做牛轧糖用什么黄油:双语阅读： 托马斯·弗里德曼 《平庸将无法生存》

平庸将无法生存

作者：托马斯·弗里德曼
译者: Easonwang001

最新一期的《大西洋月刊》上，亚当·戴维森（Adam Davidson）《在美国制造》一文中提到南部种棉地区的一个笑话，内容涉及现代纺织厂自动化的程度：如今的普通工厂只有两个雇员，“一个人外加一条狗。人是负责喂狗的，狗是让人不要靠近机器的。”

我们的失业率为何居高不下、中产阶级收入为何下降，其实大部分是由于大衰退造成的需求大幅下降。这其中也有全球化和信息科技革命巨大进步的推动：机器或者外国工人取代劳力的速度空前。最近有大量文章都在讨论这些，戴维森的文章只是其中一篇而已。

过去，只要有个一般的手艺，做份普通的工作，工人生活就过得还凑合。但如今，拥有一般水平不行了。不出众就没法像过去一样活着了。因为现在越来越多的雇主有大把的机会接触到不错的外国廉价劳动力、便宜的机器人、廉价的软件、低廉的自动化设备和要价低的人才。因此，人人都需要有另外的价值：异于常人的独特价值能够让他们在各自的雇佣市场上脱颖而出。靠平庸就能过日子的时代结束了。

是的，新技术一直就在吞噬我们的工作，将来还会继续吞噬。而且吞噬的速度在加快。俗话说，如果马会投票，那就永远不会有小轿车了。如戴维森所言，“2009年之前的十年内，美国工厂裁撤工人速度之快，基本上等于过去70年新增的工人数量；大概每三个工作岗位就有一个岗位消失了，总共约有600万之多。”

还有好戏呢。去年四月，Slate 杂志的安妮·洛瑞（Annie Lowrey）写了一篇初创公司E la Carte的文章，其目标是减少对服务生的需要：这家公司“已经生产出了一种增强版的iPad，它可以让您在桌边点菜和买单。也许很快在身边的餐馆里你就会见到这个麻省理工工程师们的杰作、时髦的发明 Presto了。你可以选择你想吃的，把它放进小推车里。根据餐馆的选择，控制设备会显示营养信息、成分清单和图片等。你也可以有具体的需求，比如说‘调料放在边上’或者‘五倍的熏肉’。你都决定好之后，订单立马会传到厨房，Presto会告诉你所点的东西花多长时间可以出来。... 与同伴等得不耐烦了？那就再iPad上玩玩游戏吧。吃完饭之后，你可以在控制设备上付款，如果你愿意，你可以一个菜一个菜地分割账单付款，你也可以选择付款方式。你还可以要求将收据发邮件给你。... 使用每个控制设备每月需要100美金。如果一家餐馆每天营业8小时，每周营业7天，那么每张餐桌每小时的成本只有42美分：因此Presto比最廉价的服务员都便宜。”

iPad不能以超常方式做的，中国工人都可以做。来看看查尔斯·杜赫（Charles Duhigg） 和基斯?布拉德舍（Keith Bradsher）在周日在本报（《纽约时报》）上的一篇美文吧，文中有一段讲述了苹果公司为什么将那么多的生产环节放在中国：“最后一刻，苹果公司重新设计了iPhone 的屏幕，因此装配线需要全部调整。午夜时分左右，新屏幕开始到达中国工厂。根据这位执行官的叙述，一名领班立即叫醒了公司宿舍的8000名工人。每人领了一份饼干和一杯茶后，就被带到一个车间，半小时内，他们就开始了12小时的轮班，将玻璃屏幕装到斜面框架中。96小时之后，这家工厂每天就能生产1万台iPhone.‘这种速度和灵活性令人目瞪口呆。’这位执行官说，‘在美国找不到这样的工厂。’”

自动化也不仅仅发生在生产领域，硅谷科技公司孵化器斯坦福国际研究院(SRIInternational)的首席执行官柯蒂斯·卡尔森（CurtisCarlson）说。该公司发明了苹果iPhone的个人数字助理服务Siri程序。“在改变我们与银行、保险公司、零售商店、医疗保健提供商、信息检索服务公司和产品生产公司的关系方面，Siri只是这个巨大转变的开始。”

变化总是会存在的，新工作、新产品和新服务都会出现。但我们确信无疑的是，全球化和科学技术每前进一步，最好的工作都会要求工人接收过更多的更优质的教育，这样他们才会超于常人。下面是美国劳工局对美国25岁以上人群的最新失业率统计：高中学历都没有的失业率为13.8%；有高中学历，但没大学学历的为8.7%；有大学或大专学历的为7.7%；有学士甚至更高学位的只有4.1%。

在一个平庸者已经无法生存的时代，我们需要做的促进就业的事情有很多，但没有哪个比通过像《退伍军人权利法案》之类的法案来得重要。只有这样，才能保证21世纪的每个美国都能接受高中之后的教育。

Op-Ed Columnist
Average Is Over
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: January 24, 2012


In an essay, entitled “Making It in America,” in the latest issue of The Atlantic, the author Adam Davidson relates a joke from cotton country about just how much a modern textile mill has been automated: The average mill has only two employees today, “a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machines.”

Davidson’s article is one of a number of pieces that have recently appeared making the point that the reason we have such stubbornly high unemployment and sagging middle-class incomes today is largely because of the big drop in demand because of the Great Recession, but it is also because of the quantum advances in both globalization and the information technology revolution, which are more rapidly than ever replacing labor with machines or foreign workers.

In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is over.

Yes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. As they say, if horses could have voted, there never would have been cars. But there’s been an acceleration. As Davidson notes, “In the 10 years ending in 2009, [U.S.] factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs — about 6 million in total — disappeared.”

And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Last April, Annie Lowrey of Slate wrote about a start-up called “E la Carte” that is out to shrink the need for waiters and waitresses: The company “has produced a kind of souped-up iPad that lets you order and pay right at your table. The brainchild of a bunch of M.I.T. engineers, the nifty invention, known as the Presto, might be found at a restaurant near you soon. ... You select what you want to eat and add items to a cart. Depending on the restaurant’s preferences, the console could show you nutritional information, ingredients lists and photographs. You can make special requests, like ‘dressing on the side’ or ‘quintuple bacon.’ When you’re done, the order zings over to the kitchen, and the Presto tells you how long it will take for your items to come out. ... Bored with your companions? Play games on the machine. When you’re through with your meal, you pay on the console, splitting the bill item by item if you wish and paying however you want. And you can have your receipt e-mailed to you. ... Each console goes for $100 per month. If a restaurant serves meals eight hours a day, seven days a week, it works out to 42 cents per hour per table — making the Presto cheaper than even the very cheapest waiter.”

What the iPad won’t do in an above average way a Chinese worker will. Consider this paragraph from Sunday’s terrific article in The Times by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher about why Apple does so much of its manufacturing in China: “Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the [Chinese] plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. ‘The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ the executive said. ‘There’s no American plant that can match that.’ ”

And automation is not just coming to manufacturing, explains Curtis Carlson, the chief executive of SRI International, a Silicon Valley idea lab that invented the Apple iPhone program known as Siri, the digital personal assistant. “Siri is the beginning of a huge transformation in how we interact with banks, insurance companies, retail stores, health care providers, information retrieval services and product services.”

There will always be change — new jobs, new products, new services. But the one thing we know for sure is that with each advance in globalization and the I.T. revolution, the best jobs will require workers to have more and better education to make themselves above average. Here are the latest unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Americans over 25 years old: those with less than a high school degree, 13.8 percent; those with a high school degree and no college, 8.7 percent; those with some college or associate degree, 7.7 percent; and those with bachelor’s degree or higher, 4.1 percent.

In a world where average is officially over, there are many things we need to do to buttress employment, but nothing would be more important than passing some kind of G.I. Bill for the 21st century that ensures that every American has access to post-high school education.