誰在爲全球化城市埋單

I know people in various lines of corporate work who have each accumulated air miles above the value of the average house in England. That is ￡235,000. One of them cannot remember the last time he paid for a flight. These are not the gods of finance who score a million miles a year. They are, in the main, salaried professionals who shuttle around to serve clients.

我認識許多在各行各業打拼的公司職員，他們每人累積的航空里程，都比英國一棟普通住宅值錢，即超過了23.5萬英鎊。其中一位已經不記得自己最近一次花錢買機票是什麼時候。這些人都不是每年能飛一百萬英里的金融大神。他們主要是些領薪水的專業人士，需要穿梭各地爲客戶服務。

In the course of their travels, they will also rack up hotel loyalty points that, like the miles, are incurred on their employers’ tab but theirs to keep. One has a colleague sitting on almost two million points with a particular hotel chain after a prolonged stay in one of its grand establishments in Asia.

他們出差時，也會累積酒店積分，就像累積的航空里程那樣，這些積分是在僱主的賬單下發生的，但由他們獲得。有人說他的一位同事，由於長期入住一家位於亞洲的大酒店，目前已在某連鎖酒店集團累積了約200萬分。

Look around one of those lavish but not very interesting restaurants in the middle of London, New York, Toronto, Singapore, Hong Kong, or any one of the cities that together define the world economy. There is some diligent expensing at work, often aimed at the capture and retention of clients for banks, law firms and consultancies.

在倫敦、紐約、多倫多、新加坡、香港，或任何一個繁華的世界大都市的中心區，都有一些極盡奢華但沒什麼特色的餐廳。隨便哪家都有一些公費開銷，通常是爲銀行、律所和諮詢公司吸引和保留客戶而發生的費用。

And, yes, the media has its own culture of perks, as do politicians, as do diplomats. But the largest international businesses operate on another level of consumption. Airlines compete to be their preferred flyer and, when a deal is agreed, the benefits cascade to staff. At one point, a friend of mine acquired an Air France gold card having never been on an Air France flight in his life.

是的，媒體有自己的補貼文化，政客們也是，外交官們亦然。但全球最大的那些跨國企業其消費水平卻完全在另一個層面上。航空公司競相投他們所好，一旦達成了一項交易，員工就會得到大把好處。有一次，我的一個朋友得到了一張法國航空(Air France)的金卡，而他從沒坐過法航的飛機。

The secret of this new age of the city state, is that it runs on other people’s money. There is a class of workers who can live above their means (as defined by their salaries) by leaning on miles, points, expenses and other supplements. There is a class of restaurant, bar, hotel and airline that could not survive in its present form without this tapestry of indirect income.

新時代城邦的奧祕在於，它在依靠他人的資金運作。有一類工作者，可以憑藉里程、積分、公費及其他補助，過着他們的收入水平（由他們的薪資決定）支撐不起的生活。有一類餐廳、酒吧、酒店和航空公司，沒有了這些五花八門的間接收入，就沒法維持現在這般景象。

The word that recurs in the discourse about these cities is “postmodern”. They hold little to be fixed or sacred. They allow themselves to be remade by outsiders. They cultivate an Anglophone jet set who feel more at ease in a dozen or so world centres than in the hinterlands of their own countries. Well, nothing is more postmodern than a disconnection between income and expenditure. There is a curious feeling of weightlessness in a business class lounge or big city restaurant — of people liberated to savour the pleasures at hand by the redirection of the bill to some faceless third party.

說起這些城市，就會提到一個詞：“後現代”。在這些城市，沒有什麼被認爲是一成不變或神聖的。它們允許自己被外來者改造。這些城市孕育了一個說英語的“打飛的”階層，這些人覺得他們在十來個世界大都市過得比在自己老家還自在。對了，沒什麼比收入和支出脫節更“後現代”。在商務艙候機室或大城市的餐廳裏，人們會產生一種奇妙的失重感——他們自在地享受着，賬單被轉給了一些不知名的第三方。

This urban secret need not be a dirty one. It is within the law and the UK’s Bribery Act and America’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act have tightened up that law. If there are victims, they tend not to be obvious candidates for pity. Shareholders, perhaps, though the outgoings in question are often real costs of doing business. It is, in all but name, part of the remuneration package.

這一奧祕未必是骯髒的。它並未超出法律允許的範疇，英國《反賄賂法案》(Bribery Act)和美國《薩班斯?奧克斯利法案》(Sarbanes-Oxley Act)已經收緊了相關法律條款。即便有受害者，也沒有哪一方特別值得同情。股東們也許值得同情，但上述支出往往是他們做生意的實際成本。實際上，它們是員工薪酬待遇的一部分。

At any rate, the justice of the system may be less interesting than its scale. It leaves these cities vulnerable to a change in corporate culture. If companies restrict their staff benefits — by retaining miles and points, say — a whole dimension of the entertainment economy would wither. One friend saw his company’s 12-month spend in a single restaurant. The number had seven digits.

無論如何，這個系統的公正性可能不如它的規模更有趣。它令這些城市很容易受到企業文化改變的影響。如果公司限制員工的福利——比如不讓員工個人積攢里程和積分——一部分娛樂經濟就會萎縮。一位朋友看到他們公司在一家餐館12個月的開銷。金額有七位數。

More than that, the balance of power within cities would tilt from the corporate to the bohemian. The perk culture leads to an over-allocation of resources to expensive but generic urban entertainment: the boilerplate restaurant, the five-star chain hotel, the convenient city centre.

不僅如此，城市內部的權力平衡也會由企業向奢華無度的店鋪傾斜。這種補貼文化導致資源被過度分配到昂貴但平庸的城市娛樂設施上：樣板化的餐廳、五星級連鎖酒店、便利的城市中心。

This has less to do with any innate philistinism than a rational avoidance of risk when schmoozing clients, who might not take to that new Serbo-Chilean basement bar in Dalston. On a weeknight, areas such as Knightsbridge survive on this middle-of-the-road traffic.

這跟什麼先天的庸俗沒太大關係，畢竟，如果你的客戶對達爾斯頓(Dalston)新開的塞爾維亞-智利風格的地下酒吧不感興趣，你就該理智地避開這種地方。週日的晚上，騎士橋(Knightsbridge)這樣的地方是個折中的選擇。

The offbeat quarters of town, meanwhile, would carry on as they are. They already attract people who pay out of their own pockets. It is the outwardly opulent centre, where prices tend to exceed quality, or at least imagination, that is fragile. In a world of newly frugal companies, the East End might outlast Mayfair — or anywhere that counts on free money.

與此同時，城市中那些不落俗套的地方也會一如既往地存在。它們已經吸引了自掏腰包的顧客。真正脆弱的是表面光鮮的城市中心，這裏很多場所的價格往往都超出了品質，或至少與想象不符。在企業重新崇尚起節儉的時期，倫敦東區或許會比梅菲爾區(Mayfair)或者其他任何一個依靠閒錢維持浮華的地方更有生命力。