The American Dream, RIP?
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: September 24, 2013
Sep 21st 2013 |From the print edition
An economist asks provocative questions about the future of social mobility.
COULD America survive the end of the American Dream? The idea is unthinkable, say political leaders of right and left. Yet it is predicted in "Average is Over", a bracing new book by Tyler Cowen, an economist. Mr Cowen is no stranger to controversy. In 2011 he galvanised Washington with "The Great Stagnation", in which he argued that America has used up the low-hanging fruit of free land, abundant labour and new technologies. His new book suggests that the disruptive effects of automation and ever-cheaper computer power have only just begun to be felt.
It describes a future largely stripped of middling jobs and broad prosperity. An elite 10-15% of Americans will have the brains and self-discipline to master tomorrow's technology and extract profit from it, he speculates. They will enjoy great wealth and stimulating lives. Others will endure stagnant or even falling wages, as employers measure their output with "oppressive precision". Some will thrive as service-providers to the rich. A few will claw their way into the elite (cheap online education will be a great leveller), bolstering the idea of a "hyper-meritocracy" at work: this "will make it easier to ignore those left behind".
Mr Cowen's vision is neither warm nor fuzzy. In his future, mistakes and even mediocrity will be hard to hide: eg, an ever-expanding array of ratings will expose so-so doctors and also patients who do not take their medicines or otherwise spell trouble. Young men will struggle in a labour market that rewards conscientiousness over muscle. With incomes squeezed, many Americans will head to the sort of cheap, sun-baked sprawling exurbs that give the farmers'-market-and-bike-lanes set heartburn. Many will accept rotten public services in exchange for low taxes. This may sound a bit grim, but it reflects real-world trends: 60% of employers already check the credit ratings of job candidates; young male unemployment is high and migrants have been flooding to low-tax, low-service Texas for years.
The left is sure that inequality is a recipe for riots. Mr Cowen doubts it. The have-nots will be too engrossed in video games to light real petrol bombs. An ageing population will be rather conservative, he thinks. There will be lots of Tea-Party sorts among the economically left-behind. Aid for the poor will be slashed but benefits for the old preserved. He does not fear protectionism, as most jobs that can be sent overseas have already gone. He notes that the late 1960s, when society was in turmoil, was a golden age of income equality, while some highly unequal moments in history, including in medieval times, were rather stable.
Even if only a fraction of Mr Cowen's vision comes to pass, he is too sanguine about the politics of polarisation. Inter-generational tensions fuelled 1960s unrest and would be back with a vengeance, this time in the form of economic competition for scarce resources. The Middle Ages were stable partly because peasants could not vote; an unhappy modern electorate, by contrast, would be prey to demagogues peddling simple solutions, from xenophobia to soak-the-rich taxes, or harsh, self-defeating crime policies. Yet Mr Cowen's main point is plausible: gigantic shifts are under way, and they may be unstoppable.
Politicians are skittish about admitting this. Barack Obama calls America's wealth gap "our great unfinished business", describing a crisis of inequality decades in the making. Think of technology, he tells audiences, and how it has thinned the ranks of travel agents, bank clerks and other middle-class gateway jobs. At the same time, global competition has reduced workers' bargaining power. People have "lost trust in the capacity of government to help them", he sorrows. But then Mr Obama implies that political villainy is the real culprit. He accuses entrenched interests of working for years to spread a "great untruth": that government intervention is either harmful or a plot to grab tax dollars from the squeezed middle and shower them on the undeserving poor. Politics risks becoming a "zero-sum game where a few do very well while struggling families of every race fight over a shrinking economic pie."
Republicans are just as partisan. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a son of Cuban immigrants, likes to say that had he not been born in post-war America in an era of high social mobility, he would probably be a very opinionated bartender. At a "Defending the American Dream Summit" on August 30th he accused Mr Obama of smothering economic opportunity with a big-government nightmare of debts, "class-warfare" taxes, innovation-smothering regulation and over-generous welfare. While most are working harder than ever and barely keeping up, Mr Rubio growls, "some people" shun work because they can make almost as much from government benefits. In short, both sides never tire of explaining how the other is destroying the American Dream. Alas, neither can explain, convincingly, how to revive it.
What, Tyler, no revolt?
Asked about the limits of his power, Mr Obama mutters about "pushing back against the trends" squeezing middle America, rather than resolving them entirely. That, he argues, is better than the Republican right, who "want to accelerate" such trends.
For their part Republican leaders offer long-cherished shrink-the-government schemes, rebranded as plans to save the American Dream. They say that tax cuts and deregulation would trigger a private-sector investment boom. In truth, the links between investment and government policy are rarely so neat, and even such a boom might do little for middle-class wage stagnation.
Many voters remember a time when hard work was reliably rewarded with economic security. This was not really true in the 1950s and 60s if you were black or female, but the question still remains: what if Mr Cowen is right? What if the bottom 85% today are mostly doomed to stay there? In a country founded on hope, that would require something like a new social contract. Politicians cannot duck Mr Cowen's conundrum for ever.
美國夢不再 貧富不均是常態
2013-09-24 Web only 作者：經濟學人
美國能否熬過美國夢之消逝？左右派的政治領袖都說那令人不敢想像，但經濟學家柯溫（Tyler Cowen）在他的新書《Average is Over》中預測了此事。他在2011年的著作《大停滯》中指出，美國已耗盡了土地、勞工和新科技帶來的果實，他甚至在新書中表示，自動化和低廉電腦運算能力帶來的破壞性效果，才正要開始要顯現。
柯溫預測，約有10～15％的美國精英階級，有足夠的能力和自制力可以精通明日的科技，並運用科技取得利潤，享受大量財富和美好生活，但是其他人則得忍受經濟停滯和薪資不斷下滑。有某些人以扮演服務提供者的角色而致富，少數人則會晉升精英階層，鞏固目前的「超能者居之」的概念，讓人們更輕易地忽略那些被拋棄的人。
在柯溫預言的未來裡，錯誤甚至是平凡都難以隱藏，例如，各種評價系統將使得能力平庸的醫生和不願吃藥的病人都難以藏身。年輕人將被迫在重視盡責而非實力的勞動市場中掙扎求生，而隨著收入不斷被壓縮，許多美國人必須移往城市遠郊，同時接受低劣的公共服務以換取低稅率。聽來十分悲觀，但那其實反映了真實世界的趨勢：60％的雇主會確認應徵者的信用評等，年輕男性失業率持續攀升，數年前移民便開始有移民大量湧向低稅率、低服務的德州。
左派認為社會的不平等將會引發暴動，但柯溫認為，沒有錢的人會沉迷於電玩，因此無心走上街頭，而老化的人口也會相對保守。窮人補助會遭到刪減，但老人福利會獲得保留。柯溫並不害怕保護主義，因為有能力移居國外的工作皆已外移。
柯溫指出，1960年代末期、社會動盪之際，正是收入平等的黃金時代，而在歷史上極度不平等的時期，社會則相對穩定。他的看法或許太過樂觀，但他的重點亦十分可信：劇變已然啟始，而且可能無法阻止。
政治人物不敢承認此事。歐巴馬認為，貧富差距的問題很重要，但仍未獲得解決，科技的發展讓許多基層工作迅速消失，全球競爭的趨勢也削弱了勞工的議價能力。但歐巴馬也指出，政治對立才是真正的罪魁禍首；他指控利益團體散佈不實看法：政府干預會傷害經濟發展。
共和黨的情況也差不多。身為古巴後矞的參議員魯比歐（Marco Rubio）常說，要不是他生在社會流動率高的戰後美國，現在很可能只是個意見很多的酒保。但是他批評，歐巴馬政府的高額公債、「階級戰」稅賦、壓抑創新的規範和過度慷慨的福利，卻扼殺了經濟機會。
簡言之，雙方皆不厭其煩地解釋對方如何摧毀了美國夢。至於如何重振美國夢，卻都沒有辦法提出令人信服的說法；歐巴馬想的是如何對抗傷害美國中產階級的潮流，而非完全解決此問題，共和黨則拿出了他們一向喜愛的精實政府方案，然後將它重新包裝成拯救美國夢的計畫。
許多選民還記得，曾經有那麼一個時代，努力工作就能帶來經濟安全。對50和60年代的黑人或女性來說，情況或是不是如此，但問題仍舊存在：如果柯溫是對的怎麼辦？如果85％的底層民眾大多已註定無法向上流動，該怎麼辦？在一個以希望為根基的國家，可能需要新社會契約之類的東西才行。政治人物不可能永遠無視柯溫提出的難題。（黃維德譯）
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