An Alternative Theory of Unions

May 2007 People who worry about the increasing gap between rich and poor generally look back on the mid twentieth century as a golden age.

2007 年 5 月 担心贫富差距日益扩大的人们普遍将二十世纪中叶视为黄金时代。

In those days we had a large number of high-paying union manufacturing jobs that boosted the median income.

那时，我们有大量高薪工会制造业工作岗位，提高了收入中位数。

I wouldn't quite call the high-paying union job a myth, but I think people who dwell on it are reading too much into it.

我不太认为高薪工会工作是一个神话，但我认为那些沉迷于它的人读得太多了。

Oddly enough, it was working with startups that made me realize

奇怪的是，与初创公司的合作让我意识到

where the high-paying union job came from.

高薪工会工作从何而来。

In a rapidly growing market, you don't worry too much about efficiency.

在快速增长的市场中，您不必太担心效率。

It's more important to grow fast.

快速成长更重要。

If there's some mundane problem getting in your way, and there's a simple solution that's somewhat expensive, just take it and get on with more important things.

如果有一些平凡的问题阻碍了你，并且有一个简单的解决方案，但有点昂贵，那就接受它并继续处理更重要的事情。

EBay didn't win by paying less for servers than their competitors.

eBay 并不是因为比竞争对手支付更少的服务器费用而获胜。

Difficult though it may be to imagine now, manufacturing was a

尽管现在可能很难想象，但制造业曾经是一个

growth industry in the mid twentieth century.

二十世纪中叶工业蓬勃发展。

This was an era when small firms making everything from cars to candy were getting consolidated into a new kind of corporation with national reach and huge economies of scale.

在这个时代，生产从汽车到糖果等各种产品的小公司正在整合为一种具有全国影响力和巨大规模经济的新型公司。

You had to grow fast or die.

你必须快速成长，否则就会死亡。

Workers were for these companies what servers are for an Internet startup.

工人对于这些公司来说就像服务器对于互联网初创公司一样。

A reliable supply was more important than low cost.

可靠的供应比低成本更重要。

If you looked in the head of a 1950s auto executive, the attitude

如果你观察 20 世纪 50 年代汽车业高管的头脑，你会发现他的态度

must have been: sure, give 'em whatever they ask for, so long as the new model isn't delayed.

一定是：当然，只要新型号不延迟，就满足他们的要求。

In other words, those workers were not paid what their work was worth.

换句话说，这些工人的报酬与他们的工作价值不符。

Circumstances being what they were, companies would have been stupid to insist on paying them so little.

在目前的情况下，公司坚持支付这么低的工资是愚蠢的。

If you want a less controversial example of this phenomenon, ask anyone who worked as a consultant building web sites during the Internet Bubble.

如果您想要这种现象的争议较少的例子，请询问在互联网泡沫期间担任网站建设顾问的任何人。

In the late nineties you could get paid huge sums

在九十年代末，你可以获得巨额报酬

of money for building the most trivial things.

建造最琐碎的东西的钱。

And yet does anyone who was there have any expectation those days will ever return?

然而，在场的人是否期望那些日子会再次到来呢？

I doubt it.

我对此表示怀疑。

Surely everyone realizes that was just a temporary aberration.

当然每个人都意识到这只是暂时的异常。

The era of labor unions seems to have been the same kind of aberration, just spread over a longer period, and mixed together with a lot of ideology that prevents people from viewing it with as cold an eye as they

工会时代似乎也是同样的一种畸变，只是延续的时间较长，并且夹杂着很多意识形态，让人无法像他们一样冷眼看待。

would something like consulting during the Bubble.

会在泡沫期间进行咨询之类的事情。

Basically, unions were just Razorfish.

基本上，工会只是剃刀鱼。

People who think the labor movement was the creation of heroic union organizers have a problem to explain: why are unions shrinking now?

那些认为劳工运动是英勇的工会组织者创造出来的人有一个问题需要解释：为什么工会现在正在萎缩？

The best they can do is fall back on the default explanation of people living in fallen civilizations.

他们能做的最好的事情就是依靠对生活在堕落文明中的人们的默认解释。

Our ancestors were giants.

我们的祖先是巨人。

The workers of the early twentieth century must have had a moral

二十世纪初的工人一定有道德

courage that's lacking today.

今天所缺乏的勇气。

In fact there's a simpler explanation.

事实上还有一个更简单的解释。

The early twentieth century was just a fast-growing startup overpaying for infrastructure.

二十世纪初期只是一家快速发展的初创公司为基础设施支付过高的费用。

And we in the present are not a fallen people, who have abandoned whatever mysterious high-minded principles produced the high-paying union job.

我们现在并不是一个堕落的民族，我们已经放弃了产生高薪工会工作的任何神秘的高尚原则。

We simply live in a time when the fast-growing companies overspend on different things.

我们只是生活在一个快速增长的公司在不同事物上超支的时代。