Memo: From Nick Hanauer
备忘录来自尼克-哈瑙尔
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
致各位亿万富翁

You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough—and that time wasn’t far off—people were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filene’s. And Borders. And on and on.
你可能不认识我，但和你一样，我也是那些0.01%的人中的一员，我是一个自豪而毫不掩饰的资本家。我创办、联合创办和资助了 30 多家公司，涉及多个行业--从像我 20 多岁时创办的夜总会这样的小公司，到像亚马逊公司这样的大公司，我是亚马逊公司的第一位非家族投资者。之后，我创立了一家互联网广告公司 aQuantive，该公司于 2007 年以 64 亿美元的价格卖给了微软。现金。我和我的朋友们还拥有一家银行。我告诉你们这些，是想说明，在很多方面，我和你们没有什么不同。和你们一样，我对商业和资本主义有着广阔的视野。和你们一样，我也因为成功而获得了丰厚的回报，过上了其他 99.99% 的美国人根本无法想象的生活。多套住房、自己的飞机，等等等等。你知道我在说什么。1992 年，我还在向全国各地的零售店销售家族企业太平洋海岸羽绒公司生产的枕头，而互联网还是个笨重的新玩意儿，人们只能用 300 波特的高音来连接它。但我很快就发现，即使在当时，我的许多客户--大型连锁百货公司--也已经完蛋了。我知道，只要互联网变得足够快、足够可信，人们就会疯狂地在网上购物，而这个时间并不遥远。再见了，卡尔多。还有费林百货。还有 Borders。等等等等。

Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. One was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. It just happened that the second Jeff—Bezos—called me back first to take up my investment offer. So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea; people just weren’t yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which don’t vary in quality—Bezos’ great insight). Cybershop didn’t make it, just another dot-com bust. Amazon did somewhat better. Now I own a very large yacht.
意识到这一点，比别人更快地看到地平线的另一端，是我成功的战略部分。幸运的是，我有两个朋友，他们都才华横溢，也看到了网络的巨大潜力。一个是你可能从未听说过的杰夫-陶伯（Jeff Tauber），另一个是杰夫-贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）。我被网络的潜力深深地吸引住了，于是我告诉这两位杰夫，无论他们推出什么项目，我都想投资，而且是大手笔投资。碰巧的是，第二个杰夫-贝索斯先给我回了电话，接受了我的投资提议。于是，我帮他包下了他刚起步的小书店。另一位杰夫创办了一家名为 Cybershop 的网络百货商店，但当时人们对网络销售的信任度还很低，他的高端网络想法还为时过早；人们还没有准备好在不亲自查看的情况下购买昂贵的商品（不像书籍这样的基本商品，质量不会有差异--这正是贝索斯的高见）。Cybershop 没有成功，只是又一家网络公司破产了。亚马逊做得更好一些。现在，我拥有一艘很大的游艇。

But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
但让我们彼此坦诚相见吧。我不是你见过的最聪明的人，也不是最勤奋的人。我是个平庸的学生。我完全不懂技术，一个代码都不会写。我认为，我的与众不同之处在于对风险的承受能力和对未来发展的直觉。洞察事物的发展方向是企业家精神的精髓。我现在看到的未来是什么呢？

I see pitchforks.  我看到了干草叉。

At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
与此同时，像你我这样的人正以历史上任何财阀都无法企及的速度茁壮成长，而全国其他地区--99.99%的人--却远远落在后面。富人和穷人之间的鸿沟正在迅速恶化。1980 年，收入最高的 1% 的人控制着美国国民收入的 8%。底层 50% 的人分享了约 18% 的收入。如今，收入最高的 1% 人口约占 20%，收入最低的 50% 人口仅占 12%。

But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
但问题并不在于我们存在不平等。任何高度运作的资本主义经济都必然存在一些不平等。问题是，不平等已达到历史最高水平，而且每天都在加剧。我们的国家正在迅速沦为一个资本主义社会，而更像是一个封建社会。除非我们的政策发生巨大变化，否则中产阶级将消失，我们将回到18世纪晚期的法国。在革命之前。

And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.
因此，我要告诉我的那些肮脏的富人们，告诉我们所有生活在自己的泡沫世界里的人：醒醒吧，人们。这不会长久

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.
如果我们不采取措施解决经济中存在的明显不平等问题，干草叉就会向我们袭来。任何社会都无法承受这种日益加剧的不平等。事实上，在人类历史上，没有任何一个财富积累到如此地步而干草叉最终没有出现的例子。你给我看一个高度不平等的社会，我就给你看一个警察国家。或者起义。没有反例。没有。这不是 "是否 "的问题，而是 "何时 "的问题。

Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; I’ve had many of you tell me to my face I’m completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.
我们中的许多人认为我们很特别，因为 "这里是美国"。我们认为我们可以免疫于引发 "阿拉伯之春"--或者法国和俄罗斯革命--的同样力量。我知道你们这些0.01%的人倾向于否定这种论调；你们中的许多人当面告诉我，我完全疯了。是的，我知道你们当中有很多人坚信，就因为你有一次看到一个穷孩子拿着 iPhone，不平等就是虚构的。

• 

  Special Report 特别报告

  The Myth of America’s Golden Age
  美国黄金时代的神话

  By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
  作者：约瑟夫-E-斯蒂格利茨

Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us.
我要说的是你们生活在梦幻世界里每个人都希望相信，当事情发展到一个临界点，从对大众来说只是糟糕的事情变成危险的、破坏社会稳定的事情时，我们会以某种方式提前知道这种转变。任何学过历史的人都知道，事情并非如此。革命就像破产一样，会逐渐发生，然后突然发生。有一天，有人自焚，然后成千上万的人涌上街头，在你意识到之前，整个国家都在燃烧。然后我们来不及赶到机场，跳上湾流V型飞机飞往新西兰。事情总是这样。如果不平等现象继续加剧，终究会发生。我们无法预知何时发生，而这对每个人来说都将是可怕的。但对我们来说尤其如此。
***

The most ironic thing about rising inequality is how completely unnecessary and self-defeating it is. If we do something about it, if we adjust our policies in the way that, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression—so that we help the 99 percent and preempt the revolutionaries and crazies, the ones with the pitchforks—that will be the best thing possible for us rich folks, too. It’s not just that we’ll escape with our lives; it’s that we’ll most certainly get even richer.
日益加剧的不平等现象最具有讽刺意味的是，它是多么的毫无必要和弄巧成拙。如果我们对此有所作为，如果我们像富兰克林-罗斯福在大萧条时期那样调整政策，帮助 99% 的人，阻止那些拿着干草叉的革命者和疯子，这对我们富人来说也是最好的结果。这不仅能让我们逃过一劫，还能让我们变得更加富有。

The model for us rich guys here should be Henry Ford, who realized that all his autoworkers in Michigan weren’t only cheap labor to be exploited; they were consumers, too. Ford figured that if he raised their wages, to a then-exorbitant $5 a day, they’d be able to afford his Model Ts.
我们这些有钱人的榜样应该是亨利-福特，他意识到他在密歇根州的所有汽车工人不仅是被剥削的廉价劳动力，他们也是消费者。福特认为，如果他把他们的工资提高到当时每天 5 美元的高价，他们就能买得起他的 T 型车。

What a great idea. My suggestion to you is: Let’s do it all over again. We’ve got to try something. These idiotic trickle-down policies are destroying my customer base. And yours too.
真是个好主意。我的建议是我们再来一次我们得做点什么这些愚蠢的涓滴政策正在摧毁我的客户群还有你的

It’s when I realized this that I decided I had to leave my insulated world of the super-rich and get involved in politics. Not directly, by running for office or becoming one of the big-money billionaires who back candidates in an election. Instead, I wanted to try to change the conversation with ideas—by advancing what my co-author, Eric Liu, and I call “middle-out” economics. It’s the long-overdue rebuttal to the trickle-down economics worldview that has become economic orthodoxy across party lines—and has so screwed the American middle class and our economy generally. Middle-out economics rejects the old misconception that an economy is a perfectly efficient, mechanistic system and embraces the much more accurate idea of an economy as a complex ecosystem made up of real people who are dependent on one another.
当我意识到这一点时，我决定离开与世隔绝的超级富豪世界，投身政治。我不会直接参与竞选，也不会成为在选举中支持候选人的亿万富豪之一。相反，我想尝试用理念来改变对话，推动我和我的合著者埃里克-刘（Eric Liu）所说的 "中出 "经济学。这是对涓滴经济学世界观早该进行的反驳，涓滴经济学已成为跨党派的正统经济学观点，并严重损害了美国中产阶级和我们的经济。中产阶级经济学摒弃了过去那种认为经济是一个完美高效的机械系统的错误观念，而是将经济视为一个由相互依赖的真实的人组成的复杂的生态系统，这种观念要准确得多。

Which is why the fundamental law of capitalism must be: If workers have more money, businesses have more customers. Which makes middle-class consumers, not rich businesspeople like us, the true job creators. Which means a thriving middle class is the source of American prosperity, not a consequence of it. The middle class creates us rich people, not the other way around.
这就是为什么资本主义的基本法则必须是：如果工人有更多的钱，企业就有更多的客户。这使得中产阶级消费者，而不是像我们这样的富商，成为真正的就业创造者。这意味着繁荣的中产阶级是美国繁荣的源泉，而不是繁荣的结果。中产阶级创造了我们这些富人，而不是相反。

On June 19, 2013, Bloomberg published an article I wrote called “The Capitalist’s Case for a $15 Minimum Wage.”  Forbes  labeled it “Nick Hanauer’s near insane” proposal. And yet, just weeks after it was published, my friend David Rolf, a Service Employees International Union organizer, roused fast-food workers to go on strike around the country for a $15 living wage. Nearly a year later, the city of Seattle passed a $15 minimum wage. And just 350 days after my article was published, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray signed that ordinance into law. How could this happen, you ask?
2013年6月19日，彭博社发表了我写的一篇文章，名为 "15美元最低工资的资本家案例"。福布斯》将其称为 "尼克-哈瑙尔近乎疯狂的 "提案。然而，就在这篇文章发表几周后，我的朋友大卫-罗尔夫（David Rolf），一位国际服务雇员工会的组织者，号召全国各地的快餐店工人举行罢工，以争取15美元的生活工资。将近一年后，西雅图市通过了 15 美元的最低工资标准。就在我的文章发表 350 天后，西雅图市长埃德-默里（Ed Murray）签署了该法令，使之成为法律。你会问这是怎么发生的呢？

It happened because we reminded the masses that they are the source of growth and prosperity, not us rich guys. We reminded them that when workers have more money, businesses have more customers—and need more employees. We reminded them that if businesses paid workers a living wage rather than poverty wages, taxpayers wouldn’t have to make up the difference. And when we got done, 74 percent of likely Seattle voters in a recent poll agreed that a $15 minimum wage was a swell idea.
这是因为我们提醒大众，他们才是经济增长和繁荣的源泉，而不是我们这些有钱人。我们提醒他们，当工人有更多的钱时，企业就会有更多的客户，也就需要更多的员工。我们提醒他们，如果企业支付给工人的是生活工资而不是贫困工资，纳税人就不必补足差额。当我们完成这项工作时，在最近的一项民意调查中，74% 的西雅图选民都认为 15 美元的最低工资标准是个好主意。

The standard response in the minimum-wage debate, made by Republicans and their business backers and plenty of Democrats as well, is that raising the minimum wage costs jobs. Businesses will have to lay off workers. This argument reflects the orthodox economics that most people had in college. If you took Econ 101, then you literally were taught that if wages go up, employment must go down. The law of supply and demand and all that. That’s why you’ve got John Boehner and other Republicans in Congress insisting that if you price employment higher, you get less of it. Really?
在有关最低工资的辩论中，共和党人和他们的商业支持者以及许多民主党人的标准回应是，提高最低工资会使工作岗位减少。企业将不得不裁员。这一论点反映了大多数人在大学里学到的正统经济学。如果你学过《经济学 101》，那么你确实被教导过，如果工资上涨，就业率必然下降。供求定律就是这样。这就是为什么约翰-博纳（John Boehner）和国会中的其他共和党人坚持认为，如果就业价格上涨，就会减少就业。真的吗？

The thing about us businesspeople is that we love our customers rich and our employees poor. 
我们商人的特点是，爱富不爱穷。

Because here’s an odd thing. During the past three decades, compensation for CEOs grew 127 times faster than it did for workers. Since 1950, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio has increased 1,000 percent, and that is not a typo. CEOs used to earn 30 times the median wage; now they rake in 500 times. Yet no company I know of has eliminated its senior managers, or outsourced them to China or automated their jobs. Instead, we now have more CEOs and senior executives than ever before. So, too, for financial services workers and technology workers. These folks earn multiples of the median wage, yet we somehow have more and more of them.
因为有一件怪事。过去 30 年间，首席执行官的薪酬增长速度是工人的 127 倍。自 1950 年以来，首席执行官与工人的薪酬比例增长了 1000%，这不是一个错别字。过去，首席执行官的收入是工资中位数的 30 倍；现在，他们的收入是工资中位数的 500 倍。然而，据我所知，没有一家公司裁撤高级管理人员，或将他们外包到中国，或将他们的工作自动化。相反，我们现在的首席执行官和高级管理人员比以往任何时候都多。金融服务人员和技术人员也是如此。这些人的工资是中位数的数倍，但我们却拥有越来越多这样的人。

The thing about us businesspeople is that we love our customers rich and our employees poor. So for as long as there has been capitalism, capitalists have said the same thing about any effort to raise wages. We’ve had 75 years of complaints from big business—when the minimum wage was instituted, when women had to be paid equitable amounts, when child labor laws were created. Every time the capitalists said exactly the same thing in the same way: We’re all going to go bankrupt. I’ll have to close. I’ll have to lay everyone off. It hasn’t happened. In fact, the data show that when workers are better treated, business gets better. The naysayers are just wrong.
我们商人的特点是，我们喜欢顾客富有而员工贫穷。因此，只要有资本主义存在，资本家就会对任何提高工资的努力说同样的话。75 年来，大企业一直在抱怨--当最低工资开始实行时，当妇女必须得到公平的报酬时，当童工法出台时。每次资本家都以同样的方式说着同样的话：我们都要破产了我不得不关门。我得解雇所有人但事实并非如此。事实上，数据显示，当工人的待遇提高时，生意也会变得更好。持反对意见的人都错了。
Most of you probably think that the $15 minimum wage in Seattle is an insane departure from rational policy that puts our economy at great risk. But in Seattle, our current minimum wage of $9.32 is already nearly 30 percent higher than the federal minimum wage. And has it ruined our economy yet? Well, trickle-downers, look at the data here: The two cities in the nation with the highest rate of job growth by small businesses are San Francisco and Seattle. Guess which cities have the highest minimum wage? San Francisco and Seattle. The fastest-growing big city in America? Seattle. Fifteen dollars isn’t a risky untried policy for us. It’s doubling down on the strategy that’s already allowing our city to kick your city’s ass.
你们中的大多数人可能认为，西雅图 15 美元的最低工资标准是对理性政策的疯狂背离，会给我们的经济带来巨大风险。但在西雅图，我们目前 9.32 美元的最低工资已经比联邦最低工资高出近 30%。它毁了我们的经济了吗？好吧，"涓涓细流 "们，看看这里的数据：全美小企业就业增长率最高的两个城市是旧金山和西雅图。猜猜哪个城市的最低工资最高？旧金山和西雅图。美国发展最快的大城市？西雅图。对我们来说，15 美元并不是一项未经尝试的冒险政策。这是在已经让我们的城市打败你们的城市的战略上的加倍努力。

It makes perfect sense if you think about it: If a worker earns $7.25 an hour, which is now the national minimum wage, what proportion of that person’s income do you think ends up in the cash registers of local small businesses? Hardly any. That person is paying rent, ideally going out to get subsistence groceries at Safeway, and, if really lucky, has a bus pass. But she’s not going out to eat at restaurants. Not browsing for new clothes. Not buying flowers on Mother’s Day.
如果你仔细想想，这就完全说得通了：如果一个工人的时薪是 7.25 美元，也就是现在的全国最低工资标准，你认为这个人的收入有多少会流入当地小企业的收银机？几乎没有。这个人要付房租，最好还能去 Safeway 买点生活必需品，运气好的话还能买到公交卡。但她不会去餐馆吃饭。不买新衣服。不在母亲节买花。

Is this issue more complicated than I’m making out? Of course. Are there many factors at play determining the dynamics of employment? Yup. But please, please stop insisting that if we pay low-wage workers more, unemployment will skyrocket and it will destroy the economy. It’s utter nonsense. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics isn’t believing that if the rich get richer, it’s good for the economy. It’s believing that if the poor get richer, it’s bad for the economy.
这个问题是不是比我想的还要复杂？当然。决定就业动态的因素很多吗？是的。但是，请不要再坚持说，如果我们给低工资工人支付更多工资，失业率就会飙升，经济就会遭到破坏。这完全是无稽之谈。涓滴经济学最阴险的地方并不是相信富人更富就会对经济有利。而是相信如果穷人更富，就会对经济不利。

I know that virtually all of you feel that compelling our businesses to pay workers more is somehow unfair, or is too much government interference. Most of you think that we should just let good examples like Costco or Gap lead the way. Or let the market set the price. But here’s the thing. When those who set bad examples, like the owners of Wal-Mart or McDonald’s, pay their workers close to the minimum wage, what they’re really saying is that they’d pay even less if it weren’t illegal. (Thankfully both companies have recently said they would not oppose a hike in the minimum wage.) In any large group, some people absolutely will not do the right thing. That’s why our economy can only be safe and effective if it is governed by the same kinds of rules as, say, the transportation system, with its speed limits and stop signs.
我知道，几乎你们所有人都认为，强迫我们的企业向工人支付更多工资在某种程度上是不公平的，或者是政府干预过多。你们中的大多数人认为，我们应该让 Costco 或 Gap 这样的好榜样带头。或者让市场来决定价格。但问题是当那些坏榜样，如沃尔玛或麦当劳的老板，支付给工人的工资接近最低工资标准时，他们实际上是在说，如果不违法，他们会支付更低的工资。(值得庆幸的是，这两家公司最近都表示不会反对提高最低工资标准）。在任何一个大群体中，有些人绝对不会做正确的事。这就是为什么我们的经济只有像交通系统一样，受到限速和停车标志等规则的约束，才能安全有效。

Wal-Mart is our nation’s largest employer with some 1.4 million employees in the United States and more than $25 billion in pre-tax profit. So why are Wal-Mart employees the largest group of Medicaid recipients in many states? Wal-Mart could, say, pay each of its 1 million lowest-paid workers an extra $10,000 per year, raise them all out of poverty and enable them to, of all things, afford to shop at Wal-Mart. Not only would this also save us all the expense of the food stamps, Medicaid and rent assistance that they currently require, but Wal-Mart would still earn more than $15 billion pre-tax per year. Wal-Mart won’t (and shouldn’t) volunteer to pay its workers more than their competitors. In order for us to have an economy that works for everyone, we should compel all retailers to pay living wages—not just ask politely.
沃尔玛是美国最大的雇主，在美国拥有约 140 万名员工，税前利润超过 250 亿美元。那么，为什么在许多州，沃尔玛员工是医疗补助计划的最大受益群体呢？比方说，沃尔玛可以为其 100 万名工资最低的员工每人每年额外支付 1 万美元，使他们摆脱贫困，并使他们有能力在沃尔玛购物。这不仅能为我们省去他们目前所需的食品券、医疗补助和房租补贴，而且沃尔玛每年的税前收入仍将超过 150 亿美元。沃尔玛不会（也不应该）自愿向工人支付比竞争对手更高的工资。为了实现人人共享的经济，我们应该迫使所有零售商支付合理的工资，而不仅仅是礼貌地提出要求。

We rich people have been falsely persuaded by our schooling and the affirmation of society, and have convinced ourselves, that we are the main job creators. It’s simply not true. There can never be enough super-rich Americans to power a great economy. I earn about 1,000 times the median American annually, but I don’t buy thousands of times more stuff. My family purchased three cars over the past few years, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. I bought two pairs of the fancy wool pants I am wearing as I write, what my partner Mike calls my “manager pants.” I guess I could have bought 1,000 pairs. But why would I? Instead, I sock my extra money away in savings, where it doesn’t do the country much good.
我们富人被学校的教育和社会的肯定错误地说服，并说服自己，我们是主要的就业创造者。这根本不是事实。永远不可能有足够多的美国超级富豪来推动一个伟大的经济体。我的年收入大约是美国中位数的 1000 倍，但我买的东西并没有多出数千倍。我的家庭在过去几年中购买了三辆汽车，而不是 3000 辆。我和大多数美国男人一样，每年买几条裤子和几件衬衫。我买了两条高级羊毛裤，我在写作时正穿着它，我的搭档迈克称它为我的 "经理裤"。我想我可以买 1000 条。但我为什么要买？相反，我把多余的钱存进了储蓄罐里，对国家没什么好处。

So forget all that rhetoric about how America is great because of people like you and me and Steve Jobs. You know the truth even if you won’t admit it: If any of us had been born in Somalia or the Congo, all we’d be is some guy standing barefoot next to a dirt road selling fruit. It’s not that Somalia and Congo don’t have good entrepreneurs. It’s just that the best ones are selling their wares off crates by the side of the road because that’s all their customers can afford.
所以，忘掉那些关于美国如何因你我和史蒂夫-乔布斯这样的人而伟大的言论吧。即使你不承认，你也知道真相：如果我们中的任何一个人出生在索马里或刚果，我们也不过是一个赤脚站在土路旁卖水果的人。索马里和刚果并不是没有优秀的企业家。只是最好的企业家都在路边用板条箱卖东西，因为他们的顾客只能买得起这些东西。

So why not talk about a different kind of New Deal for the American people, one that could appeal to the right as well as left—to libertarians as well as liberals? First, I’d ask my Republican friends to get real about reducing the size of government. Yes, yes and yes, you guys are all correct: The federal government is too big in some ways. But no way can you cut government substantially, not the way things are now. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush each had eight years to do it, and they failed miserably.
那么，为什么不谈谈美国人民的另一种新政，一种既能吸引右翼，也能吸引左翼--既能吸引自由主义者，也能吸引自由主义者的新政呢？首先，我会要求我的共和党朋友们在缩小政府规模的问题上动真格的。是的，是的，是的，你们都是对的：联邦政府在某些方面过于庞大。但你们不可能大幅削减政府规模，现在的情况就是如此。罗纳德-里根（Ronald Reagan）和乔治-W-布什（George W. Bush）分别有八年时间来做这件事，但他们都惨遭失败。

Republicans and Democrats in Congress can’t shrink government with wishful thinking. The only way to slash government for real is to go back to basic economic principles: You have to reduce the demand for government. If people are getting $15 an hour or more, they don’t need food stamps. They don’t need rent assistance. They don’t need you and me to pay for their medical care. If the consumer middle class is back, buying and shopping, then it stands to reason you won’t need as large a welfare state. And at the same time, revenues from payroll and sales taxes would rise, reducing the deficit.
国会中的共和党人和民主党人不能一厢情愿地收缩政府。真正削减政府的唯一方法是回到基本的经济原则：你必须减少对政府的需求。如果人们的时薪达到或超过 15 美元，他们就不需要食品券。他们不需要房租补贴。他们不需要你我来支付他们的医疗费用。如果消费型中产阶级回来了，他们会买东西，会购物，那么就不需要那么大的福利国家了。与此同时，工资税和销售税的收入也会增加，从而减少赤字。

This is, in other words, an economic approach that can unite left and right. Perhaps that’s one reason the right is beginning, inexorably, to wake up to this reality as well. Even Republicans as diverse as Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum recently came out in favor of raising the minimum wage, in defiance of the Republicans in Congress.
换句话说，这是一种能够团结左右派的经济方法。或许这也是右翼也开始不可阻挡地醒悟到这一现实的原因之一。就连米特-罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）和里克-桑托勒姆（Rick Santorum）这样的共和党人最近也站出来支持提高最低工资，与国会中的共和党人分庭抗礼。

***

One thing we can agree on—I’m sure of this—is that the change isn’t going to start in Washington. Thinking is stale, arguments even more so. On both sides.
有一点我们可以达成共识--我确信这一点--那就是变革不会从华盛顿开始。思维陈旧，争论更是如此。双方都是如此。

But the way I see it, that’s all right. Most major social movements have seen their earliest victories at the state and municipal levels. The fight over the eight-hour workday, which ended in Washington, D.C., in 1938, began in places like Illinois and Massachusetts in the late 1800s. The movement for social security began in California in the 1930s. Even the Affordable Health Care Act—Obamacare—would have been hard to imagine without Mitt Romney’s model in Massachusetts to lead the way.
但在我看来，这也没什么。大多数重大社会运动最早都是在州和市一级取得胜利的。1938 年在华盛顿特区结束的争取八小时工作制的斗争，始于 19 世纪末的伊利诺伊州和马萨诸塞州等地。20 世纪 30 年代，争取社会保障的运动始于加利福尼亚州。如果没有米特-罗姆尼在马萨诸塞州的示范引领，即使是《平价医疗法案》（Obamacare）也很难想象。

Sadly, no Republicans and few Democrats get this. President Obama doesn’t seem to either, though his heart is in the right place. In his State of the Union speech this year, he mentioned the need for a higher minimum wage but failed to make the case that less inequality and a renewed middle class would promote faster economic growth. Instead, the arguments we hear from most Democrats are the same old social-justice claims. The only reason to help workers is because we feel sorry for them. These fairness arguments feed right into every stereotype of Obama and the Democrats as bleeding hearts. Republicans say growth. Democrats say fairness—and lose every time.
遗憾的是，共和党人和民主党人都不明白这一点。奥巴马总统似乎也不明白这一点，尽管他的出发点是正确的。在今年的国情咨文演讲中，他提到了提高最低工资的必要性，但却没有说明减少不平等和振兴中产阶级将促进经济更快增长。相反，我们从大多数民主党人那里听到的论点都是老一套的社会正义主张。帮助工人的唯一理由就是我们同情他们。这些公平论调恰恰迎合了人们对奥巴马和民主党人的刻板印象，认为他们是 "流血的心"。共和党人说增长。民主党人说公平--每次都输。

But just because the two parties in Washington haven’t figured it out yet doesn’t mean we rich folks can just keep going. The conversation is already changing, even if the billionaires aren’t onto it. I know what you think: You think that Occupy Wall Street and all the other capitalism-is-the-problem protesters disappeared without a trace. But that’s not true. Of course, it’s hard to get people to sleep in a park in the cause of social justice. But the protests we had in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis really did help to change the debate in this country from death panels and debt ceilings to inequality.
但是，华盛顿的两党还没有想明白，并不意味着我们这些富人就可以一意孤行。即使亿万富翁们还没有意识到，对话已经在改变。我知道你在想什么：你认为 "占领华尔街 "和所有其他 "资本主义就是问题 "的抗议者都消失得无影无踪。但事实并非如此。当然，很难让人们为了社会正义而睡在公园里。但我们在2008年金融危机后举行的抗议活动确实有助于改变这个国家的辩论，从死亡小组和债务上限转向不平等。

It’s just that so many of you plutocrats didn’t get the message.
只是你们中的许多财阀并没有得到这个信息。

Dear 1%ers, many of our fellow citizens are starting to believe that capitalism itself is the problem. I disagree, and I’m sure you do too. Capitalism, when well managed, is the greatest social technology ever invented to create prosperity in human societies. But capitalism left unchecked tends toward concentration and collapse. It can be managed either to benefit the few in the near term or the many in the long term. The work of democracies is to bend it to the latter. That is why investments in the middle class work. And tax breaks for rich people like us don’t. Balancing the power of workers and billionaires by raising the minimum wage isn’t bad for capitalism. It’s an indispensable tool smart capitalists use to make capitalism stable and sustainable. And no one has a bigger stake in that than zillionaires like us.
亲爱的 "1%"们，我们的许多同胞开始相信，资本主义本身就是问题所在。我不同意，我相信你们也不同意。如果管理得当，资本主义是人类社会创造繁荣的最伟大的社会技术。但资本主义如果不加控制，就会走向集中和崩溃。对资本主义的管理既可以使少数人在短期内受益，也可以使多数人在长期内受益。民主国家的工作就是让资本主义向后者倾斜。这就是为什么对中产阶级的投资是有效的。而为我们这样的富人减税则行不通。通过提高最低工资来平衡工人和亿万富翁的力量，对资本主义来说并不是坏事。这是精明的资本家用来使资本主义稳定和可持续发展的不可或缺的工具。在这一点上，没有人比我们这样的亿万富翁更有发言权。

The oldest and most important conflict in human societies is the battle over the concentration of wealth and power. The folks like us at the top have always told those at the bottom that our respective positions are righteous and good for all. Historically, we called that divine right. Today we have trickle-down economics.
人类社会最古老、最重要的冲突是财富和权力的集中之争。像我们这样处于顶层的人总是告诉底层的人，我们各自的地位是正义的，对所有人都有好处。历史上，我们称之为神权。今天，我们有了涓滴经济学。

What nonsense this is. Am I really such a superior person? Do I belong at the center of the moral as well as economic universe? Do you?
真是一派胡言。我真的如此高人一等吗？我属于道德和经济宇宙的中心吗？你呢？

My family, the Hanauers, started in Germany selling feathers and pillows. They got chased out of Germany by Hitler and ended up in Seattle owning another pillow company. Three generations later, I benefited from that. Then I got as lucky as a person could possibly get in the Internet age by having a buddy in Seattle named Bezos. I look at the average Joe on the street, and I say, “There but for the grace of Jeff go I.” Even the best of us, in the worst of circumstances, are barefoot, standing by a dirt road, selling fruit. We should never forget that, or forget that the United States of America and its middle class made us, rather than the other way around.
我的家族哈瑙家族最初在德国销售羽毛和枕头。他们被希特勒赶出了德国，最后在西雅图拥有了另一家枕头公司。三代之后，我从中受益。然后，我在西雅图有了一个叫贝索斯的朋友，这在互联网时代是再幸运不过的事了。我看着街上的普通人，我说："除了杰夫的恩典，还有我。"即使我们中最优秀的人，在最糟糕的情况下，也是赤着脚，站在土路边卖水果。我们永远不应忘记这一点，也不应忘记是美利坚合众国及其中产阶级造就了我们，而不是相反。

Or we could sit back, do nothing, enjoy our yachts. And wait for the pitchforks.
或者，我们可以坐下来，什么也不做，享受我们的游艇。然后等待干草叉的到来。