第二章：法国大革命因何而起
原书及其作者：法国大革命，起于捍卫人权、推翻君主专制，却通向了恐怖统治和军事独裁。这个过程值得警醒。
系列上一篇：Echoes | 回响
-----
Chp2 Why it happened
1. Financial overstretch
18世纪开场时的法国，带着传统强国的骄傲和新兴强国（英，俄，普鲁士）不断竞争制海权、贸易线路的控制、还有海外殖民地。穷兵黩武，全线作战，结果带来了巨额的债务压力和金融危机，能收上来的税60%都要用于还债。并且战争最终也没有带来新的土地和贸易伙伴。
2. The ancient régime: government
>p21 In political terms pre-revolutionary France was an absolute monarchy. The king shared his power with nobody, and was answerable for its exercise to nobody but God. Affairs of state, including the finances, were his private domain; and in all things he was sovereign in the sense that his decisions were final. On the other hand, no king was, or sought to be, a completely free agent. Even Louis XIV was careful to take advice on all important decisions, and men born to be king (for queens regnant were prohibited by French law) were carefully taught that counsel was of the essence of their sovereign authority. Louis XVI believed this implicitly; but unlike his grandfather Louis XV (his own father had died before inheriting the throne) he did not invariably do what a majority of his ministers recommended. He particularly thought he understood finance—a fateful delusion as it proved.
大革命以前的法国是君主专制，虽然传统上，国王应该听从各种顾问的意见来施政治国，但是这种传统毕竟没有制度性的束缚力。到了路易十五，他不再重视顾问的建议，并且更糟糕的是他认为自己很懂财政。
有网友初略统计了国家主席习近平这些年一共指明了多少方向
— 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) March 15, 2024
内容统计自新华网和人民日报。
2015年11月12日 为股票市场未来发展指明方向
2016年3月6日 为民营经济指明方向
2016年4月19日 为网民留言办理工作指明方向
2016年4月22日 为中国未来互联网发展指明方向
2016年5月25日…
>p22-23 The king’s absolute authority over the country at large was embodied in a handful of omnicompetent executive agents, the intendants. One of these was assigned to each of thirty-six generalities into which Louis XVI’s kingdom was divided. The king thought them the showcase of his government, and there was no doubt about their high level of professionalism. But they were increasingly unpopular for their authoritarian ways, and their shortcomings and mistakes were mercilessly denounced by bodies whose authority they had largely supplanted since the 17th century. Taxation in some large provinces, for instance, still required the consent of estates—representative, though seldom elected, assemblies with no ultimate powers to resist, but whose semblance of independence enabled them to borrow relatively cheaply on the king’s behalf.
国王掌握绝对权力，社会不满造成的动荡使得贵族生活更加脱离社会、死板僵化，社会痛苦无法对国家政治产生实质影响。不说我都以为这是在总结中国的维权难、上访难。
但是议会（estates）这种具有代表职能的机关居然得以一直存在，而且基本处于一个国王也轻易动不了的微妙位置上。然而，政治在许多时候是妥协的艺术，这些议会里的民代却实际上被排除于政治之外，这就使得他们只要得以留存一日，就会极尽阻挠王政一日。这在客观上使时局更加僵化紧绷，因为动他们也不是，会扰动本就积蓄的民怨；听他们的更不是，长期腐败的庞大食税阶层不是任何人轻易动的了的——只能不上不下的任他们留在那里积聚民怨，任何改变都被视为危险。
3. The ancient régime: society
>p25 The kingdom had been built up over many centuries by a gradual and often haphazard process of conquest and dynastic accumulation, and successive kings had won the obedience of their new subjects more by confirming their distinct institutions than by imposing a preferred pattern of their own. Ever since the 16th century these confusions had been compounded by the practice of selling privileges and exemptions (usually but not always as part of the sale of offices) as a roundabout way of borrowing. In earlier times it was easier to do than trying to force the rich to pay taxes. The most powerful groups in society, in any case, had elaborated persuasive rationales for exemption. The clergy, a vast corporation drawing revenues from a sixth of the kingdom’s land, and creaming off, in the form of tithes, a notional tenth of the yield of the rest, paid no direct taxes on the grounds that it performed its service to society by praying and interceding with God. The nobility, the social elite which owned over a quarter of the land, levied feudal dues over much of the rest, and steadily sucked most of the newly rich into its ranks via ennobling offices, resisted the payment of direct taxes as well.
长期的买官卖官和全国制度的不统一，导致社会治理通路破碎。杂乱的特权结构、抱团贵族、教会势力，在这个国家内部东西山头林立、盘根错节，对上不服管，对下每个都要吸一遍国民的血。
这些寄生和特权阶层自己当然是不生产价值的，也可以轻松避开纳税义务，社会财富被锁死在臃肿的寄生阶层中，而所有的税收负担都不成比例的落在最无权无势的普通国民身上。
这让我想起了以前听过的一个论辩，有权才能有钱的社会，和有钱才能有权的社会，如果硬要比的话哪个更不公平？我认为是前者，因为如果只有掌权才能积累财富，说明普通人永远一无所有，阶层无法流动，奋斗越多也只会被盘剥越多；和这个相比的话，有钱才能有权容易造成的是丛林社会、无序竞争，和马太效应（强者越强弱者越弱，阶级固化，社会不公扩大），但总不至于一潭死水，而且经验上来看一般金本位没有权本位那么容易堵塞社会进步的通路。很遗憾，中国体制的基本逻辑是权本位，而且这么多年来，政治体制改革的必要性只是一被六四屠杀大幅度打断，二被经济增长蒙了眼而已。
- 来回顾一下《墓碑》里的说法，虽然这个偏题就更远了，法国当年的问题没这么现代：
>p23-24 但是，由於政治體制依舊，經濟和社會的巨大變化更加劇了上層建築和經濟基礎的矛盾。這種矛盾最重要的表現是，經濟改革的成果分享和成本支付錯置。即支付改革成本最多的階層享受成果最少，甚至成為弱勢群體；支付改革成本少的階層享受成果最多，從而成為強勢群體（或稱為既得利益集團）。市場經濟的唯利是圖和極權政治的權力不受監督，二者的弊端結合在一起，不斷製造出社會不公正，加劇着底層群眾的不滿。
回到法国大革命，以上情况甚至还有更糟糕的一面，那就是国库没钱，但谁都不信。在大革命以前的几乎整整一个世纪，法国都在靠着借债南征北战。战争状况实际上是不由得国王不加税的，然而国家一方面越飘摇越需要撑出一个富富有余的样子来继续以贷养债，一方面国民永远都觉得自己税负过高，任何加税的努力都会招致疯狂的怨怼——和问责压力。
~ If all had been well in 1781, people later asked, what had gone wrong since, and who was responsible? (p.p. 27) ~
4. Public opinion
虽然上面几乎每一段都在说比上一段更糟糕的事——连年征战，财政危机，君主专制，寄生阶层锁死社会财富，政府在民间信用危机——但是接下来还有更糟的。国家治理本来就是及其复杂的事，哪怕是运行良好的现代宪政共和制度，也远不可能臻于完美，而对于以上大坑全都掉进去的国家来说，任何小失误都会被无限放大，然而局势越是血崩，出错的概率自然也会越高。
自上而下的改革需要资源，需要民众的信心、信任和配合，需要高超的决策，需要对利益集团内部开刀的决心和能力，需要转圜容错的空间。但是心被伤尽的国民一步不退，既得利益集团也一步不退，矛盾越尖锐越需要改革，矛盾越尖锐越不可能有改革。
>p28 In the 18th century these expectations were reinforced by the widespread conviction that since nature herself (as Isaac Newton had shown) worked by invariable laws and not divine caprice, human affairs should also be conducted so far as was possible according to fixed and regular principles, rooted in rationality, in which the scope for arbitrariness was reduced to a minimum.
18世纪同时也是科学革命（Scientific revolution，前承文艺复兴，后启工业革命）余波未了的世纪，欧洲人手握理性和科学这两个好东西，相信着整个世界都是依照机械稳定的规则运转的，王政也应如此。因此再叠加没有国民相信财政面临危机的背景，1770年一系列为了避免破产而进行的努力被视为了独裁者行径。
>p33 The virtues of active cooperation between kings and their subjects had long been displayed across the Channel. Ever since the 1720s writers like Montesquieu and Voltaire had extolled the enabling freedoms of British liberty, toleration, and parliamentary government. British success in mid-century wars had shown that the system, still suspect to many for its dangerous volatility, was also formidably efficient.
相比于法国的混乱，海峡对面，英国的光荣革命（1688）已经走过了近一个世纪，证明了自己的稳定与效率，他们的存在本身就成了对他们理念的最好宣扬——无代表，不纳税。加上前面提的议会（estates），这种能让国民保持清醒政治意识并且能够聚集和领导民情民怨的机构一直存在（始终被控制在相对无力的状态），国民的思维市场非常活跃。
~ No taxation without representation. (P33) ~
>p32-33 Another indication of expanding demand for the printed word was the growth in the number of government censors to whom all substantial writings for the public had to be submitted; and the increasing amount of time and energy devoted by customs officials to blocking imports of subversive pornographic, blasphemous, or, as it was increasingly called, ‘philosophical’ literature. After a period in mid-century when ministers despaired of stemming the flood, and turned a blind eye to most of it, under Louis XVI the government redoubled its efforts to control what reached the reading public. But the market was too strong, and as much effort was soon being devoted to influencing what was reported and discussed as to preventing its appearance. Louis XIV had told his subjects what to do, and what to think. Under Louis XVI, it was recognized that they had to be persuaded.
专制弊病的日渐外显和被战争拖垮的财政改革，使得人们连对法国政体的根本信心、对法定货币的信心、对不挨饿的基本保障的信心——都失去了。就连教会也僵化腐败，不再提供精神慰藉。
但教会培养出的识字人口却让“新闻报刊”这一新生事物的传播日益活跃和难以控制——民众不再是被绝对君主拖着走的羔羊了，有了媒体，公众舆论的效用就变得越来越不可忽视。
摘自《冰点故事》，关于90年代一个报刊专栏的故事，其中关于中国1990s的纸媒市场的判断：
>p240，243 本报（1990s的中青报）是一份全国发行的、综合性的大报。
这类报纸，在世界大国都普遍存在，通常不超过10份。其主要特点是发行量较大；承担一个国家主流社会价值观的传播；承担保障公众对国家大事的知情权和辩论权的宪法使命；是社会正义与良知的重要代言人；在良性运作的前提下，是社会保持稳定与安全的"限压阀"和"预警器"；通常，这类报纸无论在对事件的报道或解释上，还是在对舆论的影响上，都较一般媒介有更大的、公认的权威性。
……
"舆论监督"作为一种媒介产品，因其稀缺，将是当前和今后很长一段时期内的"卖方市场"。你可能只做了一点点，但在受众那里，社会影响却会不成比例地放大。这是目前"性能价格比"最佳的媒介产品，却只有寥寥一两家全国性媒介独享其利，我们干吗拱手出让?
5. The ‘Pre-Revolution‘
事已至此，路易十六在最后一次的改革尝试中蒸发了自己所有的财政余地和政治威望，权力真空被一下撕开。王室宣告破产，所有人对所有人的信任都宣告破产，他们选择了把目光一致投向一个古老的代议机构，三级议会（Estates-General）。
>p36-37 The convocation of a national representative assembly meant the end of absolute monarchy. It had finally succumbed to institutional and cultural paralysis. Its plans for reform fell with it. Nobody knew what the Estates-General would do, or even how it would be made up or chosen. There was a complete vacuum of power. The French Revolution was the process by which this vacuum was filled.
Sooner or later, no doubt, absolute monarchy was doomed. Its ambitions outran the resources on which it could draw. But hardly anybody foresaw the events, or the moment, which brought its collapse. Historians are instinctively reluctant to invoke chance, or accidents, in bringing about great events, but in this case they played a crucial part. The chance of monarchical succession had brought an irresolute king to the throne. Calonne’s strongest supporter, the foreign secretary Vergennes, died just before the Assembly of Notables opened. And if Frederick the Great had not died in 1786, the Prussian invasion of the Dutch Republic, which exposed France’s international impotence, might not have come about. Even the weather was hugely influential in what happened next.
~ 全国性代表大会的召开意味着君主专制的终结。君主专制最终屈服于制度和文化的瘫痪。其改革计划也随之失败。没有人知道三级会议会做什么，甚至不知道三级会议会如何组成或选出。权力完全真空。法国大革命就是填补这一真空的过程。（P36）~
-----
原书信息：
Doyle, William, The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edn, Very Short Introductions (Oxford, 2019; online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 Nov. 2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780198840077.001.0001
墓碑——中國六十年代大饑荒紀實/楊繼繩.—香港：天地圖書有限公司，第四版，2008.11。ISBN 978-988-211908-6
冰点故事/李大同著.—桂林：广西师范大学出版社，2005.11。ISBN 7-5633-5699-1
评论
发表评论