入世的政治—经济学家阿尔伯特·赫希曼的思想之旅

A Worldly Political Economist: The Life and Thoughts of Albert O. Hirschman

阿尔伯特·赫希曼是当代一位全球化的知识分子,其研究横跨经济学、政治学、社会思想史等领域,在国际上有着巨大影响。2013年,普林斯顿大学历史学教授杰里米·阿德尔曼出版了《入世哲学家:阿尔伯特·赫希曼的奥德赛之旅》长篇学术传记。作为这本传记的中译本导读,文章在第一部分先简述了赫希曼的坎坷、传奇和辉煌的生平。第二部分着重介绍了赫希曼在经济学领域的贡献,包括"不平衡增长"、"隐蔽之手"理论等。赫希曼本人还提出了"基尼系数"、"极化涓滴效应"、"隧道效应"以及"赫芬达尔—赫希曼指数"等概念。正是因为赫希曼有如此众多的理论贡献,他曾被人们誉为"50年来影响最大的发展经济学家"。第三部分回顾了赫希曼晚年著作和思想,着重介绍了他的最重要学术著作《激情与利益》、《转变与参与》和《反动的修辞》三部主要学术著作中的一些理论观点。赫希曼作为一个从人类社会观念史大背景中思考现实世界问题的当代思想家,他所留给世人的是关于人类社会如何运作的一些"伟大观念"。

Albert O. Hirschman is one of the great intellectuals in the contemporary world. His research fields include economics,political sciences and history of economic and social thoughts. In 2013,one of leading historians in Princeton University,Professor Jeremy Adelman,published a grand biography of Worldly Philosopher： The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman. As the introduction of the Chinese edition of the book,this article gives a brief review of the life and thoughts of Albert O. Hirschman. The first part of this article gives a brief introduction to the legendary life of Hirschman. The second part offers some comments about Hirschman＇s contributions to economics,including the theories of imbalanced development,＂hiding hand＂,the polarization trickle-down effect and the tunnel effect etc.Hirschman also firstly brings the terms of the Gini Coefficient and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index into contemporary economics. Due to his contributions to economic theories,Hirschman is recognized one of most influential development economists in the world. The third part gives some reviews on the later books and thoughts of Hirschman,particularly his three important books of The Passions and the Interests： Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph（ 1973）,Shifting Involvements： Private Interest and Public Action（ 1982） and The Rhetoric of Reaction： Perversity,Futility,Jeopardy（ 1991）. As a great thinker of studying the real world from a background of history of human ideas,Hirschman left some ＂big concepts ＂ of functioning of human societies to the contemporary world and future generations.