“Parity” Prices

第13章 “等位”价格

SPECIAL INTERESTS, as the history of tariffs reminds us, can think of the most ingenious reasons why they should be the objects of special solicitude. Their spokesmen present a plan in their favor; and it seems at first so absurd that disinterested writers do not trouble to expose it. But the special interests keep on insisting on the scheme. Its enactment would make so much difference to their own immediate welfare that they can afford to hire trained economists and public relations experts to propagate it in their behalf. The public hears the argument so often repeated, and accompanied by such a wealth of imposing statistics, charts, curves and pie-slices, that it is soon taken in. When at last disinterested writers recognize that the danger of the scheme’s enactment is real, they are usually too late. They cannot in a few weeks acquaint themselves with the subject as thoroughly as the hired brains who have been devoting their full time to it for years; they are accused of being uninformed, and they have the air of men who presume to dispute axioms.

正如关税的历史所提醒的那样，特殊利益，总能驱使受惠的人处心积虑，去说服众人为什么他们应该得到特殊待遇。特殊利益集团的代言人提出对自己有利的计划，那些计划开始显得荒唐可笑，有识之士都懒得去戳穿它。但是特殊利益会驱使受惠的人坚持推进他们的计划。该计划若能通过立法实施，会立即改善那些人的切身利益，所以他们不惜代价，雇来身名显赫的经济学专家和公共关系专家为其代言。他们那些论调在公共场合被人反复提起，再加上大量统计数字、表格、曲线图和圆饼图的狂轰滥炸，民众很快就信以为真。等到有识之士意识到立法实施势在必行，一切为时已晚。有识之士没办法在短短几周之内吃透相关的主题，而他们的对手，也就是利益集团雇来的智囊，已经在这个主题上倾注了数年心血。有识之士被对手指责成学识不足，让人觉得一副要对公理提出质疑的架势。

This general history will do as a history of the idea of “parity” prices for agricultural products. I forget the first day when it made its appearance in a legislative bill; but with the advent of the New Deal in 1933 it had become a definitely established principle, enacted into law; and as year succeeded year, and its absurd corollaries made themselves manifest, they were enacted too.

农产品“等位价格”的历史，正是照上述进程写就的。我记不起等位价格第一次作为立法议案提出具体是哪一天，但是1933年新政实施时，它已经成为既定的原则，并作为法律颁布；而且，年复一年，等位价格的衍生论调也被陆续颁订为法律。{校注：等位价格（Parity Price），是美国农业经济中的名词，是美国农民出售某些农产品的价格。政府调整农产品的价格，使它具有同过去一定时期（基期，1909~1914年）的农产品价格相同的购买力。在每个市场年度开始时，如果市场分配额得到了三分之二的合格农民投票同意，美国农业部就宣布将维持的基本农产品价格水平，若生产量超过了按这些价格所能卖出的数量，价格便由无偿贷款或与农民签订的购买协议来维持。以农民所得的价格指数除以他们所付的价格指数所得出的称为等位价格率。}

The argument for parity prices ran roughly like this. Agriculture is the most basic and important of all industries. It must be preserved at all costs. Moreover, the prosperity of everybody else depends upon the prosperity of the farmer. If he does not have the purchasing power to buy the products of industry, industry languishes. This was the cause of the 1929 collapse, or at least of our failure to recover from it. For the prices of farm products dropped violently, while the prices of industrial products dropped very little. The result was that the farmer could not buy industrial products; the city workers were laid off and could not buy farm products, and the depression spread in ever-widening vicious circles. There was only one cure, and it was simple. Bring back the prices of the farmer’s products to a parity with the prices of the things the farmer buys. This parity existed in the period from 1909 to 1914, when farmers were prosperous. That price relationship must be restored and preserved perpetually.

等位价格的说法大致如下。在所有产业中，农业最基本、最重要，必须不惜一切代价加以保护。还说，只有农民富裕了，其他人的富裕才有着落。要是农民缺乏购买力，买不起工业产品，工商业就会萎缩。他们认为这是1929年经济崩溃的原因，起码是经济无力复苏的原因。当时农产品价格暴跌，而工业产品价格的跌幅却很小。结果，农民买不起工业产品，导致城市工人纷纷下岗；然后，城里人也买不起农产品，经济萧条四下蔓延，形成恶性循环。解决办法只有一个，很简单，把农产品价格拉回到与农民所购买的其他产品的价格相比较而言更为公平的价格上来。1909年到1914年间就出现了这种公平价格，那时的农民很富裕。所以，那时的价格关系应该恢复，并且永久维持。

It would take too long, and carry us too far from our main point, to examine every absurdity concealed in this plausible statement. There is no sound reason for taking the particular price relationships that prevailed in a particular year or period and regarding them as sacrosanct, or even as necessarily more “normal” than those of any other period. Even if they were “normal” at the time, what reason is there to suppose that these same relationships should be preserved more than sixty years later in spite of the enormous changes in the conditions of production and demand that have taken place in the meantime? The period of 1909 to 1914, as the basis of parity, was not selected at random. In terms of relative prices it was one of the most favorable periods to agriculture in our entire history.

这种似是而非的论调隐含了许多谬误，在这里没有时间一一探讨，展开讨论也会离我们的主题太远。但是我们找不到充分的理由，认定某一年或某一特定时期出现过的价格关系就是神圣不可侵犯的，甚至认为这种价格关系比其他的时期更为“正常”。就算当时的价格关系相当“正常”，又有什么理由可以让我们无视此后60年生产和需求状况发生的巨变，同时认为这种价格关系应该继续维持下去？利益集团选定1909年至1914年的价格关系作为等位价格的基础，并不是随意的，就相对价格而言，那其实是美国历史上对农业最有利的时期之一。

If there had been any sincerity or logic in the idea, it would have been universally extended. If the price relationships between agricultural and industrial products that prevailed from August 1909 to July 1914 ought to be preserved perpetually, why not preserve perpetually the price relationship of every commodity at that time to every other?

如果等位价格观念有点意义或逻辑，那就应该普遍适用于所有商品。如果1909年8月到1914年7月农产品和工业产品之间的价格关系应该永久保持，那为什么不将那段期间各种商品之间的价格关系也永久保持呢？

When the first edition of this book appeared in 1946, I used the following illustrations of the absurdities to which this would have led:

在本书1946年版中，我用了下面的描述来说明由此观点所导出的荒谬结论：
 
A Chevrolet six-cylinder touring car cost $2,150 in 1912; an incomparably improved six-cylinder Chevrolet sedan cost $907 in 1942; adjusted for “parity” on the same basis as farm products, however, it would have cost $3,270 in 1942. A pound of aluminum from 1909 to 1913 inclusive averaged 22.5 cents; its price early in 1946 was 14 cents; but at “parity” it would then have cost, instead, 41 cents.

在1912年，一辆雪佛兰（Chevrolet）六缸房车的生产成本为2 150美元；而1942年，改进型六缸雪佛兰房车的成本是907美元，若参照当时农产品等位价格来调整，售价应该是3 270美元。1909年到1913年（含首尾两年），金属铝的平均价格是每磅22.5美分；1946年初是14美分，若按照“等位”价 格，则应该是41美分。 

It would be both difficult and debatable to try to bring these two particular comparisons down to date by adjusting not only for the serious inflation (consumer prices have more than tripled) between 1946 and 1978, but also for the qualitative differences in automobiles in the two periods. But this difficulty merely emphasizes the impracticability of the proposal.

时至今日，要不断以新的数据更新上面所作的两种比较，这种努力是既困难又颇值得争议的事情。因为，我们除了必须考虑1946年到1978年间严重的 通货膨胀（消费物价指数上涨了三倍多），还必须考虑前后两个时期汽车品质上的差异。这种困难，显然表明了等位价格的提议行不通。

After making, in the 1946 edition, the comparison quoted above, I went on to point out that the same type of increase in productivity had in part led also to the lower prices of farm products. “In the five year period 1955 through 1959 an average of 428 pounds of cotton was raised per acre in the United States as compared with an average of 260 pounds in the five-year period 1939 to 1943 and an average of only 188 pounds in the five year ‘base’ period 1909 to 1913. When these comparisons are brought down to date, they show that the increase in farm productivity has continued, though at a reduced rate. In the five-year period 1968 to 1972, an average of 467 pounds of cotton was raised per acre. Similarly, in the five years 1968 to 1972 an average of 84 bushels of corn per acre was raised compared with an average of only 26.1 bushels in 1935 to 1939, and an average of 31.3 bushels of wheat was raised per acre compared with an average of only 13.2 in the earlier period.

在1946年版中，我对上述问题作了比较之后进一步指出，生产率提高也是农产品价格下降的部分原因。

“从1955年到1959年的五年间，美国的棉花收成量平均每英亩为428磅，从1939年到1943年，年均为260磅，而在1909年到1913年这个‘基’期，年均收成只有188磅。”再跟现在的生产率水平比较一下，1968年到1972年五年内，平均每英亩棉花收成467磅，农业生产率继续提高，只是增幅有所下降。同样的，1968年到1972年五年的平均每英亩收成，玉米为84蒲式耳，小麦为31.3蒲式耳，而从1935年到1939年，玉米年均只有26.1蒲式耳，小麦只有13.2蒲式耳。

Costs of production have been substantially lowered for farm products by better application of chemical fertilizer, improved strains of seed and increasing mechanization. In the 1946 edition I made the following quotation:*

由于使用更好的化肥、选育良种、机械化程度提高，农产品的生产成本已经大幅下降。在1946年版中，我引用了这段话：

“On some large farms which have been completely mechanized and are operated along mass production lines, it requires only one-third to one-fifth the amount of labor to produce the same yields as it did a few years back.”

“在一些完全实现机械化和大批量一条龙生产经营的农场里，只需要几年前三分之一到五分之一的劳工，就能实现相同的产出。”

Yet all this is ignored by the apostles of “parity” prices.

然而，“等位”价格的先知们对这一切却视而不见。{脚注:《纽约时报》，1946年1月2号。耕种面积限制计划有助于提高亩产，第一是因为农民会首先辍耕亩产低下的耕地，第二是人为的高价激励农民在现有耕地上追施更多化肥，以提高亩产。因此，政府的耕种面积限制计划基本上是自己拆自己的台。}

The refusal to universalize the principle is not the only evidence that it is not a public-spirited economic plan but merely a device for subsidizing a special interest. Another evidence is that when agricultural prices go above parity, or are forced there by government policies, there is no demand on the part of the farm bloc in Congress that such prices be brought down to parity, or that the subsidy be to that extent repaid. It is a rule that works only one way.

政府不肯将等位价格原则普遍应用于所有的产品，足以证明它并不是一种为着公共利益而谋经济计划，它仅仅是补贴特殊利益集团的一种手段。还有另一个证据来证明此结论，当农产品价格上涨，高过了等位价格，或者为政府政策所迫使而达到这种程度时，国会中代表农民利益的议员们，从来不曾要求把农产品价格拉回到等位价格，从来不曾要求农民此时退回补贴。等位价格是一条单向通行的规则。

2

Dismissing all these considerations, let us return to the central fallacy that specially concerns us here. This is the argument that if the farmer gets higher prices for his products he can buy more goods from industry and so make industry prosperous and bring full employment. It does not matter to this argument, of course, whether or not the farmer gets specifically so-called parity prices.

我们现在且把这些考虑撇开，仍回到本章特别关心的核心谬误。该谬误的论调是：如果农产品可以卖到更高的价格，农民就会购买更多工业产品，并由此带来工业繁荣和充分就业。不消说，有没有等位价格，对这个论点关系不大。

Everything, however, depends on how these higher prices are brought about. If they are the result of a general revival, if they follow from increased prosperity of business, increased industrial production and increased purchasing power of city workers (not brought about by inflation), then they can indeed mean increased prosperity and production not only for the farmers, but for everyone. But what we are discussing is a rise in farm prices brought about by government intervention. This can be done in several ways. The higher price can be forced by mere edict, which is the least workable method. It can be brought about by the government’s standing ready to buy all the farm products offered to it at the parity price. It can be brought about by the government’s lending to farmers enough money on their crops to enable them to hold the crops off the market until parity or a higher price is realized. It can be brought about by the government’s enforcing restrictions in the size of crops. It can be brought about, as it often is in practice, by a combination of these methods. For the moment we shall simply assume that, by whatever method, it is in any case brought about.

然而，一切还要取决于这此高价格是如何形成的。如果是整体经济复苏带来的结果，也就是百业俱兴、工业生产增加、城市工人的购买力提高（不是通货膨胀造成的），这就意味着丰收和富裕不仅属于农民，而属于所有国人。不过，我们要讨论的是政府干预所带来的农产品价格上涨问题。政府有多种措施可以办到这一点：可以靠政府法令强行提高价格，不过这是最不可行的办法。国家粮库可以按等位价格收购所有的农产品。可以贷款给农民周转，让他们在市场价格低于等位价格的时囤积产品，暂不上市销售。政府可以强制限制农产品产量。政府当然可以多管齐下，实践中它们就经常这么做。现在，无论用什么方法，让我们简单地假设政府干预已经带来了农产品价格上涨。

What is the result? The farmers get higher prices for their crops. In spite of reduced production, say, their “purchasing power is thereby increased. They are for the time being more prosperous themselves, and they buy more of the products of industry. All this is what is seen by those who look merely at the immediate consequences of policies to the groups directly involved.

结果又是什么呢？农民的产品卖出了更好的价钱。尽管生产有所减少，他们的“购买力”提高了。有些人看到农民立时变得富起来，看到他们购买更多的工业产品。若只观察政策对直接相关的群体产生的立即影响，他们能看到的只是这些。

But there is another consequence, no less inevitable. Suppose the wheat which would otherwise sell at $2.50 a bushel is pushed up by this policy to $3. 50. The farmer gets $1 a bushel more for wheat. But the city worker, by precisely the same change, pays $1 a bushel more for wheat in an increased price of bread. The same thing is true of any other farm product. If the farmer then has $1 more purchasing power to buy industrial products, the city worker has precisely that much less purchasing power to buy industrial products. On net balance industry in general has gained nothing. It loses in city sales precisely as much as it gains in rural sales.

然而，还有一种后果，同样是不可避免的。假使小麦原先售价为每蒲式耳2.50美元，政府干预后的售价为3.50美元。那么，农民每售出1蒲式耳的小麦，就多得1美元。小麦涨价导致面包涨价，城市工人消费面包时，相当于要为每蒲式耳小麦多支付1美元。其他农产品价格上涨也会造成这样的影响。如果说农民增加了1美元的购买力去购买工业品的话，那么城市工人正是损失了同样数量的用来购买工业品的钱。也就是说，工业产品在农村地区的销售额增加多少，在城市地区便减低多少，一加一减，工业行业在总体上没有捞到任何好处。

There is of course a change in the incidence of these sales. No doubt the agricultural-implement makers and the mail-order houses do a better business. But the city department stores do a smaller business.

当然，不同行业的销售额当然会出现变化。不消说，农机农具厂商和邮购公司的生意显然会更加红火，但是城市百货公司的生意会不如从前。

The matter, however, does not end there. The policy results not merely in no net gain, but in a net loss. For it does not mean merely a transfer of purchasing power to the farmer from city consumers, or from the general taxpayer, or from both. It also frequently means a forced cut in the production of farm commodities to bring up the price. This means a destruction of wealth. It means that there is less food to be consumed. How this destruction of wealth is brought about will depend upon the particular method pursued to bring prices up. It may mean the actual physical destruction of what has already been produced, as in the burning of coffee in Brazil. It may mean a forced restriction of acreage, as in the American AAA plan, or its revival. We shall examine the effect of some of these methods when we come to the broader discussion of government commodity controls.

事情到此并没有结束。这种政策的结果不但没有带来净收益，反而造成了净损失。政府干预并没有停留在造成购买力的转移，也就是把购买力从城市消费者（或一般纳税人，或两者兼而有之），转移到农民手上。政府干预往往通过限制农产品的生产以抬高价格。这是一种对财富的破坏。它意味着可供消费的农产品被人为减少了。这种对财富的破坏如何实现，取决于政府为了提高价格所采取的措施。它可能是从实物上毁损已经生产出来的作物，就象巴西烧毁咖啡豆那样。也可能是限制种植面积，如美国农业调整局（AAA）计划，及其后续推广方案。后面，我们将对政府商品管制作更广泛的讨论，届时，我们再去考察上述某些措施造成的影响。

But here it may be pointed out that when the farmer reduces the production of wheat to get parity, he may indeed get a higher price for each bushel, but he produces and sells fewer bushels. The result is that his income does not go up in proportion to his prices. Even some of the advocates of parity prices recognize this, and use it as an argument to go on to insist upon parity income for farmers. But this can only be achieved by a subsidy at the direct expense of taxpayers. To help the farmers, in other words, it merely reduces the purchasing power of city workers and other groups still more.

不过，这里需要指出的是，当农民通过减低小麦产量的方式获得等位价格时，每蒲式耳的价格可能确实提高了。但是，产销数量却都减少了。其结果将是他的收入并没有随价格同比例增加。甚至有些主张实施等位价格的人，也意识到了这一点，并且以此为论据，进一步主张应该给予农民“等位收入”。然而，这就需要采用财政补贴的方式才能实现，而这会直接牺牲纳税人。换句话说，为了帮助农民，政府干预注定会让城市劳动力和其他群体的购买力减少得更多。

3

There is one argument for parity prices that should be dealt with before we leave the subject. It is put forward by some of the more sophisticated defenders. ‘Yes,” they will freely admit, “the economic arguments for parity prices are unsound. Such prices are a special privilege. They are an imposition on the consumer. But isn’t the tariff an imposition on the farmer? Doesn’t he have to pay higher prices on industrial products because of it? It would do no good to place a compensating tariff on farm products because America is a net exporter of farm products. Now the parity-price system is the farmer’s equivalent of the tariff. It is the only fair way to even things up.

最后，我们来讨论主张等位价格的另一类论调。提出这种论调的人更加老成圆熟。他们坦率地承认，“没错，等位价格的经济论证的确经不起推敲。这样的价格是一种特权。它们是加在消费者身上的一种负担。但是，关税不也是加在农民身上的一种负担吗？农民不也是因此而不得不去买更贵的工业品吗？对农产品实行补偿性的关税是没有意义的，因为美国是农产品净出口国。等位价格制度就相当于保护农民的关税。这是使得收支相抵的唯一公平的手段。”

The farmers that asked for parity prices did have a legitimate complaint. The protective tariff injured them more than they knew. By reducing industrial imports it also reduced American farm exports, because it prevented foreign nations from getting the dollar exchange needed for taking our agricultural products. And it provoked retaliatory tariffs in other countries. Nonetheless, the argument we have just quoted will not stand examination. It is wrong even in its implied statement of the facts. There is no general tariff on all “industrial” products or on all nonfarm products. There are scores of domestic industries or of exporting industries that have no tariff protection. If the city worker has to pay a higher price for woolen blankets or overcoats because of a tariff, is he “compensated” by having to pay a higher price also for cotton clothing and for foodstuffs? Or is he merely being robbed twice?

要求实施等位价格的农民确实有合法的申诉理由。其实，保护性关税对他们造成的伤害，远比他们所了解到的要深重。在减少工业品进口的同时，美国农产品的出口同样被迫减少了，因为外国人换不来美元去购买美国农产品。并且，这种政策会引起其他国家对美国农产品征收报复性关税。但是，上述替农民讨回公平的论调同样经不起推敲，甚至其关于事实的隐含的说明也是错误的。根本不存在一种全面性的关税，去保护所有的“工业”产品或所有非农产品。为数众多的国内工业或者出口产业，并没有受到关税保护。如果城市工人由于保护性关税而不得不支付较高的价格去买毛毯或外套，那他不得不支付较高的价格去买棉衣或食品就是对他的“补偿”吗？还是说他被剥削了两次？

Let us even it all out, say some, by giving equal “protection” to everybody. But that is insoluble and impossible. Even if we assume that the problem could be solved technically—a tariff for A, an industrialist subject to foreign competition; a subsidy for B, an industrialist who exports his product—it would be impossible to protect or to subsidize everybody “fairly” or equally. We should have to give everyone the same percentage (or should it be the same dollar amount?) of tariff protection or subsidy, and we could never be sure when we were duplicating payments to some groups or leaving gaps with others.

有人提出政府可以给予每个人同等的“保护”，这样大家扯平。事实上这是不可能做到的。即便实施起来不存在技术上的问题（例如为承受国外竞争压力的工业家某甲开征保护关税，给予出口产品的工业家某乙财政补贴），我们还是不可能做到“公平”，或者一视同仁。就关税保护或补贴而言，我们或许应该给每个人相同百分率，或许应该给相同金额，但我们永远无法肯定政府是不是重复支付某些群体，却漏给了其他人。

But suppose we could solve this fantastic problem? What would be the point? Who gains when everyone equally subsidizes everyone else? What is the profit when everyone loses in added taxes precisely what he gains by his subsidy or his protection? We should merely have added an army of needless bureaucrats to carry out the program, with all of them lost to production.

即便我们有办法解决这个异想天开的问题，那又如何呢？每个人都在补贴其他人，谁又能受益呢？若每个人因赋税负担增加所受的损失恰恰与他们由其补贴或保护所得到的好处相等时，利润又在哪里呢？我们只不过在养活一大群不从事生产的官僚来执行这套计划，并由此给生产造成损失。

We could solve the matter simply, on the other hand, by ending both the parity-price system and the protective-tariff system. Meanwhile they do not, in combination, even out anything. The joint system means merely that Farmer A and Industrialist B both profit at the expense of Forgotten Man C.

从另一方面来说，同时取消等位价格制度和保护性关税制度，最简单。此前，两种保护制度结合起来执行的结果，不会为什么人拉平任何利益关系。这一结合的体系仅仅意味着：农民某甲和企业家某乙同时获利，却牺牲了被遗忘的某丙。

So the alleged benefits of still another scheme evaporate as soon as we trace not only its immediate effects on a special group but its long-run effects on everyone.

在这里，我们一旦不仅仅是探讨某个特殊群体受到的即时影响，而且同样探究经济政策提案对每个人造成的长期影响时，又一条谬政的嘘吹利益便凭空消失了。

The Drive for Exports

第12章 出口狂热

EXCEEDED ONLY BY the pathological dread of imports that affects all nations is a pathological yearning for exports. Logically, it is true, no thing could be more inconsistent. In the long run imports and exports must equal each other (considering both in the broadest sense, which includes such “invisible” terms as tourist expenditures, ocean freight charges and all other items in the “balance of payments”). It is exports that pay for imports, and vice versa. The greater exports we have, the greater imports we must have, if we ever expect to get paid. The smaller imports we have, the smaller exports we can have. Without imports we can have no exports, for foreigners will have no funds with which to buy our goods. When we decide to cut down our imports, we are in effect deciding also to cut down our exports. When we decide to increase our exports, we are in effect deciding also to increase our imports.

所有国家对出口都怀有病态的渴求，这种影响仅次于各国对进口怀有的病态恐惧。从逻辑上讲，真的没有比这种事情更矛盾的了。长期而言，进口与出口必然相等（这里的进出口指“国际收支账户”里的所有项目，包括“无形”项目，如旅游消费、海运费用等）。出口偿付了进口，反之亦然。只要我们希望得到报偿，那么我们的出口越多，进口量也就必然越大。进口的数量减少了，我们的出口也必然更少。倘使没有进口的话，我们就不可能出口，因为外国人没有美元可以用来买美国的产品。所以，当我们决定削减进口的时候，其实等于决定削减出口。当我们准备扩大出口的时候，其实等于准备扩大进口。

The reason for this is elementary. An American exporter sells his goods to a British importer and is paid in British pounds sterling. But he cannot use British pounds to pay the wages of his workers, to buy his wife’s clothes or to buy theater tickets. For all these purposes he needs American dollars. Therefore his British pounds are of no use to him unless he either uses them himself to buy British goods or sells them (through his bank or other agent) to some American importer who wishes to use them to buy British goods. Whichever he does, the transaction cannot be completed until the American exports have been paid for by an equal amount of imports.

其中的道理非常简单。一位美国出口商把商品卖给英国进口商，换回的是英镑。但是这位老兄在国内没法用英镑来支付员工工资、用英镑来给太太买衣服、或买戏票。他需要美元来支付这一切。他拿着英镑没有用处，除非他拿去购买英国的产品，或者把手里的英镑（通过银行或代理商）卖给美国进口商，让他们用于进口英国产品。不管采用哪一种方式，在美国的出口以等量的进口支付之前，都无法实现银货两讫。

The same situation would exist if the transaction had been conducted in terms of American dollars instead of British pounds. The British importer could not pay the American exporter in dollars unless some previous British exporter had built up a credit in dollars here as a result of some previous sale to us. Foreign exchange, in short, is a clearing transaction in which, in America, the dollar debts of foreigners are canceled against their dollar credits. In England, the pound sterling debts of foreigners are canceled against their sterling credits.

如果交易不是以英镑，而是以美元进行，情形也会一样。除非以前曾有英国出口商输出产品到美国，并因此有美元积累，否则英国进口商没办法以美元支付美国出口商。简单地说，外汇是一笔票据清算的交易，在美国，是将外国人的美元债权和他们的美元债务冲销。在英国，外国人的英镑债权则和他们的英镑债务冲销。

There is no reason to go into the technical details of all this, which can be found in any good textbook on foreign exchange. But it should be pointed out that there is nothing inherently mysterious about it (in spite of the mystery in which it is so often wrapped), and that it does not differ essentially from what happens in domestic trade. Each of us must also sell something, even if for most of us it is our own services rather than goods, in order to get the purchasing power to buy. Domestic trade is also conducted in the main by crossing off checks and other claims against each other through clearing houses.

我们没有必要去纠缠所有这些问题的技术细节，在任何一本关于外汇的好教科书中都找得到相关说明。然而，必须指出的一点是，对外贸易从本质上来讲并无任何神秘之处（除开那些笼罩其上的神秘难解的东西来看的话），它与国内贸易没有什么本质上的差异。每个人都必须卖些东西给别人，才能获得购买力，才有钱去买别人的东西；只不过我们中的大多数人卖的是自身的劳务，而不是出售商品。国内交易大多也是通过银行等结算机构，以注销买卖双方支票和其他支付的方式进行。

It is true that under the international gold standard discrepancies in balances of imports and exports were sometimes settled by shipments of gold. But they could just as well have been settled by shipments of cotton, steel, whisky, perfume, or any other commodity. The chief difference is that when a gold standard exists the demand for gold is almost indefinitely expansible (partly because it is thought of and accepted as a residual international “money” rather than as just another commodity), and that nations do not put artificial obstacles in the way of receiving gold as they do in the way of receiving almost everything else. (On the other hand, of late years they have taken to putting more obstacles in the way of exporting gold than in the way of exporting anything else; but that is another story.)

在国际金本位制度下，进出口贸易差额有时确实可以靠交运黄金的来结算，但也可以用交运棉花、钢铁、威士忌、香料，或其他普通商品来结算。这里主要的 区别在于，当金本位制存在的时候，黄金的需求几乎可以无限扩张（部分原因是黄金被公认为是终极国际“货币”，而不仅仅是另一种普通商品），各国不象限制其它任何商品进口那样限制黄金的输入。（另一方面，近年来，它们限制黄金的输出，采取的措施甚于限制其它任何商品出口，那却是另一码事。）

Now the same people who can be clearheaded and sensible when the subject is one of domestic trade can be incredibly emotional and muddleheaded when it becomes one of foreign trade. In the latter field they can seriously advocate or acquiesce in principles which they would think it insane to apply in domestic business. A typical example is the belief that the government should make huge loans to foreign countries for the sake of increasing our exports, regardless of whether or not these loans are likely to be repaid.

如今某些人，在谈论国内贸易时，头脑清醒并且很有理智，当话题转到对外贸易，他们立刻变得情绪激动、头脑糊涂得令人难以置信。在后一种情况下，他们会极力主张或原则上默认一些在国内贸易上他们会认为是疯狂愚蠢的主张。一个典型的例子是相信政府为了达到增加出口的目的应当向国外提供大量贷款，而不考虑这些贷款有多少能收得回来。

American citizens, of course, should be allowed to lend their own funds abroad at their own risk. The government should put no arbitrary barriers in the way of private lending to countries with which we are at peace. As individuals we should be willing to give generously, for humane reasons alone, to people who are in great distress or in danger of starving. But we ought always to know clearly what we are doing. It is not wise to bestow charity on foreign people under the impression that one is making a hardheaded business transaction purely for one’s own selfish purposes. That could only lead to misunderstandings and bad relations later.

不消说，美国的公民们拿自己的钱去冒险，放贷到国外的，政府不应该设置任何障碍，阻止民间贷款给我们的友邦。作为个人，仅仅出于人道的考虑，我们就应该慷慨解囊，资助处于严重贫困和饥饿威胁之下的人们。不过，我们必须自始至终明了我们这种行为的性质。我们对于国外民族予以慈善救济时，却给人以正 在做着一笔精明的纯粹是基于自己商业利益的交易的印象，那就太不明智了。这只会造成以后的误解和恶劣关系。

Yet among the arguments put forward in favor of huge foreign lending one fallacy is always sure to occupy a prominent place. It runs like this. Even if half (or all) the loans we make to foreign countries turn sour and are not repaid, this nation will still be better off for having made them, because they will give an enormous impetus to our exports.

可是，在主张对外大量贷款的论调中，一个谬论始终占有重要位置。其说法是：即使放到国外贷款有一半（或者全部）变成呆账，得不到偿还，国家仍然可以由这种贷款而获益，因为它们将强劲地拉动我们的出口。

It should be immediately obvious that if the loans we make to foreign countries to enable them to buy our goods are not repaid, then we are giving the goods away. A nation cannot grow rich by giving goods away. It can only make itself poorer.

那些用于帮助外国购买我们产品的贷款，要是拖欠不还，就等于我们拿产品去白送，这是明摆着的事实。一个国家不可能靠无偿的商品输出而变得富有，这样做只会使这个国家变得更穷。

No one doubts this proposition when it is applied privately. If an automobile company lends a man $5,000 to buy a car priced at that amount, and the loan is not repaid, the automobile company is not better off because it has “sold” the car. It has simply lost the amount that it cost to make the car. If the car cost $4,000 to make, and only half the loan is repaid, then the company has lost $4,000 minus $2,500, or a net amount of $1,500 It has not made up in trade what it lost in bad loans.³

把这种说法用在私营企业身上，没人质疑其正确性。如果一家汽车公司贷款5,000美元给一个人买等价的车子，而这个买家最后没有偿清贷款，那么这家汽车公司不可能因为“售出”这辆车子而增加收益。它损失的是生产这辆车的所有成本。如果这辆车的生产成本是4,000美元，而买家只还一半的贷款，那么这家汽车公司的净损失是4,000美元减去2,500美元，也就是1,500美元。坏账造成的损失，并没有从它的销售业绩中赚回来。{书后注3:黑兹利特用的5 000美元这个数字并不确切。现在一辆新车的平均价格要20 000美元左右。（戴维·亨德森（David R. Henderson）的〈同通胀娱乐与博弈〉（Fun and Games With Inflation），刊于《财富》1996年3月18日，第36页）}

If this proposition is so simple when applied to a private company, why do apparently intelligent people get confused about it when applied to a nation? The reason is that the transaction must then be traced mentally through a few more stages. One group may indeed make gains—while the rest of us take the losses.

对于私人公司来说如此简单的事实，为什么用于国家，那些聪明人却会犯糊涂呢？原因在于，要认清这种交易的实质，需要人们把放宽眼界多看几步。某个群体确实可以从中获益，而其他所有的人则蒙受了损失。

It is true, for example, that persons engaged exclusively or chiefly in export business might gain on net balance as a result of bad loans made abroad. The national loss on the transaction would be certain, but it might be distributed in ways difficult to follow. The private lenders would take their losses directly. The losses from government lending would ultimately be paid out of increased taxes imposed on everybody. But there would also be many indirect losses brought about by the effect on the economy of these direct losses.

例如，专门或是主要从事出口贸易的人，可能会从政府海外贷款坏账中得到净收益，这是确实无误的。整个国家因此而蒙受损失是肯定的，只不过难以追踪哪些人遭受了多少损失。私人放贷损失由放贷者自己直接承受，而政府贷款的损失，最后则必须靠加重税负来解决。此外，这些直接的损失会对经济造成不良影响，从而造成更多间接损失。

In the long run business and employment in America would be hurt, not helped, by foreign loans that were not repaid. For every extra dollar that foreign buyers had with which to buy American goods, domestic buyers would ultimately have one dollar less. Businesses that depend on domestic trade would therefore be hurt in the long run as much as export businesses would be helped. Even many concerns that did an export business would be hurt on net balance. American automobile companies, for example, sold about 15 percent of their output in the foreign market in 1975. It would not profit them to sell 20 percent of their output abroad as a result of bad foreign loans if they thereby lost, say, io percent of their American sales as the result of added taxes taken from American buyers to make up for the unpaid foreign loans.

从长远来看，贷款收不回来对美国的企业和就业并没有好处，而是有害的。对用于购买美国产品的贷款，外国买主的赖账每多一美元，国内买主终将损失一美元。因此，出口业获益的同时，依靠内销为主的行业将蒙受损失，长期下来，二者得失大体相当，甚至许多从事出口的企业，其净收益也会受损。例如，1975年美国的汽车公司约有15%的产量销往海外市场。假如给国外贷款，出口量可增加到20%。但如果贷款收不回来，导致美国消费者的税负加重，造成汽车公司的国内销售额减退10%，对这些汽车公司来说也是得不偿失。

None of this means, I repeat, that it is unwise for private investors to make loans abroad, but simply that we cannot get rich by making bad ones.

重申一下，这里并不是说私人投资者向海外贷款是不明智的，这里要说的是，我们不能靠收不回来的贷款变得富有。

For the same reasons that it is stupid to give a false stimulation to export trade by making bad loans or outright gifts to foreign countries, it is stupid to give a false stimulation to export trade through export subsidies. An export subsidy is a clear case of giving the foreigner something for nothing, by selling him goods for less than it costs us to make them. It is another case of trying to get rich by giving things away.

基于这个道理，那些靠对外贷款呆账，或者直接赠与外国的方式，制造出口大增的做法，是愚蠢的，企图通过出口补贴的方式拉动出口的做法，愚不可及。出口补贴以低于生产成本的价格，出售产品给外国人，补贴部分等于白送。这是企图靠送人东西来发家致富的另一个例子。

In the face of all this, the United States government has been engaged for years in a “foreign economic aid” program the greater part of which has consisted in outright government-to-government gifts of many billions of dollars. Here we are interested in just one aspect of that program—the naive belief of many of its sponsors that this is a clever or even a necessary method of “increasing our exports” and so maintaining prosperity and employment. It is still another form of the delusion that a nation can get rich by giving things away. What conceals the truth from many supporters of the program is that what is directly given away is not the exports themselves but the money with which to buy them. It is possible, therefore, for individual exporters to profit on net balance from the national loss — if their individual profit from the exports is greater than their share of taxes to pay for the program.

美国政府不顾这些常识，多年来一直实施“对外经济援助”计划，主要是政府对政府的直接赠予，金额动辄高达数十亿美元。这里我们只对支持那些计划的一种说法感兴趣——许多支持此种政策的人愚蠢地相信这样可以“拉动出口”，相信这是维持美国的繁荣和就业的聪明做法，甚至是必要的措施。这依然是靠送东西能让国家致富的另一错觉。这一计划蒙蔽了许多的支持者，其关键在于：美国直接送出去的，不是出口商品本身，而是用来购买出口的钱。因此，个别出口商有可能从国家的损失中获利——如果他们从出口所得到的个人利益大于该计划分摊给他们的税负的话。

Here we have simply one more example of the error of looking only at the immediate effect of a policy on some special group, and of not having the patience or intelligence to trace the long-run effects of the policy on everyone.

只看某项政策对某个特殊群体产生的立即影响，而没有耐心或智慧去考察该政策对每个人造成的长远影响，这样的错误，我们在这里又多了一个实例。

If we do trace these long-run effects on everyone, we come to an additional conclusion—the exact opposite of the doctrine that has dominated the thinking of most government officials for centuries. This is, as John Stuart Mill so clearly pointed out, that the real gain of foreign trade to any country lies not in its exports but in its imports. Its consumers are either able to get from abroad commodities at a lower price than they could obtain them for at home, or commodities that they could not get from domestic producers at all. Outstanding examples in the United States are coffee and tea. Collectively considered, the real reason a country needs exports is to pay for its imports.

如果我们真的去考察每个人所受的长期影响，我们还可以得到另外一个结论。与几个世纪以来大部分政府官员所奉行的教条恰恰相反，这个结论，正如约翰•穆勒非常清楚地所表达的那样：对外贸易对任何国家能有利益，最终并不在于其出口，而是在于其进口。是进口，让一个国家的消费者能以比国内更便宜的价格，买到外国的商品；是进口，让他们买到国内制造商不生产的商品（在美国尤为突出的是咖啡和茶叶）。总的来说，一个国家需要出口的真正理由，是赚钱来支付其进口。

第11章 关税“保护”了哪些人？

（接前面部分）

4

It is important to notice that the new tariff on sweaters would not raise American wages. To be sure, it would enable Americans to work in the sweater industry at approximately the average level of American wages (for workers of their skill), instead of having to compete in that industry at the British level of wages. But there would be no increase of American wages in general as a result of the duty; for as we have seen, there would be no net increase in the number of jobs provided, no net increase in the demand for goods, and no increase in labor productivity. Labor productivity would, in fact, be reduced as a result of the tariff.

我们必须注意到，这种对羊毛衫征收的新关税并不会提高美国人的工资水平。更准确地说，征收这种关税将使在羊毛衫产业中工作的美国人，其工资处于美国的平均水准上下（就相当技能而言），而不是同该行业的英国工人工资水平竞争。然而，并不存在由关税而带来的美国工资水平普遍的增长。因为，象我们所看到的，这里并不存在就业数量的净增长，也没有对商品需求的净增长，以及劳动生产率的净增长。事实上，作为关税保护的一种结果，劳动生产率是降低了。

And this brings us to the real effect of a tariff wall. It is not merely that all its visible gains are offset by less obvious but no less real losses. It results, in fact, in a net loss to the country. For contrary to centuries of interested propaganda and disinterested confusion, the tariff reduces the American level of wages.

这就让我们见到关税壁垒的实质影响。不仅仅是所有看得到的利益，都被不那么明显，但一样真实的损失给冲销掉了。其结果，乃是整个国家承受了净损失。与数百年来无数出于自利的宣传与并非出于自利的认识混乱相反，关税降低了美国的工资水平。

Let us observe more clearly how it does this. We have seen that the added amount which consumers pay for a tariff-protected article leaves them just that much less with which to buy all other articles. There is here no net gain to industry as a whole. But as a result of the artificial barrier erected against foreign goods, American labor, capital and land are deflected from what they can do more efficiently to what they do less efficiently. Therefore, as a result of the tariff wall the average productivity of American labor and capital is reduced.

让我们来进一步察考其中的机制。如前所述，消费者多花钱购买受关税保护的产品，能够用来购买其他产品的钱就会相应减少。产业作为一个整体并没有从中获得净收益。但由于人为地对外国产品设立壁垒，造成美国的劳动力、资本和土地，从相对效率较高的产业，移转到相对效率较低的产业上。因此，美国劳动力和资本的平均生产力，必然由于关税壁垒而降低。

If we look at it now from the consumer’s point of view, we find that he can buy less with his money. Because he has to pay more for sweaters and other protected goods, he can buy less of everything else. The general purchasing power of his income has therefore been reduced. Whether the net effect of the tariff is to lower money wages or to raise money prices will depend upon the monetary policies that are followed. But what is clear is that the tariff—though it may increase wages above what they would have been in the protected industries—must on net balance, when all occupations are considered, reduce real wages—-reduce them, that is to say, compared with what they otherwise would have been.

倘若我们现在从消费者的角度加以分析的话，我们会发现，用同样多的钱所能买的东西更少了。由于他不得不支付更多钱去买羊毛衫和其他受关税保护的产品，所以能买的其他每一样东西都减少了。消费者收入的整体购买力随之下滑。关税的净效果，到底是降低货币工资，还是提高货币物价，要看当时实行的货币政策。很清楚的一点是，尽管受保护产业的工资水平可能比不受关税保护时要高，若把所有产业都考虑在内的话，和本来应有的整体水平相比较，关税一定会降低实际工资水平。

Only minds corrupted by generations of misleading propaganda can regard this conclusion as paradoxical. What other result could we expect from a policy of deliberately using our resources of capital and manpower in less efficient ways than we know how to use them? What other result could we expect from deliberately erecting artificial obstacles to trade and transportation?

只有遭受一代又一代的误导性宣传腐蚀的大脑才会觉得上述结论仍有争议。资本和人力资源，由于经济政策的影响，被刻意运用在比较缺乏效率的地方，我们还能够期待得到与上面不一样的结果吗？贸易和运输，被刻意设立的人为壁垒所阻碍，我们还能期待有其他不同的结果吗？

For the erection of tariff walls has the same effect as the erection of real walls. It is significant that the protectionists habitually use the language of warfare. They talk of “repelling an invasion” of foreign products. And the means they suggest in the fiscal field are like those of the battlefield. The tariff barriers that are put up to repel this invasion are like the tank traps, trenches and barbed-wire entanglements created to repel or slow down attempted invasion by a foreign army.

设立关税壁垒的效果，跟筑墙挡道没有两样。值得注意的是，贸易保护论者习惯用战争术语，诸如，应该“击退”舶来品的“入侵”。他们在财政上的建议和在战场上所采用的招式一样。设立关税壁垒以击退舶来品的入侵，就像布设坦克陷阱、战壕、铁丝网，用以抵御或延缓敌军的攻势。

And just as the foreign army is compelled to employ more expensive means to surmount those obstacles — bigger tanks, mine detectors, engineer corps to cut wires, ford streams and build bridges—so more expensive and efficient transportation means must be developed to surmount tariff obstacles. On the one hand, we try to reduce the cost of transportation between England and America, or Canada and the United States, by developing faster and more efficient planes and ships, better roads and bridges, better locomotives and motor trucks. On the other hand, we offset this investment in efficient transportation by a tariff that makes it commercially even more difficult to transport goods than it was before. We make it a dollar cheaper to ship the sweaters, and then increase the tariff by two dollars to prevent the sweaters from being shipped. By reducing the freight that can be profitably carried, we reduce the value of the investment in transport efficiency.

就象外国军队要克服这些障碍就得付出更高的代价——部署更大的坦克；使用地雷探测器；派出工兵剪除铁丝网、架桥、抢滩一样，在外贸中要克服关税壁垒，需要加大投入开发更有效率的运输方式。一方面，我们试图通过开发速度更快和效率更高的飞机与船只，投资修筑更好的公路和桥梁，投入使用更好的火车和载货汽车，尽力去降低英国与美国，或是加拿大与美国之间的运输成本；另一方面，我们设立关税，使得从经济效益上看较以往更难运输货物，因为它抵消了我们在高效率运输上的投资。我们降低羊毛衫运输成本1美元，却又增加了2美元的关税而阻止了它的运输。由于减少了本来可以获利的部分运载量，我们减少了运输效率中投资的价值。

5
 
The tariff has been described as a means of benefiting the producer at the expense of the consumer. In a sense this is correct. Those who favor it think only of the interests of the producers immediately benefited by the particular duties involved. They forget the interests of the consumers who are immediately injured by being forced to pay these duties. But it is wrong to think of the tariff issue as if it represented a conflict between the interests of producers as a unit against those of consumers as a unit. It is true that the tariff hurts all consumers as such. It is not true that it benefits all producers as such. On the contrary, as we have just seen, it helps the protected producers at the expense of all other American producers, and particularly of those who have a comparatively large potential export market.

人们把关税当作是以消费者为代价来使生产者获益的一种手段。从某种意义上讲，这话不错。那些主张征收关税的人，只考虑到受关税保护的生产者能立即获得利益，却忽略被迫支付关税的消费者会立即遭受损失。但是，把关税只看成是生产者一方的利益与消费者一方的利益之间的冲突，却是不对的。关税的确让所有的消费者蒙受损失，但它并不使所有的生产者都能从中获益。相反，象我们刚刚看到的，关税只对受保护的生产者有帮助，为此不惜牺牲其他所有的美国生产者：尤其是以那些出口潜力相对较大的生产者利益为代价。

We can perhaps make this last point clearer by an exaggerated example. Suppose we make our tariff wall so high that it becomes absolutely prohibitive, and no imports come in from the outside world at all. Suppose, as a result of this, that the price of sweaters in America goes up only $5. Then American consumers, because they have to pay $5 more for a sweater, will spend on the average five cents less in each of a hundred other American industries. (The figures are chosen merely to illustrate a principle: there will, of course, be no such symmetrical distribution of the loss; moreover, the sweater industry itself will doubtless be hurt because of protection of still other industries. But these complications may be put aside for the moment.)

我们不妨用一个夸张的例子，来使这最后一点更清楚些。假定我们设立的关税壁垒很高，完全是禁止性的，让人根本不可能从国外进口商品。设想一下，作为后果之一，美国羊毛衫售价刚好上涨5美元。消费者购买一件羊毛衫不得不多花5美元，他们将在其他100种行业的产品上平均少花5美分。（选这样的数字，只是为了说明其中原理。实际数字当然不会分布得这么均匀。再者，羊毛衫行业本身也无疑会由于其他行业受保护而受到一些损害。但这些复杂情形可以暂时不考虑。）

Now because foreign industries will find their market in America totally cut off, they will get no dollar exchange, and therefore they will be unable to buy any American goods at all. As a result of this, American industries will suffer in direct proportion to the percentage of their sales previously made abroad. Those that will be most injured, in the first instance, will be such industries as raw cotton producers, copper producers, makers of sewing machines, agricultural machinery, typewriters, commercial airplanes, and so on.

现在，由于外国的某些行业发现他们进入美国市场的途径被完全切断了，他们得不到美元外汇，根本没办法去购买任何美国产品。于是，结果之一，美国产业的受害程度，和以前的出口率成正比。首当其冲的受害者包括，原棉生产者、铜生产商，以及缝纫机、农业机械、打字机、商用飞机等产品的制造商。

A higher tariff wall, which, however, is not prohibitive, will produce the same kind of results as this, but merely to a smaller degree.

就算关税壁垒不是完全禁止性的，仍然会产生同样的结果，只不过损害程度小一些而已。

The effect of a tariff, therefore, is to change the structure of American production. It changes the number of occupations, the kind of occupations, and the relative size of one industry as compared with another. It makes the industries in which we are comparatively inefficient larger, and the industries in which we are comparatively efficient smaller. Its net effect, therefore, is to reduce American efficiency, as well as to reduce efficiency in the countries with which we would otherwise have traded more largely.

因此，关税的作用是改变美国的生产结构。它改变了职业的数目、职业的种类，以及一种产业相对于另一种产业的规模。关税使得相对效率较低的产业规模扩大，相对效率较高的产业规模缩小。因此，其净效果是减低美国的生产效率，同时也减低相应贸易国的生产效率。

In the long run, notwithstanding the mountains of argument pro and con, a tariff is irrelevant to the question of employment. (True, sudden changes in the tariff, either upward or downward, can create temporary unemployment, as they force corresponding changes in the structure of production. Such sudden changes can even cause a depression.) But a tariff is not irrelevant to the question of wages. In the long run it always reduces real wages, because it reduces efficiency, production and wealth.

尽管有成堆的支持和反对的意见，长期而言，关税与就业问题是无关的。的确，突然改变关税，无论调高或是调低，其所引发的产业调整，都会引起暂时的失业率上升，甚至会带来暂时的经济萧条。但是，关税与工资问题却有关系。关税的长期效应一定会使实际工资下降，因为它减低了效率、生产和财富。

Thus all the chief tariff fallacies stem from the central fallacy with which this book is concerned. They are the result of looking only at the immediate effects of a single tariff rate on one group of producers, and forgetting the long-run effects both on consumers as a whole and on all other producers.

由此可知，衍生出关税谬论的核心谬论是本书所要剖析的。也就是，只看单一关税税率对一群制造商造成的立即影响，而忽略了由此对全体消费者和其他所有制造商造成的长期影响。

(I hear some reader asking: “Why not solve this by giving tariff protection to all producers?” But the fallacy here is that this cannot help producers uniformly, and cannot help at all domestic producers who already “outsell” foreign producers: these efficient producers must necessarily suffer from the diversion of purchasing power brought about by the tariff.)

（我曾听到过某些读者提出这样的疑问：“为什么不通过对所有生产者加以关税保护来解决这个问题呢？”这里的错误在于，这样做并不能让所有生产者获得一致的裨益，那些产品销路已经具备国际优势的本国制造商，根本不可能从中获益；关税所导致购买力转向，一定会给那些生产效率高的制造商造成损失。）

6

On the subject of the tariff we must keep in mind one final precaution. It is the same precaution that we found necessary in examining the effects of machinery. It is useless to deny that a tariff does benefit—or at least can benefit—special interests. True, it benefits them at the expense of eveiyone else. But it does benefit them. If one industry alone could get protection, while its owners and workers enjoyed the benefits of free trade in everything else they bought, that industry would benefit, even on net balance. As an attempt is made to extend the tariff blessings, however, even people in the protected industries, both as producers and consum ers, begin to suffer from other people’s protection, and may finally be worse off even on net balance than if neither they nor anybody else had protection.

在关税的问题上，最后我们一定要牢记一件事。这同样是我们在探究机器的影响时发现的必须谨慎的一点。我们毋庸否认，关税确实对特殊利益集团有利，至少有可能有利于特殊利益集团。没错，关税是牺牲其他每个人的利益，来为他们造福。而他们的确得到了好处。如果受关税保护的行业只有一个，当该行业的业主和劳工购买别人的产品时，可以尽享自由贸易的好处，那么该行业将整体受益。但是，如果受关税保护的行业越来越多，最初受保护的行业中人，既包括生产者，也包括消费者，也会开始因为其他人得到保护而受害，最终结果可能在整体上比没有任何人受到保护时还要糟。

But we should not deny, as enthusiastic free traders have so often done, the possibility of these tariff benefits to special groups. We should not pretend, for example, that a reduction of the tariff would help everybody and hurt nobody. It is true that its reduction would help the country on net balance. But somebody would be hurt. Groups previously enjoying high protection would be hurt. That in fact is one reason why it is not good to bring such protected interests into existence in the first place. But clarity and candor of thinking compel us to see and acknowledge that some industries are right when they say that a removal of the tariff on their product would throw them out of business and throw their workers (at least temporarily) out of jobs. And if their workers have developed specialized skills, they may even suffer permanently, or until they have at long last learnt equal skills. In tracing the effects oftariffs, as in tracing the effects of machinery, we should endeavor to see all the chief effects, in both the short run and the long run, on all groups.

但是，我们不应该象那些热烈的自由贸易论者通常所做的那样，否认关税有可能对特殊群体产生利益。比如，我们不能妄想减少关税将有助于所有人，而不会有人受到损害。的确，降低关税对国家整体有益，但是有人会受到伤害，原先享受关税保护的群体将遭受损失。那其实就是根本不应该在一开始就实行这类保护政策的原因之一。但思考的明晰与公正让我们看到与承认，当某些企业呼吁，取消它们的产品关税，会致使工厂倒闭、工人失业（至少暂时如此），他们所言不虚。而且如果其工人已经发展了行业专门技能，他们甚至可能遭受长期的利益损害，或者直到他们最后能掌握别的专门技能为止。我们探究关税的影响时，应与探究机器的影响时相同，我们应该力求认清所有的主要影响，包括短期的以及长期的，对于所有集团的影响。

As a postscript to this chapter I should add that its argument is not directed against all tariffs, including duties collected mainly for revenue, or to keep alive industries needed for war; nor is it directed against all arguments for tariffs. It is merely directed against the fallacy that a tariff on net balance “provides employment,” “raises wages,” or “protects the American standard of living.” It does none of these things; and so far as wages and the standard of living are concerned, it does the precise opposite. But an examination of duties imposed for other purposes would carry us beyond our present subject.

作为本章的结束语，我应当补充说明一点，本章的论点并不在于反对所有类型的关税，包括不反对那些主要为了增加财政收入、或者为了扶持战时需要的产业而征收的关税；也不在于反对开征关税的所有主张。本章只是针对这样一种谬论：关税总体上可以“提供就业机会”、“提高工资”，或者“保障美国人的生活水准”。其实这些事情，它一样都办不到；而且就工资和生活水准来说，关税的作用适得其反。至于对那些为了其他目的而征收的关税，这些话题已经超出了本章的讨论范围。

Nor need we here examine the effect of import quotas, exchange controls, bilateralism and other means of reducing, diverting or preventing international trade. Such devices have, in general, the same effects as high or prohibitive tariffs, and often worse effects. They present more complicated issues, but their net results can be traced through the same kind of reasoning that we have just applied to tariff barriers.

我们无需在这里探讨进口配额、外汇管制、双边互惠，以及其他减低、转移或阻碍进行国际贸易的手段的影响。大体上讲，这些方式具有与高关税或者禁止性关税相同的影响，而且结果往往更糟。它们导致了更为复杂的问题，而运用我们在分析关税壁垒问题时所采取的推理过程，我们可以认识到这些政策的最终效果。

Who’s “Protected” by Tariffs?

第11章 关税“保护”了哪些人？
 
A MERE RECITAL of the economic policies of governments all over the world is calculated to cause any serious student of economics to throw up his hands in despair. What possible point can there be, he is likely to ask, in discussing refinements and advances in economic theory, when popular thought and the actual policies of governments, certainly in everything connected with international relations, have not yet caught up with Adam Smith? For present-day tariff and trade policies are not only as bad as those in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but incomparably worse. The real reasons for those tariffs and other trade barriers are the same, and the pretended reasons are also the same.

我们若只是单单叙述世界各国的经济政策，很可能会使得每个认真学习经济学的学生垂头丧气。同学们可能会问：当今任何与国际关系相联系的流行的思想和政府的实际政策，还没有什么能赶得上亚当•斯密的时候，我们还来讨论经济理论的改良和发展，有什么意义呢？如今的关税和贸易政策之糟糕，比起17世纪、18世纪时的政策有过之而无不及。开征关税和设立贸易壁垒的真正原因相同，当局者所搬出的理由也相同。

Since The Wealth of Nations appeared more than two centuries ago, the case for free trade has been stated thousands of times, but perhaps never with more direct simplicity and force than it was stated in that volume. In general Smith rested his case on one fundamental proposition: “In every country it always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest.” “The proposition is so very manifest,” Smith continued, “that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it; nor could it ever have been called in question, had not the interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers confounded the common-sense of mankind.”

自《国富论》问世两个多世纪以来，自由贸易论已经被阐述过无数次，但都不如《国富论》讲得那么简捷有力。亚当•斯密的立论大致基于这样一个基本命题：“在任何国家，人民大众的利益总在于而且必然在于，向售价最便宜的人购买他们所需要的各种物品。”他接着说道，“这个命题不证自明，费心思去证明它，倒是一件滑稽的事情；如果没有这班进出口商和制造商自私自利的诡辩混淆了人们的常识，也不会有人去质疑它。”

From another point of view, free trade was considered as one aspect of the specialization of labor:

从另一个角度来看，自由贸易可以被视为专业分工的一个方面：

It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy.

The tailor does not attempt to make his own shoes, but buys them of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not attempt to make his own clothes, but employs a tailor. The farmer attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those different artificers. All of them find it for their interest to employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbors, and to purchase with a part of its produce, or what is the same thing, with the price of a part of it, whatever else they have occasion for. What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

每一位精明的家长都知道的一句格言是，当自己制作比购买成品开销更大的时候，就永远不要自家动手做。裁缝不会自家做鞋子穿，而是向鞋匠购买。鞋匠不会自家缝衣服穿，而是请裁缝代劳。农夫既不会去做衣服也不会去做鞋子，而是雇用不同的工匠。他们全都发现，符合他们自身利益的是，他们应集中生产精力于与其邻居相比而存在着相对优势的地方，用部分自己的产品去购买，或者换个说法，用其产品价格的一部分，去购买他们所需要的其它东西。在每一个家庭的管理中是精明的举措，用于一个大国的管理中，很少会是错的。

But whatever led people to suppose that what was prudence in the conduct of every private family could be
folly in that of a great kingdom? It was a whole network of fallacies,
out of which mankind has still been unable to cut its way. And the
chief of them was the central fallacy with which this book is
concerned. It was that of considering merely the immediate effects of a
tariff on special groups, and neglecting to consider its long run
effects on the whole community.

然而，到底是什么使人们认为，在每一个家庭的管理中是精明的举措，用于一个大国的管理中，就可能是错的呢？这又是一张不容易梳理清楚的谬论网，而人类至今尚未能冲破它的羁绊。不过，其中的中心谬论则是本书要剖析的，即仅仅考虑了关税对特殊群体产生的立即影响，而忽略了考察关税对整个社会的长远影响。
 
2
 
An American manufacturer of woolen sweaters goes to Congress or to the State Department and tells the committee or officials concerned that it would be a national disaster for them to remove or reduce the tariff on British sweaters. He now sells his sweaters for $30 each, but English manufacturers could sell their sweaters of the same quality for $25. A duty of $5, therefore, is needed to keep him in business. He is not thinking of himself, of course, but of the thousand men and women he employs, and of the people to whom their spending in turn gives employment. Throw them out of work, and you create unemployment and a fall in purchasing power, which would spread in ever-widening circles. And if he can prove that he really would be forced out of business if the tariff were removed or reduced, his argument against that action is regarded by Congress as conclusive.

美国一家羊毛衫制造商，跑到国会或者政府部门向相关的委员会或者官员表示担忧，说对英国羊毛衫减免进口关税，会给国家带来灾难。现在，他的羊毛衫售价每件30美元，但是同样品质的英国羊毛衫的售价仅为25美元。因此，要使他可以持续经营，就必须征收这5美元关税。不消说，他声称此举并非只顾自己，而是替他雇用的成千男女员工着想，替服务于这些员工的更多人着想。任由这些人丢掉饭碗，失业率会上升，购买力会下降，负面影响会像涟漪一样往外扩散。要是这个制造商能够拿出确凿的证据，证明减免关税定会使他倒闭出局，国会肯定认为他的反对意见无可辩驳。

But the fallacy comes from looking merely at this manufacturer and his employees, or merely at the American sweater industry. It comes from noticing only the results that are immediately seen, and neglecting the results that are not seen because they are prevented from coming into existence.

然而，这里的谬误出在只看这家制造商和他的员工，或者只顾及美国羊毛衫业。这种谬误源自只注意看得见的立即结果，而忽略了那些被剥夺了出现机会而看不见的结果。

The lobbyists for tariff protection are continually putting forward arguments that are not factually correct. But let us assume that the facts in this case are precisely as the sweater manufacturer has stated them. Let us assume that a tariff of $5 a sweater is necessary for him to stay in business and provide employment at sweater-making for his workers.

向国会进行游说的人为求得关税保护，不断用与事实不尽相符证据进行申辩。然而，我们权且假设那家羊毛衫制造商以上所述的就是事实，假设为了使得它能在这个行业中继续维持下去，并能继续为现有员工提供工作机会，征收5美元的关税是必要的。

We have deliberately chosen the most unfavorable example of any for the removal of a tariff. We have not taken an argument for the imposition of a new tariff in order to bring a new industry into existence, but an argument for the retention of a tariff that has already brought an industry into existence, and cannot be repealed without hurting somebody.

我们刻意选择撤消关税这种最棘手的例子来做说明。我们没有讨论为了创造新的产业而设立新的关税这种情况，而是就维持业已保护一个行业能够存在的关税，同时撤消它又必然会伤害到一些人的既得利益的情况展开讨论。

The tariff is repealed; the manufacturer goes out of business; a thousand workers are laid off; the particular tradesmen whom they patronized are hurt. This is the immediate result that is seen. But there are also results which, while much more difficult to trace, are no less immediate and no less real. For now sweaters that formerly cost retail $30 apiece can be bought for $25. Consumers can now buy the same quality of sweater for less money, or a much better one for the same money. If they buy the same quality of sweater, they not only get the sweater, but they have $5 left over, which they would not have had under the previous conditions, to buy something else. With the $25 that they pay for the imported sweater they help employment—as the American manufacturer no doubt predicted — in the sweater industry in England. With the $5 left over they help employment in any number of other industries in the United States.

该项关税被取消了；那位制造商破了产；成千员工被遣散；靠这群人发财的商家直接遭受损失。这是看得到的立即结果。但还有一些结果，虽然追踪起来很困难，但同样直接同样真实。以往30美元一件的羊毛衫现在只卖25美元，消费者花更少的钱，就能买到同等品质的羊毛衫，或者花同样多的钱，能买到一件品质更好的羊毛衫。如果他们买到了同质的羊毛衫，那么他们不仅有羊毛衫穿，省下的5美元还可以拿去买别的东西。消费者掏25美元买进口货，是在促进英国羊毛衫业的就业，这也是那个美国制造商为我们所断言的那样。而消费者省下的5美元，则会促进美国其它产业的就业。

But the results do not end there. By buying English sweaters they furnish the English with dollars to buy American goods here. This, in fact (if I may here disregard such complications as fluctuating exchange rates, loans, credits, etc.) is the only way in which the British can eventually make use of these dollars. Because we have permitted the British to sell more to us, they are now able to buy more from tis. They are, in fact, eventually forced to buy more from us if their dollar balances are not to remain perpetually unused. So as a result of letting in more British goods, we must export more American goods. And though fewer people are now employed in the American sweater industry, more people are employed—and much more efficiently employed—in, say, the American washing-machine or aircraft-building business. American employment on net balance has not gone down, but American and British production on net balance has gone up. Labor in each country is more fully employed in doing just those things that it does best, instead of being forced to do things that it does inefficiently or badly. Consumers in both countries are better off. They are able to buy what they want where they can get it cheapest. American consumers are better provided with sweaters, and British consumers are better provided with washing machines and aircraft.

不过，由此带来的结果还不止这些。通过购买英国的羊毛衫，他们向英国人提供了美元，从而使得英国人可以拿这些美元去购买美国产品。事实上，英国人手上的美元最终只有拿去购买美国产品（这里暂且忽略汇率波动、贷款、信用等复杂因素）。由于关税减免，英国人得以出售更多的产品给我们，现在他们才有能力从美国买更多的产品。事实上，美元最终只能用来买美国产品，除非外国人持有美元永远不用。因此，作为允许进口更多英国产品的结果，是我们必然出口更多的美国产品。尽管美国羊毛衫业中就业的人数减少了，但更多人得以被其他行业雇用，而且是更有效率地雇用，例如洗衣机或飞机制造业。美国总的就业率并未下降，但是美国和英国的整体生产却增加了。两国的劳动力资源都充分流向了各自的优势产业，而不必继续窝在缺乏效率或者成果差的产业里。两国的消费者都得到了实惠。他们可以买到最便宜的产品。美国的消费者能买更多的羊毛衫，英国消费者可以得到更多的洗衣机和飞机。

3

Now let us look at the matter the other way round, and see the effect of imposing a tariff in the first place. Suppose that there had been no tariff on foreign knit goods, that Americans were accustomed to buying foreign sweaters without duty, and that the argument were then put forward that we could bring a sweater industry into existence by imposing a duty of $5 on sweaters.

现在，让我们换个角度来看一下这个问题，看看新开征一种关税会带来的影响。假设美国对进口针织品还不曾征收关税，美国人已经习惯购买售价不含关税的进口羊毛衫。现在，有种论调说：我们可以通过对进口羊毛衫征收5美元的关税来催生国产羊毛衫制造业。

There would be nothing logically wrong with this argument so far as it went. The cost of British sweaters to the American consumer might thereby be forced so high that American manufacturers would find it profitable to enter the sweater business. But American consumers would be forced to subsidize this industry. On every American sweater they bought they would be forced in effect to pay a tax of $5 which would be collected from them in a higher price by the new sweater industry.

这种论调本身逻辑并没有什么问题。关税抬高了英国羊毛衫在美国的售价，使得美国厂商进入羊毛衫行业有利可图。然而，美国消费者将被迫补贴这个产业。他们每买一件国产羊毛衫，事实上就等于被迫缴纳5美元的税，这体现为新羊毛衫产业的较高价格。

Americans would be employed in a sweater industry who had not previously been employed in a sweater industry. That much is true. But there would be no net addition to the country’s industry or the country’s employment. Because the American consumer had to pay $5 more for the same quality of sweater he would have just that much less left over to buy anything else. He would have to reduce his expenditures by $5 somewhere else. In order that one industry might grow or come into existence, a hundred other industries would have to shrink. In order that 50,000 persons might be employed in a woolen sweater industry, 50,000 fewer persons would be employed elsewhere.

一些原来并不受雇于羊毛衫产业的美国人现在改入这一行，这当然是事实。但是整个国家的从业人数或就业机会并无任何净增长。由于消费者不得不多花5美元去购买同品质的羊毛衫，可用于购买其他产品的钱就少了5美元。他将不得不因此缩减相应的开支。为了使一个产业发展或生存而开征关税，很多其他产业将不得不萎缩。为了让50 000人能够受雇于羊毛衫产业而开征关税，其他产业的从业人数将不得不因此损失50 000人。

But the new industry would be visible. The number of its employees, the capital invested in it, the market value of its product in terms of dollars, could be easily counted. The neighbors could see the sweater workers going to and from the factory every day. The results would be palpable and direct. But the shrinkage of a hundred other industries, the loss of 50,000 other jobs somewhere else, would not be so easily noticed. it would be impossible for even the cleverest statistician to know precisely what the incidence of the loss of other jobs had been—precisely how many men and women had been laid off from each particular industry, precisely how much business each particular industry had lost—because consumers had to pay more for their sweaters. For a loss spread among all the other productive activities of the country would be comparatively minute for each. It would be impossible for anyone to know precisely how each consumer would have spent his extra $5 if he had been allowed to retain it. The overwhelming majority of the people, therefore, would probably suffer from the illusion that the new industry had cost us nothing.

然而，新产业是容易看得见的。其从业人数、投入的资本、产品市场规模，测评起来都很容易。邻居们每天都能看见羊毛衫厂的工人上下班。这些结果直接并且明显。但是，许多其他产业的萎缩、及其损失的50 000个工作机会，却不是能够很容易被觉察到的。即使是对最聪明的统计专家来讲，要确切地了解因为消费者不得不在羊毛衫上多花一些钱而给其他产业造成的损失——确切地知道有多少男女工人被某一个别的行业所解雇，确切地知道每一个行业所丢掉的生意——也是不可能的。因为损失被分摊到了美国其他所有生产活动中，人们一时很难看出某种生产活动承受损失前后的明显差别。要知道倘使那5美元可以被留下来，每个消费者原本会怎么花掉它是不可能的。因此，绝大多数人都可能会罹患此种错觉，以为新产业并没有使他们付出任何代价。

（未完待续）

The Fetish of Full Employment

第10章 盲目崇拜全面就业

THE ECONOMIC GOAL of any nation, as of any individual, is to get the greatest results with the least effort. The whole economic progress of mankind has consisted in getting more production with the same labor. It is for this reason that men began putting burdens on the backs of mules instead of on their own; that they went on to invent the wheel and the wagon, the railroad and the motor truck. It is for this reason that men used their ingenuity to develop a hundred thousand labor-saving inventions.

任何国家的经济目标，与任何个人的经济目标相同，在于以最小的努力取得最大的结果。人类全部的经济进步，在于以同样的劳力得到更多的产出。也正是由于这一原因，人们着手用骡子代替自己负重，并且进一步发明了轮子和马车，发明了铁路和载货汽车。正是由于这一原因，人类才运用自己的聪明才智，发明创造了无数节省劳力的装置。

All this is so elementary that one would blush to state it if it were not being constantly forgotten by those who coin and circulate the new slogans. Translated into national terms, this first principle means that our real objective is to maximize production. In doing this, full employment—that is, the absence of involuntary idleness—becomes a necessary byproduct. But production is the end, employment merely the means. We cannot continuously have the fullest production without full employment. But we can very easily have full employment without full production.

所有这些实在是太基本了，如果不是因为那些杜撰和传播新口号的人一再忘记这些的话，在这里都不好意思再提。当我们从国家的角度来分析时，这一首要原则意味着：追求生产最大化才是我们的真正目标。要达成这个目标，全面就业，即不存在非自愿失业的情况，就会成为必然的副产品。不过，就业只是手段，生产才是目的。少了全面就业，我们无法连续不断地达到充分生产这个目标。不过，我们很容易就可以实现没有充分生产的全面就业。

Primitive tribes are naked, and wretchedly fed and housed, but they do not suffer from unemployment. China and India are incomparably poorer than ourselves, but the main trouble from which they suffer is primitive production methods (which are both a cause and a consequence of a shortage of capital) and not unemployment. Nothing is easier to achieve than full employment, once it is divorced from the goal of full production and taken as an end in itself. Hitler provided full employment with a huge armament program. World War II provided full employment for every nation involved. The slave labor in Germany had full employment. Prisons and chain gangs have full employment. Coercion can always provide full employment.

原始部落的成员赤身露体，吃、住条件都很可怜，不过他们没有失业的痛苦。中国和印度远比美国贫穷，但它们的主要问题也不是失业问题，而是生产方式太落后（这既是资本短缺的原因，也是资本短缺的结果）。全面就业一旦偏离了充分生产这个目标，并且自身被当作一个目标的话，恐怕没有什么东西会比它更容易实现的了。希特勒推动庞大的扩军备战计划，实现了全面就业；第二次世界大战让每个参战国都实现了全面就业；德国的苦役都全面就业；监狱和戴镣铐的囚徒都全面就业。高压统治总能实现全面就业。

Yet our legislators do not present Full Production bills in Congress but Full Employment bills. Even committees of businessmen recommend “a President’s Commission on Full Employment,” not on Full Production, or even on Full Employment and Full Production. Everywhere the means is erected into the end, and the end itself is forgotten.

然而，议员们在国会提出的不是充分生产的议案，而是全面就业的议案。就连工商业联合会呼吁成立的也是“总统全面就业委员会”，而非“充分生产”委员会、或“全面就业与充分生产”委员会。在任何地方，手段反而成了目标，而目标本身却被遗忘了。

Wages and employment are discussed as if they had no relation to productivity and output. On the assumption that there is only a fixed amount of work to be done, the conclusion is drawn that a thirty-hour week will provide more jobs and will therefore be preferable to a forty-hour week. A hundred make-work practices of labor unions are confusedly tolerated. When a Petrillo threatens to put a radio station out of business unless it employs twice as many musicians as it needs, he is supported by part of the public because he is after all merely trying to create jobs. When we had our WPA, it was considered a mark of genius for the administrators to think of projects that employed the largest number of men in relation to the value of the work performed—in other words, in which labor was least efficient.

人们讨论起工资和就业，就好像它们与生产力和产出没有什么联系一样。在仅仅存在一个固定量的工作可做这一假设下，所得出的结论是：30小时周工作制将提供更多的工作职位，因此比40小时周工作制要好。工会变着花样“制造工作机会”的做法仍一再被稀里糊涂地容忍。美国专业音乐人工会领袖皮特里洛（Petrillo）扬言，若某广播电台不加倍雇用音乐工作者，就要该广播电台关门，他受到公众支持，毕竟他只是想要创造更多的工作机会。当我们拥有公共事业管理署（WPA）之际，大家认为天才行政管理人员标志就是能想出相对于工作所能创造的价值雇用最大数量的人力的项目——换句话说，最没有效率地使用劳动力的项目。

It would be far better, if that were the choice—which it isn’t—to have maximum production with part of the population supported in idleness by undisguised relief than to provide “full employment” by so many forms of disguised make-work that production is disorganized. The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able virtually to eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs. A much smaller proportion of the American population needs to work than that, say, of China or of Russia. The real question is not how many millions of jobs there will be in America ten years from now, but how much shall we produce, and what, in consequence, will be our standard of living? The problem of distribution on which all the stress is being put today, is after all more easily solved the more there is to distribute.

如果这是一种选择——可惜不是——最好是拥有生产最大化，同时光明正大地救济一部分失业人口，远比打着“全面就业”的幌子，用各种滥配工作来扰乱生产要好得多。文明的进步其实体现在就业人口的减少上，而不是体现在增加上。因为当国家变得日益富裕，才使我们得以禁止使用童工，得以实现老有所养，使得成千上万的妇女不再需要劳累工作。在美国必须工作的人口的比例，远低于比如中国或俄罗斯这样的国家。真正的问题并不在于10年后美国还能提供多少就业机会，而在于我们的产出能达到多少，我们的生活水平能因此提高多少？今天人们极力强调的分配问题，如果有更多的产品可供分配，终归是更容易得到解决。

We can clarify our thinking if we put our chief emphasis where it belongs—on policies that will maximize production.

我们如果能把重点放在真正该放的地方——也就是放在生产最大化的政策上，我们就可以理清自己的思路。

Spread-the-Work Schemes

第8章 摊享工作机会

I HAVE REFERRED to various union make-work and featherbed practices. These practices, and the public toleration of them, spring from the same fundamental fallacy as the fear of machines. This is the belief that a more efficient way of doing a thing destroys jobs, and its necessary corollary that a less efficient way of doing it creates them.

前面我已经提到了工会制造工作机会和闲职就业的种种做法。这些做法的起因，以及公众容忍它们的原因，跟害怕机器一样，是源于同一个根本的谬误。人们相信，用更有效率的方式去做事，只会消减工作机会。这个信条换句话说就是，采用缺乏效率的方式去做一件事，反而可以创造工作机会。

Allied to this fallacy is the belief that there is just a fixed amount of work to be done in the world, and that, if we cannot add to this work by thinking up more cumbersome ways of doing it, at least we can think of devices for spreading it around among as large a number of people as possible.

与这个谬论相联系的信条是：这个世界上可做的工作是有限的，要是我们想不出更繁琐拖沓的做事方式来增加工作量，那么我们至少可以想方设法将事情分摊给尽可能多的人去做。

This error lies behind the minute subdivision of labor upon which unions insist. In the building trades in large cities the subdivision is notorious. Bricklayers are not allowed to use stones for a chimney: that is the special work of stonemasons. An electrician cannot rip out a board to fix a connection and put it back again: that is the special job, no matter how simple it may be, of the carpenters. A plumber will not remove or put back a tile incident to fixing a leak in the shower: that is the job of a tile-setter.

这一错误隐含于许多工会所坚持的细微分工之中。在大城市的建筑业中，这种细微分工众所周知。泥匠不许碰砌烟囱的石材，因为那是石匠的专有工作。电工不可以拆开再装回木板以处理接线不良，这是特种工作，无论多么简单，都属于木匠。管工若要处理浴室的漏水问题，不允许撬开和铺回瓷砖，因为那是瓦匠的专有工作。

Furious “jurisdictional” strikes are fought among unions for the exclusive right to do certain types of borderline jobs. In a statement prepared by the American railroads for the Attorney-General’s Committee on Administrative Procedure, the roads gave innumerable examples in which the National Railroad Adjustment Board had decided that

各种工会之间常因某种界限不清的工作的特权而争执、发动“隶属权”罢工。美国铁路公司送交司法部长行政程序调查委员会的一份报告就列举了大量的例子，控诉国家铁路调节理事会的诸多决定：

each separate operation on the railroad, no matter how minute, such as talking over a telephone or spiking or unspiking a switch, is so far an exclusive property of a particular class of employee that if an employee of another class, in the course of his regular duties, performs such operations he must not only be paid an extra day’s wages for doing so, but at the same time the furloughed or unemployed members of the class held to be entitled to perform the operation must be paid a day’s wages for not having been called upon to perform it.

铁路上的各项独立作业，无论多么微不足道，例如接听铁路专用电话或者扳道，至今都是特定职业雇工的专属权。倘若其他工种的工人，在当班时代 行了这类专属操作的话，那么，干这个活儿的人不但要得到一天额外的工资，而且公司还必须向有权操作的休假待岗的工人支付一天的工 资，因为没有召唤他们来做此项工作。

 It is true that a few persons can profit at the expense of the rest of us from this minute arbitrary subdivision of labor— provided it happens in their case alone. But those who support it as a general practice fail to see that it always raises production costs; that it results on net balance in less work done and in fewer goods produced. The householder who is forced to employ two men to do the work of one has, it is true, given employment to one extra man. But he has just that much less money left over to spend on something that would employ somebody else. Because his bathroom leak has been repaired at double what it should have cost, he decides not to buy the new sweater he wanted. “Labor” is no better off, because a day’s employment of an unneeded tile-setter has meant a day’s disemployment of a sweater knitter or machine handler. The householder, however, is worse off. Instead of having a repaired shower and a sweater, he has the shower and no sweater. And if we count the sweater as part of the national wealth, the country is short one sweater. This symbolizes the net result of the effort to make extra work by arbitrary subdivision of labor.

的确从这种微细随意的劳动分工可以令我们大家做出牺牲，而让一些人获益——前提是这种事只发生在他们身上。但是，主张将之作为一般办法加以推广的人士却没有认识到，这样做通常提高了生产成本，其最终结果就是做的工作更少，生产的商品也更少。房主被迫雇用两个人来做本来一个人就可以完成的工作，他的确会多给其中一个人就业机会，但是这么一来，他能够花在其他东西上面的钱就会变少刚好那么多，削减了生产其他东西同等的就业机会。由于他解决卫生间漏水问题多花了一份冤枉钱，他一直想买的新羊毛衫就只好泡汤。“劳工”并没有捞到更多好处，因为多雇用一名无所事事的瓦匠，就会导致另一名羊毛衫编织工或编织机操作工做不成事。但房主的处境却变得很糟糕。他本来可以修好管漏，并拥有一件羊毛衫，现在卫生间是不漏水了，却少了一件羊毛衫。如果我们把这件羊毛衫算作国家财富的一部分，那么整个国家就少了一件羊毛衫。这就代表着靠随意细微分工增进就业的最终结果。

But there are other schemes for “spreading the work,” often put forward by union spokesmen and legislators. The most frequent of these is the proposal to shorten the working week, usually by law. The belief that it would “spread the work” and “give more jobs” was one of the main reasons behind the inclusion of the penaltyovertime provision in the existing Federal Wage-Hour Law. The previous legislation in the states, forbidding the employment of women or minors for more, say, than forty-eight hours a week, was based on the conviction that longer hours were injurious to health and morale. Some of it was based on the belief that longer hours were harmful to efficiency. But the provision in the federal law, that an employer must pay a worker a 50 percent premium above his regular hourly rate of wages for all hours worked in any week above forty, was not based primarily on the belief that forty-five hours a week, say, was injurious either to health or efficiency. It was inserted partly in the hope of boosting the worker’s weekly income, and partly in the hope that, by discouraging the employer from taking on anyone regularly for more than forty hours a week, it would force him to employ additional workers instead. At the time of writing this, there are many schemes for “averting unemployment” by enacting a thirty-hour week or a four-day week.

此外，还有一些其他的“摊享工作机会”的策略，常常是由工会发言人和国会议员提出的。其中最常见的是缩短每周工时的提议，常常以法定工时形式出现。现有的联邦工资工时法中包含惩罚性的加班条款背后的主要思想就是认为这种做法有助于“摊享工作机会”和“提供更多的工作机会”。在各州原有的立法中，禁止雇用女工或童工每周工时超过一定时间，比如48小时，其依据是确信周工时若再往上加，必定有害健康与员工士气。此外还部分地是因为相信更长时间的工作有损工作效率。但是，联邦法律的条款中规定，只要雇工每周工作超过40小时，雇主就必须按每个小时的正常工资加付50%给劳工。这一条款的制定依据不是因为政府相信每周工作比如45小时就有害健康或有损效率，加入这一条款的原因部分地是希望籍此提高劳工每周所得，部分地希望通过遏制雇主要求员工每周工作超过40小时，而达到迫使雇主增雇员工的目的。就在我写作本书的时候，已有许多方案希望通过法定一周工作30小时或工作4天来“扭转失业”。

What is the actual effect of such plans, whether enforced by individual unions or by legislation? It will clarify the problem if we consider two cases. The first is a reduction in the standard working week from forty hours to thirty without any change in the hourly rate of pay. The second is a reduction in the working week from forty hours to thirty, but with a sufficient increase in hourly wage rates to maintain the same weekly pay for the individual workers already employed.

这样的计划，无论是通过单个工会推行，还是靠立法去执行，其实际效果会如何呢？我们将通过下面两种情况的分析来阐明这个问题。第一种情况是把每周标准工时从40小时缩减为30小时，而不改变小时工资率。第二种情况是把周工时从40小时缩减为30小时，同时调高小时工资率，以保证从业员工维持原有的周薪水平。

Let us take the first case. We assume that the working week is cut from forty hours to thirty, with no change in hourly pay. If there is substantial unemployment when this plan is put into effect, the plan will no doubt provide additional jobs. We cannot assume that it will provide sufficient additional jobs, however, to maintain the same payrolls and the same number of man-hours as before, unless we make the unlikely assumptions that in each industry there has been exactly the same percentage of unemployment and that the new men and women employed are no less efficient at their special tasks on the average than those who had already been employed. But suppose we do make these assumptions. Suppose we do assume that the right number of additional workers of each skill is available, and that the new workers do not raise production costs. What will be the result of reducing the working week from forty hours to thirty (without any increase in hourly pay)?

我们先来分析第一种状况。假设每周工时从40小时减为30小时，而小时工资率不变。若实行该措施时，恰逢失业潮，这么做无疑可以提供更多的就业机会。但是我们不能断然肯定，这一计划将提供足够的新增工作以维持同样的工薪支付和同样的工时数。除非我们提出一些不切实际的假设：每个行业的失业率都相同与每个工种新手的工作效率都赶得上熟手。我们姑且认为以上假设成立，再假定每项技术工作都有足够多的技术工人可雇佣，假定新雇的工人不增加生产成本。那么，将周工时从40小时减少到30小时（同时不增加小时工资），将有什么样的结果呢？

Though more workers will be employed, each will be working fewer hours, and there will, therefore, be no net increase in man-hours. It is unlikely that there will be any significant increase in production. Total payrolls and “purchasing power” will be no larger. All that will have happened, even under the most favorable assumptions (which would seldom be realized) is that the workers previously employed will subsidize, in effect, the workers previously unemployed. For in order that the new workers will individually receive three-fourths as many dollars a week as the old workers used to receive, the old workers will themselves now individually receive only three-fourths as many dollars a week as previously. It is true that the old workers will now work fewer hours; but this purchase of more leisure at a high price is presumably not a decision they have made for its own sake: it is a sacrifice made to provide others with jobs.

尽管雇用的工人多了，但每人工作的时间将减少，总工时并无增加。生产不可能会有任何显著的增加。工资总额和整体“购买力”不会扩大。即使在最理想的条件之下（这种情况几乎不可能发生），实际结果只可能是原有的雇员补贴原来的失业人员。因为，为了让新员工的周薪能够拿到老员工原有工资的四分之三，老员工现在只能拿到原有工资的四分之三。确实，老员工现在工作的时间短了，但是这种用高代价换来的休闲时间并非出于自愿。给别人提供工作对他们来讲是一种牺牲。

The labor union leaders who demand shorter weeks to “spread the work” usually recognize this, and therefore they put the proposal forward in a form in which everyone is supposed to eat his cake and have it too. Reduce the working week from forty hours to thirty, they tell us, to provide more jobs; but compensate for the shorter week by increasing the hourly rate of pay by 33.33 percent. The workers employed, say, were previously getting an average of $226 a week for forty hours work; in order that they may still get $226 for only thirty hours work, the hourly rate of pay must be advanced to an average of more than $7.53.

那些要求缩短每周工时以“摊享工作机会”的工会领袖通常都能认识到这一点，因此他们提出的方案就看上去让每个人都能熊掌和鱼兼得。他们告诉我们说，应当将周工时从40小时降低到30小时，以提供更多的就业。然后，通过增加33.33%的小时工资来补偿缩短工时造成的工资下降。举例来说，如果受雇的员工以前每周工作40小时，平均可领226美元，为了使他们每周只工作30小时仍能领到226美元，小时工资率则必须提高到平均7.53美元以上的水平。

What would be the consequences of such a plan? The first and most obvious consequence would be to raise costs of production. If we assume that the workers, when previously employed for forty hours, were getting less than the level of production costs, prices and profits made possible, then they could have got the hourly increase without reducing the length of the working week. They could, in other words, have worked the same number of hours and got their total weekly incomes increased by one-third, instead of merely getting, as they are under the new thirty-hour week, the same weekly income as before. But if under the forty-hour week, the workers were already getting as high a wage as the level of production costs and prices made possible (and the very unemployment they are trying to cure may be a sign that they were already getting even more than this), then the increase in production costs as a result of the 33.33 percent increase in hourly wage rates will be much greater than the existing state of prices, production and costs can stand.

这种方案实行起来又会怎样呢？第一个同时也是最明显的后果将是增加了生产成本。假设员工以前每周工作40小时，所得的工资低于生产成本、价格、与利润关系允许的工资水准，那么不必缩短每周工时，小时工资率也有可能提高。换句话说，他们每周工作与从前相同的时数，周薪就可能提高三分之一。而不是象他们在新的30小时工作制下那样仅仅得到与以前相同的收入。然而，如果在每周工作40小时的办法下，员工所领工资已经达到了生产成本与价格可允许的上限（其实试图解决的失业率问题正好表明，工资甚至超过了这个上限），那么小时工资率提高33.33%所造成生产成本上升的幅度，将显著超出目前的生产成本、价格、利润关系状态能够忍受的程度。

The result of the higher wage rate, therefore, will be a much greater unemployment than before. The least efficient firms will be thrown out of business, and the least efficient workers will be thrown out of jobs. Production will be reduced all around the circle. Higher production costs and scarcer supplies will tend to raise prices, so that workers can buy less with the same dollar wages; on the other hand, the increased unemployment will shrink demand and hence tend to lower prices. What ultimately happens to the prices of goods will depend upon what monetary policies are then allowed. But if a policy of monetary inflation is pursued, to enable prices to rise so that the increased hourly wages can be paid, this will merely be a disguised way of reducing real wage rates, so that these will return, in terms of the amount of goods they can purchase, to the same real rate as before. The result would then be the same as if the working week had been reduced without an increase in hourly wage rates. And the results of that have already been discussed.

由此可知，进一步提高工资水平的结果，将是出现更为严重的失业。那些效率最差的公司会被淘汰出局，那些效率最差的员工会被炒鱿鱼。整个行业的生产将缩减。生产成本上升、供应减少，这些将迫使产品的价格上涨，劳工以同样的工资能买的东西因而更少了；另一方面，失业率回升会削弱消费需求，导致产品价格下跌。最终价格是涨是跌，取决于当时的货币政策。若是通货膨胀政策，使价格能长得上去，从而支付得起上涨后的工资。但实际上，通货膨胀只不过是掩盖了实际工资率的下降，若以劳工能够买到的产品来衡量，劳动报酬和以前相比不会有起色。最终的结果必然是相同的，即周工时减少了，但小时工资率并没有提高。这种情况我们已经讨论过了。

The spread-the-work schemes, in brief, rest on the same sort of illusion that we have been considering. The people who support such schemes think only of the employment they might provide for particular persons or groups; they do not stop to consider what their whole effect would be on everybody.

简而言之，摊享工作机会的谋划，是建立在我们讨论过的幻觉上。支持这种方案的人，只考虑到他们能够向特定个人或群体提供就业机会，他们并没有静下心来思量，对于社会上的每个人来讲其总体影响将是什么。

The spread-the-work schemes rest also, as we began by pointing out, on the false assumption that there is just a fixed amount of work to be done. There could be no greater fallacy. There is no limit to the amount of work to be done as long as any human need or wish that work could fill remains unsatisfied. In a modern exchange economy, the most work will be done when prices, costs and wages are in the best relations with each other. What these relations are we shall later consider.

正如我们在本章开头所指出的那样，摊享工作机会的策略源于一个错误的假设：社会上可做的工作是有限的。恐怕再也找不出比这更荒谬的论调了。只要还有人的需要或愿望还没有获得满足，能做的事就没有止境。在现代的交换经济中，当价格、成本和工资彼此之间呈现最佳的关系时，完成的工作才最多。至于这些关系是什么，我们将在后面的章节中专门讨论。

第7章
机器之祸

（接前面部分）
3
 
Not all inventions and discoveries, of course, are “labor-saving” machines. Some of them, like precision instruments, like nylon, lucite, plywood and plastics of all kinds, simply improve the quality of products. Others, like the telephone or the airplane, perform operations that direct human labor could not perform at all. Still others bring into existence objects and services, such as X-ray machines, radios, TV sets, air-conditioners and computers, that would otherwise not even exist. But in the foregoing illustration we have taken precisely the kind of machine that has been the special object of modern technophobia.

不消说，并不是一切的发明与发现都是“节省劳动”的机器。有的发明创造的目的在于改良产品性能，如精密仪器、尼龙、合成树脂、胶合板、各种塑料。至于电话和飞机这样的发明创造，它们所执行的作业是直接人力无法执行的。更多的发明创造则给人类带来前所未有的产品和服务，如X射线机、收音机、电视机、空调、电脑。但在前面的论述中，我们所选取的，正是当代科技恐惧症患者尤其抵制的机器类型。

It is possible, of course, to push too far the argument that machines do not on net balance throw men out of work. It is sometimes argued, for example, that machines create more jobs than would otherwise have existed. Under certain conditions this may be true. They can certainly create enormously more jobs in particular trades. The eighteenth century figures for the textile industries are a case in point. Their modern counterparts are certainly no less striking. In 1910, 140,000 persons were employed in the United States in the newly created automobile industry. In 1920, as the product was improved and its cost reduced, the industry employed 250,000 In 1930, as this product improvement and cost reduction continued, employment in the industry was 380,000. In 1973 it had risen to 941,000. By 1973, 514,000 people were employed in making aircraft and aircraft parts, and 393,000 were engaged in making electronic components. So it has been in one newly created trade after another, as the invention was improved and the cost reduced.²

反过来，那些认为机器总体而言不会让人失业的主张也有可能说过头。例如，有时人们主张，机器能创造更多的工作机会。在某些情况下，这种说法可能符合事实。在某些特定行业中，机器绝对能创造远多于从前的工作机会。18世纪的纺织业便是一个很好的例子。现代的新兴产业与之相比有过之而无不及。1910年，在美国有14万人受雇于新兴的汽车制造业。到1920年，由于产品改进和成本降低，有25万人受雇于这个行业。到1930年，随着产品继续改良，成本继续降低，整个业界的从业人员达到了38万人。1973年，这个数字上升到94.1万。同样在1973年，有51.4万人受雇飞机及其机零部件制造业，39.3万人从事电子元件制造。因此，随着发明的不断进步和成本的降低，在一个接一个的新兴产业中，的确都出现了上述就业增长的情形。{尾注:经济学家迈克尔·考克斯（W. Michael Cox）和理查德·阿尔姆（Richard Alm）在1992年为达拉斯联邦储备银行写了一篇文章，在文中，这两位作者指出工作机会是一个不断创造的过程。经济学家熊彼特第一个提出“创造性破坏”，即科技创新能把劳动力从过时的工作中解放出来，进而创造新的就业机会。考克斯和阿尔姆考查了20世纪就业的迅猛增长的全过程。在这一过程中，1900年美国有2 900万工人，在1991年工人人数已达1.16亿。（考克斯和阿尔姆的〈流失〉（The Churn），达拉斯联邦储备委员会年报，1992年）}

There is also an absolute sense in which machines may be said to have enormously increased the number of jobs. The population of the world today is four times as great as in the middle of the eighteenth century, before the Industrial Revolution had got well under way. Machines may be said to have given birth to this increased population; for without the machines, the world would not have been able to support it. Three out of every four of us, therefore, may be said to owe not only our jobs but our very lives to machines.

机器可以大幅度地增加就业数量的观点还有一种绝对正确性。当今的全球人口是18世纪中叶工业革命形成规模前的4倍，因此也可以说，是机器使人口得以增加。如果没有近现代机器，这个世界根本无法养活那么多人。即，我们之中四分之三的人能有工作可做，能够在这个世界上存在，都要拜机器所赐。

Yet it is a misconception to think of the function or result of machines as primarily one of creating jobs. The real result of the machine is to increase production, to raise the standard of living, to increase economic welfare. It is no trick to employ everybody, even (or especially) in the most primitive economy. Full employment—very full employment; long, weary, backbreaking employment—is characteristic of precisely the nations that are most retarded industrially. Where full employment already exists, new machines, inventions and discoveries cannot—until there has been time for an increase in population — bring more employment. They are likely to bring more unemployment (but this time I am speaking of voluntaiy and not involuntary unemployment) because people can now afford to work fewer hours, while children and the overaged no longer need to work.

然而，把机器的主要功用或是成果看作是创造就业却是一种错误的观念。机器的真正成果是增加生产、提高生活水平、增加经济福利。要让人人都有活儿干，即使（或尤其是）在最原始的社会中，也易如反掌。全面就业（full employment）——真正的全面就业，起早摸黑、全年无休、累死累活的就业状态——是工业发展最落后的国家的特色。对于已经达到这种全面就业的地方，新机器、新发明和新发现并没有办法带来更多就业机会，必须要等到人口有所增长才有办法。新机器的确有可能使失业增加（但这里谈的是自愿性失业，而不是非自愿性失业），毕竟，人们如今可以不必工作那么长的时间，孩童和老人也不用再工作。

What machines do, to repeat, is to bring an increase in production and an increase in the standard of living. They may do this in either of two ways. They do it by making goods cheaper for consumers (as in our illustration of the overcoats), or they do it by increasing wages because they increase the productivity of the workers. In other words, they either increase money wages or, by reducing prices, they increase the goods and services that the same money wages will buy. Sometimes they do both. What actually happens will depend in large part upon the monetary policy pursued in a country. But in any case, machines, inventions and discoveries increase real wages.

我们需要重申，机器所带来的是增加生产和提高生活水平。这个结果可以通过两条途径来实现：机器使消费者购买的产品变得更加便宜（在前面大衣例子中已有说明），或者提高工人的生产力，从而使工人的工资能够提高。换句话说，机器能够提高货币工资，或者能够降低物价，让同样的薪水能买到更多的产品和服务。有时候两种情况会同时发生。至于到底发生哪种情况，主要根据当时国家的货币政策而定。但无论如何，机器、发明和发现都会提高实际工资水平。

4
 
A warning is necessary before we leave this subject. It was precisely the great merit of the classical economists that they looked for secondary consequences, that they were concerned with the effects of a given economic policy or development in the long run and on the whole community. But it was also their defect that, in taking the long view and the broad view, they sometimes neglected to take also the short view and the narrow view. They were too often inclined to minimize or to forget altogether the immediate effects of developments on special groups. We have seen, for example, that many of the English stocking knitters suffered real tragedies as a result of the introduction of the new stocking frames, one of the earliest inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

在我们结束这个话题之前，有必要再提醒一下读者。古典经济学家的可贵之处，在于他们寻求特定经济政策的续发后果，关心其在长期内对公众整体的影响。但是它的不足之处，在于他们过分注重长期和全局，有时反倒无视短期和局部的效应。他们往往低估经济发展对特殊群体的即时影响，甚至根本不放在心上。例如，我们已经看到，在工业革命最早期的发明之一新织袜机的应用，导致了许多英格兰手工织袜工人所遭遇的不幸。

But such facts and their modern counterparts have led some writers to the opposite extreme of looking only at the immediate effects on certain groups. Joe Smith is thrown out of a job by the introduction of some new machine. “Keep your eye on Joe Smith,” these writers insist. “Never lose track of Joe Smith.” But what they then proceed to do is to keep their eyes only on Joe Smith, and to forget Tom Jones, who has just got a new job in making the new machine, and Ted Brown, who has just got a job operating one, and Daisy Miller, who can now buy a coat for half what it used to cost her. And because they think only of Joe Smith, they end by advocating reactionary and nonsensical policies.

不过，这些事实及其现代版本，又使得某些经济文章作者走到了另一个极端，也就是只关注特定群体所遭受的即时后果。由于某种新机器投入使用，张三失去了工作，那些学者坚决要求社会“关注张三”、“绝不要忘记张三”。他们接下来所做的就是眼睛只看张三，而忘了李四刚得到制造新机器的新工作、王五刚得到操作新机器的工作，以及赵六现在只需要用过去一半的价钱就能买到大衣。正因为他们只想到张三，他们鼓吹倒行逆施的荒谬政策。

Yes, we should keep at least one eye on Joe Smith. He has been thrown out of a job by the new machine. Perhaps he can soon get another job, even a better one. But perhaps, also, he has devoted many years of his life to acquiring and improving a special skill for which the market no longer has any use. He has lost this investment in himself, in his old skill, just as his former employer, perhaps, has lost his investment in old machines or processes suddenly rendered obsolete. He was a skilled workman, and paid as a skilled workman. Now he has become overnight an unskilled workman again, and can hope, for the present, only for the wages of an unskilled workman, because the one skill he had is no longer needed. We cannot and must not forget Joe Smith. His is one of the personal tragedies that, as we shall see, are incident to nearly all industrial and economic progress.

的确，我们也至少应该给予张三一些关注。他因新机器而失去了工作。也许不久他就会找到找另一份工作，甚至比过去的工作还好。但实际的情形也可能是，他这辈子花了大半生所学习和掌握的某项特殊技能，变成了市场不再需要的技能。他对自身与旧技能的投资都白费了，正如他的老雇主在旧机器或旧工艺流程上面的投资，突然之间也变得落伍过时，血本无归一样。张三本来是技术工人，拿的是技术工人的工资。因为他的技能不再有人需要，他又沦为非技术工人，只能领到普通工人的工资。我们不能也不应该忘掉张三。像我们将要看到的，张三的经历几乎是所有工业和经济进步都必将带来的个人悲剧。

To ask precisely what course we should follow with Joe Smith —whether we should let him make his own adjustment, give him separation pay or unemployment compensation, put him on relief, or train him at government expense for a new job—would carry us beyond the point that we are here trying to illustrate. The central lesson is that we should try to see all the main consequences of any economic policy or development—the immediate effects on special groups, and the long-run effects on all groups.

我们到底应该对张三怎么办——不管他、让他自己去适应变化；发放遣散补偿金或失业补助给他，任由他依靠领取救济金度日；或者由政府出钱培训，帮助他再就业——这些话题已经超出了本章要讨论的范围。这里要总结的教训是，我们应该设法观察经济政策或经济动向的所有的主要后果——既观察其对特殊群体产生的即期影响，又观察其对所有群体产生的长期影响。

If we have devoted considerable space to this issue, it is because our conclusions regarding the effects of new machinery, inventions and discoveries on employment, production and welfare are crucial. If we are wrong about these, there are few things in economics about which we are likely to be right.

我们在这个主题上倾注了大量的时间和精力，这是因为就新机器、新发明和新发现对于就业、生产和福利的影响，我们能得出什么样的结论至关重要。要是我们得出的结论是错误的，那么我们在经济学上就很难做多少正确的事情了。

第7章
机器之祸

（接前面部分）  

2

But the opposition to labor-saving machinery, even today, is not confined to economic illiterates. As late as 1970, a book appeared by a writer so highly regarded that he has since received the Nobel Prize in economics. His book opposed the introduction of laborsaving machines in the underdeveloped countries on the ground that they “decrease the demand for labor”!* The logical conclusion from this would be that the way to maximize jobs is to make all labor as inefficient and unproductive as possible. It implies that the English Luddite rioters, who in the early nineteenth century destroyed stocking frames, steam-power looms, and shearing machines, were after all doing the right thing.

然而，即便是在今天，反对省力机械的论调仍然并不限于那些经济学盲。直到1970年还出了一本这样的书，其作者受到了高度评价，并荣获了诺贝尔经济学奖。在这本书中，该作者反对在经济欠发达国家使用省力机械，理由是机器会“减少对劳动力的需求”！[脚注:冈纳·缪尔达尔（Gunnar Myrdal）：《世界贫困的挑战》（The Challenge of World Poverty），(New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), pp. 400-401 处处可见.]按此逻辑得到的的结论就是：要想创造尽可能多的就业机会，就必须让所有劳工尽可能地从事缺乏效率和收益的工作。言下之意，19世纪初捣毁织袜机、蒸汽动力织布机和剪切机的英国卢德暴乱分子们（Luddite）的所作所为，归根到底竟然是对的。

One might pile up mountains of figures to show how wrong were the technophobes of the past. But it would do no good unless we understood clearly why they were wrong. For statistics and history are useless in economics unless accompanied by a basic deductive understanding of the facts—which means in this case an understanding of why the past consequences of the introduction of machinery and other labor-saving devices had to occur. Otherwise the technophobes will assert (as they do in fact assert when you point out to them that the prophecies of their predecessorsturned out to be absurd): “That may have been all very well in the past but today conditions are fundamentally different; and now we simply cannot afford to develop any more labor-saving machines.” Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, indeed, in a syndicated newspaper column of September19, 1945, wrote: “We have reached a point today where labor-saving devices are good only when they do not throw the worker out of his job.”

我们可以用一大堆数字来说明，过去那些恐惧科技进步的人错得有多离谱，但这样做无济于事，除非我们清楚地认识到他们为什么错。因为在经济学中，统计的与历史的东西，如果不与一种对事实作出基本推理的理解相结合的话，它们就是毫无疑义的。就本章分析的情况而言，这种结合意味着要去理解为什么在采用机器和其他的省力装置之后，必然产生那样的结果。要是我们不这样做，那些科技恐惧症患者就会狡辩说：“过去的状况还能忍受，但是今天的状况已经发生了根本性的变化，如今我们根本无法承受开发更多的省力机器。”当有人指出他们的前辈所作的预言被证明是荒谬的时候，他们正是以此来辩解的。1945年9月19日，在某报业集团的专栏中，美国第32任总统夫人埃莉诺·罗斯福（Eleanor Roosevelt）写道：“发展到今天，省力装置只有在不使人失业的情况下，对我们才是有利的。”

If it were indeed true that the introduction of labor-saving machinery is a cause of constantly mounting unemployment and misery, the logical conclusions to be drawn would be revolutionary, not only in the technical field but for our whole concept of civilization. Not only should we have to regard all further technical progress as a calamity; we should have to regard all past technical progress with equal horror. Every day each of us in his own activity is engaged in trying to reduce the effort it requires to accomplish a given result. Each of us is trying to save his own labor, to economize the means required to achieve his ends. Every employer, small as well as large, seeks constantly to gain his results more economically and efficiently— that is, by saving labor. Every intelligent workman tries to cut down the effort necessary to accomplish his assigned job. The most ambitious of us try tirelessly to increase the results we can achieve in a given number of hours. The technophobes, if they were logical and consistent, would have to dismiss all this progress and ingenuity as not only useless but vicious. Why should freight be carried from Chicago to New York by railroad when we could employ enormously more men, for example, to carry it all on their backs?

如果采用省力机器确实会造成失业率不断上升、加剧不幸的话，我们将合乎逻辑地得出颠覆性的结论，不仅会颠覆技术领域的观念，而且会颠覆整个人类文明的观念。我们不仅应该把任何的新技术进步都视为一场灾难，而且更该觉得过去所有的技术进步也都同样恐怖。每一天，我们每个人在处理个人事务时，总希望省心省力，把该做的事情尽快做完。每个人都想少花力气多办事。大大小小的雇主，总在设法通过节约劳动力来提高经济效益。头脑灵活的工人，都会想办法以最少的付出去完成上面指派的工作。雄心勃勃的人，总在坚持不懈地跟时间赛跑。如果严守逻辑上的一致性，那么科技恐惧症患者们必须摒弃所有这些进步和智巧，因为技术进步不但无益，而且有害。比方说从芝加哥运货到纽约，要是我们能够大量雇用人力，我们何必还要用火车，让人扛起货物背过去得了。

Theories as false as this are never held with logical consistency, but they do great harm because they are held at all. Let us, therefore, try to see exactly what happens when technical improvements and labor-saving machinery are introduced. The details will vary in each instance, depending upon the particular conditions that prevail in a given industry or period. But we shall assume an example that involves the main possibilities.

类似这样的错误理论，在逻辑上从来都站不住脚，但一旦有人相信，就贻害无穷。因此，我们需要设法弄明白：随着技术进步和省力机械的采用，到底会发生什么事。视特定行业或特定时期而言，具体情况会有不同，但我们应当采用囊括各种主要的可能性的范例。

Suppose a clothing manufacturer learns of a machine that will make men’s and women s overcoats for half as much labor as previously. He installs the machines and drops half his labor force.

假设有位制衣商了解到有种机器，可用于制造男式女式大衣，所耗人力只相当于以往的一半。于是，他购置了这种机器，并且裁掉了一半的员工。

This looks at first glance like a clear loss of employment. But the machine itself required labor to make it; so here, as one offset, are jobs that would not otherwise have existed. The manufacturer, however, would have adopted the machine only if it had either made better suits for half as much labor, or had made the same kind of suits at a smaller cost. If we assume the latter, we cannot assume that the amount of labor to make the machines was as great in terms of payrolls as the amount of labor that the clothing manufacturer hopes to save in the long run by adopting the machine; otherwise there would have been no economy, and he would not have adopted it.

初看上去，这似乎是很明显的就业损失。但是，机器本身需要人工去制造，由此带来原本不存在的工作机会，是冲抵损失的工作机会之一。应该看到，只有当这种机器可以用过去一半的人力生产出更好的大衣，或是能以更低的成本生产出同样好的大衣时，制衣商才会购置机器。假设是后一种情况，便不能假定制造机器所用的劳动量，以工资来计算的话，恰恰等于制衣商购置机器时期望能长期节省的劳动量，否则就没有经济效益可言，制衣商也不会购置那种机器。

So there is still a net loss of employment to be accounted for. But we should at least keep in mind the real possibility that even the first effect of the introduction of labor-saving machinery may be to increase employment on net balance; because it is usually only in the long run that the clothing manufacturer expects to save money by adopting the machine: it may take several years for the machine to “pay for itself.”

这么算来，就业机会仍然出现净损失。但我们至少要注意这样一个极大的可能性：即省力机械采用，其带来第一波影响也很有可能是使整体就业增加。因为制衣商使用机器，通常只是期望机器能长期帮他省钱，要机器“挣回本钱”也许要等上好几年的时间。

After the machine has produced economies sufficient to offset its cost, the clothing manufacturer has more profits than before. (We shall assume that he merely sells his coats for the same price as his competitors and makes no effort to undersell them.) At this point, it may seem, labor has suffered a net loss of employment, while it is only the manufacturer, the capitalist, who has gained. But it is precisely out of these extra profits that the subsequent social gains must come. The manufacturer must use these extra profits in at least one of three ways, and possibly he will use part of them in all three: (1) he will use the extra profits to expand his operations by buying more machines to make more coats; or (2) he will invest the extra profits in some other industry; or (3) he will spend the extra profits on increasing his own consumption. Whichever of these three courses he takes, he will increase employment.

等到机器挣够了本钱，开始产生经济效益时，制衣商就可以获得比从前更多的利润（假设他不打算低价销售，大衣的售价和竞争对手相同）。在这种情况下，好像劳工的就业机会遭受了损失，而只有那位制衣商，也就是资本家才能从中获利。但正因为资本家有了超额利润，相应的社会收益才得以体现。这位制衣商只有三种途径用掉超额利润，并且有可能在三个方面都分配一些资金：（1）用超额利润扩大生产，购置更多的机器，生产更多的大衣；（2）将超额利润投资到其他行业；（3）将超额利润用于个人消费。无论把利润用于哪个方面，他都会增加就业机会。

In other words, the manufacturer, as a result of his economies, has profits that he did not have before. Every dollar of the amount he has saved in direct wages to former coat makers, he now has to pay out in indirect wages to the makers of the new machine, or to the workers in another capital-using industry, or to the makers of a new house or car for himself or for jewelry and furs for his wife. In any case (unless he is a pointless hoarder) he gives indirectly as many jobs as he ceased to give directly.

换句话说，这位制衣商由于经济效益而获得了以前没有的利润。他从制衣工人直接工资那里节省下来的每一块钱，现在必须以间接工资的形式支付给新机器的生产工人，或者支付给他所投资的其他行业的工人，或者支付给为他盖新房、造新车的工人，或者通过为太太添置珠宝皮裘，支付给相关行业的工人。不管支付给什么人（除非他是一毛不拔的守财奴），他所间接提供的工作机会，将和他削减的直接工作机会一样多。

But the matter does not and cannot rest at this stage. If this enterprising manufacturer effects great economies as compared with his competitors, either he will begin to expand his operations at their expense, or they will start buying the machines too. Again more work will be given to the makers of the machines. But competition and production will then also begin to force down the price of overcoats. There will no longer be as great profits for those who adopt the new machines. The rate of profit of the manufacturers using the new machine will begin to drop, while the manufacturers who have still not adopted the machine may now make no profit at all. The savings, in other words, will begin to be passed along to the buyers of overcoats—to the consumers.

此外，事情不会也不可能就此打住。如果这位事业心强的制衣商在业界拥有相当大的成本优势，他会开始扩张营运规模，宰割坐以待毙的对手，或者逼迫他们着手添置机器。这样，又促使机制制造商增加人工。同时随着竞争加剧和产品增多，也会开始压低大衣的价格。那些新添置机器的制衣商获利不可能再如以往丰厚。率先使用新机器的制衣商获利率也开始下滑。仍未使用机器的制衣商可能根本无法获利。换句话说，整个业界创造的节约开始向大衣的购买者转移，也就是回馈给消费者。

But as overcoats are now cheaper, more people will buy them. This means that, though it takes fewer people to make the same number of overcoats as before, more overcoats are now being made than before. If the demand for overcoats is what economists call “elastic”—that is, if a fall in the price of overcoats causes a larger total amount of money to be spent on overcoats than previously— then more people may be employed even in making overcoats than before the new labor-saving machine was introduced. We have already seen how this actually happened historically with stockings and other textiles.

不过，由于大衣现在便宜了，更多的人会来购买。这意味着，生产同样数量的大衣，虽然雇佣的人工比以往更少，但现在的大衣总产量却比以往更大。如果人们对大衣的需求像经济学家所说的那样具有“弹性”（elastic），也就是说，价格下跌能刺激消费，消费者总体花在购买大衣上的总金额会比以前多，那么整个制衣业所雇用的劳工人数，甚至可能多于采用机器之前。从历史来看，针织袜业和其他纺织品业所发生的情形正是如此。

But the new employment does not depend on the elasticity of demand for the particular product involved. Suppose that, though the price of overcoats was almost cut in half—from a former price, say, of $150 to a new price of $100—not a single additional coat was sold. The result would be that while consumers were as well provided with new overcoats as before, each buyer would now have $50 left over that he would not have had left over before. He will therefore spend this $50 for something else, and so provide increased employment in other lines.

然而，新的就业并不取决于对某种具体产品的需求弹性。假设说，即使大衣的价格下跌了几乎一半（比如说从原来的150美元降为100美元），且总销量跟以前相比持平。其结果将是，消费者和以前一样都有一件新大衣，而不一样的是，每位消费者节省下了50美元。因此，他将把这50美元用在其他的什么东西上，从而增加了其他行业的就业。

In brief, on net balance machines, technological improvements, automation, economies and efficiency do not throw men out of work.

总之，整体而言，机器、技术改进、自动化、降低成本和提高效率并不会使人失去工作。

（未完待续）

第17章 政府价格管制

（接前面部分）

3

Price-fixing may often appear for a short period to be successful. lt can seem to work well for a while, particularly in wartime, when it is supported by patriotism and a sense of crisis. But the longer it is in effect the more its difficulties increase. When prices are arbitrarily held down by government compulsion, demand is chronically in excess of supply. We have seen that if the government attempts to prevent a shortage of a commodity by reducing also the prices of the labor, raw materials and other factors that go into its cost of production, it creates a shortage of these in turn. But not only will the government, if it pursues this course, find it necessary to extend price control more and more downwards, or “vertically”; it will find it no less necessary to extend price control “horizontally.” If we ration one commodity, and the public cannot get enough of it, though it still has excess purchasing power, it will turn to some substitute. The rationing of each commodity as it grows scarce, in other words, must put more and more pressure on the unrationed commodities that remain. If we assume that the government is successful in its efforts to prevent black markets (or at least prevents them from developing on a sufficient scale to nullify its legal prices), continued price control must drive it to the rationing of more and more commodities. This rationing cannot stop with consumers. In World War II it did not stop with consumers. It was applied first of all, in fact, in the allocation of raw materials to producers.

价格管制往往能在短期内显现出成效。它可能会在一段时间内运作得很好，尤其在战争时期，它会因人们的爱国意识和危机感而获得支持。然而，实施的时间越长，运作的难度就越大。当价格被政府强制压低后，需求会持续地超过供给。我们已经看到，如果政府为了防止受控商品供应短缺，试图去降低其生产成本，即压低其劳工、原材料和其他生产要素的价格，随之而来的将会是这些生产要素的短缺。倘使政府采取这个方针，政府不仅会发现沿产品线“纵向”扩大价格管制不可避免，也会发现有必要对不同产品线“横向”扩大价格管制。如果我们对一种商品实行定量配给，民众得不到满足，尽管仍然存在过剩的购买力，需求将会转向某种替代品。换句话说，对任何一种日益短缺的商品实行配给，势必对仍未实行配给的商品造成越来越大的压力。如果我们假设政府有效地遏制了黑市（或者，至少阻止黑市不致壮大到足以左右法定限价市场的程度），继续执行价格管制必然会迫使政府将越来越多的商品纳入配给的范畴。并且，政府不可能只限于对消费者实施配给。在二战期间就不限于消费者，事实上，而是首先对生产者实施原材料配给。

The natural consequence of a thoroughgoing over-all price control which seeks to perpetuate a given historic price level, in brief, must ultimately be a completely regimented economy. Wages would have to be held down as rigidly as prices. Labor would have to be rationed as ruthlessly as raw materials. The end result would be that the government would not only tell each consumer precisely how much of each commodity he could have; it would tell each manufacturer precisely what quantity of each raw material he could have and what quantity of labor. Competitive bidding for workers could no more be tolerated than competitive bidding for materials. The result would be a petrified totalitarian economy, with every business firm and every worker at the mercy of the government, and with a final abandonment of all the traditional liberties we have known. For as Alexander Hamilton pointed out in the Federalist Papers nearly two centuries ago, “A power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”

总之，旨在将某种历史价格水平永久化的全面价格管制，其自然结果终必是一种完全专制性的经济。工资必须像物价那样，被强制压低。劳工必须像原材料那样，被强制纳入配给。最后，政府为每一位消费者规定了他能得到的每一种商品的数量，为每一家制造商规定了它能得到原材料的数量、能够雇用的劳工的数量。到那时，厂商竞价购买原材料将不被容许，竞价招揽劳工同样不被容许。结果会形成僵化的极权经济，每家厂商、每个劳工都听任政府支配，而最终，我们将放弃掉曾经拥有的全部传统意义的自由。正如亚历山大·汉密尔顿两个世纪前在《联邦党人文集》（Federalist Papers）一书中所指出的：“控制一个人生计的权力，就是控制一个人意志的权力。”

4

These are the consequences of what might be described as perfect,” long-continued, and “nonpolitical” price control. As was so amply demonstrated in one country after another, particularly in Europe during and after World War II, some of the more fantastic errors of the bureaucrats were mitigated by the black market. In some countries the black market kept growing at the expense of the legally recognized fixed-price market until the former became, in effect, the market. By nominally keeping the price ceilings, however, the politicians in power tried to show that their hearts, if not their enforcement squads, were in the right place.

这就是所谓“完美的”、长效和“无关政治的”价格控制的后果。 政府管制酿成的一些大错，有一部分被黑市所化解。这个现象在一个又一个国家得到证实，在二战期间以及战后的欧洲尤其如此。在有些国家，黑市的成长壮大是以破坏法定限价市场来实现的，直至前者成为事实上的市场。然而，当权的政客们仍然力图通过维持形同虚设的法定价格来表明，即便其政策实施者们有过失，他们的立意是完全正确的。

Because the black market, however, finally supplanted the legal price-ceiling market, it must not be supposed that no harm was done. The harm was both economic and moral. During the transition period the large, long-established firms, with a heavy capital investment and a great dependence upon the retention of public good-will, are forced to restrict or discontinue production. Their place is taken by fly-by-night concerns with little capital and little accumulated experience in production. These new firms are inefficient compared with those they displace; they turn out inferior and dishonest goods at much higher production costs than the older concerns would have required for continuing to turn out their former goods. A premium is put on dishonesty. The new firms owe their very existence or growth to the fact that they are willing to violate the law; their customers conspire with them; and as a natural consequence demoralization spreads into all business practices.

不过，并不因为黑市最终取代了法定限价市场，我们就可以认为这个过程没有任何伤害。这伤害既有经济上的，也有道德上的。一些大型的老牌企业，过去靠的是雄厚的资本，并且在很大程度上依赖于他们在公众中的信誉，而在市场转型期，它们被迫限制生产或中断生产。取而代之的，是那些既无资本又无生产经验的皮包公司。这些新公司跟那些被取代的老牌企业相比效率低下，它们以远远高于先前企业用来继续生产其产品所需的生产成本，产出质量低劣、名不副实的商品。这是对不诚实的一种奖励。这些新公司之所以能够生存和发展，是靠钻法律空子，而顾客又与它们沆瀣一气。自然而然，道德败坏深入到经济生活的每一个角落。

It is seldom, moreover, that any honest effort is made by the price-fixing authorities merely to preserve the level of prices existing when their efforts began. They declare that their intention is to “hold the line.” Soon, however, under the guise of “correcting inequities” or “social in justices,” they begin a discriminatory price-fixing which gives most to those groups that are politically powerful and least to other groups.

此外，政府价格管理部门很少真正做出努力，去维持他们一开始急吼吼要维持的现行价格水平。他们声称旨在努力“保持价格不变”。然而，他们很快就会以“纠正不公平”，或者“社会公正”为借口，着手实施歧视性的价格管制政策，结果是政治力量强大的群体得到政策倾斜最多，其他的群体则得不到政策照顾。

As political power today is most commonly measured by votes, the groups that the authorities most often attempt to favor are workers and farmers. At first it is contended that wages and living costs are not connected; that wages can easily be lifted without lifting prices. When it becomes obvious that wages can be raised only at the expense of profits, the bureaucrats begin to argue that profits were already too high anyway, and that lifting wages and holding prices will still permit a “fair profit.” As there is no such thing as a uniform rate of profit, as profits differ with each concern, the result of this policy is to drive the least profitable concerns out of business altogether, and to discourage or stop the production of certain items. This means unemployment, a shrinkage in production and a decline in living standards.

由于当今政治力量大抵以选票来衡量，因此当局总是力求讨好工人和农民。起初，人们不太能把工资和生活费用关联起来，认为可以单纯地涨工资而不涨价。后来，当人们认识到涨工资势必以牺牲利润为代价时，官僚们则争辩说，反正利润本来都高，即便涨工资而价格不变，生产者仍可以获得“公平的利润”。由于并不存在一个一致的利润率，而企业的利润又各不相同，所以，对利润一刀切的做法势必将赢利能力最差的公司一举淘汰出局，进而导致若干商品的产量减少或停产。这就意味着失业、生产萎缩、生活水平下降。

5

What lies at the base of the whole effort to fix maximum prices? There is first of all a misunderstanding of what it is that has been causing prices to rise. The real cause is either a scarcity of goods or a surplus of money. Legal price ceilings cannot cure either. In fact, as we have just seen, they merely intensify the shortage of goods. What to do about the surplus of money will be discussed in a later chapter. But one of the errors that lie behind the drive for price-fixing is the chief subject of this book. Just as the endless plans for raising prices of favored commodities are the result of thinking of the interests only of the producers immediately concerned, and forgetting the interests of consumers, so the plans for holding down prices by legal edict are the result of thinking of the short-run interests of people only as consumers and forgetting their interests as producers. And the political support for such policies springs from a similar confusion in the public mind. People do not want to pay more for milk, butter, shoes, furniture, rent, theater tickets or diamonds. Whenever any of these items rises above its previous level the consumer becomes indignant, and feels that he is being rooked.

费尽折腾去规定最高价格，其根本原因是什么呢？首先，是什么致使价格上涨，人们在这一点上存在误解。真正的原因是商品匮乏或货币过剩。法定价格上限根本无法解决这两方面的问题。事实上，正如我们所见，它们仅仅加剧了商品的短缺。至于货币过剩如何应对，我们会在后面章节讨论。不过，隐藏在限价政策背后的谬误之一，倒是本书的主题。正如无数计划旨在人为抬高某些商品的价格，是政府一心顾及生产者的眼前利益而没有考虑消费者利益的结果，同样，通过法令来压低价格的那些计划，是政府一心顾及公众作为消费者的眼前利益，而没有考虑他们作为生产者的利益的结果。这类政策所得的政治支持，产生自公众思想中类似的模糊观念。人们决不愿花更多的钱去购买牛奶、黄油、鞋子、家具、戏票、钻石，去支付租金。任何时候，任何一样这些商品的价格高于先前的价位，消费者就开始忿忿，感觉遭人敲竹杠。

The only exception is the item he makes himself: here he understands and appreciates the reason for the rise. But he is always likely to regard his own business as in some way an exception. “Now my own business,” he will say, “is peculiar, and the public does not understand it. Labor costs have gone up; raw material prices have gone up; this or that raw material is no longer being imported, and must be made at a higher cost at home. Moreover, the demand for the product has increased, and the business should be allowed to charge the prices necessary to encourage its expansion to supply this demand.” And so on. Everyone as consumer buys a hundred different products; as producer he makes, usually, only one. He can see the inequity in holding down the price of that. And just as each manufacturer wants a higher price for his particular product, so each worker wants a higher wage or salary. Each can see as producer that price control is restricting production in his line. But nearly everyone refuses to generalize this observation, for it means that he will have to pay more for the products of others.

惟一的例外，是他自己生产的商品：此刻，他完全理解并赞成提价的理由。不过，他总容易把自己的行业看作是某种例外。“我干的这行”，他会这样说，“现在的情况相当特殊，一般人是不了解的。人工成本在涨；原材料价格也在涨；这种那种原材料已经不再允许进口，必须以较高的成本在国内制造。此外，市场对本行产品的需求增加了，应该允许本行产品做必要的提价，从而鼓励供给以满足需求。”等等。每个人作为消费者时，都会买很多种不同的商品；而作为生产者时，通常只生产一种产品。他看得出，压低自己的产品的价格是不公平的。正如每家制造商都希望他自己的产品卖到更高的价格，每个工人都想要更高的工资或薪金。作为生产者时，每个人都看得出价格管制限制了本行的生产。但是，几乎每个人都不愿将观察到的这个事实推己及人，因为这意味着他会付更更高的的价钱去买别人的产品。

Each one of us, in brief, has a multiple economic personality. Each one of us is producer, taxpayer, consumer. The policies he advocates depend upon the particular aspect under which he thinks of himself at the moment. For he is sometimes Dr. Jekyll and sometimes Mr. Hyde. As a producer he wants inflation (thinking chiefly of his own services or product); as a consumer he wants price ceilings (thinking chiefly of what he has to pay for the products of others). As a consumer he may advocate or acquiesce in subsidies; as a taxpayer he will resent paying them. Each person is likely to think that he can so manage the political forces that he can benefit from a rise for his own product (while his raw material costs are legally held down) and at the same time benefit as a consumer from price control. But the overwhelming majority will be deceiving themselves. For not only must there be at least as much loss as gain from this political manipulation of prices; there must be a great deal more loss than gain, because price-fixing discourages and disrupts employment and production.

简单地说，我们每个人都具备多重经济角色。每个人都是生产者、纳税人，消费者。一个人支持何种政策，取决于他当时从何种身份去为自身利益作考虑。犹如电影《化身博士》（Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde），他有时处于这种身份、有时处于那种身份。作为生产者时，他便希望通货膨胀（这时主要顾及自己提供的服务或产品）；作为消费者时，他便希望政府限价（这时主要顾及他不得不掏钱买别人的产品）。作为消费者，他可能拥护或者默许政府实施补贴；而作为纳税人，他会愤慨为此埋单。每个人都很可能认为他能应付各种政治力量，以便能从他自己产出的商品涨价中获利（同时还要他的原材料价格被合法的压低），同时他还可以以消费者的身份受惠于价格管制。但是绝大多数的人都在自欺欺人——利用政治力量操纵价格，注定得不偿失；因为管制价格不可避免地会限制和破坏就业与生产。

Government Price-Fixing

第17章 政府价格管制
 
We have seen what some of the effects are of governmental efforts to fix the prices of commodities above the levels to which free markets would otherwise have carried them. Let us now look at some of the results of government attempts to hold the prices of commodities below their natural market levels.

我们已经分析了政府试图将商品价格限定在自由市场水平之上的做法，看到了由此造成的一些影响。现在让我们来看一下，当政府努力将商品价格限定在自然水平之下时，有可能会带来一些什么样的后果。
 
The latter attempt is made in our day by nearly all governments in wartime. We shall not examine here the wisdom of wartime price-fixing. The whole economy, in total war, is necessarily dominated by the State, and the complications that would have to be considered would carry us too far beyond the main question with which this book is concerned.* But wartime price-fixing, wise or not, is in almost all countries continued for at least long periods after the war is over, when the original excuse for starting it has disappeared.

当今各国政府在战时几乎都做过这后一种努力。确实，在战争期间，国民经济全部由国家控制是必然的，我们在这里不会去探究战时管制价格的学问，要去探究就必须考虑战时的复杂状况，这会使我们远离本书所关注的主题。{footnotes: 不过，在这一点上我自己的结论是，尽管在战争期间，政府的优先要求权、分配权或定量配给可能是不可避免的，但管制价格造成的伤害尤为突出。虽然要达到实现最高限价的目的，往往需要结合配给制，但即便就暂时的情况而言，实施配给则不一定要结合最高限价。}不过，无论战时管制价格的做法明智与否，几乎所有的国家在战后很长一段时间内仍在实施价格管制，即使当初启动价格管制的理由已经不复存在。
 
It is the wartime inflation that mainly causes the pressure for price-fixing. At the time of writing, when practically every country is inflating, though most of them are at peace, price controls are always hinted at, even when they are not imposed. Though they are always economically harmful, if not destructive, they have at least a political advantage from the standpoint of the officeholders.By implication they put the blame for higher prices on the greed and rapacity of businessmen, instead of on the inflationary monetary policies of the officeholders themselves.

战时通货膨胀是产生政府启动价格管制压力的主要原因。本书撰稿时，大多数国家安享和平，但都存在着通货膨胀，各国政府总会萌发管制物价的念头，即便没有真正实施。虽说管制物价在经济上一定有害，甚至是破坏性的，不过对于政府官员至少具有一项政治上的好处——管制价格等于暗示物价上涨应归咎于企业家的贪婪，官员们往往只字不提政府实行的货币政策才是造成通货膨胀压力的主要原因。
 
Let us first see what happens when the government tries to keep the price of a single commodity, or a small group of commodities, below the price that would be set in a free competitive market.

首先，让我们分析一下，当政府试图将单一商品、或者一小部分商品的价格维持在低于自由竞争市场的价格水平时，会发生什么样的情形。
 
When the government tries to fix maximum prices for only a few items, it usually chooses certain basic necessities, on the ground that it is most essential that the poor be able to obtain these at a “reasonable” cost. Let us say that the items chosen for this purpose are bread, milk and meat.

当政府准备只管制一小部分商品的最高价格时，通常会选择那些关系到民生的必需品，官员们会说，确保穷人能够以“合理”的价格，买得起生活必需品，这比什么都重要。我们假设为此选定的商品是面包、牛奶和肉类。
 
The argument for holding down the price of these goods will run something like this: If we leave beef (let us say) to the mercies of the free market, the price will be pushed up by competitive bidding so that only the rich will get it. People will get beef not in proportion to their need, but only in proportion to their purchasing power. If we keep the price down, everyone will get his fair share.

主张压低生活必需品价格的理由是这样的：如果我们任由市场去决定牛肉的价格，那么，价格会由于被争相购买而被抬得很高，以至于只有富人才买得起。这样一来，人们得到的牛肉就不再与他们的基本需要成正比，而仅仅是与他们的购买力成正比。如果我们压低牛肉价格，每个人都能得到公平的一份。
 
The first thing to be noticed about this argument is that if it is valid the policy adopted is inconsistent and timorous. For if purchasing power rather than need determines the distribution of beef at a market price of $2.25 cents a pound, it would also determine it, though perhaps to a slightly smaller degree, at, say, a legal “ceiling” price of $1.50 cents a pound. The purchasing-power-rather-than-need argument, in fact, holds as long as we charge anything for beef whatever. It would cease to apply only if beef were given away.

关于这一论调首先要注意的是，如果它是有依据的，那么，所采取的这种政策既无法保持前后一致又无法把握其分寸。因为，假若以每磅2.25美分的市场价格决定牛肉分配的，是购买力而非基本需要，那么，即便将法定“限价”降到1.50美分，其分配将同样是由购买力决定的，只不过依赖程度可能会稍小一些。事实上，只要牛肉还需要拿钱去买，这种“由购买力而非需要决定”（purchasing-power-rather-than-need）观点总是适用的。只有在牛肉免费奉送时才不适用。
 
But schemes for maximum price-fixing usually begin as efforts to “keep the cost of living from rising.” And so their sponsors unconsciously assume that there is something peculiarly “normal” or sacrosanct about the market price at the moment from which their control starts. That starting or previous price is regarded as “reasonable,” and any price above that as “unreasonable,” regardless of changes in the conditions of production or demand since that starting price was first established.

政府出台限定最高价格的措施时，往往强调是为了“使生活费用不再上涨”。这个说法预设了有个 “正常” 的或神圣不可侵犯的特定价格存在。这个特定价格或以前的低价格，被视为“合理的”，比它高的任何价格都是“不合理的”，而不去管特定价格设定之后，生产或需求状况所发生的变化。

2

In discussing this subject, there is no point in assuming a price control that would fix prices exactly where a free market would place them in any case. That would be the same as having no price control at all. We must assume that the purchasing power in the hands of the public is greater than the supply of goods available, and that prices are being held down by the government below the levels to which a free market would put them.

在讨论这个主题时，若假设政府把价格刚好限定在自由市场价位，就没有意义了。因为，那就和根本不实行价格管制没有两样。我们必须假设市民的购买力大于商品的供给水平，并且政府限价低于自由市场价位。

Now we cannot hold the price of any commodity below its market level without in time bringing about two consequences. The first is to increase the demand for that commodity. Because the commodity is cheaper, people are both tempted to buy, and can afford to buy, more of it. The second consequence is to reduce the supply of that commodity. Because people buy more, the accumulated supply is more quickly taken from the shelves of merchants. But in addition to this, production of that commodity is discouraged. Profit margins are reduced or wiped out. The marginal producers are driven out of business. Even the most efficient producers may be called upon to turn out their product at a loss. This happened in World War II when slaughter houses were required by the Office of Price Administration to slaughter and process meat for less than the cost to them of cattle on the hoof and the labor of slaughter and processing.

现在，我们知道，当商品价格被人为限制在它的市场价位之下时，不可避免地会带来两个后果。第一是导致受控商品的需求增加。由于该商品变得便宜，图便宜的人会更多，人们也买得起更多。第二是导致受控商品供给减少。由于人们买得更多，商家的存货也销得快，而与此同时，该产品的生产却受到了阻碍。降价致使该商品收益率降低，甚至做不出利润。边际生产者被迫出局。即使最有效率的生产者也可能亏本经营。这种事情就曾在二次世界大战期间发生过，当时的屠宰场在美国物价管制局要求下，以低于购买活牛和雇用屠宰加工工人的成本的售价，持续屠宰和加工肉制品。

If we did nothing else, therefore, the consequence of fixing a maximum price for a particular commodity would be to bring about a shortage of that commodity. But this is precisely the opposite of what the government regulators originally wanted to do. For it is the very commodities selected for maximum price-fixing that the regulators most want to keep in abundant supply. But when they limit the wages and the profits of those who make these commodities, without also limiting the wages and profits of those who make luxuries or semiluxuries, they discourage the production of the price-controlled necessities while they relatively stimulate the production of less essential goods.

如果政府暂不采取其他措施，价格限制将造成受控商品出现短缺。这恰好与政府内制定法规人员的初衷背道而驰。因为那些被选定的限价商品，都是政府最希望其保持充足供应的商品。但是，当他们限定了这些产品生产者的工资和利润水平，而没有限制奢侈品或其它非必需品生产者的工资与利润时，他们就阻碍了制造商们去生产价格受控的必需品，而相应地刺激了非必需品的生产。

Some of these consequences in time become apparent to the regulators, who then adopt various other devices and controls in an attempt to avert them. Among these devices are rationing, cost-control, subsidies, and universal price-fixing. Let us look at each of these in turn.

政府内制定法规的人员迟早会认识到其中一些后果。接下来，他们就会采取其他各种办法和管制措施，来尽力避免出现类似的局面。这些措施包括配给制、成本管制、补贴和全面管制价格。我们来一一讨论这些措施。

When it becomes obvious that a shortage of some commodity is developing as a result of a price fixed below the market, rich consumers are accused of taking “more than their fair share”; or, if it is a raw material that enters into manufacture, individual firms are accused of “hoarding” it. The government then adopts a set of rules concerning who shall have priority in buying that commodity, or to whom and in what quantities it shall be allocated, or how it shall be rationed. If a rationing system is adopted, it means that each consumer can have only a certain maximum supply, no matter how much he is willing to pay for more.

到了某种商品因价格被规定在市场水平之下而出现显著的短缺之后，有钱的消费者往往遭到指责，说他们得到的必需品“超过公平份额”；要是受控商品是生产用的原材料，就有公司会被指责为“囤积居奇”。鉴于此，政府会推出一系列规定，指定谁有优先购买该商品的特权，或者由政府机关决定分配给谁，分配多少，如何分配。一旦实施配给制度，就意味每位消费者，不论他愿意以多高的价钱购买更多的某种商品，他都只能得到某一最大限额的配给。

If a rationing system is adopted, in brief, it means that the government adopts a double price system, or a dual currency system, in which each consumer must have a certain number of coupons or “points” in addition to a given amount of ordinary money. In other words, the government tries to do through rationing part of the job that a free market would have done through prices. I say only part of the job, because rationing merely limits the demand without also stimulating the supply, as a higher price would have done.

总之，一旦采取了配给制度，就意味着政府采取的是双重价格体系，或者是双重货币体系，在这个体系中，每位消费者除了持有一定数量的钱币，还必须拥有一定数量的票券或“额度”，才能买到东西。换句话说，政府限价市场试图通过配给，去起到自由市场通过价格所起到的部分作用。之所以说只是“部分作用”，是因为配给只限制需求，而不能象更高的价格那样，还能刺激供给。

The government may try to assure supply through extending its control over the costs of production of a commodity. To hold down the retail price of beef, for example, it may fix the wholesale price of beef, the slaughter-house price of beef, the price of live cattle, the price of feed, the wages of farmhands. To hold down the delivered price of milk, it may try to fix the wages of milk truck drivers, the price of containers, the farm price of milk, the price of feedstuffs. To fix the price of bread, it may fix the wages in bakeries, the price of flour, the profits of millers, the price of wheat, and so on.

为了保证受控商品实现持续供应，政府可能扩大管制受控商品的生产成本。比方说，为了使牛肉的零售价格保持在低水平，政府可能限定牛肉的批发价格、屠宰场的牛肉价格、活牛的价格、饲料的价格、农场工人的工资。为了压低牛奶的送达价格，政府可能限定牛奶送货司机的工资、奶品包装的价格、农场的牛奶价格、饲料价格。为了压低面包的价格，政府可能限定面包师的工资、面粉的价格、粮食加工企业的利润、小麦的价格等等。

But as the government extends this price-fixing backwards, it extends at the same time the consequences that originally drove it to this course. Assuming that it has the courage to fix these costs, and is able to enforce its decisions, then it merely, in turn, creates shortages of the various factors — labor, feedstuffs, wheat, or whatever—that enter into the production of the final commodities. Thus the government is driven to controls in ever-widening circles, and the final consequence will be the same as that of universal price-fixing.

然而，当政府继续扩大受控商品范围的时候，无非是扩大了我们在前面所指出的价格管制的后果。假使政府有魄力有能力去限定受控商品的成本，成本控制也只会导致受控商品的各种生产要素（如劳工、饲料、小麦等等）出现短缺。这么一来，政府不得不继续扩大受控商品的范围，而其最终的结果与全面的价格管制是相同的。

The government may try to meet this difficulty through subsidies. It recognizes, for example, that when it keeps the price of milk or butter below the level of the market, or below the relative level at which it fixes other prices, a shortage may result because of lower wages or profit margins for the production of milk or butter as compared with other commodities. Therefore the government attempts to compensate for this by paying a subsidy to the milk and butter producers. Passing over the administrative difficulties involved in this, and assuming that the subsidy is just enough to assure the desired relative production of milk and butter, it is clear that, though the subsidy is paid to producers, those who are really being subsidized are the consumers. For the producers are on net balance getting no more for their milk and butter than if they had been allowed to charge the free market price in the first place; but the consumers are getting their milk and butter at a great deal below the free market price. They are being subsidized to the extent of the difference—that is, by the amount of subsidy paid ostensibly to the producers.

政府可能采取的另一种解决问题的方法，是提供补贴。例如，他们认识到，当把牛奶或黄油价格限定在市场价位之下，甚至与其他受控商品价格相比较都偏低，短缺就可能发生。因为生产牛奶或黄油的工资及收益率，还比不上生产其他商品。政府为了补救这种现象，对牛奶和黄油的生产者进行补贴。我们姑且忽略推行补贴在行政上的种种困难，并且假设补贴刚好足够确保牛奶和黄油得以持续生产，很明显，尽管补贴是提供给生产者的，但真正得到补贴的却是消费者。因为，生产者从净收益上讲并没有比允许他们以自由市场价格出售其牛奶黄油时得到的更多，而消费者却以远低于自由市场价格的水平买到了这些产品。两者的差价，正是他们获得的补贴金额——也就是政府表面上付给生产者的补贴金额。

Now unless the subsidized commodity is also rationed, it is those with the most purchasing power that can buy most of it. This means that they are being subsidized more than those with less purchasing power. Who subsidizes the consumers will depend upon the incidence of taxation. But men in their role of taxpayers will be subsidizing themselves in their role of consumers. It becomes a little difficult to trace in this maze precisely who is subsidizing whom. What is forgotten is that subsidies are paid for by someone, and that no method has been discovered by which the community gets something for nothing.

现在，除非接受补贴的商品也实施配给，否则购买力最强的人会买得最多。这意味着，他们得到的补贴会比购买力较低的人更多。到底谁补贴了消费者，取决于政府如何征税。如果既是纳税人又是消费者，便是自己补贴自己。若接受补贴的商品很多，要辨别谁补贴谁就让人晕头转向了。然而有一点应当是明确的，那就是，补贴的钱必须由某些人来买单，并不存在什么可以使公众得到某种好处而不必付出任何代价的方法。

（未完待续）