Minimum Wage Laws

第19章 最低工资法令

We have already seen some of the harmful results of arbitrary governmental efforts to raise the price of favored commodities. The same sort of harmful results follow efforts to raise wages through minimum wage laws. This ought not to be surprising, for a wage is, in fact, a price. It is unfortunate for clarity of economic thinking that the price of labor’s services should have received an entirely different name from other prices. This has prevented most people from recognizing that the same principles govern both.

我们已经看到政府通过强制手段提高某些商品的价格所带来的恶果。靠颁订最低工资法令来提高工资，也会带来类似的恶果。这不足为奇，因为事实上，工资就是一种价格。我们给劳动力价格取了一个完全区别于其他产品价格的名称，对经济思考的清晰性而言这是一种不幸。大多数人因此不了解商品价格和劳动力价格是由同样的原则在支配。

Thinking has become so emotional and so politically biased on the subject of wages that in most discussions of them the plainest principles are ignored. People who would be among the first to deny that prosperity could be brought about by artificially boosting prices, people who would be among the first to point out that minimum price laws might be most harmful to the very industries they were designed to help, will nevertheless advocate minimum wage laws, and denounce opponents of them, without misgivings.

一说起工资，众人的思维就变得如此情绪化和政治化，以至于大多数讨论都忽略了最基本的原则。那些会马上站出来驳斥“人为抬高商品价格可以带来繁荣”的说法的人，会马上站出来指出最低价格法令可能适得其反、给它们想要帮助的行业造成最大伤害的人，仍然会力挺最低工资法令，并会抨击持反对意见的人，不带丝毫疑虑。

Yet it ought to be clear that a minimum wage law is, at best, a limited weapon for combatting the evil of low wages, and that the possible good to be achieved by such a law can exceed the possible harm only in proportion as its aims are modest. The more ambitious such a law is, the larger the number of workers it attempts to cover, and the more it attempts to raise their wages, the more certain are its harmful effects to exceed any possible good effects.

然而应当明确的一点是，最低工资法令至多不过是克服低工资弊端的一个有限的武器。由它所能得到的好处是否能够超过它所造成的损害，要取决于其目标有所克制的程度。这类法令越是雄心勃勃，力图囊括的劳工数量越大，力求拉动的工资涨幅越大，就越是注定其弊大于利。

The first thing that happens, for example, when a law is passed that no one shall be paid less than $106 for a forty-hour week is that no one who is not worth $106 a week to an employer will be employed at all. You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less. You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering. In brief, for a low wage you substitute unemployment. You do harm all around, with no comparable compensation.

举例来说，当政府通过一项法令，规定工人每周工作40小时的工资不得低于106美元，那么，首当其冲的是那些劳动价值够不上这106美元的劳工，他们将不会被雇用。法律可以规定雇主给雇员开的工资达不到某个标准就算违法，但法律并不能使雇来的人的劳动价值一定够得上这个标准。你在阻止了社会享有他能提供的有限的、力所能及的服务的时候，只不过是剥夺他能力与条件能挣到相应工资的权利。简单地说，你用失业取代低工资，损害了所有人的利益而没有相当的补偿。

The only exception to this occurs when a group of workers is receiving a wage actually below its market worth. This is likely to happen only in rare and special circumstances or localities where competitive forces do not operate freely or adequately; but nearly all these special cases could be remedied just as effectively, more flexibly and with far less potential harm, by unionization.

针对上述情况的唯一例外是一群劳工的工资低于了市场价值。这种状况极为少见，情况非常特殊，或者是发生在竞争力量无法自由而充分地发挥作用的地区。但是几乎所有这些特殊的情况，都可以通过组织工会的方式予以解决，同样有效，却比法律条例更灵活，副作用也远比之为小。

It may be thought that if the law forces the payment of a higher wage in a given industry, that industry can then charge higher prices for its product, so that the burden of paying the higher wage is merely shifted to consumers. Such shifts, however, are not easily made, nor are the consequences of artificial wage-raising so easily escaped. A higher price for the product may not be possible: it may merely drive consumers to the equivalent imported products or to some substitute. Or, if consumers continue to buy the product of the industry in which wages have been raised, the higher price will cause them to buy less of it. While some workers in the industry may be benefited from the higher wage, therefore, others will be thrown out of employment altogether. On the other hand, if the price of the product is not raised, marginal producers in the industry will be driven out of business; so that reduced production and consequent unemployment will merely be brought about in another way.

可能有人认为，如果法律强制规定某行业支付更高的工资，那个行业可采用提高产品价格的方式，将工资负担转嫁给消费者。然而，这种转嫁是不易办到的，就像人为地调高工资的后果也难以避免一样。产品提价的可能性可能不存在：因为消费者会转而去买同类进口产品或改用其他替代品。即便消费者继续购买提高工资行业的产品，但较高的价格将迫使他们买得比从前更少。结果会是，该行业的某些劳工能从高工资中受益，其他的劳工将被迫失业。另一方面，如果工资涨而价格不涨，这个行业的边际生产者将挤出这个行业；所以，这不过是以另一种方式促使产量减少，进而促成工人失业。

When such consequences are pointed out, there are those who reply: “Very well; if it is true that the X industry cannot exist except by paying starvation wages, then it will be just as well if the minimum wage puts it out of existence altogether.” But this brave pronouncement overlooks the realities. It overlooks, first of all, that consumers will suffer the loss of that product. It forgets, in the second place, that it is merely condemning the people who worked in that industry to unemployment. And it ignores, finally, that bad as were the wages paid in the X industry, they were the best among all the alternatives that seemed open to the workers in that industry; otherwise the workers would have gone into another. If, therefore, the X industry is driven out of existence by a minimum wage law, then the workers previously employed in that industry will be forced to turn to alternative courses that seemed less attractive to them in the first place. Their competition for jobs will drive down the pay offered even in these alternative occupations. There is no escape from the conclusion that the minimum wage will increase unemployment.

在我们指出此类后果以后，有人会说：“行啊，如果某行业全靠低工资吊命，那么还不如用最低工资法令把这个行业完全淘汰掉。”这种大胆的说法忽视了现实。首先，它忽视了消费者将再也得不到此种产品。其次，它忘记了这仅仅是用失业惩罚了在那一产业中工作的工人。最后，它还忽略了一点，即便X行业的工资很低，却是业界劳工的最佳选择；否则，那些劳工早就改行了。因此，如果X行业因为最低工资法而遭淘汰，先前的业界劳工会被迫转行到更不如意的其他行业。求职竞争甚至还会压低那些可供选择的职位的工资。总之，最低工资法必定造成失业增加，在这点上不可能得出其他结论。

2

A nice problem, moreover, will be raised by the relief program designed to take care of the unemployment caused by the minimum wage law. By a minimum wage of, say, $2.65 an hour, we have forbidden anyone to work forty hours in a week for less than $106.[5] Suppose, now, we offer only $70 a week on relief. This means that we have forbidden a man to be usefully employed at, say, $90 a week, in order that we may support him at $70 a week in idleness. We have deprived society of the value of his services. We have deprived the man of the independence and self-respect that come from self-support, even at a low level, and from performing wanted work, at the same time as we have lowered what the man could have received by his own efforts.

此外，实施旨在处理好最低工资法导致失业问题的救济方案，还会引发出令人费解的问题。比如，法律把每小时最低工资定为2.65美元，表明劳工一周工作40小时而工资低于106美元的，统统为法律所禁止。{书后注5:最低工资现在是每小时4.25美元。按每周工作40小时计算，单单工资成本，雇主就要负担每周170美元一个人。}再假设现在的失业救济金标准是一周70美元。这意味着，我们宁可每周花70美元去养活一个闲人，也不肯让人尽其所能去挣得周薪为90美元的工资。最低工资法剥夺了社会享有这部分人的服务所创造的价值，也剥夺了这些人凭自力更生而拥有的独立与自尊。与此同时，我们降低了他们本可以通过自己的努力而得到的收入。

These consequences follow as long as the weekly relief payment is a penny less than $106. Yet the higher we make the relief payment, the worse we make the situation in other respects. If we offer $106 for relief, then we offer many men just as much for not working as for working. Moreover, whatever the sum we offer for relief, we create a situation in which everyone is working only for the difference between his wages and the amount of the relief. If the relief is $106 a week, for example, workers offered a wage of $2.75 an hour, or $110 a week, are in fact, as they see it, being asked to work for only $4 a week—for they can get the rest without doing anything.

只要救济金标准还低于一周106美元，就会带来上述后果。然而，把救济金提得越高，则其他方面的后果就会越糟。如果救济标准调到一周106美元，那么对于许多人而言，工作与不工作的收入一个样。更进一步说，无论救济金标准高还是低，都会造成了这种局面，即：每个人努力工作，挣得的只是工资与救济金之间的差额。举例来说，假设每周的救济金是106美元，某劳工每小时工资是2.75美元、即周薪110美元，那么该劳工实际上只是在为每周4美元的工资而工作。因为他不工作也能领到106美元。

It may be thought that we can escape these consequences by offering “work relief” instead of “home relief “; but we merely change the nature of the consequences. Work relief means that we are paying the beneficiaries more than the open market would pay them for their efforts. Only part of their relief-wage is for their efforts, therefore, while the rest is a disguised dole.

也许有的人会认为，我们可以通过提供“工作救助”而不是“家庭救济”的办法来避免上述结果，；但这只是换汤不换药。工作救助意味着我们付给受惠劳工的工资比市场上付给他的工资高。因此，他们领取的救助性工资，只有一部分是劳动报酬，其余则是变相支付的救济金。

It remains to be pointed out that government make-work is necessarily inefficient and of questionable utility. The government has to invent projects that will employ the least skilled. It cannot start teaching people carpentry, masonry, and the like, for fear of competing with established skills and arousing the antagonism of existing unions. I am not recommending it, but it probably would be less harmful all around if the government in the first place frankly subsidized the wages of submarginal workers at the work they were already doing. Yet this would create political headaches of its own.

有必要进一步指出，政府以工代赈安排的工作必然没有效率，其效用也很成问题。政府不得不搞出一些再就业工程来雇用技能最差的劳工。它不能着手于培训人们木工、泥瓦工或是类似的手艺，因为他们担心那么做会导致与目前的熟练工人的竞争，甚至引发工会之间的对抗。虽然我不主张搞补贴，但是如果政府首先公开地对那些处于边际生产水平以下的工人进行直接的工资补贴，或许从总体上看，它所造成的损失可能会小一些。可这样做却会有政治麻烦。

We need not pursue this point further, as it would carry us into problems not immediately relevant. But the difficulties and consequences of relief must be kept in mind when we consider the adoption of minimum wage laws or an increase in minimums already fixed [*]

这个问题就此打住，再谈就跑题了。请记住，在我们考虑实施最低工资法，或者提高最低工资时，我们一定要认识到实施救济的种种困难和后果。{脚注:1938年，当美国所有制造业的平均工资是每小时63美分时，国会制定的最低工资限额只是每小时25美分。1945年，当所有工厂的平均工资提高到每小时1.02美元时，国会制定的最低限额为每小时40美分。1949年，当所有工厂的平均工资提高到每小时1.40美元时，国会将最低限额提高为每小时75美分。1955年，当所有工厂的平均工资提高到每小时1.88美元时，国会将最低工资限额提高到每小时1美元。1961年，当所有工厂平均工资提高到每小时2.30美元时，国会将最低限额提高到每小时1.15美元，1963年再提高到1.25美元。长话短说，1967年最低工资增为1.40美元，1968年为1.60美元，1974年为2.00美元，1975年为2.10美元，1976年为2.30美元（那时所有私营非农业生产就业者的平均工资是4.87美元）。1977年，当非农工人的平均工资达到了每小时5.26美元，最低工资也提高到每小时2.65美元，附加条款规定在此后三年中要相继增长进一步提高。于是，随着普遍的小时工资的提高，最低工资法的提倡者认为，法定最低工资水平至少应到相应地提高。尽管是最低工资在随市场工资进行提高，但总有人构建最低工资立法提高了市场工资水平这一迷信。}{书后注6:在黑兹利特上述脚注之后，最低工资又增加了三次：在1981年增至3.35美元，1990年为3.80美元，1992年为4.25美元。每一次最低工资的增加，伴随着失业增加（尤其是少数族裔的年轻人失业）与新增就业机会的减少。 （理查德·维德（Richard Vedder）和洛厄尔·盖洛维（Lowell Gallaway）的〈联邦最低工资应该调增吗？〉（Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?），NCPA政策报告第190号，1995年2月）}

Before we finish with the topic I should perhaps mention another argument sometimes put forward for fixing a minimum wage rate by statute. This is that in an industry in which one big company enjoys a monopoly, it need not fear competition and can offer below-market wages. This is a highly improbable situation. Such a “monopoly” company must offer high wages when it is formed, in order to attract labor from other industries. Thereafter it could theoretically fail to increase wage rates as much as other industries, and so pay “substandard” wages for that particular specialized skill. But this would be likely to happen only if that industry (or company) was sick or shrinking; if it were prosperous or expanding, it would have to continue to offer high wages to increase its labor force.

在结束这一论题之前，也许我应当提一下主张以法规形式确定某一最低工资率的另一种论调。有人指出：一家大公司如果垄断某一行业，它不用担心竞争，可以用低于市价的工资来支付劳动力报酬。在很大程度上这种情况并不符合现实。这样的“垄断”公司在形成过程中必须以高工资从其他行业吸引员工。形成垄断之后，从理论上讲，它以向有具体特殊技能的工人支付“低于应有水平”的工资，而不是象其他行业一样大幅度地提高工资。但是这种情况只有在该产业（或公司）病入膏肓或者龟缩时才有可能；如果它处于兴盛或扩张阶段，则必须继续用高工资才能吸引扩增其员工人数。

We know as a matter of experience that it is the big companies —those most often accused of being monopolies—that pay the highest wages and offer the most attractive working conditions. It is commonly the small marginal firms, perhaps suffering from excessive competition, that offer the lowest wages. But all employers must pay enough to hold workers or to attract them from each other.

经验告诉我们，那些被指责为垄断的大公司，所支付的工资最高，所提供的工作条件最吸引人。而绩效较差的小公司迫于竞争压力，支付的工资往往最低。但是无论公司大小，所有的雇主都必须支付够高的工资，才能留住员工，竞争人才。

3

All this is not to argue that there is no way of raising wages. It is merely to point out that the apparently easy method of raising them by government fiat is the wrong way and the worst way.

以上所说并非表明我们找不到提高工资的方法，它仅仅指出，靠政府的法令来提高工资，这种方式表面上看来简便易行，却是错误的，并且是最糟糕的。

This is perhaps as good a place as any to point out that what distinguishes many reformers from those who cannot accept their proposals is not their greater philanthropy, but their greater impatience. The question is not whether we wish to see everybody as well off as possible. Among men of good will such an aim can be taken for granted. The real question concerns the proper means of achieving it. And in trying to answer this we must never lose sight of a few elementary truisms. We cannot distribute more wealth than is created. We cannot in the long run pay labor as a whole more than it produces.

也许这是最佳时候，指出许多改革者与那些不能接受他们建议的人之间的区别，并不在于他们更有善心，而是他们更缺乏耐心。问题不在于我们是否愿人富不愿人穷，任何有良心的人当然希望大家都过得好。真正的问题在于用什么手段去实现这个良好愿望。在回答这个问题时，请不要无视一些最基本的真理。我们没办法无中生有，让劳工报酬长期高出其创造的价值。

The best way to raise wages, therefore, is to raise marginal labor productivity. This can be done by many methods: by an increase in capital accumulation — i.e., by an increase in the machines with which the workers are aided; by new inventions and improvements; by more efficient management on the part of employers; by more industriousness and efficiency on the part of workers; by better education and training. The more the individual worker produces, the more he increases the wealth of the whole community. The more he produces, the more his services are worth to consumers, and hence to employers. And the more he is worth to employers, the more he will be paid. Real wages come out of production, not out of government decrees.

所以，提高工资的最佳手段，是提高劳动力的边际生产水平。这可以通过许多方法来实现：通过增加资本累积，例如添置机器以协助劳工；通过新的发明和革新；通过雇主更有效率的管理；通过员工的勤劳和更有效劳作；通过更好的教育培训等。单个生产者产出越多，他为整个社会所增加的财富就越多。他生产得越多，他的服务对于消费者的价值越大，因此对雇主的价值也越大，雇主越有可能给他涨工资。实质工资来源于产值，而不是来源于政府的法令。

So government policy should be directed, not to imposing more burdensome requirements on employers, but to following policies that encourage profits, that encourage employers to expand, to invest in newer and better machines to increase the productivity of workers — in brief, to encourage capital accumulation, instead of discouraging it—and to increase both employment and wage rates.

因此，政府政策不应该给雇主增加更多负担，而应该鼓励他们创造利润；鼓励他们扩张经营，通过添置更新更好的机器来提高劳工的生产力。也就是不要限制资本积累，而要鼓励资本累积，并以此来增加就业、提高工资率。