沃尔特·白芝浩

沃尔特·白芝浩（英语：Walter Bagehot，1826年2月3日—1877年3月24日），英国商人、散文家、社会学、经济学家。生于英格兰萨摩非特郡兰波特。1848年获伦敦大学硕士，1852年获律师资格。1858年后任《经济学人》杂志主编。代表作《物理学与政治学》强调弱肉强食的普遍性，宣扬了社会达尔文主义的理论，对后来的加布里埃尔·塔尔德等有所影响。在维多利亚时代便注意到了：“在许多时刻，有许多荒谬之人拥有着荒谬之财，而市场上存在着投机以及各种恐慌。”。

白芝浩试图在1873年的《伦巴第街：货币市场记述》中解释金融和银行业。他对金融的观察经常被中央银行家引用，尤其是在2007年—2008年环球金融危机之后。在白芝浩的金融观点中，特别重要的是“白芝浩原则”，即在金融危机时期，中央银行应向有偿付能力的储蓄机构自由放贷，但只接受可靠的担保，并以足够高的利率劝阻那些并非真正有需要的借款人。

Walter Bagehot ( BAJ-ət; 3 February 1826 – 24 March 1877) was an English journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the National Review in 1855, and for his works The English Constitution and Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873).

Life

Bagehot was born in Langport, Somerset, England, on 3 February 1826. His father, Thomas Watson Bagehot, was managing director and vice-chairman of Stuckey's Bank. He attended University College London (UCL), where he studied mathematics and, in 1848, earned a master's degree in moral philosophy. Bagehot was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn, but preferred to join his father in 1852 in his family's shipping and banking business.

In 1858, Bagehot married Elizabeth (Eliza) Wilson (1832–1921), whose father, James Wilson, was the founder and owner of The Economist. The couple were happily married until Bagehot's untimely death at age 51, but had no children. A collection of their love-letters was published in 1933.

Journalism

In 1855, Bagehot founded the National Review with his friend Richard Holt Hutton. In 1861, he became editor-in-chief of The Economist. In the 16 years he served as its editor, Bagehot expanded the reporting of politics by The Economist, and increased its influence among policy-makers. He was widely accepted by the British establishment and was elected to the Athenaeum in 1875.

He considered himself a "conservative Liberal or 'between size in politics.'"

Works

In 1867, Bagehot wrote The English Constitution, a book that explores the nature of the constitution of the United Kingdom, specifically its Parliament and monarchy. It appeared at the same time that Parliament enacted the Reform Act 1867, requiring Bagehot to write an extended introduction to the second edition which appeared in 1872.

Bagehot also wrote Physics and Politics (1872), in which he examines how civilisations sustain themselves, arguing that, in their earliest phase, civilisations are very much in opposition to the values of modern liberalism, insofar as they are sustained by conformism and military success but, once they are secured, it is possible for them to mature into systems which allow for greater diversity and freedom.

His viewpoint was based on his distinction between the qualities of an "accomplished man" and those of a "rude man", which he considered to be the result of iterative inheritances by which the "nervous organisation" of the individual became increasingly refined down through the generations. He regarded that distinction as a moral achievement whereby, through the actions of the will, the "accomplished" elite was able to morally differentiate themselves from "rude men" by a "hereditary drill". He equally applied such reasoning to develop a form of pseudoscientific racism, whereby those of mixed race lacked any "inherited creed" or "fixed traditional sentiments" upon which, he considered, human nature depended.

He attempted to provide empirical support for his views by citing John Lubbock and Edward Tylor although, in their writings on human evolution, neither of them accepted arguments for innate hereditary differences, as opposed to cultural inheritance. Tylor, in particular, rejected Bagehot's view of the centrality of physical heredity, or that the modern "savage" mind had become "tattooed over with monstrous images" by which base instincts had been preserved in crevices, as opposed to accomplished European man, for whom such instincts had been smoothed away through the inherited will to exercise reason.