不好好工作還能做點什麼?

Three hours a day is quite enough,” wrote John Maynard Keynes in his 1930 essay Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. The essay continues to tantalise its readers today, thanks in part to a forecast that is looking magnificently right — that in advanced economies people could be up to eight times better off in 2030 than in 1930 — coupled with a forecast that is looking spectacularly wrong, that we would be working 15-hour weeks.

約翰•梅納德•凱恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)曾在1930年的一篇短文《我們子孫後代的經濟可能性》(Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren)中寫道：“每天3小時就足夠了。”這篇短文現在仍吸引着讀者，部分原因是一項看上去極其正確的預測：到2030年，發達經濟體國民的富裕程度可能會達到1930年的8倍，還有一項看上去極其錯誤的預測：我們將每週工作15小時。

In 2008, economists Lorenzo Pecchi and Gustavo Piga edited a book in which celebrated economists pondered Keynes’s essay. One contributor, Benjamin Friedman of Harvard University, has recently revisited the question of what Keynes got wrong, and produced a thought-provoking answer.

2008年，經濟學家洛倫佐•佩基(Lorenzo Pecchi)和古斯塔沃•皮加(Gustavo Piga)編輯了一本書，在書中，一些知名經濟學家對凱恩斯的這篇短文進行了探討。撰稿人之一、哈佛大學(Harvard University)教授本傑明•弗裏德曼(Benjamin Friedman)最近重新提到了凱恩斯預測錯的那個問題，並提出了一個發人深省的答案。

First, it is worth teasing out the nature and extent of Keynes’s error. He was right to predict that we would be working less. We enter the workforce later, after long and not-always-arduous courses of study. We enjoy longer retirements. The work week itself is getting shorter. In non-agricultural employment in the US, the week was 69 hours in 1830 — the equivalent of working 11 hours a day but only three hours on Sundays. By 1930, a full-time work week was 47 hours; each decade, American workers were working two hours less every week.

首先，我們有必要探究一下凱恩斯錯誤的性質和程度。他預測我們的工作時間將變少，這是對的。如今的人們在經過漫長（且不總是勤奮）的學習後才進入職場。我們享受着更長的退休階段。每週工作時間在縮短。1830年，在美國非農業部門，人們每週工作69小時，相當於每天工作11個小時，只是週日工作3小時。到1930年，全職員工的每週工作時間爲47小時；每10年，美國勞動者每週的工作時間會減少兩小時。

But Keynes overestimated how rapidly and for how long that trend would continue. By 1970 the work week was down to 39 hours. If the work week had continued to shrink, we would be working 30-hour weeks by now, and perhaps 25-hour weeks by 2030. But by around 1970, the slacking-off stopped. Why?

但凱恩斯高估了這一趨勢持續的速度和時間。到1970年，每週工作時間降至39小時。如果每週工作時間繼續減少的話，我們現在的每週工作時間將達到30個小時，到2030年將達到25個小時。但是，到了1970年前後，這種縮減趨勢停止了。爲什麼呢？

One natural response is that people are never satisfied: perhaps their desire to consume can be inflamed by advertisers; perhaps it is just that one must always have a better car, a sharper suit, and a more tasteful kitchen than the neighbours. Since the neighbours are also getting richer, nothing about this process allows anyone to take time off.

一個自然的迴應是人們永遠不會感到滿足：或許廣告商們燃起了他們的消費慾望；或許只是因爲人們永遠希望擁有比鄰居更好的車、更搶眼的西裝以及更有品位的廚房。由於鄰居們也在變得更富有，因此這個過程不允許任何人休息。

No doubt there is much in this. But Friedman takes a different angle. Rather than asking how Keynes could have been so right about income but so wrong about leisure, Friedman points out that Keynes might not have been quite so on the mark about income as we usually assume. For while the US economy grew briskly until the crisis of 2007, median household incomes started stagnating long before then — around 1970, in fact.

確實，這很有道理。但弗裏德曼有着不同的視角。他沒有問凱恩斯爲何猜對了收入卻猜錯了人們的休閒時間，而是指出，凱恩斯對於收入的看法可能不像我們通常認爲的那樣正確。儘管在2007年金融危機之前，美國經濟增長不俗，但家庭收入中值早在那之前就開始停滯了，實際上是在1970年前後。

The gap between the growth of the economy and the growth of median household incomes is explained by a patchwork of factors, including a change in the nature of households themselves, with more income being diverted to healthcare costs, and an increasing share of income accruing to the highest earners. In short, perhaps progress towards the 15-hour work week has stalled because the typical US household’s income has stalled too. Household incomes started to stagnate at the same time as the work week stopped shrinking.

一些形形色色的因素可以解釋經濟增速與家庭收入中值增速之間的差距，包括家庭本身性質的變化，更多收入轉向醫療成本，收入最高者在總收入中所佔份額越來越高。簡言之，朝着每週15小時工作制發展的過程之所以停滯，或許是因爲美國典型家庭的收入也陷入停滯。家庭收入開始停滯的同時，每週工作時間停止縮短。

This idea makes good sense but it does not explain what is happening to higher earners. Since their incomes have not stagnated — far from it — one might expect them to be taking some of the benefits of very high hourly earnings in the form of shorter days and longer weekends. Not so. According to research published by economists Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst in 2006 — a nice snapshot of life before the great recession — higher earners were enjoying less leisure.

這種看法很有道理，但它沒有解釋收入較高者的行爲是怎麼回事。既然他們的收入並沒有停滯（遠非如此），因此人們可能會預測，他們會以減少工作時間和延長週末的形式，享受高薪所帶來的實惠。實情並非如此。根據經濟學家馬克•阿吉亞爾(Mark Aguiar)和埃裏克•赫斯特(Erik Hurst) 2006年發表的一項研究，收入更高者享受的空閒時間減少。該研究是對“大衰退”之前生活的精彩“快照”。

So the puzzle has taken a different shape. Ordinary people have been enjoying some measure of both the income gains and the leisure gains that Keynes predicted — but rather less of both than we might have hoped.

因此，這個難解之謎呈現出了不同的形態。普通人像凱恩斯預測的那樣享受着收入增長和空閒時間增加這兩方面的好處，但程度都不及我們的預期。

The economic elites, meanwhile, continue to embody a paradox: all the income gains that Keynes expected and more, but limited leisure.

與此同時，經濟精英們繼續體現出一個悖論：實現凱恩斯預測的全部收入增長、但空閒時間更有限。

The likely reason for that is that, in many careers, it’s hard to break through to the top echelons without putting in long hours. It is not easy to make it to the C-suite on a 20-hour week, no matter how talented one is. And because the income distribution is highly skewed, the stakes are high: working 70 hours a week like it’s 1830 all over again may put you on track for a six-figure bonus, while working 35 hours a week may put you on track for the scrapheap.

可能的原因是，在很多職業中，我們很難在不投入長時間工作的情況下升至企業高層。你很難通過每週工作20小時就進入公司管理層，不管你有多麼優秀。由於收入分配高度傾斜，這方面的選擇事關重大：每週工作70小時（就像又回到1830年）可能會讓你有望賺到6位數年薪，而每週工作35小時，可能會讓你淪爲沒出息的人。

The consequences of all this can emerge in unexpected places. As a recent research paper by economists Lena Edlund, Cecilia Machado and Maria Micaela Sviatschi points out, urban centres in the US were undesirable places to live in the late 1970s and early 1980s. People paid a premium to live in the suburbs and commuted in to the city centres to work. The situation is now reversed. Why? The answer, suggest Edlund and her colleagues, is that affluent people don’t have time to commute any more. They’ll pay more for cramped city-centre apartments if by doing so they can save time.

這一切的後果可能出現在意想不到的地方。正如經濟學家萊納•埃德隆德(Lena Edlund)、塞西莉•馬沙多(Cecilia Machado)和瑪麗亞•米凱拉•斯維亞特奇(Maria Micaela Sviatschi)最近所著的一篇研究論文所指出的那樣，上世紀70年代末和80年代初，美國城市中心成爲不適宜居住的地方。人們花高價住在郊區，每天通勤來到城市中心上班。如今情況已逆轉。爲什麼？埃德隆德和她的同事們認爲，答案是富人不再有時間通勤了。如果他們可以省下時間的話，他們寧願付出更高價格，住在相對狹小的市中心公寓裏。

If there is a limited supply of city-centre apartments, and your affluent colleagues are snapping them up, what on earth can you do? Work harder. Homes such as Keynes’s elegant town house in Bloomsbury now cost millions of pounds. Three hours a day is not remotely enough.

如果市中心公寓的供應有限，而你的富裕同事們在競相搶購的話，你到底能做什麼？更努力地工作吧。像凱恩斯位於布盧姆斯伯裏的優雅別墅那樣的房子現在要幾百萬英鎊。每天工作3小時是絕對不夠的。