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憤怒的選民是哪里來的?

所屬教程:英語漫讀

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2016年11月28日

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In 1989, a few months before the Berlin Wall fell, I visited a frozen food factory in Grimsby, on the north-east coast of England. It was run by Birds Eye Wall’s, then owned by Unilever, and it had just won an award for industrial harmony.

1989年,在柏林墻倒塌前幾個(gè)月,我拜訪了英格蘭東北海岸格里姆斯比的一家冷凍食品廠。這家由當(dāng)時(shí)隸屬聯(lián)合利華(Unilever)旗下的Birds Eye Wall’s運(yùn)營的工廠,當(dāng)時(shí)剛剛因勞資關(guān)系和諧得到了獎(jiǎng)賞。

The workers had agreed to job cuts and to work in teams, retraining and raising productivity in return for higher wages. Employees of Birds Eye in Kirkby, Merseyside, had rejected the same challenge and their factory was being shut.

該工廠的工人們當(dāng)時(shí)同意以工作裁減、組隊(duì)工作、再培訓(xùn)和提高生產(chǎn)率,換取漲薪。Birds Eye在默西塞德郡柯比市的雇員拒絕了同樣的挑戰(zhàn),他們的工廠被關(guān)閉。

Grimsby’s escape did not last. Unilever finally declared the factory too small and inefficient and closed it in 2005; the abandoned building later caught fire.

格里姆斯比工廠并未幸免多久。聯(lián)合利華最終宣布,該工廠規(guī)模太小、效率太低,在2005年將其關(guān)閉;遭廢棄的工廠后來失了火。

Unilever went on to sell Birds Eye to Permira, a private equity group, which merged it with other European frozen food businesses.

聯(lián)合利華接著將Birds Eye出售給了私人股本集團(tuán)Permira,后來Permira將Birds Eye與其他歐洲冷凍食品企業(yè)合并了起來。

I thought of that ruined factory in June when the citizens of Grimsby voted by one of the highest majorities for Britain to leave the EU, and again last week as Donald Trump was elected US president. Its experience has been repeated in many places since 1989 with the loosening of barriers to trade and migration, and the unleashing of globalisation.

今年6月格里姆斯比以位居全國前列的高得票比例支持英國退出歐盟時(shí),以及不久前唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)當(dāng)選美國總統(tǒng)時(shí),我都想到了那座廢棄的工廠。自1989年以來,隨著貿(mào)易和移民壁壘放松以及全球化的發(fā)展,該工廠的經(jīng)歷在許多地方重演。

Among them are the former steel towns of western Pennsylvania, which rejected Hillary Clinton. Take Johnstown in Cambria County, east of Pittsburgh, where there was once a Bethlehem Steel plant making railroad carriages. More than 12,000 people worked there in the late 1970s but by the time it closed in 2007 only 390 were left.

其中包括賓夕法尼亞西部那些曾經(jīng)的鋼鐵城鎮(zhèn),那些城鎮(zhèn)沒有支持希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)。拿匹茲堡以東的坎布里亞縣來說,這里曾有一家制造鐵路車廂的伯利恒鋼鐵(Bethlehem Steel)工廠。在上世紀(jì)70年代末,逾1.2萬人在這里工作,但到2007年關(guān)閉的時(shí)候,該廠僅剩下390人。

Pittsburgh, which voted for Mrs Clinton, is a shining example of how a cosmopolitan city can recover from the loss of manufacturing. Steelmaking has been succeeded by health and other services, clustered around Carnegie Mellon University. But small town Pennsylvania still hurts and Mr Trump won Cambria County easily.

投票支持希拉里的匹茲堡是一個(gè)極好的例子,表明一個(gè)國際大都市如何能從制造業(yè)的衰敗中復(fù)蘇。鋼鐵制造業(yè)被聚集在卡耐基梅隆大學(xué)(Carnegie Mellon University)周圍的醫(yī)療和其他服務(wù)行業(yè)取代。但賓夕法尼亞的小城鎮(zhèn)仍在承受傷痛,特朗普輕松地拿下了坎布里亞縣。

Trump voters had many motives, from hostility to immigration, to anger at wage stagnation, to rejection of social liberalism. Most were not poor: a majority of those earning less than $50,000 per year backed Mrs Clinton.

支持特朗普的選民們動(dòng)機(jī)各異,從敵視移民、對(duì)薪資停滯不滿到拒絕社會(huì)自由主義。大多數(shù)人并不窮:絕大多數(shù)年收入不足5萬美元的人都支持希拉里。

But much of their resentment, and others’ enthusiasm for Brexit, seems to me to originate on the factory floor, especially manufacturing plants in places such as Johnstown and Grimsby that are now gone. It speaks to the loss not only of jobs but agency: the control that mid-tier employees used to have over their working lives.

但在我看來,他們的怨恨以及其他人對(duì)英國退歐的熱情支持在很大程度上似乎起源于工廠,尤其是約翰斯敦和格里姆斯比等地方如今已不復(fù)存在的制造業(yè)工廠。他們的怨恨反映的不僅是工作的失去,還有手段的失去:中層雇員曾經(jīng)擁有能夠掌控自己職業(yè)生活的手段。

They once had greater bargaining power: it was harder for companies to impose changes in how they worked when many factories were unionised and moving production to other places was difficult. When the walls came down, capital became more powerful and more mobile; there was always a ready alternative.

他們?cè)?jīng)擁有更強(qiáng)的討價(jià)還價(jià)的能力:在那個(gè)許多工廠建立了工會(huì),并且生產(chǎn)很難轉(zhuǎn)移到其他地區(qū)的時(shí)代,公司更難迫使他們改變工作方式。當(dāng)一道道墻倒塌,資本變得更有力量、更機(jī)動(dòng)靈活,就總是不缺現(xiàn)成的替代選擇了。

The experience of those two factories was typical: a steady intensification of managers’ demands on workers with limited or obsolescent skills, with the threat of work being taken to a greenfield site, or the far side of the world. If they could not get what they wanted, private equity restructuring loomed.

那兩個(gè)工廠的經(jīng)歷非常典型:管理者對(duì)技能有限或過時(shí)的工人要求得越來越嚴(yán)格,同時(shí)威脅要把工廠遷往一個(gè)全新廠址或世界另一邊。如果他們得不到自己想要的,私人股本就有可能介入,對(duì)工廠實(shí)施重組。

The world split into those for whom mobility was a threat and those for whom it was an opportunity. Birds Eye is now owned by Nomad Foods Europe. Its executives are elite nomads of various nationalities, who have worked from Athens to Houston.

世界分裂成兩派,一派認(rèn)為機(jī)動(dòng)性是威脅,另一派則認(rèn)為是機(jī)遇。Birds Eye現(xiàn)在隸屬Nomad Foods Europe旗下。Nomad Foods Europe的高管是國籍各異、輾轉(zhuǎn)世界的國際精英,在從雅典到休斯頓等不同地方工作過。

People not educated at business schools or trained to run global supply chains have had a tougher time, losing jobs and having benefits stripped. Their losses have torn through communities, making them receptive to Mr Trump’s fierce gospel of social conservatism and economic restoration.

沒有念過商學(xué)院或接受過全球供應(yīng)鏈管理方面訓(xùn)練的人們經(jīng)歷了一個(gè)較困難的時(shí)期,失去了工作,福利減少。他們的損失導(dǎo)致社區(qū)分裂,讓他們?nèi)菀捉邮芴乩势招麚P(yáng)的社會(huì)保守主義和經(jīng)濟(jì)復(fù)蘇的極端信條。

There are many holes in his signature plan to employ Americans to build a southern border wall and make Mexico pay for it but it has a brute symbolism. To people who experienced the opposite — US consumers paying for jobs and facilities in Mexico — it is justice.

特朗普的標(biāo)志性計(jì)劃,即雇傭美國人在南部邊境建造高墻并讓墨西哥買單,是個(gè)有許多漏洞的計(jì)劃,但它有著極具沖擊力的象征意義。對(duì)那些經(jīng)歷過相反事情(即,美國消費(fèi)者為墨西哥的工作和設(shè)施買單)的人來說,這就是正義。

Most economists would say that “taking back control” by building walls and ending international trade deals will not have the intended effect. It will not return steelmaking to Pennsylvania or food processing to Grimsby. Mr Trump is a showman, not a magician.

大多數(shù)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家會(huì)說,通過建起高墻和取消國際貿(mào)易協(xié)議來“奪回控制權(quán)”將事與愿違。這種做法不會(huì)讓鋼鐵制造業(yè)回到賓夕法尼亞,也不會(huì)讓食品加工業(yè)回到格里姆斯比。特朗普善于作秀,但他不是魔術(shù)師。

But part of his message made sense, and companies would be foolish to ignore it. Capital and labour mobility have produced big benefits for consumers, and for citizens in low income economies, in the past three decades. They have given less to non-elite workers in wealthy economies, and have sapped their sense of security.

但他傳達(dá)出的部分信息是明智的,企業(yè)忽視這一點(diǎn)將是愚蠢的。在過去30年里,資本和勞動(dòng)力流動(dòng)極大地造福了消費(fèi)者和低收入經(jīng)濟(jì)中的民眾。這種流動(dòng)帶給富裕經(jīng)濟(jì)體中非精英工人的好處則較少,而且削弱了他們的安全感。

Building walls is a bad idea but making capital work more productively for those in abandoned places is a good one. It is essential if people whose economic voices have been muted are not to wield their political votes against liberalism.

建起高墻是一個(gè)糟糕的想法,但讓資本更有效地服務(wù)于那些被遺棄地區(qū)的人們是個(gè)好主意。重要的是,要保證經(jīng)濟(jì)上失去話語權(quán)的人不會(huì)利用他們的政治投票反對(duì)自由主義。

The yearning for companies to create decent jobs for local citizens is not nativism or prejudice: it is what those in Pittsburgh, London or New York already enjoy, alongside immigration. It is a founding purpose of business, lost in the rush to globalise.

渴望企業(yè)為當(dāng)?shù)鼐用駝?chuàng)造體面工作不是本土保護(hù)主義或者偏見——在匹茲堡、倫敦或紐約,這一愿望已經(jīng)得到了滿足,這些城市同時(shí)還享受了移民帶來的好處。實(shí)現(xiàn)這一愿望是企業(yè)成立的目的,在急匆匆奔向全球化的過程中,這個(gè)目的卻丟失了。

How companies and communities achieve this aim is, of course, the hard part. Intelligent rules and incentives are needed to generate and to keep productive work, not to wall it off. But it is dangerous that many employers no longer consider this their role. Until they do, expect more Trumps.

棘手的問題當(dāng)然是企業(yè)和社區(qū)如何實(shí)現(xiàn)這個(gè)目標(biāo)。需要的是設(shè)計(jì)明智的規(guī)則和激勵(lì)措施來創(chuàng)造和留住生產(chǎn)性工作,而不是建起高墻。但危險(xiǎn)的是,許多雇主不再將這視為自己的責(zé)任。在雇主們認(rèn)識(shí)到這是他們的責(zé)任之前,預(yù)計(jì)還會(huì)有更多特朗普式人物出現(xiàn)。
 


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