普通美国人生活质量落于人后

Enjoying the Low Life?

普通美国人生活质量落于人后

The United States is the most powerful colossus in the history of the world: Our nuclear warheads could wipe out the globe, our enemies tweet on iPhones, and kids worldwide bop to Beyoncé.

美国是有史以来最具影响力的大国：我们的核弹头能把整个地球夷为平地，我们的敌人用iPhone上Twitter，全世界的孩子都跟随碧昂斯(Beyoncé)的音乐舞动身体。

Yet let’s get real. All this hasn’t benefited all Americans. A newly released global index finds that America falls short, along with other powerful countries, on what matters most: assuring a high quality of life for ordinary citizens.

不过还是认清现实吧。这一切并不能让每一个美国人都受益。最新发布的一项全球指数表明，美国和其他大国一样，在最重要的事情上做得还不够好，即：让普通人过上高品质的生活。

The Social Progress Index for 2015 ranks the United States 16th in the world. We may thump our chests and boast that we’re No. 1, and in some ways we are. But, in important ways, we lag.

美国在2015年社会进步指数(Social Progress Index for 2015)排行榜上名列世界第16位。我们可能会拍着胸脯打包票，说我们是世界第一;在某种方面也的确如此。但在一些重要的方面，我们落后了。

The index ranks the United States 30th in life expectancy, 38th in saving children’s lives, and a humiliating 55th in women surviving childbirth. O.K., we know that we have a high homicide rate, but we’re at risk in other ways as well. We have higher traffic fatality rates than 37 other countries, and higher suicide rates than 80.

该排行榜显示，美国在人均寿命方面名列第30位，在避免儿童死亡方面名列第38位，在避免女性死于分娩方面则相当丢人地名列第55位。美国的谋杀率非常高，这我们都知道，但我们在其他方面同样面临着危险。我们的交通肇事死亡率排在37个国家前面，自杀率排在80个国家前面。

We also rank 32nd in preventing early marriage, 38th in the equality of our education system, 49th in high school enrollment rates and 87th in cellphone use.

此外，我们在防止早婚方面名列第32位，我们的教育体系公平度名列第38位，高中入学率名列第49位，手机使用率名列第87位。

Ouch. “We’re No. 87!” doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?

哎哟!“我们是第87名!”这话并不怎么有趣，对吧?

Michael E. Porter, the Harvard Business School professor who helped devise the Social Progress Index, says that it’s important to have conventional economic measures such as G.D.P. growth. But social progress is also a critical measure, he notes, of how a country is serving its people.

帮助设计了社会进步指数的哈佛商学院教授迈克尔·E·波特(Michael E. Porter)说，GDP等传统的经济指标很重要，但社会进步指数也是衡量一个国家在为人民服务方面做得怎么样的重要标尺。

“We’re not now No. 1 in a lot of stuff that traditionally we have been,” said Professor Porter, an expert on international competitiveness. “What we’re learning is that the fact that we’re not No. 1 on this stuff also means that we’re facing long-term economic stresses.”

“我们在很多事情上都不再像以往一样是第一名了，”身为国际竞争力专家的波特教授说。“我们所学到的是，在个排行榜上并非第一名的事实，还意味着我们正面临长期的经济压力。”

“We’re starting to understand that we can’t put economic development and social progress in two separate buckets,” Porter added. “There’s a dialectic here.”

“我们开始明白，不能把经济发展和社会发展分割开来，”波特补充说。“两者之间存在辩证关系。”

The top countries in the 2015 Social Progress Index are Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, New Zealand and Canada. Of the 133 countries rated, Central African Republic is last, just after Chad and Afghanistan.

在2015年社会进步指数排行榜上名列前茅的国家包括挪威、瑞典、瑞士、冰岛、新西兰和加拿大。中非共和国在133个被纳入榜单的国家中排名垫底，阿富汗和乍得分别排在倒数第二位和倒数第三位

Sri Lanka does better than India. Bangladesh outperforms Pakistan. Both the Philippines and South Africa do better than Russia. Mongolia comes in ahead of China. And Canada wallops the United States.

斯里兰卡排在印度前面。孟加拉排在巴基斯坦前面。菲律宾和南非都排在俄罗斯前面。蒙古排在中国前面。加拿大排在美国前面。

One way of looking at the index is to learn from countries that outperform by having social indicators better than their income levels. By that standard, the biggest stars are Costa Rica and Uruguay, with New Zealand and Rwanda also outperforming.

我们可以仔细研究这个排行榜，并向社会进步指数排名高于收入水平排名的国家学习。以这一标准论，哥斯达黎加和乌拉圭是最耀眼的明星，新西兰和卢旺达的表现也很不错。

“This takes time,” said Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which produces the index. “Costa Rica is an overperformer because of its history.”

“这需要时间，”社会进步促进会( Social Progress Imperative)总裁迈克尔·格林(Michael Green)说。“哥斯达黎加表现出色是有历史原因的。”社会进步促进会是社会进步指数的编制机构。

Green notes that Costa Rica offered free, universal primary education in the 19th century. In the 20th century, it disbanded its military forces and invested some of the savings in education. One payoff: Some surveys have found Costa Ricans among the happiest people in the world.

格林指出，哥斯达黎加在19世纪普及了免费初等教育，在20世纪解散了军队，并把部分节省下来的开支投进了教育领域。回报之一是：一些调查显示，哥斯达黎加人的幸福感排在世界前列。

Then there are the underperformers that do worse than would be expected from their income level. Saudi Arabia leads that list.

也有一些表现不如预期的国家，其社会进步指数排名与收入水平完全不匹配。头一个就是沙特阿拉伯。

The Social Progress Index, now in its second year, might seem a clarion call for greater equality, but that’s not quite right. Professor Porter and his number-crunchers found only a mild correlation between economic equality (measured by Gini coefficient) and social progress. What mattered much more was poverty.

去年刚刚诞生的社会进步指数，或许看似在强烈呼吁更大的平等，但事实并非完全如此。波特教授和他的数据分析师们发现，经济平等(以基尼系数衡量)和社会进步之间关联度并不太高。贫穷与社会进步的关联要密切得多。

Of course, wealthy countries with high poverty tend to be unequal as well. But inequality at the top seems to matter less for well-being than inequality at the bottom. Perhaps we should worry less about reining in the top 1 percent and more about helping the bottom 20 percent?

当然了，贫困率高的富裕国家往往是不平等的。但对社会福祉而言，最高层的不平等带来的影响似乎小于最底层的不平等的影响。或许我们应当少去琢磨如何遏制居于前1%的富人，多去帮助居于后20%的穷人?

On the other hand, one way to finance empowerment programs is to raise taxes on tycoons. And when there is tremendous inequality, the wealthy create private alternatives to public goods — private schools, private security forces, gated communities — that lead to disinvestment in public goods vital to the needy.

另一方面，为赋权项目提供资金的一个办法是对富豪增税。当社会存在极大不平等的时候，富人会创造出用以替代公共产品的私人产品，譬如私立学校、私人安全部队和封闭式社区，从而导致资金撤出对穷人至关重要的公共产品领域。

In any case, the 2015 Social Progress Index should serve notice to Americans — and to people around the globe. We obsess on the wrong measures, so we often have the wrong priorities.

不论如何，2015年社会发展指数给美国人以及全世界的人提了个醒。我们过于依赖错误的指标，因此常常分不清主次。

As an American, what saddens me is also that our political system seems unable to rise to the challenges.

作为一个美国人，我还为另一件事感到难过：我们的政治体系似乎无法迎接这些挑战。

As Porter notes, Americans generally understand that we face economic impediments such as declining infrastructure, yet we’re frozen. We appreciate that our education system is a mess, yet we’re passive.

正如波特所言，美国人都知道，我们面对着基础设施走下坡路等种种经济障碍，但我们一动不动。我们意识到我们的教育体系一团糟，但我们消极以对。