佛里曼專欄：科技雙面刃 創造高薪 激化動盪

中文出處: 佛里曼專欄：科技雙面刃 創造高薪 激化動盪 - 打開聯合報 看見紐約時報 - udn城市 http://city.udn.com/50132/4693883#ixzz1cBOvcIqX

2011-08-15/經濟日報/A5版/國際焦點 編譯于倩若

科技雙面刃 創造高薪 激化動盪


倫敦在燃燒。「阿拉伯之春」激起阿拉伯世界人民對獨裁者的反抗。「以色列之夏」促使25萬名以色列人走上街頭抗議買不起房子，以及國家被少數幾個政商關係良好的資本家所把持。從雅典到巴塞隆納，歐洲許多城市的廣場被抗議失業及所得差距急遽擴大的年輕人占據；另一方面，美國則有茶黨打亂了美國政治。


這世界究竟怎麼了？會出現這些爆炸性發展的原因很多且各不相同，但某種程度上，這些事件可能有個共通點，我認為這個共通點就顯示在以色列中產階級暴動的口號上：「我們要爭取伸手可及的未來。」現在世界各地有許多中低階層人民覺得未來遙不可及，而且正設法向當局表達他們的心聲。


為何選在這時候？此趨勢的起源是全球化和資訊科技革命已發展到一個全新的水準。拜雲端運算、機械化、3G無線通訊、Skype、臉書（Facebook）、Google、LinkedIn、推特（Twitter）、iPad以及能上網的低價智慧手機之賜，這個世界已從相連變成高度相連。


這是當今世上最重要的一股趨勢，也是現在想晉升中產階級得更努力學習、更聰明工作、且更快適應的關鍵原因。科技和全球化正在消滅更多「例行」工作；而這類例行工作過去曾維持許多中產階級的生活。


全球化結合資訊科技大大提高了生產力，尤其是經濟衰退期間。衰退期間雇主以機械、電腦、機器人及優秀外勞取代勞力的意願增強。過去只有廉價的外國勞力容易取得；現在就連廉價的外國人才也唾手可得。這能解釋為何企業愈來愈富有且中等技術勞工愈來愈窮。好的工作是有，但必須具備更高的教育程度或技能。具大專學歷者目前失業率相對仍低，但若要取得此等學歷並利用學歷來找到好工作，每個人都得自我提升，這並不容易。


紐約時報2月曾報導，格林奈爾學院（Grinnell）是美國愛阿華州郊區一所學生僅1,600人的院校，但「申辦2015年入學的申請者當中，將近每十人就有一人來自中國」。該報導並指出，美國還有其他數十所大專院校出現類似的申請入學者激增情況，而且「今年來自中國的申請者有一半在SAT考試數學部分拿滿分800分」。


想拿到好工作的人必須具備更多技能，對於沒能力自我提升者，政府已負擔不起慷慨的福利支援，或是用於買屋的廉價信貸--這能大幅創造營建與零售業的勞力需求。二戰後的50年期間，擔任總統、市長、州長或大學校長通常意味著贈與，現在卻變成是剝奪。


全球化與資訊科技革命促成了全球性的怒火，目前各國的示威遊行正相互啟發，例如部分以色列民眾就舉著「像埃及人那樣走上街頭」的標語。這些抗議活動雖然不是新科技所造成，但新科技卻扮演推波助瀾的角色。全球化與資訊科技革命也使個人得以挑戰從企業到科學再到政府的既有階級制度或傳統權威人士。


這裡我要再次強調：中產階級能取得的寬鬆信貸、能從事的例行工作以及可享有的權益已愈來愈少，現在想要有個體面的工作需要具備更多技能，人民也更容易透過媒體發起示威抗議行動挑戰當局。與此同時，全球化結合資訊科技正為具備全球技能者創造高薪，進一步拉開了所得差距，也激發了不滿。這就是當前情勢的全貌。




英文原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/Friedman-a-theory-of-everyting-sort-of.html

A Theory of Everything (Sort Of)

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
LONDON burns. The Arab Spring triggers popular rebellions against autocrats across the Arab world. The Israeli Summer brings 250,000 Israelis into the streets, protesting the lack of affordable housing and the way their country is now dominated by an oligopoly of crony capitalists. From Athens to Barcelona, European town squares are being taken over by young people railing against unemployment and the injustice of yawning income gaps, while the angry Tea Party emerges from nowhere and sets American politics on its head.


What’s going on here?


There are multiple and different reasons for these explosions, but to the extent they might have a common denominator I think it can be found in one of the slogans of Israel’s middle-class uprising: “We are fighting for an accessible future.” Across the world, a lot of middle- and lower-middle-class people now feel that the “future” is out of their grasp, and they are letting their leaders know it.


Why now? It starts with the fact that globalization and the information technology revolution have gone to a whole new level. Thanks to cloud computing, robotics, 3G wireless connectivity, Skype, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, the iPad, and cheap Internet-enabled smartphones, the world has gone from connected to hyper-connected.


This is the single most important trend in the world today. And it is a critical reason why, to get into the middle class now, you have to study harder, work smarter and adapt quicker than ever before. All this technology and globalization are eliminating more and more “routine” work — the sort of work that once sustained a lot of middle-class lifestyles.


The merger of globalization and I.T. is driving huge productivity gains, especially in recessionary times, where employers are finding it easier, cheaper and more necessary than ever to replace labor with machines, computers, robots and talented foreign workers. It used to be that only cheap foreign manual labor was easily available; now cheap foreign genius is easily available. This explains why corporations are getting richer and middle-skilled workers poorer. Good jobs do exist, but they require more education or technical skills. Unemployment today still remains relatively low for people with college degrees. But to get one of those degrees and to leverage it for a good job requires everyone to raise their game. It’s hard.


Think of what The Times reported last February: At little Grinnell College in rural Iowa, with 1,600 students, “nearly one of every 10 applicants being considered for the class of 2015 is from China.” The article noted that dozens of other American colleges and universities are seeing a similar surge as well. And the article added this fact: Half the “applicants from China this year have perfect scores of 800 on the math portion of the SAT.”


Not only does it take more skill to get a good job, but for those who are unable to raise their games, governments no longer can afford generous welfare support or cheap credit to be used to buy a home for nothing down — which created a lot of manual labor in construction and retail. Alas, for the 50 years after World War II, to be a president, mayor, governor or university president meant, more often than not, giving things away to people. Today, it means taking things away from people.


All of this is happening at a time when this same globalization/I.T. revolution enables the globalization of anger, with all of these demonstrations now inspiring each other. Some Israeli protestors carried a sign: “Walk Like an Egyptian.” While these social protests — and their flash-mob, criminal mutations like those in London — are not caused by new technologies per se, they are fueled by them.


This globalization/I.T. revolution is also “super-empowering” individuals, enabling them to challenge hierarchies and traditional authority figures — from business to science to government. It is also enabling the creation of powerful minorities and making governing harder and minority rule easier than ever. See dictionary for: “Tea Party.”


Surely one of the iconic images of this time is the picture of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak — for three decades a modern pharaoh — being hauled into court, held in a cage with his two sons and tried for attempting to crush his people’s peaceful demonstrations. Every leader and C.E.O. should reflect on that photo. “The power pyramid is being turned upside down," said Yaron Ezrahi, an Israeli political theorist.


So let’s review: We are increasingly taking easy credit, routine work and government jobs and entitlements away from the middle class — at a time when it takes more skill to get and hold a decent job, at a time when citizens have more access to media to organize, protest and challenge authority and at a time when this same merger of globalization and I.T. is creating huge wages for people with global skills (or for those who learn to game the system and get access to money, monopolies or government contracts by being close to those in power) — thus widening income gaps and fueling resentments even more.


Put it all together and you have today’s front-page news.