Few ideas are more unshakable than the notion that the rich keep getting richer while ordinary folks fall ever further behind. The belief that capitalism is rigged to benefit the wealthy and punish the workers has shaped how millions view the world, whom they vote for and whom they shake their fists at. It has been a spur to political projects on both left and right, from the interventionism of Joe Biden to the populism of Donald Trump. But is it true?

富人越来越富，普通人越来越落后，几乎没有比这更根深蒂固的观念了。受人操纵的资本主义利于富人而损害工人，这种观念影响了无数人的世界观、投票支持谁、向谁发泄愤怒。从拜登的干预主义到特朗普的民粹主义，左翼和右翼的政治计划都受到这种观念的推波助澜。但事实真的如此吗？

Even as the suspicion of free markets has hardened, evidence for the argument that inequality is rising in the rich world has become flimsier. Wage gaps are shrinking. Since 2016 real weekly earnings for those at the bottom of America’s pay distribution have grown faster than those at the top. Since the covid-19 pandemic this wage compression has gone into overdrive; according to one estimate, it has been enough to reverse an extraordinary 40% of the pre-tax wage inequality that emerged during the previous 40 years. A blue-collar bonanza is under way.

虽然自由市场受到的质疑已根深蒂固，但发达国家的不平等现象正在加剧的观点已经站不住脚了。工资差距在不断缩小，自2016年以来，美国薪酬分配底层的实际周薪比顶层增长得更快。自2019冠状病毒大流行爆发以来，工资压缩现象进一步加剧；据估计，这足以扭转过去40年来出现的40%的税前工资不平等现象，这一比例着实惊人。蓝领的繁荣时代已经到来。

Across the Atlantic, such trends are more nascent, but still apparent. In Britain wage growth has been healthier at the bottom of the jobs market; in continental Europe wage agreements are building in higher increases for the lower paid. Long-running trends in inequality are being questioned, too. A decade ago Thomas Piketty, a French economist, became a household name by arguing that it had surged. Now increasing weight is being given to research which finds that, after taxes and government transfers, American income inequality has barely increased since the 1960s.

在大西洋彼岸，这一趋势刚刚开始，但仍然明显。在英国，就业市场底层的工资涨幅更高了；在欧洲大陆，工资协议为低收入者提高了工资涨幅。长期存在的不平等趋势也受到了质疑。十年前，法国经济学家托马斯·皮凯蒂因提出收入不平等现象加剧的观点而家喻户晓。现在越来越受重视的研究表明，经过税收和政府转移性支出后，美国的收入不平等现象自20世纪60年代以来几乎没有加剧。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


All this can be discombobulating, not least when the prices you pay for food and energy have risen at an unusually fast pace. So ingrained is the idea that workers are suffering in today’s world that claiming otherwise is almost heretical; the dissenting inequality research has sparked an ill-tempered debate among economists.

所有这些令人感到困惑，尤其是你购买粮食和能源的价格上涨得特别快。人们根深蒂固地认为当今世界的工人在受苦，以至于相反的观点几乎成了歪理邪说；对收入不平等持有异议的研究在经济学家之间引起了一场激烈的争论。

To understand what is going on, it helps to consider that the blue-collar bonanza is not just an artefact of the statistics: it makes intuitive sense, too. As we explain this week, three forces that shape labour markets—demand, demography and digitisation—have each shifted in ways that benefit workers.

为了弄清楚当前的状况，我们应该意识到蓝领的繁荣不仅是数据统计的产物，在直觉上也说得通。正如我们本周所阐述的那样，影响劳动力市场的三股力量——需求、人口、数字化——都发生了有利于工人的变化。

Take demand. After quiescent inflation in the mid-2010s, America’s Federal Reserve resolved to run the economy hot in the hope that doing so would bring more people into work. Then, after covid-19 struck, governments across the rich world untied the purse-strings. This year the pandemic is a memory, but America has continued to run deficits of a size usually seen in depressions or wartime. As a consequence, demand for labour has stayed high even as central banks have raised interest rates.

以需求为例。美国在经历了2010 年代中期的平稳通胀之后，美联储决定刺激经济，希望此举能让更多人就业。在2019冠状病毒疫情爆发后，发达国家纷纷放松了财政支出。今年疫情已成回忆，但美国赤字仍维持在大萧条或战时常见的规模。因此，尽管各国央行已经加息，但劳动力需求仍然高居不下。

That higher demand has met with constrained supply, owing to shifts in demography. In 2015 a long-running global demographic dividend came to an end as China’s working-age population peaked. In the rich world the prime working-age population is growing at its slowest pace on record, and will probably start falling by the end of the decade. That adds to the tightness in labour markets. The unemployment rate across the rich world, at less than 5%, is at historical lows and the working-age employment rate in more than half of oecd countries is running close to an all-time high. As populations shrink, the workforce gaps are likely to become so wide that it is hard to imagine politicians letting in enough immigrants to fill them.

由于人口结构的变化，高需求面临供给短缺问题。2015年，随着中国劳动年龄人口达到顶峰，长期存在的全球人口红利结束。在发达国家，主要劳动年龄人口的增速已创历史新低，到这个十年结束时可能开始下降。这加剧了劳动力市场短缺问题。发达国家的失业率不到5%，处于历史最低点；在超过一半的经合组织国家，劳动年龄人口的就业率已接近历史最高点。随着人口减少，劳动力可能出现巨大的缺口，很难想象政客会吸引足够的移民来填补这个缺口。

Shifts in digitisation, meanwhile, have changed who stands to benefit most in today’s labour market. At the end of the 20th century the information revolution vastly increased the demand for college graduates with brains and computing skills. From Wall Street to Walmart these stars were put to work transforming how firms did business, making use of new tools including email and spreadsheets.

与此同时，数字化革命改变了当今劳动力市场中可能受益最大的群体。20世纪末，信息革命极大地增加了劳动力市场对具备头脑和计算机技能的大学毕生的需求。从华尔街到沃尔玛，这些顶尖人才利用电子邮件和电子表格等新型工具，致力于改变企业的经营方式。

By the mid-2010s, however, the revolution had matured and the college wage premium began to shrink. In 2015 the average rich-world worker with a bachelor’s degree or more was paid two-thirds more than the average high-school leaver; four years later, the gap had narrowed to a half. According to one estimate, the college premium for white graduates born in America in the 1980s has been lower than that enjoyed by those born in any of the preceding five decades.

然而，到了2010 年代中期，数字化革命已经成熟，大学毕业生的工资溢价开始下降。2015年，发达国家拥有学士以上学位的工人的工资普遍比高中毕业生高出三分之二；四年后，工资差距缩小到一半。据估计，上世纪80年代出生的美国白人大学毕业生的工资溢价低于此前50年出生的白人大学毕业生。

Generative artificial intelligence looks likely to reinforce this equalising trend. Early research suggests that ai bots provide a bigger productivity boost for lower performers, helping the laggards catch up with the vanguard. And until robotics matures, ai may add to the value of the sorts of tasks that only humans can do, such as manual labour, or providing emotional support.

生成式人工智能看来会强化这种收入平等趋势。早期研究表明，人工智能机器人可以大幅提升表现较差的工人的生产力，帮助落后者赶上领先者。在机器人技术成熟之前，人工智能可能会提升工作价值，这些工作只有人类能够完成，例如：体力劳动、提供情感支持。

This golden age is still young—and it may be vulnerable. One danger is that recession strikes, cooling demand for workers. On both sides of the Atlantic labour markets have shown signs of softening. In a downturn the least paid tend to suffer most. Another threat is that governments kill it off. Mr Biden’s industrial policy came too recently to account for the blue-collar bonanza. In fact, plentiful opportunities and rising pay make it wasteful to spend taxpayer cash promoting manufacturing jobs. Protection and handouts stand to make the economy less productive and more sclerotic, meaning less of a bounty for all.

蓝领的黄金时代尚处于新兴阶段，可能还很脆弱。其中一个风险是经济衰退会导致劳动力市场对工人的需求下降。大西洋两岸的劳动力市场已显示疲软的迹象。在经济低迷时期，最遭殃的往往收入最低的群体。另一个威胁是政府会扼杀这个黄金时代。拜登总统的产业政策的实施时间太短，蓝领的繁荣还不能归因于此。事实上，由于就业机会充足和工资上涨，花费纳税人的钱来促进制造业就业是一种浪费。保护主义和救济金可能导致生产力下降，经济更加僵化，这意味着全民的福利都会减少。

Blue-sky thinking

蓝天思维

If the blue-collar age endures, the effect will be profound. The idea that capitalism fails workers is so pervasive that it may explain why people consistently tell pollsters they are unhappy about the state of the economy—even as they themselves continue to spend freely and to benefit from low unemployment. The idea has shaped views on everything from the dangers of immigration and low-cost manufacturers, to the desirability of more handouts and higher tariffs.

如果蓝领时代持续下去，将会产生深远的影响。人们普遍认为资本主义辜负了工人，这可能是人们在民意调查中一直对经济状况感到不满的原因——即使他们在继续放手花钱，从低失业率中受益。这种观点影响了人们对一切事物的看法，包括移民和低成本制造商是危险的，高救济金和高关税是可取的。

The bonanza for workers, though, shows governments need not shackle markets for workers to do well—and that the best route to prosperity for all is to increase the size of the economic pie. If you fight too much over distribution, you risk bringing the golden age to a premature end.

但工人的繁荣表明，政府没必要通过抑制市场来让工人表现出色，实现全民繁荣的最佳途径是做大经济蛋糕。如果你在收入分配问题上争论不休，可能会使黄金时代过早终结。