The Future of Democracy, Freedom, and Prosperity 民主、自由与繁荣的未来 作者：Arnold Kling @ 2015-7-14

译者：迈爸（@麦田的字留地）

校对：小聂

来源：askblog， http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/the-future-of-democracy-freedom-and-prosperity/ A simple topic for four of us to spend an hour discussing. The conclusion of my opening remarks:

一个简单的话题，我们四个花一小时讨论。我的开场白： one sort of maybe fictional type scenario would be that you would get a sudden sovereign debt crisis in the United States that would take place in an environment where the political feelings are frayed–there’s a lot of controversy; people no longer see the legislators and the executive as having legitimacy for solving their problems.They take to the streets.  There’s fighting; there’s violence.

或许可以设想这样一幕虚构场景：美国将陷入一场突如其来的主权债务危机，而那时候的政治环境已经大变，政治氛围变得焦躁好斗——总是争吵不休；人民不再认为立法和行政机构拥有解决他们的问题所需要的合法性。他们走上街头，诉诸武力和暴力。

And at that point the people are ready to turn to some kind of dictator to resolve the violence. So that’s kind of a fictional scenario. There’s certainly you can see either economic or political ways to avoid it. But that would be sort of my one pessimistic scenario relative to maintaining our open access order. Which, if we do maintain our open access order, I think eventually we do recover prosperity and we sort of maintain freedom.

这个时候，人们就准备好转而接受某种独裁者来解决暴力问题了。这是一种虚构场景。当然你可能会说，有经济或政治的方法来避免它。但是，和我们的开放秩序能够得以维持的前景相比，我也看到了类似这样的一幅悲观图景。当然，只要我们能够保持开放秩序，我想最终我们仍将恢复繁荣，并保证一部分的自由。 John Cochrane worries about

John Cochrane则担心： the vast attempt of our government to control economics from the big Dodd-Frank and Obamacare down to the small regulations against Uber and occupational licensing for hairdressers, and so forth.

政府对经济的管控已无所不用其极，大至多德－弗兰克法案（Dodd-Frank Act）【 译注：全称《多德—弗兰克华尔街改革和消费者保护法》，2010年制订，旨在加强金融市场监管，有关其实施效果，海德沙龙将在今后译介更多文章 】、奥巴马医改，小至对Uber的管制，甚至理发师都需要职业许可证。

This enterprise has vast power. It’s increasingly politicized. And right now it’s used already to silence opposition to the regulatory fiefdoms. What bank dares to speak out against the Dodd-Frank Act? What health insurer dares to speak out against Obamacare?

这门行当权力巨大，且日益政治化。现在它已经可以在管制的领域让反对的声音消失。哪家银行敢公开反对多德-弗兰克法案？哪家医疗保险公司敢公开反对奥巴马的医改方案？ It seems to me that strong regulation often has the support, or at least the acquiescence, of incumbent business interests. The question is whether potential new competition is thwarted. Lee Ohanian, another speaker in this session, is pessimistic on that score.

在我看来，强监管政策常常能在市场现有的利益相关企业中找到支持者，或者至少是默许。问题是，这是否阻碍了潜在的新竞争者进入。这次会议的另一位发言者Lee Ohanian在这点上是悲观的： Another recent study found that the decline in community banking accelerated considerably in the last few years, reflecting economies of scale in managing new regulation associated with Dodd-Frank. Small Business Administration says that lending to small businesses has declined by about 20% since 2008, which was of course the year of the Great Recession. And in 2013 only 1 new bank entered the banking industry.

最近的另一项研究发现，在过去几年中，社区银行业的衰退明显加速，反映了规模经济与实施多德-弗兰克法案有关的管制之间的关系【 译注：这里隐含逻辑是：强监管带来更高的合规成本，而小企业在摊薄这项成本上不具规模经济，因而强监管政策实际上起到了削弱小企业竞争优势的作用 】。据小企业管理局说，自2008以来，也就是经济大衰退的那一年，贷给小企业的钱已经下降了大约20%。而在2013年只有一家银行进入银行业。

So you look at the outcome of Dodd-Frank–declining competition, fewer banks, lack of entry, higher costs, regulators with broad mandates who make vague and far-reaching rules–this represents a sharp departure from the clear and specific limits on government.

所以多德-弗兰克法案的结果就是，竞争的趋弱、银行的减少、新入行者的稀缺和更高的成本。大权在握的监管机构制定的规则模糊却影响深远——它表明我们又一次急剧偏离了清晰而具体地限制政府权力这一原则。 【 编者按：这次对话的视频和录音在这个网页上可以找到： http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/07/lee_ohanian_arn.html 】

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