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Economics in One Lesson校译之16. “Stabilizing” Commodities

“Stabilizing” Commodities

第16章 “稳定”物价

Attempts to lift the prices of particular commodities permanently above their natural market levels have failed so often, so disastrously and so notoriously that sophisticated pressure groups, and the bureaucrats upon whom they apply the pressure, seldom openly avow that aim. Their stated aims, particularly when they are first proposing that the government intervene, are usually more modest, and more plausible.

那些想要长期把某些商品的价格抬高到其自然的市场价格水平之上的企图，每每以失败而告终，败得很惨，败得声名狼藉，以至于那些圆熟精明的施压集团，以及承受他们压力的官员，很少公开宣称这一目的。尤其是在他们率先提议实行政府干预时，他们所陈述的目标往往更为温和、更加动听。

They have no wish, they declare, to raise the price of commodity X permanently above its natural level. That, they concede, would be unfair to consumers. But it is now obviously selling far below its natural level. The producers cannot make a living. Unless we act promptly, they will be thrown out of business. Then there will be a real scarcity, and consumers will have to pay exorbitant prices for the commodity. The apparent bargains that the consumers are now getting will cost them dear in the end. For the present “temporary” low price cannot last. But we cannot afford to wait for so-called natural market forces, or for the “blind” law of supply and demand, to correct the situation. For by that time the producers will be ruined and a great scarcity will be upon us. The government must act. All that we really want to do is to correct these violent, senseless fluctuations in price. We are not trying to boost the price; we are only trying to stabilize it.

他们宣称，他们并不是想要长期把某商品的价格提高到其自然价格水平之上，他们也承认这种干预对消费者是不公平的。但是，由于该商品目前的售价显然远低于其自然价格水平，生产者养不活自己。除非政府立即采取行动，不然的话，他们只有破产出局。如果真成了那样，必将出现真正的匮乏，而消费者也将不得不以高得离谱的价格去购买这种商品。消费者现在图“一时”便宜，但最终这将使他们付出高昂的代价，因为，现在这种“暂时 的”低价格不可能永远撑下去。但是，我们不能坐等所谓的自然市场力量，或“盲目的”供求法则，来矫正眼前的状况。等不到那一天，生产厂商已经倒闭，大家只有陷入大短缺的恐慌之中。政府必须有所行动。我们真正要做的，是熨平这些剧烈的、无益的价格波动。我们并非想要提高商品价格，我们仅仅是要使它稳定。

There are several methods by which it is commonly proposed to do this. One of the most frequent is government loans to farmers to enable them to hold their crops off the market.

人们通常提出的实现稳定物价的方案有好几种。其中最常见的就是主张政府向农民提供贷款，好让他们可以暂时囤积其收获的谷物，而不急于拿到市场上出售。

Such loans are urged in Congress for reasons that seem very plausible to most listeners. They are told that the farmers’ crops are all dumped on the market at once, at harvest time; that this is precisely the time when prices are lowest, and that speculators take advantage of this to buy the crops themselves and hold them for higher prices when food gets scarcer again. Thus it is urged that the farmers suffer, and that they, rather than the speculators, should get the advantage of the higher average price.

国会被敦促实施这种贷款，其理由让大多数听众觉得颇有道理。议员们被告之，农民的谷物都集中在收获时节上市出售，而这正好是一年中农产品价格最低的时候，投机商乘机买进囤积，等到青黄不接的时候，就高价倒卖。农民则因此蒙受损失。政府应该确保这个钱应该拿给农民赚，而不要让投机商从中渔利。

This argument is not supported by either theory or experience. The much-reviled speculators are not the enemy of the farmer; they are essential to his best welfare. The risks of fluctuating farm prices must be borne by somebody; they have in fact been borne in modern times chiefly by the professional speculators. In general, the more competently the latter act in their own interest as speculators, the more they help the farmer. For speculators serve their own interest precisely in proportion to their ability to foresee future prices. But the more accurately they foresee future prices the less violent or extreme are the fluctuations in prices.

无论是理论还是经验都无法支持这样的论点。倍受谴责的投机商，并不是农民的敌人，相反，他们对于农民的最高福利至关重要。因为，农产品价格波动的风险必须要有人来承担，而在现代社会中，这些风险其实主要是由职业投机商们承担的。一般说来，投机运作越成功，职业投机商对农民的帮助越大。因为，投机商们的赢利能力，恰好仰仗于他们预测未来价格的能力。也就是说，他们预测未来价格的越准确，价格波动就会少几分剧烈和偏激。

Even if farmers had to dump their whole crop of wheat on the market in a single month of the year, therefore, the price in that month would not necessarily be below the price at any other month (apart from an allowance for the costs of storage). For speculators, in the hope of making a profit, would do most of their buying at that time. They would keep on buying until the price rose to a point where they saw no further opportunity of future profit. They would sell whenever they thought there was a prospect of future loss. The result would be to stabilize the price of farm commodities the year round.

因此，即使大多数农民不得不在收获后的那个月，把全部的小麦收成送到市场销售，对那些农民来说，那个月的价格也不一定就低于其他月份（这里要扣除仓储成本，【若农民愿意自己负担仓储成本，他们也可以不必急于集中销售小麦，译者注】）。对于投机商来说，若想要趁机获利，他们就会在那个时期集中买进小麦。他们会不断地收购，直到价格升到使他们感到在将来根本无利可图的那个价位。他们会在将来他们认为有可能会有损失的时候售出这批商品。其带来的结果，必是使全年农产品的价格趋于稳定。

It is precisely because a professional class of speculators exists to take these risks that farmers and millers do not need to take them. The latter can protect themselves through the markets. Under normal conditions, therefore, when speculators are doing their job well, the profits of farmers and millers will depend chiefly on their skill and industry in farming or milling, and not on market fluctuations.

正因为有职业投机商承担了这些风险，农民和粮食加工业者才得以免除风险。生产者是可以通过市场来实现自我保护的。所以，在正常的情况下，当投机商们干得很出色时，农民和粮食加工业者他们的利润主要取决于本身的生产技能和勤劳与否，而与市场的波动无关。

Actual experience shows that on the average the price of wheat and other nonperishable crops remains the same all year round except for an allowance for storage, interest and insurance charges. In fact, some careful investigations have shown that the average monthly rise after harvest time has not been quite sufficient to pay such storage charges, so that the speculators have actually subsidized the farmers. This, of course, was not their intention: it has simply been the result of a persistent tendency to overoptimism on the part of speculators. (This tendency seems to affect entrepreneurs in most competitive pursuits: as a class they are constantly, contrary to intention, subsidizing consumers. This is particularly true wherever the prospects of big speculative gains exist. Just as the subscribers to a lottery, considered as a unit, lose money because each is unjustifiably hopeful of drawing one of the few spectacular prizes, so it has been calculated that the total value of the labor and capital dumped into prospecting for gold or oil has exceeded the total value of the gold or oil extracted.)

实际经验表明，除开仓储、利息和保险费用，小麦和其他不易腐烂的谷物的平均价格水平在一年之中是相同的。事实上，一些精细的调研表明，收获季节之后的谷物价格平均单月涨幅并不足以抵偿这些仓储费用。因此，投机商实际上还补贴了农民。不消说，这并非他们的本意，它仅仅是投机商一方所表现出来的一种顽固的过分乐观的倾向。（这种倾向似乎在最有竞争性的行为中存在于企业家们身上：作为一个阶层，企业家们经常事与愿违地补贴消费者，特别是当存在着很大的投机收益前景时，尤其如此。就象购买彩票的彩民，整体上肯定是赔钱，因为每个人都抱着赌一把的心态，想要押中那中奖率微乎其微的头彩。有资料显示，投入到黄金和石油勘探开采的劳力与资本总值，超过开采出来的黄金或石油的总值。）

The case is different, however, when the State steps in and either buys the farmers’ crops itself or lends them the money to hold the crops off the market. This is sometimes done in the name of maintaining what is plausibly called an “ever-normal granary. But the history of prices and annual carryovers of crops shows that this function, as we have seen, is already being well performed by the privately organized free markets. When the government steps in, the ever-normal granary becomes in fact an ever-political granary. The farmer is encouraged, with the taxpayers’ money, to withhold his crops excessively. Because they wish to make sure of retaining the farmer’s vote, the politicians who initiate the policy, or the bureaucrats who carry it out, always place the so-called fair price for the farmer’s product above the price that supply and demand conditions at the time justify. This leads to a falling off in buyers. The ever-normal granary therefore tends to become an ever-abnormal granary. Excessive stocks are held off the market. The effect of this is to secure a higher price temporarily than would otherwise exist, but to do so only by bringing about later on a much lower price than would otherwise have existed. For the artificial shortage built up this year by withholding part of a crop from the market means an artificial surplus the next year.

然而，当政府介入这一过程，无论是政府收购农民的谷物，还是贷款给农民让他们囤积谷物，暂不上市销售，情况就完全不同了。有时，这是以维护所谓的“常平仓贮”（ever-normal granary）的名义来实施的。但是正如前面说过的，这个功能已经由私人组织的自由市场执行得很好，谷物价格和每年的谷物存货结转纪录已经证明了这一点。当政府介入之后，常平仓贮其实成了政治仓贮。政府用纳税人的钱，鼓励农民囤积了过多的谷物。政治人物瞄准的是农民的选票，为此，提出这种政策的政客，或实施这种政策的官僚，总是给农产品定一个所谓的公平价格，使之高于当时的供需状况所允许的价位。这必然导致买家减少，常平仓贮因此往往成为常不平仓贮。过多的谷物被囤积在市场之外，其结果是暂时保证了一个高于正常情况的价格。然而，这样做只会带来此后比正常情况更低的价格。因为，该年通过囤积一部分粮食，使之不能被投放到市场上去，这造成人为的短缺，这将意味着来年人为造成的过剩。
 
It would carry us too far afield to describe in detail what actually happened* when this program was applied, for example, to Amencan cotton. We piled up an entire year’s crop in storage. We destroyed the foreign market for our cotton. We stimulated enormously the growth of cotton in other countries. Though these results had been predicted by opponents of the restriction and loan policy, when they actually happened the bureaucrats responsible for the result merely replied that they would have happened anyway.

我们若去详述在这种政策下实际将会发生的情况，我们恐怕会离题太远，比如说，对美国棉花种植业的影响。{脚注: 不过，棉花生产和销售的计划方案是一个特别有启发的例子。截止1956年8月1日，美国棉花储备量达到了破纪录的数字1452.9万包，这比整整一年正常的产量或消费量还要多。为了解决这个问题，政府改变它的计划，决定从生产者那里购买大部分收成，再立即折价转售。为了夺回美国棉花的国际市场，政府对棉花采取出口补贴，一开始每磅补贴6美分，到1961年，提高到8.5美分。这一政策在减少原棉储备上确实取得了成功。但是，除了它强加给纳税人的损失外，它还是的美国的纺织品与外国的纺织品相比，无论在国内市场还是在国际市场上，都处于严重的竞争劣势。因为这样做等于补贴了外国纺织业，被牺牲掉的是美国纺织业。这是典型的政府定价方案。为了避免出现一个人们不希望产生的后果，整个经济陷入了另一种并且是更糟糕的境地。}{书后注:黑兹利特加入脚注之后，情况并没有好转。据《投资者财经日报》（Investor’s Business Daily ，1995年9月29日），“从1986年至1993年，政府的棉花计划耗资120亿美元，平均每年要花15亿美元。跟许多农产品计划一样，政府将大量的钱抱给为数不多的生产者。在1993年，政府补贴支付给了大约9.6万户棉农。”强加在消费者头上的额外成本也相当高。美国审计总署（GAO）在1995年7月20日发布的一项研究结果显示，过去8年，棉花计划耗费的社会成本平均每年为7.38亿美元。这份GAO报告的结论认为，“政府的棉花计划，已经陷入代价高昂的，由国内国际价格组成的迷阵之中，棉农从中获益而政府和社会为此牺牲很大。”美国第104届国会改革此棉花计划的努力以失败告终。}我们囤积了整整一年的棉花收成，不拿去出口，从而刺激其他国家棉产量增长，致使本国棉花的海外市场被破坏。尽管反对这种限制和贷款政策的人们早已预计到了这样的结果，但等到事情真的发生了，那些对此后果负有责任的官僚们却只是轻描淡写地说：这本来就是无论如何都要发生的事情。
 
For the loan policy is usually accompanied by, or inevitably leads to, a policy of restricting production — i.e., a policy of scarcity. In nearly every effort to “stabilize” the price of a commodity, the interests of the producers have been put first. The real object is an immediate boost of prices. To make this possible, a proportional restriction of output is usually placed on each producer subject to the control. This has several immediately bad effects. Assuming that the control can be imposed on an international scale, it means that total world production is cut. The world’s consumers are able to enjoy less of that product than they would have enjoyed without restriction. The world is just that much poorer. Because consumers are forced to pay higher prices than otherwise for that product, they have just that much less to spend on other products.

贷款政策通常伴随着、有时则不可避免地引出限产政策——也就是人为制造出短缺。几乎在每次努力“稳定 ”物价的时候，总是把生产者的利益放在第一位的。实际的目标则是使价格立即上涨。为了使涨价成为可能，政府通常会对受管制的每一位生产者采取一定比例的限产措施。这种限制会立即产生几个坏影响。假设可以在国际范围内实施这种控制的话，那么，它将意味着世界总产出的削减。因此，全球消费者能够享用那种产品的数量，比不受限制的时候更少。世界也就贫穷了那么多。由于消费者为此被迫支付高价，以高于应有水平的价格购买那种产品，他们也就因此损失了这么多钱来购买其他产品。

2
 
The restrictionists usually reply that this drop in output is what happens anyway under a market economy. But there is a fundamental difference, as we have seen in the preceding chapter. In a competitive market economy it is the high-cost producers, the inefficient producers, that are driven out by a fall in price. In the case of an agricultural commodity it is the least competent farmers, or those with the poorest equipment, or those working the poorest land, that are driven out. The most capable farmers on the best land do not have to restrict their production. On the contrary, if the fall in price has been symptomatic of a lower average cost of production, reflected through an increased supply, then the driving out of the marginal farmers on the marginal land enables the good farmers on the good land to expand their production. So there may be, in the long run, no reduction whatever in the output of that commodity. And the product is then produced and sold at a permanently lower price.

主张实施限产政策的人通常的解释是，在市场经济条件下也会发生产量下降的事情。但是就象我们在上一章中所看到的那样，这二者之间存在着巨大的区别。在自由竞争的市场经济中，由于价格下跌而被逐出市场的，是那些高成本、低效率的生产者。拿农产品来说，被淘汰出局的农民的是那些能力最差、或设备最差、或耕地最贫瘠的生产者。对那些耕种最好的土地的最有能力的农民，是没有必要限制其生产的。相反，如果价格下跌是平均生产成本降低的一个标志，而通过增长了的供给表现出来的话，那么，在边际土地上耕种的边际农民被淘汰出局，反倒有助于在好土地上耕种的能干农民扩大其生产。因此，在长期中可能并不存在该产品产量的任何下降。而且这一产品将在一个永远比较低的价格水平上生产和出售。
 
If that is the outcome, then the consumers of that commodity will be as well supplied with it as they were before. But, as a result of the lower price, they will have money left over, which they did not have before, to spend on other things. The consumers, therefore, will obviously be better off. But their increased spending in other directions will give increased employment in other lines, which will then absorb the former marginal farmers in occupations in which their efforts will be more lucrative and more efficient.

若真的出现这种好现象，那么该商品的消费者将会获得的和以前一样充裕供给。同时由于商品价格更加便宜，他们得以节省下更多的钱，转而用于购买其他东西，而在以前他们是不会有这笔钱的。因此，消费者显然会过得比以前更好。同样，他们在其他方面开销增加之后，其他行业的就业又随之增加，并吸收那些原来处于边际地位的农民。新职业能让他们的努力会更有收益，也更有效率。
 
A uniform proportional restriction (to return to our government intervention scheme) means, on the one hand, that the efficient low-cost producers are not permitted to turn out all the output they can at a low price. It means, on the other hand, that the inefficient high-cost producers are artificially kept in business. This increases the average cost of producing the product. It is being produced less efficiently than otherwise. The inefficient marginal producer thus artificially kept in that line of production continues to tie up land, labor and capital that could much more profitably and efficiently be devoted to other uses.

回头再看政府干预的情形。一视同仁按比例限产的结果，一方面意味着不允许那些效率高、成本低的生产者去生产所有他们能够以低价格制造的产品；另一方面，这又意味着人为地使那些效率低、成本高的生产者继续留在这一行业中。这种政策增加了该产品的平均生产成本，生产的效率也降低了。同时，这样被人为保留在某一行业中的缺乏效率的边际生产者，也将因此继续占用着该行业生产中的土地、人力和资本，使这些资源不能被投入到其他收益更大、效率更高的地方。
 
There is no point in arguing that as a result of the restriction scheme at least the price of farm products has been raised and “the farmers have more purchasing power.” They have got it only by taking just that much purchasing power away from the city buyer. (We have been over all this ground before in our analysis of parity prices.) To give farmers money for restricting production, or to give them the same amount of money for an artificially restricted production, is no different from forcing consumers or taxpayers to pay people for doing nothing at all. In each case the beneficiaries of such policies get “purchasing power.” But in each case someone else loses an exactly equivalent amount. The net loss to the community is the loss of production, because people are supported for not producing. Because there is less for everybody, because there is less to go around, real wages and real incomes must decline either through a fall in their monetary amount or through higher living costs.

至于有人争辩说，实施限产的结果，至少让农产品的价格提高了，且“农民拥有了更多的购买力”，这样的论调实在是没有意义的。农民们所获得的，正是从城市消费者那里拿走的同样大小的购买能力。（在等位价格那一章，我们已经做过充分说明。）为了限制生产而向农民提供贷款，为了人为地控制产量而给予农民相应的补贴，这些做法都无异于强迫消费者或纳税人向无所事事的人支付报酬。在每一种情况下，这种政策的受益者肯定都得到了“购买力”，但每一种情况下，总有其他人也恰恰损失了相同数量的资财。社会所受的净损失便是生产的损失。因为，政策支持人们可以不去生产。由于每个人的资财变少，经济中可以流通的东西减少，实际工资和实际收入必然会下降，这种下降表现为货币收入减少或生活费用升高。
 
But if an attempt is made to keep up the price of an agricultural commodity and no artificial restriction of output is imposed, unsold surpluses of the overpriced commodity continue to pile up until the market for that product finally collapses to a far greater extent than if the control program had never been put into effect. Or producers outside the restriction program, stimulated by the artificial rise in price, expand their own production enormously. This is what happened in the British rubber-restriction and the American cotton-restriction programs. In either case the collapse of prices finally goes to catastrophic lengths that would never have been reached without the restriction scheme. The plan that started out so bravely to “stabilize” prices and conditions brings incomparably greater instability than the free forces of the market could possibly have brought.

但是，假使试图将农产品保持在一种较高的水平，同时并不实施人为的限产政策，那么价格过高的农产品不仅卖不出去，并且随着产出而越积越多，直到该商品的市场价格最终跌到一种比倘若从未实施过这种方案时的价格水平低得多的程度。或者，其他不受限产方案管制的生产者，在人为高价的刺激下，会争相大幅增加其产量。在英国的橡胶生产限制方案和美国的棉花生产限制方案中，都发生过上述这种事情。在这两个例子中，价格的下降都达到了灾难性的地步，不实施类似方案无论如何也不会出现这样的后果。一开始急吼吼制定“稳定”物价和稳定局面的计划，结果反而造成不稳定，相反，市场的自由力量根本不可能造成那么极不稳定的后果。
 
Yet new international commodity controls are constantly being proposed. This time, we are told, they are going to avoid all the old errors. This time prices are going to be fixed that are “fair” not only for producers but for consumers. Producing and consuming nations are going to agree on just what these fair prices are, because no one will be unreasonable. Fixed prices will necessarily involve “just” allotments and allocations for production and consumption as among nations, but only cynics will anticipate any unseemly international disputes regarding these. Finally, by the greatest miracle of all, this world of superinternational controls and coercions is also going to be a world of “free” international trade!

尽管如此，人们仍然不断地提出各种各样新的控制商品价格的国际性方案。他们宣称，这一次，我们会避免一切过去犯过的错误。这一次，设定的价格不仅仅对生产者“公平”，对消费者同样“公平”。这一次，生产国和消费国将会在一种非常公平的价格上达成一致，因为每一种价格都会是很合理的。设定价格将同样必然带来生产与消费在各国之间的“合理的”划拨和配置。那时，只有那些专好冷嘲热讽的人才会预言各国关于此事将有纠纷发生。最后，一定会出现伟大的奇迹：这个实施超级国际管制和强制计划的世界，也将成为一个在国际贸易上“自由的”世界！
 
Just what the government planners mean by free trade in this connection I am not sure, but we can be sure of some of the things they do not mean. They do not mean the freedom of ordinary people to buy and sell, lend and borrow, at whatever prices or rates they like and wherever they find it most profitable to do so. They do not mean the freedom of the plain citizen to raise as much of a given crop as he wishes, to come and go at will, to settle where he pleases, to take his capital and other belongings with him. They mean, I suspect, the freedom of bureaucrats to settle these matters for him. And they tell him that if he docilely obeys the bureaucrats he will be rewarded by a rise in his living standards. But if the planners succeed in tying up the idea of international cooperation with the idea of increased State domination and control over economic life, the international controls of the future seem only too likely to follow the pattern of the past, in which case the plain man’s living standards will decline with his liberties.

政府中的规划官员在这里所说的自由贸易概念是什么含义，我无从揣知。但是，他们的言下之意不包含哪些事情，我们倒是相当确定。他们的意思绝对不是说，平民百姓拥有以任何他们愿意出的价格从事买卖和借贷的自由，拥有在任何他们觉得最有利可图的地方从事买卖和借贷的自由。他们的意思绝对不是说，平民百姓可以去种植任何他们想种的谷物并达到他们期望的产量、可以自由移民、可以自由支配自己的资本和财物。我猜测，他们所说的自由，是官僚们代表平民百姓决定这些事情的自由。而且，他们还将告诉平民百姓说，假使他服从于官僚们的指示的话，驯服的奖赏将是生活水平的提高。但是如果规划官员将国家主宰、控制全民经济生活的观念，绑定到国际合作的观念之中，那么未来的国际控制很有可能会像国家控制的情形：平民百姓的生活水平，随着他们的自由的缩减而每况愈下。

Economics in One Lesson校译之15. How the Price System Works

How the Price System Works

第15章 价格体系如何运作？

The whole argument of this book may be summed up in the statement that in studying the effects of any given economic proposal we must trace not merely the immediate results but the results in the long run, not merely the primary consequences but the secondary consequences, and not merely the effects on some special group but the effects on everyone. It follows that it is foolish and misleading to concentrate our attention merely on some special point—to examine, for example, merely what happens in one industry without considering what happens in all. But it is precisely from the persistent and lazy habit of thinking only of some particular industry or process in isolation that the major fallacies of economics stem. These fallacies pervade not merely the arguments of the hired spokesmen of special interests, but the arguments even of some economists who pass as profound.

本书的主旨可以概括为：在研究任何经济政策提案的影响时，不仅要考察提案带来的立即结果，也要探究长期结果；不仅要探讨其首发后果，也要探讨次级后果；不仅要看其对某些特定群体的影响，还要看其对所有人的影响。由此可以认为，把注意力只集中在特别的某一点是愚蠢的，也是误导，比如只关注某个行业发生的事情，而忽略在所有的行业发生的变化。然而，经济学中的重大谬误，正是出于人们长期养成的这种思维惯性和惰性，总是孤立地考察特定行业或特定过程而不顾其他。这些谬误，不仅仅充斥在利益集团代言人的言论中，就连一些颇具影响的经济学家也时常挂在嘴边。

It is on the fallacy of isolation, at bottom, that the “productionfor-use-and-not-for-profit” school is based, with its attack on the allegedly vicious “price system.” The problem of production, say the adherents of this school, is solved. (This resounding error, as we shall see, is also the starting point of most currency cranks and share-the-wealth charlatans.) The scientists, the efficiency experts, the engineers, the technicians, have solved it. They could turn out almost anything you cared to mention in huge and practically unlimited amounts. But, alas, the world is not ruled by the engineers, thinking only of production, but by the businessmen, thinking only of profit. The businessmen give their orders to the engineers, instead of vice versa. These businessmen will turn out any object as long as there is a profit in doing so, but the moment there is no longer a profit in making that article, the wicked businessmen will stop making it, though many people’s wants are unsatisfied, and the world is crying for more goods.

主张“生产致用而非利润至上”的经济学派，其观点从根本上说，就是以这种孤立片面性的错误为基础的。他们据此抨击所谓邪恶的“价格体系”。该学派的信徒宣称，生产问题已经解决了。（象我们后面将会看到的，这一重大的错误也正是那些认为印钱就能解决一切，认为均贫富就能解决问题的忽悠术士的出发点。）科学家、效率专家、工程师、技师，已经解决了生产问题；凡是你想要的东西，他们都能生产出来，要多少有多少。他们接着表示，可惜这个世界并非由生产致用的工程师主宰，而是由利润至上的企业家主宰，是工程师听命于企业家，而不是企业家听命于工程师。只要有利可图，这些企业家就会让工程师把任何物品生产出来，一旦赚不到钱，刻薄的企业家就会停止生产，他才不管众人的要求有没有得到满足，也不管整个世界对更多的产品的迫切需要。

There are so many fallacies in this view that they cannot all be disentangled at once. But the central error, as we have hinted, comes from looking at only one industry, or even at several industries in turn, as if each of them existed in isolation. Each of them in fact exists in relation to all the others, and every important decision made in it is affected by and affects the decisions made in all the others.

这种论调中存在好些谬误，很难一下子梳理清楚。不过，我们已经了解到，其核心错误在于只看一个产业，或挨个孤立地考察几个产业，好像各产业之间没有任何联系。其实，任何一个产业与其他所有产业都是有联系的，并且，每个产业中的决策都是与其他各产业中的决策相互影响的。

We can understand this better if we understand the basic problem that business collectively has to solve. To simplify this as much as possible, let us consider the problem that confronts a Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. His wants at first seem endless. He is soaked with rain; he shivers from cold; he suffers from hunger and thirst. He needs everything: drinking water, food, a roof over his head, protection from animals, a fire, a soft place to lie down. It is impossible for him to satisfy all these needs at once; he has not the time, energy or resources. He must attend immediately to the most pressing need. He suffers most, say, from thirst. He hollows out a place in the sand to collect rain water, or builds some crude receptacle. When he has provided for only a small water supply, however, he must turn to finding food before he tries to improve this. He can try to fish; but to do this he needs either a hook and line, or a net, and he must set to work on these. But everything he does delays or prevents him from doing something else only a little less urgent. He is faced constantly by the problem of alternative applications of his time and labor.

如果我们能够认识到商业作为一个整体所必须解决的问题的话，我们就可以更好的理解上述论点。为了把这一基本问题尽量简化，我们先谈鲁滨逊漂流到荒岛时面对的问题。一开始，他的需求似乎是无穷无尽的。他被雨淋透、冻得发抖、饥渴交加。他需要每一样东西：饮用水、食物、房子、不被野兽咬伤、火、一个足够软可供躺下睡觉的地方。他不可能一下子满足所有这些需要，毕竟一个人的时间、精力或资源都很有限。他必须先立即解决自己最需要的。比方说，极度焦渴最为令他痛苦，于是他在沙地上挖坑收集雨水，或者做个简陋的容器蓄水。等到有了少量的水，紧接着必须去找吃的，改善水源则是以后的事。他或许想去抓鱼，为此，他需要鱼钩鱼线，或渔网，而且必须事先准备好这些工具。但是不管他在做什么事，做这个就做不了那个，他只能把不那么急迫的事挪到以后再说。他得时时考虑把时间和力气用在做哪些事情上。

A Swiss Family Robinson, perhaps, finds this problem a little easier to solve. It has more mouths to feed, but it also has more hands to work for them. It can practice division and specialization of labor. The father hunts; the mother prepares the food; the children collect firewood. But even the family cannot afford to have one member of it doing endlessly the same thing, regardless of the relative urgency of the common need he supplies and the urgency of other needs still unfilled. When the children have gathered a certain pile of firewood, they cannot be used simply to increase the pile. It is soon time for one of them to be sent, say, for more water. The family too has the constant problem of choosing among alternative applications of labor, and, if it is lucky enough to have acquired guns, fishing tackle, a boat, axes, saws and so on, of choosing among alternative applications of labor and capital. It would be considered unspeakably silly for the wood-gathering member of the family to complain that they could gather more firewood if his brother helped him all day, instead of getting the fish that were needed for the family dinner. It is recognized clearly in the case of an isolated individual or family that one occupation can expand only at the expense of all other occupations.

在电影《海角一乐园》（Swiss Family Robinson）中，身陷荒岛的那个瑞士家庭也许会发觉这个问题稍好解决一些。虽然有更多张嘴巴要吃饭，却也多了更多双手干活儿。他们可以分工作业，例如父亲打猎，母亲煮饭，孩子们拾柴火。但是，即便如此，这个家庭里也不能让某位成员去无休止地做同一件事情，而不考虑他所满足的公共需求与其他一些尚未被满足的需要相对而言的迫切程度。当孩子们已经拾了一堆柴火之后，就不应简单地让他们接着拾。比如说，可以派其中一个孩子去担水。这户人家同样不断面临应把力气用在哪里的问题。而如果他们有幸拥有猎枪、渔具、船、斧头、锯子的话，更得要考虑劳力和资本用在什么地方。要是拾柴火的小孩抱怨说，哥哥要是不去抓鱼 而去帮他拾柴火，他们会拾得更多，这就是难以言喻的蠢话。从上面孤立的个人或家庭的故事，我们能清楚地认识到，某项工作做得多，往往不过是以牺牲其他所有的工作为代价得到的。

Elementary illustrations like this are sometimes ridiculed as “Crusoe economics.” Unfortunately, they are ridiculed most by those who most need them, who fail to understand the particular principle illustrated even in this simple form, or who lose track of that principle completely when they come to examine the bewildering complications of a great modern economic society.

像这类浅显易晓的论述，有时被嘲讽为“鲁滨逊经济学”。不幸的是，嘲讽得最厉害的，是那些最需要这种经济学的人，是那些无法理解简单故事背后的基本原理的人，是那些在探讨错综复杂的现代经济社会时，却又把这些基本原理忘到了一边的人。

2

Let us now turn to such a society. How is the problem of alternative applications of labor and capital, to meet thousands of different needs and wants of different urgencies, solved in such a society? It is solved precisely through the price system. It is solved through the constantly changing interrelationships of costs of production, prices and profits.

我们回过头来谈现代社会。在这样一个错综复杂的社会中，人们的需要和要求及其轻重缓急千差万别，如何解决劳力和资本用在哪里的问题？解决之道正是通过价格体系，也就是通过生产成本、价格和利润三者间不断变动的相互关系来调节的。

Prices are fixed through the relationship of supply and demand and in turn affect supply and demand. When people want more of an article, they offer more for it. The price goes up. This increases the profits of those who make the article. Because it is now more profitable to make that article than others, the people already in the business expand their production of it, and more people are attracted to the business. This increased supply then reduces the price and reduces the profit margin, until the profit margin on that article once more falls to the general level of profits (relative risks considered) in other industries. Or the demand for that article may fall; or the supply of it may be increased to such a point that its price drops to a level where there is less profit in making it than in making other articles; or perhaps there is an actual loss in making it. In this case the “marginal” producers, that is, the producers who are least efficient, or whose costs of production are highest, will be driven out of business altogether. The product will now be made only by the more efficient producers who operate on lower costs. The supply of that commodity will also drop, or will at least cease to expand.

价格是由供需关系决定的，反过来又会影响供给和需求。当人们对于某项物品需要越多，他们就会出更多的钱去购买，于是其价格上升，其生产商的利润也由此增加了。由于现在生产该物品会比做其他更赚钱，那些已经在此行业中的人就会扩大生产，同时更多人被吸引进入那一行。随后，供应增多又会导致价格下降、边 际利润下滑，直至其边际利润跌回到其他行业的平均利润水平（相对于其风险）。或者，人们对那种物品的需求减少，其供给可能会增加到这样的一点，使得其价格降至生产它的利润小于生产其他产品，甚至不赚反赔。这种情况下， “边际”生产者，也就是效率最低或成本最高的生产者，会被淘汰出局。只剩下成本较低，效率较高的制造商仍在生产。那种商品的供应也会减少，或至少不再增加。

This process is the origin of the belief that prices are determined by costs of production. The doctrine, stated in this form, is not true. Prices are determined by supply and demand, and demand is determined by how intensely people want a commodity and what they have to offer in exchange for it. It is true that supply is in part determined by costs of production. What a commodity has cost to produce in the past cannot determine its value. That will depend on the present relationship of supply and demand. But the expectations of businessmen concerning what a commodity will cost to produce in the future, and what its future price will be, will determine how much of it will be made. This will affect future supply. There is therefore a constant tendency for the price of a commodity and its marginal cost of production to equal each other, but not because that marginal cost of production directly determines the price.

认为生产成本决定了价格的这种想法也是由上述过程产生的。不过，这个学说，若以这样的形式来说明，却是不正确的。价格取决于供给和需求，而需求取决 于人们想要拥有某种商品渴求程度，以及他们愿意支付多少来换取。认为供给部分地取决于生产成本，这一点是对的。但一种商品已经发生的生产成本却不能决定商品的价值。商品价值取决于现在发生的供需关系。然而，制造商们对于一种商品未来生产成本和市场价位的预期，将会决定那种商品未来的生产数量，这种预期就会影响未来的供给。因此，一种商品的价格与其边际生产成本之间存在着一种彼此不断接近一致的趋势。不过，这并不是由于边际生产成本直接决定价格。

The private enterprise system, then, might be compared to thousands of machines, each regulated by its own quasi-automatic governor, yet with these machines and their governors all interconnected and influencing each other, so that they act in effect like one great machine. Most of us must have noticed the automatic governor” on a steam engine. It usually consists of two balls or weights which work by centrifugal force. As the speed of the engine increases, these balls fly away from the rod to which they are attached and so automatically narrow or close off a throttle valvewhich regulates the intake of steam and thus slows down the engine. If the engine goes too slowly, on the other hand, the balls drop, widen the throttle valve, and increase the engine’s speed. Thus every departure from the desired speed itself sets in motion the forces that tend to correct that departure.

这样来说，私人企业体系好比成千上万部机器，每部机器由各自的半自动化调节器来管理。机器之间，连同它们的调节器之间，彼此连接，相互影响，整个运作起来好比一部有生命的大机器。我们大多数人一定见过蒸汽机上的自动调速器。它通常是由两颗小球或重锤组成，以重力和离心力发生作用。当引擎速度加大时，这些小球会绕着它们所附着的活塞杆飞起，形成离心力，以此自动收紧或关闭调整蒸汽送入量的节流阀，从而减慢引擎的转速。反之，如果引擎的速度太慢，小球就飞不起来，从而扩大节流阀，加快引擎转速。因此，速度一偏离理想的水平，这种偏离就会自动启动一种力量去对偏离进行自动矫正。

It is precisely in this way that the relative supply of thousands of different commodities is regulated under the system of competitive private enterprise. When people want more of a commodity, their competitive bidding raises its price. This increases the profits of the producers who make that product. This stimulates them to increase their production. It leads others to stop making some of the products they previously made, and turn to making the product that offers them the better return. But this increases the supply of that commodity at the same time that it reduces the supply of some other commodities. The price of that product therefore falls in relation to the price of other products, and the stimulus to the relative increase in its production disappears.

正是通过类似的调节方式，成千上万种不同商品的相对供应量，在自由竞争的私人企业体系中得到调节。当人们对于某种商品的需求增加时，其竞争性的出价便抬高了产品的价格，生产者会因为有利可图而扩大生产。生产其他商品的制造商也会转向，加入到这种回报率较高的产品生产中。但增加这种商品的供应的同时会减少其他一些商品的供给。如此一来，这种商品的价格因此相对于其他商品的价格开始下跌，先前激励其产量相对增加的价差因素便不复存在。

In the same way, if the demand falls off for some product, its price and the profit in making it go lower, and its production declines.

同样是用这种方式，如果某种产品的需求减少，该产品的价格和利润会下降，产量当然也会随之减少。

It is this last development that scandalizes those who do not understand the “price system” they denounce. They accuse it of creating scarcity. Why, they ask indignantly, should manufacturers cut off the production of shoes at the point where it becomes unprofitable to produce any more? Why should they be guided merely by their own profits? Why should they be guided by the market? Why do they not produce shoes to the “full capacity of modern technical processes”? The price system and private enterprise, conclude the “production-for-use” philosophers, are merely a form of “scarcity economics.”

正是最后一个环节让那些不理解“价格体系”的人大为反感。他们谴责价格体系导致了匮乏。他们愤慨地责问：为什么在生产鞋子不赚钱时，企业家就要停止生产？为什么他们只受自己利润的支配？为什么他们的行动要由市场操纵？为什么他们不“开足马力充分利用现代的制造工艺”来生产鞋子？这些“生产致用”的哲学家下结论说：价格体系和私人企业只不过是“匮乏经济学”的一种形式。

These questions and conclusions stem from the fallacy of looking at one industry in isolation, of looking at the tree and ignoring the forest. Up to a certain point it is necessary to produce shoes. But it is also necessary to produce coats, shirts, trousers, homes, plows, shovels, factories, bridges, milk and bread. It would be idiotic to go on piling up mountains of surplus shoes, simply because we could do it, while hundreds of more urgent needs went unfilled.

这些问题和结论主要源于孤立地观察一个产业、只见树木不见森林的错误看法。在达到某一平衡点之前，继续生产鞋子是必要的。但是我们也有必要生产外套、衬衫、长裤、耕犁、铁锹、牛奶和面包，建造住宅、工厂、桥梁。若这些迫切的生活需要都没有得到满足，却一味地生产出堆积如山的鞋子，而理由仅仅是我们有能力做鞋子，这种做法可说是要多蠢有多蠢。

Now, in an economy in equilibrium, a given industry can expand only at the expense of other industries. For at any moment the factors of production are limited. One industry can be expanded only by diverting to it labor, land and capital that would otherwise be employed in other industries. And when a given industry shrinks, or stops expanding its output, it does not necessarily mean that there has been any net decline in aggregate production. The shrinkage at that point may have merely released labor and capital to permit the expansion of other industries. It is erroneous to conclude, therefore, that a shrinkage of production in one line necessarily means a shrinkage in total production.

经济处于均衡状态时，某个产业只有以其他行业牺牲为代价，才有可能得到扩展。因为，在任何时候，生产要素都是有限的。只有当原来用于其他产业劳工、土地和资本，转移到了某个产业，那个产业才能够扩张。而且，当某一产业萎缩或者停止增产，并不必然意味着总体生产出现净减少。因为该产业一定程度上的萎缩，可能仅仅是释放出了一些劳工和资本，以允许其他产业的扩张。因此，仅仅因为某个产业的生产减少，就下结论说总生产缩减，是错误的。

Everything, in short, is produced at the expense of forgoing something else. Costs of production themselves, in fact, might be defined as the things that are given up (the leisure and pleasures, the raw materials with alternative potential uses) in order to create the thing that is made.

总之，每一种东西的生产，都得以牺牲放弃某些其他东西为代价。事实上，生产成本本身可以定义为：为了生产某样东西而放弃的其他事物（休闲和娱乐，或可以用于其他地方的原材料等）。

It follows that it is just as essential for the health of a dynamic economy that dying industries should be allowed to die as that growing industries should be allowed to grow. For the dying industries absorb labor and capital that should be released for the growing industries. It is only the much vilified price system that solves the enormously complicated problem of deciding precisely how much of tens of thousands of different commodities and services should be produced in relation to each other. These otherwise bewildering equations are solved quasi-automatically by the system of prices, profits and costs. They are solved by this system incomparably better than any group of bureaucrats could solve them. For they are solved by a system under which each consumer makes his own demand and casts a fresh vote, or a dozen fresh votes, every day; whereas bureaucrats would try to solve it by having made for the consumers, not what the consumers themselves wanted, but what the bureaucrats decided was good for them. Yet though the bureaucrats do not understand the quasi-automatic system of the market, they are always disturbed by it. They are always trying to improve it or correct it, usually in the interests of some wailing pressure group. What some of the results of their intervention are, we shall examine in succeeding chapters.

由此可见，为了一个有活力的经济的健康发展，我们应当放手让衰败中的产业消亡，允许成长中的产业扩张。因为，那些衰败的产业吸收着本应被解放并投入于成长产业中的劳力和资本。正是倍受妄责的价格体系解决了那个极为错综复杂的问题，即准确地决定无数商品和服务彼此相对应该生产多少。靠价格、利润和成本体系的半自动化运作，让本来复杂难解的方程式迎刃而解，这种解决能力远非任何一群官僚能比。因为这套系统的解决方式，是由每一位消费者根据本身的需求，每天由自己去投下新的一票或十几票来调节的。而官僚的解决办法，是要代表消费者去决定各自的需求；这样决定的结果并不是消费者自己的愿望，而是官僚们认为对消费者会有好处的需求。

然而，尽管官僚们并不理解市场的这种半自动化体系，他们却常常为之心态失常。他们总是从向他们施压的集团的利益出发，努力去改进或矫正这种体系。至于他们这样的干预会产生什么的后果，我们将在接下来的几章进行考察。

Economics in One Lesson校译之13. “Parity” Prices

“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。