经济状况使得男人没有足够的钱来照顾年迈的父母和赡养他们的妻子和孩子。即使在好的年份，他们的生活也是痛苦的，而在糟糕的年份，他们却在努力避免饥饿和死亡。在这种情况下，你怎么能指望他们是文明的——更不用说合法了？The economy is in such a state that men don’t have enough money to care for elderly parents and support their wives and children. Even in good years their lives are bitter while, in bad years, they struggle to avoid starvation and death. Under such circumstances, how can you expect them to be civil – let alone lawful?孟子，公元前 320 年。 Mencius, 320 BC.
贫困的概念化并不是理所当然的事情。对于高村村民来说，2017年贫困的定义是无法建造符合现行标准的房子，也无法让家里的儿子或儿子们成家立业。中国或许仍然是一个发展中国家，但食物和住所等日常必需品已不再是大多数人，甚至是高村最贫困人口的唯一生活目标和目的。The conceptualization of poverty is not something that can be taken for granted. For Gao villagers, in 2017 poverty is defined by the inability to build a house that is up to the current standard, and to get the family’s son or sons properly married. China may still be a developing country, but daily necessities such as food and shelter are no longer the only aims and purpose of life for most people, even the poorest in Gao Village. 重访高村Gao Village Revisited，, 莫波高。2018.Mobo Gao. 2018.
在一开始的时候In the beginning
1850年，当西方垄断了世界财富时，其资本家将信贷、土地和劳动力私有化，并通过操纵他们创造的市场经济使人类社会服从于他们的意愿。In 1850, when the West monopolized the world’s wealth, its capitalists privatized credit, land and labor and subordinated human society to their wishes by manipulating the market economy they had thus created.
1950年，中国这个地球上最贫穷的国家，将信贷、土地和劳动力置于公益之上，创建了有机经济来服务社会。In 1950, China, the poorest nation on earth, subordinated credit, land, and labor to public welfare and created an organic economy to serve society.
贫困与不平等Poverty & Inequality
如今，中国的重点是减少不平等，但简要回顾一下消除贫困的方式可以了解新运动的背景。Today, China is focused on reducing inequality, but a brief recap of how poverty was eliminated contextualizes the new campaign.
1993年，上海成功的最低生活保障试点推向全国，成为今天的In 1993, Shanghai’s successful Minimum Livelihood Guarantee Trial Spot went national, becoming today’s 底保，它dībǎo,根据当地生活费用支付人们实际收入与“低保线”之间的差额，并给予领取者可自由支配的资金和医疗保险等福利。 which pays the difference between people’s actual income and the ‘dībǎo line,’ based on local living costs and gives recipients discretionary money and access to benefits like medical insurance.
2000年，联合国制定了六项千年发展目标：到2015年消除极端贫困、饥饿、疾病、住房不足、排斥和教育中的性别偏见。中国接受了这一挑战，从那时起，在扶贫日，国家主席和总理部长在电视工作人员的陪同下走访偏远村庄，提醒城市居民贫困是什么样子。In 2000, the UN set six Millennium Development Goals: eliminate extreme poverty, hunger, disease, inadequate shelter, exclusion, and gender bias in education by 2015. China took up the challenge and ever since, on Poverty Relief Day, the President and Prime Minister, trailed by TV crews, visit remote villages to remind urbanites what poverty looks like.
2008年，电视上出现的一个苗族家庭拥有一间小土坯房，靠种地、卖血、打零工维持生计。他们带着三个孩子（少数民族不受计划生育限制），买不起家具，所以他们的衣服都叠在地板上，他们的娱乐就是一台黑白电视。当地政府每月给她们两百块钱的生活费，丈夫偶尔打工挣十到二十块钱，卖血又赚了一百块钱。他的妻子说，这笔钱支付了六十磅大米、两包盐、一公斤辣椒和一袋洗衣粉、电费和交通费。村长解释说：“我们村有1770人，有两百多人靠卖血为生。我们的土地干旱，in 2008, an ethnic Miao family featured on TV owned a little adobe house, farmed their tiny plot, sold blood, and did odd jobs to get by. With three children (minorities are exempt from family planning), they were unable to afford furniture so their clothes were folded on the floor and their entertainment was a black-and-white TV. They received a monthly living allowance of two hundred dollars from the local government, the husband’s occasional day jobs earned ten to twenty dollars, and blood-selling brought in another hundred dollars. His wife said this paid for sixty pounds of rice, two packs of salt, a kilo of peppers and a bag of washing powder, electricity and transportation. Their village headman explained, “Our village population is 1,770 and more than two hundred people live on blood-selling. Our land is arid, seven hundred villagers’ homes have no arable land at all and, without a road, they walk three miles for drinking water”.
2009年，农村养老金将贫困率降低到14%，2014年，工伤补偿、生育津贴、失业保险、技能培训和城镇就业平等机会将贫困率降低到7%。In 2009, rural pensions lowered poverty to fourteen percent then, in 2014, workers’ compensation, maternity benefits, unemployment insurance, skills training and equal access to urban employment reduced it to seven percent.
到2016年，城市贫困已经消失，到2021年6月1日，几乎所有处于收入分配下半部分的中国人都拥有了一套免费且干净的住房。By 2016, urban poverty had disappeared and by June 1, 2021, almost every Chinese in the lower half of the income distribution owned a home free and clear.
2018年，数以万计的扶贫队伍走进贫困村，帮助他们加入现金经济，种植蘑菇、种植梨树、饲养马海毛山羊或接待生态游客——任何能让他们进入现金经济的方式。In 2018, tens of thousands of anti-poverty teams moved into poor villages to help them join the cash economy by growing mushrooms, planting pear trees, raising mohair goats, or hosting eco-tourists–anything to bring them into the cash economy.
每户贫困户的门上都贴着一张压膜纸，上面列出了贫困户的情况、致贫原因、整治方案、完成日期以及负责人的姓名、照片和电话号码。企业纷纷介入。苹果公司的组装商富士康将二十万个工作岗位迁往内陆，惠普将大型工厂迁至新疆，北京则将整所大学迁往内陆。但真正扭转局面的是基础设施——公路、铁路、互联网和无人机。Pinned to the door of every poor household was a laminated sheet listing its occupants, the causes of their poverty, their remediation program, a completion date and the name, photograph and phone number of the responsible official. Corporations pitched in. Foxconn, Apple’s assembler, moved two-hundred thousand jobs inland, Hewlett-Packard moved huge factories to Xinjiang, and Beijing moved entire universities. But it was infrastructure–roads, railways, Internet and drones–that tipped the scales.
到2019年，高速、低成本的互联网服务改变了12.3万个贫困村庄的生活，使电子商务、远程教育、远程医疗和公共服务的提供成为可能。随着农作物喷洒、土地测量和产品交付使非农就业成为农村收入的大部分，偏僻的村庄很快平均每天有四次无人机接送，对无人机驾驶课程的需求激增。By 2019, lives in one-hundred twenty-three thousand poor villages had been transformed by high-speed, low-cost Internet service that made e-commerce, distance education, remote healthcare and delivery of public services possible. Isolated villages soon averaged four daily drone pickups and demand for drone piloting classes exploded as crop-spraying, land surveying, and product delivery made off-farm employment the majority of rural income.
为了消除孤立，国会从汽车销售税收入中支出了 1200 亿美元，修建了 15 万英里的乡村道路，其中一条通往马树坪，这是黄河沿岸的一个偏僻的悬崖村庄，也是陕西省最贫困的村庄之一。村民种植苹果和花椒树，但被迫将农产品廉价卖给少数骑摩托车来的经销商。然后，一条新的五百英里河岸高速公路带来了“有针对性的扶贫队伍”，一位种植者说，“我们的苹果还挂在树上就卖完了”。到2019年，人均收入是全国贫困线的两倍。To combat isolation, Congress spent $120 billion from vehicle sales tax revenues building 150,000 miles of rural roads, one of which reached Mashuping, an isolated cliff village on the bank of the Yellow River and one of the poorest in Shaanxi Province. Villagers cultivated apples and Sichuan pepper trees but were forced to sell their produce cheaply to the few dealers who came by motorbike. Then a new five-hundred mile, riverbank highway brought ‘targeted anti-poverty teams’ and, said a grower, “Our apples sell out while they’re still hanging on the trees”. By 2019, per capita income was twice the national poverty level.
像习近平长大的梁家河这样的村庄，利用了独特的利基市场。尽管唯一的道路两旁仍然是白菜地，但精明的居民吸引了游客，向数千名游客收取每人 8 美元的费用，让他们聆听习近平的“四苦”——跳蚤叮咬、糟糕的食物、艰苦的劳动和融入农民的故事。他们让三百名过夜的客人在洞穴旅馆里体验了习近平的童年时光，这些旅馆装饰着老式的毛泽东海报和煤油灯，并配有用土炉取暖的硬砖床。“当然，都是正宗的。我们要保护梁家河的品牌形象。”一位年轻的导游爽朗地解释道。Villages like Liangjiahe, where Xi Jinping grew up, exploit unique niches. Though cabbage fields still line its single road, its canny inhabitants cultivate tourists, charging thousands of visitors $8 each to hear tales of Xi’s Four Hardships–flea bites, bad food, hard labour, and assimilating into the peasantry. They give three hundred overnight guests a taste of Xi’s boyhood in cave inns decorated with vintage Mao posters and kerosene lanterns and furnished with hard brick beds warmed by earth stoves. “All authentic, of course. We want to protect the Liangjiahe brand image,” a young guide brightly explains.
专用软件应用程序帮助农村劳动力找到就业机会，帮助退伍军人和残疾人找到计件工作，帮助年轻人返乡创业。在浙江省的一个试点中，500个村庄雇佣了20万名当地人，在电子商务领域推广当地产品和技能，这些村庄在集镇周围组织成集群。Dedicated software apps help rural laborers connect with employment opportunities, veterans and disabled folk find piecework, and young people returning home start businesses. In one Zhejiang Trial Spot, five hundred villages employ 200,000 locals to promote local products and skills in e-commerce niches where villages have organized into clusters around market towns.
到2019年，农村网店雇佣了3000万人，创造了一个比欧洲还大的电子商务市场。By 2019, rural online stores employed thirty-million people, creating an e-commerce market bigger than Europe’s.
当百分之九十的村民以书面形式宣誓自己不再贫困，并在巡回审计小组进行跟踪研究并将视频报告发送给扶贫官员之后，北京就判断扶贫项目取得了成功。Beijing judged anti-poverty programs successful when ninety percent of villagers swear, in writing, that they are no longer poor, and after roaming teams of auditors conduct followup studies and send their video reports to anti-poverty officers.
投资回报率ROI
北京计划到2040年收回全部扶贫投资，主要通过电子销售税。加速的内陆增长引发了沿海劳动力短缺，迫使雇主实现自动化、提高生产率并向价值链上游移动——正如北京方面所希望的那样。如今，根据生产力、法规和福利进行调整后，中国雇员给雇主带来的成本高于美国雇员，但他们中只有 2% 缴纳税款。Beijing plans to recoup its entire poverty alleviation investment by 2040, mostly through e-sales taxes. Accelerating inland growth has triggered coastal labor shortages and forced employers to automate, raise productivity, and move up the value chain–just as Beijing intended. Today, adjusted for productivity, regulations and benefits, Chinese employees cost their employers more than their American cousins, yet barely two percent of them pay taxes.
不等式Inequality
直到最近，数百万缴纳城市养老基金的农民工只能在自己的家乡领取全额养老金，而当他们工作结束返回家乡时，地方政府却没有钱给他们。尽管资金匮乏的内陆省份提出请求，富裕的沿海省份仍坚持持有数十亿美元的盈余。Until recently, millions of migrant workers who contributed to urban retirement funds could only collect full pensions in their home provinces, and local governments had no money for them when they returned at the end of their working lives. Despite pleas from cash-starved inland provinces, rich coastal provinces clung to multi-billion surpluses.
因此，北京利用国有企业股票出售所得的资金创建了万亿美元的国民养老保险计划，并于2011年吸引了实力雄厚的省份加入该计划。《人民日报》通过诉诸民族自豪感来争取支持，“在美国这样的发达国家——基尼指数有时达到0.41——通过逐步增加对富人的税收和改善福利制度来帮助穷人，收入差距得到了缓解。中国应该学习美国的经验。”So Beijing created a trillion-dollar National Pension Insurance Program using money from SOE stock sales and, in 2011 and strong-armed provinces to join it. The People’s Daily drummed up support by appealing to national pride, “In developed countries like America – whose Gini index sometimes reaches .41 – income disparities are eased through gradually increasing taxation on the wealthy and improving welfare systems to help the poor. China should learn from America’s experience.”
2014年，公务员和学者在习近平的压力下加入了国家养老金计划，2019年，北京发行了10亿张电子社会保障卡，可以访问个人和医疗记录、发放社会保障福利、接受政府补贴和报销以及支付账单。In 2014, civil servants and academics, under pressure from Xi, joined the national pension plan and, in 2019, Beijing issued a billion electronic social security cards that access personal and medical records, dispense social security benefits, receive government subsidies and reimbursements and pay bills.
随着As 财富wealth再分配成为优先事项，经济学家发现，不平等统计数据被夸大了，因为内陆的土地、住房和食品要便宜 redistribution becomes a priority, economists are finding that inequality statistics have been exaggerated because land, housing and food are 得多much——尽管护理质量是相同的。农村收入的购买力比同等工资的沿海城市高出百分之五十。 cheaper inland – though quality of care is identical. Rural incomes have fifty percent more purchasing power than the same wages in a coastal city.
当他们对临时移民进行调整时，不平等进一步缩小。When they adjusted for temporary migration, inequality shrank even further. Until 2019, economists counted people by where their 直到2019年，经济学家都是根据户口登记hukou地而不是实际居住地来统计人口，因此三亿农民工的流动严重扭曲了统计数据。事实上，沿海省份的流动居民比其户籍人口多了数百万，而内陆省份的流动居民少了数百万，因此从内陆移居沿海的工人会提升不平等指标，因为——尽管她仍然被算作生活在农村老家——她为沿海地区的总收入做出了贡献。 were registered rather than where they actually lived, so the movement of three hundred million migrant workers distorted statistics severely. In reality, the coastal provinces have millions more migrant residents than their registered populations and the inland provinces have millions less, so a worker moving from the interior to the coast lifts inequality indicators because – though she is still counted as living in her rural home – she contributes to aggregate income at her coastal location.
相对论Relativity
当分析师纠正这个错误时，他们发现自 1978 年以来，地区不平等每年下降 1.1%。When analysts corrected this error, they found that regional inequality has been falling 1.1% annually since 1978.
2002年，14名贵州工人的收入加起来相当于1名上海人，但到2020年，这个数字已降至5人。结构性差距也不像听起来那么痛苦。内陆人和他们的朋友每年都在变得更加富有，对他们来说，上海的奢华生活方式并不比曼哈顿的生活方式对阿拉斯加小石城的人们更重要。In 2002, it took the combined earnings of fourteen Guizhou workers to equal one Shanghainese but, by 2020, the number had dropped to five. Nor is the structural gap as painful as it sounds. Inlanders and their friends get richer every year and, to them, Shanghai’s glitzy lifestyle is no more relevant than Manhattan’s is to folks in Little Rock, AK.
2023年，沿海广东省的居民比内陆甘肃省的居民富裕四倍，但甘肃人民的生活比亚美尼亚人或乌克兰人要好，而In 2023, residents of coastal Guangdong Province were four times richer than those in inland Gansu – but Gansu folk were better off than Armenians or Ukrainians – while
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
