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“Stabilizing” Commodities

第16章 “稳定”物价

Attempts to lift the prices of particular commodities permanently above their natural market levels have failed so often, so disastrously and so notoriously that sophisticated pressure groups, and the bureaucrats upon whom they apply the pressure, seldom openly avow that aim. Their stated aims, particularly when they are first proposing that the government intervene, are usually more modest, and more plausible.

那些想要长期把某些商品的价格抬高到其自然的市场价格水平之上的企图，每每以失败而告终，败得很惨，败得声名狼藉，以至于那些圆熟精明的施压集团，以及承受他们压力的官员，很少公开宣称这一目的。尤其是在他们率先提议实行政府干预时，他们所陈述的目标往往更为温和、更加受听。

They have no wish, they declare, to raise the price of commodity X permanently above its natural level. That, they concede, would be unfair to consumers. But it is now obviously selling far below its natural level. The producers cannot make a living. Unless we act promptly, they will be thrown out of business. Then there will be a real scarcity, and consumers will have to pay exorbitant prices for the commodity. The apparent bargains that the consumers are now getting will cost them dear in the end. For the present “temporary” low price cannot last. But we cannot afford to wait for so-called natural market forces, or for the “blind” law of supply and demand, to correct the situation. For by that time the producers will be ruined and a great scarcity will be upon us. The government must act. All that we really want to do is to correct these violent, senseless fluctuations in price. We are not trying to boost the price; we are only trying to stabilize it.

他们宣称，他们并不是想要长期把X商品的价格提高到其自然价格水平之上，他们也承认这种干预对消费者是不公平的。但是，由于该商品目前的售价显然远低于其自然价格水平，生产者养不活自己。除非政府立即采取行动，不然的话，他们只有破产出局。如果真成了那样，必将出现真正的匮乏，而消费者也将不得不以高得离谱的价格去购买这种商品。消费者现在图“一时”便宜，但最终这将使他们付出高昂的代价，因为，现在这种“暂时的”低价格不可能再撑下去，。因此，我们不能坐等所谓的自然市场力量，或供求的“盲目的”法则，来矫正眼前的状况。等不到那一天，生产厂商已经倒闭，大家只有陷入大短缺的恐慌之中。政府必须有所行动。我们真正要做的，是熨平这些剧烈的、无益的价格波动。我们并非想要提高商品价格，我们仅仅是要使它稳定。

There are several methods by which it is commonly proposed to do this. One of the most frequent is government loans to farmers to enable them to hold their crops off the market.

人们通常提出的实现稳定物价的方案有好几种。其中最常见的就是主张政府向农民提供贷款，好让他们可以暂时囤积其收获的谷物，而不急于拿到市场上出售。

Such loans are urged in Congress for reasons that seem very plausible to most listeners. They are told that the farmers’ crops are all dumped on the market at once, at harvest time; that this is precisely the time when prices are lowest, and that speculators take advantage of this to buy the crops themselves and hold them for higher prices when food gets scarcer again. Thus it is urged that the farmers suffer, and that they, rather than the speculators, should get the advantage of the higher average price.

国会敦促政府实施这种贷款，议员的陈述让大多数听众觉得颇有道理。议员告诉他们，农民的谷物都集中在收获时节上市出售，而这正好是一年中农产品价格最低的时候，投机商乘机买进囤积，等到青黄不接的时候，就高价倒卖。农民则因此蒙受损失。政府应该确保这个钱应该拿给农民赚，而不要让投机商从中渔利。

This argument is not supported by either theory or experience. The much-reviled speculators are not the enemy of the farmer; they are essential to his best welfare. The risks of fluctuating farm prices must be borne by somebody; they have in fact been borne in modern times chiefly by the professional speculators. In general, the more competently the latter act in their own interest as speculators, the more they help the farmer. For speculators serve their own interest precisely in proportion to their ability to foresee future prices. But the more accurately they foresee future prices the less violent or extreme are the fluctuations in prices.

无论是理论还是经验都无法支持这样的论点。倍受谴责的投机商，并不是农民的敌人，相反，他们对于农民的最高福利至关重要。因为，农产品价格波动的风险必须要有人来承担，而在现代社会中，这些风险其实主要是由职业投机商们承担的。一般说来，投机运作越成功，职业投机商对农民的帮助越大。因为，投机商们的赢利能力，恰好仰仗于他们预测未来价格的能力。也就是说，他们预测未来价格的越准确，价格波动就会少几分剧烈和偏激。

Even if farmers had to dump their whole crop of wheat on the market in a single month of the year, therefore, the price in that month would not necessarily be below the price at any other month (apart from an allowance for the costs of storage). For speculators, in the hope of making a profit, would do most of their buying at that time. They would keep on buying until the price rose to a point where they saw no further opportunity of future profit. They would sell whenever they thought there was a prospect of future loss. The result would be to stabilize the price of farm commodities the year round.

因此，即使大多数农民不得不在收获后的那个月，把全部的小麦收成送到市场销售，对那些农民来说，那个月的价格也不一定就低于其他月份（这里可以扣除仓储成本，或者说，若农民愿意自己负担仓储成本，他们也可以不必急于集中销售小麦）。对于投机商来说，若想要趁机获利，他们就会在那个时期集中买进小麦。他们会不断地收购，直到价格升到使他们感到在将来根本无利可图的那个价位。他们会在将来他们认为有可能会有损失的时候售出这批商品。其带来的结果，必是使全年农产品的价格趋于稳定。

It is precisely because a professional class of speculators exists to take these risks that farmers and millers do not need to take them. The latter can protect themselves through the markets. Under normal conditions, therefore, when speculators are doing their job well, the profits of farmers and millers will depend chiefly on their skill and industry in farming or milling, and not on market fluctuations.

正因为有职业投机商承担了这些风险，农民和粮食加工业者才得以免除风险。生产者是可以通过市场来实现自我保护的。所以，在正常的情况下，当投机商们干得很出色时，农民和粮食加工业者他们的利润主要取决于本身的生产技能和勤劳与否，而与市场的波动无关。

Actual experience shows that on the average the price of wheat and other nonperishable crops remains the same all year round except for an allowance for storage, interest and insurance charges. In fact, some careful investigations have shown that the average monthly rise after harvest time has not been quite sufficient to pay such storage charges, so that the speculators have actually subsidized the farmers. This, of course, was not their intention: it has simply been the result of a persistent tendency to overoptimism on the part of speculators. (This tendency seems to affect entrepreneurs in most competitive pursuits: as a class they are constantly, contrary to intention, subsidizing consumers. This is particularly true wherever the prospects of big speculative gains exist. Just as the subscribers to a lottery, considered as a unit, lose money because each is unjustifiably hopeful of drawing one of the few spectacular prizes, so it has been calculated that the total value of the labor and capital dumped into prospecting for gold or oil has exceeded the total value of the gold or oil extracted.)

实际经验表明，小麦和其他不易腐烂的谷物的平均价格水平在一年之中是相同的，这还没有考虑必须的仓储、利息和保险费用。事实上，一些精细的调研表明，收获季节之后的谷物价格平均单月涨幅并不足以抵偿这些仓储费用。因此，投机商实际上还补贴了农民。不消说，这并非他们的本意，它仅仅是投机商一方所表现出来的一种顽固的过分乐观的倾向。（这种倾向，似乎在追求最有竞争性的目标中影响了企业家们：作为一个阶层，企业家们经常事与愿违地补贴消费者，特别是当存在着很大的投机收益前景时，尤其如此。就象购买彩票的彩民，整体上肯定是赔钱，因为每个人都抱着赌一把的心态，想要押中那中奖率微乎其微的头彩。有资料显示，投入到黄金和石油勘探开采的劳力与资本总值，超过开采出来的黄金或石油的总值。）

（未完待续）

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