每天一篇经济学人 | The new exceptionalism 美国的...

If a woman in Texas has an abortion she is breaking the law, even if her pregnancy is the result of a rape. The same woman may, however, buy an ar-15 rifle capable of firing 45 rounds a minute, and she may carry a pistol on her hip when picking her toddler up from pre-school. In these, and in a few other ways, America is an outlier compared with other rich democracies. You might assume that this simply reflects the preferences of voters. You would be wrong: it is the result of a political failure.

如果德克萨斯州的一名妇女堕胎，她就是违法的，即使她是由强奸导致的怀孕。然而，同样一名妇女她能够购买一种每分钟可以发射45发子弹的AR-15步枪，当她从幼儿园接她的孩子时，她可能会在她的臀部携带一把手枪。在这些方面，以及其他一些方面，美国与其他发达的民主国家相比，它是一个异类。你可能会认为这只是反映了选民的偏好。你可能错了：这是政治失败的结果。

American exceptionalism once seemed to be the cause of all sorts of transatlantic differences, for good and ill. America’s greater religiosity explained the intensity of the culture wars over gay marriage and abortion. Greater individualism explained the dynamism of America’s entrepreneurial economy, the willingness to move in search of something better and also, unfortunately, the passion for guns.

【1】religiosity 笃信宗教

美国卓异主义一度似乎是大西洋两岸各种分歧的根源，无论好坏。美国人更强烈的宗教信仰解释了围绕同性婚姻和堕胎的文化战争的激烈程度。更强烈的个人主义则解释了美国创业经济的活力，以及愿意去寻求更好的东西，还有不幸的是，对枪支的热情。

This diagnosis is no longer accurate. Before covid-19 hit, internal migration was at its lowest since records began. The share of Americans who belong to a church, synagogue or mosque has fallen from 70% in 2000 to below 50% now. The birth rate is the same as in France.

【1】synagogue 犹太教堂

【2】mosque 清真寺

这种判断已经不准确了。在新冠疫情袭击之前，其国内移民数量处于有记录以来的最低水平。属于教堂、犹太教堂或清真寺的美国人的比例已经从2000年的70%下降到现在的50%以下。出生率和法国一样。

As America has become less exceptional in these ways, so has its public opinion. On abortion, Americans’ views are strikingly close to those in other rich countries. A majority of Americans think it should be legal in the first trimester and restricted thereafter, with exemptions if the mother’s health is at risk, and for rape and incest—a qualifier that should be redundant, but is included because six Republican state legislatures have abortion bans with no such exemptions. Support for gay marriage, at 40% in 2000, is at 70% now. Americans are about as accepting of homosexuality as Italians are, and more tolerant than the Japanese or Poles.

【1】trimester [尤指妊娠的]三月期

随着美国在这些方面变得不再那么特殊，其公众舆论也变得不那么例外。在堕胎问题上，美国人的观点与其他发达国家惊人地接近。大多数美国人认为，在妊娠头三个月，堕胎应该是合法的，之后应该受到限制，如果母亲的健康受到威胁，或者是因为“强奸”和“乱伦”，可以进行豁免；这一限定词应该是多余的，但之所以被包括进去，是因为六个共和党州立法机构都有堕胎禁令，却没有这样的豁免。同性婚姻的支持率从2000年的40%上升到现在的70%。美国人对同性恋的接受程度和意大利人差不多，比日本人和波兰人更宽容。

On climate change, American attitudes are remarkable in their ordinariness. Three-quarters of Americans are willing to make some changes to their lives to help reduce the effects of climate change. That is slightly higher than the share of Dutch who say the same, and about level with Belgium. On guns, America truly is an outlier: it is the only country with more civilian-owned firearms than people. But here too the overall picture is misleading: 60% of American homes have no guns in them, up from 50% in 1960. A clear majority favours banning guns that can fire lots of bullets quickly.

在气候变化问题上，美国人的平常态度非常引人注目。四分之三的美国人愿意对他们的生活做出一些改变，以帮助减少气候变化的影响。这一比例略高于有着同样想法的荷兰人，与比利时人持平。在枪支方面，美国确实是一个异类：它是唯一一个民用枪支数量超过人口数量的国家。但在这方面，总体情况也存在误导：60%的美国家庭没有枪支，而1960年这一比例为50%。显然大多数人赞成禁止能够快速发射大量子弹的枪支。

Yet despite this, America has not banned assault weapons, nor legalised abortion or gay marriage through the normal democratic process. Ireland, where anti-abortion sentiment has historically been stronger, has come to a democratic settlement on abortion—as has Japan, where a woman’s right to choose is less popular than in America. Switzerland, nobody’s idea of a forward-thinking place (it gave women the right to vote only in 1971), has legalised gay marriage through a referendum. America and Italy are the only members of the g7 that have not enshrined net-zero emissions targets in law.

尽管如此，美国并没有禁止攻击性武器，也没有通过正常的民主程序使堕胎或同性婚姻合法化。历史上爱尔兰的反堕胎情绪一直很强烈，其在堕胎问题上也达成了民主解决方案，日本也是如此(在堕胎问题上也有解决方案)，在那里女性的选择权没有美国那么受欢迎。没有人认为瑞士是一个具有前瞻性的国家(瑞士在1971年才赋予女性投票权) ，它通过公投使同性婚姻合法化。美国和意大利是七国集团中唯一没有将净零排放目标写入法律的国家。

America has been unable to settle any of these questions through elections and votes in legislatures. The federal right to abortion was created by the Supreme Court in 1973. The closest thing to a national climate law came in 2007 when the Court decided the president could regulate carbon emissions. Then in 2015 the Court decided gay marriage was a constitutional right. In all three cases the Court stepped in when Congress had failed to legislate. Now that the Court has reversed one of those decisions and some justices are talking about undoing the others, the costs of this political abdication are ever more apparent.

美国一直无法通过选举和立法机构的投票来解决这些问题。联邦政府的堕胎权是由最高法院于1973年制定的。2007年，最高法院裁定总统可以规范碳排放，这是最接近国家气候法的事情。2015年，最高法院裁定同性婚姻是一项宪法权利。在这三个案例中，法院都是在国会未能立法的情况下介入的。现在，最高法院已经推翻了其中一项判决，一些法官正在讨论撤销其他判决，这种政治退位的代价越来越明显。

The solution sounds easy: Congress should pass laws that reflect public opinion. In practice, assembling a House majority, 60 votes in the Senate and a presidential signature for anything vaguely controversial is extraordinarily hard. The result is a set of federal laws that do not reflect what Americans actually want. That is what is exceptional now.

解决办法听起来很简单：国会应该通过反映公众意见的法律。实际上，要想在众议院获得多数，在参议院获得60票，并让总统签署任何有些许争议的东西，都是极其困难的。结果就导致一系列并没有反映美国人的实际需求的联邦法律。这就是现在的例外。