When asked to contribute to this series on the future of conservatism, I hesitated because it seemed to me that in both the US and Europe what was most needed was not a new form of conservatism but rather a reinvention of the left. For more than a generation we have been under the sway of conservative ideas, against which there has been little serious competition. In the wake of the financial crisis and the rise of massive inequality, there should be an upsurge of leftwing populism, and yet some of the most energised populists both in the US and Europe are on the right. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is surely that publics around the world have very little confidence that the left has any credible solutions to our current problems.
接到为这个关于保守主义未来的系列文章撰稿的邀请时，我有些犹豫，因为我认为，无论是在美国还是在欧洲，最需要的似乎不是一种新形式的保守主义，而是左翼思想的重塑。我们在超过一代人的时期一直处于保守主义思想的支配之下，保守主义几乎没有受到什么强有力的挑战。在金融危机爆发和严重不平等现象加剧之后，左翼民粹主义理应迅猛发展。然而，无论是在美国还是在欧洲，某些最为活跃的民粹主义者站在右翼阵营。出现这种情况有很多原因，但其中一点无疑是，世界各地的公众不相信左翼有本事针对当前问题拿出可信的解决方案。