【金句】Thomas Sowell - But free-market economics is not about “distributing” anything to anybody...

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• 來源2 - capitalismmagazine.c...

But free-market economics is not about “distributing” anything to anybody. It is about letting people earn whatever they can from voluntary transactions with other people.

但自由市場經濟學並不是要「分配」任何東西給任何人。它關乎的是讓人們透過與他人自願的交易中，獲得他們能賺取的任何東西。

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原文

Among the suggestions being made for getting the American economy moving up again is a reduction in the capital gains tax. But any such suggestion makes people on the left go ballistic. It is “trickle down” economics, they cry.

Liberals claim that those who favor tax cuts and a free market want to help the rich first, hoping that the benefits they receive will eventually trickle down to the masses of ordinary people. But there has never been any school of economists who believed in a trickle down theory. No such theory can be found in even the most voluminous and learned books on the history of economics. It is a straw man.

This straw man is not confined to the United States. A critic of India’s change from a government-dominated economy to more free market activity in the 1990s accused those behind this change of having “blind faith in the ‘trickle-down’ theory of distributing the benefits of economic growth among different socio-economic groups in the country.” But free-market economics is not about “distributing” anything to anybody. It is about letting people earn whatever they can from voluntary transactions with other people.

Those who imagine that profits first benefit business owners — and that benefits only belatedly trickle down to workers — have the sequence completely backward. When an investment is made, whether to build a railroad or to open a new restaurant, the first money is spent hiring people to do the work. Without that, nothing happens.

Money goes out first to pay expenses first and then comes back as profits later — if at all. The high rate of failure of new businesses makes painfully clear that there is nothing inevitable about the money coming back.

Even with successful businesses, years can elapse between the initial investment and the return of earnings. From the time when an oil company begins spending money to explore for petroleum to the time when the first gasoline resulting from that exploration comes out of a pump at a filling station, a decade may have passed. In the meantime, all sorts of employees have been paid — geologists, engineers, refinery workers, truck drivers.

Nor is the oil industry unique. No one who begins publishing a newspaper expects to break even — much less make a profit — during the first year or two. But reporters and other members of the newspaper staff expect to be paid every payday, even while the paper shows only red ink on the bottom line.

In short, the sequence of payments is directly the opposite of what is assumed by those who talk about a “trickle-down” theory. As for capital gains, some countries don’t tax capital gains at all. They tax a business’ earnings, but not capital gains, which are harder to define and sometimes illusory.

The real effect of a reduction in the capital gains tax rate is that it opens the prospect — only the prospect — of greater future net profits. But that is enough to provide incentives for making current investments. Reductions in the capital gains tax rate tend to draw money out of tax shelters like municipal bonds and into creating jobs and productive capacity. That’s the point!

As with all taxes, a distinction must be made between tax rates and tax revenues. Tax revenues went up while tax rates went down in the 1980s. Similarly in the 1960s and the 1920s. That is because incomes rose more than tax rates fell. But still it will be claimed that we cannot “afford” to cut tax rates because it would create deficits. Spending creates deficits — and it is big spenders who fight hardest against cutting tax rates.

It is not faith but empirical evidence that is overwhelming on the actual track record of tax cuts and free markets. By the 1980s, this mounting evidence convinced even left-wing governments in various parts of the world to cut back government operations and sell government-owned enterprises to private industry. Faith had nothing to do with it.

In India, in the decade since the 1991 economic reforms which were condemned as “blind faith,” the country’s economic growth rate has soared. It has been estimated that the real blind faith — in government planning — had cost the average Indian hundreds of dollars a year in income during the decades when socialist dogma ruled. In a poor country like India, this was income they could not afford to miss. Even in a prosperous country like the United States, there is no need to forego economic benefits for the sake of a political phrase.

美國經濟重振的建議之一是降低資本利得稅。但任何這樣的建議都會讓左傾人士激動起來。他們大喊這是「滲透經濟學」。

自由派聲稱，那些支持減稅和自由市場的人首先想幫助富人，希望他們所獲得的好處最終會滲透到普通大眾。但從未有一所經濟學府相信過滲透理論。即使在最龐大、最博學的經濟學史書籍中，也找不到這樣的理論。這是一個稻草人論點。

這個稻草人論點並不僅限於美國。一位印度評論員批評該國在 1990 年代從政府主導的經濟轉變為更自由市場的活動，指責幕後推手對「滲透理論」有「盲目信仰」，以分配經濟增長帶來的好處給國內不同社會經濟群體。但自由市場經濟學並不是要「分配」任何東西給任何人。它關乎的是讓人們透過與他人自願的交易中，獲得他們能賺取的任何東西。

想像中，利潤首先惠及企業主，而好處僅在後來滲透到工人，這樣的順序完全相反。當進行投資時，無論是建造鐵路還是開設新餐廳，第一筆錢都花在僱用人們來做工。沒有這個，什麼都不會發生。

錢首先用來支付開支，然後才作為利潤回來——如果有的話。新企業失敗率高，清楚地說明了金錢回流並一定發生的。

即使對成功的企業來說，最初投資與收益回報之間可能隔了多年。從石油公司開始花錢勘探石油到從那次勘探中生產的第一批汽油從加油站的泵中流出，可能已經過去了十年。同時，各種員工都得到了報酬——地質學家、工程師、煉油廠工人、卡車司機。

石油行業也不是獨一無二的。沒有人期望在最初的出版報紙的第一年或兩年內就能收支平衡，更不用說獲利了。但記者和其他報社工作人員期望在每一次發薪日獲得報酬，即使報紙的底線只有紅字。

簡而言之，付款的順序與談論「滲透理論」的人所假設的完全相反。至於資本利得，有些國家根本不課徵資本利得稅。他們對企業收入課稅，但不對資本利得課稅，因為後者更難定義，有時甚至是虛幻的。

降低資本利得稅率的真正影響是，它開啟了未來淨利潤更大的可能性——僅僅是可能性。但這已經足以提供投資的激勵。降低資本利得稅率往往會將資金從市政債券等避稅天堂中吸引出來，並投入到創造就業機會和生產力中。這就是重點！

和所有稅收一樣，必須區分稅率和稅收。1980 年代，稅收上漲，而稅率下跌。1960 年代和 1920 年代也一樣。這是因為收入增長超過了稅率下降。但仍然有人聲稱我們「負擔不起」降低稅率，因為這會造成赤字。是支出造成了赤字——而且是那些大花錢的人最反對降低稅率。

對稅收減免和自由市場的實際影響，有壓倒性的實證證據，而不僅僅是信仰。到 1980 年代，這些不斷增加的證據甚至說服了世界各地的左翼政府減少政府運營並將國營企業賣給私營部門。這與信仰無關。

在印度，自 1991 年被譴責為「盲目信仰」的經濟改革後十年，該國經濟增長率激增。據估計，在社會主義教條統治的幾十年中，政府規劃的真正盲目信仰每年給印度人造成數百美元的收入損失。在像印度這樣貧窮的國家，這筆收入是他們負擔不起的。即使在像美國這樣富裕的國家，也沒有必要為了政治口號而放棄經濟利益。