The return of Authoritarian Capitalists
专制资本主义的归来
Today’s global liberal democratic order faces a significant challenge from the rise of nondemocratic great powers – the West’s old Cold War rivals, China and Russia, now operating under “authoritarian capitalist” rather than Communist regimes.
今天，全球自由民主秩序面临着来自非民主强权崛起的巨大挑战——冷战中西方的老对手，中国和俄罗斯，如今处于专制资本主义而非共产主义政权控制之下。
The category is not new – authoritarian capitalist great powers played a leading role in the international system up until 1945.
专制资本主义国家并不是一个新类别——它们在1945年之前的国际体系中一直扮演着领导角色。
But they have been largely absent since then. The liberal democratic camp defeated its authoritarian, Fascist and Communist rivals alike in all of the three major great-power struggles of the 20th century – the two world wars and the Cold War.
但是在那之后他们就基本上消失了。自由民主阵营在20世纪的三次强权争锋（两次世界大战加上冷战）中战胜了其专制主义、法西斯主义和共产主义对手。
It is tempting to trace this outcome to the special traits and intrinsic advantages of liberal democracy. But the reasons for the liberal democracies’ victories were different for each type of adversary.
人们很容易将这一结果追溯到自由民主的特性和内在优势。然而面对不同的对手，自由民主胜利的原因也是不同的。
The Soviet Union failed because its economic systems limited it. But the nondemocratic capitalist great powers, Germany and Japan, were defeated in war fundamentally because they were medium-sized countries with limited resource bases.
苏联是因为其经济体系的局限而失败的。但非民主资本主义强国德国和日本，却根本上是因为其屈居中等的国家面积和有限的资源而在战争中被打败。
Thus contingency, not inherent advantages of liberal democracy, played a decisive role in tipping the balance against the non-democratic capitalist powers and in favor of the democracies.
所以，在与非民主资本主义强国的对抗中起着打破平衡的决定性作用，从而使天平偏向民主一方的，是偶然因素而不是固有优势。
The most decisive element of contingency was the United States.
最关键的偶然因素是美国。
Because of its continental size, no less than its democratic-capitalist system, the power of the United States consistently surpassed that of the next two strongest states combined throughout the 20th century, and this decisively tilted the global balance of power in favor of whichever side Washington was on.
因为美国有着与一个大陆相当的面积和民主资本主义体系，在整个20世纪，美国的力量总是比紧随其后最大的两个国家加起来还要大。这决定性地使全球力量平衡偏向了华盛顿所在的那一边。
So if any factor gave the liberal democracies their edge, it was above all the existence of the United States rather than any inherent advantage. In fact, had it not been for the United States, liberal democracy may well have lost the great struggles of the 20th century.
所以，如果说有什么因素给了自由民主优势，那么美国的存在高于一切内在优势。事实上，如果没有美国的存在，自由民主很可能已经在20世纪的大搏斗中失败。
This is a sobering thought that is often overlooked in studies of the spread of democracy in the 20th century, and it makes the world today appear much more contingent and tenuous than linear theories of development suggest.
这一发人深省的想法，在有关20世纪民主传播的研究中往往被忽视，并且它使得当今世界显得比线性发展理论所设想的更加偶然与脆弱。
This is especially true in light of the recent emergence of nondemocratic powers, above all booming, authoritarian, capitalist China. Russia, too, is retreating from its post-Communist liberalism and assuming an increasingly authoritarian character as its economic clout grows.
这一观点在观察最近出现的非民主强国时尤其正确，其中最突出的是繁荣而又专制的资本主义中国。俄罗斯也正在从后共产主义的自由主义退出，并且在经济实力增强的同时表现出越来越多的专制特征。
Some believe these countries could ultimately become liberal democracies through a combination of internal development, increasing affluence and outside influence.
一些人相信这些国家可以通过内部发展、财富的增加，以及外部影响的共同作用而最终成为自由民主国家。
Alternatively, they may have enough weight to create a new non-democratic but economically advanced Second World. They could establish a powerful authoritarian-capitalist order that allies political elites, industrialists and the military; that is nationalist in orientation; and that participates in the global economy on its own terms, as imperial Germany and imperial Japan did.
或者，他们可能有足够的实力来创造一个非民主却有着发达经济的新第二世界。他们可能建立一个联合了政治精英、企业家和军队的强大专制资本主义秩序；这将是民族主义取向的，他们会以自己的方式参与国际经济，就像曾经的德意志帝国和日本帝国那样。
By shifting from Communist command economy to capitalism, China and Russia have switched to a far more efficient brand of authoritarianism. Although the rise of these authoritarian capitalist great powers would not necessarily lead to a non-democratic hegemony or war, it might imply that the near-total dominance of liberal democracy since the Soviet Union’s collapse will be short-lived and that a universal “democratic peace” is still far off.
通过从共产主义指令经济转向资本主义，中国和俄罗斯转向了一种远更高效的专制主义。尽管这些专制资本主义大国的崛起，未必会导致非民主霸权或者战争，但它可能意味着，苏联解体之后那种自由民主几乎完全主宰世界的局面是短暂的，而普遍的“民主和平”仍然遥远。
Beijing and Moscow and their future followers might well become antagonists of the democratic countries – with all the potential for insecurity and conflict that this entails- while holding considerably more power than any of the democracies’ past rivals ever did by virtue of being both large and capitalist.
北京、莫斯科和他们未来的追随者可能成为民主国家的对手——连同它必定携带的潜在冲突和不安全因素——他们有着比民主国家以往对手更强的实力，这一实力既来自其国家规模，也来自其资本主义性质。
The most important counterweight remains the United States. For all the criticism leveled against it, the United States and its alliance with Europe stands as the single most important hope for the future of liberal democracy.
最重要的砝码依然是美国。尽管遭受种种批评，美国和它的欧洲盟友仍是未来自由民主无可替代的最重要希望。
As it was during the 20th century, the United States remains the greatest guarantee that liberal democracy will not be thrown on the defensive and relegated to a vulnerable position on the periphery of the international system.
正如在20世纪那样，美国仍是确保自由民主免于屈居守势并沦落至国际体系边缘脆弱地位的最大保障。
Azar Gat is professor of national security at Tel Aviv University and the author of “War in Human Civilization.” A longer version of this article appears in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs.
Azar Gat 是特拉维夫大学国家安全教授，《人类文明进程中的战争》的作者。本文的更长版本刊载于7/8月的《外交事务》（Foreign Affairs）杂志。
翻译：史祥莆（@史祥莆）
校对：Drunkplane（@Drunkplane-zny）
编辑：辉格@whigzhou