dingdong

[转自寻正邮件090625]

Government Price-Fixing
政府价格管制
  
It is the wartime inflation that mainly causes the pressure for price-fixing. At the time of writing, when practically every country is inflating, though most of them are at peace, price controls are always hinted at, even when they are not imposed.
战时通货膨胀是产生政府启动价格管制压力的主要原因。本书撰稿时，大多数国家安享和平，但都存在着通货膨胀，各国政府总会萌发管制物价的念头，即便没有真正实施。

Because the black market, however, finally supplanted the legal price-ceiling market, it must not be supposed that no harm was done. 不过，并不因为黑市最终取代了法定限价市场，我们就可以认为这个过程没有任何伤害。

【本章内容应当为所有关心中国医疗卫生改革，所有中国医疗卫生体系的消费者所熟读，天上不会掉芡饼，但中国人天天都在吃天上掉下来的芡饼，然后满腔抱怨。寻正注】

[转自寻正邮件090624]

Their stated aims, particularly when they are first proposing that the
government intervene, are usually more modest, and more plausible.
尤其是在他们率先提议实行政府干预时，他们所陈述的目标往往更为温和、更加动听。

For the present “temporary” low price cannot last. 因为，现在这种“暂时 的”低价格不可能永远撑下去。

But we cannot afford to wait for so-called natural market forces, or for the
“blind” law of supply and demand, to correct the situation.
但是，我们不能坐等所谓的自然市场力量，或“盲目的”供求法则，来矫正眼前的状况。

Such loans are urged in Congress for reasons that seem very plausible to
most listeners. 国会被敦促实施这种贷款，其理由让大多数听众觉得颇有道理。

They are told that the farmers’ crops are all dumped on the market at once,
at harvest time; that this is precisely the time when prices are lowest, and
that speculators take advantage of this to buy the crops themselves and hold
them for higher prices when food gets scarcer again.
议员们被告之，农民的谷物都集中在收获时节上市出售，而这正好是一年中农产品价格最低的时候，投机商乘机买进囤积，等到青黄不接的时候，就高价倒卖。

Even if farmers had to dump their whole crop of wheat on the market in a
single month of the year, therefore, the price in that month would not
necessarily be below the price at any other month (apart from an allowance
for the costs of storage).
因此，即使大多数农民不得不在收获后的那个月，把全部的小麦收成送到市场销售，对那些农民来说，那个月的价格也不一定就低于其他月份（这里要扣除仓储成本，【若农民愿意自己负担仓储成本，他们也可以不必急于集中销售小麦，译者注】）。

Actual experience shows that on the average the price of wheat and other
nonperishable crops remains the same all year round except for an allowance
for storage, interest and insurance charges.
实际经验表明，除开仓储、利息和保险费用，小麦和其他不易腐烂的谷物的平均价格水平在一年之中是相同的。

(This tendency seems to affect entrepreneurs in most competitive pursuits:
这种倾向似乎在最有竞争性的行为中存在于企业家们身上：

The case is different, however, when the State steps in and either buys the
farmers’ crops itself or lends them the money to hold the crops off the
market. 然而，当政府介入这一过程，无论是政府收购农民的谷物，还是贷款给农民让他们囤积谷物，暂不上市销售，情况就完全不同了。
For the loan policy is usually accompanied by, or inevitably leads to, a
policy of restricting production — i.e., a policy of scarcity.
贷款政策通常伴随着、有时则不可避免地引出限产政策——也就是人为制造出短缺。

In nearly every effort to “stabilize” the price of a commodity, the
interests of the producers have been put first. 几乎在每次努力“稳定
”物价的时候，总是把生产者的利益放在第一位的。
(We have been over all this ground before in our analysis of parity prices.)
在平准价格那一章，我们已经做过充分说明。）如果采用等位价格译法，这里要修改。

[转自寻正邮件090624]

It follows that it is foolish and misleading to concentrate our attention
merely on some special point—to examine, for example, merely what happens in
one industry without considering what happens in all. But it is precisely
from the persistent and lazy habit of thinking only of some particular
industry or process in isolation that the major fallacies of economics stem.

由此可以认为，把注意力只集中在特别的某一点是愚蠢的，也是误导，比如只关注某个行业发生的事情，而忽略在所有的行业发生的变化。然而，经济学中的重大谬误，正是出于人们长期养成的这种思维惯性和惰性，总是孤立地考察特定行业或特定过程而不顾其他。

He needs everything: drinking water, food, a roof over his head, protection
from animals, a fire, a soft place to lie down.
他需要每一样东西：饮用水、食物、房子、不被野兽咬伤、火、一个足够软可供躺下睡觉的地方。

He suffers most, say, from thirst. 比方说，极度焦渴最为令他痛苦

It would be considered unspeakably silly for the wood-gathering member of
the family to complain that they could gather more firewood if his brother
helped him all day, instead of getting the fish that were needed for the
family dinner.
要是拾柴火的小孩抱怨说，哥哥要是不去抓鱼 而去帮他拾柴火，他们会拾得更多，这就是难以言喻的蠢话。

This increased supply then reduces the price and reduces the profit margin,
until the profit margin on that article once more falls to the general level
of profits (relative risks considered) in other industries.
随后，供应增多又会导致价格下降、边 际利润下滑，直至其边际利润跌回到其他行业的平均利润水平（相对于其风险）。

In this case the “marginal” producers, that is, the producers who are least
efficient, or whose costs of production are highest, will be driven out of
business altogether.
这种情况下， “边际”生产者，也就是效率最低或成本最高的生产者，会被淘汰出局。

Prices are determined by supply and demand, and demand is determined by how
intensely people want a commodity and what they have to offer in exchange
for it. 价格取决于供给和需求，而需求取决 于人们想要拥有某种商品渴求程度，以及他们愿意支付多少来换取。

It is this last development that scandalizes those who do not understand the
“price system” they denounce. 正是最后一个环节让那些不理解“价格体系”的人大为反感。

Why do they not produce shoes to the “full capacity of modern technical
processes”? 为什么他们不“开足马力充分利用现代的制造工艺”来生产鞋子？

Now, in an economy in equilibrium, a given industry can expand only at the
expense of other industries. 经济处于均衡状态时，某个产业只有以其他行业牺牲为代价，才有可能得到扩展。

It is only the much vilified price system that solves the enormously
complicated problem of deciding precisely how much of tens of thousands of
different commodities and services should be produced in relation to each
other. 正是倍受妄责的价格体系解决了那个极为错综复杂的问题，即准确地决定无数商品和服务彼此相对应该生产多少。

Yet though the bureaucrats do not understand the quasi-automatic system of
the market, they are always disturbed by it.
然而，尽管官僚们并不理解市场的这种半自动化体系，他们却常常为之心态失常。

茅于轼老先生提出“假如土地允许自由买卖”，担心自由买卖后形成的失地农民会聚集到大城市形成“贫民窟”，在失业后遇到基本生计困境，住到“冒烟的山上”，由此呼吁对农村土地
政策进行更周到的考虑。

但如何才算更周到的考虑呢？现有的做法是，农村土地归集体所有，家庭仅享有一定期限的承包权，土地开发被政府垄断，农民本来可以获得的市场收益大大缩水，若干社会矛盾就此积累下来。要想破除这些弊端，又担心农民卖地后的未来，老先生如果不把话说清楚，恐怕
改革的步伐会就此打住。

出售土地后去城市谋生，农民要面对的其实是正常的市场风险。丢掉工作未必是最可怕的，许多曾经风光的商人最后也在商战中输得满身是债，锒铛入狱，被人追杀，如今并不罕见。进城工作的农民，如果像城里人一样缴纳社会保险，有失业保险和低保补贴的安全网，有资格申请廉租房，是否就可以解决起码的生计问题？

菲律宾贫民窟的景象想必令人震撼，让茅先生这样坚定的自由派人士也担心起市场的不足。其实印度、印尼、中东、拉美乃至非洲，哪个地方的贫民窟能给人美好的联想呢？这些悲惨景象的出现，是否能简单地归咎于土地的自由买卖。同样是在上个世纪后期起步的韩国与台湾，也曾有大量的农村人口，为什么就没有贫民窟的蔓延？或者说曾经有过的贫民窟能够被较快地消除？直觉上能想到的是，它们保持了长期而稳定的
经济增长，没有出现过大的贫富差距，至于为什么能取得这样的成就，学者们的解释五花八门，但好像极少归功于有什么特殊的土地政策。

作为首都的马尼拉有十几万人终年居住在垃圾山上，一个民主选举产生的政府却对此毫无作为，这个社会肯定有它的问题。不过今天的潮流是解释“发展的动力”，而不是追究“不发展的原因”，因为成功需要各方面条件的综合，许多方面缺一不可，而导致落后的因素可能很多。在那些贫富差距悬殊的国家，大量的城市贫民真是因为在农村失地造成的吗？从历史上看，这些国家都流行热带种植园经济，许多农民本来就没有土地。留在农村帮人种地，生活条件就能比马尼拉好？这些国家的公共治理极其低效、腐败（曾经统治菲律宾几十年的马科斯就是明证），下层民众遭遇非经济剥削严重。所有这些都是厚重的包袱。将大范围城市贫民现象归结于土地自由买卖，没有充足的说服力。

对于中国的土地政策，有几点或许是应该坚持的：

1）不要让保护耕地和粮食安全继续成为政府垄断土地市场、攫取垄断利润和腐败收入的借口，要解放这个巨大的生产要素市场——茅先生对此已经说得很清楚；

2）要相信农民自己决定是否卖地、卖价高低的理性行为，不要自以为是知识分子或者官老爷，就比别人更了解市场，就要代替别人去设计未来的人生，如果真这样想，干脆回到计划经济罢了；

3）加速社保体系的完善，尽早建立城乡一体化时间表，在财力有限的情况下，削减某些利益团体、尤其是公务员的过分优厚的福利待遇，不要什么改革都幻想“帕累托改进”；

4）解决政府权力的约束问题。茅先生说得好，法治要治的不是你我，而是政府。政府的问题不解决，一切其他问题都受影响。土地自由买卖也好，不自由买卖也好，如果政府作为一个不受制衡的利益方卷进来，弱势群体的结局都会很惨。但在法律字面上保证农民对土地的自由买卖权，至少是有助于抗衡政府的。让我们继续推动历史的前进吧。 

The Blessings of Destruction
第3章  战祸之福

So we have finished with the broken window. An elementary fallacy. Anybody, one would think, would be able to avoid it after a few moments’ thought. Yet the broken-window fallacy, under a hundred disguises, is the most persistent in the history of economics. It is more rampant now than at any time in the past. It is solemnly reaffirmed every day by great captains of industry, by chambers of commerce, by labor union leaders, by editorial writers and newspaper columnists and radio and television commentators, by learned statisticians using the most refined techniques, by professors of economics in our best universities. In their various ways they all dilate upon the advantages of destruction.

讲完粗浅的“破窗谬论”，有人会说，任何人只要动脑筋想一想，一定不会犯这样的错误。事实上，穿着各种伪装的破窗谬论，在经济学历史上却最为顽固不化，而且此种谬论在过去任何时候都没有现在这么盛行。如今，每天都有许多人在一本正经地重复着同样的错误。这些人包括工业巨头、商会和工会领袖、社论主笔、报纸专栏作家、电台与电视台的评论员、技巧高深的统计专家、一流大学的经济学教授。他们正在用各自的方式宣扬破坏行为所带来的好处。

Though some of them would disdain to say that there are net benefits in small acts of destruction, they see almost endless benefits in enormous acts of destruction. They tell us how much better off economically we all are in war than in peace. They see “miracles of production” which it requires a war to achieve. And they see a world made prosperous by an enormous “accumulated” or “backed-up” demand. In Europe, after World War II, they joyously counted the houses, the whole cities that had been leveled to the ground and that “had to be replaced.” In America they counted the houses that could not be built during the war, the nylon stockings that could not be supplied, the worn-out automobiles and tires, the obsolescent radios and refrigerators. They brought together formidable totals.

尽管他们中有些人不屑于承认小小的破坏行为中也存在着净利益，但他们都确信，巨大的破坏行为能让人们受益无穷。他们吹嘘战争对经济是如何如何的有利，非和平时期能比，并向我们展示通过战争才能实现的“生产奇迹”。他们认为，战争时期庞大的需求“累积”或“堵塞”，会给战后的世界带来繁荣。第二次世界大战结束后，他们兴致勃勃地清点那些在欧洲被战火夷为平地、必须重建的房子和城市。在美国，他们清点出战争期间无力兴建的房子、短缺的尼龙袜、破旧的汽车和轮胎、过时的收音机和电冰箱。他们得出了一个令人生畏的经济总量。

It was merely our old friend, the broken-window fallacy, in new clothing, and grown fat beyond recognition. This time it was supported by a whole bundle of related fallacies. It confused need with demand. The more war destroys, the more it impoverishes, the greater is the postwar need. Indubitably. But need is not demand. Effective economic demand requires not merely need but corresponding purchasing power. The needs of India today are incomparably greater than the needs of America. But its purchasing power, and therefore the “new business” that it can stimulate, are incomparably smaller.

这种“需求堵塞”谬论只不过是我们所熟悉的老朋友——破窗谬论——换上一件臃肿的马甲之后的形象而已。不过这一次，有更多相关的谬误绞缠在一起，需要我们逐一驳斥。首先，它把需要（need）和需求（demand）混为一谈。战火摧毁的东西越多，它所造成的贫困越严重，战后的需要量就越大。这是毫无疑问的。但是，需要并不等于需求。有效的经济需求，光有需要还不算，还必须要有相当的购买力才行。当今印度对产品的实际需要相对于美国的需要来讲简直大得不可比，但是它的购买力，以及由此可以刺激起来的“新的生意”相对于美国来讲却是微不足道的。

But if we get past this point, there is a chance for another fallacy, and the broken-windowites usually grab it. They think of “purchasing power” merely in terms of money. Now money can be run off by the printing press. As this is being written, in fact, printing money is the world’s biggest industry—if the product is measured in monetary terms. But the more money is turned out in this way, the more the value of any given unit of money falls. This falling value can be measured in rising prices of commodities. But as most people are so firmly in the habit of thinking of their wealth and income in terms of money, they consider themselves better off as these monetary totals rise, in spite of the fact that in terms of things they may have less and buy less. Most of the “good” economic results which people at the time attributed to World War II were really owing to wartime inflation. They could have been, and were, produced just as well by an equivalent peacetime inflation. We shall come back to this money illusion later.

不过，就算绕过了上一个谬误，接下来还有可能陷入另一种谬误。持破窗谬论的人常犯只从货币的角度去思考“购买力”的错误。其实，只要让印钞机开足马力，不愁没有钞票。要是以货币来衡量“产品”价值的话，那么以钞票为产品的印钞业，无疑是当今世上规模最大的产业。但是用这种方式去解决购买力问题，所印制的钞票数量越多，单位货币的价值就越贬值，货币贬值的程度可以用物价上涨的幅度来衡量。然而，大多数人只习惯于用金钱来衡量自己的财富和收入，所以只要手头多了几张钞票，便以为自己过得更好，尽管拿这些钱能买到的东西比从前少，自己实际拥有的东西可能不如从前。现在，很多人把一些“好的”经济成果归功于第二次世界大战，其实，其中绝大部分是战时通货膨胀造成的。哪怕在和平年代，同等规模的通货膨胀也能带来这样的结果，并且的确产生过这些结果。后面我们还会回过头来谈这种货币幻觉。

Now there is a half-truth in the “backed-up” demand fallacy, just as there was in the broken-window fallacy. The broken window did make more business for the glazier. The destruction of war did make more business for the producers of certain things. The destruction of houses and cities did make more business for the building and construction industries. The inability to produce automobiles, radios, and refrigerators during the war did bring about a cumulative postwar demand for those particular products.

“需求堵塞”谬论只讲出了一半的真相，这点跟破窗谬论一样。被砸破的橱窗的确会给玻璃店带来生意，战争造成的破坏也的确给某些产品的制造商带来了大量的商机。房子和城市的毁于战火，为建筑业赢得了更多业务，而战争期间没办法生产的汽车、收音机和电冰箱，确实为那些特定的产品带来累积性的战后需求。

To most people this seemed like an increase in total demand, as it partly was in terms of dollars of lower purchasing power. But what mainly took place was a diversion of demand to these particular products from others. The people of Europe built more new houses than otherwise because they had to. But when they built more houses they had just that much less manpower and productive capacity left over for everything else. When they bought houses they had just that much less purchasing power for something else. Wherever business was increased in one direction, it was (except insofar as productive energies were stimulated by a sense of want and urgency) correspondingly reduced in another.

这一半的真相在大部分人看来，就像是总需求增加了。从单位货币的购买力降低的角度来说，一部分增长是的确如此【通胀导致需求增加是一个宏观经济学的结论——译者注】。不过更主要的原因还是需求从其他地方转向了这些特定的产品。欧洲人盖出了空前数量的新房子，因为他们必须先解决安居问题。可是，在他们兴建更多房屋时，可用于生产其他产品的人力和生产能力的减少程度与之相当。人们买了房子之后，可用于购买其他产品的支付能力的减少程度与之相当。人总是顾得了一头，就顾不了另一头（当然，要除开额外增加的被饥寒交迫的紧张感所激发出来的更大的生产能量）。

The war, in short, changed the postwar direction of effort; it changed the balance of industries; it changed the structure of industry.

简单地说，战争改变了人们在战后的努力方向；战争打破了各行各业原有的平衡；战争重塑了工业的结构。

（未完待续）

我们生活在常识中，常识与我们同行。有时，常识虽易知而难行，有时常识须推陈而出新……请写一篇文章，谈谈你生活中与“常识”有关的经历或你对“常识”的看法。自拟题目，自定写法，不少于800字 。
摘自碧海银沙：http://bbs.yinsha.com/bbs.php?mode=topic&gid=56&bid=2009060715290895

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