第一编 货币的本质
第一章 货币的职能
摘要
Money is necessary in a society based on private property and the division of labor. The function of money is to facilitate these trades: Money is a commonly used medium of exchange.
在基于私有财产和劳动分工的社会中，货币是必要的。 货币的功能是促进这些交易：货币是一种通用的交换媒介。
In a direct exchange, people accept goods in trade that they intend to personally use, whether for consumption or production. There is no medium of exchange involved in the transaction.
在直接交换中，人们在交易中接受他们打算自己用于消费或生产的商品。 交易中没有交换媒介。
In an indirect exchange, at least one person in the transaction accepts a good that he intends to trade away in the future for something else. The item that is accepted in the first trade is a medium of exchange.
在间接交换中，交易中至少有一个人接受这样一种商品，他打算将来把这种商品交易出去换取他东西。 这样一种商品就是交换媒介。
Even before the use of money, traders would have quickly discovered the benefits of indirect exchanges, and the use of media of exchange to facilitate them. Some goods would have had a far broader market than others. A trader who came to market with an unmarketable good would place himself in a more advantageous bargaining position if he engaged in an indirect exchange, by trading his good for something that was more marketable.
甚至在使用货币之前，交易者就会很快发现间接交换以及利用交换媒介来促进间接交换的好处。 有些商品的市场规模远远超过其他商品。 如果一个交易者带着不适销的商品进入市场，他可以通过间接交换将他的商品交易为更适销的商品，从而在市场中获得更有利的谈判地位。
Because every trader would act in this fashion, those goods that were initially more marketable, would see their marketability enhanced even further. Over time, a community would gravitate to one or a few commodities that would be acceptable to everyone in trade. This is how money emerged from an initial state of barter. Historically the market has often chosen gold and silver as money.
因为每个交易者都会如此行事，那些最初更适销的商品会进一步增强其市场竞争力。 随着时间推移，一个社区将倾向于一种或几种商品，在交易中这些商品对于每个人来说都是可接受的。 这就是从最初的易货贸易状态中赚钱的方式。 从历史上看，市场经常选择黄金和白银作为货币。
Although other writers outline other “functions” of money— such as a standard of deferred payments or a store of value—these all flow from its definition: money is a commonly accepted medium of exchange.
虽然其他作者概述了货币的其他“功能”——例如延期付款的标准或价值储存——这些都源于其定义：货币是一种被普遍接受的交换媒介。
章节大纲
一、使用货币的一般经济条件
A person living by himself on a tropical island would not need money. Several people living in the same household would not need money either, so long as they produced everything they needed within the household. Even an entire community—consisting of thousands or millions of households, each of which specialized in producing different goods and services—could get by without the use of money, assuming there were a central group or person who acted as a “planner” and told everyone what to make, and decided which portion of the total output each person would get to consume.
在热带岛屿上独自生活的人不需要货币。 如果生活在同一家庭的人们在家里生产自己需要的一切，他们也不需要货币。 即使整个社区——由数千或数百万家庭组成，每家都专门生产不同的商品和服务——假设有一个人或中央团体充当“计划者” 并告诉每个人要做什么，并决定每个人将消费的总产出的哪一部分，也可以不使用货币。
However, in a society based on the division of labor, and where private individuals own both consumption goods (TVs, radios, Big Macs) and producer goods (tractors, factories, copper mines), money is essential. In such a society, there is no one person or group who decides how scarce resources will be deployed. Each individual must make his or her own plans, which usually require exchanging property for other people’s property. The function of money is to facilitate these trades: Money is a commonly used medium of exchange.
然而，在一个以劳动分工为基础的社会中，私人拥有消费品（电视，收音机，巨无霸）和生产品（拖拉机，工厂，铜矿），货币至关重要。 在这样一个社会中，没有一个人或团体决定如何部署稀缺资源。 每个人必须制定自己的计划，这通常需要与其他人互相交换财产。 货币的功能是促进这些交易：货币是一种通用的交换媒介。
二、货币的起源
In a direct exchange, people accept goods in trade that they intend to personally use, whether for consumption or production. For example, suppose Alan has a muffin but he is really hungry for fish. Bill, on the other hand, has a net (which can be used to catch fish) that he doesn’t really want, but he thinks Alan’s muffin looks delicious. If Alan trades his muffin for Bill’s net, this is a direct exchange. There is no medium of exchange involved in the transaction.
在直接交换中，人们在交易中接受他们打算自己用于消费或生产的商品。 例如，假设艾伦有一个松饼，但他真的很想吃鱼。 另一方面，比尔有一张他不想要的网（可以用来捕鱼），但他认为艾伦的松饼看起来很美味。 如果艾伦用他的松饼交换比尔的网，这是一个直接交换。 交易中没有交换媒介。
In an indirect exchange, at least one person in the transaction accepts a good that he doesn’t intend to consume or use himself in production. Rather, the person accepts a good because he plans on trading it away again in the future. For example, suppose there is a woman who has knitted a quilt, and she wants to exchange it for a certain parakeet. Unfortunately, the man who owns the parakeet doesn’t want a quilt, but is instead interested in obtaining a new radio. The owner of the radio, however, hates birds, but is very cold at night. The woman with the quilt, unfortunately, is very hard of hearing and has no use for a radio.
在间接交换中，交易中至少有一个人接受他不打算在生产或消费中自用的商品。 相反，这个人接受了这件商品是因为他计划将来把它再次交易出去。 例如，假设有一位女士编织被子，她想换一只长尾小鹦鹉。 但拥有长尾小鹦鹉的人不想要被子，却想要一台新的收音机。 然而，收音机的主人讨厌鸟类，但在夜晚感觉很冷（想要一床被子）。 不幸的是，拥有被子的女士很难听到他的需求，而收音机对她也没有用处。
In this scenario, no direct exchange is possible. However, the woman could trade away her quilt for the radio—even though she personally has no use for it—and then trade the radio in turn for the parakeet. These two successive trades would make all three people happier. In this example, the radio would be a medium of exchange.
在这种情况下，不可能进行直接交换。 然而，这位女士可以用她的被子换取收音机 - 即使她自己不会使用它——然后再次用收音机换取长尾小鹦鹉。这两个连续的交易将使三个参与者都更高兴。 在这个例子中，无线电将是一种交换媒介。
Logically, there must have been a time when people had goods and traded with each other, but before money had arisen. Even before the use of money, traders would have quickly discovered the benefits of indirect exchanges—and the use of media of exchange to facilitate them.
从逻辑上讲，在货币出现之前人们一定发生过商品交易。甚至在开始使用货币之前，交易者就会很快发现间接交易——以及利用交换媒体来促进间接交易的好处 。
Some goods (eggs, milk, leather) would have had a far broader market than others (telescopes, philosophy books, machinery). A trader who came to market with an unmarketable good such as a telescope probably wouldn’t be able to quickly find someone who (a) had the items that the first trader hoped to acquire and (b) wanted a telescope. In this case, the trader could improve his bargaining position by trading away his telescope for something more marketable, such as eggs, even if the trader had no desire to eat the eggs.
有些商品（鸡蛋，牛奶，皮革）的市场规模远远超过其他商品（望远镜，哲学书籍，机械）。 一个带着望远镜等滞销商品进入市场的商人可能无法迅速找到一个拥有他希望获得的物品的人（a）和想要望远镜的人（b）。 在这种情况下，即使交易者不想吃鸡蛋，他也可以通过将望远镜换成更适销的东西如鸡蛋，来改善他在市场中讨价还价的地位。
Because every trader would act in this fashion, those goods that were initially more marketable, would see their marketability enhanced even further: They would be demanded not only by people intending to use them directly, but also by people intending to use them as media of exchange. In any particular indirect exchange, a trader would naturally prefer to sell his own wares in exchange for the most marketable medium of exchange, because this would place him in the most advantageous position as he continued looking for the goods he ultimately desired. Over time, a community would gravitate to one or a few commodities that would be acceptable to everyone in trade. A commonly accepted medium of exchange is money.
因为每个交易者都会以这种方式行事，那些最初更适销的商品会进一步增强自身的市场竞争力：他们不仅被想直接使用它们的人需要，而且还被想将其用作交换媒介的人需要。在任何特定的间接交换中，交易者自然更愿意出售自己的商品以换取最适销的交换媒介，因为这将使他在后续寻找最终想要的商品时，处于最有利的位置。 一个社区将倾向于一种或几种商品，在交易中这些商品对于每个人来说都是可接受的。被普遍接受的交换媒介就是货币。
Historically, gold and silver have been the two commodities most frequently employed as money. They have very similar properties and are both excellent media of exchange.
从历史上看，黄金和白银是被最常用作货币的两种商品。它们具有非常相似的特性，都是极好的交换媒介。
三、货币的附属职能
Money is, by definition, a common medium of exchange, which therefore serves to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. In a market economy, this is a crucial “function” and we see money’s importance by focusing on it. Although other writers outline other “functions” of money—such as a standard of deferred payments, or a facilitator of credit transactions, or a store of value through time—these all flow from its use as a common medium of exchange.
根据定义，货币是一种通用的交换媒介，因此有助于促进商品和服务的交易。 在市场经济中，这是至关重要的“功能”，我们通过关注它来理解货币的重要性。 虽然其他著作者概述了货币的其它“功能” ——例如延期支付标准，或信用交易的促进者，或跨时间的价值储存——这些都来自其作为通用交换媒介的用途。
重要贡献
Mises references Carl Menger, whose 1871 Grundsätze (translated as Principles of Economics) is the founding work of what is called “Austrian” economics. Among his other contributions, Menger is credited in the annals of the history of economic thought with giving the first satisfactory explanation of the origin of money. Rather than assuming that money must have been created by an edict issued by a powerful king or wise tribal leader, Menger showed that step-by-step evolution from an initial state of barter to a monetary economy, where each person only seeks to improve his own position at each step in the process.
米塞斯参考了卡尔门格尔，其1871年的Grundsätze（翻译为经济学原理）是所谓的“奥地利学派”经济学的创始作品。 在他的其他贡献中，门格尔给出了关于货币起源的第一个令人满意的解释，因此被记载于经济思想史中。 门格尔并没有假设货币必须由一位强大的国王或明智的领袖发布的法令所创造，而是展示了从最初的易货贸易状态到货币经济的逐步演变，每个个体只是想要改善他在这个演变过程中的出境。
Even in modern textbooks, writers will list several “functions” of money. This can be confusing, because it makes it hard to pin down exactly what money is and why it so important. Menger’s approach—followed by Mises—is refreshingly clear: Money is defined as a commonly accepted medium of exchange, and this characteristic enables all of the other “functions” attributed to it.
即使在现代教科书中，作家也会列出金钱的几个“功能”。 这可能令人困惑，因为它很难准确确定资金是什么以及它为何如此重要。 门格尔的方法 - 米塞斯 - 接着是令人耳目一新的清晰：货币被定义为一种普遍接受的交换媒介，这种特征使得所有其他“功能”都归功于它。
新术语
Direct exchange: An exchange in which both parties intend to directly use the received good, either in consumption or production.
直接交换：双方打算在消费或生产中直接使用收到的商品的交换。
Indirect exchange: An exchange in which at least one party intends to hold the received good, in order to trade it away in the future for something else.
间接交换：至少有一方打算持有收到的商品，以便将来交换其他商品的交换。
Division of labor: The situation in which people specialize in particular occupations, producing far more than they personally can consume, and trade away their surplus to receive some of the surplus created by others.
劳动分工：人们专门从事特定职业，生产的远远超过自身可以消费的程度，并将自身盈余用于换取其他人的盈余。
Medium of exchange: A good that is accepted in exchange, with the intention of trading it away to acquire something else in the future.
交换媒介：交易中所接受的用于在未来交易中换取其他东西的商品。
Money: A medium of exchange that is generally accepted in the community. Money typically stands on one side of virtually every exchange.
货币：社区普遍接受的交换媒介。货币通常存在于几乎所有交易的一侧。
研究问题
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Would a society based on total central planning in both production and consumption need money? Why or why not?
一个基于总体中央计划进行生产和消费的社会是否需要货币？ 为什么？ -
Why doesn’t a direct exchange involve the use of a medium of exchange?
为什么直接交换不涉及使用交换媒介？ -
Can you think of reasons that traders eventually gravitated toward gold and silver as money, as opposed to other items such as cattle or aluminum?
为什么交易者最终倾向于将黄金和白银作为货币，而不是牛或铝等其他物品？ -
Did media of exchange exist before the existence of money?
在货币存在之前是否存在交换媒介？ -
For the various secondary functions of money listed by Mises, explain how each is related to money’s role as a commonly accepted medium of exchange.
对于米塞斯列出的货币的各种次要功能，解释每种功能如何与货币作为被普遍接受的交换媒介的角色相关联。
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