“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。