Woodrow Wilson was referring to the liberal
idea of the economic market when he said that
the free enterprise system is the most efficient
economic system. Maximum freedom means
(5)
maximum productiveness; our “openness” is to
be the measure of our stability. Fascination with
this ideal has made Americans defy the “Old
World” categories of settled possessiveness versus
unsettling deprivation, the cupidity of retention
(10) versus the cupidity of seizure, a “status quo”
defended or attacked. The United States, it was
believed, had no status quo ante. Our only “sta-
tion” was the turning of a stationary wheel, spin-
ning faster and faster. We did not base our
(15) system on property but opportunity---which
meant we based it not on stability but on mobil-
ity. The more things changed, that is, the more
rapidly the wheel turned, the steadier we would
be. The conventional picture of class politics is
(20) composed of the Haves, who want a stability to
keep what they have, and the Have-Nots, who
want a touch of instability and change in which
to scramble for the things they have not. But
Americans imagined a condition in which spec-
(25) ulators, self-makers, runners are always using the
new opportunities given by our land. These eco-
nomic leaders (front-runners) would thus he
mainly agents of change. The nonstarters were
considered the ones who wanted stability, a
(30) strong referee to give them some position in the
race, a regulative hand to calm manic specula-
tion; an authority that can call things to a halt,
begin things again from compensatorily stag-
gered “starting lines.”
(35) “Reform” in America has been sterile because
it can imagine no change except through the
extension of this metaphor of a race, wider inclu-
sion of competitors, “a piece of the action,” as it
were, for the disenfranchised. There is no
(40) attempt to call off the race. Since our only sta-
bility is change, America seems not to honor the
quiet work that achieves social interdependence
and stability. There is, in our legends, no hero-
ism of the office clerk, no stable industrial work
(45) force of the people who actually make the system
work. There is no pride in being an employee
(Wilson asked for a return to the time when
everyone was an employer). There has been no
boasting about our social workers---they are
(50) merely signs of the system’s failure, of opportu-
nity denied or not taken, of things to be elimi-
nated. We have no pride in our growing
interdependence, in the fact that our system can
serve others, that we are able to help those in
(55) need; empty boasts from the past make us
ashamed of our present achievements, make us
try to forget or deny them, move away from
them. There is no honor but in the Wonderland
race we must all run, all trying to win, none
(60)
winning in the end (for there is no end).
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发表于 2006-10-6 22:06:00
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