商业共和国（The Commercial Republic）的概念来自《纽约时报》的文章。
商业共和国编辑本段回目录
数百年来，美国始终以一点著称：疯狂的干劲儿。美国人的工作时间长于其他任何民族。我们换工作勤，搬家次数多，转的多，消耗的也多。
重建商业共和国首先机器这股干劲儿的是富足，是翻过下一座山就可以得到金银财宝那种心急火燎的感觉。但是，让这股干劲儿持续下来的还有为发财雄心大唱赞歌的流行文化。
从本杰明·富兰克林和亚历山大·汉密尔顿，经过霍雷肖·阿尔杰（19世纪末美国著名教育家，小说家，塑造了一系列出身贫寒，但凭借信念，勇气和奋斗终获成功的男孩形象，其作品为”美国精神“的代名词——译者注）和诺曼·文森特·皮尔（著名牧师，演讲家和作家，被誉为”美国人宗教价值的引路人“和”奠定当代企业价值观的商业思想j家“——译注），知道唐纳德·特朗普（美国房地产大亨，电视人，作家，制作主持的电视真人秀《飞黄腾达》，又名《学徒》，大获成功——译注），和吉姆·克拉默（美国电视名人，前对冲基金经理，畅销书作者。作品包括《一生为钱狂：赚钱，守钱（让你的孩子更有钱》——译注），总有受大众爱戴的任务出来捍卫美国的成功信仰，鼓励中产阶级去奋斗，去冒险，去发财。
美国历次金融危机中，这种信仰的省市都减弱下来，但总会猛烈的反弹。19世纪末是经济动荡期，但也是商业信条鼓吹的最热烈的时候。安德鲁·卡内基出版《财富的福音》。埃尔伯特·哈伯德出版赞美勤勉和雄心的《致加西亚的信》，销售近4000万册。浸礼会模式拉塞尔·康威尔周游全国，6000多次向痴迷的群众发表《钻石就在你家后院》的长篇演说。
“我说，今晚听我演讲的每个人此时此地都有致富的机会，获得巨额财富的机会！”康威尔对听众狂吼。“我说，你们应该致富，致富是你们的责任……金钱就是力量，你们应该有足够的雄心去获取金钱。你们应该这样，因为你们有钱比没钱可以做更多好事！”
简而言之，美国永远必会变成欧洲。它生来就是商业共和国。醉心于商业事业的酣畅淋漓。周期性停顿后，这个国家总是不可避免的回归本源。
我们眼下处于一个出人意料的非商业时刻。风险失宠。金融界窘迫。事业暂停。只是阶层的成员挖掘，享受着让资本主义暴发户蒙羞的丑闻。公众文化被一个又一个悲观的故事所主导。
但如果有一件事可以确定，那么，这种停顿不会长久。过去400年的文化DNA不会被抹杀。钟摆会有力地摆回来。成功福音将再次激动人心。
眼下，某个地方或许正在有一位精明的出版商在寻找最有野心，最厚脸皮，最支持赚钱，支持成功的作品；大约3个月后，他就会把它摆在美国各地的书店。某个地方或许正有一位电视制作人筹划着雇佣吉姆·克莱默主持一个节目，讲述一个又一个毫无悔意的生意成功故事。
沃尔特·惠特曼在《民主憧憬》中抓住了美国的实质。他承认美国成功欲望的粗俗。他总结了美国道德上的缺陷。但是，最终他接受自己国家“极度的工作干劲儿”，它“对财富近乎疯狂的渴求。”。他知道，这个国家的梦想全部都给予那种干劲儿和欲望，商业乐观精神将一次又一次获胜。
英文原文编辑本段回目录
The Commercial Republic
David Brooks Over the centuries, the United States has been most conspicuous for one trait: manic energy. Americans work longer hours than any other people. We switch jobs more frequently, move more often, earn more and consume more.
David Brooks
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Read All Comments (415) »This energy was first aroused by abundance, by the tantalizing sense that dazzling wealth was available just over the next hill. But it has also been sustained by a popular culture that celebrates commercial ambition. From Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, through Horatio Alger and Norman Vincent Peale, up until Donald Trump and Jim Cramer, popular figures have always emerged to champion the American gospel of success, encouraging middle-class people to strive, risk and make money.
This gospel gets dented during each of the nation’s financial crises, but it always returns with a vengeance. The late 19th century was a time of economic turmoil. Yet it was also a time when this commercial creed was preached most fervently. Andrew Carnegie published “The Gospel of Wealth.” Elbert Hubbard published “A Message to Garcia,” which celebrated industriousness and ambition and sold nearly 40 million copies. The Baptist minister Russell Conwell traveled the country delivering his “Acres of Diamonds” sermon to rapturous audiences more than 6,000 times.
“I say that the opportunity to get rich, to attain unto great wealth, is here now within the reach of almost every man and woman who hears me speak tonight!” Conwell thundered to his audiences. “I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get rich ... Money is power, and you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it. You ought, because you can do more good with it than you could without it.”
The Great Depression suppressed economic activity, but not the commercial spirit. In the middle of it, Dale Carnegie published “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which promised imminent success and went on to sell more copies than any other book to that point but the Bible. The stagflation of the 1970s didn’t discredit capitalism. It gave rise to the supply-side movement and the apotheosis of the entrepreneur.
In short, the United States will never be Europe. It was born as a commercial republic. It’s addicted to the pace of commercial enterprise. After periodic pauses, the country inevitably returns to its elemental nature.
The U.S. is in one of those pauses today. It has been odd, over the past six months, not to have the gospel of success as part of the normal background music of life. You go about your day, taking in the news and the new movies, books and songs, and only gradually do you become aware that there is an absence. There are no aspirational stories of rags-to-riches success floating around. There are no new how-to-get-rich enthusiasms. There are few magazine covers breathlessly telling readers that some new possibility — biotechnology, nanotechnology — is about to change everything. That part of American culture that stokes ambition and encourages risk has gone silent.
We are now in an astonishingly noncommercial moment. Risk is out of favor. The financial world is abashed. Enterprise is suspended. The public culture is dominated by one downbeat story after another as members of the educated class explore and enjoy the humiliation of the capitalist vulgarians.
Washington is temporarily at the center of the nation’s economic gravity and a noncommercial administration holds sway. This is an administration that has many lawyers and academics but almost no businesspeople in it, let alone self-made entrepreneurs. The president speaks passionately about education and health care reform, but he is strangely aloof from the banking crisis and displays no passion when speaking about commercial drive and success.
But if there is one thing we can be sure of, this pause will not last. The cultural DNA of the past 400 years will not be erased. The pendulum will swing hard. The gospel of success will recapture the imagination.
Somewhere right now there’s probably a smart publisher searching for the most unabashed, ambitious, pro-wealth, pro-success manuscript she can find, and in about three months she’ll pile it up in the nation’s bookstores. Somewhere there’s probably a TV producer thinking of hiring Jim Cramer to do a show to tell story after story of unapologetic business success. Somewhere there’s a politician finding a way to ride the commercial renaissance that is bound to come, ready to explain how government can sometimes nurture entrepreneurial greatness and sometimes should get out of the way.
Walt Whitman got America right in his essay, “Democratic Vistas.” He acknowledged the vulgarity of the American success drive. He toted up its moral failings. But in the end, he accepted his country’s “extreme business energy,” its “almost maniacal appetite for wealth.” He knew that the country’s dreams were all built upon that energy and drive, and eventually the spirit of commercial optimism would always prevail.
参考文献编辑本段回目录
David Brooke ，赵菲菲翻译3月17日美国《纽约时报》文章
《纽约时报》原文地址：http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/opinion/17brooks.html
