Why Aren’t Businesses Doing More to Save American Manufacturing?

In a time when no one agrees on anything, some vague consensus can be found around the idea that more American manufacturing would be good.

在一个没有人就任何事情达成一致的时代，人们可以围绕这样的想法找到一些模糊的共识：更多的美国制造业会更好。

Rarely does someone say publicly, “Actually, I think there should be less American manufacturing.” (Although it happens .)

很少有人公开表示，“实际上，我认为美国制造业应该减少”。 （尽管它发生了。）

Politicians, particularly our current president, love to talk about American manufacturing.

政客们，尤其是我们现任总统，喜欢谈论美国制造业。

Donald Trump tried to make the deal he struck to save factory jobs at the Carrier HVAC plant in Indiana a synecdoche for his professed concern over the welfare of the American worker.

唐纳德·特朗普试图将他为保住印第安纳州开利暖通空调工厂的工厂工作岗位而达成的协议作为他对美国工人福利的担忧的比喻。

The deal didn’t stop jobs from moving to Mexico , and when a union leader complained that the arrangement hadn’t improved the lives of the employees as much as it had garnered positive press for the new president, the commander in chief bashed him on Twitter .

该协议并没有阻止工作岗位转移到墨西哥，当一位工会领导人抱怨说，这一安排并没有像为新总统赢得正面媒体那样改善员工的生活时，总司令在推特上猛烈抨击了他。

Between the election and January of this year, the president made 31 claims of adding or saving jobs by intervening with companies; ProPublica found that 90 percent of those jobs were not saved or never materialized .

从选举到今年 1 月，总统提出了 31 项通过干预企业来增加或保留就业岗位的主张； ProPublica 发现，其中 90% 的工作岗位没有得到保留或从未实现。

But while the scale of these claims was questionable and the results were missing and the actual effect was actively pretty bad, nearly everyone was able to agree that, in a vacuum, saving those jobs would be a nice thing.

然而，尽管这些主张的规模值得怀疑，结果缺失，而且实际效果非常糟糕，但几乎每个人都同意，在真空中，挽救这些工作将是一件好事。

More American manufacturing: good.

更多美国制造：好。

And yet, there is less.

然而，这样的情况还是更少。

Twelve-and-a-half million Americans worked in manufacturing in 2017, down from 14.1 million 11 years earlier.

2017 年，有 1250 万美国人从事制造业，低于 11 年前的 1410 万。

There’s been some growth since the sector dipped to its lowest point in 2010, as a result of the Great Recession, but American businesses are rarely moved by the common public sentiment to make the change and bring their supply chains (and all the jobs they represent) to the US.

自 2010 年经济大衰退导致该行业跌至最低点以来，该行业出现了一些增长，但美国企业很少受到公众情绪的推动而做出改变，并将其供应链（及其代表的所有就业机会）转移到美国。

As is often the case when there’s agreement that something should change in the United States and still it doesn’t, the answer to the obvious question — who wants to keep the status quo?

正如经常出现的情况，当人们一致认为美国应该做出一些改变，但实际情况却没有改变时，一个显而易见的问题的答案就是——谁想保持现状？

— is “business.” Or, more and more of late, “capitalism.” If a decision doesn’t cut costs, it’s understood to be bad for business, in violation of the indomitable will of capitalism.

——是“生意”。或者，最近越来越多的是“资本主义”。如果一项决定不能削减成本，就会被认为对商业不利，违反了资本主义不屈不挠的意志。

And if a decision were to increase costs, well, who would dream of making a decision like that?

如果一个决定会增加成本，那么谁会梦想做出这样的决定呢？

Not a business person.

不是一个生意人。

Basing a supply chain in the US is more expensive than moving it — or, more likely, much more expensive than moving it back from — abroad, thanks to our rules and regulations and unions and minimum wage and child labor laws.

由于我们的规则和法规、工会以及最低工资和童工法，将供应链设在美国比将其转移到国外更昂贵，或者更有可能比将其从国外转移回更昂贵。

Thus, we conclude, it’s impossible to change.

因此，我们的结论是，改变是不可能的。

Roy Parker cuts fabric from an American Giant pattern at Eagle USA.

罗伊·帕克 (Roy Parker) 在 Eagle USA 剪裁美国巨人图案的布料。

There’s an undercurrent of futility to conversations about American business, a presumption of inevitability to the often-devastating effects of capitalism in its current stage (you know, late).

关于美国商业的对话存在着一种徒劳无益的暗流，人们认为资本主义在现阶段（你知道，已经晚了）不可避免地会产生毁灭性的影响。

It makes the topic exhausting.

搞得这个话题很累。

You might want to want to read a story about American manufacturing; you might say, “Hmm, yes, American manufacturing, very important” and nod if asked about it in a social setting, but the reality of it — how cotton is grown and yarn is made and fabric is dyed and finished, how factory workers do their jobs to maximize efficiency and how plants and mills adapt to innovation and how companies are structured to make the margins possible — is complex and, frankly, boring.

您可能想阅读有关美国制造业的故事；你可能会说，“嗯，是的，美国制造业，非常重要”，如果在社交场合被问及这个问题，你会点头，但现实——棉花如何种植、纱线制造、织物染色和整理、工厂工人如何工作以最大限度地提高效率、工厂和工厂如何适应创新以及公司如何构建以实现利润——是复杂的，坦率地说，很无聊。

So you might see a story like this and click it but realize you also need to get started on making dinner or finish those other tabs you have open, and also there are a lot of other really important concerns in the world, and how about that stuff, huh?

因此，您可能会看到这样的故事并单击它，但意识到您还需要开始做晚餐或完成您打开的其他选项卡，而且世界上还有很多其他真正重要的问题，那么这些东西怎么样，是吧？

And anyway, good luck with that American manufacturing thing, you’re really rooting for them, you’ll definitely try to read it later, but you know what they say: Business is business.

不管怎样，祝美国制造业好运，你真的很支持他们，你以后肯定会尝试读它，但你知道他们说什么：生意就是生意。

Business, like the heart, wants what it wants.

商业就像心灵一样，想要它想要的东西。

Bayard Winthrop, CEO of American Giant, wants you to know that it is not that simple.

美国巨人公司首席执行官贝亚德·温思罗普 (Bayard Winthrop) 希望您知道事情并非那么简单。

Thelma Agular is more relaxed at work now that she stands up.

塞尔玛·阿格拉尔 (Thelma Agular) 站起来后，工作起来更加轻松。

Agular sews clothing — sweatshirts, pants, T-shirts — at Eagle USA in Middlesex, North Carolina.

Agular 在北卡罗来纳州米德尔塞克斯的 Eagle USA 缝制衣服——运动衫、裤子、T 恤。

She used to be a batch sewer, which meant that she sat at one machine and put together whole garments, but now she works with a team of women on so-called bump sewing, which requires the group to stand and work together to sew sections of whatever they’re making in a mini-assembly line, bumping one another along to the next machine as they work.

她曾经是一名批量缝纫工，这意味着她坐在一台机器前将整件衣服组装在一起，但现在她与一群女性一起从事所谓的撞缝工作，这需要小组站着并一起工作，缝制他们在小型装配线上制作的任何东西，在工作时互相撞到下一台机器。

It’s an involved process, but Agular says that moving and working in a team is good for her physical and mental health.

这是一个复杂的过程，但阿格拉尔说，在团队中工作和工作对她的身心健康都有好处。

She feels less stress.

她感觉压力减轻了。

Thelma Agular at a sewing station.

塞尔玛·阿格拉尔在缝纫站。

Agular is 47, and has been sewing in factories since she was 20.

阿古拉今年 47 岁，从 20 岁起就一直在工厂做缝纫工作。

She’s worked at Eagle for two decades, and has been bump-sewing for American Giant for three and a half years.

她在 Eagle 工作了二十年，并在 American Giant 缝纫工作了三年半。

American Giant, a brand that makes high-quality, US-made basics like leggings and T-shirts and a very popular zip-up hoodie , is a client and part-owner of this particular factory.

American Giant 是这家工厂的客户和股东，该品牌生产高品质美国制造的基本款产品，如紧身裤、T 恤和非常受欢迎的拉链连帽衫。

Agular was one of the first people on the floor, most of whom are women, to learn the process.

阿格拉尔是第一批到场学习这一过程的人之一，其中大多数是女性。

She and two other workers were sent to Atlanta by the company, plant manager William Lucas explains, to train in and build excitement around the new technique.

工厂经理威廉·卢卡斯 (William Lucas) 解释说，她和另外两名工人被公司派往亚特兰大，接受新技术培训并激发人们的兴奋感。

When the group returned and the other women in the factory saw them standing and, crucially, earning more money, people wanted in.

当这群人回来时，工厂里的其他妇女看到她们站着，而且最重要的是，她们赚了更多的钱，人们就想加入。

Lucas and Agular both tell me that the bump system — which American Giant brought to Eagle — is more efficient and, thanks to an incentivized pay structure where bonuses are given for exceeding productivity goals, more profitable for both the company and the workers.

卢卡斯和阿格拉尔都告诉我，美国巨人公司为 Eagle 带来的碰撞系统效率更高，而且由于采用了激励性的薪酬结构，超出生产力目标时会获得奖金，因此公司和员工的利润都更高。

The average compensation at Eagle is $10 per hour, Lucas says, but some people make $15 or $16, more than double North Carolina’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

卢卡斯说，Eagle 的平均薪酬为每小时 10 美元，但有些人的工资为 15 美元或 16 美元，是北卡罗来纳州最低工资每小时 7.25 美元的两倍多。

All around the factory, teams are surpassing 100 percent productivity, earning up and over their base pay.

在工厂各处，团队的生产力都超过了 100%，收入甚至超过了他们的基本工资。

Agular walks me through making a T-shirt.

Agular 引导我制作 T 恤。

She starts with the torso, sewing the back and front together at the shoulders at one machine and moving to the next, attaching the collar.

她从躯干开始，在一台机器上将背部和正面在肩膀处缝合在一起，然后转到另一台机器，安装衣领。

At a third machine, she covers the rough edges of the collar with a small strip of fabric, trimming away any stray threads.

在第三台机器上，她用一小块布覆盖衣领的粗糙边缘，剪掉任何杂散的线头。

On a fourth, she attaches the sleeves and hands it off, so a member of her team can stitch up the sides, hem the bottom and, finally, stamp the logo and size below the neck hole.

第四步，她装上袖子并把它交给她，这样她的团队成员就可以缝合两侧，给底部缝边，最后在领口下方印上徽标和尺码。

I had been warned that she might be shy, but she obliges my questions, even though they (slightly) slow her impressive productivity.

有人警告我她可能很害羞，但她还是回答了我的问题，尽管这些问题（稍微）降低了她令人印象深刻的生产力。

(Her team hovers above 125 percent.)

（她的团队徘徊在 125% 以上。）

Eagle USA is the last stop on my tour of American Giant’s Carolina-based supply chain.

Eagle USA 是我参观美国巨人位于卡罗来纳州的供应链的最后一站。

Bayard Winthrop has left me here, with Agular and Lucas and company, so that he can catch a plane back to San Francisco, telling me to stay as long as I want.

贝亚德·温思罗普把我和阿格拉尔、卢卡斯等人留在这里，以便他可以乘飞机返回旧金山，并告诉我想待多久就待多久。

We’d driven, a day earlier, from the Parkdale Mills plant, where cotton is blended and spun into yarn, in Gaffney, South Carolina (home of House of Cards’ Frank Underwood and a giant steel peach that doubles as a water tower), across town to Carolina Cotton Works, where the fabric is dyed and finished, and then to a cotton field in Enfield, North Carolina, four hours away, where we met farmer Jerry Hamill as the sun set and the pickers picked.

一天前，我们从南卡罗来纳州加夫尼的帕克代尔米尔斯工厂（《纸牌屋》的弗兰克·安德伍德的故乡和一座兼作水塔的巨型钢桃的故乡）出发，驱车穿过小镇，来到卡罗莱纳棉纺厂，在那里对织物进行染色和整理，然后到达北卡罗来纳州恩菲尔德的一片棉田，距离酒店有四个小时的路程，我们在那里遇到了农民杰里·哈米尔，当时夕阳西下，采摘工正在采摘。

Finally we headed over to the Enfield Cotton Gin, which was out of commission the evening we visited, sitting silent though it pounds with noise for the seven to 12 weeks a year it runs.

最后，我们前往恩菲尔德杜松子酒厂，我们参观的那天晚上，该厂就停止运转了，每年运行 7 至 12 周，尽管噪音不断，但它还是安静地坐着。

We didn’t even have time to see the step where the yarn is knit into fabric, which happens in Clover, South Carolina, and comes between the two steps in Gaffney.

我们甚至没有时间看到纱线编织成织物的步骤，这发生在南卡罗来纳州的克洛弗，在加夫尼的两个步骤之间进行。

Eagle is the place where fabric finally becomes shirts and joggers and the sweatshirt that Slate once called “the greatest hoodie ever made.”

Eagle 是面料最终成为衬衫、慢跑裤和运动衫的地方，Slate 曾称其为“有史以来最伟大的连帽衫”。

I’m not the first reporter to take this tour with Winthrop.

我不是第一个与温思罗普一起参观的记者。

Fast Company took it in 2015, TechCrunch in 2014, the New York Times in 2013.

Fast Company 于 2015 年获奖，TechCrunch 于 2014 年获奖，纽约时报于 2013 年获奖。

Winthrop takes it himself every two or three months, but here he is, asking more questions than I can, and learning, as if for the first time, how the raw material is spun into yarn.

温思罗普每两三个月就会亲自来一次，但他在这里提出了比我更多的问题，并学习如何将原材料纺成纱线，就像第一次一样。

He’s heard and told the story of American Giant a lot, but he wants to hear and tell it again.

他听过并讲述过很多美国巨人的故事，但他想再听一遍并讲述它。

This kind of supply chain transparency is unusual .

这种供应链的透明度是不同寻常的。

Many CEOs can’t name all the factories and facilities that it takes to create their products (please, ask Ivanka Trump where her dresses come from), let alone make seasonal pilgrimages to touch recently blended cotton and hug people who don’t work directly for them, but are responsible for say, step six out of seven in their vast supply chain.

许多首席执行官都无法说出制造产品所需的所有工厂和设施（请询问伊万卡·特朗普，她的衣服来自哪里），更不用说季节性地去触摸最近混纺的棉花并拥抱那些不直接为他们工作的人，但负责他们庞大的供应链中七分之六的步骤。

And customers certainly don’t know how or where the clothing they buy is made — not just because no one knows (although that’s certainly a huge part of it), but because, as discussed, it’s pretty hard to care.

顾客当然不知道他们购买的衣服是如何制造或在哪里制造的——不仅因为没有人知道（尽管这肯定是其中的很大一部分），而且因为正如所讨论的，这很难关心。

The reality of most supply chains is grim and, because most pieces of a given chain are independently owned and subcontracted, easy to brush aside when it comes to both corporate and consumer responsibility.

大多数供应链的现实都是严峻的，而且由于特定供应链的大多数部分都是独立拥有和分包的，因此在涉及企业和消费者责任时很容易被忽视。

Supply chains are far-flung (in India, where 45 million people work in textiles alone; in China, where the president made his ties and the first daughter made her shoes ; in Bangladesh, where the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse killed 1,100 people , mostly women) and hard to picture.

供应链分布广泛（在印度，仅纺织业就有 4500 万人；在中国，总统打领带，第一个女儿为她制作鞋子；在孟加拉国，2013 年拉纳广场工厂倒塌事故造成 1,100 人死亡，其中大部分是女性）且难以想象。

While everyone has a vague awareness of factory disasters and low wages and child labor, it’s easier and more comfortable not to know.

虽然每个人对工厂灾难、低工资和童工都有模糊的认识，但不知道更容易、更舒服。

Along with the similarly knotty and deeply related question of what people can afford, these upsetting truths are part of why upper-middle-class Americans will shake their heads about how terrible H&M is and then quietly shop there.

除了同样棘手且密切相关的人们买得起什么的问题之外，这些令人不安的事实也是美国中上层阶级对 H&M 的糟糕程度摇头摇头，然后悄悄在那里购物的部分原因。

It’s why we at Racked publish stories about sustainability alongside recommendations for Zara sales .

这就是为什么我们在 Racked 发布有关可持续发展的故事以及 Zara 销售建议。

When a supply chain isn’t unimaginably bleak or impossible to know, you have a story about how cotton becomes yarn — a set of facts just dry enough that your mind might drift to how horrifying and opaque the rest of the system really is.

当供应链不是难以想象的暗淡或无法了解时，你就会有一个关于棉花如何变成纱线的故事——一组足够干燥的事实，让你的思绪可能会飘到系统的其他部分到底是多么可怕和不透明。

Bins of American Giant garments at Eagle USA.

Eagle USA 的美国巨人服装箱。

So why is this the unsexy, complicated message that Bayard Winthrop wants to tell me, and for me to tell you, this story about American manufacturing?

那么，为什么贝亚德·温思罗普想要告诉我，并且让我告诉你，这个关于美国制造业的故事，是一个不性感、复杂的信息呢？

Why does he want you to read a story about how cotton is grown and how factory workers work and how yarn is made, when he could tell me an easy-to-digest, consumer-centric story about the greatest hoodie ever made ?

当他可以告诉我一个关于有史以来最伟大的连帽衫的易于理解、以消费者为中心的故事时，为什么他想让你读一个关于棉花如何种植、工厂工人如何工作以及纱线如何制造的故事呢？

We want to hear about how things will be good for us, not how — if we even trust a company to tell us the truth — they might be incrementally better for some people in an industry that many write off as doomed .

我们想听的是事情将如何对我们有利，而不是如何——如果我们相信一家公司会告诉我们真相——对于这个许多人认为注定要失败的行业中的某些人来说，事情可能会逐渐变得更好。

And anyway, he’s told the story again and again and again and again.

不管怎样，他已经一遍又一遍地讲述这个故事。

For his efforts, he’s been celebrated and his company has been profitable, but is there anything new to say?

由于他的努力，他受到了赞扬，他的公司也实现了盈利，但有什么新的可说吗？

Carolina Cotton Works is very literally a family business.

卡罗莱纳棉花厂实际上是一家家族企业。

It was founded in 1995 by Page Ashby, who now runs it along with his sons, Hunter and Bryan.

该公司由 Page Ashby 于 1995 年创立，现在由他的儿子 Hunter 和 Bryan 共同经营。

The facility, with huge machines that dye and soften the fabric, feels warm and kind of homey; employees wear T-shirts with holes, pajama pants, oversized tank tops.

该设施配备了对织物进行染色和软化的大型机器，给人一种温暖和温馨的感觉。员工穿着破洞T恤、睡裤、超大背心。

CCW has been with American Giant since the startup’s very beginning, and that long relationship is evident in the masculinely affectionate relationship between Winthrop and the Ashbys.

CCW 从美国巨人公司成立之初就一直与该公司合作，这种长期的合作关系在温思罗普和阿什比一家之间充满男性气息的深情关系中显而易见。

In a conference room at CCW, there’s a framed copy of the New York Times article about the American Giant supply chain on the wall.

在 CCW 的一间会议室里，墙上挂着一份镶框的《纽约时报》关于美国巨人供应链的文章。

It’s there in that room, on stop two of this in-depth tour, that Winthrop says he feels that the media is missing “the real story of American manufacturing.” As the person who’s been stressing about how to make this story feel fresh when it’s been told so often — when the New York Times is literally hanging over us — I’m surprised.

正是在这个房间里，在这次深度游览的第二站，温思罗普说他觉得媒体错过了“美国制造业的真实故事”。作为一个一直在强调如何让这个故事感觉新鲜的人，当这个故事被如此频繁地讲述时——当《纽约时报》字面意义上的笼罩着我们时——我很惊讶。

What’s not in there?

里面没有什么？

I’m excited to ask Winthrop directly once we finally sit down one on one; it will surely make my job easier.

当我们最终一对一坐下来时，我很高兴能直接询问温思罗普；这肯定会让我的工作变得更轻松。

Page Ashby at his Carolina Cotton Works facility.

佩吉·阿什比 (Page Ashby) 在他位于卡罗来纳州棉花厂的工厂。

Walking the floor, workers approach the Ashbys and Winthrop alike with handshakes, greetings, a joking familiarity.

走在地板上，工人们会以同样的方式与阿什比夫妇和温思罗普夫妇握手、打招呼，甚至开玩笑地表示熟悉。

Winthrop asks a passing man how he’s doing and the guy replies that he recently fell out of a tree.

温思罗普问一名路过的男子近况如何，那人回答说他最近从树上摔下来。

At another facility, workers I spoke to didn’t necessarily know American Giant by name, but here everyone is intimately familiar with the brand.

在另一家工厂，我采访的工人不一定知道美国巨人的名字，但在这里每个人都非常熟悉这个品牌。

Roger Putnam, who has worked at Carolina Cotton Works for six years manning a machine that naps and plucks the fabric for maximum softness, goes out of his way to tell me that while his wife shops for most of his clothes, he had gotten himself an American Giant sweatshirt.

罗杰·帕特南 (Roger Putnam) 在卡罗莱纳棉花厂工作了六年，负责操作一台机器，该机器可以对织物进行打盹和拔毛，以达到最大程度的柔软度。

I’d asked Putnam and a small, poorly representative handful of other workers along the way where they buy their clothing, because there’s something complicated about employing American workers for an American-made and American-labeled brand that they likely wouldn’t choose to spend their money on.

我问过普特南和一小群不太具有代表性的其他工人，他们在哪里购买衣服，因为雇用美国工人为美国制造和美国贴牌的品牌工作是一件复杂的事情，他们可能不会选择花钱购买这些品牌。

They mostly reported shopping at big-box stores: Walmart, Target.

他们大多报告在大型商店购物：沃尔玛、塔吉特。

American Giant sweatshirts are only sold online — the lack of distribution a hallmark of the business model — and they aren’t cheap.

美国巨人队的运动衫只在网上销售——缺乏分销是这种商业模式的一个特点——而且它们的价格并不便宜。

The emblematic full-zips are $89 a pop.

标志性的全拉链售价为每件 89 美元。

Compare that with American Apparel’s hoodies , which have a similar (if uh, formerly hornier , less quality-focused, and generally more tainted ) pedigree and retail for $38, or Target , where they can be as inexpensive as $20.

与 American Apparel 的连帽衫相比，后者具有相似的血统（如果呃，以前更性感，不太注重质量，而且通常更肮脏），零售价为 38 美元，或者与 Target 相比，它们的价格可以低至 20 美元。

But that question of price isn’t just “expensive” versus “affordable;” there’s also where it fits in the market.

但价格问题不仅仅是“昂贵”与“实惠”的问题；它也有适合市场的地方。

If we’re talking about the mall, this particular sweatshirt is solidly upper-mid-priced at $11 more expensive than J.

如果我们谈论的是商场，这件特别的运动衫绝对是中高端价格，比 J. 贵 11 美元。

Crew’s , but $9.50 less than Banana Republic’s .

Crew’s，但比 Banana Republic’s 便宜 9.50 美元。

Winthrop’s goal is to be able to price American Giant’s clothing so that, as he says, the “gap between virtue and action is nonexistent.” If a customer is shopping for virtue, he or she is probably able to afford these mall brands, which don’t have the made-in-America pedigree American Giant has.

温思罗普的目标是能够为美国巨人公司的服装定价，这样，正如他所说，“美德与行动之间的差距不存在”。如果顾客是为了美德而购物，他或她可能有能力购买这些商场品牌，而这些品牌不具备美国巨人公司的美国制造血统。

“I would like to think that if Levi’s is getting you $99 for a sweatshirt, a luxury sweatshirt,” Winthrop says, “we are at minimum competitive with them.

“我认为，如果李维斯 (Levi's) 为你提供 99 美元的运动衫，一件奢华的运动衫，”温思罗普说，“我们至少与他们有竞争力。

I would like to think we are out-competing their value system, most importantly maybe.” He adds that they’re certainly competing when it comes to quality.

我认为我们正在超越他们的价值体系，最重要的是也许。”他补充说，他们在质量方面肯定存在竞争。

That quality is due in part to constant innovation at all levels of the chain, including CCW.

这种质量部分归功于包括 CCW 在内的整个链条各个层面的不断创新。

As the Ashbys tell Winthrop — who then explains what they said to me, making sure I understand (I don’t) — they’ve recently added a tenner frame to the dyeing process for slub fabric; it reduces twist and torque, as slub fabric tends to twist and torque, which is bad.

正如阿什比夫妇告诉温思罗普的那样——温思罗普随后向我解释了他们所说的话，以确保我理解（我不明白）——他们最近在竹节织物的染色过程中添加了一个 Tenner 框架；它减少了扭曲和扭矩，因为竹节织物容易扭曲和扭矩，这是不好的。

What I do understand is that adding the tenner frame is pricey and not strictly necessary, but that the team at Carolina Cotton Works has chosen to do it anyway.

我所理解的是，添加十幅框架的成本很高，而且并不是严格必要的，但卡罗莱纳棉花厂的团队无论如何都选择这样做。

And according to Winthrop, the cost of the addition isn’t passed on to American Giant nor the American Giant customer.

据温思罗普称，增加的成本不会转嫁给美国巨人或美国巨人的客户。

Later, Winthrop expands on the work being done at CCW.

随后，Winthrop 扩展了 CCW 正在进行的工作。

“He’s adding huge amounts of machinery into his facility now,” he says of Page Ashby, with an obvious respect.

“他现在正在为他的设施添加大量机械，”他在谈到佩奇·阿什比时说道，语气中充满了明显的敬意。

“That takes a certain amount of courage to invest in the time when the market doesn’t seem to necessarily be behaving.”

“在市场表现不佳的时候进行投资需要一定的勇气。”

As soon as I have the chance, I ask: So, what’s the media missing about the story of American manufacturing, in Bayard Winthrop’s opinion?

一有机会，我就会问：那么，在贝亚德·温思罗普看来，媒体对美国制造业的故事还遗漏了什么呢？

His answer is about the nature of the apparel industry.

他的回答是关于服装行业的本质。

It’s about the fact that American businesses have choices, and how we pretend they don’t.

这是关于美国企业有选择的事实，以及我们如何假装他们没有选择。

Everyone, he says, acts like we have to make clothes in Bangladesh or Honduras, because it’s good for profit margins, and what’s good for profit margins is what business demands.

他说，每个人都表现得好像我们必须在孟加拉国或洪都拉斯生产衣服，因为这对利润率有利，而对利润率有利的就是业务需求。

But it doesn’t have to be that way, he argues.

但他认为，事情不一定非得如此。

A brand can make money by doing things well and right.

一个品牌可以通过把事情做好、做对来赚钱。

Fabric is dyed and softened at CCW.

织物在 CCW 进行染色和软化。

He points to the “explosion of wealth” on the coasts — “this explosion of innovation” in New York and San Francisco (where American Giant, despite its supply chain, is still based) that comes “at the great expense of mainstream America and towns and smaller cities all over the country.” And more than that, “it’s compounded by the fact that many of those business are not creating jobs.

他指出沿海地区的“财富爆炸”——纽约和旧金山（美国巨人公司尽管有供应链，但其总部仍设在旧金山）的“创新爆炸”，其代价是“美国主流以及全国各地的城镇和小城市付出了巨大代价”。更重要的是，“许多企业没有创造就业机会，这一事实使情况变得更加复杂。

They’re creating huge wealth, but not creating jobs.” It’s the fundamental flaw of trickle-down economics, codified into a business plan.

他们创造了巨大的财富，但没有创造就业机会。”这是渗透经济学的根本缺陷，已被编入商业计划中。

“I’m just more interested in raising awareness about the larger conversation, about the vitality and the capability of the manufacturing base,” he says.

“我只是更感兴趣的是提高人们对更大范围的对话、对制造基地的活力和能力的认识，”他说。

The message Winthrop wants to communicate doesn’t begin and end with our ability to buy a sweatshirt.

温思罗普想要传达的信息并不以我们购买运动衫的能力开始和结束。

It’s a message for people in their capacity as people who make decisions and care about more than what to buy; they care about how their country looks, how viable their economy is, how their fellow citizens are faring.

这是向那些做出决定并关心的人比买什么更重要的人传达的信息。他们关心自己的国家的面貌、经济的可行性以及同胞的生活。

The audience for this message is made up of the capable, thoughtful human beings with agency and influence inside of the systems they populate: business, politics, media, America.

此信息的受众由有能力、有思想的人组成，他们在他们所居住的系统内具有代理权和影响力：商业、政治、媒体、美国。

And the message is as simple as an ad campaign: We need to do more.

这个信息就像广告活动一样简单：我们需要做得更多。

We need to change the level at which we’re each willing to engage in all of this incredibly complex stuff.

我们需要改变我们每个人愿意参与所有这些极其复杂的事情的水平。

That’s the only way it gets easier.

这是事情变得更容易的唯一方法。

One of the often-told narratives about American Giant is that Winthrop is spearheading an American manufacturing revolution.

关于美国巨人最常见的说法之一是温思罗普正在引领美国制造业革命。

Entrepreneur said as much, calling him “the man behind the hoodie that started the made-in-the-USA apparel movement” in 2013.

《企业家》杂志也如此评价他，称他为“2013 年发起美国制造服装运动的连帽衫背后的人”。

Forbes did too, marveling at how he was able to “revive hopes for American textile manufacturing” just last year.

福布斯也这么做了，对他去年如何能够“重振美国纺织制造业的希望”感到惊讶。

It’s a nice idea, but in 2018 it doesn’t seem to have borne out.

这是一个好主意，但在 2018 年似乎还没有实现。

American Giant has found success and profit through a US-based supply chain, but the textile industry has not notably followed in the company’s steps.

美国巨人公司通过美国供应链取得了成功并获得了利润，但纺织行业并没有明显追随该公司的脚步。

Page Ashby still says that “at its largest,” onshoring — the process of businesses bringing manufacturing back to America — “is small-scale.” It takes a little bit of prodding through his optimism and talking points, but Winthrop also admits this is the case.

佩奇·阿什比仍然表示，“在最大程度上”，本土外包——企业将制造业带回美国的过程——“规模很小”。他的乐观态度和谈话要点需要一些刺激，但温思罗普也承认情况确实如此。

While you (meaning me, at least) might think that a good capitalist would be happy to be alone in the “American-made” space for marketing and brand-individuation purposes, Winthrop isn’t.

虽然你（至少是指我）可能认为一个优秀的资本家会很乐意独自在“美国制造”的空间中进行营销和品牌个性化，但温思罗普却不然。

If anything, he seems uncomfortable and disappointed being one of so extremely few companies making clothing in the US, and he tries, for large swaths of our one-on-one conversation, to pull others into the arena.

如果说有什么不同的话，那就是作为美国极少数生产服装的公司之一，他似乎感到不舒服和失望，并且在我们一对一谈话的大部分时间里，他试图将其他人拉入舞台。

He points to activity on the “boutique level” (although he also stresses a desire for American manufacturing to not be exclusive to high-end brands making “$230 selvedge denim”), and refers to larger, unnamed brands having an “increased fundamental wrestling with this question.” We might not have yet seen it in the marketplace, he’s saying, but the question is being asked.

他指出了“精品店层面”的活动（尽管他也强调美国制造业不只是生产“230 美元布边牛仔布”的高端品牌的愿望），并提到较大的、未命名的品牌“越来越多地与这个问题进行根本性的角力”。他说，我们可能还没有在市场上看到它，但人们正在提出这个问题。

But in practice, the movement hasn’t headed in the right direction.

但实际上，这场运动并没有朝着正确的方向发展。

In 2017, US textile exports were at $22.6 billion , down from a peak of $24.3 billion in 2014.

2017年，美国纺织品出口额为226亿美元，低于2014年243亿美元的峰值。

Still, American Giant’s CEO is determined that more is possible.

尽管如此，美国巨人公司的首席执行官仍然坚信，还有更多的可能。

He’d love it if larger competitors in his space were to suddenly build US-based supply chains.

如果他所在领域的更大竞争对手突然建立基于美国的供应链，他会很高兴。

“Even though it might not be the best thing for my business,” he says, “I think that would be a good thing for us.”

“尽管这对我的业务来说可能不是最好的事情，”他说，“但我认为这对我们来说是一件好事。”

This idea of “us” being not American Giant but America is a theme for Winthrop.

“我们”不是美国巨人，而是美国，这是温思罗普的主题。

“There’s a certain amount of like, can’t we all just do a little bit of this?

“有一定数量的喜欢，我们就不能都做一点吗？

All of us?” he asks.

我们所有人？他问道。

“Whether it’s Facebook and Google and Apple.

“无论是 Facebook、谷歌还是苹果。

Or whether it’s Jerry Hamill,” referring to the North Carolina farmer who grows his cotton.

或者是杰里·哈米尔（Jerry Hamill），”指的是种植棉花的北卡罗来纳州农民。

“Can’t we all come together a little bit and solve it?”

“我们就不能团结起来解决这个问题吗？”

When Winthrop talks about “a corporate moral component,” the phrase can feel like an oxymoron to most consumers and anathema to most companies.

当温思罗普谈到“企业道德成分”时，这个词对大多数消费者来说可能是一种矛盾修辞，对大多数公司来说也是一种厌恶。

But his proposal isn’t that unwieldy, and it seems almost laughable in its reasonableness.

但他的提议并没有那么笨拙，而且其合理性似乎近乎可笑。

“I’m not saying that Levi’s needs to return to the US, but I am saying that brands need to begin to think about, is the answer just binary?”

“我并不是说李维斯需要重返美国，而是说品牌需要开始思考，答案是否只是二元的？”

Parkdale Mills is a much slicker operation than Carolina Cotton Works.

帕克代尔工厂的运作比卡罗莱纳棉厂要顺利得多。

At Parkdale, plant manager Robert Nodine shows off an app on his phone that tells him how productive all of the machines in the plant are.

在帕克代尔，工厂经理罗伯特·诺丁（Robert Nodine）展示了他手机上的一个应用程序，该应用程序告诉他工厂中所有机器的生产力如何。

He says it’s the first thing he looks at in the morning and the last thing he looks at at night.

他说这是他早上看的第一件事，也是晚上看的最后一件事。

It’s his Twitter.

这是他的推特。

The mill is where, after being picked and ginned, cotton is blended (like a “cabernet,” Nodine explains, so that the various textures are evenly distributed and consistent) and then spun into yarn.

棉纺厂是棉花在采摘和轧花后进行混纺的地方（诺丁解释说，就像“解百纳”一样，这样各种质地分布均匀且一致），然后纺成纱线。

The facility doesn’t only make yarn for American Giant — far from it; it services hundreds of companies, over 25 plants in six states.

该工厂不仅为美国巨人公司生产纱线——远非如此；它还为美国巨人公司生产纱线。它为 6 个州的数百家公司、超过 25 家工厂提供服务。

It owns US Cotton, LLC.

它拥有美国棉花有限责任公司。

It makes your Q-tips.

它可以制作你的棉签。

It’s an enormous operation, and eerily clean, with an elaborate filtration system.

这是一个巨大的操作，而且非常干净，有一个复杂的过滤系统。

It processes 750 bales of cotton every 24 hours, and the bales, to be not-so-scientific about it, are super-huge.

它每 24 小时处理 750 包棉花，而且这些棉包（不那么科学）是非常巨大的。

Much of the work at the Parkdale plant is done by machine.

帕克代尔工厂的大部分工作都是由机器完成的。

Nodine is an efficient man with a big white mustache; much of the day-to-day workings of this $100 million plant rest on his shoulders.

诺丁是个高效的人，留着大白胡子。这家耗资一亿美元的工厂的大部分日常工作都由他承担。

The cavernous 370,000-square-foot space only employs 132 people total, only needs 25 or so to run it at any given time.

这个占地 370,000 平方英尺的巨大空间总共只雇用了 132 名员工，在任何特定时间只需要 25 人左右即可运行。

By contrast, Carolina Cotton Works, the fabric-dyeing facility occupies a notably smaller space but employs 200 workers.

相比之下，卡罗莱纳棉厂 (Carolina Cotton Works) 的织物染色工厂占地面积明显较小，但雇用了 200 名工人。

This is because, like the machines the app on Nodine’s phone is monitoring, much of Parkdale is robotized.

这是因为，就像诺丁手机上的应用程序正在监控的机器一样，帕克代尔的大部分地区都是机器人化的。

As Nodine explains what kind of jobs are held at the plant (technicians, shippers, receivers), he notes that some jobs have been eliminated.

当诺丁解释工厂有哪些职位（技术员、托运员、收货员）时，他指出有些职位已经被取消。

When he points this out, we’re watching forklift operator Jose Villanueva lift the gigantic bales, and Nodine says that the eliminated jobs were ones “no one wanted,” often lifting very, very heavy objects in small teams.

当他指出这一点时，我们正在观看叉车操作员何塞·维拉纽瓦（Jose Villanueva）举起巨大的包裹，诺丁说，被取消的工作是“没人想要的”，通常是在小团队中举起非常非常重的物体。

At certain points in the tour, it’s intimated to me that Parkdale has not always been open to media attention.

在巡演的某些时刻，我感觉到帕克代尔并不总是对媒体的关注开放。

The New York Times piece, for example, was an unwelcome surprise, with its headline “ US Textile Plants Return, With Floors Largely Empty of People .” There’s a downside to letting people get up close — the chance that you could come off badly, that people will care more about the jobs you eliminated than the jobs you saved.

例如，《纽约时报》的这篇文章就是一个不受欢迎的意外，其标题是“美国纺织厂回归，楼层基本空无一人”。让人们近距离接触也有一个缺点——你有可能表现不佳，人们会更关心你取消的工作而不是你保留的工作。

It’s an especially difficult path to navigate in this moment when people feel particularly comfortable judging things as beyond redemption.

在这个时刻，当人们感觉特别舒服地判断事情是无法挽回的时候，这是一条特别困难的道路。

It’s what’s sometimes called cancel culture.

这就是有时所谓的取消文化。

This national attitude makes the world seem pretty straightforward: Bad things are bad and good things are on notice, but the actual ramifications vary wildly.

这种全国性的态度让世界看起来非常简单：坏事就是坏事，好事就是值得注意的，但实际的后果却千差万别。

Being capital-B “Bad” or “canceled” or “over” can happen to anyone or anything, from a gymnast like Gabby Douglas to a company like Papa John’s to an entire year — although despite our best attempts, no one was able to put a stop to 2017.

大写 B 的“糟糕”、“取消”或“结束”可能会发生在任何人或任何事身上，从加比·道格拉斯 (Gabby Douglas) 这样的体操运动员到棒约翰 (Papa John’s) 这样的公司，再到一整年——尽管我们尽了最大努力，但没有人能够阻止 2017 年的到来。

For small entities, like humans, this has the potential to be devastating, but when you’re as big as a corporation or as intractable as a system (*cough cough, capitalism*) or as unstoppable a force as time itself, being canceled is ultimately meaningless.

对于像人类这样的小实体来说，这有可能是毁灭性的，但是当你像一个公司一样大，或者像一个系统一样棘手（*咳咳，资本主义*），或者像时间本身一样不可阻挡的力量时，被取消最终是没有意义的。

After the outrage passes, it’s easier to just go back to the way it always was.

愤怒过去后，更容易恢复到原来的状态。

So, possibly worst of all, this black-and-whiteness discourages nuanced discussion.

因此，可能最糟糕的是，这种黑白分明阻碍了细致入微的讨论。

It throws out the small problems and allows the big ones to continue to suck without ever digging into how they could suck less.

它抛弃了小问题，让大问题继续困扰，而没有深入研究如何才能减少困扰。

While some jobs have been eliminated at these mills, others remain and some new jobs have been added — robot technicians, spinning operators, encoders.

虽然这些工厂取消了一些工作岗位，但仍保留了其他工作岗位，并增加了一些新工作岗位——机器人技术员、纺纱操作员、编码器。

Walking the floor, we meet a man named Roger Moore, who tells us that he’s been working at Parkdale for 40 years, and his current job is to scan the bales as they arrive to be processed.

走在地板上，我们遇到了一位名叫罗杰·摩尔 (Roger Moore) 的人，他告诉我们，他已经在 Parkdale 工作了 40 年，他目前的工作是在捆包到达处理时对其进行扫描。

Moore doesn’t look like he could be 40 years old, much less that he has worked for that long.

摩尔看起来不像40岁，更别说他工作了那么久。

We make him repeat the number a few times, in case it’s him who is confused and not us.

我们让他重复几次这个数字，以防是他而不是我们感到困惑。

(It’s not.) Later, outside the break room, we see a bulletin board where the company boasts about the impressively long careers of its staff, and there’s a picture of Roger still looking approximately 35 years old, with the word “40 years” written underneath.

（事实并非如此。） 后来，在休息室外面，我们看到一块公告牌，上面该公司夸耀其员工的职业生涯令人印象深刻，而且还有一张罗杰的照片，看起来仍然大约 35 岁，下面写着“40 年”这个词。

A worker checks the spinning machine while standing on a robotized cart.

一名工人站在机器人推车上检查纺纱机。

One of Parkdale’s 132 employees is Roger Moore, who has worked there for 40 years.

Roger Moore 是 Parkdale 的 132 名员工之一，他已经在那里工作了 40 年。

As we tour the factory, a lot is explained to me — by Nodine, and by Winthrop, and by members of the American Giant team we’re traveling in a little caravan with — and to be extremely straight up about it, there’s so much that I don’t find myself able to hold onto most of it in a meaningful way.

当我们参观工厂时，诺丁、温思罗普以及我们乘坐小车队旅行的美国巨人队的成员向我解释了很多事情，坦率地说，有太多的内容，我发现自己无法以有意义的方式掌握其中的大部分内容。

How the bales are marked and why, where the cotton comes from, why there are different varieties of yarn and what they mean.

棉包如何标记以及为什么、棉花来自哪里、为什么有不同的纱线品种以及它们的含义。

I ask follow-ups when I learn that workers found a snake in the baler; I take down that Villanueva mostly shops at Target; I write “just finish crop change orange bands” in my notebook, even though I know I won’t know what to make of that later — not literally, not as a metaphor.

当我得知工人们在打包机里发现了一条蛇时，我会询问后续情况；我记下 Villanueva 大部分在 Target 购物；我在笔记本上写下“刚刚完成作物变化橙色带”，尽管我知道以后我不知道该怎么做——不是字面上的意思，也不是一个隐喻。

Each piece is true, but I worry each alone might seem to indicate something that the whole doesn’t bear.

每一件作品都是真实的，但我担心每一件作品单独似乎都表明了一些与整体不相符的东西。

This is a place where many jobs have been replaced by robots; this is a place where Roger Moore has worked for 40 years.

这是一个很多工作岗位都被机器人取代的地方；这是罗杰摩尔工作了40年的地方。

Parkdale is both bigger and smaller than the sum of its parts.

帕克代尔比各个部分的总和更大或更小。

It’s a lot of moving pieces, a lot of work.

这是很多移动的部分，很多工作。

In the end, it’s a place that makes yarn.

归根结底，这是一个制造纱线的地方。

American Giant’s real secret in many ways isn’t the well-made sweatshirt or the PR-friendly American supply chain or the loyal customers — it’s the luxury not to be run like other businesses.

从很多方面来说，美国巨人公司真正的秘密并不在于做工精良的运动衫，也不在于公关友好的美国供应链，也不在于忠诚的客户——而是一种不像其他企业那样经营的奢侈。

“There has been this next wave of brands emerging on the market today that relies on, by and large, institutional venture capital money,” Winthrop explains, “which comes with it a requirement of very rapid growth with a goal of short-term liquidity.” Many brands are funded by wealthy people who want to see money in return for their money, and fast.

温思罗普解释说：“当今市场上出现的下一波品牌总体上依赖于机构风险投资资金，随之而来的是以短期流动性为目标的快速增长的要求。”许多品牌都是由富人资助的，他们希望快速获得金钱回报。

American Giant has been fortunate to work with wealthy people who are willing to see money in return for their money more slowly.

美国巨人公司很幸运能够与那些愿意更慢地收回资金的富人合作。

It’s not that hard to understand that supply chains are made up of workers who are people like you and me, like Thelma and Jose and Roger Moore.

供应链是由像你我这样的工人组成的，就像塞尔玛、何塞和罗杰摩尔一样，这并不难理解。

But we often forget that the seemingly unknowable people at the very top of the chain — past the factory owners and even idealistic founders — are people too.

但我们常常忘记，那些处于供应链最顶端的看似不可知的人——除了工厂主，甚至是理想主义的创始人——也是人。

Shareholders, venture capitalists, and corporate presidents are just humans, making ultimately human decisions.

股东、风险投资家和公司总裁都是人，最终都会做出人的决定。

And so moral capitalism necessarily leads back to a relatively benevolent billionaire.

因此，道德资本主义必然会带来相对仁慈的亿万富翁。

American Giant’s particular helpful rich person is Donald Kendall, who Winthrop says is “90 years old, still going 100 miles an hour.” (In fact, he’s 96.) Kendall was the CEO of PepsiCo until 1986, an inductee into the National Business Hall of Fame, the recipient of the NAACP’s very first Equal Justice Award and a Medal of Friendship from Vladimir Putin .

美国巨人公司特别乐于助人的富人是唐纳德·肯德尔 (Donald Kendall)，温思罗普说他“90 岁了，仍然以每小时 100 英里的速度行驶”。 （事实上​​，他已经 96 岁了。） 1986 年之前，肯德尔一直担任百事可乐公司的首席执行官，入选国家商业名人堂，获得全国有色人种协进会首个平等正义奖和弗拉基米尔·普京颁发的友谊勋章。

He was a friend of Richard Nixon’s and an enemy of Joan Crawford’s and arguably the reason Marxist President-elect Salvador Allende was overthrown in Chile.

他是理查德·尼克松的朋友，也是琼·克劳馥的敌人，也可以说是马克思主义当选总统萨尔瓦多·阿连德在智利被推翻的原因。

His is a backstory at least as complicated as a supply chain.

他的背景故事至少和供应链一样复杂。

Today, Kendall is American Giant’s lead investor, and Winthrop credits him with keeping the company on track.

如今，肯德尔是美国巨人公司的主要投资者，温思罗普认为是他让公司走上正轨。

“I’ve got my own set of convictions about it, but I’m not sure that I would have had the confidence in those convictions to continue to do everything without his thumb in my spine as we went along.”

“我对此有自己的一套信念，但我不确定在我们前进的过程中，如果没有他的拇指在我的脊柱上，我是否会有信心继续做所有事情。”

I ask Winthrop about politics, later in a follow-up call.

在稍后的后续电话中，我向温思罗普询问了政治问题。

As Kendall’s Nixon ties imply, the investor has been a Republican donor — and according to Federal Election Committee records, Winthrop has as well.

正如肯德尔与尼克松的关系所暗示的那样，这位投资者一直是共和党的捐助者——根据联邦选举委员会的记录，温思罗普也是如此。

Although not to our current president.

尽管不是我们现任总统。

Elizabeth Chavez works on sections of an American Giant garment at Eagle USA.

伊丽莎白·查韦斯 (Elizabeth Chavez) 在 Eagle USA 制作美国巨人 (American Giant) 服装的各个部分。

Winthrop explains that he’s a “staunch nonpartisan.” Never mentioning Trump by name, he hints at his position, saying, “I have a particular lack of patience for politicians that are full of hot air.” Recently, the CEO met with a group of Democratic senators, including Amy Klobuchar, Chuck Schumer, and Tim Kaine, who invited him to the Hill to speak to the problem of, you guessed it, American manufacturing.

温思罗普解释说，他是一位“坚定的无党派人士”。他从未提及特朗普的名字，只是暗示了自己的立场，并表示：“我对那些充满空话的政客特别缺乏耐心。”最近，这位首席执行官会见了一批民主党参议员，包括艾米·克洛布查尔、查克·舒默和蒂姆·凯恩，他们邀请他到国会演讲，你猜对了，美国制造业的问题。

He was impressed with the gesture.

他对这个举动印象深刻。

“I think it’s a lot more serious and worthy to ask me to sit in a closed-door session in Washington and actually try to dig into the problems than it is to try and grab a headline about some issues.”

“我认为，请我参加华盛顿的闭门会议，真正尝试深入研究问题，比试图抢占某些问题的头条新闻要严肃得多，也更有价值。”

American manufacturing remains a popular political talking point but lives in a sort of no man’s land when it comes to the current iterations of the Republican and Democratic parties.

美国制造业仍然是一个流行的政治话题，但在共和党和民主党当前的迭代中，它却处于一种无人区。

Neither party can claim ownership of the issue.

任何一方都不能声称拥有该问题。

For the GOP, being “business-friendly” has more to do with shareholders than workers; for the Dems, being “business-friendly” isn’t actually such great business.

对于共和党来说，“商业友好”更多地与股东有关，而不是与工人有关；对于民主党来说，“商业友好”实际上并不是一件好事。

Winthrop suggests there’s lots to do on a policy level — “job retraining, tax policy, helping to offset capital expenditures for private businesses that are keeping US industries competitive.” He believes there’s one helpful task the Trump administration has achieved “in that small way”: centered the conversation.

温思罗普表示，在政策层面还有很多工作要做——“就业再培训、税收政策、帮助抵消私营企业的资本支出，从而保持美国工业的竞争力。”他认为特朗普政府“以很小的方式”完成了一项有用的任务：集中对话。

At least people are talking, even if that’s all it is for now.

至少人们在谈论，即使目前仅此而已。

Along with Kendall, Randy Komisar is also in AG’s corner.

与肯德尔一样，兰迪·科米萨尔也站在 AG 一边。

The co-author of Winthrop’s book, I F**cking Love That Company , Komisar is a general partner at the VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (which was an early investor in Amazon, Google, Uber, Spotify, open your phone and pick a successful app and that too, most likely).

科米萨尔是温思罗普所著《我他妈爱那家公司》一书的合著者，他是风险投资公司 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers 的普通合伙人（该公司是亚马逊、谷歌、Uber、Spotify 的早期投资者，打开你的手机，选择一个成功的应用程序，很可能也是如此）。

Komisar is a “unique” kind of venture capitalist, according to Winthrop.

温思罗普表示，科米萨尔是一位“独特”的风险投资家。

At the very least American Giant is a unique investment.

至少美国巨人是一项独特的投资。

Winthrop says that Komisar is in his ear saying, “Venture capital is a bad thing in awful times.”

温思罗普说，科米萨尔在他耳边说：“在困难时期，风险投资是一件坏事。”

I get a chance to ask Komisar about this directly, and despite being in the VC game himself, he was not misquoted.

我有机会直接向 Komisar 询问此事，尽管他本人也参与了 VC 游戏，但他并没有被错误引用。

He says that some of his best advice for a growing business is, “Don’t take venture capital unless you absolutely need it.” (This is, indeed, one of 100 rules he outlines in an upcoming book, Straight Talk for Startups .)

他说，他对成长型企业的最佳建议是：“除非绝对需要，否则不要接受风险投资。” （事实上，这是他在即将出版的《Straight Talk for Startups》一书中概述的 100 条规则之一。）

For Komisar, his work with American Giant is “an experiment in how to appropriately capitalize these businesses.” It needs the right investors with the right priorities to grow at the right scale “so that they don’t lose their mission.” He calls AG a “love brand,” and says the danger of scaling a brand people love is that you could “pervert” the business.

对于科米萨尔来说，他与美国巨人公司的合作是“如何适当利用这些业务的实验”。它需要正确的投资者和正确的优先事项，以正确的规模实现增长，“这样他们就不会失去使命”。他称 AG 为“热爱的品牌”，并表示扩大人们喜爱的品牌的危险在于，你可能会“破坏”业务。

“One thing to understand about capitalism, in particular venture capital, is capital loves to scale,” Komisar explains.

“关于资本主义，尤其是风险投资，需要理解的一点是资本喜欢扩大规模，”科米萨尔解释道。

He describes investors pushing the scale of the business to get “an exit as quickly as possible and then kiss the company on both cheeks and move on.” While VCs want to get their money fast and get out, this doesn’t set businesses or their employees up for success long-term; scale is, as Komisar says, “orthogonal” to what workers — and customers — care about.

他描述了投资者推动业务规模的目的是“尽快退出，然后亲吻公司并继续前进”。虽然风险投资公司希望快速拿到资金并退出，但这并不能让企业或其员工获得长期成功；正如科米萨尔所说，规模与工人和客户关心的事情“正交”。

“They care about their wages; they care about meaningful work; they care about value; they care about price.”

“他们关心自己的工资；他们关心有意义的工作；他们关心价值；他们关心价格。”

Overleveraged businesses owe too much to too few, and not enough to anyone else.

杠杆率过高的企业欠少数人太多，而欠其他任何人太多。

Winthrop believes consumers, especially younger ones, know this and that it rankles them.

温思罗普认为，消费者，尤其是年轻消费者，知道这一点，并且这让他们感到恼火。

This opens up the opportunity for me to ask Winthrop the question I’ve wanted to ask a successful and seemingly morally-driven capitalist: Is it just too late and too pointless to be a “conscious capitalist” (™ John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods, which recently sold to Amazon)?

这为我提供了一个机会，让我有机会向温思罗普提出一个我一直想问一位成功且看似受道德驱动的资本家的问题：成为一个“有意识的资本家”（约翰·麦基，全食超市的创始人，最近被亚马逊收购）是否为时已晚且毫无意义？

As late-stage capitalism transitions from a phrase used mainly by Marxist academics to a popular meme , as socialism becomes cooler and cooler with the kids and membership in the Democratic Socialists of America more than triples in a year, is the very audience that might be most likely to respond to ethical business already closing the door on capitalism?

随着晚期资本主义从一个主要由马克思主义学者使用的短语转变为一个流行的模因，随着社会主义随着孩子们的到来而变得越来越酷，美国民主社会主义者的成员在一年内增加了三倍多，那些最有可能对道德商业做出反应的观众是否已经对资本主义关闭了大门？

Raw cotton is caught on the side of a truck at the Enfield Cotton Gin.

原棉是在恩菲尔德轧棉厂的卡车侧面捕获的。

“I think part of the reason why there’s justified skepticism about capitalism is there’s a growing sense and reality of, that does not apply to me,” Winthrop says.

温思罗普说：“我认为，人们对资本主义持合理怀疑的部分原因是，越来越多的人意识到，这并不适用于我。”

We know our purchase is “enriching some far-off person that doesn’t understand me or who I am or what my life is.” It’s not someone whose life looks like ours who makes the items we buy; it’s not someone whose life looks like ours who ultimately profits off of them.

我们知道我们的购买是“让那些不了解我、我是谁、我的生活是什么的遥远的人变得更加丰富”。我们购买的物品并不是由生活与我们相似的人制造的；最终从中获利的并不是那些生活与我们相似的人。

We might not consider this consciously when we buy our Levi’s or our Ray-Bans or our iPhones, but we know it, deep down, and it’s alienating.

当我们购买李维斯、雷朋眼镜或 iPhone 时，我们可能不会有意识地考虑这一点，但我们内心深处知道，它是疏远的。

Capitalism, which we’re told is supposed to benefit all Americans who work hard, mostly only touches our lives when it’s taking our money.

我们被告知资本主义应该让所有努力工作的美国人受益，但它大多只有在夺走我们的钱时才会触及我们的生活。

But he argues that alienation isn’t innate to the system.

但他认为，疏离感并不是体制所固有的。

“What you are witnessing here and yesterday is capitalism hard at work.

“你在这里和昨天所目睹的是资本主义正在努力运作。

Hard at work,” he tells me, “And I would argue its benefits are real and tangible.

努力工作，”他告诉我，“我认为它的好处是真实的、有形的。

There really is an opportunity here to have your dollars participate in a way that actually is relevant and it does apply to you.”

这里确实有机会让您的资金以一种真正相关且确实适用于您的方式参与其中。”

Winthrop believes that his customers see this application, and it informs their affection for the brand.

温思罗普相信他的客户看到这个应用程序，这表明他们对这个品牌的喜爱。

He talks often about American Giant’s impressive sales figures, but declines to provide them for this piece.

他经常谈论美国巨人公司令人印象深刻的销售数字，但拒绝在这篇文章中提供这些数字。

Regardless of whatever market success or customer excitement the company achieves, it might just be, as Page Ashby says of onshoring, “at its largest, small-scale.”

无论该公司取得了怎样的市场成功或客户兴奋程度，正如佩奇·阿什比（Page Ashby）谈到外包时所说的那样，它可能只是“规模最大、规模较小”。

Therein lies the issue for the consumer.

这就是消费者的问题。

While you can individually choose to make a purchase that supports American manufacturing, there’s also the question of all the other purchases you make, of all the other consumers not making that same decision, and ultimately of the wealthiest few deciding if those companies even get to exist.

虽然你可以单独选择进行支持美国制造业的购买，但还存在你进行的所有其他购买的问题，所有其他消费者没有做出相同决定的问题，以及最终由最富有的少数人决定这些公司是否存在的问题。

It’s the same seemingly no-win situation as environmentalism.

这与环保主义似乎是双赢的局面。

It’s good if you recycle, but what about your long hot showers, and your neighbors who don’t recycle, and the mega-corporation dumping toxic dye into the rivers?

如果你能回收利用固然很好，但是你的长时间热水淋浴、不回收利用的邻居以及向河流倾倒有毒染料的大公司又如何呢？

It’s hard to feel like these small choices add up to anything meaningful at all.

很难感觉这些小选择加起来有什么意义。

We’re standing in a cotton field at sunset when slavery comes up.

当奴隶制出现时，我们正站在日落时分的棉田里。

Jerry Hamill, who owns and operates the fields with American Giant’s cotton is grown, is showing us a boll (not ball) of the stuff plucked straight from the ground, and how full of seeds it is.

拥有并经营美国巨人棉花种植地的杰里·哈米尔 (Jerry Hamill) 正在向我们展示直接从地里采摘的棉铃（不是球），以及它的种子有多么饱满。

Hamill explains that, before the invention of the cotton gin, a slave was expected to produce a shoeful of seeds.

哈米尔解释说，在轧棉机发明之前，奴隶应该生产一鞋种子。

“I didn’t do it,” Hamill says, and starts to say something about his parents, and how they didn’t do it either, and “it” I understand is “enslave people,” which considering Hamill’s age (advanced but alive in 2018) is almost undoubtedly true but beside the point.

“我没有这样做，”哈米尔说，然后开始谈论他的父母，以及他们如何也没有这样做，我理解的“它”是“奴役人们”，考虑到哈米尔的年龄（高龄但在 2018 年还活着），这几乎毫无疑问是正确的，但不是重点。

Winthrop interrupts him, asking about what happens to the seeds after they’re picked.

温思罗普打断了他，询问种子采摘后会发生什么。

Moments later Winthrop has a seed in his own mouth, eating it like Hamill says cows do.

过了一会儿，温思罗普嘴里含着一颗种子，像哈米尔说的牛那样吃它。

“Not tender,” Winthrop tells us, chewing.

“不嫩，”温思罗普一边咀嚼一边告诉我们。

We all laugh.

我们都笑了。

Jerry Hammill’s cotton field at sunset.

日落时杰里·哈米尔的棉田。

But even if Hamill had said nothing, it would already be too late.

但即使哈米尔什么也没说，也已经太晚了。

You can’t stand in a cotton field for the first time, no matter how oddly perfect and beautiful the light is, and not think about slaves working there, picking these bolls, filling their shoes with seeds.

你第一次站在棉田里时，无论光线多么完美和美丽，你都无法想象奴隶在那里工作，采摘棉铃，把种子装满鞋子。

Cotton, in America, is inextricably bound up with the country’s proverbial original sin (although calling it original possibly ignores what was done to the Native Americans, another complicated topic for another time); it’s a part of the story just like the yarn-making and the fabric-dyeing and the job creation.

在美国，棉花与这个国家众所周知的原罪有着千丝万缕的联系（尽管称其为原罪可能忽略了对美洲原住民所做的事情，这是另一个复杂的话题）；就像纱线制造、织物染色和创造就业机会一样，这是故事的一部分。

Hamill started to point out how world-changing the cotton gin really was, and he’s right.

哈米尔开始指出轧棉机真正改变了世界，他是对的。

The invention took a task that required dozens of people — people who plantation owners weren’t just unwilling to pay, but whose very lives and humanity they were willing to quash for their own profit — and automated it, eliminating the need for people to do that work.

这项发明将一项需要数十人的任务实现了自动化，种植园主不仅不愿意支付这些人的费用，而且愿意为了自己的利益而牺牲他们的生命和人性，并使其自动化，从而消除了人们完成这项工作的需要。

At the same time, with the increased ability to gin cotton, more people were needed to grow and pick it, and those people were also slaves.

与此同时，随着轧棉能力的提高，需要更多的人来种植和采摘棉花，而这些人也是奴隶。

Some of their work had been eliminated, but new and more work was being created.

他们的一些工作已经被取消，但更多新的工作正在被创造。

The cotton gin was invented in 1793.

轧棉机于 1793 年发明。

In 1790 six states were slave states; by 1860 there were 15 .

1790年，有六个州成为蓄奴州；到 1860 年已有 15 家。

In Enfield, we visited the Enfield Cotton Gin, a marvel and at the same time, a lint-covered, gerry-rigged contraption.

在恩菲尔德，我们参观了恩菲尔德杜松子酒厂，这是一个奇迹，同时也是一个布满棉绒、装有格里装置的装置。

The oldest pieces of the machine are from the 1950s.

该机器最古老的部件来自 20 世纪 50 年代。

It can be called the Enfield Cotton Gin because it’s the only one in town, but there used to be five in Enfield alone.

它可以被称为恩菲尔德杜松子酒，因为它是镇上唯一的一家，但过去仅恩菲尔德就有五家。

The problem of the gin recalls, in an uncomfortable way, the jobs at Parkdale, and Nodine’s claim about the jobs that no longer exist that “no one wanted.” The question of if such a job exists — a job so taxing that no one would want to do it — haunts manufacturing, especially as these are jobs that so often do still exist, even in the face of innovation.

杜松子酒的问题以一种令人不安的方式让人想起帕克代尔的工作，以及诺丁关于“没人想要”的不再存在的工作的说法。这样的工作是否存在的问题——一项繁重的工作以至于没有人愿意做——困扰着制造业，特别是因为即使面对创新，这些工作通常仍然存在。

They just exist in less-developed factories in less-developed countries across the world, or robots do them for the low, low price of buying a very expensive robot in the first place.

它们只是存在于世界各地欠发达国家的欠发达工厂中，或者是机器人以低廉的价格来完成这些工作，首先购买非常昂贵的机器人。

Bayard Winthrop at the cotton field.

贝亚德·温思罗普在棉花田里。

The understanding of any job as something “no one wants” elides the question of compensation: For a fair price, most jobs are very doable.

将任何工作理解为“没有人想要”的东西就忽略了薪酬问题：对于一个公平的价格，大多数工作都是非常可行的。

If people don’t want to do a job, you pay them more, not less, not none.

如果人们不想做某项工作，你就付给他们更多的钱，而不是更少，也不是没有。

Or you innovate past that job and call it progress, but that doesn’t answer the sticky question of what happens to the people who used to do the work.

或者你对这项工作进行了创新，并称之为进步，但这并不能回答一个棘手的问题：过去从事这项工作的人会发生什么。

No type of work requires slavery, no matter how unappealing, whether it’s picking seeds or picking cotton.

没有任何类型的工作需要奴役，无论多么没有吸引力，无论是采摘种子还是采摘棉花。

It’s work; as soon as you pay people for it, it’s a job.

这是工作；一旦你付钱给别人，它就是一份工作。

Cotton didn’t create slavery, the cotton gin didn’t end it or even solidify it, and white supremacy — a cause of slavery that is regarded strangely often as a byproduct, the way a cow, if you asked her, might consider the cotton just a byproduct of the seeds she eats — still thrives in America.

棉花并没有创造奴隶制，轧棉机也没有结束奴隶制，甚至没有巩固奴隶制，而白人至上主义——奴隶制的一个原因却常常被奇怪地视为副产品，就像一头牛，如果你问她，可能会认为棉花只是她吃的种子的副产品——仍然在美国蓬勃发展。

When you consider the national mood as overwhelmed , and ponder the incredible complications of a supply chain that takes you through the dying livelihood of the American worker and the moral questions of capitalism and then drops you off at slavery, it’s not hard to see why dealing with the realities herein is not something people are clamoring to do.

当你认为全国情绪已不堪重负，并思考供应链令人难以置信的复杂性，它带你经历美国工人垂死的生计和资本主义的道德问题，然后让你陷入奴隶制，就不难看出为什么处理这里的现实并不是人们强烈要求做的事情。

This is all so tricky: supply chains, the yarn-making process, job creation, growing cotton, whether or not to change how you do your job, being an ethical consumer, living as a person in America and the world and the year 2018 and any year.

这一切都非常棘手：供应链、纱线制造过程、创造就业机会、种植棉花、是否改变工作方式、成为有道德的消费者、在美国和世界以及 2018 年和任何一年中作为一个人生活。

It’s crushing, how many decisions there are to make, how ineffectual or catastrophic they could be, how we can’t know which are which.

这是令人崩溃的，有多少决定需要做出，它们可能是多么无效或灾难性的，我们如何不知道哪个是哪个。

How dirty you have to get your hands to get something done.

要想把事情做好，你的手得有多脏啊。

There are so many places to make mistakes or give up trying not to make mistakes because we all agreed something is hard.

有很多地方会犯错误，或者放弃努力不犯错误，因为我们都同意有些事情很难。

But cotton isn’t entirely bad because of slavery; Parkdale Mills isn’t entirely bad because jobs have been eliminated.

但棉花也并非因为奴隶制而完全不好。帕克代尔米尔斯并不完全是坏事，因为工作岗位已经消失。

Of course it’s better to not salt the earth; of course we still try to make use of the tools and even the systems that have inanimately played their part in human tragedy.

当然，最好不要在土地上撒盐；当然，我们仍然尝试利用那些在人类悲剧中无生命地发挥作用的工具甚至系统。

Anything less would be wasteful and dishonest.

任何少的东西都会是浪费和不诚实的。

Things are just things; how they’re used is up to people.

事物只是事物；如何使用它们取决于人们。

We believe the invisible hand is making businesses behave soullessly; that under capitalism, especially late-stage capitalism, there’s an inevitability to every sad-but-profitable situation.

我们相信，看不见的手正在让企业变得毫无灵魂；在资本主义下，特别是在资本主义晚期，每一种悲伤但有利可图的情况都是不可避免的。

Unfettered, this is true.

无拘无束，这是真的。

But capitalism is still full of people — not just workers, who might all be robots someday soon, but the shoppers, the CEOs, the shareholders, the venture capitalists, the former presidents of multinational corporations who fund businesses as a retirement pastime.

但资本主义仍然充满了人——不仅仅是工人，他们可能很快就会变成机器人，还有购物者、首席执行官、股东、风险投资家、跨国公司的前总裁，他们为企业提供资金作为退休后的消遣。

They make these decisions because they are still decisions.

他们做出这些决定是因为它们仍然是决定。

And the unsettling part about Winthrop’s question, “Can’t we all just do a little bit of this?,” is that no matter how relatively small you are, you’re still implicated in it.

温思罗普的问题“我们就不能做一点吗？”的令人不安的部分是，无论你相对较小，你仍然被牵连其中。

It can be maddening and deflating that people at the top don’t make decisions that lead to more American manufacturing, to better-paid and more secure workers, to a less inequitable world, but it doesn’t absolve you of your own choices.

如果高层人士没有做出能够增加美国制造业、提高工资和更有保障的工人、减少不平等的世界的决定，这可能会令人抓狂和泄气，但这并不能免除你自己的选择。

As impossible as it might seem, each individual’s choices do add up.

尽管看起来不可能，但每个人的选择确实会叠加起来。

The story is about doing something instead of doing nothing because doing nothing is easier.

这个故事是关于做某事而不是无所事事，因为什么都不做更容易。

It’s about worrying less about determining if something is Good or Bad than finding the pieces that could be improved and trying to improve them.

与其担心确定某件事是好还是坏，不如找到可以改进的部分并尝试改进它们。

It’s doing that scary and maybe difficult thing that you hear will be good for you, and letting it be good for you, and letting it change you for the better.

它正在做那些你听到的可怕的、也许困难的事情，这对你有好处，并让它对你有好处，让它让你变得更好。

Standing instead of sitting down, like Thelma Agular.

像 Thelma Agular 一样，站着而不是坐着。

Spending the money to add a tenner frame, like Page Ashby.

花钱加个十格框架，就像佩吉·阿什比那样。

Allowing one of your investments to be less profitable in the short term than it theoretically could be, like Donald Kendall.

允许你的一项投资在短期内的利润低于理论上的利润，就像唐纳德·肯德尔一样。

If the message is to be an engaged human citizen, regardless of the shirt on your back, that seems like something that’s worth saying again and again.

如果传达的信息是成为一名积极参与的人类公民，无论你背上的衬衫如何，这似乎都值得一再说。

And, looking around, like something we need to hear more and more and more, to combat the deafening buzz that says it’s not worth it.

而且，环顾四周，就像我们需要听到越来越多的东西，以对抗那些说它不值得的震耳欲聋的嗡嗡声。

I know I need to hear it.

我知道我需要听听。

I think I even believe it.

我想我什至相信它。

Either way, they do make a very nice sweatshirt, right here in America.

不管怎样，他们确实在美国制作了一件非常漂亮的运动衫。

Millions turn to Vox to understand what’s happening in the news.

数百万人通过 Vox 来了解新闻中发生的事情。

Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.

我们的使命从未像现在这样重要：通过理解赋予力量。

Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.

读者的捐款是支持我们资源密集型工作的重要组成部分，并帮助我们保持新闻业对所有人免费。

Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all .

请考虑今天向 Vox 做出贡献，以帮助我们让所有人免费工作。