美国国家公共电台 NPR America's 'Complacent Class': How Self-Segregation Is Leading To Stagnation

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

As Americans, we are bound by a collective identity. We see ourselves as independent change makers¹. We invent things. And we can reinvent ourselves. But that innovation, that desire to keep changing has gone away. That's the central argument of Tyler Cowen's new book - America is standing² still. And it's not a good thing.

The book is called "The Complacent³ Class: The Self-Defeating Quest For The American Dream." Cowen says people have grown more risk averse⁴, reluctant to switch jobs or to move to another state. And he told me that he's worried more and more communities are self-segregating, whether it be by income, education or race.

TYLER COWEN: We're making decisions that are rational and even pleasurable from an individual point of view. But when everyone in society behaves this way to cement in their own security, their own mobility⁵, social mobility as a whole goes down. Inequality goes up. Many measures of segregation⁶ go up. And ultimately, a bill for this comes due.

MARTIN: You spend a few chapters in the book talking about the different levels of segregation and how that has lent itself to the complacency we've seen. A couple things - we don't move across state lines anymore. And if we do, we're moving to neighborhoods where everyone looks like us. Draw the connection there to complacency.

COWEN: That's right. So if you live in Arlington, Va., and if you moved to Ann Arbor⁷, Mich., or even Santa Monica, Calif., those places are more alike than ever before. But most importantly, segregation by income has gone up in virtually every part of this country.

So wealthier people tend to live together more than before, and so do poorer people. And this is bad for the country as a whole. And we see a version of this in the last election, where so many people are shocked by the candidate who actually won.

MARTIN: What happens when we live in communities where we are not challenged or where we're just reaffirming our own biases⁸ all the time?

COWEN: Well, we become complacent. Many of those biases are true, I might add. But if you ceased being challenged, and you think your way of life is the only way, ultimately that way will become weak. It will be subject to less improvement. You will enter a kind of bubble and continually be surprised by the challenges the outside world keeps on throwing at you. But you're not very well-equipped intellectually to handle them.

MARTIN: One stat that jumped out at me when you think about complacency and how our economy has stagnated⁹ - wages. We've heard for a long time how wages are stagnant¹⁰. But the median male wage, you write, was higher in 1969 than it is today. That is remarkable¹¹.

COWEN: It is truly a shocking fact. Now, you could argue the measurements are not perfect. That's true. But that even the numbers can come out that way. So many of the advances in our economy have come from women working more, working harder, getting more educated. That's great. But when it comes to males, something has very badly gone wrong.

I think we have switched to a service sector¹² economy. Most jobs are now service sector. That's bad for some percentage of men. Jobs require more and more that you be skilled in information technology. That's great for the top 1 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent, not so great for the median or the bottom third of males.

MARTIN: So this narrative¹³ has caught hold after Donald Trump¹⁴'s victory, that men, in particular white men, have not seen the kind of wage increases. And that's led to a severe feeling of disenfranchisement from the system. But you write, as you illustrate¹⁵ with a statistic¹⁶, this has been happening for a long time. So why is this only now coming home to roost?

COWEN: I think what we had done in the previous decade was take on a lot of debt to try to cover up fairly stagnant standards of living. And that can work for a while. We also have improved our country in other ways. We've made it more tolerant. We've made it safer. Those are good things.

So life in some critical ways feels better. And those are real feelings. But at the same time, if you let slip the dynamism of your society and your economy, eventually that will come back to pinch or bite you really pretty badly.

MARTIN: You write at the end of the book, and you put it in bold, actually twice, this sentiment. And I'm going to quote now from the book. "The biggest story of the last 15 years, both nationally and globally, is the growing likelihood that a cyclical model of history will hold, rather than a model of ongoing¹⁷ progress."

So what does that mean? I mean, what's the cycle we're living through, and where are we at in it?

COWEN: In the 1990s, pretty much everything seemed to be going in the right direction. More countries were democratic. More countries were becoming free. Lately, we see China, Russia, Turkey moving back in a much more authoritarian¹⁸ direction, significant parts of the Middle East up in flames. The forward march of progress is not the main story today.

MARTIN: When you talk about these big historic cycles, these are cycles that include the rise and fall of empires. Is that what we're witnessing?

COWEN: I would say the risk of an unraveling of the basic liberal globalized world order has been going up for some number of years now. And only now do we see it with Brexit and the election of Trump. We need to take this risk very seriously.

MARTIN: Donald Trump, if anything, was a rejection¹⁹ of the status quo. The people who supported him are the people you're writing about who said, we've been living in this stasis. And so we want to break the system. We want to break the status quo.

COWEN: But keep in mind, the rejection of the status quo was not for a bold, bright, optimistic, daring future. So much of the rhetoric²¹ of the Trump campaign - the inauguration²² speech, the convention speech - it's been deeply pessimistic. It's been deeply backward-looking. It's about wanting to go back to an America of the Eisenhower era, attitudes toward race and foreign alliances and foreign trade. I don't think it really is dynamism. I think it's another form of actually a disguised complacency.

MARTIN: So how do you sleep at night after writing this book? I mean, this is grim stuff we're talking about right now.

COWEN: I'm actually an optimist²⁰. And I think some of this has to do with age. So I think of the '80s and '90s as very calm, smooth, optimistic decades. But when you think back to our broader history, you know, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon trying to undermine the Constitution. Those are all terrible, deeply unpleasant events. But we did get through them.

And I think viewed in a longer run perspective, this country will recapture its dynamism. I think innovations that have been restricted to the tech sector will move through most of our economy. At some point, real wages will go up quite a bit more again. My hope is the current political mood is something we're getting out of our system, rather than a permanent change. So ultimately, I would bet on optimism. But I think those big bumps in the road, they're not distant. Right now, we're just at them.

MARTIN: Thanks so much for talking with us.

COWEN: My pleasure. Thank you.

MARTIN: Tyler Cowen's new book is called "The Complacent Class."

(SOUNDBITE OF TOMAS DVORAK'S "THE BOTTOM")

1 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

3 complacent   

adj.自满的；自鸣得意的

参考例句：

• We must not become complacent the moment we have some success.我们决不能一见成绩就自满起来。
• She was complacent about her achievements.她对自己的成绩沾沾自喜。

4 averse   

adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的

参考例句：

• I don't smoke cigarettes,but I'm not averse to the occasional cigar.我不吸烟，但我不反对偶尔抽一支雪茄。
• We are averse to such noisy surroundings.我们不喜欢这么吵闹的环境。

5 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

6 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

7 arbor   

n.凉亭；树木

参考例句：

• They sat in the arbor and chatted over tea.他们坐在凉亭里，边喝茶边聊天。
• You may have heard of Arbor Day at school.你可能在学校里听过植树节。

8 biases   

偏见( bias的名词复数 )； 偏爱； 特殊能力； 斜纹

参考例句：

• Stereotypes represent designer or researcher biases and assumptions, rather than factual data. 它代表设计师或者研究者的偏见和假设，而不是实际的数据。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• The net effect of biases on international comparisons is easily summarized. 偏差对国际比较的基本影响容易概括。

9 stagnated   

v.停滞，不流动，不发展( stagnate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The balloting had stagnated, he couldn't win. 投票工作陷于停顿，他不能得胜。 来自辞典例句
• His mind has stagnated since his retirement. 他退休后头脑迟钝了。 来自辞典例句

10 stagnant   

adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的

参考例句：

• Due to low investment,industrial output has remained stagnant.由于投资少，工业生产一直停滞不前。
• Their national economy is stagnant.他们的国家经济停滞不前。

11 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

12 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

13 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

14 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

15 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

16 statistic   

n.统计量；adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• Official statistics show real wages declining by 24%.官方统计数字表明实际工资下降了24%。
• There are no reliable statistics for the number of deaths in the battle.关于阵亡人数没有可靠的统计数字。

17 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

18 authoritarian   

n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者

参考例句：

• Foreign diplomats suspect him of authoritarian tendencies.各国外交官怀疑他有着独裁主义倾向。
• The authoritarian policy wasn't proved to be a success.独裁主义的政策证明并不成功。

19 rejection   

n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃

参考例句：

• He decided not to approach her for fear of rejection.他因怕遭拒绝决定不再去找她。
• The rejection plunged her into the dark depths of despair.遭到拒绝使她陷入了绝望的深渊。

20 optimist   

n.乐观的人，乐观主义者

参考例句：

• We are optimist and realist.我们是乐观主义者，又是现实主义者。
• Peter,ever the optimist,said things were bound to improve.一向乐观的皮特说，事情必定是会好转的。

21 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

22 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。