To grasp Say's point requires two intellectual jumps.
理解薩伊的要點需要兩種學術方面的提升。
The first is to see past money, which can obscure what is really going on in an economy.
首先,要看透錢,它能夠屏蔽經濟體中真正正在發(fā)生的事情。
The second is to jump from micro to macro, from a worm's eye view of individual plants and specific customers to a panoramic view of the economy as a whole.
其次,要從微觀上升到宏觀,從單個工廠和個別客戶的狹隘視角上升到把經濟體作為一個整體的宏觀視角。
Firms, like coal plants and cotton mills, sell their products for money.
如同煤礦和紡織廠一樣,公司銷售產品是為了錢。

But in order to obtain that money, their customers must themselves have previously sold something of value.
但是,為了得到這些錢,他們的客戶必須自己先賣出某種值錢的東西。
Thus, before they can become a source of demand, customers must themselves have been a source of supply.
因而,在他們可能成為需求之源之前,客戶必須自身就是供給來源。
What most people sell is their labour, one of several “productive services” on offer to entrepreneurs.
大多數人出售的是他們的勞動力,這種提供給實業(yè)家的多項“生產性服務”之一的東西。
By marshalling these productive forces, entrepreneurs can create a new item of value, for which other equally valuable items can then be exchanged.
通過組織管理這些生產性服務,實業(yè)家能夠生產隨后能夠用以交換其他等價物的新產品。
It is in this sense that production creates a market for other products.
正是在這種意義上,生產創(chuàng)造出對其他產品的市場。
In the course of making his merchandise, a producer will pay wages to his workers, rent to his landlord, interest to his creditors, the bills of his suppliers and any residual profits to himself.
在生產貨物的過程中,生產方將要付給工人工資、房主租金、債權人利息。同時還要支付供給方的賬單以及付給自己的任何剩余利潤。
These payments will at least equal the amount the entrepreneur can get for selling his product.
這些支付至少要等于實業(yè)家從銷售產品中所能得到的總錢數。
The payments will therefore add as much to spendable income as the recipients' joint enterprise has added to supply.
因而,這些支付將帶來與接收方的合伙企業(yè)帶來的供給增加一樣多的可支出收入的增加。
That supply creates demand in this way may be easy enough to grasp.
供給是以這種方式創(chuàng)造需求的,這一點可能是很容易理解的。
But in what sense does supply create its “own” demand?
但是,供給是在何種意義上創(chuàng)造它“自身的”需求呢?
The epigram seems to suggest that a coal plant could buy its own coal—like a subsistence farmer eating the food he grows.
這一警句似乎是想表明,煤礦可能購買自己的煤——就像自給自足經濟中的農民吃自己種的糧食一樣。
In fact, of course, most producers sell to, and buy from, someone else.
當然,實際上,大多數生產方既向別人銷售,也從別人那里購買。
But what is true at the micro level is not true at the macro level.
但是,在微觀層面是正確的,在宏觀層面就不正確了。
At the macro level, there is no someone else.
在宏觀層面,沒有所謂的他人。
The economy is an integrated whole.
經濟體是一個融和的整體。
What it purchases and distributes among its members are the self-same goods and services those members have jointly produced.
它在自己成員中購買和分配的是這些成員聯(lián)合生產出來的完全一樣的商品和服務。
At this level of aggregation, the economy is in fact not that different from the subsistence farmer.
在集合體的這個層面上,經濟體實際上不是那么有別于自給自足經濟中的農民。
What it produces, what it earns, and what it buys is all the same, a “harvest” of goods and services, better known as gross domestic product.
它所生產的、所賺取的,所購買的全都是相同的,是商品和服務的“收成”,即更為人們所熟知的國內生產總值(gross domestic product)。
How then did Say explain the woes of his age, the stuffed warehouses, clogged ports and choked markets?
那么,薩伊是如何解釋他的時代的種種痛苦——滿滿的倉庫,擁擠的港口和窒息的市場——的呢?
He understood that an economy might oversupply some commodities, if not all.
他知道,經濟體可能過度供給某些商品,即便不是全部。
That could cause severe, if temporary, distress to anyone involved in the hypertrophied industries.
這可能給任何參與到過度發(fā)展行業(yè)中的人造成雖說短暫、但卻是嚴重的傷害。
But he argued that for every good that is too abundant, there must be another that is too scarce.
但是,他指出,對于每一種泛濫的商品,必定有稀缺的另一種。
The labour, capital and other resources devoted to oversupplying one market must have been denied to another more valuable channel of industry, leaving it under-resourced.
被奉獻給過度供給一個市場的勞動力、資本和其他各種資源對另一個更有價值的行業(yè)渠道來說,必然是不予接受的,從而使其處于資源供給不足之中。