2021年经济学人 为何人们对职场总是如此悲观(2)

It is harder to tell whether workers enjoy their work more than they did.

很难判断工人们是否比以前更喜欢自己的工作。

Gallup, a pollster, has kindly¹ supplied Bartleby with a smattering of job-satisfaction surveys from the 1960s and 1970s.

盖洛普民意调查公司好心地向巴特比提供了一些20世纪60年代和70年代的工作满意度调查结果。

Certainly there is little to suggest that workers back then were any happier than they are today.

当然，没有什么迹象表明当时的工人比现在的更幸福。

More comparable data, also from Gallup, from the early 1990s onwards show gradually improving job satisfaction.

同样来自盖洛普的更具可比性的数据显示，自上世纪90年代初以来，工作满意度逐渐提高。

Last year 56% of American employees said they were “completely” satisfied with their job, an all-time high.

去年，56%的美国员工表示他们“完全”满意自己的工作，创历史新高。

A growing “precariat” of insecure workers gets a lot of headlines.

越来越多没有安全感的“不稳定无产者”成为头条新闻。

But 90% of American employees said in 2020 that they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their job security, up from 79% in 1993.

但在2020年，90%的美国员工表示，他们对自己的工作保障完全或多少感到满意，高于1993年的79%。

If the jobs-are-bad narrative² falls down on the facts, why is it so pervasive³ — and so intuitive?

如果“工作很糟糕”的说法与事实不符，那么为什么它如此流行又如此直观可感呢？

Partly it is because no one has bothered to look at the evidence.

部分原因是没有人费心去查看证据。

Other observers just don’t like the constant change and churn which has always been part and parcel of capitalism⁴.

其他观察者只是不喜欢资本主义的不断变化和变动，而这一直是资本主义的一部分。

More still may subscribe⁵, perhaps subconsciously⁶, to what Friedrich Hayek, a philosopher, called an “atavistic” view of markets.

或许还有更多的人会潜意识地认同哲学家弗里德里希·哈耶克称之“返祖”的市场观点。

The very notion that people must sell their labour, for cash, in order to survive may violate some deeply held notion that humans are a fundamentally co-operative species, rather than a competitive one.

为了生存，人们必须出卖自己的劳动来换取现金，这一观点本身可能违背了某些根深蒂固的观念，即人类从根本上是一个合作的物种，而不是竞争的物种。

Yet perhaps the most important reason is that people dislike acknowledging trade-offs.

然而，也许最重要的原因是人们不喜欢承认权衡取舍这个事实。

Mill seemed unable to square his concern about the stultifying⁷ effects of capitalism with his argument that the division of labour had massively increased living standards.

密尔认为，劳动分工极大地提高了人们的生活水平，但他对资本主义使人呆滞的担忧，似乎无法与这一观点相吻合。

People often make similar errors today.

如今人们经常犯类似的错误。

The decline of trade unions may have hurt some workers’ wages; but it is less commonly acknowledged that this has also made it easier for less “traditional” workers, such as ethnic⁸ minorities and women, to enter the labour market.

工会的衰落可能损害了一些工人的工资；但很少有人承认，这也让少数族裔和女性等不那么“传统”的工人更容易进入劳动力市场。

Sedentary office jobs can make people fat; but people are far less likely to die on the job than they once were.

久坐不动的办公室工作会让人发胖；但人们在工作中死亡的可能性比以前小得多。

A relentless⁹ focus on the problems of labour markets still has its uses.

对劳动力市场问题的持续关注仍有其用处。

It encourages people to think about how to make improvements.

它鼓励人们思考如何改进。

The evidence suggests that on average managers have got better in recent years but clearly some firms have a long way to go.

有证据表明，平均来说，经理们近年来有所好转，但显然有些公司还有很长的路要走。

Many people are still exploited by their employers.

许多人仍在受到雇主的剥削。

Today’s world of work is far better than its critics would like to admit.

如今的职场比批评者们愿意承认的要好得多。

But there is every reason to try to make it better still.

但我们完全有理由努力让它变得更好。

1 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

2 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

3 pervasive   

adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的

参考例句：

• It is the most pervasive compound on earth.它是地球上最普遍的化合物。
• The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.汽车尾气对人类健康所构成的有害影响是普遍的，并且难以估算。

4 capitalism   

n.资本主义

参考例句：

• The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
• Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。

5 subscribe   

vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助

参考例句：

• I heartily subscribe to that sentiment.我十分赞同那个观点。
• The magazine is trying to get more readers to subscribe.该杂志正大力发展新订户。

6 subconsciously   

ad.下意识地，潜意识地

参考例句：

• In choosing a partner we are subconsciously assessing their evolutionary fitness to be a mother of children or father provider and protector. 在选择伴侣的时候，我们会在潜意识里衡量对方将来是否会是称职的母亲或者父亲，是否会是合格的一家之主。
• Lao Yang thought as he subconsciously tightened his grasp on the rifle. 他下意识地攥紧枪把想。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

7 stultifying   

v.使成为徒劳，使变得无用( stultify的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• the stultifying effects of work that never varies 一成不变的工作造成的使人呆滞的后果
• At its worst it is corrosive and it is stultifying. 在最坏的情况下，时间具有腐蚀作用，而且使人更为愚钝。 来自互联网

8 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

9 relentless   

adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的

参考例句：

• The traffic noise is relentless.交通车辆的噪音一刻也不停止。
• Their training has to be relentless.他们的训练必须是无情的。