2021年经济学人 资本退位,打工人的黄金时代正在到来(3)（在线收听）

The long-term future of work has changed for the better this year because it has become more digitised. Remote working is easing the bottleneck of expensive housing in thriving cities. Home-workers report higher levels of happiness and productivity. At the end of 2020 American firms spent 25% more on computers, in real terms, than a year earlier. Even pessimists like Robert Gordon, an economist, expect this burst of technological investment to bring about faster productivity growth, which means higher wages.

工作的长期前景在今年有所好转，因为它变得更加数字化了。远程办公正在缓解繁荣城市中昂贵住房所带来的的瓶颈。居家打工人的幸福感和工作效率更高。到2020年底，美国公司在电脑上的实际支出比一年前增加了25%。即便是经济学家罗伯特·戈登这样的悲观主义者，也预计这一技术投资的爆发将带来生产率的更快增长，也意味着工资的提高。

A golden age for workers is welcome. It is right to judge economic progress by the purchasing power of median wages, not profits or share prices. Jobs booms like those in most rich countries in 2019 bring huge benefits, by incentivising the training and good treatment of workers, as well as by reducing racial and gender inequalities. Yet governments can help determine the extent of these gains. Their goal should be to raise workers’ living standards through higher productivity, rather than focusing on dividing the spoils through regulation and protection.

打工人的黄金时代值得欢迎。判断经济发展的正确方式是依靠工资中位数的购买力，而非利润或股价。就像大多数富裕国家在2019年经历的就业繁荣，通过激励培训、为员工提供良好待遇、以及减少种族和性别不平等而带来了巨大的好处。然而，政府可以帮助确定这些收益的程度。他们的目标应该是通过提高生产力来提高工人的生活水平，而不是注重于通过监管和保护来瓜分好处。

One task is to redefine workers’ rights for an era of flexibility and service work. The size and novelty of the gig economy is often overstated; taxis and food deliveries existed before Uber and DoorDash. But service-sector employment, especially caregiving, will grow as populations age. There is no place for the snobbish idea that such jobs cannot be fulfilling, nor the related instinct that experimental models of work should be regulated out of existence. Instead governments should modernise the guardrails provided by employment law, offer a universal safety-net and ensure that the economy is strong. If they do, workers will have the confidence and bargaining power to experiment and negotiate for themselves.

其中一项任务是重新定义员工的权利，以适应灵活和服务工作的时代。零工经济的规模和新颖性往往言过其实；出租车和食品配送在Uber和DoorDash出现之前就已经存在。但随着人口老龄化，服务业就业，尤其是护理业就业将增长。认为这样的工作不可能带来满足感的势利观点，以及实验性工作模式应该在调控下不复存在的偏见也没有立足之地。相反，政府应该使就业法提供的保障现代化，提供一张普遍的保障网，并确保经济强劲发展。如果政府这样做了，工人们将在实验性工作以及协商中具备信心和谈判能力。