I come from one of the most liberal, tolerant, progressive places in the United States, Seattle, Washington. And I grew up with a family of great Seattlites. My mother was an artist, my father was a college professor, and I am truly grateful for my upbringing, because I always felt completely comfortable designing my life exactly as I saw fit.
我来自美国最自由、宽容和 最具发展潜力的城市之一, 华盛顿西雅图。 我成长于很棒的西雅图家庭。 我的母亲是一位艺术家, 父亲是一名大学教授, 对他们的养育我满怀感激, 因为我完全可以按照 自己觉得合适的方式 自在地规划我的人生。
And in point of fact, I took a route that was not exactly what my parents had in mind. When I was 19, I dropped out of college -- dropped out, kicked out, splitting hairs.
而实际上, 我的选择和父母心中所想的不太一样。 在我19岁的时候, 我从大学退学了—— 辍学了, 或者更准确点说,是被开除了。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
And I went on the road as a professional French horn player, which was my lifelong dream. I played chamber music all over the United States and Europe, and I toured for a couple of years with a great jazz guitar player named Charlie Bird. And by the end of my 20s, I wound up as a member of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra in Spain. What a great life.
我踏上了成为一名 专业法国号手的道路, 那是我毕生的梦想。 我在全美和欧洲表演室内乐, 我巡回演出了几年, 和很优秀的爵士吉他手 查理·伯德一起。 在我二十几岁的时候, 我为自己加入西班牙 巴塞罗那交响乐团兴奋不已。 多么美好的人生啊!
And you know, my parents never complained. They supported me all the way through it. It wasn't their dream. They used to tell their neighbors and friends, "Our son, he's taking a gap decade."
而且我的父母从没抱怨过, 他们从始至终支持着我, 即使那不是他们的梦想。 他们过去常跟邻居和朋友们讲, “咱儿子要‘休整’个十年”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
And -- There was, however, one awkward conversation about my lifestyle that I want to tell you about. I was 27, and I was home from Barcelona, and I was visiting my parents for Christmas, and I was cooking dinner with my mother, and we were alone in the kitchen. And she was quiet, too quiet. Something was wrong. And so I said, "Mom, what's on your mind?" And she said, "Your dad and I are really worried about you." And I said, "What?" I mean, what could it be, at this point? And she said, "I want you to be completely honest with me: have you been voting for Republicans?"
以及 有一段关于我生活的尴尬谈话 我想要分享给你们。 那时候我27岁, 我从巴塞罗那回到家, 那天是圣诞节, 我回家看望父母, 当时我在帮母亲做晚饭时, 厨房里就我们两个人。 她当时沉默着,一言不发。 我觉得有些不对劲。 我就问我母亲: “妈,你在想什么呢?” 她说:“我和你爸爸真的很担心你。” 我很惊讶:“什么嘛? 你们现在有什么好担心?” 她答道: “我希望你诚实地回答我的问题: 你是不是投票给共和党了?”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Now, the truth is, I wasn't really political, I was just a French horn player. But I had a bit of an epiphany, and they had detected it, and it was causing some confusion. You see, I had become an enthusiast for capitalism, and I want to tell you why that is. It stems from a lifelong interest of mine in, believe it or not, poverty.
事实是, 我对政治没什么兴趣, 我只是个法国小号吹奏者。 但我有点明白了, 他们察觉到了一些事, 所以有些困惑。 那时我成了资本主义的狂热追捧者, 让我告诉你缘何如此。 不管你信不信, 它根源于我一直以来 对贫穷的研究。
See, when I was a kid growing up in Seattle, I remember the first time I saw real poverty. We were a lower middle class family, but that's of course not real poverty. That's not even close. The first time I saw poverty, and poverty's face, was when I was six or seven years old, early 1970s. And it was like a lot of you, kind of a prosaic example, kind of trite. It was a picture in the National Geographic Magazine of a kid who was my age in East Africa, and there were flies on his face and a distended belly. And he wasn't going to make it, and I knew that, and I was helpless. Some of you remember that picture, not exactly that picture, one just like it. It introduced the West to grinding poverty around the world. Well, that vision kind of haunted me as I grew up and I went to school and I dropped out and dropped in and started my family. And I wondered, what happened to that kid? Or to people just like him all over the world? And so I started to study, even though I wasn't in college, I was looking for the answer: what happened to the world's poorest people? Has it gotten worse? Has it gotten better? What?
在西雅图当我还是个孩童的时候, 我记得那是第一次 我接触了真正的贫穷。 我的家庭属于中产阶级的下层, 但那当然不是真正的贫穷。 一点都不是。 我第一次看到贫穷的真面目, 是在20世纪70年代初, 我还只有六、七岁 像我们中很多人一样, 这个例子很平凡普通。 那是《国家地理》中的一幅画 画中是东非一个国家的 跟我差不多大的孩子, 苍蝇在他脸上飞,肚子膨胀着。 我知道他挺不过去了, 我知道的,而我却无能为力。 你们当中或许有人记得那样一幅画, 不一定完全一样, 但很相像的一幅画。 它向西方世界展现了 世界其它地方令人难以忍受的贫穷。 那样的图景在我的脑海中挥之不去, 伴随着我成长、上学、 退学、开始组建 我自己的家庭。 我很想知道, 那个孩子后来怎么样了? 或者说世界其他地方的 像他一样的人怎么样了? 我开始研究这个问题, 即便那时我已不在大学了, 我仍在寻找答案: 世界上最贫穷的人们 身上都发生了什么? 是变糟了,还是变好了? 到底怎么样了?
And I found the answer, and it changed my life, and I want to share it with you.
我最终找到了答案, 并改变了我的人生。 我想与你们分享。
See -- most Americans believe that poverty has gotten worse since we were children, since they saw that vision. If you ask Americans, "Has poverty gotten worse or better around the world?", 70 percent will say that hunger has gotten worse since the early 1970s. But here's the truth. Here's the epiphany that I had that changed my thinking. From 1970 until today, the percentage of the world's population living in starvation levels, living on a dollar a day or less, obviously adjusted for inflation, that percentage has declined by 80 percent. There's been an 80 percent decline in the world's worst poverty since I was a kid. And I didn't even know about it. This, my friends, that's a miracle. That's something we ought to celebrate. It's the greatest antipoverty achievement in the history of mankind, and it happened in our lifetimes.
其实 大多数美国人觉得从孩童时代、 从他们看到那景象至今, 贫困变得更严重了。 如果你问美国人:“世界贫困问题是 更严重了还是有所好转?” 70%的人会说自20世纪 70年代初饥饿问题更严重了。 然而事实是这样的。 这是使我改变想法、 让我顿悟的一个时刻。 自1970年至今, 世界处于饥饿水平的 通过通货膨胀校正后 每天的生活费 不多于1美元的人口百分比 下降了 80%。 从我小时候至今 世界最穷困的人数百分比 减少了80%。 而我却不清楚这一事实。 我的朋友们,这是一个奇迹! 这是值得我们庆贺的事情。 这是人类史上反贫穷的最大成就, 而且就发生在我们的有生之年。
(Applause)
(掌声 )
So when I learned this, I asked, what did that? What made it possible? Because if you don't know why, you can't do it again. If you want to replicate it and get the next two billion people out of poverty, because that's what we're talking about: since I was a kid, two billion of the least of these, our brothers and sisters, have been pulled out of poverty. I want the next two billion, so I've got to know why. And I went in search of an answer. And it wasn't a political answer, because I didn't care. You know what, I still don't care. I wanted the best answer from mainstream economists left, right and center.
当我知道这一事实时,我想, 是什么使得脱贫变得可能呢? 因为若你不知道原因, 这将只是昙花一现。 我们要复制成功, 要使得仍在贫困中挣扎 的2亿人民摆脱现状, 因为那是我们一直在谈论的问题: 从我还是个孩子的时候, 20亿最贫穷的人, 我们的兄弟姐妹, 脱离了贫穷。 我希望拯救其余的20亿人, 所以我必须知道原因。 我寻找着答案, 它不是政治性的答案, 因为我根本不在乎政治的解答。 现在,依然不在乎。 我渴求从主流经济学家们 那里得到最佳的答案 无论是左派的,右派的 和中间派的经济学家们。
And here it is. Here are the reasons. There are five reasons that two billion of our brothers and sisters have been pulled out of poverty since I was a kid. Number one: globalization. Number two: free trade. Number three: property rights. Number four: rule of law. Number five: entrepreneurship. It was the free enterprise system spreading around the world after 1970 that did that.
下面 我开始讲具体原因。 从孩提时代到现在, 20亿人民脱离贫困 有五点原因。 第一:全球化 第二:自由贸易 第三:产权 第四:法治 第五:企业家精神 这些是1970年后席卷全球的 自由市场经济体系促成的。
Now, I'm not naive. I know that free enterprise isn't perfect, and I know that free enterprise isn't everything we need to build a better world. But that is great. And that's beyond politics. Here's what I learned. This is the epiphany. Capitalism is not just about accumulation. At its best, it's about aspiration, which is what so many people on this stage talk about, is the aspiration that comes from dreams that are embedded in the free enterprise system. And we've got to share it with more people.
我并不幼稚。 我知道自由市场经济并不完美, 我也知道自由市场经济 并不能满足我们 建设更美好的世界的全部需求。 但它是伟大的。 并且是超越政治的。 这是我学到并且顿悟的一点。 资本主义不仅仅是资本的积累 它的绝佳之处在于:它与抱负相关, 这是这个台上的许多人都曾讲过的, 是由梦想而生的抱负, 它根植于自由市场体系。 我们必须要让更多人明白这一点。
Now, I want to tell you about a second epiphany that's related to that first one that I think can bring us progress, not just around the world, but right here at home. The best quote I've ever heard to summarize the thoughts that I've just given you about pulling people out of poverty is as follows: "Free markets have created more wealth than any system in history. They have lifted billions out of poverty."
现在,我要谈谈我的第二个顿悟 它与第一个有关 我相信它不仅仅会促进世界的发展, 也促进我们这个国家的发展。 用别人的一句话 概括刚刚 关于使人们脱离贫穷的观点 就是: “自由市场创造了史上最多的财富 并使得数以亿计的人们摆脱贫困。”
Who said it? It sounds like Milton Friedman or Ronald Reagan. Wrong. President Barack Obama said that. Why do I know it by heart? Because he said it to me. Crazy. And I said, "Hallelujah." But more than that, I said, "What an opportunity."
谁的名言? 像是米尔顿·佛里德曼 或者罗纳德·里根的。 错! 是奥巴马总统! 为什么我记忆深刻? 因为他是对我说的。 想不到吧。 我当时说:"哈利路亚!" 不仅如此,我还说, “多么绝佳的机会。”
You know what I was thinking? It was at an event that we were doing on the subject at Georgetown University in May of 2015. And I thought, this is the solution to the biggest problem facing America today. What? It's coming together around these ideas, liberals and conservatives, to help people who need us the most.
你们知道我当时在想什么嘛? 2015年五月 我们在乔治城大学做一场 有关我们所做课题的活动, 那时我想到了解决 当今美国面临的最大问题的方案。 那是什么呢? 就是无论是 自由主义者还是保守主义者, 聚集到一起讨论这些想法 帮助最需要我们帮助的那些人。
Now, I don't have to tell anybody in this room that we're in a crisis, in America and many countries around the world with political polarization. It's risen to critical, crisis levels. It's unpleasant. It's not right. There was an article last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which is one of the most prestigious scientific journals published in the West. And it was an article in 2014 on political motive asymmetry. What's that? That's what psychologists call the phenomenon of assuming that your ideology is based in love but your opponents' ideology is based in hate. It's common in world conflict. You expect to see this between Palestinians and Israelis, for example. What the authors of this article found was that in America today, a majority of Republicans and Democrats suffer from political motive asymmetry. A majority of people in our country today who are politically active believe that they are motivated by love but the other side is motivated by hate. Think about it. Think about it. Most people are walking around saying, "You know, my ideology is based on basic benevolence, I want to help people, but the other guys, they're evil and out to get me." You can't progress as a society when you have this kind of asymmetry. It's impossible.
不必我说,在场的每一位 都知道我们身处危机, 在美国以及世界其它 有政治分歧的国家中, 这一问题已经迫在眉睫。 这不免让人忧心重重。 去年, 在西方最具影响力、 最前沿的科学杂志之一的 国家科学院院刊上 发表了一篇文章 那是2014年的一篇 有关政治动因非对称的文章。 那是什么? 心理学家将这种现象描述为 假定你的思想观念建立在爱之上 而对方的思想观念却建立在恨之上。 这在世界争端中是很常见的。 比如巴勒斯坦和以色列人之间。 这篇文章的作者发现的是 在当今美国, 很大一部分共和党人和民主党人 在政治动因上存在着分歧。 如今我们国家政治上 活跃的大部分人认为 他们是为爱所驱使, 而其余人是为恨所驱使。 想想吧。 多数人总是说着: “我的思想基础是仁爱, 我想要帮助人们, 而另一部分人, 他们是邪恶的,他们试图打倒我。” 存在这样的分歧的社会 是无法进步的。 这是不可能的。
How do we solve it? Well, first, let's be honest: there are differences. Let's not minimize the differences. That would be really naïve. There's a lot of good research on this. A veteran of the TED stage is my friend Jonathan Haidt. He's a psychology professor at New York University. He does work on the ideology and values and morals of different people to see how they differ. And he's shown, for example, that conservatives and liberals have a very different emphasis on what they think is important. For example, Jon Haidt has shown that liberals care about poverty 59 percent more than they care about economic liberty. And conservatives care about economic liberty 28 percent more than they care about poverty.
我们要怎么解决这一问题? 首先,让我们诚实面对吧: 分歧是存在的。 我们无法减小分歧, 因为那是幼稚的行为。 对此有相当多深入的研究。 我的朋友乔纳森·海特 是TED的常客了。 他是纽约大学的心理学教授。 他对不同人的思想、 价值观和道德观进行研究, 研究他们有着怎样的不同。 他证明了保守派和自由派 对于他们认为重要的事 有很不同的见解。 比如,乔纳森·海特说明了 自由主义者关心贫穷 比关心经济自由超出59%。 而保守主义者关心经济自由 比关心贫穷多28%。
Irreconcilable differences, right? We'll never come together. Wrong. That is diversity in which lies our strength. Remember what pulled up the poor. It was the obsession with poverty, accompanied by the method of economic freedom spreading around the world. We need each other, in other words, if we want to help people and get the next two billion people out of poverty. There's no other way.
看上去不可调和的分歧,对么? 我们不可能走到一起?不! 我们的力量恰恰在于分歧之中。 牢记是什么停止了贫穷: 是对贫穷问题的痴迷和关注, 和全世界范围内的 自由经济秩序。 我们彼此需要,换句话说, 如果我们想要帮助人们, 想要帮助另外2亿人民脱离贫困。 别无他法。
Hmm. How are we going to get that? It's a tricky thing, isn't it. We need innovative thinking. A lot of it's on this stage. Social entrepreneurship. Yeah. Absolutely. Phenomenal. We need investment overseas in a sustainable, responsible, ethical and moral way. Yes. Yes.
嗯。 我们要怎么做呢? 这是很微妙的事情,不是么? 我们要创新思维。 很多的创新思想就在这个舞台。 是的!那些非凡的 社会的企业家精神。 我们要投资海外, 以可持续的、负责的、 符合伦理道德的方式投资。
But you know what we really need? We need a new day in flexible ideology. We need to be less predictable. Don't we? Do you ever feel like your own ideology is starting to get predictable? Kinda conventional? Do you ever feel like you're always listening to people who agree with you? Why is that dangerous? Because when we talk in this country about economics, on the right, conservatives, you're always talking about taxes and regulations and big government. And on the left, liberals, you're talking about economics, it's always about income inequality. Right? Now those are important things, really important to me, really important to you. But when it comes to lifting people up who are starving and need us today, those are distractions. We need to come together around the best ways to mitigate poverty using the best tools at our disposal, and that comes only when conservatives recognize that they need liberals and their obsession with poverty, and liberals need conservatives and their obsession with free markets. That's the diversity in which lies the future strength of this country, if we choose to take it.
但你们知道我们 真正需要的是什么吗? 我们需要打开灵活思维的新天地, 我们需要少一些的“可以预见”, 对吗? 你们是否曾感到自己的 思想开始变得可预见? 开始循规蹈矩? 你们是否感到自己 总是听信与自己意见一致的人的话? 为什么那样是危险的? 因为当我们在这个国家谈论经济的时候, 一边是保守主义者, 谈论的总是税、规则和大政府统治。 而另一边是自由主义者,谈到经济 总是关于收入不平等。 是吧?那些确实都很重要, 对我很重要,对你们也很重要。 但那些正在挨饿的人 需要我们的帮助时, 这些都只是让人分心的问题。 我们应当 在最好的方法面前团结起来, 尽我们的可能减少贫困, 只有当保守派意识到 他们需要自由主义者 对贫穷的忧虑, 并且自由主义者也需要 保守派对自由市场的痴迷时, 我们才会成功。 只有我们选择这条路,这种多样性才会 孕育未来国家强大的力量。
So how are we going to do it? How are we going to do it together? I've got to have some action items, not just for you but for me. Number one. Action item number one: remember, it's not good enough just to tolerate people who disagree. It's not good enough. We have to remember that we need people who disagree with us, because there are people who need all of us who are still waiting for these tools. Now, what are you going to do? How are you going to express that? Where does this start? It starts here. You know, all of us in this room, we're blessed. We're blessed with people who listen to us. We're blessed with prosperity. We're blessed with leadership. When people hear us, with the kind of unpredictable ideology, then maybe people will listen. Maybe progress will start at that point. That's number one. Number two. Number two: I'm asking you and I'm asking me to be the person specifically who blurs the lines, who is ambiguous, who is hard to classify. If you're a conservative, be the conservative who is always going on about poverty and the moral obligation to be a warrior for the poor. And if you're a liberal, be a liberal who is always talking about the beauty of free markets to solve our problems when we use them responsibly.
我们要怎么达成这一目的呢? 怎样共同达成呢? 我有一些行动上的建议, 对你们,也是对我自己。 行动准则第一条: 切记,仅仅容忍别人的 不同意见是不够好的, 远远不够。 我们要铭记我们需要 与我们意见不合的人, 因为有一群人 需要我们所有人的帮助, 他们仍在等待。 你们准备怎么做呢?怎么表现呢? 从哪里开始呢?就从这里! 在座的所有人,我们都是幸福的。 我们有倾听我们的人, 我们很成功, 我们拥有领导力。 当人们听到了 我们未知意识形态的思想, 或许他们才会倾听我们。 也许这就是成功的起点。 这是第一点。第二。 第二点:我在请你们,也请我自己 成为模糊界限的特定个人, 成为一个含糊的,难以界定的人。 如果你是保守派, 那就做一个 把贫困问题常常挂在嘴边的保守派, 和坚持遵守为穷人而战的 道德义务的战士。 如果你是自由派, 就做一个常常赞扬 在我们负责任地运行下的 自由市场的魅力的自由派。
If we do that, we get two things. Number one: we get to start to work on the next two billion and be the solution that we've seen so much of in the past and we need to see more of in the future. That's what we get. And the second is that we might just be able to take the ghastly holy war of ideology that we're suffering under in this country and turn it into a competition of ideas based on solidarity and mutual respect. And then maybe, just maybe, we'll all realize that our big differences aren't really that big after all.
如果我们那样做了,两个目标指日可待。 第一:我们开始致力于 帮助接下来的20亿人 像以前解决那么多问题那样 帮助他们解决问题 未来我们还会解决更多。 这是我们可以做到的。 第二是我们或许能够 战胜这场令我们遭受苦难的 可怕的意识形态的战争, 将它转变成基于 团结一致和互相尊重 的思想观念的竞争。 也许到时候可能,只是可能 我们会发现我们所谓的分歧 并不是那样的不可调和。
Thank you.
谢谢!
(Applause)
(掌声)