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.
接到為這個關于保守主義未來的系列文章撰稿的邀請時，我有些猶豫，因為我認為，無論是在美國還是在歐洲，最需要的似乎不是一種新形式的保守主義，而是左翼思想的重塑。我們在超過一代人的時期一直處于保守主義思想的支配之下，保守主義幾乎沒有受到什么強有力的挑戰。在金融危機爆發和嚴重不平等現象加劇之后，左翼民粹主義理應迅猛發展。然而，無論是在美國還是在歐洲，某些最為活躍的民粹主義者站在右翼陣營。出現這種情況有很多原因，但其中一點無疑是，世界各地的公眾不相信左翼有本事針對當前問題拿出可信的解決方案。