dingdong

第18章 房租管制的后果

（接前面部分）

This has been the almost universal result in every country that was involved in World War II or imposed rent control in an effort to offset monetary inflation.

对于那些参与过二次世界大战国家，以及那些为了平抑通货膨胀而实施房租管制的国家，上述论点几乎都被当作一般性的结论。

So the government launches on a gigantic housing program — at the taxpayers’ expense. The houses are rented at a rate that does not pay back costs of construction and operation. A typical arrangement is for the government to pay annual subsidies, either directly to the tenants in lower rents or to the builders or managers of the State housing. Whatever the nominal arrangement, the tenants in the buildings are being subsidized by the rest of the population. They are having part of their rent paid for them. They are being selected for favored treatment. The political possibilities of this favoritism are too clear to need stressing. A pressure group is built up that believes that the taxpayers owe it these subsidies as a matter of right. Another all but irreversible step is taken toward the total Welfare State.

于是乎，政府推出规模浩大的廉租房兴建计划（当然是拿纳税人的钱去做这件事）。当然，廉租房的房租，根本不足以弥补房屋的建造和营运成本。不足部分通常由政府每年拿钱出来补贴，无论是通过收取低廉的房租来直接补贴租户，还是以各种名义补贴廉租房的承建商和物业公司。无论名义上如何安排和计划，享受廉租房的租户都得到了别人的补贴。他们所需交纳的一部分租金是由别人提供的。这些租户是被政府选中的接受优待的一群人。对于优待特定的一群人的各种政治可能性，明眼人一看即知，无需多说。一个压力集团将由此形成并壮大，进而相信它有权接受纳税人的补贴。向全面的福利国家迈进是另一个几乎不可逆的步骤。

A final irony of rent control is that the more unrealistic, Draconian, and unjust it is, the more fervid the political arguments for its continuance. If the legally fixed rents are on the average 95 percent as high as free market rents would be, and only minor injustice is being done to landlords, there is no strong political objection to taking off rent controls, because tenants will only have to pay increases averaging about percent. But if the inflation of the currency has been so great, or the rent-control laws so repressive and unrealistic, that legally fixed rents are only 10 percent of what free market rents would be, and gross injustice is being done to owners and landlords, a great outcry will be raised about the dreadful evils of removing the controls and forcing tenants to pay an economic rent. The argument is made that it would be unspeakably cruel and unreasonable to ask the tenants to pay so sudden and huge an increase. Even the opponents of rent control are then disposed to concede that the removal of controls must be a very cautious, gradual, and prolonged process. Few of the opponents of rent control, indeed, have the political courage and economic insight under such conditions to ask even for this gradual decontrol. In sum, the more unrealistic and unjust the rent control is, the harder it is politically to get rid of it. In country after country, a ruinous rent control has been retained years after other forms of price control have been abandoned.

实施房租管制，最具讽刺的一点，在于它越是背离现实、手段越严厉、越不公正，支持继续管制的政治呼声越强烈。假如法定固定房租平均来说是自由市场租金水平的95%，并且对房东来讲只有些许不公平的话，政府此时取消房租管制，遇到的政治阻力不会太大，毕竟租户只需要多负担约5%的房租。但是，倘若通货膨胀非常严重，或者房租管制法十分严厉，总之跟现实大幅脱节，以至于法定固定房租只相当于自由市场租金的10%，巨大的不公平让业主和房东受损、让租户受益，政府此时取消房租管制、要租户转而支付高租金就会引起非常强烈的反对。反对者会说，突然加重租户房租负担，未免过于残酷和不合情理。鉴于这种情况，反对实施房租管制的人往往妥协，认为取消管制必须慎重、渐进、慢慢来。而实际情况则是，原本反对管制房租的人迫于压力，就连逐步取消管制也不敢提。极少有人怀有政治上的勇气和经济上的远见。总之，房租管制越是不切实际、不公正，取消管制在政治上的可行性越小。一个接一个国家的实践表明，即使其他的价格管制形式已经取消了好多年，为害不小的房租管制依然照旧在实施。

The political excuses offered for continuing rent control pass credibility. The law sometimes provides that the controls may be lifted when the “vacancy rate” is above a certain figure. The officials retaining the rent control keep triumphantly pointing out that the vacancy rate has not yet reached that figure. Of course not. The very fact that the legal rents are held so far below market rents artificially increases the demand for rental space at the same time as it discourages any increase in supply. So the more unreasonably low the rent ceilings are held, the more certain it is that the ‘‘scarcity” of rental houses or apartments will continue.

人们相信有关继续实施房租管制的政治借口是有道理的。法律有时规定，当“空房率”高于某个数字时，可以解除控制。执行房租管制的官员总是提醒公众，空房率还没有达到那个数字。这当然是不会达到的。法定房租至今一直被控制在远远低于市场价格的水平，这足以使阻碍出租房屋供给的增长，另一方面又人为地增加了对它的需求。因此，政府所规定的租价上限越是低得不合理，出租房源的“稀缺”情况将持续下去就越必然。

The injustice imposed on landlords is flagrant. They are, to repeat, forced to subsidize the rents paid by their tenants, often at the cost of great net losses to themselves. The subsidized tenants may frequently be richer than the landlord forced to assume part of what would otherwise be his market rent. The politicians ignore this. Men in other businesses, who support the imposition or retention of rent control because their hearts bleed for the tenants, do not go so far as to suggest that they themselves be asked to assume part of the tenant subsidy through taxation. The whole burden falls on the single small class of people wicked enough to have built or to own rental housing.

强加于房东们的不公正待遇是很显然的。大家不要忘了，他们被迫补贴租户交付的租金，为此他们往往给背负着很大的净亏损。享受补贴的租户，也许会比补贴他们的房东还富有，因为后者不得不承担市场租价中的部分份额。政治家们忽视了这一点，而其他行业的人有可能因为同情租户的处境而支持实施或者维持房租管制，因为他们绝不会自找麻烦，建议通过纳税向租户提供部分的补贴。全部的负担落到非常倒霉的一小群建设或拥有出租房屋的家伙身上。

Few words carry stronger obloquy than slumlord. And what is a slumlord? He is not a man who owns expensive property in fashionable neighborhoods, but one who owns only rundown property in the slums, where the rents are lowest and where payment is most dilatory, erratic and undependable. It is not easy to imagine why (except for natural wickedness) a man who could afford to own decent rental housing would decide to become a slumlord instead.

人们对那些利用贫民区陋旧公寓索取高租金的恶劣房东的咒骂无以复加。恶房东是些什么样的人呢？这些人拥有的房子，并不是坐落在黄金地段的豪宅，而是位于贫民窟的破旧老屋。那里的房租是最便宜的，而租金的支付又是最拖拉、最不稳定、最靠不住的。很难想象，假如一个人（除非天性邪恶）具有相当的经济条件，可以拥有像样的房屋出租的话，他怎么会去作一个陋巷恶霸呢？

When unreasonable price controls are placed on articles of immediate consumption, like bread, for example, the bakers can simply refuse to continue to bake and sell it. A shortage becomes immediately obvious, and the politicians are compelled to raise the ceilings or repeal them. But housing is very durable. It may take several years before tenants begin to feel the results of the discouragement to new building, and to ordinary maintenance and repair. It may take even longer before they realize that the scarcity and deterioration of housing is directly traceable to rent control. Meanwhile, as long as landlords are getting any net income whatever above their taxes and mortgage interest, they seem to have no alternative but to continue holding and renting their property. The politicians—remembering that tenants have more votes than landlords—cynically continue their rent control long after they have been forced to give up general price controls.

不合理的价格管制施加在面包等日用消费品上的时候，面包店只要停止烘焙、停止出售面包就行。面包马上就会供不应求，迫使政治人物提高价格上限，甚至取消价格管制。但是，房子是非常耐用的消费品。可能要住上好几年，租户才会开始感受到房东无力维修的苦果。也许再过数年，人们才会意识到房荒与房屋设施恶化与房租管制有直接的关系。与此同时，只要房主们在扣除税金和抵押贷款利息之后还算有点净收入，那么，除了继续拥有和出租房产，他们似乎也别无选择。于是，政治家们——记住，租户的票数比房东的票数更多——在被迫放普通价格管制之后，仍然长久地继续执行房租管制政策。

So we come back to our basic lesson. The pressure for rent control comes from those who consider only its imagined short-run benefits to one group in the population. But when we consider its long-ran effects on everybody, including the tenants themselves, we recognize that rent control is not only increasingly futile, but increasingly destructive the more severe it is, and the longer it remains in effect.

这就回到了我们的基本课程。要求实施房租管制的压力，来自于仅仅考虑了臆想出来的全部人口中某一群体的短期利益。而当我们考虑到这种控制在长期内对于包括租户自己在内的每个人的影响时，我们就会认识到，不仅房租管制徒劳无益，并且，管制手段越严厉、延续时间越长，它的破坏性越大。

第18章 房租管制的后果

（接前面部分）

Because of low fixed rents in old buildings, the tenants already in them, and legally protected against rent increases, are encouraged to use space wastefully, whether or not their families have grown smaller. This concentrates the immediate pressure of new demand on the relatively few new buildings. It tends to force rents in them, at the beginning, to a higher level than they would have reached in a wholly free market.

由于老房子的固定低房租，已经住在里面的租户合法地受到限制租金提高这一政策的保护。这等于鼓励他们浪费性地使用空间，而不考虑他们的家庭是否已经变小。如此一来，新需求迫在眉睫的压力都集中到了数量相对较少的新建筑上，并从一开始就迫使新房屋的租金高于完全自由的市场中应有的价位。

Nevertheless, this will not correspondingly encourage the construction of new housing. Builders or owners of preexisting apartment houses, finding themselves with restricted profits or perhaps even losses on their old apartments, will have little or no capital to put into new construction. In addition, they, or those with capital from other sources, may fear that the government may at any time find an excuse for imposing rent controls even on the new buildings. And it often does.

尽管如此，这种做法并不能相应地激励新住宅的建设。原有的的建筑商或业主发现，从旧房屋上他们只能得到极为有限的利润，甚至处于亏损。他们不会有多少资金，甚至可能拿不出资金去投入新的建设。此外，他们或其他具有资金来源的人们有钱也不敢投，因为担心政府随时另找借口，突然对新房屋实施房租管制。事实经常如此。

The housing situation will deteriorate in other ways. Most important, unless the appropriate rent increases are allowed, landlords will not trouble to remodel apartments or make other improvements in them. In fact, where rent control is particularly unrealistic or oppressive, landlords will not even keep rented houses or apartments in tolerable repair. Not only will they have no economic incentive to do so; they may not even have the funds. The rent-control laws, among their other effects, create ill feeling between landlords who are forced to take minimum returns or even losses, and tenants who resent the landlord’s failure to make adequate repairs.

住房状况的恶化也可能会表现在其他方面。最重要的是，除非政府允许适当地提高租金，否则业主不会自找麻烦修缮公寓或做其他方面的改善。事实上，在房租管制与现实严重脱节，价位打压过猛的情况下，房东甚至不会对租出去的院宅或公寓给予必要的维修。他们不仅没有经济动力，甚至没有足够资金去维修。房租管制法令也造成房东与房客之间关系恶化：房东被迫接受最低的回报率、甚至不赚反赔，租户则抱怨房东连起码的维修都不管。

A common next step of legislatures, acting under merely political pressures or confused economic ideas, is to take rent controls off “luxury” apartments while keeping them on low or middle-grade apartments. The argument is that the rich tenants can afford to pay higher rents, but the poor cannot.

迫于压力或由于混乱不清的经济思想，国会采取的下一个步骤通常是取消“高档”住宅的房租管制，而同时继续维持中低档住宅的房租管制。其论点是：富人负担得起较高的房租，而穷人负担不起。

The long-run effect of this discriminatory device, however, is the exact opposite of what its advocates intend. The builders and owners of luxury apartments are encouraged and rewarded; the builders and owners of the more needed low-rent housing are discouraged and penalized. The former are free to make as big a profit as the conditions of supply and demand warrant; the latter are left with no incentive (or even capital) to build more low-rent housing.

然而，这种区别对待政策的长期影响与其预期恰恰相反。高档住宅的建筑商和业主得到鼓励和更好回报；而需求更为迫切的低租金房屋，其建筑商和业主反而受到限制和惩罚。前者可以自由地赚取供需状况所允许的最大利润；后者则缺乏激励（甚至缺乏资金）去建造更多的低租金房屋。

The result is a comparative encouragement to the repair and remodeling of luxury apartments, and a tendency for what new private building there is to be diverted to luxury apartments. But there is no incentive to build new low-income housing, or even to keep existing low-income housing in good repair. The accommodations for the low-income groups, therefore, will deteriorate in quality, and there will be no increase in quantity. Where the population is increasing, the deterioration and shortage in low-income housing will grow worse and worse. It may reach a point where many landlords not only cease to make any profit but are faced with mounting and compulsory losses. They may find that they cannot even give their property away. They may actually abandon their property and disappear, so they cannot be held liable for taxes. When owners cease supplying heat and other basic services, the tenants are compelled to abandon their apartments. Wider and wider neighborhoods are reduced to slums. In recent years, in New York City, it has become a common sight to see whole blocks of abandoned apartments, with windows broken, or boarded up to prevent further havoc by vandals. Arson becomes more frequent, and the owners are suspected.

上述做法相对鼓励了业主对高档住宅的维修和改造，致使新建私人建筑被迫转向高档公寓。然而，人们缺乏激励去建造新的低收入住宅，甚至缺乏激励去保障现有低收入住宅的修缮。因此，对于低收入群体来讲，其居住质量将会恶化，而且数量上也不会有什么增加。在人口增长的情况下，低收入住宅的恶化和短缺都将会愈演愈烈。甚至严重到这样一种地步：那时，许多房东不仅赚不到钱，反而被迫月月赔钱。也许到了那时，他们甚至连放弃这笔财产也做不到。他们只能在实际上抛弃房产，溜之大吉，因为只有这样，他们才能不因为纳税的问题而受到法律的惩罚。当住宅的供暖和其他的基本服务无人管理时，租户也只有另找住处。越来越多居民区沦为贫民窟。近年来，在纽约城，经常可见整段的街区都是废弃的公寓建筑，有的窗户被打破，有的用木板钉死以防遭人恣意毁坏。纵火案比以前增多，嫌疑人竟然就是房屋业主。

A further effect is the erosion of city revenues, as the property-value base for such taxes continues to shrink. Cities go bankrupt, or cannot continue to supply basic services.

一个进一步影响是市政收入流失，这是由于以财产价值为税基的税收持续萎缩。市政面临破产，或是无法继续提供基本的服务。

When these consequences are so clear that they become glaring, there is of course no acknowledgment on the part of the imposers of rent control that they have blundered. Instead, they denounce the capitalist system. They contend that private enterprise has “failed” again; that “private enterprise cannot do the job.” Therefore, they argue, the State must step in and itself build low-rent housing.

当这些结果变得明朗并引起广泛关注时，那些实施管制的人自然不会承认他们犯有过错。正相反，他们怪罪到资本主义体制头上。他们争辩说，私人企业再度“失灵”，“私人企业根本做不了这事儿”。于是乎，他们力陈，国家必须介入，一肩担起兴建廉租房的重任。

（未完待续）

18. What Rent Control Does

第18章 房租管制的后果

Government control of the rents of houses and apartments is a special form of price control. Most of its consequences are substantially the same as those of price control in general, but a few call for special consideration.

政府对院宅和公寓房租的管制，是价格管制的一种特殊形式。从实质上讲其主要后果与一般的物价管制也是相同的，但仍有几点需要特别考虑。

Rent controls are sometimes imposed as a part of general price controls, but more often they are decreed by a special law. A frequent occasion is the beginning of a war. An army post is set up in a small town; rooming houses increase rents for rooms; owners of apartments and houses increase their rents. This leads to public indignation. Or houses in some towns may be actually destroyed by bombs, and the need for armaments or other supplies diverts materials and labor from the building trades.

有的时候，实行房租管制是整个物价管制政策的一个部分，但多数时候则是通过专门立法来规范的。这类情况往往出现在在战争初期。有的小镇因为部队驻扎，寄宿店主提高房价，公寓和院宅的业主提高租金，于是这导致了公众的愤慨。或者，在某些城镇，房屋事实上可能被炮弹炸毁了，而对武器或其他军需品的需求又挤占了建筑业所需的原材料和劳动力。

Rent control is initially imposed on the argument that the supply of housing is not “elastic”—i.e., that a housing shortage cannot be immediately made up, no matter how high rents are allowed to rise. Therefore, it is contended, the government, by forbidding increases in rents, protects tenants from extortion and exploitation without doing any real harm to landlords and without discouraging new construction.

房租管制最初是以房屋供应缺乏“弹性”为依据强制实施的——也就是说，无论租金被提高到怎样的水平，住房短缺都不可能得到立即弥补。因此，人们坚持认为，通过禁止提高房租，政府可以保护租户不被敲竹杠、不被盘剥，同时不会对业主造成实质的伤害，也不会打消建造新房屋的积极性。

This argument is defective even on the assumption that the rent control will not long remain in effect. It overlooks an immediate consequence. If landlords are allowed to raise rents to reflect a monetary inflation and the true conditions of supply and demand, individual tenants will economize by taking less space. This will allow others to share the accommodations that are in short supply. The same amount of housing will shelter more people, until the shortage is relieved.

即便我们假设不会长期实行房租管制，上述论调也有缺陷。它忽视了一个立即就会出现的后果。如果我们允许房东提高租金，以反映出通货膨胀和真实的供求状况的话，那么，各个租户将会节省租用面积以求经济合算。这样使得其他人可以分享供不应求的居住设施。相同数量的住房，就可以供更多的人居住，直到房荒得到缓解。

Rent control, however, encourages wasteful use of space. It discriminates in favor of those who already occupy houses or apartments in a particular city or region at the expense of those who find themselves on the outside. Permitting rents to rise to the free market level allows all tenants or would-be tenants equal opportunity to bid for space. Under conditions of monetary inflation or real housing shortage, rents would rise just as surely if landlords were not allowed to set an asking price, but were allowed merely to accept the highest competitive bids of tenants.

然而，房租管制鼓励了居住面积使用上的浪费。它造成一种差别待遇，其中，已经在某一城市或地区占有院宅或公寓的租户得到了特别的优待，却牺牲了四处找房的求租人的利益。只有允许租金上涨到自由市场的水平，才可能让所有的租户或求租人享有同等的机会，竞价争取居住空间。在通货膨胀或房源短缺的状况下，倘若不允许房东自己定个一口价，而只允许房东接受出价最高的人承租，那么租金毫无疑问也是会上涨的。

The effects of rent control become worse the longer the rent control continues. New housing is not built because there is no incentive to build it. With the increase in building costs (commonly as a result of inflation), the old level of rents will not yield a profit. If, as often happens, the government finally recognizes this and exempts new housing from rent control, there is still not an incentive to as much new building as if older buildings were also free of rent control. Depending on the extent of money depreciation since old rents were legally frozen, rents for new housing might be ten or twenty times as high as rent in equivalent space in the old. (This actually happened in France after World War II, for example.) Under such conditions existing tenants in old buildings are indisposed to move, no matter how much their families grow or their existing accommodations deteriorate.

房租管制持续的时间越长，其影响就越恶劣。新的房子不会盖出来，因为不存在盖新楼的经济激励。而随着住宅建造成本升高（通常是通货膨胀造成的），原来价位的房租不再能带来利润。正如现实中通常发生的那样，即使政府最后认识到了这一点，并且不把新房屋的租金纳入管制范围，对兴建新住宅的激励，以及建造数量，还是会少于完全不实施房租管制的情况。新房屋的租金可能是同等大小旧房屋的10~20倍不等，具体要看旧房屋租金的价位，以及旧房屋租金管制以来的货币贬值程度（这样的事情曾经发生在二次世界大战后的法国）。在这样的状况下，住在老房子中的租户，不管家庭人数增加多少，或者目前的房屋多么破旧，都不愿意搬迁。
（未完待续）

看见什么有意思，就采集下来，然后不管它。例如：

壊れた窓の錯誤
ヘンリーHazlitt自由市場の経済学者はその理論を1つのレッスンの彼の読解可能な、簡單にアクセスできる巻の経済学の前に50年以上暴いた。 壊れた窓の彼の喩えを通して、Hazlittは不必要な支出のために資源利用社会のためのよりよいする他の使用のために利用できないことを説明する。

政府造られた橋の場合には、ローカル幸せである国家は全体として大いに多くがほしいと思い、必要とする場合もあること公共のお金は事から指示された。

第17章 政府价格管制

（接前面部分）

5

What lies at the base of the whole effort to fix maximum prices? There is first of all a misunderstanding of what it is that has been causing prices to rise. The real cause is either a scarcity of goods or a surplus of money. Legal price ceilings cannot cure either. In fact, as we have just seen, they merely intensify the shortage of goods. What to do about the surplus of money will be discussed in a later chapter. But one of the errors that lie behind the drive for price-fixing is the chief subject of this book. Just as the endless plans for raising prices of favored commodities are the result of thinking of the interests only of the producers immediately concerned, and forgetting the interests of consumers, so the plans for holding down prices by legal edict are the result of thinking of the short-run interests of people only as consumers and forgetting their interests as producers. And the political support for such policies springs from a similar confusion in the public mind. People do not want to pay more for milk, butter, shoes, furniture, rent, theater tickets or diamonds. Whenever any of these items rises above its previous level the consumer becomes indignant, and feels that he is being rooked.

费尽折腾去规定最高价格，其根本原因是什么呢？首先，是什么致使价格上涨，人们在这一点上存在误解。真正的原因是商品匮乏或货币过剩。法定价格上限根本无法解决这两方面的问题。事实上，正如我们所见，它们仅仅加剧了商品的短缺。至于货币过剩如何应对，我们会在后面章节讨论。不过，隐藏在限价政策背后的谬误之一，倒是本书的主题。正如无数计划旨在人为抬高某些商品的价格，是政府一心顾及生产者的眼前利益而没有考虑消费者利益的结果，同样，通过法令来压低价格的那些计划，是政府一心顾及公众作为消费者的眼前利益，而没有考虑他们作为生产者的利益的结果。这类政策所得的政治支持，产生自公众思想中类似的模糊观念。人们决不愿花更多的钱去购买牛奶、黄油、鞋子、家具、戏票、钻石，去支付租金。任何时候，任何一样这些商品的价格高于先前的价位，消费者就开始忿忿，感觉遭人敲竹杠。

The only exception is the item he makes himself: here he understands and appreciates the reason for the rise. But he is always likely to regard his own business as in some way an exception. “Now my own business,” he will say, “is peculiar, and the public does not understand it. Labor costs have gone up; raw material prices have gone up; this or that raw material is no longer being imported, and must be made at a higher cost at home. Moreover, the demand for the product has increased, and the business should be allowed to charge the prices necessary to encourage its expansion to supply this demand.” And so on. Everyone as consumer buys a hundred different products; as producer he makes, usually, only one. He can see the inequity in holding down the price of that. And just as each manufacturer wants a higher price for his particular product, so each worker wants a higher wage or salary. Each can see as producer that price control is restricting production in his line. But nearly everyone refuses to generalize this observation, for it means that he will have to pay more for the products of others.

惟一的例外，是他自己生产的商品：此刻，他完全理解并赞成提价的理由。不过，他总容易把自己的行业看作是某种例外。“我干的这行”，他会这样说，“现在的情况相当特殊，一般人是不了解的。人工成本在涨；原材料价格也在涨；这种那种原材料已经不再允许进口，必须以较高的成本在国内制造。此外，市场对本行产品的需求增加了，应该允许本行产品做必要的提价，从而鼓励供给以满足需求。”等等。每个人作为消费者时，都会买很多种不同的商品；而作为生产者时，通常只生产一种产品。他看得出，压低自己的产品的价格是不公平的。正如每家制造商都希望他自己的产品卖到更高的价格，每个工人都想要更高的工资或薪金。作为生产者时，每个人都看得出价格管制限制了本行的生产。但是，几乎每个人都不愿将观察到的这个事实推己及人，因为这意味着他会付更更高的的价钱去买别人的产品。

Each one of us, in brief, has a multiple economic personality. Each one of us is producer, taxpayer, consumer. The policies he advocates depend upon the particular aspect under which he thinks of himself at the moment. For he is sometimes Dr. Jekyll and sometimes Mr. Hyde. As a producer he wants inflation (thinking chiefly of his own services or product); as a consumer he wants price ceilings (thinking chiefly of what he has to pay for the products of others). As a consumer he may advocate or acquiesce in subsidies; as a taxpayer he will resent paying them. Each person is likely to think that he can so manage the political forces that he can benefit from a rise for his own product (while his raw material costs are legally held down) and at the same time benefit as a consumer from price control. But the overwhelming majority will be deceiving themselves. For not only must there be at least as much loss as gain from this political manipulation of prices; there must be a great deal more loss than gain, because price-fixing discourages and disrupts employment and production.

简单地说，我们每个人都具备多重经济角色。每个人都是生产者、纳税人，消费者。一个人支持何种政策，取决于他当时从何种身份去为自身利益作考虑。犹如电影《化身博士》（Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde），他有时处于这种身份、有时处于那种身份。作为生产者时，他便希望通货膨胀（这时主要顾及自己提供的服务或产品）；作为消费者时，他便希望政府限价（这时主要顾及他不得不掏钱买别人的产品）。作为消费者，他可能拥护或者默许政府实施补贴；而作为纳税人，他会愤慨为此埋单。每个人都很可能认为他能应付各种政治力量，以便能从他自己产出的商品涨价中获利（同时还要他的原材料价格被合法的压低），同时他还可以以消费者的身份受惠于价格管制。但是绝大多数的人都在自欺欺人——利用政治力量操纵价格，注定得不偿失；因为管制价格不可避免地会限制和破坏就业与生产。

第17章 政府价格管制

（接前面部分）

4

These are the consequences of what might be described as perfect,” long-continued, and “nonpolitical” price control. As was so amply demonstrated in one country after another, particularly in Europe during and after World War II, some of the more fantastic errors of the bureaucrats were mitigated by the black market. In some countries the black market kept growing at the expense of the legally recognized fixed-price market until the former became, in effect, the market. By nominally keeping the price ceilings, however, the politicians in power tried to show that their hearts, if not their enforcement squads, were in the right place.

这就是所谓“完美的”、长效和“无关政治的”价格控制的后果。 政府管制酿成的一些大错，有一部分被黑市所化解。这个现象在一个又一个国家得到证实，在二战期间以及战后的欧洲尤其如此。在有些国家，黑市的成长壮大是以破坏法定限价市场来实现的，直至前者成为事实上的市场。然而，当权的政客们仍然力图通过维持形同虚设的法定价格来表明，即便其政策实施者们有过失，他们的立意是完全正确的。

Because the black market, however, finally supplanted the legal price-ceiling market, it must not be supposed that no harm was done. The harm was both economic and moral. During the transition period the large, long-established firms, with a heavy capital investment and a great dependence upon the retention of public good-will, are forced to restrict or discontinue production. Their place is taken by fly-by-night concerns with little capital and little accumulated experience in production. These new firms are inefficient compared with those they displace; they turn out inferior and dishonest goods at much higher production costs than the older concerns would have required for continuing to turn out their former goods. A premium is put on dishonesty. The new firms owe their very existence or growth to the fact that they are willing to violate the law; their customers conspire with them; and as a natural consequence demoralization spreads into all business practices.

不过，并不因为黑市最终取代了法定限价市场，我们就可以认为这个过程没有任何伤害。这伤害既有经济上的，也有道德上的。一些大型的老牌企业，过去靠的是雄厚的资本，并且在很大程度上依赖于他们在公众中的信誉，而在市场转型期，它们被迫限制生产或中断生产。取而代之的，是那些既无资本又无生产经验的皮包公司。这些新公司跟那些被取代的老牌企业相比效率低下，它们以远远高于先前企业用来继续生产其产品所需的生产成本，产出质量低劣、名不副实的商品。这是对不诚实的一种奖励。这些新公司之所以能够生存和发展，是靠钻法律空子，而顾客又与它们沆瀣一气。自然而然，道德败坏深入到经济生活的每一个角落。

It is seldom, moreover, that any honest effort is made by the price-fixing authorities merely to preserve the level of prices existing when their efforts began. They declare that their intention is to “hold the line.” Soon, however, under the guise of “correcting inequities” or “social in justices,” they begin a discriminatory price-fixing which gives most to those groups that are politically powerful and least to other groups.

此外，政府价格管理部门很少真正做出努力，去维持他们一开始急吼吼要维持的现行价格水平。他们声称旨在努力“保持价格不变”。然而，他们很快就会以“纠正不公平”，或者“社会公正”为借口，着手实施歧视性的价格管制政策，结果是政治力量强大的群体得到政策倾斜最多，其他的群体则得不到政策照顾。

As political power today is most commonly measured by votes, the groups that the authorities most often attempt to favor are workers and farmers. At first it is contended that wages and living costs are not connected; that wages can easily be lifted without lifting prices. When it becomes obvious that wages can be raised only at the expense of profits, the bureaucrats begin to argue that profits were already too high anyway, and that lifting wages and holding prices will still permit a “fair profit.” As there is no such thing as a uniform rate of profit, as profits differ with each concern, the result of this policy is to drive the least profitable concerns out of business altogether, and to discourage or stop the production of certain items. This means unemployment, a shrinkage in production and a decline in living standards.

由于当今政治力量大抵以选票来衡量，因此当局总是力求讨好工人和农民。起初，人们不太能把工资和生活费用关联起来，认为可以单纯地涨工资而不涨价。后来，当人们认识到涨工资势必以牺牲利润为代价时，官僚们则争辩说，反正利润本来都高，即便涨工资而价格不变，生产者仍可以获得“公平的利润”。由于并不存在一个一致的利润率，而企业的利润又各不相同，所以，对利润一刀切的做法势必将赢利能力最差的公司一举淘汰出局，进而导致若干商品的产量减少或停产。这就意味着失业、生产萎缩、生活水平下降。

（未完待续）

第17章 政府价格管制

（接前面部分）

3

Price-fixing may often appear for a short period to be successful. lt can seem to work well for a while, particularly in wartime, when it is supported by patriotism and a sense of crisis. But the longer it is in effect the more its difficulties increase. When prices are arbitrarily held down by government compulsion, demand is chronically in excess of supply. We have seen that if the government attempts to prevent a shortage of a commodity by reducing also the prices of the labor, raw materials and other factors that go into its cost of production, it creates a shortage of these in turn. But not only will the government, if it pursues this course, find it necessary to extend price control more and more downwards, or “vertically”; it will find it no less necessary to extend price control “horizontally.” If we ration one commodity, and the public cannot get enough of it, though it still has excess purchasing power, it will turn to some substitute. The rationing of each commodity as it grows scarce, in other words, must put more and more pressure on the unrationed commodities that remain. If we assume that the government is successful in its efforts to prevent black markets (or at least prevents them from developing on a sufficient scale to nullify its legal prices), continued price control must drive it to the rationing of more and more commodities. This rationing cannot stop with consumers. In World War II it did not stop with consumers. It was applied first of all, in fact, in the allocation of raw materials to producers.

价格管制往往能在短期内显现出成效。它可能会在一段时间内运作得很好，尤其在战争时期，它会因人们的爱国意识和危机感而获得支持。然而，实施的时间越长，运作的难度就越大。当价格被政府强制压低后，需求会持续地超过供给。我们已经看到，如果政府为了防止受控商品供应短缺，试图去降低其生产成本，即压低其劳工、原材料和其他生产要素的价格，随之而来的将会是这些生产要素的短缺。倘使政府采取这个方针，政府不仅会发现沿产品线“纵向”扩大价格管制不可避免，也会发现有必要对不同产品线“横向”扩大价格管制。如果我们对一种商品实行定量配给，民众得不到满足，尽管仍然存在过剩的购买力，需求将会转向某种替代品。换句话说，对任何一种日益短缺的商品实行配给，势必对仍未实行配给的商品造成越来越大的压力。如果我们假设政府有效地遏制了黑市（或者，至少阻止黑市不致壮大到足以左右法定限价市场的程度），继续执行价格管制必然会迫使政府将越来越多的商品纳入配给的范畴。并且，政府不可能只限于对消费者实施配给。在二战期间就不限于消费者，事实上，而是首先对生产者实施原材料配给。

The natural consequence of a thoroughgoing over-all price control which seeks to perpetuate a given historic price level, in brief, must ultimately be a completely regimented economy. Wages would have to be held down as rigidly as prices. Labor would have to be rationed as ruthlessly as raw materials. The end result would be that the government would not only tell each consumer precisely how much of each commodity he could have; it would tell each manufacturer precisely what quantity of each raw material he could have and what quantity of labor. Competitive bidding for workers could no more be tolerated than competitive bidding for materials. The result would be a petrified totalitarian economy, with every business firm and every worker at the mercy of the government, and with a final abandonment of all the traditional liberties we have known. For as Alexander Hamilton pointed out in the Federalist Papers nearly two centuries ago, “A power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”

总之，旨在将某种历史价格水平永久化的全面价格管制，其自然结果终必是一种完全专制性的经济。工资必须像物价那样，被强制压低。劳工必须像原材料那样，被强制纳入配给。最后，政府为每一位消费者规定了他能得到的每一种商品的数量，为每一家制造商规定了它能得到原材料的数量、能够雇用的劳工的数量。到那时，厂商竞价购买原材料将不被容许，竞价招揽劳工同样不被容许。结果会形成僵化的极权经济，每家厂商、每个劳工都听任政府支配，而最终，我们将放弃掉曾经拥有的全部传统意义的自由。正如亚历山大·汉密尔顿两个世纪前在《联邦党人文集》（Federalist Papers）一书中所指出的：“控制一个人生计的权力，就是控制一个人意志的权力。”

（未完待续）

第17章 政府价格管制

（接前面部分）

2

In discussing this subject, there is no point in assuming a price control that would fix prices exactly where a free market would place them in any case. That would be the same as having no price control at all. We must assume that the purchasing power in the hands of the public is greater than the supply of goods available, and that prices are being held down by the government below the levels to which a free market would put them.

在讨论这个主题时，若假设政府把价格刚好限定在自由市场价位，就没有意义了。因为，那就和根本不实行价格管制没有两样。我们必须假设市民的购买力大于商品的供给水平，并且政府限价低于自由市场价位。

Now we cannot hold the price of any commodity below its market level without in time bringing about two consequences. The first is to increase the demand for that commodity. Because the commodity is cheaper, people are both tempted to buy, and can afford to buy, more of it. The second consequence is to reduce the supply of that commodity. Because people buy more, the accumulated supply is more quickly taken from the shelves of merchants. But in addition to this, production of that commodity is discouraged. Profit margins are reduced or wiped out. The marginal producers are driven out of business. Even the most efficient producers may be called upon to turn out their product at a loss. This happened in World War II when slaughter houses were required by the Office of Price Administration to slaughter and process meat for less than the cost to them of cattle on the hoof and the labor of slaughter and processing.

现在，我们知道，当商品价格被人为限制在它的市场价位之下时，不可避免地会带来两个后果。第一是导致受控商品的需求增加。由于该商品变得便宜，图便宜的人会更多，人们也买得起更多。第二是导致受控商品供给减少。由于人们买得更多，商家的存货也销得快，而与此同时，该产品的生产却受到了阻碍。降价致使该商品收益率降低，甚至做不出利润。边际生产者被迫出局。即使最有效率的生产者也可能亏本经营。这种事情就曾在二次世界大战期间发生过，当时的屠宰场在美国物价管制局要求下，以低于购买活牛和雇用屠宰加工工人的成本的售价，持续屠宰和加工肉制品。

If we did nothing else, therefore, the consequence of fixing a maximum price for a particular commodity would be to bring about a shortage of that commodity. But this is precisely the opposite of what the government regulators originally wanted to do. For it is the very commodities selected for maximum price-fixing that the regulators most want to keep in abundant supply. But when they limit the wages and the profits of those who make these commodities, without also limiting the wages and profits of those who make luxuries or semiluxuries, they discourage the production of the price-controlled necessities while they relatively stimulate the production of less essential goods.

如果政府暂不采取其他措施，价格限制将造成受控商品出现短缺。这恰好与政府内制定法规人员的初衷背道而驰。因为那些被选定的限价商品，都是政府最希望其保持充足供应的商品。但是，当他们限定了这些产品生产者的工资和利润水平，而没有限制奢侈品或其它非必需品生产者的工资与利润时，他们就阻碍了制造商们去生产价格受控的必需品，而相应地刺激了非必需品的生产。

Some of these consequences in time become apparent to the regulators, who then adopt various other devices and controls in an attempt to avert them. Among these devices are rationing, cost-control, subsidies, and universal price-fixing. Let us look at each of these in turn.

政府内制定法规的人员迟早会认识到其中一些后果。接下来，他们就会采取其他各种办法和管制措施，来尽力避免出现类似的局面。这些措施包括配给制、成本管制、补贴和全面管制价格。我们来一一讨论这些措施。

When it becomes obvious that a shortage of some commodity is developing as a result of a price fixed below the market, rich consumers are accused of taking “more than their fair share”; or, if it is a raw material that enters into manufacture, individual firms are accused of “hoarding” it. The government then adopts a set of rules concerning who shall have priority in buying that commodity, or to whom and in what quantities it shall be allocated, or how it shall be rationed. If a rationing system is adopted, it means that each consumer can have only a certain maximum supply, no matter how much he is willing to pay for more.

到了某种商品因价格被规定在市场水平之下而出现显著的短缺之后，有钱的消费者往往遭到指责，说他们得到的必需品“超过公平份额”；要是受控商品是生产用的原材料，就有公司会被指责为“囤积居奇”。鉴于此，政府会推出一系列规定，指定谁有优先购买该商品的特权，或者由政府机关决定分配给谁，分配多少，如何分配。一旦实施配给制度，就意味每位消费者，不论他愿意以多高的价钱购买更多的某种商品，他都只能得到某一最大限额的配给。

If a rationing system is adopted, in brief, it means that the government adopts a double price system, or a dual currency system, in which each consumer must have a certain number of coupons or “points” in addition to a given amount of ordinary money. In other words, the government tries to do through rationing part of the job that a free market would have done through prices. I say only part of the job, because rationing merely limits the demand without also stimulating the supply, as a higher price would have done.

总之，一旦采取了配给制度，就意味着政府采取的是双重价格体系，或者是双重货币体系，在这个体系中，每位消费者除了持有一定数量的钱币，还必须拥有一定数量的票券或“额度”，才能买到东西。换句话说，政府限价市场试图通过配给，去起到自由市场通过价格所起到的部分作用。之所以说只是“部分作用”，是因为配给只限制需求，而不能象更高的价格那样，还能刺激供给。

The government may try to assure supply through extending its control over the costs of production of a commodity. To hold down the retail price of beef, for example, it may fix the wholesale price of beef, the slaughter-house price of beef, the price of live cattle, the price of feed, the wages of farmhands. To hold down the delivered price of milk, it may try to fix the wages of milk truck drivers, the price of containers, the farm price of milk, the price of feedstuffs. To fix the price of bread, it may fix the wages in bakeries, the price of flour, the profits of millers, the price of wheat, and so on.

为了保证受控商品实现持续供应，政府可能扩大管制受控商品的生产成本。比方说，为了使牛肉的零售价格保持在低水平，政府可能限定牛肉的批发价格、屠宰场的牛肉价格、活牛的价格、饲料的价格、农场工人的工资。为了压低牛奶的送达价格，政府可能限定牛奶送货司机的工资、奶品包装的价格、农场的牛奶价格、饲料价格。为了压低面包的价格，政府可能限定面包师的工资、面粉的价格、粮食加工企业的利润、小麦的价格等等。

But as the government extends this price-fixing backwards, it extends at the same time the consequences that originally drove it to this course. Assuming that it has the courage to fix these costs, and is able to enforce its decisions, then it merely, in turn, creates shortages of the various factors — labor, feedstuffs, wheat, or whatever—that enter into the production of the final commodities. Thus the government is driven to controls in ever-widening circles, and the final consequence will be the same as that of universal price-fixing.

然而，当政府继续扩大受控商品范围的时候，无非是扩大了我们在前面所指出的价格管制的后果。假使政府有魄力有能力去限定受控商品的成本，成本控制也只会导致受控商品的各种生产要素（如劳工、饲料、小麦等等）出现短缺。这么一来，政府不得不继续扩大受控商品的范围，而其最终的结果与全面的价格管制是相同的。

The government may try to meet this difficulty through subsidies. It recognizes, for example, that when it keeps the price of milk or butter below the level of the market, or below the relative level at which it fixes other prices, a shortage may result because of lower wages or profit margins for the production of milk or butter as compared with other commodities. Therefore the government attempts to compensate for this by paying a subsidy to the milk and butter producers. Passing over the administrative difficulties involved in this, and assuming that the subsidy is just enough to assure the desired relative production of milk and butter, it is clear that, though the subsidy is paid to producers, those who are really being subsidized are the consumers. For the producers are on net balance getting no more for their milk and butter than if they had been allowed to charge the free market price in the first place; but the consumers are getting their milk and butter at a great deal below the free market price. They are being subsidized to the extent of the difference—that is, by the amount of subsidy paid ostensibly to the producers.

政府可能采取的另一种解决问题的方法，是提供补贴。例如，他们认识到，当把牛奶或黄油价格限定在市场价位之下，甚至与其他受控商品价格相比较都偏低，短缺就可能发生。因为生产牛奶或黄油的工资及收益率，还比不上生产其他商品。政府为了补救这种现象，对牛奶和黄油的生产者进行补贴。我们姑且忽略推行补贴在行政上的种种困难，并且假设补贴刚好足够确保牛奶和黄油得以持续生产，很明显，尽管补贴是提供给生产者的，但真正得到补贴的却是消费者。因为，生产者从净收益上讲并没有比允许他们以自由市场价格出售其牛奶黄油时得到的更多，而消费者却以远低于自由市场价格的水平买到了这些产品。两者的差价，正是他们获得的补贴金额——也就是政府表面上付给生产者的补贴金额。

Now unless the subsidized commodity is also rationed, it is those with the most purchasing power that can buy most of it. This means that they are being subsidized more than those with less purchasing power. Who subsidizes the consumers will depend upon the incidence of taxation. But men in their role of taxpayers will be subsidizing themselves in their role of consumers. It becomes a little difficult to trace in this maze precisely who is subsidizing whom. What is forgotten is that subsidies are paid for by someone, and that no method has been discovered by which the community gets something for nothing.

现在，除非接受补贴的商品也实施配给，否则购买力最强的人会买得最多。这意味着，他们得到的补贴会比购买力较低的人更多。到底谁补贴了消费者，取决于政府如何征税。如果既是纳税人又是消费者，便是自己补贴自己。若接受补贴的商品很多，要辨别谁补贴谁就让人晕头转向了。然而有一点应当是明确的，那就是，补贴的钱必须由某些人来买单，并不存在什么可以使公众得到某种好处而不必付出任何代价的方法。

（未完待续）

Government Price-Fixing

第17章 政府价格管制
 
We have seen what some of the effects are of governmental efforts to fix the prices of commodities above the levels to which free markets would otherwise have carried them. Let us now look at some of the results of government attempts to hold the prices of commodities below their natural market levels.

我们已经分析了政府试图将商品价格限定在自由市场水平之上的做法，看到了由此造成的一些影响。现在让我们来看一下，当政府努力将商品价格限定在自然水平之下时，有可能会带来一些什么样的后果。
 
The latter attempt is made in our day by nearly all governments in wartime. We shall not examine here the wisdom of wartime price-fixing. The whole economy, in total war, is necessarily dominated by the State, and the complications that would have to be considered would carry us too far beyond the main question with which this book is concerned.* But wartime price-fixing, wise or not, is in almost all countries continued for at least long periods after the war is over, when the original excuse for starting it has disappeared.

当今各国政府在战时几乎都做过这后一种努力。确实，在战争期间，国民经济全部由国家控制是必然的，我们在这里不会去探究战时管制价格的学问，要去探究就必须考虑战时的复杂状况，这会使我们远离本书所关注的主题。{脚注: 不过，在这一点上我自己的结论是，尽管在战争期间，政府的优先要求权、分配权或定量配给可能是不可避免的，但管制价格造成的伤害尤为突出。虽然要达到实现最高限价的目的，往往需要结合配给制，但即便就暂时的情况而言，实施配给则不一定要结合最高限价。}不过，无论战时管制价格的做法明智与否，几乎所有的国家在战后很长一段时间内仍在实施价格管制，即使当初启动价格管制的理由已经不复存在。
 
It is the wartime inflation that mainly causes the pressure for price-fixing. At the time of writing, when practically every country is inflating, though most of them are at peace, price controls are always hinted at, even when they are not imposed. Though they are always economically harmful, if not destructive, they have at least a political advantage from the standpoint of the officeholders.By implication they put the blame for higher prices on the greed and rapacity of businessmen, instead of on the inflationary monetary policies of the officeholders themselves.

战时通货膨胀是产生政府启动价格管制压力的主要原因。本书撰稿时，大多数国家安享和平，但都存在着通货膨胀，各国政府总会萌发管制物价的念头，即便没有真正实施。虽说管制物价在经济上一定有害，甚至是破坏性的，不过对于政府官员至少具有一项政治上的好处——管制价格等于暗示物价上涨应归咎于企业家的贪婪，官员们往往只字不提政府实行的货币政策才是造成通货膨胀压力的主要原因。
 
Let us first see what happens when the government tries to keep the price of a single commodity, or a small group of commodities, below the price that would be set in a free competitive market.

首先，让我们分析一下，当政府试图将单一商品、或者一小部分商品的价格维持在低于自由竞争市场的价格水平时，会发生什么样的情形。
 
When the government tries to fix maximum prices for only a few items, it usually chooses certain basic necessities, on the ground that it is most essential that the poor be able to obtain these at a “reasonable” cost. Let us say that the items chosen for this purpose are bread, milk and meat.

当政府准备只管制一小部分商品的最高价格时，通常会选择那些关系到民生的必需品，官员们会说，确保穷人能够以“合理”的价格，买得起生活必需品，这比什么都重要。我们假设为此选定的商品是面包、牛奶和肉类。
 
The argument for holding down the price of these goods will run something like this: If we leave beef (let us say) to the mercies of the free market, the price will be pushed up by competitive bidding so that only the rich will get it. People will get beef not in proportion to their need, but only in proportion to their purchasing power. If we keep the price down, everyone will get his fair share.

主张压低生活必需品价格的理由是这样的：如果我们任由市场去决定牛肉的价格，那么，价格会由于被争相购买而被抬得很高，以至于只有富人才买得起。这样一来，人们得到的牛肉就不再与他们的基本需要成正比，而仅仅是与他们的购买力成正比。如果我们压低牛肉价格，每个人都能得到公平的一份。
 
The first thing to be noticed about this argument is that if it is valid the policy adopted is inconsistent and timorous. For if purchasing power rather than need determines the distribution of beef at a market price of $2.25 cents a pound, it would also determine it, though perhaps to a slightly smaller degree, at, say, a legal “ceiling” price of $1.50 cents a pound. The purchasing-power-rather-than-need argument, in fact, holds as long as we charge anything for beef whatever. It would cease to apply only if beef were given away.

关于这一论调首先要注意的是，如果它是有依据的，那么，所采取的这种政策既无法保持前后一致又无法把握其分寸。因为，假若以每磅2.25美分的市场价格决定牛肉分配的，是购买力而非基本需要，那么，即便将法定“限价”降到1.50美分，其分配将同样是由购买力决定的，只不过依赖程度可能会稍小一些。事实上，只要牛肉还需要拿钱去买，这种“由购买力而非需要决定”（purchasing-power-rather-than-need）观点总是适用的。只有在牛肉免费奉送时才不适用。
 
But schemes for maximum price-fixing usually begin as efforts to “keep the cost of living from rising.” And so their sponsors unconsciously assume that there is something peculiarly “normal” or sacrosanct about the market price at the moment from which their control starts. That starting or previous price is regarded as “reasonable,” and any price above that as “unreasonable,” regardless of changes in the conditions of production or demand since that starting price was first established.

政府出台限定最高价格的措施时，往往强调是为了“使生活费用不再上涨”。这个说法预设了有个 “正常” 的或神圣不可侵犯的特定价格存在。这个特定价格或以前的低价格，被视为“合理的”，比它高的任何价格都是“不合理的”，而不去管特定价格设定之后，生产或需求状况所发生的变化。
 
（未完待续）

第16章 “稳定”物价
 
（接前面部分）
 
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。（在平准价格那一章，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。