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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）

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