美國的超級明星經濟

It seems inevitable that Oprah Winfrey, America’s empathiser-in-chief, would emerge as the Democratic dream of a candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2020. As an African-American woman, she speaks to any number of interest groups and political issues around identity, from #MeToo to Black Lives Matter.

美國最擅長煽情的奧普拉?溫弗瑞(Oprah Winfrey)看起來必將成爲2020年民主黨打敗唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的夢想候選人。作爲一名非洲裔美國人，她與所有利益集團對話，直言圍繞身份認同的各種政治問題，從“Me too”（我也是）到“黑人的命也是命”(Black Lives Matter)。

But as the most popular all-round female media star in the US over the past several decades, with a television, movie and magazine empire, she also talks to the middle. Oprah is, like our current president, a global brand, which is telling. We are living in a superstar economy in which the top individuals, companies and even geographic regions command hugely disproportionate power, wealth and attention.

奧普拉擁有一個電視、電影和雜誌帝國，但作爲幾十年來美國最受歡迎的全能型女性媒體明星，她也與中產階級對話。奧普拉就和我們的現任總統一樣，是一個全球品牌，這就是問題所在。我們生活在一個超級明星經濟中，在這樣一種經濟中，頂尖人物、企業甚至是地理區域掌控着極其不成比例的巨大權力、財富與關注度。

Since the late 1990s, we’ve seen the rise of the superstar company. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, three industries — tech, finance and healthcare and pharma — have seen their share of profits nearly triple since then, to about 45 per cent of all corporate profits in the US (the concentration in these industries is also increasing, albeit to a lesser extent in other rich countries).

自上世紀90年代末以來，我們見證了超級明星公司的崛起。據麥肯錫全球研究院(McKinsey Global Institute)稱，自那時起，科技、金融、醫療及醫藥這三大行業的利潤份額幾乎增長兩倍，佔據了美國企業總利潤的約45%（這些行業的集中度也在提高，儘管其他富裕國家這些行業的集中度相對較低）。

Yet increasingly in the US, this isn’t reflected just in the intellectual property-rich sectors, but throughout the entire economy. As a recent Brookings Institution paper explained, over the past two decades, more than 75 per cent of US industries have seen an increase in concentration of both wealth and influence. If you compare the numbers with the post-second world war period, when US growth was strongest, the contrast is striking. In 1954, the top 60 companies accounted for less than 20 per cent of US GDP. Today, the top 20 companies make up more than 20 per cent.

然而在美國，這種情況越來越不侷限於知識產權密集行業，而是遍及整個經濟領域。布魯金斯學會(Brookings Institution)最近一篇文章解釋道，過去20年，美國超過75%的行業的財富和影響力的集中程度都在提高。如果將這些數字與美國經濟增長最爲強勁的二戰後作比較，則會發現驚人反差。1954年，美國最大的60家企業佔美國國內生產總值(GDP)的不到20%。而如今，美國排名前20的公司就佔美國GDP的逾20%。

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Why is this happening? One reason, of course, is global competition, which has put more pressure on US businesses and pushed companies away from the more equitable postwar pie sharing between workers, corporations and local communities. Another is the shift in antitrust law. It’s no accident that the changes to monopoly regulation advocated by federal judge Robert Bork spread in the 1980s when foreign competition was rising. The Bork ethos, which held that as long as consumer prices were declining, there was no competition problem, has prevented authorities from checking corporate concentration as much as they did both during the Gilded Era of the late 19th century and just after the second world war.

爲什麼會這樣？原因之一當然是全球競爭，全球競爭給美國企業帶來了更大的壓力，迫使企業打破了戰後員工、企業與當地社區間較爲平衡的資源分配格局。另一個原因是反壟斷法的轉變。聯邦法官羅伯特?伯克(Robert Bork)倡導的壟斷監管改革在上世紀80年代國外競爭加劇之際蔓延絕非偶然。伯克堅信只要消費品價格下降，就不存在競爭問題，這種思想令美國當局不再像19世紀末“鍍金時代”期間與二戰後那樣控制企業集中度。