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【中文标题】马克思回来了
【原文标题】Marx Is Back
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】Charles Kenny
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/01/21/marx_is_back_global_working_class
全世界工人阶级联合起来——这是件好事
伦敦海格特公墓中卡尔•马克思墓碑上的铭文写着：“全世界工人阶级，联合起来。”当然，事实并没有印证这句话。尽管遍布世界各地的“占领”运动在短短几个月时间里搞得甚嚣尘上，但现在似乎都安静下来。而且，你不大会听说底特律车间里的工人和他们在大连的阶级弟兄联合起来对抗资本家老板。实际上，随着跨国公司逐渐侵蚀工人讨价还价的能力，发达国家工厂工人们已经不大可能去帮助发展中国家的弟兄们了。但现在也有一种思想，这种思想不仅存在于那些苟延残喘的托洛茨基分子（译者注：指用持续革命手段在全世界建立社会主义的思想）头脑中，似乎全球阶级政治风向都有一种回归的趋势。如果真是这样，世界上的资本家精英们就要开始颤抖了。当然，这听起来不像早先的武装起义那样具有威胁性，但或许世界上1％的人头顶很快就会萦绕着一个新的鬼魂——中产阶级。
卡尔•马克思预见到了阶级斗争的合理性，广大民众和一小部分统治财阀之间的战争不可避免的结果是：工人1分，富翁0分。马克思认为无产阶级革命的动力放之四海皆准——工人阶级必将跨越国家和海洋联合起来，他们的相同之处是贫穷的生活状态和乏味的工作内容。当马克思写下这些话时，穷人在各个国家的境遇基本相同——或者差距不大——这个理论还算符合实际情况。根据世界银行经济学家Branko Milanovic提供的信息，当《共产党宣言》在1848年完成时，导致全球收入分配不均的主要因素是阶级差别。尽管一些国家明显比另外一些国家更富有，但导致一个人富有还是贫穷的因素无论在英国、法国、美国，甚至阿根廷，都基本一致。
但随着工业革命的展开，这种可比性在接下来的一个世纪中发生了重大的转变，马克思预测全世界无产阶级革命的一个原因不成立了。《共产党宣言》出版后仅仅几年，英国工人的工资标准就开始上升，这个趋势随后也出现在欧洲其它国家和北美，世界进入了一个被哈佛大学经济学家Lant Pritchett优雅地称为“分化大时代”的阶段。麦迪森项目的历史统计数据显示，1870年英国的人均GDP（以1990年购买力折算）大约是3190美元，非洲这个数字是648美元。到了2010年，英国人均GDP是23777美元，非洲是2034美元。140年之前，非洲人的财富大约是英国同志们的五分之一，现在变成了十分之一。
尽管很多美国人对CEO荒唐的高工资和对冲基金红利怀恨在心，但铁一样的经济现实被忽略了：随着西方经济的腾飞，国家之间收入的差距远大于国家内部收入的差距。也就是说，伦敦东部一个临时工虽然在绞尽脑汁维持家庭的生计，但如果把她丢到拉各斯（译者注：尼日利亚首都），她可以过上女皇一样的生活。如果你还在对不存在的年底奖金难以释怀，想想这个：Milanovic估算，印度最富有的5个城市的平均收入水平，大约和美国5个最贫穷城市的平均收入水平相当。就像银行和跨国公司一样，财富和贫困现在也全球化了。欧洲和美国最低收入的城市工人要比贫穷的发展中国家工人富有得多（即使考虑到购买力水平因素），他们的生活状态远远好于那些国家靠小农场和小企业勉强生存的大部分人。
对不起，卡尔，欧洲和美国的穷人按南亚和非洲的标准看来就是富翁，这个事实就是全世界无产阶级还没有联合起来的原因。1920年举行的共产国际第二次全体大会，谴责很多欧洲和美国的社会主义者在一战期间无耻地叛变，这些人“用‘保卫祖国’作为借口，隐藏了‘他们的’资本家奴役殖民地的‘权利’”。与会代表认为，相互之间的不信任“只有在发达国家的资本主义被彻底清除，发展中国家落后的经济状态得到整体提升之后，才会消除。”
然而，这一切或许很快就有发生变化。“全球化”或许是90年代的口号，但依然是件未完成的工作。彼此连通的国际市场愈加通畅无阻，平均收入水平也在逐渐靠拢。过去十年里，发展中国家增长的速度高于发达国家，平均收入的差距也在逐渐缩小。经济学家Arvind Subramanian预测，中国在2030年的富裕程度将达到今天欧盟的水平，巴西紧跟其后，其人均GDP将增长到31000美元。他还推测，印度尼西亚的人均GDP将达到23000美元，相当于今天科技强国韩国的水平。
简单来说，这意味着在不到一代人的时间里，全球很大一部分国家都将走入富裕的行列，或者至少是中产阶级的行列。根据我和我在全球发展中心的同事Sarah Dykstra的预测，全球大约16％的人口住在被世界银行定义为“高收入”的国家中。如果经济延续前十年的增长速度，到2030年，全世界41％的人口将进入“高收入”行列。换句话说，如果发展中国家继续以我们目前看到的速度增长，国家之前的差距将会缩小，国家内部收入的差距将会重新主导全球收入不平衡的现象。
那么这是否意味着马克思是正确的呢，如果把他的预测推迟几个世纪？也并非如此。
现实是，这个新兴的中产阶级所享受的生活，是维多利亚时代的英国人做梦都想不到的。他们在LED显示器点缀的商店和办公室中工作，而不是在阴暗、肮脏的工厂里；他们的寿命比1848年出生的人要长40年。那么他们会和大洋彼岸的工人同志们有联合起来的理由吗？
或许吧，但并不是因为保卫胜利果实是唯一的选择。马克思预测全世界工人阶级必将联合起来，因为全球工人的收入都被用来维持生计。但随着工人们的工资持续增长、金额逐渐贴近，无产阶级从前那种繁重的劳动和可怜的收入境况，已经变成今天相对轻松的工作和良好的待遇了。很明显，二十世纪前半叶共产党革命对于工人生活水平的贡献，远远低于后半叶井然有序的市场经济所发挥的作用。
但这并不是说沃伦•巴菲特可以松一口气了。实际上，正是因为拉各斯和伦敦的穷人和富人越来越相似，2030年的工人阶级才更有可能联合起来。科学技术和贸易往来提供了一个没有障碍的竞技场，未来全世界的35亿劳动力或许最终会意识到，他们之间有那么多的相同之处，而与自己本国的富人之间有不可逾越的鸿沟。
他们会给政府施加压力，确保他们的血汗不会被用来养活一小部分资本家，而是分配给广大民众。他们会想办法关闭国际财阀隐匿资产的避税天堂，呼吁缔结协定避免用来吸引投资的劳动力政策和税率的“竞次理论”（译者注：指市场之间的竞争比的不是谁更优秀，谁投入了更多的科技，更多的教育，而是比谁更次、更糟糕、更能够苛待本国的劳动阶层，更能够容忍本国环境的破坏。）他们还会设法让享受全球生活方式的人不仅仅是富人，他们会努力促成劳动力的自由流动，不仅仅是在国家内部，还要在国家之间。当然，这还算不上是一场无产阶级革命。中产阶级从未热心参与过任何一场革命，但他们的作用是至关重要的。下一个十年里，我们恐怕不会看到绝望的穷人与富人阶层拔刀相向，因为中产阶级的行为会收敛很多。但或许在马克思的脸上，会浮现出一个诡异的笑容。
原文：
The inscription on Karl Marx's tombstone in London's Highgate Cemetery reads, "Workers of all lands, unite." Of course, it hasn't quite ended up that way. As much buzz as the global Occupy movement managed to produce in a few short months, the silence is deafening now. And it's not often that you hear of shop workers in Detroit making common cause with their Chinese brethren in Dalian to stick it to the boss man. Indeed, as global multinational companies have eaten away at labor's bargaining power, the factory workers of the rich world have become some of the least keen on helping out their fellow wage laborers in poor countries. But there's a school of thought -- and no, it's not just from the few remaining Trotskyite professors at the New School -- that envisions a type of global class politics making a comeback. If so, it might be time for global elites to start trembling. Sure, it doesn't sound quite as threatening as the original call to arms, but a new specter may soon be haunting the world's 1 percent: middle-class activism.
Karl Marx saw an apocalyptic logic to the class struggle. The battle of the vast mass against a small plutocracy had an inevitable conclusion: Workers 1, Rich Guys 0. Marx argued that the revolutionary proletarian impulse was also a fundamentally global one -- that working classes would be united across countries and oceans by their shared experience of crushing poverty and the soullessness of factory life. At the time Marx was writing, the idea that poor people were pretty similar across countries -- or at least would be soon -- was eminently reasonable. According to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic, when The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848, most income inequality at the global level was driven by class differences within countries. Although some countries were clearly richer than others, what counted as an income to make a man rich or condemn him to poverty in England would have translated pretty neatly to France, the United States, even Argentina.
But as the Industrial Revolution gained steam, that parity changed dramatically over the next century -- one reason Marx's prediction of a global proletarian revolution turned out to be so wrong. Just a few years after The Communist Manifesto was published, wages for workers in Britain began to climb. The trend followed across the rest of Europe and North America. The world entered a period of what Harvard University economist Lant Pritchett elegantly calls "divergence, big time." The Maddison Project database of historical statistics suggests that per capita GDP in 1870 (in 1990 dollars, adjusting for purchasing power) was around $3,190 in Britain -- compared with an African average of $648. Compare that with Britain in 2010, which had a per capita GDP of $23,777; the African average was $2,034. One hundred and forty years ago, the average African person was about one-fifth as rich as his British comrade. Today, he's worth less than one-tenth.
Although many Americans get worked up about absurdly inflated CEO salaries and hedge fund bonuses, a hard economic fact has been overlooked: As the West took off into sustained growth, the gap in incomes among countries began to dwarf the income gaps within countries. That means a temp in East London may still struggle to make ends meet, but plop her down in Lagos and she'll live like a queen. If you're feeling bad about your nonexistent year-end bonus, consider this: Milanovic estimates that the average income of the richest 5 percent in India is about the same as that of the poorest 5 percent in the United States. Like banks and multinationals, wealth and poverty are now globalized. The lowest municipal workers in Europe and the United States are far richer than their counterparts in poor developing countries (even when purchasing power parity is taken into account), and they're almost infinitesimally better off than the majority of people in those countries who still survive off the earnings of small farms or microenterprises.
Sorry, Karl: The simple fact that poor people in Europe and America are in the income elite according to the standards of South Asia and Africa is why the workers of all lands have not yet united. The second congress of the Communist International, in 1920, condemned the despicable betrayal by many European and American socialists during World War I, who "used 'defense of the fatherland' to conceal the 'right' of 'their' bourgeoisie to enslave the colonies." The gathered representatives argued that the mistrust generated could "be eradicated only after imperialism is destroyed in the advanced countries and after the entire basis of economic life of the backward countries is radically transformed."
Yet all that might soon be changing. Globalization may have been the watchword of the 1990s, but it's still a work in progress. As interconnected global markets get ever more interconnected, average incomes are converging. The last 10 years have seen developing countries grow far more rapidly than high-income countries, closing the gap in average incomes. Economist Arvind Subramanian estimates that China in 2030 will be about as rich as the whole European Union today and that Brazil won't be far behind, clocking in at a GDP per capita of around $31,000. Indonesia, he reckons, will see a GDP per capita of $23,000 -- about the same as tech powerhouse South Korea today.
Put simply, this means that within the space of hardly a generation, a good chunk of the world will soon be rich, or at least solidly middle class. According to forecasts I've developed with my Center for Global Development colleague Sarah Dykstra, about 16 percent of the Earth's population lives in countries rich enough to be labeled "high income" by the World Bank. If growth rates continue as they have in the past decade, 41 percent of the world's people will find themselves in the "high income" bracket by 2030. In short, if developing countries continue growing at the rate we've seen recently, inequality among countries will shrink -- and inequality within nations will return as the dominant source of global inequality.
Does that mean Marx was right -- if just a couple of centuries off on his timing? Not exactly.
The reality is that this new middle class will have lives that Victorian-era working-class Brits could only dream about. They'll work in LED-lit shops and offices rather than in dark, hellish mills. And they'll live nearly 40 years longer than the average person in 1848 based on life expectancy at birth. But will they share common cause with their fellow factory workers an ocean away?
Maybe, but not because the barricade is the only option. Marx predicted that the global working class would unite and revolt because wages everywhere would be driven to subsistence. But as wages increase and level out around the world, the plight of the proletariat -- hard work, low pay -- today more than ever means easier work and better pay. And it's bringing hundreds of millions of people, in China alone, out of poverty. Clearly, the communist revolutions of the first half of the 20th century proved far, far worse for living standards than the well-regulated markets of the latter half.
But that doesn't mean Warren Buffett should breathe easily. In fact, it is exactly because the rich and poor will look increasingly similar in Lagos and London that it's more likely that the workers of the world in 2030 will unite. As technology and trade level the playing field and bring humanity closer together, the world's projected 3.5 billion laborers may finally realize how much more they have in common with each other than with the über-wealthy elites in their own countries.
They'll pressure governments to collaborate to ensure that their sweat and blood don't excessively enrich a tiny, global capitalist elite, but are spread more widely. They'll work to shut down tax havens where the world's plutocrats hide their earnings, and they'll advocate for treaties to prevent a "race to the bottom" in labor regulations and tax rates designed to attract companies. And they'll push to ensure it isn't just the world's richest who benefit from a global lifestyle -- by striving to open up free movement of labor for all, not just within countries but among them. Sure, it's not quite a proletarian revolution. But then again, the middle class has never been the most ardent of revolutionaries -- only the most effective. The next decade won't so much see the politics of desperate poverty taking on plutocracy, as the middle class taking back its own. But it all might put a ghostly smile on Karl's face nonetheless.
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