互聯(lián)網(wǎng)時代的勞資斗爭

They are the people formerly known as employees. Ina broad range of service industries, workers whoonce drew a steady salary are cutting out theemployer and plying their services direct to peoplewho used to pay companies, rather than people, tomeet their needs.

他們以前被稱為雇員。在服務(wù)行業(yè)的各個領(lǐng)域，曾經(jīng)賺取穩(wěn)定工資的勞動者正在繞過雇主，把自己的服務(wù)直接提供給客戶。這些客戶過去一直付費(fèi)給企業(yè)(而非個人)來滿足自己的需求。

This is the on-demand economy, the pattern ofwork exemplified by online systems such as Uber, a smartphone app that matches freelance taxidrivers to city dwellers who need a ride. Such services promise great efficiencies; idle resourcescan be harnessed more easily, whether they are empty bedrooms or the working hours of theunderemployed. But there is also a transfer of risk.

這就是按需經(jīng)濟(jì)(on-demand economy)，這種工作模式體現(xiàn)在優(yōu)步(Uber)等在線系統(tǒng)上。優(yōu)步是一款智能手機(jī)應(yīng)用，它可以把個體出租車司機(jī)和需要出行的城市居民匹配起來。這樣的服務(wù)有望帶來效率的極大提高;閑置資源可以被更容易地利用起來，無論這資源是空置的臥室還是未得到充分就業(yè)的人們的工作時間。但是，這里也存在風(fēng)險的轉(zhuǎn)移。

In the short term, at least, company men and women were insulated from the vicissitudes ofeconomic fortune. Whether it was faulty equipment or business ups and downs, much of therisk fell on companies rather than individuals. The on-demand economy sweeps away many ofthese safeguards. When misfortune strikes, workers are on their own.

至少在短期內(nèi)，企業(yè)員工還不會受到經(jīng)濟(jì)興衰變故的影響。不論是設(shè)備故障還是業(yè)務(wù)波動，大部分風(fēng)險都由公司而非個人承擔(dān)。但按需經(jīng)濟(jì)讓許多這樣的保障措施都消失了。當(dāng)厄運(yùn)降臨時，勞動者只能自己承擔(dān)。

Adam Smith explained that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. If youspend all your days putting metal heads on the end of pins, you can get very good at it. Butunless there is a market in which you can trade pins for money, and others in which you cantrade money for food, shelter and cloth, you will not prosper by doing so. Specialisation bringsgains. Its essential precondition is a system of exchange.

亞當(dāng)•斯密(Adam Smith)解釋了為什么說勞動分工受到市場范圍的限制。如果你整天都做把金屬頭鑲到大頭針尾部的工作，你會變得非常熟練。但除非有一個你能夠用大頭針換來錢的市場，以及其他你可以用錢換來吃穿住的市場，否則，你無法通過制作大頭針致富。專業(yè)化能帶來收益的基本前提，是存在一個交換體系。

This poses a difficulty, for markets are themselves limited. Transacting in them is costly, andsometimes the cost might be so high it outweighs the value to be gained. This was the insightof the Nobel prizewinning economist Ronald Coase, and he used it to explain why humanity isnot the only form of intelligent life in our economic universe. If economic exchange wereintermediated exclusively via markets, all transactions could take place between people; therewould be no need for companies to exist at all. But corporate hierarchies are sometimes acheaper way of co-ordinating economic exchange.

這帶來了一個難題，因?yàn)槭袌霰旧硎怯芯窒薜?。在市場中進(jìn)行交易需要付出高昂成本，有時交易成本可能高到超過可獲取的收益。這就是諾貝爾經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)獎得主羅納德•科斯(Ronald Coase)的偉大發(fā)現(xiàn)，他用這一發(fā)現(xiàn)來解釋為什么人類并非我們經(jīng)濟(jì)系統(tǒng)里唯一的智慧生命形式。如果經(jīng)濟(jì)交換完全經(jīng)由市場作為媒介進(jìn)行，那所有交易都可以在人與人之間發(fā)生;而企業(yè)完全沒有存在的必要了。但企業(yè)層級結(jié)構(gòu)有時能夠用更低的成本協(xié)調(diào)經(jīng)濟(jì)交換。

The logic is immutable, but the circumstances have changed. Ubiquitous connectivity via theinternet has reduced the cost of connecting resources to the people who need them. Whenmarket exchange is no longer so expensive, corporate enterprises begin to lose their raisond’être.

這種邏輯不會變，但環(huán)境已經(jīng)發(fā)生變化?；ヂ?lián)網(wǎng)的四通八達(dá)降低了把資源和需要這些資源的人連接起來的成本。當(dāng)交易成本不再如此高昂，企業(yè)也就開始失去存在的理由。

The earliest signs that communications technology could help orchestrate new forms of humancollaboration were visible outside the economic sphere. In the early days of the web, mostboundary-crossing work was mediated through social interaction, rather than markets. Peerproduction projects — such as Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia to which anyone cancontribute by writing pages or editing them, or Linux, an open source operating systemdeveloped by a huge community of computer programmers who give their time for free — werefirst to create value on an industrial scale while breaking free of the boundary of the company.The informality and social motivations that gave rise to these practices did not require theoverheads of a payment system. Nor did they require managerial hierarchies. The absence ofprice signals muted the potential conflicts that arise regularly between people who mustallocate the monetary rewards of their shared work.

通信技術(shù)可以幫助構(gòu)建新型人類合作形式的最早跡象，并非出現(xiàn)在經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)域。在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)出現(xiàn)的早期，大部分跨界合作工作都是通過社交互動、而非市場完成的。對等協(xié)作生產(chǎn)(peer production)項(xiàng)目——如任何人都可以通過撰寫或編輯頁面出一份力的免費(fèi)在線百科全書維基百科(Wikipedia)，或由全球大量編程人員無償協(xié)力開發(fā)的開源操作系統(tǒng)Linux——第一次以工業(yè)規(guī)模創(chuàng)造價值，同時又打破了企業(yè)的邊界。促使這些實(shí)踐活動興起的非正式性和社交動機(jī)，不需要維持一個支付系統(tǒng)所需的管理費(fèi)用，也不需要層級管理結(jié)構(gòu)。價格信號的缺失，讓必須瓜分共同勞動成果帶來的金錢回報的人們之間屢見不鮮的沖突也消失了。

The companies that make up the on-demand economy are similar, but price signals have takenthe place of social motivations. As Coase might have predicted, the boundary of thecompany has been dissolved. The likely efficiency gains are large. The economic effects ofWikipedia and Linux were felt by the publishing and software industries, whose workers arelikely to be well-educated and fairly well off. But the effects of the on-demand economy willreach deep into social strata that have less education and a limited reservoir of materialsecurity to draw on.

構(gòu)成按需經(jīng)濟(jì)的企業(yè)是類似的，但價格信號已經(jīng)取代了社交動機(jī)。正如科斯可能會預(yù)言的那樣，企業(yè)的邊界已經(jīng)被打破。可能的效率提升非常大。出版和軟件行業(yè)工作者大多受過良好教育、也相對富裕，這兩個行業(yè)已經(jīng)感受到了維基百科和Linux那樣的經(jīng)濟(jì)影響。但按需經(jīng)濟(jì)的影響將進(jìn)一步深入到受教育較少、物質(zhì)保障儲備有限的社會階層。

And there is the rub. When the national labour market took shape in Victorian Britain, whatfollowed was a century of explosive growth. But it was also a century of Dickensiandepredation and dislocation. Before we celebrate the demise of the company and itsreplacement with a more flexible, digitally mediated market for piecework, we must rememberthat companies have played a critical role in absorbing risks associated with market productionthat had previously fallen on workers, with tragic consequences.

當(dāng)然，難就難在這里。維多利亞時代英國形成全國勞動力市場之后，帶來的是一個世紀(jì)的爆炸式增長。但那也是一個狄更斯式(Dickensian)掠奪和混亂主導(dǎo)的世紀(jì)。在我們慶祝企業(yè)滅亡，被一個更加靈活的、數(shù)字化的計(jì)件工作市場所取代之前，我們必須記住，公司一直扮演一個關(guān)鍵角色，那就是吸收與市場生產(chǎn)有關(guān)的風(fēng)險，這種風(fēng)險此前一度由勞動者自己承擔(dān)，造成了許多悲慘后果。

In 1914, Henry Ford doubled the daily salary of employees and ushered in a new conception ofthe relationship between business and workers. Following decades of conflicts between capitaland labour, businesses would now absorb some of the risk of living in a market economy.

1914年，亨利•福特(Henry Ford)給員工漲了一倍日薪，開創(chuàng)了一種新型的企業(yè)與勞動者關(guān)系。在經(jīng)歷了幾十年的勞資沖突后，現(xiàn)在很多企業(yè)會吸收部分在一個市場化經(jīng)濟(jì)中生存所面臨的風(fēng)險。

If, in the next century, electronic markets begin to supplant companies as the organising forcebehind economic exchange, we will confront these dilemmas anew. Some internetentrepreneurs seem to know as much. That is wise. The on-demand economy heralds a form ofeconomic co-operation that Ford could not have imagined. But its novelty should not blind usto a social challenge he was among the first to confront.

如果在下一個世紀(jì)，電子市場開始取代企業(yè)，成為組織經(jīng)濟(jì)交換的力量，那么我們將再次面對這些難題。一些互聯(lián)網(wǎng)企業(yè)家對此似乎也心知肚明。這是明智的。按需經(jīng)濟(jì)預(yù)示著一種福特當(dāng)年無法想象得到的經(jīng)濟(jì)合作形式的到來。但其新奇性不應(yīng)該使我們忽視一道社會難題，而福特是直面這道難題的先驅(qū)者。

The writer is Berkman professor of entrepreneurial legal studies at Harvard Law School

本文作者是哈佛大學(xué)法學(xué)院(Harvard Law School)伯克曼(Berkman)企業(yè)法律研究教授