每天一篇经济学人 | Working for the baddies 为坏...

“Have you looked at our caps recently?” is the question a worried Nazi soldier puts to his comrade in a comedy sketch performed by David Mitchell and Robert Webb. He has just noticed that their uniforms are emblazoned with skulls; a doubt is nagging away at him. “Hans,” he asks. “Are we the baddies?”

【1】emblazon 醒目地展示；用纹章装饰

【2】nag 不断烦扰

“你最近有看我们的帽子吗?” 在大卫·米切尔和罗伯特·韦柏表演的喜剧小品中，一个忧心忡忡的纳粹士兵向他的战友提出了这样的问题。这名士兵刚刚注意到他们的制服上装饰着骷髅头；一个疑虑一直困扰着他。他问道：“汉斯，我们是坏人吗?”

No company employee has concerns of this sort. But some sectors are stigmatised enough to be known as “sin industries”—booze, gambling, tobacco and so on. Other industries have gone from being respectable to questionable: fossil-fuel firms, say. (A few, like cannabis firms, are travelling in the opposite direction.) Nationality now casts shadows in ways it did not before: working for a X company might once have aroused admiration but now provokes suspicion. In an age when everyone is supposed to have a purpose, why would employees who have a choice work for the baddies?

【1】 to be stigmatized as sth 被诬蔑为某状况

任何一家公司的员工都不会有这样的担忧。但有些行业却被烙上“罪恶行业”的污名，如酒、赌博、烟草等等。其他行业也从受人尊敬变成了有问题的行业，比如化石燃料公司。(一些公司正朝着相反的方向发展，比如大麻公司。) 国籍现在以一种前所未有的方式受到质疑:为一家X公司工作曾经可能会令人仰慕，但现在这会引起怀疑。在一个每个人都应该有目标的时代，为什么有选择工作权力的员工会为坏人工作?

The cynical answer would be pay. There is some evidence to suggest that executives in sin industries demand more money to compensate them for the stigma of working there. A paper in 2014 found that the bosses of alcohol, betting and tobacco firms earned a premium that could not be explained by those companies being more complex to run, less job security or poorer governance. The size of the premium did, however, line up with periods of heightened bad publicity, such as legal settlements in the tobacco industry. The stigma that wreathed these executives was observable in other ways, too: they sat on fewer boards than bosses in more virtuous industries.

【1】publicity 媒体的关注；宣传

【2】 wreathe 笼罩

令人愤世嫉俗的答案是薪资。有一些证据表明，“罪恶行业”的高管要求得到更多的钱，以补偿他们在那里工作的耻辱。2014年的一篇论文发现，酒业、博彩和烟草公司的老板们赚取的奖金无法用这些公司运营更复杂、工作保障更低或治理更差来解释。然而，溢价的规模确实与负面报道加剧的时期相吻合，比如烟草行业的诉讼和解。这些高管身上的污名在其他方面也可以观察到：他们在董事会中所占的席位比在道德较高的行业中的老板要少。

Pay is a lever that might work for some positions and some people, but not for all of them. And it hardly satisfies as a psychological explanation. “Yes, I work for a ghastly company but at least the pay is great,” is not the kind of narrative that people like to fall asleep to. Thomas Roulet of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School points out in “The Power of Being Divisive”, a book about stigma in business, that employees of demonised firms are often proud to be on the payroll.

 薪酬是一种“施压手段”，它可能对某些职位和某些人有效，但不是对所有人都有效。这很难作为心理学上的解释。“是的，我为一家糟糕的公司工作，但至少工资很高”，人们很难怀着这种想法安然入睡。剑桥大学贾奇商学院的Thomas Roulet在讲述商业耻辱的书《分裂的力量》书中指出，在被妖魔化的公司的员工，其常常以自己的工作为荣。

The most basic reason for that is a classic free-market narrative. If you believe in freedom of choice, and companies having the licence of society to operate, that is justification enough to work there. This may not seem especially purposeful: many employees would regard operating legally and serving customer needs as a requirement rather than a source of pride. But it is a perfectly coherent position. 

最基本的原因是，这是一个经典的自由市场叙述。如果你相信选择的自由，相信公司的经营已得到社会的认可，那就有足够的理由在那里工作。这似乎不是特别有目的：许多员工会把合法经营和满足客户需求视为一种要求，而非自豪感的来源。但这是一个完全一致的立场。

freedom of choice works less well as a rationale if the harm that products do, whether to lungs or to the environment, has been covered up, or if those products weaken consent by encouraging addiction. But firms under fire are practised at turning the negative effects of their products to their advantage. Energy firms argue that the money they make from oil and gas today enables them to fund the transition to low-carbon energy tomorrow. Diageo, a drinks firm, highlights its programmes to encourage drinking in moderation. Tobacco firms peddle cigarettes even as they endeavour to soften the harm caused by smoking: British American Tobacco says that its purpose is to “build a better tomorrow by reducing the health impact of our business”.

2020年5月16日消息，据外电报道，全球第二大烟草制造商英美烟草公司（BAT）刚刚公布了一项新的公司战略，其中包括一项投资计划和对更安全替代品的关注。 这项计划叫建立更好的明天 ，目标包括一项10亿英镑（13.4亿美元）的成本节约和投资计划，并承诺将重点放在更安全的烟草替代品上，从而降低其业务对健康的影响。 英美烟草公司说，其新类别产品，包括电子烟和加热的烟草制品（HNB），将推动收入增长，并补充说，它希望在3033/34年创造50亿英镑的新类别收入。如果产品的危害(无论是对肺还是对环境)被掩盖起来，或者这些产品通过鼓励上瘾而削弱了许可，选择工作的自由作为一个根本原因就没那么有效了。但受到抨击的公司善于将产品的负面影响转化为优势。能源公司辩称，他们今天从石油和天然气中赚到的钱使他们能够为未来向低碳能源的过渡提供资金。饮料公司帝亚吉欧强调其鼓励适度饮酒的计划。烟草公司一边兜售香烟，一边努力弱化吸烟造成的危害:英美烟草公司称其宗旨是“通过降低其业务对健康的影响，建设更美好的明天”。

It is easy to scoff at this corporate cakeism. Easy, but unwise. First, hostility itself can sometimes act as a kind of binding agent for employees of stigmatised firms. A study by Mr Roulet found that job satisfaction increased at firms that faced disapproval, provided their employees regarded the criticism as illegitimate. Second, societies’ attitudes can change, sometimes suddenly. The arms industry looks less evil now that its products are helping Ukrainians fend off Russia’s tanks. Dependence on Russian gas has made secure sources of energy, even if they are not low-carbon, seem more attractive.

【1】cakeism 蛋糕主义

[释义] Primarily a word used in the UK, cakeism is the belief that it is possible to enjoy or take advantage of both of two desirable but mutually exclusive alternatives at once.

主要是用在英国，是指一种理念，相信人们可以同时享受或利用两种理想中的但相互排斥的替代品。

嘲笑企业的这种“蛋糕主义”很容易。不过容易，却不明智的。首先，敌意本身有时会成为被污名化公司员工的一种“粘合剂”。Roulet先生的一项研究发现，如果员工认为批评是不合法的，那么面临反对的公司的工作满意度会提高。第二，社会的态度可以改变，有时改变很突然。现在，乌克兰的军火工业看起来没那么邪恶了，因为它的产品正在帮助乌克兰人抵御俄罗斯的坦克。对俄罗斯天然气的依赖，使得安全的能源来源看起来更有吸引力，即使它们不是低碳能源。

Third, employees in vilified industries are often in a position to do valuable things. Swapping from cigarettes to risk-reduction products is a net gain for people’s health. Widespread suspicion of genetically engineered crops ignores the copious evidence that they are safe and useful. And a rapid decline in the number of new petroleum engineers in America will seem less desirable if a shortfall in expertise holds back carbon-sequestration projects.

【1】sequestration 扣押

第三，在被诋毁的行业工作的员工往往能够做有价值的事情。把香烟转向降低风险的产品对人们健康是有益的。对转基因作物的普遍怀疑忽视了转基因作物是安全且有效的大量证据。如果专业人才的短缺会阻碍了碳封存项目的进展，那么美国新石油工程师数量的迅速减少似乎就不那么理想了。

There may be a cohort of evil employees who seek out demonised firms, steepling fingers, stroking cats and plotting ways to ruin lives. But the people who work in these industries are more likely to think of their work as important. They may not be wrong.

【1】cohort 一伙人

可能有一伙儿邪恶的员工在寻找被妖魔化的公司，他们竖起手指，抚摸着猫咪，密谋破坏别人生活的方法。但在这些行业工作的人更可能认为他们的工作很重要。他们可能没有错。