Economics in One Lesson校译之4. Public Works Mean Taxes

Public Works Mean Taxes 

第4章  公共工程意味着增税

There is no more persistent and influential faith in the world today than the faith in government spending. Everywhere government spending is presented as a panacea for all our economic ills. Is private industry partially stagnant? We can fix it all by government spending. Is there unemployment? That is obviously due to “insufficient private purchasing power.” The remedy is just as obvious. All that is necessary is for the government to spend enough to make up the “deficiency”.

当今世上,没有哪种信仰能比民众对政府支出抱有的信仰更持久、更具影响力。各国民众都在仰仗政府支出这剂灵丹妙药,坚信它能包治所有的经济弊病。私营产业不景气吗?我们就靠政府支出去拉动产业经济。出现失业问题了吗?这显然也是“私人购买力不足”造成的。开出的药方明摆着还是政府支出。总之,唯一的解决之道就是政府花掉足够多的钱去补齐“不足”。

An enormous literature is based on this fallacy, and, as so often happens with doctrines of this sort, it has become part of an intricate network of fallacies that mutually support each other. We cannot explore that whole network at this point; we shall return to other branches of it later. But we can examine here the mother fallacy that has given birth to this progeny, the main stem of the network.

无数的文献基于这一谬论,而且,跟这类信条通常的情形一样,它已经成为盘根错节的谬论网的一部分,与网络中其他荒唐的说法相互支撑。我们还无法在本章解析整个谬论网,其诸多分支将放到后面的章节去解析。不过,我们能在这里剖析孕育其他许多无稽之谈的谬论之母,也就是该谬论网的主干。

Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for. The world is full of so-called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing. They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that is can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off because “we owe it to ourselves.” We shall return to such extraordinary doctrines at a later point. Here I am afraid that we shall have to be dogmatic, and point out that such pleasant dreams in the past have always been shattered by national insolvency or a runaway inflation. Here we shall have to say simply that all government expenditures must eventually be paid out of the proceeds of taxation; that inflation itself is merely a form, and a particularly vicious form, of taxation.

除了大自然有限的免费恩赐之外,我们取得任何东西都是要付出代价的。这个世界上有的是所谓的经济学家,这些人个个都有不劳而获的办法。他们吹嘘,政府根本不用收税都能有花不完的钱;政府可以无限累积债务,根本不用偿还,因为“钱是我们欠自己的”。后面我们还会再来剖析这类奇谈怪论,但这里必须无情地指出,过去做的这种美梦总是以国家财政破产或者通货膨胀飙升而破灭。我们必须认识到:政府所有的支出最后都必须靠纳税人来埋单;通货膨胀本身只是税收的一种表现形式,是很特别恶毒的一种税收形式。

Having put aside for later consideration the network of fallacies which rest on chronic government borrowing and inflation, we shall take it for granted throughout the present chapter that either immediately or ultimately every dollar of government spending must be raised through a dollar of taxation. Once we look at the matter in this way, the supposed miracles of government spending will appear in another light.

让我们把基于政府推行长期借款和通货膨胀政策的谬论体系要放到以后再探讨,本章中我们要理所当然地认为政府支出的每一块钱都来自马上的或者将来的税收。一旦我们用这种方式来看问题,所谓政府支出造就的“丰功伟绩”,就不再那么风光了。

A certain amount of public spending is necessary to perform essential government functions. A certain amount of public works — of streets and roads and bridges and tunnels, of armories and navy yards, of buildings to house legislatures, police and fire departments—is necessary to supply essential public services. With such public works, necessary for their own sake, and defended on that ground alone, I am not here concerned. I am here concerned with public works considered as a means of “providing employment” or of adding wealth to the community that it would not otherwise have had.

一定数额的公共开支对执行基本的政府职能是必要的。一定数量的公共设施建设,如街道、桥梁、隧道、军营、海军基地,以及议会、警察和消防队的办公设施等,是提供基本的公共服务所必需的。社会对这些公共建设本身有需要,也依据此需要而进行时,对此我毫不担心。我所要讨论的是将公共建设当做一种手段,用以“提供就业”,或者创造出社区用它法无法创造出来的新财富的那些公共工程。

A bridge is built. Ifit is built to meet an insistent public demand, if it solves a traffic problem or a transportation problem otherwise insoluble, if, in short, it is even more necessary to the taxpayers collectively than the things for which they would have individually spent their money had it had not been taxed away from them, there can be no objection. But a bridge built primarily “to provide employment” is a different kind of bridge. When providing employment becomes the end, need becomes a subordinate consideration. “Projects” have to be invented. Instead of thinking only of where bridges must be built the government spenders begin to ask themselves where bridges can be built. Can they think of plausible reasons why an additional bridge should connect Easton and Weston? It soon becomes absolutely essential. Those who doubt the necessity are dismissed as obstructionists and reactionaries.

假设要建一座桥,如果它能满足民众的迫切需要,缓解难以克服的交通或运输问题,换句话说,如果纳税人觉得把钱一起投在这里,比不收税而让他们自己消费更有价值,那么兴建这样的桥梁就没有什么问题。但如果是为了“提高就业机会”而建桥,那就成另外一回事了。当提供就业机会成了目的之后,有无兴建桥梁的实际需要就会成为次要问题。政府必须无中生有,创造出“公共建设项目”。他们不再只考虑哪里必须建桥,而是开始自问自答:桥可以建在哪里。他们会琢磨,再建一座桥以连接浦东和浦西,能找到适当借口来说明为什么有此需要吗?很快该工程就变得绝对必要。那些对建桥的必要性提出质疑的人,则会被认为碍手碍脚和不识时务而被忽略。

Two arguments are put forward for the bridge, one of which is mainly heard before it is built, the other of which is mainly heard after it has been completed. The first argument is that it will provide employment. It will provide, say, 500 jobs for a year. The implication is that these are jobs that would not otherwise have come into existence.

关于建桥,一般有两个论调。其一主要发生在造桥之前,另一个主要流传于完工之后。第一个论调指出,造桥能够提供就业机会,比如说,一年可以提供500个工作机会。言外之意是,不建这座桥,就不会有这些工作机会。

This is what is immediately seen. But if we have trained ourselves to look beyond immediate to secondary consequences, and beyond those who are directly benefited by a government project to others who are indirectly affected, a different picture presents itself. It is true that a particular group of bridgeworkers may receive more employment than otherwise. But the bridge has to be paid for out of taxes. For every dollar that is spent on the bridge a dollar will be taken away from taxpayers. If the bridge costs $10 million the taxpayers will lose $10 million. They will have that much taken away from them which they would otherwise have spent on the things they needed most.

这仅是眼前的结果而已。如果我们学会不只看眼前还看其续发后果,也就是说,不只是关注那些政府工程的直接受益者,还要同时考虑那些间接受到影响的人,我们的认识就会迥然不同。没错,造桥工人可能会获得更多的工作机会,然而造桥的钱却必须从税收中支出,造桥每花一块钱,就得向纳税人征一块钱的税。要是建造这座桥耗资1 000万美元,纳税人就得损失1 000万美元。他们本来可以用这笔钱去购买他们各自最需要的东西。

Therefore, for every public job created by the bridge project a private job has been destroyed somewhere else. We can see the men employed on the bridge. We can watch them at work. The employment argument of the government spenders becomes vivid, and probably for most people convincing. But there are other things that we do not see, because, alas, they have never been permitted to come into existence. They are the jobs destroyed by the $10 million taken from the taxpayers. All that has happened, at best, is that there has been a diversion of jobs because of the project. More bridge builders; fewer automobile workers, television technicians, clothing workers, farmers.

因此,建桥工程所创造的每一个工作机会都是以它处一个民间工作机会的丧失为代价的。我们能够看得见桥梁工地上的工人,我们看得见他们在做工,于是,政府支出能够创造就业机会的论调变得活灵活现,令大多数人深信不疑。但有些东西我们是看不到的,因为,唉!它们根本没被允许发生,它们是从纳税人的口袋里掏走1 000万美元之后而破坏掉的工作机会。所发生的一切无非是,最好的可能就是,该工程引起了就业机会的转移。造桥工人增加了,汽车工人、电视机技工、制衣工人、农民就减少了。

But then we come to the second argument. The bridge exists. It is, let us suppose, a beautiful and not an ugly bridge. It has come into being through the magic of government spending. Where would it have been if the obstructionists and the reactionaries had had their way? There would have been no bridge. The country would have been just that much poorer. Here again the government spenders have the better of the argument with all those who cannot see beyond the immediate range of their physical eyes. They can see the bridge. But if they have taught themselves to look for indirect as well as direct consequences they can once more see in the eye of imagination the possibilities that have never been allowed to come into existence. They can see the unbuilt homes, the unmade cars and washing machines, the unmade dresses and coats, perhaps the ungrown and unsold foodstuffs. To see these uncreated things requires a kind of imagination that not many people have. We can think of these nonexistent objects once, perhaps, but we cannot keep them before our minds as we can the bridge that we pass every working day. What has happened is merely that one thing has been created instead of others.

桥终于建好了,不妨假定那是一座漂亮而非丑陋的大桥。第二个论调会说,这都得归功于政府支出的神奇魔法。要是当初那些反对者得遂所愿,还会有这座跨江大桥吗?若少了这座桥,这个国家正好损失相应的那么一笔财富。

这里也一样,对那些不能看到双眼能关注的范围以外的东西的人来说,主张政府支出的人更有说服力。这两类人的眼睛里都只有那座桥。如果他们能学会既看直接的结果又看间接的影响的话,那些原本可能产生而没有产生的东西便会呈现在他们的想象之中。他们将看到没能盖起来的房子、没能生产出来的汽车和洗衣机、没能做出来的礼服和外套、没能种出来和卖出去的粮食。要看到这些没有被创造出来的东西,得靠某种想象力,可惜这正是许多人所缺乏的。我们也许意识到过这些不存在的东西,但当我们每天上下班路过的桥梁时,我们的意识里便只有了桥梁。政府支出的幻象,无非是通过牺牲其他的机会,把特定的财富创造出来而已。

2

The same reasoning applies, of course, to every other form of public work. It applies just as well, for example, to the erection, with public funds, of housing for people of low incomes. All that happens is that money is taken away through taxes from families of higher income (and perhaps a little from families of even lower income) to force them to subsidize these selected families with low incomes and enable them to live in better housing for the same rent or for lower rent than previously.

这种推理方法同样适用于其他各种形式的公共建设。例如,动用公共资金兴建供低收入家庭居住的廉租房。这么做,只不过是用征税的方式让收入较高的家庭把钱拿出来(也可能有一小部分是其他低收入较低家庭的钱),强迫他们补贴那些政府选定的低收入家庭,让后者以相同或更低的租金,享有更好的住房条件。

I do not intend to enter here into all the pros and cons of public housing. I am concerned only to point out the error in two of the arguments most frequently put forward in favor of public housing. One is the argument that it “creates employment”; the other that it creates wealth which would not otherwise have been produced. Both of these arguments are false, because they overlook what is lost through taxation. Taxation for public housing destroys as many jobs in other lines as it creates in housing. It also results in unbuilt private homes, in unmade washing machines and refrigerators, and in lack of innumerable other commodities and services.

我不打算在这里探讨兴建廉租房的种种利弊,只想指出,赞成兴建廉租房的最常见的两个论调都存在谬误。其一是它能“创造就业”,其二是建造廉租房即创造了财富,否则便没有这笔财富。这两个论调都站不住脚,因为它们忽视了赋税造成的损失。用于兴建廉租房的税赋所毁掉的其他行业的工作机会,跟它在住房建设行业创造的工作机会一样多。这也导致有些私人住房无法盖起来,有些洗衣机和电冰箱无法生产出来,使其他不计其数的商品和服务供给缺乏。

And none of this is answered by the sort of reply which points out, for example, that public housing does not have to be financed by a lump sum capital appropriation, but merely by annual rent subsidies. This simply means that the cost to the taxpayers is spread over many years instead of being concentrated into one. Such technicalities are irrelevant to the main point.

有人说,兴建廉租房不需要一次拨一大笔钱,用年租金补足就行。类似的回答并不能解决任何问题。那只意味着把纳税人的负担分摊到许多年,而不是集中在一年。这样的技术细节与我们的主要问题是不相关的。

The great psychological advantage of the public housing advocates is that men are seen at work on the houses when they are going up, and the houses are seen when they are finished. People live in them, and proudly show their friends through the rooms. The jobs destroyed by the taxes for the housing are not seen, nor are the goods and services that were never made. It takes a concentrated effort of thought, and a new effort each time the houses and the happy people in them are seen, to think of the wealth that was not created instead. Is it surprising that the champions of public housing should dismiss this, if it is brought to their attention, as a world of imagination, as the objections of pure theory, while they point to the public housing that exists? As a character in Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan replies when told of the theory of Pythagoras that the earth is round and revolves around the sun: “What an utter fool! Couldn’t he use his eyes?”

支持兴建廉租房的人有着很大的心理上的优势。建设时能看到繁忙的工地,完工后能看到崭新的建筑,入住时能看到乔迁新居的人喜气洋洋地带领亲朋好友参观房间。相反,因赋税而损失的工作是看不见的,那些无法生产出来的产品和无法提供的服务也是看不见的。每次看到那些房子,看到那些住在里面的幸福快乐的人,我们都需要重新集中精力,才能想象出那些没有被创造出来的财富。主张兴建廉租房的人指着矗立在眼前的楼房反驳说,你说的那些只是想象出来的、不存在的事物,是纯理论的东西。他们的言行令人惊讶吗?就像萧伯纳的剧作《圣女贞德》中的那个家伙,当被告知毕达哥拉斯的理论说地球是圆的、而且绕着太阳转时,他驳斥道: “十足的白痴!他不会用自己的眼睛去看吗?”

We must apply the same reasoning, once more, to great projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority. Here, because of sheer size, the danger of optical illusion is greater than ever. Here is a mighty dam, a stupendous arc of steel and concrete, “greater than anything that private capital could have built,” the fetish of photographers, the heaven of socialists, the most often used symbol of the miracles of public construction, ownership and operation. Here are mighty generators and power houses. Here is a whole region, it is said, lifted to a higher economic level, attracting factories and industries that could not otherwise have existed. And it is all presented, in the panegyrics of its partisans, as a net economic gain without offsets.

对于像田纳西河流域治理工程这样的宏伟工程,我们仍需进行同样的推理。这项工程十分浩大,其视觉冲击力更容易让人产生错觉。你看,这是一座巨大的拦水坝,这是一座令人震撼的弧形钢筋混凝土建筑。它“比私人资本能够建造的任何东西都伟大”,它是摄影师的圣殿,是社会主义者的天堂,也是最常被引述的公共建设、公共所有权、公共设施运营奇迹的象征。这里有巨大的水轮发电机组和电站厂房。单靠这项工程就带动了更多的新工厂和新产业,整个地区的经济水平也得以提高。拥护者对此推崇备至,说这里创造了没有负面效应的经济净收益。

We need not go here into the merits of the TVA or public projects like it. But this time we need a special effort of the imagination, which few people seem able to make, to look at the debit side of the ledger. If taxes are taken from individuals and corporations, and spent in one particular section of the country, why should it cause surprise, why should it be regarded as a miracle, if that section becomes comparatively richer? Other sections of the country, we should remember, are then comparatively poorer. The thing so great that “private capital could not have built it” has in fact been built by private capital—the capital that was expropriated in taxes (or, if the money was borrowed, that eventually must be expropriated in taxes). Again we must make an effort of the imagination to see the private power plants, the private homes, the typewriters and television sets that were never allowed to come into existence because of the money that was taken from people all over the country to build the photogenic Norris Dam.

我们不必详细讨论田纳西河流域治理工程或者类似的公共工程的优劣。不过在这里,我们必须看一看这本账目的支出部分,这需要加倍努力去运用想象力,因此似乎很少人能够做得到。如果政府把从个人和企业那里征收来的钱集中花在某个地方,使当地变得相对富裕,那有什么好令人惊叹的?凭什么应该视之为奇迹?请不要忘了,其他地方会因此变得相对贫穷。所谓“私人资本建造不出来”的伟大建设,实际上正是用私人资本建造的,即利用从民间征来的税来筹集建造工程的资本(如果是发行国债借钱的话,最后也要靠征税去偿还)。我们必须再次借助想象力,才看得到那些不存在的民间发电厂、民宅、打字机和电视机。这些事物得不到建设或生产,是因为全国各地人民身上的钱都被拿去建设了特别上镜的诺里斯大坝。

3

I have deliberately chosen the most favorable examples of public spending schemes—that is, those that are most frequently and fervently urged by the government spenders and most highly regarded by the public. I have not spoken of the hundreds of boondoggling projects that are invariably embarked upon the moment the main object is to “give jobs” and “to put people to work.” For then the usefulness of the project itself, as we have seen, inevitably becomes a subordinate consideration. Moreover, the more wasteful the work, the more costly in manpower, the better it becomes for the purpose of providing more employment. Under such circumstances it is highly improbable that the projects thought up by the bureaucrats will provide the same net addition to wealth and welfare, per dollar expended, as would have been provided by the taxpayers themselves, if they had been individually permitted to buy or have made what they themselves wanted, instead of being forced to surrender part of their earnings to the state.

我审慎地选了几个对于支持公共支出项目的主张最为有利的案例,也就是说,这些公共支出计划都是主张政府支出的人推崇备至的,也是最受公众认可的。我还没有谈及那些主要为了“提供工作机会”和“让人们有工作可做”而着手搞的、耗资巨大而没有价值的面子工程。就象我们所看到的,项目本身的可用性在这类方案中必然是一种次要的考虑。而且,工程越是铺张浪费,耗用的人力成本越高,就越能达到提供更多就业机会这个目标。在这种情况下,由官僚们所构想出的项目所能够创造出的财富和福利水平,很难达到如若允许纳税者个人自由购买或生产他们自己所需要的东西,而不是强迫他们将一部分收入上缴国家所能带来的财富和福利水平。因为,每花一块钱都是纳税者自己提供的。

Economics in One Lesson校译之2. The Broken Window

The Lesson Applied
The Broken Window

第二编 课程的应用

第2章 破橱窗

Let us begin with the simplest illustration possible: let us, emulating Bastiat, choose a broken pane of glass.

让我们从一个有可能是最简单的例证入手;我们来效仿法国经济学家巴斯夏,从一面被砸破的橱窗讲起。

A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.

话说一个顽童抡起砖头,砸破了面包店的橱窗。当店主怒气冲冲追出来时,小捣蛋已经溜得没了踪影。看闹热的人围拢了过来,幸灾乐祸地盯着橱窗的窟窿以及散落在面包和馅饼上的玻璃碎片。不一会儿这个人群就会进行哲理思辩,其中必然有人开始用祸福相依的哲理宽慰起众人或者店主的心:玻璃破了很是可惜,可是这也有好的一面。这不,对面的玻璃店又有生意了。一副新的橱窗需要多少钱?要250美元?!这笔钱可不算少。话又说回来,要是玻璃永远都不破,那装玻璃的人吃啥。他们越琢磨越来劲。玻璃店多了250美元,会去别的商家那里消费,那些个商家的口袋里多了250美元,又会向更多的商家买东西,这样下去以至无穷。经这么一说,小小一片破橱窗,竟能够连环不断提供资金给很多商家,使很多人获得就业机会。要是照这个逻辑推下去,结论便是:扔砖头的那个小捣蛋,不但不是社区的祸害,反而是造福社区的善人。

Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace a window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as a part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.

且慢!让我们来分析其中的谬误。至少围观者所作的第一个结论没错,这件小小的破坏行为,首先会给某家玻璃店带来生意。玻璃店主对这起捣蛋事件除了略表同情之外,高兴程度不亚于棺材店老板获知新的死亡事件。但是,面包店主损失掉的250美元,原本是打算拿去做一套西装的。如今,这钱被迫挪去补破窗,出门就穿不成新西装(或者少了同等价钱的其他日用品或奢侈品)。他本来有一副橱窗再加250美元,现在只剩下一副橱窗。或者说,在准备去做西装的那个下午,他本来可以心满意足同时拥有橱窗和西装,结果却只能面对有了橱窗就没了西装的糟糕现实。如果我们把他当作社区的一员,那么这个社区就损失了一套原本会有的新西装,那就是精确的社区财富减少程度。

The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.

总之,玻璃店主的这桩生意,不过是从做西装的缝纫店主那里转移来的。整个过程并没有新增“就业机会”。那些围观的人只想到了交易中的两个当事人,即面包店主和玻璃店主。他们却忘记了可能涉及的第三方,即缝纫店主。他们之所以忘记了他,恰恰是因为现在玻璃碎了,他也就失掉了亮相的机会。人们过两天就会看到多出一副新橱窗,但绝不会看到多出一套新西装,因为那套西装根本就不会被做出来。人们总是只看到眼前所见的东西。

Economics in One Lesson校译之1. The Lesson

PART ONE: THE LESSON 

The Lesson 

第一编 主旨
第1章 关于这堂课

Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine-the special pleading of selfish interests. While every group has certain economic interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for them plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject becomes next to impossible.

在人类所知领域中,经济学总是被更多的谬误所困扰。这决非出于偶然。这门学科内在的难度原本就高,再加上人类好为追求私利掩饰辩护,对于物理学、数学、医学等其他学科而言,这种倾向无关紧要,但在经济学就把问题无数倍地复杂化了。我们将在本书中看到,尽管每个群体都有某些经济利益和所有群体的完全一致,但各自又都存在着与其他不同群体的利益相抵触的利益关系。尽管有一些公共政策从长远来看对所有人都有利,但其它的政策却是以牺牲其他群体的利益为代价来维护某些群体的利益。能够从那些政策直接获利的群体,会在利益的驱使下不遗余力地主张积极实施相关政策。他们会雇来花钱所能雇到的最好的专家来全力宣扬有利于他们的学说。这样做的结果,要不会让大众信以为真,也会让大众稀里糊涂,以至于接下来对经济科学几乎再也无法做清晰地思考。

In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.

除去这些无休无止对私人利益的辩护,还有另一个重要因素导致新的经济学谬误每天都在产生。那就是:人们有着天生短视的倾向,总是只关注某项政策的即时影响,或者只关注政策对某个特殊群体产生的影响,而不去探究那项政策对所有群体造成的长远影响。这本身就是忽略种种续发后果的谬误。

In this lies the whole difference between good economics and bad. The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.

好经济学与坏经济学之间的全部区别就在于此。坏经济学家只顾及眼前所见的利弊得失,而好经济学家则看得更远;坏经济学家只观察经济政策提案中的行动产生的直接结果,好经济学家还会考察更长远的间接结果;坏经济学家只关注某项政策对某个特殊群体已经产生或者即将产生的影响,好经济学家还会去探究该政策对所有群体产生的影响。

The distinction may seem obvious. The precaution of looking for all the consequences of a given policy to everyone may seem elementary. Doesn’t everybody know, in his personal life, that there are all sorts of indulgences delightful at the moment but disastrous in the end? Doesn’t every little boy know that if he eats enough candy he will get sick? Doesn’t the fellow who gets drunk know that he will wake up next morning with a ghastly stomach and a horrible head? Doesn’t the dipsomaniac know that he is ruining his liver and shortening his life? Doesn’t the Don Juan know that he is letting himself in for every sort of risk, from blackmail to disease? Finally, to bring it to the economic though still personal realm, do not the idler and the spendthrift know, even in the midst of their glorious fling, that they are heading for a future of debt and poverty?

两者的区别似乎显而易见,尽可能地探讨某项政策对每个人可能产生的所有影响,似乎应该是起码的常识。难道大家不知道,居家过日子的时候,贪图一时的纵欲享受往往会招致不幸的后果吗?每个小孩不都知道糖吃得太多会恶心不舒服吗?喝醉酒的人不都知道次日晨起之后必定胃灼头痛吗?酗酒成瘾的人不都知道狂饮烂醉会损肝折寿吗?风流成性的人不都知道纵欲贪欢劳命伤财,还容易患上性病吗?回头看看个人生活中的经济问题,游手好闲的懒汉和尽情挥霍的败家子在放纵自己时,不也知道他们是在走向负债与贫困吗?

Yet when we enter the field of public economics, these elementary truths are ignored. There are men regarded today as brilliant economists, who deprecate saving and recommend squandering on a national scale as the way of economic salvation; and when anyone points to what the consequences of these policies will be in the long run, they reply flippantly, as might the prodigal son of a warning father: “In the long run we are all dead.” And such shallow wisecracks pass as devastating epigrams and the ripest wisdom.

然而,当我们踏进公共经济学的领域时,这些起码的常识却往往被人忘得一干二净。有些被认为是当今杰出经济学家的人抨击储蓄,他们把全国性的铺张浪费推崇为拯救经济的途径。当有人质疑这些政策的长期后果究竟会如何时,他们却像败家子对待严父的告诫,俏皮地答道:“何必看得那么远呢?要知道从长远来看,我们都是要死的。”此种戏言,却被人当作至理名言和最成熟的智慧而流传下来。

But the tragedy is that, on the contrary, we are already suffering the long-run consequences of the policies of the remote or recent past. Today is already the tomorrow which the bad economist yesterday urged us to ignore. The long-run consequences of some economic policies may become evident in a few months. Others may not become evident for several years. Still others may not become evident for decades. But in every case those long-run consequences are contained in the policy as surely as the hen was in the egg, the flower in the seed.

相反很不幸的是,我们已经在承受或远或近的过去实施的政策所带来的长期影响了。坏经济学家昨天要我们置之不理的明天,转眼就成了今天。有些经济政策的长期影响,可能不出几个月就会露出弊端;有些政策产生的后果,也许需要好几年之后才会显现;还有些政策,其后遗症甚至要潜伏数十年才会爆发。这些长远影响蕴含在这些政策之中,这是确定无疑的,就像小鸡孕育于鸡蛋之中,花朵孕育于种子之中一样。

From this aspect, therefore, the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

因此,从这个角度来看,整个经济学的研究可以简化为一堂课,这堂课又可以归纳成一句话:经济学的艺术,在于不仅要观察任何法案或政策的即期效果,更要考察比较长远的影响;不仅要关注政策给某一群体带来的后果,更要追踪给所有群体造成的后果。

2

Nine-tenths of the economic fallacies that are working such dreadful harm in the world today are the result of ignoring this lesson. Those fallacies all stem from one of two central fallacies, or both: that of looking only at the immediate consequences of an act or proposal, and that of looking at the consequences only for a particular group to the neglect of other groups.

那些给当今世界带来严重危害的经济学谬误,十有八九是忽视这常识的一课的结果。那些谬误全都植根于两个中心谬误之一,或者兼而有之:一是只注意经济法案或提案的短期后果,二是只关注其对于某一特殊群体的影响而忽略了其他群体。

It is true, of course, that the opposite error is possible. In considering a policy we ought not to concentrate only on its long-run results to the community as a whole. This is the error often made by the classical economists. It resulted in a certain callousness toward the fate of groups that were immediately hurt by policies or developments which proved to be beneficial on net balance and in the long run.

当然,与其相反的错误也是可能有的。在考虑一项政策时,我们不应该只顾其对社会整体的长期效应。此类错误常常来自古典经济学家,那些被证明为在长期中有净利益的经济政策,往往会立即伤害到一些人的利益,而上述错误思想往往会导致一种对这些人的命运冷淡无情的态度。

But comparatively few people today make this error; and those few consist mainly of professional economists. The most frequent fallacy by far today, the fallacy that emerges again and again in nearly every conversation that touches on economic affairs, the error of a thousand political speeches, the central sophism of the new economics, is to concentrate on the short-run effects of policies on special groups and to ignore or belittle the long-run effects on the community as a whole. The “new” economists flatter themselves that this is a great, almost a revolutionary advance over the methods of the “classical” or “orthodox,” economists, because the former take into consideration short-run effects which the latter often ignored. But in themselves ignoring or slighting the long-run effects, they are making the far more serious error. They overlook the woods in their precise and minute examination of particular trees. Their methods and conclusions are often profoundly reactionary. They are sometimes surprised to find themselves in accord with seventeenth-century mercantilism. They fall, in fact, into all the ancient errors (or would, if they were not so inconsistent) that the classical economists, we had hoped, had once and for all got rid of.

但在今天犯此类错误的,相比而言仅属少数,并且大多是一些专业经济学家。当今最为盛行的那些谬误,在涉及经济事务的每次探讨中反反复复暴露出来的那些谬误、无数政治演讲中的错误、以及新经济学中核心的似是而非的论点,便是只重视政策对于特殊集团产生的短期效果,而忽略或淡化其对整个社会的长远影响。“新”经济学家们自认为这是超越“古典”、“正统”经济学家思想方法一次伟大 的、甚至是革命的进步,因为他们考虑到了昔日为经济学家们所忽视的短期效应。然而,他们自己却因为忽略或轻视长期影响,而犯下了更严重的错误。他们只对某些个别的树木作了精确细致地考验,却忽略了整片森林。他们使用的方法和得到的结论经常是倒行逆施,以至于有时会惊讶地发现自己竟和17世纪的重商主义不谋而合。事实上,他们陷入了(或者是如果他们寻求逻辑自洽的话,必定会陷入)古老的谬误之中,而这些谬误,我们过去以为传统经济学家早已根除掉了。

3

It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the good economists present their truths. It is often complained that demagogues can be more plausible in putting forward economic nonsense from the platform than the honest men who try to show what is wrong with it. But the basic reason for this ought not to be mysterious. The reason is that the demagogues and bad economists are presenting half-truths. They are speaking only of the immediate effect of a proposed policy or its effect upon a single group. As far as they go they may often be right. In these cases the answer consists in showing that the proposed policy would also have longer and less desirable effects, or that it could benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The answer consists in supplementing and correcting the half-truth with the other half. But to consider all the chief effects of a proposed course on everybody often requires a long, complicated, and dull chain of reasoning. Most of the audience finds this chain of reasoning difficult to follow and soon becomes bored and inattentive. The bad economists rationalize this intellectual debility and laziness by assuring the audience that it need not even attempt to follow the reasoning or judge it on its merits because it is only “classicism” or “laissez faire” or “capitalist apologetics” or whatever other term of abuse may happen to strike them as effective.

常有人感叹说,坏经济学家向大众兜售谬论,往往比好经济学家宣扬真理更动听。常有人抱怨说,蛊惑人心者鼓吹经济谬论时,总是比那些点出问题要害的诚实的人更能获得大众的欢呼喝彩。这其中并没有什么奥妙:煽动家和坏经济学家,都只强调了一半的真相。他们只谈某项政策提案的即时影响,或者只谈其对某个特殊群体的影响。仅就他们所关注的东西而论,也往往是言之成理。在这种情况下,我们只需要站出来,指出政策提案也会带来长远的不良影响,或者指明这是牺牲其他一切群体的利益去满足某个特殊群体。也就是说,我们必须用另一半的事实,来补足和矫正他们所强调的半边真相。不过,要想阐明某一方案对于每个人的全部主要影响,往往需要进行冗长、复杂而无趣的推理。大多数听众总是怕听长篇大论,很快就会厌烦和不专心。坏经济学家利用了听众理性上的懒惰与低能,指出这些答案只不过是“古典主义”、“自由放任主义”、“资本主义的辩护术”、甚至其它认为有效的攻击污蔑之词,使听众相信根本没有必要去进行那样的推导与综合判断是非优劣。

We have stated the nature of the lesson, and of the fallacies that stand in its way, in abstract terms. But the lesson will not be driven home, and the fallacies will continue to go unrecognized, unless both are illustrated by examples. Through these examples we can move from the most elementary problems in economics to the most complex and difficult. Through them we can learn to detect and avoid first the crudest and most palpable fallacies and finally some of the most sophisticated and elusive. To that task we shall now proceed.

以上,我们用抽象的语言陈述了这一课的本质,及其所针对的谬误的性质。但是,如果我们不给出一些实例,并加以说明,读者将不能很好地理解这一课的真正含义,公众也将继续被那些盛行谬误所蒙蔽。我们会利用经济生活中的实例,从经济学中最基本的问题讲起,一直讲到最复杂最艰深的问题。我们会借助这些例证,先学会如何察觉和避开那些最粗浅最明显的谬误,直至学会发现和避开那些最复杂最难以捉摸的谬误。这些正是接下来要讲的内容。

Economics in One Lesson校译之PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

Preface to the First Edition 

第一版序

This book is an analysis of economic fallacies that are at last so prevalent that they have almost become a new orthodoxy. The one thing that has prevented this has been their own self-contradictions, which have scattered those who accept the same premises into a hundred different “schools,” for the simple reason that it is impossible in matters touching practical life to be consistently wrong. But the difference between one new school and another is merely that one group wakes up earlier than another to the absurdities to which its false premises are driving it, and becomes at that moment inconsistent by either unwittingly abandoning its false premises or accepting conclusions from them less disturbing or fantastic than those that logic would demand. 

本书在于分析那些盛行到几乎成为新的正统学说的经济学谬误。阻碍它们成为正统学说的一个因素,在于这些谬误本身自相矛盾,让接受同样前提的学者各执一端形成百家争鸣的“学派”。道理很简单,跟现实相联系的问题,是不可能一直错下去的。但是,一个新兴学派与另一个的区别仅仅是一群人比另一群人更早地认识到基于错误前提所进行的推导多么荒谬,那一刻,由于是无意间放弃了那个错误前提,或是由于接受了相对于其内在逻辑所推导出的不那么诡异与令人难以接受的结论,而变得反复无常。

There is not a major government in the world at this moment, however, whose economic policies are not influenced if they are not almost wholly determined by acceptance of some of these fallacies. Perhaps the shortest and surest way to an understanding of economics is through a dissection of such errors, and particularly of the central error from which they stem. That is the assumption of this volume and of its somewhat ambitious and belligerent title.

然而,当今主要国家的政府所采取的经济政策,即便不是全部被那些盛行的经济学谬误所左右,也必然都受到了那些经济谬误的深刻影响。所以,剖析这些谬误,尤其是衍生出这些谬误的核心谬误,也许是了解经济学的最简捷且最可靠的方法。本书的构思,以及看上去多少有些雄心勃勃与挑战意味的书名,正是来源于这个信念。

The volume is therefore primarily one of exposition. It makes no claim to originality with regard to any of the chief ideas that it expounds. Rather its effort is to show that many of the ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it.

本书属于阐释性质。本书所阐述的主要观点,皆非原创。相反,本书将致力于揭示,当今许多被看作是卓越的创新和发展的观点只不过是换了新马甲的古老谬误,进而印证“忘记历史,就意味着重蹈覆辙”这句格言。

The present essay itself is, I suppose, unblushingly “classical,” “traditional” and “orthodox”; at least these are the epithets with which those whose sophisms are here subjected to analysis will no doubt attempt to dismiss it. But the student whose aim is to attain as much truth as possible will not be frightened by such adjectives. He will not be forever seeking a revolution, a “fresh start,” in economic thought. His mind will, of course, be as receptive to new ideas as to old ones; but he will be content to put aside merely restless or exhibitionistic straining for novelty and originality. As Morris R. Cohen has remarked *: “The notion that we can dismiss the views of all previous thinkers surely leaves no basis for the hope that our own work will prove of any value to others.”

本书的内容,我觉得,应当算是“古典的”、“传统的”或“正统的”吧,起码,抱持那些谬误的人会用这些名义来否定我的分析。但是那些努力探求真理的学生,则不应该被几个形容词吓住。学生们不应该总想着寻找革命性的、“全新”的经济学思想,他们应该是既接纳老观念,又欢迎新观念,应该摒弃浮躁而不是好炫求酷,一味地追寻新奇和原创。莫里斯·科恩(Morris R. Cohen)说过:“如果说我们能够推翻以前所有思想家的理论,那么我也不敢奢望自己的作品对别人会有任何价值。”[footnotes:《理性与本质》(Reason and Nature), 1931]

Because this is a work of exposition I have availed myself freely and without detailed acknowledgment (except for rare footnotes and quotations) of the ideas of others. This is inevitable when one writes in a field in which many of the world’s finest minds have labored. But my indebtedness to at least three writers is of so specific a nature that I cannot allow it to pass unmentioned. My greatest debt, with respect to the kind of expository framework on which the present argument is hung, is to Frederic Bastiat’s essay Ce qu `on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas, now nearly a century old. The present work may, in fact, be regarded as a modernization, extension and generalization of the approach found in Bastiat’s pamphlet. My second debt is to Philip Wicksteed: in particular the chapters on wages and the final summary chapter owe much to his Common-sense of Political Economy. My third debt is to Ludwig von Mises. Passing over everything that this elementary treatise may owe to his writings in general, my most specific debt is to his exposition of the manner in which the process of monetary inflation is spread.

由于这是一部阐释性著作,我会自由地利用他人的观点而不必作具体说明(除了少数脚注和引文外)。在经济学这个诸多先贤辛勤耕耘过的领域写作,这样做在所难免。不过,有三位作者对我有特别的帮助,我不能不提及。首先要感谢弗雷德里克·巴斯夏(Frederic Bastiat),本书中的阐释所采用的框架得益于巴斯夏一百年前发表的文章<看得见的与看不见的>(Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas)。事实上,本书可视为巴斯夏原文所用的分析方法的现代版,是其延伸和扩展。其次,要感谢菲利普·威克斯第德(Philip Wicksteed),特别是关于工资的章节和课后温习那一章,多得益于他所著的《政治经济常识》(The Common Sense of Political Economy)。最后要感谢路德维希·米塞斯(Ludwig von Mises),除了他对我这本粗浅的入门著作在写作上的指点,特别地要感谢他对通货膨胀过程散播方式的说明。

When analyzing fallacies, I have thought it still less advisable to mention particular names than in giving credit. To do so would have required special justice to each writer criticized, with exact quotations, account taken of the particular emphasis he places on this point or that, the qualifications he makes, his personal ambiguities, inconsistencies, and so on. I hope, therefore, that no one will be too disappointed at the absence of such names as Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Major Douglas, Lord Keynes, Professor Alvin Hansen and others in these pages. The object of this book is not to expose the special errors of particular writers, but economic errors in their most frequent, widespread or influential form. Fallacies, when they have reached the popular stage, become anonymous anyway. The subtleties or obscurities to be found in the authors most responsible for propagating them are washed off. A doctrine becomes simplified; the sophism that may have been buried in a network of qualifications, ambiguities or mathematical equations stands clear. I hope I shall not be accused of injustice on the ground, therefore, that a fashionable doctrine in the form in which I have presented it is not precisely the doctrine as it has been formulated by Lord Keynes or some other special author. It is the beliefs which politically influential groups hold and which governments act upon that we are interested in here, not the historical origins of those beliefs.

我认为在分析谬误时,不同于对贡献的评价,要避免指名道姓。若要指名道姓,就得公允地对待每一位被批评的学者,引录其著述原文,叙述其对某个问题的特殊见解,列明其所给定的限定条件,指出其表达暧昧或前后矛盾之处等。因此,书内并没有具体提及卡尔·马克思(Karl Marx)、索尔斯坦·凡勃伦(Thorstein Veblen)、大道格拉斯(Major Douglas)、凯恩斯爵士(Lord John M. Keynes)、阿尔文·汉森(Alvin Hansen)和其他人,但愿读者不会太失望。本书的目的并不在于揭露某某学者所犯下的某个错误,而是在于分析经济生活中那些最常见的、流传最广的、影响力最大的经济学谬误。谬论一旦流行开来,便责怪不到谁的头上,散布谬误负有主要责任的作者的细节与隐晦之处会在流传中消失。当用于包装谬误的理论被简化成泛泛的教条,那些可能隐藏在一堆限定条件、含混表达或数学方程式中的诡辩就会显现出来。本书所讨论的流行教条跟凯恩斯或其他某位学者所陈述的学说不完全相同,希望大家不要因为这些不同就责怪我处理不公。我们在这里所感兴趣的,是那些有强大政治影响力的集团抱持的信条,以及政府的政策行动所依据的信条,而不是这些信条的历史渊源。

I hope, finally, that I shall be forgiven for making such rare reference to statistics in the following pages. To have tried to present statistical confirmation, in referring to the effects of tariffs, price-fixing, inflation, and the controls over such commodities as coal, rubber and cotton, would have swollen this book much beyond the dimensions contemplated. As a working newspaper man, moreover, I am acutely aware of how quickly statistics become out of date and are superseded by later figures. Those who are interested in specific economic problems are advised to read current “realistic’’ discussions of them, with statistical documentation: they will not find it difficult to interpret the statistics correctly in the light of the basic principles they have learned.

书中极少引用统计资料,望读者见谅。倘若要引述统计资料作论据,去论证关税、政府限价、通货膨胀,去论证政府对于煤炭、橡胶、棉花等商品的进行管制所产生的影响,那么本书的篇幅势必远远超出预先的设想。还有,作为一个报界从业人士,我非常清楚统计数字更新的频率有多快。我建议那些对特定的经济问题感兴趣的读者,结合统计资料,去翻阅即时的“现实”问题讨论:相信大多数读者会发现,用学到的基本原理去正确解读统计数字并非难事。

I have tried to write this book as simply and with as much freedom from technicalities as is consistent with reasonable accuracy, so that it can be fully understood by a reader with no previous acquaintance with economics.

本书中的文字力求通俗易懂,力求在不丧失合理的准确性的前提下,尽量避免过分专业化,以便还不了解经济学的读者同样能充分理解。

While this book was composed as a unit, three chapters have already appeared as separate articles, and I wish to thank the New York Times, the American Scholar and the New Leader for permission to reprint material originally published in their pages. I am grateful to Professor von Mises for reading the manuscript and for helpful suggestions. Responsibility for the opinions expressed is, of course, entirely my own.

 

Henry Hazlitt
New York
March 25, 1946

当本书编为单行本时,先已有三个章节分别独立发表于《纽约时报》(New York Times)、《美国学人》(American Scholar)、《新领袖》杂志(New Leader),感谢三家允许我将这些篇章收集于本书中。米塞斯教授校阅了本书手稿,并且提出了许多有益的建议,这里表示感谢。当然,对于书中所表述的各种观点,言论责任完全由作者本人承担。

亨利·黑兹利特
于纽约
1946年3月25日

Economics in One Lesson校译之PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

Preface to the New Edition 

新版序

The first edition of this book appeared in 1946. Eight translations were made of it, and there were numerous paperback editions. In a paperback of 1961, a new chapter was added on rent control, which had not been specifically considered in the first edition apart from government price-fixing in general. A few statistics and illustrative references were brought up to date.

本书第一版于1946年面市,该版曾被译成八种文字,并出过好些平装版本。在1961年版的平装本中,我加写了新的一章,探讨租金管制的问题,这个课题在第一版中并没有从一般的政府定价中拿出来单独讨论。1961年版还更新了部分统计数据和用作说明例证的参考资料。

Otherwise no changes were made until now. The chief reason was that they were not thought necessary. My book was written to emphasize general economic principles, and the penalties of ignoring them-not the harm done by any specific piece of legislation. While my illustrations were based mainly on American experience, the kind of government interventions I deplored had become so internationalized that I seemed to many foreign readers to be particularly describing the economic policies of their own countries.

此外,本书内容在此新版前再无其他改动,主要是我认为没有大改的必要。本书是为了强调一般性的经济科学原理,强调忽视这些原理会受到的惩罚,而不是去探讨特定政策法规对经济可能造成的危害。书中的例证虽然主要取材于美国经验,但作者所责难的政府干预行为在各个国家是如此普遍,以至于在许多外国读者看来,作者就像特地在描述他们自己国家的经济政策。

Nevertheless, the passage of thirty-two years now seems to me to call for extensive revision. In addition to bringing all illustrations and statistics up to date, I have written an entirely new chapter on rent control; the 1961 discussion now seems inadequate. And I have added a new final chapter, “The Lesson After Thirty Years,” to show why that lesson is today more desperately needed than ever.

H.H.
Wilton, Conn.
June 1978

时隔32年,该对此书作一个全面修订了。我对例证资料和统计资料做了全面更新,并彻底重写了租金管制那一章,因为1961年版的讨论现在看来还不够充分。另外,我加写了最后一章——“三十年后的这堂课”,以说明今天我们上这堂课比以往更为迫切的原因。

亨利·黑兹利特
于康涅狄格州,威尔顿镇
1978年6月