dingdong

Saving the X Industry

第14章 救救X产业

THE LOBBIES OF Congress are crowded with representatives of the X industry. The X industry is sick. The X industry is dying. It must be saved. It can be saved only by a tariff, by higher prices, or by a subsidy. If it is allowed to die, workers will be thrown on the streets. Their landlords, grocers, butchers, clothing stores and local motion pictures will lose business, and depression will spread in ever-widening circles. But if the X industry, by prompt action of Congress, is saved—ah then! It will buy equipment from other industries; more men will be employed; they will give more business to the butchers, bakers and neon-light makers, and then it is prosperity that will spread in ever-widening circles.

国会大厦的门廊里挤满了X产业的代表。X产业不行了。X产业快完了。我们必须拯救X产业。现在只有靠关税、靠提高价格，靠补贴，X产业才可能有救。要是国会坐视不管，X产业一垮，产业工人就只有流落街头。他们的房东、当地的杂货店、肉铺、服饰店、戏院，就会失去生意，经济萧条会因此蔓延到其他行业。但如果国会马上采取挽救措施的话——那么，啊哈！X产业会向其他行业购买设备；更多的人将能得到工作；他们将为当地的肉铺、面包店，以及霓虹灯制造商带来生意。这样，景气不断扩展，带来经济繁荣。

It is obvious that this is merely a generalized form of the case we have just been considering. There the X industry was agriculture. But there is an endless number of X industries. Two of the most notable examples have been the coal and silver industries. To “save silver” Congress did immense harm. One of the arguments for the rescue plan was that it would help “the East.” One of its actual results was to cause deflation in China, which had been on a silver basis, and to force China off that basis. The United States Treasury was compelled to acquire, at ridiculous prices far above the market level, hoards of unnecessary silver, and to store it in vaults. The essential political aims of the “silver senators” could have been as well achieved, at a fraction of the harm and cost, by the payment of a frank subsidy to the mine owners or to their workers; but Congress and the country would never have approved a naked steal of this sort unaccompanied by the ideological flim-flam regarding “silver’s essential role in the national currency.

很显然，这不过是我们刚刚讨论过的情况的一般形式。在前一章，X产业是指农业。不过，X产业多不胜举，其中最著名的两个例子是煤炭产业和白银产业。美国国会为了“拯救白银”，曾造成巨大的危害。支持这种挽救计划的一个论点，是认为它将有助于“东方”，其实际结果之一，便是造成了银本位制下的中国发生通货紧缩，进而逼迫中国放弃银本位制。美国财政部不得不以离谱的高价大量收购不必需的白银，任其积压在金库里。“银参议员们”完全可以用直接补贴矿业业主或矿工的方式来达到其政治目的，其危害与代价也不至于如此惨重。但这样做无异于赤裸裸的抢劫，若不包装上“白银在国家货币上扮演不可或缺的角色”等意识形态上的东西，以此来遮羞的话，美国国会和这个国家是绝不会赞同的。

To save the coal industry Congress passed the Guffey Act, under which the owners of coal mines were not only permitted, but compelled, to conspire together not to sell below certain minimum prices fixed by the government. Though Congress had started out to fix “the” price of coal, the government soon found itself (because of different sizes, thousands of mines, and shipments to thousands of different destinations by rail, truck, ship and barge) fixing 350,000 separate prices for coal!* One effect of this attempt to keep coal prices above the competitive market level was to accelerate the tendency toward the substitution by consumers of other sources of power or heat—such as oil, natural gas and hydroelectric energy. Today we find the government trying to force conversion from oil consumption back to coal.

为了拯救煤炭产业，国会通过了古费法案（Guffey Act）。该法案不仅允许而且强制煤矿业主联合起来，只能以高于政府规定的最低价格出售煤炭。尽管有国会立法定价，但政府很快就发现，它总共制定了35万种不同的煤价！这是因为有数以千计的规模不等的煤矿场，并且有铁路、公路、海运、江运等不同运输方式，以及成千上万个不同的目的地{footnotes:1937年《烟煤法案》（Bituminous Coal Act）适用范围的听证会上，烟煤部门负责人惠勒（Dan H. Wheeler）的证词。}。强制维持煤碳价高于市场竞价水平的一个后果，是消费者加速寻找煤炭的替代物，如石油、天然气、水力发电，来获取动力和取暖。如今，我们发现，政府正在努力迫使公众从石油的消费重新转移到煤炭的消费上去。

2

Our aim here is not to trace all the results that followed historically from efforts to save particular industries, but to trace a few of the chief results that must necessarily follow from efforts to save an industry.

本章的目的，不是探寻过去为拯救特定产业曾经造成的所有结果，而是探讨拯救一个产业，必然带来的主要结果。

It may be argued that a given industry must be created or preserved for military reasons. It may be argued that a given industry is being ruined by taxes or wage rates disproportionate to those of other industries; or that, if a public utility, it is being forced to operate at rates or charges to the public that do not permit an adequate profit margin. Such arguments may or may not be justified in a particular case. We are not concerned with them here. We are concerned only with a single argument for saving the X industry—that if it is allowed to shrink in size or perish through the forces of free competition (always called by spokesmen for the industry in such cases laissez-faire, anarchic, cutthroat, dog-eatdog, law-of-the-jungle competition) it will pull down the general economy with it, and that if it is artificially kept alive it will help everybody else.

有人可能认为，为了军事目的，还不得不创建或保全某些产业；也可能有人会争辩道，某个产业税负或工资率相对于其他产业不成比例，因而难以为继；也有说公用事业公司因为费率偏低，无法赚取合理的利润。这些说法有没有道理，要视特定的情况而定。我们暂不讨论这些，本章只谈拯救X产业的一种论调——如果放任其在自由竞争（也就是X产业的代言人所声讨的，自由放任的、无政府主义的、残酷无情的、同类相残的、弱肉强食的竞争）中萎缩或消亡，它会拖垮整个经济；而如果用人为的力量维持它的生存，它会让其他所有人获益。

What we are talking about here is nothing else but a generalized case of the argument put forward for parity prices for farm products or for tariff protection for any number of X industries. The argument against artificially higher prices applies, of course, not only to farm products but to any product, just as the reasons we have found for opposing tariff protection for one industry apply to any other.

本章要谈的，无非是将主张实施农产品平准价格或对X产业实施关税保护的论调加以扩大讨论。不消说，反对通过人为干预提高产品价格的观点，不仅适用于农产品，它同样适用于其他任何产品，正如我们用以反对为某个产业实施关税保护的理由，同样适用于其他任何产业。

But there are always any number of schemes for saving X industries. There are two main types of such proposals in addition to those we have already considered, and we shall take a brief glance at them. One is to contend that the X industry is already “overcrowded,” and to try to prevent other firms or workers from getting into it. The other is to argue that the X industry needs to be supported by a direct subsidy from the government.

拯救X产业的办法不胜枚举。除了我们前面提到的，相关提案通常还有两大类。其中一类强调，X产业已经“过热”，应该设法阻止其他公司或劳工再进入。另一类则呼吁，政府应该以直接补贴的方式对X产业给予扶持。

Now if the X industry is really overcrowded as compared with other industries it will not need any coercive legislation to keep out new capital or new workers. New capital does not rush into industries that are obviously dying. Investors do not eagerly seek the industries that present the highest risks of loss combined with the lowest returns. Nor do workers, when they have any better alternative, go into industries where the wages are lowest and the prospects for steady employment least promising.

如果X产业与其他产业相比确实过度拥挤，那根本不需要任何强制立法，去排斥新资本或新劳工进入。新资本不会抢着挤进显然要垮掉的行业。投资人不会冒然踏进风险最大、回报率最低的行业。劳工如果能更好的选择，同样不会进入工资最低、工作最不稳定的行业。

If new capital and new labor are forcibly kept out of the X industry, however, either by monopolies, cartels, union policy or legislation, it deprives this capital and labor of liberty of choice. It forces investors to place their money where the returns seem less promising to them than in the X industry. It forces workers into industries with even lower wages and prospects than they could find in the allegedly sick X industry. It means, in short, that both capital and labor are less efficiently employed than they would be if they were permitted to make their own free choices. It means, therefore, a lowering of production which must reflect itself in a lower average living standard.

如果新资本和新劳工是被强制排斥在X产业之外，例如垄断、同业联盟、工会的政策或者法律等强制手段剥夺了资本和劳动力自由选择的权力。它逼迫投资人将钱投向回报率还不如X产业的其他地方。它逼迫劳工只好投身工资更低、就业前景更为暗淡的行业，而那些行业还不如所谓有毛病的X产业。总之，这意味着资本和劳工的运用效率都不如允许它们自由选择时的水准。因此，这也就意味着生产的下降，而它又必将反映为一种更低的生活水平。

That lower living standard will be brought about either by lower average money wages than would otherwise prevail or by higher average living costs, or by a combination of both. (The exact result would depend upon the accompanying monetary policy.) By these restrictive policies wages and capital returns might indeed be kept higher than otherwise within the X industry itself; but wages and capital returns in other industries would be forced down lower than otherwise. The X industry would benefit only at the expense of the A, B and C industries.

生活水平下降，可能表现为人均所领的工资低于本来应有的水准，也可能表现为人均生活费用越来越高，或者两种表现都有（具体表现取决于当时的货币政策）。实施限制性政策的结果是，X产业内部的工资和资本回报率可能会更高；但是其他产业的工资和资本回报率，将被迫下降，低于本来应有的水准。X产业得到好处，只可能是以A、B、C产业的损失为代价的。

（未完待续）

第13章 “平准价格”

（接前面部分）

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，只要农产品能卖个好价钱，有没有平准价格，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，一切还要取决于这个好价钱是如何带来的。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。国家粮库可以按平准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平准价格的时囤积产品，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平准价格时，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。甚至有些主张实施平准价格的人，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“平准收入”。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，我们来讨论主张平准价格的另一类论调。提出这种论调的人更加老成圆熟。他们坦率地承认，“没错，平准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。平准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?

要求实施平准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被迫支付平准价格，一方面他不得不支付较高的价格去买毛毯或外套，另一方面他不得不支付较高的价格去买棉衣或食品，他被剥了两次皮，更不要提什么“补偿”。

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，同时取消平准价格制度和保护性关税制度，大家扯平最简单。此间，两种保护制度结合起来执行的结果，也并没有使得收支就此相抵。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.

所以，若再有其他种种计划，被吹得如何如何有利，但一经我们不仅仅探讨某个特殊群体立即受到的影响，而同样探究经济政策提案对每个人造成的长期影响时，其吹嘘的有利无弊便会又一次消失。

“Parity” Prices第13章 “平准价格”
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“平准价格”的历史，正是照上述进程写就的。我记不起平准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，平准价格的衍生论调也被陆续颁订为法律。{校注：平准价格（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平准价格率。}

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.

平准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年间就出现了这种平准价格，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年的价格关系作为平准价格的基础，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?

如果平准价格观念真的那么厚道或合乎逻辑，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，若参照当时农产品平准价格来调整，售价应该是3 270美元。1909年到1913年（含），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“平准”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两倍多），还必须考虑前后两个时期汽车品质上的差异。这种困难，显然表明了平准价格的提议行不通。

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，“平准”价格的鼓吹者对这一切却视而不见。{footnotes:《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.

政府不肯将平准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，高过了平准价格，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平准价格，从来不曾要求农民退回等量的补贴。平准价格原则仅仅是特殊利益只上不下的单行道。

（未完待续）

第12章 拉动出口

（接前面部分）

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，“拉动出口”这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。{endnotes: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，这是真的。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，并且是有害的。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，才是愚蠢的。企图通过出口补贴的方式拉动出口的做法，同样愚不可及。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——他们相信这样可以“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•穆勒所说：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。

The Drive for Exports

第12章 拉动出口

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，或其他任何商品来结算。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剩余的国际“货币”，而不仅仅是另一种商品），各国不象限制其他商品进口那样限制黄金的输入。（另一方面，近年来，许多国家限制黄金的输出，采取的措施比限制其他商品出口更严格，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.

如今有些人，在谈论国内贸易时，头脑清醒并且很有理智，同样是这些人，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，脑筋中若以为正在做着一笔精明的商业交易，且纯粹合乎自私自利的目标，那就太不明智了。这只会造成以后的误解和恶劣关系。

（未完待续）

第11章 关税“保护”了哪些人？
 
（接前面部分）

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，这话大致不错。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.)

我们不妨用一个夸大的例子，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.

尽管支持和反对的意见一直争执不下，不过就长期而言，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。在长期中，关税一定会使实质工资下降，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，而该行业将从出售自己的产品中获取额外利益。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的从业者（既是生产者，也是消费者），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。比如说，我们不应该说什么“减少关税将有助于任何人，而不会有人受到损害”之类的话。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。而事实上，这也就是根本不应该在一开始就实行这类保护以求得保护利益的理由之一。但我们为求思考的明晰与公正起见，便不得不关注并且承认：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。而如果它们的工人已经具备行业专门技能，甚至可能因此遭受长期的伤害，直到他们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，包括它对于所有集团的、短期的或是长期的影响。

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。

说瞎想，是没有去做功课，脑子里迸出来，就端上来的。

1. 专家若拿不出考评要求论文，可以拿科普文章来抵。当然，要求其发表在上档次的科普平台；

2. 专家若拿不出论文，也拿不出科普文章。允许其从其科研所得中，拿出一部分资助科普建设； 

第11章 关税“保护”了哪些人？
 
（接前面部分）

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。绝大多数人因此误以为新产业并没有使他们付出任何代价。这种错觉，将使国人受到进一步的损害。

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。诚然，征收这种关税将使在羊毛衫产业中工作的美国人，其工资只要处于美国的平均水准上下（就技能相当而言）就行，而不必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.

由上所述，我们已可见到关税壁垒的实质影响。所有看得到的利益，都被损失给冲销掉了，虽然这些损失不那么明显，但确有其事。结果，整个国家承受了净损失。对于关税的功效，数百年来有过无数出于自利的宣传，也有过并非出于自利的认识混乱，事实却与这一切误导截然相反——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.

让我们来进一步阐明其中的原因。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，到底是降低名义工资，还是提高名义物价，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或许能比不受关税保护时要高，若把所有产业的情形都考虑在内的话，和本来应有的整体水平相比较，关税一定会降低实质工资。

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?

只有历经一代又一代谬论的影响，被长期误导，才会觉得上述结论似是而非。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。我们努力降低羊毛衫运输成本1美元，接着又花掉2美元支付为阻止羊毛衫运入美国而增收的关税。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。

（未完待续）

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：

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，跑到国会向相关的委员会慷慨陈词，又到国务院向有关政府官员据理力争，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。由于以往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30美元，能买到品质更好的羊毛衫）。如果他们选择前者，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。而消费者省下的5美元，则会促进美国其他产业的就业。

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。这样一来，美国和英国的整体生产就会增加。两国的劳动力资源都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产业。两国的消费者都得到了实惠。他们可以买到最便宜的产品。进口羊毛衫能让美国的消费者受惠，进口洗衣机和飞机能让英国的消费者受惠。

（未完待续）

The Fetish of Full Employment

第10章 盲目崇拜充分就业

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，人们着手用畜力代替人力负重，并且进一步发明了轮子和四轮马车，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，发展了无数节省劳动的发明。

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，这一原则首先意味着：追求生产最大化才是我们的真正目标。要达成这个目标，充分就业，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。少了充分就业，我们无法连续不断地达到充分生产这个目标。不过，就算不是为了充分生产，要举实现充分就业却是很容易的事。

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）。充分就业一旦偏离了充分生产这个目标，并被当作一个目的的话，恐怕没有什么东西会比它更容易达到了。希特勒推动庞大的扩军备战计划，实现了充分就业；第二次世界大战让每个参战国都实现了充分就业；德国的苦役都充分就业；监狱和戴镣铐的囚徒都充分就业。高压统治总能实现充分就业。

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”议案，而是“充分就业”议案。就连工商业联合会呼吁成立的也是“总统充分就业委员会”，而非“充分生产”委员会、或“充分就业与充分生产”委员会。在任何地方，手段反而成了目的，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。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。一部分民众支持他，认为他的出发点只是想要创造更多的工作机会。当美国推行工作促进计划（WPA）之际，大家便以为，官员们竟然能想出这种根据工作所能创造的价值雇用最大数量的人力的项目，确实是当官天才的一个标志——换句话说，那些官员总是有办法相出那些最没有效率地使用劳动力的方案。

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.

采取生产最大化政策，同时光明正大地救济一部分失业人口，远比打着“充分就业”的幌子，用“制造工作机会”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。这是因为当国家变得日益富裕之后，我们得以禁止使用童工，得以实现老有所养，大多数妇女也能如愿专职照料家庭。又如，在美国必须出去工作的人口的比例，远低于中国或俄罗斯。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？只要有更多的产品可供分配，今天人们极力强调的分配问题便能够更容易得到解决。

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

我们如能把强调的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——那么，我们的头脑就会更加醒豁。