【正文】 iversal human But centuries of human history also show that warm hearts alone will not feed the hungry or heal the sick. Determining the best route to economic progress requires cool heads, ones that objectively weigh the costs and benefits of different approaches, trying as hard as humanly possible to keep the analysis free from the taint干擾of wishful thinking. Sometimes, economic progress will require shutting down an outmoded過時的 factory. Sometimes, as when the formerly socialist countries adopted market principles, things get worse before they get better. Choices are particularly difficult in the field of health care, where limited resources literally 差不多involve life and death.You may have heard the saying, 諺語“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”（“各盡所能，按需分配”） Governments have learned that no society can long operate solely on this utopian principle. To maintain a healthy economy, governments must preserve incentives for people to work and to save. （政府必須保持人們的工作和儲蓄動力）Societies can shelter for a while those who bee unemployed, but if social insurance bees too generous, people e to depend upon the government. If they begin to believe that the government owes them a living, this may dull把…弄鈍 the sharp edge利刃 of enterprise. Just because government programs derive from源于 lofty崇高的 purposes does not mean that they should be pursued without care and efficiency.Society must find the right balance between the discipline學(xué)科 of the market and the generosity of the welfare state . By using cool heads to inform our warm hearts, economic science can do its part in ensuring保證 a prosperous and just 公正的society.A. THE THREE PROBLEMS OF ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONEvery human societywhether it is an advanced industrial nation, a centrally planned economy, or an isolated孤立的 tribal部落 nationmust confront面對 and resolve解析 three fundamental economic problems. Every society must have a way of determining what modities are produced, how these goods are made, and for whom they are produced.Indeed, these three fundamental questions of economic organizationwhat, how, and for whomare as crucial today as they were at the dawn黎明of human civilization. Let’s look more closely at them:l What modities are produced and in what quantities? A society must determine how much of each of the many possible goods and services it will make, and when they will be produced. Will we produce pizzas or shirts today? A few highquality shirts or many cheap shirts? Will we use scarce resources to produce many consumption goods (like pizzas)（我們應(yīng)當(dāng)利用有限的資源生產(chǎn)更多的消費品? ）Or will we produce fewer consumption goods and more investment goods(like pizzamaking machines), which will boost促進 production and consumption tomorrow.l How are goods produced? A society must determine who will do the production, with what resources, and what production techniques they will use. Who farms and who teaches? （誰來種田，誰來教書）Is electricity generated from oil, from coal, or from the sun? With much air pollution or with little?l For whom are goods produces? Who gets to eat the fruit of economic activity? Or, to put it formally, how is the national product divided among different households? Or, to put it formally, how is the national product divided among different households? 家庭 Are many people poor and a few rich? Do high ines go to managers or athletes or workers or landlords地主? Will society provide minimal consumption to the poor, or must they work if they are to survive?Positive economics實證經(jīng)濟學(xué) deals with questions such as :Why do doctors earn more than janitors門衛(wèi)? Does free trade raise or lower wages for most Americans? What is the economic impact of raising taxes? Although these are difficult questions to answer, they can all be resolved by reference to analysis and empirical evidence. That puts them in the realm范疇 of positive economics.Normative economics規(guī)范經(jīng)濟學(xué) involves ethical倫理 precepts信條 and norms of fairness價值規(guī)則. Should poor people be required to work if they are to get government assistance資助? Should unemployment be raised to ensure that price inflation does not bee too rapid? Should the United States penalize處罰 China because it is pirating盜版 .books and CDs? There are no right or wrong answers to these questions because they involve ethics and values rather than facts. They can be resolved only by political debate爭論 and decisions, not by economic analysis alone.MARKET, COMMOND, AND MIXED ECONOMIESWhat are the different ways that a society can answer the questions of what, how, and for whom? Different societies are organized through alternative economic systems, and economics studies the various mechanisms that a society can use to allocate配置 its scarce resources.We generally distinguish區(qū)分 two fundamentally different ways of organizing an economy. At one extreme極端, government makes most economic decisions, with those on top of the hierarchy等級制度 giving economic mands to those further down the ladder.（一個極端是，政府制定大部分經(jīng)濟政策，處于統(tǒng)治集團最高層的那些人逐層向下發(fā)布經(jīng)濟指令）At the other extreme, decisions are made in markets, where individuals or enterprises voluntarily 自愿地agree to exchange goods and services, usually through payments支付 of money. Let’s briefly examine each of these two forms of economic organization.In the United States and most democratic民主的 countries, most economic questions are solved by the market. Hence their economic systems are called market economies. A market economy is one in which individuals and private firms make the major decisions about production and consumption. A system of prices, of markets, or profits and losses, of incentives刺激 and rewards determines what, how, and for whom. Firms produce the modities that yield the highest profits(the what) by the techniques of production that are least costly(the how).Consumption is determined by individuals’ decisions about how to spend the wages and property ines generated by their labor and property ownership財產(chǎn)所有權(quán)(the for whom). The extreme case of a market economy,