CHARLIE ROSE: Joseph Stiglitz is here. He served as one of President Clinton’s top advisors and as chief economist at the World Bank. Today, he’s advising the Greek government as it faces a debt crisis that has rattled the European markets. Earlier in his career he was part of a team that won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001.

His new book is called “Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.” In this he writes that he fears the country faces a far longer and deeper recession with a financial system that is more vulnerable to another crisis.

Give me a sense of where you think we are.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, we’ve been brought back from the brink, but we’re not out of the woods. And let me tell you why I think we are still in a — you might say a precarious position.

While growth is starting to resume, it’s not likely to be sustained. It’s likely to get much weaker. But the core problems are two. First, a very high level of unemployment. More than one out of six Americans would like a full-time job and can’t get it. This includes people who have jobs but are working part time, can’t get a real job.

And 40 percent, more than 40 percent of those who are unemployed today are long-term unemployed, unemployed for more than six months. That’s so important because the longer you’re unemployed, you drain your cash reserves.

And particularly for young people, a period of should be building up skills, those skills, their training becomes weakened. And we know from previous downturns in the United States and elsewhere that young people who have experienced, or other people who’ve experience protracted periods of unemployment are much harder to bring back into the labor force. And when they do, their wages are markedly lower.

And then there’s the problem with the foreclosure, which is what started the crisis in the first place. The pace of foreclosures is expected to be higher in 2010 than in 2008 and ‘09. We’ve done nothing about the — almost nothing about the underwater mortgages where they owe more money than —

CHARLIE ROSE: Than the house is worth.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: — than the house is worth. And more than 25 percent of those with mortgages are now underwater.

Now, there’s some additional problems that we’re about to face. Commercial real estate, about a half trillion dollars commercial real estate has to be rolled over.

CHARLIE ROSE: We have loans that are coming due, and they’ve got to —

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: — be rolled over somehow. Many of those are underwater. Many of those are securitized, and those are very difficult to roll over.

In the old days where you had conventional banking, the banks might have rolled them over holding their nose and closing their eyes in the view that — with the view that maybe with luck somewhere down the road things will get better.

Bank examiners, supervisors, are less willing to engage in what’s called forbearance because they’ve been very criticized for having not done their job in the last five years. And with securitization, it’s almost impossible to roll over these underwater mortgages.

The first of these problems came to the fore in the bankruptcy of Cifizen. And that was a multiple dollar failure.

CHARLIE ROSE: By one of the most reputable land development and real estate firms in the city of New York, and then when it came time to pay the loan, they couldn’t do it.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And that’s symptomatic of what we’re about to see over and over again.

Two more problems, if you’re not feeling bad enough. The states have a shortfall of about

CHARLIE ROSE: The states?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: The states — of $200 billion a year in revenues, down from what it would normally be because of the recession. And the states — many of the states depend very heavily on property taxes. The states have balanced budget frameworks, which means that when the revenues go down, they either have to cut expenditures or raise taxes. That’s equivalent to a negative stimulus.

And so far the federal government’s been picking up about a third of that gap, but with the stimulus coming to an end in 2011, the question is, what will happen.

I just came back from California where you see the future, in a way — teachers, university professors on furlough two days a month on the way to being laid off. And, you know, a whole set of problems in a number of other states.

So these are among the sort of clouds hanging on the horizon —

CHARLIE ROSE: And so therefore you believe the consequences of all these things are?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That the economy will not be able to sustain the growth that we’ve seen in the last two quarters. There will be a marked slowdown, possibly into actually a double dip, which is another recession.

But the bottom line is for what most people care about, jobs, growth will be too slow to provide new jobs for the new entrants in the labor force, and certainly too slow reduce the unemployment from the very high level that it is.

So it’s going to be a lot of stress both in the labor market and the housing market unless we do something more than we’ve been doing.

CHARLIE ROSE: And what would that be?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, that comes to the view, I think we need a second stimulus. We need a large second stimulus. A lot of deficit hawks are around there saying we can’t afford it. And I would say we can’t afford not to do it. And, you know —

CHARLIE ROSE: You have to put people to work first and then you can worry about the deficit.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Moreover, it was the shortsightedness of the banks that got us into this trouble. We ought to be looking not at the deficit but the long-term debt.

If we take — if a large fraction of this money goes into investments — education, technology, infrastructure — and we under-invested in the all these areas for years, all we need is a return of about five percent or six percent, and then we get more tax revenue from the growth in the short run, we get more tax revenue from the growth in the long run from these productive investments, and our long-term national debt will be lower as a result of running a deficit today.

And that’s what we should be focusing on.

CHARLIE ROSE: What size stimulus are you talking about?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, the way I like to think about it is the size ought to be appropriate for the depth of the downturn. So, for instance, one of the key pieces of what I’ve been calling for is making up for the shortfall in revenues of the states.

So right now that shortfall is about $200 billion. If our economy remains weak, we’re going to have to make up for that. If the economy recovers, then the amount of money we have to put in would be that much less.

And if I were an optimist I would say it’s going to recover, but I don’t know, and I’m a little bit of a pessimist seeing the kinds of problems that we face.

CHARLIE ROSE: Some argue that we should have had a much larger stimulus — Paul Krugman for example. You’re in the same camp.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right. That’s one of the points I said in “Freefall.” And even the president’s chairman of the council of economic advisors is said to have —

CHARLIE ROSE: Christina Romer.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Christina Romer said we needed $1.2 trillion. And what we’ve seen since then has been very clear they were optimistic about where we were going.

And it’s a really important point here. The stimulus has worked. A lot of people have looked and said unemployment has gone up and that proves the stimulus hasn’t worked. No, the stimulus worked. But if we hadn’t had the stimulus we would have had, say, 12 percent unemployment instead of 10 percent.

CHARLIE ROSE: OK, but then they argue you could have designed a better stimulus.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right. Again, something I say in my book. Clearly we could have done it. The big mistake we made was the tax cut. We knew from the experiment we did in February, 2008, the Bush tax cut, with the overhang of debt and with the uncertainty in the job market people would save a large fraction.

It makes them feel good, it’s important for their sense of well-being, but the nature of a stimulus is it has to stimulate. That means you have to have spending. And so a very large fraction of Americans have saved a significant part of that stimulus.

The other part that I think was a mistake was we didn’t give enough aid to the states in the way I described. And so you have this picture across the United States while the government — the federal government is putting money in, they’re contracting.

CHARLIE ROSE: Here’s what I don’t understand. Larry Summers early on — and I realize you and Larry have had —

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Discussions.

(LAUGHTER)

CHARLIE ROSE: Discussions, yes, have had intense discussions — said early on “timely, temporary, targeted” for stimulus. So that idea was out there. Were these targeted?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: They were reasonably targeted, but not as targeted as they should have been.

CHARLIE ROSE: OK. You would have spent more money on jobs that would really train people for the future?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Exactly. And — that’s a long-run vision — and a recognition of the problem of the states that I talked about. And that is a way of putting money into the banks of the economy very quickly without creating a new bureaucracy because if you don’t put the money there they have to lay off workers.

And in a recession is exactly time that there’s so many demands. And people — young people who can’t get a job want a place in a university. They want to be able to at least build up their skills.

CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And the universities are contracting. It just doesn’t make any sense.

CHARLIE ROSE: I hear time and time again that the president made a mistake when he said we’re going to engage with the stimulus program and in other programs — education, climate change, and health care, that he should have said the issue is jobs, jobs, jobs. Do you buy that argument?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Not really, because the problem wasn’t lack of focus. The problem was a program that was not as strong as it should have been.

CHARLIE ROSE: Because of congress?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: One interpretation was a judgment about political feasibility. And my view on that was that if you compromise too much early and it turns out that you need more money later on, it would be difficult for you to accomplish what you really wanted. And that’s exactly the situation we’re now in, because it is now clear that we need a second stimulus, and many people are saying the stimulus didn’t work. So that was a political judgment that I think may have been flawed.

The second argument for why not enough was done in the area of mortgages and the banks, or not the right thing done in the area of mortgages and banks, was the influence of the financial sector that had gotten us into the trouble in the first place.

CHARLIE ROSE: You’re talking about the TARP program and the bank bailouts and the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yes, and in particular — for instance, one of the — a lot of people said why don’t you give more money to homeowners so that they can restructure their mortgages. Let’s have trickle-up economics.

CHARLIE ROSE: My impression is that banks are modifying mortgages. Am I completely wrong about that?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Very little.

CHARLIE ROSE: So it’s a good idea — they claim they’re doing it, but they’re not doing it enough?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And there’s one category which is a very important, the most important category where it’s almost not happening at all, and that’s the underwater mortgages. The one in four mortgages where they owe more money —

CHARLIE ROSE: Than the house is worth. What should be done about that?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, what I advocate is what I call a “homeowners’ chapter 11.” And chapter 11 is a provision of our bankruptcy code that allows a restructuring of debt that says that if you owe more money than the company is worth, you convert bondholders into shareholders, and the shareholders get wiped out.

CHARLIE ROSE: Is your voice heard in the White House because of the tension that has existed in your relationship with Larry Summers?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I don’t think that’s the issue at all. I think there was —

CHARLIE ROSE: What’s the issue?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: The issue is the influence of the financial markets, of the people who at first succeed in getting deregulation.

CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Then succeed in getting —

CHARLIE ROSE: OK, but let’s talk about it specifically. The people — are you talking about Larry Summers now who, because of his influence has — within the treasury with Bob Rubin — were able to get deregulation, were able to get Glass-Steagall repealed? Is that what we’re talking about?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s part of what we’re talking about. But it’s more pervasive than that, because it’s not only that they succeeded in getting this deregulation, you know, preventing regulation of the derivative, which the derivatives are what led to the problem at AIG, which cost American taxpayers so much money.

CHARLIE ROSE: And who was the woman that was surging them and trying to warn them?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Bjorn (ph), and she had said before the long-term capital management debacle —

CHARLIE ROSE: This was a debacle a number of years earlier.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That was back in 1998. The failure of one firm threatened to bring down the whole global financial market.

CHARLIE ROSE: And that was early warning.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That was an early warning. She said it before. She said after that, how can you doubt that? And yet they succeeded in not only not having the regulation but passing a law saying you could not regulate it.

CHARLIE ROSE: You have been much tougher than you are being here. You have said, for example, that Larry Summers and the Obama team are in the pockets of the banks and they need new faces who have no vested interest in the past.

You’re basically saying they came with a mindset to the Obama administration that was sort of — we want to make sure we take care of Wall Street so that when the time came and the crunch came and the emergency came they were not prepared for the kind of solutions that you believed were the right solution for the right moment.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right. It’s a mindset —

CHARLIE ROSE: What’s the mindset?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it’s the mindset that began with saying markets always work.

CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And that Adam Smith’s idea that the invisible hand, the pursuit of self-interests would lead —

CHARLIE ROSE: So you’re saying there was no difference in their attitude about market than was, say, Alan Greenspan?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right. There was a picture on “Time” that described the three of them as “The Committee to Save the World.” And the fact is they approached the problems of regulation and managing the monetary system in a very —

CHARLIE ROSE: Are we talking about Summers, Rubin, and Greenspan, or are we talking about whom?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, that group, but there were others.

One of the things I think is important in this area is not just to focus on individuals but to focus on ideas, and these ideas were very pervasive.

One of my concerns has been not only did they bring in, in some sense, the wrong mindset but because they were so closely affiliated with the mistakes of the past, it would be very difficult to get confidence.

CHARLIE ROSE: With great respect for a Nobel laureate, some might argue that Joe Stiglitz is a little bit outside and he’s screaming a bit because those guys were brought inside and he wasn’t.

And he had a Nobel Prize, experience at the World Bank, and had written a number of books and was, you know, a distinguished professor. So therefore he had all the credentials to be on the inside and he wasn’t, and they were. So now he’s saying those guys had a mindset that prevented them from fixing the problem.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, I really didn’t want to go inside. I had been through that experience. It was a very exciting time.

CHARLIE ROSE: For Clinton.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Under President Clinton. It was a very exciting time.

CHARLIE ROSE: With Bob Rubin.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: We often differed. I opposed the repeal of Glass-Steagall, he supported it.

But what has disturbed me is that others like Paul Volcker have been very — who share many of the same views, have been very — their views have been very reluctant to be heard.

CHARLIE ROSE: But they are heard now.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: They are being heard, and that’s what I feel much better about.

CHARLIE ROSE: But being heard on one question, the big question of financial reform and the need for new kinds of regulation.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right. And even that is not as much as I would — I think is necessary.

CHARLIE ROSE: OK.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: We’re about a third of the way.

CHARLIE ROSE: What will be the two-thirds that are missing?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, for instance, Volcker has focused a great deal on making sure that the depository institutions, commercial banks, do not engage in proprietary trading, that they’re not too big to fail.

CHARLIE ROSE: That they don’t have hedge funds or private equity firms.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Exactly. I’ve also been concerned that you can have too big to fail institutions that are not deposit-taking institutions — investment banks, that once you separate the two, you can still —

CHARLIE ROSE: But he seems to be arguing to me and others that there’s no such thing as too big to fail if, in fact, you’re not a depository institution.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yes. And that’s where, I think, we differ.

CHARLIE ROSE: OK, that’s one place you differ.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And so, for instance, we wound up bailing out AIG and we bailed out —

CHARLIE ROSE: Should we have bailed out AIG or should we — what was the alternative?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: The alternative was to say let it go and if —

CHARLIE ROSE: What does “let it go” mean?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Let it go bankrupt.

CHARLIE ROSE: OK.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And if some parts of our financial institutions have problems, need money, like Goldman Sachs, then give them money — not give them money, lend then money in a way that will get back —

CHARLIE ROSE: In the same way they did with Citigroup? You lend them money for a piece of the equity, or just lend them money —

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: One of my criticisms is that when you give them money, you get back appropriate compensation. So the form would have been such as something like Warren Buffett. When he gave money to Goldman Sachs he got back warrants and preferred shares.

CHARLIE ROSE: And a 10 percent return.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And a very high return. And so we should have done just as well as Warren Buffett. Why can’t we negotiate terms — that was an arm’s length deal not affected by politics.

CHARLIE ROSE: So in other words, the United States government should have been a Warren Buffett negotiating the deals it made with commercial institutions, with financial institutions that were in trouble.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right. And other countries have done a better job in providing money to their banks and getting back value than the United States. So that’s what we should have done there.

Another area that we need to do something about is do more in breaking up the too big to fail banks. I think, you know, the notion that these too big to fail banks can be trusted in any way seems to be — you know, the one thing economists agree on is that incentives matter. And if you have an incentive to engage in excessive risk taking, you will.

And the question there is whether the failure of this institution engaging in financial activities would send significant ripples through the economy that anybody could say to us if you don’t save that institution it will have sufficient consequences through the financial system.

You know, there are other set of issues with General Motors for jobs —

CHARLIE ROSE: And how do you measure that?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, that’s not an easy question, but there are models that can look at what happens if you pull out one institution out of the financial web. One of the big advances in recent years in research, particularly the Bank of England, have been to look at these networks of financial interdependence. Some of my own research is actually focused on exactly that kind of question.

CHARLIE ROSE: I think government of the Bank of England, Mervin King — is that his name?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: Is in favor of breaking up the banks.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yes, he says, and I agree, if you’re too big to fail you’re too big to be.

(LAUGHTER)

CHARLIE ROSE: And you buy that.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I buy that.

CHARLIE ROSE: Universal banks is not by definition a bad idea, is it?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I think what you have to look at in the context of the American economy are the costs versus the benefits.

CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: There are some benefits, but what we’ve seen are the costs far outweigh those benefits.

An important point to remember is the services that they provide won’t disappear. They will be provided, but organized differently.

CHARLIE ROSE: And more efficiently.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And I think more efficiently.

And the point is right now we can’t — the big banks are effectively subsidized and they have a competitive advantage not based on greater efficiency, but the fact is that because everybody knows they’re too big to fail they can get capital at a lower interest rate, and that gives them a big advantage over every smaller institution.

CHARLIE ROSE: You believe that the American capitalist system should look much more like the European Scandinavian model, which is sometimes called “capitalism with a human face.”

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right.

CHARLIE ROSE: What do you mean?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: There are a couple of dimensions of this. One is we have to recognize that we need to get a balance between the market and the government. And the government plays an important role not just in restraining bad behavior but also promoting innovation. The Internet, which has transformed our society, was financed by —

CHARLIE ROSE: By the government.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: By the government.

CHARLIE ROSE: The Pentagon, in fact.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: The revolutions in biology that are extending our lives begin with basic research that is funded by the government. So that —

CHARLIE ROSE: And done at the university level and at NIH and wherever.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: So that gives you an important constructive role for government.

CHARLIE ROSE: But we already do that, don’t we?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: But part of the debate is the extent to which we do it. Part of the debate is the extent to which we — the role of the government in restraining the bad behavior, the regulation that we talked about in the financial sector.

So that’s part of our debate. And then the other part of the debate is the extent of social protections that you provide.

CHARLIE ROSE: The safety net.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: The safety net. And that —

CHARLIE ROSE: So therefore has France — being exhibit one — been better off in the economic crisis than we have because they had more influence of the state in their economy and had a firmer safety net?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yes, both France and Germany have — you know, they’ve been very badly hit, but on the other hand, the amount of suffering of the individuals has not been as bad.

I’ll give you one example. One of the things that we’re now — a number of places are beginning to imitate in the United States is where they put people into part-time work so that they share the work. They’ve recognized the system isn’t working well, and that rather than having, as the United States, one out of six Americans — one out of ten Americans who can’t get a job, what they’re doing is sharing the work more broadly.

CHARLIE ROSE: All right, let me just continue down this. You suggest that capitalism has some moral failings.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: An example, for instance, was in the financial market the —

CHARLIE ROSE: “Moral depravity of the financial sector,” I think, is the term you used.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yes. And the example I give is the discovery that was made a few years ago that there was money at the bottom of the pyramid and they did everything they could to move that money from the bottom of the pyramid to the top, including predatory lending, the credit card abuses.

The point I was making here was that, well, one of the criticisms — and I think a justified criticism — of the financial sector was that it didn’t manage risk-taking well. It didn’t allocate capital to where it was best used. But it went beyond that.

CHARLIE ROSE: But when you get to that point, that’s where people in the financial community come back, push back to you and others, and Paul Volcker as well.

They’re saying the kind of financial reform you’re talking about, too big to fail and all that was not the problem. The problem was leverage and risk and the capital requirements. If those had been enforced you wouldn’t have had the problem. And you’re not going to solve the problem, they argue, by some elimination of proprietary trading.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: There’s no single thing that is going to solve this kind of problem.

CHARLIE ROSE: Right, the potential of another crisis.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Of another crisis. I agree absolutely we have to do something about leverage. You have to do something about hidden leverage, which was part of what the credit default swaps were all about. So I agree with them on that.

But conflicts of interest are what caused problems. The conflicts of interest were en route of the Enron, World.com scandals.

CHARLIE ROSE: But that’s just fraud and corruption.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: But that fraud and corruption undermine confidence in the market economy and contribute, contribute — I don’t say — contribute to an economic downturn when it exists on the scale that it did in the United States.

CHARLIE ROSE: You don’t think globalization is such a great idea.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, actually what I said is globalization can be a very positive thing if it’s managed well.

CHARLIE ROSE: And so what is wrong about globalization as it exists today?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, let me give you one example. What we did when we talked about globalization is we talked about unfettered capital markets moving across borders with very little regulation. The result of that is that you can have a country with inadequate — a very small country with inadequate regulation putting in jeopardy savers, individuals all over the world.

Iceland is an example. So that’s an example where people in the U.K., people in the Netherlands suffered. And now it’s coming back, now people in Iceland are suffering from globalization. They were told let our banks — let your banks become global marketplaces, you’ll all benefit. What they’re seeing is they’re being asked to mortgage their future for generations to come.

They’re probably going to vote against it on Saturday, but that’s — that is an example of globalization that has not been managed well.

CHARLIE ROSE: You think Greece will be all right in the end?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yes. I think that Europe is going to come —

CHARLIE ROSE: To the rescue.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: — to the rescue. And let me make it clear. When you use the word “rescue,” the fact is that Greece with its debt to GDP income ratio of 120 percent is perfectly capable —

CHARLIE ROSE: Debt to GDP.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Debt to GDP — of make it’s — fulfilling its commitments. When you face a speculative attack and interest rates soar, then you have a problem. And I think Europe realizes that that’s what this is.

CHARLIE ROSE: If they don’t act it will spread to other places like Spain and Portugal and maybe even Italy.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Exactly. So what is at stake here is the integrity of the Euro and European Union, which is why I felt so confident that they would eventually come to the rescue.

CHARLIE ROSE: One of the reasons I like you so much is you have opinions and you have ideas, and they are interesting and controversial. You’re not thrilled by the World Bank or the IMF.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, the IMF has changed a little bit.

CHARLIE ROSE: So they’re more to your liking?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: They’ve reformed to a considerable degree.

CHARLIE ROSE: Meaning they’re not creating such tough standards to receive their money?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right. Or to put it the way I would put it —

(LAUGHTER)

CHARLIE ROSE: Which is a better way.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: In the East Asia crisis, they demanded what we call pro-cyclical policies that converted downturns into recessions, recessions into depressions. If you look at their programs more recently, most of them have been much less in that way. Some of them have actually been very, very helpful.

So I think that’s part of the change of — in the global debate, and that’s why many people in Greece say if Europe doesn’t come to itself, the IMF is not necessarily that bad of an alternative.

CHARLIE ROSE: You’re not thrilled by the dollar remaining the reserve currency of the world.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: No.

CHARLIE ROSE: That puts you and the president of France in the same boat.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: A dollar-based reserve system is not working. It’s fraying.

CHARLIE ROSE: And they’re going down to Brazil and doing some interesting things to sort of —

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And they’re very worried, and you can understand that, that with the buildup of the —

CHARLIE ROSE: Go ahead.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: With the buildup of the U.S. debt and the blowing up of the balance sheet of the Fed, they’re worried that the value of their huge holdings of U.S. dollars will be diminished in one way or another. So China, for instance, has $2.3 trillion of reserves.

CHARLIE ROSE: Two billion dollars a day.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And it is estimated somewhere between around two-thirds of that is probably in dollars, and they worry that the current system puts them at great risk.

So there’s a demand by the countries that hold large amounts of reserves to move to an alternative system. And other countries have expressed a view this way. They say in a 21st century, to have the currency of one country be the basis of a global financial system doesn’t make a lot of sense.

CHARLIE ROSE: You’d like to see a government bank.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I point out in the book that if you had taken that $700 billion that went into TARP and used just a fraction of that to create a new institution to provide money to, say, small or medium-size enterprises, we would have had a flow of new credit that is so essential to getting the American economy going again.

Instead we focused on the past. We focused on institutions that have proven themselves not having done an adequate job in allocating capital. They’re focusing on dealing with past mistakes.

And one of the basic lessons in economics is bygones should be bygones. And unfortunately it’s very hard to get existing institutions to do that. And that was just one — it was a way of thinking about what we might have done that would have —

CHARLIE ROSE: So it wasn’t so much a prescription for the future. It’s looking at the past and figuring out what might have been a better try go at solving the problem.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Exactly.

CHARLIE ROSE: But how about nationalization? Do you think we should have had more nationalization, as your Nobel colleague Paul Krugman suggested, even if it was temporary?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s not the word I would have used. I would have used the word “conservatorship.” I would have said playing by the rules of capitalism.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: The rules of capitalism say that if somebody owes more money than they can pay, a firm owes more money than it can pay, it goes into bankruptcy, which means the shareholders get wiped out, the bondholders become the new shareholders. That’s the rules of capitalism.

We suspended those rules. Now, in the case of banks, there’s a couple particular provisions. The first is that you don’t wait until the company’s absolutely bankrupt before you do something. You want to make sure that you’re not left holding the bag.

And secondly, the government has a special role because the government ensures the deposits. So if it goes belly up, the taxpayer, FDIC, winds up filling the hole.

And that gives it — those are the only differences between that and ordinary bankruptcy. So that’s what I wanted them to do. If they had done that, they would not have needed the huge amounts of taxpayer money.

CHARLIE ROSE: Do you think they’ll get some of it back?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Oh, they’ll get some of the money bank. But the numbers look like very clearly that there will be a significant shortfall, over $100 billion, and most of those calculations do not really provide — talk about appropriate compensation for what we call the time value of money, the risk that we bore.

And so when you say we got the money back, we should have gotten far more than the money back given the risk that we bore.

CHARLIE ROSE: You have an international reputation, are known well around the world, and with admiration. You also saw the kinds of factors coming together that created the crisis that we had to go through. Do you believe that if you had had power to go with your observation you would have been able to prevent the crisis?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I think we could have made sure that it was much less deep than it currently is. We might have been able to prevent it.

And why that’s so relevant to the current policy debate is that right now our financial sector is in some ways more dysfunctional than it was in 2007.

And so as I look at where we are unless, we make some very significant reforms in both the structure of the financial sector and the regulation of the financial sector, I think there is a significant risk that we will some time — five years, ten years — face another crisis of the kind that we’ve just been through.

CHARLIE ROSE: Joseph Stiglitz, won the Nobel Prize in economics. “Freefall: American, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.” Thank you. Pleasure to see you.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Thank you. Nice to see you.

CHARLIE ROSE: Back in a moment. Stay with us.

www.charlierose.com/view/content/10885

Content

Following up on his timely and well-received book, A Failure of Capitalism, Richard Posner steps back to take a longer view of the continuing crisis of democratic capitalism as the American and world economies crawl gradually back from the depths to which they had fallen in the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009.

By means of a lucid narrative of the crisis and a series of analytical chapters pinpointing critical issues of economic collapse and gradual recovery, Posner helps non-technical readers understand business-cycle and financial economics, and financial and governmental institutions, practices, and transactions, while maintaining a neutrality impossible for persons professionally committed to one theory or another. He calls for fresh thinking about the business cycle that would build on the original ideas of Keynes. Central to these ideas is that of uncertainty as opposed to risk. Risk can be quantified and measured. Uncertainty cannot, and in this lies the inherent instability of a capitalist economy.

As we emerge from the financial earthquake, a deficit aftershock rumbles. It is in reference to that potential aftershock, as well as to the government’s stumbling efforts at financial regulatory reform, that Posner raises the question of the adequacy of our democratic institutions to the economic challenges heightened by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis and the government’s energetic response to it have enormously increased the national debt at the same time that structural defects in the American political system may make it impossible to pay down the debt by any means other than inflation or devaluation.

Table of contents

Introduction

Part I: An Analytic Narrative of the Crisis

The Calm before the Storm: 2001–2006
To the Abyss: December 2007–September 2008
The Spectre of the Great Depression: October 2008–March 2009
Bottoming Out: Spring 2009–Autumn 2009
The Movement for Financial Regulatory Reform: June–December 2009
Depression and Aftershock: 2007–?

Part II: What Lessons Have We Learned from the Crisis?

The Fragility of Finance
Keynes Redux
The Economics of Uncertainty
The Crisis of Macroeconomics

Part III: The Way Forward

Reform You Can Believe In
America in aWorld Economy
Index

不知道是不是由于某些封面设计不佳的原因，塞先生才对封面变得苛刻起来。不过，丑陋的局面即将改变了，《卫报》报道，塞林格作品将以新的系列封面重印上市：

Before his death, JD Salinger’s publisher, Hamish Hamilton, worked with him to produce jackets for reissues of his books (originally planned for June, they are now due out next month). …

Simon Prosser, publishing director, Hamish Hamilton: “There are strict rules about JD Salinger’s covers. The only copy allowed on the books, back or front, is the author name and the title. Nothing else at all: no quotes, no cover blurb, no biography. We’re not really sure why this is, but it gives you definite guidelines. Last year we decided it was probably time to re-design the covers, and we wanted a unique typeface that stood out. We commissioned Seb Lester, the highly regarded type designer, to hand-draw a font; that font, on the cover of these re-issues, is a one-off and is known in-house here at Hamish Hamilton as the ‘Salinger’.”

这套新封面是 Seb Lester 设计的，相当赏心悦目：

This collection, originally published as Nine Stories in the US in 1953, contains some of Salinger’s greatest short fiction, including the title story (first published in the New Yorker in 1950), in which an army sergeant recalls his meeting with a young girl before he was sent to war, and A Perfect Day for Bananafish, the first of Salinger’s stories of the Glass family.


Salinger’s third book, published in 1961, takes us deeper into the verbose, intellectual, fragile lives of the Glasses – a brilliant but brittle family of Upper West Side New Yorkers – through the doings of two of the younger members of the clan, brother and sister Franny and Zooey.

The third instalment in the Glass family saga is narrated by Buddy, the second of the Glass brothers. His purpose is to introduce us to his older brother, Seymour, whose suicide is the subject of Salinger’s earlier story, A Perfect Day for Bananafish.

Salinger’s most famous work, The Catcher in the Rye has sold more than 65m copies around the world since its publication in 1951. The story of three days in the life of Holden Caulfield – whose irritable ennui and contempt for what he calls ‘phoneys’ have made him a poster-boy for adolescent disenchantment – as he drifts around New York after being expelled from school, is widely held up as a defining novel of the 20th century.

上述新书将由企鹅集团旗下的 Hamish Hamilton 出版社出版，塞迷们可以买来收藏了。

评论的书是 Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court, by Jeff Shesol (W.W. Norton, 2010, 656 pp., $27.95)

In 1937 President Roosevelt tried to “pack” the Supreme Court–increase its size so that he could fill the vacancies thus created with liberals, who would shift the balance of power from the conservative majority that had invalidated a number of New Deal laws. Surprisingly–considering the overwhelming margin by which Roosevelt had been re-elected in 1936, the Democrats’ lock on both houses of Congress, and the pertinacity with which he pushed his plan–the Court-packing bill never even came to a vote.

This episode, I would guess, is known to few Americans, and interests still fewer–mainly students of the Supreme Court. It is therefore surprising that in 2010 a book of more than six hundred pages should appear written not by a law professor or an academic historian but by a speechwriter for President Clinton, and aimed at a popular audience, though its seventy-two pages of notes and bibliography attest to the depth of the author’s scholarship. It is still more surprising that Jeff Shesol’s book should be timely, for the light it casts on the politics of our current economic situation and on the situation itself. The book is also splendid to read. It will fascinate anyone who is interested in Roosevelt, the New Deal, the 1930s, Congress, the presidency, the Great Depression, judges, the Supreme Court, or constitutional law.

When Roosevelt was inaugurated in March 1933, the American economy was in dreadful shape. The unemployment rate was 25 percent; the banking system was in a state of near paralysis because the fear and actuality of numerous bank failures had caused massive withdrawals (there was no deposit insurance); economic output had fallen by one-third since 1929, and prices had fallen by 20 percent. Falling prices sound like a good thing, but they can be a disaster. Because wages even in a depression tend to be sticky, falling prices reduce firms’ revenues but not their labor costs, so they have to lay off workers to bring their costs in line with their shrunken revenues. And consumers who expect prices to continue falling will hold off on buying. Desperate to get them to open their wallets, firms have to cut prices even more drastically and thus lay off even more of their workers to control their costs, accelerating the economy’s swoon.

Roosevelt did four things immediately upon taking office to restart the economy. The first was to boost public confidence by delivering an inspiring inaugural address, inspiring not only in content (“we have nothing to fear but fear itself”–false, but reassuring) but also in the upbeat manner of his delivery. Confidence is all-important in getting businessmen to invest and consumers to buy; without confidence, both groups tend to hoard their money rather than spend it, and economic activity droops.

Roosevelt’s second measure was to declare a bank holiday. All banks were shut down while federal examiners pored over their books. After a few days, most of the banks were pronounced sound (this was sleight of hand–there wasn’t enough time, or enough bank examiners, to examine thousands of banks carefully) and allowed to re-open. The public was reassured, and the drain of bank capital ceased, so money was again available for borrowing by businessmen and consumers.

Third, Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard. Until then, anyone could exchange the paper dollars issued by the Federal Reserve for gold. This limited the supply of dollars, because if the Fed increased the supply each dollar would be worth less, so people would exchange their paper dollars for gold and the government’s gold holdings would rapidly be depleted. With the government off the gold standard, the Fed could and did increase the money supply, which increased the ratio of dollars to goods, thus causing inflation. That was deliberate. Inflation, by increasing prices, reduces real wages (assuming, as is plausible, that in a depression employers can resist demands for wage increases even if they cannot force wage reductions) and therefore reduces producers’ costs. It also induces consumers to spend because the purchasing power of any money they hoard will be declining. And by reducing indebtedness it provides an additional encouragement to consumers to spend–and the more they spend, the more that output and hence employment will rise. Inflation also reduces the value of the dollar relative to foreign currencies. That makes exports cheaper and imports more expensive, which stimulates domestic production–production for export but also production of substitutes for the now more costly imported goods. And fourth, Roosevelt instituted public works projects that, within months, put millions of the unemployed to work.

So far, so good. But at his urging, Congress at the outset of the new administration passed a number of statutes, of which the most important were the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, that impeded recovery from the depression. (A forgivable weakness of Shesol’s book is that he does not recognize the economic incoherence of the New Deal program.) Since “ruinous competition” was (incorrectly) believed to be a cause of the depression, the ironically named Recovery Act encouraged industries to establish codes of “fair competition,” which if approved by the president became binding, and which essentially were agreements among competing firms to fix prices and, in conjunction with unions, wages. The effect was higher prices and higher wages. The higher prices were real rather than merely inflationary; they were cartel prices that reduced output and employment. And wage increases retard economic recovery. The agriculture act was designed to increase farm prices by reducing output, so again the effect was that of a cartel. Similar output-reducing statutes were enacted for the coal and oil industries.

These New Deal laws and others were invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1935 and 1936, though not because they were economically counterproductive. The Court opposed them because they delegated too much legislative power to the executive branch (that was the main ground on which the Recovery Act was invalidated), or because they exceeded Congress’s power to regulate commerce (for example because agriculture and mining were deemed local).

The Court that invalidated these laws was composed of three factions: a liberal faction of Brandeis, Cardozo, and Stone; an extreme conservative faction of Butler, McReynolds, Sutherland, and Van Devanter; and a moderately conservative faction of Hughes (the chief justice) and Roberts. The moderate conservatives lined up with the extreme conservatives in the 1935 and 1936 cases, joined often by one or more of the liberals: the invalidation of the Recovery Act–a widely unpopular law, mainly because of its chaotic administration–was unanimous. Some New Deal measures survived, including the most important one to come before the Court–the government’s repudiation of its contractual obligation to redeem paper dollars in gold on demand. The amount of gold that the government would have owed the obligees, whom inflation would have driven to demand redemption, would have exceeded the nation’s gold reserves by a factor of twenty-five. Roosevelt had resolved that if the Court decided against him, he would defy the Court’s decision.

Roosevelt was distressed by the Court’s elimination of New Deal programs, but less because of the specific programs than because of what the decisions portended for the rest of the New Deal legislative program. The Court’s grounds seemed likely to doom the entire remaining agenda, which included the union-friendly Wagner Act, wages and hours legislation, social security, consumer protection, prohibition of child labor, and much else besides. The Court seemed determined to prevent the growth of federal power that Roosevelt thought essential to economic recovery, social justice, and (given the growing prestige of totalitarian regimes in the 1930s) the survival of democracy. In fact, aside from the four measures that Roosevelt had taken immediately upon assuming office, the New Deal program was more likely to impede than promote recovery. But it was a response to powerful political pressures, and a failure to yield to them could have rent the nation’s political and social fabric.

Although the average age of the Supreme Court justices in January 1937, when Roosevelt’s second term began and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress was sworn in, was seventy-one, there was no indication of imminent vacancies among the five justices who had voted most consistently to invalidate New Deal statutes. Given the potential for political instability and social unrest if the entire New Deal program was killed, Roosevelt was right to strike at the Court, especially as he had a more sensible conception of the Constitution than that of the conservative justices then, or their counterparts now, or of liberal justices beginning with the Warren Court of the 1960s–a conception of a Constitution flexible enough to permit the government to meet the needs of modern society that the Framers of the Constitution could not have foreseen.

The plan, which did not require a constitutional amendment to enact because the Constitution does not fix the size of the Supreme Court, was to enlarge the Court as follows: if a justice declined to retire within six months after reaching the age of seventy (as he could do at full pay), a new justice could be appointed. The maximum size of the Court was to be fifteen. Six of the justices were over seventy, so if all declined to retire, the Court would reach its maximum size. Even if none of the six septuagenarians (five of the conservatives plus Brandeis) retired, Roosevelt would still be able to appoint six liberal justices, and so the balance would shift from 6-3 in favor of the conservatives to 9-6 in favor of the liberals. If all six eligibles retired and Roosevelt appointed liberals in their place, the balance would be 8-1 in favor of the liberals–Cardozo and Stone plus the six new appointments. Roberts would be the sole conservative.

Court packing (and unpacking-eliminating a vacancy to prevent the president from making an appointment) was not new. But it had not been done since 1867, and Roosevelt badly misplayed his hand. He had not mentioned the Court during the election campaign and thus had not prepared the electorate for an assault on it. He sprang the plan on Congress without warning, which congressional leaders resented; they were allowed no hand in drafting the Court-packing bill. (Obama has been careful–maybe too careful–to avoid this kind of mistake.) And he justified the plan publicly on the patently false ground that the older justices could not keep up with the work of the Court and that as a result the Court was falling behind. In fact, then as now, the justices were not overworked and the elderly ones carried their share of the workload–and everyone knew it. Moreover, a plan grounded in considerations of judicial efficiency could not inspire the public support that Roosevelt needed to overcome the fear, which was not limited to his conservative opponents, that he was trying, albeit by constitutional means, to unbalance the balance of powers created by the Constitution. (It didn’t help that the Nazi press praised the Court-packing plan!) And the ground on which Roosevelt sought to justify the plan set the stage for a devastating riposte by Chief Justice Hughes, who arranged to be invited by Senator Wheeler, an outspoken opponent of the Court-packing plan, to write Wheeler a letter concerning the justices’ ability to keep up with their workload. The letter, which Hughes implied spoke for the entire Court, assured Wheeler, who quickly made it public, that “The Supreme Court is fully abreast of its work.”

What finally killed the plan was an unbroken string of surprising victories for the New Deal in the Supreme Court–twelve in all, with no defeats–while the Court-packing plan was being debated, coupled with the sudden retirement of Justice Van Devanter, one of the four extreme conservatives (who accelerated his retirement in order to help defeat the plan), and topped off by the sudden death of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Robinson. Having been promised by Roosevelt appointment to the first vacancy on the Court, Robinson was at the time of his death making Herculean efforts to persuade his colleagues to vote for the Court-packing plan.

Hughes and Roberts abandoned the other conservatives in all twelve cases. They may have done so in order to defeat the Court-packing plan. It is true that the first of the decisions–which, overruling an earlier decision of the Court, upheld the federal minimum-wage law, and which is generally regarded as the turning point for the Court because it was the first decision in the string–was voted on by the justices (though not issued) before the plan was announced. But the vote came after the 1936 election, and it was believed that Roosevelt would mount some kind of serious challenge to the Court. Hughes and Roberts, especially Hughes, were less conservative than Butler, McReynolds, Sutherland, and Van Devanter–less inclined, therefore, to go down with the ship–and they may also have been influenced by an extraordinary wave of sit-down strikes and labor violence that coincided with the Court-packing controversy and made it seem that the country was coming apart at the seams (though the economy had improved a good deal). The two justices may have come to believe that to kill the New Deal would be playing with fire in the name of dubious constitutional doctrines to which neither of them was as emotionally committed as their extreme conservative colleagues. If that was their thinking, I am enough of a legal realist to withhold criticism of their “political” decision making.

When Hughes finished reading from the bench his opinions upholding the Wagner Act, “a prominent lawyer” in the audience section of the courtroom “rose from his seat, turned to a colleague, and said, ‘Chief Justice Hughes has saved the Supreme Court.’ ‘I think,’ his colleague replied, ‘he has saved the United States as well.’” As The New Yorker sarcastically observed, “the Supreme Court’s about-face was not due to outside clamor. It seems that the new [Supreme Court] building [completed in 1935] has a soundproof room, to which the Justices retire to change their minds.” And as Roosevelt remarked after the Court-packing plan went down to defeat, “We lost the battle, but we won the war.” He indeed had won, though at substantial cost to his prestige, and to his relations with Congress, whose barons he had treated with disdain.

I said that Shesol’s book was timely. Like Franklin Roosevelt, Barack Obama is an ambitious and charismatic liberal who took over from a discredited conservative administration and a demoralized Republican Party at a time of severe economic stress. Like Roosevelt, he is passionately hated in some quarters and the subject of vicious, groundless rumors. As with Roosevelt, the election that brought him to power created strong Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, yet also like Roosevelt he faces a politically conservative Supreme Court that is more than willing to invalidate state and federal laws that it does not like.

Then as now, bankers, who “just a few years earlier had been second to no one in prestige and self-regard,” saw “the world they knew … turned on its head.” Then as now, a liberal president was attacked from the left as well as from the right, “taking heat from liberals for the big-business orientation of the New Deal, for siding frequently with industry against the claims of labor and consumers.”

Also like Roosevelt, Obama has a three-track legislative program. The first track is recovery from depression and includes the auto and bank bailouts, and the $787 billion stimulus package, and the stress tests of the banks, and mortgage relief, and a moderate inflation–all recovery measures that resemble Roosevelt’s. The second track (illustrated in the Roosevelt administration by federal deposit insurance, the separation of commercial from investment banking, and the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission) is financial regulatory reform designed to prevent a recurrence of the conditions that caused the depression. The third is long-term socio-economic reform.

In Obama’s administration as in Roosevelt’s, the second and third parts of the president’s program are at war with the first. Imposing new regulatory restrictions on business creates uncertainty in the business community, and uncertainty tends to freeze economic activity. The restrictions also reduce output by increasing costs. The new credit card law, for example, and the pressure that the administration is exerting on banks to modify rather than foreclose mortgages, are adding to the costs of banks and by doing so reducing their lending. And just as New Deal measures designed to increase wages and prices by reducing competition in labor and product markets retarded recovery, so the present administration’s programs of health-insurance reform and climate-change legislation are likely, if adopted, to increase the costs of businesses and, by increasing our immense federal budget deficits, push up interest rates and thereby curtail economic activity.

Despite his brilliant opening moves in the battle against the Depression, Roosevelt had little understanding of economics (but, in that, he had the company of most economists and businessmen). He probably did not sense the tension between New Deal measures that would promote recovery and the larger New Deal program of social reform that would slow down the recovery. His lack of understanding is shown by a series of disastrous moves in 1937, which included both higher taxes and reduced government spending, measures that in combination with the Federal Reserve’s pushing up interest rates to curb rising inflation brought on–within months after the Court-packing controversy ended–a second depression before the nation had fully recovered from the first one. That second depression weighs heavily on policymakers today. Our deficits are creating a risk of serious future inflation, yet measures to reduce the deficits, whether through higher taxes, cuts in government spending, or higher interest rates (which would reduce the amount of money in circulation and thus the potential for a serious inflation) would impede recovery from our current economic doldrums.

John Maynard Keynes warned Roosevelt about the dangers of trying to combine recovery with reform–he urged that reform be postponed until the economy recovered. Roosevelt rejected Keynes’s advice. I don’t know whether Obama’s economic advisers have given him similar advice; but if they have, he, like Roosevelt, has rejected it, whether out of political calculation or ideological commitment.

The defeat of the Court-packing plan holds three specific lessons for today. One is the role of passion in the political process. Votes in political elections are not weighted by intensity; a vote cast with lesser-of-two-evils tepidness has the same weight as one cast with passionate conviction. Conservatives took a tremendous shellacking in the 1936 election, yet within a few months they were able to mount a powerful and, in the end, successful campaign against Roosevelt’s first post-election initiative, because their emotional intensity far exceeded that of the plan’s supporters. This disparity in commitment weighed with politicians thinking about the next election. For passion would affect turnout and campaign contributions. We are seeing this today: the opponents of Obama’s legislative program are far more excited than its supporters.

Second, and again observed today, are the limits of congressional party loyalty to the President, even among members of Congress who rode into office on his coattails. Members of Congress are more concerned with their prerogatives and their prospects for re-election than with “their” president’s achieving his legislative goals. A president may actually have an easier time when the opposing party controls Congress. That is illustrated by the improvement in Clinton’s political fortunes and policy accomplishments after the Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, until the Lewinsky scandal tempted the Republicans to try to bring him down. When the executive and legislative branches are in different hands, both have an interest in compromise and the president’s party accepts that he must govern from the middle, which is where a president can expect maximum popular support. The current Democratic Congress designed a stimulus program poorly, as a result of which it is widely regarded (unfairly, I think) as a giant pork barrel, and it has made a mess of the president’s health insurance initiative, and it is fighting with the president over financial regulatory reform.

And third, there is the mystique of the Supreme Court, a source of formidable political power because it makes the Court seem to be “above” politics. (Judges like to refer to the legislative and executive branches of government as “the political branches,” as if the judiciary were not a political branch as well.) Even though political considerations figure significantly and often decisively in federal judicial appointments, especially at the Supreme Court level, and even though the vagueness, complexity, occasional antiquity, and frequent internal inconsistency of American law combine to vest our judges with enormous discretion–above all in constitutional cases that touch on political issues–a sense persists that judges are different from politicians and should be immune from political retaliation for unpopular decisions. Judges are different from other senior officials. They are on average more professional, less partisan, much less subject to interest-group pressures, abler to take the long view of issues, and more decorous and restrained than elected politicians. The Constitution is venerated by Americans–one of the founders of the American Liberty League, the New Deal’s fiercest antagonist, said that the League’s “first appeal should be to the effect that the Constitution is perfect”–and the Supreme Court likes to think of itself as the custodian of the Constitution, its faithful oracle. As Shesol points out, “the more aggressive [the Supreme Court justices in the 1930s] grew in overruling legislatures, the more they assumed a posture of humility and passivity.” The Wall Street Journal’s comment on the decision invalidating the National Industrial Recovery Act was that “the Constitution has survived the depression.” Constitutional idolatry is a platform of today’s right wing as well; it is the sophisticated version of biblical inerrancy.

The conservative justices of the 1930s were on notably weak ground in invalidating New Deal laws for supposed inconsistency with the constitutional text. The text did not speak to such issues as whether agriculture is a part of interstate commerce and thus can be regulated by the federal government, or whether legislative power can be delegated by the legislature to federal agencies or, as in the case of the National Industrial Recovery Act, to trade associations whose exercise of delegated power is subject to review by a federal agency.

Like Roosevelt, Obama is trying to shift the line between government and business leftward. He already has done so to a degree, in the auto bailouts, the banker pay caps, the credit card law, the stimulus law, and the mortgage-relief law. He wants to go further. Will he at some point collide with the Supreme Court? It is not impossible, though I think it unlikely. The current Court, the most conservative since 1937, with four very conservative justices, four liberal ones, and a moderate conservative (Kennedy) occupying the Hughes-Roberts swing position, has backtracked on the broad New Deal understanding of federal power to regulate interstate commerce and has invalidated federal statutes with something approaching abandon–forty between 1991 and 2009, compared to only twenty-nine between 1918 and 1936.

I would be giving a misleading impression of Shesol’s book if I did not remark his striking portrait of Roosevelt. Few question the greatness of Roosevelt as a president, but there has been a tendency to question his intelligence, or at least his intellectual energy. He had not been a good student, or a good lawyer. He was an impatient reader, who preferred oral briefings. His legislative program lacked coherence. He was shrewd, politically astute, charismatic, courageous, buoyant, and humane. But Shesol shows that he was also a keenly engaged, intellectually resourceful student of the Constitution and the Supreme Court. He had speechwriters, but he shaped and altered their drafts. His State of the Union speech of January 6, 1937, delivered just a month before he sent his Court-packing plan to Congress, articulated a more sophisticated constitutional philosophy than that of his opponents when he said that the Constitution’s framers “were fully aware that civilization would raise problems for the proposed new Federal Government, which they themselves could not even surmise; and … it was their definite intent and expectation that a liberal interpretation in the years to come would give to the Congress the same relative powers over new national problems as they themselves gave to the Congress over the national problems so their day…. Means must be found to adapt our legal and our judicial interpretation to the actual present needs of the largest progressive democracy in the modern world.”

Would it really have been so terrible had the Court-packing bill passed? I am not so sure. It would have increased turnover on the Court, reduced the average age of justices, made an appointment to the Court less prestigious, and made the justices more cautious about bucking strong political forces, because they would have learned that Congress was willing as well as able to rein them in. We would probably have been spared the excesses of the Warren Court, which turned Roosevelt’s idea of the “living Constitution” on its head: where Roosevelt wanted the Court to stand aside so that the government could deal with the distinctive problems of modernity, the Warren Court responded to the surging crime rates of the 1950s and 1960s by increasing the rights of criminals.

Book Description

Law and the Humanities: An Introduction brings together a distinguished group of scholars from law schools and from an array of the disciplines in the humanities. Contributors come from the United States and abroad in recognition of the global reach of this field. This book is, at one and the same time, a stock-taking of different national traditions and of the various modes and subjects of law and humanities scholarship. It is also an effort to chart future directions for the field. By reviewing and analyzing existing scholarship and providing thematic content and distinctive arguments, it offers to its readers both a resource and a provocation. Thus, Law and the Humanities marks the maturation of this “law and” enterprise and will spur its further development.

Table of contents

Contributors / ix
Acknowledgments / xi
Introduction: On the Origins and Prospects of the Humanistic Study of Law / Austin Sarat, Matthew Anderson, and Cathrine O. Frank / 1
I. PERSPECTIVES ON THE HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SCHOLARSHIP IN LAW AND THE HUMANITIES: THREE VIEWS / 47
1 A Humanities of Resistance: Fragments for a Legal History of Humanity / Costas Douzinas / 49
2 Three Tales of Two Texts: An Introduction to Law and the Humanities / Kathryn Abrams / 73
3 Law, Culture, and Humility / Steven L. Winter / 98

II. IDEAS OF JUSTICE / 123
4 Biblical Justice: The Passion of the God of Justice / Chaya Halberstam / 125
5 Ideas of Justice: Natural and Human / Catherine Kellogg / 141
6 Ideas of Justice: Positive / Matthew Noah Smith / 161
7 Postmodern Justice / Peter Goodrich / 188

III. IMAGINING THE LAW / 211
8 Imagining the Law: The Novel / Susan Sage Heinzelman / 213
9 Imagining Law as Film (Representation without Reference?) / Richard K. Sherwin / 241
10 Law and Television: Screen Phenomena and Captive Audiences / Susanna Lee / 269
11 Imagining the Law: Art / Christine Haight Farley / 292

IV. LINGUISTIC, LITERARY, AND CULTURAL PROCESSES IN LAW / 313
12 Language / Penelope Pether / 315
13 Interpretation / Francis J. Mootz III / 339
14 Narrative and Rhetoric / Ravit Reichman / 377
15 Justice as Translation / Harriet Murav / 398
16 The Constitution of History and Memory / Ariela Gross / 416

V. INSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES / 453
17 Trials / Lindsay Farmer / 455
18 Testimony, Witnessing / Jan-Melissa Schramm / 478
19 Judgment in Law and the Humanities / Desmond Manderson / 496
20 Punishment / Karl Shoemaker / 517
Index / 531

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. He is author or editor of more than seventy books, including Mercy on Trial: What It Means to Stop an Execution; When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition; The Cultural Lives of Cause Lawyers (with Stuart Scheingold); and The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society, among many others. Sarat is editor of the journal Law, Culture and the Humanities and of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society. In 1997, Sarat received the Harry Kalven Award given by the Law & Society Association for distinguished research on law and society. In 2004, he received the Reginald Heber Smith Award, given biennially to honor the best scholarship on the subject of equal access to justice. It was given in recognition of his work on cause lawyering and the three books he had produced on the subject. In 2006, the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities awarded him the James Boyd White Prize for distinguished scholarly achievement in recognition of his “innovative and outstanding” work in the humanistic study of law. In 2009, he received the Stan Wheeler Award from the Law & Society Association for distinguished teaching and mentoring.

Matthew Anderson is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English and Language Studies at the University of New England. His teaching and scholarship combine an interest in law and in literature, particularly the ways in which issues of trauma and justice are registered in legal and literary texts. In 2005, he edited a special issue of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, “Towards a Critique of Guilt: Perspectives from Law and the Humanities.” In 2009, he and Cathrine O. Frank received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (USA) to direct a summer institute for college and university faculty on “The Rule of Law,” with an emphasis on the place of legal studies in the liberal arts.

Cathrine O. Frank is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Language Studies at the University of New England. Frank teaches and publishes in the areas of Victorian studies and law and literature. She has written on testamentary law and the realist novel as legal and literary modes of creating individual and cultural identity in such journals as Law and Literature, College Literature, and English Literature in Transition. Her book Law, Literature, and the Transmission of Culture in England, 1837-1925 is forthcoming in 2010

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Since the earliest days of philosophy, thinkers have debated the meaning of the term happiness and the nature of the good life. But it is only in recent years that the study of happiness – or ‘hedonics’ – has developed into a formal field of inquiry, cutting across a broad range of disciplines and offering insights into a variety of crucial questions of law and public policy. Law and Happiness brings together the best and most influential thinkers in the field to explore the question of what happiness is – and what factors can be demonstrated to increase or decrease it. Martha C. Nussbaum offers an account of the way that hedonics can productively be applied to psychology; Cass R. Sunstein considers the unexpected relationship between happiness and health problems; Matthew Adler and Eric A. Posner view hedonics through the lens of cost-benefit analysis; David A. Weisbach considers the relationship between happiness and taxation; Mark A. Cohen examines the role that crime – and fear of crime – can play in people’s assessment of their happiness; and, other distinguished contributors take similarly innovative approaches to the topic of happiness. The result is a kaleidoscopic overview of this increasingly prominent field, offering surprising new perspectives and incisive analyses that will have profound implications for the law and our lives.

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Eric A. Posner is the Kirkland and Ellis Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including The Perils of Global Legalism.

Cass R. Sunstein is administrator of the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, on leave from Harvard Law School.

《清华法治论衡》第十二辑：社会理论之法前沿，高鸿钧、於兴中主编，清华大学出版社2009年12月。

购买本书：卓越网；当当网。

目 录

卷首语 / 《黑客帝国》的隐喻：秩序、法律与自由 / 高鸿钧

主题论文

社会理论与法学研究 / 於兴中

社会理论之法与法律研究中的社会理论 / [英]罗杰·科特雷尔 / 俗僧 译

法律与法律思想的三次全球化：1850-2000 / [美]邓肯·肯尼迪 / 高鸿钧 译

法院在法律系统中的地位 / [德]尼可拉斯·卢曼 / 陆宇峰 译

作为法律系统核心的司法——卢曼的法律系统论及其启示 / 泮伟江

宪法爱国主义的基本理论 / [德]米勒 / 徐宵飞 译

没有国家的爱国主义？——米勒与他的《宪法爱国主义》 / 翟志勇

埃利希法社会学视野下的法律多元 / 鞠成伟

法律与道德关系的法理辨析——以霍姆斯“法律预测理论”为视角 / 明辉

规训与治理——福柯视野中的现代社会权力形式 / 秦士君

法律有效性的界定——兼论哈贝马斯的法律有效性理论 / 李小萍

法苑论评

法有正条与罪刑不符——《大清律例》“审拟罪名不得擅拟加等”条例考 / 陈新宇

法律与社会理论中的价值批判和理性建构 / 胡水君

联邦制应否基于民族政治自治？——从俄罗斯联邦制与民族主义的关系谈起 / 程雪阳

司法与民主：悖离抑或共生 / 许可

现代性、法律秩序与人的解放——读昂格尔《现代社会中的法律》 / 柯岚

通过网络的协商民主——评桑斯坦的《网络共和国》与《信息乌托邦》 / 毕竞悦

疑难案件与法律推理——麦考密克之《法律推理与法律理论》评析 / 褚国建

卡尔·施米特：现代性与决断论——从海因里希·迈尔的两部作品开始 / 赖骏楠

资讯漫笔

苏联法学家的命运（二）——维辛斯基不同寻常的一生 / 王志华

宪法爱国主义 / [德]斯登贝格 / 陈克勋 赖骏楠 译

中国大陆哈贝马斯政治法律思想研究文献综述：1978-2008 / 张伟

“社会理论之法与中国语境” 座谈会综述 / 雨轩

编后记 / 慧剑修罗

慧剑修罗：江湖（编后记）

江湖，一个很有意思的地方。

没有人说得清楚它到底在何方，因为“处江湖之远”，“相忘于江湖”；但也有人说，有人的地方就有江湖，一花一世界，一叶一如来，一心一江湖。

曾几何时，它是庙堂的对立面，归隐江湖，是远离红尘，不问世事；但又在沧海桑田变幻之时，它变成了庙堂的代名词，也需要离开，金盆洗手，退出江湖。

曩昔，行侠仗义，行走江湖要远离庙堂。但殊不知，江湖却是另一种形式的庙堂。金庸写《笑傲江湖》，但那些武林人士想要笑傲的明明却是正儿八经的“庙堂”。

江湖中的人生，比梦幻更梦幻，比现实更现实，看似遥远，却又比邻。

江湖中有正派侠客，有邪派魔头，邪派中的真小人相貌清晰，但正派中的假名士却面目模糊。

岳不群，江湖号称君子剑，剑是真的，但君子是伪的；韦一笑，武林传闻吸人血，吸血是真的，但却并非活人之血。所以，道听途说的八卦永远是江湖中的八卦本性。真真假假，假假真真，不拉出来遛遛，还不知道哪个是驴，哪个是马。

丁春秋，名为神仙逍遥，实则欺师灭祖，有师如此，星宿派群魔乱舞，马屁、法螺、厚颜三大神功，为星宿老仙编排武功盖世之神话，人人以研究丁春秋神功思想为荣，真将丁老怪当作达摩老祖了。

慕容复，大燕国落魄皇孙，他文武全才，广闻博识，风流倜傥，堪称一代名士；然其人却又权欲熏心，妄图复兴燕国法统，为达目的不择手段，认贼作父以苟延残喘，牺牲他人来成全自身。终被豪侠萧峰怒斥“萧某大好男儿，竟和你这种人齐名”。

江湖中的人，所谓路漫漫兮求自在，仗剑一啸走天涯。但自在并非淡泊名利，尤其是名，当刘正风为了区区朝廷参将而金盆洗手，退出江湖，群雄便甚为鄙薄，可见江湖中“名”何其之重；但刘正风恰以此“污名”作掩饰，欲与知己好友琴箫合奏，笑傲江湖，武林中之“名”，在其眼里，又何其轻也？重名与轻名，何真何假，孰轻孰重，优劣利弊，又有谁说得清？

华山论剑，五大高手排名，东是梁山排座次，讲的是派系平衡，他们是一拳一脚，真刀真枪，但是，很有意思的是，那一次论剑，就他们五个人参加，怎么就传遍武林了呢？

武林正派，对名头看得比生命更为重要，但是六大门派围攻光明顶，却借着剿灭魔教的名义，滥杀无辜，魔教真的是魔教吗？正派又怎么就是正派了？令狐冲与岳不群，杨过与赵志敬，谁正，谁邪？或许，谁有话语权，谁就成了正派，正统，正面人物，但谁有话语权呢？是江湖百晓生？还是武林百事通？抑或只是一种传说？

江湖中召开武林大会，多半为了选举盟主，盟主只有一个，似乎一般也不设副盟主，不像别的大会，可以选出几十个（副）会长，利益均沾，一片和谐；盟主选出来之后，必然有一件重要的事情要做，树一个靶子以消灭之，谁是这个靶子呢？不服从自己者，与自己观点不和者，与自己有仇者……美其名曰：正邪不两立。但是在江湖中，真的有那么清晰的正邪界限吗？东邪黄药师，分明是一个正面人物，剑魔独孤求败，也无法归入邪魔外道行列？但那些名字、外号、身材、相貌、师承与来历写着无数个“正”字的人呢？又何尝真的很“正”？萧峰在聚贤庄大开杀戒，他是正是邪？裘千仞经一灯大师点化皈依我佛，他又如何定邪正？只是很多人自命正统，排除异己，于是，正邪之分，才会那么重要，但却又那么不清晰……

即使同样是正道名门，华山派尚有剑宗与气宗之分，以气驭剑，还是以剑带气，并无成法，但两宗均斥对方为旁门左道，争斗即起，血流成河，非但没有光大门墙，家道反而中落。两宗相争，仿佛武功的最高境界仅此一途，殊不知殊途同归，万法不离其宗，又何必拘泥于形式？

也许，武侠小说之所以影响久远，就是因为在这种江湖与庙堂、正与邪、重名与轻名之间微妙的关系，使读者有人生如梦，梦如人生之感，因为江湖并不遥远,江湖就在身边，江湖就在学界。

江湖如梦，亦如人生。梦醒之后，还得絮叨编辑琐事。学界江湖，亦无异数，本帮名曰“社会理论之法”，本无意于独占山头，更无意于逐鹿江湖，只求三五知己，琴箫共鸣；有一方寸土微名，足矣。本辑至此付梓，历时较久，从2005年高老师与我编选《社会理论之法：解读与评析》一书，就开始酝酿在《论衡》中刊行若干“社会理论之法”主题研究论文；师门内外诸位同好，亦常集中命题，促膝长谈，讨论争鸣；本辑合作主编於兴中教授长期以来在“社会理论之法”领域有精深之内功修炼，亦有意参与主题策划，双方遂一拍即合，遥相呼应，他积极组织各方学者投稿且亲自撰写主题论文、翻译英文目录，为本辑《论衡》的最后出版奠定了很好的基础。随着清华大学法学院“社会理论之法”课程持续开展，2008年召开了一次“社会理论之法与中国语境”的座谈会，来自香港中文大学、中国社会科学院、北京大学、北京航空航天大学、北京师范大学、清华大学等学术机构10多位知名学者与青年才俊参加了会议，对“社会理论之法”这样一种研究领域和研究方法的历史、现状以及对中国法学研究的影响进行了深入探讨，成就了本辑《论衡》的主体。

自2007年《论衡》进入CSSCI来源集刊行列，完成了“二奶”向“小妾”的身份转换，总算是有了一种名分，于是，学界对《论衡》也越来越关注与爱护，稿源也越来越充足，使得刊物不至于成为“巧妇之炊”，在这个竞争激烈且出版艰难的集刊市场中，稍感欣慰，在此对学界同仁与各方朋友深表感谢。

在此还要感谢本辑各篇文章的诸位作者，在这个“职称”与“收入”作为统治者的时代，他们能够不计本帮堂小名微，纷纷“入伙”，没有他们的参与，这辑《论衡》估计只能是无剑之鞘，哪怕装帧再精美，也施展不出任何剑法。

作为最后但并非不重要的“惯例”，感谢清华大学出版社，尤其是责任编辑方洁女士长期以来对《论衡》的关爱，使得《论衡》能够持续至今，并能展望未来。

慧剑修罗

己丑年初冬

于清华园

在“社会理论之法”的论题中提及《黑客帝国》，犹如在麦当娜的话题中扯上麦当劳，似乎离题太远。然而，当我们注意到以下线索，就会觉得这种联想也许并非牵强附会。在那部影片中，一个黑客去同尼奥私下交易，尼奥从一本掏空的书中拿出一张非法软件，《拟像与仿真》的书名随之闪现。这个特写镜头暗示影片与作品的潜在联系，也传达了导演对该书作者的敬意。该书作者是是当代社会理论大师鲍德里亚，导演卓斯基兄弟是他的书迷，影片立意、话语和意象无不闪烁着鲍式的思想、洞识与灵感。另一个线索是，德国的托依布纳是卢曼社会系统论和法律系统论的得力传人，他在《匿名的魔阵：跨国活动中“私人”对人权的侵犯》一文中，所使用的“魔阵”一词是Matrix的中文译名，而“黑客帝国”恰是Matrix另一种中文译名，两者都是对现代社会的隐喻。

一

Matrix是什么？它是母体，是魔阵，是系统，是控制。它是我们最大的敌人，置身其中，四处一望，我们可以见到官员、商人、教师、律师、木匠以及其他芸芸众生。Matrix无处不在：当我们置身办公室、课堂、会场、股市、网络、厕所以及睡梦中，它都如影随形，跟踪着我们，控制着我们。正是这个Matrix蒙骗了我们的眼睛，使我们看不见真相，麻醉了我们的神经，使我们觉察不到虚假。它禁锢了我们的大脑，使我们失去了反思意识；束缚了我们的手脚，使我们丧失了反抗能力。我们处在战时，却误以为和平；成为了奴隶，却误以为自由；拥抱愚昧，却误以为追求真理。于是，战争即和平，自由即奴役，无知即力量。

在这个系统里，我们是一段被编码的程序，代码决定了我们的功能，架构决定了我们的选择范围。在那里，我们选择程序和被程序所选择，我们甚至选择了超出自己理解能力的选择，而对于选择的真正考验就是再次做出同样的选择，因为人们或者不能预测自己的选择结果，或者对他人的选择结果不能预测。我们有时知道应该怎样选择，却不能那样选择，有时虽然知道能够那样选择，但又不知道怎样选择。这是一个选择的世界，没有管辖、没有控制和没有界限的世界，一个什么都可能发生的世界，选择就是一切。关键不在于选择什么，而在于使人们感到是自己在选择；关键不在于事实是什么，而在于使人们相信事实是什么。

在这个系统中，没有价值而只有程序，正如景观社会没有本真而只有模拟。程序驱动程序，程序复制程序，程序打劫程序，程序删除程序，程序就是一切，正如模拟复制模拟，模拟盗取模拟，模拟覆盖模拟，模拟就是一切。程序与模拟产生诱惑，诱惑源于诱因，诱因产生意义。没有意义就没有我们的存在，意义创造我们，链接我们，操纵我们，指引我们，驱动我们；意义规定着约束我们的意义，决定着我们所追求的意义。意义即游戏，游戏而陶醉，陶醉而眩晕。

意义自有原因，于是我们去理解各种原因，是原因区别了我们和你们、你们和他们；区别了文明与野蛮、进步与落后；区别了过去与未来，现实与理想。原因是力量的源泉，没有它就没有力量。然而，原因很快就不再重要，重要的只剩下感觉。感觉是对结果的品味，品味来自刺激，刺激源于诱因，于是我们都是刺激的俘虏和诱因的猎物。凡事都有定期，万物都有定时，生有时，死有时，播种有时，收获有时。有时天行有常，种瓜得瓜，种豆得豆；有时天秩失序，种下龙种，收获跳蚤，孵下凤蛋，跳出秃鹫。只要已经发生的事情就是应该发生的事情，而应该发生的事情未必将会发生。社会是另一种自然，人性是另一种动物性，法律是另一种政治，代码是另一种法律。

Matrix是一个主机控制下的系统网络，人们一旦与之链接，就不愿断开，许多人已然适应而且上瘾，离不开这个系统，转而会捍卫它。于是，我们宁愿选择红药丸，生活在虚假的感觉奇境中，而不愿选择蓝药丸，寻找荒漠的真实世界。在那个奇妙的世界，我们都可能既是受监视者又是特工，既是受虐者又是施虐者，既是人质又是恐怖分子，既是自己又是自己的敌人。

上述语言和情景不是《黑客帝国》写照吗？那是一个虚幻的世界，一个机器控制的系统。然而，这不禁使我们联想到边沁的“全景敞视监狱”，韦伯的“铁笼”，福柯的“规训社会”，卢曼和托依布纳的“自创生系统”。在边沁那里，“全景敞视监狱”是控制囚犯的完美设施；在韦伯那里，自由的生命个体在算计和博弈中，最终却落入了形式理性的牢笼；在福柯那里，宣称解放的人类，最终却把社会打造成规训无所不在的牢狱；在卢曼和托依布纳那里，现代社会和法律都分化成铁板一块的系统魔阵。系统自我建构、自我描述、自我调节、自我维持、自我操作、自我创生；它是沟通的建造物，是代码区分的二元世界。于是就有了君子与小人、信徒与异端、人民与敌人、以及合法与非法之别，于是控制就变得简单，规制就来得方便。系统虽然无所不在，却又无影无形吗；虽然无所不知，却可以对外界充耳不闻；虽然无所不能，却可以有所为有所不为。系统是个匿名的魔阵，人们无从反抗；系统的“滤霸”不断升级，随时过滤杂音，删除乱码。

二

如果说Matrix就是社会的缩影，那么，它不是一个扭曲和虚假的社会吗？然而，正常和真实的社会又在哪里？柏拉图说，它在理想国里，现实是一个扭曲的洞穴。然而洞穴中的众生已经过惯洞穴中的生活，真实世界的阳光特别刺眼，于是人们宁愿生活在洞穴中，在黑暗中捕捉真实的虚影。实际上，在哲学王领导的真实世界里，人类并没有真正的平等和真实的自由。在那个理想国里，国王还是国王，士兵还是士兵，奴隶还是奴隶，所不同者只是国王用哲学统治，士兵具有了“卫国者”的光荣称号，奴隶换成了另一批“会说话的工具”。由此看来，那个真实的理想国，不过是另一个虚拟的洞穴，变化在于精神控制代替了身体枷锁。假作真时真亦假，无为有处有还无。

如果说传统的宗教救赎带来的是精神奴役，那么现代的解放追求打造的则是规训铁笼。绝对精神只有在自我献祭中才灵光偶现，永久和平凭靠的是核威胁的恐怖平衡，无产者在世界边缘分化成碎片，资产阶级在全球中心结成了铁盟。坚船利炮换成了跨国公司，传教士换成了大律师，八国联军换成了G8峰会，《南京条约》换成了《华盛顿共识》，自然法变成了人类之法。昔时丛林游击队长变成了今日铁政治腕，当年工会领袖变成了当下法团巨头，自由主义者把自由变成了意识形态教条，民主主义者却以专政方式推行民主。于是历史充满了变数和吊诡：政治是战争的继续，经济是军事的替代，法律是政治的变种，文化是时尚的别名，和谐是冲突的间歇，梦幻是现实的投影。从红场到黑海，到处都矗立着权力的凯旋门；从多瑙河到莫愁湖，处处都闪烁着货币的金字塔。等式似乎永远平衡，变化的只是因数，余数被省略了。

面对这个充满魔力的Matrix所施展的“吸星大法”，老左翼在历史发展的“否定的辨证法”中陷入悖论；新工党则改弦易辙，匆忙中把“人类动物园”改建成“丛林迪斯尼”；后现代主义在精神呜咽中叙说着对文明的不满，并在审美迷狂中实现着自我超越；新保守主义则根据旧版社会达尔文主义，热泪盈眶地宣布新自由主义是“历史的终结”；而原教旨主义则在极化地方性知识的精神亢奋中，从恐怖战略中发现了行动的力量。于是，热血青年从街头广场退入购物中心，产业工人急于把蓝领换成白领，莘莘学子则迫不及待地加入房奴、车奴和卡奴的虚拟矩阵。政治领袖在继续忽悠民众的同时，想方设法完成知识符号的现实超度，因为他们深知，知识就是权力，技术官僚就是系统控制的工程师，没有知识的权力，技术官僚就缺乏控制的力量；没有权力的知识，系统工程师的控制就无从谈起。

幸运的是，信息技术为人们建构了一个虚拟世界。人们在那里享受空虚的充实，而不再忍受充实的空虚；可以把陌生人变成老熟人，把老熟人变成陌生生人；把妻子变成情人，把老板变成老公。真实世界是荒漠的废墟，单调而乏味，压抑而拘束，而虚幻世界则是奇妙的仙境，丰富而有趣，轻松而自由，因而《黑客帝国》中一些选择了蓝药丸的战士十分后悔，想要重返虚拟世界，想要品味鲜美的牛排，不愿再强咽无味的稀粥。为此，他们不惜背叛队友和进行疯狂报复。

科学探索实在，却筑造出虚拟世界；理性祛除巫魅，却使世界陷入疯狂。对于这种吊诡，我们觉得不可思议，想不清楚，说不明白。疑问萦绕着我们的头脑，困扰着我们的心灵。我们对于现世感到无奈，就寄望来世天堂；对现实不满，就逃向虚拟世界。天国之城虽然没有征服尘世之城，虚拟世界却覆盖了现实社会。

在网络编织的虚拟世界，世界数字化，生活虚拟化，生命游戏化，灾难戏剧化；在那里，红色歌曲，黑色幽默，绿色革命，白色恐怖，桃色事件，黄色笑话……应有尽有。在那个“网络共和国”中，人们不再是“贾雨村” 或“甄士隐”，而是“门修斯”或“常凯申”；在那个“信息乌托邦”中，人们不再“非礼勿视，非礼勿听，非礼勿言，非礼勿动”，而可以思想裸露，精神裸奔，身体裸聊，可以建社区、偷白菜，包二奶……一言以蔽之，那里可以言现实想言而不敢言，为现实想为而不敢为，而不再限于“庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶，望帝春心托杜鹃”。“工业世界的政府们，你们这些令人生厌的铁血巨人们，我来自网络世界——一个崭新的心灵家园。作为未来的代言人，我代表未来，要求过去的你们别管我们。在我们这里，你们不受欢迎，在我们聚集的地方，你们没有主权”。巴洛的《网络独立宣言》对于网络世界的自由似乎信心十足。

然而，这一理想不久就灰飞烟灭。虚拟社会天生也不自由，规制它的是架构和代码：架构就是约束，代码就是法律。代码是一种变相的规制，正如凝视是一种无声的语言。虚拟社会天生也不民主，统治它的是编程者、黑客和监控者，编程者设下程序“枷锁”，扣下代码“暗杠”，黑客的“特洛伊木马”游荡在我们信息隐私的王国中，随时可以攻陷我们的“城堡”，而无所不在的电子蠕虫就潜伏在我们的网络头脑中，随意透视我们的每根神经。虚拟世界之于现实社会，颇似马克思针对路德教所言：他“破除了对权威的信仰，却恢复了信仰的权威。他把僧侣变成了俗人，但又把俗人变成了僧侣。他把人从外在宗教解放出来，但又把宗教变成了人的内在世界。他把肉体从锁链中解放出来，但又给人的心灵套上了枷锁”。在虚拟世界，我们的“另一个自我”和“第二人生”再次不幸地陷入了规训之网，与真实世界不同的是，那里的立法者主要是隐形程序师而不是在场政府，执法者主要是技术诀窍而不是政治权力，法律规则主要是代码不是法典，司法者不再是法院法官而主要是……

虚拟世界造成了信息偏食和群体极化，带来了网络贩毒和在线卖淫，导致了违法与犯罪的隐蔽化、跨国化和全球化，而这一切都对现实社会构成了侵害。于是，现实的法律对网络的架构和代码进行规制。由此虚拟世界与现实社会相互联通。更准确说，虚拟世界是现实社会的翻版，现实社会是虚拟社会的投影，扭曲社会是正常社会的镜像，正常社会是扭曲社会的别称，正如数字不过是自我的心理投影，真实乃是大脑中的刺激信号。技术控制比权力统治更有效，代码规制比法律调控更直接，私人管制比政府治理更便捷。人生而自由，却无往不在枷锁中，虚拟世界中自以为自由的网民，也许比现实社会之人更是奴隶。

三

如果说“锡安”是人类的缩影，它被自己的制造物逼入绝境之后，生存迫令自然就是“拯救锡安”。“锡安”隐喻上帝子民之城，暗指基督教圣地，是西方世界的缩影。于是就有了自我与他者的区分。自我是西方，是正义的真实社会；他者是非西方，是邪恶的虚拟世界；正义与真实的化身是尼奥，邪恶与虚拟的符码是史密斯，于是一场进攻与防卫、恐怖与反恐怖以及生存与灭亡的大决战不可避免。虚拟世界的机器人强大无比，不然，便不足以表达人类恐惧之深，不足以彰显人类危机之重，更不足以体现人类拯救之迫。尼奥隐喻耶稣，一位黑客出身的“克里斯玛”，他要破解母体自我繁殖的密码，改变等式平衡。

然而，尼奥毕竟是凡人，要对拯救使命有信心，还需要一点外力。这就是“先知”预言的力量。预言者是希腊oracle（神谕者）的现代版。女性身份增加了预言的神秘，据说女人比男人更易着魅和更能通灵。她的黑白混色皮肤或许暗喻种族平等，但与歌星杰克逊无关，因为他曾极力把身体漂白，且同具男女性征。当然这更不是兆示奥巴马当选，因为他即便皮肤黝黑，当选后是否会把观念漂白，尚不可知。预言的奥妙在于模糊，就如生活的真谛在于糊涂，生命的真谛在于操心。与刘姥姥三进大观园不同，预言者多次出场，但她所透露的 “天机”不过三条洞见：认识自己，改变的不是物象而是意念，预言具有自我实现的效应。这三条看似是平常道理，但内涵都是吊诡或悖论。自己是自我观察的盲点，认识自己是个悖论；事物的本质是观念的产物，我们对自己的观念无法同时进行二阶观察，这也是悖论；乐观的预言未必兑现，悲观的预言却往往应验，这里充满着吊诡。先知的言谈举止和周围环境都暗示她来自生活世界。这自然让我们联想到，哈贝马斯寄望生活世界，希望那里的日常语言所承载的交往理性能够生成合法之法，从而降服政治系统的权力之妖和经济系统的金钱之魔。就此而言，哈贝马斯是一位预言者。

昂格尔是另一位预言者，他宣称自由主义的形式法业已解体，取而代之的法范式或许是源自生活世界的习惯法。这种视角与埃利希的“活法”暗合。这两位预言者的预言并没有很快应验，欧陆的法典“死法”早已把埃利希的生活“活法”吞没，而美国的自由主义形式法并未解体，解体的却是预言者所创建的批判法学流派。不过，在法律全球化过程，他们的预言有些歪打正着。新商人法以商人私约的形式成为了“活法”，逃避了主权的规制，托依布纳说这是埃利希“活法”预言的兑现。然而不幸的是，这种来自经济系统的“活法”却成为规避劳保和环保的 “腐败之法”。生活世界也许是个未经反思的习俗“荆丛”或巫魅之乡，那里流行过美国南部的《黑奴法典》，“焚寡殉葬”的印度乡之俗，或许会联想到犹太人的割肉还债之约。抛掉了锁链上的假花，并不是为了戴上没有任何花朵的锁链；否定了敷粉的发辫，并不是要同没有敷粉的发辫打交道，马克思的名言可以作为一种警示。真正自由的活法是公民自我立法，只有在交往理性滋润的生活世界才能够生成这种活法。这种活法也许存在自主公民的观念中和公民自主的行动中，存在于基本人权与人民主权的互动中。

尼奥不是史密斯的对手，因为史密斯是尼奥的负相，正如人类不是机器世界的对手，因为机器世界是人类社会的翻版。这就是道高一尺，魔高一丈。尼奥一定要牺牲，否则就缺乏悲壮；尼奥也一定要复活，不然就没有希望。于是，那个古老的神话——爱情，便成为了牺牲与复活的媒介，只是把传统的叙事顺序颠倒了一下：不再是英雄救美人，而是美人救英雄。性爱只能激活个体的灵魂，救世主的复活却能带动集体精神，只有“克里斯玛”与芸芸大众的相互诱惑和一道眩晕，才能成就拯救世界的伟业和壮举。这又落入了韦伯政治方案的窠臼。

事情并不如此简单。尼奥不过是一段超级程序，而“先知”也不过如此，他们的合谋与“锡安”大众的合力，也无法应对虚拟世界的进攻，因为系统的代码早已设定，程序按其功能迫令，是其所是，成其所成，毁其所毁，灭其所灭。更何况机器人比人类更少怯懦和私心——设计时把这些基因缺陷剥除了。这就需要尼奥返回源代码，会见程序设计师，通过改变源代码改变等式平衡，改变系统的运行逻辑。马克思、尼采、福柯和哈贝马斯尽管路径不同，都认为现代性问题主要出在源代码上，都想设法改变现代社会的源代码。

四

系统一旦运行起来，就会形成自我复制和自我维持的逻辑习性，就会诱导人们适应和上瘾，改变源代码必然引起程序混乱和功能失调。程序设计师只有在感到“史密斯”会失控时，才会同意尼奥的建议。改变者与维护者一场生死搏斗在所难免，将欲取之必先与之，尼奥只有先染毒才能消毒，而成功意味着与“史密斯”同归于尽。通过消灭自己来消灭敌人，一如系统通过改变自己而改变环境，这本是就是一种悖论性博弈。至此，影片所演绎的古老故事，即正义与邪恶之战，似乎落下帷幕，关于耶稣牺牲自我拯救世人的新版隐喻，也已了然。剩下的一个问题则是，既然机器世界是人类社会的复制品，虚拟世界是真实社会的投影，源代码的彻底改变，是否要以“锡安”的毁灭为代价？

对于现实社会的Matrix，人们即便能够发现源代码，返回源代码并根本改变它也几无可能。权力和金钱两个代码，控制人类社会为时已久，权戒与钱戒之难，难于毒戒与赌戒，也难于网戒与色戒，因为它们已经成为我们基因的另一半，正如撒旦是天使的另一半，男人是女人的另一半，股市是赌场的另一半。这就不难理解，任何推翻过去压迫的尝试，都没有带来解放的现实，任何翻转现实统治的超越，都打造了另一种未来的统治现实。如果说传统法律承载的是等级特权，身份奴役，压抑人格、机械团结和施舍正义，那么，现代法律所内含的则是自我分层的平等，自我放逐的自由，自我分裂的人格，自我分化的团体以及自我颠覆的正义。前者是弱肉强食的历史墓志铭，后者是自我解构的现代讽刺画。解决问题的方案有时会造成更多的问题，就如医治病人的疗方常常会带来更多的病症。完美世界如同完人，只存在于幻想之中，正确的答案所以一直在回避我们，也许是因为我们过于满足现实或追求完美，因而丧失了去弊和纠错的机缘。

诅咒过去与讥讽现实无助于问题的解决，正如期待来世与盼望天国无益于苦难的解脱。树上不言树下事，十分世界在眼前，禅宗的“当下即是”显得更为脚踏实地。无论是生命政治的倡导还是交往理性的吁求，无论是对“活法”的善意期待还是“宪法爱国主义”的良苦用心，虽然对于改进社会现实都不无启示，但似乎都无法改变现代社会的“源代码”及其运行逻辑。我们以为，真正的契机和希望也许既不在于整体建构或彻底颠覆，也不在于置换源代码或理性重构，而在于社会危机的压力和对灾难的反思，因为正常时没有人会思考为什么会正常，更不要说改变了；在于有识之士的现实批判与公民大众的权利吁求，因为既得利益者大都满足并维护现状。当奴役成为一种常态，人们就把奴役当作自由，当羁縻成为一种秩序，人们就把就羁縻称为解放。

对于社会的反思来说，一万句苦口婆心的劝谏，不如一个灾难的教训更有效；对于人类和平而言，一千个世界主义的口号不如一次残酷的战争更有效；对于系统的调整来说，一百种环境刺激不如一次重大危机压力更有效；对于民主和自由来说，数十部宪法不如一个个自主的公民更有效。故而，马克思从阶级压迫中预见了解放的动力，康德从战争的残酷中看到了永久和平的曙光，福柯从权力的规训中洞悉了个体伦理完善的重要性，哈贝马斯从生活世界自主公民的呐喊中察觉了现代性的希望。为此，我们需要的是愚公移山的行动，是普罗米修斯的勇气，弗弗西斯的耐力，夸父追日的悲壮，精卫填海的坚持。

有些事情永远不变，有些事情应该改变。必须坚守永远不变的事情，必须改变应该改变的事情。于社会是如此，政治是如此，法律是如此，于个人也是如此。

己丑年秋

高鸿钧 于清华园

Overview

This best-selling nonsectarian guide is designed for students undertaking their first systematic study of the Bible. Placing each book of the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and the New Testament fully in its historical and cultural context, Understanding the Bible acquaints readers with the content as well as the major themes of each biblical book, and familiarizes them with the goals and methods of important scholarship.

Table of contents

Chapter 1 – The Bible: An Overview

Chapter 2 – The Process of Formation: How the Bible Was Transmitted, Canonized, and Translated

Part I – The Hebrew Bible: Tanakh, or Old Testament
Photo Essay – Mesopotamia: Fountainhead of Biblical Tradition

Chapter 3 – The Ancient Near East: The Environment That Produced the Bible

Chapter 4 – The Torah: Five Books of Divine Teaching
Photo Essay – Archaeology and the Bible

Chapter 5 – The Prophets (Nevi’im) I: The Story of Israel from the Promised Land to Exile

Chapter 6 – The Prophets (Nevi’im) II: Individual Spokespersons for God
Photo Essay – Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon

Chapter 7 – The Writings (Kethuvim): Books of Poetry, Wisdom, Short Fiction, Apocalyptic Visions, and Sacred History

Chapter 8 – Books of the Second Canon: The Apocrypha

Chapter 9 – Between the Two Testaments: Roman Power, Greek Culture and the Growth of Multiple Judaisms

Part II – The New Testament: The Christian-Greek Scriptures
Photo Essay – Archaeological Sites and Artifacts Associated with Jesus’ Life

Chapter 10 – The New Testament: A Preview of the Gospels

Chapter 11 – The Gospels: Four Portraits of Jesus
Photo Essay – Diverse Portraits of Jesus

Chapter 12 – The Continuing Quest for the Historical Jesus

Chapter 13 – An Account of Christian Origins and the Pauline Letters
Photo Essay – Paul and His World

Chapter 14 – General Epistles and a Vision of End Time

Chapter 15 – Our Biblical Legacy: Evolving Concepts of God

Glossary of Major Biblical Characters, Terms, and Concepts

Selected Bibliography

Index

　　要想了解耶稣，需先了解保罗。因为新约中的保罗书信，写作时间要早于福音书，是基督教文献中最早论及耶稣的。更重要的是，历史上的耶稣能演化成神学上的“基督”，保罗起了关键作用。新约当中有一部《使徒行传》，算得上是保罗最早的传记。保罗是犹太人，少时来到耶路撒冷，追随法利赛人。一开始，他对于奉耶稣为救世主的新兴教派极端敌视，下手不留情面。《使徒行传》中说他“残害教会，进各人的家，拉着男女下在监里”（8:3），“向主的门徒口吐威吓凶杀的话”（9:1），明显是逼迫早期信徒的急先锋。保罗后来在去大马士革的路上，忽见大光，并听到有声音斥责他的所作所为。那声音又说：“我就是你所逼迫的耶稣。”保罗于是三日之内，目不能视物，不吃也不喝。这便是保罗皈依的经历，在《使徒行传》中记录了三次（第9章、22章和26章）。

　　保罗皈依后，屡屡道及自己不光彩的过去，不怕将自己树为坏典型。在现存书信中，我们经常能听到他忏悔的声音：“你们听见我从前在犹太教中所行的事，怎样极力逼迫残害神的教会。”（《加拉太书》1:13）但是保罗和那些曾追随耶稣的使徒，虽然都孜孜岌岌，传布有关耶稣的福音，但他们的侧重点却明显不同。威尔逊指出（《保罗传》，69页），那些亲炙耶稣的第一代弟子于耶稣死后，聚在耶路撒冷，耐心等待这位救主的降临；而保罗则风餐露宿，摩顶放踵，在罗马帝国境内四处奔走，传扬那被钉死在十字架上的神子。保罗在传教过程中，与之从游的既有商贾、奴隶、士卒、工匠，也有哲人、官吏、庙祝、巫人。我们可以说，耶稣的弟子追想缅怀的是耶稣的生，保罗念念不忘的则是耶稣之死。

　　读一读保罗书信，可以说保罗对耶稣之死简直是“着迷”、甚至是“着魔”了。看这一句：“我已经与基督同钉十字架，现在活着的，不再是我，乃是基督在我里面活着。”（《加拉太书》2:20）再看这句：“但我断不以别的夸口，只夸我们主耶稣基督的十字架；因这十字架，就我而论，世界已经钉在十字架上；就世界而论，我已经钉在十字架上。”（《加拉太书》6:14）让人不解的是，保罗为何如此“迷恋”耶稣？如果我们抛开《使徒行传》中神异的记述，如何来解释保罗对耶稣这种刻骨铭心的纪念？　　

　　学界历来有共识，就是认为保罗从未见过耶稣。但是威尔逊仍然想问个究竟，为什么保罗会为一个素昧平生的人周游各地，传教三十年？这种激情和执拗，这样的坚忍和忠贞，背后到底有什么精神力量在支撑？威尔逊提出一个大胆的假设，便是保罗曾经见过耶稣。在《耶稣传》里，威尔逊就猜想，耶稣被捕、被移交罗马总督的过程中，保罗很可能作为犹太祭司长的随从，参与其中（36页）。威尔逊以为，既然保罗曾迫害过耶稣的弟子，那么时间倒推两三年，保罗参与迫害他们的师父，便并非完全没有可能。在五年后出版的《保罗传》中（54－55页），威尔逊仍认为，若保罗曾担任过耶路撒冷圣殿的守卫，有权柄来羁押拜耶稣的信徒（《使徒行传》9:14），那么他极有可能在抓捕和处死耶稣的行动中，见过耶稣本人。

　　为证明这样一个“奇谈怪论”，在《保罗传》中，威尔逊对《哥林多后书》5:16一节作了一番大胆的揣测。保罗在这里先谈到耶稣一人替众人死去，这样的爱乃是对世人的激励，然后他说：“所以，我们从今以后，不凭着外貌认人了，虽然凭着外貌认过基督，如今却不再这样认他了。”这是和合本的译文。“凭着外貌”与原文kata sarka两字对应，更直接的翻译可以是“按照肉身”，英文钦定本圣经就直译作after flesh，被威尔逊赞为“保留了原文的神秘”。

　　同样这一句，我们来看看天主教思高本圣经的译法：“所以我们从今以后，不再按人的看法认识谁了；纵使我们曾按人的看法认识过基督，但如今不再这样认识他了。”“按人的看法”翻译的还是kata sarka这两个字，但相较于after flesh或“按照肉身”的译法，距离字面意思更远了一些。我手边有一部1997年出版的《哥林多后书注释》（作者是Simon J. Kistemaker），将这至关重要的两字翻译成 from a worldly perspective，这也就是“按人的看法”的意思。

　　思高本在此句有注释，颇能代表“意译”一派的看法，现抄录一句，只把人名改成通行的译法：“‘按人的看法’，意即按一般世俗的见识。保罗在归化以前，是以犹太人的成见来衡量基督，不以他为弥赛亚，因而竭力窘迫他的教会；但自归化以后，则以信德的眼光认他为天主子、救世主、万民所期待的弥赛亚。” 由此可见，《哥林多后书》这一句中两个关键词，既可硬译为“依肉身”，也可意译为“依俗见”。

　　“依肉身认过基督”和“依俗见认过基督”，这其间的差异就太大了。如果我们认定保罗想说的是“依肉身认过基督”，那么很容易从中推导出“认过基督的肉身”这层含义。这种意思也正是威尔逊所乐于见到的。在《保罗传》中，他“变本加厉”，将这句更加“露骨”地译作“虽然我们在基督生前（when he was alive）曾认识他，如今却不复见其真身了”（《保罗传》，53页）。经过这样的处理，这句话便名正言顺地成为威尔逊的证据，证明保罗自己亲口说过曾见过耶稣。

　　威尔逊的猜测还不止于此。他要告诉读者，保罗不仅见过耶稣，而且耶稣生前还给保罗留下了难以磨灭的印象。可是，多么深的印象才算“难以磨灭”？看保罗自己的话。“从今以后，人都不要搅扰我，因为我身上带着耶稣的印记。”（《加拉太书》6:17）保罗所说的“印记”（stigmata）可以指古代印在奴隶身上的烙印，尤其对于企图逃跑、或者有过失的奴隶，这是一种严厉的惩罚。这个“印记”也可以指古代神庙中的奴隶或者侍奉某位神灵者，身上打下的印记。注释家一般都将此处的“印记”解作保罗传教当中遭受迫害，身上留下的斑斑伤痕。保罗曾历数自己所受过的种种折磨，包括多次下狱、受鞭刑拷打、几乎丧命（《哥林多后书》11:23）。这些疤痕既是保罗出生入死的记录，也是他伏侍“主人”耶稣的证明，还是他可以自夸的“勋章”。但是威尔逊却对这些印记作了更加出格的解释。

　　四福音记述耶稣被捕一段，都写到耶稣的门人作了小规模的抵抗。《马可福音》是这样记的：“旁边站着的人，有一个拔出刀来，将大祭司的仆人砍了一刀，削掉了他一个耳朵。”（14:46）《路加福音》增加了新的细节，说被砍掉的是右耳，而且耶稣还施神迹，摸了那人的耳朵，把他治好（22:50-52）。威尔逊据此推断，保罗有可能就是被砍掉耳朵的这名仆人，他所说的“印记”可能就是耶稣为他疗伤后留下的疤痕。威尔逊意味深长地说： “若时光倒流，我能亲见保罗本人，定当仔细察看他的双耳。”（《耶稣传》，205页）其实何必“双耳”？审视其右耳足矣。

　　至此，“威尔逊猜想”的基本轮廓就清楚了，大致可归为三点。第一，保罗是正统犹太教的“青年骨干”，热心护教，积极参与迫害耶稣的各项活动。在抓捕耶稣过程中，极有可能亲眼见过耶稣本人。第二，逮捕耶稣之时，发生小规模械斗，保罗冲在最前面，被砍去一只耳朵，但旋即被耶稣“接耳”。第三，这番奇遇让保罗遭受巨大震动。由于耶稣的神力和人格力量的感召，保罗思想动摇，最终被十字架上的死者收服，投入受迫害者的阵营。耶稣给保罗留下刻骨铭心的印象（更确切地说，似乎应该是刻“耳”铭心），保罗的心理产生逆转，仇恨转成悔恨，悔恨又生出对耶稣的心理固恋（fixation）。就这样，强烈的负疚感变成迷恋、迷狂，这便是保罗对耶稣念念不忘的根本原因。

　　威尔逊的假说其实不能算新奇，德国有学者于二十世纪初曾提出过类似意见，但自觉证据不足，遂放弃。威尔逊凭借文学家的想象重提这一理论，假设可称大胆，求证却不够小心。对“依肉身”一句的理解有生吞活剥之嫌，实在不够稳妥。保罗的耳朵被砍下，这也属于臆测，并无有力的证据。威尔逊本不以考证见长，他的长处是能将学术的“干饭”化成普通读者能够吸收的“流食”。威尔逊重提这个假说，不能排除有标新立异、吸引读者眼球的嫌疑，但也不能就此说他的书全无价值。这两部传记或许不入专家学者的法眼，但是威尔逊的奇谈怪论或许能给普通读者带来更大的震撼和更多的遐想。若真有读者也像书中的保罗那样受大震动，就此痴迷于新约的历史研究，那威尔逊这两部“多非常异义可怪之论”的畅销书也可称得上功德无量了。

　　保罗卒于何年何地，我们并没有确凿的历史证据。在早期教会传统中，保罗和彼得据说都在罗马殉教，罪魁祸首是尼禄皇帝。公元64年，罗马的一场大火导致尼禄大举迫害基督徒。火灾的起因，说法不一。据塔西陀《编年史》记载，当时有传言说尼禄为建造新宫，唆使人纵火。另有一说，称尼禄放火，是为了重现古代特洛伊城被焚毁的景象。尼禄是能从残酷中体会风雅的人，据说当熊熊烈火将罗马城照如白昼时，尼禄在郊外行宫的阳台上，高声吟诵荷马的诗句。但是面对残垣断壁，尼禄不得不对人民有所交待，于是便拿刚刚兴起的基督教作为替罪羊。据塔西陀记载，尼禄将基督徒投喂野兽，甚至“点天灯”，拿活人当照明的火把。在早期教会传统中，保罗便是在65年或者66年的迫害中被枭首的。

　　如此“传统”、如此循规蹈矩的结局，小说家威尔逊难免会觉得平淡。在《保罗传》的结尾，威尔逊说他宁愿选择实验小说中那种开放性的结尾。保罗在《罗马书》结尾处，说自己就要从罗马经过，前往西班牙（15:28，和合本译作“士班雅”）。一世纪末的一份文献称保罗确已抵达大地的“西极”，也就是欧洲的最西端。也许他真的来到西班牙，将他创立的宗教带到伊比利亚半岛？保罗会不会死在西班牙某个无名的村庄？循着这个思路，威尔逊设计出全书的结尾：“嗜血的罗马皇帝，梵蒂冈花园，被点燃的人体发出凄厉的嘶喊。有人以为保罗已死，有人以为他和大家一道殉难。但在我的想象中，他在遥远的西部，彻底遗忘了自己开启的大业，凝视着起伏的大海。他曾在那海上颠簸，守候基督的降临。”（249－250页）

　　威尔逊写保罗“彻底遗忘自己开启的大业”，我觉得这是一处败笔。一生轰轰烈烈，最终退隐山林，遗落世事，这未尝不是另一种俗套。如果威尔逊心中那个“小说家自我”跃跃欲试、不可遏制的话，倒不如老老实实，按更加老套的写法，写写保罗在弥留之际，回想平生曾驻足过的那些地方，回想怎样迫害人，又怎样被别人迫害。若按照这个思路写，那么结尾处的保罗也许会下意识地摸一摸那只失而复得的耳朵，摸摸那道伤疤，就是那个加利利人在他身上留下的永恒印记。这时，《加拉太书》那句话，对于临终的保罗，就霍地变成他预先为自己写好的墓志铭：

　　“从今以后，人都不要搅扰我，因为我身上带着耶稣的印记。”