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在2020年，远程工作似乎成为了一种必然。研究表明，生产力并没有崩溃，员工的满意度提高了，公司在房地产上的支出也减少了。科技工作者，尤其是工程师，开始做出一种激进的选择：过上更好的生活。他们从旧金山逃往里斯本，从纽约迁往布宜诺斯艾利斯，从华盛顿特区搬到克拉科夫。他们申请了外国收入排除，减少了税负。他们在咖啡馆、海滩和共享居住空间工作，交付的产出与那些在办公室工作的同事相同（甚至更好）。然而，突然间，反弹来了。首席执行官们要求员工回到办公室，管理者们道德化地谈论“合作”。人力资源部门开始使用监控工具来追踪员工的考勤。发生了什么？通常的解释——生产力！文化！创新！——都显得苍白无力。研究一再表明，远程工作并没有损害业绩。那么，为什么会出现这种打压？吉拉尔的揭示法国哲学家雷内·吉拉尔关于模仿欲望和替罪羊机制的理论比任何MBA分析都能更好地解释这一现象。具体来说： 1. 模仿欲望：办公室作为一种共同的幻觉吉拉尔认为，人类并不是直接渴望某样东西，而是通过他人来渴望。几十年来，白领工人模仿着一种成功的单一模式：住在昂贵的城市里。每周工作60小时。追求升职以获得地位。这个系统之所以有效，是因为每个人都相信同一个虚构的故事。然后，远程工作出现了——一种新模式随之而生：地理套利。税务优化。生活方式自由。当员工看到同事在系统之外蓬勃发展时，旧的模式开始崩溃。欲望发生了转变。但企业并没有适应，而是陷入了恐慌。 2. 替罪羊机制：牺牲数字游牧者当模仿竞争升级时，吉拉尔指出，社会通过团结起来对抗一个替罪羊来恢复秩序。远程工作者成为了这个替罪羊。高管们无法承认真相（“我们嫉妒你们逃脱了”），于是他们编造了道德危机： “远程工作者没有合作！”（然而Slack/GitHub的指标证明了这一点是错误的。） “我们需要办公室文化！”（但只有在商业房地产价值暴跌之后。） “如果有人远程工作就不公平！”（这是一种典型的吉拉尔式抱怨——将嫉妒伪装成正义。）通过强制回到办公室，他们以仪式化的方式牺牲了远程工作者，以恢复旧的秩序。 3. 神圣的神话：“办公室=严肃的工作” 每个机构都有其不惜一切代价维护的神圣神话。对于企业来说，这个神话是：“真正的工作发生在办公室。” 远程工作揭露了这一点是谎言。更糟糕的是，它揭示了：中层管理者的存在是为了监督，而不是生产。商业房地产是一只纸老虎。税务优化的游牧者在资本主义中比首席执行官更成功。反弹并不是关于生产力——而是关于保护这个神话。后果如今，混合工作是一种没有人喜欢的妥协——两全其美的最糟糕选择。但魔 genie 不会再回到瓶子里。公司越是强制回到办公室，就越是暴露出系统的脆弱性。如果你有替罪羊的故事，请分享。

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In 2020, remote work felt like an inevitability. Studies showed productivity didn’t collapse. Employees were happier. Companies saved on real estate. Tech workers—especially engineers—started doing something radical: living well.They fled San Francisco for Lisbon, New York for Buenos Aires, D.C. for Kraków. They claimed the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, slashing their tax bills. They worked from cafés, beaches, and co-living spaces—delivering the same (or better) output than their office-bound peers.Then, suddenly, the backlash came. CEOs demanded a Return to Office. Managers moralized about “collaboration.” HR departments spun up surveillance tools to track badge swipes.What happened?The usual explanations—productivity! culture! innovation!—are weak. Study after study showed remote work didn’t hurt performance. So why the crackdown?The Girardian UnmaskingFrench philosopher René Girard’s theories on mimetic desire and scapegoating explain this better than any MBA analysis. Here’s how:1. Mimetic Desire: The Office as a Shared DelusionGirard argued that humans don’t desire things directly—we desire through others. For decades, white-collar workers mimicked a single model of success:Live in an expensive city.Grind 60-hour weeks.Chase promotions for status.This system worked because everyone bought into the same fiction. Then came remote work—and a new model emerged:Geoarbitrage.Tax optimization.Lifestyle freedom.The moment workers saw colleagues thriving outside the system, the old model started crumbling. The desire shifted. But instead of adapting, corporations panicked.2. The Scapegoat Mechanism: Sacrificing the Digital NomadWhen mimetic rivalry escalates, Girard says societies restore order by uniting against a scapegoat. Remote workers became that scapegoat.Executives couldn’t admit the truth (“We’re jealous you escaped”), so they invented moral crises:“Remote workers aren’t collaborating!” (Yet Slack/GitHub metrics disproved this.)“We need office culture!” (But only after commercial real estate values tanked.)“It’s not fair if some work remotely!” (A classic Girardian complaint—masking envy as justice.)By forcing RTO, they ritually sacrificed the remote worker to restore the old order.3. The Sacred Myth: “Offices = Serious Business”Every institution has sacred myths it defends at all costs. For corporations, the myth is: “Real work happens in offices.”Remote work exposed this as a lie. Worse, it revealed that:Middle managers exist to supervise, not produce.Commercial real estate is a paper tiger.The tax-optimized nomad is winning capitalism better than the CEO.The backlash wasn’t about productivity—it was about protecting the myth.The AftermathToday, hybrid work is a compromise no one loves—the worst of both worlds. But the genie won’t go back in the bottle. The more companies enforce RTO, the more they reveal the system’s fragility.If you have a scapegoat story, share it.

远程工作的消亡：美国企业中的吉拉尔悲剧