凯文·马尼：互联网正在杀死美国中产阶级

“美国梦”伴随着2008年奥巴马的成功当选，曾经是一个非常激动人心的励志性口号。作为美国梦的诠释者，奥巴马本人的经历与成功就是一个活生生的政治标本。美国梦源自他们的一个开国箴言——即存在广阔机遇，使每代人都会胜过上一代人。

随着工资增长停滞和财富减少，生活成本暴涨，美国的中产阶级正在贫穷与不稳定之间摇摆。过去5年里，一些实现“美国梦”的标志，正在成为生活的负担——贷款买房的代价、有两辆车的债务都比以前更高，再加上孩子上大学所需要的费用。这些实现美国梦的贷款成本，正在让越来越多的美国人不堪重负起来。

美国杂志《新闻周刊》网站（Newsweek）近日发表其专栏作者凯文·马尼（Kevin Maney）题为《互联网正在杀死中产阶级》的文章，文章认为，美国不断增长的收入差距与政策或政治毫无关系，但是却和互联网技术紧密相关。

以下为全文：

文章认为，美国不断增长的收入差距与政策或政治毫无关系，但是却和互联网技术紧密相关。 在纽约市的阿姆斯特丹酒馆喝着代表着一天结束了的啤酒，科技企业家贾斯汀·基奇（JustinKitch）为他的新公司Curious.com制定了这样的计划：在网络上为那些擅长教课的人们（课程包括了吉他、冲浪、为贵宾犬做修剪等等）创立空间，这样就可以通过出售这些课程视频来赚钱了。

这真是一个伟大的概念。因而，如果Curious.com飞黄腾达，它将会创造出一个班那么多人的授课明星。一旦学生们涌向该网站的吉他老师去学习他的课，这位老师就会变得有名，会出现在查理•罗斯的访谈上，并且会拥有一份收益颇丰的生意。

现在让我们来看看Curious公司这个主意的最终结论：一些全球闻名的吉他教师们因为满足了中层的需求而富甲一方，严肃认真的学生仍然与最好的老师面对面的学习，但是那些普通的教师们却观察到他们的收入逐渐枯竭，因为业余爱好者们在网上可以用更少的钱，找到更好的课程。吉他教学在21世纪将会分化为一个两级的世界：最好的老师，无论是在网络上还是面对面的教学，都会从一流的学生那里挣到大笔的钱；而其余的那些人就不得不靠残渣剩饭生活了。

换句话说，富人会变得越来越富有，而穷人也会变得越来越贫穷，而在那些日子里，人们弹奏的典型副歌也就不会再是“含糊其辞”（Blurredlines）这首歌了。

日益扩大的经济差距是一个热门的政治话题。在纽约，民主党人士比尔·德·布拉西奥（Billde Blasio）就在竞选市长时承诺修复这一问题。而巴拉克·奥巴马在最近也告诉ABC的一档节目：“我认为总统可以阻止差距的扩大。”

但是总统并不能阻止这一趋势。没有人能够阻止它，因为正是技术推动了这一趋势的发展。政策和税收计划似乎显得越来越轻率——这两点在与网络和自动化操作这两大主要“引擎”相比，看上去甚至只是在起装饰性的作用。

这并不是在说网络和自动化操作是糟糕的，因为大多数的人都喜爱着它们。（我只是想拿走我的新洗碗机！）但是我们需要就它们产生的影响，以及需要怎么做来进行一个小的谈论。

网络给予了每一个人接触最佳事物的机会，而其余的一切都被边缘化。这也是“长尾”概念的一个阴暗面，而我们就这一问题也已经讨论了超过10年的时间。

你可以看到这一点是如何在我们社会的每一个角落里起作用的。让我们用美国篮球职业联盟（NBA）作为一个例子。你能够说出一个小联盟中的篮球运动员吗？电视网络让我们关注NBA的30支球队，这30支球队则是拥有世界上最好的篮球运动员。说到底，这才是我们想要看到的球员，而不是什么韦恩堡愤怒蚂蚁队（Fort Wayne Mad Ants），这支队伍的平均薪水只有每年1万8千美元。在篮球世界中可没有中产阶级。

同样的情况也发生在报纸行业中。几十年前，在网络诞生之前，你很难得到一份来自外地的日报，因此你只能阅读本地的报纸，而这已经是你可以得到的最好的新闻来源。但是，一旦那些最好的新闻机构的内容可以在网络上阅读，读者们和广告商们就会被吸引过去。因而，当记者们只能梦想着可以得到等同于NBA球员们的薪水时，网络已经将这份生意干净利落地进行了划分：主要的刊物获得大多数的金钱，而剩下的则几乎一无所获。

Curious.com网站（或者是其他类似的网站）也会对音乐老师们做相同的事情，而在线的课程也会对大学造成影响。此外，广播、MTV、所有其他的网络和iTunes音乐软件也对流行音乐人们做出了类似的事情。更多更好的网络意味着较少的优秀者，以及一大堆的平凡之人。

现在的因素就在于自动化操作。第一台计算机摆脱了满屋的人一起进行计算的情况，当时，它被称为电脑。随着智游天下网（Expedia）的出现，每个人都可以使用在线网络提供的旅游安排，而专业的旅行社则几乎消失了。

网络和自动化操作是冷酷无情的，而这也正是科技所做的。家庭医生是来诊断你是否有什么不适情况的一份工作，但是在10年或者15年后，这份工作就会变得和大多数的旅行社一样。软件、人工智能以及新类型的电脑——像是在美国智力问答节目 “危险边缘”（Jeopardy）中战胜了人类冠军取得胜利的IBM智能计算机沃森（Watson）一样——将会自动操作越来越复杂的那些以信息为基础的职业。

对于美国或者世界上的其他国家，这里有两种可行的行动方案。

第一种就是通过一项将财富重新从顶层分配下来的法律，但是这在瑞典或是法国却行不通——这两个国家是令人愉快的旅游国家，但是他们的社会主义政策却阻碍了他们的国际竞争力。

第二个选择是尽一切的可能将人口中的几大部分转变到一种新的工作上去。

一些聪明的公司和教育者们主张，未来的中产阶级将由一种新类型的劳动者们组成：这种类型的劳动者将在创造性、哲学以及综合想法方面工作，因为这些是不能够轻易地依靠网络或是自动化操作来进行的。由于这些“学问劳动者们”在过去的几十年里一直都是中产阶级的支柱，因而下一批的人们将不会以太多已知的事物为基础，而是要关注对这些知识的使用。

零售商们将来会想要雇用分析师来对现有的数据进行检查，以来更好地理解人们为什么购买某些东西。医疗保健公司也将会通过员工对不相关领域的熟悉程度——像是医药和时尚这两个不同的领域——以能够从病人们所穿着的非常着装上面收集到重要的数据。

许多这种类型的工作将会处于前线的位置，但此刻，它们几乎不存在，亦或是尚未被人构思。

创造它们的机遇在于改变我们的思维：我们并不能阻止那些无法被阻止的事物，但是却可以接受未来将会发生的事情。

互联网正在杀死美国中产阶级

《新闻周刊》网站英文原文：

The growing U.S. income gap has little to do with policy or politics and everything to do with technology.

Over an end-of-day beer at Amsterdam Tavern in New York City, tech entrepreneur Justin Kitch laid out the plan for his new company, Curious.com: Build an online space where people who excel at giving lessons—guitar, surfing, poodle-trimming—can make money selling those lessons on video.

Great concept. So, if Curious.com takes off, it could create a class of teaching superstars. As students flock to the Curious guitar teacher, he gets famous, appears on Charlie Rose and has himself a lucrative business.

Now take the Curious idea to its eventual conclusion: A few global guitar teachers become fabulously wealthy by vacuuming up mid-level demand. Serious students still go to the best teachers in person, but mediocre teachers watch their incomes dry up as amateurs find better lessons for less money online. Guitar teaching in the 21st century would become a two-tiered world: the best, who make a lot of dough—either online or live—from top-tier students; and the rest, who have to live on the scraps.

In other words, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, a classic refrain that’s playing more often these days than “Blurred lines/ I know you want it!”

Widening economic disparity is a hot political topic. In New York, Democrat Bill de Blasio is campaigning for mayor on promises to fix it. Barack Obama recently told ABC’s This Week, “I think the president can stop it.”

But the president can’t stop it. Nobody can. Technology is driving the trend. Policies and tax schemes seem ever more frivolous—even decorative—compared to the two main engines of disparity: networks and automation.

This is not to say networks and automation are bad. Most people love them. (Just try to take away my new dishwasher!) But we need to have a little talk about their impact and what to do about it.

Networks give everyone access to the best. The rest is marginalized. It’s the dark side of the “long tail” concept we’ve been talking about for more than a decade: Very few people get to be the dog, and almost everyone else is the tail.

You can see how this works in every corner of society. Take the National Basketball Association. Can you name a minor-league basketball player? TV networks allow everyone to focus on the NBA’s 30 teams, which employ the best players in the world. That’s who we want to watch, not the players on the Fort Wayne Mad Ants (average salary: $18,000 a year). There is no middle class in basketball.

The same thing is happening to newspapers. A few decades ago, before the Internet, it was hard to get an out-of-town daily paper, so you read the local one. It was the best you could get. But once the best news organizations became available online, readers and advertisers gravitated to them. While journalists can only dream of getting paid on a par with NBA players, the Internet is dividing that business just as neatly: The leading publications get most of the money and the rest next to nothing.

Curious.com (or something like it) will do the same to music teachers. Online courses will do it to colleges. Radio, MTV, all the other networks and iTunes have in turn done it to pop musicians. More and better networks mean fewer dogs and a whole lot of tails.

Now factor in automation. The first computers got rid of roomfuls of calculating folks who were, back then, called computers. With the advent of Expedia, online travel arrangements became available to everyone, and the profession of travel agent virtually disappeared.

Networks and automation are relentless. It’s what technology does. You know the family doctor whose job is to diagnose what’s wrong with you? In another 10 or 15 years, she’ll be on a par with most travel agents. And it will keep going. Software, artificial intelligence, new kinds of computers—like IBM’s Jeopardy-winning Watson, which thumped the show’s human champions—will automate more and more complex, information-based professions.

There are two viable courses of action for the U.S., or any other nation.

One is to pass laws that redistribute wealth from the top tier down. But then you end up with Sweden or France, which are pleasant places to visit but whose socialist policies hamper their global competitiveness.

The second option is to do everything possible to shift large segments of the population into a new kind of job.

Some smart companies and educators contend that the next middle class will be made up of this new kind of worker: one who deals in creativity, philosophy, and idea synthesis, thinking that can’t be easily networked or automated.

While such “knowledge workers” have been the mainstay of the middle class for the last few decades, the next wave won’t be based so much on what you know as on how well you use it.

Retailers will want to hire analysts to examine existing data to better understand why people buy certain things. Health care companies will value employees familiar with fields as disparate as medicine and fashion, who can gather vital data from the very clothing patients wear.

Many such jobs are on the frontier. At the moment they barely exist or haven’t yet been conceived.

The opportunity to create them lies in changing our thinking: not in terms of stopping what can’t be stopped, but in embracing what’s about to be.