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对抗习得性无助

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发表于 2011-6-11 13:24:57 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式

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来源Against Learned Helplessness - NYTimescom
译者韵S秋

Against Learned Helplessness

对抗习得性无助

Unemployment is a terrible scourge across much of the Western world. Almost 14 million Americans are jobless, and millions more are stuck with part-time work or jobs that fail to use their skills. Some European countries have it even worse: 21 percent of Spanish workers are unemployed.

失业是西方社会中普遍存在的一个可怕祸患。在美国，大约一千四百万人没有工作，还有数百万的人正在做兼职工作或坚持在与自己所掌握的技能无关的岗位上。一些欧洲国家的情况则更糟：在西班牙，21%的工人都处于失业状态。

Nor is the situation showing rapid improvement. This is a continuing tragedy, and in a rational world bringing an end to this tragedy would be our top economic priority.

这种情形并没有快速好转的趋势。这是个持久不断的悲剧。在这个理性的世界中，给这场悲剧画上句号应是我们的第一经济要务。

Yet a strange thing has happened to policy discussion: on both sides of the Atlantic, a consensus has emerged among movers and shakers that nothing can or should be done about jobs. Instead of a determination to do something about the ongoing suffering and economic waste, one sees a proliferation of excuses for inaction, garbed in the language of wisdom and responsibility.

然而，在决策讨论时却出现了一个奇怪的现象：大西洋两岸的权威人士一致认为，在就业问题上，没有什么可以或应该做的。他们不下决心去做些什么来缓解人们正在遭受的痛苦以及经济浪费，反而为自己的不作为找各种各样的借口，并且认为他们的决策是明智且负责的。

So someone needs to say the obvious: inventing reasons not to put the unemployed back to work is neither wise nor responsible. It is, instead, a grotesque abdication of responsibility.

那么就得有人去挑明，去说明不把失业人员重新安置到工作岗位上不仅仅是既不明智也不负责的作法，还是推卸责任的荒诞行为。

What kinds of excuses am I talking about? Well, consider last week’s release of the latest report on the economic outlook by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D. The O.E.C.D. is basically an intergovernmental think tank; while it has no direct ability to set policy, what it says reflects the conventional wisdom of Europe’s policy elite.

他们找的是什么样的借口呢？可以看看上周经济与合作发展组织（简称经合组织）发布的最新经济前景报告。从根本上来说，经合组织是一个GV间的智囊团。它没有制定政策的直接权利，但它的说法能够反应欧洲的决策精英们的传统观点。

So what did the O.E.C.D. have to say about high unemployment in its member countries? “The room for macroeconomic policies to address these complex challenges is largely exhausted,” declared the organization’s secretary general, who called on countries instead to “go structural” — that is, to focus on long-run reforms that would have little impact on the current employment situation.

那么，经合组织对其成员国出现的高失业率有什么说法呢？“宏观经济政策已经几乎没有能力去解决这些复杂的问题了”经合组织秘书长宣称。他号召各国“从结构上着手”，也就是说，集中精力于长期的改革。这种做法对现有糟糕的就业形势是毫无帮助的。

And how do we know that there’s no room for policies to put the unemployed back to work? The secretary general didn’t say — and the report itself never even suggests possible solutions to the employment crisis. All it does is highlight the risks, as it sees them, of any departure from orthodox policy.

我们怎么知道在让失业者重新获得工作上面已经没有政策可发挥的空间了呢？秘书长没有说，报告本身也从未提过应对就业危机的可能解决方案，只是一再强调偏离传统政策的风险有多大。

But then, who is talking seriously about job creation these days? Not the Republican Party, unless you count its ritual calls for tax cuts and deregulation. Not the Obama administration, which more or less dropped the subject a year and a half ago.

那么，今天是谁在义正言辞地说要提供就业机会的呢？不是共和党人，除非你把他们那装模作样地呼吁减税和撤销管制规定的举动当真；也不是奥巴马GV，差不多一年半前他们已经不再讨论这个话题了。

The fact that nobody in power is talking about jobs does not mean, however, that nothing could be done.

没有掌权人谈论就业问题并不意味着我们什么也做不了。

Bear in mind that the unemployed aren’t jobless because they don’t want to work, or because they lack the necessary skills. There’s nothing wrong with our workers — remember, just four years ago the unemployment rate was below 5 percent.

要知道，人们失业并不是因为他们不想工作，也不是因为他们缺乏必需的技能。我们的劳动者并没有什么问题——要记得，仅在四年前，失业率还低于5%！

The core of our economic problem is, instead, the debt — mainly mortgage debt — that households ran up during the bubble years of the last decade. Now that the bubble has burst, that debt is acting as a persistent drag on the economy, preventing any real recovery in employment. And once you realize that the overhang of private debt is the problem, you realize that there are a number of things that could be done about it.

我们经济问题的核心是债务问题，主要是人们在最近十年泡沫时期所积欠的抵押负债太多。现在泡沫已经破灭，债务却还在持续地拖延着经济的发展，使得就业市场得不到真正的复苏。一旦意识到私人债务的积压是个问题，那么我们就可以采取很多方法去解决它。

For example, we could have W.P.A.-type programs putting the unemployed to work doing useful things like repairing roads — which would also, by raising incomes, make it easier for households to pay down debt. We could have a serious program of mortgage modification, reducing the debts of troubled homeowners. We could try to get inflation back up to the 4 percent rate that prevailed during Ronald Reagan’s second term, which would help to reduce the real burden of debt.

比如说，我们可以采取“公共事业振兴署”类型的方案，使失业人员重新上岗，做一些像修路这样的有益的工作；可以提高人们的收入，使普通家庭偿还债务变得容易些；可以制定修改抵押贷款政策的紧急计划，减轻困难房主的债务负担；我们还可以使通货膨胀率重新上升到罗纳德?里根第二个任期所盛行的4%，这样才能真正地减轻人们的债务负担。

So there are policies we could be pursuing to bring unemployment down. These policies would be unorthodox — but so are the economic problems we face. And those who warn about the risks of action must explain why these risks should worry us more than the certainty of continued mass suffering if we do nothing.

所以说我们还是可以制定一些政策去降低失业率的。这些政策会是反传统的——我们所面临的经济问题又何尝不是呢？那些警告大家采取措施会有风险的人必须说明，为什么我们要更加担心未知的风险而不是去担心什么都不做的情况下，人们必定会遭受的持续煎熬。

In pointing out that we could be doing much more about unemployment, I recognize, of course, the political obstacles to actually pursuing any of the policies that might work. In the United States, in particular, any effort to tackle unemployment will run into a stone wall of Republican opposition. Yet that’s not a reason to stop talking about the issue. In fact, looking back at my own writings over the past year or so, it’s clear that I too have sinned: political realism is all very well, but I have said far too little about what we really should be doing to deal with our most important problem.

当然，在指出我们可以就失业问题做出更多的努力的同时，我也意识到，采取任何可能有效的措施都可能会遇到**上的障碍。尤其是在美国，任何解决失业问题的尝试都会面临共和党的坚决反对。但是，这不构成我们不谈失业问题的理由。事实上，当我回看自己过去几年所写的文章时，我很清楚地发现自己也有过失：**现实主义是很好，但是对于我们应当做点什么来处理最重要的问题却提的太少。

As I see it, policy makers are sinking into a condition of learned helplessness on the jobs issue: the more they fail to do anything about the problem, the more they convince themselves that there’s nothing they could do. And those of us who know better should be doing all we can to break that vicious circle.

就我看来，决策者在就业问题上正陷入一种习得性无助状态：在处理这个问题上，他们失败的次数越多，就越认为自己什么也做不了。因此，我们这些更了解情况的局外人应该尽我们的所能去打破这个恶性循环。

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