不是人人都仇富

????1987年的股災之后，《紐約時報》(The New York Times) 在其頭版為“放肆的鍍金時代”祭上了一篇訃告，文章援引大思想家的話，預言肆無忌憚的自利行為行將在美國消亡。短短三年后，當一場衰退標志著80年代正式結束時，許多評論家（包括這本雜志）又預測稱，“一場針對富人的起義正在醞釀之中”，“后富裕社會”即將來臨。

????到了2012年，描述美國階級關系的論述層出不窮，其間有充斥著“火藥桶”和“炸藥”這類字眼。這時候，重溫這些昔日的預言無疑頗有啟發性。事實證明，美國并沒有爆發針對80年代，也就是所謂“貪婪的10年”的階級反抗。20世紀90年代，巨型豪宅猶如雨后春筍一般在全美各地破土而出，富人變得更加財大氣粗，所有理應出現的民粹主義憤怒情緒最終消失在了一波由抵押貸款融資引發的消費狂潮中，富人和中產階級概莫能外。

????也許這次情況不一樣了。我們不妨拿歐洲街頭蔓延的怒火作為比較對象。當然，如今的失業率讓20世紀90年代的失業率相形見絀，長期失業水平正處于歷史高位。人們對自身經濟前景的焦慮程度亦是如此。美國經濟似乎正陷于癱瘓，這是一個非?？膳碌臅r代；而20世紀90年代并非如此。但對即將到來的階級斗爭的預言未能抓住美國精神的根本性質。喜歡侃侃而談的人士有一種傾向，他們夸大了美國民眾對富裕的不屑，同時卻又低估了人們追逐自身財富的熱情。

????去年秋天上演的占領華爾街抗議活動被許多人比作阿拉伯之春（一場最終推翻政府的運動）和歐洲反緊縮政策抗議活動（實際上，占領華爾街運動即使是在最鼎盛的時期也無法跟這些抗議活動相提并論）。5月中旬，占領華爾街抗議人士發動的“金融犯罪的步行之旅”和針對各大銀行的時代廣場集會使這場運動再一次成為媒體關注的焦點。

????占領華爾街運動把與經濟不平等相關的話題注入這個國家的政治血液之中，這一點值得褒揚（應該指出的是，這是一個不小的壯舉）。占領華爾街運動呼吁一場“革命”，反抗一個“讓99%的人陷于貧困”的體系，但這種呼聲最終并沒有完全轉化為一場群眾運動，而且現在依然不可能。

????從歷史來看，美國人對階級沖突并沒有表現出濃厚的興致。正如本杰明?佩奇教授和勞倫斯?雅各布斯教授在其2009年發布的著作《階級戰爭？》（Class War?）一書中所指出的，“雖然美國人對經濟不平等保持著警覺態度，并支持致力于減少不平等的措施，但他們的直覺依然是保守的。提高個人經濟地位和生活狀況主要是人們自己的責任?！蹦敲?，為什么會出現這么多呼吁革命的言論呢？人們的注意力很短暫，對于渴望抓住受眾眼球的媒體來說，“我們對抗他們”是一個特別誘人的主題。因此，皮尤研究中心（Pew Research）最近一項旨在表明貧富之間沖突急劇上升的調查就顯得特別耐人尋味。

????After the 1987 stock market crash, the New York Times offered up a page-one obituary for a "gilded, impudent age," quoting great minds who predicted the demise of unbridled self-interest in America. Three short years later, when a recession marked the official end of the '80s, commentators (including in this magazine) predicted a "brewing revolt against the rich" and the coming of a "post-affluent society."

????It's instructive in 2012 -- when words like "tinderbox" and "explosive" dot so many descriptions of class relations in the U.S. -- to revisit those cloudy crystal balls of yore. As it turned out, there was no class revolt against the '80s, the "decade of greed." In the 1990s, McMansions sprouted like kudzu across the land, the rich got filthy rich, and all that supposed nascent populist anger was lost in a swirl of mortgage-financed consumer gluttony (behavior shared by the affluent and middle class alike).

????Maybe this time is different. Maybe comparisons to the outpourings in the streets of Europe are apt. Certainly today's unemployment rate dwarfs that of the 1990s, and long-term joblessness is stuck at historic highs. So is anxiety about personal economic futures. With an economy that seems paralyzed, these are scary times; the '90s weren't. But predictions of impending class warfare miss the fundamental nature of the American psyche. There is a tendency within the chattering classes to overstate the American public's disdain for affluence -- and to understate people's passion for pursuing their own wealth.

????The Occupy Wall Street protests that played out last fall drew comparisons to the Arab Spring (a movement that actually toppled governments) and Europe's anti-austerity eruptions (protests that actually overshadowed OWS's biggest days here). In mid-May, OWS jumped back on the media radar screen with a "financial crimes walking tour" and Times Square rally against the big banks.

????While OWS deserves credit for injecting discussion of economic inequality into the country's political bloodstream -- no small feat, it should be noted -- its calls for a "revolution" against a system that "impoverishes the 99%" hasn't exactly translated into a mass movement. And it remains unlikely to.

????Historically Americans haven't shown much appetite for class strife. As professors Benjamin Page and Lawrence Jacobs noted in their 2009 book Class War?: "While Americans are alert to inequality and support measures to reduce it ... they remain conservative by instinct ... Responsibility for an individual's economic position and life conditions rests chiefly with him- or herself." So why all the talk of revolution? "Us-vs.-them-ism" is an especially tempting theme for a media desperately looking for ways to grab our short attention spans. Therefore, much was made of a recent Pew Research poll purporting to show a sharp rise in conflicts between rich and poor.