2021年经济学人 资本退位,打工人的黄金时代正在到来(1)（在线收听）

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社论

Riding high

春风得意

In the rich world the era of sharp-edged capitalism is giving way to a golden age for labour

在发达国家，尖锐的资本主义时代正在退位让贤于劳动大军的黄金时代

In the popular imagination the past four decades were wonderful for the owners of capital and miserable for labour. The rich world’s workers endured competition from trade, relentless technological change, more unequal wages and tepid recoveries from recessions. Investors and companies enjoyed expanding global markets, liberalised finance and low corporate taxes. Even before covid-19, this caricature of broken labour markets was mistaken. Today, as the economy emerges from the pandemic, a reversal of the primacy of capital over labour beckons—and it will come sooner than you think.

在公众心目中，过去四十年对资本所有者来说是美好的，但对劳动者来说却是痛苦的。贸易竞争、无休止的技术革新、工资不平等加剧以及经济衰退后的复苏乏力一直折磨着富裕国家的打工人们。而投资者和公司却享受着全球市场的扩张、金融的自由化和较低的企业税。甚至在新冠疫情之前，这种对崩溃的劳动力市场的滑稽描述也是错误的。如今，伴随全球经济从疫情中复苏，资本优先于劳动力的局势正在逆转，而且其到来将远比你想象的要快。

It might seem premature to predict a wonderful world of work only a year on from a labour-market catastrophe. But America is showing how rapidly jobs can come back as the virus recedes. In the spring of 2020 the country’s unemployment rate was nearly 15%. Now it is already just 6% after a year containing five of the ten best months for hiring in history. Public perceptions of how easy it is to find a job have already recovered to levels that it took nearly a decade to reach after the global financial crisis. And even in Europe, which is suffering a third wave of infections, the labour market is beating forecasts as economies adapt to virus-containment measures.

预测打工人将迎来美好的职场似乎还为时过早，毕竟现在距离劳动力市场困境只有一年的时间。但美国正在展示随着新冠病毒的消退，他们能以多快的速度迅速恢复就业机会。在2020年春天，美国的失业率接近15%。一年后（在有史以来招聘情况最好的10个月中，有5个月涵盖在这一年里）的美国失业率如今仅为6%。公众对找工作有多容易的看法，已经恢复到全球金融危机后近十年才达到的水平。即使是在正遭受第三波感染冲击的欧洲，随着各经济体逐渐适应病毒控制措施，劳动力市场的情况也在超出预期。