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Bartleby
巴托比专栏
From factories to frappes
从工厂到饮品店
Nostalgia for manufacturing jobs is misplaced.
对制造业工作的怀念是错误的。
If there is one thing politicians agree on these days, it is that manufacturing jobs are “good” jobs.
如果说如今的政客们在一件事情上能达成共识，那就是制造业的工作是“好”工作。
Joe Biden is betting that huge subsidies for new factories will transform the outlook for America’s workers—and November’s election.
乔·拜登打赌，对新工厂的巨额补贴将改变美国工人的前景，以及11月选举的前景。
His acting labour secretary recently embarked on a jolly-sounding “Good Jobs Summer Tour” to trumpet the president’s plans.
他的代理劳工部长最近开始了名字听起来很愉快的“好工作夏季之旅”，来宣扬拜登总统的计划。
Donald Trump, Mr Biden’s rival, is just as eager to get more wrenches into the hands of American workers, mostly by slapping tariffs on foreign goods.
拜登的竞争对手唐纳德·特朗普同样渴望让更多的扳手拿在美国工人手中，他的办法主要是对外国商品征收关税。
Politicians across the rich world believe that reversing the decades-long decline in manufacturing employment would leave workers better off.
富裕世界的政客们认为，扭转制造业就业长达数十年的颓势会让工人的生活变得更好。
Your guest Bartleby is not convinced.
笔者并不相信。
He has, admittedly, never worked in a factory, and thus feels no nostalgia for hard hats and high-vis vests.
笔者确实从未在工厂工作过，因此对安全帽和反光背心也没有什么怀旧之情。
Still, the idea that deindustrialisation has made work worse is hard to square with the fact that data on worker satisfaction have been steadily improving for years.
尽管如此，“去工业化使工作变得更糟”的观点很难与“工作者满意度数据多年来稳步提高”的事实相符。
The argument that manufacturing jobs are better than other sorts has a long pedigree.
制造业的工作比其他工作更好，这种论点由来已久。
Adam Smith believed that manufacturing was “productive”, unlike services such as banking, retail or hospitality.
亚当·斯密认为制造业是“生产性的”，与银行、零售或酒店餐饮业等服务业不同。
The factories of the Industrial Revolution transformed living standards in Europe and America in the 19th century.
工业革命时期的工厂在19世纪改变了欧洲和美国的生活水平。
Yet they were also awful places for workers, managing to be both horribly dangerous and tremendously boring.
但对于工人来说，工厂也是可怕的地方，既非常危险，又极其无聊。
Things did not get much better with the rise of mass-production in the early 20th century.
20世纪初大规模生产的兴起也没有让情况变得好多少。
Workers in Henry Ford’s carmaking plants, though relatively well paid, complained that work was stultifying.
亨利·福特汽车厂的工人虽然工资相对较高，但也抱怨工作枯燥乏味。
As one Ford worker noted, “If I keep putting on Nut Number 86 for about 86 more days, I will be Nut Number 86 in the Pontiac bughouse.”
一位福特汽车工人说：“如果我继续安装86号螺母86天，我就会变成庞蒂亚克疯人院里的86号疯子。”
Even during the post-war period—paradise lost, in the eyes of many Western politicians—people were hardly thrilled about working in factories.
甚至在战后时期——许多西方政治家认为这一时期是失乐园——人们也很难对在工厂工作感到兴奋。
In 1970 Fortune magazine coined the phrase the “blue-collar blues” to describe the alienation many manufacturing workers felt in an impersonal industrial system.
1970年，《财富》杂志创造了“蓝领忧郁”一词，用以描述许多制造业工人在缺乏人性的工业体系中感受到的异化。
One pundit noted that such a worker would be “easy prey for demagogues who appeal to his resentment and his desire for revenge”, which sounds familiar.
一位专家指出，这样的工人“很容易成为政治煽动者的猎物，煽动者会利用他的怨恨和复仇欲望”，这听起来很熟悉。
Manufacturing enthusiasts will no doubt counter that jobs in the sector are much better today.
制造业爱好者无疑会反驳说，该行业的工作如今要好很多。
Workplace accidents occur a fraction as often as they once did.
工作场所发生事故的频率比以前低了很多。
Most factories are air-conditioned.
大多数工厂都装有空调。
Robots do many of the heaviest and most repetitive tasks.
机器人承担了许多最繁重和最重复的任务。
And around a third of those who work in manufacturing never go near a rivet, performing white-collar roles such as design and engineering.
而且大约三分之一的制造业工作者从未接近过铆钉，他们做的是设计和工程等白领工作。
All that may be so, but compare workers of a similar education level and there is little evidence they would gain by moving from services to manufacturing.
或许情况确实如此，但是把教育水平相近的工人进行比较，就可以发现并没有多少证据表明他们从服务业转向制造业会得到好处。
One paper by statisticians at America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics found that, across a variety of measures including pay, benefits, job security and safety, “many industries within services equal or exceed manufacturing.”
美国劳工统计局的统计学家发表的一篇论文发现，在包括薪酬、福利、工作稳定性和安全在内的各种指标中，“服务业中的许多行业等于或超过了制造业”。
This Bartleby’s analysis of British data similarly shows that job quality in the manufacturing sector is no better than average.
笔者对英国数据的分析同样表明，制造业的工作质量并不高于平均水平。
For decades economists observed that manufacturing workers enjoyed a wage premium over comparable workers in other industries.
数十年来，经济学家观察到，制造业工人与其他行业的类似工人相比，他们享受更高的工资。
A recent paper published by the Federal Reserve, however, shows that this premium has “disappeared” in recent years.
然而，美联储最近发表的一篇论文显示，近年来这种溢价已经“消失”了。
Those who point to the insecurity of gig jobs, such as delivering takeaway meals, would do well to remember that manufacturing jobs are often more cyclical than those in services.
有些人会指出零工工作（比如送外卖）是不稳定的，但他们最好记住制造业的工作往往比服务业的工作更具周期性。
They are also more likely to be automated away.
它们也更有可能被自动化。
It is not immediately obvious that a job tending to an industrial robot is more satisfying than one operating an espresso machine at Starbucks, especially for workers who enjoy some human interaction.
照管工业机器人的工作比在星巴克操作浓缩咖啡机的工作更令人满意，这一点并不是显而易见的，尤其对于那些喜欢与人互动的工作者来说。
According to Mr Biden, “A job is about a lot more than a pay cheque. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect.”
据拜登先生所说，“一份工作的意义远不止是薪水。还关乎你的尊严以及获得的尊重。”
That is true.
确实如此。
Yet dignity and respect should be available for workers wherever they are employed.
但无论工人在哪里就业，都应该得到尊严和尊重。
If not, politicians should focus their attention on ensuring the right regulations are in place, instead of spending billions of dollars trying to recreate a past that was far less rosy than they imagine.
如果不是这样，政治家们应该把注意力集中在确保有适当的法规，而不是花费数十亿美元，试图重现一个远不如他们想象中那么美好的过去。
Companies, of course, have a role to play as well, with plenty of evidence demonstrating that bosses who treat their employees well reap the rewards.
公司当然也有自己的角色要扮演，有大量证据表明，善待员工的老板会获得回报。
And workers themselves need to face the fact that nostalgia misleads.
而且劳动者自身需要面对现实，即怀旧是具有误导性的。
Yes, work can be a drag.
是的，工作可能是一件苦差事。
But it is probably the best it has ever been.
但现在的工作可能是所有时间以来最好的工作。
