经济学人下载: 开放不再,繁荣落幕(1)

Books & arts
文艺板块

Book review
书评

Globalisation
全球化

Lowering the drawbridge
降下封锁的吊桥

Two books expound the virtues of open societies, past and future
用两本书阐述了开放社会、过去和未来的的特点

Open: The Story of Human Progress.
《开放：人类进程的故事》

By Johan Norberg.
作者：约翰·诺尔贝格

One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger.
《十亿美国人：更远大理想的理由》

By Matthew Yglesias
作者：马修·伊格莱西亚斯

It was not just roads that led to Rome. The shipping lanes did, too. By the first century BC,Rome had conquered the entire Mediterranean coastline. Some 90% of its people lived within 15km of the sea, buying corn from Egypt, olive oil from Spain and toga dye from Carthage. The Roman Empire prospered because it was open to trade, people and ideas, says Johan Norberg, a Swedish thinker. Galleys brought “all the crafts that exist or have existed”, as one Greek observer put it. Foreigners could become citizens; a slave’s son could (occasionally) rise to become emperor.
不只有条条大路才能通往罗马。航道同样也能到达。到公元前一世纪，罗马征服了整个地中海沿海地带。有90%的罗马居民生活在离海岸不到15千米的地方，他们从埃及购买玉米，从西班牙购买橄榄油，从迦太基购买托加染料。瑞典思想家约翰·诺伯格表示，罗马帝国之所以繁荣，是因为它广开贸易、民众自由、思想解放。正如一位希腊评论人士所说，罗马战舰带回了“所有现存或者曾经存在过的技艺”。外国人能成为罗马公民；奴隶的儿子（偶尔）能够晋升为皇帝。

Mr Norberg’s “Open” is one of two new books that offer big ideas about globalisation, past and future. He argues that progress depends on openness, but that this tends to create resistance that sets back the clock. In “One Billion Americans” Matthew Yglesias, a co-founder of Vox (a wonky leftish news outlet), ponders how the United States might evolve if it were much more open to immigrants.
诺伯格新创作了两本讲述有关全球化、过去和未来的宏大理念书籍，《开放》就是其中一本。他认为开放是进步的先决条件，但这也往往会产生阻力，使时间倒流。Vox（一家政治左翼的新闻媒体）的联合创始人马修·伊格莱西亚斯在《十亿美国人》中着力探讨，如果美国的移民问题更加开放，那美国会如何发展。