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Mr Gordon is right that the second industrial revolution involved never-to-be-repeated changes.
正如戈登所言，第二次工業革命帶來的改變無法復制。
But that does not mean that driverless cars count for nothing.
但這并不意味著無人駕駛車就一文不值。
Messrs Erixon and Weigel are also right to worry about the West’s dismal recent record in producing new companies.
誠然，埃克里松和恩格爾的擔憂也非無稽之談，西方世界近年在培養新公司方面的確不容樂觀。
But many old firms are not run by bureaucrats and have reinvented themselves many times over: General Electric must be on at least its ninth life.
但許多老牌公司也非由官僚把控，且已經多次進行自我革新，比如通用電氣就至少革新了9次。
And the impact of giant new firms born in the past 20 years such as Uber, Google and Facebook should not be underestimated: they have all the Schumpeterian characteristics the authors admire.
我們同樣不應該小瞧那些在過去20年誕生的“新巨頭”（如優步、谷歌和臉書）所帶來的沖擊，因為他們擁有埃克里松和恩格爾所推崇的“熊彼特式”特征。
On the pessimists’ side the strongest argument relies not on closely watching corporate and investor behaviour but rather on macro-level statistics on productivity.
就“悲觀”陣營而言，他們最有力的觀點基于生產率的宏觀統計數據而非對公司策略和投資者行為的近距離觀察。
The figures from recent years are truly dismal.
而近年的宏觀統計數據的確糟糕。
Karim Foda, of the Brookings Institution, calculates that labour productivity in the rich world is growing at its slowest rate since 1950.
經濟分析機構卡里姆·仸達指出，發達國家的勞動生產率正以自1950年以來最低的速率增長。
Total factor productivity (which tries to measure innovation) has grown at just 0.1% in advanced economies since 2004, well below its historical average.
用來衡量創新能力的總生產率在發達經濟體增長僅為0.1%，遠低于歷史均值。
Optimists have two retorts.
而“樂觀”陣營也有兩個理由來反駁。
The first is that there must be something wrong with the figures.
首先，這些數據肯定出錯了。
One possibility is that they fail to count the huge consumer surplus given away free of charge on the internet.
原因可能是互聯網低廉甚至免費的服務導致了嚴重的消費者過剩，這部分并未計算在內。
But this is unconvincing.
然而，這難以令人信服。
The official figures may well be understating the impact of the internet revolution, just as they downplayed the impact of electricity and cars in the past, but they are not understating it enough to explain the recent decline in productivity growth.
因為官方數據可能像以前看輕汽車和電力一樣，淡化了互聯網革命的影響。但這種“輕描淡寫”也未嚴重到足以給生產率增長的近期下降作借口。
Another, second line of argument—that the productivity revolution has only just begun—is more persuasive.
樂觀陣營有另一個更令人信服的觀點——生產率革命還在萌芽階段呢。
Over the past decade many IT companiesmay have focused on things that were more “fun than fundamental” in Paul Krugman’s phrase.
過去數十年，許多IT公司可能都只專注于那些保羅·克魯格曼稱為“娛樂性大于實用性”的東西。
But Silicon Valley’s best companies are certainly focusing on things that change the material world.
然而，硅谷的頂尖公司正專注于如何能給世界帶來實際的變化。
Uberand Airbnb are bringing dramatic improvements to two large industries that have been more or less stuck for decades.
運輸業與酒店業在過去數十年多少陷入了停滯，而優步和空中食宿正給它們帶來翻天覆地的變化。
Morgan Stanley estimates that driverless cars could result in $507 billion a year of productivity gains in America, mainly from people being able to stare at their laptops instead of at the road.
摩根士·坦利估計，在美國，無人駕駛汽車一年能帶來5，070億美元的收益，主要用戶是那些把更多精力放在電腦上，而不是路上的人。
The real question is not whether the IT revolution has run out of steam or whether creative destruction is grinding to a halt.
所以真正的問題并非是IT革命是否已毫無動力，或是創造性破壞是否已陷入停滯。
In fact, the IT revolution is probably gathering pace and Google and Amazon are two of the most innovative firms to emerge in the past 50 years.
事實上，IT革命可能正蓄勢待發，正如谷歌和亞馬遜乃過去50年來最具創新性的公司。
Rather it is whether the new economy can counteract the forces ranged against it: ageing populations; a political class responding to populism by restricting trade and by over-regulating business; and education systems that in many places are failing.
人口老齡化，政治階層采取限制貿易與過度約束公司來應對民粹主義，許多地區的教育系統崩壞，新型經濟該如何應對這些影響才是真正的問題。
The big danger is that, while optimists and pessimists battle it out, the world becomes ever more divided between islands of high productivity surrounded by a vast ocean of stagnation.
真正危險的是，當兩大陣營酣戰正烈時，世界卻已變得更加四分五裂——一望無際的“停滯之海”包圍著碩果僅存的高生產率島嶼。
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