“福利国家”是如何养成的？

The Beveridge Report, widely regarded as the founding document of Britain’s welfare state, was released 70 years ago this week. The document had been commissioned 18 months earlier but the timing of its publication was fortuitous. In late 1942, the American navy halted Japanese expansion in the Pacific, the British army defeated Rommel in north Africa and Russian troops were encircling the German forces at Stalingrad. While the war would last another two-and-a-half years, its outcome was becoming daily more clear.

70年前的这一周，《贝弗里奇报告》(Beveridge Report)发表。人们普遍认为，那份报告奠定了英国“福利国家的基矗那份报告是在18个月之前委托撰写的，但发表的时机颇为幸运。1942年后期，美国海军在太平洋成功遏制了日军的扩张，英国军队在北非击败了隆美尔(Rommel)，而苏军在斯大林格勒包围了德军。尽管当时距离二战结束还有两年半的时间，但战争的结局已日趋清晰。

The report was an immediate best seller. Arthur Greenwood, the Labour minister responsible, told the House of Commons that “no document within living memory has made such a powerful impression, or stirred such hopes, as the Beveridge Report. The Treasury, inevitably, opposed it, and Winston Churchill and many other Conservatives expressed reservations. But public opinion forced the wartime coalition government to accept its recommendations.

《贝弗里奇报告》发表后马上引起轰动。负责该报告的工党部长级官员阿瑟·格林伍德(Arthur Greenwood)向下议院(House of Commons)表示，“在今人的记忆中，从没有一份文件像《贝弗里奇报告》这样，引起了如此大的反响，或如此大的期许。英国财政部(Treasury)意料之中地表示反对，温斯顿·丘吉尔(Winston Churchill)等许多保守党人也表示抱有保留意见。但迫于民意，当时的英国联合政府采纳了报告中的建议。

And so William Beveridge became an iconic figure. For many on the right, he was a utopian who bears substantial responsibility for Britain’s postwar economic decline. For many on the left, subsequent failures of social policy are largely attributable to the failure of successive governments to implement Beveridge’s vision. Neither portrait has much basis in fact.

威廉·贝弗里奇(William Beveridge)由此成为一个标志性人物。对许多右翼人士而言，他是个乌托邦主义者，对英国战后的经济下坡路负有巨大责任。对许多左翼人士而言，英国社会政策后来的诸多失败，很大程度上都是因为历届政府未能实施贝弗里奇的愿景。这两派的观点都没有很多事实根据。

Beveridge believed in social insurance, a concept created in Bismarckian Germany and reinvented in the US as the “single payer model. Benefits should be funded through actuarially calculated contributions, but premiums and claims are managed through a single state-sponsored pool.

贝弗里奇相信社会保险，这个概念诞生于俾斯麦(Bismarckian)时代的德国，在美国以“单一保险方付款人(single payer)制度的形式再现。福利的资金来源应该是经过精算师计算的缴费，但保费和理赔通过一个政府出资的单一资金池进行管理。

Beveridge explained that “benefit in return for contributions, rather than free allowances from the state, is what the people of Britain desire. His knowledge of “what the people of Britain desire had presumably been acquired during his public school education and subsequent career as permanent secretary of the Ministry of Food, director of the London School of Economics and master of University College, Oxford.

贝弗里奇这样解释自己的理论：“英国民众希望的是以缴费换取福利保障，而不是从政府免费获得津贴。贝弗里奇对“英国民众希望（什么）的理解，想必来自他本人的经历——在私立学校接受教育、后来先后担任食品部(Ministry of Food)常务次官、伦敦政治经济学院(London School of Economics)院长和牛津大学(Oxford)大学学院(University College)院长。

But, to be fair, Beveridge went on to explain that “this desire is shown both by the established popularity of compulsory insurance and by the phenomenal growth of voluntary insurance against sickness, against death and for endowment, and most recently for hospital treatment. It is shown in another way by the strength of popular objection to any kind of means test. This objection springs not so much from a desire to get everything for nothing, as from resentment at a provision which appears to penalise what people have come to regard as the duty and pleasure of thrift. Management of one’s income is an essential element of a citizen’s freedom. You would win applause for these sentiments at a Tea Party rally.

不过，公平地看，贝弗里奇接着解释说，“强制保险一直受到民众欢迎，而疾病险、死亡险、养老保险以及最近的住院治疗险的自愿投保增长迅速，两者都显示出民众的这种愿望。民众强烈反对任何形式的经济情况调查，也显示了这一点。这种反对并不是因为人们想要不劳而获，而是因为他们厌恶这种测试隐含的逻辑——它似乎是在惩罚节俭，而他们已把节俭看成一种责任和乐趣。能够管理自己的收入，是公民自由的重要元素。如果你在茶党(Tea Party)集会上宣扬这样的观点，一定会赢得欢呼。

What Beveridge proposed looks mean today. The benefit level suggested for a couple was 32 shillings a week (probably about ￡70 at today’s prices). This was a carefully calculated subsistence income, which was not intended to rise other (perhaps) than with inflation. The sick and unemployed would acquire benefit through insurance contributions and the elderly would gradually acquire a similar entitlement over their working lifetimes.

贝弗里奇的建议在今天看来有些吝啬。根据他的建议，一对夫妇一周享有的福利保障水平为32先令（按照如今的物价相当于约70英镑）。这个数字是经过精心计算的、维持基本生存所需的收入水平，按贝弗里奇的设想，唯一可能导致这一数字调升的理由就是通货膨胀。通过缴纳保险，公民在生病和失业时能获得保障，老年人在退休前缴纳保险、在退休后也会获得类似权益。

Needless to say, this is not what happened. Pensions were introduced immediately after the war, at levels Beveridge had anticipated would be attained in 1967 and increased regularly and substantially. These pensions were paid for, as usual, by contributions from those of working age backed by the promise that pensions would be more generous still in future. Means-tested benefits were retained, and increased with earnings, so that their levels consistently exceeded those of Beveridge’s contributory benefits.

不用说，事实并没有按照贝弗里奇设想的发展。二战结束后，英国马上建立了养老体系，养老金水平为贝弗里奇设想的1967年才会达到的水平，并在后来得到经常而大幅的上调。退休人员的养老金按照惯例由正在工作的劳动者承担，政府承诺后者，他们退休时的养老金会更加丰厚。需要经济情况调查的福利得到保留，而且随着收入增加，因此，这些福利的水平始终超出贝弗里奇设想的、基于缴费金额的保障水平。

Another strand of thought influenced the postwar welfare settlement. Franklin Roosevelt, with Churchill, set out allied war aims in the Atlantic Charter and Eleanor, Roosevelt’s wife, drew inspiration from this to press for what subsequently became the UN Declaration of Human Rights. That recital states that: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and his family including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood.

影响战后福利方案制定的还有另一条思路。富兰克林·罗斯福(Franklin Roosevelt)与丘吉尔在《大西洋宪章》(Atlantic Charter)中确定了战后的一些共同目标。罗斯福的夫人埃莉诺(Eleanor)从中得到启发，推动订立后来的联合国《世界人权宣言》(Universal Declaration of Human Rights)。宣言中说：“人人有权享受为维持他本人和家属的健康和福利所需的生活水准，包括食物、衣着、住房、医疗和必要的社会服务；在遭到失业、疾并残废、守寡、衰老或在其他不能控制的情况下丧失谋生能力时，有权享受保障。

Social policy would, in the long run, owe far more to Eleanor Roosevelt’s claim that “everyone has the right to a standard of living than to Beveridge’s assertion that “management of one’s income is an essential element of a citizen’s freedom.

从长远来看，埃莉诺·罗斯福的那句“人人有权享受一定的生活水准对社会政策的影响，远远大于贝弗里奇的那句“能够管理自己的收入，是公民自由的重要元素。