失业对于中产是致命的 Boredom and vice can be deadly in a life without work
How bad is a life without work? I have been asked this question a lot lately. It is becoming pretty clear that the forces of globalisation and technological progress are reshaping economies and societies, especially in advanced economies, and that these effects are being felt most right in the centre of the workforce across the individuals and families that make up what Americans call the middle class. Lots of the traditional jobs for these people are disappearing in the rich world, and wages for remaining workers are pretty stagnant.
如果没有了工作，生活会变得多么糟糕？我最近被多次问到这个问题。现在很明显，全球化和技术进步正改变经济和社会面貌（特别是在发达经济体），受影响最大的是处于劳动力核心的人群，即构成美国人所谓中产阶级的个人和家庭。对于这些人而言，在富国，很多传统工作正消失，其他劳动者的薪资严重停滞不前。
The fact that the middle class is being hollowed out in country after country is rightly of concern. A large, stable, prosperous middle class is important for civil society; most informed observers agree that it supports inclusiveness, tolerance, democracy and many other good things. It is also a great engine of overall demand for an economy lots of moderately affluent households buy lots of things. But what happens when the industrial-era jobs that underpinned the middle class start to vanish? Voltaire offered a prescient caution, observing: “Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.”
一个又一个国家出现中产阶级空心化，这一事实理应让人担忧。一个大规模、稳定且富裕的中产阶级对于公民社会很重要；多数有见识的观察人士认为，它为社会包容性、宽容、民主以及很多其他优良品质提供支撑。对于一国经济而言，它也是一个推动整体需求的巨大引擎，很多中等富裕的家庭会购买很多商品。但当支撑中产阶级的工业时代工作开始消失时会怎样？伏尔泰(Voltaire)提出了具有先见之明的警告，他认为：“工作可以使我们免除三大害处：烦闷、纵欲、饥寒。”
Of these three, I’m least worried about need. Trade and technological progress, after all, make a society wealthier in aggregate. The problem that they bring is not one of scarcity of not enough to go around. Instead, they bring up thorny questions of allocation. Most of us earn money to buy the things we need via our work what do we do when opportunities for work become scarce?
在上述3种害处中，我最不担心的是饥寒。毕竟，总的来说，贸易和技术进步让社会变得更为富有。它们带来的问题不是物质缺乏没有足够物资来满足生活所需。它们带来的棘手问题是财富分配。我们多数人通过工作赚钱购买我们需要的东西，如果工作机会变得稀缺，我们该怎么办？
So to boredom and vice: how bad are they? How worried should we be about them? I sometimes hear the argument that we should not be worried at all. If we do not need people’s labour, the logic goes, why should we care what they do? Why should traditional notions of boredom and vice matter? If people want to drink, take drugs, engage in casual sex or play video games all day, where is the harm? These are not the most conventionally respectable or productive activities, but why should we let convention hold sway?
至于烦闷和纵欲：它们有多大害处？我们对它们的担忧应该到何种程度？我有时听到这种看法：我们根本不用担心。这种看法的逻辑是，如果我们不需要人们的劳动，我们为什么要在乎他们做什么呢？传统观念对烦闷和纵欲的看法有什么要紧？如果人们想喝酒、吸毒、乱交或整日打视频游戏，其害处表现在哪里？从传统上来说，这些并非最体面或最有用的活动，但我们为何要让传统决定我们做什么呢？
One reason for concern comes from research by the political scientist Charles Murray documenting how much social conditions have changed over the past 50 years for lower-middle class Americans (while remaining essentially unchanged for the upper-middle class). Divorce rates have skyrocketed, as have crime rates, the number of children being raised outside two-parent homes and the number of men who have essentially dropped out of family and community life.
一个担心的理由来自政治学家查尔斯默里(Charles Murray)的研究，他记录了过去50年，美国下层中产阶级的社会状况发生了多大变化（上层中产阶级的社会状况基本未变）。离婚率飙升，同样飙升的还有犯罪率、在双亲家庭之外的环境中长大的儿童数量、以及基本上退出了家庭和社区生活的男性的数量。
These social ills have come alongside the disappearance of industrial era jobs. There is active debate about whether the disappearance of steady work causes them, or whether they are all due to other factors. I am in the camp that believes that the disappearance of work is a cause, not just a correlation.
这些社会问题是随着工业时代工作消失而出现的。人们正热烈讨论这些问题是不是稳定工作消失导致的，还是完全出于其他因素。我认为，工作的消失是原因，而非只是相关因素。
A recently published paper by 2015 Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton and Anne Case reveals a much more alarming trend than social decay: while death rates for almost all American adults have dropped sharply in the past few decades, those of the least educated middle-aged whites have actually increased. They found that between 1999 and 2013 the death rates of this group rose by 134 per 100,000. This is a huge jump. As Mr Deaton writes: “Only HIV/Aids in contemporary times has done anything like this.”
2015年诺贝尔奖(Nobel Prize)得主安格斯迪顿(Angus Deaton)和安妮凯斯(Anne Case)最近发表的一篇已论文，揭示了一个比社会问题更令人担忧的趋势：尽管过去几十年，美国几乎所有成年人的死亡率都大幅下滑，但那些受教育程度最低的中年白人的死亡率实际上一直在上升。他们发现，1999年至2013年，该群体的死亡率上升了1.34‰，这种增幅是巨大的。正如迪顿所写的那样：“在当代社会，造成过类似结果的只有艾滋病。”
What is causing this tragic spike? Professors Deaton and Case found that the majority of the rise could be attributed to three factors: suicide, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and alcohol and drug poisoning. The people in this socio-economic group, in other words, are killing themselves deliberately and inadvertently, quickly and slowly.
造成死亡率悲剧性上升的原因是什么？迪顿和凯斯教授发现，大部分增幅可能要归咎于3个因素：自杀、长期肝病和肝硬化、以及酒精和毒品中毒。换句话说，身处这个社会经济群体的人正有意或无意、迅速或缓慢地自杀。
Much more research is required to understand the causes of this development. But I do not think the employment woes of this group are incidental to the story; I think they are central to it, and that it is far from a coincidence that the employment-population ratio for US adults with no more than a high school degree was less than 52 per cent in September. The boredom and vice that come when work goes away are a serious public health problem.
要了解导致这种情况的原因需要更多研究。但我认为，这个群体的就业困境不是偶然的；我认为，这种困境是核心原因，今年9月，拥有高中或以下学历的美国成年人口的就业率低于52%，这远非巧合。失业导致的烦闷和纵欲是一个严重的公共健康问题。
Intriguingly, Profs Deaton and Case find that Hispanic and black Americans have not seen the same recent mortality increases. This could be because they have been more economically marginalised, and so less accustomed to the steady middle-class jobs that whites have enjoyed, but that are now vanishing for the least educated among them.
有趣的是，迪顿和凯斯教授认为，美国西裔和黑人近年来的死亡率并没有出现类似的上升。这可能是因为，他们在经济上更为边缘化，因此不像美国白人那样习惯于一直享有稳定的中产阶级工作，但对于他们之中受教育程度最低的人而言，这类工作现在正在消失。
This is far from the whole story. But it seems to me that Voltaire’s first two great evils are starting to show up in the social and health statistics, and we should all be concerned about that.
这远非故事的全貌。但在我看来，伏尔泰提到的前两大害处似乎正开始反映在社会和卫生统计数据中，我们都应对此感到担忧。
