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Better Than Charity 译校：FungChuh Lots of us give more to charity this time of year. Americans give more than any other people in the world. But because charity doesn’t end poverty, our government declared: 每年这个时候，许多人给慈善组织捐款更慷慨了。美国人比世界上任何人捐得都多。但因为慈善不能终结贫困，我们的政府宣布： Unconditional war on poverty in America 不惜代价向美国贫困问题宣战。 That war has now cost $27 trillion. It's helped some people. But it had a bad effect. It created a new underclass, generations who stay poor, people who don’t try to become independent. 这场战争如今耗费了 27 万亿美元。它帮助了一些人。但它有个坏影响，它创造了一个新的社会底层，好几代习惯贫穷，不会尝试去变得独立的人。 I am here to get some benefits, I am here to get a check! 我是来领点福利的，我是来拿支票的！ A government handout can do that to people 政府施舍会让人变成这样。 By making them dependent on the welfare state and teaching them in a sense they didn't have to work. 因为他们变得依赖于福利国家，教会了他们知道自己其实不需要工作。 Yaron Brook is one of many who argue that our welfare state does more harm than good. Look at the poverty rate. Before government got involved, Americans were lifting themselves out of poverty. When welfare began, progress continued for about 7 years, but then, it stopped. 亚龙·布鲁克是许多认为我们的福利国家弊大于利的人之一。看看贫困率。在政府介入以前，美国人正在脱离贫困。等福利国家建成，进步趋势又持续了大约 7 年，但之后，它停滞了。 The government creates dependence by the very fact that it sends you a check, a welfare check or food stamps, just based on your status. 政府创造了依赖性，事实上，它给你发支票，福利支票或食物券，仅仅是根据你的资格。 And indeed, when you get a job, you lose some of that status. So your checks gets smaller and smaller. 实际上，等你找到工作，你就失去了资格，你的支票也因此就越来越小。 How much I work generally will decrease my benefits. 我工作越卖力，我的福利就变得越少。 As soon as you start doing good, they take everything away from you immediately. 一等你走上正轨，他们就马上把一切都夺走。 You're losing money by taking on a job. 工作反而会让你丢钱。 Government rarely pushes anyone to stop taking handouts. Charity is often better at lifting people up. 政府很少鼓励人停止接受施舍。慈善组织在扶助人们方面往往做得更好。 Men and women we serve have been in prison, homeless shelters 我们服务的男男女女都曾进过监狱或流浪者庇护所。 This charity helps people find real work. 这个慈善组织帮助人们找真正的工作。 And every time I get my paycheck, I know that I earned that. And for the first time in my life I can say that. 每一次我拿到工资，我明白这是我挣来的。有生以来我第一次能够这么说。 I donate to this charity because I noticed that the men they help, mostly ex-cons who pick up trash, work with a positive attitude. They walk with their heads held high because this charity encourages them to take responsibility for their lives, instead of taking handouts. 我给这个慈善组织捐款是因为我注意到他们帮助的人，基本上是前罪犯，他们收拾垃圾，他们带着积极的态度工作。他们能昂起头走路，因为这个慈善组织鼓励他们为自己的生活负起责任，而不是接受施舍。 They don't allow you to get food stamps or anything like that. That’s not allowed at the Doe Fund. They want you to be independent. You go out there and you make your own money. You know, you get your self-esteem back. 他们不允许你领食物券或任何类似的东西。这在杜因基金会是不允许的。他们希望你能够独立。你要能够走出去自己挣钱。你要重拾自己的自尊。 But not all charity helps. Facebook’s founder donated big to Newark’s public schools. 但并非所有慈善组织都有帮助。脸书的创始人捐了一大笔钱给纽瓦克的公立学校。 A hundred million dollar challenge grant 一亿美元的挑战补助金。 That $100 million was wasted. 这一亿美元都浪费掉了。 My kids, they don't have any schoolbooks, so my thing is as a parent — where's the money going? 我的孩子们，他们没有任何课本，所以我作为家长想问的是：钱都去哪儿了？ It’s gone. The New Jersey public schools didn't get better, the performance of the students didn't get better. It has been completely wasted. 没了。新泽西州的公立学校没有变得更好，学生的表现没有变得更好。那笔钱完全被浪费掉了。 Did Zuckerberg even notice? He other billionaires can waste money because they are now so rich. 扎克伯格有注意到吗？他和其他亿万富翁可以浪费钱，因为他们如今是那么地有钱。 How moral is it to have that much, at all? 有那么多钱还怎么道德了？ Activists guilt them into giving money away. 活动家们让他们内疚得把钱捐出去。 Shouldn’t they give up a whole lot more? 他们不应该交出更多钱吗？ Jeff Bezos just gave $10 billion to already rich climate change alarmist groups… but that won’t appease the left. 杰夫·贝佐斯刚捐了 100 亿给已经很有钱的气候变化夸大团体……但这安抚不了左派。 Protesters gathered outside his home and assembled this guillotine. The message: rich people should be beheaded. 抗议者在他家外面聚集，组装起这个断头台。信息是：有钱人应该被砍头。 And yet all of our lives are dramatically better because of somebody like Jeff Bezos. Things just appear at our doorstep. They hire hundreds of thousands of people making it possible for poor people to make a living by selling me something that I want. 然而我们所有人的生活都因为杰夫·贝佐斯这样的人而显著变好。东西一下就出现在我们门口。他们雇了成千上万人，让穷人可以通过卖我想要的东西谋生。 People say it's so evil that he has so much when others have so little. 人们说这太邪恶了，他拥有这么多，而其他人拥有那么少。 It’s his money. He made it, he created it. Once we start deciding what you can do or can't do with your property, what we will get is, and what we've always gotten in history, is extreme poverty for everybody. The system that has brought people out of poverty, that system is capitalism. 这是他的钱，他挣来的，他创造的。一旦我们开始决定你能或不能对你自己的财产做什么，我们会得到的结果是，我们在历史上经常得到的结果是，所有人都极度贫困。有个制度让人们摆脱了贫困，这个制度就叫做资本主义。 That’s what I’ve learned from years of consumer reporting. Government is necessary for some things. But it’s inefficient, and its programs encourage dependency. Charity is better because charities can figure out who really needs money vs. who needs a push. But oddly, what helps the most people most efficiently is greedy, self-interested capitalism. 这是我从多年消费者报道中学到的。政府在一些事上是必要的。但它效率低下，而且它的项目助长依赖性。慈善组织表现更好是因为他们能找出谁真正需要钱，谁需要的是鼓励。但奇怪的是，效率最高，帮助到最多人的是贪婪，自私自利的资本主义。 8 out of 20? 20 个中有 8 个？ 250 years ago, almost all of us, we basically were earning what the United Nations today defines as extreme poverty, $2 a day or less. That was 94% of all people on planet Earth. Today only about 8% are that poor. Why? Not because of charity, not because of foreign aid, but by employing people. Businesses are the most efficient because they have the right incentives. Because they won't survive if they're not efficient. Government has no such incentives. And charities are mixed. 250 年前，我们几乎所有人的基本收入在今天的美国都算极端贫困，一天不到 2 美元。地球上 94% 的人都是如此。今天只有大概 8% 的人那么穷。为什么？不是因为慈善，不是因为国外援助，而是由于雇佣。企业是最高效的，因为他们有正确的动机，因为如果他们效率不高，他们就不可能生存。政府没有这样的动机。慈善机构则有好有坏。 So why do entrepreneurs now rush to donate rather than doing more of what they’re best at: innovating? 那为什么现在企业家们都急着捐钱，而不是更多投入在他们最擅长的创新上？ Within 30 minutes of placing their order, the customer receives their package 下单不到 30 分钟，客户就收到了他们的包裹。 They want to be liked. What they're doing is buying into false ideas, both economically and false ideas morally. And unfortunately, as a consequence, they are acting against their self-interest and against all of our interests, including the interests of the poor. 他们希望被喜欢。但他们相信了错误的理念，经济上和道德上都错误的理念。并且遗憾的是，作为结果，他们在损害他们自己的利益，也在损害我们所有人的利益，其中包括穷人的利益。 |
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