唐納德·特朗普的目光開始越過他的重大勝利。在周一晚上發(fā)布的一段YouTube短視頻中，這位當(dāng)選總統(tǒng)概述了自己的執(zhí)政議程。特朗普表示，他的首要行政重點(diǎn)是啟動(dòng)增長(zhǎng)，改善網(wǎng)絡(luò)和邊境安全，撤出《跨太平洋伙伴關(guān)系協(xié)議》(TPP)，改善政治操守，以及“恢復(fù)我們的法律，并帶回屬于我們的工作機(jī)會(huì)?！?/p>

從Twitter移師YouTube是一個(gè)良好的開端。接下來，他需要提供詳細(xì)信息，對(duì)人們不安全感的源頭進(jìn)行更細(xì)致的分析，并闡述周密的政策和立法議程來推動(dòng)其執(zhí)政議程。

這是一個(gè)歷史性時(shí)刻；其利害關(guān)系不可能更高。棲居在象牙塔內(nèi)，依靠自身貌似精心，自我加強(qiáng)的民調(diào)引領(lǐng)議事日程的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)方式，現(xiàn)已壽終正寢。現(xiàn)在，經(jīng)由一種熱烈且即時(shí)的反饋循環(huán)，社交媒體讓所有人，公民和流氓都成為“影響者”。如果癥狀被誤診，處方無(wú)效，一種重大風(fēng)險(xiǎn)就很可能涌現(xiàn)：到下一次總統(tǒng)選舉，我們可能面臨的不僅僅是直言不諱，而是一種真正具有破壞性的不確定性、不安全感、焦慮感，乃至社會(huì)動(dòng)蕩。可以肯定地說，未來幾個(gè)星期的決定或許將給后代帶來嚴(yán)重后果。

讓我們關(guān)注經(jīng)濟(jì)。無(wú)需贅言，美國(guó)的經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況并不理想。就連華府領(lǐng)導(dǎo)階層也應(yīng)該深知這一點(diǎn)——當(dāng)他們看到大學(xué)畢業(yè)的子女仍然住在家里的時(shí)候。盡管失業(yè)率低于美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)的總體目標(biāo)（5%），但真實(shí)失業(yè)率仍接近10%。

政府的基建支出將創(chuàng)造新的就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)，但社保體系和國(guó)家安全預(yù)算方面的需要也非常緊迫。我們不可能樣樣俱得。鑒于特朗普將他的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施倡議集中在刺激私人投資上，他似乎承認(rèn)這一點(diǎn)。

雖然稅收和監(jiān)管改革可能會(huì)起到微弱的幫助作用，但這些舉措仍然沒有抓住我們的工作所面臨的長(zhǎng)期挑戰(zhàn)。正如特朗普毫無(wú)疑問意識(shí)到的那樣，把美國(guó)的失業(yè)問題歸咎于中國(guó)、墨西哥和其他貿(mào)易伙伴亦是如此。幾十年前，這些工作從美國(guó)流向中國(guó)和墨西哥；這種傷害已然造成。我們沒有必要爭(zhēng)辯自由貿(mào)易相對(duì)于重商主義的好處；甚至在工作開始遷移到海外之前，那場(chǎng)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)就已經(jīng)打響了。

這種問題是結(jié)構(gòu)性的。工作不是被其他地方的廉價(jià)勞動(dòng)力取代，而是被微芯片和智能軟件吞噬了——這些微芯片和智能軟件能夠執(zhí)行更復(fù)雜的任務(wù)，而無(wú)需人為干預(yù)。它不只是藍(lán)領(lǐng)機(jī)器人：最新的“深度學(xué)習(xí)”人工智能軟件能夠充分預(yù)期和執(zhí)行復(fù)雜的任務(wù)，比如駕駛、大學(xué)作業(yè)分級(jí)、自主飛行無(wú)人機(jī)、調(diào)試新的微處理器，甚至能夠從云端運(yùn)行整個(gè)電信網(wǎng)絡(luò)。從工廠到博士實(shí)驗(yàn)室，應(yīng)用人工智能軟件擁有同等的機(jī)會(huì)來毀滅各行各業(yè)、各種能力等級(jí)的工作。

工作吞噬者沒有國(guó)界。就在上周，蘋果宣布，該公司可能會(huì)將其高度自動(dòng)化的iPhone生產(chǎn)線從中國(guó)遷回美國(guó)。（蘋果僅有區(qū)區(qū)10萬(wàn)名員工，其人均利潤(rùn)額已經(jīng)高達(dá)200萬(wàn)美元。）對(duì)于中國(guó)的機(jī)器人監(jiān)工來說，這是最后一個(gè)破壞階段，但不要指望此舉會(huì)給美國(guó)工人帶來多大好處：使用技術(shù)來減少勞動(dòng)力和其他成本對(duì)于企業(yè)利潤(rùn)、股東和那些穿著連帽衫的年輕創(chuàng)新者有利，但對(duì)于數(shù)百人即將被替代的工人來說，這并不是好消息。

人類工作的虛擬化一直是“大衰退”以來經(jīng)濟(jì)不景氣的真正原因；它與更容易的靶子—— “貪婪的華爾街投機(jī)者”——沒有聯(lián)系。金融科技的迅速發(fā)展也在破壞工作機(jī)會(huì)。技術(shù)創(chuàng)造的效率確實(shí)有麻醉通脹的好處。但即使美元購(gòu)買力增強(qiáng)，那些沒有工作，特別是沒有儲(chǔ)蓄，負(fù)責(zé)任的消費(fèi)者也不會(huì)把錢花在非必需品上。低消費(fèi)意味著低增速，進(jìn)而轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)這個(gè)周期，而新增的虛擬化財(cái)富總是令少數(shù)人受益。

如此長(zhǎng)時(shí)間以來，我們?nèi)斡蛇@些壓力不斷累積。

處方？到目前為止，美國(guó)的頂級(jí)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家或多或少地忽略了這種吞噬工作的病毒，只是假設(shè)新的工作崗位會(huì)像過去幾輪“科技驅(qū)動(dòng)的經(jīng)濟(jì)轉(zhuǎn)型”（從農(nóng)場(chǎng)到工廠，從生產(chǎn)到服務(wù)）那樣不斷涌現(xiàn)。果真如此嗎？有足夠多的服務(wù)類工作嗎？整整5年前，在堪薩斯州奧薩瓦提市一場(chǎng)思慮周祥的演講中，奧巴馬總統(tǒng)談到這個(gè)巨大的問題。但我們并未看到任何跟進(jìn)措施。對(duì)奧巴馬猶如教授般精彩的分析進(jìn)行回應(yīng)，是他留給新總司令的一項(xiàng)遺產(chǎn)。

于唐納德·特朗普而言，這是一次劃時(shí)代的經(jīng)濟(jì)機(jī)會(huì)：制定政策以重新配置智能系統(tǒng)，使它們從危及人們福祉的病毒轉(zhuǎn)換為賦能者，幫助人們從不那么有趣的工作中解放出來，從而為他們的家庭和社區(qū)做出更有目的性的貢獻(xiàn)。這也很可能成為新總統(tǒng)面臨的主要經(jīng)濟(jì)挑戰(zhàn)。原因是，盡管一些人正在失去工作，但其他人，特別是創(chuàng)造效率的創(chuàng)新者及其客戶和投資者，正在贏得收益豐厚的機(jī)會(huì)，對(duì)于建制派來說，最直接、最懶惰的修復(fù)路徑可能是羅賓漢式的“殺富濟(jì)貧”。

沒有這么快。美國(guó)文化與其他文化的區(qū)別在于，我們欽佩成功，希望自己也獲得成功的機(jī)會(huì)，而不是從其他人的口袋掏錢。在某種程度上，選民似乎很欣賞特朗普自我吹噓的成功和膽識(shí)，許多人想成為他那樣的成功者。他們也希望他“抽干沼澤”(drain the swamp)，清除那些自私自利的建制派政客為他們的機(jī)會(huì)設(shè)置的種種障礙。此處正是STEM學(xué)科（即科學(xué)、技術(shù)、工程和數(shù)學(xué)）和創(chuàng)業(yè)教育、為小企業(yè)減稅，以及對(duì)基層倡議實(shí)施稅收減免，可以大顯身手的地方。

對(duì)新總統(tǒng)“百日新政”的另一個(gè)建議是，委任一個(gè)公共/私人工作組研究就業(yè)的未來，它不是那種常見的紙面研究，而是一種非正式的創(chuàng)新思想孵化器，并且能夠包容廣泛的思想家群體。新總統(tǒng)應(yīng)該授權(quán)工作組提供一些具體的答案，途徑有二：其一，充分研究建制派經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家假設(shè)將在虛擬化經(jīng)濟(jì)中浮現(xiàn)的新型工作；其二，為人們從事有目的性的工作，以及把錢放在他們的口袋開發(fā)適當(dāng)?shù)倪x項(xiàng)——沒有不公平的政府再分配。一些可能舉措包括對(duì)破壞性技術(shù)征稅，依靠增值稅資助的普遍基本收入，或者在主流經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)討論之外提出的類似措施。

如今恰逢人類歷史上一個(gè)極其不確定的時(shí)刻。這位新當(dāng)選總統(tǒng)肩負(fù)的責(zé)任甚至可能比他本人所意識(shí)到的還要大。在一個(gè)如此重要，利害關(guān)系不可能更大的歷史階段，特朗普有機(jī)會(huì)成為幾代人中最偉大的“交易撮合者”。現(xiàn)在，讓我們忘卻他身上的標(biāo)簽吧，一起祝福他獲得成功——為我們自己的繁榮和安全。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：Kevin

本文作者是一位投資人和政府分析師，投資公司Xerion Investments首席執(zhí)行官，No Labels公司聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人。

Donald Trump started looking past his big win and outlining his governing agenda in a short YouTube video released Monday night. He stated that his first executive priorities are to kick-start growth, improve cyber and border security, pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, improve government ethics, and “restore our laws and bring back our jobs.”

Moving from Twitter to YouTube is a good start. Next he’ll need to provide details, with a more nuanced analysis of what’s causing people’s insecurity, and a thoughtful policy and legislative agenda to move the needle.

This is a historic moment; the stakes couldn’t be higher. Ivory tower leadership, navigated by its own meticulously self-reinforcing polls, is done. Social media enfranchises everyone, citizens and rogues, as “influencers” now, with an intense and immediate feedback loop. If the symptoms are misdiagnosed and prescriptions ineffective, there’s a material risk that by the next presidential election, we may be facing a lot more than blunt talk—a truly disruptive strain of uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety, and possibly social unrest. Safe to say, the decisions of the next few weeks might have consequences for generations to come.

Let’s focus on the economy: It’s not in good shape. Even the Beltway leadership class should know better when they see their own college-educated kids still living at home. While the unemployment rate is below the Fed’s 5% headline target, real unemployment is still nearly 10%.

Government spending on infrastructure would create new jobs, but there are also pressing social safety net and national security budgetary needs—and we can’t have it all. Trump seems to acknowledge this by focusing his infrastructure initiative on stimulating private investment.

While tax and regulatory reform would also help at the margins, they still miss what’s chronically challenging our jobs. So does blaming American job losses on China, Mexico, and other trading partners, as Trump no doubt realizes. The jobs left America for China and Mexico decades ago; that damage is done. And there’s no need to debate the benefits of free trade versus mercantilism; that war was fought even before jobs started migrating abroad.

The problem is structural. Jobs aren’t being replaced by cheaper ones somewhere else; they’re being eaten by microchips and smart software executing ever more sophisticated tasks without human intervention. And it’s not just blue collar robots: The latest “deep learning” artificial intelligence software fully anticipates and executes complex tasks, like driving, grading college assignments, autonomously flying drones, debugging new microprocessors, and even running entire telecommunications networks from the cloud. Applied artificial intelligence software is an equal opportunity consumer of jobs, across the spectrum of industries and abilities, from the factory floor to PhD labs.

The job-eater knows no borders. Just last week, Apple (already earning $2 million for every one of its mere 100,000 employees) announced that it may be about to relocate its highly automated iPhone production from China back home to the U.S. It’s the last stage of disruption for China’s robot supervisors, but don’t expect it to do much good for American workers: Using technology to reduce labor and other costs is great for corporate profits, shareholders, and hoodie-wearing young innovators, but not so much for millions of workers on the road to displacement.

Virtualization of human jobs has been the real cause of economic malaise since the Great Recession; it has no connection with the easier target: “greedy Wall Street speculators.” They’re being disrupted too, by the rapid advance of FinTech. Tech-created efficiencies do have the benefit of anesthetizing inflation. But even if a consumer dollar buys more, responsible people without jobs, and especially those without savings, don’t spend on nonessentials. Lower consumption means lower growth and thus turns the cycle, while the new real wealth of virtualization by definition benefits fewer people all the time. These pressures can be left to build for only so long.

The prescription? So far, our nation’s leading economists have more or less ignored the job-eating virus, just assuming that new jobs will simply appear, as they actually did in the last “technology-driven economic transitions,” from farms-to-factories and production-to-services. Really? Will there be enough service jobs to go around? President Obama talked about this huge question in a thoughtful speech at Osawatomie, Kansas five full years ago. Nothing much was done, though; responding to the professor-president’s brilliant analysis is a legacy left to our new commander-in-chief.

This is Donald Trump’s epochal economic opportunity: developing policies that reconfigure smart systems from viruses that threaten people’s well-being to enablers that liberate them from less interesting work routines to make more purposeful contributions to their families and communities. This is also likely to constitute the new president’s defining economic challenge, because while some people are losing, others (the efficiency-creating innovators and their clients and investors) are winning big, and the straightest, laziest establishment path for fixing that would probably have been Robin Hood’s—just take from the rich to help the poor.

Not so fast. What distinguishes America’s culture from pretty much everyone else’s is that we admire success and want the chance to get there ourselves, instead of taking it from someone else’s pocket. Voters seemed at some level to even embrace Trump’s boastful success and chutzpah, bluntness and all; many want to be like him. They also want him to “drain the swamp” of the barriers that a selfish political establishment has placed in front of their opportunities. Here’s where science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and entrepreneurship education, tax relief for small businesses, and tax breaks for grassroots initiatives can make a big difference.

Another idea for the new president’s first hundred days would be to commission a public/private task force on the future of employment—not the usual paper and study–fest, but an informal incubator of innovative ideas that includes a broad range of thinkers. He should give it a mandate to come up with some concrete answers, either by thinking through exactly what new types of jobs establishment economists assume will materialize in the virtualized economy or by developing appropriate options for keeping people purposefully occupied and putting money in their pockets—without unfair government redistribution. Some of the possibilities might include taxes narrowly targeting disruptive technologies, a VAT-funded universal basic income, or similar measures that have been raised at the edges of mainstream economic discussions.

The new president-elect has earned perhaps a larger responsibility at a more precarious moment in human history than even he might have realized. Donald Trump has the chance to be greatest dealmaker, on the most important stage, with the highest stakes, in generations. Let’s forget the hashtags now, and hope for his success—and our own prosperity and security.