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。

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