Whatever their political party, American leaders have generally subscribed to one of two competing economic philosophies. One is a small-government Jeffersonian perspective that abhors bigness and holds that prosperity flows from competition among independent businessmen, farmers and other producers. The other is a Hamiltonian agenda that believes a large, powerful country needs large, powerful organizations. The most important of those organizations is the federal government, which serves as a crucial partner to private enterprise, building roads and schools, guaranteeing loans and financing scientific research in ways that individual businesses would not.

美国领导人无论属于何种政治党派，一般只会追随两种相互对立的经济学派。一种是主张小政府的杰弗逊流派，该派痛恨大规模，认为繁荣来自独立的商人、农民与其他生产者之间的竞争。另一种是汉密尔顿流派，坚信一个强大的国家需要强大的组织机构。机构中最为重要的是联邦政府，是私营企业至关重要的合作伙伴，修建公路与学校、提供贷款，资助科研，所采取的方式个体企业难以企及。

Today, of course, Republicans are the Jeffersonians and Democrats are the Hamiltonians. But it hasn’t always been so. The Jeffersonian line includes Andrew Jackson, the leaders of the Confederacy, William Jennings Bryan, Louis Brandeis, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. The Hamiltonian line includes George Washington, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, both Roosevelts and Dwight Eisenhower.

当然，到了今天，共和党人就是杰弗逊派，民主党人则是汉密尔顿派。但也并非总是如此。属于杰弗逊流派的就有安德鲁·杰克逊(Andrew Jackson)、南部邦联各领导、威廉·詹宁斯·布赖恩(William Jennings Bryan)、路易斯·布兰代斯(Louis Brandeis)、巴里·戈德华特(Barry Goldwater)与里根(Ronald Reagan)。属于汉密尔顿流派的也有乔治·华盛顿(George Washington)、亨利·克莱(Henry Clay)、林肯(Abraham Lincoln)、威廉·麦金利(William McKinley)，老、小罗斯福(西奥多·罗斯福、富兰克林·罗斯福)与艾森豪威尔(Dwight Eisenhower)。

Michael Lind’s “Land of Promise” uses this divide to offer an ambitious economic history of the United States. The book is rich with details, more than a few of them surprising, and its subject is central to what is arguably the single most important question facing the country today: How can our economy grow more quickly, more sustainably and more equitably than it has been growing, both to maintain the United States’ position as the world’s pre-eminent power and to improve the lives of its citizens?

迈克尔·林德(Michael Lind)的《希望的乐土》(Land of Promise)以此作为分界线，写出一部宏阔的美国经济史。该书史料丰富，其中不少令人惊喜，而其主题则对可谓美国今日面对的唯一至关重要的问题影响重大：我们的经济怎样才能更快、更持续与更公平地发展，从而保持美国作为世界强国的地位并改善本国国民的生活?

Lind, a founder of the New America Foundation in Washington and the author of several political histories, acknowl­edges from the beginning that his thesis will make some readers uncomfortable. “In the spirit of philosophical bipartisanship, it would be pleasant to conclude that each of these traditions of political economy has made its own valuable contribution to the success of the American economy and that the vector created by these opposing forces has been more beneficial than the complete victory of either would have been,” he writes.

林德是华盛顿新美基金会的创始人，著有多部政治史书籍，在本书中一开始他便坦承，自己的论点会使一些读者不太舒服。“本着哲学两派的精神，这些政治经济学流派对美国经济的成功各自做出了有价值的贡献，相互对立的作用力所产生的动力比任何一方的完胜更为有利，做出如此结论自然皆大欢喜，”他在书中写道。

“But that would not be true,” he continues. “What is good about the American economy is largely the result of the Hamiltonian developmental tradition, and what is bad about it is largely the result of the Jeffersonian producerist school.”

“但其实不是这样，”他接着写道。“美国经济的优点，主要缘于汉密尔顿一派的发展观，而其缺点则大多源自杰弗逊一派的生产观。”

Hamiltonian development built the Erie Canal, the transcontinental railroad, the land-grant universities and the Interstate highway system. In the process, the United States became a giant, interconnected market, a place where companies like Standard Oil, General Motors, John Deere and Sears Roebuck could thrive. The government — and the American military in particular — also played the most important role in financing innovation at its early stages. The industries that produced the jet engine, the radio (and, by extension, the television), radar, penicillin, synthetic rubber and semiconductors all stemmed from ­government-financed research or procurement. The Defense Department literally built the Internet.

汉密尔顿发展观修建了伊利运河(Erie Canal)、横穿大陆的铁路、政府无偿赠地的大学和州际公路系统。在此过程中，美国成为一个巨大的、相互连接的市场，一个诸如美孚(Standard Oil)、通用汽车(General Motors)、强鹿(John Deere)与西尔斯-罗巴克公司(Sears Roebuck)等公司得以繁荣发展的地方。美国政府——尤其是美国军方——在发展的早期，在资助创新方面也发挥了至为重要的作用。那些生产出喷气发动机、收音机(以及后来的电视机)、雷达、青霉素、合成橡胶与半导体的行业，均源自政府资助的研究或采购。而互联网根本就是国防部建的。

The United States is like “a gigantic boiler,” Sir Edward Grey, a British foreign secretary during World War I, said, according to Winston Churchill. “Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate.” Lind’s aim is to make Sir Edward’s point in the active voice: the government has often lighted the flame, and big business has often generated the power.

据丘吉尔的说法，“一战”时期的英国外交大臣爱德华·格雷爵士(Sir Edward Grey)曾经说过，美国就像“一个巨大的锅炉”，“一旦锅炉生了火，它所产生的能量就无限了。”林德的目的在于用主动语态表达爱德华爵士的观点：政府通常点火，而大型企业则常常产生能量。

And Lind has a strong case to make. He cleverly notes that Jeffersonians themselves often have a change of heart when they find themselves running the country and responsible for its well-being. As president, Jefferson altered his position on federal support for canals, roads and manufacturers. His successor, James Madison, signed a bill creating a national bank, having previously denounced the idea. The leaders of the Confederacy, after decrying centralized power, realized they needed an economic machine to finance a war and started “a crash program of state-guided industrialization from above that was more Hamiltonian than Hamilton,” Lind writes. Modern Jeffersonians, like Reagan and George W. Bush, have campaigned on spending cuts, only to expand government while in office.

而林德也有充分的理由为自己辩护。他敏锐地指出，杰弗逊派自己在治理国家并为国家谋福祉时，常常也会改变态度。身为总统，杰弗逊在联邦对运河、公路与生产厂商的支持上，改变了自己的立场。杰弗逊的继任，詹姆士·麦迪逊(James Madison)，签署了一项建立一家国家银行的法案，而他此前却是痛斥这种设想。南部邦联各领导，在公开反对中央集权之后，意识到他们需要一台经济的机器以支撑一场战争，并开始了“一个自上而下政府引导的工业化速成项目，这种做法比汉密尔顿还要有过之而无不及”，林德写道。现代的杰弗逊一派，如里根与乔治·W·布什，在任期间，都曾主张削减开支，意在扩张政府的范围。

For all its logical rigor, however, the book’s thesis does suffer from one basic flaw. Lind never quite explains how the United States has ended up as the richest large country in the world, with per capita income about 20 percent higher than Sweden’s or Canada’s, almost 30 percent higher than Germany’s and almost 500 percent higher than China’s. If anything, other countries have pursued more Hamiltonian policies in many ways than the United States, without quite the same success.

然而，该书尽管逻辑严密，但其主题却有一个基本的缺陷。林德从未解释清楚美国何以成为世界上最富有的国家，人均收入比瑞典或加拿大高出20%，比德国高出将近30%，而比中国高出将近500%。说起来，其他国家在许多方面，实行的政策比美国更具汉密尔顿一派的特征，却未取得同样的成功。

What, then, can explain American economic exceptionalism? Education plays an important role (and receives only sporadic mention in the book). This country long had the most educated, skilled work force in the world, which, as other economic histories have persuasively shown, helped American workers to be among the best paid.

那么，什么才能解释美国经济的独树一帜呢?教育起了一个重要的作用(但在书中却只偶尔提到)。美国在世界上曾经拥有教育程度最高、技能最为熟练的劳动力，这一点，正如多种经济史令人信服地所证明的，使得美国工人收入最好。

Beyond education, the United States also has a culture that is arguably different from that of any other power — more individualistic, more risk-taking, more comfortable with the workings of the market. If you were looking for a name for this culture, you might choose Jeffersonian.

教育之外，美国还有可谓不同于其他任何一个强国的文化——更具个人主义倾向，更富冒险精神，更愿意接受市场规律。如果你要为这个文化找一个名字，或许你会选择杰弗逊(Jeffersonian)。