The crisis of liberalism: why centrist politics can no longer explain the
world
自由主義已無法解釋當今世界， 信任危機在世界蔓延
原文：The Gaurdian https://tinyurl.com/uzwwshh
譯文：察網 http://www.cwzg.cn/theory/202001/54447.html
譯者：吳淑華
【法意導言：隨著逆全球化呼聲興起和民粹主義抬頭，西方世界似乎正在被越來越多的“
家事”弄得手忙腳亂，一籌莫展。自由主義市場經濟不完善這顆“定時炸彈”更是成了許
多國家頭上的“達摩克利斯之劍”。戰後的自由主義雖幾經演變，直到今天也似乎無法彌
補其侷限性，其地位已岌岌可危。來自哈佛大學的助理教授卡特裡娜·弗雷斯特（
Katrina Forrester）在其新書《正義的陰影下：戰後自由主義與政治哲學重塑》（In
the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political
Philosophy）中闡述總結了自由主義在20世紀後半葉的發展，指出了其侷限性，並為這一
多年佔據主流的意識形態提出了全新的思考和探討角度。】
We know we’re living through a period of crisis, but it’s sometimes hard to
know of what kind. The financial crash of 2007-8 seemed to mark the beginning
of the most recent crisis of capitalism; 2016 brought news of a crisis of
democracy, and the political and constitutional crisis created by Brexit
marks its second act. Every day the climate crisis heats up. Crisis has
become the new normal.
大家都知道我們正處於一個“危機”時代，但具體是什麼危機，有時卻說不清楚。2007-8
的金融海嘯昭示著資本主義的危機已到來；至於民主制度，在2016年已經歷了一次危機，
如今英國脫歐帶來的政治和憲政危機則是第二次；氣候危機更是日益加劇。危機已然成為
了新常態。
It’s often said that we are also witnessing a crisis of liberalism: liberal
norms are being eroded, institutions are under threat, and across Europe,
parties of the centre are haemorrhaging votes. Meanwhile, the critics of
centrism are louder than they have been for years. Even many in the
mainstream of British politics have begun to acknowledge that in the past
decade centrists have been neoliberalism’s willing bedfellows, supporting
policies to shrink the welfare state and crush unions. Liberal centrism has “
left people behind”, and in its support for free markets and globalisation,
created new forms of exclusion. More damning critiques are also gaining
currency: that the “liberal” way of running politics was always bound up
with imperialism and colonialism, sceptical of democracy and workers and a
cover for capitalist exploitation. Even the Financial Times – the pinnacle
of economic liberalism – recently argued that the capitalist model needs to
be “reset ”.
一種普遍的看法是，我們當下也在見證著一場自由主義的危機：自由主義原則被逐漸蠶食
，自由主義制度遭受威脅。在歐洲，中間黨派的選票大量流失，與此同時對中間派路線的
抨擊之聲也達到歷年之甚。英國主流政治也開始意識到，在過去十年以來，中間派與新自
由主義可謂是情投意合，為縮減福利制度、打擊工會的政策投下一張張支持票。中間派自
由主義“把人民拋諸腦後”，並在對自由市場和全球化的支持中創造了新的排外形式。更
嚴厲的譴責如此評論道：政治的“自由”運作總是與帝國主義、殖民主義綁定，對民主、
工人持懷疑態度，而且它只是資本壓榨的一塊遮羞布。即使是經濟自由主義的大擁躉英國
《金融時報》最近也表示：資本主義模型需要“重置”了。
So liberal centrists aren’t wrong that their institutions, parties and ideas
are being challenged. But the problem may be a deeper one: that the
categories of mainstream politics as we know it can no longer explain the
world.
自由主義中間派認為他們的制度、政黨和理念都受到了挑戰，這話並不假。但真正的問題
可能是更深層次的：在我們認知範圍內的的主流政治邏輯已無法解釋這個世界了。
As an ideology, liberalism can be hard to pin down. It’s capacious and it
has adapted throughout history. From John Locke to John Maynard Keynes,
liberals have prioritised the values of liberty and equality (though they’ve
disagreed about how much the latter matters to the former and what those
values mean in everyday politics). They have supported the rule of law,
rights and representation, as well as private property, markets and, for the
most part, capitalism against socialism. During the cold war, liberals often
defended the status quo, seeing a slide into totalitarianism behind every
scheme for political change. There is a long liberal tradition of attacking
the left to defend the centre. In the 1980s, a faction of Labour MPs left the
party to found the SDP. In the 90s, as New Labour disciplined the party’s
left wing, liberalism took the form of the Third Way. Today, many liberal
centrists paint Jeremy Corbyn as an extremist on a par with Boris Johnson,
and draw false equivalence between left and right.
自由主義是一種難以精確定義的意識形態，它很宏大，也隨歷史變化不斷迭代。從約翰·
洛克到約翰·梅納德·凱恩斯，自由主義一直高舉“自由”和“平等”的旗幟（雖然兩位
在以下兩個問題上看法不一：後者對前者的重要性；這兩種價值對日常政治到底意味著什
麼）。兩位學者都擁護法治、權利及其代表性、私有財產、市場經濟，他們支持資本主義
，反對社會主義。在冷戰中，自由主義通常傾向於維護現狀，因而每一次政治變革的背後
都是滑落極權主義泥淖的可能性。通過攻擊左派來維護中間派已經成為了自由主義的一個
傳統。1980年代，一小部分議員脫離工黨建立了社會民主黨（SDP）。1990年代，新工黨
（New Labour）打壓了黨內左翼勢力後，自由主義走上了“第三種道路”。今天，很多自
由主義中間派把傑裡米·科爾賓描繪成是與鮑裡斯·約翰遜一樣的極端主義者，錯誤地把
“左”與“右”劃了等號。
Yet in many countries, Britain included, liberals also helped to build the
welfare state and have used the machinery of central government to enact
progressive reforms and benefit the poor – defending the NHS, civil and
human rights, social equality, migration. Often, they aimed not to liberate
workers but compromise with them, in order to minimise the risks individuals
face. Social liberals have sometimes opposed economic liberals: the concern
to limit inequality has trumped the defence of laissez-faire and capital
markets. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown enshrined minimum wage laws but
encouraged the privatisation of public services; they founded Sure Start but
helped sell off the NHS.
但是在很多國家，包括英國，自由主義者也幫助建設了福利制度，並通過中央政府機器實
現了造福窮人的進步性改革 – 維護國家醫療服務體系（NHS），支持公民權利、人權、
社會平等、移民等。但大多數時候，自由主義者的目的不是解放工人，而是尋求妥協，從
而讓個人風險降到最低。社會自由主義者有時會與經濟自由主義者意見相左：他們認為消
滅不平等應當優先於維護自由資本市場。托尼·布萊爾和戈登·布朗信奉最低工資法，但
同時支持公共服務私有化；他們創立了Sure Start早期兒童養育與發展項目，但也推動出
售NHS體系。
At the end of the 1990s, there was one thing that many liberals shared: an
optimism about the direction of history and about the fate of liberalism.
Famously many agreed that history had ended, following the end of the cold
war. All that was needed was steady incremental reform of the status quo.
These 90s assumptions survived well into the new century. We now know that
such declarations were hugely complacent. The biggest mistake of liberalism
was thinking it was all over.
1990年代末，許多自由主義者都認為歷史走上了正確的發展方向，自由主義將一帆風順。
這群人有一個著名的觀點：冷戰結束，歷史隨之結束，接下來只需對現狀進行增量改革。
人們持著這些觀點進入了新世紀。而現在的我們知道，這些所謂的宣告都極其自滿，自由
主義最大的錯誤就是認為“這一切都結束了”。
Today, few have properly come to terms with that mistake. Many are on the
back foot, insisting that any move away from their ideas marks a step
backwards into a far nastier history. Such defensiveness is not novel:
liberalism has often been a negative sort of politics – a politics of second
best that protects against worse scenarios. Liberals have been the first to
prophesy new end times – the demise of democracy and the Pax Americana –
and see in Brexit and Trump a slippery slope to war and fascism. Where
conservatives look to restore a lost past, liberals defend the gradual reform
of an established order and respond aggressively to any threat to it, whether
real or imagined.
直到今天，很多人仍不能承認這一錯誤，他們還在為自己辯護，認為任何不服從於這種觀
點的都是歷史的倒退。這種防禦心理並不新奇：自由主義一直都是一種消極的政治意識形
態 – 是防止落入最糟糕境地的“次優選擇”。自由主義者率先預言了新的“終結時代”
– 民主制度和美式和平（Pax Americana）的失敗，並視英國脫歐和川普執政為世界滑
入戰爭和法西斯主義深淵的前兆。當保守派只想尋回失落的從前時，自由主義者維護的是
現有秩序及其基礎之上的緩和改革，並強烈反擊任何威脅，無論這些威脅是想像的還是真
實的。
All this worry about values and norms makes it possible to miss the fact that
liberalism as an ideology still dominates how we see the world. It does not
just occupy a place between left and right; it cuts across both.
這些關於價值和制度常規的焦慮可能讓我們忽略了一個事實：自由主義意識形態仍然支配
著我們的世界觀。它並不存在於“左”和“右”之間的某處，而是貫穿了兩者。
The liberal worldview frames politics as something that happens mostly in
Westminster, and about which most voters care little, so it downplays the
politics of everyday life in the home and workplace. On this view, the
political realm is inhabited by powerful individuals whose decisions make a
difference, and who operate in institutions that are neutral. Values
conflict, but compromise is the aim – except where liberal values are deemed
to be threatened; it can sometimes seem that liberals believe in the
possibility of consensus, but only if the other side accept the basic facts
that liberals hold as true. This can mean touting virtues in principle but
refusing them in practice: the Liberal Democrats demanding compromise and
cooperation while they reject a Corbyn-led coalition is a case in point.
在自由主義世界觀之下，人們認為政治只是在威斯敏斯特宮發生的事情，大多數選民都不
關心，但政治對他們日常生活工作的深刻影響卻被輕描淡寫了。這樣的觀點認為，政治只
是那些供職於中立機構的、強大到所做決定會帶來非凡影響的人所參與的領域。價值觀也
許互相衝突，但妥協是目標 – 當自由主義價值受到威脅時除外；有時看來，自由主義者
相信達成一致是可能的，但前提是對方要接受其認可的基本事實。這意味著他們可能嘴上
吹捧著某種美德卻拒絕付諸行動。揚言要“妥協與合作”的自由民主黨拒絕接受科爾賓領
銜的聯合政府就是一個很好的例子。
For liberal remainers, Brexit is either a giant misunderstanding or a
mistake: it has been brought about by voters’ lack of knowledge, or by party
misjudgments and the rightwing media; it has been prolonged by Rasputin-like
advisers (whether Dominic Cummings or Seumas Milne). Undoubtedly, centrist
thinkers, with their focus on institutions and those who control them, can
provide answers to important questions: how the common law relates to the
constitution; how EU regulations and the referendum dilute parliamentary
sovereignty. At a time when we are meant to have had enough of experts, it is
ironic that expert knowledge is in extremely high demand in public
institutions – in the civil service, parliament, the courts, and the press.
But it’s easy to mistake symptoms for causes. Though Brexit will surely have
disastrous consequences – hurtling us towards a neoliberal, deregulated and
depressed Britain with an empowered right on the rise – that doesn’t mean
the liberal diagnosis tells the full story.
於留歐派而言，脫歐若非一場巨大的誤會，就只能是一個錯誤：它是由於選民的無知或黨
派誤判及右翼媒體煽動發生的；而脫歐過程遲遲未決則歸因於拉斯普京般的政府顧問（無
論是多米尼克·卡明斯還是索瑪斯‧密爾恩）。毫無疑問，針對如“普通法如何與憲法掛
鉤”、“歐盟監管與全民公投如何稀釋議會主權”等重要問題，聚焦於制度及其控制者的
中間派自然能給出答案。我們身處一個“專家”時代，但諷刺的是，在公民服務、議會、
法庭、媒體等公共機構，相關專業知識卻極其稀缺。不過，把症狀當病因也是易犯的錯誤
。我們都知道英國脫歐災難性的後果 – 它將帶領我們急速進入一個右翼崛起、經濟蕭條
、管制放鬆的新自由主義英國，但這並不意味著自由主義的判斷是全面的。
Hampered by the need to defend the EU as a site of cosmopolitanism in the
name of stopping Brexit, many remainers have framed any opposition as a
threat to a political order that has no need for change. The rightward drift
of the Lib Dems as they look to rebuild their vote by becoming the party of
remain illustrates this bias to the status quo. For all its references to
history (particularly to the totalitarian threats of the 1930s), the current
liberal vision is often quite ahistorical: we don’t hear much about Britain
before the referendum. Even the most radical version of liberal centrism has
only a partial diagnosis: it points to rising inequality and a growing
generational and educational gap. Liberals may focus on defending norms, but
norms themselves are only how particular political settlements are made
legitimate. They don’t tell us much about the limits of the settlement
itself.
留歐派必須以阻止英國脫歐之名來維護歐洲作為推行世界主義的陣地，對他們而言，任何
反對的聲音都是對當下政治秩序的威脅，而這種秩序是無需改變的。自由民主黨為了重建
選民基礎而向“右”傾斜支持留歐就印證了其對現狀的偏見。從歷史（特別是1930年代極
權主義帶來的威脅）角度出發，自由主義留歐派的觀點是站不住腳的，因為他們極少考慮
到英國在此次全民公投前的歷史狀況。即使最極端的中間派自由主義也只給出了一種片面
的判斷：不斷加劇的不平等、不斷擴大的代際和教育鴻溝。自由主義者專注於維護現有制
度和常規，但事實上制度和常規只是一些政治解決方案的合理化手段而已，它們無法昭示
這些政治解決方案的侷限性。
The view of Brexit and Trump as a crisis of institutions, norms or civility,
and the focus on the narcissism or hubris of political personalities, is too
limited. The alternative is not merely to accept the narratives of the right
– that Brexit is about a defence of sovereignty or kicking it to liberal
elites. Both of these inhabit the conventional terms of debate. By slipping
into a kneejerk defence of the status quo, we risk not understanding where
the threats come from and how they can be fought. By focusing on individuals,
we ignore how classes are changing. By looking to reason and forgetting
ideology, we miss the pleasures of resentment and commitment, and how new
political forces have developed to capitalise on those pleasures – in
particular how the Conservative party has reinvigorated itself by building
new class alliances and using a heady mix of Thatcherite, nationalist and
colonial tropes (a strategy that is haphazard but may well prove successful).
把英國脫歐和川普執政看作制度、常規、文明的危機，把焦點放在政治人物的自戀自負上
，眼光未免太侷限了。我們需要的新邏輯不僅僅是去接受右翼的說法，即英國脫歐是為了
維護國家統一，或是將這一事務留給自由主義精英去解決。兩者都是老生常談了。如果我
們下意識為現狀辯護，便很可能無法判斷威脅的真正來源，從而無法正確進行反擊。當我
們聚焦個人時，便忽略了階層正在改變的事實；當我們忙著尋求解釋，卻忘了意識形態的
存在時，我們便忘了仇恨和承諾可以帶來愉悅感，從而忽略了另一個事實：新的政治力量
正在利用這種愉悅感崛起 – 通過建立新的階層聯盟和以撒切爾主義、民族主義、殖民主
義等修辭為噱頭（一種雜亂無章的策略，但效果也許還不錯），保守黨已經迎來復興。
If we define politics too narrowly and dwell on historical parallels, we miss
our own history and the social and economic changes that have paved the way
to where we are now – a situation where the institutions and infrastructure
of British public life are dysfunctional, where productivity, investment and
wages are low, where the public sector has been hollowed out and the steady
job all but disappeared. If we worry only about the breakdown of
parliamentary checks-and-balances, we miss that this gives the lie to the
liberal dream that certain institutions are neutral and beyond politics. When
we see the rise of the right in terms of a crisis of civility, we fail to ask
what resentments the veneer of civility masks, as well as who it benefits and
harms. When we focus on constitutional crisis, we risk forgetting how Brexit
manifests deeper disruptions and social instability – and that the coming
election is also about our prospects for fixing these.
如果總是以其狹義去理解政治，總是沉湎於歷史的相似之處，我們就會錯過自己正在經歷
的歷史，也會忘記是哪些社會和經濟變革推動形成了今日的社會 –一個公共製度和基礎
設施失效、投資和工資水平低迷、公共事業行業被掏空、穩定工作幾乎消失殆盡的英國。
如果擔憂的僅僅是議會制衡的失衡，我們就忽略了一點：這恰恰揭露了一個事實，即自由
主義者夢想中的“中立機構”僅僅是個謊言。我們看到了在所謂文明危機中右派的崛起，
卻無法看清到底是什麼仇恨帶來了這樣的危機，以及它會使誰獲利、對誰造成傷害。當我
們聚焦於制度危機，就會忘記英國脫歐本身昭示了更深的混亂和社會動盪 – 即將到來的
大選則給予了我們一個修正的機會。
These alternative diagnoses have major implications. The end of the liberal
dream of neutrality opens up a view of the world where politics is found in
new places – the courts, the market, the workplace, the home – and where
political analysts take seriously arguments that have long been made by those
outside mainstream politics, who have been marginalised by class, race,
gender, geography, immigration status and age. This may be unsettling, but it
can point us away from the old divisions of parliament versus the people, so
easily deployed by the right and point to new battle lines: not between norms
and their violation, or Brexit and its reversal, but to what we want for the
future of the UK.
這些新的邏輯都有著重要啟示。自由主義“中立”夢想的終結之處，是一個新的世界。在
這個世界裡，政治會出現在許多新的地方，如法庭、市場、公司、家裡；政治分析人士也
會開始重視過往因階層、種族、性別、地理、移民身份、年齡等因素被排除在主流之外的
政治觀點和主張。這樣的世界也許令人不安，卻為我們走出議會與人民對立的困境指明了
一條道路。右派勢力則輕而易舉地利用之，將人民的目光引向了新的戰線。這一新的戰線
無關制度與其破壞，也無關脫歐與留歐，而是：英國人民想要一個什麼樣的未來。
Crucially, these diagnoses can also show us where the deeper political crisis
lies. The lasting damage to Britain may not be caused only by the
constitutional chaos, but by the long-term collapse, defunding and decay of
our public institutions – the NHS, legal aid, our underfunded schools.
Paradoxically, it was the stability of such institutions that made liberal
centrism make sense as a way of thinking about politics. With public
institutions dysfunctional and liberal democracy hollowed out, liberalism no
longer looks like an ideology that can explain the world: its basis falls
away. Liberal political thinking is stuck. It can no longer give a convincing
account of politics, except to describe what’s happening as an assault on
itself. What would help liberalism make sense again is the rebuilding of
those public institutions. It is an irony for liberals that this is precisely
what the Labour party today is proposing.
至關重要的是，這些新邏輯還能告訴我們更深層的危機藏在何處。英國遭遇持久性損害，
原因不僅在憲法困境，還源於NHS、司法援助機構、學校等公共機構的長期衰敗和資金撤
離。矛盾的是，這些機構的穩定性正是自由主義中間派邏輯站得住腳的前提。隨著公共機
構失效、自由主義民主被掏空，自由主義作為一種意識形態，它用於解釋這個世界的邏輯
再也行不通了。自由主義政治思想從此陷入停滯，除了能夠解釋它自身如何陷入此等境地
，再也拿不出有說服力的政治闡述和主張。只有重建這些公共機構才能讓自由主義重獲新
生。可對自由主義者來說諷刺的是，這正是今日的工黨所推行的政策。
What is needed is a longer and wider view than the liberal vision of politics
allows – one that enables us to see how social, economic and ideological
changes intersect with and shape personality and procedure. This is why
elements in the press have started to listen to the left once again,
discussing “resetting” capitalism in the context of inequality and climate
crisis, and engaging with talk of interests, class and ideology that has for
so long been labelled as irrelevant. Now liberals also have to choose: to
stay where they are and try to squeeze new developments into old paradigms,
or to recognise these limits. Instead of a revival of liberalism, we might
need a reckoning with it.
相比侷限的自由主義，我們需要的是一種更長遠、更寬闊的政治視野，它能讓我們看到社
會、經濟、意識形態的變革是如何與個體個性、社會程序產生聯繫，並塑造它們。這也是
為什麼媒體開始再次傾聽左派的聲音，在社會不平等和氣候危機的背景下討論“重置”資
本主義，以及積極參與對過去被貼上“無關”標籤的不同政治興趣、階層、意識形態的討
論。現在，自由主義者也面臨一個選擇：是停留在當下，把新的發展強硬“塞”進舊的解
釋邏輯？還是承認自身的侷限性？對於自由主義，我們需要的也許不是一場復興，而是一
場審判。