"The Use of Knowledge in Society"
"知识在社会中的运用"

I

AER, 1945

The Use of Knowledge in Society
知识在社会中的应用

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.
当我们试图构建合理的经济秩序时，我们想要解决的问题是什么？根据我们熟悉的某些假设，答案其实很简单。
If we possess all the relevant information,
如果我们掌握了所有相关信息
if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and
如果我们可以从既定的偏好体系出发，而且
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.
如果我们对可用的手段了如指掌，那么剩下的问题就纯粹是逻辑问题了。也就是说，我们的假设中已经隐含了如何最好地利用现有手段这一问题的答案。这个最优问题的解决必须满足的条件已经被充分研究出来，并可以用数学的形式加以说明：最简单地说，就是任何两种商品或要素之间的边际替代率在它们的所有不同用途上必须是相同的。

This, however, is emphatically
然而，这显然
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.
社会所面临的经济问题。而我们为解决这一逻辑问题而发展起来的经济计算方法，虽然是朝着解决社会经济问题迈出的重要一步，但还没有为社会经济问题提供答案。究其原因，是因为经济计算所依据的 "数据 "对于整个社会来说，从来就没有 "给予 "过一个头脑，而这个头脑可以计算出其中的含义，而且永远也不可能给予。

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.
合理经济秩序问题的特殊性恰恰是由以下事实决定的：我们必须利用的环境知识从来都不是以集中或综合的形式存在，而仅仅是所有独立个体所拥有的分散的、不完整的、经常是相互矛盾的知识。因此，社会的经济问题不仅仅是一个如何分配 "给定 "资源的问题--如果 "给定 "是指给定给一个人的头脑，而这个头脑有意识地解决这些 "数据 "所设定的问题的话。相反，这是一个如何确保最有效地利用任何社会成员都知道的资源的问题，其相对重要性只有这些人知道。或者，简而言之，这是一个如何利用知识的问题，而这些知识并不是谁都能得到的。

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.
经济理论的许多最新改进，特别是对数学的许多运用，恐怕已经掩盖而不是阐明了这一根本问题的性质。虽然我在本文中主要想讨论的是合理的经济组织问题，但在讨论过程中，我将一再指出它与某些方法论问题的密切联系。我想提出的许多观点确实是不同的推理路径出人意料地趋于一致的结论。但是，就我现在对这些问题的看法而言，这并非偶然。在我看来，当前有关经济理论和经济政策的许多争议，其共同根源在于对社会经济问题性质的误解。而这种误解又是由于我们在处理自然现象时养成的思维习惯被错误地移植到了社会现象上。

II

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 "规划 "一词来描述有关可用资源分配的相互关联的复杂决策。在这个意义上，所有的经济活动都是规划；而在任何一个有许多人合作的社会中，这种规划，不管是谁做的，在某种程度上都必须以知识为基础，这些知识首先不是给规划者的，而是给其他人的，这些知识必须以某种方式传递给规划者。对于任何解释经济过程的理论来说，人们制定计划所依据的知识以何种方式传递给他们，都是一个至关重要的问题，而如何最好地利用最初分散在所有人手中的知识，至少是经济政策或设计高效经济体系的主要问题之一。

The answer to this question is closely connected with that other question which arises here, that of
这个问题的答案与由此产生的另一个问题密切相关，即
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.
谁来制定计划。关于 "经济规划 "的所有争论都集中在这个问题上。这不是关于是否要进行规划的争论。争论的焦点在于，规划工作是由一个机构统一负责整个经济体系，还是由许多个人分工负责。在当代争论中，规划一词的特定含义必然是指中央规划--按照一个统一的计划指导整个经济体系。另一方面，竞争则意味着由许多不同的人进行分散规划。两者之间的中途站是把计划下放给有组织的行业，换句话说，就是垄断。

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.
在这两种制度中，哪一种可能更有效率，主要取决于在哪一种制度下，我们可以期望更充分地利用现有的知识。而这又取决于，我们是更有可能把所有应该利用但最初分散在许多不同个人手中的知识交由一个单一的中央机构支配，还是更有可能把个人所需要的额外知识传递给他们，使他们能够把自己的计划与他人的计划结合起来。

III

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.
我们马上就会发现，在这一点上，不同种类的知识所处的地位是不同的；因此，对我们的 问题的回答在很大程度上将取决于不同种类的知识的相对重要性；那些更有可能由特定的个 人掌握的知识，以及那些我们应该更有信心地期望由经过适当挑选的专家组成的权威机构所拥 有的知识。如果说今天人们普遍认为后者会处于更有利的地位，那是因为有一种知识，即科学知 识，在公众的想象中占据了如此重要的位置，以至于我们往往忘记了它并不是唯一相关的 知识。可以承认，就科学知识而言，一个由经过适当挑选的专家组成的机构可能最有条件掌握所有现有的最佳知识--当然，这只是把困难转移到了挑选专家的问题上。我想指出的是，即使假定这个问题可以轻易解决，它也只是更广泛问题中的一小部分。

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
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，只要稍加思考就会发现，毫无疑问，有大量非常重要但未经整理的知识不可能被称为一般规则意义上的科学知识：即关于时间和地点的特定环境的知识。正是在这一点上，实际上每个人都比其他人具有某种优势，因为他拥有独特的信息，可以对这些信息进行有益的利用，但只有在根据这些信息做出决定时由他来做或在他的积极合作下才能利用这些信息。我们只需记住，在完成理论培训之后，我们在任何职业中都需要学习多少东西，我们的工作生涯中有多大一部分时间是在学习特定的工作，在各行各业中，对人、对当地条件和特殊情况的了解是多么宝贵的财富。了解并使用一台未被充分利用的机器，或一个可以更好利用的人的技能，或了解在供应中断时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。以使用空船或半满船为生的托运人，或几乎只掌握暂时性机会的房地产经纪人，或从地方差异中获利的套利者，都是如此。
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.
套利者利用当地商品价格的差异获利，他们都是凭借对他人所不了解的转瞬即逝的情况的特殊知识，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.
一个奇怪的事实是，今天人们普遍对这类知识持一种蔑视的态度，任何人如果通过这类知识获得了比掌握理论或技术知识的人更多的优势，就会被认为其行为几乎是不光彩的。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，但通过更好地了解通信或交通设施而获得优势有时却被视为近乎不诚实的行为。与对生产的态度相比，这种偏见在很大程度上影响了人们对商业的总体态度。即使是那些自认为绝对不受过去粗陋的唯物主义谬论影响的经济学家，在涉及旨在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计划中，所有此类知识都应该是 "给定的"。现在的普遍想法似乎是，所有这些知识都应该理所当然地为每个人所掌握，而对现有经济秩序不合理的指责往往是基于这些知识并不为每个人所掌握这一事实。这种观点忽视了这样一个事实，即尽可能广泛地普及这些知识的方法正是我们必须找到答案的问题。

IV

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.
如果说现在流行的是把对时间和地点的特殊情况的了解的重要性降到最低，那么这与现在对变化本身的重视程度降低密切相关。事实上，"规划者 "所做的假设（通常只是隐含的）与他们的反对者所做的假设的不同之处很少，就像在变化的重要性和频率方面一样，这些变化会使生产计划不得不做出重大改变。当然，如果详细的经济计划可以在相当长的时期内提前制定，然后严格遵守，这样就不需要再做出任何重要的经济决定，那么制定一项指导所有经济活动的全面计划的任务就不那么艰巨了。

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，经济问题总是而且只能在变化中产生。只要事物一如既往，或至少一如人们所期望的那样，就不会出现需要作出决定的新问题，也就没有必要制定新的计划。认为变化，或者至少是日常调整，在现代已变得不那么重要，这意味着经济问题也变得不那么重要。因此，这种认为变革重要性下降的观点，通常也是那些认为经济因素的重要性已被日益重要的技术知识所取代的人所持有的。

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?
难道说，在现代生产的精密设备下，只有在间隔很长时间后，如要建立新工厂或引进新工艺时，才需要做出经济决策吗？难道工厂一旦建成，剩下的工作都是机械性的，由工厂的特性决定，几乎没有什么可以改变，以适应当前不断变化的环境吗？

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.
据我所知，商人的实际经验并不支持这种相当普遍的肯定看法。无论如何，在竞争激烈的行业中--只有这样的行业才能作为检验标准--保持成本不上升的任务需要持续不断的奋斗，这耗费了管理者的大部分精力。一个效率低下的管理者是多么容易使利润率所依赖的差额消失，而且在相同的技术条件下，生产成本可以有很大的差异，这些都是商业经验中的常识，但在经济学家的研究中似乎并不同样熟悉。生产者和工程技术人员不断表达的强烈愿望，即不受货币成本考虑的束缚，有力地证明了这些因素在他们日常工作中的影响程度。

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
经济学家们越来越容易忘记构成整个经济图景的持续不断的微小变化，原因之一可能是他们越来越专注于统计总量，而统计总量所显示的稳定性要远远大于细节的变动。然而，总量的相对稳定性并不能像统计学家偶尔似乎倾向于做的那样，用 "大数定律 "或随机变化的相互补偿来解释。我们必须处理的要素数量不足以让这种偶然的力量产生稳定性。商品和服务的持续流动是通过不断的蓄意调整来维持的，是通过每天根据前一天不了解的情况作出新的安排来维持的，是通过
B stepping in at once when
当
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.
A 无法交付时，B 立即介入。即使是大型的、高度机械化的工厂，它之所以能够继续运转，很大程度上也是因为它有一个可以满足各种意外需求的环境；它的屋顶可以用瓦片，它的表格可以用文具，还有它无法自给自足的千奇百怪的设备，而工厂的运营计划要求这些设备在市场上随时可以买到。

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.”
也许，在这里我还应该简要地提一下，我所关注的这种知识，就其本质而言，是一种无法纳入统计的知识，因此也就无法以统计的形式传递给任何中央机构。这样一个中央机构必须使用的统计资料，必须精确地抽象出事物之间的细微差别，把在地点、质量和其他细节方面可能对具体决策非常重要的不同项目作为同类资源放在一起。由此可见，以统计资料为基础的中央计划，就其本质而言，是无法直接考虑到这些时间和地点的情况的，中央计划人员必须找到某种方法，让 "现场人员 "根据这些情况作出决定。

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
如果我们同意，社会的经济问题主要是迅速适应时间和地点的特殊环境变化的问题，那么，最终的决定似乎必须由熟悉这些环境的人作出，他们直接了解相关的变化和立即可用来应对这些变化的资源。我们不能指望通过首先将所有这些知识传达给一个中央委员会来解决这个问题。
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.
在整合所有知识之后，再发布命令。我们必须通过某种形式的权力下放来解决这个问题。但这只是问题的一部分。我们需要权力下放，因为只有这样，我们才能确保在特定的时间和地点的特定情况下，知识能够得到及时的利用。但是，"现场的人 "不能仅仅根据他对周围环境的有限而又深入的了解来做出决定。仍然存在的一个问题是，如何向他提供他所需要的进一步信息，使他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成功地做到这一点？在他的直接知识范围之外发生的事件中，哪些与他的直接决策有关，他需要了解多少？

There is hardly anything that happens anywhere in the world that
世界上几乎没有任何地方发生的事情
might not have an effect on the decision he ought to make. But he need not know of these events as such, nor of
世界上任何地方发生的事情，几乎都可能对他应该做出的决定产生影响。但他不需要知道这些事件本身，也不需要知道它们的所有影响。
all their effects. It does not matter for him
其所有影响。对他来说
why at the particular moment more screws of one size than of another are wanted,
为什么在某一特定时刻，某种规格的螺丝钉比另一种规格的螺丝钉更受欢迎、
why paper bags are more readily available than canvas bags, or
为什么纸袋比帆布袋更容易获得，或者
why skilled labor, or particular machine tools, have for the moment become more difficult to obtain. All that is significant for him is
为什么熟练工人或特定的机床一时变得更难获得。对他来说，重要的是
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.
对他来说，重要的是，与他同样关心的其他物品相比，这些物品的购买难度增加了多少，或者说，与他生产或使用的其他物品相比，这些物品的急需程度增加了多少。这始终是一个与他有关的具体事物的相对重要性的问题，而改变这些事物的相对重要性的原因，除了对他自身环境中的这些具体事物的影响之外，他并不感兴趣。

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”),
正是在这一点上，我所说的 "经济微积分 "本身，至少通过类比，帮助我们了解价格体系是如何解决这个问题的，而且事实上也正在解决这个问题。即使是一个控制者，在掌握了某个自足的小型经济体系的所有数据之后，也不会在每次需要对资源分配进行微小调整时，都明确地考虑到可能受到影响的目的与手段之间的所有关系。纯粹选择逻辑的伟大贡献在于，它确凿无疑地证明，即使是这样一个头脑，也只能通过构建并不断使用等价率（或 "价值"，或 "边际替代率"）来解决这类问题、
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
也就是说，在每一种稀缺资源上附加一个数字指数，这个指数不能从该特定物所具有的任何属性中推导出来，而是从整个手段-目的结构的角度来反映或浓缩它的意义。在任何微小的变化中，他只需考虑这些数量指数（或 "值"），所有相关的信息都集中在这些指数（或 "值"）中；通过逐一调整数量，他可以适当地重新安排他的处置，而不必从一开始就解决整个难题。
ab initio or without needing at any stage to survey it at once in all its ramifications.
通过逐一调整数量，他就可以适当地重新安排自己的处置，而不必从一开始就解决整个难题，也不必在任何阶段立即研究它的所有影响。

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，在一个相关事实的知识分散于许多人的系统中，价格可以起到协调不同人的单独行动的作用，就像主观价值帮助个人协调其计划的各个部分一样。我们不妨思考一下价格体系的一个非常简单和普通的例子，看看它究竟能实现什么。假设世界上某个地方出现了使用某种原材料（比如锡）的新机会，或者锡的一个供应来源被切断了。对于我们的目的来说，这两个原因中的哪一个使锡变得更加稀缺并不重要，重要的是这两个原因中的哪一个使锡变得更加稀缺。锡的使用者只需要知道，他们过去消费的一些锡现在在其他地方使用更有利可图，因此，他们必须节约用锡。他们中的绝大多数甚至不需要知道哪里出现了更迫切的需求，也不需要知道为了满足其他什么需求，他们应该节约锡的供应。如果他们中只有一部分人直接知道新的需求，并将资源转移到新的需求上，如果这些知道新需求的人又从其他方面填补了新的缺口，那么这种影响就会迅速蔓延到整个经济体系，不仅影响锡的所有用途，而且影响锡的替代品和这些替代品的替代品，影响所有锡制物品的供应和它们的替代品，等等。整个市场就像一个市场，这并不是因为它的任何一个成员都对整个领域进行了调查，而是因为他们各自有限的视野充分重叠，从而通过许多中间人将相关信息传递给了所有人。任何商品都有一个价格--或者说，当地的价格是由运输成本等决定的--这一事实本身就带来了一个解决方案，而这个解决方案（只是在概念上有可能）可能是由一个拥有所有信息的头脑得出的，而这些信息实际上是分散在参与这一过程的所有人中间的。

VI

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.
如果我们想了解价格体系的真正功能，我们就必须把它看作是一种信息沟通机制--当然，随着价格越来越僵化，价格体系的功能也就不那么完美了（然而，即使报价已经变得相当僵化，通过价格变化而产生的作用力在相当大的程度上仍然是通过合同其他条款的变化而产生的）。这个系统最重要的事实是其运作的知识经济性，或者说，为了能够采取正确的行动，每个参与者需要知道的东西是多么少。通过一种简略的符号，只有最基本的信息才会被传递，而且只传递给相关人员。把价格体系说成是一种记录变化的机器，或者说是一种电信系统，它使个体生产者能够像工程师观察几个表盘的指针那样，仅仅观察几个指针的运动，以便根据变化调整自己的活动，而他们对这些变化的了解可能永远不会超过价格运动所反映的信息。

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;
当然，按照经济学家在均衡分析中的设想，这些调整可能永远不会是 "完美的"。但我担心，我们在理论上习惯于假定几乎每个人都或多或少具有完美的知识来处理问题，这使我们对价格机制的真正功能有些视而不见，并导致我们在判断其效率时采用了相当误导的标准。令人惊叹的是，在一种原材料稀缺的情况下，在没有发布命令，也许只有少数人知道原因的情况下，数以万计的人，即使经过几个月的调查也无法确定他们的身份，却不得不更少地使用这种材料或其产品；
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.
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中，并非所有人都能完美地实现这一目标，从而使他们的利润率始终保持在相同或 "正常 "的水平上，这也足以令人惊叹了。

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.
我特意用了 "奇迹 "这个词，目的是让读者从我们常常认为这种机制的运作理所当然的自满情绪中清醒过来。我深信，如果它是人类精心设计的结果，如果价格变化所引导的人们明白他们的决定所具有的意义远远超出了他们的直接目的，那么这个机制就会被誉为人类思想最伟大的胜利之一。它的不幸在于两个方面，一是它不是人类设计的产物，二是受其引导的人们通常不知道他们为什么要这样做。但是，那些鼓吹 "有意识的指导 "的人--他们不相信任何未经设计（甚至不为我们所理解）而进化出来的东西能够解决我们无法有意识地解决的问题--应该记住这一点：问题恰恰在于如何将资源利用的范围扩大到任何一个头脑所无法控制的范围之外；因此，如何免除有意识控制的需要，以及如何提供诱因，使个人在无需任何人告诉他们该做什么的情况下做理想的事情。

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、语言和我们的大部分文化传统相关联的，并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-怀特海（Alfred Whitehead）在另一个问题上所说的那样："我们应该培养思考我们正在做的事情的习惯，这是一个极其错误的不言而喻的道理，所有的教科书和知名人士在演讲时都会反复强调这一点。事实恰恰相反。文明的进步是通过扩大我们可以不假思索地进行的重要操作的数量来实现的"。这在社会领域具有深远的意义。我们经常使用公式、符号和规则，而我们并不理解它们的含义，通过使用它们，我们可以利用知识的帮助，而这些知识是我们个人所不具备的。我们在习惯和制度的基础上发展了这些做法和制度，而这些习惯和制度在其自身领域已被证明是成功的，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.
价格体系只是人类在不了解它的情况下偶然发现它之后学会使用它（尽管他还远远没有学会最好地利用它）的形式之一。通过它，不仅可以实现分工，还可以在平等分配知识的基础上协调利用资源。那些喜欢嘲笑任何可能如此的说法的人，通常会歪曲这一论点，暗示它断言奇迹般地自发形成了最适合现代文明的制度。事实恰恰相反：人类之所以能够发展出作为我们文明基础的劳动分工，是因为他碰巧发现了一种使之成为可能的方法。如果他没有这样做，他可能还会发展出其他一些完全不同的文明，比如白蚁的 "状态"，或者其他一些完全无法想象的文明。我们只能说，至今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得以保留，而这些特征甚至对那些最激烈地抨击现有制度的人来说也是最宝贵的--尤其是个人可以在多大程度上选择自己的追求，从而自由地运用自己的知识和技能。

VII

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，关于价格体系对于复杂社会中任何理性计算的不可或缺性的争论，现在已不再完全在持有不同政治观点的阵营之间进行，这是幸运的。冯-米塞斯在 25 年前首次提出 "没有价格体系，我们就无法维持一个像我们这样以如此广泛的分工为基础的社会 "这一论点时，曾遭到一片嘲笑声。如今，一些人在接受这一观点时遇到的困难已不再主要是政治性的，这使得合理讨论的氛围更加浓厚。当我们发现列昂-托洛茨基认为 "没有市场关系的经济核算是不可想象的 "时；当奥斯卡-朗格教授许诺在未来的中央计划委员会的大理石大厅里为冯-米塞斯教授树立一座雕像时；当阿巴-P-勒纳教授重新发现亚当-斯密并强调价格体系的基本效用在于促使个人在追求自身利益的同时，去做符合普遍利益的事情时，这些分歧的确不再能归咎于政治偏见。剩下的分歧似乎显然是由于纯粹的知识上的分歧，尤其是方法论上的分歧。

A recent statement by Professor Joseph Schumpeter in his
约瑟夫-熊彼特教授最近在他的
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
约瑟夫-熊彼特教授最近在《资本主义、社会主义和民主》一书中的论述，清楚地说明了我心目中的方法论分歧之一。作者是根据实证主义的某个分支来研究经济现象的经济学家中的佼佼者。在他看来，这些现象是客观存在的商品量，它们直接相互影响，似乎几乎不需要人类思维的干预。只有在这种背景下，我才能解释下面这个（对我来说令人震惊的）观点。熊彼特教授认为，在没有生产要素市场的情况下，理性计算的可能性对于理论家来说是 "从一个基本命题中产生的，即消费者在评价（'需求'）消费品时
ipso facto also evaluate the means of production which enter into the production of these goods.”
事实上也对生产这些商品的生产资料进行评价"。
*1

Taken literally, this statement is simply untrue. The consumers do nothing of the kind. What Professor Schumpeter’s
从字面上看，这种说法根本不符合事实。消费者并没有做任何类似的事情。熊彼特教授的
“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.
"当然 "的意思大概是，生产要素的估价隐含在消费者商品的估价中，或必然从消费者商品的估价中产生。但这也是不正确的。蕴含是一种逻辑关系，只有同时出现在同一个头脑中的命题才能被有意义地断言。然而，生产要素的价值显然不仅仅取决于消费者商品的价值，还取决于各种生产要素的供应条件。只有在同时知道所有这些事实的头脑中，才会根据所得到的事实得出答案。然而，实际问题的产生恰恰是因为这些事实从来都不是同时提供给一个人的，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,
因此，如果我们能够证明所有的事实、
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.
如果我们能证明所有事实都为一个人所知（就像我们假设这些事实都被提供给观察问题的经济学家一样），那么问题就会迎刃而解；相反，我们必须证明一个解决方案是如何通过人们的相互作用而产生的，而每个人都只拥有部分知识。假定所有知识都被赋予了一个人，就像我们假定所有知识都被赋予了解释问题的经济学家一样，这就等于把问题假定掉了，无视了现实世界中一切重要的、有意义的东西。

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
像熊彼特教授这样有地位的经济学家，竟然会落入 "数据 "一词的模糊性给不谨慎者设下的陷阱，这很难被解释为一个简单的错误。相反，这表明我们的研究方法存在着根本性的问题，它习惯性地忽视了我们必须处理的现象的一个重要部分：人类知识不可避免的不完善性，以及因此而需要一个不断交流和获取知识的过程。任何方法，如大部分数理经济学中的同步方程，实际上都是从假定人们的知识
knowledge corresponds with the objective
知识与客观
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.
我们的主要任务是解释什么。我绝不否认，在我们的体系中，均衡分析可以发挥有益的作用。但是，当它误导我们的一些主要思想家，使他们相信它所描述的情况与解决实际问题直接相关时，我们就应该记住，它根本不涉及社会进程，它只不过是研究主要问题的一个有用的初步。