大家好，经过一个月的沉寂（退隐、蛰伏、夏眠）我又回来了。（此处应该有掌声）
许久不翻译，再捡起来竟然有些手生……本人用绳命印证了老祖宗说的那句话：“拳不离手曲不离口”（此处应再次响起掌声）
无论如何，挣扎着翻译完这篇，看看窗外已经西山的日暮（我不会告诉你我是从早上开始翻的），再看看屏幕上两千九百九十一个字符，一句话自心底油然而生：“I am back！”（此处应该有持久不息的掌声）

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言归正传，介绍一下今天的小菜：
前一阵听“得到”app上的音频（如果你还不知道“得到”建议你知道一下），其中万维钢老师的专栏里提到美国学者最新的一项研究成果，称现在的美国富人阶级已经终结了“炫耀性消费”，进入了“无形消费”的阶段。简单来说就是中产甚至低收入阶层现在都可以买得起名牌包、表，靠外表已经很难判定其是否真正有钱，那靠什么呢？靠谈吐。你如果和朋友聊天时言必称《经济学人》或《纽约客》就说明你的阶层已经与众不同（恭喜各位，关注了本人的你已经跻身上流社会了，哈哈哈）。重要的不是你拥有这本杂志，而是你拥有阅读这本杂志的教育背景和闲暇时间。所以文章称这个谈资比名牌包还贵社会其实让阶层等级更加固化了，精英教育越来越贵，渐渐变成了特权阶级的特权！
今天的这篇文章摘自最新一期《经济学人》的书评栏目，介绍的就是这项研究所出自的这本书：南加州大学教授伊丽莎白·科瑞德-霍凯特的《小事情之和》。
准备好胃口，开动吧~

How to spend it

Modern American elites have come to favour inconspicuous consumption

A new book looks at how expenditure has changed among America’s affluent

The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class.
By Elizabeth Currid-Halkett. Princeton University Press; 254 pages; $29.95 and £24.95.

有抱负阶级

1. STATUS symbols are as old as humanity itself. It was only once ancient Rome became rich enough for plebeians to decorate their homes that elites sought to do one better by installing mosaics in their villas; in Victorian England working-class women began to don worsted stockings to mimic the silk hosiery of the 1%. At the end of the 19th century Thorstein Veblen, an American sociologist, decried the “conspicuous leisure” of the robber barons of his age, who set themselves apart through their ability to avoid labour; he went on to bemoan the “conspicuous consumption” of the working classes seeking to imitate the wealthy’s access to luxury goods.

plebeians: a person from a lower social class (used originally in ancient Rome)
robber baron: If you refer to someone as a robber baron, you mean that they have made a very large amount of money and have been prepared to act illegally or in an immoral way in order to do so.
It was only once ancient Rome became rich enough for plebeians to decorate their homes that elites sought to do one better by installing mosaics in their villas 这句为强调句，强调的是only once...引导的这个时间状语从句，所以翻译为“正是当……才……”

1）地位符号与人类本身一样古老。正是当古罗马变得足够富有让平民百姓能装饰他们家园的时候精英们才通过在他们的大房子里马赛克来寻求更好的装饰；在维多利亚时代的英格兰工人阶级的女性开始穿 精纺的丝袜来模仿那（处于社会上层的）1％的人们所穿的丝绸长筒袜。 19世纪末，美国社会学家索尔斯坦•维布伦（Thorstein Veblen）谴责了他的时代中强盗资本家的“炫耀性休闲”，他们通过自己避免劳动的能力而与众不同；他继续哀叹想要模仿富人获得奢侈品的工人阶级“炫耀性消费”。

2. Conspicuous consumption persists today. But just as the patricians of classical times changed their habits once the masses gained the ability to copy them, so too have modern American elites recoiled from accumulating mere goods now that globalisation has made them affordable to the middle class. Instead, argues Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, a professor at the University of Southern California, in “The Sum of Small Things”, they have begun consuming the fruits of “conspicuous production”:socially worthy things like fair-trade coffee. They also emphasise “inconspicuous consumption”, of services like education. Far from making the world more egalitarian, this shift, in particular, threatens to entrench modern elites’ privileged position more effectively than the habits of their predecessors ever did.

patricians: A patrician is a person who comes from a family of high social rank.
recoil: If you recoil from doing something or recoil at the idea of something, you refuse to do it or accept it because you dislike it so much.
egalitarian: Egalitarian means supporting or following the idea that all people are equal and should have the same rights and opportunities.
entrench: to establish sth very firmly so that it is very difficult to change

2）炫耀性消费今天依然存在。但正如古典时代一旦群众获得复制的能力，贵族就会改变他们的习惯，现代美国精英们也会拒绝累积纯粹的货物，因为全球化已经使得中等收入阶层可以买得起它们。相反，南加州大学教授伊丽莎白·科瑞德-霍凯特在《小事情之和》中指出，他们已经开始消费“炫耀性生产”的成果：有全社会价值的东西，如公平贸易得来的咖啡。他们还强调“非炫耀性消费”，像教育这样的服务。远没有使世界更公平，这种转变尤其带来了巩固现代精英的特权地位的威胁，比其前任的习惯所造成的威胁更有效。

3. As inequality has increased over the years, so have researchers’ attempts to grapple with its causes and consequences. Ms Currid-Halkett distinguishes herself by bridging the divide between qualitative and quantitative approaches. Her book has no shortage of anecdotes to illustrate cultural trends and it digs deep into the detail of the Consumer Expenditure Survey, administered by the Bureau of Labour Statistics. Using the survey’s data from thousands of respondents, she paints a remarkably fine-grained portrait of how the spending habits of Americans have evolved over the decades.

grapple with: to try hard to deal with or understand something difficult
e.g. The Government has to grapple with the problem of unemployment.
distinguishes herself: If you distinguish yourself, you do something that makes you famous or important.
bridging: 兼具… 的特点 Something that bridges the gap between two very different things has some of the qualities of each of these things.
fine-grained: 细致的
-grained: having a texture of the type mentioned
e.g. a coarse-grained farmer

3）由于多年来不平等现象有所增加，研究人员也试图找出其原因和后果。 科瑞德-霍凯特女士因兼具定性和定量方法的特点而知名。她的书不乏轶事，用以展现文化趋势，同时它深入挖掘由劳工统计局实施的“消费者支出调查”的细节。使用来自数千名受访者的调查数据，她描绘了一幅几十年来美国人的消费习惯如何演变的非常细致的图画。

4. Defining “conspicuous consumption” as “apparel, watches, jewellery, cars and other socially visible goods”, she finds that even though the poor must dedicate much of their income to basic necessities, they devote a higher share of their total spending to conspicuous consumption than the rich do. And the trend is gaining steam. Between 1996 and 2014 the richest 1% fell further behind the national average in the percentage of their spending dedicated to bling. The middle income quintile went the other way: by 2014 they spent 35% more than the average as a percentage of their annual expenditure.

**get/pick/build up steam/gather/gain steam **: if plans, beliefs etc pick up steam, they gradually become more important and more people become interested in them
e.g. The election campaign is picking up steam.
quintile: one of five equal groups into which a set of things can be divided according to the distribution of a particular variable
e.g. men in the first quintile of weight (= the heaviest 20% of men)

4）将“炫耀性消费”定义为“服装、手表、珠宝、汽车和其他全社会可见货物”，她发现尽管穷人必须将大部分收入用于基本生活必需品，但是和富人相比他们将其总支出中的更高份额用于炫耀性消费。而且这个趋势正越演越烈。在1996年至2014年期间，最富有的1％群体在投入珠宝的花销比例方面远低于国家平均水平。中产阶级收入的五分之一用于不同的地方：到2014年，他们比年度支出的平均百分比多35％。

5. Rather than filling garages with flashy cars, the data show, today’s rich devote their budgets to less visible but more valuable ends. Chief among them is education for their children: the top 10% now allocate almost four times as much of their spending to school and university as they did in 1996, whereas for other groups the figure has hardly budged. They also invest heavily in domestic services such as housekeepers, freeing up time that the less fortunate must spend on chores.

end: (项目、工作的)部分，方面 If you refer to a particular end of a project or piece of work, you mean a part or aspect of it, for example a part of it that is done by a particular person or in a particular place.
budge: to move slightly; to make sth/sb move slightly

5）数据显示，今天的富豪们将预算用于不太可见但更有价值的方面，而不是用华丽的汽车填充车库。其中最主要的是为子女提供教育：前10%收入群体现在用于中小学和大学的钱几乎是1996年他们花费的四倍，而对于其他群体来说，这个数字几乎没有改变。他们还把大量钱花在诸如管家等家庭服务上，释放时间，而较穷群体必须把这些时间花在家务上。

6. Rather than frittering away that precious leisure time on frivolities, as Veblen’s leisure class did, they devote it to enriching experiences, like attending the opera, holidaying in far-off lands and working out at fancy gyms. Their children, by tagging along and thus absorbing this “cultural capital”, develop the sophistication needed to win admission to selective universities, vastly increasing the odds that they will form the next generation’s elite. The modern equivalent of Victorian worsted-stocking wearers are hipsters, who imitate the wealthy’s penchant for farmers’ markets and fair-trade lattes, even if they cannot afford a cruise to Antarctica.

fritter away: to waste time, money, or effort on something small or unimportant
e.g. He frittered away a fortune on fast cars and gambling.
frivolities: If you refer to an activity as a frivolity, you think that it is amusing and rather silly, rather than serious and sensible.
tag along (behind/with sb): to go somewhere with sb, especially when you have not been asked or invited
sophistication: (人的)高度文化修养 Sophistication is the quality of being comfortable in social situations and knowing about culture, fashion, and other matters that are considered socially important.

6）没有像如维布伦所描述的有闲阶级把这些珍贵的闲暇时间浪费在无聊的事上，他们把这些时间用来丰富经历，如参加歌剧、去遥远的地方度假并在昂贵的健身房锻炼。他们的孩子们通过跟着父母，从而吸收了这种“文化资本”，发展出通往名校所必需的高度文化修养，大大增加了他们形成下一代精英的可能性。现代与维多利亚时代穿着精纺的人相当的是赶时髦的人，他们模仿富人对农民市场和公平贸易拿铁的兴趣，即使他们承受不起去南极洲航游的费用。

7. “The Sum of Small Things” both unearths evocative differences between big American cities—for example, Los Angeles leads in bottled-water consumption, while New York does in spending on shoes—and makes clear that the “aspirational class” Ms Currid-Halkett profiles is almost exclusively coastal and urban. However, that may yield a lopsided portrait of the top of the income pile: largely absent from her tale are the business-minded rich in politically conservative states.

evocative: making you think of or remember a strong image or feeling, in a pleasant way
e.g. evocative smells/sounds/music
lopsided: Heavier, larger, or higher on one side than on the other. 不对称的

7）《小事情之和》既揭露出大美国城市之间引起情感共鸣的差异—— 例如，洛杉矶引领瓶装水消费，而纽约则花钱在鞋上——又明确了科瑞德-霍凯特女士所描绘的“有抱负阶级”几乎仅仅存在于沿海和都市里。然而，这可能会造成高收入人群的有所偏颇的画像：她的故事中政治保守州有商业头脑的富人大部分缺席。

8. The reader learns that residents of Dallas and Houston dedicate unusually low shares of spending to housing costs and to fresh fruit, and a relatively high portion to textiles, furniture and beauty products such as wigs—but not whether the rich among them mimic their blue-state counterparts in seeking to project virtue via heirloom tomatoes and the like. Perhaps a sequel might explore the values of Sun Belt suburbanites, and how this other half of privileged Americans signal status through their spending.

blue state: (of an area in the US) having more people who vote for the Democratic candidate than the Republican one
heirloom: a valuable object that has belonged to the same family for many years
An heirloom tomato (also called heritage tomato in the UK) is an open-pollinated (non-hybrid) heirloom cultivar of tomato. Heirloom tomatoes have become increasingly popular and more readily available in recent years.
suburbanites: someone who lives in a suburb - often used to show disapproval

8）读者会了解到，达拉斯和休斯敦的居民在住房成本和新鲜水果上的花费非常低，而对纺织品、家具和像假发这样的美容产品的花费相对较高——但不会了解到其中的富人是否模仿民主党州的富人通过寻求传家宝西红柿等类似事物来展现美德。也许一部续作可能会探索阳光地带（美国南部地带）乡下人的价值观，以及另外一半有特权美国人如何通过支出来表明身份。

This article appeared in the Books and arts section of the print edition under the headline "How to spend it"

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001072867