金融时报:卢德主义在英国抬头？

卢德主义在英国抬头？

先进机器设备的应用，会减少劳动者的工作岗位、降低他们的工资吗？两百年前的英国，捣毁机器的卢德分子就是这么认为的。而今天，人们似乎又听到了历史的回声。FT卧底经济学家Tim Harford用幽默的对话的形式对此进行了分析。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

Luddite ['lʌdait] 卢德分子，十九世纪初(1811-1817)英国捣毁机器的手工业者；指强烈反对机械化或自动化的人。有观点认为这是社会主义运动的先声。

droll [drəʊl] 可笑，滑稽

mater and pater 父母

chancellor ['tʃɑːns(ə)lə] 在英国指财政大臣，在德国奥地利指总理，在美国指衡平法院法官

Low pay and the rise of the machines （757 words）

By Tim Harford

‘4.6 million Britons (20 per cent of all employees) earn below the Living Wage – a leap from 3.4 million (14 per cent) in 2009'

The Resolution Foundation – 4 September 2013 …

4.6m Britons don't earn a living wage – are they dead?

Very droll. For “living wage” read “decent wage”. The Living Wage (with capital letters) is a target set by campaigners for a good solid hourly wage – currently £8.55 an hour in London and £7.45 an hour elsewhere. That's 20 per cent above the legal minimum wage rate. A lot of people don't make that much money. Some of them will be doing just fine – £7 an hour isn't bad if you're 17 years old, living with mater and pater and saving up for a gap year somewhere sunny – but others will not.

I feel like I've heard about all this before. Why are we talking about it now?

It's the new narrative for the Labour party. Here's the awkward thing for Labour: the economy is slowly picking up steam. So how to attack George Osborne, the chancellor? Ed Balls, shadow chancellor, could argue that Mr Osborne deserves no credit for the upturn – that government austerity made the depression longer and deeper than necessary. To an economist that's pretty plausible. To the voting public it doesn't seem to have much bite. And so the new story – pushed by Mr Balls and his deputy Rachel Reeves this week – is that while it's welcome that the economy is recovering, the problem is that hard-working families aren't benefiting.

Why is it always “hard-working families”? The phrase conjures up images of a family with six kids, all chained together and sent down a coal mine.

Can we skip the stylistic criticism for a moment and talk about the economics?

OK…

What is powerful about this story is that there's a lot of truth to it, and little Mr Osborne can do is likely to change it. And if Mr Balls were chancellor, little he could do would change it either. There are forces at work in the world economy that are making it hard for people with traditionally valuable skills to prosper.

Such as?

As technology becomes cheaper and better, people are replacing “labour” with “capital” – that is, employing fewer people, or paying the people they do employ less, and replacing them with machines or computers. Research published by two economists at the University of Chicago, Loukas Karabarbounis and Brent Neiman, has documented this trend: it's global, it's been going on for three decades, and it is happening in many different sectors of the economy. Some people can get more done in an automated world – but others find themselves shoved out of skilled work and into poorly paid alternatives. So inequality increases. The arrival on the scene of China and other major low-wage economies has also played a part.

We need to fight back!

Maybe. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, could organise a Luddite revolution against the machines. I don't think that's what he and Mr Balls have in mind when they talk about “predistribution”.

What do they mean when they talk about “predistribution”?

It means fixing inequality without the need to resort to redistributive taxation. Which raises the question of how. Improving education is one idea – but then who is in favour of worse schools? It also seems to mean bullying big companies to pay better wages to their most junior staff. But pressure has the same consequences as a too-high minimum wage: it can increase wages but it can also destroy jobs.

Perhaps we should look to Germany for answers: they seem to have solved their economic problems and have a strong manufacturing sector.

Germany has been reliant on low-wage jobs and flexible working conditions as much as anyone – perhaps more than most, as the economist Adam Posen has argued. Even employment in China's manufacturing sector is in structural decline: it was at its highest back in 1996. And you're missing one important thing about this argument.

Which is what?

Throughout this long recession, economists have been puzzled by the fact that so many people have managed to keep their jobs – or find new jobs. A key part of the answer: falling wages and flexible hours. The UK's flexible labour market kept the show on the road in the dark days; now it is being blamed, quite reasonably, for the fact that people have jobs that don't pay very well. Politicians may talk out of both sides of their mouths – but they can't have it both ways.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.How much is the “living wage” proposed by the campaigners?

A.Decent wage.

B.Minimum wage of London.

C.Average wage of Britain.

D.120% of minimum wage.

答案(1)

2.How does shadow chancelor Mr. Balls(Labour) attack Osborne(Conservative)?

A.That the economy is not recovering.

B.That the austerity is not tough enough.

C.That hard-working families are't benefiting.

D.That some families have to send their children down to a coal mine to make a living.

答案(2)

3.Inequality in Britain is increasing, why?

A.It is a global phenomenon.

B.Labour is being replaced by capital.

C.Economic recession hit Britain hard.

D.China's wage level is on the rise.

答案(3)

4.What does this mean?

“Politicians may talk out of both sides of their mouths – but they can't have it both ways.”

A.We can't fight recession and protect jobs at the same time.

B.We can't have a recovery and falling wages at the same time.

C.We can't have flexible labour market and handsome wages at the same time.

D.We can't blame the employers and the employees at the same time.

答案(4)

* * *

(1)答案：D.120% of minimum wage.

解释：他们主张的“糊口工资”是在伦敦每小时8.55磅，在其他地区至少7.45磅。这比法定最低工资高了20%。

(2)答案：C.That hard-working families are't benefiting.

解释：AB都与事实相反：波尔斯承认经济在复苏，但认为财政紧缩过于严厉了。至于D是作者在黑波尔斯：他有点夸大其词来博同情，说的跟这些家庭过得多惨似的。

(3)答案：B.Labour is being replaced by capital.

解释：技术在进步，成本在下降，自动化程度因此提高，也就是“资本”代替“劳动”，因此具有专业技能的少数人收入能够大增，而更多技能较低的劳动者收入上涨缓慢或停滞。这就是技术进步带来收入差距加大的机制。另外，中国等工资较低国家融入全球经济，也在拖低发达国家劳动密集型行业的收入。 ACD都是不能解释问题的。

(4)答案：C.We can't have flexible labour market and handsome wages at the same time.

解释：如果你读懂本文的主旨就不难选出答案了：如果人为抬高工资，会造成失业，而英国较灵活的劳动力市场为英国走出衰退做出了贡献。A意思正确但不是所问的。B错误，因为工资可以下调正是劳动力市场灵活，这正是复苏的原因之一，两者是一致的。C正确，政客们一边说灵活的劳动力市场好，一方面又说希望提高劳动者的工资，这两者其实是无法兼得的。D与题目不相关。