保羅克魯格曼評《美國增長之起落》

Back in the 1960s there was a briefly popular wave of “futurism,” of books and articles attempting to predict the changes ahead. One of the best-known, and certainly the most detailed, of these works was Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener’s “The Year 2000” (1967), which offered, among other things, a systematic list of technological innovations Kahn and Wiener considered “very likely in the last third of the 20th century.”

早在20世紀60年代，“未來主義”思潮曾經有過一個短暫的興盛，許多書籍文章都試圖預測未來的社會變化。其中最著名，也絕對是最詳盡的一本書，是1967年出版的赫爾曼·卡恩(Herman Kahn)和安東尼·維納(Anthony J. Wiener)的《2000年》(The Year 2000)。在這本書裏,卡恩和維納系統化地列出了一份他們認爲“在20世紀最後那三分之一的時間裏最有可能發生的科技創新”清單。

Unfortunately, the two authors were mostly wrong. They didn’t miss much, foreseeing developments that recognizably correspond to all the main elements of the information technology revolution, including smartphones and the Internet. But a majority of their predicted innovations (“individual flying platforms”) hadn’t arrived by 2000 — and still haven’t arrived, a decade and a half later.

遺憾的是，這兩位作者的預測並不太準確。這並不是說他們有什麼遺漏。信息科技革命主要元素所帶來的一切發展變革，包括智能手機和互聯網，都在他們的預見之中。然而，他們預測的絕大多數創新（例如“私人飛行平臺”）都落空了，不但未能在2000年實現，即使在15年之後的今天也仍然未見蹤影。

The truth is that if you step back from the headlines about the latest gadget, it becomes obvious that we’ve made much less progress since 1970 — and experienced much less alteration in the fundamentals of life — than almost anyone expected. Why?

如果你跳出那些鋪天蓋地的最新產品報道，就會發現一個明顯的現實：自1970年以來，我們社會的進步，以及我們基本生活方式的改變，遠遜於我們所有人的預期。

Robert J. Gordon, a distinguished macro and economic historian at Northwestern, has been arguing for a long time against the techno-optimism that saturates our culture, with its constant assertion that we’re in the midst of revolutionary change. Starting at the height of the dot-com frenzy, he has repeatedly called for perspective: Developments in information and communication technology, he has insisted, just don’t measure up to past achievements. Specifically, he has argued that the I.T. revolution is less important than any one of the five Great Inventions that powered economic growth from 1870 to 1970: electricity, urban sanitation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the internal combustion engine and modern communication.

長期以來，科技樂觀主義滲透在我們的社會文化之中，人們一直認爲我們所身處的時代是一個革命性的變革時代。任教於西北大學的羅伯特·戈登(Robert J. Gordon)，一個傑出的宏觀經濟學家和經濟歷史學家，卻始終對這種科技樂觀主義持反對態度。從互聯網最繁榮時期開始，他一再警示世人保持冷靜。他指出，信息通訊技術的發展根本不能與過去的成就相提並論。具體而言，他認爲：電力、城市衛生、化學與製藥、內燃機和現代通訊這“五大發明”推動了從1870到1970這100年間的經濟發展，而信息科技革命與其中任何一項發明都無法比擬。

In “The Rise and Fall of American Growth,” Gordon doubles down on that theme, declaring that the kind of rapid economic growth we still consider our due, and expect to continue forever, was in fact a one-time-only event. First came the Great Inventions, almost all dating from the late 19th century. Then came refinement and exploitation of those inventions — a process that took time, and exerted its peak effect on economic growth between 1920 and 1970. Everything since has at best been a faint echo of that great wave, and Gordon doesn’t expect us ever to see anything similar.

在《美國增長的起落》(The Rise and Fall of American Growth)這本書中，戈登進一步強調了這一論點，宣稱這種經濟的快速增長並非理所當然。它只是歷史上發生的一個一次性事件，不會如我們所願一直持續下去。首先，幾乎所有“五大發明”都發生在19世紀後期；接着是對這些發明進行提煉和開發的漫長過程，其對經濟增長的影響在1920到1970年期間達到頂峯；那以後的一切都不過是之前這個偉大變革的微弱餘波而已。戈登認爲我們不會再次看到歷史的重演。

Is he right? My answer is a definite maybe. But whether or not you end up agreeing with Gordon’s thesis, this is a book well worth reading — a magisterial combination of deep technological history, vivid portraits of daily life over the past six generations and careful economic analysis. Non-economists may find some of the charts and tables heavy going, but Gordon never loses sight of the real people and real lives behind those charts. This book will challenge your views about the future; it will definitely transform how you see the past.

他說得是否正確？我的回答是：絕對有可能。不過，不管你最終是否同意戈登的論斷，這本書都值得一讀。它將深刻的科技發展史、過去六代人日常生活的生動描述，以及細緻的經濟分析完美地整合在一起。如果你不是一個經濟學家，也許你會覺得有些圖表比較難懂，但是戈登從未忽視那些圖表背後的民衆真實生活。這本書不但會挑戰你對未來的視角，而且肯定會改變你對過去的看法。

Indeed, almost half the book is devoted to changes that took place before World War II. Others have covered this ground — most notably Daniel Boorstin in “The Americans: The Democratic Experience.” Even knowing this literature, however, I was fascinated by Gordon’s account of the changes wrought by his Great Inventions. As he says, “Except in the rural South, daily life for every American changed beyond recognition between 1870 and 1940.” Electric lights replaced candles and whale oil, flush toilets replaced outhouses, cars and electric trains replaced horses. (In the 1880s, parts of New York’s financial district were seven feet deep in manure.)

這本書一半以上篇幅都被用來專門描繪“二戰”之前所發生的變化。對這一階段的研究不乏著述，其中最引人注目的是丹尼爾·布爾斯廷(Daniel Boorstin)的《美國人：南北戰爭以來的經歷》(The Americans：The Democratic Experience)。雖然我對這些文獻相當熟悉，戈登對其“五大發明”所帶來的變革之描述依然使我着迷。如他所說：“除了南方鄉下，每一個美國人的日常生活在1870到1940年間都發生了翻天覆地的變化。”電燈代替了蠟燭和油燈，抽水馬桶代替了屋外的茅房，汽車和電動火車代替了馬車（在19世紀80年代，紐約金融區的一部分還泡在七英尺深的馬糞中呢）。

Meanwhile, backbreaking toil both in the workplace and in the home was for the most part replaced by far less onerous employment. This is a point all too often missed by economists, who tend to think only about how much purchasing power people have, not about what they have to do to get it, and Gordon does an important service by reminding us that the conditions under which men and women labor are as important as the amount they get paid.

同時，無論是在工作場所，還是家庭生活中，繁重的勞作大多被相對輕鬆的工作所代替。這一點經常被經濟學家們所忘記。他們一般只考慮民衆的購買力，而不考慮他們爲了獲得這些購買力所需要付出的勞動。戈登的重要貢獻是提醒我們，民衆的勞作條件與他們的收入所得同樣重要。

Aside from its being an interesting story, however, why is it important to study this transformation? Mainly, Gordon suggests — although these are my words, not his — to provide a baseline. What happened between 1870 and 1940, he argues, and I would agree, is what real transformation looks like. Any claims about current progress need to be compared with that baseline to see how they measure up.

這段歷史是一段很有意思的往事。然而，除此之外，對這些變遷的研究究竟有什麼重要性呢？我的理解是這樣的：戈登提出，這段歷史可以爲我們研究後期歷史提供一個對比的基準。戈登聲稱，1870到1940年這段時期是一個真正變革的樣本，我同意他的這個說法。我們需要與這個歷史上的變革時期去比較，才能對現代社會發展進程的快慢做一個恰當的判斷。

And it’s hard not to agree with him that nothing that has happened since is remotely comparable. Urban life in America on the eve of World War II was already recognizably modern; you or I could walk into a 1940s apartment, with its indoor plumbing, gas range, electric lights, refrigerator and telephone, and we’d find it basically functional. We’d be annoyed at the lack of television and Internet — but not horrified or disgusted.

如此，我們不得不贊同他所說：1940年以後所發生的一切，與以前根本無法相提並論。“二戰”前夕的美國城市生活已經相當現代化；我們可以隨意走進一間1940年時的公寓，看到它裏面的下水設施、煤氣竈、電燈、冰箱和電話，我們會覺得它已經具備一間房子的所有基本功能。也許我們會因爲沒有電視和網絡而感到不便，但卻不會感到無法忍受。

By contrast, urban Americans from 1940 walking into 1870-style accommodations — which they could still do in the rural South — were indeed horrified and disgusted. Life fundamentally improved between 1870 and 1940 in a way it hasn’t since.

相反，1940年的城市美國人卻會對1870年代的住房感到無法忍受——那時在美國南方鄉下還可以找到這種房子。在1870年到1940年間，人類的生活條件發生了前所未有的根本變化。

Now, in 1940 many Americans were already living in what was recognizably the modern world, but many others weren’t. What happened over the next 30 years was that the further maturing of the Great Inventions led to rapidly rising incomes and a spread of that modern lifestyle to the nation as a whole. But then everything slowed down. And Gordon argues that the slowdown is likely to be permanent: The great age of progress is behind us. But is Gordon just from the wrong generation, unable to fully appreciate the wonders of the latest technology? I suspect that things like social media make a bigger positive difference to people’s lives than he acknowledges. But he makes two really good points that throw quite a lot of cold water on the claims of techno-optimists.

當然，在1940年，儘管許多美國人已經過上了比較現代的生活，但很多人還未能享受同等條件。在接下來的30年裏，隨着“五大發明”進一步成熟，人們的收入迅速提升，現代生活方式在全國大幅擴展。但是，在此之後，進展逐步放緩。戈登認爲這種緩慢的進展可能纔是永久常態，大變革時期已經結束。然而，這會不會是因爲戈登那代人頭腦已經老化，無法充分體會最新科技之神奇呢？我認爲，戈登的確沒有完全意識到像網絡社交媒體這樣的新科技給人們生活帶來的正面影響。但是，有兩點他說得非常好，十分切中科技樂觀主義者觀點的要害。

First, he points out that genuinely major innovations normally bring about big changes in business practices, in what workplaces look like and how they function. And there were some changes along those lines between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s — but not much since, which is evidence for Gordon’s claim that the main impact of the I.T. revolution has already happened.

首先，他指出：真正的重大革新往往會根本改變商業行爲，爲企業工作場所及其職能帶來巨大的變化。20世紀90年代中期開始的這10年中，這方面的確發生了一些變化，然而那之後，就再沒有什麼改變了。這正印證了戈登的斷言：信息科技革命的主要影響已經過去了。

Second, one of the major arguments of techno-optimists is that official measures of economic growth understate the real extent of progress, because they don’t fully account for the benefits of truly new goods. Gordon concedes this point, but notes that it was always thus — and that the understatement of progress was probably bigger during the great prewar transformation than it is today.

其次，技術樂觀主義者的一個主要觀點是，經濟增長的官方數據低估了進步的真實程度，因爲他們沒有充分考慮真正的新產品所帶來的益處。戈登承認這一點，但指出，這和過去並沒有什麼不同。相反，在戰前的大變革時期，這種低估很有可能要比今天更甚。

So what does this say about the future? Gordon suggests that the future is all too likely to be marked by stagnant living standards for most Americans, because the effects of slowing technological progress will be reinforced by a set of “headwinds”: rising inequality, a plateau in education levels, an aging population and more.

這對未來意味着什麼呢？戈登認爲，對大多數美國人來說，未來很有可能是生活水平停滯不前。技術進步的緩慢將被一系列“逆向”因素強化：貧富差距不斷加大、教育水平不再提高、人口趨於老齡化，等等。

It’s a shocking prediction for a society whose self-image, arguably its very identity, is bound up with the expectation of constant progress. And you have to wonder about the social and political consequences of another generation of stagnation or decline in working-class incomes.

我們社會的自我形象，甚至可以說自我認同，都以不斷的發展進步爲核心。戈登對未來的預測實在是振聾發聵、發人深省。我們不得不認真思考，如果下一代工薪階層收入繼續停滯或下降，這將會帶來什麼樣的社會和政治後果。

Of course, Gordon could be wrong: Maybe we’re on the cusp of truly transformative change, say from artificial intelligence or radical progress in biology (which would bring their own risks). But he makes a powerful case. Perhaps the future isn’t what it used to be.

當然，戈登也有可能錯了。也許我們正處在一個真正的革命性變革的前夕，這種變革也許是人工智能或者在生物學上的根本性進展（當然伴隨而來的還有相應的風險）。但是他的確提出了一個強有力的論證。也許，未來和過去的確不再相同。