2024年06月四级第1套长篇阅读匹配原文翻译及答案

A) How will we all keep busy when we only have to work 15 hours a week? That was the question that worried the British economist John Maynard Keynes when he wrote his short essay "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren" in 1930. Over the next century, he predicted, the economy would become so productive that people would barely need to work at all. For a while, it looked like Keynes was right. In 1930 the average working week was 47 hours in the United States. But by 1970, the number of hours Americans worked on average had fallen to slightly less than 39.

当我们每周只需工作15小时时，我们都会如何保持忙碌？这是英国经济学家约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯在1930年撰写短文《我们子孙的经济可能性》时所担忧的问题。他预测，在下一个世纪，经济将变得如此高效，以至于人们几乎不需要工作。有一段时间，凯恩斯似乎是对的。1930年，美国的平均工作周为47小时。但到1970年，美国人平均工作时间已降至略低于39小时。

B) But then something changed. Instead of continuing to decline, the duration of the working week remained stable. It has stayed at just below 40 hours for nearly five decades. So what happened? Why are people working just as much today as in 1970?

但随后情况发生了变化。工作周的时长没有继续下降，而是保持稳定。近五十年来，它一直保持在略低于40小时。那么发生了什么？为什么今天的人们工作得和1970年一样多？

C) There would be no mystery in this if Keynes had been wrong about the power of technology to increase the economy's productivity, which he thought would lead to a standard of living "between four and eight times as high as it is today." But Keynes got that right: Technology has made the economy massively more productive. According to Benjamin M. Friedman, an economist at Harvard, the U.S. economy is right on track to reach Keynes's eight-fold (八倍) multiple by 2029. That is a century after the last data Keynes would have had access to.

如果凯恩斯关于技术提高经济生产力的能力的判断是错误的，那就没有什么神秘的了，他认为这将导致生活水平“是当前水平的四到八倍”。但凯恩斯是对的：技术使经济生产力大幅提高。根据哈佛大学经济学家本杰明·M·弗里德曼的说法，美国经济正按计划在2029年达到凯恩斯预测的八倍。这距离凯恩斯所能获得的最新数据已有一个世纪。

D) In a new paper, Friedman tries to figure out why that increased productivity has not translated into increased leisure time. Perhaps people just never feel materially satisfied, always wanting more money to buy the next new thing. This is a theory that appeals to many economists. "This argument is, at best, far from sufficient," he writes. If that were the case, why did the duration of the working week decline in the first place?

在一篇新论文中，弗里德曼试图找出为什么生产力的提高没有转化为更多的闲暇时间。也许人们只是从未感到物质满足，总是想要更多的钱来购买下一个新事物。这是许多经济学家所认同的理论。他写道：“这种论点充其量是远远不够的。”如果是这样，为什么工作周的时长最初会下降呢？

E) Another theory Friedman considers is that, in an era of ever fewer settings that provide effective opportunities for personal connections and relationships, people may place more value on the socializing that happens at work. There is support for this theory. Many people today consider colleagues as friends. But Friedman argues that the evidence for this theory is far from conclusive. Many workers report that they would like to spend more time with family, rather than at work. Furthermore, this theory cannot explain the change in trend in the U.S. working week in the 1970s.

弗里德曼考虑的另一个理论是，在一个提供有效人际联系和关系的场所越来越少的时代，人们可能更重视在工作中发生的社交活动。这一理论得到了支持。如今，许多人将同事视为朋友。但弗里德曼认为，这一理论的证据远非定论。许多工人报告说，他们希望花更多时间与家人在一起，而不是在工作。此外，这一理论无法解释20世纪70年代美国工作周趋势的变化。

F) A third possibility proves more convincing for Friedman. That is: American inequality means that the gains of increasing productivity are not widely shared by everyone. In other words, most Americans are too poor to work less. Unlike the other two explanations Friedman considers, this one fits chronologically (按年代). Inequality declined in America during the period following World War II, along with the duration of the working week. But since the early 1970s it has risen dramatically.

对弗里德曼来说，第三种可能性更有说服力。那就是：美国的不平等意味着生产力提高的收益并未被广泛共享。换句话说，大多数美国人太穷了，无法减少工作。与弗里德曼考虑的其他两个解释不同，这一解释在时间上相符。二战后，美国的不平等程度下降，工作周的时长也随之下降。但自20世纪70年代初以来，不平等急剧上升。

G) Keynes's prediction of a shorter working week rests on the idea that the standard of living would continue rising for everyone. But Friedman says that this is not what has happened. Although Keynes's eight-fold figure holds up for the economy as a whole, it is not at all the case for the median (中位数的) American worker. For them, output by 2029 is likely to be around 3.5 times what it was when Keynes was writing. This is a bit below his four- to eight-fold predicted range.

凯恩斯对更短工作周的预测基于这样一个理念：每个人的生活水平将继续提高。但弗里德曼说，事实并非如此。尽管凯恩斯的八倍数字对整体经济成立，但对中位数美国工人来说却完全不是这样。对他们来说，到2029年的产出可能大约是凯恩斯写作时的3.5倍。这略低于他预测的四到八倍的范围。

H) This can be seen in the median worker's income over this time period, complete with a shift in 1973 that fits in precisely with when the working week stopped shrinking. According to Friedman, between 1947 and 1973 the average hourly wage for normal workers (those who were not in management roles) in private industries other than agriculture nearly doubled in terms of what their money could buy. But by 2013 the average hourly wage for ordinary workers had fallen 5 percent from the 1973 level in terms of actual purchasing power. Thus, though American incomes may have gone up since 1973, the amount that American workers can actually buy with their money has gone down. For most Americans, then, the magic of increasing productivity stopped working around 1973. Thus, they had to keep working just as much in order to maintain their standard of living.

这可以从这一时期中位数工人的收入中看出，包括1973年的一个转变，正好与工作周停止缩短的时间吻合。根据弗里德曼的说法，1947年至1973年间，私营工业中普通工人（非管理职位）的平均时薪，按购买力计算，几乎翻了一番。但到2013年，普通工人的平均时薪按实际购买力计算，比1973年水平下降了5%。因此，尽管自1973年以来美国收入可能有所增加，但美国工人实际能用钱购买的东西却减少了。对大多数美国人来说，提高生产力的魔力在1973年左右停止了。因此，他们不得不继续工作同样多的时间以维持生活水平。

I) What Keynes predicted was a very optimistic version of what economists call technological unemployment. This is the idea that less labor will be necessary because machines can do so much. In Keynes's vision, the resulting unemployment would be distributed more or less evenly across society in the form of increased leisure. But Friedman says that, for Americans, reality is much darker. Americans now have a labor market in which millions of people—those with fewer skills and less education—are seeking whatever poorly paid work they can get. This is confirmed by a recent poll that found that, for half of hourly workers, their top concern is not that they work too much but that they work too little. This is most likely not because they like their jobs so much. Rather, we can assume it is because they need the money.

凯恩斯预测的是经济学家所称的技术性失业的一个非常乐观的版本。这个观点是，由于机器能做很多事情，所需的劳动力将减少。在凯恩斯的设想中，由此产生的失业将以增加闲暇的形式在社会中或多或少地均匀分配。但弗里德曼说，对美国人来说，现实要黑暗得多。美国人现在的劳动力市场中，数百万技能较低、教育程度较低的人正在寻找任何能找到的低薪工作。最近的一项民意调查证实了这一点，该调查发现，对于一半的按小时计酬的工人来说，他们最担心的不是工作太多，而是工作太少。这很可能不是因为他们太喜欢自己的工作。相反，我们可以假设这是因为他们需要钱。

J) This explanation leaves an important question. If the very rich—the workers who have reaped above-average gains from the increased productivity since Keynes's time—can afford to work less, why do they continue to work so much? (Indeed, research has shown that the highest earners in America tend to work the most.) Friedman believes that for many top earners, work is a labor of love. They are doing work they care about and are interested in, and doing more of it is not necessarily a burden. For them, it may even be a pleasure. These top earners derive meaning from their jobs and work is an important part of how they think of themselves. And, of course, they are compensated for it at a level that makes it worth their while.

这一解释留下了一个重要问题。如果非常富有的人——那些自凯恩斯时代以来从生产力提高中获得高于平均水平收益的工人——能负担得起减少工作，为什么他们继续工作这么多？（事实上，研究表明，美国的高收入者往往工作最多。）弗里德曼认为，对许多高收入者来说，工作是热爱的劳动。他们从事自己关心和感兴趣的工作，做更多不一定是一种负担。对他们来说，甚至可能是一种乐趣。这些高收入者从工作中获得意义，工作是他们如何看待自己的重要部分。而且，当然，他们的报酬水平使这份工作值得付出。

K) Friedman concludes that the prosperity (繁荣) Keynes predicted is here. After all, the economy as a whole has grown even more brilliantly than he expected. But for most Americans, that prosperity is nowhere to be seen. And, as a result, neither are those shorter working weeks.

弗里德曼总结道，凯恩斯预测的繁荣已经到来。毕竟，整体经济增长甚至比他预期的还要出色。但对大多数美国人来说，那种繁荣无处可寻。因此，那些更短的工作周也无从谈起。