论中国垂直模式的民主尚贤制——对读者评论的回应   ［加拿大］贝淡宁 吴万伟 译

无论是从历史背景、国民素质还是国家规模来看，我们都应该用由“基层民主、上层尚贤、中间可进行政治实验”的“垂直民主尚贤制”理想来评价中国的政治现实。中国已经形成了诸如集体领导、任期制和年龄限制等制度，来弥补政治尚贤制合法性不足、体系僵化、滥用权力的缺陷。相反，高层的选举民主将破坏“垂直民主尚贤制”的优势。非选举形式的政治参与如监督政府的权利、提供建议的权利，则能够帮助满足体制外具有公共服务精神的人的愿望。毛泽东革命时代的“群众路线”和道家对尚贤的批判，能够帮助改善尚贤制在体制外群体中的合法性，帮助基层民众获得参与政治的场地，帮助精英对群众的需要作出更加积极的回应，帮助赋予得到社会尊重的其他生活方式以合法性，让政治尚贤制的“失败者”也能够看到生活的意义。

The Vertical Democratic Meritocracy in China: A Response to Readers’ Comments     Daniel A. Bell

The Book The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy generates heated comments from Chinese readers. This paper is the response to comments by four scholars Huang Yushun, Liu Jingxi, Zhang Yongle and Cao Feng. The author firstly clarifies the relationship between political meritocracy and democracy, lists the four reasons to use the ideal of “vertical democratic meritocracy” to evaluate the political reality in China, explains why political meritocracy is not compatible with competitive elections at the highest level of government. Then the author explores the possibility of remedying the drawbacks of political meritocracy by means of Maoism and Daoism. With comments of Zhang and Cao, he proposed that Maoist mass line can help to promote the legitimacy of the system among those left out from the official power hierarchies in political meritocracies, to provide avenues for grass roots participation in politics and make elites more responsive to the needs of the masses. Daoist-style skepticism about the desirability of the whole meritocratic system can help to legitimatize alternative avenues for sociallyvalued ways of life that gives meaning to the lives of “losers”.