知识在社会中的运用--哈耶克

The Use of Knowledge in Society

What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order? On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough. If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one of logic. That is, the answer to the question of what is the best use of the available means is implicit in our assumptions. The conditions which the solution of this optimum problem must satisfy have been fully worked out and can be stated best in mathematical form: put at their briefest, they are that the marginal rates of substitution between any two commodities or factors must be the same in all their different uses.

当我们试图建立一个理性的经济秩序时，我们希望解决的问题是什么？ 如果我们掌握了所有相关的信息，如果我们可以从一个给定的偏好系统出发，如果我们掌握了现有手段的全部知识，剩下的问题就纯粹是逻辑问题了。 也就是说，我们的假设中隐含着对现有手段的最佳利用问题的答案。 这个最优化问题的解决所必须满足的条件已经得到充分的解决，并且可以用数学形式表达得最好: 简单地说，它们是任何两种商品或要素在其所有不同用途中的边际替代率必须是相同的。

This, however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society faces. And the economic calculus which we have developed to solve this logical problem, though an important step toward the solution of the economic problem of society, does not yet provide an answer to it. The reason for this is that the “data” from which the economic calculus starts are never for the whole society “given” to a single mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given.

然而，这显然不是社会面临的经济问题。 而我们为了解决这个逻辑问题而发展出来的经济演算，虽然是解决社会经济问题的重要一步，但是还没有给出答案。 其原因在于，作为经济演算起点的"数据"，从来不是整个社会"给予"一个能够计算出其含义的头脑，而且永远不可能这样给予。

The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of how to allocate “given” resources—if “given” is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these “data.” It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.

理性经济秩序问题的特殊性正是由这样一个事实所决定的: 我们必须利用的环境知识从来不以集中或综合的形式存在，而只是作为所有独立个体所拥有的不完整的、经常相互矛盾的知识的分散部分存在。 因此，社会的经济问题不仅仅是如何分配"给定的"资源的问题ーー如果把"给定的"理解为给予一个头脑，这个头脑有意识地解决这些"数据"所设定的问题 相反，这是一个如何确保社会任何成员都知道的资源得到最佳利用的问题，为了只有这些个人知道的相对重要性的目的。 或者，简单地说，这是一个利用知识的问题，这个问题并没有完整地提供给任何人。

This character of the fundamental problem has, I am afraid, been obscured rather than illuminated by many of the recent refinements of economic theory, particularly by many of the uses made of mathematics. Though the problem with which I want primarily to deal in this paper is the problem of a rational economic organization, I shall in its course be led again and again to point to its close connections with certain methodological questions. Many of the points I wish to make are indeed conclusions toward which diverse paths of reasoning have unexpectedly converged. But, as I now see these problems, this is no accident. It seems to me that many of the current disputes with regard to both economic theory and economic policy have their common origin in a misconception about the nature of the economic problem of society. This misconception in turn is due to an erroneous transfer to social phenomena of the habits of thought we have developed in dealing with the phenomena of nature.

我担心，这个基本问题的性质已经被最近许多经济理论的改进，特别是许多数学应用所掩盖而不是阐明。 虽然我想在这篇文章中主要讨论的问题是一个理性的经济组织的问题，但我将在其过程中一再指出它与某些方法论问题的密切联系。 我希望提出的许多观点实际上是各种推理路径出人意料地聚合在一起的结论。 但是，正如我现在看到的这些问题，这并非偶然。 在我看来，当前许多关于经济理论和经济政策的争论，都源于对社会经济问题本质的误解。 这种误解反过来又是由于我们在处理自然现象时形成的思维习惯错误地转化为社会现象。

II

二

In ordinary language we describe by the word “planning” the complex of interrelated decisions about the allocation of our available resources. All economic activity is in this sense planning; and in any society in which many people collaborate, this planning, whoever does it, will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner. The various ways in which the knowledge on which people base their plans is communicated to them is the crucial problem for any theory explaining the economic process, and the problem of what is the best way of utilizing knowledge initially dispersed among all the people is at least one of the main problems of economic policy—or of designing an efficient economic system.

在普通语言中，我们用"计划"一词来描述关于可用资源分配的相互关联的决策的复杂性。 所有的经济活动都是这种意义上的计划; 在任何一个多人合作的社会中，这种计划，无论是谁做的，在某种程度上都必须建立在知识的基础上，首先，这些知识不是给予计划者，而是给予其他人，这些知识必须以某种方式传达给计划者。 对于任何解释经济过程的理论来说，向人们传达其计划所依据的知识的各种方式都是至关重要的问题，而最初分散在所有人之间的知识的最佳利用方式至少是经济政策或设计一个有效的经济系统的主要问题之一。

The answer to this question is closely connected with that other question which arises here, that of who is to do the planning. It is about this question that all the dispute about “economic planning” centers. This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals. Planning in the specific sense in which the term is used in contemporary controversy necessarily means central planning—direction of the whole economic system according to one unified plan. Competition, on the other hand, means decentralized planning by many separate persons. The halfway house between the two, about which many people talk but which few like when they see it, is the delegation of planning to organized industries, or, in other words, monopoly.

这个问题的答案与这里出现的另一个问题密切相关，那就是谁来做计划。 所有关于"经济计划"的争论都围绕着这个问题展开。 这不是关于是否要做计划的争论。 关于计划是集中进行，还是由整个经济体系的一个当局进行，还是由许多个人进行分配，这是一个争论。 在当代争论中,"计划"一词所指的特定意义上的计划，必然指的是中央计划——按照一个统一的计划来指导整个经济系统的方向。 另一方面，竞争意味着许多独立的个体的分散式计划经济。 在这两者之间的中间地带，许多人都在谈论这个问题，但是当他们看到这个问题的时候，却很少有人喜欢，这就是授权有组织的行业，或者，换句话说，垄断。

Which of these systems is likely to be more efficient depends mainly on the question under which of them we can expect that fuller use will be made of the existing knowledge. And this, in turn, depends on whether we are more likely to succeed in putting at the disposal of a single central authority all the knowledge which ought to be used but which is initially dispersed among many different individuals, or in conveying to the individuals such additional knowledge as they need in order to enable them to fit their plans with those of others.

这些系统中哪一个可能更有效率，主要取决于我们期望在哪一个系统下更充分地利用现有知识的问题。 反过来，这又取决于我们是否更有可能成功地将应该使用但最初分散在许多不同个人中的所有知识交由一个中央当局处置，或者向个人传递他们所需要的额外知识，以便使他们的计划与其他人的计划相一致。

III

三

It will at once be evident that on this point the position will be different with respect to different kinds of knowledge; and the answer to our question will therefore largely turn on the relative importance of the different kinds of knowledge; those more likely to be at the disposal of particular individuals and those which we should with greater confidence expect to find in the possession of an authority made up of suitably chosen experts. If it is today so widely assumed that the latter will be in a better position, this is because one kind of knowledge, namely, scientific knowledge, occupies now so prominent a place in public imagination that we tend to forget that it is not the only kind that is relevant. It may be admitted that, as far as scientific knowledge is concerned, a body of suitably chosen experts may be in the best position to command all the best knowledge available—though this is of course merely shifting the difficulty to the problem of selecting the experts. What I wish to point out is that, even assuming that this problem can be readily solved, it is only a small part of the wider problem.

很明显，在这一点上，对于不同种类的知识，立场将是不同的; 因此，我们问题的答案将在很大程度上取决于不同种类的知识的相对重要性; 那些更有可能为特定个人所用的知识，以及那些我们应该更有信心地期待在由适当选择的专家组成的权威人士手中找到的知识。 如果今天如此广泛地假设后者将处于更好的位置，这是因为一种知识，即科学知识，现在在公众的想象中占据如此突出的位置，以至于我们往往忘记了它不是唯一一种相关的知识。 可以承认的是，就科学知识而言，一群经过适当挑选的专家可能最有能力掌握所有最好的知识ーー尽管这当然只是把难题转移到挑选专家的问题上。 我想指出的是，即使假设这个问题可以很容易地得到解决，它也只是更广泛问题的一小部分。

Today it is almost heresy to suggest that scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge. But a little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active coöperation. We need to remember only how much we have to learn in any occupation after we have completed our theoretical training, how big a part of our working life we spend learning particular jobs, and how valuable an asset in all walks of life is knowledge of people, of local conditions, and of special circumstances. To know of and put to use a machine not fully employed, or somebody’s skill which could be better utilized, or to be aware of a surplus stock which can be drawn upon during an interruption of supplies, is socially quite as useful as the knowledge of better alternative techniques. And the shipper who earns his living from using otherwise empty or half-filled journeys of tramp-steamers, or the estate agent whose whole knowledge is almost exclusively one of temporary opportunities, or the arbitrageur who gains from local differences of commodity prices, are all performing eminently useful functions based on special knowledge of circumstances of the fleeting moment not known to others.

今天，认为科学知识不是所有知识的总和几乎是异端邪说。 但是，稍加思考就会发现，毫无疑问，存在着一整套非常重要但没有组织的知识，这些知识不可能被称为一般规则意义上的科学知识: 对时间和地点的特殊情况的知识。 正是在这方面，实际上每个人都比其他人有一些优势，因为他拥有独特的信息，这些信息可能会有有益的用途，但只有当依赖这些信息的决定留给他或在他的积极配合下作出时，才能使用这些信息。 我们只需要记住，在完成理论训练之后，我们在任何职业中需要学习多少东西，我们在工作生活中花费了多少时间学习特定的工作，以及在各行各业中，了解人民、当地情况和特殊环境是多么宝贵的资产。 了解并使用一台未充分利用的机器，或者某人本可以更好地利用的技能，或者了解在供应中断期间可以利用的剩余库存，在社会上与了解更好的替代技术一样有用。 托运人通过使用不定期货轮的空载或半载货航程来谋生，或者房地产经纪人的全部知识几乎完全是一种临时机会，或者套利者从当地商品价格的差异中获利，这些人都基于对他人不知道的短暂时刻的特殊知识，发挥着非常有用的作用。

It is a curious fact that this sort of knowledge should today be generally regarded with a kind of contempt and that anyone who by such knowledge gains an advantage over somebody better equipped with theoretical or technical knowledge is thought to have acted almost disreputably. To gain an advantage from better knowledge of facilities of communication or transport is sometimes regarded as almost dishonest, although it is quite as important that society make use of the best opportunities in this respect as in using the latest scientific discoveries. This prejudice has in a considerable measure affected the attitude toward commerce in general compared with that toward production. Even economists who regard themselves as definitely immune to the crude materialist fallacies of the past constantly commit the same mistake where activities directed toward the acquisition of such practical knowledge are concerned—apparently because in their scheme of things all such knowledge is supposed to be “given.” The common idea now seems to be that all such knowledge should as a matter of course be readily at the command of everybody, and the reproach of irrationality leveled against the existing economic order is frequently based on the fact that it is not so available. This view disregards the fact that the method by which such knowledge can be made as widely available as possible is precisely the problem to which we have to find an answer.

这是一个奇怪的事实，这种知识在今天应该被普遍看作是一种蔑视，任何人通过这种知识获得的优势比更好地装备理论或技术知识被认为是几乎令人不齿的行为。 通过更好地了解通信或运输设施而获得利益，有时被认为几乎是不诚实的，尽管社会利用这方面的最佳机会与利用最新的科学发现同样重要。 与生产相比，这种偏见在很大程度上影响了人们对商业的态度。 即便是那些认为自己绝对不会受到过去那种粗糙的唯物主义谬论影响的经济学家，在涉及获取此类实用知识的活动时，也经常犯同样的错误——显然是因为在他们的理论框架中，所有这类知识都应该是"给予"的 现在的普遍观点似乎是，所有这些知识理所当然地应该受到每个人的支配，对现有经济秩序的非理性的指责常常是基于这样一个事实，即现有的经济秩序并不是那么容易获得。 这种观点无视这样一个事实，即尽可能广泛提供这种知识的方法正是我们必须找到答案的问题。

IV

四

If it is fashionable today to minimize the importance of the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place, this is closely connected with the smaller importance which is now attached to change as such. Indeed, there are few points on which the assumptions made (usually only implicitly) by the “planners” differ from those of their opponents as much as with regard to the significance and frequency of changes which will make substantial alterations of production plans necessary. Of course, if detailed economic plans could be laid down for fairly long periods in advance and then closely adhered to, so that no further economic decisions of importance would be required, the task of drawing up a comprehensive plan governing all economic activity would be much less formidable.

如果今天流行的做法是尽量减少对时间和地点的特殊情况的知识的重要性，这与现在对变化本身的重视程度较低密切相关。 事实上,"规划者"所作的假设(通常只是含蓄地)与反对者的假设不同的地方很少，因为改变的重要性和频率会使生产计划有必要作出重大改变。 当然，如果能够提前相当长一段时间制定详细的经济计划，然后严格遵守，这样就不需要进一步作出重要的经济决定，那么制定一项管理所有经济活动的全面计划的任务就不会那么艰巨了。

It is, perhaps, worth stressing that economic problems arise always and only in consequence of change. So long as things continue as before, or at least as they were expected to, there arise no new problems requiring a decision, no need to form a new plan. The belief that changes, or at least day-to-day adjustments, have become less important in modern times implies the contention that economic problems also have become less important. This belief in the decreasing importance of change is, for that reason, usually held by the same people who argue that the importance of economic considerations has been driven into the background by the growing importance of technological knowledge.

也许值得强调的是，经济问题总是并且只有在变化的后果下才会出现。 只要事情像以前那样继续下去，或者至少像预期的那样继续下去，就不会出现需要做出决定的新问题，也不需要制定新的计划。 认为变化，或者至少是每天的调整，在现代已经变得不那么重要的信念意味着经济问题也变得不那么重要了。 由于这个原因，这种认为变革的重要性日益下降的观点，通常是同一批人持有的观点，他们认为，由于技术知识的重要性日益增加，经济考虑的重要性已成为不可忽视的因素。

Is it true that, with the elaborate apparatus of modern production, economic decisions are required only at long intervals, as when a new factory is to be erected or a new process to be introduced? Is it true that, once a plant has been built, the rest is all more or less mechanical, determined by the character of the plant, and leaving little to be changed in adapting to the ever-changing circumstances of the moment?

有了现代生产的精密机器，经济决策是否真的只需要很长一段时间，比如新工厂的建立或新工艺的引入？ 真的是这样的吗，一旦一座核电站建成，其余的部分或多或少都是机械性的，由核电站的性质决定，并且在适应当时不断变化的环境方面几乎没有什么可以改变的？

The fairly widespread belief in the affirmative is not, as far as I can ascertain, borne out by the practical experience of the businessman. In a competitive industry at any rate—and such an industry alone can serve as a test—the task of keeping cost from rising requires constant struggle, absorbing a great part of the energy of the manager. How easy it is for an inefficient manager to dissipate the differentials on which profitability rests, and that it is possible, with the same technical facilities, to produce with a great variety of costs, are among the commonplaces of business experience which do not seem to be equally familiar in the study of the economist. The very strength of the desire, constantly voiced by producers and engineers, to be allowed to proceed untrammeled by considerations of money costs, is eloquent testimony to the extent to which these factors enter into their daily work.

这种相当普遍的肯定信念，据我所知，并不是那个商人的实际经验所证实的。 无论如何，在一个竞争激烈的行业(这样一个行业本身就可以作为一种考验) ，防止成本上升的任务需要不断奋斗，消耗了管理者的大部分精力。 一个效率低下的经理人多么容易就能消除盈利能力所依赖的差异，而且在同样的技术条件下，用各种各样的成本也能够生产出来，这些都是商业经验的常见之处，在经济学家的研究中似乎并不是同样熟悉。 生产商和工程师不断表达的希望能够不受金钱成本的限制的强烈愿望，雄辩地证明了这些因素在多大程度上进入了他们的日常工作。

One reason why economists are increasingly apt to forget about the constant small changes which make up the whole economic picture is probably their growing preoccupation with statistical aggregates, which show a very much greater stability than the movements of the detail. The comparative stability of the aggregates cannot, however, be accounted for—as the statisticians occasionally seem to be inclined to do—by the “law of large numbers” or the mutual compensation of random changes. The number of elements with which we have to deal is not large enough for such accidental forces to produce stability. The continuous flow of goods and services is maintained by constant deliberate adjustments, by new dispositions made every day in the light of circumstances not known the day before, by B stepping in at once when A fails to deliver. Even the large and highly mechanized plant keeps going largely because of an environment upon which it can draw for all sorts of unexpected needs; tiles for its roof, stationery for its forms, and all the thousand and one kinds of equipment in which it cannot be self-contained and which the plans for the operation of the plant require to be readily available in the market.

经济学家之所以越来越倾向于忘记构成整个经济图景的不断微小变化，其中一个原因可能是他们越来越关注统计总量，这些统计总量显示出比细节变化更大的稳定性。 然而，总量的相对稳定性不能用"大数定律"或随机变化的相互补偿来解释ーー统计学家有时似乎倾向于这样做。 我们必须处理的元件数量不够大，不足以产生这种偶然的力量来产生稳定性。 商品和服务的持续流动是通过不断的深思熟虑的调整，每天根据前一天不知道的情况作出新的部署，当 a 不能交货时，b 立即介入。 即使是大型的、高度机械化的工厂也能继续运转，这主要是因为它可以利用这样的环境来满足各种意想不到的需要: 屋顶的瓦片，其形式的文具，以及所有无法自给自足的、工厂运营计划要求随时可以在市场上买到的一千零一种设备。

This is, perhaps, also the point where I should briefly mention the fact that the sort of knowledge with which I have been concerned is knowledge of the kind which by its nature cannot enter into statistics and therefore cannot be conveyed to any central authority in statistical form. The statistics which such a central authority would have to use would have to be arrived at precisely by abstracting from minor differences between the things, by lumping together, as resources of one kind, items which differ as regards location, quality, and other particulars, in a way which may be very significant for the specific decision. It follows from this that central planning based on statistical information by its nature cannot take direct account of these circumstances of time and place and that the central planner will have to find some way or other in which the decisions depending on them can be left to the “man on the spot.”

这也许也是我应该简要提及的事实，即我所关心的那种知识是那种性质上不能纳入统计数字的知识，因此不能以统计形式传达给任何中央当局。 这样一个中央当局必须使用的统计数字必须精确地从事物之间的细微差别中抽象出来，通过将地点、质量和其他细节不同的项目作为一种资源集中在一起，以一种对具体决定可能非常重要的方式。 由此可见，以统计资料为基础的中央规划，就其性质而言，不能直接考虑到这些时间和地点的情况，中央规划者必须找到某种方式，将依赖于这些方式的决定留给"当场的人"来做

V

If we can agree that the economic problem of society is mainly one of rapid adaptation to changes in the particular circumstances of time and place, it would seem to follow that the ultimate decisions must be left to the people who are familiar with these circumstances, who know directly of the relevant changes and of the resources immediately available to meet them. We cannot expect that this problem will be solved by first communicating all this knowledge to a central board which, after integrating all knowledge, issues its orders. We must solve it by some form of decentralization. But this answers only part of our problem. We need decentralization because only thus can we insure that the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place will be promptly used. But the “man on the spot” cannot decide solely on the basis of his limited but intimate knowledge of the facts of his immediate surroundings. There still remains the problem of communicating to him such further information as he needs to fit his decisions into the whole pattern of changes of the larger economic system.

如果我们能够同意，社会的经济问题主要是迅速适应时间和地点的特定情况的变化，那么似乎可以推断，最终的决定必须留给熟悉这些情况的人，他们直接知道有关的变化和立即可以用来应付这些变化的资源。 我们不能指望这个问题能够通过首先将所有这些知识传达给一个中央委员会来解决，而这个中央委员会在整合了所有的知识之后，会发布命令。 我们必须用某种形式的地方分权来解决这个问题。 但这只解决了我们问题的一部分。 我们需要地方分权，因为只有这样，我们才能确保有关时间和地点的特殊情况的知识得到及时的利用。 但是,"当场的人"不能仅仅根据他对周围事物的有限而又深入的了解来作出决定。 向他传达进一步信息的问题仍然存在，因为他需要将自己的决定与更大的经济体系的整个变化模式相适应。

How much knowledge does he need to do so successfully? Which of the events which happen beyond the horizon of his immediate knowledge are of relevance to his immediate decision, and how much of them need he know?

他需要多少知识才能做到这一点？ 在他的直接知识范围之外发生的事件中，哪些与他的直接决定有关，他需要知道多少？

There is hardly anything that happens anywhere in the world that might not have an effect on the decision he ought to make. But he need not know of these events as such, nor of all their effects. It does not matter for him why at the particular moment more screws of one size than of another are wanted, why paper bags are more readily available than canvas bags, or why skilled labor, or particular machine tools, have for the moment become more difficult to obtain. All that is significant for him is how much more or less difficult to procure they have become compared with other things with which he is also concerned, or how much more or less urgently wanted are the alternative things he produces or uses. It is always a question of the relative importance of the particular things with which he is concerned, and the causes which alter their relative importance are of no interest to him beyond the effect on those concrete things of his own environment.

世界上任何地方发生的任何事情都可能对他应该做出的决定产生影响。 但是他不需要知道这些事件本身，也不需要知道它们的全部影响。 对他来说，为什么在特定的时刻需要更多的一种尺寸的螺丝，为什么纸袋比帆布袋更容易获得，或者为什么熟练的劳动力，或者特定的机床，目前变得更难获得，这些都不重要。 对他来说，重要的是，与他所关心的其他事物相比，获得这些东西多少有些困难，或者他生产或使用的其他东西多少有些急需。 这始终是一个他所关心的特定事物的相对重要性的问题，而改变这些事物相对重要性的原因除了对他自己所处环境的那些具体事物的影响之外，对他没有任何意义。

It is in this connection that what I have called the “economic calculus” proper helps us, at least by analogy, to see how this problem can be solved, and in fact is being solved, by the price system. Even the single controlling mind, in possession of all the data for some small, self-contained economic system, would not—every time some small adjustment in the allocation of resources had to be made—go explicitly through all the relations between ends and means which might possibly be affected. It is indeed the great contribution of the pure logic of choice that it has demonstrated conclusively that even such a single mind could solve this kind of problem only by constructing and constantly using rates of equivalence (or “values,” or “marginal rates of substitution”), i.e., by attaching to each kind of scarce resource a numerical index which cannot be derived from any property possessed by that particular thing, but which reflects, or in which is condensed, its significance in view of the whole means-end structure. In any small change he will have to consider only these quantitative indices (or “values”) in which all the relevant information is concentrated; and, by adjusting the quantities one by one, he can appropriately rearrange his dispositions without having to solve the whole puzzle ab initio or without needing at any stage to survey it at once in all its ramifications.

正是在这方面，我所说的"经济演算"本身，至少通过类推，帮助我们看到这个问题可以如何通过价格体系得到解决，事实上也正在得到解决。 即使是单一的控制头脑，拥有某个小型的、自成一体的经济体系的所有数据，也不会每次在资源分配方面必须作出一些小的调整时，就明确地处理可能受到影响的目的和手段之间的所有关系。 它确实是纯粹选择逻辑的重大贡献，它最后证明，即使这样一个单一的头脑也只能通过构造和不断使用等价率(或"价值"或"边际替代率")来解决这类问题，即通过给每一种稀缺资源附加一个数字指数，这个数字指数不能从该特定事物所拥有的任何财产中推导出来，但它反映或浓缩了它在整个手段-目的结构中的意义。 在任何小的变化中，他只需要考虑所有相关信息都集中在其中的这些数量指数(或"值") ; 并且，通过逐一调整数量，他可以适当地重新安排自己的部署，而不必从一开始就解决整个难题，也不需要在任何阶段立即对其所有分支进行调查。

Fundamentally, in a system in which the knowledge of the relevant facts is dispersed among many people, prices can act to coördinate the separate actions of different people in the same way as subjective values help the individual to coördinate the parts of his plan. It is worth contemplating for a moment a very simple and commonplace instance of the action of the price system to see what precisely it accomplishes. Assume that somewhere in the world a new opportunity for the use of some raw material, say, tin, has arisen, or that one of the sources of supply of tin has been eliminated. It does not matter for our purpose—and it is very significant that it does not matter—which of these two causes has made tin more scarce. All that the users of tin need to know is that some of the tin they used to consume is now more profitably employed elsewhere and that, in consequence, they must economize tin. There is no need for the great majority of them even to know where the more urgent need has arisen, or in favor of what other needs they ought to husband the supply. If only some of them know directly of the new demand, and switch resources over to it, and if the people who are aware of the new gap thus created in turn fill it from still other sources, the effect will rapidly spread throughout the whole economic system and influence not only all the uses of tin but also those of its substitutes and the substitutes of these substitutes, the supply of all the things made of tin, and their substitutes, and so on; and all his without the great majority of those instrumental in bringing about these substitutions knowing anything at all about the original cause of these changes. The whole acts as one market, not because any of its members survey the whole field, but because their limited individual fields of vision sufficiently overlap so that through many intermediaries the relevant information is communicated to all. The mere fact that there is one price for any commodity—or rather that local prices are connected in a manner determined by the cost of transport, etc.—brings about the solution which (it is just conceptually possible) might have been arrived at by one single mind possessing all the information which is in fact dispersed among all the people involved in the process.

从根本上说，在一个将相关事实的知识分散在许多人中的体系中，价格可以协调不同人的不同行为，就像主观价值观帮助个人协调其计划的各个部分一样。 值得花一点时间思考一下价格体系行为的一个非常简单和平常的例子，看看它到底实现了什么。 假设世界上某个地方出现了使用某种原材料的新机会，例如锡，或者锡的供应来源之一已经消失。 这对我们的目的无关紧要，而且非常重要的是，这两个原因中，哪一个使锡变得更加稀缺并不重要。 锡的使用者需要知道的是，他们过去消费的一些锡现在被用在其他地方更有利可图，因此，他们必须节约锡。 他们中的绝大多数人甚至不需要知道哪里出现了更迫切的需要，或者为了满足其他需要，他们应该节制供应。 如果只有他们中的一些人直接知道新的需求，并把资源转移到新的需求上，如果那些知道由此产生的新缺口的人反过来又从其他来源填补它，这种影响将迅速扩散到整个经济系统，不仅影响到锡的所有用途，而且影响到锡的替代品和这些替代品的替代品，所有由锡制成的东西的供应，以及它们的替代品，等等。 整个市场是一个整体，不是因为它的任何成员调查整个领域，而是因为他们有限的个人视野足够重叠，以至于通过许多中介机构将有关信息传达给所有人。 任何商品都有一个价格这一事实，或者更确切地说，当地的价格以运输成本等决定的方式联系在一起，就产生了一种解决办法，这种解决办法(在概念上是可能的)可能是由一个拥有所有信息的头脑达成的，而这些信息实际上分散在参与这一过程的所有人之中。

VI

六

We must look at the price system as such a mechanism for communicating information if we want to understand its real function—a function which, of course, it fulfils less perfectly as prices grow more rigid. (Even when quoted prices have become quite rigid, however, the forces which would operate through changes in price still operate to a considerable extent through changes in the other terms of the contract.) The most significant fact about this system is the economy of knowledge with which it operates, or how little the individual participants need to know in order to be able to take the right action. In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on and passed on only to those concerned. It is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order to adjust their activities to changes of which they may never know more than is reflected in the price movement.

如果我们想要了解价格系统的真正功能，就必须把它看作这样一种信息交流机制——当然，随着价格变得更加刚性，这种功能的实现就不那么完美了。 (即使报价变得相当僵硬，但是，通过价格变化产生作用的力量仍然在相当大的程度上通过合同其他条款的变化产生作用。) 关于这个系统最重要的事实是它运作的知识经济，或者说个别参与者需要知道多少才能采取正确的行动。 以缩略形式，通过一种符号，只有最基本的信息被传递，并且只传递给那些相关的人。 这不仅仅是一个比喻，把价格系统描述为一种登记变化的机制，或者是一种电信系统，它使个别生产者仅仅观察几个指针的运动，就像工程师可能观察几个刻度盘的指针一样，以便使他们的活动适应价格运动所反映出来的变化。

Of course, these adjustments are probably never “perfect” in the sense in which the economist conceives of them in his equilibrium analysis. But I fear that our theoretical habits of approaching the problem with the assumption of more or less perfect knowledge on the part of almost everyone has made us somewhat blind to the true function of the price mechanism and led us to apply rather misleading standards in judging its efficiency. The marvel is that in a case like that of a scarcity of one raw material, without an order being issued, without more than perhaps a handful of people knowing the cause, tens of thousands of people whose identity could not be ascertained by months of investigation, are made to use the material or its products more sparingly; i.e., they move in the right direction. This is enough of a marvel even if, in a constantly changing world, not all will hit it off so perfectly that their profit rates will always be maintained at the same constant or “normal” level.

当然，这些调整在经济学家在均衡分析中所设想的意义上，可能永远不是"完美的"。 但我担心，我们在理论上习惯于假设几乎每个人都有或多或少的完善知识来处理这个问题，这使我们对价格机制的真正功能有些盲目，并导致我们在判断其效率时采用相当误导的标准。 令人惊奇的是，在这样一个缺少一种原材料的情况下，没有发出命令，也许只有少数人知道原因，数以万计的人，他们的身份无法确定的调查数月，被迫更节俭地使用材料或其产品; 也就是说，他们朝着正确的方向前进。 即使在一个不断变化的世界里，并非所有企业都能如此完美地合作，以至于它们的利润率将始终保持在相同的恒定或"正常"水平，这也足以令人惊叹。

I have deliberately used the word “marvel” to shock the reader out of the complacency with which we often take the working of this mechanism for granted. I am convinced that if it were the result of deliberate human design, and if the people guided by the price changes understood that their decisions have significance far beyond their immediate aim, this mechanism would have been acclaimed as one of the greatest triumphs of the human mind. Its misfortune is the double one that it is not the product of human design and that the people guided by it usually do not know why they are made to do what they do. But those who clamor for “conscious direction”—and who cannot believe that anything which has evolved without design (and even without our understanding it) should solve problems which we should not be able to solve consciously—should remember this: The problem is precisely how to extend the span of out utilization of resources beyond the span of the control of any one mind; and therefore, how to dispense with the need of conscious control, and how to provide inducements which will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.

我故意使用"奇迹"一词来震惊读者，使他们不再满足于我们常常认为这一机制的运作是理所当然的。 我相信，如果这是人类蓄意设计的结果，如果人们在价格变化的指导下明白，他们的决定远远超出了他们眼前的目标，这种机制将被称赞为人类思想的最大胜利之一。 它的不幸是双重的，它不是人类设计的产物，被它引导的人们通常不知道他们为什么被迫做他们所做的事情。 但是，那些呼吁"有意识的方向"的人，以及那些不相信没有经过设计(甚至没有经过我们的理解)就已经发展出来的任何东西应该解决我们不应该有意识地解决的问题的人，应该记住这一点: 问题正是如何将资源的利用范围扩大到任何一个头脑都无法控制的范围之外; 因此，如何摆脱有意识的控制的需要，以及如何提供诱因，使个人能够在没有任何人告诉他们该做什么的情况下做他们想做的事。

The problem which we meet here is by no means peculiar to economics but arises in connection with nearly all truly social phenomena, with language and with most of our cultural inheritance, and constitutes really the central theoretical problem of all social science. As Alfred Whitehead has said in another connection, “It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.” This is of profound significance in the social field. We make constant use of formulas, symbols, and rules whose meaning we do not understand and through the use of which we avail ourselves of the assistance of knowledge which individually we do not possess. We have developed these practices and institutions by building upon habits and institutions which have proved successful in their own sphere and which have in turn become the foundation of the civilization we have built up.

我们在这里遇到的问题绝不是经济学所特有的，而是与几乎所有真正的社会现象、语言和我们大部分的文化遗产有关的，并且真正构成了所有社会科学的核心理论问题。 正如阿尔弗雷德 · 怀特黑德在另一个问题上所说的那样:"我们应该培养思考我们在做什么的习惯，这是一个深刻错误的真理，所有的抄本和知名人士在发表演讲时都会重复这一真理。 情况恰恰相反。 文明的进步是通过增加重要行动的数量，这样我们就可以不用思考就能完成这些行动。" 这在社会领域具有深远的意义。 我们经常使用那些我们无法理解的公式、符号和规则，通过使用这些公式、符号和规则，我们可以利用我们个人所不具备的知识。 我们发展了这些做法和机构，借鉴了在其本身领域证明是成功的习惯和机构，这些习惯和机构反过来又成为我们所建立的文明的基础。

The price system is just one of those formations which man has learned to use (though he is still very far from having learned to make the best use of it) after he had stumbled upon it without understanding it. Through it not only a division of labor but also a coördinated utilization of resources based on an equally divided knowledge has become possible. The people who like to deride any suggestion that this may be so usually distort the argument by insinuating that it asserts that by some miracle just that sort of system has spontaneously grown up which is best suited to modern civilization. It is the other way round: man has been able to develop that division of labor on which our civilization is based because he happened to stumble upon a method which made it possible. Had he not done so, he might still have developed some other, altogether different, type of civilization, something like the “state” of the termite ants, or some other altogether unimaginable type. All that we can say is that nobody has yet succeeded in designing an alternative system in which certain features of the existing one can be preserved which are dear even to those who most violently assail it—such as particularly the extent to which the individual can choose his pursuits and consequently freely use his own knowledge and skill.

价格系统只是人类在无意中发现它之后学会使用的几种形式之一(尽管他还远远没有学会充分利用价格系统)。 通过它，不仅可以进行劳动分工，而且可以在平等分配知识的基础上协调利用资源。 那些喜欢嘲笑这种说法的人通常会歪曲这种说法，暗示这种说法宣称某种奇迹般的系统已经自发地发展起来，最适合现代文明。 恰恰相反: 人类之所以能够发展我们文明赖以生存的劳动分工，是因为他偶然发现了一种使之成为可能的方法。 如果他没有这样做，他可能仍然发展了一些其他的，完全不同的文明类型，有些像"状态"的白蚁，或其他一些完全不可思议的类型。 我们只能说，还没有人成功地设计出一种替代制度，在这种制度中，现有制度的某些特征可以得到保留，即使对那些最猛烈地攻击它的人来说，这些特征也是宝贵的ーー特别是个人可以在多大程度上选择自己的追求，从而自由地使用自己的知识和技能。

VII

七

It is in many ways fortunate that the dispute about the indispensability of the price system for any rational calculation in a complex society is now no longer conducted entirely between camps holding different political views. The thesis that without the price system we could not preserve a society based on such extensive division of labor as ours was greeted with a howl of derision when it was first advanced by von Mises twenty-five years ago. Today the difficulties which some still find in accepting it are no longer mainly political, and this makes for an atmosphere much more conducive to reasonable discussion. When we find Leon Trotsky arguing that “economic accounting is unthinkable without market relations”; when Professor Oscar Lange promises Professor von Mises a statue in the marble halls of the future Central Planning Board; and when Professor Abba P. Lerner rediscovers Adam Smith and emphasizes that the essential utility of the price system consists in inducing the individual, while seeking his own interest, to do what is in the general interest, the differences can indeed no longer be ascribed to political prejudice. The remaining dissent seems clearly to be due to purely intellectual, and more particularly methodological, differences.

在许多方面，幸运的是，现在持有不同政治观点的阵营之间不再完全讨论价格体系对于复杂社会中任何理性计算是否必不可少的问题。 如果没有价格体系，我们就不可能维持一个建立在如此广泛的劳动分工基础上的社会，这一论点在25年前由冯 · 米塞斯首次提出时，遭到了一片嘲笑。 今天，一些人在接受它时仍然发现的困难不再主要是政治上的，这使得气氛更有利于进行合理的讨论。 当我们发现利昂 · 托洛茨基(Leon Trotsky)提出"没有市场关系，经济会计是不可想象的"; 当奥斯卡 · 兰格(Oscar Lange)教授向冯 · 米塞斯教授承诺在未来中央计划委员会(Central Planning Board)的大理石大厅里建一座雕像; 当阿巴 · p · 勒纳(Abba p. Lerner)教授重新发现亚当 · 斯密(Adam Smith)并强调价格体系的基本效用在于诱使个人在追求自身利益的同时，做符合大众利益的事情。 剩下的异议似乎明显是由于纯粹的知识上的差异，尤其是方法上的差异。

A recent statement by Professor Joseph Schumpeter in his Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy provides a clear illustration of one of the methodological differences which I have in mind. Its author is pre-eminent among those economists who approach economic phenomena in the light of a certain branch of positivism. To him these phenomena accordingly appear as objectively given quantities of commodities impinging directly upon each other, almost, it would seem, without any intervention of human minds. Only against this background can I account for the following (to me startling) pronouncement. Professor Schumpeter argues that the possibility of a rational calculation in the absence of markets for the factors of production follows for the theorist “from the elementary proposition that consumers in evaluating (‘demanding’) consumers’ goods ipso facto also evaluate the means of production which enter into the production of these goods.” *1

约瑟夫·熊彼特教授在他的《资本主义、社会主义和民主》一书中最近的一项声明清楚地说明了我所认为的方法论上的一个差异。 它的作者在那些根据实证主义的某一分支来研究经济现象的经济学家中是卓越的。 在他看来，这些现象相应地作为客观给定数量的商品直接相互冲击，似乎几乎没有任何人类头脑的干预。 只有在这样的背景下，我才能解释以下(对我来说令人吃惊的)声明。 熊彼特教授认为，在生产要素市场缺失的情况下进行理性计算的可能性，对于理论家来说，是从"消费者在事实上评估('要求'的)消费者商品时，也评估进入这些商品生产的生产资料的基本命题"开始的 * 1

Taken literally, this statement is simply untrue. The consumers do nothing of the kind. What Professor Schumpeter’s “ipso facto” presumably means is that the valuation of the factors of production is implied in, or follows necessarily from, the valuation of consumers’ goods. But this, too, is not correct. Implication is a logical relationship which can be meaningfully asserted only of propositions simultaneously present to one and the same mind. It is evident, however, that the values of the factors of production do not depend solely on the valuation of the consumers’ goods but also on the conditions of supply of the various factors of production. Only to a mind to which all these facts were simultaneously known would the answer necessarily follow from the facts given to it. The practical problem, however, arises precisely because these facts are never so given to a single mind, and because, in consequence, it is necessary that in the solution of the problem knowledge should be used that is dispersed among many people.

从字面上理解，这种说法完全是不真实的。 消费者什么也不做。 熊彼特教授的"当然"大概意味着，生产要素的估值是隐含在消费品的估值中的，或者必然遵循消费品的估值。 但这也是不正确的。 蕴涵是一种逻辑关系，只有同时出现在同一个心灵中的命题才能有意义地断言。 然而，显而易见的是，生产要素的价值不仅取决于消费者货物的价值，而且还取决于各种生产要素的供应条件。 只有对于一个同时知道所有这些事实的头脑来说，答案必然来自于给予它的事实。 然而，实际问题之所以出现，恰恰是因为这些事实从来不是给予一个人的，因此，在解决问题时，必须使用分散在许多人中的知识。

The problem is thus in no way solved if we can show that all the facts, if they were known to a single mind (as we hypothetically assume them to be given to the observing economist), would uniquely determine the solution; instead we must show how a solution is produced by the interactions of people each of whom possesses only partial knowledge. To assume all the knowledge to be given to a single mind in the same manner in which we assume it to be given to us as the explaining economists is to assume the problem away and to disregard everything that is important and significant in the real world.

因此，如果我们能够证明，所有的事实，如果只有一个人知道(我们假设它们被给予观察的经济学家) ，将唯一地决定解决方案，那么这个问题就无法得到解决; 相反，我们必须证明，解决方案是如何通过每个人只拥有部分知识的相互作用而产生的。 假设所有的知识被给予一个单一的头脑，以同样的方式，我们假设它被给予我们作为解释经济学家是假设的问题，忽视一切是重要的和重要的在现实世界。

That an economist of Professor Schumpeter’s standing should thus have fallen into a trap which the ambiguity of the term “datum” sets to the unwary can hardly be explained as a simple error. It suggests rather that there is something fundamentally wrong with an approach which habitually disregards an essential part of the phenomena with which we have to deal: the unavoidable imperfection of man’s knowledge and the consequent need for a process by which knowledge is constantly communicated and acquired. Any approach, such as that of much of mathematical economics with its simultaneous equations, which in effect starts from the assumption that people’s knowledge corresponds with the objective facts of the situation, systematically leaves out what is our main task to explain. I am far from denying that in our system equilibrium analysis has a useful function to perform. But when it comes to the point where it misleads some of our leading thinkers into believing that the situation which it describes has direct relevance to the solution of practical problems, it is high time that we remember that it does not deal with the social process at all and that it is no more than a useful preliminary to the study of the main problem.

像熊彼特教授这样地位的经济学家竟然掉进了一个陷阱,"基准"这个含糊不清的术语对粗心大意的人来说，很难被解释为一个简单的错误。 相反，它表明，如果一种方法习惯性地无视我们必须处理的现象的一个基本部分: 人类知识的不可避免的缺陷，以及由此产生的对知识不断交流和获得的过程的需要，那么这种方法就存在根本性的错误。 任何方法，例如大多数数理经济学及其方程组，实际上都是从假设人们的知识与客观事实相符开始的，系统地遗漏了我们需要解释的主要任务。 我绝不否认，在我们的系统均衡分析有一个有用的功能，以执行。 但是，当它误导我们的一些主要思想家相信它所描述的情况与实际问题的解决有直接关系时，我们应该记住，它根本不涉及社会过程，它只不过是对主要问题研究的一个有用的初步。

1.J. Schumpeter, 熊彼特 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy 资本主义、社会主义和民主 (New York; Harper, 1942), p. 175. Professor Schumpeter is, I believe, also the original author of the myth that Pareto and Barone have “solved” the problem of socialist calculation. What they, and many others, did was merely to state the conditions which a rational allocation of resources would have to satisfy and to point out that these were essentially the same as the conditions of equilibrium of a competitive market. This is something altogether different from knowing how the allocation of resources satisfying these conditions can be found in practice. Pareto himself (from whom Barone has taken practically everything he has to say), far from claiming to have solved the practical problem, in fact explicitly denies that it can be solved without the help of the market. See his (纽约; 哈珀，1942) ，第175页。 我相信，熊彼特教授也是帕累托和巴罗内"解决"了社会主义计算问题这一神话的最初作者。 他们和许多其他人所做的只是说明合理分配资源必须满足的条件，并指出这些条件本质上与竞争性市场的均衡条件相同。 这与知道如何在实践中分配满足这些条件的资源是完全不同的。 帕累托本人(实际上巴罗内已经从他那里拿走了他所有要说的话) ，远远没有宣称已经解决了实际问题，事实上明确地否认了没有市场的帮助就能解决问题。 看他的 Manuel d’économie pure 曼纽尔 · 康纳米纯洁无暇 (2d ed., 1927), pp. 233-34. The relevant passage is quoted in an English translation at the beginning of my article on “Socialist Calculation: The Competitive ‘Solution,’” in (2d ed. ，1927) ，第233-34页。 我在年发表了一篇题为《社会主义计算: 竞争的'解决方案'》的文章，文章开头引用了相关段落的英文译文 Economica, 经济学人 New Series, Vol. VIII, No. 26 (May, 1940), p. 125. 新系列，第一册。 8，第26号(1940年5月) ，第125页