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Minimum Wage Laws

第19章 最低工资法令

We have already seen some of the harmful results of arbitrary governmental efforts to raise the price of favored commodities. The same sort of harmful results follow efforts to raise wages through minimum wage laws. This ought not to be surprising, for a wage is, in fact, a price. It is unfortunate for clarity of economic thinking that the price of labor’s services should have received an entirely different name from other prices. This has prevented most people from recognizing that the same principles govern both.

我们已经看到政府通过强制手段提高某些商品的价格所带来的恶果。靠颁订最低工资法令来提高工资，也会带来类似的恶果。这不足为奇，因为事实上，工资就是一种价格。我们给劳动力价格取了一个完全区别于其他产品价格的名称，对经济思考的清晰性而言这是一种不幸。大多数人因此不了解商品价格和劳动力价格是由同样的原则在支配。

Thinking has become so emotional and so politically biased on the subject of wages that in most discussions of them the plainest principles are ignored. People who would be among the first to deny that prosperity could be brought about by artificially boosting prices, people who would be among the first to point out that minimum price laws might be most harmful to the very industries they were designed to help, will nevertheless advocate minimum wage laws, and denounce opponents of them, without misgivings.

一说起工资，众人的思维就变得情绪化和政治化，这使得大多数讨论都忽略了上述这个最简明的原则。在价格问题上，有不少人会站出来驳斥“以人为力量抬高商品价格，可以带来繁荣”的说法；会站出来指出最低价格法可能适得其反，给它们想要帮助的行业造成最大的伤害。可是这些明白人仍会力挺最低工资法，并会毫无疑惧地抨击持反对意见的人。

Yet it ought to be clear that a minimum wage law is, at best, a limited weapon for combatting the evil of low wages, and that the possible good to be achieved by such a law can exceed the possible harm only in proportion as its aims are modest. The more ambitious such a law is, the larger the number of workers it attempts to cover, and the more it attempts to raise their wages, the more certain are its harmful effects to exceed any possible good effects.

然而应当明确的一点是，最低工资法至多不过是克服低工资弊端的一个有限的武器。由它所能得到的好处是否能够超过它所造成的损害，这仅仅取决于其目标有所克制的程度。这类法令越是雄心勃勃，力图囊括的劳工数量越大，力求拉动的工资涨幅越大，就越是注定其弊大于利。

The first thing that happens, for example, when a law is passed that no one shall be paid less than $106 for a forty-hour week is that no one who is not worth $106 a week to an employer will be employed at all. You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less. You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering. In brief, for a low wage you substitute unemployment. You do harm all around, with no comparable compensation.

举例来说，当政府通过一项法令，规定工人每周工作40小时的工资不得低于106美元，那么，首当其冲的是那些劳动价值够不上这106美元的劳工，他们将统统被雇主开掉。法律虽然规定雇主给雇员开的工资达不到这106美元就算违法，但法律并不能保证雇来的人的劳动价值一定够得上最低工资标准。法律只不过剥夺那些能力、条件较差，无法达到最低工资标准的人的工作权利；使得这些人没办法依靠自身的能力和条件，挣到相应的工资。法律同时剥夺了社会享有这部分人力所能及所提供的廉价服务。简单地说，这不过是用失业取代低工资，由此造成诸多社会问题却没有得到相应的解决。

The only exception to this occurs when a group of workers is receiving a wage actually below its market worth. This is likely to happen only in rare and special circumstances or localities where competitive forces do not operate freely or adequately; but nearly all these special cases could be remedied just as effectively, more flexibly and with far less potential harm, by unionization.

只有当一大群劳工所领的工资全都低于市场价值时，才可能出现惟一的例外。这种状况要么极其少见，要么情况非常特殊，要么是发生在竞争力量无法自由而充分地发挥作用的地区。但是这些特殊的情况大多可以通过组织工会的方式予以解决，这种方式比法律条例更灵活，副作用也更小。

It may be thought that if the law forces the payment of a higher wage in a given industry, that industry can then charge higher prices for its product, so that the burden of paying the higher wage is merely shifted to consumers. Such shifts, however, are not easily made, nor are the consequences of artificial wage-raising so easily escaped. A higher price for the product may not be possible: it may merely drive consumers to the equivalent imported products or to some substitute. Or, if consumers continue to buy the product of the industry in which wages have been raised, the higher price will cause them to buy less of it. While some workers in the industry may be benefited from the higher wage, therefore, others will be thrown out of employment altogether. On the other hand, if the price of the product is not raised, marginal producers in the industry will be driven out of business; so that reduced production and consequent unemployment will merely be brought about in another way.

可能有人认为，如果法律强制规定某行业支付更高的工资，那个行业可采用提高产品价格的方式，将工资负担转嫁给消费者。然而，这种转嫁是不易办到的，以人为的力量调高工资的种种后果也很难避免。硬性提价往往行不通，因为消费者会转而去买同类进口产品或改用其他替代品。即便部分消费者还在购买该行业的产品，但较高的价格将迫使他们买得比从前更少。结果会是，该行业的某些劳工能从高工资中受益，其他的劳工将被迫失业。另一方面，如果工资涨而价格不涨，这个行业的边际生产者将挤出这个行业；所以，这不过是以另一种方式促使产量减少，进而促成工人失业。

When such consequences are pointed out, there are those who reply: “Very well; if it is true that the X industry cannot exist except by paying starvation wages, then it will be just as well if the minimum wage puts it out of existence altogether.” But this brave pronouncement overlooks the realities. It overlooks, first of all, that consumers will suffer the loss of that product. It forgets, in the second place, that it is merely condemning the people who worked in that industry to unemployment. And it ignores, finally, that bad as were the wages paid in the X industry, they were the best among all the alternatives that seemed open to the workers in that industry; otherwise the workers would have gone into another. If, therefore, the X industry is driven out of existence by a minimum wage law, then the workers previously employed in that industry will be forced to turn to alternative courses that seemed less attractive to them in the first place. Their competition for jobs will drive down the pay offered even in these alternative occupations. There is no escape from the conclusion that the minimum wage will increase unemployment.

在我们指出类似的后果时，有人会说：“讲得好！如果X行业全靠低工资吊命，那用最低工资法把这个行业淘汰掉岂不更好。”这种大胆的说法忽视了几种实际情形。首先，它忽视了如果某些产品停产，消费者将蒙受损失。其次，它忘记了这仅仅是用失业惩罚了在那一产业中工作的工人。最后，它还忽略了一点，即便X行业的工资很低，却是业界劳工的最佳选择；否则，那些劳工早就改行了。因此，如果X行业因为最低工资法而遭淘汰，先前的业界劳工会被迫转行到更不如意的其他行业。求职竞争甚至还会压低那些可供选择的职位的工资。总之，最低工资法必定造成失业增加，在这点上不可能得出其他结论。

（未完待续）

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