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The idea of guaranteeing a basic income for everybody has many obvious flaws but one overwhelming virtue. It enshrines the principle that every citizen is a valued member of society and has a right to share in its collective wealth.
为每个人提供基本收入的想法有很多显而易见的缺陷，但也有一个压倒性的好处。这个想法确立了一个原则：每一位公民都是受到重视的社会成员，有权分享社会的集体财富。
That conviction has animated radical thinkers for 500 years since the argument was first sketched out in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. The idea has gained renewed resonance in our own times as we fret about the erosion of living standards, the concentration of wealth and the possible threat of mass unemployment caused by technological change.
自托马斯?莫尔爵士(Sir Thomas More)的《乌托邦》(Utopia)首次阐述这一主张后，500年来这个理念激发着激进的思想家们。在我们这个时代，随着我们为生活水平下降、财富集中以及技术变革可能引起的大规模失业感到不安，这个想法获得了新的共鸣。
But for half a millennium universal basic income has remained little more than a utopian dream because it has always crashed up against the rocks of reality. The chief objections are ones of principle and practicality, encapsulated in two questions.
但500年来，全民基本收入始终只是一个乌托邦幻想，因为它总是在无情的现实面前撞得粉碎。主要的反对意见是两方面的：原则性和可行性，它们可以概括为两个问题。
Why should people be paid to do nothing? And how could we possibly afford it?
为什么人们什么都不用做就能拿到钱？我们怎么可能负担得起这种制度？
Yet it is possible to design a basic income scheme that retains its main attractions while minimising its flaws. By default, a good working model has been operating in Alaska for more than 30 years.
然而，设计一套基本收入机制，在保留其主要吸引力的同时最大限度减少缺陷，这是可能的。虽然并非刻意为之，但一套行之有效的模式已经在阿拉斯加施行了30多年。
In 1976 Alaska’s voters approved a constitutional amendment to create a permanent investment fund, financed by revenues from the state’s incipient oil boom. A few years later, the Alaska Permanent Fund began paying out a dividend to every registered resident.
1976年，阿拉斯加的选民投票通过一项宪法修正案，以该州初生的石油热潮带来的财政收入为资金来源，设立一只永久投资基金。几年后，阿拉斯加永久基金(Alaska Permanent Fund)开始向每个注册居民发放分红。
Depending on the fund’s performance, the annual payout has ranged from $878 to $2,072 a head over the past decade. It is, in all but name, a universal basic income paid irrespective of social contribution or wealth.
取决于基金的业绩，过去十年，每年给每位居民发放的分红金额从878美元到2072美元不等。除了名目不同，这实际上就是不考虑社会贡献或者财富的全民基本收入机制。
The scheme has not led to mass indolence, as the critics of basic income fear. The clue lies in the adjective — basic. The scheme, which has commanded bipartisan support, has also proved increasingly popular and been described as the “third rail” of state politics because it electrocutes any politician who touches it. In a recent telephone survey, Alaskans described the fund’s top three advantages as being its equality of treatment, its fairness of distribution and its assistance to struggling families. Some 58 per cent of respondents said they would even be prepared to pay more state taxes to preserve the fund, although Alaska has been knocked by lower oil prices.
这个机制并没有像基本收入批评者担心的那样，造起大规模的怠惰。线索就在形容词——“基本”之中。这个得到两党支持的机制被证明日益受到人们的欢迎，并且被称为阿拉斯加政坛的“导电轨”，因为在这件事上找问题的任何政治人士都会触电。在最近的一次电话调查中，阿拉斯加居民称，这个基金最大的三个好处是同等待遇、公平分配和帮助陷入困境的家庭。尽管阿拉斯加因油价下降而受到冲击，但约有58%的受访者说，他们甚至准备缴纳更多的州税来保留这个基金。
In spite of its natural resources, Alaska does not rank among the richest of US states in terms of gross domestic product per head. Yet, partly as a result of its annual dividend, it is one of the most economically equal states and has one of the lowest poverty rates.
尽管拥有自然资源，但以人均国内生产总值(GDP)计，阿拉斯加并非美国最富裕的州之一。然而，部分归功于年度分红机制，阿拉斯加是美国经济最平等、贫困率最低的州之一。
Last month, Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, visited Alaska and praised the state’s social programmes saying they provided “some good lessons for the rest of the country”.
上月，Facebook首席执行官马克?扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)访问了阿拉斯加，赞美了该州的社会项目，称它们为“美国其他地方提供了一些很好的经验教训”。
Like other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Mr Zuckerberg believes that thousands of jobs are going to be swept away by new technologies, such as driverless cars. In such a world, he says, we need to invent a new social contract. Basic income could be part of the answer.
就像其他硅谷企业家一样，扎克伯格相信，成千上万的工作岗位将会被无人驾驶汽车等新技术摧毁。他说，在这样一个世界里，我们需要发明新的社会契约。基本收入可能是答案的一部分。
Some argue that Alaska is a special case as it has just distributed the fruits of an oil bonanza. But it may be possible to find other sources of revenue to fund similar schemes elsewhere. Some have suggested a land value tax. Others have argued for a financial transactions tax.
一些人主张阿拉斯加是个特例，因为它只是分配了石油热潮的果实。但其他地方也可能找到其他财政收入来源来支撑类似机制。一些人建议开征地价税。另外一些人则建议开征金融交易税。
But there is one other potential source of revenue that Mr Zuckerberg knows all about: data. If, as the saying goes, data are the new oil then we may have found a 21st-century revenue stream. Data could do for the world what oil has done for Alaska.
但还有一个潜在的收入来源，扎克伯格对此最清楚不过：数据。如果就像人们所说，数据是新的石油，那么我们可能发现了一个21世纪的财政收入来源。就如石油之于阿拉斯加，数据或许可以为世界带来一些东西。
Mr Zuckerberg’s concern for the marginalised in society is commendable, as is his commitment to building strong communities. Unlike most of the rest of us, he has the personal influence to help tackle the problems of our age. He runs one of the world’s most valuable companies and has a ready-made digital pulpit from which he can make his case to Facebook’s 2bn global users.
就如扎克伯格建立强大社区的承诺一样，他对社会边缘化人群的关注值得赞誉。与我们大多数人不同，他拥有帮助解决当今这个时代种种问题的个人影响力。他运营着世界市值最高的公司之一，还拥有现成的数字讲坛，可以对Facebook的20亿全球用户阐述自己的主张。
