model that it represents for other developing countries.

此外，中国最终仍有可能选择民主化道路，而俄国也可能会从偏离民主的轨道上修正回来。如果中俄最终没有转向民主，印度保持民主就显得意义重大，不仅因为印度扮演着平衡中国的重要角色，也因为他对其他发展中国家起着示范作用。

But the most important factor remains the United States. For all the criticism leveled against it, the United States -- and its alliance with Europe -- stands as the single most important hope for the future of liberal democracy. Despite its problems and weaknesses, the United States still commands a global position of strength and is likely to retain it even as the authoritarian capitalist powers grow.

然而，最重要的因素依旧是美国。面对一切针对美国的公开指责，美国及其与欧洲的结盟关系，仍然是自由民主在未来至为关键的希望。尽管存在诸多问题和弱点，美国仍然具有全球实力，即使专制资本主义强权发展壮大，美国仍不会轻易失去这一地位。

Not only are its GDP and productivity growth rate the highest in the developed world, but as an immigrant country with about one-fourth the population density of both the European Union and China and one-tenth of that of Japan and India, the United States still has considerable potential to grow -- both economically and in terms of population -- whereas those others are all experiencing aging and, ultimately, shrinking populations.

美国不仅有发达国家中最高的GDP和生产力增速，同时，作为一个移民国家，其人口密度仅为欧盟和中国的四分之一，日本和印度的十分之一，因此美国仍有相当可观的发展潜能——无论是就经济还是人口而言——相反，其他国家都在遭受老龄化的困扰，并且最终将面临人口缩减的问题。

China's economic growth rate is among the highest in the world, and given the country's huge population and still low levels of development, such growth harbors the most radical potential for change in global power relations. But even if China's superior growth rate persists and its GDP surpasses that of the United States by the 2020s, as is often forecast, China will still have just over one-third of the United States' wealth per capita and, hence, considerably less economic and military power.

中国的经济增长率居于世界前列，加上巨大的人口数量和目前较低的发展水平，这样的增长率之下潜藏着改变全球力量对比的巨大潜能。不过，即便中国能够保持如此高速的增长，能像普遍预测的那样，实现2020年之前GDP超越美国的目标，其人均财富也刚刚企及美国的三分之一，因此经济和军事实力仍旧相对较弱。

Closing that far more challenging gap with the developed world would take several more decades. Furthermore, GDP alone is known to be a poor measure of a country's power, and evoking it to celebrate China's ascendency is highly misleading. As it was during the twentieth century, the U.S. factor remains the greatest guarantee that liberal democracy will not be thrown on the defensive and relegated to a vulnerable position on the periphery of the international system.

弥补这个差距的任务极其艰巨，赶上发达国家还需花费好几十年。另外，众所周知，单独考察GDP不足以全面衡量一国国力，仅凭这一项来赞颂中国的支配地位十分具有误导性。如同20世纪的情形一样，要使自由民主制免于陷入守势，免于落得国际体系中脆弱的边缘位置，美国的存在仍是最大的保障。

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