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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）

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