Robert Gordon: The death of innovation, the end of growth

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast

翻译人员: Ying Wang 校对人员: Xizhi Deng

That's how we traveled in the year 1900.

1900年，人们是这样出行的。

That's an open buggy. It doesn't have heating.

这是一个敞篷车，它没有供暖设备，

It doesn't have air conditioning.

没有空调，

That horse is pulling it along

只有马拉着。

at one percent of the speed of sound,

以百分之一的光速向前行驶。

and the rutted dirt road

一旦下雨，这布满车辙与尘土路

turns into a quagmire of mud anytime it rains.

将变成充满烂泥的沼泽地。

That's a Boeing 707.

这是一架波音707，

Only 60 years later, it travels

仅仅60年之后，

at 80 percent of the speed of sound,

它以80%的光速飞行。

and we don't travel any faster today

这是迄今为止人类能达到的最快速度。

because commercial supersonic air travel

著名的超音速商业旅游公司

turned out to be a bust.

如今也已破产，

So I started wondering and pondering,

这不禁让我思考：

could it be that the best years of American economic growth

美国经济的繁荣年代

are behind us?

是否已成为历史了呢？

And that leads to the suggestion, maybe economic growth

这个疑问引出了一个细微的迹象：

is almost over.

或许经济增长已经停止了。

Some of the reasons for this are not really very controversial.

得出此结论的一部分原因无可置否。

There are four headwinds that are just hitting

美国经济正遭遇着四个方面的打压。

the American economy in the face.

它们分别是：

They're demographics, education, debt and inequality.

人口，教育，债务以及不平等。

They're powerful enough to cut growth in half.

这些问题严峻到能使经济增长速度减半。

So we need a lot of innovation to offset this decline.

我们需要大量创新来抵抗经济衰落，

And here's my theme: Because of the headwinds,

这也就引出了我今天演讲的主题：面临当前的不利形势，

if innovation continues to be as powerful as it has been

如果创新的力量仍和过去150年一样强大，

in the last 150 years, growth is cut in half.

经济增长速度也只能是减半，

If innovation is less powerful,

如果创新程度弱于以往，

invents less great, wonderful things,

无法创造出更伟大更美好的事物，

then growth is going to be even lower than half of history.

那么经济增长速度连过去的一半都达不到。

Now here's eight centuries of economic growth.

这是八世纪的经济增长图，

The vertical axis is just percent per year of growth,

纵坐标显示每年经济增长的百分点，

zero percent a year, one percent a year, two percent a year.

第一年零增长，1%增长率，2%增长率

The white line is for the U.K., and then the U.S.

白色的线代表英国，然后美国

takes over as the leading nation in the year 1900,

超过英国成为20世纪的领先强国。

when the line switches to red.

当线条转为红色时，

You'll notice that, for the first four centuries,

你会发现前四个世纪

there's hardly any growth at all, just 0.2 percent.

经济几乎没有增长，只有可怜的0.2%增长率，

Then growth gets better and better.

在这之后经济越来越好。

It maxes out in the 1930s, '40s and '50s,

在20世纪30.40.和50年代出现经济增长高峰，

and then it starts slowing down, and here's a cautionary note.

在这之后，增长速度减慢。值得注意的是，

That last downward notch in the red line

红色线条中最后的下降曲线

is not actual data.

并非真实的数据，

That is a forecast that I made six years ago

那只是我在六年前对经济的预测，

that growth would slow down to 1.3 percent.

我那时估计经济增长速度会减缓到1.3%

But you know what the actual facts are?

但真实数据是如何呢？

You know what the growth in per-person income has been

在场有谁知道在过去的六年内美国人均收入

in the United States in the last six years?

增长了多少呢？

Negative.

答案是负增长。

This led to a fantasy.

这便导致了一场幻觉。

What if I try to fit a curved line to this historical record?

如果我要在这个历史记录中安置一条曲线结果会怎么样呢？

I can make the curved line end anywhere I wanted,

我能将曲线终止在任何地方，

but I decided I would end it at 0.2,

但我估计会降到0.2%

just like the U.K. growth for the first four centuries.

就像英国在前四世纪的增长速度一样。

Now the history that we've achieved is that we've grown

从1891年到2007年，美国经济

at 2.0 percent per year over the whole period,

的年增长率

1891 to 2007,

是2.0%

and remember it's been a little bit negative since 2007.

请记住，2007年以后，经济就出现了负增长，

But if growth slows down,

但如果经济增长速度减慢，

instead of doubling our standard of living every generation,

结果将不是生活水平比以前翻一番。

Americans in the future can't expect to be twice as well off as their parents,

未来的美国人民不能期待生活水平比上一代好一倍，

or even a quarter [more well off than] their parents.

或者只是好上四分之一。

Now we're going to change and look at the level of per capita income.

现在我们转来看看人均收入水平。

The vertical axis now is thousands of dollars in today's prices.

纵轴代表以千为单位的美元，

You'll notice that in 1891, over on the left,

你会发现，在1891年，此图的左半边，

we were at about 5,000 dollars.

美国人均年收入为5000美元。

Today we're at about 44,000 dollars of total output

如今美国人均年收入为

per member of the population.

44000美元。

Now what if we could achieve that historic

如果在1891年后的70年内，

two-percent growth for the next 70 years?

经济年增长率为2%，

Well, it's a matter of arithmetic.

这是一个算法问题。

Two-percent growth quadruples your standard of living in 70 years.

2%的经济增长率会让你的生活水平在70年后翻两番。

That means we'd go from 44,000 to 180,000.

这就意味着到2031年,美国人均年收入将从44000美元增长到180000美元。

Well, we're not going to do that,

然而，我们并不能达到这个目标，

and the reason is the headwinds.

原因就在于经济逆风。

The first headwind is demographics.

第一阵经济逆风就是人口。

It's a truism that your standard of living

众所周知，你的生活水平增长速度要快于生产率，

rises faster than productivity, rises faster than output per hour,

也会快于每小时产量

if hours per person increased.

如果人均工时增加，

And we got that gift back in the '70s and '80s

在二十世纪七十年代和八十年代，当女性加入劳动市场，

when women entered the labor force.

我们的确尝到了甜头。

But now it's turned around.

但是如今形势却出现逆转，

Now hours per person are shrinking,

人均工时不断缩水，

first because of the retirement of the baby boomers,

原因之一是五六十年代婴儿潮出生的人目前已面临退休，

and second because there's been a very significant

原因之二是青壮年男性劳动力的比例

dropping out of the labor force of prime age adult males

大幅度下降，

who are in the bottom half of the educational distribution.

他们是教育分布的下半部。

The next headwind is education.

第二场经济逆风是教育。

We've got problems all over our educational system

我们的教育体系存在大量问题，

despite Race to the Top.

这是除了种族问题之外最严峻的问题

In college, we've got cost inflation in higher education

大学里，高等教育的成本增长不断增长，

that dwarfs cost inflation in medical care.

这种增长使医疗保健中的成本增长显得相形见绌。

We have in higher education a trillion dollars of student debt,

高等教育里，学生欠债高达一万亿美元。

and our college completion rate

而大学完成率却

is 15 points, 15 percentage points below Canada.

低于加拿大15%

We have a lot of debt.

我们欠了大量的债务。

Our economy grew from 2000 to 2007

2000到2007年间的经济增长

on the back of consumers massively overborrowing.

是源于消费者的大量过度借贷。

Consumers paying off that debt is one of the main reasons

消费者将钱用于还债，

why our economic recovery is so sluggish today.

就是如今我们经济萧条的主要原因之一。

And everybody of course knows

众所周知，

that the federal government debt is growing

作为GDP的一部分，

as a share of GDP at a very rapid rate,

联邦政府的贷款正在迅速增加，

and the only way that's going to stop is some combination

而阻止其增长的唯一方式就是

of faster growth in taxes or slower growth in entitlements,

加快税收增长以及减缓津贴增长，

also called transfer payments.

这也被称作转移支付。

And that gets us down from the 1.5,

若将此种方法付诸实际，

where we've reached for education, down to 1.3.

就能将我们的教育 百分比从1.5%降到1.3%。

And then we have inequality.

除此之外，我们还面临不平等这一问题。

Over the 15 years before the financial crisis,

在经济危机发生之前的15年内，

the growth rate of the bottom 99 percent

收入分布底层的99%的增长速度

of the income distribution was half a point slower

比之前我们所讲的平均值

than the averages we've been talking about before.

降低了0.5%。

All the rest went to the top one percent.

剩下的就是顶层的1%。

So that brings us down to 0.8.

平均一下，就是0.8%。

And that 0.8 is the big challenge.

0.8%这个数字对我们来说是个巨大的挑战。

Are we going to grow at 0.8?

我们的经济会以0.8%的速度增长么？

If so, that's going to require that our inventions

要做到这点，我们必须保证今后的发明

are as important as the ones that happened

会与150年前的发明

over the last 150 years.

具有同等的重要意义。

So let's see what some of those inventions were.

让我们先来看看过去有哪些发明：

If you wanted to read in 1875 at night,

在1875年，人们想在晚上读书的话，

you needed to have an oil or a gas lamp.

需要煤油灯或者煤气灯。

They created pollution, they created odors,

这些灯会污染环境，也会散发臭味，

they were hard to control, the light was dim,

这种灯很难控制，光线也比较昏暗，

and they were a fire hazard.

同时也是火灾隐患。

By 1929, electric light was everywhere.

1929年，电灯在美国已经随处可见了。

We had the vertical city, the invention of the elevator.

城市高楼耸立，这个时代又出现了电梯。

Central Manhattan became possible.

曼哈顿中央区成为可能。

And then, in addition to that, at the same time,

与此同时，

hand tools were replaced by massive electric tools

手工操作被大量机械操作取代，

and hand-powered electric tools,

手动的电动工具

all achieved by electricity.

通过电力实现。

Electricity was also very helpful in liberating women.

电力同时也解放了妇女。

Women, back in the late 19th century,

在十九世纪，

spent two days a week doing the laundry.

妇女每个星期要花两天的时间洗衣服。

They did it on a scrub board.

她们首先要在搓衣板上刷衣服，

Then they had to hang the clothes out to dry.

然后将衣服挂起来晾干，

Then they had to bring them in.

然后再把晒干的衣服带回家。

The whole thing took two days out of the seven-day week.

整个过程要花费2天的时间。

And then we had the electric washing machine.

然后，人类发明了电动洗衣机。

And by 1950, they were everywhere.

1950年，洗衣机在美国随处可见

But the women still had to shop every day,

但是妇女每天要买菜，

but no they didn't, because electricity

现在，她们不需要为此操劳了，

brought us the electric refrigerator.

因为现在有了电冰箱。

Back in the late 19th century, the only source of heat in most homes

在19世纪，大多数家庭里唯一的热源是

was a big fireplace in the kitchen that was used for cooking and heating.

厨房里用来烧饭和加热的火堆。

The bedrooms were cold. They were unheated.

房间冰冷，没有热源。

But by 1929, certainly by 1950,

但到了1929年，尤其到了1950年，

we had central heating everywhere.

中央供暖在美国随处可见。

What about the internal combustion engine,

1879年，

which was invented in 1879?

人类发明了内燃机。

In America, before the motor vehicle,

在出现汽车之前

transportation depended entirely on the urban horse,

美国的交通完全依赖马匹。

which dropped, without restraint,

由于没有限制，

25 to 50 pounds of manure on the streets every day

这些马匹每天在街上要排放25磅至50磅（约11.36公斤至22.73公斤）的粪便，

together with a gallon of urine.

还有1加仑（约3.8升）的尿液。

That comes out at five to 10 tons daily

这就意味着每天，城市每平方英尺（约9.29平方米）内

per square mile in cities.

就有5到10吨的马排泄物。

Those horses also ate up fully one quarter of American agricultural land.

这些马吃的草占了美国农业土地四分之一。

That's the percentage of American agricultural land

整整25%的美国农业土地

it took to feed the horses.

居然都用来喂马了。

Of course, when the motor vehicle was invented,

当然，当汽车出现后

and it became almost ubiquitous by 1929,

尤其是在1929年汽车遍布全国各地的时候，

that agricultural land could be used for human consumption

农业土地被用来供人类消费

or for export.

或者出口。

And here's an interesting ratio: Starting from zero in 1900,

这是个有趣的比例：1900年，没有一个家庭拥有汽车；

only 30 years later, the ratio of motor vehicles to the number of households

仅仅三十年之后，

in the United States reached 90 percent in just 30 years.

90%的美国家庭都拥有了汽车。

Back before the turn of the century,

19世纪末期，

women had another problem.

妇女还有一个亟待解决的问题：

All the water for cooking, cleaning and bathing

生活用水（例如烧饭，清洁，洗澡），

had to be carried in buckets and pails in from the outside.

必须从外面一桶一桶地提回来。

It's a historical fact that in 1885,

在1885年，

the average North Carolina housewife

北卡罗来纳州的家庭妇女

walked 148 miles a year carrying 35 tons of water.

平均每年要走148英里的路，挑35吨的水。

But by 1929, cities around the country

但到了1929年，每个城市

had put in underground water pipes.

都安装了地下水管。

They had put in underground sewer pipes,

也安装了污水管。

and as a result, one of the great scourges of the late 19th century,

因为这一发明，19世纪末的一大灾难---

waterborne diseases like cholera, began to disappear.

水传疾病例如霍乱，开始逐渐消失。

And an amazing fact for techno-optimists

还有一个让技术乐观主义者高兴的事实：

is that in the first half of the 20th century,

在20世纪前半期，

the rate of improvement of life expectancy

人类寿命的增长速度

was three times faster than it was

是19世纪后半期

in the second half of the 19th century.

寿命增长速度的三倍。

So it's a truism that things can't be more than 100 percent of themselves.

众所周知，任何事物的增长速度不能超过100%。

And I'll just give you a few examples.

在这里我给大家举几个例子：

We went from one percent to 90 percent of the speed of sound.

光速从1%提高到90%，

Electrification, central heat, ownership of motor cars,

电力，中央供暖，汽车拥有量，

they all went from zero to 100 percent.

它们都从0增长到100%。

Urban environments make people more productive than on the farm.

相比农场环境，城市环境提高了人类的生产力。

We went from 25 percent urban to 75 percent

二战后期，

by the early postwar years.

城市化从25%增长到75%。

What about the electronic revolution?

那么电子革命又是如何呢？

Here's an early computer.

这是一台早期的电脑。

It's amazing. The mainframe computer was invented in 1942.

电脑的主架产于1942年，

By 1960 we had telephone bills, bank statements

到了1960年，人类有了电话账单，银行对账单，

were being produced by computers.

这些都是由电脑打印出来的。

The earliest cell phones, the earliest personal computers

最早的手机，个人电脑

were invented in the 1970s.

都出现于1970年代。

The 1980s brought us Bill Gates, DOS,

1980年代出现了比尔盖茨，磁盘操作系统(DOS)，

ATM machines to replace bank tellers,

自动取款机取代了银行出纳员，

bar code scanning to cut down on labor in the retail sector.

条纹扫描削减了销售行业的劳动力。

Fast forward through the '90s,

到了90年代，

we had the dotcom revolution

我们有了网络革命。

and a temporary rise in productivity growth.

在生产率有了短暂的提高。

But I'm now going to give you an experiment.

但现在我要给大家展现一个实验，

You have to choose either option A or option B.

你只能选择A或者B

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Option A is you get to keep everything invented up till 10 years ago.

A选项是：你拥有十年前的所有发明，

So you get Google, you get Amazon,

其中包括谷歌，亚马逊网站，

you get Wikipedia, and you get running water and indoor toilets.

维基百科，自来水，室内洗手间。

Or you get everything invented to yesterday,

B选项是：你拥有直到昨天之前历史上的所有发明，

including Facebook and your iPhone,

这其中包括：脸谱网，苹果手机，

but you have to give up, go out to the outhouse,

但是你必须舍弃一些，你只能到屋外上厕所，

and carry in the water.

必须要自己挑水。

Hurricane Sandy caused a lot of people to lose the 20th century,

台风桑迪使许多人好几天都

maybe for a couple of days,

无法使用20世纪的新发明，

in some cases for more than a week,

在受灾更为严重的地区估计要忍受一个多礼拜，

electricity, running water, heating, gasoline for their cars,

电力，自来水，暖气，汽车所需的汽油

and a charge for their iPhones.

苹果手机的充电器。

The problem we face is that all these great inventions,

我们所面临的的问题是：所有这些伟大的发明

we have to match them in the future,

都给未来的创新带来挑战。

and my prediction that we're not going to match them

我的预测就是：我们不能研制出比这些还要伟大的发明，

brings us down from the original two-percent growth

这就使得我们从2%的增长速度

down to 0.2, the fanciful curve that I drew you at the beginning.

拉回到0.2%的增长速度，也就是我最开始的时候所画的那条曲线。

So here we are back to the horse and buggy.

所以，我们又回到了最开始的马和敞篷车。

I'd like to award an Oscar

我想给20世纪的所有发明家

to the inventors of the 20th century,

颁发奥斯卡奖，

the people from Alexander Graham Bell

这些伟人包括亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔（电话发明者）

to Thomas Edison to the Wright Brothers,

一直到托马斯·爱迪生，一直到怀特兄弟。

I'd like to call them all up here,

我想把他们都邀请到台上来，

and they're going to call back to you.

然后他们将向你们发问：

Your challenge is, can you match what we achieved?

你们的发明能比得过我们的发明么？

Thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

掌声。