So here's the most important economic fact of our time. We are living in an age of surging income inequality, particularly between those at the very top and everyone else. This shift is the most striking in the U.S. and in the U.K., but it's a global phenomenon. It's happening in communist China, in formerly communist Russia, it's happening in India, in my own native Canada. We're even seeing it in cozy social democracies like Sweden, Finland and Germany.
當今最重要的經濟現實是 我們處於所得差距激增的年代 尤其是最頂端的一群 所得遠高於其他人 這種轉變在美國和英國最惹眼 但全球皆然 共產中國看得到 前共產國家俄國也如此 印度和敝國加拿大也發生了 連溫馨的社會民主國家也看得到 例如瑞典、芬蘭、德國
Let me give you a few numbers to place what's happening. In the 1970s, the One Percent accounted for about 10 percent of the national income in the United States. Today, their share has more than doubled to above 20 percent. But what's even more striking is what's happening at the very tippy top of the income distribution. The 0.1 percent in the U.S. today account for more than eight percent of the national income. They are where the One Percent was 30 years ago. Let me give you another number to put that in perspective, and this is a figure that was calculated in 2005 by Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Reich took the wealth of two admittedly very rich men, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and he found that it was equivalent to the wealth of the bottom 40 percent of the U.S. population, 120 million people. Now, as it happens, Warren Buffett is not only himself a plutocrat, he is one of the most astute observers of that phenomenon, and he has his own favorite number. Buffett likes to point out that in 1992, the combined wealth of the people on the Forbes 400 list -- and this is the list of the 400 richest Americans -- was 300 billion dollars. Just think about it. You didn't even need to be a billionaire to get on that list in 1992. Well, today, that figure has more than quintupled to 1.7 trillion, and I probably don't need to tell you that we haven't seen anything similar happen to the middle class, whose wealth has stagnated if not actually decreased.
讓我列舉一些數據以便點出現況 1970年代,頂端1%的人 所得佔全國的一成 這是在美國 如今他們所得的比率倍增 佔全國所得兩成以上 但更引人注目的是 在極頂端的人 所得分配的變化 現在美國最頂端0.1%的人 所得超過 全國的8% 30年前,這是頂端1%的佔有率 讓我用另一項數據點明概貌 這是2005年統計的數據 引自羅伯·賴許 他是柯林頓總統任內的勞工部長 賴許得知兩位公認大富豪的財產: 比爾蓋茲和巴菲特 他發現他們的財富 等於美國底層40%的總合 1.2億人的總合 巧的是 巴菲特不只是富豪 還能敏銳地觀察差距的激增 他也有最愛引用的數據 巴菲特喜歡指出,1992年 富比士雜誌 富豪榜四百強 美國前四百名最有錢的人 財富總合是三千億美元 想想看 財富低於十億美元 還能上1992年的富豪榜 如今財富總合已成長了五倍以上 達到1.7兆美元 我不說大概你們也知道 財富激增的成果 中產階級未能分享 他們的財富沒變少就不錯了
So we're living in the age of the global plutocracy, but we've been slow to notice it. One of the reasons, I think, is a sort of boiled frog phenomenon. Changes which are slow and gradual can be hard to notice even if their ultimate impact is quite dramatic. Think about what happened, after all, to the poor frog. But I think there's something else going on. Talking about income inequality, even if you're not on the Forbes 400 list, can make us feel uncomfortable. It feels less positive, less optimistic, to talk about how the pie is sliced than to think about how to make the pie bigger. And if you do happen to be on the Forbes 400 list, talking about income distribution, and inevitably its cousin, income redistribution, can be downright threatening.
我們處於全球富豪統治的年代 卻遲遲不能察覺 我認為原因之一 是煮蛙效應 緩慢又逐漸的改變 有時很難察覺 即使最終的衝擊很大 想想看青蛙可憐的下場 但我認為原因不只如此 談論所得分配不均的時候 即使不在富豪榜上的人 也會感到不自在 覺得只是討論劃分大餅 而非思考把餅做大 比較不積極、不樂觀 如果你正好名列富豪榜四百強 討論所得分配 以及難免涉及的所得再分配 可能會令你倍感威脅
So we're living in the age of surging income inequality, especially at the top. What's driving it, and what can we do about it?
因此這是所得差距激增的年代 頂端階層尤其為最 起因為何?我們該怎麼辦?
One set of causes is political: lower taxes, deregulation, particularly of financial services, privatization, weaker legal protections for trade unions, all of these have contributed to more and more income going to the very, very top.
有一類原因屬於政治層面: 減稅、鬆綁,尤其是金融業鬆綁 民營化、工會法律保障的削弱 全都促成了 最最頂端的所得日益增加
A lot of these political factors can be broadly lumped under the category of "crony capitalism," political changes that benefit a group of well-connected insiders but don't actually do much good for the rest of us. In practice, getting rid of crony capitalism is incredibly difficult. Think of all the years reformers of various stripes have tried to get rid of corruption in Russia, for instance, or how hard it is to re-regulate the banks even after the most profound financial crisis since the Great Depression, or even how difficult it is to get the big multinational companies, including those whose motto might be "don't do evil," to pay taxes at a rate even approaching that paid by the middle class. But while getting rid of crony capitalism in practice is really, really hard, at least intellectually, it's an easy problem. After all, no one is actually in favor of crony capitalism. Indeed, this is one of those rare issues that unites the left and the right. A critique of crony capitalism is as central to the Tea Party as it is to Occupy Wall Street.
許多政治因素可以籠統歸類為 「裙帶資本主義」 這方面政治變化的受益者 是有裙帶關係的圈內人 但一般大眾很少受惠 實際上,要清除裙帶資本主義 極為困難 想想看俄國歷年來各式的改革者 試圖根除貪腐的效果即為一例 或想想看重新規範銀行有多難 大蕭條以來最重大的金融危機過後 仍然難以實現 連要大型跨國企業繳稅都很難 包括座右銘為「不作惡」的企業 他們不願意繳交 中產階級繳的稅率 但是要根除現行的裙帶資本主義 儘管非常非常困難 至少在理智上是容易的問題 畢竟沒有人真的贊同裙帶資本主義 事實上這個議題 罕見地團結了左右兩派 批評裙帶資本主義 對於茶黨和「佔領華爾街」同樣重要
But if crony capitalism is, intellectually at least, the easy part of the problem, things get trickier when you look at the economic drivers of surging income inequality. In and of themselves, these aren't too mysterious. Globalization and the technology revolution, the twin economic transformations which are changing our lives and transforming the global economy, are also powering the rise of the super-rich. Just think about it. For the first time in history, if you are an energetic entrepreneur with a brilliant new idea or a fantastic new product, you have almost instant, almost frictionless access to a global market of more than a billion people. As a result, if you are very, very smart and very, very lucky, you can get very, very rich very, very quickly. The latest poster boy for this phenomenon is David Karp. The 26-year-old founder of Tumblr recently sold his company to Yahoo for 1.1 billion dollars. Think about that for a minute: 1.1 billion dollars, 26 years old. It's easiest to see how the technology revolution and globalization are creating this sort of superstar effect in highly visible fields, like sports and entertainment. We can all watch how a fantastic athlete or a fantastic performer can today leverage his or her skills across the global economy as never before. But today, that superstar effect is happening across the entire economy. We have superstar technologists. We have superstar bankers. We have superstar lawyers and superstar architects. There are superstar cooks and superstar farmers. There are even, and this is my personal favorite example, superstar dentists, the most dazzling exemplar of whom is Bernard Touati, the Frenchman who ministers to the smiles of fellow superstars like Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich or European-born American fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg.
但如果裙帶資本主義,至少在理智上 是容易處理的問題 比較微妙的則是 所得差距激增的經濟驅動力 這些驅動力本身並不那麼難懂 全球化和科技革命 這兩大經濟轉型 改變了我們的生活 轉變了全球經濟 也驅動了富豪的崛起 想想看 這是史無前例的 如果你是精力旺盛的創業家 有絕妙的新點子 或是極佳的新產品 你幾乎可以立刻順利地 進入超過十億人的全球市場 因此,如果你非常非常聰明 又非常非常幸運 你可以變得非常非常有錢 有錢得非常非常迅速 這種現象的最新模範生 是大衛·卡普 他26歲,是微博平台Tumblr的創辦人 最近才把公司賣給了雅虎 售價11億美元 想想看 11億美元,26歲! 誰都看得出來,科技革命和全球化 正在創造巨星效應 尤其是在耀眼的領域 例如體育界和娛樂界 我們都可以看到最棒的運動員 或最棒的藝人如何運用其才能 前所未有地跨足全球經濟 但是現在的巨星效應 橫跨了全部經濟領域 我們有巨星科技人員 有巨星銀行家 有巨星律師和巨星建築師 有巨星廚師 還有巨星農夫 甚至還有我最喜歡的例子: 巨星牙醫 其中最耀眼的 是法國牙醫圖阿帝 他讓其他巨星能夠露齒一笑 客戶包括俄國的寡頭阿布拉莫維奇 以及歐裔美籍時裝設計師 馮芙絲汀寶
But while it's pretty easy to see how globalization and the technology revolution are creating this global plutocracy, what's a lot harder is figuring out what to think about it. And that's because, in contrast with crony capitalism, so much of what globalization and the technology revolution have done is highly positive. Let's start with technology. I love the Internet. I love my mobile devices. I love the fact that they mean that whoever chooses to will be able to watch this talk far beyond this auditorium. I'm even more of a fan of globalization. This is the transformation which has lifted hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people out of poverty and into the middle class, and if you happen to live in the rich part of the world, it's made many new products affordable -- who do you think built your iPhone? — and things that we've relied on for a long time much cheaper. Think of your dishwasher or your t-shirt.
但雖然我們很容易看出 全球化和科技革命 創造全球富豪的方式 更難的是對其做出評斷 原因是 二者和裙帶資本主義完全相反 全球化和科技革命的效果 大多非常正面 先談科技 我喜歡網路和行動裝置 因為這些科技 讓身在遠方想聽這場演講的人 不必來禮堂也聽得到 我更是全球化的粉絲 全球化帶來的轉變 使世界上數億赤貧的人 擺脫了窮困 進入中產階級 如果你正好住在富裕國家 全球化造就了許多實惠的新產品 想想看iPhone是誰製造的 我們一向依賴的物品也便宜多了 想想洗碗機或是T恤
So what's not to like? Well, a few things. One of the things that worries me is how easily what you might call meritocratic plutocracy can become crony plutocracy. Imagine you're a brilliant entrepreneur who has successfully sold that idea or that product to the global billions and become a billionaire in the process. It gets tempting at that point to use your economic nous to manipulate the rules of the global political economy in your own favor. And that's no mere hypothetical example. Think about Amazon, Apple, Google, Starbucks. These are among the world's most admired, most beloved, most innovative companies. They also happen to be particularly adept at working the international tax system so as to lower their tax bill very, very significantly. And why stop at just playing the global political and economic system as it exists to your own maximum advantage? Once you have the tremendous economic power that we're seeing at the very, very top of the income distribution and the political power that inevitably entails, it becomes tempting as well to start trying to change the rules of the game in your own favor. Again, this is no mere hypothetical. It's what the Russian oligarchs did in creating the sale-of-the-century privatization of Russia's natural resources. It's one way of describing what happened with deregulation of the financial services in the U.S. and the U.K.
所以全球化有什麼不好? 還是有可挑剔之處 我擔心的問題之一 是所謂用人唯才的富豪統治 很容易變成裙帶富豪統治 試想你是傑出的創業家 已經成功地把新點子或產品 銷售給全球數十億人 並且因此成為億萬富翁 此時你可能會忍不住 利用你的經濟常識 操縱全球的政經規則 使自己受益 這不只是假設 想想亞馬遜、蘋果、谷歌、星巴克 都是全球最受敬重的 最受愛戴的、最創新的企業 他們也正好特別善於 利用國際稅收制度 大大降低其賦稅 而且何必僅限於操控 現存的全球政經體系 以獲得最大優勢? 一旦你像所得分配最頂端的人 擁有強大的經濟實力 以及少不了的政治勢力 也會變得忍不住 開始改變遊戲規則 使自己受益 這也不只是假設 俄國的寡頭就是這麼幹的 透過世紀大拍賣進而民營化 俄國的自然資源 另一個例子是 美國和英國 鬆綁金融服務業的歷程
A second thing that worries me is how easily meritocratic plutocracy can become aristocracy. One way of describing the plutocrats is as alpha geeks, and they are people who are acutely aware of how important highly sophisticated analytical and quantitative skills are in today's economy. That's why they are spending unprecedented time and resources educating their own children. The middle class is spending more on schooling too, but in the global educational arms race that starts at nursery school and ends at Harvard, Stanford or MIT, the 99 percent is increasingly outgunned by the One Percent. The result is something that economists Alan Krueger and Miles Corak call the Great Gatsby Curve. As income inequality increases, social mobility decreases. The plutocracy may be a meritocracy, but increasingly you have to be born on the top rung of the ladder to even take part in that race.
我擔心的第二個問題是 用人唯才的富豪統治 很容易變成貴族統治 從一個角度看來 富豪是技術達人 這種人的見識敏銳 明白在今天的經濟環境裡 高度複雜的分析及計量技能非常重要 這就是為什麼他們正花費 前所未有的時間和資源 教育自己的孩子 中產階級也在增加教育支出 但是全球激烈的教育競賽 開始於托兒所 結束於哈佛、史丹福、麻省理工學院 底層的99%日益落後 遠不如頂端的1% 經濟學家克魯格與寇拉克 稱這種現象為蓋茨比曲線 隨著所得差距增加 社會流動性就會降低 富豪統治或許是用人唯才 但你的出身愈發重要 如果不是頂端階層,連參賽資格都沒有
The third thing, and this is what worries me the most, is the extent to which those same largely positive forces which are driving the rise of the global plutocracy also happen to be hollowing out the middle class in Western industrialized economies. Let's start with technology. Those same forces that are creating billionaires are also devouring many traditional middle-class jobs. When's the last time you used a travel agent? And in contrast with the industrial revolution, the titans of our new economy aren't creating that many new jobs. At its zenith, G.M. employed hundreds of thousands, Facebook fewer than 10,000. The same is true of globalization. For all that it is raising hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the emerging markets, it's also outsourcing a lot of jobs from the developed Western economies. The terrifying reality is that there is no economic rule which automatically translates increased economic growth into widely shared prosperity. That's shown in what I consider to be the most scary economic statistic of our time. Since the late 1990s, increases in productivity have been decoupled from increases in wages and employment. That means that our countries are getting richer, our companies are getting more efficient, but we're not creating more jobs and we're not paying people, as a whole, more.
第三個問題我最擔心 驅動全球富豪崛起的正面力量 也以同樣的力道 正在掏空 西方工業國家的中產階級 我們先談科技 創造億萬富翁的動力 也吞噬了許多中產階級的傳統工作 你多久沒跟旅行社職員打交道了? 和工業革命時代對比 新經濟的鉅亨 並未創造許多新的就業機會 在全盛時期,通用汽車有幾十萬員工 臉書的員工則不到一萬人 全球化也不遑多讓 雖然數以億計的人 在新興市場脫貧 但也導致很多工作 在西方已開發國家被外包 可怕的現實是 沒有任何經濟規則 能夠自動轉化 經濟的增長 成為廣泛分享的繁榮 這個現象顯露於 我認為當代最可怕的經濟數字中 自1990年代末以來,生產率的提高 已經脫鉤於 工資和就業的增長 結果國家日益富裕 企業效率日益提高 卻未創造更多就業機會 整體薪資並沒有增加
One scary conclusion you could draw from all of this is to worry about structural unemployment. What worries me more is a different nightmare scenario. After all, in a totally free labor market, we could find jobs for pretty much everyone. The dystopia that worries me is a universe in which a few geniuses invent Google and its ilk and the rest of us are employed giving them massages.
總之有個可怕的結論 就是我們該憂心結構性失業 我更擔心的是另一種噩夢場景 畢竟在完全自由的勞動力市場 幾乎人人都可以找到工作 我擔心的是反面烏托邦 由少數天才組成的宇宙 他們創辦了谷歌及其類 其他的人只能按摩伺候他們
So when I get really depressed about all of this, I comfort myself in thinking about the Industrial Revolution. After all, for all its grim, satanic mills, it worked out pretty well, didn't it? After all, all of us here are richer, healthier, taller -- well, there are a few exceptions — and live longer than our ancestors in the early 19th century. But it's important to remember that before we learned how to share the fruits of the Industrial Revolution with the broad swathes of society, we had to go through two depressions, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Long Depression of the 1870s, two world wars, communist revolutions in Russia and in China, and an era of tremendous social and political upheaval in the West. We also, not coincidentally, went through an era of tremendous social and political inventions. We created the modern welfare state. We created public education. We created public health care. We created public pensions. We created unions.
所以我為此很鬱悶的時候 會想想工業革命聊以慰藉 畢竟當時的工廠糟糕透頂 但最後還是柳暗花明了,對吧 畢竟你我都比前人更富裕、更健康、更高 除了少數例外 我們的壽命也高於19世紀初的祖先 但是要切記 在我們學會 讓工業革命的成果 分享於廣大的社會群眾之前 我們經歷過兩次蕭條 1930年代的大蕭條 1870年代的長期蕭條 兩次世界大戰,共產主義革命 在俄羅斯和中國爆發 西方社會和政治 極度動盪的時代 我們並非巧合地 也經歷了極大的 社會與政治創新 我們建立了現代福利國家 我們建立了公立教育體系 我們建立了公共保健體系 我們建立了公共退休金制度 我們成立了工會
Today, we are living through an era of economic transformation comparable in its scale and its scope to the Industrial Revolution. To be sure that this new economy benefits us all and not just the plutocrats, we need to embark on an era of comparably ambitious social and political change. We need a new New Deal.
如今我們正在度過 經濟轉型的時代 就其規模和範疇而言 不下於工業革命 為了確保新經濟澤披天下 而不是僅由富豪獨享 我們需要迎頭面對 同樣浩大的社會與政治變革 我們需要新的新政
(Applause)
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