【每日电讯 20150508】西方灭亡论被过分夸大了

满仓

【中文标题】西方灭亡论被过分夸大了
【原文标题】The death of the West has been greatly exaggerated
【登载媒体】每日电讯
【原文作者】David Coleman、Stuart Basten
【原文链接】http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/greenpolitics/developingworld/11589015/The-death-of-the-West-has-been-greatly-exaggerated.html




我们的未来是一片光明吗？我们的下一代是否会比我们做得更好？今天，我们发现自己选举出来的政府正在实施节俭政策，我们的生活标准在不断降低，国民健康保险政策面临老龄化社会的挑战，似乎不难假设我们的辉煌已经成为了历史。亚洲和拉丁美洲新兴力量的崛起——中国、印度、印度尼西亚、巴西、墨西哥、尼日利亚——正在展现出主导地区和全球的姿态。我们半开玩笑地说，他们很快就会超过我们，最好开始学中文吧。但实际情况真的有这么糟糕吗？

西方世界即将毁灭，这总是一个能吸引众人眼球的故事情节。我们了解背后的故事呢哦荣：出生率的下降、人口的萎缩和恶性老龄化趋势将会让欧洲走向世界政治和经历力量的边缘地带，类似的命运最终也会降临到美国的头上。但或许我们应当暂时停止这种悲观的思绪，西欧目前还不需要面对凄惨的前景，而新兴国家所面临的很多问题其实被那些兴奋的拉拉队员所忽视了。实际上，大部分西方国家的人口统计趋势还是颇为乐观的。



用出生率来举例，人们普遍的印象是欧洲的出生率在下降，人口数量在减少。实际情况比较复杂。从整个欧洲来看（也就是大部分欧洲，例外的国家是俄罗斯、乌克兰和白俄罗斯），人口是在增长，而不是下降。最新的欧洲人口预测是从5今天的5.07亿人口到本世纪中叶的5.25亿人口。造成人口增长的最主要因素是移民，如果排除这个因素，人口呈下降趋势。（在可预见的未来，一个没有移民的欧洲似乎不大现实。）

但即使没有移民，这样的预测似乎也低估了欧洲人口出生率自然上升的趋势。参考过去几年的数据，大部分欧洲国家的出生率都在上升，而不是下降。纵观整个欧洲大陆，人们都说他们至少需要两个孩子。的确，过去40年里他们一直这么说，但西北欧已经展现出实际的效果（包括法国、北欧国家和英国），出生率基本上可以确保人口的自然替代过程（平均每个女人生育2.1个孩子）。

主要的差别在于文化的变化，以及与之对应的公共政策转移。今天的女性可以更好地平衡育儿、受教育和职业之间的关系。一代人之前，女性刚刚获得与男性平等的受教育和工作机会，自然会推迟生儿养女，出生率因此而下降。但两性之间的进一步平等打破了传统的家庭分工（尽管过程缓慢），女性可以更好地兼顾家庭和职业。

世界各地的出生率



好消息是，相对较高的出生率意味着老龄化问题有了后备解决方案，当然还需要一些痛苦的转型。改变已经发生了，我们早已抛弃了老龄从65岁开始的陈腐观念，寿命逐渐延长让人们更晚地拿到退休金。当然，像英国这种人口迅速增长的国家还面临着其它问题：种族融合、住房、基础设施和跟不上脚步的公共服务。

相比于发展中世界，西方国家享有更多不那么具有实体——但非常重要的——优势。经济和社会不平等现象不算很突出，这可以帮助我们保持民主氛围和社会的稳定性。社会福利、法治体系、财产安全和契约精神至高无上，大部分西方国家的建国基础都是公民平等和相互社会责任理念，而不是狭隘地基于家族关系和信仰上的责任和权利。富有的公民社会独立于繁荣的国家而存在。

尽管新兴大国疆域辽阔、经济实力强大，但他们不大可能在可预见的未来统治全世界。当然，他们不断膨胀的军事力量已经通过太空导弹项目、过高的军费预算、以及航空母舰等外在表象得到了充分的展示，但是他们所面临的困难对于西方来说并不存在，或者说早已被克服。


孟买，达尔维：社会不平等无法确保政治的稳定性。

有些困难是人口方面的，还有一些是文化、制度方面，甚至是气候方面的。印度的人口增长很快就会让它成为世界人口最多的国家，他所面临的资源持续性问题——水、食物、原材料——在灾难性环境的影响下，变得更加糟糕。中国同样面临着资源和气候问题，同印度一样，它是世界上污染最严重的国家，这给医疗体系带来了沉重的负担，同时让社会稳定面临考验。

在大部分农业经济导向的国家，不平等现象比比皆是。印度那些聪明绝顶的技术专家把探测器送上了火星，但是有28％的儿童都处于营养不良和体重不足的状态，比哈尔邦的比例更是高达50％。这个国家卓越的民主制度或许运作还算良好，但是印度教的民族主义情绪和腐败是造成民众不安的主要因素。中国与此同时却落入了低生育率的陷阱。它的问题与印度恰恰相反，生育率长久以来没有反弹的迹象，即使独生子女政策即将被废弃。在中国的城市地区，夫妇普遍倾向于只生一个孩子，即使政策允许生两个，城市的生活条件和拥挤的住房让他们不得不做出这样的选择。中国已经在面临严重的老龄化问题，低生育率让问题进一步恶化。与西方不同，中国未富先老。还有其它一些国家与中国面临同样的问题。


反腐败活动人士阿文德•克里瓦尔在一次选举集会中致辞。

西方国家的改变过程极为缓慢，但人口结构和经济现代化几乎是在同步前进。对于一些新兴经济体，经济增长往往超越了政治变化的步伐，农业社会中传统的家长制依然不合时宜地存在与于现代化社会中。性别不平等现象严重，女性依然负责育儿和家务，在家庭以外，她们很获得与男性平等的集会。这种现象导致出生率进一步降低。实际上，南欧和东亚一些发达国家，比如日本、朝鲜和台湾，就在面临这样的问题。

更糟糕的是，很多新兴经济体并非真正的民主国家，无法享受到发达的司法制度、财产安全保障和民权社会。中国与苏联不同，共产党的制度通过经济繁荣成功确保了自身的专制地位，但是政治稳定性和发展的前景遭到了大规模腐败的威胁。总体来看，全球气候变化对南部国家所造成的影响远远大于对北部国家所造成的影响。

在我们沉浸于洋洋得意，大肆鼓吹以往的成就之前，我们必须要小心，不要让“西方死亡论”变成“东方死亡论”。毫无疑问，发展中国家将会克服很多障碍，欧洲以外的独裁政府可以使用很多对他们有利的手段来解决问题，来搞创新。但同时，我们要停下来仔细反省，扪心自问。在包括人口等问题的更广阔范围内，“西方与东方”的平衡似乎比我们自己所设想的要更加微妙、对比没那么鲜明，也并不意味着西方未来悲惨的命运。




原文：

The imminent end of the West is a favourite demographic horror story. But our rivals face challenges we're lucky enough to have overcome.

Can we look forward to a brighter future? Will our children do better than us? As we wake up today to the results of an election that has focused on austerity, falling living standards and the challenges facing the NHS with our ageing society, it is tempting to think that our best days are behind us. The emerging superpowers in Asia and Latin America – China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria – are on their way to regional and global dominance. Soon they will overwhelm us, we say, only half in jest. Best start learning Mandarin now. But is it all really so bad?

The Death of the West is a favourite demographic horror story. We know the way it goes: declining birth rates, falling populations and ruinous population ageing will reduce Europe to the margins of world political and economic power – with a similar fate ultimately befalling the United States. But it’s time to bring a halt to the stories of doom and gloom. Western Europe does not face a dismal decline and fall; and the emerging powers face many problems that their cheerleaders in the business pages often ignore. In much of the West, demographic trends are, in fact, reasonably favourable.

Take, for example, the received assumption that Europe’s birth rate is falling and its population shrinking, year by year. Things are more complex than that. In the EU as a whole (that is, most of Europe, the major exceptions being Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) population is growing, not declining. Indeed, the latest projections take the EU population from 507 million today to a peak of 525 million by mid‑century. The biggest factor affecting that change is migration, without which projections would point to decline (and for the foreseeable future, a Europe without migration is a bit of a fantasy).

But even without migration, those projections probably understate the future recovery of the birth rate in Europe. For some years now, birth rates in most European countries have been increasing, not declining. Throughout the Continent, women and men keep saying that they want on average at least two children. True, they have been saying so for the past 40 years, but the effect is now being felt in north-western Europe (including France, the Nordic countries and the UK), where birth rates are relatively close to the level needed to replace the population in the long run (equivalent to just under 2.1 children per woman).

The difference is in large part thanks to a cultural shift – with changes in public policy to match. Women today are better able to balance raising children with their desire for higher education and a career. A generation ago, as women gained access to education and employment on the same terms as men, having babies was inevitably postponed and birth rates declined. But this is being corrected through greater equality between the sexes, which is breaking down traditional domestic gender roles (albeit slowly and unevenly), leaving women better able to manage a family and a career.

Birth rates across the world

The good news is that these relatively high birth rates mean an ageing population should be manageable, with some painful adjustments. Yet these adjustments are already being made, as we leave behind the now obsolete notion that old age starts at 65, and now that a longer lifespan is matched with the later entitlement to pensions. Of course, rapid population growth in countries such as Britain leads to other worries: about integration, housing, infrastructure and unreformed public services.

Western countries enjoy many less tangible – but still vital – advantages over rivals in the developing world. For us, economic and social inequality is relatively modest. This helps to preserve a democratic consensus and political stability. Welfare and the rule of law, the security of property and contracts are well established. For the most part the secular societies of the West are based ideally on notions of equal citizenship and mutual civic obligation, not on a narrow focus on duty and entitlement based on kinship or faith. A rich civil society of connections independent of the state flourishes.

Despite their enormous size and staggering economic prowess, emerging superpowers may not be ruling the world any time soon. Certainly their growing military might is amply demonstrated by their space and missile programmes, their growing defence budgets, their acquisition of the outward signs of projected power in the form, for example, of aircraft carriers. Yet they face obstacles unlike those that affect the West, or which the West has left behind.

Dharavi, Mumbai: Inequality does not make for political stability (Danish Siddiqui/REUTERS)

Some of these obstacles are demographic, others more cultural or institutional, yet others are climatic. India’s growing population, soon to become the biggest in the world, faces problems of resource sustainability – water, food, raw materials – made worse by its vulnerability to climate change. China also faces resource and climate problems and, with India, ranks as the worst-polluted country on Earth, which creates a significant burden on health and is a source of public unrest.

As in most predominantly agricultural societies, inequality remains very high. India’s brilliant technicians send probes to Mars, but 28 per cent of the country’s children attending day-care centres are malnourished and underweight – 50 per cent in the state of Bihar. The country’s extraordinary democracy may function well, but Hindu nationalism and corruption are stirring public unrest. China, meanwhile, risks falling into a low-fertility trap. Contrary to what many have said, it seems that there will be no rebound of the birth rate, even if the one-child policy were to be abandoned. In urban China, couples prefer one child and tend to only have one even when allowed two – a preference reinforced by urban conditions and cramped housing. China already faces severe levels of population ageing; continued low fertility would perpetuate it. Unlike the West, China risks becoming old before it becomes rich; others following in its footsteps risk doing likewise.

Anti-corruption campaigner Arvind Kejriwal addresses an election rally (Singh/AP)

Change came slowly in Western countries; demographic maturity and economic modernisation proceeded hand in hand. But in some emerging economies, economic growth has raced ahead of social change. There, traditional patriarchal cultures typical of agricultural societies persist, as misfits, into the modern world. Sexes remain unequal, women retain responsibility for children, family and household, while outside the home they only very slowly approach equality with men. That can depress fertility rates to very low levels. Indeed, it is still a problem in southern Europe and the industrial countries of East Asia, such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

Worse, many emerging economies are not truly democratic and do not enjoy developed justice systems, security of property or civil society. Unlike the Soviet Union, the Chinese communist system has successfully sustained autocracy through growing prosperity. But political stability and development is threatened by pervasive corruption. Generally, the countries of the Global South face potentially more severe effects from global climate change than those of the Global North.

Before we get carried away and trumpet our own continued triumph too loudly, we must be careful not to invent a “Death of the Rest” myth to replace the “Death of the West”. No doubt many of the developing world’s problems will be overcome. Autocratic governments retain some advantages in problem-solving and the creativity of many societies outside Europe is remarkable. But we need to pause, take stock, and take heart that, for demographic and broader reasons, the future balance between the “West and the Rest” is likely to be more nuanced, less sensational, less ruinous to the West, than we have been led to believe.