The Refragmentation
January 2016 One advantage of being old is that you can see change happen in your lifetime.
2016 年 1 月 年老的一个好处是你可以看到一生中发生的变化。
A lot of the change I've seen is fragmentation.
我看到的很多变化都是碎片化的。
US politics is much more polarized than it used to be.
美国政治比以前更加两极分化。
Culturally we have ever less common ground.
在文化上我们的共同点越来越少。
The creative class flocks to a handful of happy cities, abandoning the rest.
创意阶层涌向少数幸福的城市，放弃了其他城市。
And increasing economic inequality means the spread between rich and poor is growing too.
经济不平等的加剧意味着贫富差距也在扩大。
I'd like to propose a hypothesis: that all these trends are instances of the same phenomenon.
我想提出一个假设：所有这些趋势都是同一现象的实例。
And moreover, that the cause is not some force that's pulling us apart, but rather the erosion of forces that had been pushing us together.
而且，原因并不是某种使我们分裂的力量，而是那些一直将我们团结在一起的力量的侵蚀。
Worse still, for those who worry about these trends, the forces that were pushing us together were an anomaly, a one-time combination of circumstances that's unlikely to be repeated — and indeed, that
更糟糕的是，对于那些担心这些趋势的人来说，推动我们团结在一起的力量是一种反常现象，是不可能重复出现的一次性情况的组合——事实上，
we would not want to repeat.
我们不想重复。
The two forces were war (above all World War II), and the rise of large corporations.
这两种力量是战争（尤其是第二次世界大战）和大公司的崛起。
The effects of World War II were both economic and social.
第二次世界大战的影响既有经济的，也有社会的。
Economically, it decreased variation in income.
从经济上来说，它减少了收入的变化。
Like all modern armed forces, America's were socialist economically.
与所有现代武装部队一样，美国军队在经济上也是社会主义的。
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
各尽所能，按需分配。
More or less.
或多或少。
Higher ranking members of the military got more (as higher
军衔越高的成员得到的越多（越高
ranking members of socialist societies always do), but what they got was fixed according to their rank.
社会主义社会的等级成员总是这样做），但他们得到的东西是根据他们的等级固定的。
And the flattening effect wasn't limited to those under arms, because the US economy was conscripted too.
扁平化效应不仅限于武装人员，因为美国经济也被征召入伍。
Between 1942 and 1945 all wages were set by the National War Labor Board.
1942 年至 1945 年间，所有工资均由国家战时劳工委员会确定。
Like the military, they defaulted to flatness.
就像军队一样，他们默认是平坦的。
And this national standardization of wages was so pervasive that its effects could still be seen years after the war ended.
这种全国性的工资标准化非常普遍，以至于在战争结束多年后仍然可以看到其影响。
[ 1 ] Business owners weren't supposed to be making money either.
[ 1 ] 企业主也不应该赚钱。
FDR said "not a single war millionaire" would be permitted.
罗斯福表示“不允许任何一个战争百万富翁”。
To ensure that, any increase in a company's profits over prewar levels was taxed at 85%.
为了确保这一点，公司利润超过战前水平的任何增长都要按 85% 的税率征税。
And when what was left after corporate taxes reached individuals, it was taxed again at a marginal rate of 93%.
当公司税后剩下的钱到达个人手中时，又按 93% 的边际税率再次征税。
[ 2
[ 2