（本文同时刊载于美国《纽约时报》、《赫芬顿邮报》和香港《南华早报》）
本周，在美国总统选战步入高潮之际，中国国家副主席习近平访问了华盛顿。中国是世界上新兴的超级大国，而习近平被视为这个大国未来的领导者。此次访问，意味着两国领导人在政府换届之际相遇。美国是世界上最强的代议制民主国家，而中国是最大的一党制国家。许多人将中美两大国间的理念之争，曲解成民主与专制间的对抗，这一错误观念亟需消除。
人类社会的政治史长达数千年，在这一历史长河中点缀了两次西方式民主制度的试验。第一次试验是古希腊的城邦雅典，其民主制度从公元前6世纪维持到公元前4世纪中叶，持续了一个半世纪，实际上只能算是一次昙花一现的失败。第二次试验是现代西方世界，如果把民主定义为一人一票的普选制，那么美国民主的历史是92年，如果更严格地按诸事实，从1965年《选举权法案》颁布算起只有47年。这么说来，美国民主的寿命迄今为止还比不过元朝，后者是中国古代主要王朝中最短命的一个。
既然如此，为何会有那么多人敢公然宣称，他们已一劳永逸找到适合全人类的理想政治制度呢？
要回答这一问题，就要追本溯源，回到当前西方民主试验的精神源头。当今西方民主的滥觞，是孕育了现代性的欧洲近代启蒙运动。启蒙运动的核心思想，可以归结为两条基本理念：首先个人是理性的；其次个人权利是神圣不可侵犯的。这两条理念在本质上都是基于信仰，而非现实的经验。比如在美国《独立宣言》中，托马斯•杰弗逊就写道：“人人生而平等……造物主（Creator）赋予他们若干不可剥夺的权利（Rights）。” 这个大写的“造物主”是谁？当然就是基督教信仰中的上帝。与此相对应，“权利”一词也用了大写，以强调这条格言的神圣性。美国《独立宣言》中的这一表述，与法国《人权宣言》中“自由、平等、博爱”的信条，一起组成了所谓的“现代性”信仰的基础，而“现代性”在政治上的终极表现形式，就是西方式民主制度。
在最初的一段时间里，政治体制中的民主因素促发了工业革命，西方世界的经济和军事实力前所未有地突飞猛进。不过，领导西方崛起的领袖们从一开始，就清醒地看到民主试验中天然蕴涵的致命缺陷，他们想方设法试图遏制其消极影响。比如美国的联邦党人就明确提出，他们希望建立的是共和国家，而不是民主国家。为此，联邦党人在宪法中竭力遏制大众意志的过度膨胀。可是，就像任何一个宗教一样，信仰的力量最后总是压倒规则。民主的结果是公民的政治权利无限膨胀，参与决策者越来越多，参与面越来越泛。在美国人们常说，加利福尼亚就是美国的未来。这个未来又是怎样的景象呢？只有无休止的公民投票、政府瘫痪和财政破产。
对美国而言，这个共和国的开创者们有许多理由来限制民主，例如大众素质太低，缺乏见识，易走极端。但随着电视和互联网的兴起，这些壁垒都轰然倒地。归根结蒂，既然人们都是理性的，拥有上帝赋予的不可侵犯的权利，并且一切知识都触手可得，那么他们为何不能参与一切决策？在伯罗奔尼撒战争中，雅典城邦由于民众无限参与政治，导致了煽动家的上台。煽动家西亚比德用慷慨激昂的演说鼓动起民众的狂热，让雅典派出其强大的舰队去远征叙拉古，结果被斯巴达所打败，这次致命的出征成为雅典衰亡的开端。再回到当下，现在金钱成了煽动政治的最大推手。诺贝尔经济学奖得主迈克尔•斯宾塞一语道破天机，他说美国的民主先后经历了几个历史阶段：最早是“一个有产男人一票”，接着是“一个男人一票”，然后是“一人一票”，现在正向“一美元一票”迈进。
无论从何种意义上说，当今美国都只是徒有虚名的宪政共和国，实际上已经堕落为雅典式的民主政体。被选举上台的民众代表们根本没有自己的主见，其唯一关心的就是迎合一时的民意，好在下次选举时保住位子。当今信息的丰富和传播的迅速，都堪称史无前例，这诱使民众陷入自己什么都懂的幻觉。利益集团则从中播弄民意并操纵投票，结果是不断减税，提高政府支出，甚至发动自我毁灭性的战争。选举因此沦为游戏，不同的利益集团都在利用这个制度寻租。民主制度之所以陷入这种恶性循环，是因为这一试验的深层基因所致，即对个人理性和权利的迷信。不仅是美国如此，欧洲各国也在上演同样的戏码。相较于当今风雨飘摇的西方民主制度，古代的罗马共和国的历史要长得多，这是因为后者从未自饰为民主，也从无这样的野心。
因此，西方与中国的理念之争，不是出于民主与专制的对抗，而是由于对政治制度完全不同的理解。在前者看来，民主本身就是最终目的；而在后者眼中，任何政治制度都不过是工具。美国人普遍相信，民主就是好，而且越民主越好。在美国，有哪位政治家敢对民主提出质疑呢？西方民主已走进死胡同，或许只有控制民主的泛滥方能拯救民主本身。但在民主制度下，这一调整永远只能是天方夜谭。
相较之下，越来越多的中国民众正在政府引导下参与政治决策，因为这可以促进经济发展和国家利益，而近十年来的成绩也恰恰证明了此点。但如果国情和国家需求发生变化，中国将毫不迟疑地主动调整。在上世纪80年代，民众政治参与度的不断提高，有助于当时的中国走出灾难性的“文化大革命”的阴影，摆脱意识形态的桎梏。但凡事过犹不及，爆炸性的政治参与最终引起了一场大规模的动乱，这就是天安门事件。
1989年6月4日，抗议活动被政府的坚决行动平定了。诚然，这次流血事件令中国人民付出了惨痛的代价，但除此之外的其他选择只会更糟糕，结果只能两害相权取其轻。此后一代人的时间里，中国保持了政治稳定，迎来了经济增长和繁荣，并跻身世界第二大经济体。与此同时，中国在政治上日渐成熟，可以更加积极稳妥地推动政治改革，减少震荡，避免极端暴力倾向。
在政治意识形态上，美国和中国之间存在根本分歧。前者认为政治权利是上帝赋予的，因此也是绝对的；而在后者看来，政治权利的发展必须建立在国家需求和基本国情之上。
照此来看，今天的美国人与上世纪的苏联人并无本质区别，他们都将自己的政治制度和意识形态当作终极目的。中国的崛起之路，恰恰与之相反。就未来的前景看，美国人的道路并不美妙。不过迄今为止，他们还沉迷于狂妄自大的意识形态，一路狂奔，而前方就是悬崖峭壁。
李世默是上海的一位风险投资家。
（朱新伟 / 译）
英文：
DEMOCRACY’S COMING DEMISE
SHANGHAI -- As the U.S. presidential election shifts into high gear, this week Washington hosts China's Vice President Xi Jinping, heir apparent of the emergent super power. The world's most powerful electoral democracy and the largest one-party state meet at a time of political transition for both. Many have characterized the competition of ideas between the two giants as one between democracy and authoritarianism. This false perspective needs to be dispelled.
In the long history of human governance, spanning over thousands of years, there have been only two meaningful experiments in democracy, as the term is understood in the modern West. The first was Athens, which lasted a century and a half from sixth to the middle of fourth century B.C, - a quick failure, really. The second is the modern West. If one defines democracy as one-person-one-vote, American democracy is only 92 years old. In practice it is only 47 years old, if one begins counting at the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- far more ephemeral than even China's shortest-lived dynasties.
Why, then, do so many boldly claim they have discovered the ideal political system for all mankind and that its success is forever assured?
The answer lies in the spiritual source of the current democratic experiment. It began with the European Enlightenment, which gave birth to modernity. Two fundamental ideas informed its core: the individual is rational and the individual is endowed with unalienable rights. These two beliefs are in essence based on faith, not empirical evidence. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "All men are created equal...and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." And who was that Creator with a capital "C"? God, of course. To further emphasize the divine nature of the claim, the "R" in rights was capitalized as well. Along with claims such as "liberté, egalité, fraternité", they form the basis of a religious faith called modernity of which the ultimate political manifestation is democracy.
In its early days, democratic ideas in political governance facilitated the industrial revolution and ushered in a period of unprecedented economic prosperity and military power in the Western world. Yet, at the very beginning, those who led this drive were aware of the fatal flaw inbred in this experiment and sought to contain it. The American Federalists made it clear they were establishing a republic, not a democracy, and designed a myriad of bells and whistles to constrain the popular will. But as in any religion, faith would prove stronger than rules. The political franchise could only expand resulting in ever more people participating in ever more decisions. As they say in America, California is the future. And what is that future? Endless referendums, paralysis, and insolvency.
With the advent of television and then the Internet, whatever excuses the founders of the American republic came up with to contain democracy, such as an ignorant public and a lack of information, fall by the wayside. After all, if the people are rational and divinely endowed with rights, and all knowledge is at their fingertips, why shouldn't they be allowed to decide on everything? In Athens, ever-increasing popular participation in politics led to rule by demagoguery. Public fervor whipped up by Alcibiades' oratory sent its powerful fleet on that fateful mission to Syracuse, and its defeat there by Sparta started Athens' decline. Fast-forward to the present, money is now the great enabler of demagoguery. As the Nobel economist Michael Spence put it, America has gone from "one-propertied-man-one-vote to one-man-one-vote to one-person-one-vote, trending to one-dollar-one-vote."
By any measure, America today is a constitutional republic in name only, and an Athenian democracy in practice. Elected representatives have no minds of their own and respond only to the whims of public opinion as they seek re-elections; with the abundance of information and the most efficient communication ever known to man, the public believes it knows everything; special interests manipulate the people into voting for ever lower taxes and higher government spending, even supporting self destructive wars. Elections become the game through which disparate groups seek rents from the system. Such is the vicious cycle that is in the DNA of the current experiment in democracy based on the faith of rationalism and rights. A similar version of the same movie is showing in theaters everywhere in Europe. In contrast the Roman republic survived much longer because it never pretended or aspired to be a democracy.
The West's competition of ideas with China is not between democracy and authoritarianism, but between two fundamentally different outlooks on political systems. The former sees democracy as an end in itself; the latter sees any political system as barely means. It is indeed a commonly held faith in America that democracy is a good in itself and the more democratic the better. Is there a politician in America who would dare say otherwise? Western democracy is inherently incapable of becoming less democratic even when its survival may depend on such a shift.
The Chinese, on the other hand, would allow greater popular participation in political decisions when it is conducive to economic development and favorable to its national interests, as they have done in the past 10 years, but would not hesitate to curtail it if the conditions and the needs of the nation change. The 1980s saw a decade of expanding popular participation in the country’s politics that helped the nation loosen the ideological shackles of the destructive Cultural Revolution. But it went too far and led to a vast rebellion at Tiananmen Square.
That uprising was decisively put down on June 4, 1989. The Chinese nation paid a heavy price for that bloody event, but the alternatives would have been far worse. The resulting stability ushered in a generation of growth and prosperity that propelled China to its position as the second largest economy in the world. As the national polity matures, political adjustments are becoming more sophisticated and pro-active, further narrowing the swings to avoid violent extremes.
The fundamental difference between Washington's view and Beijing's is whether political rights are considered as God-given and therefore absolute or should be seen as privileges to be negotiated based on the needs and conditions of the nation.
In this framework, the Americans today are not dissimilar to the Soviets of the last century in that both see their political systems and their underlying ideologies as ultimate ends. The Chinese are on a different path. History does not bode well for the American path. Their faith-based ideological hubris will soon drive democracy over the cliff.
Eric X. Li is a venture capitalist in Shanghai.
