I'd like to start with a simple question: Why do the poor make so many poor decisions? I know it's a harsh question, but take a look at the data. The poor borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink more and eat less healthfully. Why?
首先我想由簡單的問題開始: 為甚麼窮人總是做出不智的的抉擇? 我知道這是一個嚴峻的問題, 請看一下這些資料。 窮人借的多、存的少, 菸抽得兇、動得少、酒喝得多, 吃的也不夠健康。 為甚麼?
Well, the standard explanation was once summed up by the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. And she called poverty "a personality defect."
標準答案, 一度曾被前英國首相 柴契爾夫人下了定論, 她把窮人闡釋為:「一種個人的缺陷。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
A lack of character, basically.
基本上說的是「性格的不足。」
Now, I'm sure not many of you would be so blunt. But the idea that there's something wrong with the poor themselves is not restricted to Mrs. Thatcher. Some of you may believe that the poor should be held responsible for their own mistakes. And others may argue that we should help them to make better decisions. But the underlying assumption is the same: there's something wrong with them. If we could just change them, if we could just teach them how to live their lives, if they would only listen. And to be honest, this was what I thought for a long time. It was only a few years ago that I discovered that everything I thought I knew about poverty was wrong.
我想應該沒人敢像她如此直白。 但認為窮人一定是哪裡不對勁的人, 並不是只有柴契爾夫人而已。 在座有些人可能認為 窮人必須為自己犯的錯負責。 另有些人則認為 我們該協助窮人做更好的抉擇。 但基本的假設一樣, 都認為窮人就是有問題的人。 認為只要改造他們, 只要指導他們如何過活, 只要他們願意聽就好了。 坦白說, 我長久以來以為就是如此。 幾年前我才發現, 自己對貧窮的既有觀念全是錯的。
It all started when I accidentally stumbled upon a paper by a few American psychologists. They had traveled 8,000 miles, all the way to India, for a fascinating study. And it was an experiment with sugarcane farmers. You should know that these farmers collect about 60 percent of their annual income all at once, right after the harvest. This means that they're relatively poor one part of the year and rich the other. The researchers asked them to do an IQ test before and after the harvest. What they subsequently discovered completely blew my mind. The farmers scored much worse on the test before the harvest. The effects of living in poverty, it turns out, correspond to losing 14 points of IQ. Now, to give you an idea, that's comparable to losing a night's sleep or the effects of alcoholism.
我偶然讀到某篇文章時意外發現, 文章出自幾位美國心理學家, 他們歷經八千英里來到印度, 為了參加一個頗有意思的研究。 研究對象是種植甘蔗的農人。 那些農夫「一次性的收入」 占了他們整年收入的 60%; 那是甘蔗收成後立即拿到的報酬。 這表示一年之中的某些日子 他們相對貧窮, 其他日子則相對較為寬裕。 研究員分別測量他們 收成前、收成後的智商。 他們的發現徹底打亂了我的想法。 因為收成前的智商遠低於收成後的; 結果發現這是貧窮所導致的, 對應了 14 分的智商落差。 給你一個概念, 這種智商落差,與整晚失眠, 或酗酒後的結果相當。
A few months later, I heard that Eldar Shafir, a professor at Princeton University and one of the authors of this study, was coming over to Holland, where I live. So we met up in Amsterdam to talk about his revolutionary new theory of poverty. And I can sum it up in just two words: scarcity mentality. It turns out that people behave differently when they perceive a thing to be scarce. And what that thing is doesn't much matter -- whether it's not enough time, money or food.
幾個月後,我聽到愛爾達‧夏菲爾, 普林斯頓大學的教授, 同時也是這個研究的作者之一, 要來荷蘭的消息,我住在荷蘭, 所以相約在阿姆斯特丹會面, 一起研究他最新、革命性的貧窮理論。 我只須用兩個詞總結: 「匱乏」、「心理」。 就是說,當人們意識到缺少某種東西時, 行為就會改變。 至於是甚麼東西,並不怎麼重要, 不管是缺乏時間、金錢或食物。
You all know this feeling, when you've got too much to do, or when you've put off breaking for lunch and your blood sugar takes a dive. This narrows your focus to your immediate lack -- to the sandwich you've got to have now, the meeting that's starting in five minutes or the bills that have to be paid tomorrow. So the long-term perspective goes out the window. You could compare it to a new computer that's running 10 heavy programs at once. It gets slower and slower, making errors. Eventually, it freezes -- not because it's a bad computer, but because it has too much to do at once. The poor have the same problem. They're not making dumb decisions because they are dumb, but because they're living in a context in which anyone would make dumb decisions.
大家都知道那種感覺, 當你太忙的時候, 或是忙到沒時間吃飯的時候, 此時你的血糖會急遽降低, 因為「缺乏」而導致注意力減弱, 使你忘記吃三明治, 無法專注於五分鐘後要開始的會議, 或明天一定要付的帳單。 所以長期的願景消失了。 你可以把它比喻為一台新電腦, 同一時間讓它跑十個重負荷的軟體, 最後它會愈跑愈慢,並開始出現錯誤。 結果最後當機了…… 這不是因為電腦很爛, 是因它同時要運算太多指令所致。 窮人有一樣的困擾, 他們不是因為笨才做出笨的抉擇, 而是因為他們的生活環境, 那種誰都會犯錯的時空背景。
So suddenly I understood why so many of our anti-poverty programs don't work. Investments in education, for example, are often completely ineffective. Poverty is not a lack of knowledge. A recent analysis of 201 studies on the effectiveness of money-management training came to the conclusion that it has almost no effect at all. Now, don't get me wrong -- this is not to say the poor don't learn anything -- they can come out wiser for sure. But it's not enough. Or as Professor Shafir told me, "It's like teaching someone to swim and then throwing them in a stormy sea."
所以我突然頓悟, 為何有那麼多的扶貧計畫都無效。 例如教育投資,通常不見成效。 貧窮不肇因於知識的匱乏。 最近對 201 個貨幣管理 培訓效果的研究分析, 得到的結論是「幾乎沒半點成效」。 請別誤會我的意思, 這並不是說窮人沒有學到任何東西, 他們絕對可以變得更精明。 但是那樣還不夠。 或正如夏菲爾教授告訴我的: 「這就像教人家游泳, 然後把他們丟到 波濤洶湧的大海裡一樣。」
I still remember sitting there, perplexed. And it struck me that we could have figured this all out decades ago. I mean, these psychologists didn't need any complicated brain scans; they only had to measure the farmer's IQ, and IQ tests were invented more than 100 years ago. Actually, I realized I had read about the psychology of poverty before. George Orwell, one of the greatest writers who ever lived, experienced poverty firsthand in the 1920s. "The essence of poverty," he wrote back then, is that it "annihilates the future." And he marveled at, quote, "How people take it for granted they have the right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level."
我記得當時坐在那裡, 一臉迷茫, 我受到了衝擊,我們 幾十年前就該想到這一切。 心理學家並不需要複雜的大腦掃描, 只要測量農夫的智商就夠了, 而智商測驗一百多年前早就發明了。 其實,我意識到 我之前讀過關於貧窮心理的文章。 史上最偉大的作家之一 喬治‧歐威爾, 1920 年代親歷過貧窮的滋味。 他當時寫道:「貧窮的本質 是它『摧毀了未來』。」 他驚嘆道: 「人們如何理所當然地認為, 只要你的收入低於某個水平, 他們就有權向你傳道、為你祈禱。」
Now, those words are every bit as resonant today. The big question is, of course: What can be done? Modern economists have a few solutions up their sleeves. We could help the poor with their paperwork or send them a text message to remind them to pay their bills. This type of solution is hugely popular with modern politicians, mostly because, well, they cost next to nothing. These solutions are, I think, a symbol of this era in which we so often treat the symptoms, but ignore the underlying cause.
過去他所說的每一個字, 今天絲毫不減,仍如此共鳴。 當然,最大的問題是: 我們能怎麼辦? 現代經濟學家袖中藏有一些密技, 我們可以幫助窮人做點文書工作, 或是寄給他們一些文字訊息, 提醒他們付清帳單, 這種類型的解決方案 非常受現代政治家的歡迎, 主要是因為 它們幾乎不花什麼錢。 我認為,這是我們經常治療症狀 但忽略根本原因的時代象徵。
So I wonder: Why don't we just change the context in which the poor live? Or, going back to our computer analogy: Why keep tinkering around with the software when we can easily solve the problem by installing some extra memory instead? At that point, Professor Shafir responded with a blank look. And after a few seconds, he said, "Oh, I get it. You mean you want to just hand out more money to the poor to eradicate poverty. Uh, sure, that'd be great. But I'm afraid that brand of left-wing politics you've got in Amsterdam -- it doesn't exist in the States."
所以我想知道: 何不改變窮人的生活環境呢? 回看前面關於電腦的比喻。 為什麼要把軟體改來改去, 當你可用增加記憶體容量來解決? 說到這裡,夏菲爾教授一臉茫然。 過了一下,他說: 「呃,我懂了。 你的意思是,只要給他們更多的錢, 就可以根除貧窮了,是嗎? 是啊,當然,那就太好了。 但恐怕你們阿姆斯特丹 擁有的左翼政治品牌, 在美國並不存在。」
But is this really an old-fashioned, leftist idea? I remembered reading about an old plan -- something that has been proposed by some of history's leading thinkers. The philosopher Thomas More first hinted at it in his book, "Utopia," more than 500 years ago. And its proponents have spanned the spectrum from the left to the right, from the civil rights campaigner, Martin Luther King, to the economist Milton Friedman. And it's an incredibly simple idea: basic income guarantee.
但這真的是老派左翼政黨的點子嗎? 我記得讀過一個舊計畫, 以前由思想領袖提出來的方案。 哲學家湯瑪斯•摩爾 500 年前 早就在《烏托邦》這本書中暗示過。 支持他理想的人士 從左翼擴展到右翼── 從民權法案推動者馬丁·路德·金恩 到經濟學家米爾頓•傅利曼── 都是非常簡單的概念: 「保障基本收入」。
What it is? Well, that's easy. It's a monthly grant, enough to pay for your basic needs: food, shelter, education. It's completely unconditional, so no one's going to tell you what you have to do for it, and no one's going to tell you what you have to do with it. The basic income is not a favor, but a right. There's absolutely no stigma attached. So as I learned about the true nature of poverty, I couldn't stop wondering: Is this the idea we've all been waiting for? Could it really be that simple? And in the three years that followed, I read everything I could find about basic income. I researched the dozens of experiments that have been conducted all over the globe, and it didn't take long before I stumbled upon a story of a town that had done it -- had actually eradicated poverty. But then ... nearly everyone forgot about it.
那是什麼呢? 很簡單, 就是每月給你足夠支付基本需求的費用: 食物、住居、教育。 那是種毫無條件的支付, 你不需去做什麼事來得到它, 也沒人要求你一定要把錢花在何處。 基本收入不是「恩賜」而是「權力」, 不帶有任何的污辱意味在內。 所以當我了解到貧窮的本質時, 我不禁自問: 是否這是我們期盼的呢? 它真的就是那樣單純嗎? 我在隨後的三年裡盡我所能 閱讀有關基本收入的資料, 我研究過數十個 已經在全球施行的實驗, 沒多久我偶然看到一則故事, 某個城市實施了這個措施, 而且真正的消滅了貧窮。 但是接下來,大家幾乎全忘了。
This story starts in Dauphin, Canada. In 1974, everybody in this small town was guaranteed a basic income, ensuring that no one fell below the poverty line. At the start of the experiment, an army of researchers descended on the town. For four years, all went well. But then a new government was voted into power, and the new Canadian cabinet saw little point to the expensive experiment. So when it became clear there was no money left to analyze the results, the researchers decided to pack their files away in some 2,000 boxes. Twenty-five years went by, and then Evelyn Forget, a Canadian professor, found the records. For three years, she subjected the data to all manner of statistical analysis, and no matter what she tried, the results were the same every time: the experiment had been a resounding success.
故事始於加拿大的杜芬市。 1974 年,該市每位居民 都得到了一份基本收入保障, 以確保每人生活的水平 不會低於貧窮門檻。 實驗剛開始時, 一群研究人員來到該市。 四年來一切順利。 但新政府上任後, 加拿大內閣認為該實驗所費不貲, 當很顯然沒有餘錢來分析結果時, 研究人員決定將文件打包, 大約 2000 箱。 25 年過去了, 一位名為依雯琳•佛給特的 加拿大教授, 發現了那些資料。 三年來她用盡統計方法 分析那些資料, 然後發現,不管她如何分析, 每次得到答案的都一樣: 結論是:「那是個徹底成功的實驗。」
Evelyn Forget discovered that the people in Dauphin had not only become richer but also smarter and healthier. The school performance of kids improved substantially. The hospitalization rate decreased by as much as 8.5 percent. Domestic violence incidents were down, as were mental health complaints. And people didn't quit their jobs. The only ones who worked a little less were new mothers and students -- who stayed in school longer. Similar results have since been found in countless other experiments around the globe, from the US to India.
依雯琳•佛給特發現 杜芬市的市民不但變得更富有, 而且變得更聰明、更健康。 學生的表現獲得了實質的進步, 市民住院比例減少 8.5% 之多, 家庭暴力發生率降低了, 精神健康的抱怨也減少了, 人們也不會隨意辭去工作。 只有初為人母的婦女 減少些許工作量, 還有必需上課的學生們。 從那之後,世界上其他無數的實驗 也得到同樣的結果。 從印度到美國。
So ... here's what I've learned. When it comes to poverty, we, the rich, should stop pretending we know best. We should stop sending shoes and teddy bears to the poor, to people we have never met. And we should get rid of the vast industry of paternalistic bureaucrats when we could simply hand over their salaries to the poor they're supposed to help.
所以, 這是我從中所學到的: 當面對貧窮的問題時, 我們較富有的人 不應自以為懂得最多; 不要再寄送鞋子 和泰迪熊給窮苦的人, 給那些你從沒見過面的窮人。 我們應該破除 父權統治形式的官僚作風, 我們只需把薪水 直接交給想幫助的窮人就好了。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Because, I mean, the great thing about money is that people can use it to buy things they need instead of things that self-appointed experts think they need. Just imagine how many brilliant scientists and entrepreneurs and writers, like George Orwell, are now withering away in scarcity. Imagine how much energy and talent we would unleash if we got rid of poverty once and for all. I believe that a basic income would work like venture capital for the people. And we can't afford not to do it, because poverty is hugely expensive. Just look at the cost of child poverty in the US, for example. It's estimated at 500 billion dollars each year, in terms of higher health care spending, higher dropout rates, and more crime. Now, this is an incredible waste of human potential.
因為金錢最棒之處是在於 窮人可以用錢來買自己所需的東西, 而不是讓自封為專家的人 來決定買些什麼需要的東西。 試想多少卓越的科學家、 企業家和作家, 例如喬治•奧威爾, 因為匱乏而提早凋零? 試想可以釋出多少 窮人的精力和才能? 只要把窮困一勞永逸地剷除掉。 我相信基本收入可像風險投資那樣 在每個人身上產生作用。 我們無法承擔放手不管所帶來的風險, 因為貧窮本身就是一種巨額的支出。 看一下美國因兒童貧困所付出的代價, 估計它每年花費掉了 5000 億元, 如健康照顧支出增加、 輟學比率升高,還有犯罪率升高等。 那是多麼難以令人置信的人力浪費。
But let's talk about the elephant in the room. How could we ever afford a basic income guarantee? Well, it's actually a lot cheaper than you may think. What they did in Dauphin is finance it with a negative income tax. This means that your income is topped up as soon as you fall below the poverty line. And in that scenario, according to our economists' best estimates, for a net cost of 175 billion -- a quarter of US military spending, one percent of GDP -- you could lift all impoverished Americans above the poverty line. You could actually eradicate poverty. Now, that should be our goal.
但讓我們回頭談一下這個燙手山竽, 該如何去背負基本收入保障的負擔呢? 這個,其實比你想的還要便宜。 杜芬市在財務上採用 「負所得稅」的作法。 意思是,一旦你低於貧困線 就增加你的收入。 在那種情形下, 根據經濟學家的預估, 若運用 1,750 億美元的預算, 相當於美國軍隊預算的 1/4 或國內生產總值的 1%, 就可以把美國全部的貧苦家庭 拉升到貧窮門檻以上。 可以真的根除貧窮。 這應該是你我共同的目標。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
The time for small thoughts and little nudges is past. I really believe that the time has come for radical new ideas, and basic income is so much more than just another policy. It is also a complete rethink of what work actually is. And in that sense, it will not only free the poor, but also the rest of us.
拋棄狹隘思維和不做為的關鍵到了, 我相信這是創造積極新思維的時刻, 「基本收入」不僅是另一個政策而已, 它含有更深遠的意義。 它也是對「甚麼才是有效」 這問題的反思。 在這種認知下, 不只可以解放貧困的人, 也可以解放我們。
Nowadays, millions of people feel that their jobs have little meaning or significance. A recent poll among 230,000 employees in 142 countries found that only 13 percent of workers actually like their job. And another poll found that as much as 37 percent of British workers have a job that they think doesn't even need to exist. It's like Brad Pitt says in "Fight Club," "Too often we're working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."
今日,有數百萬窮困的人, 覺得他們的工作沒意義、無足輕重。 最近在針對二十三萬名受雇者, 142 個國家進行的調查中, 發現只有 30% 的就業者 真正喜歡自己的工作。 另一個調查發現, 英國 37% 的上班族 認為他們的工作根本不應該存在。 正如布拉德•彼特在電影 《鬥陣俱樂部》中所說的話: 「我們花太多時間做不喜歡的工作, 只為了買我們不需要的東西。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not talking about the teachers and the garbagemen and the care workers here. If they stopped working, we'd be in trouble. I'm talking about all those well-paid professionals with excellent résumés who earn their money doing ... strategic transactor peer-to-peer meetings while brainstorming the value add-on of disruptive co-creation in the network society.
不要誤會我, 我不是說老師、收垃圾的清潔隊員, 還有護理人員。 如果他們罷工的話, 我們就不妙了。 我說的是那些高薪的專業人士, 他們憑藉優秀的簡歷賺錢, 參加策略性交易者 點對點的會議, 同時集思廣益, 共同創造網路社會中 破壞性共創的附加價值。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Or something like that. Just imagine again how much talent we're wasting, simply because we tell our kids they'll have to "earn a living." Or think of what a math whiz working at Facebook lamented a few years ago: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."
或其他類似事件。 只要再想一下,我們浪費了多少天才, 只因為我們教育孩子 必須「為了餬口而工作」, 或想一下數年前 在臉書上班的數學天才 所發出的不平之鳴: 「我們這一代最厲害的腦袋 在思考如何讓別人點選廣告。」
I'm a historian. And if history teaches us anything, it is that things could be different. There is nothing inevitable about the way we structured our society and economy right now. Ideas can and do change the world. And I think that especially in the past few years, it has become abundantly clear that we cannot stick to the status quo -- that we need new ideas.
我是一個歷史學家, 如果歷史有教給我們甚麼教訓的話, 那就是情況可以不同。 現在我們構建社會和經濟的方式 並不是不可避免的。 「理想」真的能夠改變世界。 我認為,特別是在過去幾年中, 我們已經非常清楚地認識到, 我們不能堅持現狀, 我們需要新的想法。
I know that many of you may feel pessimistic about a future of rising inequality, xenophobia and climate change. But it's not enough to know what we're against. We also need to be for something. Martin Luther King didn't say, "I have a nightmare."
很多人或許感到悲觀, 對於未來,感到日愈增加的不平等、 仇外, 和氣候改變。 但光瞭解我們要對抗甚麼是不夠的, 我們還需要進一步去為目標而奮鬥。 馬丁·路德·金恩說的不是: 「我做了個噩夢。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
He had a dream.
他有一個夢想。
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(掌聲)
So ... here's my dream: I believe in a future where the value of your work is not determined by the size of your paycheck, but by the amount of happiness you spread and the amount of meaning you give. I believe in a future where the point of education is not to prepare you for another useless job but for a life well-lived. I believe in a future where an existence without poverty is not a privilege but a right we all deserve. So here we are. Here we are. We've got the research, we've got the evidence and we've got the means.
所以, 這是我的夢想: 我相信有那麼一個未來, 工作的價值不是決定在 你的薪水有多高, 而是決定在你散播的幸福有多少, 還有你帶給他人的意義有多少。 我相信有一個未來, 在那裡的教育重心 不是為了沒用的工作做準備, 而是為了好好地活出人生而努力。 我相信有一個未來, 在那裏「沒有窮人存在」 不是一種特權, 而是我們大家應該擁有的權利。 所以,我們在此, 我們齊聚一起。 我們做了研究,我們有了證據, 我們還有方法。
Now, more than 500 years after Thomas More first wrote about a basic income, and 100 years after George Orwell discovered the true nature of poverty, we all need to change our worldview, because poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.
自湯瑪斯•摩爾首創基本收入觀念 至今已歷經 500 年, 喬治•奧威爾發現貧窮本質 也已有 100 年, 我們大家必須改變世界觀, 因為貧窮不是性格的缺陷, 貧窮是缺乏現金。
Thank you.
謝謝!
(Applause)
(掌聲)