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“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）

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