特朗普的“富商治国论”
1884年，19岁的沃伦•哈丁(Warren Harding)收购了俄亥俄州一份发行量不大的报纸，很可能花了450美元。到了1920年他竞选美国总统时，这份报纸让他变成了富豪。哈丁以企业家的形象参加竞选，承诺“让政府少管企业的事情，让政府更像企业”。他往往被形容为美国最没水平的总统，直到现在。
The “businessman fallacy” — the notion that a rich businessman (never a woman) can run government better than a mere politician — is Donald Trump’s basic promise. That’s why the combustion of his son-in-law, fellow real-estate heir and senior adviser Jared Kushner — whose business dealings in the White House scream conflict of interest — is so telling. Kushner incarnates the businessman fallacy. Here’s why it is a fallacy.
“商人谬论”——有关商界富翁(从来不是女性)能够比单纯的政治人物更好地管理政府的理念——是唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的基本承诺。这就是为什么他的女婿、房地产同行继承人、高级顾问贾里德•库什纳(Jared Kushner)——他在白宫的生意往来存在明显的利益冲突——的陨落如此说明问题。库什纳是商人谬论的化身。以下是这之所以是谬论的原因。
• It is a lot simpler to run a company than a country. It’s not even the difference between checkers and chess. It’s the difference between checkers and playing simultaneous chess on infinite boards.
• 管理企业比治理国家简单得多。两者甚至并不能用跳棋和国际象棋之间的区别来解释，而是跳棋和在无限大的棋盘上同时下几盘国际象棋的区别。
Especially in the US, a company has one aim: making profits, usually in one sector. The simplest companies — privately owned family businesses like Kushner’s and Trump’s — don’t need to worry about shareholders. The boss decides. He doesn’t waste time listing his foreign contacts on bureaucratic forms. If an employee gets in the way — like James Comey, head of the FBI, obsessing over imaginary Russians — you sack him: pow! No boring checks and balances in New York real estate.
特别是在美国，企业只有一个目的：盈利，通常是在某个行业盈利。最简单的公司——像库什纳家族和特朗普家族这样的私有家族企业——不需要担心股东。老板决定一切。他不浪费时间在官僚的表格上列出自己的境外关系人。如果某个雇员碍事——比如一心追查“通俄案”的联邦调查局(FBI)局长詹姆斯•科米(James Comey)——你就炒掉他：嘭!纽约房地产界没有无聊的制衡机制。
By contrast, governments deal with “wicked problems” that can’t be solved (or even fully understood) but only managed: social injustice, hostile powers or climate change. The “solutionism” of Silicon Valley rarely works in politics.
与此形成反差的是，政府要处理无法解决(甚至无法完全理解)、只能管控的“棘手问题”：社会不公、敌对大国或者气候变化。硅谷的“解决主义”在政坛很少管用。
Running the government is a little like running a large publicly quoted conglomerate, or the US military. But in fact, the presidency itself is unique, so the candidate’s character and intelligence matter more than his experience.
管理政府有点像管理一家上市的大型综合企业或美国军队。但事实上，总统一职本身很特殊，因此候选人的性格和智力比经验更重要。
• The businessman-turned-politician is often blinded by hubris. This usually stems from the “money delusion”: the idea that life is a race to make money, and that rich people (“winners”) therefore possess special wisdom.
• 商人出身的政治人物往往盲目自大。这通常源自于“金钱至上的错觉”：有关人生是一场发财致富的竞赛，因此富人(“赢家”)拥有独到智慧的观念。
Many businessmen imagine they pulled themselves up by the bootstraps in a free market, something that more people could do if only there was “less government in business”. This self-image usually omits context: the fact, say, that the businessman’s father built the company (before being jailed on a ridiculous technicality) or that government enforced his contracts and schooled his employees. A corrective to the businessman’s fallacy is to consider what happens to businessmen in Congo: they die young of cholera.
很多商人想象自己在自由市场中白手起家;只有“让政府少管企业的事情”，才能让更多人走上这条路。这种自我形象往往忽视了大环境：此人的父亲打造了这家企业(最终因某个荒谬的技术细节而入狱)或者政府确保他的合同得到履行，并为他的员工提供了教育。纠正商人谬论的方法是思考刚果商人的命运：他们会因感染霍乱而英年早逝。
Kyle Pope, who edited Kushner’s newspaper The New York Observer, recalls the boss’s “disdain” for journalists: “It was almost like, ‘If you earn $30,000, $40,000 a year . . . you must be a total loser,’” he said in a Vanity Fair podcast. Kushner seems equally disdainful of loser bureaucrats working in grubby government offices (remember that Trump called the White House a “dump”). When you’re handling China, why listen to so-called China specialists who haven’t even fixed the China problem?
曾在库什纳的报纸《纽约观察家》(New York Observer)当主编的凯尔•波普(Kyle Pope)回忆了他的老板对新闻从业人员的“鄙视”：“感觉几乎像是，‘如果你的年薪只有3万、4万美元……你必然是个十足的输家’，”他在《名利场》杂志(Vanity Fair)的一个播客上表示。库什纳似乎同样鄙视在简陋的政府办公室(记得特朗普曾称白宫是“垃圾场”)工作的没出息官僚。在你对付中国时，为什么要聆听那些从未解决过中国问题的所谓中国专家的意见?
Rich Americans tend to feel contempt for politicians because they have learnt to treat them as lowly service providers who will sit up and beg for donations. Kushner’s father, a Democratic donor, once even had Benjamin Netanyahu to stay at his house in New Jersey. (The future Israeli leader got Jared’s room; the boy moved to the basement.)
美国富人倾向于蔑视政治人物，因为他们已经学会把后者当作卑微的服务提供者，只会直挺挺地坐着乞求捐款。库什纳的父亲是民主党的捐款者，曾经让本雅明•内塔尼亚胡(Benjamin Netanyahu)在他位于新泽西的家里留宿。(当时这位以色列的未来领导人睡在贾里德的房间里;而贾里德搬到地下室睡了。)
• The businessman imagines he is a generalist: he made money (at least his dad did), so he can apply his skills to any political problem. The truth is, he’s a specialist: he knows New York real estate, but not Iraq.
• 商人臆想自己是多面手：他赚了钱(至少他父亲赚了钱)，所以他可以把自己的技能运用于任何政治问题。真相是，他是个专家：他了解纽约的房地产行业，但不了解伊拉克问题。
• Anyone running a long-standing family company almost inevitably enters government with conflicts of interest. From age five, he has imbibed dinner-table conversations about the company’s wellbeing. All family relationships are structured around it. The family business is who they are, says Mike Driver, a successful British entrepreneur who now helps other entrepreneurs sell their businesses. “How could you ever expect that person to not act in the best interests of that business?”
• 任何经营创办已久的家族企业的人，在进入政府时几乎都会不可避免地带着利益冲突。从5岁时起，他就开始在餐桌上听到有关企业福祉的谈话。所有的家庭关系都围绕企业福祉构建。英国成功企业家、如今帮其他企业家出售公司的麦克•德赖弗(Mike Driver)称，家族企业就是他们自己。“你怎么能指望那个人不以家族企业的最佳利益为出发点行事呢?”
This dates back even before Silvio Berlusconi. When Harding was president, the managing editor of his Ohio paper contacted him with problems, asking, “Do you have any connections to help us?”
这甚至可以追溯到西尔维奥•贝卢斯科尼(Silvio Berlusconi)之前。当哈丁担任美国总统时，他那份俄亥俄报纸的执行主编在遇到问题时会联系他，问，“你有什么人脉能帮助我们?”
• The family business also structures relationships beyond the family. Driver says, “For people who live that kind of life, everyone you meet can do something for you. They probably don’t even think it’s wrong. It’s just the nature of their relationships.” If a fellow rich businessman whom you meet on government business can help you with a pesky $1.2bn mortgage due on 666 Fifth Avenue next year, that’s serendipity.
• 家族企业在家族以外也精心设计人际关系。德赖弗称，“对于过着那种生活的人来说，你遇到的每一个人都能为你做点什么。他们甚至很可能不认为这是错的。这只是他们的人际关系的性质。”如果你在处理政府事务时见到的一位富有的商人，可以帮你解决第五大道(Fifth Avenue) 666号明年到期的12亿美元抵押贷款的烂摊子，那是缘分。
• Many businessmen believe politicians get to blunder with impunity, while in business (often described as “real life”) only the best survive. This belief has outlived Trump’s six corporate bankruptcies (even his casinos went bust), and Kushner’s purchase of 666 for a record price at the market peak in 2007.
• 很多商人认为政客们可以搞砸事情而不受惩罚，而商界(往往被称为“现实生活”)是最强者才能生存的环境。即使在特朗普6次破产(就连他的赌场也破产了)、以及库什纳在2007年市场高点以创纪录的价格买下第五大道666号后，这种信念仍然存在。
Kushner looks doomed, and Trump probably won’t become president for life. But America’s next businessmen-saviours are lining up in Silicon Valley.
库什纳看来会出局，特朗普很可能不会成为终身总统。但美国的下一批商人救世主们正在硅谷排起长队。
