You probably don't know me, but I am one of those .01 percenters that you hear about and read about, and I am by any reasonable definition a plutocrat. And tonight, what I would like to do is speak directly to other plutocrats, to my people, because it feels like it's time for us all to have a chat. Like most plutocrats, I too am a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, cofounded or funded over 30 companies across a range of industries. I was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com. I cofounded a company called aQuantive that we sold to Microsoft for 6.4 billion dollars. My friends and I, we own a bank. I tell you this — (Laughter) — unbelievable, right?
你們大概不知道我是誰。 我就是你們聽過,或者讀過的, 那百分之零點一的族群之一。 不管用任何標準來看, 我都是個超級富豪。 而今晚,我要與其他像我這樣的超級富豪, 直接對話。 因為我真的覺得, 該是我們好好聊一聊的時候了。 就像大多數的超級富豪,我也是個驕傲、 並且理直氣壯的資本主義者。 我創立、與人合資或者投入資助的公司, 超過三十個以上,並且橫跨各種產業。 我是亞馬遜網站的第一個非家族投資人, 我投資成立了一家公司叫 aQuantive, 以64億美金被微軟收購。 我和我的朋友們還擁有一個銀行, 我之所以告訴你這些,(笑聲) 不可思議,對吧?
I tell you this to show that my life is like most plutocrats. I have a broad perspective on capitalism and business, and I have been rewarded obscenely for that with a life that most of you all can't even imagine: multiple homes, a yacht, my own plane, etc., etc., etc. But let's be honest: I am not the smartest person you've ever met. I am certainly not the hardest working. I was a mediocre student. I'm not technical at all. I can't write a word of code. Truly, my success is the consequence of spectacular luck, of birth, of circumstance and of timing. But I am actually pretty good at a couple of things. One, I have an unusually high tolerance for risk, and the other is I have a good sense, a good intuition about what will happen in the future, and I think that that intuition about the future is the essence of good entrepreneurship.
我之所以告訴你這些, 是為了表達,我的生活 就跟大多超級富豪一樣。 對於資本主要和商業行為, 我有深廣的看法, 也因此我在財務上有巨大的收穫。 過著你們無法想像的、 奢華的生活。 我擁有多棟房產、一台遊艇、私人飛機, 等等等等。 但是老實說,我不是你見過最聰明的人, 也絕對不是最努力的人。 學生時代我的成績中等; 關於技術方面我不是專家; 我也不會寫程式; 說真的,我的成功來自於 天大的運氣, 在天時、地利、人合上的運氣。 不過有幾件事情我的確挺在行的。 第一,對於風險我有異於常人的容忍度。 第二就是我很有“sense”。 這是一種對於未來的直覺。 而且我認為這種對於未來的直覺, 是成功創業的精隨。
So what do I see in our future today, you ask? I see pitchforks, as in angry mobs with pitchforks, because while people like us plutocrats are living beyond the dreams of avarice, the other 99 percent of our fellow citizens are falling farther and farther behind. In 1980, the top one percent of Americans shared about eight percent of national [income], while the bottom 50 percent of Americans shared 18 percent. Thirty years later, today, the top one percent shares over 20 percent of national [income], while the bottom 50 percent of Americans share 12 or 13. If the trend continues, the top one percent will share over 30 percent of national [income] in another 30 years, while the bottom 50 percent of Americans will share just six.
所以,對於現今的未來,你問: 我看見甚麼? 我看見了鐵耙子, 暴怒的群眾手中的鐵耙子。 因為正當我們這些超級富豪, 過著超越想像的奢華生活的同時, 其他 99% 的同胞們, 生活品質不斷、不斷的在衰落。 在一九八零年,最頂層1%的美國人, 擁有全美國8%的總收入。 在這同時,最基層的50%的美國人, 擁有國家總收入的18%。 三十年後的今天,最頂層的 1%, 擁有國家總收入的20%。 同時美國底層的50%國民, 擁有12~13%。 假設這樣的趨勢持續下去, 那頂層的1%, 在另一個三十年後將會擁有 國家總收入的30%。 而美國底層的50%國民, 僅有6%。
You see, the problem isn't that we have some inequality. Some inequality is necessary for a high-functioning capitalist democracy. The problem is that inequality is at historic highs today and it's getting worse every day. And if wealth, power, and income continue to concentrate at the very tippy top, our society will change from a capitalist democracy to a neo-feudalist rentier society like 18th-century France. That was France before the revolution and the mobs with the pitchforks.
其實,我們面對的問題, 不僅僅是這些不平等; 為了維持資本民主高度作用, 某種程度的不平等是必要的。 問題在於這些不平等, 正在處於歷史新高, 而且日漸惡化。 若是財富、勢力,和收入 都繼續集中 在最頂層人的手中, 我們的社會將會開始起變化。 從一個以資本主義為主的民主社會, 變成一個新封建、唯利主義的社會。 就像18世紀的法國。 那是法國, 與手中拿著鐵耙子的暴民, 等著革命的樣子。
So I have a message for my fellow plutocrats and zillionaires and for anyone who lives in a gated bubble world: Wake up. Wake up. It cannot last. Because if we do not do something to fix the glaring economic inequities in our society, the pitchforks will come for us, for no free and open society can long sustain this kind of rising economic inequality. It has never happened. There are no examples. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state or an uprising. The pitchforks will come for us if we do not address this. It's not a matter of if, it's when. And it will be terrible when they come for everyone, but particularly for people like us plutocrats.
在此對其他的超級富豪 其他的兆億富翁、 以及其他所有 住在高級的泡泡世界的人, 我有話對你們說: 醒醒吧! 醒醒吧! 這樣的好景不會持續下去的。 如果我們袖手旁觀, 讓我們社會中的 經濟失衡繼續惡化, 這些鐵耙,有一天將會向我們刺來。 因為沒有任何自由開放的社會,可以容忍 這種經濟上的不平等無限成長。 歷史上從未發生過,沒有任何前例。 你提出任何一個極度不平等的社會, 我就可以找到武裝起義, 或者人民暴動的例子。 鐵耙子遲早會向我們刺來, 若是我們不想辦法解決問題。 這不是“會不會發生” 而是“什麼時候發生”的問題。 當鐵耙子真的刺來的時候, 大家都會遭殃。 由是我們這些超級富豪。
I know I must sound like some liberal do-gooder. I'm not. I'm not making a moral argument that economic inequality is wrong. What I am arguing is that rising economic inequality is stupid and ultimately self-defeating. Rising inequality doesn't just increase our risks from pitchforks, but it's also terrible for business too. So the model for us rich guys should be Henry Ford. When Ford famously introduced the $5 day, which was twice the prevailing wage at the time, he didn't just increase the productivity of his factories, he converted exploited autoworkers who were poor into a thriving middle class who could now afford to buy the products that they made. Ford intuited what we now know is true, that an economy is best understood as an ecosystem and characterized by the same kinds of feedback loops you find in a natural ecosystem, a feedback loop between customers and businesses. Raising wages increases demand, which increases hiring, which in turn increases wages and demand and profits, and that virtuous cycle of increasing prosperity is precisely what is missing from today's economic recovery.
我知道我聽起來很像個左派的熱心分子, 但我並不是。 我無意討論 經濟不平等在道德層面上的是非。 我認為經濟不平等的增長 是愚昧的,並且最終會導致自我毀滅。 經濟不平等的增長,不單單只是 增加我們淪於鐵耙子之下的風險, 對於商業也毫無利益可言。 我們這些有錢人, 應該以亨利.福特為榜樣。 福特成功推出“一天工資五美元”方案, 也就是那個年代普通工資的兩倍。 他不僅僅增加了 工廠的生產力, 他將飽受欺凌又貧窮的汽車廠工人, 搖身一變,成為了有實力的中產階級, 終於能夠購買他們親手製作的產品。 當年福特的直覺,成了今天的真理。 要理解經濟體, 可以把它想像成一個生態體系。 並且跟大自然裡的生態體系, 有著一樣的回饋環路。 一種存在在買主與賣主之間的回饋環路。 工資成長會帶動需求的成長, 需求成長會增加就業機會, 進而更加刺激工資、 需求、 以及利潤的成長。 而這樣子增進繁榮的良性循環, 正是我們現今 正慢慢復原的經濟裡所缺乏的。
And this is why we need to put behind us the trickle-down policies that so dominate both political parties and embrace something I call middle-out economics. Middle-out economics rejects the neoclassical economic idea that economies are efficient, linear, mechanistic, that they tend towards equilibrium and fairness, and instead embraces the 21st-century idea that economies are complex, adaptive, ecosystemic, that they tend away from equilibrium and toward inequality, that they're not efficient at all but are effective if well managed. This 21st-century perspective allows you to clearly see that capitalism does not work by [efficiently] allocating existing resources. It works by [efficiently] creating new solutions to human problems. The genius of capitalism is that it is an evolutionary solution-finding system. It rewards people for solving other people's problems. The difference between a poor society and a rich society, obviously, is the degree to which that society has generated solutions in the form of products for its citizens. The sum of the solutions that we have in our society really is our prosperity, and this explains why companies like Google and Amazon and Microsoft and Apple and the entrepreneurs who created those companies have contributed so much to our nation's prosperity.
這就是為什麼我們務必拋棄 深深影響雙方政治黨派的 “下滲經濟”政策, 並且實行我所謂的“middle-out經濟”。 Middle-out經濟學不認同 新古典主義經濟學的主張, 認定經濟體是高效、 線性,並且機制化的, 認定經濟體會自動趨向平衡與公正。 反之, ,此主義提昌符合21世紀的思維, 認為經濟體是複雜,有矯正能力, 像生態系統那樣, 不趨向平衡,反而趨向不平等。 並且一點也不有效率。 但是,在妥當的管理之下可以非常有效。 這個21世紀的新看法, 讓我們清楚的見識到資本主義 作用的方式, 並不是靠者有效分配資源。 它的作用方式是經由 提供有效的新方式解決人類的問題。 資本主義巧妙的地方在於, 它本身是一個可以自我演化 而不斷找尋新方法的系統。 它鼓勵人們 去解決別人的問題。 貧窮與富有的社會, 有一個最大的差別, 在於社會本身,透過生產的產品, 來解決民眾的民生問題的能力高低。 社會中存在的這些, 解決方案的總體所奠定的, 是這個社會繁榮與否的基礎。這就是為什麼 像谷歌,或者Amazon、 微軟、蘋果這類的公司, 和成立這些公司的創業家 對於我們國家的繁榮 有了這麼大的貢獻。
This 21st-century perspective also makes clear that what we think of as economic growth is best understood as the rate at which we solve problems. But that rate is totally dependent upon how many problem solvers — diverse, able problem solvers — we have, and thus how many of our fellow citizens actively participate, both as entrepreneurs who can offer solutions, and as customers who consume them. But this maximizing participation thing doesn't happen by accident. It doesn't happen by itself. It requires effort and investment, which is why all highly prosperous capitalist democracies are characterized by massive investments in the middle class and the infrastructure that they depend on.
這個21世紀的思維, 同時也闡明, 我們處理民生問題的效率, 跟經濟上的成長 是成正比的。 但這種效率, 完全取決於有多少人才、多元化、 有能力的人才,來解決這些問題。 並且有多少平均市民, 能同時以提供解決的人的姿態 主動參與 ,並且扮演 消費者的角色。 但是提高這樣的參與度, 並不會偶然的發生, 它不會說發生就發生的, 我們需要積極正視,並且投入資金。 這就是為甚麼 所有高度繁榮的資本主義民主國家 都有這個特點。那就是 都有大規模的投資, 專門針對中產階級的需要, 以及其需要的基本設施。
We plutocrats need to get this trickle-down economics thing behind us, this idea that the better we do, the better everyone else will do. It's not true. How could it be? I earn 1,000 times the median wage, but I do not buy 1,000 times as much stuff, do I? I actually bought two pairs of these pants, what my partner Mike calls my manager pants. I could have bought 2,000 pairs, but what would I do with them? (Laughter) How many haircuts can I get? How often can I go out to dinner? No matter how wealthy a few plutocrats get, we can never drive a great national economy. Only a thriving middle class can do that. There's nothing to be done, my plutocrat friends might say. Henry Ford was in a different time. Maybe we can't do some things. Maybe we can do some things. June 19, 2013, Bloomberg published an article I wrote called "The Capitalist’s Case for a $15 Minimum Wage." The good people at Forbes magazine, among my biggest admirers, called it "Nick Hanauer's near-insane proposal." And yet, just 350 days after that article was published, Seattle's Mayor Ed Murray signed into law an ordinance raising the minimum wage in Seattle to 15 dollars an hour, more than double what the prevailing federal $7.25 rate is. How did this happen, reasonable people might ask. It happened because a group of us reminded the middle class that they are the source of growth and prosperity in capitalist economies. We reminded them that when workers have more money, businesses have more customers, and need more employees. We reminded them that when businesses pay workers a living wage, taxpayers are relieved of the burden of funding the poverty programs like food stamps and medical assistance and rent assistance that those workers need. We reminded them that low-wage workers make terrible taxpayers, and that when you raise the minimum wage for all businesses, all businesses benefit yet all can compete.
我們這些超級富豪, 實在應該拋棄所謂“下滲經濟”, 這種,只要我們受惠, 其他人遲早也會受惠的心態。 這怎麼可能呢?這是完全錯誤的。 我的薪水相當於最低工資的一千倍, 但我並沒有多消費一千倍。 是吧? 我是買了兩條這樣的褲子沒錯, 我的合夥人 Mike 戲稱它為 “經理褲”。 事實上,這樣的褲子我可以買兩千條。 但我買兩千條褲子來,要幹嘛?(笑聲) 我能剪幾次頭髮, 能去餐廳吃幾次飯? 無論多有錢,我們這些 畢竟是少數的超級富豪。 不可能光靠我們 來推動一個國家的經濟。 只有一個國家蓬勃發展的 中產階級能為之。 我的富豪朋友們可能會說, 我們又能怎樣? 亨利.福特存在另一個時空, 也許有些事情,我們是做不到。 但也有些事,也許我們可以。 2013年6月19號, 彭博刊出了我寫的一篇文章,題為 “資本主義企業家對於$15最低時薪的研究報告” 富比士雜誌的好朋友們, 我最大的粉絲之一, 稱之為“尼克.漢豪爾幾近瘋狂的提議”。 可是,在這文章 刊登後的350天之後, 西雅圖市市長 Ed Murray 卻立法定案, 將西雅圖的最低薪資 漲到一小時15美元。 比當時聯邦的平均薪資 一小時7.25美元還多兩倍有餘。 這是怎麼辦到的? 正常人可能會這麼問。 這條法律得以立案, 是因為我們出來呼籲, 中產階級才是資本主義經濟發展、 繁榮的來源。 我們提醒了他們, 當工人口袋裡多了錢, 大眾商家就多了更多顧客, 同時就需要雇用更多員工。 我們提醒了他們, 當商家付給工人薪資的同時, 也消除了納稅人對於窮困族群的負擔, 像是食物券、醫療補給費、 和租房補助, 諸如此類低收入戶所需的補助。 我們提醒了他們 ,低收入工人 不擅長扮演納稅人的角色, 所以當你提高所有企業、商家的最低薪資, 所有的企業、商家都會受益, 並且足以進一步的互相競爭。
Now the orthodox reaction, of course, is raising the minimum wage costs jobs. Right? Your politician's always echoing that trickle-down idea by saying things like, "Well, if you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it."
最傳統的反面看法是: 提高最低薪資,代表減少總體的工作機會。 政客們總是打著“下滲經濟”的旗幟, 喊著 “看吧, 提高創造工作機會的成本, 結果會怎樣? 工作機會就變少了!” 的口號。
Are you sure? Because there's some contravening evidence. Since 1980, the wages of CEOs in our country have gone from about 30 times the median wage to 500 times. That's raising the price of employment. And yet, to my knowledge, I have never seen a company outsource its CEO's job, automate their job, export the job to China. In fact, we appear to be employing more CEOs and senior managers than ever before. So too for technology workers and financial services workers, who earn multiples of the median wage and yet we employ more and more of them, so clearly you can raise the price of employment and get more of it.
真的是這樣嗎? 證據顯示完全相反。 從一九八零年開始,我們國家CEO的薪水 比國民平均薪水高出三十倍, 上升到今天的五百倍。 這,才是提高創造工作機會的成本。 再說,以我的了解, 我還沒見過哪個公司, 把他們CEO的工作給外包,或者自動化, 或是將工作機會移出到中國大陸。 不但如此,跟以前比起來, 我們似乎雇用越來越多的CEO跟高級主管, 高科技員工 和金融顧問也一樣,越來越多。 他們的薪水也同樣是國民平均的幾倍之多。 我們卻仍然雇用越來越多這樣的人才。 所以無庸置疑的,你絕對可以 提高創造工作機會的成本, 同時增加工作機會的數量。
I know that most people think that the $15 minimum wage is this insane, risky economic experiment. We disagree. We believe that the $15 minimum wage in Seattle is actually the continuation of a logical economic policy. It is allowing our city to kick your city's ass. Because, you see, Washington state already has the highest minimum wage of any state in the nation. We pay all workers $9.32, which is almost 30 percent more than the federal minimum of 7.25, but crucially, 427 percent more than the federal tipped minimum of 2.13. If trickle-down thinkers were right, then Washington state should have massive unemployment. Seattle should be sliding into the ocean. And yet, Seattle is the fastest-growing big city in the country. Washington state is generating small business jobs at a higher rate than any other major state in the nation. The restaurant business in Seattle? Booming. Why? Because the fundamental law of capitalism is, when workers have more money, businesses have more customers and need more workers. When restaurants pay restaurant workers enough so that even they can afford to eat in restaurants, that's not bad for the restaurant business. That's good for it, despite what some restaurateurs may tell you.
我知道大多數人, 都認為15美元的最低時薪, 是種瘋狂並且高風險的經濟學實驗。 我們反對這樣的看法。 我們認為15美元的最低時薪, 在西雅圖, 是一條合乎邏輯的經濟政策 的延續。 因為這條政策,我們的城市 變得比你們城市優秀的多。 因為, 華盛頓州原本就有全美國 所有州裡最高的 最低工資。 我們給所有工人 $9.32 的薪資, 差不多比聯邦最低薪資的$7.25, 多了百分之三十。 更重要的是, 比聯邦 "有小費員工"的最低薪資 $2.13 高了百分之427。 如果下滲經濟支持者的想法是對的, 那華盛頓州照理說應該會有 極高的失業率, 西雅圖應該馬上要沉近海裡了。 但事實呢? 西雅圖是我們國家 發展的最快的大城市。 華盛頓州所產生的工作機會, 比國內任何一個主要大州, 都來的多。 西雅圖的餐飲業? 蓬勃發展。 為什麼?因為資本主義的基本法則就是, 當工人們有更多錢, 企業、商家就有顧客, 也就同時需要更多員工了。 當餐廳業者給員工的工資 夠他們在工作的餐廳吃上一頓飯, 這對餐廳的經營不是壞事, 儘管有些老闆不同意。 這其實是件好事。
Is it more complicated than I'm making out? Of course it is. There are a lot of dynamics at play. But can we please stop insisting that if low-wage workers earn a little bit more, unemployment will skyrocket and the economy will collapse? There is no evidence for it. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics is not the claim that if the rich get richer, everyone is better off. It is the claim made by those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage that if the poor get richer, that will be bad for the economy. This is nonsense. So can we please dispense with this rhetoric that says that rich guys like me and my plutocrat friends made our country? We plutocrats know, even if we don't like to admit it in public, that if we had been born somewhere else, not here in the United States, we might very well be just some dude standing barefoot by the side of a dirt road selling fruit. It's not that they don't have good entrepreneurs in other places, even very, very poor places. It's just that that's all that those entrepreneurs' customers can afford.
不過,事情實際上是不是 沒有我說得那麼簡單? 那是當然的。 有許多不同的因素都會影響結果。 但是我們能否停止這類的想法, 認為低收入的工人的工資多一點, 失業率就會衝破表。 然後經濟就會崩潰? 根本沒有證據支持這樣的說法。 下滲經濟 其中一種說法, "富者更富, 全體享福", 還稱不上 最陰險的是那些 反對增加最低工資的人, 宣稱窮人變得較富有, 對經濟是有害的,才是真正陰險。 這簡直就是胡說。 我們是不是可以拋棄這類想法, 認為像我這樣的有錢人, 還有我的超級富豪朋友們, 是我們建立這個國家 一類的想法? 我們超級富豪其實都知道, 即使我們不願在公開場合承認, 如果我們出生在別的地方, 在美國以外的地方, 我們很可能就是站在小路旁, 打赤腳賣水果的人而已。 我不是說,其他國家沒有創業精神跟習慣。 即使是最窮最窮的地方,都還是有。 只是因為在那樣的經濟體系, 那裏的消費者,能買得起的, 就只是那樣成度的商品。
So here's an idea for a new kind of economics, a new kind of politics that I call new capitalism. Let's acknowledge that capitalism beats the alternatives, but also that the more people we include, both as entrepreneurs and as customers, the better it works. Let's by all means shrink the size of government, but not by slashing the poverty programs, but by ensuring that workers are paid enough so that they actually don't need those programs. Let's invest enough in the middle class to make our economy fairer and more inclusive, and by fairer, more truly competitive, and by more truly competitive, more able to generate the solutions to human problems that are the true drivers of growth and prosperity. Capitalism is the greatest social technology ever invented for creating prosperity in human societies, if it is well managed, but capitalism, because of the fundamental multiplicative dynamics of complex systems, tends towards, inexorably, inequality, concentration and collapse. The work of democracies is to maximize the inclusion of the many in order to create prosperity, not to enable the few to accumulate money. Government does create prosperity and growth, by creating the conditions that allow both entrepreneurs and their customers to thrive. Balancing the power of capitalists like me and workers isn't bad for capitalism. It's essential to it. Programs like a reasonable minimum wage, affordable healthcare, paid sick leave, and the progressive taxation necessary to pay for the important infrastructure necessary for the middle class like education, R and D, these are indispensable tools shrewd capitalists should embrace to drive growth, because no one benefits from it like us.
今天,我要推薦一種新的經濟體系。 一種新的政治體系。 我稱之為新資本主義。 我們必須承認, 資本主義比其他的經濟體系強多了。 但是只有在我們接納更多人, 無論是創業者,或者消費者, 它才會日益茁壯。 我們絕對應該縮減政府的干預, 但不是透過削減貧窮補助福利的方法, 而是讓工人階級擁有充沛的薪資。 進而幫助他們擺脫對這些福利專案的需要, 讓我們增加給中產階級的投資, 好讓我們的經濟更公平且具包容性, 透過公平,而更有競爭力。 透過真正的競爭力, 更能提出有效的, 解決人類的問題的方法。 這就是走向經濟成長跟繁榮的道路。 資本主義是迄今為止, 最好的社會技術, 如果適當的執行的話, 能夠給人類的社會帶來繁榮。 但是資本主義,由於是一種複雜並且 利於錢滾錢的系統, 有時很殘忍的會傾向於社會不公、 財富的集中,最終有可能以致於崩潰。 民主體系必須做到的, 是盡可能的涵蓋多數人, 才能創造集體的繁榮, 而不是讓少數人累積財富。 政府的確可以創造繁榮與經濟成長, 透過提供給創業家跟他們的顧客, 可以蓬勃發展 的環境。 像我這樣的資本家還有工人, 平衡這兩者的力量 對資本主義不但不是壞事, 反倒是有必要的。 合理的最低時薪, 還有實惠的醫療保健, 有薪病假, 依照收入提高稅收, 為著支付中產階級需要的基礎設施, 幫助中產階級建立在教育跟 研發方面的基礎設施, 以上都是不可或缺的工具。 是精明的資本家應該接受、 用來澆灌經濟成長的工具。 因為最大的受益者, 就是我們。
Many economists would have you believe that their field is an objective science. I disagree, and I think that it is equally a tool that humans use to enforce and encode our social and moral preferences and prejudices about status and power, which is why plutocrats like me have always needed to find persuasive stories to tell everyone else about why our relative positions are morally righteous and good for everyone: like, we are indispensable, the job creators, and you are not; like, tax cuts for us create growth, but investments in you will balloon our debt and bankrupt our great country; that we matter; that you don't. For thousands of years, these stories were called divine right. Today, we have trickle-down economics. How obviously, transparently self-serving all of this is. We plutocrats need to see that the United States of America made us, not the other way around; that a thriving middle class is the source of prosperity in capitalist economies, not a consequence of it. And we should never forget that even the best of us in the worst of circumstances are barefoot by the side of a dirt road selling fruit.
多數的經濟學家會說, 他們的學術是一門客觀的科學, 我不這麼認為。 我認為經濟學同時也是一種 人類使用的工具,用來執行與制式化 我們在社會跟道德上的,關於地位與權力 這方面的偏好與偏見的工具。 這就是為什麼像我這樣的超級富豪, 常常需要找一些有力的故事, 來說服所有的人, 說服他們相信,我們所佔的社會地位, 在道德上是說得過去, 並且對所有人都有利的。 我們是不可取代的、創造工作的人, 而你們不是。 給我們減稅,可以創造經濟成長。 但投資在你們身上, 會擴大我們的債務, 並且讓我們的國家破產。 我們很重要, 而你們不重要。 幾千年來,這些故事被歸類為 上天給予的權力。 而現今的說法,就是下滲經濟學。 這套學說有多麼明顯、公開的 自私自利, 我們這些超級富豪必須認清, 是美國成就了我們, 而不是我們成就了美國。 我們須認清,蓬勃發展的中產階級, 是資本經濟的繁榮的來源, 而不是它的結果。 並且我們該永遠記得, 在最糟糕的環境裡, 最努力的人能達到的最好狀況, 也僅僅是光著腳在路邊賣水果。
Fellow plutocrats, I think it may be time for us to recommit to our country, to commit to a new kind of capitalism which is both more inclusive and more effective, a capitalism that will ensure that America's economy remains the most dynamic and prosperous in the world. Let's secure the future for ourselves, our children and their children. Or alternatively, we could do nothing, hide in our gated communities and private schools, enjoy our planes and yachts — they're fun — and wait for the pitchforks.
身為超級富豪的朋友們,我想是我們應該, 重新對我們的國家許一個未來的時候了。 許一個,有新的資本主義的未來。 這樣的資本主義,更有包容性跟效率, 這樣的資本主義, 也確保 美國經濟 保持在世界上是最活躍並且最繁榮的。 讓我們為了我們自己確保一個未來 也為了我們的下一代 還有他們的下一代。 或者,我們也可以甚麼都不做, 躲在我們的高級住宅區、 或者私立學校裡, 光顧著享受我們的私人飛機跟遊艇。 是很棒沒錯。 但同時,我們只是靜候鐵耙子的到來。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)