学点经济学：什么是看不见的手

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学点经济学：什么是看不见的手

What Is the Invisible Hand?
什么是看不见的手?

There are few concepts in the history of economics that have been misunderstood, and misused, more often than the "invisible hand." For this, we can mostly thank the person who coined this phrase: the 18th-century Scottish e conomist Adam Smith, in his influential books The Theory of Moral Sentiments and (much more importantly) The Wealth of Nations.
在经济学史上，很少有概念比“看不见的手”更容易被误解和误用。为此，我们要感谢创造这个短语的人：18世纪苏格兰经济学家亚当·斯密，他在其颇具影响力的著作《道德情操论》和更为重要的《国富论》中提出了这个词。

By the time he wrote The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, Smith had vastly generalized his conception of the "invisible hand":
当史密斯于1776年发表《国富论》时，他就广泛地概括了“看不见的手”的概念:

People who pursue their own selfish ends in the market (charging top prices for their goods, for example, or paying as little as possible to their workers) actually and unknowingly contribute to a larger economic pattern in which everybody benefits, poor as well as rich.“
那些在市场上追求自己私利的人(例如，对他们的商品收取最高价格，或者尽可能少地支付给他们的工人)实际上在不知不觉中促成了一种更大的经济模式，在这种模式中，无论穷人还是富人都受益。”

You can probably see where we're going with this. Taken naively, at face value, the "invisible hand" is an all-purpose argument against the regulation of free markets.
你们可以看到我们要做什么。从表面上看，“看不见的手”是反对监管自由市场的万能理由。

Is a factory owner underpaying his employees, making them work long hours, and compelling them to live in substandard housing? The "invisible hand" will eventually redress this injustice, as the market corrects itself and the employer has no choice but to provide better wages and benefits, or go out of business.
工厂老板是否给员工少发了工资，让他们长时间工作，迫使他们住在不达标的房子里?“看不见的手”最终将纠正这种不公，因为市场会自我纠正，雇主别无选择，只能提供更好的工资和福利，否则就会破产。

And not only will the invisible hand come to the rescue, but it will do so much more rationally, fairly and efficiently than any "top-down" regulations imposed by government (say, a law mandating time-and-a-half pay for overtime work).
此外，“看不见的手”不仅会出手相救，而且会比政府制定的任何“自上而下”的法规(比如，一项规定加班工资1.5倍的法律)更加理性、公平和高效。

Does the "Invisible Hand" Really Work?
“看不见的手”真的有效吗？

To answer this question, we have to look at the era in which Adam Smith came up with it.
要回答这个问题，我们必须看看亚当·斯密提出这个问题时所处的时代。

At the time Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, England was on the brink of the greatest economic expansion in the history of the world, the "industrial revolution" that resulted in  widespread wealth.
亚当•斯密撰写《国富论》时，英国正处于世界历史上最大规模经济扩张的边缘，即“工业革命”，它带来了广泛的财富。

In the 18th and 19th centuries England had some natural advantages not enjoyed by other countries, which also contributed to its economic success. An island nation with a powerful navy, fueled by a Protestant work ethic, with a constitutional monarchy gradually yielding ground to a parliamentary democracy, England existed in a unique set of circumstances, none of which are easily accounted for by "invisible hand" economics. Taken uncharitably, then, Smith's "invisible hand" often seems more like a rationalization for the successes (and failures) of capitalism than a genuine explanation.
在18世纪和19世纪，英国有一些其他国家没有的自然优势，这也促进了它经济上的成功。英国是一个拥有强大海军的岛国，在新教工作道德的推动下，君主立宪制逐渐让位于议会民主制，英国处于独特的环境之中，这些环境都不容易被“看不见的手”这一经济学原理所解释。如此看来，史密斯的“看不见的手”似乎更像是资本主义成功(和失败)的合理解释，而非真正的解释。