生活雜談:幸福生活來自於知足(上)

Until fairly recently economists envisaged three stages of economic development.

直到不久前，經濟學家還認爲經濟發展分成三個階段。

First, there was the stage of capital accumulation started by the industrial revolution. The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm called it the age of capital. Society saved a large part of its income to invest in capital equipment. The world gradually filled up with capital goods.

首先是工業革命開啓的資本積累階段。馬克思主義歷史學家艾瑞克•霍布斯鮑姆(Eric Hobsbawm)將之稱爲資本時代。社會將很大一部分收入儲蓄起來用於投資資本設備。世界上的資本品逐漸多了起來。

This stage, economists thought, would be followed by the age of consumption, in which people began realising the fruits of their previous frugality. They would save less and consume more, as the returns to new investment fell and the possibilities of consumption expanded.

經濟學家認爲，資本時代之後將是消費時代。在消費時代，人們開始收穫他們此前勤儉節約的成果。隨着新投資的回報率下降和消費的可能性加大，他們會減少儲蓄並增加消費。

Then would come the third and final stage, the age of abundance. With a surfeit of consumption goods, people would start swapping greater consumption for greater leisure. The world of work would recede. This was supposed to be the end point of the economic phase of history.

隨後就是第三個、也是最後一個階段：富足時代。由於消費品變得極大豐富，人們開始更多地休閒，而不是更多地消費。大量工作將會消亡。這被認爲是經濟發展階段的終點。

Much of the world has not yet reached the age of consumption.

世界上有很大一部分地區如今還未發展到消費時代。

The Chinese, for example, still save and invest on a colossal scale. Our problem is that western societies remain stuck in the age of consumption. We are much, much richer than we were 100 years ago, but hours of work have not fallen nearly as much as productivity has risen, and we go on consuming more than ever. We seem unable to say "enough is enough". Why not?

例如，中國人仍在大規模地儲蓄和投資。我們的問題在於，西方社會依然囿於消費時代。與100年前相比，我們現在要富有得多得多，但工作時間的降幅卻比生產率的增幅小不少，我們的消費規模比以往任何時候都大。我們似乎不會說"適可而止"這個詞。這是爲什麼呢？

One starting point to answering this question might be Keynes' futuristic essayEconomic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, published in 1930. In this essay he predicted that by now we would only need to work 15 hours a week "to satisfy the old Adam in us". The rest would be leisure time. What did he get wrong?

要回答這一問題，可能需要從凱恩斯發表於1930年的未來派著作《我們子孫後代的經濟可能性》(Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren)說起。凱恩斯在這一著作中預言，到現在這個時候我們每週只需工作15小時"來滿足我們的本能需求"，剩下的則是休閒時間。他的預言到底錯在哪裏？

We can concede straight away that the earlier economists, taking their cue from the privations around them, suffered from a certain poverty of imagination. They thought in terms of quantities: you can eat only so much food, have so many pairs of shoes, live in so many houses, drive so many cars. They failed to allow for continued improvement in the quality of goods, which stimulates the appetite for serial consumption, and so keeps up the hours of work.

我們當然可以承認，早期經濟學家的思路受當時物質產品匱乏的限制，在某種程度上缺乏想象力。他們是從數量上考慮問題：你只能吃這麼多食物，穿這麼多鞋，住這麼多房子，開這麼多汽車。他們未能考慮到商品質量的持續改善，而這種改善會刺激持續消費的慾望，使得人們無法減少工作時間。

But we must not concede too much under this head. Many improvements are negligible and, even when positive, consumers are constantly seduced by advertisers into over-estimating their benefits – as with the wonderful effects of all those innovative financial products.

但我們決不能認爲全部答案就在於此。許多改善其實無足輕重，即便有些改善有積極作用，消費者也往往會被廣告商忽悠得高估了它們的益處——比如那種種金融創新產品的神奇效果。

A more serious charge is that many of the older generation of economists underestimated insatiability. Having more seems to make us want more, or different. This is partly because we are by nature restless and easily bored. But it is mainly because wants are relative, not absolute: the grass is always greener on the other side. The richer we become, the more we feel our relative poverty.

更爲嚴肅的解釋是，許多老一輩的經濟學家低估了人類貪得無厭的本性。我們擁有得越多，似乎就越想要更多的東西，越想要我們手中沒有的東西。這在一定程度上歸因於我們躁動和容易喜新厭舊的天性。但主要原因是，需要是相對的，而非絕對的：總是這山望着那山高。我們越有錢，就越覺得比別人窮。

There is a third factor, however, for which the earlier economists can't really be blamed. They were not egalitarians, but they did think that growing prosperity would lift up all boats. They did not foresee that the rich would race ahead of everyone else, capturing most of the fruits of increased productivity. (Karl Marx is the main exception here.)

然而，這裏面還有第三個原因，而這個原因不能完全歸咎於早期的經濟學家。他們並非平等主義者，但他們的確認爲，只有不斷髮展經濟，才能讓所有人過上好日子。他們沒有預判到，富人會跑贏其他所有人，將生產率提高的絕大部分果實收入囊中。（在對這個問題的預判上，卡爾•馬克思(Karl Marx)是個明顯的例外。）

The result has been to leave big holes in our consumption society. A lot of people still do not have enough for a good life. In Britain, 13m households, 21 per cent of the total, live below the official poverty line. There is a lot of underconsumption going on relative to what society is producing. Earlier socialists called it "poverty in the midst of plenty".

結果就是，我們的消費社會出現了巨大的漏洞。許多人仍沒有足夠的財富過上好日子。在英國，1300萬百姓生活在官方制定的貧困線之下，佔到總人口的21%。與社會產出相比，社會消費明顯不足。早期的社會主義者將此稱爲"豐裕中的貧困"。