對機器人徵稅不合邏輯

I usually agree with Bill Gates on matters of public policy and admire his emphasis on the combined power of markets and technology. But I think he went seriously astray in a recent interview when he proposed, without apparent irony, a tax on robots to cushion worker dislocation and limit inequality.

在公共政策問題上，我通常認同比爾?蓋茨(Bill Gates)的看法，欽佩他對市場與技術結合起來的力量的注重。但我認爲，在最近一次採訪中，他的觀點有些嚴重離譜，他提議對機器人徵稅（看似不帶諷刺），以緩解員工失業和限制不平等。

The Microsoft co-founder is right about the gravity of the problem and need for action, but he is profoundly misguided in his proposed solution — and in ways that point up problems with the current public debate.

對於這個問題的嚴重性以及採取行動的必要性，微軟(Microsoft)聯合創始人是正確的，但他提出的解決方案是嚴重誤導的，而且突出了當前公共辯論的問題。

First, I cannot see any logic to singling out robots as job destroyers. What about kiosks that dispense aeroplane boarding passes? Word processing programmes that accelerate the production of documents? Mobile banking technologies? Autonomous vehicles? Vaccines that, by preventing disease, destroy jobs in medicine?

首先，我認爲單獨把機器人列爲就業破壞者是毫無道理的。那些發放登機牌的自助終端呢？加快文件製作的文字處理程序呢？手機銀行技術呢？自動駕駛汽車呢？通過預防疾病而破壞醫藥行業就業的疫苗呢？

There are many kinds of innovation that allow the production of more or better output with less labour input. Why pick on robots? Does Mr Gates think anyone, let alone the US Congress, the Trump administration or a commission comprised of his fellow technocrats, can distinguish labour-saving activities from labour-enhancing ones?

有很多創新可以帶來用更少的勞動力投入獲得數量更高或質量更好的產出。爲什麼選擇機器人呢？蓋茨是否認爲，任何人都能把勞動力節約型活動與勞動力提高型活動區別開來嗎？更別提美國國會、特朗普政府或由和他一樣的技術官僚組成的委員會了。

Surely even if experts could draw such distinctions, the ability of the US Internal Revenue Service to administer them is in doubt.

即便專家們可以區分，美國國稅局(IRS)管理這些差異的能力肯定也是令人存疑的。

Second, much innovative activity, even of a robot-like variety, involves producing better goods and services rather than simply extracting more output from the same input.

其次，大量創新活動（包括涉及機器人的活動）關乎生產出質量更好的產品和服務，而不是僅僅用同樣的投入獲得更多的產出。

Autonomous vehicles, for example, will probably be safer than ones driven by humans. Robotics already help surgeons perform certain operations better than they can on their own. Online reservation systems are faster and more convenient than travel agents.

例如，自動駕駛汽車很可能要比人類駕駛更安全。機器人已經能夠幫助外科醫生完成某些手術，而且比人類醫生做得更好。在線訂票系統比旅行社速度更快，也更方便。

Moreover, because of emulation and competition, innovators capture only a small part of the benefit of their innovation. It follows that there is as much a case for subsidising as taxing types of capital that embody innovation.

另外，由於模仿和競爭，創新者僅獲得了自己的創新的一小部分好處。按此推理，對於包含創新的資本，既有徵稅的理由，也有補貼的理由。

Third, and perhaps most fundamentally, why tax in ways that reduce the size of the pie rather than ways that assure that the larger pie is well distributed? Imagine that 50 people can produce robots who will do the work of 100. A sufficiently high tax on robots would prevent them from being produced.

第三，這或許是最根本的一點，爲什麼要以縮小大餅的方式課稅呢，而不是確保把一張更大的餅合理分配？假設有50人可以生產機器人，這些機器人可以做100人的工作。對機器人徵收重稅將阻止他們被生產出來。

Surely it would be better for society to instead enjoy the extra output and establish suitable taxes and transfers to protect displaced workers?

讓社會享受額外的產出，同時設置合理的稅收和轉移機制以保護下崗員工，難道不是更好的方式嗎？

It is hard to see why shrinking the pie, rather than enlarging it as much as possible and then redistributing, is the right way forward.

讓人很難理解的是，縮小這個餅（而不是儘可能做大這個餅然後再分配）怎麼會是正確的前進道路。

This last point has long been standard in international trade theory. Indeed, it is common to point out that opening a country up to international trade is just like giving it access to a technology for transforming one good into another. The argument, then, is that since one surely would not regard such a technical change as bad, neither is trade, and so protectionism is bad. Mr Gates’ robot tax risks essentially being protectionism against progress.

長期以來，後一種觀點一直是國際貿易理論體系的標準內容。的確，人們經常指出，讓某個國家向國際貿易開放，就像令其獲得技術把一種產品加工成另一種一樣。所以，這裏的主張是，由於人們肯定不會把這種技術變革視爲壞事，貿易也不是壞事，因此保護主義是壞事。蓋茨提出的對機器人徵稅的看法可能在實質上是一種反對進步的保護主義。

None of this is to minimise the problem of job destruction and rising inequality (although it is a major paradox that we seem to be seeing unprecedentedly rapid job destruction by machinery while at the same time observing extraordinarily low productivity growth).

這些都不會最小化就業破壞和不平等程度上升的問題（不過這裏有一個重大的矛盾：一方面，我們似乎在目睹機器造成空前迅速的就業破壞，另一方面，我們也看到生產率增速特別低）。

Rather, it is to suggest that staving off progress is a poor strategy for helping less-fortunate workers. In addition to difficulties of definition and collateral costs, there is the further problem that in an open world, taxes on technology are likely to drive production offshore rather than create jobs at home.

相反，這表明了要幫助不那麼幸運的勞動者，阻止進步是一種糟糕戰略。除了定義的困難和連帶損害，還有一個問題，那就是在一個開放的世界裏，對技術課稅很可能會把生產推向海外，而不是在國內創造就業。

There are many better approaches. Governments will, however, have to concern themselves with problems of structural joblessness. They likely will need to take a more explicit role in ensuring full employment than has been the practice in the US.

有很多更好的戰略。然而，政府不得不關心結構性失業的問題。相比美國的實踐，他們可能需要在確保完全就業方面發揮更突出的作用。

Among other things, this will mean major reforms of education and retraining systems, consideration of targeted wage subsidies for groups with particularly severe employment problems, major investments in infrastructure and, possibly, direct public employment programmes.

除了其他措施外，這將意味着對教育和再培訓體系進行大規模改革、考慮面向失業尤其嚴重的羣體的針對性薪資補貼、大規模基礎設施投資以及可能的直接公共僱傭計劃。

This will be a major debate that I suspect will define a large part of the politics of the industrial world over the next decade. Little is certain. But we will do better going forward than backward.

這將是一場重大辯論，我認爲它將在很大程度上決定未來10年工業化國家的政治。現在一切都不確定。但前進要比後退好。

That means making America even greater, not great again. And it means embracing rather than rejecting technological progress.

這意味着讓美國變得更偉大，而不是再次偉大。而且這意味着接受（而不是拒絕）科技進步。

The writer is Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

本文作者是哈佛大學(Harvard)查爾斯?W?艾略特校級教授(Charles W Eliot university professor)，曾擔任美國財長