在相信“均贫富”的乌托邦景象前，请读读索维尔的“再分配迷思”

近日，又有国内大牌经济学家在描绘平均主义、均贫富的“美好世界”，这在当下的响应度还相当热烈。是呀，凭什么头部券商老总500万+年薪，某投行人均年薪百万+，基金经理旱涝保收……而我们活得这么苦逼。但且再想下，把这些高收入行业都强压抹平了，切出来的那块“收入”就能分到你手里？并不是，它掌握在分蛋糕的人手里。那疫情如此严重的冲击之下，你又得到多少补贴收入？随之而来的问题是，高收入的人少了、创富的人少了，中低层人的收入大概也会缩减吧？此时此刻，真该读一读另一位经济学家托马斯·索维尔对“再分配迷思”的思考。——主持人Alex

作者l托马斯·索维尔（Thomas Sowell）

翻译 l 子夏

出品 l长平投研

最近发现的录音带披露，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)曾在1998年说过，他相信财富再分配。这可不算什么新闻，他四年前（指2008年——译者注）也对水管工乔说过同样的话（水管工名叫Joe Wurzelbacher，2008年总统竞选活动上曾向奥巴马提出企业税负可能增加的担忧，共和党总统侯选人麦卡恩就拿Joe the Plumber暗讽奥巴马的竞选计划会增加税负。奥巴马于该年11月在大选中获胜——译者注）。但如果这盘录音带的出现能让人们思考再分配的后果，那么它可能会起到有用的作用。

那些随意谈论再分配的人，往往把人看成是惰性的物体，为了实现某种宏大的计划，可以将它们在这里或在那里随意摆放，就像棋盘上的棋子。但是，如果人们对政府的政策有各自的反应，那么我们就不能轻率地假设政府政策会产生预想的效果。

在20世纪的历史上，国家始于“均富”终于“均贫”的例子俯拾皆是。那些共产主义国家是个典型的例子，但绝不是唯一的例子。

从理论上讲，将那些更成功人士的财富没收（均分），应该会让社会的其他人更加富有，但当苏联没收了成功农民的财富后，却出现了粮荒。1930年代在斯大林统治下死于饥饿的人数，竟然与1940年代死于希特勒大屠杀的人数一样多。

怎么会这样呢？原因并不复杂。你只能没收某一时刻存在的财富，你不能没收未来的财富——当人们看到未来的财富将被没收时，也就不太可能再去创造未来的财富。苏联的农民在意识到政府将会占据其收成的很大一部分时，也就减少了他们耕种庄稼投入的时间和精力。他们屠宰并吃掉农场里的幼小家畜牲口，再也不像往年那样悉心照顾，把它们养大。

产业领域的人也不是惰性的物体，并且，与农民不同的是，实业家不受特定国家土地的束缚。

俄罗斯的航空先驱伊戈尔·西科斯基（Igor Sikorsky）可以把他的专业知识带到美国，在远离其祖国数千英里的地方生产飞机和直升机。金融家们受到的束缚甚至更小，特别是在今天，大量的资金可以通过电子转账方式流向世界任何地方。

如果没收充公政策在独裁国家会产生反作用，那么在民主国家就更难执行了。独裁政权可以突袭并攫取它想要的任何东西，但是一个民主国家首先必须经公共讨论和辩论。那些被列为没收对象的人，可以观察到灾祸将临的预兆，并采取相应的行动。

这世界上任何一个国家，最宝贵的财富是知识、技能和生产经验，经济学家称之为“人力资本”。当那些拥有丰富人力资本的成功人士离开他的国家时——无论是出于自愿，还是因为受敌意政府或红眼的暴徒所迫——都可能对这个国家的经济造成持久的损害。

菲德尔•卡斯特罗（Fidel Castro）的没收财富政策迫使古巴的成功人士逃往美国佛罗里达，他们大量的物理意义上财富丢在了古巴，但是，这些一时贫困的难民在佛罗里达重新发家致富，而他们遗留在古巴的财富并没有帮那里的人在卡斯特罗的统治下脱离贫困。难民们带走的持久闪光的财富是他们的人力资本。

我们都听过这样一句老话:“授人以鱼，不如授人以渔”，再分配主义者就像是给了人一条鱼，然后让他以后接着指望依靠政府再获得一条又一条鱼（利益）。

如果再分配主义者是认真的，那他们要分配传授的该是捕鱼的能力，或者是用其他方式从事生产的能力。比如，知识就是为数不多的可以传授（分配）给穷人而又不减少别人所获的致富方式之一。

这样做才能让穷人真正有所得。但这不符合那些政客的想法，因为他们既想行使权力，又想让人民依赖他们以此获得选票。

奥巴马可以没完没了地宣扬他的口号“前进”（奥巴马2012年争取连任时的竞选口号——译者注），但他所提议的却是倒退到在世界各国屡遭失败的政策。

然而，对许多懒得停下来思考的人来说，再分配听起来不错。

The Fallacy of Redistribution

Thomas Sowell

The recently discovered tape on which Barack Obama said back in 1998 that he believes in redistribution is not really news. He said the same thing to Joe the Plumber four years ago. But the surfacing of this tape may serve auseful purpose if it gets people to thinking about what the consequences of redistribution are.

Those who talk glibly about redistribution often act as if people are just inert objects that can be placed here and there, like pieces on a chess board, to carry out some grand design. But if human beings have their own responses to government policies, then we cannot blithely assume that government policies will have the effect intended.

The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty. The communist nations were a classic example, but by no means the only example.

In theory, confiscating the wealth of the more successful people ought to make the rest of the society more prosperous. But when the Soviet Union confiscated the wealth of successful farmers, food became scarce. As many people died of starvation under Stalin in the 1930s as died in Hitler's Holocaustin the 1940s.

How can that be? It is not complicated. You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth -- and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated. Farmers in the Soviet Union cut back on how much time and effort they invested in growing their crops, when they realized that the government was going to take a big part of the harvest. They slaughtered and ate young farm animals that they would normally keep tending and feeding while raising them to maturity.

People in industry are not inert objects either. Moreover, unlike farmers, industrialists are not tied to the land in a particular country.

Russian aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky could take his expertise to America and produce his planes and helicopters thousands of miles away from his native land. Financiers are even less tied down, especially today, when vast sums of money can be dispatched electronically to any part of the world.

If confiscatory policies can produce counterproductive repercussions in a dictatorship, they are even harder to carry out in a democracy. A dictatorship can suddenly swoop down and grab whatever it wants. But ademocracy must first have public discussions and debates. Those who are targeted for confiscation can see the handwriting on the wall, and act accordingly.

Among the most valuable assets in any nation are the knowledge, skills and productive experience that economists call "human capital." When successful people with much human capital leave the country, either voluntarily or because of hostile governments or hostile mobs whipped up by demagogues exploiting envy, lasting damage can be done to the economy they leave behind.

Fidel Castro's confiscatory policies drove successful Cubans to flee to Florida, often leaving much of their physical wealth behind. But poverty-stricken refugees rose to prosperity again in Florida, while the wealth they left behind in Cuba did not prevent the people there from being poverty stricken under Castro. The lasting wealth the refugees took with them was their human capital.

We have all heard the old saying that giving a man a fish feeds him only for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Redistributionists give him a fish and leave him dependent on the government for more fish in the future.

If the redistributionists were serious, what they would want to distribute is the ability to fish, or to be productive in other ways. Knowledge is one of the few things that can be distributed to people without reducing the amount held by others.

That would better serve the interests of the poor, but it would not serve the interests of politicians who want to exercise power, and to get the votes of people who are dependent on them.

Barack Obama can endlessly proclaim his slogan of "Forward," but what he is proposing is going backwards to policies that have failed repeatedly in countries around the world.

Yet, to many people who cannot be bothered to stop and think, redistribution sounds good.

本文于2012年9月20日发表在townhall.com上

作者简介

托马斯·索维尔（Thomas Sowell），美国经济学家，芝加哥经济学派代表人物之一。现为斯坦福大学胡佛研究所高级研究员，曾在康奈尔大学、加州大学洛杉矶分校等讲授经济学，还在政府部门担任过经济顾问；著有《美国种族简史》《知识分子与社会》《实用经济学》《被掩盖的经济真相》等。