硅谷繁榮背後的政治陰雲

For the past two decades Alex Karp, chief executive of Palantir, the data analytics “unicorn” start-up, has seen Silicon Valley bask in a seemingly unstoppable boom. These days, however, he feels uneasy.

二十年來，數據分析類“獨角獸”初創公司Palantir的首席執行官(CEO)亞歷克斯?卡普(Alex Karp)一直目睹硅谷沉浸在看似勢不可擋的繁榮之中。然而，最近這段日子，他開始感到了不安。

That is not because of the issue which alarms some investors: that technology valuations are so elevated they will eventually crash. Instead, Mr Karp frets about politics. “The Valley is marching off a political cliff,” he told me this week. “The [tech companies] have all these monopolies and economic capital, and assume that it translates into political capital — but that isn’t true.”

他所擔心的並不是那個讓一些投資者感到提心吊膽的問題：科技公司最終可能因爲估值過高而走向崩盤。相反，卡普顧慮的是政治。“硅谷就要走到政治懸崖外了，”不久前他告訴我，“（科技企業）擁有壟斷地位和經濟資本，並且以爲這些可以轉變爲政治資本——但這不是真的。”

Is he correct? Not if you listen to the public statements of other tech titans. The story Silicon Valley likes to tell is that it is a bastion of the American dream, producing innovative products that improve consumers’ lives. This should create plenty of political support, or so the argument goes. After all, surveys suggest that public trust in technology is sky high.

他說得對嗎？如果你聽了其他科技大佬的公開發言，你會覺得他說錯了。硅谷喜歡講自己是“美國夢”的堡壘、自己製造的創新產品改善了消費者的生活。這些應該給硅谷帶來很多政治支持，至少他們是這麼認爲的。畢竟，調查表明公衆極其相信科技。

I suspect, though, that Mr Karp is quite right and deserves great credit for speaking out. After all, a mere decade ago, Wall Street titans were also brimming with hubris and wealth, convinced that innovation was improving the world. However, the banking crisis then triggered a fierce political backlash against finance.

不過，我認爲卡普說的很對，他能說出這些話也非常值得稱讚。畢竟就在10年前，華爾街巨頭的身上還散發着傲慢和金錢的光芒，深信創新正在改善這個世界。然而，之後爆發的銀行業危機觸發了對金融業的強烈政治反彈。

There is nothing like the 2008 crisis looming for tech right now. On the contrary, the present White House seems to favour deregulation, not a regulatory clampdown. But what savvy observers like Mr Karp can see are a host of slow-burn issues, on both sides of the Atlantic, that could, at best, spark recrimination and at worst a policy shock.

如今科技業面臨的前景與2008年金融危機時完全不同。相反，目前白宮似乎傾向於放鬆監管，而不是加強監管。但像卡普這樣精明的觀察者可以看到大西洋兩岸存在很多正在緩慢發酵的問題，輕者可能導致各方相互指責，重者可能引發一波政策衝擊。

What issues make tech vulnerable? One is parochial: the Valley was (mostly) on the wrong side of the US election last year. Its Democratic bias ought not to matter, as Donald Trump’s team claims to be inclusive. But it is noteworthy that Silicon Valley was the first business sector to openly challenge the White House on immigration. It is also striking how few tech CEOs there are on the president’s business advisory council. (Although Travis Kalanick of Uber initially joined, he quickly resigned, leaving just Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX and Ginni Rometty of IBM.)

哪些問題使科技企業容易受衝擊？一個問題是地方性的：在去年美國大選中，硅谷（多數人）站錯了隊。鑑於唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)團隊聲稱會包容異己，硅谷偏好支持民主黨這一點應該不會有事。但值得注意的是，硅谷公司是最先跳出來公開挑戰白宮移民政策的企業。同樣引人注意的是，在特朗普的商業顧問委員會中，科技企業CEO很少。（優步(Uber)的特拉維斯?卡蘭尼克(Travis Kalanick)最初加入了委員會，但他迅速辭職了，只剩特斯拉(Tesla)和SpaceX的創始人埃隆?馬斯克(Elon Musk)以及IBM的羅睿蘭(Ginni Rometty)仍留在委員會中。）

A second, longer-term, problem is job losses. Until now Mr Trump has blamed trade for American workers’ woes. However, another big culprit is the type of digitisation being unleashed by Silicon Valley. Tech businesses could become convenient scapegoats, particularly since companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook have enjoyed fat profits and near-monopoly power in certain sectors.

第二個、也是長期存在的問題是就業流失。迄今爲止，特朗普一直指責貿易造成了美國工人失業。然而，另一個元兇是由硅谷帶來的數字化。科技企業會很容易成爲替罪羊，更何況亞馬遜(Amazon)、蘋果(Apple)、谷歌(Google)和Facebook等企業斬獲了豐厚利潤，並且在特定領域成爲了近乎壟斷的勢力。

A third, related, issue is tax. As profits have boomed, tech groups have amassed $867bn in offshore cash piles, partly to avoid paying high US taxes. This irritates American politicians. However, European officials accuse tech companies of avoiding taxes. Silicon Valley companies retort (correctly) that they are only responding to laws. But that does not lessen the potential outrage. Nor does philanthropy help in Europe: unlike in America, conspicuous charity is viewed with suspicion in places such as Germany or Scandinavia.

第三個相關問題是稅收。隨着利潤不斷膨脹，科技集團在海外積累了8670億美元的現金儲備，部分是爲了避免回美國繳納高額稅收。這惹怒了美國政客。然而，歐洲官員指控科技企業想方設法避稅。硅谷企業反駁稱（有理有據）他們都是依照法律行事。但這並不能使怒火稍減。在歐洲做慈善也沒用：與美國不同，在德國和斯堪的納維亞之類的地方，高調地做慈善反而會引起懷疑。

Then there are the tangled issues of security and privacy. In Europe, there is criticism of social media companies for being slow to curb the spread of fake news, and to guard consumer privacy. American and British intelligence services are even more angry that extremist Islamist propaganda has spread on social media, along with sensitive intelligence leaks, and that tech companies have sometimes refused to hand over data on terrorism. This further reduces tech companies’ political support.

此外，還有關於安全和隱私這兩個相互交織的問題。在歐洲，有人批評社交媒體企業在阻止假新聞傳播和保護消費者隱私方面行動遲緩。對於極端伊斯蘭主義在社交媒體上宣傳、敏感情報泄露以及科技企業有時拒絕提交有關恐怖主義的數據等問題，美國和英國的情報機構就更生氣了。這些進一步削弱了科技企業得到的政治支持。

Some tech executives can see this and are fighting back. Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon have vast lobbying operations in Washington and Brussels. Facebook and Twitter are developing tools to combat fake news, and Google and Apple say they want to help American workers train — or retrain — for a digitised future. Meanwhile, some tech executives are trying to work with Mr Trump’s White House. “We don’t want to be isolated,” says one.

一些科技企業高管能看到這一點，並且正在反擊。蘋果、谷歌、Facebook和亞馬遜在華盛頓和布魯塞爾大力開展遊說。Facebook和Twitter正在研發打擊假新聞的工具，谷歌和蘋果稱他們想幫美國工人培訓——或再培訓——以適應數字化的未來。與此同時，一些科技企業高管正在嘗試與特朗普領導的白宮合作。“我們不想被孤立，”一名高管稱。

But this can only mitigate the risk, not remove it, in a world where nobody has a solution for displaced workers and where monopolies are unlikely to vanish unless we all start using entirely new tech platforms. Indeed, the only truly effective measure that Silicon Valley could probably take to reduce political risk would be to visibly pay more tax. But don’t bet on that happening soon. Or not unless Mr Trump produces a (near miraculous) innovation of his own — a tax reform deal to repatriate those vast overseas cash piles.

但是，在這個世界上，沒有人能解決工人失業問題，而且除非我們全部開始使用全新的科技平臺，否則壟斷現象不太可能消失，所以上述那些做法只能減輕風險，而無法完全消除風險。事實上，爲了降低政治風險，硅谷可能採取的唯一真正有效的措施是繳納更多稅金，並且增幅要大到能讓人們明顯看見。但不要指望這種情況會很快出現。或者除非特朗普拿出自己的創新（近乎於天方夜譚）——出臺一個稅收改革方案以吸引企業匯回在海外的鉅額現金。