外刊听读| 经济学人 英国政府路线摇摆不定
Bagehot
白芝浩
The nightwatchman welfare state
守夜人福利国家
How Britain ended up with the worst of all worlds
英国是如何把小政府主义和福利制度都搞砸了
1 ALTHOUGH FOREVER associated with the term, William Beveridge never liked the phrase “welfare state”. The man who 80 years ago this month published the blueprint for Britain’s post-war welfare state thought it conjured up an image of a “brave new world”, rather than the culmination of 50 years of reform by Conservative, Liberal and, eventually, Labour politicians. Newspaper cartoonists ignored his objections. One turned a besuited Beveridge into a steaming mug being toasted by a British soldier in 1942: “Here’s to the brave new world!”
尽管威廉-贝弗里奇（William Beveridge）永远和“福利国家”联系在一起，但他从来不喜欢这个短语。80年前的这个月，他发表了英国战后福利国家蓝图，他认为这让人联想到一个 "美丽新世界"，而不是保守党、自由党以及最终工党政治家50年改革成果。报纸上的漫画家无视他的意见。其中一幅漫画将穿着西装的贝弗里奇变成了一个热气腾腾的马克杯，在1942年一名英国士兵用它敬酒，喊道："为勇敢的新世界干杯！"
2 A plan to combat the five giants of want, ignorance, squalor, idleness and disease was the defining political quest of the first half of the 20th century. It replaced a rather 19th- century idea of a “night-watchman state”, where the government saw its role as offering physical security and not much more. Skip forward eight decades and Britain has ended up with the worst of both worlds. Britain is a libertarian’s nightmare, with the state expanding to 45% of GDP; the tax burden is likely to creep towards levels not seen since Clement Attlee, the Labour prime minister who put Beveridge’s plan into practice. Yet it also manages to be a social democrat horror show, achieving little despite its vast size.
20世纪上半叶的决定性政治追求是与贫困、缺乏教育、卫生水平低下、失业率高和疾病这五大巨头作斗争。它取代了19世纪的"守夜人国家"的设想，该设想中的政府仅仅提供人身安全保护。八十年后，英国最终得到了这两个世界中最糟糕的结果。英国是一个自由主义者的噩梦，政府预算扩张到了GDP的45%；税收负担可能会爬升到工党首相克莱门特··艾德礼（英国首相1945—1951年）以来的最高水平，贝弗里奇的计划就是在其任期内实施的。然而，它还成为一个社会民主主义者的恐怖秀，尽管英国规模庞大，但成就甚少。
3 Increasingly the Conservative government provides a welfare state in name, but a bare bones night-watchman state in practice. The police will probably find your killer but they will make no effort to find your stolen bicycle. If you’re hit by a car, the NHS is likely to save your life. But if you require a hernia operation, you may wait a year or two (or give up and go private). A 19th-century concept of the state has collided with a 20th-century vision to create an intolerable 21st-century chimera.
保守党政府越来越多地在名义上提供一个福利国家，但在实践中却是一个事实上的守夜人国家。警察可能会找到杀害你的凶手，但他们不会努力去寻找你被盗的自行车。如果你被车撞了，英国国民医疗服务体系可能会救你的命。但如果你需要做疝气手术，你可能要等上一两年（或者放弃公立医院，去私人医院）。19世纪的国家概念与20世纪的愿景相碰撞，产生了一个难以容忍的21世纪幻想。
4 The promise of a cradle-to-grave system has been replaced by a cradle-and-grave one, with the middle largely forgotten. Working-age benefits are terrible. Unemployment benefit is set slightly above destitution levels, at barely £80 ($91) per week, says the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank. That equates to 14% of average earnings or roughly half the level it was in the 1970s. In the Netherlands, this payment starts at 75% of someone’s last payslip.
一个从摇篮到坟墓的福利系统承诺已经被一个摇篮和坟墓的系统所取代，中间的部分基本上被遗忘。工作年龄段的福利很糟糕。智囊团决议基金会（Resolution Foundation）表示，失业救济金的设定略高于赤贫水平，每周仅有80英镑（91美元）。这相当于平均收入的14%，或大约是1970年代水平的一半。在荷兰，失业救济金的起点是失业者最后工资单的75%。
5 In theory, the night-watchman state does little but is, at least, cheap. A welfare state may cost a lot but it provides a lot. The current British state falls between these two stools. Britain still has a comparatively low tax take compared with other rich European countries. But some people within the system are hammered, suffering Scandinavian-level marginal tax rates for South Carolinian services. A recent graduate earning £30,000 faces an almost Scandi marginal tax rate of just over 41% once national insurance and student-loan deductions (which behave like a tax) are included.
从理论上讲，守夜人国家做得很少，但至少其成本是很低的。一个福利国家可能花费很多，但它也提供了很多。目前的英国国家介于这两种路线之间。与其他富裕的欧洲国家相比，英国的税收仍然相对较低。但是，税收系统内的一些人受到了打击，他们只享受到南卡罗来纳州（美国贫困州）的服务水平却承受着北欧的高税收。一个收入为3万英镑的应届毕业生，一旦将国家保险和学生贷款扣除（其行为类似于税收），就会面临几乎是北欧的边际税率，即41%以上。
6 This situation will get worse. Einstein is said to have joked that compound interest was the most powerful force in the universe. He might have added: the second-most-powerful force is fiscal drag. If the government freezes the threshold for the higher tax rate of 40% at £50,000, a senior teacher will end up in a tax bracket designed for well-paid solicitors. As an added blow, once-universal perks, such as child benefit, are whittled when incomes hit £50,000. If nominal wage growth remains healthy, come 2027 a Londoner on an average salary (currently £42,000) would begin to lose their child benefit. Beveridge pushed his reforms with the slogan: “Bread for all…before cake for anyone”. Now the mantra is bread for some and cake is off the menu.
这种情况会越来越糟。据说爱因斯坦曾开玩笑说，复利是宇宙中最强大的力量。他可能还说：第二大力量是财政阻力。如果政府将40%的高税率起征点冻结在5万英镑，那么一位高级教师最终将进入为高薪律师设计的税率等级。还有一个额外的打击，曾经普遍存在的福利，如儿童补助金，在收入达到5万英镑时就会被削减。如果名义工资保持健康增长，到2027年，一个平均工资（目前为42,000英镑）的伦敦人将开始失去他们的儿童补助金。贝弗里奇推动改革时提出的口号是："为所有人提供面包......而不是为任何人提供蛋糕"。现在的口号是为一些人提供面包，而蛋糕则不在菜单上。
7 Taxes are high enough to create big expectations, but too low for them to be met. The contributory system, which allows people who pay in more to take out more, has enabled many northern European countries to remain generous. In Britain that principle is dead. National insurance is a bog-standard tax, even if people like to pretend it is a pot of money with their name on it. Pensioners are aggrieved that the state pension is lower than in, say, Ireland, even if it is much more generous than it was. Younger voters are fed up that the state provides so little yet takes so much, largely to hand money to older generations. There is little optimism that they will benefit in turn.
税收高到足以产生巨大的期望，但实际回报却又太低，无法满足这些期望。缴费制度允许缴费多的人拿出更多的钱，这使得许多北欧国家能够保持慷慨。在英国，这一原则已经失效。国民保险是一种平平无奇的税收，即使人们喜欢假装它是一个有自己名字的存钱罐。养老金领取者对其金额低于爱尔兰等国感到不满，尽管养老金以前要慷慨得多。年轻的选民对国家提供如此之少福利却拿走如此之多收入感到厌烦，税收主要是为了把钱交给老一辈。他们对自己能够得到的受益并不乐观。
8 Even the literal night-watchman part of the state is asleep on the job. The proportion of crimes that lead to a charge has fallen from 16% in 2016 to 5.6% today. Petrol theft is in effect legal—at least according to a flow-chart that dictates whether an officer from the Metropolitan Police bothers to investigate the crime. Unless the number plate of the driver has been captured in the same situation before, the police will close the case. People can show the cops a live GPS tracker of their missing laptop and be told that there is nothing that can be done. A stolen car is written off with an apologetic automated email from the police. The long arm of the law is rather short.
即使是字面上守夜人的部分，也在工作中睡着了。足以提出指控的犯罪比例已从2016年的16%下降到今天的5.6%。盗窃汽油实际上是合法的--至少根据一个警察流程图，该流程图决定了伦敦警察局的警官是否会去调查该罪行。除非司机的车牌曾经在同样的情况下被拍到过，否则警察就会结案处理。人们向警察展示他们丢失笔记本电脑的实时GPS追踪器，但却被告知无计可施。汽车偷盗案件被撤销了，警察会发来一封自动生成的道歉邮件。法律的权威是相当有限的。
A broken light
一盏破损的灯
9 Spared the worst of austerity, the National Health Service (NHS) is the only adequately funded part of the British state, and then barely. At times the NHS seems itself to be a pale imitation of the welfare state. Doctors will prescribe food vouchers for people to claim at a food bank, since in-work benefits are too low. One hospital trust has set up its own supported-living unit because the council is too broke to fund theirs. Elsewhere, a charitable wing of a hospital pays for local low-traffic neighbourhoods rather than the council that is actually responsible for roads. The NHS is burdened with such tasks while waiting lists are at historic highs of 7m. It has become the state of last resort.
英国国家卫生服务系统（NHS）没有受到最严重的财政紧缩的影响，是英国政府中唯一资金充足的部门，除了它就没有了。有时，NHS本身似乎是对福利国家的一种苍白的模仿。由于在职福利太低，医生会给人们开出食品券，让他们去食物赈济处领取食品。一家由英国财政支持的医院已经建立了自己的生活辅助设施，因为当地的政务委员会太穷了，无法资助他们的生活。在其他地方，一家医院的慈善机构为当地低交通量的街区支付维护费用，而不是由实际负责该道路的政务委员会支付。在医疗等待名单达到700万的历史高位时，NHS却要还承担这些额外的任务。它已经成为英国政府最后的遮羞布。
10 Britain has always attempted to provide a welfare state on the cheap. An ageing population, forcing ever greater demands on a struggling state, means that this approach has run out of road. A part-watchman, part-welfare state does not work very well. In 1942, as the second world war raged, Beveridge wrote that “a revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching”. Once again, the time for patching is over.
run out of road 行不通
英国一直试图提供一个廉价的福利国家。人口老龄化，迫使一个苦苦挣扎的国家面临更大的财政需求，这意味着之前的方法已经走不通了。一个半守夜人、半福利的国家并不能很好地运转。1942年，当第二次世界大战肆虐时，贝弗里奇写道："世界历史上的变革契机是为了巨变，而不是修补"。如今再一次提醒，打补丁的时代已经过去了。
