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“经济增长过快”不是经济增长过快

Posted on 星期六, 12月 15, 2007 at 12:58 下午

须知“经济增长过快”或“过热”,是指“通货膨胀”,否则没有意义。担心“经济增长过快”,是担心通货膨胀引发的连串恶果。没有人会担心字面上的“经济增长过快”。经济学者最好不要说太外行的话。想起Deirdre N. McCloskey的忠告。她说,要写好经济学,应该洗净外行的陈词滥调,就像要学好天文学,就先不要再说太阳“升起”一样。

deirdremccloskey.jpgIn Ersatz Economics, prices start by “skyrocketing.” When “sellers outnumber buyers” prices fall from “exorbitant or “gouging” levels, down through “fair” and “just.” If this “vicious cycle” goes on too long, though, they fall to “unfair” and “cutthroat,” the result of “dumping.” Likewise, the woman in the street believes she knows that union and corporations have more “bargaining power” than do their victims, and therefore can “exploit” them. A consumer can “afford” medical care, maybe only “barely afford” it, “needs” housing, and views food as a “basic necessity.” Business people maintain their “profit margins,” probably “obscene” or “unwarranted,” by “passing along” a higher wage, which causes workers to demand still higher wages, in a “spiral.” The protection of the American worker’s “living wage” from “unfair competition” by “cheap foreign labor” should be high on the nation’s list of “priorities,” as should be the “rebuilding” of our “collapsing” industrial “base.”

To write thoughtfully in economics you must clear your mind of such cant, as to understand astronomy you must stop talking about the sun “rising.” (McCloskey, Deirdre N. Economical Writing. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 2000.)

诚征翻译!

薛兆丰
2007年12月15日

很高兴不到两个小时,就收一份流畅的翻译,如下:

在伪劣经济学中,价格起始于“天价”。当卖家比买家多的时候,价格就会降低,从“过高”或是“欺诈程度”趋向于“公平”和“合理”的程度。如果这种“恶性循环”继续过长时间的话,那么价格就会降低到“不公平”和“割喉贱卖”的程度,最后的结果就是“倾销”。同样,连大街上的女人都相信,她知道工会和公司比其受害者(职员)更具有“讨价还价的能力”,因此可以“剥削”他们。一个消费者,即使可以“付得起”自己的医药保障,或者说“仅仅付得起”,他们也还“需要”住房,而“食物”更是他们的“基本需要”。商人为了保持其利润,而且往往是“肮脏”和“不正当”的利润,不惜把提高工资的负担转嫁给消费者,使得工人需要进一步要求加薪,从而使工资水平螺旋式上升。同样,保护美国工人的“生存工资”不受“外国廉价劳动力”的“不公平竞争”,应该放在我们“国家经济安全”问题的首要位置,而“重建”我们“濒临崩溃”的产业“根基”也应该同样受到重视。

要写有思想深度的经济学文章,就得把脑子里的这些陈词滥调统统扫清,就好比要学天文学,就得先学会不说太阳“升起”一样。 

译者是师妹依云,感谢并祝一切顺利!

兆丰 

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