dingdong

第9章 遣散军队和裁减公务员

（接前面部分）

2

The same reasoning applies to civilian government officials whenever they are retained in excessive numbers and do not perform services for the community reasonably equivalent to the remuneration they receive. Yet whenever any effort is made to cut down the number of unnecessary officeholders the cry is certain to be raised that this action is “deflationary.” Would you remove the “purchasing power” from these officials? Would you injure the landlords and tradesmen who depend on that purchasing power? You are simply cutting down “the national income” and helping to bring about or intensify a depression.

当政府冗员过多，这些公务员为社会提供的服务配不上他们所获得的薪酬时，上述推理是同样适用的。然而，无论什么时候，只要做出一些努力去裁减多余的公务员，就一定会遭到极力反对，说这种举动是“通货紧缩的”。你是要裁掉这些公务员的“购买力”吗？你想要损害依赖那些购买力的房东和商家吗？你这么做，纯粹是在削减“国民所得”，促成或加剧经济衰退。

Once again the fallacy comes from looking at the effects of this action only on the dismissed officeholders themselves and on the particular tradesmen who depend upon them. Once again it is forgotten that, if these bureaucrats are not retained in office, the taxpayers will be permitted to keep the money that was formerly taken from them for the support of the bureaucrats. Once again it is forgotten that the taxpayers’ income and purchasing power go up by at least as much as the income and purchasing power of the former officeholders go down. If the particular shopkeepers who formerly got the business of these bureaucrats lose trade, other shopkeepers elsewhere gain at least as much. Washington is less prosperous, and can, perhaps, support fewer stores; but other towns can support more.

谬误又一次发生于只认识到了这一行动对遭到裁减的公务员，以及那些依赖于他们的特定商家的影响。人们又一次忘记了，如果这些公务员不再呆在政府机关，纳税人便可将原先被征去养活这些冗员的钱留作己用；人们再一次忘记了，纳税人的所得及购买力的增幅，至少跟被裁掉的冗员的所得及购买力的减幅相当。即使过去做公务员生意的商家有损失，别处的商家还会赢得起码同样多的生意。首都华盛顿不会像以前那般繁华，或许商店少了一些，可是其它城镇却能有更多的商家。

Once again, however, the matter does not end there. The country is not merely as well off without the superfluous officeholders as it would have been had it retained them. It is much better off. For the officeholders must now seek private jobs or set up private business. And the added purchasing power of the taxpayers, as we noted in the case of the soldiers, will encourage this. But the officeholders can take private jobs only by supplying equivalent services to those who provide the jobs—or, rather, to the customers of the employers who provide the jobs. Instead of being parasites, they become productive men and women.

而且，跟以前的讨论一样，事情还不止如此。冗员裁掉之后，国家并不仅仅跟保留了冗员的状态一样，而且变得更好。因为，被裁掉这部分人必须自谋职业或自己创业。就象我们在分析军人复员的情形中所指出的那样，纳税人的新增购买力将推动这一进程。不过，这些人只有为雇主，或者更确切地说是提供工作机会的雇主的顾客，提供了等值服务，才能在社会立足。他们不再是社会的寄生虫，而是有生产贡献的人。

I must insist again that in all this I am not talking of public officeholders whose services are really needed. Necessary policemen, firemen, street cleaners, health officers, judges, legislators and executives perform productive services as important as those of anyone in private industry. They make it possible for private industry to function in an atmosphere of law, order, freedom and peace. But their justification consists in the utility of their services. It does not consist in the “purchasing power” they possess by virtue of being on the public payroll.

我必须重申，以上所述，我并没有谈及其服务是社会真正需要的那些公务员。必需的警察、消防队员、环卫工人、卫生局官员、法官、议员和行政人员，这些人都履行着与私企职员同等重要的生产性职责。由于他们所从事的服务，私人企业才得以在法制、秩序、自由、和平的环境中运作。但留用他们的理由，是因为他们提供的服务有其效用，而不是因为他们靠支配纳税人的钱所拥有的“购买力”。

This “purchasing power” argument is, when one considers it seriously, fantastic. It could just as well apply to a racketeer or a thief who robs you. After he takes your money he has more purchasing power. He supports with it bars, restaurants, night clubs, tailors, perhaps automobile workers. But for every job his spending provides, your own spending must provide one less, because you have that much less to spend. Just so the taxpayers provide one less job for every job supplied by the spending of officeholders. When your money is taken by a thief, you get nothing in return. When your money is taken through taxes to support needless bureaucrats, precisely the same situation exists. We are lucky, indeed, if the needless bureaucrats are mere easygoing loafers. They are more likely today to be energetic reformers busily discouraging and disrupting production.

这种“购买力”论调推敲起来就会显得荒诞不经。这套说辞对骗子和窃贼同样适用。窃贼窃取你的钱之后，他的购买力也会提高。他把盗窃来的钱花在酒吧、餐厅、夜总会、成衣店，甚至拿去买车。然而，其支出每提供一个工作机会，你自己的支出所能提供的就业机会就将同时减少，因为，你恰恰减少了这么多钱可供花费。同理，公务员的支出每提供一个工作机会，纳税人那边就要少提供一个工作机会。钱被盗窃，对于你而言是一种白白损失，钱被征去养活那些冗员，恰恰正是这种情形。事实上，倘若这些冗员仅仅是些游手好闲的人，还算我们走运。可惜如今，他们更可能是些忙于阻碍和破坏生产的，劲头十足的“改革者”。

When we can find no better argument for the retention of any group of officeholders than that of retaining their purchasing power it is a sign that the time has come to get rid of them.

当我们留用一批公务员只是为了保住其购买力，而找不出更有力的理由时，那就表明应该把他们从政府机关裁减出去。

Disbanding Troops and Bureaucrats

第9章 遣散军队和裁减公务员

WHEN, AFTER EVERY great war, it is proposed to demobilize the armed forces, there is always a great fear that there will not be enough jobs for these forces and that in consequence they will be unemployed. It is true that, when millions of men are suddenly released, it may require time for private industry to reabsorb them—though what has been chiefly remarkable in the past has been the speed, rather than the slowness, with which this was accomplished. The fears of unemployment arise because people look at only one side of the process.

在每一次大战结束，提起军人复员问题的时候，人们总是非常担心没有足够多的工作岗位来安置这些复员军人，进而担心这些人会因此失业。确实，当数以百万计的人突然间被遣散，要使得私营工商业重新吸纳他们是需要相当一段时间的——不过历史上首要的引人吃惊的是这一过程完成之迅速，而非迟缓。人们对失业问题忧心忡忡，是因为他们只考虑到了这个进程的一个侧面。

They see soldiers being turned loose on the labor market. Where is the “purchasing power” going to come from to employ them? If we assume that the public budget is being balanced, the answer is simple. The government will cease to support the soldiers. But the taxpayers will be allowed to retain the funds that were previously taken from them in order to support the soldiers. And the taxpayers will then have additional funds to buy additional goods. Civilian demand, in other words, will be increased, and will give employment to the added labor force represented by the former soldiers.

人们看到退伍军人涌入劳动市场时，不禁要问，哪来那么多“购买力”雇用这些人呢？如果我们假设政府在战时可以在维持公共预算收支平衡的情况下来供养军队，答案则很简单。政府在战后不用再维持庞大的军队，会减少军费开支。纳税人以前被征去供应军队的钱，现在可以留着自己用，也就会有更多的钱去购买更多的东西。换句话说，民间需求将从此增加，并将为复员军人所代表的新增劳动力提供就业机会。

If the soldiers have been supported by an unbalanced budget— that is, by government borrowing and other forms of deficit financing—the case is somewhat different. But that raises a different question: we shall consider the effects of deficit financing in a later chapter. It is enough to recognize that deficit financing is irrelevant to the point that has just been made; for if we assume that there is any advantage in a budget deficit, then precisely the same budget deficit could be maintained as before by simply reducing taxes by the amount previously spent in supporting the wartime army.

如果政府在战时采用赤字财政，也就是靠政府公债和其他的赤字财政形式来供养军队，情况会有所不同。然而，那也提出了一个不同的问题：我们将在后面的章节再讨论赤字财政的影响。这里只需要知道赤字财政和我们讨论的要点无关即可。因为，要是我们认为维持这个水平的预算赤字有某种好处的话，那么只需要减税，减税幅度和以前用于支付战时军费上的资金一样多，就可以保持与原来相同的预算赤字。

But the demobilization will not leave us economically just where we were before it started. The soldiers previously supported by civilians will not become merely civilians supported by other civilians. They will become self-supporting civilians. If we assume that the men who would otherwise have been retained in the armed forces are no longer needed for defense, then their retention would have been sheer waste. They would have been unproductive. The taxpayers, in return for supporting them, would have got nothing. But now the taxpayers turn over this part of their funds to them as fellow civilians in return for equivalent goods or services. Total national production, the wealth of everybody, is higher.

但是，从经济角度来说，军人复员转业并不会让我们停留在与遣散之前的经济状态。以前靠平民养活的军人并不仅仅转变为靠其他平民供养的平民，他们现在是自食其力的平民。如果我们认为那些要被遣散的军人不再为国防所需，那么继续把他们留在军中纯粹是一种浪费。他们本身是不从事生产的，纳税人出钱供养他们是得不到相应回报的。现在，纳税人能把这一部分的钱支付给复员转业人员，换取等值的产品或服务。国民生产总值增加了，也就是每个人的财富都增加了。

（未完待续）

[转自寻正邮件090410]

Saving the X Industry 救救某产业（建议以后都称某产业更符合汉语习惯）

THE LOBBIES OF Congress are crowded with representatives of the X industry. 国会大厦的候休室挤满了某产业的代表。Lobby在英文中主要指一个让人等候或者休息的区域，跟中文的门廊不一样，当然，门廊区域也可以用作Lobby的。

The X industry is sick. The X industry is dying. It must be saved. 某产业不行了，某产业快完了，我们必须拯救它。

It can be saved only by a tariff, by higher prices, or by a subsidy. 只有征收新关税、提高价格、或者提供补贴，它才有救。

Their landlords, grocers, butchers, clothing stores and local motion pictures will lose business, and depression will spread in ever-widening circles. 他们的房东、杂货店、肉铺、服饰店、戏院，就会失去生意，经济萧条会因此蔓延到其它行业。

But if the X industry, by prompt action of Congress, is saved—ah then! It will buy equipment from other industries; more men will be employed; they will give more business to the butchers, bakers and neon-light makers, and then it is prosperity that will spread in ever-widening circles.
但如果国会马上采取挽救措施的话——那么，啊哈！X产业会向其他行业购买设备；更多的人将能得到工作；他们将为当地的肉铺、面包店，以及霓虹灯制造商带来生意。这样的话，就是经济繁荣扩展到其它行业。

The United States Treasury was compelled to acquire, at ridiculous prices far above the market level, hoards of unnecessary silver, and to store it in vaults. 美国财政部不得不以离谱的高价大量收购不必需的白银，任其积压在库房里。

It may be argued that a given industry must be created or preserved for military reasons. It may be argued that a given industry is being ruined by taxes or wage rates disproportionate to those of other industries; or that, if a public utility, it is being forced to operate at rates or charges to the public that do not permit an adequate profit margin. 可以说，为了军事目的，不得不创建或保全某些产业；也可以说，某个产业税负或工资率相对于其他产业不成比例，因而难以为继；还可以说公用事业公司因为面向公众的费率偏低，无法赚取合理的利润。

What we are talking about here is nothing else but a generalized case of the argument put forward for parity prices for farm products or for tariff protection for any number of X industries. 本章要谈的，无非是将主张实施农产品等位价格或对某些产业实施关税保护的论调加以扩展讨论。

There are two main types of such proposals in addition to those we have already considered, and we shall take a brief glance at them. 除了我们前面提到的，相关提案通常还有两大类，我们会简短地讨论它们。

That lower living standard will be brought about either by lower average money wages than would otherwise prevail or by higher average living costs, or by a combination of both. (The exact result would depend upon the accompanying monetary policy.) 生活水平下降，可能表现为人均所领的工资低于本来应有的水准，也可能表现为更高的人均生活费用，或者两种表现都有（具体表现取决于当时的货币政 策）。

The X industry would benefit only at the expense of the A, B and C industries.某产业得到好处，只可能是以甲、乙、丙产业的损失为代价的。

And customers, because they are taxed to support the X industry, will have that much less income left with which to buy other things. 同时，为了支持X产业，负担一部分税款的消费者，也就不能把那一部分钱拿去买别的东西。

The result is also (and this is where the net loss comes in to the nation considered as a unit) that capital and labor are driven out of industries in which they are more efficiently employed to be diverted to an industry in which they are less efficiently employed.其后果同样是（并且是在把国家视为一个整体时所受的净损失加以考虑时），资本和劳工被迫从运用效率较高的产业流失，而流向运用效率较差的产业。

These results are virtually inherent, in fact, in the very arguments put forward to subsidize the X industry.这样的结果正是那些补贴X产业的主张在逻辑上的必然发展。

Paradoxical as it may seem to some, it is just as necessary to the health of a dynamic economy that dying industries be allowed to die as that growing industries be allowed to grow. The first process is essential to the second.尽管这对于某些人来讲可能有些自相矛盾，放手让夕阳产业消失，跟允许朝阳产业成长一样，这是一个有活力的经济能够健康发展所必需的；前者是后者的必要条件。

It is as foolish to try to preserve obsolescent industries as to try to preserve obsolescent methods of production: this is often, in fact, merely two ways of describing the same thing. 企图保护落伍过时的产 业，就跟保护落伍过时的生产方式一样愚蠢：事实上，二者往往不过是说明同一事情的两种不同方式而已。

Improved methods of production must constantly supplant obsolete methods, if both old needs and new wants are to be filled by better commodities and better means.如果要有更好的产品和更好的手段来满足新老需求，改进的生产方式必须不断取代陈旧的生产方式。

[转自寻正邮件090408] 

“Parity” Prices “等位”价格（Parity应当翻译为“等位”，以下全文需要同样翻译）

This parity existed in the period from 1909 to 1914, when farmers were prosperous. That price relationship must be restored and preserved perpetually.1909年到1914年间就出现了这种公平价格，那时的农民很富裕。

If there had been any sincerity or logic in the idea, it would have been universally extended. 如果等位价格观念有点意义或逻辑，那就应该普遍适用于所有商品。

A pound of aluminum from 1909 to 1913 inclusive averaged 22.5 cents; its price early in 1946 was 14 cents; but at “parity” it would then have cost, instead, 41 cents.1909年到1913年（含首尾两年），金属铝的平均价格是每磅22.5美分；1946年初是14美分，若按照“等位”价 格，则应该是41美分。

It would be both difficult and debatable to try to bring these two particular comparisons down to date by adjusting not only for the serious inflation (consumer prices have more than tripled) between 1946 and 1978, but also for the qualitative differences in automobiles in the two periods.
时至今日，要不断以新的数据更新上面所作的两种比较，这种努力是既困难又颇值得争议的事情。因为，我们除了必须考虑1946年到1978年间严重的 通货膨胀（消费物价指数上涨了三倍多），还必须考虑前后两个时期汽车品质上的差异。

Yet all this is ignored by the apostles of “parity” prices.然而，“等位”价格的先知们对这一切却视而不见。
【注：《纽约时报》，1946年1 月2号。耕种面积限制计划当然有助于提高亩产，第一是因为农民会首先辍耕亩产低下的耕地，第二是人为的高价激励农民在现有耕地上追施更多化肥，以提高亩产。因此，政府的耕种面积限制计划基本上是自己拆自己的台。】

Another evidence is that when agricultural prices go above parity, or are forced there by government policies, there is no demand on the part of the farm bloc in Congress that such prices be brought down to parity, or that the subsidy be to that extent repaid. It is a rule that works only one way.
还有另一个证据来证明此结论，当农产品价格上涨，高过了等位价格，或者为政府政策所迫使而达到这种程度时，国会中代表农民利益的议员们，从来不曾要求把农产品价格拉回到等位价格，从来不曾要求农民此时退回补贴。等位价格是一条单向通行的规则。
（第二节链结有误，打不开）

It does not matter to this argument, of course, whether or not the farmer gets specifically so-called parity prices.不消说，有没有等位价格，对这个论点关系不大。

Everything, however, depends on how these higher prices are brought about. 然而，一切还要取决于这此高价格是如何形成的。

If the city worker has to pay a higher price for woolen blankets or overcoats because of a tariff, is he “compensated” by having to pay a higher price also for cotton clothing and for foodstuffs? Or is he merely being robbed twice?　如果城市工人由于保护性关税而不得不支付较高的价格去买毛毯或外套，那他不得不支付较高的价格去买棉衣或食品就是对他的“补偿”吗？还是说他被剥削了两次？

We could solve the matter simply, on the other hand, by ending both the parity-price system and the protective-tariff system. Meanwhile they do not, in combination, even out anything. The joint system means merely that Farmer A and Industrialist B both profit at the expense of Forgotten Man C.
从另一方面来说，同时取消等位价格制度和保护性关税制度，最简单。此前，两种保护制度结合起来执行的结果，不会为什么人拉平任何利益关系。这一结合的体系仅仅意味着：农民某甲和企业家某乙同时获利，却牺牲了被遗忘的某丙。

So the alleged benefits of still another scheme evaporate as soon as we trace not only its immediate effects on a special group but its long-run effects on everyone.
在这里，我们一旦不仅仅是探讨某个特殊群体受到的即时影响，而且同样探究经济政策提案对每个人造成的长期影响时，又一条谬政的嘘吹利益便凭空消失了。

[转自寻正邮件090406] 

The Drive for Exports 出口狂热

But they could just as well have been settled by shipments of cotton, steel, whisky, perfume, or any other commodity.但也可以用交运棉花、钢铁、威士忌、香料，或其他普通商品来结算。

The chief difference is that when a gold standard exists the demand for gold is almost indefinitely expansible (partly because it is thought of and accepted as a residual international “money” rather than as just another commodity), and that nations do not put artificial obstacles in the way of receiving gold as they do in the way of receiving almost everything else. (On the other hand, of late years they have taken to putting more obstacles in the way of exporting gold than in the way of exporting anything else; but that is another story.)
这里主要的 区别在于，当金本位制存在的时候，黄金的需求几乎可以无限扩张（部分原因是黄金被公认为是终极国际“货币”，而不仅仅是另一种普通商品），各国不象限制其它任何商品进口那样限制黄金的输入。（另一方面，近年来，它们限制黄金的输出，采取的措施甚于限制其它任何商品出口，那却是另一码事。）

Now the same people who can be clearheaded and sensible when the subject is one of domestic trade can be incredibly emotional and muddleheaded when it becomes one of foreign trade. 如今某些人，在谈论国内贸易时，头脑清醒并且很有理智，当话题转到对外贸易，他们立刻变得情绪激动、头脑糊涂得令人难以置信。

It is not wise to bestow charity on foreign people under the impression that one is making a hardheaded business transaction purely for one’s own selfish purposes. 我们对于国外民族予以慈善救济时，却给人以正 在做着一笔精明的纯粹是基于自己商业利益的交易的印象，那就太不明智了。

Yet among the arguments put forward in favor of huge foreign lending one fallacy is always sure to occupy a prominent place. 可是，在主张对外大量贷款的论调中，一个谬论始终占有重要位置。
【注：The $5,000 figure Hazlitt uses is not meant to be exact.黑兹利特用的5 000美元这个数字并非要确切地代表其价格。现在一辆新车的平均价格要20 000美元左右。（戴维•亨德森（David R. Henderson）的《通货膨胀的有趣与博弈》（Fun and Games With Inflation），刊于《财富》1996年3月18日，第36页）】

It is true, for example, that persons engaged exclusively or chiefly in export business might gain on net balance as a result of bad loans made abroad. 例如，专门或是主要从事出口贸易的人，可能会从政府海外贷款坏账中得到净收益，这是确实无误的。

In the long run business and employment in America would be hurt, not helped, by foreign loans that were not repaid. 从长远来看，贷款收不回来对美国的企业和就业并没有好处，而是有害的。

For the same reasons that it is stupid to give a false stimulation to export trade by making bad loans or outright gifts to foreign countries, it is stupid to give a false stimulation to export trade through export subsidies. 基于这个道理，那些靠对外贷款呆账，或者直接赠与外国的方式，制造出口大增的做法，是愚蠢的，企图通过出口补贴的方式拉动出口的做法，愚不可及。

Here we are interested in just one aspect of that program—the naive belief of many of its sponsors that this is a clever or even a necessary method of “increasing our exports” and so maintaining prosperity and employment. 这里我们只对支持那些计划的一种说法感兴趣——许多支持此种政策的人愚蠢地相信这样可以“拉动出口”，相信这是维持美国的繁荣和就业的聪明做法，甚至是必要的措施。

This is, as John Stuart Mill so clearly pointed out, that the real gain of foreign trade to any country lies not in its exports but in its imports. 这个结论，正如约翰•穆勒非常清楚地所表达的那样：对外贸易对任何国家能有利益，最终并不在于其出口，而是在于其进口。

[转自寻正邮件090403] 

All of them find it for their interest to employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbors, and to purchase with a part of its produce, or what is the same thing, with the price of a part of it, whatever else they have occasion for.
他们全都发现，符合他们自身利益的是，他们应集中生产精力于与其邻居相比而存在着相对优势的地方，用部分自己的产品去购买，或者换个说法，用其产品价格的一部分，去购买他们所需要的其它东西。

An American manufacturer of woolen sweaters goes to Congress or to the State Department and tells the committee or officials concerned that it would be a national disaster for them to remove or reduce the tariff on British sweaters. 美国一家羊毛衫制造商，跑到国会或者政府部门向相关的委员会或者官员表示担忧，说对英国羊毛衫减免进口关税，会给国家带来灾难。

For now sweaters that formerly cost retail $30 apiece can be bought for $25. Consumers can now buy the same quality of sweater for less money, or a much better one for the same money. 以往30美元一件的羊毛衫现在只卖25美元，消费者花更少的钱，就能买到同等品质的羊毛衫，或者花同样多的钱，能买到一件品质更好的羊毛衫。

If they buy the same quality of sweater, they not only get the sweater, but they have $5 left over, which they would not have had under the previous conditions, to buy something else. With the $25 that they pay for the imported sweater they help employment—as the American manufacturer no doubt predicted — in the sweater industry in England. With the $5 left over they help employment in any number of other industries in the United States.
如果他们买到了同质的羊毛衫，那么他们不仅有羊毛衫穿，省下的5美元还可以拿去买别的东西。消费者掏25美元买进口货，是在促进英国羊毛衫业的就业，这也是那个美国制造商为我们所断言的那样。而消费者省下的5美元，则会促进美国其它产业的就业。

American employment on net balance has not gone down, but American and British production on net balance has gone up. 美国总的就业率并未下降，但是美国和英国的整体生产却增加了。

Labor in each country is more fully employed in doing just those things that it does best, instead of being forced to do things that it does inefficiently or badly. 两国的劳动力资源都充分流向了各自的优势产业，而不必继续窝在缺乏效率或者成果差的产业里。

American consumers are better provided with sweaters, and British consumers are better provided with washing machines and aircraft.
美国的消费者能买更多的羊毛衫，英国消费者可以得到更多的洗衣机和飞机。

Americans would be employed in a sweater industry who had not previously been employed in a sweater industry. That much is true. 一些原来并不受雇于羊毛衫产业的美国人现在改入这一行，这当然是事实。
其他是指人，其它才指物，原翻译中似乎不太注意这种区别。

The overwhelming majority of the people, therefore, would probably suffer from the illusion that the new industry had cost us nothing.
因此，绝大多数人都可能会罹患此种错觉，以为新产业并没有使他们付出任何代价。

To be sure, it would enable Americans to work in the sweater industry at approximately the average level of American wages (for workers of their skill), instead of having to compete in that industry at the British level of wages. 更准确地说，征收这种关税将使在羊毛衫产业中工作的美国人，其工资处于美国的平均水准上下（就相当技能而言），而不是同该行业的英国工人工资水平竞争。

And this brings us to the real effect of a tariff wall. It is not merely that all its visible gains are offset by less obvious but no less real losses. It results, in fact, in a net loss to the country. For contrary to centuries of interested propaganda and disinterested confusion, the tariff reduces the American level of wages.
这就让我们见到关税壁垒的实质影响。不仅仅是所有看得到的利益，都被不那么明显，但一样真实的损失给冲销掉了。其结果，乃是整个国家承受了净损失。与数百年来无数出于自利的宣传及并非出于自利的认识混乱相反，关税降低了美国的工资水平。

Let us observe more clearly how it does this. 让我们来进一步察考其中的机制。

Whether the net effect of the tariff is to lower money wages or to raise money prices will depend upon the monetary policies that are followed. 关税的净效果，到底是降低货币工资，还是提高货币物价，要看当时实行的货币政 策。

But what is clear is that the tariff—though it may increase wages above what they would have been in the protected industries—must on net balance, when all occupations are considered, reduce real wages—-reduce them, that is to say, compared with what they otherwise would have been.
很清楚的一点是，尽管受保护产业的工资水平可能比不受关税保护时要高，若把所有产业都考虑在内的话，和本来应有的整体水平相比较，关税一定会降低整体工资水平。

Only minds corrupted by generations of misleading propaganda can regard this conclusion as paradoxical. 只有遭受一代又一代的误导性宣传腐蚀的大脑才会觉得上述结论仍有争议。

We make it a dollar cheaper to ship the sweaters, and then increase the tariff by two dollars to prevent the sweaters from being shipped. 我们降低羊毛衫运输成本1美元，却又增加了2美元的关税而阻止了它的运输。

In a sense this is correct. 从某种意义上讲，这话不错。

We can perhaps make this last point clearer by an exaggerated example. 我们不妨用一个夸张的例子，来使这最后一点更清楚些。

In the long run, notwithstanding the mountains of argument pro and con, a tariff is irrelevant to the question of employment. 尽管有成堆的支持和反对的意见，长期而言，关税与就业问题是无关的。

In the long run it always reduces real wages, because it reduces efficiency, production and wealth.关税的长期效应一定会使实际工资下降，因为它减低了效率、生产和财富。

If one industry alone could get protection, while its owners and workers enjoyed the benefits of free trade in everything else they bought, that industry would benefit, even on net balance. 如果受关税保护的行业只有一个，当该行业的业主和劳工购买别人的产品时，可以尽享自由贸易的好处，那么该行业将整体受益。

As an attempt is made to extend the tariff blessings, however, even people in the protected industries, both as producers and consumers, begin to suffer from other people’s protection, and may finally be worse off even on net balance than if neither they nor anybody else had protection.
但是，如果受关税保护的行业越来越多，最初受保护的行业中人，既包括生产者，也包括消费者，也会开始因为其他人得到保护而受害，最终结果可能在整体上比没有任何人受到保护时还要糟。

We should not pretend, for example, that a reduction of the tariff would help everybody and hurt nobody.比如，我们不能妄想减少关税将有助于所有人，而不会有人受到损害。

That in fact is one reason why it is not good to bring such protected interests into existence in the first place. 那其实就是根本不应该在一开始就实行这类保护政策的原因之一。

But clarity and candor of thinking compel us to see and acknowledge that some industries are right when they say that a removal of the tariff on their product would throw them out of business and throw their workers (at least temporarily) out of jobs. 但思考的明晰与公正让我们看到与承认，当某些企业呼吁，取消它们的产品关税，会致使工厂倒闭、工人失业（至少暂时如此），他们所言不虚。

And if their workers have developed specialized skills, they may even suffer permanently, or until they have at long last learnt equal skills. 而且如果其工人已经发展了行业专门技能，他们甚至可能遭受长期的利益损害，或者直到他们最后能掌握别的专门技能为止。

In tracing the effects oftariffs, as in tracing the effects of machinery, we should endeavor to see all the chief effects, in both the short run and the long run, on all groups.
我们探究关税的影响时，应与探究机器的影响时相同，我们应该力求认清所有的主要影响，包括短期的以及长期的，对于所有集团的影响。

[转自寻正邮件090403] 

The Fetish of Full Employment盲目崇拜全面就业

It is for this reason that men began putting burdens on the backs of mules instead of on their own; that they went on to invent the wheel and the wagon, the railroad and the motor truck. It is for this reason that men used their ingenuity to develop a hundred thousand labor-saving inventions.
也正是由 于这一原因，人们着手用骡子代替自己负重，并且进一步发明了轮子和马车，发明了铁路和载货汽车。正是由于这一原因，人类才运用自己的聪明才智，发明创造了无数节省劳力的装置。

Translated into national terms, this first principle means that our real objective is to maximize production. 当我们从国家的角度来分析时，这一首要原则意味着：追求生产最大化才是我们的真正目标。

In doing this, full employment—that is, the absence of involuntary idleness—becomes a necessary byproduct. But production is the end, employment merely the means. We cannot continuously have the fullest production without full employment. But we can very easily have full employment without full production.
要达成这个目标，全面就业，即不存在非自愿失业的情况，就会成为必然的副产品。不过，就业只是手段，生产才是目的。少了全面就业，我们无法连续不断地达到充分生产这个目标。不过，我们很容易就可以实现没有充分生产的全面就业。

Nothing is easier to achieve than full employment, once it is divorced from the goal of full production and taken as an end in itself. 全面就业一旦偏离了充分生产这个目标，并且自身被当作一个目标的话，恐怕没有什么东西会比它更容易实现的了。

Hitler provided full employment with a huge armament program. World War II provided full employment for every nation involved. The slave labor in Germany had full employment. Prisons and chain gangs have full employment. Coercion can always provide full employment.
希特勒推动庞大的扩军备战计划，实现了全面就业；第二次世界大战让每个参战国都实现了全面就业；德国的苦役都全面就业；监狱和戴镣铐的囚徒都全面就业。高 压统治总能实现全面就业。

Yet our legislators do not present Full Production bills in Congress but Full Employment bills. Even committees of businessmen recommend “a President’s Commission on Full Employment,” not on Full Production, or even on Full Employment and Full Production. Everywhere the means is erected into the end, and the end itself is forgotten.
然而，议员们在国会提出的不是充分生产的议案，而是全面就业的议案。就连工商业联合会呼吁成立的也是“总统全面就业委员会”，而非“充分生产”委员会、或“全面就业与充分生产”委员会。在任何地方，手段反而成了目标，而目标本身就被遗忘了。

Wages and employment are discussed as if they had no relation to productivity and output. 人们讨论起工资和就业，就好像它们与生产力和产出没有什么联系一样。

When a Petrillo threatens to put a radio station out of business unless it employs twice as many musicians as it needs, he is supported by part of the public because he is after all merely trying to create jobs. 美国专业音乐人工会领袖皮特里洛 （Petrillo）扬言，若某广播电台不加倍雇用音乐工作者，就要该广播电台关门，他受到了公众支持，毕竟他只是想要创造更多的工作机会。

When we had our WPA, it was considered a mark of genius for the administrators to think of projects that employed the largest number of men in relation to the value of the work performed—in other words, in which labor was least efficient.
当我们拥有公共事业管理署（WPA）之际，大家认为天才行政管理人员标志就是能想出相对于工作所能创造的价值雇用最大数量的人力的项目——换 句话说，最没有效率地使用劳动力的项目。

It would be far better, if that were the choice—which it isn’t—to have maximum production with part of the population supported in idleness by undisguised relief than to provide “full employment” by so many forms of disguised make-work that production is disorganized. 如果这是一种选择——可惜不是——最好是拥有生产最大化，同时光明正大地救济一部分失业人口，远比打着“全面就业”的幌子，用各种滥配工作来扰乱生产要好得多。

It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able virtually to eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs. 因为当国家变得日益富裕，才使我们得以禁止使用童工，得以实现老有所养，使得成千上万的妇女不再需要劳累工作。

A much smaller proportion of the American population needs to work than that, say, of China or of Russia. 在美国必须工作的人口的比例，远低于比如中国或俄罗斯这样的国家。

The problem of distribution on which all the stress is being put today, is after all more easily solved the more there is to distribute.
今天人们极力强调的分配问题，如果有更多的产品可供分配，终归是更容易得到解决。

We can clarify our thinking if we put our chief emphasis where it belongs—on policies that will maximize production.
我们如果能把重点放在真正该放的地方——也就是放在生产最大化的政策上，我们就可以理清自己的思路。

[转自寻正邮件090402]

though what has been chiefly remarkable in the past has been the speed, rather than the slowness, with which this was accomplished.不过历史上首要的引人吃惊的是吸纳的快速而不是迟缓。

But the demobilization will not leave us economically just where we were before it started. The soldiers previously supported by civilians will not become merely civilians supported by other civilians. They will become self-supporting civilians. 但是，从经济角度来说，军人复员转业并不会让我们停留在与遣散之前的经济状态。以前靠平民养活的军人并不仅仅转变为靠其他平民供养的平民，他们现在是自食其力的平民。

If we assume that the men who would otherwise have been retained in the armed forces are no longer needed for defense, then their retention would have been sheer waste. 如果我们认为那些要被遣散的军人不再为国防所需，那么继续把他们留在军中纯粹是一种浪费。

Total national production, the wealth of everybody, is higher.国民生产总值增加了，也就是每个人的财富都增加了。

Yet whenever any effort is made to cut down the number of unnecessary officeholders the cry is certain to be raised that this action is “deflationary.” Would you remove the “purchasing power” from these officials? Would you injure the landlords and tradesmen who depend on that purchasing power? You are simply cutting down “the national income” and helping to bring about or intensify a depression.
然而，无论什么时候，只要做出一些努力去裁减多余的 公务员，就一定会遭到极力反对，说这种举动是“通货紧缩的”。你是要裁掉这些公务员的“购买力”吗？你想要损害依赖那些购买力的房东和商家吗？你这么做，纯粹是在削减“国民收入”，促成或加剧经济衰退。

Once again the fallacy comes from looking at the effects of this action only on the dismissed officeholders themselves and on the particular tradesmen who depend upon them. 谬误又一次发生于只认识到了这一行动对遭到裁减的公务员，以及那些依赖于他们的特定商家的影响。

Once again it is forgotten that the taxpayers’ income and purchasing power go up by at least as much as the income and purchasing power of the former officeholders go down. 人们再一次忘记了，纳税人的所得及购买力的增幅，至少跟被裁掉的冗员的收入及购买力的减幅 相当。

If the particular shopkeepers who formerly got the business of these bureaucrats lose trade, other shopkeepers elsewhere gain at least as much. Washington is less prosperous, and can, perhaps, support fewer stores; but other towns can support more.
即使过去做公务员生意的商家有损失，别处的商家还会赢得起码同样多的生意。首都华盛顿不会像以前那般繁华，或许商店会少了一些，可是其它城镇因此却能有更多的商家。

Once again, however, the matter does not end there. 而且，跟以前的讨论一样，事情还不止如此。

The country is not merely as well off without the superfluous officeholders as it would have been had it retained them. It is much better off.冗员裁掉之后，国家并不仅仅跟保留了冗员的状态一样，而是变得更好。

But the officeholders can take private jobs only by supplying equivalent services to those who provide the jobs—or, rather, to the customers of the employers who provide the jobs. Instead of being parasites, they become productive men and women.
不过，这些人只有为雇主，或者更确切地说是提供工作机会的雇主的顾客，提供了等值服务，才能在社会立足。他们不再是社会的寄生虫，而是有生产贡献的人。

我们来看下图：

[转自寻正邮件090401]

Spread-the-Work Schemes滥配工作机会（之谋划）（可以去掉“之谋划”，作者有贬义，“方案”一词太过于中性。Spread不仅仅是分散的意思，不完全达意，全文谈的是故意为有限的工作分配过多的不必要的人力，所以用“滥配”一词。）

I HAVE REFERRED to various union make-work and featherbed practices. These practices, and the public toleration of them, spring from the same fundamental fallacy as the fear of machines.
前面我已经提到了工会制造工作机会和闲职就业的种种做法。这些做法的起因，以及公众容忍它们的原因，跟害怕机器一样，是源于同一个根本的谬误。

This error lies behind the minute subdivision of labor upon which unions insist. In the building trades in large cities the subdivision is notorious. Bricklayers are not allowed to use stones for a chimney: that is the special work of stonemasons. An electrician cannot rip out a board to fix a connection and put it back again: that is the special job, no matter how simple it may be, of the carpenters. A plumber will not remove or put back a tile incident to fixing a leak in the shower: that is the job of a tile-setter.
这一错误隐含于许多工会所坚持微细分工之中。在大城市的建筑业中，这种微细分工众所周知。铺砖工不许碰砌烟囱的石材，因为那是石匠的专有工作。电工不可以拆开再装回木板以修理接线不良，这是特种工作，无论多少简单，都属于木匠。管工若要处理浴室的漏水问题，不允许撬开和铺回瓷砖，因为那是铺瓷匠的专有工作。

Furious “jurisdictional” strikes are fought among unions for the exclusive right to do certain types of borderline jobs. In a statement prepared by the American railroads for the Attorney-General’s Committee on Administrative Procedure, the roads gave innumerable examples in which the National Railroad Adjustment Board had decided that
各种工会之间会因某种界限不清的工作的特权而争执、发动“隶属权”罢工。

each separate operation on the railroad, no matter how minute, such as talking over a telephone or spiking or unspiking a switch, is so far an exclusive property of a particular class of employee that if an employee of another class, in the course of his regular duties, performs such operations he must not only be paid an extra day’s wages for doing so, but at the same time the furloughed or unemployed members of the class held to be entitled to perform the operation must be paid a day’s wages for not having been called upon to perform it.
铁路上的各项独立作业，无论多么微不足道，例如接听铁路专用电话或者扳道，至今都是特定职业雇工的专属权。倘若其他工种的工人，在当班时代 行了这类专属操作的话，那么，干这个活儿的人不但要得到一天额外的工资，而且公司还必须向有权操作的休假待岗的工人支付一天的工 资，因为没有召唤他们来做此项工作。【额外说明：原文中句型是Not only but also，工会惩罚的是雇主，不是工人，由于雇主要付两天额外的工资，可以保证雇主在工作安排上避免侵犯专属权。】

It is true that a few persons can profit at the expense of the rest of us from this minute arbitrary subdivision of labor— provided it happens in their case alone. 的确从这种微细随意的劳动分工可以令我们大家做出牺牲，而让一些人获益——前提是这种事只发生在他们身上。【额外说明：作者的意思是如果此类实践普遍化，这些人也不能受益。】

But those who support it as a general practice fail to see that it always raises production costs; that it results on net balance in less work done and in fewer goods produced. 但是，主张将之作为一般办法加以推广的人士却没有认识到，这样做通常提高了生产成本，其最终结果就是做的工作更少，生产的商品也更少。

The householder who is forced to employ two men to do the work of one has, it is true, given employment to one extra man. 房主被迫雇用两个人来做本来一个人就可以完成的工作，他的确会多给其中一个人就业机会。

But he has just that much less money left over to spend on something that would employ somebody else. 但是这么一来，他能够花在其他东西上面的钱就会变少刚好那么多，削减了生产其他东西同等的就业机会。

 “Labor” is no better off, because a day’s employment of an unneeded tile-setter has meant a day’s disemployment of a sweater knitter or machine handler. “劳工”并没有捞到更多好处，因为多雇用一名无所事事的铺瓷匠，就会导致另一名羊毛衫编织工或编织机操作工做不成事。

The householder, however, is worse off. 但房主的处境却变得更糟糕。

Instead of having a repaired shower and a sweater, he has the shower and no sweater. 他本来可以修好管漏，并拥有一件羊毛衫，现 在卫生间是不漏水了，却少了一件羊毛衫。

This symbolizes the net result of the effort to make extra work by arbitrary subdivision of labor.这就代表着靠随意微细分工增进就业的最终结果。

But there are other schemes for “spreading the work,” often put forward by union spokesmen and legislators. 此外，还有一些其他的滥配就业的策略，常常是由工会发言人和国会议员提出的。

The most frequent of these is the proposal to shorten the working week, usually by law. 其中最常见的是缩短每周工时的提议，常常以法定工时形式出现。

The belief that it would “spread the work” and “give more jobs” was one of the main reasons behind the inclusion of the penalty overtime provision in the existing Federal Wage-Hour Law. 现有的联帮工资工时法中包含惩罚性的加班条款之后的主要思想就是认为这种做法有助于“工作扩散分配”和“提供更多的工作机会”。

The previous legislation in the states, forbidding the employment of women or minors for more, say, than forty-eight hours a week, was based on the conviction that longer hours were injurious to health and morale. 在各州原有的立法中，禁止雇用女工或童工每周工时超过一定时间，比如48小时，其依据是确信周工时若再往上加，必定有害健康与员工士气。

Some of it was based on the belief that longer hours were harmful to efficiency. 此外还部分地是因为相信更长时间的工作有损工作效率。

But the provision in the federal law, that an employer must pay a worker a 50 percent premium above his regular hourly rate of wages for all hours worked in any week above forty, was not based primarily on the belief that forty-five hours a week, say, was injurious either to health or efficiency. 但是，联邦法律的条款中规 定，只要雇工每周工作超过40小时，雇主就必须按每个小时的正常工资加付50%给劳工。这一条款的制定依据不是因为政府相信每周工作比如45小时就有害健康或有损效率。

It was inserted partly in the hope of boosting the worker’s weekly income, and partly in the hope that, by discouraging the employer from taking on anyone regularly for more than forty hours a week, it would force him to employ additional workers instead. At the time of writing this, there are many schemes for “averting unemployment” by enacting a thirty-hour week or a four-day week.
加入这一条款的原因部分地是希望籍此提高劳工每周所得，部分地希望通过遏制雇主要求员工每周工作超过40小时，而达到迫使雇主增雇员工的目 的。就在我写作本书的时候，已有许多方案希望通过法定一周工作30小时或工作4天来“扭转失业”。

We cannot assume that it will provide sufficient additional jobs, however, to maintain the same payrolls and the same number of man-hours as before, unless we make the unlikely assumptions that in each industry there has been exactly the same percentage of unemployment and that the new men and women employed are no less efficient at their special tasks on the average than those who had already been employed. But suppose we do make these assumptions. Suppose we do assume that the right number of additional workers of each skill is available, and that the new workers do not raise production costs. What will be the result of reducing the working week from forty hours to thirty (without any increase in hourly pay)?
但是我们不能断然肯定，这一计划将提供足够的新增工作以维持同样的工薪支付和同样的工时数，除非我们提出一些不切实际的假设：每个行业的失 业率都相同与每个工种新手的工作效率都赶得上熟手。我们姑且认为以上假设成立，再假定每项技术工作都有足够多的技术工人可供雇佣，假定新雇的工人不增 加生产成本。那么，将周工时从40小时减少到30小时（同时不增加小时工资），将有什么样的结果呢？

It is unlikely that there will be any significant increase in production. 生产不可能会有任何显著的增加。

All that will have happened, even under the most favorable assumptions (which would seldom be realized) is that the workers previously employed will subsidize, in effect, the workers previously unemployed.即使在最理想的条件之下（这种情况几乎不可能发生），实际结果只可能是原有雇员补贴原来的失业人员。

The labor union leaders who demand shorter weeks to “spread the work” usually recognize this, and therefore they put the proposal forward in a form in which everyone is supposed to eat his cake and have it too. 那些要求缩短每周工时以“扩散分配工作机会”的工会领袖通常都能认识到这一点，因此他们提出的方案就看上去让每个人都能熊掌和鱼兼得。

If we assume that the workers, when previously employed for forty hours, were getting less than the level of production costs, prices and profits made possible, then they could have got the hourly increase without reducing the length of the working week. 假设员工以前每周工作40小时，所得的工资低于生产成本、价格、与利润关系所允许的工资水准，那么不必缩短每周工时，小时工资率也有可能提高。

But if under the forty-hour week, the workers were already getting as high a wage as the level of production costs and prices made possible (and the very unemployment they are trying to cure may be a sign that they were already getting even more than this), then the increase in production costs as a result of the 33.33 percent increase in hourly wage rates will be much greater than the existing state of prices, production and costs can stand.
然而，如果每周工作40小时，员工所领工资已经达到了生产成本与价格可充许的上限（其实试图解决的失业率问题正好表明，工资甚至超过了这个上限），那么小时工资率提高33.33%所造成生产成本上升的幅度，将显著超出目前的生产成本、价格、利润关系状态能够忍受的程度。

What ultimately happens to the prices of goods will depend upon what monetary policies are then allowed. 最终价格是涨是跌，取决于当时的货币政策。

The spread-the-work schemes, in brief, rest on the same sort of illusion that we have been considering. 简而言之，扩散分配工作机会的谋划，是建立在我们讨论过的幻觉上。

The spread-the-work schemes rest also, as we began by pointing out, on the false assumption that there is just a fixed amount of work to be done. 正如我们在本章开头所指出的那样，滥配工作机会的策略源于一个错误的假设：社会上可做的工作是有限的。

In a modern exchange economy, the most work will be done when prices, costs and wages are in the best relations with each other. What these relations are we shall later consider.
在现代的交换经济中，当价格、成本和工资彼此之间呈现最佳的关系时，完成的工作【即工作机会，译者注】才最多。