文档介绍：第12讲最高限价
一、WHAT IS SEEN, WHAT IS NOT SEEN
在自由市场中,每个人都既是生产者,又是消费者。但是,在不同时刻,他有时是生产者,有时是消费者,即作为生产者和消费者的身份是分离的。
这使得他容易患精神分裂症。作为消费者,他赞成不利于生产者的政策,如限价;作为生产者,他赞成保护生产者的政策,如关税和补贴等。
经济学家的使命是传播政策的经济学见解,帮助人们克服上述精神分裂症,更要揭穿一些经济诡辩。
正如经济学家Hazlitt在Economics in One Lesson 中生动地描述的那样:
Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousand fold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine—the special pleading of selfish interests. While every group has certain economics interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups.
The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for them plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject es next to impossible.
In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.
In this lies almost the whole difference between good economics and bad. The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed cours