With the popularity of Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the 21st Century, inequality has become central to the public debate over economic policy. Piketty, and much of this discussion, focuses on the sharp increases in the share of income and wealth going to the top 1 per cent, 0.1 per cent and 0.01 per cent of the population.

随着托马斯•皮凯蒂(Thomas Piketty)那本《21世纪的资本》(Capital in the Twenty-First Century)的风靡，不平等成为有关经济政策的公众辩论的核心问题。皮凯蒂以及大部分辩论关注的焦点在于，流向顶层1%、0.1%以及0.01%人群的收入和财富份额激增。

This is indeed a critical issue. Whatever the resolution of arguments over particular numbers, it is almost certain that the share of personal income going to the top 1 per cent of the population has risen by 10 percentage points over the past generation, and that the share of the bottom 90 per cent has fallen by a comparable amount.

这确实是个重要课题。无论有关具体数字的争论结果如何，几乎可以肯定，流向顶层1%人群的个人收入比例在过去一代人的时间里提高了10个百分点，流向底层90%人群的收入比例则出现了类似幅度的下降。

The only groups that have seen faster income growth than the top 1 per cent are the top 0.1 per cent and top 0.01 per cent.

收入增速比顶层1%更快的人群只有两个，就是顶层0.1%和顶层0.01%。

This discussion helps push policy in constructive directions. There is every reason to believe that taxes can be reformed to eliminate loopholes for the wealthy and become more progressive, while also promoting a more efficient allocation of investment. In areas ranging from local zoning laws to intellectual property protection, from financial regulation to energy subsidies, public policy now bestows great fortunes on those whose primary skill is working the political system rather than producing great products and services. There is a compelling case for policy measures to reduce profits from such rent-seeking activities as a number of economists, notably Dean Baker and the late Mancur Olsen, have emphasised.

这场讨论有助于推动政策向着建设性的方向改变。我们有充分理由相信，可以通过改革税制，填堵富人可钻的漏洞，加大税收累进程度，同时促进更高效率的投资配置。从地方的土地分区规划法到知识产权保护，从金融监管到能源补贴，各个领域的公共政策如今都造福于那些主要本事是利用政治体制（而不是提供优秀产品和服务）的人。我们有令人信服的理由主张：出台政策举措，降低此类寻租行为的收益。有多位经济学家都强调了同样的观点，其中最令人瞩目的两位是迪安•贝克(Dean Baker)和已故的曼库尔•奥尔森(Mancur Olsen)。

At the same time, unless one regards envy as a virtue, the primary reason for concern about inequality is that lower- and middle-income workers have too little – not that the rich have too much.

与此同时，眼下的不平等状况值得担忧的主要理由是中低收入的劳动者拥有的太少，而不是富人拥有的太多——除非有人认为嫉妒是美德。

So in judging policies relating to inequality, the criterion should be what their impact will be on the middle class and the poor.

因此，评判有关不平等的政策时，我们的标准应该是这些政策对中产阶层和穷人会有何影响。

On any reasonable reading of the evidence starting where the US is today, more could be done to increase tax progressivity without doing any noticeable damage to the prospects for economic growth.

只要合理解读相关证据（不妨从美国现状开始），就能得出这样的结论：我们可以采取更多行动提高税收的累进程度，而不致明显破坏经济增长前景。

It is vital to remember, however, that important aspects of inequality are unlikely to be transformed just by limited income redistribution. Consider two fundamental components of life – health and the ability to provide opportunity for children.

然而，必须记住的一个要点是，仅仅通过有限的收入再分配，不太可能在重要方面改变不平等。不妨考虑一下人生的两个根本元素：健康和为子女提供机会的能力。

Barry Bosworth and his colleagues at the Brookings Institution have examined changes in life expectancy starting at age 55 for the cohort of people born in 1920 and the cohort born in 1940. They found that the richest men gained roughly six years in life expectancy, middle-income earners gained roughly four years, and those in the lowest part of the distribution gained two years. To put this in perspective, the elimination or doubling of cancer mortality would mean less than a four-year change in life expectancy.

布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)的巴里•博斯沃思(Barry Bosworth)及其同事，考察了分别生于1920年和1940年的两组人自55岁开始预期寿命的变化，发现最富有的男性预期寿命大约增加了6年，中等收入者大约增加了4年，低收入者增加了2年。可以这样来看这些数字：癌症死亡率降为零或翻倍，意味着不到4年的预期寿命变化。

Why these differences? They more likely have to do with lifestyle and variations in diet and stress than the ability to afford medical care – especially since the figures refer to relatively aged people, all of whom, once they reach 65, fall under Medicare.

为何会出现这样的差异？更大的可能是与生活方式、饮食习惯和压力有关，而非负担医疗服务的能力，特别是鉴于数据来源于年纪较大的人群，这些人一旦年满65岁，都能享受联邦医疗保险计划(Medicare)。

Over the past two generations, the gap in educational achievement between the children of the rich and the children of the poor has doubled. While the college enrolment rate for children from the lowest quarter of the income distribution has increased from 6 per cent to 8 per cent, the rate for children from the highest quarter has risen from 40 per cent to 73 per cent.

过去两代人以来，富人家孩子和穷人家孩子在教育程度上的差距翻了一倍。收入最低人群的子女上大学的比率从6%增加到了8%，而收入最高人群的子女上大学的比率从40%增加到了73%。

What has driven these trends? No doubt there are many factors. But a crucial one has to be that the average affluent child now receives 6,000 hours of extracurricular education, in the form of being read to, taken to a museum, coached in a sport, or any other kind of stimulus provided by an adult, than the average poor child – and this gap has greatly increased since the 1970s.

这些趋势的驱动因素是什么？无疑有许多。但关键因素之一肯定是，与一般普通的穷人家孩子相比，如今一般的富人家孩子得到了6000小时的课外教育，其形式包括听父母读书，被带去参观博物馆，得到某项运动的训练，或其他任何由成年人提供的激励。这一差距自上世纪70年代以来大大增加了。

A famous literary spat between 1920s novelists F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway has been boiled down over time to a succinct, if apocryphal, exchange. Fitzgerald: “The rich are different from you and me.” Hemingway’s retort: “Yes, they have more money.”

上世纪20年代的两位小说家F•斯科特•菲茨杰拉德(F Scott Fitzgerald)和欧内斯特•海明威(Ernest Hemingway)曾有过一场著名的论战。随着时间的流逝，这场论战被轶事化地精辟总结为：菲茨杰拉德说，“富人跟你我之辈不一样”；海明威反驳道，“是不一样，他们有更多钱。”

These observations on health and the ability to provide opportunity for children suggest that the differences between the rich and everyone else are not only about money but about things that are even more fundamental: health and opportunity.

对健康和为子女提供机会能力的研究似乎表明，富人和其他人的差别不只在于钱多钱少，而在于两样更为根本的东西：健康和机会。

If society is to become more just and inclusive it will be necessary to craft policies that address the rapidly increasing share of money income going to the rich. But it is crucial to recognise that measures to support the rest of the population are at least equally important.

要想让社会变得更公平、更包容，就必须设计出一系列政策，以解决流向富人的金钱收入比例迅速扩大的问题。但至关重要的是要认识到，支持其余人群的举措至少同样重要。

It would be a tragedy if this new focus on inequality and on great fortunes diverted attention from the most fundamental tasks of any democratic society – supporting the health and education of all its citizens.

对不平等以及巨额财富的新一轮关注，如果导致人们不再关注民主社会为所有公民提供健康和教育支持的根本任务，那将是个悲剧。