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我们这次利用交易所，不是为了做投机买卖，不是为了赚二百四十万英镑，今后也不做投机买卖。这次利用交易所是一种迂回的保护性措施，是为了使我们不吃亏或少吃亏。

“学会从网络上听取民意，并积极回应民间的质疑，已成为新时期政府官员的一项基本素质。然而，有许多官员依然对网络比较抵触，甚至将之视为洪水猛兽，认为是网络煽动了百姓情绪，一旦网上出现了不利于自己的言论，就迅速删帖甚至查封ID，并动用公权力对发帖者进行跟踪、报复。这种做法是很不明智的，而且是违法的。”

孝通将自己1947年出版的著作命名为《Earthbound China》——可直译为“无法脱离土地的中国”或“被土地束缚的中国”。它流传至今的中文译名则是“乡土中国”。

什么是金融化 金融化，简单地说就是社会经济活动中金融资产规模与金融活动规模的盲目扩大过程。比如，上世纪第一次世界经济危机后的1930年，美国的财富生产规模（GDP）仅为0.1兆美元，1980年达到2.8兆美元，2008年迅速扩大到14.2兆美元，比1930年增加了140多倍。但另一方面，为了实现财富规模的快速扩张，金融资产的增长速度更为迅猛。1930年全美国金融资产规模仅与当年的GDP相当，1980年达到GDP的2.5倍，2008年进一步扩大到GDP的4.4倍。无独有偶，这一现象在世界许多国家也同样存在。根据IMF的资料，2008年全球GDP为68.3兆美元，全球金融资产为171兆美元、相当GDP的4倍，而全球的金融衍生品销售额竟高达684兆美元、相当GDP的10倍。可见，这个加速的经济扩张过程，是以金融活动的规模越来越超过生产活动的规模、货币循环的速度越来越超过商品循环速度的方式实现的，其内涵是社会经济活动的“金融化”过程。 金融化的表现 金融化的结果，表面上看似乎是增加了社会经济的繁荣，但在本质上由于加快了金融活动与生产活动的分离，这既强化了金融市场的相对独立性，同时也加大了金融市场独立发生危机可能性。这样一来，原来可能在生产领域爆发的问题和危机，由于生产活动被金融活动的替代而逐步转移到了金融领域，使得传统的经济危机（商品过剩）可能以一种更高级的形态，即金融危机（资金过剩）的方式表现了出来。在这一过程中，一方面，金融资产的膨胀使生产活动日益被投资活动所替代，即投资超前；另一方面，各种金融衍生品的过度供给使商品循环日益被货币循环活动所替代，即消费超前的现象。这种投资和消费的“双超前”现象，不仅是现代资本主义市场经济“繁荣”的集中表现，也是其社会深层次矛盾的直接反映。 金融化的本质 其实，金融化带来的繁荣就是社会金融资产规模的快速增加。我们知道，金融资产作为社会总资产的一个部分，相对于土地、房屋、设备等不动产而言具有较高的流动性，俗称为动产。从资产负债平衡关系（B/S）看，全社会金融资产的增加，在通常情况下，即意味着在社会另一端存在着同样规模金融负债的增加。例如，美国政府和企业发行的大量国债和企业债，对于持有者（如居民）而言是一种金融资产，但对于政府、企业和银行而言，是一种不折不扣的债务。同样，金融衍生品作为一种特殊的金融资产，不过是金融机构向全社会（包括家庭、企业、政府）发行的（准确地说是借入的）一种新型债务而已。由此可见，金融化带来的繁荣：金融资产和金融衍生品规模的增加，不过是少数人利用发达的商业信用将社会总收入（国民收入）透支了若干次而已。可以说，金融化的本质就是社会债务关系的不断扩大，即全社会的债务化。 一幅真实的图景 美国的最新情况表明：2009年底美国主要负债结构为，国家债务9万亿美元、公司债务9万亿美元、房屋抵押债务10万亿美元、医疗债务30万亿美元、社会保障债务12万亿美元，合计达到70万亿美元，这相当于美国当年GDP的4.5倍和财政收入的8.8倍。也就是说，半个多世纪以来由个别发达国家主导的经济增长模式（超前消费和投资），不过是运用所谓“金融化”手段实现的向全世界的巨额债务透支，其繁荣的背后不过是从银行到企业、从政府到民间依靠大量借贷资金维系的一个海市蜃楼。 我们的选择和方向 当前，世界经济正处于缓慢的复苏过程，但这一过程能否持续下去还不取决于我们，因为规模庞大的借贷资金能否在各个环节上保持充足的流动性和利益回流；同时，作为支撑这一循环的制度安排、即由发达国家主导的国际经济秩序（如WTO、IMF、WB等）的稳定性和有效性，随时都将可能使这一海市蜃楼再一次变成泡影。换句话说，即使2008年的美国次贷危机不爆发，接下来，由各国企业部门、政府部门、金融部门引发的任何一个债务问题都将会再现同样的结果。对此，马克思在分析资本主义经济危机时就早已说过，“现实买卖的扩大远远超过社会需要的限度这一事实，归根到底是整个社会危机的基础”，为此，加快“去金融化”的政策调整，防止“负债式经济增长”的风险应是未来保持我国经济社会和谐运行的不二选择。 

2011年8月2日，美国参议院通过了两党领袖达成的债务上限协议，将美国债务上限从14.3万亿美元提高至16.7万亿美元；未来10年内削减2.1万亿美元支出；并且将建立一个12人国会特别委员会，负责在11月23日前制定出一个削减赤字1.5万亿美元的具体方案。奥巴马签署该协议后，美国财政部获得了4000亿美元的国债发行额度。 不过，协议的达成反而造成了美国股市的连续暴跌。8月3日道琼斯指数跌破12000点重要心理关口，此后多个交易日连续暴跌，至8月末在11000点上下拉锯。而国际市场黄金价格8月3日后则连续上涨，三周时间从1680美元直冲1900美元。这些现象表明美元正在大规模流出美国。但至少在表面上，美国在8月2日这个时限点避免了债务违约。 美债危机对全球经济的危害 在美国的生产能力早已无力支撑庞大的美元数字，美元却依然是世界货币的情况下，美元从美国的大规模流出／回流会对全球经济产生重大影响。而美国债务上限协议实质上导致美国明确的未来国债－美元释放计划的难产，这就给美元在最终减赤方案"难产"期间的流出及回流造成极大不确定性，而这种不确定性将严重打击全球经济，甚至威胁全球局势稳定。 根据8月2日通过的协议，12人国会特别委员会将在11月23日之前提交未来10年减赤1.5万亿美元的具体方案，而该方案将在12月23日由众议院表决。此外，国会还必须在10月1日到年底之间就平衡预算修正案进行表决。这些其实都是美债危机的时限上抻长而烈度上人为抑制。从现在到年底之前，多个时点上发生的与减赤或国债有关的美国政治动作，都会对美元的流出／回流产生方向性的影响。 到年底之前，美国财政部没有推出大规模国债发行计划的情况下，美元将流出美国。 首先，由于在先前的QE2过程中，资金被大规模以再融资等方式注入到美国大企业的账户上，因此，美元流出的方式将表现为美国大企业在国际市场上抢购大宗商品等原材料。这就会对原油、铁矿石、棉花等原材料产生巨大的推涨作用。近几日的原油价格连续下跌情况，并不符合全球美元流动的趋势，必须警惕原油在年底之前随时可能出现的突然暴涨情况，尤其是在原油产地如果出现局势突变的情况下（如利比亚或中东局势变化）。 其次，美元流出的过程中，会对包括中国在内的新兴市场产生热钱流入压力，推高利率及物价。这些国家将在经济增长放缓（由于利率高）的同时面对通胀压力。 第三，美元流出将造成国际粮食价格上涨，而且在当前的全球谷物贸易体制下，粮食价格变化会比货币数量变化更为敏感，可能突然出现暴涨。这就有可能造成类似今年上半年中东危机这样的危机局势扩大化。而这种扩大化的危机，有可能被引导到中亚和东南亚这样的中国周边地区。 最后，美元流出本身意味着美元贬值，这就意味着美元将不适合作为可持有的储备货币。除了美元，其他可选择的货币最主要的是欧元。然而，美国绝不希望欧元成为美元的"替代性货币"，因此，美国会动用各种手段打击欧元。美国绝不会在欧元区面临的主权债务危机中成为施救者，只会利用各种可能的手段造成欧债危机的持续，并在需要的时机恰到好处地恶化一下。美国刚刚通过债务上限协议，美元流出，这时意大利和西班牙的主权债务评级就被下调，这巧合未免太巧了些。 年底之前，如果美国财政部推出大规模的国债发行计划，或者出现一些意外情况（如美联储上调利率），美元将大规模回流。在美元回流的情况下，将产生的后果为： 首先，美元的大规模回流将造成全球通货紧缩。在先期发生通胀的情况下再发生迅速的通缩，是经济所可能遭受的最严重灾难之一。 其次，全球通缩无异于美国对全球财富的大规模洗劫。这是杀鸡取卵式的洗劫，这是美国政府也无法控制的，关键是这种洗劫将会把世界很多地方的财富清零，造成大规模动乱。 最后，由于美元的流出－回流是受到美国减赤问题两党博弈状况影响的，而这种状况可能出现反复，因此全球可能将面临多次美元的"冲击－回流－再冲击－再回流"过程，这无疑是各种原有矛盾和危机的催化剂和爆炸引信！ 对亚洲及中国的影响 美债危机对中国周边局势的影响将体现为两个方面： 首先，对东南亚安全的影响。美元的进一步涌入将把越南、泰国等国的利率和物价推向更高水平。这就会引发其他社会问题。越南在面临社会问题的情况下，可能会把祸水引向南海，增加与中国在南海问题上的摩擦。而泰国的社会矛盾可能再次爆发。 其次，对中亚安全的影响。全球粮食涨价可能会造成中亚发生中东式的危机。如果美国势力渗透很深的塔吉克斯坦和吉尔吉斯斯坦局势发生变乱，就可能影响到中国的中亚能源通道安全。 美债危机对中国经济的影响需要警惕的也有两方面： 首先，美元→玉米价格→猪肉价格的传导链条将造成中国通胀压力。玉米是国际谷物贸易中最主要的交易品种，受到美元数量的高度影响。所以，美元大规模流出美国将使中国CPI面临巨大压力。其次，美元的流入再回流过程，将使得中国的房地产市场资金链面临巨大挑战。目前中国银行体系中约47%的贷款是房地产及地方融资平台贷款。美元数量增加将导致外汇占款增加，从而推高人民币供给量。这样，在总的人民币供应量面临增加压力的情况下，房地产资金也相应充裕，这种情况下房价上涨势头实际上很难遏制。然而，美元的突然大规模回流却可能造成房地产资金链突然断裂，在目前房价高企成交量却低迷的情况下，资金的突然撤出就意味着房地产泡沫的破灭。日本1990年遭遇的正是这样的情况。这是必须严正面对的挑战

随着美国在伊拉克和阿富汗战争结束，奥巴马总统已表示打算重新调整与亚太国家的外交和军事关系。中美关系在未来将受到何种影响？上周(2012.4.20)，在《外交官》杂志和哈佛大学共同举办的高级别研讨会上，分析家和政策制定者提供了一些答案。以下是会议摘要。

辞海从第二版到第六版对抗日战争词条的一再改订

资本主义并不只是众多历史阶段中的一个。从某种程度上说，曾经红极一时，今天却已几乎被人遗忘的福山（Francis Fukuyama）的论断是正确的：全球资本主义是“历史的终结”。

刺激农民消费的前提是搞清农民有没有钱，钱从哪里来，这笔钱对农民到底意味着什么?

世界经济/金融危机似乎日甚一日，整个中东地区的政治和军事继续分崩离析，全球都在期待着奥巴马就任总统，在这一切之中，世界很少注意到2008年12月中旬的一个重大地缘政治事件。古巴重返舞台！

中国古典思想语境中政治的本性是一切存在者的“各正性命”，它意味着，一方面，“天下有道”，存在者皆有路可走；另一方面，人们皆有家可以安居。

张承志《敬重与惜别——致日本》新书发布会暨媒体见面会记录。

该立案针对联邦通讯委员会去年12月发布的“保持开放互联网”通知，虽然作者认为这项议案很难通过参议院，并且奥巴马总统也声称将对其否决，但此次通过表明了重大问题。

戰國儒學在運用“儒”字上所表達的自我理解，以及戰國時代的其他學派對“儒”的思想與人格刻畫，都突出顯現了儒之人格與儒家學說宗旨在當時通行的理解。因此比起字源學的“說儒”方法來說，先秦儒家和其他各家對“儒”的論述和評論才是瞭解先秦儒的學說宗旨與文化形象的直接的依據和素材。

两本叶芝分析的书评

80年代对“纯文学”的热烈想像与诉求与90年代对“纯文学”的反思与批判似乎构成了中国新时期文学一条充满悖论的内在逻辑线索。

Forget aid-people in the poorest countries like Haiti need new cities with different rules. And developed countries should be the ones that build themLacking electricity at home, students work under the dim lights of a parking lot at G'bessi Airport in Conakry, GuineaOn the first day of TEDGlobal, a conference for technology enthusiasts in Oxford in July 2009, a surprise guest was unveiled: Gordon Brown. He began his presentation with a striking photograph of a vulture watching over a starving Sudanese girl. The internet, he said, meant such shocking images circulated quickly around the world, helping to mobilise a new global community of aid donors. Brown's talk ended with a call to action: developed countries should give more aid to fight poverty.When disaster strikes-as in the recent Haiti earthquake-the prime minister is right. Even small amounts of aid can save many lives. The moral case for aid is compelling. But we must also remember that aid is just palliative care. It doesn't treat the underlying problems. As leaders like Rwandan president Paul Kagame have noted, it can even make these problems worse if it saps the innovation, ambition, confidence, and aspiration that ultimately helps poor countries grow.So, two days later, I opened my own TED talk with a different photo, one of African students doing their homework at night under streetlights. I hoped the image would provoke astonishment rather than guilt or pity-for how could it be that the 100-year-old technology for lighting homes was still not available for the students? I argued that the failure could be traced to weak or wrong rules. The right rules can harness self-interest and use it to reduce poverty. The wrong rules stifle this force or channel it in ways that harm society.The deeper problem, widely recognised but seldom addressed, is how to free people from bad rules. I floated a provocative idea. Instead of focusing on poor nations and how to change their rules, we should focus on poor people and how they can move somewhere with better rules. One way to do this is with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of new "charter cities," where developed countries frame the rules and hundreds of millions of poor families could become residents.How would such a city work? Imagine that a government in a poor country set aside a piece of uninhabited land. It invites a developed country to enter into a new type of partnership, in which the developed country sets up and enforces rules specified in a charter. Citizens from the poorer country, and the rest of the world, would be free to live and work in the city that emerges. It could create economic opportunities and encourage foreign investment, and by using uninhabited land it would ensure everyone living there would have chosen to do so with full knowledge of the rules. Roughly 3bn people, mostly the working poor, will move to cities over the next few decades. To my mind the choice is not whether the world will urbanise, but where and under which rules. Instead of expanding the slums in existing urban centres, new charter cities could provide safe, low-income housing and jobs that the world will need to accommodate this shift. Even more important, these cities could give poor people a chance to choose the rules they want to live and work under.To understand why rules are the way to harness self-interest, and why such new cities could work where old cities have not, look again at the example of electricity. We know from the developed world that it costs very little to light a home-on average, less than one US penny an hour for a 100-watt bulb. We also know that most poor people in Africa are not starving. They could afford some light. Africans do not lack electricity because they are too poor. Indeed, reliable power is so important for education, productivity and job creation that it would be more accurate to say that many in Africa are poor because they don't have electricity. So why don't they?Why the right rules matterConsider development the other way round. US customers have cheap electricity mostly because rules channel self-interest in the right way. Some protect investments made by utilities, others stop these companies abusing their monopoly power. With such rules, companies win; efficient providers make a profit. But customers win too; they get access to a vital resource at low cost. It's the absence of these rules that explains why many Africans don't have electricity at home. It might seem a simple insight, but it took economists a long time to understand it.In the 1950s and 1960s, economic models treated ideas as public goods, meaning that once one existed it was assumed to exist everywhere. Some ideas are like this-for example, the formula for oral rehydration therapy, the mixture of sugar, salt, and water, that stops children dying from diarrhoea. No one owns it and you can find it easily online. If all ideas were like this it would be easier for poor countries to grow. But they aren't: patents and other legal rules stop some ideas spreading, while others are just easy to keep secret.When I started graduate school in the late 1970s I was convinced economists underestimated the potential for new ideas to raise living standards. The body of work that grew out of my PhD thesis came to be called new growth theory, or post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory in Britain (when it was infamously taken up by new Labour in the mid-1990s). Initially I just wanted to understand how good ideas, like those which make cheap electric light possible, were discovered. But then another topic began to interest me: why didn't ideas common in some parts of the world spread to others?Put simply, some countries are better able to establish the type of rules that help good ideas spread, while others are trapped by bad rules that keep ideas out. The rules stopping cheap electricity, for instance, are not hard to identify. The threat of expropriation or political instability stops many western electricity companies moving into Africa. Those that do set up there can exploit their power as monopolists to charge excessive prices. Often they offer bribes to stop rules being enforced, or pay bribes themselves. Good rules would stop all this. So to unleash the potential of the marketplace, poor countries need to find a way to create good rules.The challenge in setting up good rules lies in solving what economists call "commitment" problems. How can a developing country promise to keep the rules that govern investment fair? Nobel prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling illustrates this problem with the example of a kidnapper who decides he wants to free his victim. But the kidnapper worries that the victim, once released, will go to the authorities. The victim, eager to be free, promises not to-but there is no way for him to guarantee he will keep quiet. As a result, the kidnapper is compelled to kill the victim, even though both would be better off if a binding agreement could be made. Poor countries face similar problems: their leaders cannot make credible commitments to would-be investors.Rich nations use well-functioning systems of courts, police and jails, developed over centuries, to solve such problems. Two people can make a commitment. If they don't follow through, the courts will punish them. But many developing countries are still working their way down the same arduous path. Their leaders can fight corruption and establish independent courts and better rules over property rights, but such moves often require unpopular measures to coerce and cajole populations, making internal reforms excruciatingly slow. Subsequent leaders may undo any commitments they make. A faster route would seem to be for a developed country to impose new rules by force, as they did in the colonial period. There is evidence that some former colonies are more successful today because of rules established during their occupations. Yet any economic benefits usually took a long time to show up, and rarely compensated for years of condescension and the violent opposition it provoked. Today, violent civil conflicts have led some countries to again consider military humanitarian intervention, but this can only be justified in extreme circumstances. My point was that there is a middle ground between slow internal reforms and risky attempts at recolonialisation: the charter city.There are large swathes of uninhabited land on the coast of sub-Saharan Africa that are too dry for agriculture. But a city can develop in even the driest locations, supported if necessary by desalinated and recycled water. And the new zone created need not be ruled directly from the developed partner country-residents of the charter city can administer the rules specified by their partner as long as the developed country retains the final say. This is what happens today in Mauritius, where the British Privy Council is still the court of final appeal in a judicial system staffed by Mauritians. Different cities could start with charters that differ in many ways. The common element would be that all residents would be there by choice-a Gallup survey found that 700m people around the world would be willing to move permanently to another country that offers safety and economic opportunity.I started thinking about city-scale special zones after writing a paper about Mauritius. At the time of its independence in 1968, economists were pessimistic about this small island nation's prospects. The population was growing rapidly, new jobs were scarce in its only real export industry (sugar), and high tariffs designed to protect small companies manufacturing for the domestic market meant no companies could profitably use their workers to manufacture goods for export. It was politically impossible to dismantle these barriers to trade, so policymakers did the next best thing: they created a special category of companies, ones said to be in a "special export zone." The zone didn't physically exist, in that these companies could locate anywhere on the island, but companies "inside" the zone operated under different rules. They faced no tariffs, or limits on imports or exports. Foreign companies in the zone could enter and exit freely, and keep profits they earned. Domestic companies could enter too. The only quid pro quo was that everyone in the zone had to produce only for export, so as not to compete with domestic firms. The zone was a dramatic success. Foreign businesses entered. Employment grew rapidly. The economy moved from agriculture to manufacturing. Once growth was underway, the government reduced trade barriers, freeing up the rest of the economy.The history of development is littered with failed examples of similar zones. Mauritius was unusual because it had low levels of crime and the government already provided good utilities and infrastructure. The zone only had to remove one bad form of governance: trade restrictions. Yet many developing countries still can't offer the basics, another reason why building new cities is an attractive option. Cities are just the right scale to offer basic conditions. So long as they can trade freely, even small cities are big enough to be self-sufficient. Yet because they are dense they require very little land.To apply the lessons from Mauritius in countries with pervasive problems, the key is to create zones with new rules that are big enough to be self-contained. Big enough, that is, to hold a city. Then let people decide whether to enter.When I returned to Mauritius in 2008, I outlined my ideas to Maurice Lam, head of the Mauritian Board of Investment. Maurice splits his time between Mauritius and Singapore. He and I knew that Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore, had experimented in the 1990s with a similar idea, establishing new cities that Singapore could help to run in China and Indonesia. These ran into difficulties because the local governments retained discretionary powers that they used to interfere after Singapore had made large investments in infrastructure. This convinced us that explicit treaties reassigning administrative control over land were needed. Maurice also said that countries in Africa would be open to this kind of arrangement. Some officials, eager to make a credible commitment to foreign investors, had already made informal inquiries about whether Mauritius would be willing to take administrative control over their special export zones.What could go wrong?Some economists have objected that a charter agreement between two countries will not necessarily solve the commitment problem that lies at the heart of development failures. The leaders of many countries enter into agreements, sometimes with the best intentions, that subsequent leaders or officials do not honour-as Lee Kuan Yew found to his cost. To guard against such an outcome, partners in a charter city must negotiate a formal treaty, like the one that gave the British rights in Hong Kong (see box, right). Under this arrangement the only way for the host country to renege on its commitment would be to invade. Even governments that resent having signed such agreements in the past almost always respect them. The Cubans hate the agreement that gave the US control of Guantánamo Bay, but learned to live with it.Another objection comes from those who study urbanisation. They point out that the location of most existing cities is determined by accidents of history or geography, and suggest, correctly, that there are geographical requirements for a city to survive. But they are surely wrong to think that all the good sites for cities are taken. Here distance matters, but it is not an insurmountable obstacle: Mauritius continues to develop despite its remote location. Flat land is cheaper to build on, but many cities have developed on hilly terrain. A river can provide fresh water and access to the sea, but with desalination, so too can any coastal location where a port could be built. Access to the sea is the only real necessity-as long as a charter city can ship goods back and forth on container ships, it can thrive even if its neighbours turn hostile or unstable. And there are thousands of largely uninhabited coastal locations on several continents that could qualify.Other urban economists fear new cities will repeat the unimpressive history of government-planned ones like Brasília, or Dubai's recent bust. But these are both extreme examples. The state was too intrusive in Brasília and almost non-existent in Dubai. Hong Kong is the middle ground, a state ruled by laws not men, but one that leaves competition and individual initiative to decide the details.The experience in Hong Kong offers two further lessons. The first is the importance of giving people a choice about the rules that govern them. Hong Kong was sparsely populated when the British took over. Unlike other colonial systems, almost everyone chose to come and live under the new system. This gave the rules proposed by the British a degree of legitimacy they never had in India, where the rules were imposed on often unwilling subjects. This is why building new cities, rather than taking over existing ones, is so powerful.The second lesson is the importance of getting the scale right. Most nations are too large to update all their rules and laws at once. The coercion needed to impose a new system on an existing population generates friction, no matter who is in charge. Leaders on mainland China understood this when they attempted to copy the successes of Hong Kong by gradually opening a few places, such as the new city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. Yet while nations are too big, towns and villages are too small. A village cannot capture the benefits that arise when millions of people live and work together under good rules. Cities offer the right scale for dramatic change.The demands of migrationAs billions of people urbanise in the coming decades, they can move to hundreds of new cities. The gains new cities can unleash are clear. Picture again the students studying under the streetlights. By themselves, political leaders in poor countries won't provide cheap, reliable electricity any time soon. They can't eliminate the political risk that holds back investment or ensure adequate regulatory controls. But working with a partner nation, they can establish a new city where millions of young people could pay pennies to be able to study at home. And as these cities seek out residents, the leaders and citizens in existing countries will face the most effective pressure for good governance-competition.We know from history that the competitive pressures created by migration can boost economic growth. But strong opposition to immigration in the world's richest economies prevents many people from moving to better systems of rules. Charter cities bring the good systems of rules to places that would welcome migrants. Indeed, charter cities offer the only viable path for substantial increases in global migration, bringing good rules to places that the world's poor can easily and legally access, while lessening the contentious political frictions that arise from traditional migration flows.Intelligently designed new cities can offer environmental benefits too, a point increasingly made by environmentalists like Stewart Brand (see p39.) For example, Indonesia emits greenhouse gases at a rate exceeded only by China and the US. This rate is partly due to logging practices in its rainforest, and efforts to clear land for palm-oil plantations and pulp-producing acacia trees. Brand has cited the experience of Panama to demonstrate the green potential of urbanisation: as people there left slash-and-burn agriculture for work in cities, forest regenerated on the land they left behind. Similar migration to new cities in places like Indonesia could do much to reduce carbon emissions from the developing world.Investment in charter cities could also make more effective the aid rich countries give. The British experience in Hong Kong shows that enforcing rules costs partners very little, but can have a huge effect. Because Hong Kong helped make reform in the rest of China possible, the British intervention there arguably did more to reduce world poverty than all the official aid programmes of the 20th century, and at a fraction of the cost. And, if many such cities are built, fewer people will be trapped in the failed states that are the root cause of most humanitarian crises and security concerns.There are many questions to be resolved before the first city is chartered. Is it better to have a group of rich nations, or a multinational body like the EU, play the role the British played in Hong Kong? How would such a city be governed? And how and when might transfer of control back to the host country be arranged? But as we begin to explore these questions, we must not lose sight of the fundamental insights that advocates of the free market underestimate. The win-win agreements that we see in well-functioning markets are possible only when there is a strong, credible government that can establish the rules. In places where these rules are not present, it could take centuries for locals to bootstrap themselves from bad rules to good. By creating new zones through partnerships at the national level, good rules can spread more quickly, and when they do, the benefits can be huge.The world's fortunate citizens must be able to provide assistance when disasters like the earthquake in Haiti strike, but we must also be wary of the practical and moral limits of aid. When the roles of benefactor and supplicant are institutionalised, both parties are diminished. In the case of Haiti, if nations in the region created just two charter cities, they could house the entire population of that country. Senegal has offered Haitians the opportunity to return to the home "of their ancestors." "If they come en masse we are ready to give them a region," a Senegal government spokesman said. Outside of the extraordinary circumstances of a crisis, the role of partner is better for everyone. And there are millions of people seeking partnerships around the world. Helping people build them successfully is the opportunity of the centuryHong Kong: the first charter city? Hong Kong was a successful example of a special zone that could serve as a model for charter cities. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the only place in China where Chinese workers could enter partnerships with foreign workers and companies. Many of the Chinese who moved to Hong Kong started in low-skill jobs, making toys or sewing shirts. But over time their wages grew along with the skills that they gained working with educated managers, and using modern technologies and working practices.Over time they acquired the values and norms that sustain modern cities. As a result, Hong Kong enjoyed rapid economic growth-in 1960, the average income was around £2,500; by 1997, it was around £20,000.Even if it had wanted to, the Chinese government acting alone could not have offered this opportunity. The credibility of rules developed over centuries by the British government was essential in attracting the foreign investment, companies and skilled workers that let these low-skill immigrants lift themselves out of poverty. As in Mauritius, authority rested ultimately with the British governor general, but most of the police and civil servants were Chinese. And the benefits demonstrated in Hong Kong became a model for reform-minded leaders in China itself.

Bruce Bayfield的评论文章称，自由及开源软件(以下简称FOSS)社区最大的敌人不是微软，也不是其它什么公司，而是FOSS社区自己。FOSS社区中存在九大不利于FOSS发展的态度问题。

台灣的民主反對運動必須得要重新清理過去的歷史，在這個過程中得有主體性的去面對日本殖民主義對台灣長遠的傷害，以及美國對於兩蔣威權體制的支持過程中對於台灣民主造成的迫害及長遠的影響，而不只是切掉歷史重要的構成，透過簡單的反中來自我正當化；這也就是要把歷史中台灣主體構成的他者多元化。

光伏产业，危机复兴的突破口？国家新竞争的制高点？一场围绕光伏产业的国际竞争已经展开。以光伏产业为核心打造“新能源大国”，是一个可能使中国经济一举摆脱“世界血汗打工仔”地位的最佳切入点。以国家意志、国家力量主导光伏产业的发展，是最容易汇集全民共识、最具缓解阶层利益对立的方案，可得“四两拨千斤”之效。