中英对照文本

翻译：Mangosteen | 校对：FungChuh

Try this at your next party. Ask your guests to define the term Social Justice.

试试在下一场派对上这样做。请你的客人定义社会正义这个词。

Okay, it's not Charades or Twister, but it should generate some interesting conversation, especially if your guests are on the political Left.

好吧，这不是哑谜猜字游戏或扭扭乐，但这应该能引出有趣的对话，尤其是当你的客人属于政治左派时。

Since everyone on that side of the spectrum talks incessantly about social justice, they should be able to provide a good definition, right? But ask ten liberals to tell you what they mean by social justice and you'll get ten different answers. That's because Social Justice means anything its champions want it to mean.

因为每位身处政治光谱那边的人总是没完没了地谈论社会正义，那他们应该能够给出一个好定义吧？但问十个李伯儒，他们口中的社会正义指的是什么，你会得到十个不同的答案。这是因为社会正义是其拥护者想要的任何意思。

Almost without exception, labor unions, universities and colleges, private foundations and public charities claim at least part of their mission to be the spreading of Social Justice far and wide.

几乎没有例外，工会、大学和学院、私人基金会和公共慈善机构都声称至少他们的部分使命是广泛传播社会正义。

Here's the Mission Statement of the AFL-CIO, but it could be the mission statement for a thousand such organizations: "The mission of the AFL-CIO is to improve the lives of working families -- to bring economic justice to the workplace, and social justice to our nation."In short,"social justice"is code for good things no one needs to argue for -- and no one dare be against.

以下是来自美国劳工联合会-产业工会联合会的使命宣言，但它也可以是上千个类似组织的宣言：「美国劳工联合会-产业工会联合会的使命是提高工薪家庭的生活质量——让经济正义走进工作场所，让社会正义走进我们国家。」简而言之，「社会正义」是任何人都没有异议的美好事物的准则——也没有人敢反对。

This very much troubled the great economist Friedrich Hayek. This is what he wrote in 1976, two years after winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. "I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term 'social justice'."

这让伟大的经济学家弗里德里希·哈耶克非常苦恼，这是他写于 1976 年，赢得诺贝尔经济学奖两年后的文字。「我越来越感觉到我还能为大家做的最大的贡献是，让他们中的演讲者和写作者彻底耻于使用『社会正义』这个词」。

Why was Hayek so upset by what seems like such a positive, and certainly unobjectionable, term? Because Hayek, as he so often did, saw right to the core of the issue. And what he saw frightened him.

为什么哈耶克会被看似如此正面又无可非议的词所困扰呢？因为哈耶克如他经常那样，一眼就看穿了这个问题的核心。而他所看到的吓到了他。

Hayek understood that beneath the political opportunism and intellectual laziness of the term "social justice"was a pernicious philosophical claim, namely that freedom must be sacrificed in order to redistribute income.

哈耶克明白，藏在「社会正义」这个词的政治投机主义和思维怠惰之下的是一个邪恶的哲学论断，即必须牺牲自由以再分配收入。

Ultimately, "social justice"is about the state amassing ever increasing power in order to, do "good things."What are good things? Well whatever the champions of social justice decide this week. But first, last and always it is the cause of economic redistribution.

最终，「社会正义」在于政府积累越来越多权力以便做「好事」。那什么是好事呢？好吧，就是社会正义的拥护者这周所决定的随便什么。但这首先，最后和一直都会引向经济再分配。

According to the doctrine of Social Justice, the haves always have too much, the have nots, never have enough. You don't have to take my word for it. That is precisely how a UN report on Social Justice defines the term: "Social justice may be broadly understood as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth. Social justice is not possible without strong and coherent redistributive policies conceived and implemented by public agencies."Let me repeat that: "Strong and coherent redistributive policies conceived and implemented by public agencies."

根据社会正义的学说，富人总是拥有太多，穷人拥有的总是不够。你不必相信我的话。这恰好是联合国报告对社会正义所下的定义：「社会正义可以基本理解为对经济增长成果的一种公平和富有同情心的分配方式。没有来自公共机构设计和实施的强力连贯的再分配政策，社会正义是无法实现的。」我重复一下：「来自公共机构设计和实施的强力连贯的再分配政策。」

And it gets worse.

更糟糕的还在后面。

The UN report goes on to insist that:"Present-day believers in an absolute truth identified with virtue and justice are neither willing nor desirable companions for the defenders of social justice."Translation: if you believe truth and justice are concepts independent of the agenda of the forces of progress as defined by the left, you are an enemy of social justice.

联合国报告继而坚称：「当今认为美德与正义等同绝对真理的信仰者们是社会正义的捍卫者既不乐意也不期望的伙伴。」翻译：如果你相信事实和正义是这样一个概念，它独立于由左派所定义的进步力量的议题，那么你就是社会正义的敌人。

Compassion -- or social justice -- is when government takes your money and gives it to someone else. Greed is when you want to keep it.

同情心——或者社会正义——就是政府掠取你的钱，然后给别人。贪婪的是你意图保留自己的钱。

The underlying point of social justice, then, amounts to a sweeping indictment of a free society.

那么，社会正义的根本点无异于对一个自由社会的彻底指控。

It suggests that any perceived unfairness, or sorrow, or economic want must be addressed by yet another government effort to remedy that unfairness, that sorrow, or that economic want.

它意味着任何可察觉到的不公，或不幸，或经济需求必须由另一个政府措施来处理纠正这不公，不幸，或经济需求。

All we need to do is invoke the abracadabra phrase "social justice"and we're on our way.

我们只要借助于「社会正义」这个咒语就可以做得到。

The invocation of social justice always works from the assumption that the right people -- the anointed few -- can simply impose fairness, prosperity and any other good thing you can think of. And the only institution capable of imposing social justice is the state.

对社会正义的祈求总是始于假定正确的人——被选中的少数——能简单地强加公平，繁荣和其他任何你能想到的美好事物。而唯一有能力强制推行社会正义的机构就是政府。

And keep in mind, the conventional wisdom among liberal elites is that conservatives are the ones who want to impose their values on everyone else.

而且记住，自由派精英中的普遍看法是，保守派才是意欲强加他们的价值观给大众的人。

The self-declared champions of social justice believe the state must remedy and can remedy all perceived wrongs. Anyone who disagrees is an enemy of what is good and right. And the state must therefore coerce them to do what is socially just. And that, as Hayek prophesied, is no longer a free society.

那些自命的社会正义捍卫者们相信政府必须纠正也能够纠正所有可察觉的错误。任何反对者都是善良和正确的敌人。因此政府必须强迫他们去做社会公正之事。而这就是哈耶克所预言的，不再是个自由社会了。

Is that the kind of society you want to live in? If it isn't, beware of what will be done in the name of social justice.

这是你想要生活在其中的社会吗？如果不是，当心他们会以社会正义之名所做之事。

I'm Jonah Goldberg of the American Enterprise Institute and National Review for Prager University.

我是美国企业公共政策研究所和《国家评论》的乔纳·戈德堡，为 PragerU 制作。