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第14章 救救X产业

（接前面部分）

3

Similar results would follow any attempt to save the X industry by a direct subsidy out of the public till. This would be nothing more than a transfer of wealth or income to the X industry. The taxpayers would lose precisely as much as the people in the X industry gained. The great advantage of a subsidy, indeed, from the standpoint of the public, is that it makes this fact so clear. There is far less opportunity for the intellectual obfuscation that accompanies arguments for tariffs, minimum-price fixing or monopolistic exclusion.

从国库直接拿钱来补贴X产业，其后果也差不多。这只不过是将财富或收益转移到X产业。X产业中的人获得多少，纳税人就损失多少。确实，从公众的立场上看，补贴这种方式的好处在于，它使这个事实更为清楚明了。相比之下，关税、最低价格限制、垄断限制进入行为的相关论调，往往让人看不清这个事实。

It is obvious in the case of a subsidy that the taxpayers must lose precisely as much as the X industry gains. It should be equally clear that, as a consequence, other industries must lose what the X industry gains. They must pay part of the taxes that are used to support the X industry. And customers, because they are taxed to support the X industry, will have that much less income left with which to buy other things. The result must be that other industries on the average must be smaller than otherwise in order that the X industry may be larger.

采用补贴方式，有一点是显而易见的，X产业之所得，正是纳税人之所失。同样明显的是，X产业之所得，必然是其他产业之所失，因为用于支持X产业的税款，有一部分是它们缴纳的。同时，为了支持X产业，负担一部分税款的消费者，也就没有更多钱拿去买别的东西。为了让X产业能有起色，结果一定是其他产业的平均规模小于原来应有的水准。

But the result of this subsidy is not merely that there has been a transfer of wealth or income, or that other industries have shrunk in the aggregate as much as the X industry has expanded. The result is also (and this is where the net loss comes in to the nation considered as a unit) that capital and labor are driven out of industries in which they are more efficiently employed to be diverted to an industry in which they are less efficiently employed. Less wealth is created. The average standard of living is lowered compared with what it would have been.

但是，补贴的结果不仅仅是财富或收益的转移，也不仅仅意味其他产业的总体萎缩程度和X产业的扩张程度相当。其后果同样是（并且是在把国家视为一个单元时所受的净损失加以考虑时），资本和劳工被迫从运用效率较高的产业流失，而流向运用效率较差的产业。如此一来，创造出来的财富减少了，人均生活水平低于应有的水准。

4

These results are virtually inherent, in fact, in the very arguments put forward to subsidize the X industry. The X industry is shrinking or dying by the contention of its friends. Why, it may be asked, should it be kept alive by artificial respiration? The idea that an expanding economy implies that all industries must be simultaneously expanding is a profound error. In order that new industries may grow fast enough it is usually necessary that some old industries should be allowed to shrink or die. In doing this they help to release the necessary capital and labor for the new industries. If we had tried to keep the horse-and-buggy trade artificially alive we should have slowed down the growth of the automobile industry and all the trades dependent on it. We should have lowered the production of wealth and retarded economic and scientific progress.

事实上，这样的结果对于主张补贴X产业的论证来讲，是内在必然的。X产业其实是竞争不过其他产业而萎缩或衰亡的。我们可以追问，究竟是什么原因要给落败的产业做人工呼吸，供它们吊命？而那些认为经济扩张意味着所有产业必须同时扩张的说法大错特错。为了使各种新产业迅速成长，通常必然要放手让一些旧的产业萎缩或衰亡。只有这样，必要的资本和劳工才能从旧产业释放出来，供新产业使用。要是我们人为地去维持马车业及其相关行业继续存在，我们只会减缓汽车业及其相关行业的成长步伐，我们只会减低财富创造，阻碍经济发展和科技进步。

We do the same thing, however, when we try to prevent any industry from dying in order to protect the labor already trained or the capital already invested in it. Paradoxical as it may seem to some, it is just as necessary to the health of a dynamic economy that dying industries be allowed to die as that growing industries be allowed to grow. The first process is essential to the second. It is as foolish to try to preserve obsolescent industries as to try to preserve obsolescent methods of production: this is often, in fact, merely two ways of describing the same thing. Improved methods of production must constantly supplant obsolete methods, if both old needs and new wants are to be filled by better commodities and better means.

然而，当我们为了保护一些已经掌握了熟练技术的劳工，为了保护已经投下去的资本，而企图使任何产业免于衰亡的时候，我们便犯了与上述情形相同的错误。放手让夕阳产业消失，允许朝阳产业成长，这是一个有活力的经济能够健康发展所必需的，尽管这对于某些人来讲可能有些自相矛盾。企图保护落伍过时的产业，就跟保护落伍过时的生产方式一样愚蠢。事实上，二者往往不过是说明同一事情的两种不同方法而已。只要有更好的产品和更好的手段能满足新老需求，改进的生产方式总会不断取代陈旧的生产方式。

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