“夜話”2020年第3期

在全世界尤其中國防治新型冠狀病毒肺炎（俗稱“武漢肺炎”）的緊張氣氛中，時針不但一下子轉過了2020年元旦，而且轉過了2020年春節！現在，無論西曆農曆，太陽曆月亮曆，我們已經置身於2020年，置身於二十一世紀二十年代。二十一世紀已經過去了五分之一，二十一世紀不再是“新”世紀了。

恰好十年前，我寫過一篇名為“回眸新世紀第一年代”的短文，對本世紀第一個十年做了簡短回顧，還對第二個十年做了更為簡短的展望。這樣，在十年後的今天，我似乎有義務再寫一篇短文，回顧一下剛剛過去的本世紀第二個年代。

先從十年前那篇拙文對這十年的展望開始。在那篇拙文中，我說：“無論如今開始的二十一世紀第二年代將發生什麼，第一年代出現的人口增長放緩的趨勢、非農化進程和中國問題依然會持續下去，世界也會更少貧窮，同時我祈禱十年後的今天世界將更少戰爭、更少污染、更少專制、更少不公。”

就人口問題來說，在剛剛過去的十年中，世界不僅延續而且強化了人口增長放緩的趨勢。世界人口增長率曾經從1999年的1.33%下降到2009年的1.23%，下降了0.1個百分點，但在剛剛過去的十年中，世界人口增長率下降幅度肯定超過了0.2個百分點。2019年的世界人口增長率應當稍高於1.00%。美國人口統計局甚至預測它將在2020年上半年便達到標誌性的1%。世界人口增長放緩的最直接原因是世界女性生育率下降。世界女性生育率自上世紀六十年代中期的5.1%高峰持續下降，目前應當還高於2.4%，可它將繼續向人口停止增長的2.1%（即所謂的人口替代率）下降。當然，即使世界人口停止增長，世界人口也許依然過多。不過，無論如何，與威脅人類的其它若干危險相比，“人口爆炸”或者人口過多的問題，應當不再是下一個十年的熱點。

在剛剛過去的十年中，全世界農業勞動力依然在向非農業部門轉移。不過，如果說，在本世紀第一個十年，農業勞動力轉移特別突出地表現在中國，那麼，在剛剛過去的十年中，農業勞動力轉移最快的大國應當是東南亞和南亞地區。和農業勞動力轉移快速轉移相伴隨的，是這些地區在世界製造業和世界經濟的比重上升。總的來說，世界農業勞動力占總勞動力的比重即農勞比在2009年應當略低於三分之一；到了2019年，這個比率應當降到了四分之一左右。因此，如果用農勞比度量，全世界農業勞動力轉移或者說非農化過程已經完成了四分之三。所以，和人口問題一樣，在新的十年及以後，農業勞動力轉移也不再躋身於世界經濟和社會變化的最重要問題之列。毫無疑問，非農化還會持續，但就完成非農化歷史過程而言，人類已經不再面臨任何重大困難。

和人口增長與非農化相比，拙文十年前提到第三個會持續的中國問題，其重要性在剛剛過去的十年內不但沒有減弱，反倒更加突出了。十年前拙文從全球變暖角度提出中國問題。那時，中國已經成為世界碳排放量最大的國家；因此，沒有中國的配合，任何有關碳排放的世界協議都沒有實質意義。而正是在2009年的世界氣候變化大會上，中國堅決反對任何關於可核查的碳減排指標的建議。但是，十年後的今天，中國問題從當年的環保領域，不但擴展到世界經濟和科技領域，而且擴展到國際政治和軍事領域，甚至上升為二十一世紀人類面臨的最重要問題之一。從某種意義上，我們甚至可以說，十年來的世界變化，特別集中地體現在中國和世界關係上。

就世界經濟來說，十年前，國際貨幣基金組織和世界銀行最常用的關鍵字是國際貿易的“再平衡”。當時，世界各國貿易順差逆差總和占世界生產總量的比重達到了創紀錄的高度，世界經濟嚴重失衡。2008年世界金融和經濟危機便和世界貿易失衡密切相關。因此，世界關注的重心是再次平衡。十年後的今天，該比重已經下降了一半，“再平衡”不再成為熱詞。替代它的是“不確定性”。再平衡和不確定性都和中美兩國的貿易有關。世界貿易在十年前的失衡最突出地表現在中美貿易失衡上。這一失衡最終導致2018年爆發的美中貿易衝突。這場衝突一方面有助於中美貿易和世界貿易的再平衡，另一方面又大大加劇了中美貿易和世界貿易的不穩定性。十年前，儘管失衡，但沒有人想到要通過“休克療法”的貿易戰來再平衡，因此，學人和商人對世界貿易和經濟的前景都抱有“自以為是”的比較確定的預期；十年後的今天，儘管平衡多了，可沒有人敢於確定地預期下一個十年甚至僅僅五年會發生什麼：能夠預期的僅僅是未來的不確定；其它一切都無法預期。

如果以2009年耶誕節的客機恐怖襲擊和2019年末發生在伊拉克的武裝衝突為標誌，那麼，國際政治在剛剛過去的十年中可以用恐怖主義來標識。加上2011年爆發並持續至今的敘利亞內戰、2014年正式取名的“伊斯蘭國”的興起和潰敗，恐怖主義應當算是這十年的一個重要特徵。然而，與本世紀第一個十年相比，恐怖主義已經退潮。國際政治的中心問題已經變成中國的定位。十年前，幾乎沒有人意識到中國的國際定位是個問題。那時候，雖然中國首先掙脫了2008年經濟危機並成為世界第二大經濟體，雖然中國內外部分學者開始宣導“中國道路”或“中國模式”，但中國通過改革開放以融入世界經濟、政治和法規體系，似乎還是普遍的共識。可十年後的今天，這個共識已被徹底打破。打破共識的事件很多，例如中國國家領導人制度改變，中國近些年每年軍艦下水噸位超過世界其它所有國家的總和等等。而美國重新關注自身，意味著美國不再篤信二十世紀中葉以來的世界體系的穩定性。這樣，以2018年為標誌，中美兩個世界最強國家正式和公開地從朋友關係變成對手關係。北大西洋公約組織隨後也正式宣佈把東亞作為自己關心的地區。新的國際政治格局正式形成。我認為，這才是剛剛過去的十年中，對未來幾十年影響最大的國際政治變化。在十年前的拙文中，我說：“如同二十世紀第一年代把德國問題放到世界面前一樣，二十一世紀第一年代把中國問題放到了世界面前。中國在世界民族之林中應當佔有什麼樣的地位，將是我們中國和人類在二十一世紀難以卻又必須解決的問題。”二十一世紀第二個年代則突顯了中國問題，把它變成人類明確而非模糊、必須直面而無法回避的問題。

聯繫到眼下波及全世界的傳染病新型冠狀病毒肺炎，我們可以發現剛剛過去的十年，世界經歷了多次重大的傳染病。2009年從墨西哥開始的大流感傳播到了世界74個國家。2012年沙烏地阿拉伯爆發中東呼吸綜合症，患病者死亡率高達三分之一以上。2014和2016年分別在西非和南美出現的埃博拉和塞卡疫情，亦釀成國際性的突發公共衛生事件。2019年未在中國武漢最先發現的新型冠狀病毒肺炎，目前亦蔓延到60多個國家。動物和人類之間的病毒傳播有著極其悠久的歷史，它給人類帶來過極大的損失。不過，至少從二十世紀中葉以來，人類已經脫離瘟疫的嚴重威脅。動物到人類的病毒傳播不可能避免，瘟疫亦不可能避免。但是，人類已經認識到，瘟疫既不是神秘的上天懲罰，也不能依靠祈求和偏方來防治。瘟疫只是一種自然現象，它可以經由科學而被人類理解和控制。因此，人類已經把防治瘟疫的希望從祈天和偏方轉移到科學，儘管科學離開全面理解瘟疫還很遠。同時，人類已經相信，瘟疫的大規模流行是可以防止的。瘟疫的可怕不在於它的發生（這是不可避免的）、而在於它的大規模流行。然而，只要社會制度合適，這個世界應當沒有任何一種瘟疫還會大規模流行。所以，儘管上一個十年，世界不斷經歷著瘟疫，但與歷史上的瘟疫相比，它們都被控制在一定的小範圍內，患病和死亡數量也被控制在一定的低水準上。我衷心地希望，目前發生的新型冠狀病毒傳染病也會被控制在小範圍和低水準。

世界在剛剛過去的十年裡發生的重大事件，遠遠不止於人口增長、非農化和中國地位變化以及瘟疫。就我有限的瞭解來說，這十年裡至少有五個事件值得一提。第一個事件與女性（當然也與男性）有關。首先，反對欺辱女性的“#我也是（#MeToo）”運動在近幾年曾經佔據世界新聞的頭條。在這場運動中，受到欺淩即“性侵”的女性第一次大規模地站出來公開自己的冤情。眾所周知，兩性關係是衡量人類脫離野獸的文明程度的重要指標，而在世界大多數國家，對女性的性侵依然是常見現象。所以，“#我也是”應當在今後的年代裡不斷掀起高潮。另一方面，在綜合水準位於世界最前列的美國，女性在社會勞動力中第一次超過半數。我們知道，大學生中的女性比重在四十年前便開始超過二分之一，碩士博士兩類學位獲得者中的女性比重在許多國家也已經超過二分之一。如今，勞動力中的女性比重也在迅速提高甚至開始超過二分之一。男性作為社會勞動力主體應當是人類有史以來的正常現象，如果這一現象現在開始被打破，那麼，人類的兩性關係、生殖繁衍方式、家庭和社會結構，今後應當都會發生重大變化。

第二個值得注意的事件也和美國有關，這就是通用汽車公司工人大罷工的勝利和美國底層工人工資提高更快。兩者都是半個世紀以來的新現象。諾貝爾經濟學獎得主庫茨涅茨在上世紀五十年代曾經提出關於收入分配狀況的“庫茨涅茨曲線”，即收入不平等程度在非農化開始後先是上升，然後下降。但是，發達國家的收入不平等程度從上世紀七十年代重新上升。也是從上世紀七十年代開始，大規模的社會運動和工人運動開始退潮（“工人階級領導一切”的大幅標語在上世紀七十年代末亦從中國大地消失）。從那以後，世界非農化加速。發達國家的資本與不發達國家的農業勞動力相結合，創造了近四十年來世界經濟高速增長的奇跡。這樣的結合顯著降低了世界範圍的收入不平等，同時嚴重加劇了所有國家內部的收入不平等，並大大削弱了發達國家和不發達國家原有非農勞動力的市場談判能力。如今，在世界非農化減速、世界人口和勞動力增長減速的大背景下，在世界絕大部分勞動力已經加入資本主義生產體系的時候，勞動力和資本的互補關係將朝著有利於前者的方向變化，因此，在未來的十年和更長時間裡，在原先的不發達國家，從農業轉變到非農職業的勞動力將會爭取自己在資本主義生產體系中的正常地位，而發達國家的資本和勞動力關係將重新轉變到勞動力相對短缺、普通勞動者工資更快提高的時期。就此而言，我們也許可以預見，社會運動將在全世界範圍內進入新的階段，各國國內的收入不平等程度也將進入下降階段。

第三個重要事件和上面提到的資本主義生產體系有關。正是在剛剛過去的十年中，利息率開始變成負數。這也許是人類發明借貸關係後第一次出現的負利率現象。這裡說的負利率，指的是名義利率為負數。實際利率是名義利率和通貨膨脹率之差。在不時發生的高通貨膨脹時期，實際利率往往是負數，但名義利率從來就是正數。然而，歐洲和日本這兩個重要國家的中央銀行分別從2014和2016年開始實行負利率政策。商業銀行在中央銀行的存款第一次變得越存越少。如果說中央銀行的負利率與消費者和企業沒有直接關係，那麼，在中央銀行負利率政策的推動下，商業銀行也在剛剛過去的十年內開始向公眾存款收取利率。一開始是針對大額存款的負利率。2019年，德國出現了以1歐元存款為起點的公眾存款負利率，而丹麥首創了消費者房貸負利率。我們不難想像，如今開始的本世紀第三個十年，將會見證負利率向全世界擴張和向各類存款貸款擴張。由於資本主義體系不可能建立在普遍和長期的負利率之上，負利率不但標誌著人類借貸史的新階段，而且標誌著人類生產體系的新階段。所以，如今開始的十年和隨後幾個十年，應當會見證人類經濟史和資本主義歷史的重大變化。

第四個重要事件應當是技術的變化。本世紀第二個十年最重要的技術變革，也許是人工智慧的巨大進展。2017 年，一台裝上人工智慧軟體和國際象棋與圍棋基本規則軟體的電腦，只要幾個小時的對弈“實踐”，就不但能夠從零開始學會下棋，而且能夠完敗世界頂級棋手。它標誌著在規則明確的行為中，電腦通過自學勝過了人類。這裡，一個棋類天才需要十幾年習得的技藝，應用人工智慧的電腦幾個小時就習得了。而且，如果說人類習得這些技藝的成本會變得越來越高的話，電腦學習的成本一定會越來越低，因此，人工智慧和電腦自我學習，將把自動化推廣到新的應用領域和新的高度。人工智慧和人腦的生物學研究包括對人類思維的物理學研究密不可分。強大的計算能力、人腦的生物學研究和大資料相結合，應當是從現在開始的十年和更長時間內技術變革的重心。同時，這樣的技術變革對人類本身、對人類社會制度的影響也會在從現在開始的十年和更長時間內明確地顯現出來。實際上，電腦和大資料的結合，在剛剛過去的十年裡，已經被一些國家的政府用於社會控制。中國在這方面走在世界最前面。這一點也是中國問題之所以成為世界問題的一個原因。所以，在現在開始的十年裡，人工智慧成為技術發展熱點的同時，人工智慧技術和社會制度的關係，也將變成全世界的熱點問題。

第五個需要提及的重要事件是人類向太空的探險。在剛剛過去的十年中，人類登陸火星，突然變成了一種可操作可實現的想法。人類雖然發射過許多火星飛船，但直到本世紀初，登陸火星最多還只是人類的一種目標，一個雄心。但是，在上一個十年，登陸火星開始成為具體的行動計畫，火星殖民即人類長期居住在火星的各種研究也逐一展開。美國宇航局甚至制定了2033年前後登陸火星的規劃。世界其它大國也制定了自己的火星計畫，連比較貧窮的印度也于2013年成功發射了火星飛船。此外，美國2015年首次成功回收火箭並於次年使用回收的火箭成功發射衛星。人類太空探險的經濟成本由此而顯著降低。在如今開始的十年中，我們可以預期，人類以登陸火星為中心的太空探險將會成為新技術發展的推動力和不時出現在世界頭條新聞的消息。

最後，儘管這篇短文沒有回顧最近十年來世界在減少戰爭、污染、專制和不公方面的進展，我依然像十年前那樣，衷心地希望十年後的今天，世界將更少戰爭、更少污染、更少專制、更少不公。同時，在祈禱我的同胞和世界所有人免遭眼下的新型冠狀病毒之害並保持健康之後，我也祈禱自己在十年後還有精力撰寫一篇回顧二十一世紀第三個十年的短文。

“夜話”2020年第3期， 2020年2月8日完稿

A Retrospect on the Second Decade of the 21st Century

by Jingbei Hu

In the tense atmosphere of prevention and treatment of new coronavirus pneumonia (commonly known as “Wuhan pneumonia”) in the world and especially in China, the hour hand turned not only around the New Year’s Day of 2020, but also passed the Spring Festival of 2020! Now, regardless of the Gregorian or die traditional Chinese calendar, the solar or the lunar calendar, we are already in 2020 and in the 2020s. One fifth of the twenty-first century has passed, and the twenty-first century is no longer a “new” century.

Exactly ten years ago, I wrote a short article called “A Retrospect on the First Decade of the New Century”, which gave a brief review of the first decade of this century and a much briefer outlook for the second one. Today, ten years later, I am feeling to be obligated to write another short retrospect to review the second decade of this century that just completed.

Let’s start with the outlooks for this decade in my article of ten years ago. In that article, I said: “No matter what will happen in the second decade of the 21st century, the trend of slowing population growth, the process of de-agriculturalization and the China problem, all of which took place in the first decade, will continue and there will also be less poverty all over the world. At the same time, I pray that the world will see less warfare, less pollution, less autocracies and less injustice today in ten years.”

With regard to population issues, the world has not only continued but strengthened the trend of slowing population growth in the past decade. The annual growth rate of the world population once fell from 1.33% in 1999 to 1.23% in 2009, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point. But in the past decade, the decline in the rate must have exceeded 0.2 percentage points. The world population growth rate in 2019 should be slightly higher than 1.00%. The US Census Bureau even predicts that it should reach the iconic 1% in the first half of 2020. The most immediate cause of the slowdown in world population growth was the decline in world’s female fertility. The world’s female fertility rate has continued to decline from the peak of 5.1% in the mid-1960s, and it should still be higher than 2.4% at the present. However, it will continue to decline to 2.1% (the so-called population replacement rate) at which there will be no population growth anymore. Of course, even if the world population stops growing, the world population may still be excessive. However, compared with several other dangers that threaten humanity, the problem of “population explosion” or overpopulation should no longer be the focus of the next decade in any case.

In the past decade, the world’s agricultural labor forces were still moving to the non-agricultural sectors. When agricultural labor transfer was particularly prominent in China in the first decade of this century, the largest of this should have occurred in the Southeast Asia and South Asia. Accompanied by the rapid transfer of agricultural labor, these regions have increased their shares in the world manufacturing and world economy. In general, the proportion of the world’s agricultural labor force to the total labor force, that is, the agricultural share of labor should be slightly lower than one-third in 2009. By 2019, this share should have dropped to about one-quarter. Therefore, if measured by the agricultural share of labor, three quarters of the world’s agricultural labor should have transferred into non-agricultural sectors, or the so-called de-agriculturalization process has been completed its bulk. Therefore, like the population problem, the transfer of agricultural labor is no longer among the most important issues in the world’s economic and social changes in the new decade and beyond. There is no doubt that de-agriculturalization will continue, but in terms of completing this historical process, mankind has no longer faced any major difficulties.

In contrast to population growth and de-agriculturalization, the China problem, which my 2010 article listed as one of the three major problems which would continue in the 2010s, did not lose in significance, but became more acute and more important in the past decade. Ten years ago, my article raised the problem of China from the perspective of global warming. At that time, China had become the country with the largest carbon emissions in the world. Hence, without China’s cooperation, any international agreements on carbon emissions would have no real meaning. It was at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference that China firmly opposed any proposals for verifiable targets of carbon emission reduction. However, ten years later, China problem has expanded from the field of environmental protection that time to not only the world economic and technological fields, but also the international political and military ones, and even rose to one of the most important problems facing humanity in the 21st century. In a sense, we can even say that the changes in the world during the past decade are particularly manifested in the changes of relationship between China and the rest world.

In terms of the world economy, the most commonly used keyword of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank was “rebalance” of international trade ten years ago. At that time, the proportion of the world trade surpluses and deficits of all countries to the world’s total production reached a record height and the world economy was seriously unbalanced. The world financial and economic crisis in 2008 was closely related to the imbalance of world trade. Therefore, the focus of the world’s attention was to balance again. Today, ten years later, the proportion has dropped by half, and “rebalance” is no longer a hot word. It is replaced by “uncertainty”. Both rebalancing and uncertainty are related to the trade between China and the United States. The imbalance of world trade ten years ago was most prominently manifested in the Sino-US trade imbalance. This imbalance ultimately led to the US-China trade conflict that broke out in 2018. On the one hand, this conflict has helped rebalance Sino-US trade and world trade, on the other hand, it has greatly exacerbated the instability of Sino-US trade and world trade. Ten years ago, despite the imbalances, no one thought of rebalancing through a “shock therapy” or a trade war. Therefore, scholars and businessmen had relatively certain expectations of “self-righteousness” in the prospects of world trade and economy in the 2010s. Today, ten years later, although there is more balance, no one dares to predict with certainty what will happen in the next decade or even only five years: All that can be expected is the uncertainty of the future; nothing else can be expected.

If the terrorist attacks on a passenger plane during the Christmas holiday 2009 and the armed conflicts in Iraq at the end of 2019 are used as signs, then international politics can be marked by terrorism in the past decade. Coupled with the Syrian civil war that broke out in 2011 and continues to this day, and the rise and fall of the officially named “Islamic State” in 2014, terrorism may be regarded as an important feature of this decade. However, compared with the first decade of this century, terrorism has ebbed. In the contrast, China’s positioning has become the central issue of international politics. Ten years ago, few people realized that China’s international positioning was a problem. At that time, although China first got out of the 2008 economic crisis and became the second largest economy in the world, although some scholars within and outside China began to advocate the “China road” or “Chinese model”, there seemed to be a general consensus that China would, through its reform and opening up, integrate into the world economic and political systems and the framework of regulations. Today, ten years later, this consensus broke completely. There were many events that led to break the consensus, such as the change in China’s national leadership system and that the annual tonnage of warships newly built by China in recent years continuously exceeded the sum of all other countries in the world together, and so on. The renewed focus of the United States on itself means that the United States no longer believes in the stability of the world system functioning since the mid-20th century. In this way, with 2018 as a symbol, the two strongest countries in the world, China and the United States, formally and openly changed from a friend to an opponent relationship. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization subsequently officially announced East Asia as its area of ​​concern. A new international political pattern has been formally formed. In my opinion, it is this international political change of the past decade that will have the greatest impact on the coming decades. In my article ten years ago, I said: “Just as the German question was brought to the world in the first decade of the 20th century, the Chinese question was brought to the world of the first decade in the 21st century. What position China should take among all countries of the world will be a question which is difficult to be solved but forced to be solved by China and the whole mankind in the 21st century.” The second decade of the 21st century highlighted China problem to the world’s public, turning it into a clear, that is, no more blurry, question the mankind has to confront inevitably, that is, no more avoidably.

Regarding the novel coronavirus pneumonia, which is an infectious disease that is spreading over the whole world at the present, we find that the world has experienced many major infectious diseases just in the past decade. In 2009, the pandemic of influenza that began in Mexico spread to 74 countries in the world. In 2012, the Middle East respiratory syndrome broke out in Saudi Arabia, and the mortality rate of the patients reached more than one third. The Ebola and Zika outbreaks in West Africa and South America in 2014 and 2016, respectively, also caused an international public health emergency. The novel coronavirus pneumonia, which was first discovered in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, has already spread to more than 60 countries at this moment. The spread of viruses between animals and humans has a very long history, and it caused great losses to humans many times in the human history. However, since at least the middle of the 20th century, mankind has escaped the serious threat of the kind of plague. Animal-to-human virus transmission cannot be avoided, nor can the plague. Yet mankind has realized that the plague is neither a mysterious punishment from the heaven, nor can it be controlled by prayers and folk remedies. The plague is just a natural phenomenon. It can be understood and controlled by humans through science. Therefore, mankind has shifted the hope of preventing and treating the plague from praying for heaven and remedies to science, although science is still far from fully understanding the plague. At the same time, mankind has become to believe that the large-scale epidemic of the plague can be prevented. The horror of the plague is not its occurrence (which is inevitable), but its large-scale epidemic and pandemic. However, there should be in this world no plague which will widespread on a large scale, as long as the social systems are appropriate. Therefore, although the world has experienced many plagues in the last decade, they were basically controlled within a certain small range and the numbers of both illnesses and deaths were also controlled at a certain low level in comparison with the historical plagues. I sincerely hope that the novel coronavirus infections currently occurring will also be controlled to a small extent and the casualty it will make be controlled at a low level.

The major events that occurred in the world in the past ten years are far more than population growth, de-agriculturalization and changes in China’s position, and the plague. To my knowledge which is inevitably limited, there are in these ten years at least five events worth mentioning. The first event is related to women (and of course men). First, the “#MeToo” movement against bullying women has dominated the world news in recent years. For the first time in this movement, women who were bullied or “sexually assaulted” came forward on a large scale to disclose their grievances. As we all know, the relationship between the sexes is an important indicator of the degree of civilization of human beings away from the beast, and in most countries of the world, sexual assault on women is still a common phenomenon. Therefore, “#MeToo” should continue to get public attentions in the coming years. On the other hand, women account for more than half of the workforce for the first time in the United States where the comprehensive level of social development is at the forefront of the world. We know that the proportion of women among college students began to exceed a half around forty years ago. The proportion of women among the two types of master’s and doctoral degree holders has also exceeded a half in many countries already. Today, the proportion of women in the labor force is rapidly increasing and even starting to exceed one-half. Men as the main body of the social labor forces should be a general phenomenon in the history of mankind. If this phenomenon is started to be broken now, then the gender relations, reproductive and reproduction modes, family and social structure of the mankind should all undergo major changes in the future.

The second noteworthy incident is also related to the United States. It is both the victory of the strike of the General Motors workers and the faster wage increase for the bottom workers in the United States. Both are new phenomena for half a century. Nobel Prize-winning economist Kuznets once proposed the “Kuznets curve” about income distribution in the 1950s, that is, the degree of income inequality rises first and then declines after the start of de-agriculturalization. However, the level of income inequality in developed countries has risen again from the 1970s. Also from the 1970s, large-scale social movements and workers’ movements began to retreat (The large placards of “The working class leads everything” also disappeared from all over China at the end of the 1970s). Since then, the world’s de-agriculturalization has accelerated. The combination of the capital from the developed countries and the agricultural labor force from less developed ones has created a miracle of the rapid growth of the world economy in the past nearly 40 years. This combination has significantly reduced income inequality worldwide, while seriously aggravating income inequality within all countries, and greatly weakened the negotiation capabilities of the original non-agricultural labor force in both developed and less developed countries. Now in the big context of the deceleration of the world’s de-agriculturalization and the deceleration of the world’s population and labor force, the complementary relationships between labor and capital will change in the direction of favoring the former when most of the world’s labor forces has joined the capitalist production system, Therefore, in the next ten years and longer, the labor forces that has transferred from agriculture to non-agricultural occupations will strive for their normal status in the capitalist production system in less developed countries, while the capital and labor relations will be re-transformed into a period of relative labor shortages with wages for ordinary workers rising faster. In this regard, we may foresee that social movements will enter a new stage throughout the world, and the level of income inequality within countries will also decline.

The third important event is related to the capitalist production system mentioned above. It is in the past ten years that the interest rate began to become negative. This may be the first phenomenon of negative interest rates that occurs since humans invented the loan relationships. The negative interest rate here means that the nominal rate is negative. The real interest rate is the difference between the nominal rate and the inflation rate. During periods of high inflation that occur from time to time, the real interest rate is often negative, but the nominal one has always been positive. However, the central banks of two important countries or economic blocs, the European Union and Japan, have implemented policies of negative interest rate since 2014 and 2016, respectively. For the first time, the deposits of commercial banks in the central banks become smaller and smaller. If the central banks’ negative interest rate does not have direct effects on consumers and businesses, then, driven by the central banks’ negative interest rate policy, commercial banks also began to charge interest rates on public deposits in the just completed decade. It started with a negative interest rate for large deposits. In 2019, a negative interest rate for the public deposits starting from one Euro was announced in Germany, while Denmark pioneered a negative interest rate of housing loans for ordinary consumers. It is not difficult to imagine that the third decade of this century now begins will witness the expansion of negative interest rates to the whole world and to all kinds of deposit and loans. Since the capitalist production system cannot be built on a universal and long-term negative interest rate, the negative interest rate not only marks a new stage in the history of human borrowing and lending, but also a new stage in the human production system. Therefore, the beginning decade and the following ones should witness major changes in the history of human economy and capitalism.

The fourth major event should be technological changes. Perhaps the most important technological change in the second decade of this century was the tremendous progress of artificial intelligence. In 2017, a computer equipped with artificial intelligence software and software of basic rules of the chess and the Go could, after only a few hours of “practice” in the game, not only learn to play both games from scratch, but also defeat the world’s top human players. It signifies that in the clear-ruled behaviors, the computer outperforms humans through self-learning. Here is to note that a chess genius usually needs more than ten years to learn the skills while a computer using artificial intelligence can learn them within a few hours. Moreover, if the cost for human learning these skills will become higher and higher, the cost for computer learning them must be lower and lower in the future. Therefore, artificial intelligence and computer self-learning will extend automation to new areas of application and new heights. Artificial intelligence is closely related with the biological research of the human brain including the physics studies of human thinking. The combination of three areas of powerful computing capacity, biological research of the human brain and big data should be the focus of technological innovations for the decade just beginning and beyond. At the same time, the impact of such technological innovations on human beings itself and on human’s social systems will also be more clearly revealed in the next decade. In fact, the combination of computing and big data has already been used by the governments of some countries for social control in the past decade. China was and is at the forefront of the world in this regard. This is also a reason why the China problem has become the world problem. Therefore, the relationship between artificial intelligence technology and social systems will also become a hot issue around the world in the next ten years while artificial intelligence becomes a hotspot for technological development.

The fifth important event that needs to be mentioned is the human exploration into space. Just in the past ten years, landing by humans on Mars suddenly became an operational and achievable idea. Although humans had launched many Martian spacecrafts, landing on Mars was at most a kind of human target or ambition until the beginning of this century. However, landing on Mars began to become a specific action plan during the last decade, and various studies on the colonization of Mars, that is, humans living on Mars for a long time, also started one by one. NASA even designed plans to land on Mars around the year of 2033. Other major countries in the world have also developed their own Mars plans. Even the relatively poor India successfully launched its Mars spacecraft in 2013. In addition, the United States successfully recovered rockets for the first time in 2015 and utilized the recovered rockets to successfully launch satellites the following year. The economic cost of human space exploration has hence been significantly reduced. We can expect that human space exploration centered on landing on Mars will become the driving force for the development of new technologies and the headline news for the world from time to time in the ten years beginning today.

Finally, as the same as before ten years, I very hope that the world will have fewer wars, less pollution, less autocracies and less injustice in the new decade of 2020s, although I do not review the progress of the world in reducing war, pollution, autocracy and injustice in the past ten years in this short retrospect. At the same time, I very pray for my Chinese compatriots and everyone in the world to be protected from the novel coronavirus and to keep themselves healthy. I also pray that I may still have energy in ten years to write a retrospective review of the third decade of the 21st century which is beginning now.

“Night Talk” No. 3, 2020, completed on February 8, 2020

Original Chinese texts at https://www.hujingbei.net/archives/2036