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第6章 政府信贷扭曲生产

（接前面部分）

This argument will seem plausible only as long as we concentrate our attention on the particular borrowers whom the government supplies with funds, and overlook the people whom its plan deprives of funds. For what is really being lent is not money, which is merely the medium of exchange, but capital. (I have already put the reader on notice that we shall postpone to a later point the complications introduced by an inflationary expansion of credit.) What is really being lent, say, is the farm or the tractor itself. Now the number of farms in existence is limited, and so is the production of tractors (assuming, especially, that an economic surplus of tractors is not produced simply at the expense of other things). The farm or tractor that is lent to A cannot be lent to B. The real question is, therefore, whether A or B shall get the farm.

我们若只注意那些拿到政府贷款的生产者，而忽略掉那些由于政府贷款计划而丧失了获得生产资本的人的时候，上述辩护才会显得有些道理。因为，政府真正借出去的并不是钱，而是资本，钱不过是交易的媒介。（前面已经提醒过，我们稍候再谈通货膨胀性信贷扩张而引发的复杂性问题）。政府真正借出去的是农场或拖拉机本身。农场的数目有限，拖拉机的产量也有限（只要不是牺牲其他产品去生产过剩的拖拉机），那么政府把农场或拖拉机借给某乙，就没办法再借给某甲。因此，真正的问题在于：到底是甲，还是乙，应该得到农场？

This brings us to the respective merits ofA and B, and what each contributes, or is capable of contributing, to production. A, let us say, is the man who would get the farm if the government did not intervene. The local banker or his neighbors know him and know his record. They want to find employment for their funds. They know that he is a good farmer and an honest man who keeps his word. They consider him a good risk. He has already, perhaps, through industry, frugality and foresight, accumulated enough cash to pay a fourth of the price of the farm. They lend him the other three-fourths; and he gets the farm.

这就要靠比较甲与乙各自的价值，各自对生产的贡献，或者有能力做什么贡献。假设政府不干预，甲会得到农场。当地的银行家和邻 居都了解他，对他知根知底。他们希望自己手上的资金得到合理有效的利用。他们知道甲是诚实守信的人，值得在他身上冒险。也许因为勤劳、节俭、有远见，他已经积攒了购买农场所需资金的四分之一，他们借给了他其余的四分之三，这样他就得到这个农场。

There is a strange idea abroad, held by all monetary cranks, that credit is something a banker gives to a man. Credit on the contrary, is something a man already has. He has it, perhaps, because he already has marketable assets of a greater cash value than the loan for which he is asking. Or he has it because his character and past record have earned it. He brings it into the bank with him. That is why the banker makes him the loan. The banker is not giving something for nothing. He feels assured of repayment. He is merely exchanging a more liquid form of asset or credit for a less liquid form. Sometimes he makes a mistake, and then it is not only the banker who suffers, but the whole community; for values which were supposed to be produced by the lender are not produced and resources are wasted.

有一个奇怪的说法很流行，是所有造钱学派学者的主张【译者注：monetary cranks，指迷信通货膨胀的经济学者】，说信用是银行赋予某个人的。事实恰恰相反，信用是人已经拥有的东西。一个人有信用，或许是因为他拥有资产折合成现金来计算，其价值大于他想取得的贷款。或许是因为个人品行与信用记录让他获得了信用。他带着本身具备的信用到银行去，银行家才愿意借钱给他。银行家绝不会随随便便地借钱给别人，他需要得到偿还的保证。银行只是把借款人的资产或信用从流动性较低的形式转换成流动性较高的形式而已。有时银行也难免失误，这样一来，不但银行家自己受损失，整个社会也会受损失，因为借款人没能创造出预期的价值，资源被浪费了。

Now it is to A, let us say, who has credit that the banker would make his loan. But the government goes into the lending business in a charitable frame of mind because, as we say, it is worried about B. B cannot get a mortgage or other loans from private lenders because he does not have credit with them. He has no savings; he has no impressive record as a good farmer; he is perhaps at the moment on relief. Why not, say the advocates of government credit, make him a useful and productive member of society by lending him enough for a farm and a mule or tractor and setting him up in business?

可以看出，具备信用的甲是银行愿意借钱的对象。但抱着施舍心态的政府更关怀乙的处境。缺乏信用的乙没办法从私人放贷者那里取得抵押贷款和其他贷款，他没有储蓄，没有信用记录支持他可以作为一个成功的农民，当时他还可能是靠领救济金生活。提倡扩大政府信用的人争辩说，为什么不借给他足够的钱，让他购买农场、小拖拉机、大牵引车，助其立业，使他成为有价值也有生产效益的社会成员呢？

Perhaps in an individual case it may work out all right. But it is obvious that in general the people selected by these government standards will be poorer risks than the people selected by private standards. More money will be lost by loans to them. There will be a much higher percentage of failures among them. They will be less efficient. More resources will be wasted by them. Yet the recipients of government credit will get their farms and tractors at the expense of those who otherwise would have been the recipients of private credit. Because B has a farm, A will be deprived of a farm. A may be squeezed out either because interest rates have gone up as a result of the government operations, or because farm prices have been forced up as a result of them, or because there is no other farm to be had in his neighborhood. In any case, the net result of government credit has not been to increase the amount of wealth produced by the community but to reduce it, because the available real capital (consisting of actual farms, tractors, etc.) has been placed in the hands of the less efficient borrowers rather than in the hands of the more efficient and trustworthy.

也许就个别的案例来说，这种愿望能够很好地得到实现。但整体而言，按政府的标准选定的信贷对象，风险显然高于按私人放贷标准选定的信贷对象。投给乙们的贷款越多，损失越大，他们中间失败的比例会高出很多。乙们的效率会比较低，更多的资源会被他们浪费掉。可是，获得政府贷款的人将买到农场和拖拉机，本来可望获得私人贷款的人就反而得不到。乙有了农场，甲就被剥夺了拥有这个农场的机会。甲被排挤出去，可能是因为政府信贷导致的利率提高，或因为农场的价格因之上涨，或因为邻近地区也没有剩余的农场可买了。这样一来，政府信贷所造成的净效果是减少而不是增加了当地所能创造财富，因为可用的实体资本（由实际的农场、拖拉机等构成）没有交给效率更高的、值得信赖的人，而是落到了低效率的借款人手里。

（未完待续）

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