dingdong

第三篇 三十年后的这堂课
第26章 三十年后的这堂课

（接前面部分）

If we go through the chapters of this book seriatim, we find practically no form of government intervention deprecated in the first edition that is not still being pursued, usually with increased obstinacy. Governments everywhere are still trying to cure by public works the unemployment brought about by their own policies. They are imposing heavier and more expropriatory taxes than ever. They still recommend credit expansion. Most of them still make “full employment” their overriding goal. They continue to impose import quotas and protective tariffs. They try to increase exports by depreciating their currencies even further. Farmers are still “striking” for “parity prices.” Governments still provide special encouragements to unprofitable industries. They still make efforts to “stabilize” special commodity prices.

如果我们逐一阅读本书的章节，我们就会发现，在第一版中我们所责难的各类政府干预形式，无一例外不是正在被各国顽固采用。各国政府都在努力用公共工 程来解决政策性失业问题。他们变本加厉地增加税负，推行信用扩张。大多数政府仍以“充分就业”为压倒一切的目标。他们继续实行进口配额和保护性关税。他们 设法通过让货币贬值来达到出口增加。农民仍旧占有“平准价格”。 政府则继续帮扶那些无利可图的行业。他们还在努力“稳定”个别商品的价格。

Governments, pushing up commodity prices by inflating their currencies, continue to blame the higher prices on private producers, sellers, and “profiteers.” They impose price ceilings on oil and natural gas, to discourage new exploration precisely when it is in most need of encouragement, or resort to general price and wage fixing or “monitoring.” They continue rent control in the face of the obvious devastation it has caused. They not only retain minimum wage laws but keep increasing their level, in face of the chronic unemployment they so clearly bring about. They continue to pass laws granting special privileges and immunities to labor unions; to oblige workers to become members; to tolerate mass picketing and other forms of coercion; and to compel employers to “bargain collectively in good faith” with such unions— i.e., to make at least some concessions to their demands. The intention of all these measures is to “help labor.” But the result is once more to create and prolong unemployment, and to lower total wage payments compared with what they might have been.

随着通货膨胀抬高了商品价格，各国政府不断将物价上涨的原因，怪罪到私人生产者、销售者以及所谓“奸商”头上。他们规定了石油和天然气的最高限价， 在这些产品的生产恰恰是最需要得到鼓励的时候，政府阻碍了新的开发；或者，政府将全面地固定或是“监督”价格和工资；他们仍继续实施租金管制，尽管后者事 实上已经造成了明显的灾难。他们不仅保留最低工资法令，而且面对法令所带来的明显的延续的失业，仍然不断提高最低工资标准。他们不断通过制定各种法律，给 工会以各种特权和豁免权的支持；硬性要求劳工加入工会；容忍大规模的罢工纠察和其他形式的胁迫；强迫雇主和这些工会进行“集体的真诚的劳资谈判”——也就 是说，对他们的要求至少要做出某种让步。所以这些措施的目的都是为了“帮助劳工”，但结果却是又一次制造和延续了失业，同时还减少了总体工资支付，使劳工 工资达不到应有的水平。

Most politicians continue to ignore the necessity of profits, to overestimate their average or total net amount, to denounce unusual profits anywhere, to tax them excessively, and sometimes even to deplore the very existence of profits.

大多数政治人物仍在忽视利润的必要性，夸大雇主们的平均利润或净收入总量，反对任何非正常利润，并对它们课以重税。有的时侯，他们甚至对利润本身的存在感到悲哀。

The anticapitalistic mentality seems more deeply embedded than ever. Whenever there is any slowdown in business, the politicians now see the main cause as “insufficient consumer spending.” At the same time that they encourage more consumer spending they pile up further disincentives and penalties in the way of saving and investment. Their chief method of doing this today, as we have already seen, is to embark on or accelerate inflation. The result is that today, for the first time in history, no nation is on a metallic standard, and practically every nation is swindling its own people by printing a chronically depreciating paper currency.

在人们的观念中，反资本主义的思想渗透得比以往更深了。每当经济不景气，政治人物就认为“消费者支出不足”是主要原因。于是，它们一方面鼓励消费者 增加支出，另一方面制定更多的妨碍性和惩罚性措施去限制储蓄和投资。我们说过，当今各国政府的主要做法，是制造或加速通货膨胀。结果是，经济发展到今天已 经没有一个国家是金属本位的货币政策了，几乎每个国家都通过印制长期贬值的纸币来讹诈它们的人民。

To pile one more item on this heap, let us examine the recent tendency, not only in the United States but abroad, for almost every “social” program, once launched upon, to get completely out of hand. We have already glanced at the overall picture, but let us now look more closely at one outstanding example — Social Security in the United States.

最后，让我们看看最近的一种趋势。政府一旦推行带有“社会”二字的计划，就会完全失控，不仅在美国是如此，在其他所有国家都是如此。对于政府干预，我们已经看了个大概，现在让我们来细看一个当今尤为突出的例子——美国的社保制度。

The original federal Social Security Act was passed in 1935. The theory behind it was that the greater part of the relief problem was that people did not save in their working years, and so, when they were too old to work, they found themselves without resources. This problem could be solved, it was thought, if they were compelled to insure themselves, with employers also compelled to contribute half the necessary premiums, so that they would have a pension sufficient to retire on at age sixty-five or over. Social Security was to be entirely a self-financed insurance plan based on strict actuarial principles. A reserve fund was to be set up sufficient to meet future claims and payments as they fell due.

最早的联邦社会保险法案是1935年通过的。这个法案背后的理论是：大部分社会救济问题，在于人们有工作收入时没把钱存下来，到上了年纪才发现自己 没有积蓄安度晚年。立法者认为这个问题可以解决，如果劳工被强制性地给自己保险，同时雇主也被强制性地为劳工负担一半的保费，这样一来，等劳工在65岁或 更高年龄退休时，他们就会有足够的退休金安度晚年。社会保障基于严格的精算原则，被设计成完全自偿性保险。设立的社保基金足以应对将来的理赔申请和到期的 社保支领。

It never worked out that way. The reserve fund existed mainly on paper. The government spent the Social Security tax receipts, as they came in, either to meet its ordinary expenses or to pay out benefits. Since 1975, current benefit payments have exceeded the system’s tax receipts.

但是实际的运作从来都没有依照这种设计执行过。社保基金只是账面数字。社保金收缴上来之后就被政府挪作它用，用于满足其经常性开支，或者向某些人提供津贴。自1975年以来，当期的社保发放金额已经超过这套制度的社保金缴入金额。

It also turned out that in practically every session Congress found ways to increase the benefits paid, broaden the coverage, and add new forms of “social insurance.” As one commentator pointed out in 1965, a few weeks after Medicare insurance was added: “Social Security sweeteners have been enacted in each of the past seven general election years.

这很自然地产生了每届国会都要寻求增加社保名目的局面，例如增加社保支付、扩大社保覆盖面、增加新形式的“社会保障”。就像在1965年加进医保计划之后不久，一位评论家所指出的那样：“过去七次大选之年，社保名目每次都有增加。”

As inflation developed and progressed, Social Security benefits were increased not only in proportion, but much more. The typical political ploy was to load up benefits in the present and push costs into the future. Yet that future always arrived; and each few years later Congress would again have to increase payroll taxes levied on both workers and employers.

随着通货膨胀的发展和推进，社保金额也必然有所增加。然而，其增长率并不与通货膨胀的发展幅度相同，而是比后者要大得多。典型的政治手段是在眼前积 聚起大量的保险费，而将成本推到未来去消化。然而，未来总是要到来的，每过几年，国会将不得不再次提高劳工和雇主缴纳的社保金。

Not only were the tax rates continuously increased, but there was a constant rise in the amount of salary taxed. In the original 1935 bill the salary taxed was only the first $3,000. The early tax rates were very low. But between 1965 and 1977, for example, the Social Security tax shot up from 4.4 percent on the first $6,600 of earned income (levied on employer and employee alike) to a combined 11.7 percent on the first $16,500 (Between 1960 and 1977, the total annual tax increased by 572 percent, or about 12 percent a year compounded. It is scheduled to go much higher.) At the beginning of 1977, unfunded liabilities of the Social Security system were officially estimated at $4.1 trillion.

除了社保金提留比率不断增加，纳入社保缴纳基数的薪金也在不断增加。最早的1935年社保法案中，规定薪金收入的前3,000美元作为社保缴纳基 数，并且提留比率很低。1965年规定薪金收入的前6,600美元作为社保缴纳基数，提留比率4.4%（雇主和员工都必须缴纳），到1977年基数激增为 前16,500美元，提留比率11.7%。（从1960年到1977年，年度总社保入账增加了572%，按复利计算平均每年增长12%。来年计划中的涨幅 比这更高。）

根据官方统计，1977年初，社会保险系统的无资金准备的负债高达4.1万亿美元。{endnotes:现在的社保提留比率是15.3%。据估计，到2010年，美国的社保体系将破产。}

No one can say today whether Social Security is really an insurance program or just a complicated and lopsided relief system. The bulk of the present benefit recipients are being assured that they “earned” and “paid for” their benefits. Yet no private insurance company could have afforded to pay existing benefit scales out of the “premiums” actually received. As of early 1978, when low-paid workers retire, their monthly benefits generally represent about 60 percent of what they earned on the job. Middle-income workers receive about 45 percent. For those with exceptionally high salaries, the ratio can fall to or 10 percent. If Social Security is thought of as a relief system, however, it is a very strange one, for those who have already been getting the highest salaries receive the highest dollar benefits.

如今，谁也无法说明社保制度真的是一个保险计划呢，还是只是一种复杂而不平衡的救济制度。政府总是设法证明，那些众多的受益者所领取的社保金是他们 “挣得的”、是他们“出了钱的”。可是，还没有哪家私人保险公司，有能力从实际收取的“保费”中支付现有规模的社保金。1978年初，低收入劳工退休的时 候，每月领取的社保相当于工作收入的60%左右。中等收入劳工领取的社保约为原来收入的45%。薪资特别高的人领取的社保约为原来收入的5%或10%。如 果我们把社保制度看作是一种救济制度，那它就是一种很奇怪的救济制度。因为，那些已经领取最高工资的人事实上应得的是最高水平的保险收益。

Yet Social Security today is still sacrosanct. It is considered political suicide for any congressman to suggest cutting down or cutting back not only present but promised future benefits. The American Social Security system must stand today as a frightening symbol of the almost inevitable tendency of any national relief, redistribution, or “insurance scheme, once established, to run completely out of control.

然而，今天的社会保险制度仍然神圣不可侵犯。如果哪位国会议员胆敢提议取消或削减现在或未来的社保支付，那无异于政治自杀。如今，美国社会保险制度 是一种令人畏惧的象征，它代表了一种近乎必然的趋势，即，在任何国家中救济、再分配或是“保险计划”，一旦形成，它们就会不可避免地发展到一种完全无法收 拾的地步。

In brief, the main problem we face today is not economic, but political. Sound economists are in substantial agreement concerning what ought to be done. Practically all government attempts to redistribute wealth and income tend to smother productive incentives and lead toward general impoverishment. It is the proper sphere of government to create and enforce a framework of law that prohibits force and fraud. But it must refrain from specific economic interventions. Government’s main economic function is to encourage and preserve a free market. When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: ‘Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.” It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.

简单地说，我们今天面对的主要问题，不是经济上的，而是政治上的。著名的经济学家们已经就怎么做达成了共识。实际上，政府为重分配财富和收入所做的 种种努力，只会扼杀生产积极性，并导致普遍贫困化。政府真正该做的事，是建立和执行一套法律架构，禁止暴力和欺诈。政府一定不要去干预个别的经济活动。政 府的主要经济职能是鼓励并保障一个自由的市场。当亚历山大大帝去拜访哲学家第欧根尼，居高临下地问哲人有什么请求时，据说，第欧根尼回答道：“是的。请挪 尊步，不要挡着我晒太阳。”每位公民都有权对政府这么要求。

The outlook is dark, but it is not entirely without hope. Here and there one can detect a break in the clouds. More and more people are becoming aware that government has nothing to give them without first taking it away from somebody else—or from themselves. Increased handouts to selected groups mean merely increased taxes, or increased deficits and increased inflation. And inflation, in the end, misdirects and disorganizes production. Even a few politicians are beginning to recognize this, and some of them even to state it clearly.

举目阴云蔽日，但并不是完全没有希望。总有某些地方，阳光会破云而出。越来越多人开始意识到，政府若不先从纳税人手里拿走些什么，就不可能带给他们 任何好处。特定群体享受更多优待，只能是意味着税负加重、赤字增加、通货膨胀加剧。而最终，通货膨胀将把生产引上错误的轨道，并破坏生产的组织。有些政治 人物也开始认清这一点，其中有的人甚至清楚明白地把它讲出来。

In addition, there are marked signs of a shift in the intellectual winds of doctrine. Keynesians and New Dealers seem to be in a slow retreat. Conservatives, libertarians, and other defenders of free enterprise are becoming more outspoken and more articulate. And there are many more of them. Among the young, there is a rapid growth of a disciplined school of “Austrian” economists.

此外，人们的信条也存在着明显的变化趋势。凯恩斯学派和新政实行者们逐渐退场。保守派、自由派和其它自由企业的支持者们更加坦率清晰地表达着自己的观点。而且，这样的人越来越多。在年轻一辈中，由一些受到良好教育和训练的经济学者形成的“奥地利学派”快速崛起。

There is a real promise that public policy may be reversed before the damage from existing measures and trends has become irreparable.

真正的出路在于，趁目前的各种措施造成伤害还没有达到不可收拾之前，公共政策干预经济的局面必须扭转。

The Lesson after Thirty Years

第三篇 三十年后的这堂课
第26章 三十年后的这堂课

The first edition of this book appeared in 1946. It is now, as I write this, thirty-two years later. How much of the lesson expounded in the previous pages has been learned in this period?

本书第一版是1946年面市的。我现在写这段文字时，一晃已经过了32年。在这三十年间，本书当年所阐述的那些教训，我们真正学到了多少呢？

If we are referring to the politicians—to all those responsible for formulating and imposing government policies—practically none of it has been learned. On the contrary, the policies analyzed in the preceding chapters are far more deeply established and widespread, not only in the United States, but in practically every country in the world, than they were when this book first appeared.

若拿这话问那些政治人物，也就是那些对于制定和实施经济政策负有责任的人，那么他们根本没学到什么。相反，本书反对过的各种经济干预政策，如今远比三十年前更深重、更盛行，不仅在美国是这样，在世界各国都是这样。

We may take, as the outstanding example, inflation. This is not only a policy imposed for its own sake, but an inevitable result of most of the other interventionist policies. It stands today as the universal symbol of government intervention everywhere.

以尤为突出的通货膨胀政策为例。实施通货膨胀政策并不单纯是因为其自身的缘故，而且它同样也是其他经济干预政策所带来的一个不可避免的结果。今天，通货膨胀已经成为各国政府干预经济的普遍象征。

The 1946 edition explained the consequences of inflation, but the inflation then was comparatively mild. True, though federal government expenditures in 1926 had been less than $3 billion and there was a surplus, by fiscal year 1946 expenditures had risen to $55 billion and there was a deficit of $16 billion. Yet in fiscal year 1947, with the war ended, expenditures fell to $35 billion and there was an actual surplus of nearly $4 billion. By fiscal year 1978, however, expenditures had soared to $45’ billion and the deficit to $49 billion.

1946年版中阐明了通货膨胀的后果，但是当时的通货膨胀相对温和得多。我们看到，美国联邦政府1926年的财政支出不到30亿美元，并且有财政盈 余。相比之下，虽然在1946财政年度，支出上升到550亿美元，赤字为160亿美元。在战争结束后的1947财政年度，支出降到350亿美元，还出现了 40亿美元的财政盈余。但到了1978财政年度，支出飚升到4,510亿美元，财政赤字竟达490亿美元。

All this has been accompanied by an enormous increase in the stock of money—from $113 billion of demand deposits plus currency outside of banks in 1947, to $357 billion in August 1978. In other words, the active money supply has been more than tripled in the period.

这一切都伴随着货币存量的激增——美元的活期存款与银行体系之外的现金总和从1947年的1,130亿美元直升到1978年8月的3,570亿美元。也就是说，三十年间，流通货币的供应超过了原来的3倍。

The effect of this increase in money has been a dramatic increase in prices. The consumer price index in 1946 stood at In September1978 it was 199.3. Prices, in short, more than tripled.

货币供给高速增长导致物价急剧上涨。消费者物价指数从1946年的58.5飚升到1978年9月的199.3。也就是说，物价也是原来水平的3倍以 上。{endnotes:经济学家亨德森报告说，“在1939年之后的56年中，通货膨胀率平均每年为4.4%。听起来很温和，加起来就不温和。实际上， 通货膨胀做的不是加法，而是乘法，类似银行利息的复利计算。结果是，1939以来，物价上涨了998%。”（亨德森的〈同通胀娱乐与博弈〉，刊于《财富》 1996年3月18日，第35页）}

The policy of inflation, as I have said, is partly imposed for its own sake. More than forty years after the publication of John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory, and more than twenty years after that book has been thoroughly discredited by analysis and experience, a great number of our politicians are still unceasingly recommending more deficit spending in order to cure or reduce existing unemployment. An appalling irony is that they are making these recommendations when the federal government has already been running a deficit for forty-one out of the last forty-eight years and when that deficit has been reaching dimensions of $50 billion a year.

我已经指出通货膨胀政策的实施部分是由于其自身的缘故。凯恩斯的《就业、利息与货币通论》发表已经是40年前的事情，那本书被各种理论分析和实践经 验所彻底质疑也已经有20年，时至今日，无数政治人物仍在不断主张实行大量的赤字支出，以对付和减少失业。极具讽刺的是，过去48年，联邦政府已有41年 出现财政赤字，年均赤字高达500亿美元，程度如此严重，那些政治人物仍旧不断提出这种建议。{endnotes:到1992年，财政预算赤字已达到2 900亿美元。此后，1995年的预算赤字下降到“只有”1 650亿美元。（《投资者财经日报》，1995年10月5日）}

An even greater irony is that, not satisfied with following such disastrous policies at home, our officials have been scolding other countries, notably Germany and Japan, for not following these “expansionary” policies themselves. This reminds one of nothing so much as Aesop’s fox, who, when he had lost his tail, urged all his fellow foxes to cut off theirs.

更具讽刺意味的是，美国政府官员根本不满足于自身采取这种灾难性的政策，他们甚至还谴责其他的国家（尤其是德国和日本）没有遵循这种“扩张性”的政策。就像伊索寓言里的狐狸，自己丢了尾巴之后，它就强烈要求其他所有的狐狸也都把尾巴割掉。

One of the worst results of the retention of the Keynesian myths is that it not only promotes greater and greater inflation, but that it systematically diverts attention from the real causes of our unemployment, such as excessive union wage-rates, minimum wage laws, excessive and prolonged unemployment insurance, and overgenerous relief payments.

抱持凯恩斯神话的一个最坏结果是，不仅促使通货膨胀率急剧上升，而且用系统的手段，将人们的注意力从失业的真正成因上转移开，让人看不到工会要求的工资率过高、实施最低工资法、过度实施失业保险，以及救济金支付过分慷慨对失业的真正影响。

But the inflation, though in part often deliberate, is today mainly the consequence of other government economic interventions. It is the consequence, in brief, of the Redistributive State—of all the policies of expropriating money from Peter in order to lavish it on Paul.

尽管通货膨胀有一部分是故意制造的，但今天的通货膨胀主要是政府诸多经济干预的后果。总之，它是国家再分配的一种后果——从张三那里征敛钱财，再把它随随便便地花在李四身上这种政策的后果。

This process would be easier to trace, and its ruinous effects easier to expose, if it were all done in some single measure—like the guaranteed annual income actually proposed and seriously considered by committees of Congress in the early 1970s. This was a proposal to tax still more ruthlessly all incomes above average and turn the proceeds over to all those living below a so-called minimum poverty line, in order to guarantee them an income— whether they were willing to work or not—”to enable them to live with dignity.” It would be hard to imagine a plan more clearly calculated to discourage work and production and eventually to impoverish everybody.

若整个过程采用单一措施，那么这个过程会比较容易追踪，其破坏性也比较容易揭示，例如20世纪70年代初在国会颇受重视的保证年收入提案。该提案建 议对所有高于平均水平的收入课征更高的税收，用于救济生活在贫困线下的人，从而保证后者有一笔“能够过得去”的收入，而不管那些人愿意工作与否。如此明目 张胆打击生产、包养懒汉的提案简直空前绝后，这只会让每个人都变穷。

But instead of passing any such single measure, and bringing on ruin in a single swoop, our government has preferred to enact a hundred laws that effect such a redistribution on a partial and selective basis. These measures may miss some needy groups entirely; but on the other hand they may shower upon other groups a dozen different varieties of benefits, subsidies, and other handouts. These include, to give a random list: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps, veterans’ benefits, farm subsidies, subsidized housing, rent subsidies, school lunches, public employment on make-work jobs, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and direct relief of all kinds, including aid to the aged, the blind, and the disabled. The federal government has estimated that under these last categories it has been handing federal aid benefits to more than 4 million people—not to count what the states and cities are doing.

但是，我们的政府并没有采用这样一种单一的方法，它也不是在某个个别的干预中损害公众利益的。相反，政府更喜欢制定无数律令，并通过这些律令片面 地、有选择性地实现再分配，这样的措施可能完全忽略了某些贫困群体的存在。同时，在另一方面，它又将使其它某些集团享受各种各样的好处，比如津贴、补助、 以及其他优待。这些措施，常见的有：社保、医保、医疗补助、失业保险、食品券、退伍补助、农业补贴、住房补贴、租金补贴、学校午餐、创造工作机会的再就业 计划、抚养子女的家庭援助，以及针对老人、盲人、残疾人等实施的各种直接救助。联邦政府统计表明，单单最后这类人，联邦财政救助对象超过400万，这还不 包括接受各州、市财政救助的人数。

One author has recently counted and examined no fewer than forty-four welfare programs. Government expenditures for these in 1976 totaled $187 billion. The combined average growth of these programs between 1971 and 1976 was 25 percent a year—2.5 times the rate of growth of estimated gross national product for the same period. Projected expenditures for 1979 are more than $250 billion. Coincident with the extraordinary growth of these welfare expenditures has been the development of a “national welfare industry,” now composed of 5 million public and private workers distributing payments and services to 50 million beneficiaries.

有位作者最近对至少44种福利方案进行了统计和详细调查。1976年，政府在这些计划上的总支出高达1,870亿美元。把这些计划合起来 看，1971年到1976年，年均增长率为25%，是同期国民生产总值增长率的2.5倍。1979年的支出金额预计超过2,500亿美元。与这些福利支出 急剧增长相一致的，是“国家福利产业”的发展。目前在这一产业公共部门和私人部门中的就业人数为500万，而从中获得报酬和服务好处的则有5 000万人。{footnotes:霍布斯，《福利产业》Charles D. Hobbs, The Welfare Industry (Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 1978)}

Nearly every other Western country has been administering a similar assortment of aid programs—though sometimes a more integrated and less haphazard collection. And in order to do this they have been resorting to more and more Draconian taxation.

几乎每个西方国家都实施了类似的组合福利计划——有时整合化程度比较高，追踪其危害性比较容易。无论如何，为了实施那些福利计划，各国只有征收越来越重的税。

We need merely point to Great Britain as one example. Its government has been taxing personal income from work (“earned” income) up to 83 percent, and personal income from investment (“unearned” income) up to 98 percent. Should it be surprising that it has discouraged work and investment and so profoundly discouraged production and employment? There is no more certain way to deter employment than to harass and penalize employers. There is no more certain way to keep wages low than to destroy every incentive to investment in new and more efficient machines and equipment. But this is becoming more and more the policy of governments everywhere.

我们只需以英国为例来进行说明。英国政府对个人从工作中得到的收入（称为“劳动”所得）征收的所得税，税率最高达83%；从投资中得到的收入（称为 “非劳动”所得）征收的所得税，税率最高达98%。不用说，如此高的税率，直接打击工作和投资的积极性，最终严重抑制生产和就业。干扰和惩罚雇主是阻碍就 业最明显的手段。同样，打击投资积极性，令人们不愿投资效率更高的新机器设备，是压低工资最明显的手段。然而越来越多这样的政策正被各国政府采 用。{endnotes:在英国，所得税税率最高达40%，增值税税率为17.5%，资本利得税税率为33%。（1996年的《经济自由指 数》（Index of Economic Freedom），布赖恩·约翰逊（Brian T. Johnson）和托马斯·希伊（Thomas P. Sheehy）, The Heritage Foundation, 1996.）在1994年，各项税赋刮走了国民生产总值的34%。（《经济学人》（The Economist），1995年2月9日，第99页）}

Yet this Draconian taxation has not brought revenues to keep pace with ever more reckless government spending and schemes for redistributing wealth. The result has been to bring chronic and growing government budget deficits, and therefore chronic and mounting inflation, in nearly every country in the world.

但是，严苛的税赋并没有带来足够的财政收入，去满足重分配型政府诸多开支、以及诸多计划中的开支。结果是世界各国的政府都陷入长期的预算赤字和通货膨胀，并越陷越深。

For the last thirty years or so, Citibank of New York has been keeping a record of this inflation over ten-year periods. Its calculations are based on the cost-of-living estimates published by the individual governments themselves. In its economic letter of October 1977 it published a survey of inflation in fifty countries. These figures show that in 1976, for example, the West German mark, with the best record, had lost 35 percent of its purchasing power over the preceding ten years; that the Swiss franc had lost 40 percent, the American dollar 43 percent, the French franc 50 percent, the Japanese yen 57 percent, the Swedish krone 47 percent, the Italian lira 56 percent, and the British pound 61 percent. When we get to Latin America, the Brazilian cruzeiro had lost 89 percent of its value, and the Uruguayan, Chilean, and Argentine pesos more than 99 percent.

过去三十多年来，纽约花旗银行对10年期通货膨胀率进行了记录。其计算是基于各国政府自己公布的生活费用指数。在其1977年10月的经济通信中， 公布了对50个国家通货膨胀的调查结果。该调查显示，截止1976年的最近十年内，表现最好的西德马克，购买力损失35%；瑞士法郎损失40%，美元损失 43%，法国法郎损失50%，日元损失57%，瑞典克朗损失47%，意大利里拉损失56%，而英镑则损失了61%。至于拉美国家的购买力，巴西货币克鲁赛 罗损失89%，乌拉圭、智利、阿根廷比索损失均达99%以上。

Though when compared with the record of a year or two before, the overall record of world currency depreciations was more moderate; the American dollar in 1977 was depreciating at an annual rate of 6 percent, the French franc of 8.6 percent, the Japanese yen of 9.1 percent, the Swedish krone of percent, the British pound of 14.5 percent, the Italian lira of 15.7 percent, and the Spanish peseta at an annual rate of 17.5 percent. As for Latin American experience, the Brazilian currency unit in 1977 was depreciating at an annual rate of 30.8 percent, the Uruguayan of 35.5, the Chilean of 53.9, and the Argentinean of 65.7.

尽管与一两年前的情况相比，世界通货贬值的总体状况有所缓和，但1977年的贬值率分别是，美元6%，法国法郎8.6%，日元9.1%，瑞典克朗 9.5%，英镑14.5%，意大利里拉15.7%，西班牙比塞塔则达17.5%。至于拉美国家，巴西货币单位1977年贬值30.8%，乌拉圭比索 35.5%，智利比索53.9%，阿根廷比索则高达65.7%。{endnotes:1994年各国货币的年通货膨胀率为：美国2.8%，法国1.7%， 日本-2%，瑞典4.5%，英国2.4%，意大利4%，西班牙45%，巴西2 500%，乌拉圭40%，智利11%，阿根廷5%。（1996年的《经济自由指数》，布赖恩·约翰逊和托马斯·希伊, The Heritage Foundation, 1996.）}

I leave it to the reader to picture the chaos that these rates of depreciation of money were producing in the economies of these countries and the suffering in the lives of millions of their inhabitants.

请读者们想象一下货币大幅贬值所造成的国家经济混乱局面，以及这些国家无数居民所承受的生活困难。

As I have pointed out, these inflations, themselves the cause of so much human misery, were in turn in large part the consequence of other policies of government economic intervention. Practically all these interventions unintentionally illustrate and underline the basic lesson of this book. All were enacted on the assumption that they would confer some immediate benefit on some special group. Those who enacted them failed to take heed of their secondary consequences—failed to consider what their effect would be in the long run on all groups.

正如我已经指出的，这些通货膨胀本身导致了如此严重的人类灾难，可是它又主要是政府进行经济干预政策的后果。实际上，所有这些干预无意间阐明并凸显 了本书的基本教训。因为这些政策的实施都是建立在可以给某些特殊群体带来即期利益的假定上。实施干预的人，未能对政策的续发后果进行考虑，也就是没有考虑 到它们对所有群体产生的长期影响。

In sum, so far as the politicians are concerned, the lesson that this book tried to instill more than thirty years ago does not seem to have been learned anywhere.

总之，那些政治人物对这本书三十多年前就给出的教训似乎什么都没学到。

（未完待续）

第25章
课后温习

（接前面部分）

3

In the course of our study, also, we have rediscovered an old friend. He is the Forgotten Man of William Graham Sumner. The reader will remember that in Sumner’s essay, which appeared in 1883:

在我们的研究过程中，我们还重新发现了一位老朋友。他就是威廉·格雷厄姆·萨姆纳（William Graham Sumner）讲的“被遗忘的人”（Forgotten Man）。读者也许还记得，萨姆纳曾在他1883年发表的一篇文章中写道：

As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for … .. What I want to do is to look up C…. I call him the Forgotten Man…. He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social speculator and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the many burdens which are laid upon him.

一旦A发现某件事在他看来是错误的，害得X因此遭受苦难，便与B谈论此事，并且建议通过一项补救措施并向X提供帮助的法律。他们通过的法律，总是规 定C应该为X做些什么，更好的情况则是A、B和C都应该为X做些什么……我想做的是挖掘一下C……我把他称作“被遗忘的人”……人们从来没有想到过他。他 是改革家、社会投机家和慈善家的牺牲品。而我则想向你们指出，他的品格和人们加在他身上的各种负担值得大家去关注。

It is a historic irony that when this phrase, the Forgotten Man, was revived in the 1930s, it was applied, not to C, but to X; and C, who was then being asked to support still more Xs, was more completely forgotten than ever. It is C, the Forgotten Man, who is always called upon to stanch the politician’s bleeding heart by paying for his vicarious generosity.

然而，当“被遗忘的人” 一词在20世纪30年代再度被人提起时，不是指C，而是指X，真可说是历史的反讽。至于C，仍然被要求去支持更多的X们，和以前比起来，更是彻底遭人遗 忘。就是这个C，这个被遗忘的人，还得经常响应政治号召去献爱心，使那些政治家们的灵魂得到慰籍。

4

Our study of our lesson would not be complete if, before we took leave of it, we neglected to observe that the fundamental fallacy with which we have been concerned arises not accidentally but systematically. It is an almost inevitable result, in fact, of the division of labor.

在结束本书之前，假如我们没能认识到，出现本书所分析的根本谬误并不是偶然的这一点，那么我们的分析就是不彻底的。事实上，这种系统性谬误是劳动分工所不可避免的结果之一。

In a primitive community, or among pioneers, before the division of labor has arisen, a man works solely for himself or his immediate family. What he consumes is identical with what he produces. There is always a direct and immediate connection between his output and his satisfactions.

在尚未出现劳动分工的原始社会里，或者在那些拓荒者之中，每个人都是单纯为了他自己或他的直接家属而工作的。他的消费与他的生产完全一致，而在其产出与满足之间，总也存在着一种直接的联系。

But when an elaborate and minute division of labor has set in, this direct and immediate connection ceases to exist. I do not make all the things I consume but, perhaps, only one of them. With the income I derive from making this one commodity, or rendering this one service, I buy all the rest. I wish the price of everything I buy to be low, but it is in my interest for the price of the commodity or services that I have to sell to be high. Therefore, though I wish to see abundance in everything else, it is in my interest for scarcity to exist in the very thing that it is my business to supply. The greater the scarcity, compared to everything else, in this one thing that I supply, the higher will be the reward that I can get for my efforts.

但是当更为细致的社会化分工出现，这种直接和立即的关联就不复存在。我消费的东西，不全是我生产的，我可能只生产其中一样。我用我生产的商品、用我 提供的服务所赚来的钱，去购买其他我所需要的商品或服务。我希望我购买的每一样东西，价格越便宜越好，但是我生产的商品、我提供的服务，价格要越高越好。 我希望其他所有的东西越丰富越好，至于我自己所生产的那类产品，我希望越稀缺越好。常言道，物以稀为贵，若能得遂所愿，我付出的努力就能得到更丰厚的回 报。

This does not necessarily mean that I will restrict my own efforts or my own output. In fact, if I am only one of a substantial number of people supplying that commodity or service, and if free competition exists in my line, this individual restriction will not pay me. On the contrary, if I am a grower of wheat, say, I want my particular crop to be as large as possible. But if I am concerned only with my own material welfare, and have no humanitarian scruples, I want the output of all other wheat growers to be as low as possible; for I want scarcity in wheat (and in any foodstuff that can be substituted for it) so that my particular crop may command the highest possible price.

这并不一定意味着我会限制我自身的努力以减少自己的产出。事实上，跟我生产同样产品、提供同样服务的人是大有人在，我只是行业中普通的一员，而且我 们这一行是自由竞争，如果我限制自己的努力和生产，对我自己并没有好处。相反，如果我是一个麦农，我会希望我所种植的小麦产量越高越好。倘若我仅仅考虑自 己物质上的福利，而没有任何良心不安的话，我一定希望其他所有麦农的产量越低越好；我希望市面上小麦及其替代品供给出现短缺，我的收成就能卖到最好的价 钱。

Ordinarily these selfish feelings would have no effect on the total production of wheat. Wherever competition exists, in fact, each producer is compelled to put forth his utmost efforts to raise the highest possible crop on his own land. In this way the forces of self-interest (which, for good or evil, are more persistently powerful than those of altruism) are harnessed to maximum output.

通常，上述这种自利动机对小麦的总产量不会产生任何影响。事实上，只要存在竞争，每位生产者都会尽最大的努力，在自己的土地上耕种尽可能多的农作物。这样，靠自利动机的力量（不管是好是坏，它比利他动机更持久且更具威力）就能使产出最大化。

But if it is possible for wheat growers or any other group of producers to combine to eliminate competition, and if the government permits or encourages such a course, the situation changes. The wheat growers may be able to persuade the national government—or, better, a world organization—to force all of them to reduce pro rata the acreage planted to wheat. In this way they will bring about a shortage and raise the price of wheat; and if the rise in the price per bushel is proportionately greater, as it well may be, than the reduction in output, then the wheat growers as a whole will be better off. They will get more money; they will be able to buy more of everything else. Everybody else, it is true, will be worse off: because, other things equal, everyone else will have to give more of what he produces to get less of what the wheat grower produces. So the nation as a whole will be just that much poorer. It will be poorer by the amount of wheat that has not been grown. But those who look only at the wheat farmers will see a gain, and miss the more than offsetting loss.

但是，如果所有麦农以及小麦替代品的所有生产者，能够联合起来消除竞争，而且政府允许或鼓励这种做法，形势就会发生逆转。麦农就会去说服本国政府 （最好是说服相关国际组织），强迫所有的麦农等比例缩减小麦的种植面积。这样就会让小麦供不应求，进而抬高小麦价格；每蒲式耳小麦的价格涨幅，很可能大于 产量的降幅，麦农整体上就会因此受益。他们会赚到更多的钱，也就可以买到更多的其它产品。然而，其他人的状况都会因此变差（假使其他条件不变），因为其他 人都必须拿出更多自己生产的东西，来换取更少的小麦。很清楚，小麦减产的数量，就是整个国家财富减少的数量，国家因此变得比较贫穷。但那些只将目光放在麦 农身上的人，看得到麦农因此获得的利益，却没看到其他所有人因此遭受的损失。

And this applies in every other line. If because of unusual weather conditions there is a sudden increase in the crop of oranges, all the consumers will benefit. The world will be richer by that many more oranges. Oranges will be cheaper. But that very fact may make the orange growers as a group poorer than before, unless the greater supply of oranges compensates or more than compensates for the lower price. Certainly if under such conditions my particular crop of oranges is no larger than usual, then I am certain to lose by the lower price brought about by general plenty.

这个道理，适用于其他每一种行业。如果因为气候反常，柑橘的收成突然大增，所有的消费者都会受益。柑橘增产多少，整个世界的富有程度就增加多少。但 是，柑橘会卖不起价钱，这会使全体柑农比以前贫穷，除非大量的柑橘卖得出去，销量增加足以弥补降价的损失。当然了，如果在这种情况下，我的柑橘收成反而不 如常年，我一定会因为普遍性丰收导致的低价而蒙受损失。

And what applies to changes in supply applies to changes in demand, whether brought about by new inventions and discoveries or by changes in taste. A new cotton-picking machine, though it may reduce the cost of cotton underwear and shirts to everyone, and increase the general wealth, will mean the employment of fewer cotton pickers. A new textile machine, weaving a better cloth at a faster rate, will make thousands of old machines obsolete, and wipe out part of the capital value invested in them, so making poorer the owners of those machines. The further development of nuclear power, though it can confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells.

这个道理，不仅适用于供给发生变化的情形，同样适用于需求发生变化的情形。不仅新发明或新发现会给各方造成利弊不同的影响，消费者品味改变同样会给 各方造成利弊不同的影响。新型棉花采摘机，虽然可以降低每个人购买棉质内衣和衬衫的成本，并且提高整体的财富，但是受雇的棉花采摘工人数量会减少。新型纺 织机器可以用更快的速度织出更好的衣料，但许多老式纺织机器却会因此遭淘汰，尚未收回本钱的淘汰机器，其部分投资将就此损失，其所有者当然变得比较贫穷。 进一步开发核能发电，可以造福全人类，但煤矿和油井的业主却会因此不堪设想。

Just as there is no technical improvement that would not hurt someone, so there is no change in public taste or morals, even for the better, that would not hurt someone. An increase in sobriety would put thousands of bartenders out of business. A decline in gambling would force croupiers and racing touts to seek more productive occupations. A growth of male chastity would ruin the oldest profession in the world.

没有一种技术改进不会伤害某个人，同样的道理，大众的品味变得高雅、社会风气得到净化，没有哪种好的进步不会伤害某个人。若更多人都变得清醒克制， 无数酒吧间招待员将因此失业。若赌风日衰，在赌场和赛马场营生的人就只好另谋职业。若男人更懂得洁身自爱，世界上最古老的行业就会陷入绝境。

But it is not merely those who deliberately pander to men s vices who would be hurt by a sudden improvement in public morals. Among those who would be hurt most are precisely those whose business it is to improve those morals. Preachers would have less to complain about; reformers would lose their causes; the demand for their services and contributions for their support would decline.

If there were no criminals we should need fewer lawyers, judges and firemen, and no jailers, no locksmiths, and (except for such services as untangling traffic snarls) even no policemen.

然而，公众道德水准突然提高，受到伤害的不仅仅是以迎合人们低俗趣味为职业的人。那些毕生致力改善社会风气的人，受到的伤害更大。牧师面前做忏悔的 人会减少。社会改革家会找不到责任之所在。人们对他们的服务的需求减弱了，他们能为社会做的贡献也减弱了。如果没有人犯罪，我们就不需要那么多律师、法 官、消防队员，也不需要监狱看守和锁匠，甚至可以不要警察（交通警察除外）。

Under a system of division of labor, in short, it is difficult to think of a greater fulfillment of any human need which would not, at least temporarily, hurt some of the people who have made investments or painfully acquired skill to meet that precise need. If progress were completely even all around the circle, this antagonism between the interests of the whole community and of the specialized group would not, if it were noticed at all, present any serious problem. If in the same year as the world wheat crop increased, my own crop increased in the same proportion, if the crop of oranges and all other agricultural products increased correspondingly, and if the output of all industrial goods also rose and their unit cost of production fell to correspond, then I as a wheat grower would not suffer because the output of wheat had increased. The price that I got for a bushel of wheat might decline. The total sum that I realized from my larger output might decline. But if I could also because of increased supplies buy the output of everyone else cheaper, then I should have no real cause to complain. If the price of everything else dropped in exactly the same ratio as the decline in the price of my wheat, I should be better off, in fact, exactly in proportion to my increased total crop; and everyone else, likewise, would benefit proportionately from the in creased supplies of all goods and services.

总之，在这样一种劳动分工制度下，我们很难完美地满足人类的需求。因为，要做到这一点，我们至少会暂时地伤害一些已经作出投资的人、已经为此苦练技 能的人。如果各个经济领域都是非常均衡的共同增长，那就不存在特殊群体与整个社会之间的利益对抗，就算有，也不会构成任何严重问题。如果同一年全球的小麦 收成同步增加，我的小麦收成也同比例增加，与此同时，柑橘和其他所有农作物的收成同时增加，所有工业产品的产出也增加，单位生产成本相对下降，那么我这位 麦农不会因为小麦产量增加而受到伤害。虽然，每蒲式耳小麦的价格可能下跌，我的产量增加也没能完全弥补总收入的减少，但是，如果其他每个人的供应量增加， 我也能用更便宜的价格卖到他们的产品，算下来大家扯平，那就没有什么好抱怨的。如果其他每一样东西的价格跌幅，和我的小麦价格跌幅完全相同，我的富裕程度 会和我收成增加的幅度同比例上升；其他每个人的富裕程度，也会和所有产品与服务供给增加的幅度同比例上升。

But economic progress never has taken place and probably never will take place in this completely uniform way. Advance occurs now in this branch of production and now in that. And if there is a sudden increase in the supply of the thing I help to produce, or if a new invention or discovery makes what I produce no longer necessary, then the gain to the world is a tragedy to me and to the productive group to which I belong.

这种齐头并进的经济增长方式从未发生过，并且永远也不可能发生。经济增长只可能是在不同领域以不同的步调增长，甚至此消彼长。如果我生产的那种商 品，其供应量突然大增，或者如果新发明或新发现，使得我生产的那种商品不再有人需要，这些使整个世界获益的好事情，对我和我的同行们来讲，都是一场悲剧。

Now it is often not the diffused gain of the increased supply or new discovery that most forcibly strikes even the disinterested observer, but the concentrated loss. The fact that there is more and cheaper coffee for everyone is lost sight of; what is seen is merely that some coffee growers cannot make a living at the lower price. The increased output of shoes at lower cost by the new machine is forgotten; what is seen is a group of men and women thrown out of work. It is altogether proper—it is, in fact, essential to a full understanding of the problem—that the plight of these groups be recognized, that they be dealt with sympathetically, and that we try to see whether some of the gains from this specialized progress cannot be used to help the victims find a productive role elsewhere.

人们的注意力，总爱集中在最显眼的地方，即使公正无私的观察者也不例外。大家往往不会去注意供给增加或新发现所带来那些分散各处的利益，而会去关注 少数人因此遭受的损失。每个人都在享用更多价廉物美的咖啡，这个事实没有人注意；人们看到的，只是咖啡种植者们因为咖啡豆买不起价钱而生活难以维继。新机 器以更低的成本，提高鞋子的产量，这个事实没有人注意；人们看到的，只是一群男女劳工的生计因此没有着落。诚然，我们应该从总体上认识到这些群体的困境 ——事实上，对此获得全面的了解也是极为必要的——并且富有同情心地帮助他们解决问题，努力去分析能否利用在这一特殊进程中得到的收益去帮助这些人，使他 们得以另谋更具生产意义的职业。

But the solution is never to reduce supplies arbitrarily, to prevent further inventions or discoveries, or to support people for continuing to perform a service that has lost its value. Yet this is what the world has repeatedly sought to do by protective tariffs, by the destruction of machinery, by the burning of coffee, by a thousand restriction schemes. This is the insane doctrine of wealth through scarcity.

然而，问题的解决方法，绝对不可以是硬性地去压缩供给、去阻止进一步的发明或发现，或是支持鼓励人们继续从事已经失去价值的工作。但事实上，这正是 当今世界各国政府竞相利用开征保护性关税，捣毁机器、烧毁咖啡树，以及无数的限制性措施而力求达到的结果。这种期望通过制造短缺来攫取财富的信条，实在是 极其愚蠢的。

It is a doctrine that may always be privately true, unfortunately, for any particular group of producers considered in isolation — if they can make scarce the one thing they have to sell while keeping abundant all the things they have to buy. But it is a doctrine that is always publicly false. It can never be applied all around the circle. For its application would mean economic suicide.

遗憾的是，当我们孤立地考虑任何生产者集团的利益时，这种观点往往说得通——倘使这些集团真的能够使得其产品出现短缺，同时又使他们购买的其它产品保证充分供应的话。然而，这种信条推而广之则是荒谬的，它绝不适用于整个经济领域。因为那么做无异于经济自杀。

And this is our lesson in its most generalized form. For many things that seem to be true when we concentrate on a single economic group are seen to be illusions when the interests of everyone, as consumer no less than as producer, are considered.

最后，来高度概括一下我们这一课：当我们专注于某个单一经济群体时，看起来可能是千真万确的许多事情，在转而考虑既是消费者又是生产者的每一个人的利益时，却有可能是一串错觉。

To see the problem as a whole, and not in fragments: that is the goal of economic science.

认识问题的整体而不是片面，这就是经济科学的目标。

The Lesson Restated
第25章
课后温习

Economics,, as we have now seen again and again, is a science of recognizing secondary consequences. It is also a science of seeing general consequences. It is the science of tracing the effects of some proposed or existing policy not only on some special interest in the short run, but on the general interest in the long run.

正如我们反复认识到的，经济学是一门认识种种续发后果的科学，同时还是一门分析总体后果的科学。它研究的是现实经济中人们所提出的或是正在实行的政策的影响，这种影响绝不仅仅限于比较短的时期，或是某一特殊利益集团，它同样包括了某一政策在长期内对整体利益的影响。

This is the lesson that has been the special concern of this book. We stated it first in skeleton form, and then put flesh and skin on it through more than a score of practical applications.

这便是本书所特别关注的教训。我们首先给出了其骨架结构，然后以20来种实际应用的例子，使之有血有肉。

But in the course of specific illustration we have found hints of other general lessons; and we should do well to state these lessons to ourselves more clearly.

就在对个例的阐述中，我们也发现了其他一些更为普遍的教训的线索；我们应该就这些教训作出更好更清楚的说明。

In seeing that economics is a science of tracing consequences, we must have become aware that, like logic and mathematics, it is a science of recognizing inevitable implications.

在认识到经济学是一门探究各种后果的科学时，我们必须懂得，就象逻辑学和数学一样，经济学是认识那些必然结果的科学。

We may illustrate this by an elementary equation in algebra. Suppose we say that if x = then x + y = 12. The “solution” to this equation is that y equals 7; but this is so precisely because the calculation tells us in effect that)? equals 7. It does not make that assertion directly, but it inevitably implies it.

我们用个简单的代数方程来说明这一点。假设x=5，且x+y=12。这个方程“解”是y=7。答案之所以确切无疑，是因为这个方程式事实上告诉了我们y等于7。它并没有直接地给出这一结果，但它却必然蕴含了这个结果。

What is true of this elementary equation is true of the most complicated and abstruse equations encountered in mathematics. The answer already lies in the statement of the problem. It must, it is true, be “worked out.” The result, it is true, may sometimes come to the man who works out the equation as a stunning surprise. He may even have a sense of discovering something entirely new—a thrill like that of “some watcher of the skies, when a new planet swims into his ken.” His sense of discovery may be justified by the theoretical or practical consequences of his answer. Yet the answer was already contained in the formulation of the problem. It was merely not recognized at once. For mathematics reminds us that inevitable implications are not necessarily obvious implications.

对于这个简单的方程式来讲是真实的东西，对于数学中其它最复杂、最深奥的方程式也必然同样是真实的。答案已经蕴含于问题的陈述之中。 尽管如此，必须靠我们去把它“解出来”。尽管如此，出现的结果有的时候还是能使解题的人惊讶不已，甚至有一种感觉，好象发祥了某种全新的东西——那种兴奋 战栗，就象“天文观测者猛然发现一颗新星划入他的视野”。对其答案进行理论的和实际的分析所得到的结果而言，他的这种发现感诚不足怪。然而，答案早已蕴含 在问题的陈述里面，只不过并不总是一目了然。数学的研究告诉我们：必然的结果未必是显然的结果。

All this is equally true of economics. In this respect economics might be compared also to engineering. When an engineer has a problem, he must first determine all the facts bearing on that problem. If he designs a bridge to span two points, he must first know the exact distance between these two points, their precise topographical nature, the maximum load his bridge will be designed to carry, the tensile and compressive strength of the steel or other material of which the bridge is to be built, and the stresses and strains to which it may be subjected. Much of this factual research has already been done for him by others. His predecessors, also, have already evolved elaborate mathematical equations by which, knowing the strength of his materials and the stresses to which they will be subjected, he can determine the necessary diameter, shape, number and structure of his towers, cables and girders.

所有这些对于经济学来说同样适用。在这方面，经济学也可以拿工程来比喻。工程师处理问题的时候，必须先确定对那个问题有影响的所有事实。如果他要设 计一座桥梁来连接两地，就必须先知道这两个点之间的精确距离、两点附近确实的地形特性、桥梁所要承受的最大载荷、建桥用的钢材或其他材料的抗张和抗压强 度，以及桥梁应该具有的应力和应变等等。这些参数方面的实际研究已经由其他人完成了。他的前辈们早已推出了复杂精确的数学方程式，从这些方程式出发，根据 他已经掌握了的材料的强度和桥梁应当达到的应力，他就能确定索塔、斜拉索、主梁的必要直径、形状、数量和结构。

In the same way the economist, assigned a practical problem, must know both the essential facts of that problem and the valid deductions to be drawn from those facts. The deductive side of economics is no less important than the factual. One can say of it what Santayana says of logic (and what could be equally well said of mathematics), that it “traces the radiation of truth,” so that “when one term of a logical system is known to describe a fact, the whole system attaching to that term becomes, as it were, incandescent.”

同样，当一个经济学家确定了自己所要分析的问题时，他必须用类似的方法了解与其问题有关的基本事实，以及从这些事实中可以得出的有根据的推论。在经 济学分析中，演绎推理与了解事实是同等重要的。我们可以引用桑塔雅纳论述逻辑学的话来讲经济学（它同样适用于数学），即它是“探寻真理之光的辐射”，因 此，“当人们懂得了逻辑体系中的一个词，并用它来描述事实时，与这个词联系在一起的整个逻辑体系就会豁然明朗”。{footnotes:桑塔雅纳，《真理 的境界》George Santayana, The Realm of Truth (1938), p. 16.}

Now few people recognize the necessary implications of the economic statements they are constantly making. When they say that the way to economic salvation is to increase credit, it is just as if they said that the way to economic salvation is to increase debt: these are different names for the same thing seen from opposite sides. When they say that the way to prosperity is to increase farm prices, it is like saying that the way to prosperity is to make food dearer for the city worker. When they say that the way to national wealth is to pay out governmental subsidies, they are in effect saying that the way to national wealth is to increase taxes. When they make it a main objective to increase exports, most of them do not realize that they necessarily make it a main objective ultimately to increase imports. When they say, under nearly all conditions, that the way to recovery is to increase wage rates, they have found only another way of saying that the way to recovery is to increase costs of production.

现在，很少有人能够真正懂得，他们不断提出的各种经济主张会有什么样的必然结果。当他们说，拯救经济的方式就是增加信贷，就等于是说，加重债务就能 拯救经济。二者是同一事物，从不同侧面去看，便有了含义不同的名称。当他们说，繁荣之道是提高农产品的价格，就等于是说，让城市劳工购买的食物价格变贵就 能迈向繁荣。当他们说，增加国家财富的方法是政府提供补贴，就等于是说，加重税负就能增进国家的财富。当他们主张以增加出口为主要目标的时候，大多数人并 没有意识到，应该相应制定一个扩大进口的目标。当他们说，任何情况下，刺激经济复苏的方法是提高工资率，就等于拐弯抹角表示，只有提高生产成本才能促使经 济复苏。

It does not necessarily follow, because each of these propositions, like a coin, has its reverse side, or because the equivalent proposition, or the other name for the remedy, sounds much less attractive, that the original proposal is under all conditions unsound. There may be times when an increase in debt is a minor consideration as against the gains achieved with the borrowed funds; when a government subsidy is unavoidable to achieve a certain military purpose; when a given industry can afford an increase in production costs, and so on. But we ought to make sure in each case that both sides of the coin have been considered, that all the implications of a proposal have been studied. And this is seldom done.

上述种种说法都象硬币一样有其相反的一面，可能因为我们观察的角度不同，或是为了说得更全面一些而换了一种说法，现在它们听起来似乎不如原来有吸引 力。当然，这不一定表示，那些主张在所有的情况下都站不住脚。有些时候，借来的资金可以产生很大的收益，加重债务也许算不得什么；有些时候，为达到军事目 的，政府在个别情况下进行补贴也是不可避免的；而且，有的时候，个别产业也负担得起生产成本的增加；诸如此类。不过，不管是哪一种状况，我们都务必要同时 考虑硬币的两面，去探讨经济政策提案所蕴含的的所有结果。事实上，人们很少能做到这一点。

2

The analysis of our illustrations has taught us another incidental lesson. This is that, when we study the effects of various proposals, not merely on special groups in the short run, but on all groups in the long run, the conclusions we arrive at usually correspond with those of unsophisticated common sense. It would not occur to anyone unacquainted with the prevailing economic half-literacy that it is good to have windows broken and cities destroyed; that it is anything but waste to create needless public projects; that it is dangerous to let idle hordes of men return to work; that machines which increase the production of wealth and economize human effort are to be dreaded; that obstructions to free production and free consumption increase wealth; that a nation grows richer by forcing other nations to take its goods for less than they cost to produce; that saving is stupid or wicked and that squandering brings prosperity.

我们对例证所作的分析，从另一方面给了我们一点附带的启发。那就是说，当我们不仅仅从短期的某一集团的利益出发，而同样研究了各种各样的建议对所有 集团长期利益的影响时，我们所得到的结论通产符合那些最简单的常识。不了解当今流行经济观点的“半文盲”们根本不会想到，橱窗被砸破、城市毁于战火是件好 事；兴建一些并不需要的公共工程，一点都不浪费；政府裁撤冗员让闲人重回劳动市场非常危险；添置机器会令人不寒而栗，即便机器增进财富创造、能让工作更省 力；对自由生产和自由消费设置障碍，可以提高财富；迫使其他国家以低于生产成本的价格，购买我们的产品，可以让我们变得更加富裕；储蓄是既愚蠢又邪恶的行 为，挥霍享用才能带来繁荣。

“What is prudence in the conduct of every private family,” said Adam Smith’s strong common sense in reply to the sophists of his time, “can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.” But lesser men get lost in complications. They do not reexamine their reasoning even when they emerge with conclusions that are palpably absurd. The reader, depending upon his own beliefs, may or may not accept the aphorism of Bacon that “A little philosophy inclineth men’s minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” It is certainly true, however, that a little economics can easily lead to the paradoxical and preposterous conclusions we have just rehearsed, but that depth in economics brings men back to common sense. For depth in economics consists in looking for all the consequences of a policy instead of merely resting one’s gaze on those immediately visible.

亚当·斯密用极其普通的常识，回应当时的诡辩家说：“在每一个家庭的管理中是精明的举措，用于一个大国的管理，很少会是错的。”但很少有人在处理复 杂的状况时意识到这句话。即使他们得出来的结论非常荒唐，他们也不会重新检查自己的推导过程。哲学家培根说：“稍微懂点哲学的人会倾向于无神论，而深究哲 理则会使人的思想更接近宗教。”依读者本身的信仰而定，可能接受，也可能不接受这句箴言。不过，下面这句话却千真万确：懂得一点点经济学很容易引导人们得 出自相矛盾的十分荒谬的结论，而真正理解经济学则会使人的思想重新回到常识。经济学的深刻之处就在于，它向人们揭示的是一项经济政策的全部后果，而不是仅 仅引导人们把目光停留在那些马上可以看得到的现象之上。

（未完待续）

The Function of Profits
第22章 利润的功能

The indignation shown by many people today at the mention of the very word profits indicates how little understanding there is of the vital function that profits play in our economy. To increase our understanding, we shall go over again some of the ground already covered in chapter fifteen on the price system, but we shall view the subject from a different angle.

每当提到利润这个词，很多人都回表现出一种愤慨。这表明那些人对利润在经济中所起的重要功能了解得还很不够。为了加深理解，我们在这里换一个不同的角度，来探讨一下第15章介绍价格体系时涉及到的内容。

Profits actually do not bulk large in our total economy. The net income of incorporated business in the fifteen years from 1929 to 1943, to take some illustrative figures, averaged less than percent of the total national income. Corporate profits after taxes in the five years from 1956 to 1960 averaged less than 6 percent of the national income. Corporate profits after taxes in the five years 1971 through 1977 also averaged less than 6 percent of the national income (in spite of the fact that, as a result of insufficient accounting adjustment for inflation, they were probably overstated). Yet profits are the form of income toward which there is most hostility. It is significant that while there is a word profiteer to stigmatize those who make allegedly excessive profits, there is no such word as “wageer”—or “losseer.” Yet the profits of the owner of a barbershop may average much less not merely than the salary of a motion picture star or the hired head of a steel corporation, but less even than the average wage for skilled labor.

实际上，利润在国民经济总量中所占份量并不大。一些统计数字足以说明这一点。从1929年到1943年这15年间，注册企业的净利润占国民收入的比 率，平均低于5%。从1956年到1960年，公司的税后利润占国民收入的比率，年均低于6%。从1971年到1975年，这个比率年平均也低于6%（事 实上，由于通货膨胀因素的会计调整不够充分，这个比率可能被高估）。{endnotes:根据经济学家沃伊泰克使用的数据，20世纪60年代和70年代， 企业税前利润平均为10～12%。80年代降至不足8%，90年代回升至9%左右。（《投资者财经日报》，1996年1月8日）}然而利润却是最容易招致 敌意的一种所得。我们用奸商（profiteer）一词，贬斥那些获取暴利的人，但是找不到“奸工”（wageer）或“奸赔”（losseer）等名 词。不过，理发店老板的平均利润，不仅远不如电影明星的片酬或者钢铁公司经理人的年薪，甚至可能不如熟练工人的平均工资。

The subject is clouded by all sorts of factual misconceptions. The total profits of General Motors, the greatest industrial corporation in the world, are taken as if they were typical rather than exceptional. Few people are acquainted with the mortality rates for business concerns. They do not know (to quote from the TNEC studies) that “should conditions of business averaging the experience of the last fifty years prevail, about seven of each ten grocery stores opening today will survive into their second year; only four of the ten may expect to celebrate their fourth birthday.” They do not know that in every year from 1930 to 1938, in the income tax statistics, the number of corporations that showed a loss exceeded the number that showed a profit.

不少人在这个问题上充斥着各式各样的想当然。世界上最大的产业公司通用汽车，其利润总额自然可观，然而这种特例却被当成了产业典型。很少有人关注过 企业的倒闭率。他们不知道，“如果参照过去50年的企业经营经验，那么今天开店经营杂货店，每10家平均会有7家左右活到第二年；可能只有4家能挨到四周 年店庆”（摘自美国临时经济委员会的研究报告）。他们不知道，从1930年到1938年的所得税统计资料显示，亏损企业的数目年年超过盈利企业的数目。

How much do profits, on the average, amount to?

那么，平均而言，利润的总量又有多少呢？

This question is commonly answered by citing the kind of figures I presented at the beginning of this chapter—that corporate profits average less than 6 percent of the national income — or by pointing out that the average profits after income taxes of all manufacturing corporations are less than five cents per dollar of sales. (For the five years 1971 through 1975, for example, the figure was only 4.6 cents.)  But these official figures, though they fall far below popular notions of the size of profits, apply only to corporation results, calculated by conventional methods of accounting. No trustworthy estimate has been made that takes into account all kinds of activity, unincorporated as well as incorporated business, and a sufficient number of good and bad years. But some eminent economists believe that over a long period of years, after allowance is made for all losses, for a minimum “riskless” interest on invested capital, and for an imputed “reasonable” wage value of the services of people who run their own business, no net profit at all may be left over, and that there may even be a net loss. This is not at all because entrepreneurs (people who go into business for themselves) are intentional philanthropists, but because their optimism and self-confidence too often lead them into ventures that do not or cannot succeed.)

对这个问题的回答，通常是用上面所引用的那类数字，即公司的利润平均不足国民收入的6%，或者回答说制造业公司每创造1美元的营业额，自己留下的平 均税后利润不到5美分（举例来说，从1971到1975年这五年间，这个数字只有4.6美分）。{endnotes:关于当今企业利润的更多数据，参看书 后注第10条。}尽管这些官方数字远远低于人们对利润规模的通常看法，它们却符合按常规会计方法核算出来的公司的实际经营结果。我们无法获得有关所有经济 活动——其中既包括了非公司组织又包括了公司组织，既包括了经营状况比较好的年份又包括了不大景气的年份——的充分可信的数据。不过，一些知名经济学家相 信，长期而言，要是把所有的损失考虑进去，把已经投下去的资本的最低“无风险”利息考虑进去，把经营自家企业的人所提供劳务折算成“合理”的工资考虑进 去，企业很可能毫无净利润可言，甚至是净亏损。创业家们（自行经营企业的人）并非不想赚钱，而是因为他们过于自信乐观，投入到了一些不会成功或无法成功的 事业之中。{footnotes:参照：奈特，《风险、不确定性和利润》Frank H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (1921)。对于存在净资本累积的任何期间，还必须假定以往的投资整体上是盈利的。}

It is clear, in any case, that any individual placing venture capital runs a risk not only of earning no return but of losing his whole principal. In the past it has been the lure of high profits in special firms or industries that has led him to take that great risk. But if profits are limited to a maximum of, say, 10 percent or some similar figure, while the risk of losing one’s entire capital still exists, what is likely to be the effect on the profit incentive, and hence on employment and production? The World War II excess-profits tax showed what such a limit can do, even for a short period, in undermining efficiency.

不管怎样，有一点是很清楚的：任何人掏钱投资时，不仅要承受赚不到任何回报的风险，而且还得面对血本无归的可能性。在以前，一些特殊企业或产业的高 利润，一直是人们不惜冒险创业的激励因素。但如果政府政策规定，比如说，最高利润不能超过10%或类似的比率，而同时使其亏本的风险依然存在，那么，创业 家的牟利动机会受到什么样的影响？就业和生产又会受到什么样的影响？我们只要看看二战期间开征的超额利润税的结果，即可知这种限制，即便是在短期内，会怎 样伤害生产的效率。

Yet governmental policy almost everywhere today tends to assume that production will go on automatically, no matter what is done to discourage it. One of the greatest dangers to world production today still comes from government price-fixing policies. Not only do these policies put one item after another out of production by leaving no incentive to make it, but their long-run effect is to prevent a balance of production in accordance with the actual demands of consumers. When the economy is free, demand so acts that some branches of production make what some government officials regard as “excessive,” “unreasonable,” or even “obscene” profits. But that very fact not only causes every firm in that line to expand its production to the utmost, and to reinvest its profits in more machinery and more employment; it also attracts new investors and producers from everywhere, until production in that line is great enough to meet demand, and the profits in it again fall to (or below) the general average level.

但是现在不论在什么地方，政府在推行其政策时都倾向于假定说，无论采取任何抑制生产的举措，生产都会自动进行。当今生产所承受的最大风险之一，仍然 是来自于政府的价格管制政策。这些政策不仅根本不能刺激各种产品的生产，其造成长期的影响则是阻碍生产与消费者实际需求达成平衡。在自由经济的环境中，消 费者的迫切需求会使得某些产品生产出现政府官员所说的“超额利润”、“不合理利润”，甚至“暴利”。但正是追逐利润的事实在促使每家公司去实现获利产品生 产最大化，促使他们追加投资，添置更多的设备、雇用更多的员工，还会吸引来新的投资人和生产者介入该行业，直至那种产品的生产足以满足需求，该产品的利润 又会回落到（或低于）总的平均水平。

In a free economy, in which wages, costs and prices are left to the free play of the competitive market, the prospect of profits decides what articles will be made, and in what quantities—and what articles will not be made at all. If there is no profit in making an article, it is a sign that the labor and capital devoted to its production are misdirected: the value of the resources that must be used up in making the article is greater than the value of the article itself.

在一个工资、成本和价格取决于竞争市场作用的自由经济中，人们对于利润的预期决定了应当去生产些什么产品，应当生产多少，——以及什么东西是根本不 应该生产的。如果生产某种产品毫无利润可言，就表明我们在人力和资本投入方向上犯了错误，因为用于生产该种产品的各种要素的价值势必高于产品本身的价值。

One function of profits, in brief, is to guide and channel the factors of production so as to apportion the relative output of thousands of different commodities in accordance with demand. No bureaucrat, no matter how brilliant, can solve this problem arbitrarily. Free prices and free profits will maximize production and relieve shortages quicker than any other system. Arbitrarily fixed prices and arbitrarily limited profits can only prolong shortages and reduce production and employment.

总之，利润的一大功能是为生产要素的配置指出合理的方向，并且为之开辟途径。只有这样，我们才能恰当地确定无数不同产品的相对产出，使它与需求相一 致。任何一位政府官员，不论他有多英明，都没办法以硬性手段解决这个问题。自由价格和自由利润会迅速促成生产最大化，迅速缓解供不应求，这是其他任何体制 不可比的。硬性管制价格和硬性管制利润，只会使供不应求拖延更久，并使生产和就业下滑。

The function of profits, finally, is to put constant and unremitting pressure on the head of every competitive business to introduce further economies and efficiencies, no matter to what stage these may already have been brought. In good times he does this to increase his profits further, in normal times he does it to keep ahead of his competitors, in bad times he may have to do it to survive at all. For profits may not only go to zero, they may quickly turn into losses; and a man will put forth greater efforts to save himself from ruin than he will merely to improve his position.

此外，利润还能对每一家参与竞争的企业持续不断地施加压力，不论这些企业目前的经营绩效处于什么水平，他们都必须不断改善经济效益和效率。景气好的 时候，这么做能有更多的利润收入；景气普通的时候，这么做能领先竞争对手；不景气的时候，不这么做就无法生存。因为利润不仅可以降为零，还可以迅速转为亏 损。经营者往往需要付出更大的努力去避免损失，而不仅仅是改善处境。

Contrary to a popular impression, profits are achieved not by raising prices, but by introducing economies and efficiencies that cut costs of production. It seldom happens (and unless there is a monopoly it never happens over a long period) that every firm in an industry makes a profit. The price charged by all firms for the same commodity or service must be the same; those who try to charge a higher price do not find buyers. Therefore the largest profits go to the firms that have achieved the lowest costs of production. These expand at the expense of the inefficient firms with higher costs. It is thus that the consumer and the public are served.

与通常给人的印象相反，利润的实现不是靠提高价格，而是靠降低生产成本，靠讲求经济效益和效率。同一行业的每一家公司都赚钱的情况很少见（而且除非 存在垄断，在长期内则更是不可能的了）。对于相同的商品或服务，每一家公司的要价最终必然相同；那些要价过高的公司，它的产品将无人问津。由此可见，生产 成本最低的公司，取得的利润率最高。获利公司继续扩张以那些效率较差、成本较高的公司的败落为代价。这种结果也正是消费者和公众所需要的。

Profits, in short, resulting from the relationships of costs to prices, not only tell us which goods it is most economical to make, but which are the most economical ways to make them. These questions must be answered by a socialist system no less than by a capitalist one; they must be answered by any conceivable economic system; and for the overwhelming bulk of the commodities and services that are produced, the answers supplied by profit and loss under competitive free enterprise are incomparably superior to those that could be obtained by any other method.

总之，由成本与价格的关系所决定的利润，不仅告诉我们生产何种产品最经济，而且告诉我们哪种生产方式最经济。这些问题，不仅资本主义经济体系必须回 答，社会主义经济体系同样必须回答；任何想象得到的经济体系，都必须回答。对于绝大多数商品和服务而言，在用全部方法得到的所有答案中，自由竞争条件下损 益分析所得出的结果无疑是最为出色的。

I have been putting my emphasis on the tendency to reduce costs of production because this is the function of profit-and-loss that seems to be least appreciated. Greater profit goes, of course, to the man who makes a better mousetrap than his neighbor as well as to the man who makes one more efficiently. But the function of profit in rewarding and stimulating superior quality and innovation has always been recognized.

我一直强调降低生产成本这个问题，因为很少有人能真正理解损益分析的这种作用。当然，在决定一个企业是否能得到较高利润的因素中，除了效率水平以外 还有一点也很重要，那就是看它能否更巧妙地运用策略置竞争对手于死地。至于利润在回报、在激励人们生产优质产品和创新方面的功能，则通常是人所共知的。

第21章 “足以买回产品”

（接前面部分）

3

But now let us suppose that the increase in wage rates is accompanied or followed by a sufficient increase in money and credit to allow it to take place without creating serious unemployment. If we assume that the previous relationship between wages and prices was itself a “normal” long-run relationship, then it is altogether probable that a forced increase of, say, 30 percent in wage rates will ultimately lead to an increase in prices of approximately the same percentage.

现在让我们假设，工资率上涨的同时，货币和信贷出现了相应的涨幅，以此避免产生严重的失业。如果我们假设调资前的工资与物价之间的关系本身是“正常”的、长久的，那么工资率调增30%后，物价必然上升一个与之相当的百分比。

The belief that the price increase would be substantially less than that rests on two main fallacies. The first is that of looking only at the direct labor costs of a particular firm or industry and assuming these to represent all the labor costs involved. But this is the elementary error of mistaking a part for the whole. Each “industry” represents not only just one section of the productive process considered “horizontally,” but just one section of that process considered “vertically.” Thus the direct labor cost of making automobiles in the automobile factories themselves may be less than a third, say, of the total costs; and this may lead the incautious to conclude that a 30 percent increase in wages would lead to only a 10 percent increase, or less, in automobile prices. But this would be to overlook the indirect wage costs in the raw materials and purchased parts, in transportation charges, in new factories or new machine tools, or in the dealers’ mark-up.

人们之所以相信价格上涨的幅度会明显地低于工资提高的比率，主要是因为他们犯了两个错误。首先，他们仅仅考虑了特定公司或特定行业的直接人工成本， 并认为它们代表了所有的人工成本。这犯是用部分取代整体的常识性错误。这里的每一个“行业”不仅是我们进行“横向”考察的生产过程中的一个部门，它同样是 对之加以“纵向”分析的生产过程中的一个阶段。以汽车装配为例，汽车工厂生产汽车的直接人工成本，可能不到总成本的1/3；有些人根据这个数字轻率地下结 论说，工资增加30%，汽车价格只会上涨10%或更少。但是他们忽略了原材料和外购零部件、运费、新工厂或新设备、经销商加成等方面的间接工资成本。

Government estimates show that in the fifteen-year period from 1929 to 1943, inclusive, wages and salaries in the United States averaged 69 percent of the national income. In the five-year period 1956—1960 they also averaged 69 percent of the national income! In the five-year period 1972—1976 wages and salaries averaged 66 percent of national income, and when supplements are added, total compensation of employees averaged 76 percent of national income. These wages and salaries, of course, had to be paid out of the national product. While there would have to be both deductions from these figures and additions to them to provide a fair estimate of “labor’s” income, we can assume on this basis that labor costs cannot be less than about two-thirds of total production costs and may run above three-quarters (depending upon our definition of labor). If we take the lower of these two estimates, and assume also that dollar profit margins would be unchanged, it is clear that an increase of 30 percent in wage costs all around the circle would mean an increase of nearly 20 percent in prices.

政府的计算数字表明，从1929年到1943年这15年间，美国的薪资收入平均占国民收入的69%。从1956年到1960年这5间，这个比重同样 是69%。从1972年到1976年的5年里，工资收入平均占国民收入的66%，再加上各种补贴，员工的总收入平均占国民收入的 76%。{endnotes:关于当前工资和薪金收入占国民收入的百分比，参看书后注第8条。}这些工资薪金当然必须从国民生产（national product）去支付。现在我们要据此合理地估计“劳工”的收入，虽然需要在这些数字上进行增减，我们还是可以大概假设：人工成本应该不低于总生产成本 的2/3，甚至超过3/4（取决于我们对于劳动力的定义）。我们取其中较低的估计值，并且同样假设货币的边际利润是不变的，那么工资成本全面升高30%， 价格显然会上涨20%左右。

But such a change would mean that the dollar profit margin representing the income of investors, managers and the self-employed, would then have, say, only 84 percent as much purchasing power as it had before. The long-run effect of this would be to cause a diminution of investment and new enterprise compared with what it would otherwise have been, and consequent transfers of men from the lower ranks of the self-employed to the higher ranks of wage-earners, until the previous relationships had been approximately restored. But this is only another way of saying that a 30 percent increase in wages under the conditions assumed would eventually mean also a 30 percent increase in prices.

然而，这样的一个变化意味着，代表投资人、职业经理人和个体工商户的人们收入的货币边际利润只相当于从前购买力的84%（举例来说）。这种状况的长 期影响，是导致投资和创业达不到应有的水准，准备创业的人会放弃创业：与其自己当小老板，不如去当高级打工仔；这种影响会延续到工资与物价的关系恢复到以 前的正常水平。以上我们只不过在用另一种表达方式，说明在假设的状况下，工资上升30%，最后也会使价格上涨30%。

It does not necessarily follow that wage-earners would make no relative gains. They would make a relative gain, and other elements in the population would suffer a relative loss, during the period of transition. But it is improbable that this relative gain would mean an absolute gain. For the kind of change in the relationship of costs to prices contemplated here could hardly take place without bringing about unemployment and unbalanced, interrupted or reduced production. So that while labor might get a wider slice of a smaller pie, during this period of transition and adjustment to a new equilibrium, it may be doubted whether this would be greater in absolute size (and it might easily be less) than the previous narrower slice of a larger pie.

这并不等于说工薪族得不到相对利益。在过渡期间，他们会相对获利，其他人则会承受相对损失。但是这种相对获利不可能使工薪族总体上绝对获利。因为我 们讨论的这种成本相对于价格的关系发生变化后，会引起失业，会引起生产出现失衡、停产或减产。因此，在经济调整到新均衡状态的过渡期间，劳工虽然可能从更 小的蛋糕分得更大的一块，但是和以前从更大的蛋糕分得更小的一块相比，现在的一块是不是比以前那一块大就值得怀疑了。

4

This brings us to the general meaning and effect of economic equilibrium. Equilibrium wages and prices are the wages and prices that equalize supply and demand. If, either through government or private coercion, an attempt is made to lift prices above their equilibrium level, demand is reduced and therefore production is reduced. If an attempt is made to push prices below their equilibrium level, the consequent reduction or wiping out of profits will mean a falling off of supply or less production. Therefore any attempt to force prices either above or below their equilibrium levels (which are the levels toward which a free market constantly tends to bring them) will act to reduce the volume of employment and production below what it would otherwise have been.

这就将我们带入经济均衡（equilibrium）的一般意义和影响的问题上。均衡工资和均衡价格是指使供给和需求相等时的工资和价 格。无论通过政府还是通过私人的强制力量，只要我们力图把价格提高到均衡价格之上，那么需求就必然减少，生产也会因此而下降。如果强行将价格压低到市场均 衡价格之下，那么利润就会随之减少，甚至没有利润，这事实上就意味着供给或生产的衰退。所以任何迫使价格高于或低于均衡水平（自由市场经常使之趋于这个水 平）的企图，都将导致就业量和生产量缩减到低于它们应有的水准。

To return, then, to the doctrine that labor must get “enough to buy back the product.” The national product, it should be obvious, is neither created nor bought by manufacturing labor alone. It is bought by everyone—by white collar workers, professional men, farmers, employers, big and little, by investors, grocers, butchers, owners of small drugstores and gasoline stations—by everybody, in short, who contributes toward making the product.

现在，回到劳动者必须得到“足以买回产品”的工资这一信条上来。显然，国民生产既不是由制造业劳工单独创造，也不是只由他们来购买的。每个人都有能 力购买产品，包括白领职员、独立执业人士、农民、大小雇主、投资人、杂货店主、肉贩、小药房老板、加油站业主，以及每一个对产品的生产有贡献的人。

As to the prices, wages and profits that should determine the distribution of that product, the best prices are not the highest prices, but the prices that encourage the largest volume of production and the largest volume of sales. The best wage rates for labor are not the highest wage rates, but the wage rates that permit full production, full employment and the largest sustained payrolls. The best profits, from the standpoint not only of industry but of labor, are not the lowest profits, but the profits that encourage most people to become employers or to provide more employment than before.

谈及决定了产品分配的价格、工资和利润，我们知道，最好的价格并不是最高的价格，而是能刺激达到最大产量和最大销售量的价格。最好的工资率也不是最 高的工资率，而是能达到充分生产、充分就业和持久稳定的最大总工资的工资率。不论从业界还是从劳工的角度来看，最好的利润不是指最低的利润，而是能够鼓励 更多人投资、创业，更多人成为雇主，能提供更多就业机会的利润。

If we try to run the economy for the benefit of a single group or class, we shall injure or destroy all groups, including the members of the very class for whose benefit we have been trying to run it. We must run the economy for everybody.

倘若我们试图推进为着某一个集团或阶层的利益服务的经济，我们将会伤害或破坏所有的人的利益，包括经济政策想要照顾其利益的那些人。我们必须推进为人人谋利益的经济。

“Enough to Buy Back the Product”
第21章 “足以买回产品”

Amateur writers on economics are always asking for “just” prices and “just” wages. These nebulous conceptions of economic justice come down to us from medieval times. The classical economists worked out instead, a different concept—the concept of functional prices and functional wages. Functional prices are those that encourage the largest volume of production and the largest volume of sales. Functional wages are those that tend to bring about the highest volume of employment and the largest real payrolls.

业余的经济学作家总是呼吁订立出“公正”价格和“公正”工资。这些有关经济正义的含混概念是从中世纪流传下来的。与此不同，古典经济学家则代之以功 能价格和功能工资的概念。功能价格是指能够鼓励最大产量和最大销售量的价格。功能工资是指能带来最大就业量和最大的实际工资支付额的工资。

The concept of functional wages has been taken over, in a perverted form, by the Marxists and their unconscious disciples, the purchasing-power school. Both of these groups leave to cruder minds the question whether existing wages are “fair.” The real question, they insist, is whether or not they will work. And the only wages that will work, they tell us, the only wages that will prevent an imminent economic crash, are wages that will enable labor “to buy back the product it creates.” The Marxist and purchasing-power schools attribute every depression of the past to a preceding failure to pay such wages. And at no matter what moment they speak, they are sure that wages are still not high enough to buy back the product.

功能工资的概念，被马克思主义者和盲从的信徒（也就是购买力学派）曲解并使用。他们不再停留在关心目前的工资是否“公平”这样的天真问题上。他们关 心的是，真正的问题在于目前的工资能否可行。他们声称，惟一可行的工资，要能让劳工“买回他们所生产的产品”，这是惟一能够防止经济立即崩溃的工资。马克 思学派及购买力学派将以往的每一次经济萧条，归咎于此前没能支付这种工资。并且不论什么时候，他们都认定工资还没有高到足以买回产品的地步。

The doctrine has proved particularly effective in the hands of union leaders. Despairing of their ability to arouse the altruistic interest of the public or to persuade employers (wicked by definition) ever to be “fair,” they have seized upon an argument calculated to appeal to the public’s selfish motives, and frighten it into forcing employers to grant union demands.

这套信条在工会领袖手里被证明特别有效。他们深知自己没有能力去激发公众的利他心理，也没有能力去说服雇主这类邪恶的人“公正”对待劳工，他们抓住功能工资这根稻草，刻意迎合民众的自利动机，危言耸听，进而迫使雇主接受工会调增工资的要求。

How are we to know, however, precisely when labor does have “enough to buy back the product”? Or when it has more than enough? How are we to determine just what the right sum is? As the champions of the doctrine do not seem to have made any real effort to answer such questions, we are obliged to try to find the answers for ourselves.

可是，我们怎么才能准确地知道，在什么时候劳工已经具有了“足以买回其产品”的能力了呢？或何时超过足够的程度呢？我们又如何知道合理的总量确切地说是多少呢？由于此信条倡导者尚未做出努力为我们解答这些问题，我们只好试着自己来寻找答案。

Some sponsors of the theory seem to imply that the workers in each industry should receive enough to buy back the particular product they make. But they surely cannot mean that the makers of cheap dresses should get enough to buy back cheap dresses and the makers of mink coats enough to buy back mink coats; or that the men in the Ford plant should receive enough to buy Fords and the men in the Cadillac plant enough to buy Cadillacs.

一些支持者的言辞似乎在暗示，从事每一产业生产的工人都应当得到足够买回他们所创造的具体产品的工资。但他们的意思肯定不是指，生产低档服装的劳工 的应得工资，要够他们买回低档服装，而生产貂皮大衣的劳工的应得工资，要够他们买回貂皮大衣；或者，福特汽车厂劳工的应得工资，要能买回福特汽车，凯迪拉 克汽车厂劳工的应得工资，要能买回凯迪拉克轿车。

It is instructive to recall, however, that the unions in the automobile industry, in the 1940s, when most of their members were already in the upper third of the country’s income receivers, and when their weekly wage, according to government figures, was already 20 percent higher than the average wage paid in factories and nearly twice as great as the average paid in retail trade, were demanding a 30 percent increase so that they might, according to one of their spokesmen, “bolster our fast-shrinking ability to absorb the goods which we have the capacity to produce.”

不过，回顾一下20世纪40年代汽车制造业工会的情形，我们或许可以从中得到启发。当时汽车工会大部分会员的收入已经位列全美国工薪族的三甲，根据 官方统计数字，他们周薪已经比制造业平均周薪水平高出20%，几乎是零售业平均工资的两倍。他们却要求进一步调资30%。按其发言人的话说，“市场对我们 所生产的产品的吸收能力愈来愈弱。要求提高工资就是为了能够保持住这种购买能力”。

What, then, of the average factory worker and the average retail worker? If, under such circumstances, the automobile workers needed a 30 percent increase to keep the economy from collapsing, would a mere 30 percent have been enough for the others? Or would they have required increases of to 160 percent to give them as much per capita purchasing power as the automobile workers? For let us remember that then as now enormous differences existed between the average wage levels of different industries. In 1976, workers in retail trade averaged weekly earnings of only $113.96, while workers in all manufacturing averaged $207.60 and those in contract construction $284.93

那么，产业工人和零售业工人的平均工资应该涨多少呢？在那样的经济环境下，如果汽车业工人需要调资30%才能阻止不景气，其他行业的劳工仅仅调资 30%就够了吗？或者，政府是否应当使他们的工资得到55%~160%的增长，以达到同汽车业工人相仿的人均购买力水平呢？我们应当记住，那时的情况就象 现在一样，不同行业的平均工资水平存在着巨大差距。在1976年，零售业劳工的平均工资每周只有113.96美元，全体制造业劳工的平均收入为 207.60美元，承包政府工程的建筑业劳工周薪为284.93美元。

(We may be sure, if the history of wage bargaining even within individual unions is any guide, that the automobile workers, if this last proposal had been made, would have insisted on the maintenance of their existing differentials; for the passion for economic equality, among union members as among the rest of us, is, with the exception of a few rare philanthropists and saints, a passion for getting as much as those above us in the economic scale already get rather than a passion for giving those below us as much as we ourselves already get. But it is with the logic and soundness of a particular economic theory, rather than with these distressing weaknesses of human nature, that we are at present concerned.)

（如果工资谈判史，以及个别工会内部为工资讨价还价的史料还有某种指导价值的话，那么，我们可以确信，要是其他行业的工会提出要求大幅调高工资的议 案，汽车业工人一定会坚决维持现有的工资差距。因为，对于经济平等的强烈追求，事实上是追求得到现有经济规模允许的最高收入水平的热情，也就是说，是努力 获得比自己收入更高的人那样的工薪的热情；而不是努力帮助那些工资水平比我们目前的收入还低的人，使之与我们看齐的热情。这是我们一般人共同的心理——除 去那些少见的慈善家和圣人之外——工会会员们也同样如此。不过，我们在这里所讨论的是有关某一特殊经济理论的逻辑与合理性问题，而不是人类天性中的这些弱 点。）

2

The argument that labor should receive enough to buy back the product is merely a special form of the general “purchasing-power” argument. The workers’ wages, it is correctly enough contended, are the workers’ purchasing power. But it is just as true that everyone’s income—the grocer’s, the landlord’s, the employer’s— is his purchasing power for buying what others have to sell. And one of the most important things for which others have to find purchasers is their labor services.

劳工应当获得足够买回产品的工资的说法，只是一般“购买力论调”的一种特殊形式。认为劳工的工资就是劳工的购买力，这种认识没有错。但是每个人的收 入，包括杂货店老板、房东、雇主所取得的非工资性收入，是他用于购买别人所售产品的购买力，这种说法也不应该有错。每个人都不得不去为他们自己的劳务寻找 买主，这对他们是尤其重要的。

All this, moreover, has its reverse side. In an exchange economy everybody’s money income is somebody else’s cost. Every increase in hourly wages, unless or until compensated by an equal increase in hourly productivity, is an increase in costs of production. An increase in costs of production, where the government controls prices and forbids any price increase, takes the profit from marginal producers, forces them out of business, and means a shrinkage in production and a growth in unemployment. Even where a price increase is possible, the higher price discourages buyers, shrinks the market, and also leads to unemployment. If a 30 percent increase in hourly wages all around the circle forces a 30 percent increase in prices, labor can buy no more of the product than it could at the beginning; and the merry-go-round must start all over again.

而且，上述所有这些，都有其相对应的另一面。在交换经济中，每个人的货币收入同时又是另外某个人的成本。小时工资每次调升，便会使产 品成本上升，除非或直到能从单位小时的劳动生产率的等量增长中得到补偿。如果政府管制价格，禁止产品涨价，生产成本的增高就会减低利润，迫使边际生产者停 产，这将意味着表示生产萎缩，失业增加。即使价格可以调高，但更高的价格会使买方望而却步，市场会因此萎缩，同样会增加失业。如果所有劳工的小时工资普调 30%，使得物价上涨30%，那么劳工能购买到的产品不会比从前多；经济生活就像旋转木马那样原地转圈。

No doubt many will be inclined to dispute the contention that a 30 percent increase in wages can force as great a percentage increase in prices. It is true that this result can follow only in the long run and only if monetary and credit policy permit it. If money and credit are so inelastic that they do not increase when wages are forced up (and if we assume that the higher wages are not justified by existing labor productivity in dollar terms), then the chief effect of forcing up wage rates will be to force unemployment.

毫无疑问，很多人会反对上述观点，认为工资增长30%未必会导致物价出现等比例涨幅。的确，这种假设是建立在长期的基础上，并且是在货币和信贷政策 允许的前提下。如果货币和信贷缺乏弹性，也就是当工资被强行提高时（也就是超过劳动生产率的增加），货币和信贷并没有增加，那么工资率上升的主要影响，将 使失业率上升。

And it is probable, in that case, that total payrolls, both in dollar amount and in real purchasing power, will be lower than before. For a drop in employment (brought about by union policy and not as a transitional result of technological advance) necessarily means that fewer goods are being produced for everyone. And it is unlikely that labor will compensate for the absolute drop in production by getting a larger relative share of the production that is left. For Paul H. Douglas in America and A. C. Pigou in England, the first from analyzing a great mass of statistics, the second by almost purely deductive methods, arrived independently at the conclusion that the elasticity of the demand for labor is somewhere between 3 and 4. This means, in less technical language, that “a 1 percent reduction in the real rate of wage is likely to expand the aggregate demand for labor by not less than 3 percent.” Or, to put the matter the other way, “If wages are pushed up above the point of marginal productivity, the decrease in employment would normally be from three to four times as great as the increase in hourly rates” so that the total incomes of the workers would be reduced correspondingly.

在这种情况下，总工资都可能低于从前，从货币金额和实质购买力来看都是如此。就业率降低（工会的政策造成的，不是科技进步转型造成的），必然意味着 人均拥有的产品数量减少。即使从业人员占有的产品相对增加，也不可能弥补产量绝对值减少的损失。美国的保罗•道格拉斯（Paul H. Douglas）通过分析大量的统计数字，英国的庇古（A. C. Pigou）通过纯理论推导，各自独立地得出同一结论——劳动力的需求弹性介于3和4之间。通俗地说，这表示“实质工资率每下降1%，将使对劳动力的总体 需求至少上升3%”。{footnotes:庇古，《失业理论》A. C. Pigou, The Theory of Unemployment (1933), p. 96.}换种方式来说，“如果工资被推升到高于边际生产力那一点，那么就业率的减幅通常是工资率增幅的三到四倍”。{footnotes:道格拉斯，《工 资理论》Paul H. Douglas, The Theory of Wages (1934), p. 501}所以，劳工的总收入肯定会相应的减少。

Even if these figures are taken to represent only the elasticity of the demand for labor revealed in a given period of the past and not necessarily to forecast that of the future, they deserve the most serious consideration.

尽管这些数字只代表过去某个历史时期劳动力需求弹性，并不一定能用于预计未来的情况，我们还是有必要认真考虑这些结论。

（未完待续）

A Note on Books
后记与参考书目

Those who desire to read further in economics should turn next to some work of intermediate length and difficulty. I know of no single volume in print today that completely meets this need, but there are several that together supply it. There is an excellent short book (126 pages) by Faustino Ballvé, Essentials of Economics (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education), which briefly summarizes principles and policies. A book that does that at somewhat greater length (327 pages) is Understanding the Dollar Crisis by Percy L. Greaves (Belmont, Mass.: Western Islands, 1973). Bettina Bien Greaves has assembled two volumes of readings on Free Market Economics (Foundation for Economic Education).

想要多读点经济学的人，接下来应该找几本中等篇幅和难度适中的专业著作来看。据我所知，目前还没有哪本书能完全满足这种要求，不过，有几本书搭配起 来效果不错。福斯提诺·波夫（Faustino Ballvé）的《经济学精要》（Essentials of Economics, Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y Foundation for Economic Education; 126页），这本精彩的小册子简要总结了各种经济原则和经济政策。珀西·格里夫斯（Percy L. Greaves）的《探讨美元危机》（Understanding the Dollar Crisis, Belmont, Mass.: Western Islands, 1973；327页），主题类似但篇幅较长。还有，贝蒂纳·格里夫斯（Bettina Bien Greaves）主编的两册的《自由市场经济学》（Free Market Economics, Foundation for Economic Education）。

The reader who aims at a thorough understanding, and feels prepared for it, should next read Human Action by Ludwig von Mises (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1949, 1966, 907 pages). This book extended the logical unity and precision of economics beyond that of any previous work. A two-volume work written thirteen years after Human Action by a student of Mises is Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State (Mission, Kan.: Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, 1962, 987 pages). This contains much original and penetrating material; its exposition is admirably lucid; and its arrangement makes it in some respects more suitable for textbook use than Mises’ great work.

想要深入了解经济学的读者，如果已经具备了一定理解能力，接下来应该看米塞斯的《人的行为》（Human Action, Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1949, 1966；907页）。这本书的逻辑单一性和经济学的精确度，超越了以前所有的经济学著作。在《人的行为》出版13年后，米塞斯的学生罗思巴德 （Murray N. Rothbard）写了两册的《人、经济与国家》（Man, Economy, and State, Mission, Kan.: Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, 1962；987页）。这本书中有不少新东西，有不少作者透彻的见解；其叙述简单明了；其结构安排在某些方面比米塞斯的巨著更适合作为教科书。

Short books that discuss special economic subjects in a simple way are Planning for Freedom by Ludwig von Mises (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian Press, 1952), and Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). There is an excellent pamphlet by Murray N. Rothbard, What HasGovernment Done to Our Money? (Santa Ana, Calif.: Rampart College, 1964, 1974, 62 pages). On the urgent subject of inflation, a book by the present author has recently been published, The Inflation Crisis, and How to Resolve It (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978).

还有些深入浅出探讨特殊经济主题的小册子，包括米塞斯的《规划自由》（Planning for Freedom, South Holland, I11.: Libertarian Press, 1952），弗里德曼的《资本主义与自由》（Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962）。罗思巴德的《为什么我们的钱变薄了？》（What Has Government Done to Our Money?, Santa Ana, Calif,: Rampart College, 1964, 1974；62页）很不错。急于了解通货膨胀的读者，可以读本书作者最近出的《通货膨胀危机，及其解决之道》。

Among recent works which discuss current ideologies and developments from a point of view similar to that of this volume are the present author’s The Failure of the “New Economics”: An Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies (Arlington House, 1959); F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1945) and the same author’s monumental Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Ludwig von Mises’ Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (London: Jonathan Cape, 1936, 1969) is the most thorough and devastating critique of collectivistic doctrines ever written.

与这本书观点类似，从当前的意识形态与发展层面进行探讨的经济学著作，有本书作者的《“新经济学”的失败：分析凯恩斯的谬论》（The Failure of the “New Economics”: An Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies, Arlington House, 1959）；哈耶克的《通向奴役之路》和《自由秩序原理》。米塞斯的《社会主义：经济与社会分析》（Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, London: Jonathan Cape, 1936, 1969），这本书对集体主义的教条所进行的彻头彻尾的批判是空前的。

The reader should not overlook, of course, Frederic Bastiat’s Economic Sophisms (ca. 1844), and particularly his essay on “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.”

读者当然不要错过巴斯夏的《经济诡辩》（Economic Sophisms，1844），尤其是他写的〈看得见的与看不见的〉。

Those who are interested in working through the economic classics might find it most profitable to do this in the reverse of their historical order. Presented in this order, the chief works to be consulted, with the dates of their first editions, are: Philip Wick-steed, The Common Sense of Political Economy, 1911; John Bates Clark, The Distribution of Wealth, 1899; Eugen von BohmBawerk, The Positive Theory of Capital, 1888; Karl Menger, Principles of Economics, 1871; W. Stanley Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy, 1871; John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, 1848; David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817; and Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776.

对经济学经典感兴趣的读者，不妨先读现代的经典，再读时间更久远的经典。按第一版的出版日期，我们倒着列一个书单：威克斯第德的《政治经济常 识》（The Common Sense of Political Economy, 1911）；约翰·克拉克（John Bates Clark）的《财富分配》（The Distribution of Wealth, 1899）；尤金·庞巴维克（Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk）的《资本实证论》（The Positive Theory of Capital, 1888）；卡尔·门格（Karl Menger）的《经济学原理》（Principles of Economics, 1871）；斯坦利·杰文斯（W. Stanley Jevons）的《政治经济论》（The Theory of Political Economy, 1871）；穆勒的《政治经济原理》；大卫·李嘉图的《政治经济与财税原理》（Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817）；亚当·斯密的《国富论》。

Economics broadens out in a hundred directions. Whole libraries have been written on specialized fields alone, such as money and banking, foreign trade and foreign exchange, taxation and public finance, government control, capitalism and socialism, wages and labor relations, interest and capital, agricultural economics, rent, prices, profits, markets, competition and monopoly, value and utility, statistics, business cycles, wealth and poverty, social insurance, housing, public utilities, mathematical economics, studies of special industries and of economic history. But no one will ever properly understand any of these specialized fields unless he has first of all acquired a firm grasp of basic economic principles and the complex interrelationship of all economic factors and forces. When he has done this by his reading in general economics, he can be trusted to find the right books in his special field of interest.

经济学会往无数个方向发展。仅各专门领域的经济学著作已是汗牛充栋。例如货币与银行、外贸与外汇、税收与公共财政、政府规制、资本主义与社会主义、 工资与劳动关系、利息与资本、农业经济学、租金、价格、利润、市场、竞争与垄断、价值与效用、统计经济学、经济周期、财富与贫困问题、社会保险、房地产、 公共事业、数理经济学、产业经济学与经济史的研究。但是，没有人能适当掌握这些专门领域，而不对基本的经济原理以及所有经济因素和经济力量之 间复杂的相互关系已有深刻理解。当他能过阅读一般性的经济学内容而有此能力之后，才能被期望在自己感兴趣的特殊领域，找到合适的书籍。

第20章 工会真的提高了工资吗？

（接前面部分）

3

This leads us to the heart of the question. It is usually assumed that an increase in wages is gained at the expense of the profits of employers. This may of course happen for short periods or in special circumstances. If wages are forced up in a particular firm, in such competition with others that it cannot raise its prices, the increase will come out of its profits. This is less likely to happen if the wage increase takes place throughout a whole industry. If the industry does not face foreign competition it may be able to increase its prices and pass the wage increase along to consumers. As these are likely to consist for the most part of workers, they will simply have their real wages reduced by having to pay more for a particular product. It is true that as a result of the increased prices, sales of that industry’s products may fall off, so that volume of profits in the industry will be reduced; but employment and total payrolls in the industry are likely to be reduced by a corresponding amount.

这就把我们带到了问题的核心。这里常用的假设是，调高工资会是以减低雇主的利润为代价的。这种情况在特定条件下当然有可能发生，短期内更是如此。例 如，某家公司的工资被迫调高，但为了跟同行竞争，产品无法涨价，那么调增那部分工资，只好从利润中扣取。整个行业同步调增工资、且增幅相同的情况比较少 见。如果那个行业不担心外国货的竞争，该行业就可以通过提高价格把调资负担转嫁给消费者。考虑到消费者大多是劳工，必须付更多的钱购买商品，也就等于所有 实际工资会因此下降。由于商品提价，那个行业的销量可能减少，利润可能减少；该行业从业员工人数和总工资也有可能等量减少。

It is possible, no doubt, to conceive of a case in which the profits in a whole industry are reduced without any corresponding reduction in employment—a case, in other words, in which an increase in wage rates means a corresponding increase in payrolls, and in which the whole cost comes out of the industry’s profits without throwing any firm out of business. Such a result is not likely, but it is conceivable.

当然，我们也可以设想有可能出现另一种情况：整个行业的利润减少后，雇用人数没有相应减少。换句话说，工资调增之后，总工资随之增加，不过行业利润足以承担由此造成的成本上升，并且没有公司因此倒闭。这样的结果不太可能，但它是可以想象的。

Suppose we take an industry like that of the railroads, for example, which cannot always pass increased wages along to the public in the form of higher rates, because government regulation will not permit it.

让我们以铁路业为例加以说明。铁路业没有办法通过以提高票价的形式将调资负担转嫁给乘客，因为政府法规不允许它这么做。

It is at least possible for unions to make their gains in the short run at the expense of employers and investors. The investors once had liquid funds. But they have put them, say, into the railroad business. They have turned them into rails and roadbeds, freight cars and locomotives. Once their capital might have been turned into any of a thousand forms, but today it is trapped, so to speak, in one specific form. The railway unions may force them to accept smaller returns on this capital already invested. It will pay the investors to continue running the railroad if they can earn anything at all above operating expenses, even if it is only one-tenth of one percent on their investment.

至少，工会有可能在短期内以牺牲雇主和投资人为代价，而获得工资调涨的利益。投资人曾经拥有很多流动资金，但是这些资金已经投资到铁路业（举例来 说）。他们的资金已经转变为了铁轨和路基、货车厢和火车机车。他们的资金曾经可以投到其他很多地方，现在却被套牢在铁路上。对于那些已经投资下去的资金， 铁路工会可以迫使投资人接受较低的投资回报。只要收入高于经营成本，投资人就会继续让铁路公司运转，即使投资回报率只有0.1%。

But there is an inevitable corollary of this. If the money that they have invested in railroads now yields less than money they can invest in other lines, the investors will not put a cent more into railroads. They may replace a few of the things that wear out first, to protect the small yield on their remaining capital; but in the long run they will not even bother to replace items that fall into obsolescence or decay. If capital invested at home pays them less than that invested abroad, they will invest abroad. If they cannot find sufficient return anywhere to compensate them for their risk, they will cease to invest at all.

如此一来，会产生一个难以避免的结果。如果投资人已经投到铁路业的钱，现在创造的收益比不上投资其他行业，投资人就不会再多投一分钱给铁路公司。他 们也许会只更换已经耗损的设施，维持起码的运转，以保护现有投资；但是长期而言，他们不会追加投资去搞更新改造。要是国内的投资回报比不上投资海外，他们 会把资金投到海外。如果他们到处都找不到好项目，以足够多的收益来补偿其风险，他们根本不会再进行投资。

Thus the exploitation of capital by labor can at best he merely temporary. It will quickly come to an end. It will come to an end, actually, not so much in the way indicated in our hypothetical illustration, as by the forcing of marginal firms out of business entirely, the growth of unemployment, and the forced readjustment of wages and profits to the point where the prospect of normal (or abnormal) profits leads to a resumption of employment and production. But in the meanwhile, as a result of the exploitation, unemployment and reduced production will have made everybody poorer. Even though labor for a time will have a greater relative share of the national income, the national income will fall absolutely; so that labor’s relative gains in these short periods may mean a Pyrrhic victory: they may mean that labor, too, is getting a lower total amount in terms of real purchasing power.

由此可见，劳动剥削资本至多不过是暂时现象。这一过程很快就会结束。实际上，它的结束并不会像我们假设性的说明那样结束，而是令所有的边际公司破产 出局；令失业升高；迫使工资和利润重新调整，直到正常（或者非正常）的获利前景重现，就业和生产得以恢复。但是在此期间，由于劳动剥削资本，失业增加和生 产减少会使每个人都更穷。尽管劳动者收入占国民收入的相对比率会一度提高，但收入的绝对数量却不如从前；劳工相对获益，不仅是短期胜利，而且是得不偿失的 胜利，因为从实际购买力看，劳动力的收入总量同样降低了。

4

Thus we are driven to the conclusion that unions, though they may for a time be able to secure an increase in money wages for their members, partly at the expense of employers and more at the expense of nonunionized workers, cannot, in the long-run and for the whole body of workers, increase real wages at all.

于是我们得出了这样的结论，尽管工会可能在一段时间内保证其会员货币工资的增长，这种增长一部分以雇主的利益为代价、更多则是以非工会劳工的利益为代价得到的。但是，在长期内，工会根本不能为工人整体增加实际的工资收入。

The belief that they do so rests on a series of delusions. One of these is the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, which sees the enormous rise in wages in the last half century, due principally to the growth of capital investment and to scientific and technological advance, and ascribes it to the unions because the unions were also growing during this period. But the error most responsible for the delusion is that of considering merely what a rise of wages brought about by union demands means in the short run for the particular workers who retain their jobs, while failing to trace the effects of this advance on employment, production and the living costs of all workers, including those who forced the increase.

相信工会能够做到这一点，这种想法是以一系列错误认识为基础的。其中之一是“在此之后发生的，自然也就是因此而发生的”（post hoc ergo propter hoc）的巧合谬论，他们认为过去半个世纪以来，工资大幅升高，应该归功于工会，因为在此期间，工会不断成长壮大。其实工资上涨主要的原因是资本投资增长 和科技进步。但是造成错觉的根本谬误还是在于，只考虑工会要求提高工资之后，特定受聘劳工短期内受到的影响，却没有去追踪工资上涨对所有劳工（包括迫使工 资调涨的劳工）的就业、对生产和生活费用所造成的影响。

One may go further than this conclusion, and raise the question whether unions have not, in the long run and for the whole body of workers, actually prevented real wages from rising to the extent to which they otherwise might have risen. They have certainly been a force working to hold down or to reduce wages if their effect, on net balance, has been to reduce labor productivity; and we may ask whether it has not been so.

我们或许可以从这个结论出发，进一步对工会提出质疑：长期来说，工会是否阻碍了全体劳工的实际工资上升到应该达到的水平。如果工会造成的总体影响是降低了劳动生产率，那么工会肯定是阻碍工资上涨、甚至是降低劳工工资的一股力量；我们可以问工会：你们是否起到了这样的作用？

With regard to productivity there is something to be said for union policies, it is true, on the credit side. In some trades they have insisted on standards to increase the level of skill and competence. And in their early history they did much to protect the health of their members. Where labor was plentiful, individual employers often stood to make short-run gains by speeding up workers and working them long hours in spite of ultimate ill effects upon their health, because they could easily be replaced with others. And sometimes ignorant or shortsighted employers might even reduce their own profits by overworking their employees. In all these cases the unions, by demanding decent standards, often increased the health and broader welfare of their members at the same time as they increased their real wages.

谈到生产力，不少工会政策还是可圈可点。在一些行业中，工会坚持订立标准，帮助劳工提升专业技能。在其早期历史中，工会采取了许多措施来保护会员的 健康。在劳动力过剩的地方，个别雇主为了短期利益，不断要求员工进行高强度、长时间工作，而不顾这样做对工人身心健康的严重损害，因为雇主可以随时换人。 甚至有的雇主骄横一时，让员工操劳过度造成伤病，雇主赔钱反而因此损失了不少利润。针对所有这些情况，工会通过争取起码的标准，常常能够改善会员的健康和 福利，同时使他们的实际工资得以增长。

But in recent years, as their power has grown, and as much misdirected public sympathy has led to a tolerance or endorsement of antisocial practices, unions have gone beyond their legitimate goals. It was a gain, not only to health and welfare, but even in the long run to production, to reduce a seventy-hour week to a sixty-hour week. It was a gain to health and leisure to reduce a sixty-hour week to a forty-eight-hour week. It was a gain to leisure, but not necessarily to production and income, to reduce a forty-eight-hour week to a forty-four-hour week. The value to health and leisure of reducing the working week to forty hours is much less, the reduction in output and income more clear. But the unions now talk about, and sometimes enforce, thirty-five and thirty-hour weeks, and deny that these can or need reduce output or income.

但是近年来，随着工会权力的增长，以及民众的同情用错地方，工会的一些反社会的做法被民众容忍或支持，工会努力的目标已经超出了合理的限度。将每周 的工作时间从70小时减少到60小时，不仅对保障劳工的健康和福利有益，长期而言对提高生产也有帮助。将每周工作时间从60小时减为48小时，对劳工的健 康和休闲生活有帮助。再从48小时减为44小时，对劳工的休闲生活有好处，而不一定能增加生产和收入。将每周的工作时数缩减为40小时，对劳工的健康和休 闲生活不会增加多少好处，而产出和收入将明显减少。现今工会总是主张、并且有的时候也实行35小时和30小时的周工时制度。它们否认这样做有可能会或者必 然要减少产出以及收入。

But it is not only in reducing scheduled working hours that union policy has worked against productivity. That, in fact, is one of the least harmful ways in which it has done so; for the compensating gain, at least, has been clear. But many unions have insisted on rigid subdivisions of labor which have raised production costs and led to expensive and ridiculous “jurisdictional” disputes. They have opposed payment on the basis of output or efficiency, and insisted on the same hourly rates for all their members regardless of differences in productivity. They have insisted on promotion for seniority rather than for merit. They have initiated deliberate slowdowns under the pretense of fighting “speed-ups.” They have denounced, insisted upon the dismissal of, and sometimes cruelly beaten, men who turned out more work than their fellows. They have opposed the introduction or improvement of machinery. They have insisted that if any of their members have been laid off because of the installation of more efficient or more laborsaving machinery, the laid-off workers receive “guaranteed incomes” indefinitely. They have insisted on make-work rules to require more people or more time to perform a given task. They have even insisted, with the threat of ruining employers, on the hiring of people who are not needed at all.

削减每周工时并不是惟一的妨碍生产力增长的工会政策。事实上，这是伤害最小的一种工会政策，至少由此而产生的得失一目了然。我们看到，许多工会坚持 实施僵化的细部分工制度，不仅导致生产成本上升，而且引发代价高昂且荒谬的“地盘”之争。它们反对按工人的产出和效率来支付工资，坚持要求所有的会员小时 工资标准一视同仁，而不不管劳动生产率的差别。它们坚持论资排辈，而不是论绩效来晋升。在抵制“又要马儿跑，又要马儿不吃草”的名义下，它们刻意怠工。它 们谴责那些劳动产出超过其他同事的员工，要雇主解雇他们，甚至殴打泄愤。它们反对引进和改良机器。它们要挟雇主说，如有任何会员因为安装使用机器而遭到解 雇，这些被解雇的会员必须无限期领取“保障收入”。它们坚持依照“制造工作机会”的规则行事，要求用更多的人力和时间去完成指派的工作。他们甚至强迫雇主 留用根本不需要的员工。

Most of these policies have been followed under the assumption that there is just a fixed amount of work to be done, a definite “job fund” which has to be spread over as many people and hours as possible so as not to use it up too soon. This assumption is utterly false. There is actually no limit to the amount of work to be done. Work creates work. What A produces constitutes the demand for what B produces.

绝大部分类似的政策都是以这样一个假设为前提的，即只有一个固定量的工作可做，只有一个有限的“工作储量”，因此，我们就应当把它分摊给尽可能许多 人去做、分散到更长的时间内去做，免得这个储量用得太快。这个假设是完全错误的。事实上，可做的工作并不存在数量上的限制。工作会创造出工作。某甲所生产 的东西构成了对某乙所制造的产品的需求。

But because this false assumption exists, and because the policies of unions are based on it, their net effect has been to reduce productivity below what it would otherwise have been. Their net effect, therefore, in the long run and for all groups of workers, has been to reduce real wages—that is, wages in terms of the goods they will buy—below the level to which they would otherwise have risen. The real cause for the tremendous increase in real wages in the last century has been, to repeat, the accumulation of capital and the enormous technological advance made possible by it.

然而，正因为存在着这样一个错误的假设，由于工会的政策建立在这个假设之上，它们的净影响是使得劳动生产率降低到了它本可以达到的水平之下。从长期 看来，工会政策的净影响对于所有集团来讲是减少了实际工资——也就是说，从他们能够购买的商品的角度来分析的工资——使之低于它们本可以提高到的水平。啰 嗦一句，上半世纪中实际工资大幅增长的真正原因，是资本累积以及由此才有可能出现的巨大的科技进步。

But this process is not automatic. As a result not only of bad union but of bad governmental policies, it has, in fact, in the last decade, come to a halt. If we look only at the average of gross weekly earnings of private nonagricultural workers in terms of paper dollars, it is true that they have risen from $107.73 in 1968 to $189.36 in August 1977. But when the Bureau of Labor Statistics allows for inflation, when it translates these earnings into 1967 dollars, to take account of the increase in consumer prices, it finds that real weekly earnings actually fell from $103.39 in 1968 to $103.36 in August 1977.

但是这一进程不是自动实现的。不仅仅因为坏的工会政策，而且也同样因为坏的政府政策，在过去十年中，这种发展事实上已经停止了。如果我们仅仅考察以 名义美元价值来衡量的私人非农业工人总的周平均收入的话，它的确从1968年的107.73美元，上涨到1977年8月的189.36美元。但是，劳动统 计局扣除了其中的通货膨胀因素，考虑到消费者物价的上涨，以1967年底币值计算这些收入时，它指出，实际的周收入已从1968年的103.39美元下降 到1977年8月的103.36美元。{endnotes:《投资者财经日报》1996年1月4日刊载的资料显示：过去40年，薪酬占总产出的比重，一直 保持在60%左右。经济学家肯尼斯·沃伊泰克（Kenneth P. Voytek）报告说，从1959～1972年，非农劳工每小时薪酬年均增长2.4%。从1973～1994年，这个增幅放缓至0.8%。这是因为，从 1959～1972年的生产率年均增长2.4，而从1973～1994年生产率年均增长不到1%。整体而言，自1959年以来，薪酬收入在国民收入中的比 重增加了4%，与此同时，工会会员人数是急剧下降。非工资薪酬，如保健和在职培训，不断增加。（《投资者财经日报》，1996年1月8日）}

This halt in the rise of real wages has not been a consequence inherent in the nature of unions. It has been the result of shortsighted union and government policies. There is still time to change both of them.

实际工资收入中止增长，这并不是工会本身性质所决定的一个内在必然的结果。它是那些目光短浅的工会政策和政府政策造成的。现在要改变这两类短视政策还来得及。

Do Unions Really Raise Wages

第20章 工会真正提高了工资吗？

The belief that labor unions can substantially raise real wages over the long run and for the whole working population is one of the great delusions of the present age. This delusion is mainly the result of failure to recognize that wages are basically determined by labor productivity. It is for this reason, for example, that wages in the United States were incomparably higher than wages in England and Germany all during the decades when the “labor movement” in the latter two countries was far more advanced.

相信工会可以在长期内从根本上提高整个工业人口的实际工资，这种想法是现今主要的误解之一。产生这种错觉的主要原因，还是在于没有认清工资根本是由 劳动生产力决定的。举例来说，正是由于这个原因，在英国和德国的“劳工运动”发展远胜于美国的数十年间，这两个国家的工资依旧远远跟不上美国。

In spite of the overwhelming evidence that labor productivity is the fundamental determinant of wages, the conclusion is usually forgotten or derided by labor union leaders and by that large group of economic writers who seek a reputation as “liberals” by parroting them. But this conclusion does not rest on the assumption, as they suppose, that employers are uniformly kind and generous men eager to do what is right. It rests on the very different assumption that the individual employer is eager to increase his own profits to the maximum. If people are willing to work for less than they are really worth to him, why should he not take the fullest advantage of this? Why should he not prefer, for example, to make $1 a week out of a workman rather than see some other employer make $2 a week out of him? And as long as this situation exists, there will be a tendency for employers to bid workers up to their full economic worth.

尽管有压倒性的证据表明，劳动生产力是工资的根本决定因素，但这个结论常被工会领袖、以及被一大批跟定工会领袖以求得“自由主义者”名声的经济作家 所抛在脑后，甚至被拿来当作嘲笑的对象。这个结论并不是建立在那些人所嘲弄的假设上，即：雇主们全都很和善很慷慨，好为仗义疏财。它是以一个全然不同的假 设为前提的，即：雇主个人所渴望的是增加自己的利润收入，并使之最大化。假如有员工愿意只拿少于其实际应得收入的工资的话，雇主怎么可能不充分利用这种好 事呢？雇主怎可能坐视别的雇主从其员工身上每周赚取两美元（比如说），而不乐于从自己员工身上每周赚上一美元呢？只要这种状况存在，雇主们竞相出价招揽价 超所值的劳工，将使劳工工资趋于劳工的最大经济价值。

All this does not mean that unions can serve no useful or legitimate function. The central function they can serve is to improve local working conditions and to assure that all of their members get the true market value of their services.

以上所说并不表示工会起不到任何有益的、合理的作用。工会能起到的核心作用，是改善自身领域的工作条件，并且确保工会会员所提供的劳务能够得到实际市场价。

For the competition of workers for jobs, and of employers for workers, does not work perfectly. Neither individual workers nor individual employers are likely to be fully informed concerning the conditions of the labor market. An individual worker may not know the true market value of his services to an employer. And he may be in a weak bargaining position. Mistakes of judgment are far more costly to him than to an employer. If an employer mistakenly refuses to hire a man from whose services he might have profited, he merely loses the net profit he might have made from employing that one man; and he may employ a hundred or a thousand men. But if a worker mistakenly refuses a job in the belief that he can easily get another that will pay him more, the error may cost him dear. His whole means of livelihood is involved. Not only may he fail to find promptly another job offering more; he may fail for a time to find another job offering remotely as much. And time may be the essence of his problem, because he and his family must eat. So he may be tempted to take a wage that he believes to be below his “real worth” rather than face these risks. When an employer’s workers deal with him as a body, however, and set a known “standard wage” for a given class of work, they may help to equalize bargaining power and the risks involved in mistakes.

劳动力市场的竞争并不发达，劳工谋职难，雇主用人难。无论劳工方面，还是雇主方面，都无法掌握充分的劳动力市场信息。单个劳工也许根本不清楚他对雇 主提供的劳务的实际市场价是多少。同时，劳工的谈判能力往往相对较弱。一旦判断错误，劳工方面付出代价要远高于雇主方面。如果雇主不慎拒用一个能干人，雇 主的损失只不过是那个人过人之处所能创造的那部分利润；况且，他还可以雇用成百上千的其他求职者。相反，劳工如果自信找份更好的工作并不难，而错误地拒绝 了一份工作，那么，对他来讲，这可能意味着巨大的代价。他的生活之资，全赖于此。他会立即发现，自己根本无法很快找到待遇更好的工作，有可能那段日子连待 遇低很多的工作也不好找。他最大的问题是时间上拖不起，他要吃饭，他的家人也要靠他吃饭。为避免这些风险，即便雇主开出的工资低于他心目中“实际市场价 ”，他也可能接受。然而，当雇主的工人们形成一个整体与他打交道，并且为其中某一阶层确定了一个大家都知道的“标准工资”时，他们可能有助于均衡双方在讨 价还价中的力量以及由于判断失误而承担的风险。

But it is easy, as experience has proved, for unions, particularly with the help of one-sided labor legislation which puts compulsions solely on employers, to go beyond their legitimate functions, to act irresponsibly, and to embrace short-sighted and antisocial policies. TI do this, for example, whenever they seek to fix the wages of their members above their real market worth. Such an attempt always brings about unemployment. The arrangement can be made to stick, in fact, only by some form of intimidation or coercion.

历史经验却证明，在这方面，工会很容易就做过了头。因为劳动法律法规多向劳动者倾斜，甚至单方面强制约束雇主，这就助长工会做出一些不负责任的行 为，甚至实行短视的、反社会的工会政策。例如，只要他们想把工会会员的工资固定于高出他们实际市场价值的水平，他们就会这么干。这样做一定会造成失业。事 实上，为了达到这个目的，工会必定会采取某种胁迫和强制手段。

One device consists in restricting the membership of the union on some other basis than that of proved competence or skill. restriction may take many forms: it may consist in charging new workers excessive initiation fees; in arbitrary membership qualifications; in discrimination, open or concealed, on grounds of religion, race or sex; in some absolute limitation on the number of members, or in exclusion, by force if necessary, not only of the products of nonunion labor, but of the products even of affiliated unions in other states or cities.

手段之一是订立歧视性的工会会员资格。也就是在考虑既有的专长或技能因素之外，设立各种限制条件。例如：对新工人收取过高的入会费；任意设立会员资 格；以公开或隐秘的方式进行宗教、种族或性别歧视；采取某种绝对的会员人数限制，或是在需要的情况下，通过强制手段推行排他性政策。不仅排斥非工会劳工生 产的产品，甚至排斥外地的工会生产的产品。

The most obvious case in which intimidation and force are used to put or keep the wages of a particular union above the real market worth of its members’ services is that of a strike. A peaceful strike is possible. To the extent that it remains peaceful, it is a legitimate labor weapon, even though it is one that should be used rarely and as a last resort. If his workers as a body withhold their labor, they may bring a stubborn employer, who has been underpaying them, to his senses. He may find that he is unable to replace these workers with workers equally good who are willing to accept the wage that the former have now rejected. But the moment workers have to use intimidation or violence to enforce their demands—the moment they use mass picketing to prevent any of the old workers from continuing at their jobs, or to prevent the employer from hiring new permanent workers to take their places—their case becomes suspect. For the pickets are really being used, not primarily against the employer, but against other workers. These other workers are willing to take the jobs that the old employees have vacated, and at the wages that the old employees now reject. The fact proves that the other alternatives open to the new workers are not as good as those that the old employees have refused. If, therefore, the old employees succeed by force in preventing new workers from taking the place, they prevent these new workers from choosing the best alternative open to them, and force them to take something worse. The strikers are therefore insisting on a position of privilege, and are using force to maintain this privileged position against other workers.

借助于威胁和强制手段将某些工会会员的工资提高或者保持在实际市场价值之上的最典型的例子就是罢工。和平的罢工是可能的。只要罢工行动是和平的，便 是劳工的合法武器。即便如此，罢工也应该只作为最后的手段。齐心协力的罢工，也许能使一贯克扣员工的雇主有个清醒认识。因为雇主可能会发现，即便将罢工者 都开掉，以原有的工资标准，再也雇不到同样优秀的劳工。但是，当罢工行动掺杂胁迫或暴力的手段，罢工者的主张就难免令人质疑。罢工者组织大批纠察队员阻止 在职员工继续上班工作、阻止雇主招募新员工。我们看到，纠察队员的目标并非针对雇主，而是针对其他的劳工。这些其他劳工恰恰希望得到老员工空缺出来的岗 位，并且愿意接受老员工如今拒绝的工资。这个事实证明，可供新员工选择的其他工作机会，都不如老员工拒绝的这份工作好。如果在老员工的强行阻止下，新员工 根本无法上岗工作，这些人只有放弃选择对他们最好的工作，转而去选择那些比较差的工作。由此可见，罢工者们实际上是在霸占某种相对于其他劳工的特权。

If the foregoing analysis is correct, the indiscriminate hatred of the “strikebreaker” is not justified. If the strikebreakers consist merely of professional thugs who themselves threaten violence, or who cannot in fact do the work, or if they are being paid a temporarily higher rate solely for the purpose of making a pretense of carrying on until the old workers are frightened back to work at the old rates, the hatred may be warranted. But if they are in fact merely men and women who are looking for permanent jobs and willing to accept them at the old rate, then they are workers who would be shoved into worse jobs than these in order to enable the striking workers to enjoy better ones. And this superior position for the old employees could continue to be maintained, in fact, only by the ever-present threat of force.

如果上述分析是正确的，那么，不分青红皂白地仇视“罢工破坏者”就不讲道理。如果罢工破坏者只是下面所说的这样一群人，人们仇视他们是有道理的。例 如那些以暴力相威胁，而事实上什么也不做的职业恶棍；还有那些被雇主买通的员工，这些人伙同雇主制造营运假象，目的就是要让罢工者妥协。但如果“罢工破坏 者”只是普通的男女劳工，目的不过是为了求得一分稳定的工作，而且愿意接受原有的工资标准，那么，为了使那些罢工工人享受更好的工作条件，这群人就将被推 到比此更坏的工作中去。事实上，也只有通过不断进行强行威胁，原有雇员的这一优越地位才有可能维持下去。

2

Emotional economics has given birth to theories that calm examination cannot justify. One of these is the idea that labor is being “under paid”generally. This would be analogous to the notion that in a free market prices in general are chronically too low. Another curious but persistent notion is that the interests of a nation’s workers are identical with each other, and that an increase in wages for one union in some obscure way helps all other workers. Not only is there no truth in this idea; the truth is that, if a particular union by coercion is able to enforce for its own members a wage substantially above the real market worth of their services, it will hurt all other workers as it hurts other members of the community.

冷静思考一下就会发现，“情绪经济学”孕育出来的理论很难自圆其说。其中之一是说，劳工普遍“工资待遇偏低”。这就好比是说，在自由 市场中，价格普遍长期偏低。另一个离奇并且顽固的观点是说，一个国家工人的利益是彼此相同的，一个工会内工人的工资以某种方式调增讲有助于所有其余的工 人。这一观点不仅毫无真实可言，而且实际情况是，如果某个工会强行为会员争取到的工资高于其劳务的实际市场价格，这样做，对当地的其他人、对其他所有的劳 工都造成伤害。

In order to see more clearly how this occurs, let us imagine a community in which the facts are enormously simplified arithmetically. Suppose the community consisted of just half a dozen groups of workers, and that these groups were originally equal to each other in their total wages and the market value of their product.

为了更清楚地了解这种伤害是如何发生的，让我们设计一个极为简化的假想社会。假设这个社会只由六群劳工组成，并且假设它们的起始工资相同，他们的产品的市场价值一开始也相同。

Let us say that these six groups of workers consist of (i) farm hands, (2) retail store workers, (3) workers in the clothing trades, (4) coal miners, (5) building workers, and (6) railway employees. Their wage rates, determined without any element of coercion, are not necessarily equal; but whatever they are, let us assign to each of them an original index number of 100 as a base. Now let us suppose that each group forms a national union and is able to enforce its demands in proportion not merely to its economic productivity but to its political power and strategic position. Suppose the result is that the farm hands are unable to raise their wages at all, that the retail store workers are able to get an increase of 10 percent, the clothing workers of 20 percent, the coal miners of 30 percent, the building trades of 40 percent, and the railroad employees of 50 percent.

这六群劳工分别是：（1）农场工人；（2）零售商店店员；（3）制衣工人；（4）煤矿矿工；（5）建筑工人；（6）铁路职工。他们的工资率不由任何 强制因素决定，因而也不必彼此相等。不管工资率是多少，我们直接给每一群劳工一个原始的指数，以100为基础。现在，让我们假设每一群劳工都组织了全国性 的工会，六大工会能够仰仗自身行业的经济生产力、政治权力和战略地位，提出各自的调资要求。假设你争我夺后的调资结果是，农场工人根本得不到工资的提高， 零售商店店员涨10%，制衣工人涨20%，煤矿矿工涨30%，建筑工人涨40%，铁路职工涨50%。

On the assumptions we have made, this will mean that there has been an average increase in wages of 25 percent. Now suppose, again for the sake of arithmetical simplicity, that the price of the product that each group of workers makes rises by the same percentage as the increase in that group’s wages. (For several reasons, including the fact that labor costs do not represent all costs, the price will not quite do that—certainly not in any short period. But the figures will nonetheless serve to illustrate the basic principle involved.)

根据上面所出的假设，我们可以计算出工资平均上涨了25%。现在，为方便计算，我们再假设各行业的产品价格涨幅与该行业工资增幅相同。（由于一些原 因，其中也包括了劳动力成本并不能代表所有生产成本这一点，价格也不能真正反映全部成本——当然，我们这里不是指任何短期的情况。不过尽管如此，我们仍然 需要用数字来说明一下这里所涉及到的基本原理。）

We shall then have a situation in which the cost of living has risen by an average of 25 percent. The farm hands, though they have had no reduction in their money wages, will be considerably worse off in terms of what they can buy. The retail store workers, even though they have got an increase in money wages of 10 percent, will be worse off than before the race began. Even the workers in the clothing trades, with a money-wage increase of 20 percent, will be at a disadvantage compared with their previous position. The coal miners, with a money-wage increase of 30 percent, will have made in purchasing power only a slight gain. The building and railroad workers will of course have made a gain, but one much smaller in actuality than in appearance.

现在的情况是，生活费用平均上涨25%。农场工人的货币工资看似没有下降，从能够买到的东西看，他们的处境变得相当糟糕。零售商店店员的货币工资虽 然涨了10%，处境也比调资之前时更糟。制衣工人的货币工资即使涨了20%，生活也无法和以前相比。煤矿矿工的货币工资纵然涨了30%，购买力只是增加了 一点点。建筑工人和铁路职工当然有所改善，但其实际获益比表面看上去小得多。

But even such calculations rest on the assumption that the forced increase in wages has brought about no unemployment. This is likely to be true only if the increase in wages has been accompanied by an equivalent increase in money and bank credit; and even then it is improbable that such distortions in wage rates can be brought about without creating areas of unemployment, particularly in the trades in which wages have advanced the most. If this corresponding monetary inflation does not occur, the forced wage advances will bring about widespread unemployment.

即使这样的简化计算，所依据的假设还有好几点。我们要假设强行涨工资不会带来失业。要这个假设成立，我们还必须假设工资调增的同时，货币供应和银行 信贷也等量增加。即使如此，扭曲的工资率也不可能不造成行业性失业，特别是在那些工资调增最多的行业中。如果没有采取相应的通货膨胀，强行涨工资会造成普 遍性的失业。

The unemployment need not necessarily be greatest, in percentage terms, among the unions whose wages have been advanced the most; for unemployment will be shifted and distributed in relation to the relative elasticity of the demand for different kinds of labor and in relation to the “joint” nature of the demand for many kinds of labor. Yet when all these allowances have been made, even the groups whose wages have been advanced the most will probably be found, when their unemployed are averaged with their employed members, to be worse off than before. And in terms of welfare, of course, the loss suffered will be much greater than the loss in merely arithmetical terms, because the psychological losses of those who are unemployed will greatly outweigh the psychological gains of those with a slightly higher income in terms of purchasing power.

按百分比计算，最严重的失业并不一定发生在工资涨幅最大的工会中。因为，相应于对不同劳动力的需求弹性以及各种劳动力需求的一种“结合”的特点，失 业出现了转移和分配。然而，当我们把所有这些因素都考虑进去，我们很可能会发现，在把失业人数与就业人数进行权衡时，即使是那些工资涨幅最大的集团，他们 的处境也每况愈下。当然，从福利的角度分析，我们将会发现，真正受到的损害要远远高出用数字表示出来的损失。因为，失业劳工承受的心理损失，远高于受雇劳工购买力增加一点点而获得的心理收益。

Nor can the situation be rectified by providing unemployment relief. Such relief, in the first place, is paid for in large part, directly or indirectly, out of the wages of those who work. It therefore reduces these wages. “Adequate” relief payments, moreover, as we have already seen, create unemployment. They do so in several ways. When strong labor unions in the past made it their function to provide for their own unemployed members, they thought twice before demanding a wage that would cause heavy unemployment. But where there is a relief system under which the general taxpayer is forced to provide for the unemployment caused by excessive wage rates, this restraint on excessive union demands is removed. Moreover, as we have already noted, “adequate” relief will cause some men not to seek work at all, and will cause others to consider that they are in effect being asked to work not for the wage offered, but only for the difference between that wage and the relief payment. And heavy unemployment means that fewer goods are produced, that the nation is poorer, and that there is less for everybody.

这种局面也不能靠提供失业救济来弥补。首先，救济金的很大一部分是直接或间接地从那些就业者的工资中支付的。因此，这降低了工资水平。同时，象我们 已经看到的，“充分的”的救济金支付创造了失业。出现这样的结果有多种形式。在过去，扶助失业会员是大工会的一项基本功能，所以，它们在要求涨工资时，总 是三思而后行，会充分衡量由此可能带来的失业。而在现代失业救济制度下，政府强迫一般纳税人负担工资率过高造成的失业救济支出，工会便失去自我约束的必 要，无节制地提出的调资要求。此外，我们说过，“充分的”救济会使一些人根本不想工作，而上班族努力工作挣来的实际收入仅相当于工资和救济金两者的差额。 严重的失业意味着产品产量更小、国家更穷、每个人能拥有的东西都更少。

The apostles of salvation by unionism sometimes attempt another answer to the problem I have just presented. It may be true, they will admit, that the members of strong unions today exploit among others, the nonunionized workers; but the remedy is simple: unionize everybody. The remedy, however, is not quite that simple. In the first place, in spite of the enormous legal and political encouragements (one might in some cases say compulsions) to unionization under the Wagner-Taft-Hartley Act and other laws, it is not an accident that only about a fourth of this nation’s gainfully employed workers are unionized. The conditions propitious to unionization are much more special than generally recognized. But even if universal unionization could be achieved, the unions could not possibly be equally powerful, any more than they are today. Some groups of workers are in a far better strategic position than others, either because of greater numbers, of the more essential nature of the product they make, of the greater dependence on their industry of other industries, or of their greater ability to use coercive methods. But suppose this were not so? Suppose, in spite of the self-contradictoriness of the assumption, that all workers by coercive methods could raise their money wages by an equal percentage? Nobody would be any better off in the long run, than if wages had not been raised at all.

工联主义的倡导者有时会用另一个答案来回答刚才的救济问题。他们承认，如今的大工会会员的确会欺压没有参加工会的劳工，补救办法很简单：人人都参加 工会。然而，这种补救方案并没有那么简单。首先，不论瓦格纳—塔夫脱—哈特利法（Wagner-Taft-Hartley Act）以及其他的法律条文怎样从法律上和政治上给予工会组织以极大的支持（人们可能会在某些情况下把这种做法称为强制），但美国只有约四分之一的受雇劳 工参加了工会。{endnotes:现在，劳工参加工会的入会率为15.5%（《投资者财经日报》，1995年11月14日）}这并非出于偶然。组织工会 的条件要比我们所认为的要特殊得多。其次，要自己的工会能说得起话不简单。即使人人参加工会，各工会的力量也可能比今天更悬殊，还会有战略地位上的悬殊。 原因可能是会员人数众多、生产的产品不可或缺、其他行业对这一行依赖性强、更有政治手腕等。但是，假如情况并不如此呢？撇开这一假设中自我矛盾之处不谈， 如果所有工人的货币工资都可以通过强迫手段等比例地增长，又能如何呢？可以肯定，从长期来看，没有人会过得比工资不调高时要好。

（未完待续）