Look around you. From your drone home delivery to that oncoming driverless car, change seems to be accelerating. Warren Buffett, the great investor, promises that our children’s generation will be the “luckiest crop in history”.

环顾你的周围。从无人机递送到家服务，到即将问世的无人驾驶汽车，变化似乎正在加速。伟大投资家沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)承诺，我们孩子那一代人将是“历史上最幸运的一群人”。

Everywhere the world is speeding up except, that is, in the productivity numbers. This year, for the first time in more than 30 years, US productivity growth will almost certainly turn negative following a decade of sharp slowdown. Yet our Fitbits seem to be telling us otherwise. Which should we trust — the economic statistics or our own lying eyes?

世界上的一切都在加速，唯独生产率数字是个例外。继10年大幅放缓之后，今年美国的生产率几乎肯定将出现30多年来首次负增长。不过， Fitbit（可穿戴健身追踪器）似乎告诉了我们不同的情况。经济统计数据和我们自己会说谎的眼睛，我们应该相信哪一个？

A lot hinges on the answer. Productivity is the ultimate test of our ability to create wealth. In the short term you can boost growth by working longer hours, for example, or importing more people. Or you could lift the retirement age. After a while these options lose steam.

许多事情要取决于这个问题的答案。生产率是对我们创造财富能力的终极考验。比如说，短期而言，你可以通过延长工作时间或者输入更多人员来提振增长。或者，你可以提高退休年龄。一段时间过后，这些做法就会失去效果。

Unless we become smarter at how we work, growth will start to exhaust itself too.

除非我们的工作方法变得更智能，否则增长本身也将开始失去势头。

Other measures bear out the pessimists. At just over 2 per cent, US trend growth is barely half the level it was a generation ago. As Paul Krugman put it: “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.”

其他衡量指标也支持悲观者。当前美国的趋势增长率略高于2%，勉强达到一代人以前水平的一半。正如保罗•克鲁格曼(Paul Krugman)所说：“生产率并非一切，但从长远看，它几乎就是一切。”

It is possible we are simply mismeasuring things. Some economists believe the statistics fail to capture the utility of setting up a Facebook profile, for example, or downloading free information from Wikipedia. The gig economy has yet to be properly valued. Yet this argument cuts both ways. Productivity is calculated by dividing the value of what we produce by how many hours we work — data provided by employers. But recent studies — and common sense — say our iPhones chain us to our employers even when we are at leisure. We may thus be exaggerating productivity growth by undercounting how much we work.

可能我们衡量事物的方法是错误的。比如，有些经济学家认为，统计数据没法衡量在Facebook上建立一个个人主页或者从维基百科(Wikipedia)获取免费信息的效用。“零工经济”(gig economy)尚未得到正确的评价。不过，这一观点在两个方向上都站得住脚。我们用产值除以工作时间（雇主提供的数据）计算出生产率。但近来的研究——以及常识——表明，即便在休息时间，iPhone也把我们跟雇主捆绑到了一起。因此，我们或许少计了工作时间，从而夸大了生产率增速。

The latter certainly fits with the experience of most of the US labour force. It is no coincidence that since 2004 a majority of Americans began to tell pollsters they expected their children to be worse off — the same year in which the internet-fuelled productivity leaps of the 1990s started to vanish. Most Americans have suffered from indifferent or declining wages in the past 15 years or so. A college graduate’s starting salary today is in real terms well below where it was in 2000. For the first time the next generation of US workers will be less educated than the previous, according to the OECD, which means worse is probably yet to come. Last week’s US productivity report bears that out.

后一种情况肯定跟大多数美国雇员的经验相吻合。并非偶然的是，自2004年以来，大多数美国人开始告诉民意测验机构，他们预计自己的孩子会过得更糟糕——同样在2004年，1990年代互联网推动的生产率大幅增长开始失去势头。过去15年左右，多数美国人的工资停滞不前，甚至有所降低。如今，大学毕业生的实际起薪远低于2000年的水平。经合组织(OECD)数据显示，下一代美国工人的受教育程度将低于上一代工人，这是首次出现的情况。这意味着，更糟糕的局面还在前面。美国上周公布的生产率报告证明了这一点。

It is also possible we are on the cusp of a renaissance — we just don’t yet see it. The economist, Robert Solow, quipped: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics”. That was in 1987. A few years later the computer age showed up in big numbers. By the same token, we may be on the cusp of reaping the benefit of artificial intelligence, personalised medicine or take your pick. This may better fit our own fevered imaginations. Or it could be a chimera.

我们也可能正处于复兴的前夜——我们只是尚未看到。经济学家罗伯特•索洛(Robert Solow)曾嘲讽地说：“你到处都可以看到计算机时代，唯独在生产率统计数据中看不到。”那是1987年的事。几年之后，计算机时代带动生产率大幅提升。同样，我们或许也正处于收获人工智能(AI)、个性化医药或者其他技术突破的效益的前夜。或许这跟我们自己的狂热想象更为吻合。抑或这可能是个幻想。

Until then, the US and most of the west are stuck with a deepening productivity crisis. The slowdown has one manifest effect and a seductive remedy. The first, an embittered backlash against business as usual, is already upon us. Witness Donald Trump’s ascent. Most of his proposed cures for middle America’s anguish are worse than the disease. Shutting down immigration and erecting trade barriers would subtract from US growth. Likewise, it is hard to think of a bigger waste of resources than another budget-busting tax cut for the highest earners. Yet his popularity is clearly fuelled by economic frustration.

在那样的美景成为现实之前，美国和大部分西方国家正陷入一种不断加深的生产率危机。生产率放缓有一个明显的后果，还有一个诱人的补救措施。前一个，也就是针对现状的愤怒反弹，已出现在我们眼前。看看唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的崛起。他对美国中产阶级苦闷开出的多数处方比疾病本身更糟糕。阻止移民进入和竖起贸易壁垒，都将损害美国的经济增长。同样，不顾预算需要而再次对收入最高人群减税，很难想象还有什么做法比这更浪费资源了。然而，经济上的挫折感显然助推着他的人气。

One or two of Mr Trump’s ideas, such as investing heavily in US infrastructure, would be helpful. Indeed, at a time like this, it is all but a given — and a rare point of agreement with Hillary Clinton. Research shows that a growing share of US growth is created in small number of hyper-connected, urban hubs, such as Los Angeles and the corridor between Boston and New York. Steps that would better link America’s urban boomlands to the large economic backwaters around them would help spread growth more widely. Such projects would take time to bear fruit. Yet it is worth sticking to that “hunger games” image for a moment.

特朗普的一两个主张，比如大举投资于美国基础设施，将是有益的。的确，在当今这样的时刻，这几乎是板上钉钉的事情，也是特朗普与希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)之间难得的共识。研究表明，美国经济增长有越来越大的一部分是在少量超连结的城市枢纽创造出来的，比如洛杉矶以及波士顿与纽约之间的走廊。将帮助美国的都市繁荣地带更好地与其周围大片经济不景气地区联接起来的措施，将有助于把增长扩展到更广范围。这类项目将需要时间才能结出果实。不过，在一段时间内坚持那种“饥饿游戏”形象是值得的。

Imagine the US takes much the same course in the next ten years as it has over the last. That would mean a further corrosion of US infrastructure, continued relative decline in the quality of public education, and atrophying middle workforce skills. It would also hasten the breakaway of urban America’s most gilded enclaves, further enriching the educated elites. It could also, quite possibly, trigger a breakdown in democratic order. If you think Mr Trump’s rise is ominous, picture America after another decade like the last.

想象一下，美国在未来10年所走的路线跟过去10年基本相同。那将意味着，美国基础设施进一步老化、公共教育质量相对继续衰落，以及中产工人技能继续退化。那也将意味着，美国都市最富有的孤立地区将加速脱颖而出，受过教育的精英会更加富有。这很可能引发民主秩序的崩溃。如果你认为特朗普的崛起是不祥之兆，那么想象一下美国如果不改变路线，10年后会是什么景象。

Which brings me to the remedy: a universal basic income. UBI has several plus points. It draws support from all parts of the ideological spectrum: libertarian and socialist alike. It would replace today’s messy overlap of benefits and do away with the humiliation of proving your eligibility to federal bureaucrats. Most important of all, however, it would buy a measure of social peace. Today’s stagnation may be temporary or lasting. We have no way of telling. Common sense dictates we must act as though it is here to stay.

这让我想到了解决方案：普遍基本收入。普遍基本收入有几条优势。它会获得持有各种意识形态者的支持：从自由意志主义者和社会主义者都不例外。它将取代当今各种混乱、重叠的福利，消除向联邦官僚证明自己合格的屈辱。但最重要的是，它将“买到”一定程度的社会安宁。如今的停滞或许是暂时的，或许会旷日持久。我们无从判断。常识要求我们在假定它会持续下去的情况下采取行动。