民众抗议活动正在全世界风起云涌：美国的占领华尔街运动，希腊、西班牙、伦敦和欧洲其他地区的示威活动，中国农村的暴力群体性事件，以及“阿拉伯之春”革命。然而，涉及这些活动，最重要的一个事实在于，抗议无关乎金钱或不平等。倘若果真如此，处理起来反而会更容易一些。相反，这些活动与抗议者所感受的不公有关，反映了一个更深刻，更激烈的问题。

    目前，职业示威者、工会，以及不愿意放过任何一个折磨公司高管机会的其他人开始接管抗议活动，美国的抗议怒火或许很快就会黯淡下去。但正是这场抗议活动引发的星星之火让我们有了全新的、有意义的发现。这场抗议活动的根源似乎在于抗议者的感受，他们认为自己没有获得公平的机会，来分享经济繁荣的成果。抗议者坚信，大型公司，特别是各大银行，操纵经济体系为其自身谋利，而令普通民众承受苦难。

    抗议者感受到的这种不公正是他们如今怒不可遏的真正根源。没错，许多华尔街高管是赚了很多钱，但还有些人赚的钱要比他们多得多，比如对冲基金经理人。然而，没有人跑到康涅狄格州郊区，去这些经理人的办公室外露营抗议。就这一点来说，美国热爱沃伦•巴菲特，就像它过去热爱当时的首富山姆•沃尔顿一样。拥有亿万身家的同胞自身并没不会让人们怒火中烧。

    即便经济上的不平等也不足以驱使人们走上街头。30多年来，美国的不平等指数一直有增无减。期间的大部分时间内，富人越来越富，穷人也越来越富，但富人致富的速度更快。虽然贫富差距在拉大，但只要所有人的境遇都在改善，不满情绪就不会爆发。跟经济困难时期通常的状况一样，最近这次衰退期内的平等指数其实下降了。如果不平等是问题所在， 2007年的时候人们应该比今天更加愤怒。

    现在的新情况是，近几年来，中低收入者的经济状况并未像高收入者那样获得持续改善。衰退发生后，就业机会增幅之缓慢前所未有，让许多人感到他们被剥夺了应有的改善生活的机会。从更广泛的层面来说，中低收入者觉得自己正在遭受惩罚，尽管他们并没有做错任何事情，而那些在他们看来应该为整个混乱局面负责的人（即银行家们）反而获得了紧急援助，而且还在赚大钱。这种不公正令人义愤填膺。

    同样的不安定因素也出现在世界各地的抗议活动中，尽管具体表现形式有所不同。它们或许是明目张胆的腐败行为（比如中国和中东），或许是遭到践踏的社会契约（比如欧洲）。无辜者惨遭惩罚，有罪者获得奖赏。两种情况并存，令人无法容忍。

    就美国而言，这样的论断有失偏颇，在某种程度上甚至完全错误。参与占领华尔街抗议运动的大多数人或许不知道，作为纳税人，他们实际上受益于针对银行的救助行动。他们可能已经忘记了，数以百万计的美国人现在之所以被取消房屋的赎买权，正是因为他们当初心甘情愿，甚至迫不及待地办理了超出其负担能力的抵押贷款业务。一些抗议者则非常无知。比如，有位抗议者在回答《纽约时报》（the New York Times）的采访提问时说，他从没听说过沃伦•巴菲特这个人。另外一位抗议者则向全国公共广播电台（NPR）抱怨称，“我们正在为救助行动买单。”还有一位对《纽约时报》说，维珍美国 （Virgin America）是一家很好的航空公司，因为它“正致力于太阳能飞机的研发。”

    这一切都没关系。人们知道或不知道什么，并不重要。唯一重要的是他们的切身感受。

    几年前，在一个风云人物汇集的私人会议上，一位CEO直陈美国富人和中产阶级长期以来的财富分歧倾向。会议主持人亨利•基辛格评论称，这一局面有可能引发“一场社会和政治灾难”。这种论断或许看起来有点危言耸听，但他说得完全正确。当时欠缺的只是强烈的不公正感，而现在这个条件已经具备。

    即使占领华尔街运动最终偃旗息鼓，但引发这场抗议的火种却不会就此消失。我们应该把这场运动视为一个警告。灭顶之灾距离我们还很遥远，而且并非不可避免的。但我们距离那一天确实又更近了一步。

    译者：任文科

    he most important fact to realize about the rash of popular protests around the world -- Occupy Wall Street in the U.S., demonstrations in Greece, Spain, London, and elsewhere in Europe, violent uprisings in rural China, even the revolutions of the Arab Spring -- is that they aren't about money or inequality. If they were, they'd be easier to deal with. They're about perceived injustice, which reflects a deeper, fiercer problem.

    The spark of the U.S. movement may soon be obscured as it's taken over by career protesters, labor unions, and others who enjoy any chance to torment corporate managers. But the spark is where we find what's new and meaningful, and it seems to have emanated from a feeling by the protesters that they aren't getting a fair shot at prosperity. They believe that big companies, specifically major banks, have rigged the system to their own benefit and to the suffering of ordinary people.

    That perceived injustice is the real root of today's rage. Yes, many Wall Street executives make tons of money, but plenty of hedge fund managers, for example, make far, far more, yet no one is camping outside their suburban Connecticut offices. For that matter, America loves Warren Buffett, just as it loved Sam Walton when he was the country's richest man. Fellow citizens making billions do not by themselves get many people riled.

    Even economic inequality isn't enough to send mobs into the street. Inequality in the U.S. has been increasing for over 30 years. During most of that period the rich were getting richer, and the poor were getting richer, but the rich were getting richer faster. Though the gap was widening, the lid stayed on discontent as long as everyone was moving ahead. Inequality actually diminished in the recent recession, as it usually does in tough times. If inequality were the problem, people would be less upset today than they were in 2007.

    What's new is that those with medium and lower incomes have not been getting richer for several years, while those with high incomes have been, and the unprecedented slowness of post-recession job growth has left many feeling deprived of their rightful opportunity to improve their lot. More broadly, they feel they're being punished even though they did nothing wrong, while those whom they blame for the whole mess -- the bankers -- got bailed out and are raking it in. Infuriating injustice.

    The elements are the same in protests worldwide, whether the specific grievance is blatant corruption, as in China and the Middle East, or violation of the social compact, as in Europe. The innocent are punished while the guilty are rewarded. That combination is intolerable.

    In the U.S. this narrative is flawed and in some ways plain wrong. Most of the Occupy Wall Street protesters probably don't know that they, as taxpayers, actually made money from the bank bailout. They may be forgetting that millions of Americans are being foreclosed on because they willingly, even eagerly, took out mortgages they couldn't afford. Some protesters are simply clueless, like one who responded to a question from the New York Times by saying he'd never heard of Warren Buffett, or one who complained to NPR that "we're paying for the bailout," or one who told the Times that the airline Virgin America is a good company because it's "working on creating solar planes."

    It doesn't matter. What people know or don't know isn't important. All that counts is what they feel.

    At a private meeting of movers and shakers a few years ago, a CEO presented the facts on the long-term diverging fortunes of the wealthy and the middle class in the U.S. Henry Kissinger, who was chairing the meeting, observed that the situation held the makings of "a social and political cataclysm." It seemed an overly dramatic pronouncement, but he was right. Only a feeling of powerful injustice was missing, and now it's here.

    Even if Occupy Wall Street should evaporate, the fuel that's feeding it will not. Think of it as a warning. Cataclysm is a long way off, and it certainly isn't inevitable. But we're a little bit closer.