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全球化失败的五个原因

(2025-05-01 23:12:17) 下一个

我们的“我们”与“他们”的世界:全球化失败的五个原因

作者:伊恩·布雷默 2018年5月4日
https://time.com/5264653/us-vs-them-globalism-failing/
TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP-BORDERA

特朗普支持者在2017年3月13日于加州圣地亚哥举行的约500人参加的特朗普支持者集会上挥舞着支持特朗普的标语。Bill Wechter——法新社/盖蒂图片社

这个世界正日益两极分化。分歧不仅在国家之间加剧,在国家内部也日益加深。在我的著作《我们与他们:全球化的失败》中,我阐述了这种现象发生的原因。以下是将当今世界划分为“我们”和“他们”的五个关键因素。

1. 经济学

近年来,贫富差距日益扩大的问题备受关注——当世界上42个人的财富与底层50%的人的财富相等时,新闻标题便不言而喻。但关注是一回事,行动是另一回事。

自由贸易仍然是我们所知的促进全球可持续经济增长的最佳途径。尽可能高效地运输商品、服务、投资和创新可以促进消费,形成良性循环,自1980年以来,世界经济飙升了近700%。全球数亿人摆脱了贫困,这主要归功于全球化。

但并非所有国家和人民都能平等地分享这一良性循环。当为了利润而将工作和机会转移到海外时,国家和特定群体的劳动者就会蒙受损失。而当基础设施支出、公立学校系统、医疗保健等与一个社区的经济状况直接挂钩时,不平等问题就会加剧。经过几代人的时间——以及英国脱欧的剧烈冲击和唐纳德·特朗普的当选——这一点对于仍然沾沾自喜的欧美全球化赢家来说,变得不可避免地显而易见。

2. 社会与文化

在全球化的世界里,人们也跨越国界。当工人们看到自己的生命、生计、地位和福利受到威胁时,他们要求建墙——阻挡廉价劳动力和陌生面孔——或者你可以称之为“他们”的那些人。

唐纳德·特朗普比他在美国的任何政治对手都更了解这一点。经历了一场又一场的风暴,尽管他无力在华盛顿“抽干沼泽”,但他最忠实的支持者仍然坚定地支持他,因为在美国,没有其他人能够真正承诺捍卫他们的利益,免受建制派的蔑视。

大多数政客呼吁团结。特朗普却大谈“我们对抗他们”,并继续从中获益。

3. 安全

文化差异也渗透到安全领域。全球贸易需要地缘政治稳定。稳定需要领导人愿意付出更多,以便其他国家能够做得更少,而这些领导人会利用手中的权力,强加那些多边主义进程赖以存在的妥协。

但特朗普击败了16名共和党人和希拉里·克林顿,因为他承诺美国只会维护自身利益。他嘲笑那些无休止的、毫无意义的战争以及那些为之负责的总统。虽然美国的政治和军事机构为所有这些战争的必要性辩护,但这些战争却是建立在工薪阶层美国男女的背上进行的。当他们回国时,他们发现这个世界并不比他们冒着生命危险保卫的世界安全多少。更糟糕的是,他们非但没有被当作英雄对待,反而在一个功能失调的退伍军人管理体系中几乎得不到任何对待。
此外,还有将移民问题与恐怖主义恐惧捆绑在一起的情况。在美国,这种说法多年来一直被政治化,但却缺乏现实依据。欧洲的情况则截然不同;一些欧洲社区历来难以融入移民群体,而本土圣战分子带来的威胁也实实在在。这些极端分子在巴黎郊区等贫民窟和比利时莫伦贝克等街区被极端化,他们构成了真正的威胁。

4. 科技与过滤泡沫

长期以来,互联网一直被用来连接在聊天论坛和在线社区中寻找志同道合者的人们。但随着社交媒体的出现和爆炸式增长,回音室效应也逐渐盛行。如今,要找到一个与你从根本上不认同的人需要付出努力——人们会被那些与自己价值观和对社区及世界的看法相同的人所吸引。

然而,人性并非唯一原因。如今,科技和媒体公司通过最大限度地增加你在其平台上与内容互动的时间来增加利润。算法旨在向你展示那些你期望“点赞”和参与的内容,结果导致受众群体缩小,这有助于广告定位和数据收集。其结果是网络空间的政治分裂日益加剧,而这种分裂在现实世界中随着每次选举周期的推进而愈发深刻。

5. 科技与自动化

科技革命尚处于起步阶段。人们热议自动化和人工智能时代的到来。

Our' Us Vs Them' World: 5 Reasons Why Globalism Is Failing

BY IAN BREMMER  
https://time.com/5264653/us-vs-them-globalism-failing/

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP-BORDERA Trump supporter waves a pro-Trump sign during a pro-Trump rally attended by about 500 people in San Diego, California, March 13, 2017Bill Wechter—AFP/Getty Images

This world is an increasingly polarized place. Divisions are growing not just between countries but within them. In my book Us vs Them: The Failure of Globalism I set out why this is happening now. Here, five key factors dividing today’s world into “us” and “them.”

1. Economics

The growing division of wealth between haves and have-nots has received plenty of attention in recent years—when 42 people in the world have the same wealth as the bottom 50 percent, the headlines write themselves. But attention is one thing, and action another.

Free trade remains the best way we know to spur sustainable economic growth for the world as a whole. Moving goods, services, investment, and innovation as efficiently as possible generates consumption, a virtuous cycle that has seen the world economy soar nearly 700 percent since 1980. Hundreds of millions around the world have escaped poverty, largely thanks to globalization.

But not all countries and peoples share in this virtuous cycle equally. Countries and specific sets of workers lose when jobs and opportunities are sent abroad for the sake of profit margins. And when infrastructure spending, public school systems, health care and the like are tied directly to the economic fortunes of a community, it compounds problems of inequality. It’s taken a couple of generations—and the sharp shock of Brexit plus the election of Donald Trump—for this to become unavoidably obvious for globalization’s still-complacent winners in Europe and the U.S.

2. Society and culture

In a globalized world, people flow across borders too. When workers see threats to their lives, livelihoods, status, and entitlements, they demand walls — barriers against cheap labor and unfamiliar faces—or what you might call “them.”

Donald Trump understood this better than any of his political rivals in the U.S. Through storm after storm, and despite his inability to “drain the swamp” in Washington, his most loyal supporters stick with him, because no one else in the United States can credibly promise to defend their interests against establishment disdain.

Most politicians call for unity. Trump speaks of “us vs them” and continues to reap the rewards.

3. Security

Cultural divides also bleed into the security realm. Global trade demands geopolitical stability. Stability requires leaders willing to do more so others can do less, who use their power to impose the compromises on which multinational progress depends.

But Trump defeated 16 Republicans and Hillary Clinton with promises that America would defend no interests but her own. He derided endless pointless wars and the presidents responsible for them. And while it was America’s political and military establishment that argued for the necessity of all these wars, they were wars waged on the backs of working-class American men and women. When they returned home, they found a world not much safer than the ones they risked their lives to defend. Even worse, instead of being treated as heroes, they were barely treated at all by a dysfunctional veterans administration system.

And then there’s the bundling of immigration concerns with terrorist fears. In the U.S., it’s a narrative that has been politicized for years but has little basis in reality. Europe is another matter; some European communities have historically had a more difficult time integrating immigrant populations, and the threat posed by homegrown jihadi militants, radicalized in slums like the banlieues of Paris and neighborhoods like Molenbeek in Belgium, is all too real.

4. Technology and filter bubbles

The Internet has long been used to connect folks seeking like-minded individuals in chat forums and online communities. But with the advent and explosion of social media, echo chambers took on a life of their own. Today, it takes work to find someone with whom you fundamentally disagree—people gravitate to others who share their values and assumptions about their communities and the world.

Human nature isn’t only to blame, though. Tech and media companies now grow their bottom lines by maximizing the amount of time you spend engaging with content on their platforms. Algorithms are designed to show you content you’re expected to “like” and engage with, with the result being narrower demographic groups that help advertisement targeting and data collection. The result is ever more political fragmentation in the cyber sphere, which manifests itself more profoundly in the real world with each election cycle.

5. Technology and automation

And the tech revolution is still only in its infancy. People talk about the coming era of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) as the “fourth industrial revolution,” placing it (somewhat comfortingly) in historical context. But we’ve never seen anything on the scale of what’s to come—automation and AI are expected to cost 400 to 800 million people their jobs by 2030. T

The world may produce more with robots at the helm, but the economic gains will go mostly to the few who control the technology; hundreds of millions of others will be left with less work to do (if they find work at all). And for all the talk of retraining to prepare people for this automated future, few of those plans have come to fruition. If anything, we should be preparing for a “post-industrial revolution,” one that looks set to widen the chasm between “us” and “them” still further.

And to think that all this fracturing into groups, pitting us against them, is happening at a time when the global economy is growing at a solid clip. In today’s polarized environment, one global economic stumble may be enough to shatter our interconnected world completely.

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