美國企業是全球化的主宰者

At a in dinner in Silicon Valley in 2011, President Barack Obama is reported to have asked Steve Jobs what it would take for Apple to employ Americans in America to make iPhones. With characteristic candour, Mr Jobs replied: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

據報道，2011年在硅谷的一場晚宴上，時任美國總統巴拉克?奧巴馬(Barack Obama)問史蒂夫?喬布斯(Steve Jobs)，蘋果(Apple)怎樣纔會在美國僱用美國人生產iPhone。喬布斯以自己特有的直率回答道：“那些工作不會回來了。”

In that one comment he was making three points that President Donald Trump might consider as he wends his curious way between deregulation and protectionism, between slashing taxes to liberate business and a heavy-handed industrial policy.

這句話中所表達出的三層意思，現任美國總統唐納德?特朗普(President Donald)或許應當考慮。目前，特朗普正在“去監管”與保護主義之間、在減稅以解除企業包袱與高壓的產業政策之間走一條不同尋常的道路。

The first point was that politicians had to stop kidding themselves about bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. Some may return, but never on the scale of the post-second world war years. Brains and busywork have replaced brawn. The vision of the American worker has gone from the great, sinewy He-Men of Thomas Hart Benton’s murals, heaving rocks and pounding metal, to Google programmers and the office-park slackers of Workaholics.

第一點是，政治家們別再欺騙自己，說什麼可以讓製造業就業崗位回到美國。部分就業崗位可能回到美國，但絕不會有二戰後那樣的規模。腦力和瑣碎工作取代了體力勞動。美國工人的形象已經從托馬斯?哈特?本頓(Thomas Hart Benton)壁畫中身形偉岸、肌肉發達、舉石錘鐵的硬漢，變爲谷歌(Google)的程序員和情景喜劇《工作狂》(Workaholics)中那些上班像逛公園一樣閒散的員工。

Mr Jobs’ second point was that outsourcing was no longer just a hunt for the lowest possible cost. The best plants in Shenzhen had shot up the learning curve, to become the best of their kind at any price. Even if Apple were to build a plant in America and pay American workers American wages, it would take a long time to manufacture with the speed, precision and flexibility the company could achieve with its partners in China. And that is to assume the Chinese stopped getting better.

喬布斯話中的第二點意思是，外包不再只是儘可能尋找最低成本。深圳最好的工廠快速拉昇了學習曲線，不惜一切代價要成爲同行中的翹楚。即便蘋果在美國建廠、向美國工人發美國水平的工資，也需要很長時間才能達到其在中國與合作伙伴所能達到的製造速度、精度和靈活性。這還是在假定中國合作伙伴不再提升水平的情況下。

And the third was that the best US companies had become brilliant at managing across borders and directing resources to where they generate the highest returns. They weren’t victims of globalisation. They were its masters and had become less and less American.

第三點是，最優秀的美國企業已非常擅長跨國界管理以及將資源配置至可產生最高收益的地區。他們不是全球化的受害者。他們是全球化的主宰者，而且變得越來越“去美國化”。

In 1990, the economist Robert Reich published an article titled “Who Is Us?” He argued that the success of US-owned corporations and American competitiveness were the same thing. Business was off plundering new markets and employing tens of thousands of foreign workers. Meanwhile, foreign companies, notably the Japanese, were investing in American plants and factories, hiring American workers, and teaching their American rivals how to be more productive. Foreigners were driving American competitiveness, while Americans were off seeking higher returns on capital overseas. So to his question “who is us?” Mr Reich answered: “The American workforce, the American people, but not particularly the American corporation.” And this was several years before the North American Free Trade Agreement.

1990年，羅伯特?賴克(Robert Reich)發表了一篇題爲《我們是誰？》(Who Is Us?)的文章。他認爲，美國企業的成功與美國的競爭力是一回事。美國企業不再搶奪新市場，不再僱用數以萬計的外籍工人。與此同時，外國公司（尤其是日本公司）在美國投資建廠、僱用美國工人，教美國競爭對手如何提高生產效率。外國人推動了美國競爭力的提升，而美國人不再在海外尋求更高的資本收益。因此，對於他的“我們是誰？”這個問題，賴克回答道：“我們是美國勞動力、美國人，但不見得是美國企業。”那時距《北美自由貿易協定》(North American Free Trade Agreement)簽訂還有好幾年。

These decades of multinational shape-shifting have made America’s largest corporations easy prey for an economic nationalist. Ford, for example, has 199,000 employees worldwide, of whom only 48 per cent are in America. Apple has about 66,000 employees in the US yet is reported to have had almost five times that number working on making a single version of the iPhone at its Chinese supplier, Hon Hai.

這幾十年來，美國大企業朝着跨國公司的形式轉變，使它們很容易成爲經濟民族主義者的攻擊目標。例如，福特(Ford)在全球擁有19.9萬名員工，其中只有48%是在美國。蘋果在美國擁有約6.6萬名員工，但據稱在蘋果的中國供應商鴻海(Hon Hai)，生產一款iPhone的工人就幾乎是這一數字的五倍。

If one accepts Milton Friedman’s argument that a corporation’s sole responsibility is to its owners, then one cannot find fault with these multinationals. They plant their flag where the money is. Their shareholders don’t want them playing the “Star Spangled Banner” in the boardroom. And while they may not directly be investing in American workers, they are generating returns for US investors who can reallocate their capital as they see fit. Mr Trump has done precisely this with his own business, investing in property deals far beyond US shores.

如果你接受米爾頓?弗裏德曼(Milton Friedman)的觀點，即一家公司唯獨需要向其所有者負責，那你就挑不出這些跨國公司有什麼錯。哪兒能賺錢他們就上哪兒。股東們不希望他們在董事會會議室奏響美國國歌。雖然他們或許沒有直接在美國工人身上投資，但他們在爲美國投資者帶來回報，而後者可以將資本再配置到自己認爲合適的地方。特朗普在自己名下的企業中就是這樣做的，在遠離美國的地方從事房地產交易。

But this is a fragile argument and Mr Trump is gleefully smashing it to pieces. He knows you cannot respond to stagnant wages and economic insecurity among the working and middle classes with the crystalline logic of a Nobel-winning economist. And he is threatening to perp walk before the press any companies that disappoint him.

但這一論點不太有力，特朗普正得意地將它撕成碎片。他知道，你無法用一名諾貝爾經濟學獎得主的清晰邏輯來應對中產工薪階層工資增長停滯及經濟上缺乏保障的問題。他威脅要讓任何令他失望的企業在媒體上曝光。

The other problem for US multinationals is the 2004 Homeland Investment Act, which gave companies a tax break if they repatriated foreign income. The government told them they were being given this on the condition they invested in R&D and worker training. They were not to hand it all out to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. Guess what happened next?

美國跨國公司面臨的另一個問題是2004年的《本土投資法案》(Homeland Investment Act)，該法案規定企業將海外收入匯回國內可享受稅收減免。美國政府告訴他們，只要他們投資研發和員工培訓，就可以享受減免。他們沒有通過派息和股票回購將海外利潤全部分給股東。猜猜接下來發生了什麼？

The problem was the “fungibility of money”. Once companies brought their foreign money home and ran it through the accounts, it became a shell game. The government couldn’t keep track of which money was what, and where overseas funds were going. Shareholders got somewhere between 62 and 90 cents of every dollar repatriated.

問題在於“金錢的可替代性”。企業將海外資金匯回國內並通過國內賬目來管理之後，這就和變戲法一樣了。政府無法跟蹤哪些資金屬於什麼性質，海外資金去了哪裏。股東可以從匯回的每一美元中得到約62至90美分。

Today, US companies are holding an estimated $1tn or so in cash overseas. If they were given another opportunity to bring it home, chances are the same thing would happen again.

如今，美國企業在海外擁有約1萬億美元現金。如果他們再有機會將這些現金匯回國內，很可能還會發生同樣的事情。

For global companies, patriotism can be stimulated with incentives like tax breaks, or threats like tariffs, but it is not a natural state of mind. Capital hasn’t been scarce these past few years. If businesses saw more value in investing in American workers, they could easily have done so. But they would rather wait for robots.

對跨國公司而言，愛國主義可以通過像減免稅這樣的激勵政策或者徵收關稅之類的威脅激發出來，但這並非一種自然心態。近幾年資本並不稀缺。如果企業認爲在美國工人身上投資更有價值，它們很可能已經這樣做了。但它們寧可等待機器人。

The writer is author of ‘What They Teach You at Harvard Business School’

本文作者著有《在哈佛商學院他們教你什麼》(What They Teach You at Harvard Business School)一書