日本的选举并不能让中国感到民主能解决其所面临的问题。

　　此新闻发布之时，我们并不清楚在上周日结束的日本大选中，在野党-民主党究竟是会以三分之二的压倒性胜利，还是以微弱优势战胜自民党赢得大选。但是迄今为止，有两件事已经尘埃落定：一是，在自民党掌控政权长达半个世纪之后，民主党肯定会在大选中大获全胜；二是，日本并没有充分利用其最大的优势，即长达50年的民主实践，以应对其最大的竞争对手--中国。

　　较之中国而言，日本最大的优势在于它将最发达的经济与这一地区最悠久的民主实践的结合。然而，日本几乎没有能够获得任何民主实践的红利。

　　在过去的50年里，促进日本经济繁荣的并不是民主制度，而是官僚阶层利用其对权利杠杆的熟悉掌控经济，再经由选举出来的官员将经济成果在全国范围内进行分配。企业利益集团默认这一体制，并从中获利。他们为雇员提供福利保障。作为回报，政府为企业供保护和补贴。

　　具有讽刺意味的是，在早期，这种体制运行得相当成功，保障了日本的经济繁荣和社会平等。尽管定期举行选举，但是从严格意义上来说，日本的民主并不是西方国家所定义的民主。日本的体制更像是德国的工人保护体制，这一体制由19世纪的"铁血宰相"俾斯麦创立，目的在于平息当时日益高涨的工人运动。在日本，自民党采用自上而下的封建方式进行财富的再分配，而不是采用竞争方式分配财富以鼓励人们在政治和经济领域做出新贡献。通过这种施舍，执政党获取了选民们奴隶般的拥戴。

　　尽管仍然带有许多战前特色，但是二战后的体系与战前体系相比有一些重要区别。跟世界上的其他地区一样，二战之后，日本遭受了共产主义威胁，迫使其执政党注重社会财富的再分配。在二战前与之对应的法西斯主义（同样侧重社会财富的再分配）彻底地被推翻。所以，日本的统治者认为，对外与美国结盟以避免外交冲突，对内收买笼络在野党不失为维护政权的上上之策。有别于二战之前的是，日本官僚阶层的范围已经不仅仅局限于军队。

　　这种体系在日本运行得相当成功，直到其中的一个因素被完全用尽-经济增长。1990年经济泡沫破灭之后，日本的经济一蹶不振，各种社会危机接踵而至。

　　从2002年至2006年期间，来自自民党的前任首相小泉纯一郎曾试图通过引进西方那种通过减税来刺激生产和投资的模式来改组社会经济体系。他为企业松绑，输血，削弱了它们的福利开支，鼓励其自由发展。2002年，大公司大企业对美国和中国的出口量猛增，并将所获利润或收入囊中，或分配给外方股东。在鼎盛时期，外方股东几乎占据了日本的股票市场的半壁江山。由于投资方坚持认为，日本公司应该提高股息而不是给工人涨工资，因此日本的劳动阶层在这一经济发展过程中并没有获利。

　　小泉纯一郎的政治遗产颇为复杂。一方面，选民们对自民党极端不满，因为自民党不再向以往那样对他们给予慷慨援助（一部分原因在于小泉政府采取了更为严格的经济政策，另一方面缘于2006年后经济发展缓慢）；另一方面，自民党的接班人进一步巩固小泉所提出的 "变革"要求。这次，民主党不再批评自民党的经济政策，而是转攻其官僚体制。这一转变看似不起眼，实则至关重要。尽管在某些方面小泉是一位政治改革家，但他与财政部的官僚阶层有着紧密联系，从而获取他们对财政紧缩政策的支持。民主党认为，对现行体制的批评和攻击对于近年来饱受经济滑坡之苦的广大选民来说极具吸引力。

　　然而，民主党所宣称的改革并不足以为信。事实上，执掌民主党的精英阶层绝大多属均来自自民党。民主党的前任党魁小泽一郎今年五月因卷入献金丑闻而下台，辞去了党内职务，但他一直被看做是自民党的幕后操盘手，其影响力胜过下届首相鸠山由纪夫。小泽一郎也许更倾向于出任秘书长一职，并成为内阁成员，这样他就能从内部掌控民主党的运作。他常常被视为一个没有党派原则的人，像温斯顿·丘吉尔在二战前那样，按照自己的喜好利益，退出原党加入新的党派。

　　事实上，小泽一郎才是民主党真正的操盘手，他对日本的影响力大过于鸠山由纪夫。但是日本民众对小泽一郎的自负颇为不满。从执政层面上来讲，小泽一郎表现很糟糕：他不会像英国首相布莱尔或是美国总统克林顿那样与选民交流，而是更倾向于与执掌国内各部门的盟友无休止地电话沟通。这种方式既不民主也不公开，并让人不由地联想起他的导师-前任首相田中角荣对选举的巧妙操控。田中角荣常常被看作是他那个年代最腐败的政客之一。

　　对于中国来说，日本的民主具有重要的借鉴意义：毫无疑问，脱离民主的经济增长会引发诸多问题。但是，如果政府能通过不断提高生活水平而使民众满意（像之前日本那样），那么问题就不大。从另一方面来讲，一旦经济增长突然停止，那么民主制度（即便像日本那样不成形）会为你的政敌提供取代你的机会。

　　实际上，中国共产党没有必要担心。一些日本观察家威胁说，民主党和自民党在选举过后不久将合并。鉴于两党的政治宣言雷同，并且诸多领导又曾经共事，这一推断并不为奇 (只有那些急于确认日本已真正开启两党轮体制的西方观察家们除外）。但是，可以肯定的是，选民的这一票并不是因为对日本民主具有变革力量而投！

英文原文：

Election triumph for the DPJ, but Japan's democratic advantage doesn't impress

By Dan Slater  |  31 August 2009  

The election in Japan is not going to make China feel that democracy can solve its problems.

At the time of going to press, it wasn't yet clear if Japan's opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) was going to win a remarkable two-thirds majority, or a simple majority in the electoral contest against the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which finished Sunday. But two things were clear: the DPJ had secured a thumping victory after a half-century of almost unbroken rule by the LDP, and Japan's greatest advantage -- its 50-year experience of democracy -- is not being effectively deployed, in particular against its greatest rival, China.

    Japan should have one massive advantage over China, namely the fact that it combines a first-world economy with the longest experience of democracy in the region. However, Japan shows few signs of reaping a 'democratic dividend'.

    Over the past 50 years, it is not democracy that has driven the country's economic success. Rather, it is a system where a bureaucracy has dominated the economy through its understanding of the levers of power, while elected politicians have distributed the fruits of economic growth across the country. The business sector has both acquiesced to this system, and benefited from it; it took on the welfare role for its workers, and received state protection and subsidies in return.

   The irony is that in the early years, the system worked very well in ensuring high standards of prosperity and equality. Despite the regular elections, it was not democratic in the Western sense of the word. It was more like the German system of worker protection, which was created by Germany's conservative and nationalistic 19th century chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. The aim was to outflank the rising workers' movement of the time. In Japan, the LDP ensured money was redistributed in a feudal way -- as handouts from above, rather than through a competitive system rewarding better ideas in both politics and business. In return for the handouts, politicians could rely on the slavish loyalty of their constituents.

The post-war system, although led by many pre-war personalities, had some important differences. The post-1945 communist threat was extremely real in Japan, as in the rest of the world, and forced politicians to focus on redistribution. The pre-war alternative, fascism (which also focused on financial redistribution), was of course utterly discredited. So Japan's rulers decided that a posture avoiding foreign conflicts through the US alliance, and buying off the opposition domestically, was the best way to retain power. An important difference to pre-war times was that the bureaucracy was no longer limited by the power of the Japanese military. This put it firmly in the driving seat.

    The system worked beautifully until one ingredient ran out -- economic growth. Growth collapsed after the popping of the bubble in 1990, and Japan has staggered from one crisis to another ever since.

    Former Prime Minister Koizumi of the LDP tried to restructure the system by introducing Western-style supply-side measures from 2002 to 2006. He unleashed big business by reducing their social welfare role. Big business enjoyed an export burst to the US and China in 2002, and either kept the profits or redistributed them to foreign shareholders, who at their peak owned almost half the Japanese stock market. Japanese workers missed out on the best of the boom, since activist investors insisted Japanese companies raise their dividends instead of their salaries.

    Koizumi's legacy is mixed. On the one hand, voters are furious at the LDP for no longer supplying them with the largesse they have become accustomed to (partly because of Koizumi's stricter controls on money politics and partly because of slower economic growth since the end of the boom in 2006). On the other hand, the DPJ has picked up Koizumi's baton by intensifying his call for change. This time, the DPJ is no longer attacking money politics but the bureaucracy. It's a subtle but important shift in emphasis. Koizumi, although a political reformer in some respects, had a close relationship with the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Finance, who supported his financial retrenchment measures. From the DPJ's point of view, an attack on the establishment appeals to an electorate baffled and hurt by Japan's awful economic record in recent years.

     But the DPJ's claims to being reformers are inconsistent. The elite running the DPJ are mostly former members of the LDP. Ichiro Ozawa, the dominating politician of his generation after Koizumi, has no formal role in the DPJ since stepping down as president in a corruption scandal in May this year. More prominent than the actual DPJ leader and next prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, Ozawa is known as a back-room fixer. He may prefer to be appointed secretary general to the party, where he can control the inner workings of the party, to becoming a member of the cabinet. Ozawa has shown no party discipline throughout his career. Rather, like Winston Churchill, who was also seen as a disloyal careerist before the Second World War, he has left and rejoined parties as he has seen fit.

     Ozawa, rather than Hatoyama, is the key to a Japan run by a party crystallised around a strong and principled politician. But he's viewed with suspicion by many Japanese for his egotistic streak. Tactically, Ozawa is terrible: he does not communicate with the electorate like a Tony Blair or a Bill Clinton. He prefers endless phone calls to his allies in key positions across the country. This is not democratic or open, and it recalls the masterly manipulation of the electoral levers of his mentor, former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, regarded as one of the most corrupt politicians of his time.

The lesson for China will be clear. Economic growth without democracy undoubtedly has its problems. But if you can keep your population happy through rising standards of living, as Japan did in the early years, you should have little to fear. On the other hand, if your economic growth suddenly slows, a democratic system (even an inchoate one as in Japan) gives your enemies the framework to replace you.

     Actually, China's Communist Party may not even have to fear that. Some Japanese observers are treating it as a matter of course that the LDP and the DPJ will merge some time after the election. Given that their manifestos are very similar, and that so many of the politicians used to work together, that should surprise no one (apart from Western observers desperate to identify the start of a true two-party system). But it is certainly not a vote of confidence in the transformative powers of Japanese democracy.