TED英語演講：你為什麼窮

貧窮的根源在哪裡? 有的人在於性格問題，有的人在於教育缺失，也有的人源於工作er Bregman先生將和大家探討和分享他對貧窮的見解。下面是小編為大家收集關於TED英語演講：你為什麼窮，歡迎借鑑參考。

你為什麼窮

演講者：Rutger Bregman

I'd like to start with a simple question: Why do the poor make so many poor decisions? I know it's a harsh question, but take a look at the data. The poor borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink more and eat less healthfully. Why?

我想用一個簡單的問題開始今天的話題，為什麼窮人會做出這麼差勁的決定，我知道這是個尖銳的問題，讓我們來看一下資料，窮人借錢更多，儲蓄更少，抽菸更多，飲酒更多，鍛鍊更少，而且飲食更為不健康，這是為什麼呢?

Well, the standard explanation was once summed up by the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. And she called poverty "a personality defect." A lack of character, basically.

標準的解釋是英國首相撒切爾夫人曾經總結過的，她把貧窮稱之為“個性缺陷”，基本上就是缺乏某種個性。

Now, I'm sure not many of you would be so blunt. But the idea that there's something wrong with the poor themselves is not restricted to Mrs. Thatcher. Some of you may believe that the poor should be held responsible for their own mistakes. And others may argue that we should help them to make better decisions. But the underlying assumption is the same: there's something wrong with them. If we could just change them, if we could just teach them how to live their lives, if they would only listen.

我相信在座各位可能不會有很多人這麼大膽的說，但是‘窮人自身有問題’這個概念，不單是撒切爾夫人提出的，有人可能會認為窮人應該對自己犯的錯負責，另一些人可能會說我們應該幫他們做出更好的決定，但是這兩種觀點背後的假設都是一樣的，就是他們是有問題的，如果我們可以改造他們，如果我們可以教導他們如何生活，如果他們能聽從教導的話。

And to be honest,this was what I thought for a long time. It was only a few years ago that I discovered that everything I thought I knew about poverty was all started when I accidentally stumbled upon a paper by a few American psychologists. They had traveled 8,000 miles, all the way to India, for a fascinating study. And it was an experiment with sugarcane should know that these farmers collect about 60 percent of their annual income all at once, right after the harvest. This means that they're relatively poor one part of the year and rich the other.

老實說，有很長一段時間，我也是這麼想的，幾年前，我才發現，我之前自以為對貧窮的所有了解都是錯的。一次我無意中看到幾個美國心理學家的論文，才恍然大悟。為了一個異想天開的研究，他們不遠萬里去到印度，他們用蔗糖農民做了一個實驗。請大家瞭解這些農民年收入的百分之六十是一次性獲得的，就在收割季之後，也就是說在一年中的一段時間，他們會比較貧困。

The researchers asked them to do an IQ test before and after the harvest. What they subsequently discovered completely blew my mind. The farmers scored much worse on the test before the harvest. The effects of living in poverty, it turns out, correspond to losing 14 points of IQ. Now, to give you an idea, that's comparable to losing a night's sleep or the effects of alcoholism.

研究人員請他們在收割前後分別做一次智商測試，他們的發現完全顛覆了我的三觀，在收割前農民們的智商測試得分要低得多，結果顯示，生活貧困的影響會反映為智商測試得分平均低了14分，為了讓大家對這個分數有個概念，這就相當於失眠一整夜或酒精的影響。

A few months later, I heard that Eldar Shafir, a professor at Princeton University and one of the authors of this study, was coming over to Holland, where I live. So we met up in Amsterdam to talk about his revolutionary new theory of poverty. And I can sum it up in just two words: scarcity mentality. It turns out that people behave differently when they perceive a thing to be scarce. And what that thing is doesn't much matter --whether it's not enough time, money or food.

幾個月後，我聽說，普林斯頓大學教授以及本研究的作者之一，艾爾達·夏菲爾要來我住的荷蘭了，於是我們在阿姆斯特丹見了面，討論了他關於貧窮的革命性的新理論，我可以用兩個字總結，稀缺性心態，結果顯示，當人們認為某個東西稀缺的話，行為方式就會改變，這個東西是什麼並不重要，有可能是時間金錢或食物。

You all know this feeling, when you've got too much to do, or when you've put off breaking for lunch and your blood sugar takes a dive. This narrows your focus to your immediate lack -- to the sandwich you've got to have now, the meeting that's starting in five minutes or the bills that have to be paid tomorrow. So the long-term perspective goes out the window.

大家都知道這種感覺，如果你手上有太多事情要做，或是你吃午餐時間推遲了血糖水平急劇下降，這會讓你的注意力集中在最直接的缺乏上，一定要立刻吃到三明治，五分鐘後就要開的會或是明天必須付清的賬單，‘看的長遠’此刻早已在九霄雲外了。

You could compare it to a new computer that's running 10 heavy programs at once. It gets slower and slower, making errors. Eventually, it freezes -- not because it's a bad computer, but because it has too much to do at once. The poor have the same problem. They're not making dumb decisions because they are dumb, but because they're living in a context in which anyone would make dumb decisions.

可以把這種情況比作一臺新電腦，同時執行十個繁重的程式，電腦就會變的越來越慢，會出錯，最終會宕機，不是因為這臺電腦不好，而是因為他一次性要處理太多內容了。窮人的問題是一樣的，他們不是因為愚蠢 做出了愚蠢的決定，而是因為在他們生活的那種環境下，任何人都有可能做出愚蠢的決定。

So suddenly I understood why so many of our anti-poverty programs don't work. Investments in education, for example, are often completely ineffective. Poverty is not a lack of knowledge. A recent analysis of 201 studies on the effectiveness of money-management training came to the conclusion that it has almost no effect at all.

因此我突然能夠理解，為什麼現在很多扶貧專案都沒用，例如很多教育投入都是完全無效的，貧窮並不是缺少知識。最近一個關於財富管理訓練有效性的201項研究的分析，得到了一個結論，即訓練幾乎完全無效。

Now, don't get me wrong -- this is not to say the poor don't learn anything -- they can come out wiser for sure. But it's not enough. Or as Professor Shafir told me, "It's like teaching someone to swim and then throwing them in a stormy sea."

請不要誤會，不是說窮人什麼也學不到，當然，經過訓練後，他們會更明智，但這樣還不夠，或者就像夏菲爾教授跟我說的，“這就像教會人游泳，然後就把他們仍進驚濤駭浪的大海里”。

I still remember sitting there, perplexed. And it struck me that we could have figured this all out decades ago.I mean, these psychologists didn't need any complicated brain scans; they only had to measure the farmer's IQ, and IQ tests were invented more than 100 years ago. Actually, I realized I had read about the psychology of poverty before.

我還記得當時自己坐在那裡，十分困惑，讓我備受打擊的是，我們原本在幾十年前就應該想明白這件事，心理學家不需要做那些複雜的腦部掃描，只需要測評農夫的智商，而智商測評早在一百多年前就有了，實際上，我發現自己以前就已經看過關於貧窮的心理學。

George Orwell, one of the greatest writers who ever lived, experienced poverty firsthand in the 1920s. "The essence of poverty," he wrote back then, is that it "annihilates the future." And he marveled at, quote, "How people take it for granted they have the right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level."

喬治﹒奧威爾是在世最偉大的作家之一，他在上世紀二十年代曾親身經歷過貧窮，當時他這樣寫道‘貧窮的本質’在於他‘消滅了未來’，用他的話來說，他對下面這種事很驚訝，“一旦你的收入降到某個水平以下，人們就非常理所當然地認為，他們有權向你說教，為你祈禱”，直到今天，這段話仍能引起共鳴。當然了，主要問題在於，怎麼辦呢?

Now, those words are every bit as resonant today. The big question is, of course: What can be done? Modern economists have a few solutions up their sleeves. We could help the poor with their paperwork or send them a text message to remind them to pay their bills. This type of solution is hugely popular with modern politicians, mostly because, well, they cost next to nothing. These solutions are, I think, a symbol of this erain which we so often treat the symptoms, but ignore the underlying cause.

現代經濟學家躍躍欲試幾個方案，我們可以幫窮人做檔案工作，或者給他們發簡訊提醒他們付賬單，現在政治家很喜歡用這類方案，主要是因為成本幾乎沒有。我認為這些方案就是我們這個時代的一個標誌，也就是我們常常只管治標，卻忽略了治本。

So I wonder: Why don't we just change the context in which the poor live? Or, going back to our computer analogy: Why keep tinkering around with the software when we can easily solve the problem by installing some extra memory instead? At that point, Professor Shafir responded with a blank look. And after a few seconds, he said, "Oh, I get it. You mean you want to just hand out more money to the poor to eradicate poverty. Uh, sure, that'd be great. But I'm afraid that brand of left-wing politics you've got in Amsterdam -- it doesn't exist in the States."

所以我不禁想，為什麼我們不去改變窮人的生活環境呢?或者，再說回剛才講的電腦類比理論，既然增加記憶體就能簡單解決的問題，何必非要不停地修改軟體呢?在那當下，夏菲爾教授的回答是茫然的眼神，過了幾秒鐘，他說，“我懂了，你是說你想直接給窮人錢來根除貧窮，當然了，這樣倒是挺好。但我恐怕你在阿姆斯特丹得到的這種左翼政治思想在美國不存在呢”。

But is this really an old-fashioned, leftist idea? I remembered reading about an old plan -- something that has been proposed by some of history's leading thinkers. The philosopher Thomas More first hinted at it in his book, "Utopia," more than 500 years ago. And its proponents have spanned the spectrum from the left to the right, from the civil rights campaigner, Martin Luther King, to the economist Milton Friedman. And it's an incredibly simple idea: basic income guarantee.

可這真的是過時的左翼想法嗎?我記得曾經看過一個老計劃，是歷史上頂尖的思想家曾經提出來的，早在五百年前的哲學家托馬斯﹒莫爾，就率先在其著作《烏托邦》中提出了，這個理論的支持者左翼和右翼人士都有，從民權運動家馬丁﹒路德﹒金到經濟學家米爾頓﹒弗裡德曼，這是一個極其簡單的理論：基本所得保障理論。

What it is? Well, that's easy. It's a monthly grant, enough to pay for your basic needs: food, shelter, education. It's completely unconditional, so no one's going to tell you what you have to do for it, and no one's going to tell you what you have to do with it. The basic income is not a favor, but a right. There's absolutely no stigma attached.

很簡單，就是每個月能保證你基本需求的收入，食物、住所、教育，完全是無條件的，因此沒人會跟你說必須做到什麼才能得到，沒人會跟你說，你必須用這個來做什麼，基本收入不是恩惠而是權力，絕對沒有任何附加條件。

So as I learned about the true nature of poverty, I couldn't stop wondering: Is this the idea we've all been waiting for? Could it really be that simple? And in the three years that followed, I read everything I could find about basic income. I researched the dozens of experiments that have been conducted all over the globe, and it didn't take long before I stumbled upon a story of a town that had done it -- had actually eradicated poverty. But then ... nearly everyone forgot about it.

在我瞭解了貧窮的真相以後，我不禁想知道，這是我們所有人一直在等待的理論嗎?真的會這麼簡單嗎?隨後三年，我把所有能找到的關於基本所得的資料都看了，研究了全球範圍內所做的數十個實驗，沒過多久，我就發現了一個小鎮的故事，這個小鎮做到了真的根除了貧窮，可是另一方面，幾乎所有人都忘了這個故事。

This story starts in Dauphin, Canada. In 1974, everybody in this small town was guaranteed a basic income,ensuring that no one fell below the poverty line. At the start of the experiment, an army of researchers descended on the town. For four years, all went well. But then a new government was voted into power, and the new Canadian cabinet saw little point to the expensive experiment.

故事發生在加拿大多芬，1974年這個小鎮裡的每一個人，都得到了基本所得保障，確保了所有人都不會落入貧困線以下，在這個實驗的最初，一隊研究人員來到小鎮，四年裡一切順利，可是後來選出了一個新政府執政，新任加拿大內閣認為這個昂貴的實驗毫無意義。

So when it became clear there was no money left to analyze the results, the researchers decided to pack their files away in some 2,000 ty-five years went by, and then Evelyn Forget, a Canadian professor, found the records. For three years, she subjected the data to all manner of statistical analysis, and no matter what she tried, the results were the same every time: the experiment had been a resounding success.

因此最後竟然沒有資金來對實驗結果進行分析，於是研究人員把檔案用兩千個箱子收起來。二十五年過去後，加拿大一位教授伊芙琳﹒法爾熱，發現了這些記錄，她花了三年時間，把這些資料進行了各種型別的統計分析，無論她怎麼試，每一次的結果都是一樣的，這個實驗十分成功。

Evelyn Forget discovered that the people in Dauphin had not only become richer but also smarter and healthier. The school performance of kids improved substantially. The hospitalization rate decreased by as much as 8.5 percent. Domestic violence incidents were down, as were mental health complaints. And people didn't quit their jobs. The only ones who worked a little less were new mothers and students -- who stayed in school longer. Similar results have since been found in countless other experiments around the globe, from the US to India.

伊芙琳﹒法爾熱發現，多芬的人民不僅變得更為富有，還更加聰明和健康，孩子在學校的成績大幅提高，住院率則下降了百分之八點五，家庭暴力事件下降，心理健康投訴也下降了，而且人們並沒有辭掉工作，唯一稍微減少了一點勞動的是初為人母的女性和學生，因為他們在學校裡待的時間更多了。之後，全球範圍內，無數的實驗都得到了類似的結果，從美國到印度。

So ... here's what I've learned. When it comes to poverty, we, the rich, should stop pretending we know should stop sending shoes and teddy bears to the poor, to people we have never met. And we should get rid of the vast industry of paternalistic bureaucrats when we could simply hand over their salaries to the poor they're supposed to help.

所以我瞭解到，當說到貧窮問題時，我們這些富人應該停止假裝自己最懂，我們應該停止給那些我們從沒見過的窮人送鞋子和玩具，我們應該消除慣有的家長式官僚主義作風，我們可以直接把他們的薪水轉發給他們本該幫助的窮人。

Because, I mean, the great thing about money is that people can use it to buy things they need instead of things that self-appointed experts think they need. Just imagine how many brilliant scientists and entrepreneurs and writers, like George Orwell, are now withering away in scarcity. Imagine how much energy and talent we would unleash if we got rid of poverty once and for all.

因為金錢最大的好處就是讓人們能買自己需要的東西，而不是那些自以為是的專家認為他們需要的東西。想想看，有多少傑出的科學家企業家以及像喬治﹒奧威爾那樣的作家，現在正因稀缺而消失。想想看，如果我們能一次性永久根除貧窮，那麼我們能釋放出多少能量和才智。

I believe that a basic income would work like venture capital for the people. And we can't afford not to do it, because poverty is hugely expensive. Just look at the cost of child poverty in the US, for example. It's estimated at 500 billion dollars each year, in terms of higher health care spending, higher dropout rates, and more crime. Now, this is an incredible waste of human potential.

我認為基本所得 對人們所起的作用就像風險投資，而我們承受不起不這樣做的後果，因為貧窮非常昂貴，就比如說美國因為貧困兒童所產生的費用吧，由於不斷增加的醫療費用、輟學率以及犯罪率，每年預計要在這上面花費五千億美金，這是人類潛能驚人的浪費。

But let's talk about the elephant in the room. How could we ever afford a basic income guarantee? Well, it's actually a lot cheaper than you may think. What they did in Dauphin is finance it with a negative income means that your income is topped up as soon as you fall below the poverty line. And in that scenario,according to our economists' best estimates, for a net cost of 175 billion -- a quarter of US military spending, one percent of GDP -- you could lift all impoverished Americans above the poverty line. You could actually eradicate poverty. Now, that should be our goal.

再來說說那個顯而易見的問題吧，我們如何負擔基本所得保障呢?其實費用可能比大家想象的要低得多，多芬採取的措施是實行負所得稅，也就是說，一旦你落入貧困線以下，就補充你的收入，如果實行這樣的措施，根據我們的經濟學家“最好的預估”，淨成本為一千七百五十億美元，僅為美國軍費支出的四分之一，GDP的百分之一，就能把所有貧困的美國人拉到貧困線以上，可以真正地根除貧窮。這應該是我們的目標。

The time for small thoughts and little nudges is past. I really believe that the time has come for radical new ideas, and basic income is so much more than just another policy. It is also a complete rethink of what work actually is. And in that sense, it will not only free the poor, but also the rest of us.

思想侷限只做小小推動的時代已經過去了，我堅信這個時代要引來徹底的新思路，基本所得不僅僅是一項政策，更是對工作真正的意義的全新思考。從這個意義上來說，它不僅能解放窮人，還能解放其他人。

Nowadays, millions of people feel that their jobs have little meaning or significance. A recent poll among 230,000 employees in 142 countries found that only 13 percent of workers actually like their job. And another poll found that as much as 37 percent of British workers have a job that they think doesn't even need to exist. It's like Brad Pitt says in "Fight Club," "Too often we're working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."

如今數百萬人覺得自己的工作毫無意義，最近有一項對142個國家二十三萬名僱員的調研顯示，僅有百分之十三的員工真心喜歡自己的工作，另一項調研發現有百分之三十七的英國工人認為他們所做的工作毫無存在的必要。就像布拉德﹒皮特在《搏擊俱樂部》裡說的“我們常做討厭的工作，然後賺錢買不需要的東西”。

Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not talking about the teachers and the garbagemen and the care workers here. If they stopped working, we'd be in trouble. I'm talking about all those well-paid professionals with excellent résumés who earn their money doing ... strategic transactor peer-to-peer meetings while brainstorming the value add-on of disruptive co-creation in the network society.

請不要誤會，我在這裡說的不是教師、清潔工還有護工，如果他們不再工作，我們就麻煩了，我說是那些簡歷很好看從事著高收入職業的人，他們賺錢是靠在關係網社會中在集思廣益討論破壞性共創的附件價值時，舉辦策略性交易點對點會議或之類的事情。

Or something like that. Just imagine again how much talent we're wasting, simply because we tell our kids they'll have to "earn a living." Or think of what a math whiz working at Facebook lamented a few years ago:"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

再次想想看我們浪費了多少才能，僅僅因為我們跟孩子們說他們將必須‘討生活’，或是想想幾年前一個在臉書工作的數學天才的哀嘆，“我這一代最優秀的頭腦都在考慮讓人們如何點選廣告”。

I'm a historian. And if history teaches us anything, it is that things could be different. There is nothing inevitable about the way we structured our society and economy right now. Ideas can and do change the world. And I think that especially in the past few years, it has become abundantly clear that we cannot stick to the status quo -- that we need new ideas.

我是個歷史學家，如果說歷史教會了我們什麼，那就是事情是可以改變的。如今我們構建社會和經濟的方式，沒有什麼是必然的，思想可以而且依然改變了世界。我認為，特別是在過去幾年，情況已經十分清楚了，我們不能在現狀裡固步自封，我們需要新思想。

I know that many of you may feel pessimistic about a future of rising inequality, xenophobia and climate change. But it's not enough to know what we're against. We also need to be for something. Martin Luther King didn't say, "I have a nightmare."He had a dream.(Applause)

我們知道很多人可能會感到悲觀，認為未來不平等會加劇，排外和氣候變化會更為惡劣，但只是瞭解我們面臨的困難是不夠的，我們還需要做好準備，馬丁﹒路德﹒金說的可不是“我有個噩夢”，他有個夢想。

So ... here's my dream: I believe in a future where the value of your work is not determined by the size of your paycheck, but by the amount of happiness you spread and the amount of meaning you give. I believe in a future where the point of education is not to prepare you for another useless job but for a life well-lived. I believe in a future where an existence without poverty is not a privilege but a right we all deserve. So here we are. Here we are. We've got the research, we've got the evidence and we've got the means.

所以，這就是我的夢想，我相信未來你的工作價值不再由薪水所決定，而是由你傳播出去的快樂和你所賦予的意義所決定，我相信未來教育的意義不再是培養你去做無用的工作而是培養你度過美好的人生，我相信未來沒有貧困的生活不再是一種特權，而是所有人都享有的權利。

Now, more than 500 years after Thomas More first wrote about a basic income, and 100 years after George Orwell discovered the true nature of poverty, we all need to change our worldview, because poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.

在這裡，我們有了研究有了證據，我們還有了方法，在托馬斯﹒莫爾第一次寫了基本所得的五百多年後，在喬治﹒奧威爾發現了貧窮的真相的一百多年後，我們都需要改變自己的世界觀，因為貧窮不是缺少性格，貧窮是缺錢。

Thank you.

謝謝!

《你為什麼窮》觀後感

“我救了19條生命，可有誰來救救我的命------”一個農民在死前躺在病床上不斷喃喃的重複這句話。這個農民叫金有樹，是重慶一個普通的人，幾年前因跳水救了19名落水者而留下了病根。面對鉅額的醫療費用，他不斷地向親朋好友借債------可還是沒有足夠的費用，只得向政府申請救助款，可是卻毫無迴應。最終，自己只得在無奈中結束了生命。這是一個救人英雄的悲哀，更是一貧困農民的悲哀。

我想，如果金有樹不是一個貧窮的農民，而是一位官員、一名警察，那幫政府官員可能，不，是肯定會在第一時間給他救助款，還會大肆地宣傳他的英雄事蹟。

可惜他什麼也不是，至少在那幫官員眼中，他只是一個卑微的、毫無價值的普通農民。金有樹之死，一個英雄的死，這是一種社會良知的死。

有誰知道，有一種悲哀叫貧困?在這漫漫的社會道路上，我們還有許多事要做。我們要多為貧困人民想想，我們不僅要用錢物去援助他們，更應讓整個社會來關注他們，讓他們擺脫這種“貧窮的悲哀”。