The third title in the Jameson Books-Students for Liberty Series, this is a collection of essays by eminent political economists from around the world. Young people today are being robbed. Of their rights. Of their freedom. Of their dignity. Of their futures. The culprits? The previous generation and its predecessors, who either created or failed to stop the world-straddling engine of theft, degradation, manipulation, and social control we call the welfare state. The welfare state is responsible for two current crises: the financial crisis that has slowed down or even reversed growth and stalled economies around the world, and the debt crisis that is gripping Europe, the United States, and other countries. It has piled mountains of debt on the shoulders of the most vulnerable among us, children and young people, and has issued promises that are impossible to fulfill. The crisis of unfunded obligations is approaching. It won't be pretty. History, economics, sociology, political science, and mathematics are the tools to understand and evaluate welfare states, rather than emotional responses or conspiracy theories. This little book is for those who prefer to ask hard questions and to pursue them with open minds. It is time to ask the hard questions about what the welfare state has wrought, whether it is sustainable, and what should come after the welfare state. -Tom G. Palmer, from the Introduction. Essayists include four pieces by Editor Tom Palmer, starting with his The Tragedy of the Welfare State, 2-Piercamillo Falasca,How the Welfare State Sank the Italian Dream, 3-Aristides Hatzis, Greece as a Precautionary Tale, 4-Tom Palmer, Bismarck's Legacy, 5-6, David Green and David Beito, two essays on mutual aid societies, 7-Michael Tanner, The Welfare State as a Pyramid Scheme, 8-Johan Norberg, How the Right to Affordable Housing Caused the Bubble that Crashed the World Economy, and 9-Tom Palmer, Poverty, Morality and Liberty.
Dr. Tom G. Palmer is executive vice president for international programs at the Atlas Network. He oversees the work of teams working around the world to advance the principles of classical liberalism and works with a global network of think tanks and research institutes. Dr. Palmer is a senior fellow of the Cato Institute, where he was formerly vice president for international programs and director of the Center for the Promotion of Human Rights. He was an H. B. Earhart Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford University, and a vice president of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. He is a member of the board of advisors of Students For Liberty. He has published reviews and articles on politics and morality in scholarly journals such as the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Ethics, Critical Review, and Constitutional Political Economy, as well as in publications such as Slate, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Die Welt, Al Hayat, Caixing, the Washington Post, and The Spectator of London. He received his B.A. in liberal arts from St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland; his M.A. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.; and his doctorate in politics from Oxford University. His scholarship has been published in books from Princeton University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and other academic publishers and he is the author of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice, published in 2009 and the editor of the previous book in the Students for Liberty series, The Morality of Capitalism, published in 2011.
这本书的叙事节奏,尤其是在探讨“新自由主义转向”的文化心理影响时,显得出奇地松散,与前面对制度分析的紧凑形成了鲜明对比。作者似乎更热衷于引用当代哲学家的零散片段,来烘托一种弥漫在社会中的“去政治化”氛围,而不是提供坚实的经验证据。我必须承认,这些充满诗意和隐喻的段落,在审美上是愉悦的,但从严谨的学术角度来看,它们显得有些单薄,像是给坚实的理论大厦披上了一层华而不实的装饰。例如,他对“个人责任神话”的探讨,虽然点出了当代社会中个体被过度“赋权”却又承受巨大压力的矛盾状态,但其论证过程更依赖于一种情绪渲染,而不是扎实的社会调查数据。我期待看到更多关于普通民众如何实际体验和应对这些结构性变化的微观案例,但这些内容在书中被极大地压缩了。这使得全书的后半部分读起来,更像是一部社会现象的沉思录,而不是一部具有行动指导意义的政治经济学分析。对于那些追求实证支撑的读者来说,这可能会成为一个显著的减分项,因为它在关键时刻退缩了,选择了哲思的庇护所。
评分这本厚厚的书,名为《福利国家的黄昏之后》,拿到手里沉甸甸的,光是封面设计就透着一股沉郁的气息,那种深色调和略显粗粝的纸质,仿佛在预示着即将展开的论述绝非轻松愉快的颂歌。我花了整整一个周末才勉强啃完前面三分之一,坦白说,作者的行文风格极其学术化,充满了对社会保障体系演变史的宏大叙事。他似乎对那些早期的社会民主主义理想抱有一种近乎冷峻的审视态度,一点都没有给我们留出感伤的空间。书中大量引用了福柯和哈贝马斯的理论框架来解构战后福利国家的合法性基础,这对于非专业读者来说,阅读体验无疑是充满挑战的。比如,他对“风险社会”概念的重新界定,就让我不得不频繁地查阅术语表,才能跟上他逻辑链条的每一步推演。他试图描绘出一种后工业时代资本逻辑如何渗透和重塑了国家提供公共服务的边界,这部分内容非常有启发性,但叙述的密度实在太大了,常常感觉自己像是在攀登一座思想的冰山,每一步都伴随着智力上的消耗。总而言之,如果你期待的是一本轻松探讨社会福利改革的小册子,那这本书绝对会让你失望,它更像是一部关于现代国家权力结构变迁的深度诊断书。
评分这本书的独特之处在于,它大胆地抛弃了通常在讨论社会政策时会采纳的左右对立的二元框架。作者拒绝将当前的困境简单地归咎于某个特定政治派别的失误,而是将视角提升到一种更深层次的“历史终结论”的反思之上。他似乎在暗示,我们所面对的挑战,并非简单的政策调整可以解决的,而是源于现代性本身在完成其承诺后的内在耗竭。书中对于“集体行动的逻辑”如何瓦解的分析,尤其发人深省。作者没有使用传统的公共选择理论的工具,而是从符号学和认同政治的角度,解释了为什么曾经强大的工会和公民团体,会逐渐失去动员和凝聚人心的能力。这种跨学科的融合,使得这本书的论点充满了新意,但也带来了一定的阅读门槛,因为它要求读者对多个领域的知识背景都有所涉猎。我欣赏这种尝试,它迫使我跳出固有的思维定势,去思考那些被主流讨论所忽略的“结构性疲劳”。虽然阅读过程需要持续的高度集中,但最终带来的思想冲击,绝对值得每一个对未来社会形态抱有严肃关切的人付出时间去探索。
评分阅读体验方面,本书的编辑和排版简直是一场灾难,这几乎影响了我对内容的整体接收。大量的脚注堆积在页面的下方,内容冗长到常常需要我将视线从正文完全抽离,去追溯那些似乎比正文本身更具解释性的补充材料。更糟糕的是,有些关键的图表和数据可视化呈现得极其粗糙,那些表示时间序列变化的折线图,颜色选择模糊不清,使得追踪某一特定福利项目在过去三十年间的波动趋势,成了一项考验耐心的任务。这本厚重著作的装帧质量也令人堪忧,翻阅几次后,书脊就开始发出呻吟,书页边缘也开始卷曲,这让我不得不非常小心翼翼地对待它,生怕它在我的手中分崩离析。对于一本探讨宏大社会议题的严肃论著而言,这种物理上的粗糙感,无形中削弱了它本应具有的权威性和持久性。我强烈建议未来的版本能够对图表进行重新设计,并优化脚注的呈现方式,让读者能够更流畅地沉浸于作者构建的复杂理论世界中,而不是被笨拙的排版一次次地拉回现实的物理困境。
评分读完这本书后,我的第一感觉是,作者对于技术官僚统治(Technocracy)的批判是如此彻底而尖锐,以至于让人几乎找不到任何可以喘息的缝隙。我特别留意了其中关于“绩效管理”和“问责制”如何在公共部门内部催生出一种新的“自我规训”机制的分析。作者没有简单地将这些视为效率提升的工具,而是将其视为一种权力转移的微妙过程,即将政治决策权逐步让渡给那些掌握了复杂量化指标的专家群体。这种叙事方式,摒弃了传统政治学中对“政府失灵”的简单归咎,而是深入挖掘了在数据驱动的时代,社会契约是如何被无形地重新编码的。在某几个章节中,作者对全球化背景下跨国资本流动如何反作用于国内的再分配政策进行了精彩的论述,特别是他对“规制竞争”的描述,让我对那些看似中立的国际经济协定有了全新的认识——它们是如何在不流血的情况下,完成了对国家主权福利承诺的蚕食。这本书的力度不在于提出了多么激进的解决方案,而在于它无情地剥开了那些被美化了的改革口号,直指其背后的权力结构和意识形态驱动力,读完让人心头一紧,对我们习以为常的“进步”产生了深刻的怀疑。
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