1974: When Both Nobel Economists Proposed Abolishing the Prize

The Nobel prize in economics was awarded for the sixth time in 1974 (that is, it was first awarded in 196) to Gunnar Myrdal and Friedrich von Hayek “for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena.” Both responded by arguing that the award might better be abolished.

诺贝尔经济学奖于 1974 年第六次颁发（即 196 年首次颁发），授予贡纳尔·米尔达尔和弗里德里希·冯·哈耶克，“表彰他们在货币和经济波动理论方面的开创性工作，以及对经济、社会和制度现象相互依存关系的深入分析”。两人都回应称，最好废除该奖项。

Hayek made the case against the prize itself in his speech at the Nobel banquet on December 10, 1974 .

哈耶克在 1974 年 12 月 10 日诺贝尔晚宴上的演讲中对诺贝尔奖本身提出了反对。

Now that the Nobel Memorial Prize for economic science has been created, one can only be profoundly grateful for having been selected as one of its joint recipients, and the economists certainly have every reason for being grateful to the Swedish Riksbank for regarding their subject as worthy of this high honour.

既然诺贝尔经济科学纪念奖已经设立，人们只能对被选为联合获奖者之一深表感激，而经济学家们当然有充分的理由感谢瑞典央行认为他们的学科值得这一崇高荣誉。

Yet I must confess that if I had been consulted whether to establish a Nobel Prize in economics, I should have decidedly advised against it.

但我必须承认，如果有人问我是否设立诺贝尔经济学奖，我会坚决建议反对。

One reason was that I feared that such a prize, as I believe is true of the activities of some of the great scientific foundations, would tend to accentuate the swings of scientific fashion.

原因之一是我担心这样一个奖项（我相信一些伟大的科学基金会的活动确实如此）会加剧科学时尚的波动。

This apprehension the selection committee has brilliantly refuted by awarding the prize to one whose views are as unfashionable as mine are.

评选委员会出色地驳斥了这种担忧，将奖项授予了一位与我的观点一样不合时宜的人。

I do not yet feel equally reassured concerning my second cause of apprehension.

对于我的第二个忧虑原因，我还没有同样放心。

It is that the Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess.

诺贝尔奖授予个人一种在经济学上任何人都不应拥有的权威。

This does not matter in the natural sciences.

这在自然科学中并不重要。

Here the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly an influence on his fellow experts; and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence.

在这里，个人所施加的影响主要是对其同行专家的影响；如果他超出了他的能力范围，他们很快就会削减他的规模。

But the influence of the economist that mainly matters is an influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public generally.

但经济学家的影响最重要的是对外行的影响：政治家、记者、公务员和公众。

There is no reason why a man who has made a distinctive contribution to economic science should be omnicompetent on all problems of society – as the press tends to treat him till in the end he may himself be persuaded to believe.

一个对经济科学做出了独特贡献的人没有理由在解决社会的所有问题上无所不能——正如媒体倾向于对待他的那样，直到最终他自己也被说服相信。

One is even made to feel it a public duty to pronounce on problems to which one may not have devoted special attention.

人们甚至觉得对人们可能没有特别关注的问题发表意见是一项公共责任。

I am not sure that it is desirable to strengthen the influence of a few individual economists by such a ceremonial and eye-catching recognition of achievements, perhaps of the distant past.

我不确定通过这种仪式性和引人注目的对成就（也许是对遥远过去的成就）的认可来加强少数个别经济学家的影响力是否可取。

I am therefore almost inclined to suggest that you require from your laureates an oath of humility, a sort of hippocratic oath, never to exceed in public pronouncements the limits of their competence.

因此，我几乎倾向于建议您要求您的获奖者做出谦卑的誓言，一种希波克拉底誓言，永远不会在公开声明中超越他们的能力极限。

Or you ought at least, on confering the prize, remind the recipient of the sage counsel of one of the great men in our subject, Alfred Marshall, who wrote: ”Students of social science, must fear popular approval: Evil is with them when all men speak well of them”.

或者，你至少应该在颁奖时提醒获奖者听听我们学科中的一位伟人阿尔弗雷德·马歇尔的明智忠告，他写道：“社会科学的学生必须害怕大众的认可：当所有人都称赞他们时，邪恶就与他们同在”。

Myrdahl made the case on different grounds a couple of years later, in a letter first published in a Swedish newspaper in December 1976, and then translated into English and published as “The Nobel Prize in Economic Science” in Challenge in the March/April issue of 1977.

几年后，米尔达尔在一封信中以不同的理由提出了这一论点，该信首次于 1976 年 12 月发表在瑞典报纸上，然后翻译成英文，并在 1977 年 3 月/4 月号的《挑战》杂志上以“诺贝尔经济科学奖”的名义发表。

Myrdahl set the stage began: “The decision by the Academy of Science to bestow this year’s Nobel Prize in economic science on Milton Friedman has given cause for very unpleasant comments in many parts of the world and even in Sweden.”

米尔达尔开场白：“科学院决定将今年的诺贝尔经济科学奖授予米尔顿·弗里德曼，这在世界许多地方，甚至在瑞典引起了非常不愉快的评论。”

Part of Myrdahl’s discomfort was that he although he was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science that officially gives the Nobel prize, he was not a member of the Prize Committee.

米尔达尔感到不安的部分原因在于，尽管他是正式颁发诺贝尔奖的瑞典皇家科学院院士，但他并不是诺贝尔奖委员会的成员。

He argues that the Prize Committee large presents the winner as a fait accompli, and the Academy both as a whole had no chance for meaningful feedback and is required not to disclose its internal deliberations.

他认为，奖项委员会将获奖者视为既成事实，而学院作为一个整体没有机会获得有意义的反馈，并且被要求不要披露其内部审议结果。

Myrdahl writes: “From now on I intend to defend my academic freedom by not being present at any meeting of the Class or the Academy when the question of selecting a Nobel Prize winner in economic science is on the agenda, and by not taking any cognizance of those secret documents pertaining to this matter.

米尔达尔写道：“从现在开始，当选举诺贝尔经济学奖得主的问题提上议程时，我打算不出席班级或学院的任何会议，也不了解与此事有关的任何秘密文件，以捍卫我的学术自由。

I will therefore in the future retain my freedom to express my opinion about how this activity of the Academy is carried out, and, in particular, what I think about a winner of the prize.”

因此，我将来将保留表达我对学院这项活动如何开展的看法的自由，特别是我对获奖者的看法。”

Myrdahl also suggests that the Royal Swedish Academy of Science should divest itself of the prize in economics, largely because economics is not a science like physics or chemistry or medicine.

米尔达尔还建议瑞典皇家科学院应该放弃经济学奖项，主要是因为经济学不是像物理、化学或医学那样的科学。

(He does not comment on the Nobel prizes in literature or peace.) Myrdahl writes that the “awarding of a Nobel Prize in economic science will commonly be conceived as a political act of the Academy,” and laments that this has happened in the case of Friedman’s Nobel.

（他没有评论诺贝尔文学奖或和平奖。）米尔达尔写道，“授予诺贝尔经济科学奖通常会被视为学院的政治行为”，并感叹弗里德曼的诺贝尔奖就发生了这种情况。

About the 1974 award itself, Mydahl wrote:

关于 1974 年的奖项本身，米达尔写道：

To remain entirely honest I should not shun commenting upon the Nobel Prize which was given to von Hayek and myself in 1974.

老实说，我不应该回避评论 1974 年冯·哈耶克和我本人获得的诺贝尔奖。

We two had, of course, never cooperated in research, which often is the case when two or more people in physics and chemistry get the prize simultaneously.

当然，我们两个从来没有合作过研究，这种情况通常是两个或两个以上物理和化学领域的人同时获奖的情况。

We had not even worked on similar problems in recent decades.

近几十年来我们甚至没有研究过类似的问题。

The decision to award us both Nobel Prizes in economic science was commonly seen as an astute political balancing act by the Academy, showing a sort of “impartiality” by honoring at the same time an economist commonly known as standing for “liberal” or even “radical” political views, and another who was seen as utterly “conservative” or even “reactionary.”

授予我们两位诺贝尔经济科学奖的决定通常被视为学院精明的政治平衡之举，通过同时表彰一位通常被认为代表“自由”甚至“激进”政治观点的经济学家和另一位被视为完全“保守”甚至“反动”的经济学家，显示出某种“公正”。

In my own case, I have since my early youth labored with the problem of valuations in economic research and, unlike the conventional economists, have endeavored to reach a clarity about intrinsic value premises that could make my analysis of facts and my policy conclusions rational, although conditioned by the choice of these value premises.

就我自己而言，我从年轻时起就致力于经济研究中的估值问题，并且与传统经济学家不同，我一直努力澄清内在价值前提，这可以使我对事实的分析和我的政策结论变得理性，尽管受到这些价值前提的选择的限制。

I therefore felt deeply hurt by being presented in the press of the whole world as simply a “socialist” or “radical” economist in contrast to von Hayek, who, like most other economists, had certainly never been much troubled by epistemological worries.

因此，当我在全世界的媒体上被简单地描述为一个与冯·哈耶克相反的“社会主义”或“激进”经济学家时，我感到深受伤害，而冯·哈耶克和大多数其他经济学家一样，当然从未受到认识论担忧的困扰。

I was reminded that the decision was seen as a political action by the Academy, not only by the popular press but by the thousands of cablegrams I received from colleagues all over the world, mostly informing me that they were deeply critical of the Nobel Prize being given to von Hayek.

有人提醒我，学院的这一决定不仅被大众媒体视为政治行动，还被我从世界各地的同事那里收到的数千封电报所视为，其中大部分是告诉我，他们对将诺贝尔奖授予冯·哈耶克持强烈批评态度。

Perhaps he got a similar crop of cablegrams; about that I know nothing.

也许他也收到过类似的电报；对此我一无所知。

As I have now come to see the problem of whether there should be a Nobel Prize in economic science—in former times rightly called “political economy”—I should have declined to receive it, panicularly as I did not need the money but gave it away, as I had earlier done with most of the unlooked-for royalties for books I have written.

当我现在开始思考是否应该在经济科学领域（以前正确地称为“政治经济学”）设立诺贝尔奖的问题时，我本应该惊慌失措地拒绝接受它，因为我不需要这笔钱，而是把它送给别人，就像我早些时候对我所写的书的大部分意外版税所做的那样。

But I had not then thought the problem through.

但我当时还没有想清楚这个问题。

I was merely disgusted.

我只是感到厌恶。

Also, the message reached me very early one morning in New York, when I was totally off my guard.

而且，在纽约的一天清晨，我收到了这条消息，当时我完全没有警惕。

News flash from 2026: The Nobel prize in economics has not been abolished.

2026年快讯：诺贝尔经济学奖并未被废除。

The issue of whether or to what extent the Nobel committee is endorsing a particular or contest vision of “economics” and public policy remains.

诺贝尔委员会是否或在多大程度上认可“经济”和公共政策的特定或有争议的愿景的问题仍然存在。

For any profound scholar, like Myrdahl or Hayek, either being proclaimed as expert across all topics of economics or being ideologically pigeonholed by the public will always feel deeply uncomfortable.

对于任何一位像米尔达尔或哈耶克这样深刻的学者来说，要么被宣称为经济学所有主题的专家，要么被公众在意识形态上归类，总是会感到非常不舒服。

But I find it hard to imagine any modern economist turning down the prize on those grounds.

但我发现很难想象任何现代经济学家会以这些理由拒绝该奖项。

The post 1974: When Both Nobel Economists Proposed Abolishing the Prize first appeared on Conversable Economist .

《1974年后：当两位诺贝尔经济学家提议废除该奖》首次发表在《对话经济学家》上。