60秒经济学无形之手英文与汉译.docVIP

Sixty Second Adventures in Economics六十秒经济学探奇 Number One: The Invisible Hand 一、无形之手 An economy is a tricky thing to control, and governemts are always trying to figure out how to do it. 经济控制起来很棘手。各国政府总是在想法弄清该怎么做。 Back in 1776 Economist Adam Smith shocked everyone by saying what governments should actually do is just to leave people alone to buy and sell freely by themselves. 1776年，经济学家亚当·斯密的话震惊了所有的人。他说政府所要做的就是别插手，让人们进行自由买卖。 He suggested that if they just leave self-interested traders to compete with one another, markets are guided to positive outcomes “as if by an invisible hand”. 他认为，让只关注自身利益的交易者相互竞争，市场就会被引向正途，“就像被一只无形之手所引导”。 If someone charges less than you, customers will buy from them instead. So you have to lower the price or offer something better. 如果某人要价比你低，顾客就会到他那里买。所以你需要降低价格或提供更好的产品。 Whenever enough people demand something, they will be supplied by the market -- like spoilt children – only in this case, everyone is happy. 无论何时，当有足够的人们需求某产品时，市场就会提供给他们 ——就像被宠坏的孩子（想要什么就能得到什么）—— 只是在这种情形下，人人都开心。 Later free-marketeers like Austrian enocomist Friedrich Hyayek argue this “hands off” approach actually works better than any kind of central plan. 后来的自由市场学者，比如奥地利经济学家弗雷德里克·哈耶克But the problem is, economies can take a long time to reach their “equilibrium” and may even stall along the way, and in the meantime people can get a little frustrated, which is why governments usually take up things into their own more visible hands instead. 但问题在于，经济需要长时间才能达到“均衡“，甚至可能中途停滞，这期间人们会有些泄气，这就是政府通常会用其“有形之手”处理事情的原因。