家装摄像头什么牌子好:另类解读曼昆十大经济学原理（中英对照）

作者：华盛顿大学教授约拉姆•鲍曼
by Yoram Bauman
哈佛牛人辈出，曼昆大人就是其中之一。经济学启蒙教科书《经济学原理》就是其赫赫有名的大作。在这本书中，曼昆大人将经济学思想浓缩提炼，概括成“经济学十大原理”（参见第一个表格），名震四海。您猜的没错，把博大精深的经济学用十句话总结出来，这可不是个轻快活儿啊。甚至您会怀疑，曼昆大人这么个搞法，能妙笔生花吗？不会是粗枝大叶吧？
今天，我作为美国华盛顿大学的环境经济学家不揣冒昧，斗胆出手要一挽这个窘境。第二个表格就是我对曼昆大人十大经济学原理的另类解读，我说的都是人话。我这么做只是想告诉外行人，经济学思维方式在工作中是真给力的啊。后文会对每一条详细解读，不过，如果您只是个普通读者，建议您直接把两个表格剪下来，随身携带。一旦您对经济学原理有不解之处，拿出来一对照，保证您茅塞顿开！
The cornerstone of Harvard professor N. Gregory Mankiw’s introductory economics textbook, Principles of Economics, is a synthesis of economic thought into Ten Principles of Economics (listed in the first table below). A quick perusal of these will likely affirm the reader’s suspicions that synthesizing economic thought into Ten Principles is no easy task, and may even lead the reader to suspect that the subtlety and concision required are not to be found in the pen of N. Gregory Mankiw.
I have taken it upon myself to remedy this unfortunate situation. The second table below summarizes my attempt to translate Mankiw’s Ten Principles into plain English, and in doing so to provide the uninitiated with an invaluable glimpse of the economic mind at work.  Explanations  and  details  can  be  found  in  the  pages  that  follow,  but  the  average reader is advised to simply cut out the table below and carry it around for assistance in the (hereafter unlikely) event of confusion about the basic Principles of Economics.
曼昆十大经济学原理
第一条：鱼和熊掌不可兼得
第二条：有得必有失
第三条：多个孩子，添副碗筷而已——聪明的脑袋才会这么想
第四条：驴子看到眼前那把草就会拉磨，——人也需要这把草
第五条：贸易的真谛——大家好，才是真的好
第六条：市场是个好东西
第七条：有时政府也能办点人事儿，比如改善改善市场结果啥的
第八条：好日子是由创造美好生活的能力决定的
第九条：水涨船高，钱多价扬
第十条：要么通胀，要么更多的人找不到工作，——社会总要不时地面对这样的取舍
Mankiw’s Principles
#1 People face tradeoffs
#2 The cost of something is what you give up to get it
#3 Rational people think at the margin
#4 People respond to incentives
#5 Trade can make everyone better off
#6 Markets are usually a good way to organize economic activity
#7 Governments can sometimes improve market outcomes
#8 A country’s standard of living depends on its ability to produce goods and services
#9 Prices rise when the government prints too much money
#10 Society faces a short-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment
另类解读
第一条：选择很烦人
第二条：选择真他妈烦人
第三条：人很蠢
第四条：人没那么蠢
第五条：贸易的实质——我不好，谁也别想好
第六条：政府也都是蠢货
第七条：政府也没那么蠢
第八条：瞎鸡巴扯淡
第九条：鸡巴瞎扯淡
第十条：扯瞎鸡巴淡
Yoram’s Translations
#1 Choices are bad
#2 Choices are really bad
#3 People are stupid
#4 People aren’t that stupid
#5 Trade can make everyone worse off
#6 Governments are stupid
#7 Governments aren’t that stupid
#8 Blah blah blah
#9 Blah blah blah
#10 Blah blah blah
 
解释&细节
乍一看，这个另类解读跟原文比要简单明了、清晰易懂得多。可是，为什么第八、九、十条的另类解读看起来怎么没啥区别呢？原文可不是这样的呀。
请您看明白喽，这三条，都是宏观经济的基本原理，而我呢，是个微观经济学家，根本就理解不了这三条，更别说解读了。我们生活的世界是如此的错综复杂，这么粗暴地解读，肯定是错的。我之所以用“瞎鸡巴扯淡”来解读的真正原因是：这三条基本原理，本质上是一回事。啥意思呢？不信您闲得蛋疼的时候，找个经济学家聊聊，最好是个宏观经济学家，您问问他，啥叫“好日子”啊，啥叫“产品和服务”啊，啥叫“通胀”啊，啥叫“找不到工作”啊，啥叫“短期”啊，或啥叫“（货币发行）太多”啊。我保证您很快就会发现解释出来的东西千差万别。
您再接着问问，第十条“要么通胀，要么更多的人找不到工作，——社会总要不时地面对这样的取舍”到底啥意思。我这么跟您说吧，这第十条的意思是：要么瞎鸡巴扯淡，要么更多的鸡巴瞎扯淡，——社会总要不时地面对这样的扯瞎鸡巴淡。
我的另类解读，言简意赅地把原文隐藏的意思有如神助般传达了出来，嘎嘎。
先扯到这儿吧，我们还是回头来逐一咂么咂么曼昆大人的十大经济学原理吧：
Explanations and Details
At first glance, the reader cannot but be impressed by the translation’s simplicity and clarity. Accessibility, however, should not be mistaken for shallowness: further study will reveal hidden depths and subtleties that will richly reward the attentive student. Indeed, a moment’s reflection will identify any number of puzzles and mysteries. Chief among them is probably this: Why do Principles #8, #9, and #10 have identical translations?
The immediately obvious explanation is that these are macro-economic principles, and that I, as a micro-economist, am ill equipped to understand them, let alone translate them. As is often the case in this complex world we live in, this immediately obvious explanation is also wrong. The true reason I have provided identical translations of “Blahblah blah” for Principles #8, #9, and #10 is that these principles say exactly the same thing, namely, “Blah blah blah.” Sometime when you've got a few hours to spare, go and ask an economist—preferably a macro-economist—what  he or she really means by “standard of living” or “goods and services” or “inflation” or “unemployment” or “short-run” or even “too much.” You will soon realize that there is a vast difference between, say, what Principle #10 says—“Society faces a short-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment”—and what Principle #10 means:“Society faces blah between blah and blah.” My translations are simply concise renderings of these underlying meanings.
Having cleared up that issue, let us go back to Mankiw’s
第一条：鱼和熊掌不可兼得
另类解读：选择很烦人
为什么这么解读呢？其实，这背后的推理过程非常简单。举例来说，您今晚要跟女朋友OOXX，需要买套套，有两个选择摆在您面前：杜蕾斯或杰士邦。现在，您需要做出取舍，不选这个，就要选那个。真非要这么做的话，多让人烦啊。
外行人对经济学不了解，可能受到诱导，认为能选择总是好的。其实根本不是那么回事。这种（错误的）想法大概是从“缺乏选择总是很烦人”转变而来。
可能您理解这个概念会有的困难，——不过谁又告诉过您经济学简单呢，但从下面这条中，您就可以对选择烦不烦人看得一目了然了：
Principle #1: People face tradeoffs
Translation: Choices are bad
The reasoning behind this translation is obvious. For example, imagine that somebody comes up to you and offers you a choice between a Snickers bar and some M&Ms. You now have a tradeoff, meaning that you have to choose one or the other. And having to trade one thing off against another is bad; President Truman supposedly asked for a one-armed economics advisor because his two-armed economics advisors were always saying, “On the one hand...but on the other hand...”
People who have not received any economics education might be tempted to think that choices are good. They aren't. The (mistaken) idea that choices are good perhaps stems from the (equally mistaken) idea that lack of choices is bad. This is simply not true, as Mancur Olson points out in his book, The Logic  of Collective Action: “To say a situation is ‘lost’ or hopeless is in one sense equivalent to saying it is perfect, for in both cases efforts at improvement can bring no positive results.” Hence my translation of Mankiw's first principle of economics: Choices are bad.
This concept can be a little difficult to grasp—nobody ever said economics was easy—but the troubled reader will undoubtedly gain clarity from Mankiw's
第二条：有得必有失
另类解读：选择真他妈烦人
如此解读不仅把曼昆大人的弯弯绕语言变得简单明了，还能把第一条和第二条联系到一起。
为了帮助您深入理解为什么选择很烦人，乃至真他妈烦人，还是让我们接着前面的例子吧：杜蕾斯或杰士邦，要买哪一个？咱们假设，——纯粹是为了抬杠，您买的是杜蕾斯。按照曼昆大人的理论，您买杜蕾斯的成本就是您必须放弃杰士邦。在这种情况下，您的收益——经济学砖家所谓的“经济效益”——就是杜蕾斯（价格：50块大洋）和杰士邦（价格：35块大洋）的价差，即15块。尽管您是花了50块大洋狠狠心才买了杜蕾斯，但因为可以还有35块的杰士邦可以选择，所以您的收益被缩减为15块。您明白了不？因此第二条：选择真他妈烦人。
真是这么回事，选择越多，越糊涂。最最糟糕的情况是，如果您只能选择杜蕾斯和杰士邦，而恰巧他们的价格又相等，那么您的收益竟然是：零！
傻眼了吧？！没事，继续看曼昆大人的第三条，您的疑惑将一扫而光。
Principle #2: The cost of something is what you give up to get it
Translation: Choices are really bad
Beyond transforming Mankiw’s semantic deathtrap into simplicity itself, this translation has the advantage of establishing a connection between Principle #1 (Choices are bad) and Principle #2 (Choices are really bad).
To continue to deepen the reader’s understanding of why choices are bad—really bad—let's return to our previous example, in which somebody  offers you a choice between a Snickers bar and a package of M&Ms. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you take the M&Ms. According to Mankiw, the cost of those M&Ms is the Snickers bar that you had to give up to get the M&Ms. Your gain from this situation—what economists call “economic profit”—is therefore the difference between the value you gain from getting  the M&Ms (say,  $.75) and the value you lose from giving up the Snickers bar (say, $.40). In other words, your economic profit is only $.35. Although you value the M&Ms at $.75, having the choice of the Snickers bar reduces your gain by $.40. Hence Principle #2: Choices are really bad.
Indeed, the more choices you have, the worse off you are. The worst situation of all would be somebody coming up to you and offering you a choice between two identical packages of M&Ms. Since choosing one package (which you value at  $.75) means giving up the other package (which you also value at $.75), your economic profit is exactly zero! So being offered a choice between two identical packages of M&Ms is in fact equivalent to being offered nothing.
Now, a lay person might be forgiven for thinking that being offered a choice between two identical packages of M&Ms is in fact equivalent to being offered a single package of M&Ms. But economists know better. Being offered a single package of M&M effectively means having to choose between a package of M&Ms (which you value at $.75) and nothing (which you value at $0). Choosing the M&Ms gives you an economic profit of $.75, which is $.75 more than your economic profit when you are offered a choice between two identical packages of M&Ms.
At this point it is worth acknowledging that (1) there may be readers who have failed to grasp the above subtleties in their entirety, and (2) such readers  may well be beginning to wonder whether they are, in a word, stupid. Any lingering doubts should be eliminated by the Mankiw's
第三条：多个孩子，添副碗筷而已——聪明的脑袋才会这么想
另类解读：人很蠢
哪怕是智商再低的人也能注意到：生活里，大部分都不会这么思考问题的。人们在超市买鸡蛋的时候，是这样想滴：“嗯，4块5一斤。那我就称3斤吧。”才不会这么想呢：“嗯，4块5一斤。那我就买一斤，因为边际价值超过了市场价格。要不我再来一斤吧，因为边际价值还是超过了市场价格……”谁会这样想呢，肯定是一次性搞定。
曼昆大人说聪明的家伙总是思考边际量，——即添副碗筷，但您知道，我们大多人都不会这样想的，这就是在告诉我们：大多数人都是不聪明的。换句话说：一群蠢货。
不过，读者大人，您别绝望啊，接着看曼昆大人下面的话，保证您变得聪明绝顶起来：
Principle #3: Rational people think at the margin
Translation: People are stupid
One point that is immediately obvious to the most casual observer with the meanest intelligence is that most people do not think at the margin. For example, most people who buy oranges at the grocery store think like this: “Hmmm, oranges are $.25 each. I think I'll buy half a dozen.” They do not think like this: “Hmmm, oranges are $.25 each.  I'm going to buy one, because my marginal value exceeds the market price. Now I'm going to buy a second one, because my marginal value still exceeds the market price...” We know most people don't think like this because most people don't fill their shopping baskets one orange at a time!
But we are now led inexorably toward a most unhappy conclusion. If—as Mankiw says—rational people think at the margin, and if—as we all know—most people do not think at the margin, then most people are not rational. Most people, in other words, are stupid. Hence my translation of the third principle of economics: People are stupid.
Before sinking into despair for the fate of the human race, however, the  reader would be wise to consider Mankiw's
第四条：驴子看到眼前那把草就会拉磨，——人也需要这把草
另类解读：人没那么蠢
曼昆大人那句话的意思是“人因动机而动”，——能看懂不？这就跟说“人因性欲而性”有啥区别啊？您想想：如果动了而没动机，如果性了而没性欲，那人得是多么愚蠢的动物啊。但您别忘了，我前面说过啦：人是蠢货。所以，这第四条就是专门用来澄清：人没那么蠢。
我对下一条的解读，如果有人看不懂，那才是真正的蠢货呢：
Principle #4: People respond to incentives.
Translation: People aren’t that stupid.
The dictionary says that incentive, n., is 1. Something that influences to action; stimulus; encouragement. SYN. see motive.
So what Mankiw is saying here is that people are motivated by motives, or thatpeople are influenced to action by things that influence to action. Now, this may seem to be a bit like  saying that tautologies are tautological—the  reader may be thinking that people would have to be pretty stupid to be unmotivated by motives, or to be inactive in response to something that influences to action. But remember Principle #3: People are stupid. Hence the need for Principle #4, to clarify that people aren’t that stupid.
Only truly stupid people can fail to understand my translation of Mankiw's
第五条：贸易的真谛——大家好，才是真的好
另类解读：贸易的实质——我不好，谁也别想好
且慢，您可能会纳闷，我这么解读是不是站到了曼昆大人的对立面吗？当然是No！为什么呢？请注意“贸易的真谛——大家好，才是真的好”的潜台词很明显：如果我有杜蕾斯而想要杰士邦，您有杰士邦而想要杜蕾斯，那么我们换一下，对双方是大大滴好。——如果是这么简单，那曼昆大人也太浅薄了吧，人家可曾经贵为白宫经济顾问委员会的主席呢？好，我们来比较一下：
A：贸易的真谛——大家好，才是真的好
B：贸易的真谛——大家好，才会真的好
显然，B比A好多了去了。但为啥曼昆大人用第一种说法呢？除非B说法有误。其实曼昆大人是想说：大家好，也可能不是真的好。证据在哪里？——且看下文分解：
Principle #5: Trade can make everyone better off
Translation: Trade can make everyone worse off
But, the reader may well be asking, isn't the translation of the  fifth principle  the exact opposite of the principle itself? Of course not.
To see why, first note that "trade can make everyone better off" is patently obviously: if I have a Snickers bar and want M&Ms and you have M&Ms and want a Snickers bar, we can trade and we will both be better off. Surely Mankiw is getting at something deeper than his? Indeed, I believe he is. To see what it  is, compare the following phrases:
A: Trade can make everyone better off
B: Trade will make everyone better off
Now, Statement B is clearly superior to Statement A. Why, then, does Mankiw  use Statement A? It can only be because Statement B is false. By saying that trade can make everyone better off, Mankiw is conveying one of the subtleties of economics: trade canalso not make everyone better off. It is a short hop from here to my translation, “Trade can make everybody worse off.” (A numerical example can be found in this footnote.)
The subtlety evident in Principle #5 is even more clearly visible in the next two principles.
第六条：市场是个好东西
另类解读：政府也都是蠢货
第七条：有时政府也能办点人事儿，比如改善改善市场结果啥的
另类解读：政府也没那么蠢
第五条“贸易的真谛——大家好，才是真的好”就直接导致第六条“政府也是蠢货”的诞生。因为如果贸易真的能使每个人都变得更好，那您说我们要政府干啥用？同时，对第五条的另类解读“贸易的实质——我不好，谁也别想好”就直接导致了第七条“政府也没那么蠢”的产生。因为如果贸易让人人都苦不堪言，我们最好还是弄个政府出来禁止人们买卖交易吧。
Principle #6: Markets are usually a good way to organize economic activity
Translation: Governments are stupid.
Principle #7: Governments can sometimes improve market outcomes
Translation: Governments aren’t that stupid.
To see the key role that Principle #5 plays in both of these statements, note that the original phrasing of Principle #5 (“Trade can make everyone better off”) leads to Principle #6 (“Governments are stupid”). After all, if trade can make everyone better off, what do we need government for? But the translation of Principle #5 (“Trade can make everyone worse off”) leads to Principle #7 (“Governments aren’t that stupid”). After all, if trade can make everyone worse off, we better have a government around to stop people from trading!
Like the first five principles, Principles #6 and #7 demonstrate the fine distinctions inherent in the economic way of thinking. People are stupid, but not that stupid; trade can make everyone better off, but it can also make everyone worse off; governments are stupid, but not that stupid. Exploring,  refining,  and delineating these distinctions is the subject matter of upper-level economics classes, doctoral dissertations in economics, and the vast majority of papers in  the American Economic Review and other scholarly journals. Should the reader decide to follow this path, the fundamental principles described on the first page of this article will provide invaluable guidance.
第八条：好日子是由创造美好生活的能力决定的
另类解读：瞎鸡巴扯淡
第九条：水涨船高，钱多价扬
另类解读：鸡巴瞎扯淡
第十条：要么通胀，要么更多的人找不到工作，——社会总要不时地面对这样的取舍
另类解读：扯瞎鸡巴淡
Principle #8 A country’s standard of living depends on its ability to produce goods and services
#8 Blah blah blah
Principle #9 Prices rise when the government prints too much money
#9 Blah blah blah
Principle #10 Society faces a short-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment
#10 Blah blah blah