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Last week, I pondered how society should protect or compensate people whose jobs have been lost to the forces of globalisation or technological change. I did not, however, discuss the most obvious idea of all: that we should simply give people money — a basic income for everyone, regardless of what they do or what they need. It’s the ultimate social safety net.
不久前，我思考了社会应该如何保护或者补偿因为全球化或者技术变革的影响而失去工作的人。然而，我没有讨论一个最显而易见的想法：我们应该直接给他们钱——为每个人提供基本收入，无论他们是做什么的，或者他们需要什么。这是终极的社会安全网。
For an idea that is so far from mainstream political practice, the payment of a basic income has had astonishingly broad support, from Martin Luther King Jr to Milton Friedman. It’s on the lips of the policy wonk community too: the Freakonomicspodcast recently devoted an episode to the case for a universal basic income. The Royal Society for Arts, a venerable British think-tank, has published a report enthusiastically supporting the idea. Dutch journalist Rutger Bregman is just as keen, as outlined in his recent, eloquent book Utopia for Realists.
提供基本收入的想法虽然远远偏离主流政治实践，但从马丁•路德•金(Martin Luther King Jr)到米尔顿•弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)，这个想法获得了惊人广泛的支持。政治学究们也对这个想法进行了讨论：魔鬼经济学(Freakonomics)播客不久前的一集就专门讨论了应不应该提供普遍基本收入。受到业界敬重的英国智库——英国皇家艺术学会(Royal Society of Arts)发表了一份报告，热情洋溢地支持了这个想法。荷兰记者吕特赫斯•布雷格曼(Rutger Bregman)也同样热衷于这个想法——他在论述有力的近作《现实主义者的乌托邦》(Utopia for Realists)中，对这个想法进行了概述。
Policy experiments are also on the way. The charity GiveDirectly has just announced plans to run a randomised trial in which 6,000 Kenyans will receive a basic income for more than a decade. Various Silicon Valley types — with one eye on the looming Robot Job Apocalypse — are making serious-sounding noises about running experiments too. Pilots are planned in Canada and Finland, and the Swiss have a referendum on the topic in June.
政策实验也即将进行。慈善机构GiveDirectly最近宣布了实施一项随机试验的计划。在该实验中，6000名肯尼亚人将在逾10年的时间里始终获得基本收入。多家关注着即将到来的“机器人工作末世”的硅谷典型公司，正在严肃地声称要进行一些实验。加拿大和芬兰规划了试点计划，而瑞士则将在6月就这个问题进行全民公投。
Could a basic income really work? The answer is yes. But the plan may be more painful than some of its advocates are willing to admit.
基本收入真的有可能起作用吗？答案是肯定的。但该计划带来的痛苦可能会比一些支持者愿意承认的要多。
First, let’s establish what we’re talking about. A universal basic income is a cash payment from the state, paid to everyone unconditionally. For the sake of being concrete, let’s call it ￡10 a day. That seems like a lot of money to be giving to absolutely everyone, but it’s within the bounds of reason. Such a payment would cost ￡234bn a year across 64 million UK residents, so it could be largely paid for by scrapping all social security spending, which is ￡217bn.
首先，让我们界定一下我们所讨论的事情。全民基本收入是国家无条件对每个人进行的现金支付。为了切合实际，我们就以每天10英镑计算。因为真正人人有份，所以这似乎是很大一笔钱，但总的金额尚在合理范围内。对6400万英国居民进行这样的支付每年将花费2340亿英镑，基本上可以通过取消所有社保支出（每年2170亿英镑）来负担。
There are lots of other proposals that one might call a basic income. Leftwing advocates might want far more than ￡10 a day but that would require a huge expansion of the state, with much higher taxes. The more libertarian proponents of the idea might also approve of a higher basic income, in exchange for a rolling back of state-provided services. Privatising the entire health and education system in the UK would free up ￡240bn, easily enough to double the basic income to ￡20 a day for every man, woman and child. But that money would need to cover school fees and medical bills.
有很多或许可以称为基本收入的其他提案。左翼的基本收入支持者可能希望基本收入的金额远超每天10英镑，但这就需要政府进行大规模扩张，税金也要高得多。偏自由主义的基本收入支持者可能也会认可更高的金额，以换取减少由国家提供的服务。将英国的整个健康和教育体系私有化能够解放2400亿英镑的资金，能够轻松地将每个男人、女人和孩子的基本收入提高一倍至每天20英镑。但人们还需要用这笔钱来支付学费和医疗费。
All this is within the bounds of affordability. But is it desirable? Here are two big question marks over the idea.
这些都在可承受范围内。但这样做是否可取？以下是对这个想法打出的两个大大的问号。
The first is whether people would simply stop working. Several large experiments conducted in the US and Canada in the late 1970s and early 1980s suggest that a minimum income would encourage people to reduce their hours a little. If such slacking-off undermined the tax base, the entire project could become both economically and politically unsustainable.
首先是，人们是否会干脆不再工作。上世纪70年代末和80年代初在美国和加拿大进行的几项大规模社会实验表明，最低收入会鼓励人们略微减少工作时间。如果这种懈怠削弱税基，整个计划在经济和政治上都可能变得不可持续。
But the tax base is probably safe enough, because the people who might be tempted to quit work and live on ￡10 a day are not the people whose taxes pay for most state spending. In the UK, the richest 15 per cent of taxpayers — people who pay at least some tax at the 40 per cent rate — supply about two-thirds of income tax revenue. Few of these people are likely to find the basic income a tempting inducement to leave the labour force.
但税基很可能相当安全，因为那些有可能想要辞去工作、依靠每天10美元的基本收入过活的人，并非为政府支出提供最多税金的人。在英国，大约三分之二的所得税收入来自于最富有的15%的纳税人，他们至少按照40%的税率缴纳了一部分税。这些人中，几乎没有人可能会认为基本收入是促使他们辞去工作的诱人因素。
In some cases, we might celebrate a decision to stop work. Some people volunteer; others care for children or relatives; some might use the income to fund themselves as they stay in education or retrain. Some, alas, might use the money to stay alive as they write poetry.
在某些情况下，我们可能会称赞辞职的决定。一些人投身志愿工作；其他人照顾孩子或亲人；一些人可能会利用这笔收入资助自己继续学业或者投入再培训。还有一些人（唉），可能会用这笔钱养活自己，同时继续写诗。
The second objection is more worrying: if the welfare state is to be replaced by a basic income, it will provide far too little for some. A tenner a day is less than half the new UK state pension, so it’s hard to imagine pensioners embracing the idea with much gusto.
第二个反对理由更令人担忧：如果基本收入取代了福利国家，它给一些人提供的就太少了。每天10英镑还不到新体制下英国养老金的一半，因此很难想象领养老金的人会乐于接受这个想法。
On the other hand, if the basic income is to be supplemented by a raft of special cases — people with disabilities, people with expensive rent, people who are elderly — then it may become as complex as the tangle of benefit entitlements it aims to replace, or hugely expensive, or both.
另一方面，如果要用大量的特例处理来补充基本收入——残障人士、缴纳高昂房租的人士、老年人——那么这个体系可能会变得和它想要取代的这个错综复杂的福利体系一样复杂，或者成本高昂，或者两者兼而有之。
Andrew Hood of the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that compared with current welfare benefits, a basic income would “either be a lot less generous or a lot more expensive”. Take your pick.
英国财政研究所(Institute for Fiscal Studies)的安德鲁•胡德(Andrew Hood)表示，和当前的福利相比，基本收入“或者吝啬得多，或者昂贵得多”。请自行挑选吧。
In the end, the idea appeals to three types of people: those who are comfortable with a dramatic increase in the size of the state, those who are willing to see needy people lose large sums relative to the status quo, and those who can’t add up.
最终，这个想法会吸引三类人：那些愿意看到政府规模大规模扩张的人；那些愿意看到穷人和现状相比失去一大笔钱的人；和那些算不好数的人。
A basic income makes perfect sense once we arrive at an economy where millions work for low wages while automation produces a bountiful economy all around them. The debate turns on whether that world has already arrived.
如果我们的经济发展到了这样一个阶段——无数人干着低薪工作，自动化为他们提供了一个全方位的富足经济，基本收入就非常合情合理了。那么辩论的重点，就转为世界是否已经达到了这个阶段了。
