Everything I need to know about politics, I learned from cheese. For the last decade of my business career, I ran a 250-million-dollar food company in Wisconsin. And yes, we made cheese. If customers liked my cheese, I did well. If they didn't, they bought cheese from someone else and I did less well. That's healthy competition. Healthy competition incentivizes businesses to make better products. Better products equals happier customers and happier customers equals successful businesses. Win-win.
我一切有关政治的知识, 都是从芝士中学到的。 在我商业生涯的最后十年中, 我在威斯康辛州经营着 市值2.5亿的食品公司。 是的,我们制作芝士。 如果顾客喜欢我 的芝士,那我做得好。 如果他们不喜欢, 并从其他人那里购买芝士, 那我做得不是那么好。 这是良性竞争。 良性竞争激励企业去生产更好的产品。 更好的产品等同于更开心的顾客, 而更开心的顾客等于成功的企业。 双赢。
Now, while I was running Gehl Foods, I was also deeply engaged in and increasingly frustrated by politics. The more frustrated I got, the more I wondered why competition in politics didn't deliver the same kind of win-win results. How did the Democrats and the Republicans keep doing so well when their customers, that's us, are so unhappy? Why is the politics industry win-lose? They win. We lose.
现在,当我经营Gehl食品时, 我深入参与到政治, 并逐渐被政治所挫败。 我越是被政治所挫败, 我越是想知道为什么政治竞争 不能产生同样的双赢结果。 为什么民主党人 和共和党人能一直这么做? 当他们的顾客, 那就是我们, 十分的不开心。 为什么政治行业是零和博弈? 他们赢, 我们输。
The answer? It turns out that one thing almost all Americans agree on, "Washington is broken," is also one thing we're all wrong about. Washington isn't broken, it's doing exactly what it's designed to do. It's just not designed to serve us, the citizens, the public interest. Most of the rules in politics are designed and continuously fine-tuned by and for the benefit of private gain-seeking organizations. That's the two parties, a textbook duopoly, and the surrounding companies in the business of politics. And they're all doing great. Even as the American public has never been more dissatisfied. Said another way, politics isn't broken, it's fixed.
答案为何? 实际上有一件事情 几乎所有美国人都赞同, “华盛顿已经破碎,” 这也是一件被我们错误看待的事情。 华盛顿并没有破碎, 它确确实实按照设计的那样运作。 不过它不是设计用来 服务我们,公民,公共利益。 绝大多数政治里的规则 被设计好并被持续微调 就是为了私人利益集团的收益。 这就是两党, 教科书式的双头垄断, 以及在这政治交易里的公司。 而他们都做的非常好。 以至于美国公众从未如此地失望。 用另一种方式说, 政治并没有破碎,而是被修正了。
This is a guiding principle of politics industry theory, the nonpartisan body of work that I originated and have championed over the last seven years. Now, before I go further, I should tell you I'm not on the red team or the blue team. I call myself politically homeless, which may resonate with some of you. And my work doesn't focus blame on individual politicians on either side of the duopoly. The root cause of our political dysfunction, the cause that endures across all election cycles and all administrations is the system, the perverted rules of the game, the rules of the game in politics even make prisoners of our senators and representatives. Their only option is lockstep allegiance to their side of the divide.
这是政治行业理论的指导原则, 也是我创立并倡导的超政党协作 在这过去的七年间。 现在,在我走的更远之前, 我应该告诉你们 我不属于红党或者蓝党。 我称我自己为政治流浪者, 这可能跟你们某些人产生共鸣。 而我的工作不是 注重于指责某个政客, 指责双头垄断的双方。 根基导致了我们的政治紊乱, 这个出现在整个选举周期 和所有的管理部门中的诱因 正是这个体制。 游戏里的不正当规则, 政治游戏里的规则 甚至挟持了我们的参议院和州议员。 他们唯一的选择 只有与他们阵营保持一致。
So what do we do about it? How do we free our Congress and make politics win-win? We change the rules. But which ones? It's not what we think. It's not gerrymandering, not the Electoral College, not the absence of term limits and not even money in politics, really. By looking at the system through a competition lens, politics industry theory identifies the two rules that are both our greatest obstacles and our greatest opportunities. They've been hiding in plain sight.
而我们能为之做什么? 我们怎么解放我们的 国会议员并达成政治双赢? 我们要改变规则。 但是具体是哪一个? 它并不是我们所想。 它并不是重划选举区, 不是选举人团, 不是条款限制的缺失, 甚至不是政治中的金钱交易。 以竞争的视角观察这个体制, 政治行业理论决定了两个统治者 他们既是我们最大 的阻碍也是我们最大的机会。 他们一直隐藏在众人视野外。
Let's start with bad rule number one: party primaries. You all know primaries, those first round elections that we mostly ignore, the ones that identify the single Republican and the single Democrat who can appear on the November general election ballot. Party primaries have become low turnout elections dominated by highly ideological voters and special interests. Candidates know that the only way to make it to the general election ballot in November is to win the favor of these more extreme partisans in the primary. So candidates from both parties have little choice but to move towards those extremes. Why does this matter? Because it dramatically affects governing, and not in a good way.
我们从一号恶性规则开始: 党内初选。 你们都知道党内初选, 那些被我们经常忽视的第一轮选举, 那些决定着唯一的 共和党人和唯一的民主党人 谁能够出现在九月份选票名单上。 党内初选已经成为低出席率竞选 而为高度分化的选民 和特殊利益所左右 候选人们知道出现 在九月份选票名单上的唯一机会 是在初选中赢得 这些较极端党羽的青睐。 因此来自两党的 候选人们没有太多选择, 只能屈从于那些极端者们。 这为何重要? 因为它很大程度上影响了执政, 而且是不良的方式。
Imagine you're a member of Congress. You're deciding how to vote on a bipartisan bill that addresses a critical national challenge. You might ask yourself, is this a good idea? Is this what the majority of my constituents want? But that's not how it works in the politics industry. Instead, the question that matters most to you is, will I win my next party primary if I vote for this bill? The answer is almost always no. Consensus solutions don't win party primaries. Let's illustrate this key design flaw with a Venn diagram. In the current system, there's virtually no intersection, no connection between Congress acting in the public interest and the likelihood of their getting reelected. If America's elected representatives do their jobs the way we need them to, they're likely to lose those jobs. That is crazy. No wonder Congress doesn't get anything done.
想象一下你作为国会的一员, 你正在决定如何关于 一两党议案进行投票 来设法解决一个重大 的全国性考验。 你可能会问你自己, 这是一个好主意吗? 这是我大部分选民所想要的吗? 但是在政治行业并不是这样做的。 取而代之的,对你而言 最重要的问题是, 如果我为这个议案投票, 我是否能赢得下次党内初选? 而回答总是否定的。 一致的解决方案不会赢得党内初选。 让我们用一张维恩图 解释这一关键的设计缺陷。 在目前体制里,很明显 可以看出这没有交集或者关联 国会议员为公众利益效力 和他们连任的可能性无关。 如果美国州议员如我们所希冀地工作 他们很有可能失去这些工作 这听上去十分疯狂。 难怪国会议员什么都不做。
OK, now let's talk about bad rule number two: plurality voting, which I'll explain in just a moment. In any other industry as big and as thriving as politics with this much customer dissatisfaction and only two companies, some entrepreneur would see a phenomenal business opportunity and create a new competitor. But that doesn't happen in politics. Our current parties don't feel competitive pressure to serve the public interest, in large part because of one rule that keeps out almost all new competition: plurality voting. It sounds fancy, but it simply means the candidate with the most votes wins. That also seems logical, but it's a really bad idea. Why? Because in the United States you can win almost any election, even if a majority didn't vote for you. For example, in this three-way race, the winner only has 34 percent of the votes. Sixty-six percent of the voters, most people, wanted someone else. With plurality voting, we may not feel free to vote for the candidate we really want because we're afraid that we'll just waste our vote, or worse, will spoil the election.
好吧,现在我来谈谈二号恶性规则: 多数票制, 我很快将解释这个问题。 在任何其他像政治一样 庞大而繁荣的行业 且有如此多不满意 的顾客而只有两个公司, 一些企业家可能看到了巨大的商机 并创造出一个新的竞争者。 但是这不会在政治里出现。 我们现在的政党并没有感到竞争压力 来服务于公众利益, 很大部分上是因为一条规则 它将几乎所有的竞争者排除在外: 多数票制。 这听上去很复杂的,但它仅仅 意味着拥有最多选票的候选人胜选。 这似乎也符合逻辑, 但它是一个十分糟糕的主意。 为什么? 因为在美国你可以赢得 几乎所有的选举, 甚至当大多数人给你投票。 比如说,在这个三方竞赛中, 赢家仅有百分之三十四的选票。 百分之六十六的选民, 大多数人,渴望另外的人选。 而在多数票制下, 我们可能无法自由地 为我们真正想要的选举人投票 因为我们害怕将浪费我们的选票, 或者更糟,将败坏选举。
So if you think back to the 2016 presidential race, voters on the right who liked Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, were told by the Republicans, "Don't vote for him! He's just a spoiler. He'll take votes away from Trump and help elect Hillary." And voters on the left who liked Green Party candidate Jill Stein were told by the Democrats, "Don't vote for her. She's just a spoiler. She'll take votes away from Hillary and help elect Trump." The spoiler problem that comes from plurality voting is the single biggest reason almost nobody new outside the duopoly ever runs or gets any traction because everyone knows they don't stand a chance.
所以如果你回想2016年总统大选, 那些倾向于自由党 候选人加里·约翰逊的右翼选民, 共和党人告诉他们, “不要为他投票!他就是个搅局者。 他将从川普那拿走 选票来帮助选举希拉里。“ 而那些倾向于绿党 候选人吉尔·施泰因的左翼选民, 民主党人告诉他们, “不要为她投票。她就是个搅局者。 她将从希拉里那拿走 选票来帮助选举川普。“ 这个来源于多数票制的搅局者问题是 是唯一且是最大原因针对 没有两党之外的新人 曾争取并得到助力的原因 因为所有人知道 他们不会有任何机会。
Politics is the only industry where we're regularly told that less competition is better. And if there's never any new competition, the existing parties aren't accountable to us for results because they don't need us to like what they're doing. They only need us to choose one of them as the lesser of two evils or to just stay home.
政治是唯一的行业, 在这里我们被告知 更少的竞争是更好的。 而如果那里没有任何新的竞争, 现存的党派不会因为 结果而对我们负责 因为他们不需要 我们去喜欢他们现在所为。 他们只需要我们两害取其轻, 去选出他们中的一个 或者就坐在家里。
The founders foresaw our situation and they warned us. As when John Adams said, "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader and concerting measures in opposition to each other." Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with parties or even having only two major parties. The problem is the current two are guaranteed to remain the only two, regardless of what they do or don't get done on behalf of the country. Does this sound like the best we can do? Of course not. So the founders gave us what they knew we'd need. They gave us this, our Constitution. There's a reason it's called the pocket Constitution: it's short. Guess what's not in here -- instructions on how to run our elections. Crazy rules like party primaries and plurality voting, they're made up. But thanks to what is in here, Article I, they're optional. Article I gives every state the power to change the rules of election for Congress at any time. Personally, I think it now sounds like the perfect time.
国父们预见了 我们的现状并警告我们。 约翰亚当所说, “没有什么令我如此担心的, 就是共和国被分裂成两个大党派, 每一个都在它领袖下独立运作, 并采取相互对立的政策。“ 现在,没有什么比政党 存在更多固有性问题 或者甚至仅仅只有两个多数党。 这个问题是目前这 两个政党会一直保持不变, 无论他们是对国家有益或者无益。 这听上去我们最多至此了吗? 当然不是。 而国父们 他们给了我们这个,我们的宪法。 这是它被称为口袋宪法 的原因:它十分简短。 猜猜看它不包含什么--- 关于如何进行选举的指导。 像党内初选和多数票制这样的 荒唐规则,它们是后来被补充的。 但是多亏了这个, 宪法第一条,它们是可选的。 宪法第一条给予所有州这样的权力, 在任何时间改变国会议员选举的规则。 个人而言,我认为现在 似乎是最完美的时机。
And here's where we turn nonpartisan politics industry theory into action. The political innovation we need is what I call final-five voting. With final-five voting, we make two simple changes to our elections for Congress. We get rid of what doesn't work, party primaries and plurality voting, and replace it with what will work: open top-five primaries and instant runoffs in the general election. Let me explain these changes with an example of final-five voting in a hypothetical and kind of cool election.
因此我们将为超党派 政治行业理论付诸行动。 我们所需要的政治改革 是我称之为“终五“的投票制。 在终五投票制之下, 我们对国会议员 的选举做出两个简单改变。 我们摆脱那些没有用的, 像党内初选和多数票制, 并取而代之以有用的: 开放性的前五初选制 以及在大选中的排序复选制。 让我用终五投票制 的例子解释这些改变, 以一个理论的而且 有点酷的选举为例。
So here we have eight candidates from four different political parties: Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Abigail Adams, all the way through to Aaron Burr, ambitious as ever. Immediately you notice how diverse this field is. It's a primary people would want to vote in because it's exciting. It has experience and vision, but it's also young, scrappy and hungry. OK, maybe not so young. And because this is an open primary, all eight candidates are on the same ballot, regardless of party. When the results are in, the top five finishers move on to the November election, again, regardless of party. In the general election, voters pick their favorite, just like always. But then, if they would like, they can also rank their second, third, fourth and last choices. You may have heard of this idea as ranked-choice voting.
所以在这里我们有 八个来自不同政党的候选人: 亚历山大·汉密尔顿、 乔治·华盛顿、阿比盖尔·亚当斯, 一直到亚伦·伯尔, 都是雄心壮志者。 瞬间你会注意到这是如此的多样化。 这是一个极具吸引力的初选, 人人都想参与投票。 它有经验和视界, 但是它同样也年轻且踌躇满志。 好吧,可能不是那么年轻 而且因为它是一个开放性初选, 所有的八个候选人在同一张选票上, 不论政党。 当结果出来后, 前五名优胜者进入九月份大选, 再次,不论政党。 在大选中, 选民们挑选出他们最喜欢的, 就像往常一样。 但是,如果他们愿意, 他们同样可以排出 他们第二,第三, 第四和最末选择。 你可能听过这个 ”排名选择票制“想法。
Here's where things get interesting. If this election were a plurality vote like normal, Aaron Burr would win because he has the most first-place votes. Thirty percent. But because this is final-five voting, the winner will be the candidate who's most popular with the majority, not just with a narrow slice of voters. So we use instant runoffs. We drop the candidate who came in last and those who had marked that candidate as their first choice get their second choice counted instead. The process continues until a candidate emerges with a majority. It's just like a series of runoffs. But instead of having to keep coming back for another election, voters simply cast all their votes at once. And after those results are in, Alexander Hamilton wins with 68 percent of the vote.
这是事情变得有意思之处。 如果这个选举如 往常一样是多数票制, 亚伦·伯尔会赢 因为他有最多的首选票。 百分之三十。 但是因为这是终五投票制, 赢者将是拥有大众 选民支持的候选人, 而不是小众选民。 所以我们采用排序复选制。 我们排除最末一位的候选人 和以他为首选的选民, 相反只计算这些选民的次选。 这个过程一直持续 直到出现多数票候选人。 这就像是多轮的选举。 但不同于需要折回 参加另一场选举, 选民只需要一次性投出所有选票。 而当所有结果出来以后, 亚历山大赢得了 百分之六十八的选票。
Final-five voting is the name for this combination of top-five primaries and instant runoff general elections. We must change both rules at the same time because it's how they work in combination that transforms the incentives in politics. The ultimate purpose of final-five voting is not necessarily to change who wins, it's to change what the winners are incentivized to do. Under this system, the message to Congress is “do your job or lose your job,” innovate, reach across the aisle whenever it's helpful, and come up with real solutions to our problems and create new opportunities for progress or be guaranteed new and healthy competition in the next election. Final-five voting gives voters more choice, more voice and most importantly, better results. I like to call it free-market politics because it will deliver the best of what healthy competition delivers in any industry: innovation, results and accountability.
终五选票制代表着 前五初选制和 排序复选制的结合 我们必须同时改变这两个规则 因为它们作为一个结合 将转变政治动机。 终五选票制的最终目 的并不是改变赢家, 而是改变赢家所受到的激励。 在这种体制下, 传递给国会议员的信息是 “做好这份工作或者失去这份工作,” 改革,包容一切有益的方面, 提出对我们问题的真正解决方案 并为进步创造新的机会 或者确保全新且良性的竞争 在下一次的竞选中。 终五票制给予选民更多的选择, 更多的发声, 最重要的,更好的结果。 我倾向于称之为自由市场政治 因为它提供了在良性竞争中 所能产生的最大效益 在任何行业中: 改革,结果,责任。
Now, before you think that I'm just making a naive overpromise of some crazy, unattainable utopia, I want to clarify that I'm not. I agree with Winston Churchill when he said, "Democracy is the worst form of government out there, except when compared to all the others." Democracy is messy and hard, and what we have now is messy, hard and bad results, really bad results. With final-five voting we'll have messy, hard and good results to show for it.
现在,在你认为我正在做出 一个天真的过度承诺前, 一个关于有点疯狂 并不实际的乌托邦承诺, 我想澄清并不是这样的。 我赞同温斯顿丘吉尔 当他说, “民主是这个世上 最糟糕的政府形式, 尤其是将它与其他相比之时。“ 民主是棘手且困难的, 而我们现在得到的 是棘手,艰难以及坏结果, 十分坏的结果。 终五票制下,我们得到的将是 棘手,艰难以及好结果。
And perhaps the most amazing part of all of this, final-five voting is powerful and achievable. We now have proof. In 2017, I published my early work on politics industry theory through Harvard Business School with my coauthor Michael Porter. The report made its way to Alaska where Scott Kendall read it, and then he took action. Scott used the work to design a ballot initiative, including these new rules. Just last month, November 2020, Alaska voters passed this initiative, and Alaska became the first state in the nation to choose healthy competition in elections for Congress. They won't be the last.
而可能所有中最令人惊讶的部分是, 终五票制是强有力且实际的 现在我们有证据。 在2017年, 我发布了有关政治 行业理论的早起工作 通过哈弗商学院和我的 合著者米歇尔·波特一同发布。 这份报告一直传到阿拉斯加, 斯科特·肯德尔读到了它, 之后他采取了行动。 斯科特利用这个研究 设计出一个选票新方案, 包括这些新规则。 就在上个月,2020年九月, 阿拉斯加的选民们 通过了这个新方案, 而阿拉斯加成为国内第一个州 在国会议员选举中选择良性竞争。 他们不会是最后一个。
It's devastating to really face how little we've come to expect from our politics. We think this is normal. We complain about it, but we've almost given up believing that it could ever be different. But this is no way to run the shining city on a hill that is America. We can choose different. Our Constitution gives us that power and, I believe, the responsibility to remake our politics when we need to -- and we need to. With the greatest urgency and without fatigue, we must aggressively reclaim the enormous promise of the great American experiment, of our American politics, our politics. Not red politics. Not blue politics, ours.
这是十分毁灭性的去真正面对 我们对政治的难存期待。 我们认为这是正常的。 我们抱怨它, 但是我们几乎放弃相信 它能够变得不同。 但这不是运营这山丘上 闪耀城市的方法, 这个城市就叫美国。 我们能选择不同。 我们的宪法给予了 我们那样的权力 而且,我相信,一同与责任 在需要时去重铸我们政治 而我们现在正需要去做。 怀着最大的紧迫感, 毫不疲倦地, 我们必须积极地重申这巨大的承诺 关于伟大美国实践, 关于我们美国的政治, 我们的政治。 不是红党,不是蓝党,而是我们。
Thank you.
谢谢。