Attempts to stabilize the value of the monetary unit strongly influence the monetary policy of almost every nation today.[*]Die geldtheoretische Seite des Stabilisierungsproblems (Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik 164，第 2 部分 [慕尼黑和莱比锡：Dunker 和 Humblot，1923 年]）。这篇文章的原稿由作者于 1923 年 XNUMX 月完成并提交给印刷商，此时距离德国马克最终崩溃还有八个多月。 They must not be confused with earlier endeavors to create a monetary unit whose exchange value would not be affected by changes from the money side.[1][Following the terminology of Carl Menger, Mises wrote here of changes in the “internal objective exchange value” of the monetary unit. However, in this translation, the more familiar English term, later adopted by Mises, will be used—i.e, changes in the value of the monetary unit arising on the money side or, simply, “cash-induced changes.” Menger’s term for changes in the monetary unit’s “external exchange value” will be rendered as “changes from the goods side” or “goods-induced changes.” See below p. 76, note 17. Also Mises’s 人类行为 (1949; 1963 [Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1966], p. 419; Scholar’s Edition [Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1998], p. 416).—Ed.] In those olden, and happier times, the concern was with how to bring the quantity of money into balance with the demand, without changing the purchasing power of the monetary unit. Thus, attempts were made to develop a monetary system under which no changes would emerge from the side of money to alter the ratios between the generally used medium of exchange (money) and other economic goods. The economic consequences of the widely deplored changes in the value of money were to be completely avoided.

There is no point nowadays in discussing why this goal could not then, and in fact cannot, be attained. Today we are motivated by other concerns. We should be happy just to return again to the monetary situation we once enjoyed. If only we had the gold standard back again, its shortcomings would no longer disturb us; we would just have to make the best of the fact that even the value of gold undergoes certain fluctuations.

今天的货币问题是一个非常不同的问题。战争期间和战后[第一次世界大战，1914-1918]，许多国家投入了大量的信用货币，这些货币被赋予了法定货币的性质。在格雷欣定律所描述的事件过程中，黄金从这些国家的货币流通中消失了。这些国家现在拥有纸币，其购买力会发生突然的变化。在货币经济如此高度发达的今天，这种货币体系的弊端——大量信用货币的产生所带来的突然变化——是不能长期容忍的。因此，消除货币领域缺陷的呼声已变得普遍。人们已经相信，如果没有健全的货币体系，国家内部的和平恢复和国际经济关系的复兴就不可能实现。

1. 货币贬值[2][Mises uses the term “inflation” in its historical and scientific sense as an increase in the quantity of money.—Ed.]

If the practice persists of covering government deficits with the issue of notes, then the day will come without fail, sooner or later, when the monetary systems of those nations pursuing this course will break down completely. The purchasing power of the monetary unit will decline more and more, until finally it disappears completely. To be sure, one could conceive of the possibility that the process of monetary depreciation could go on forever. The purchasing power of the monetary unit could become increasingly smaller without ever disappearing entirely. Prices would then rise more and more. It would still continue to be possible to exchange notes for commodities. Finally, the situation would reach such a state that people would be operating with billions and trillions and then even higher sums for small transactions. The monetary system would still continue to function. However, this prospect scarcely resembles reality.

In the long run, trade is not helped by a monetary unit which continually deteriorates in value. Such a monetary unit cannot be used as a “standard of deferred payments.”[3][在德文文本中，米塞斯在没有特别注释的情况下使用了英文术语“延期付款标准”。至于他的理由，请参见下文，第 58 页。 3，注 XNUMX。——编辑] Another intermediary must be found for all transactions in which money and goods or services are not exchanged simultaneously. Nor is a monetary unit which continually depreciates in value serviceable for cash transactions either. Everyone becomes anxious to keep his cash holding, on which he continually suffers losses, as low as possible. All incoming money will be quickly spent. When purchases are made merely to get rid of money, which is shrinking in value, by exchanging it for goods of more enduring worth, higher prices will be paid than are otherwise indicated by other current market relationships.

近几个月来，德意志帝国粗略地描绘了一旦人们开始相信货币贬值进程不会停止就会发生什么。如果人们因为不想保留纸币而购买不必要的商品，或者至少是目前不需要的商品，那么迫使纸币不再作为普遍接受的交换媒介的过程已经开始。这就是纸币“废钞化”的开始。行动中固有的恐慌情绪必须加快这一进程。或许一次、两次、甚至三四次就能平息激动的群众。不过，事情最终还是得有个了结。然后就没有回头路了。一旦贬值速度如此之快，以至于卖家害怕遭受重大损失，即使他们以尽可能快的速度再次购买，也不再有任何挽救货币的机会。

In every country in which inflation has proceeded at a rapid pace, it has been discovered that the depreciation of the money has eventually proceeded faster than the increase in its quantity. If “m” represents the actual number of monetary units on hand before the inflation began in a country, “P” represents the value then of the monetary unit in gold, “M” the actual number of monetary units which existed at a particular point in time during the inflation, and “p” the gold value of the monetary unit at that particular moment, then (as has been borne out many times by simple statistical studies):

mP > Mp. On the basis of this formula, some have tried to conclude that the devaluation had proceeded too rapidly and that the actual rate of exchange was not justified. From this, others have concluded that the monetary depreciation is not caused by the increase in the quantity of money, and that obviously the Quantity Theory could not be correct. Still others, accepting the primitive version of the Quantity Theory, have argued that a further increase in the quantity of money was permissible, even necessary. The increase in the quantity of money should continue, they maintain, until the total gold value of the quantity of money in the country was once more raised to the height at which it was before the inflation began. Thus:

Mp = mP。这一切的错误并不难辨认。目前，让我们忽略这样一个事实——下面将对此进行更全面的分析——在通货膨胀开始时，交易所的汇率，[4]股票交易所 (French). A continental European stock exchange, on which trades are also made in commodities and foreign exchange. 以及对金属的升水，都领先于以商品价格表示的货币单位的购买力。因此，应该考虑的不是货币单位的黄金价值，而是它们相对于商品的暂时较高的购买力。这样的计算，“P”和“p”指的是货币单位对商品的购买力，而不是其对黄金的价值，通常也会导致这样的结果：

mP > Mp. However, as the monetary depreciation progresses, it is evident that the demand for money, that is for the monetary units already in existence, begins to decline. If the loss a person suffers becomes greater the longer he holds on to money, he will try to keep his cash holding as low as possible. The desire of every individual for cash no longer remains as strong as it was before the start of the inflation, even if his situation may not have otherwise changed. As a result, the demand for money throughout the entire economy, which can be nothing more than the sum of the demands for money on the part of all individuals in the economy, goes down.

随着贸易逐渐转向使用外国货币和实际黄金而不是国内纸币，个人不再投资国内纸币，而是开始将部分储备投入外国货币和黄金。在审视德国的情况时，值得注意的是，今天德国马克的流通范围比 1914 年要小，[5]The Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I (1914–1918) reduced German controlled territory considerably, restored Alsace-Lorraine to France, ceded large parts of West Prussia and Posen to Poland, ceded small areas to Belgium and stripped Germany of her former colonies in Africa and Asia. and that now, because they have become poorer, the Germans have substantially less use for money. These circumstances, which reduce the demand for money, would exert much more influence if they were not counteracted by two factors which increase the demand for money:

1. 国外外汇投机者对纸币的需求在某种程度上仍在持续（Valuta）；和
2. The fact that the impairment of [credit] techniques for making payments, due to the general economic deterioration, may have increased the demand for money [cash holdings] above what it would have otherwise been.

2. Undesired Consequences

If the future prospects for a money are considered poor, its value in speculations, which anticipate its future purchasing power, will be lower than the actual demand and supply situation at the moment would indicate. Prices will be asked and paid which more nearly correspond to anticipated future conditions than to the present demand for, and quantity of, money in circulation.

The frenzied purchases of customers who push and shove in the shops to get something, anything, race on ahead of this development; and so does the course of the panic on the Bourse where stock prices, which do not represent claims in fixed sums of money, and foreign exchange quotations are forced fitfully upward. The monetary units available at the moment are not sufficient to pay the prices which correspond to the anticipated future demand for, and quantity of, monetary units. So trade suffers from a shortage of notes. There are not enough monetary units [or notes] on hand to complete the business transactions agreed upon. The processes of the market, which bring total demand and supply into balance by shifting exchange ratios [prices], no longer function so as to bring about the exchange ratios which actually exist at the time between the available monetary units and other economic goods. This phenomenon could be clearly seen in Austria in the late fall of 1921.[6][The post World War I inflation in Austria is not as well known as the German inflation of 1923. The Austrian crown depreciated disastrously at that time, although not to the same extent as the German mark. The leader of the Christian-Social Party and Chancellor of Austria (1922–1924 and 1926–1929), Dr. Ignaz Seipel (1876–1932), acting on the advice of Professor Mises and some of his associates, succeeded in stopping the Austrian inflation in 1922.—Ed.] 由于票据短缺，商业交易的结算受到严重影响。

一旦情况达到这个阶段，就无法避免不良后果。如果像许多人建议的那样进一步增加纸币的发行，那么事情只会变得更糟。由于恐慌会继续发展，货币单位贬值与流通量之间的不成比例将变得更加严重。完成交易的票据短缺是通货膨胀加剧的一种现象。这是疯狂购买和涨价的另一面；这是“崩溃热潮”的另一面。

3. 对利率的影响

Obviously, this shortage of monetary units should not be confused with what the businessman usually understands by a scarcity of money, accompanied by an increase in the interest rate for short term investments. An inflation, whose end is not in sight, brings that about also. The old fallacy—long since refuted by David Hume and Adam Smith—to the effect that a scarcity of money, as defined in the businessman’s terminology, may be alleviated by increasing the quantity of money in circulation, is still shared by many people. Thus, one continues to hear astonishment expressed at the fact that a scarcity of money prevails in spite of the uninterrupted increase in the number of notes in circulation. However, the interest rate is then rising, not in spite of, but precisely on account of, the inflation.

如果预计通货膨胀不会停止，放债人必须考虑到这样一个事实：当借款人最终偿还借入的资金时，这笔钱的购买力将低于最初借出的购买力。如果放债人没有提供信贷，而是自己用钱购买商品、股票或外汇，他的表现会更好。那样的话，他要么完全避免损失，要么损失更少。如果他借钱，借款人就会得到好结果。如果借款人用借来的钱购买商品并随后出售，则在偿还借款后他就有盈余。信贷交易给他带来了利润，真正的利润，而不是虚幻的、通货膨胀的利润。因此，很容易理解，只要预期货币持续贬值，放债人就会要求更高的利率，而借款人也准备支付更高的利率。当贸易或法律实践与利率上升相抵触时，信贷交易的进行就会受到严重阻碍。这就解释了那些只能以银行机构存款或以固定利率购买证券的形式进行资本积累的人群的储蓄下降的原因。

4. The Run From Money

The divorce of a money, which is proving increasingly useless, from trade begins when it starts coming out of hoarding. If people want marketable goods available to meet unanticipated future needs, they start to accumulate other moneys—for instance, metallic (gold and silver) moneys, foreign notes, and occasionally also domestic notes which are valued more highly because their quantity cannot be increased by the government, such as the Romanov ruble of Russia or the “blue” money of Communist Hungary.[7]Moneys issued by no longer existing governments. The Romanovs were thrown out of power in Russia by the Communist Revolution in 1917; Hungary’s post World War I Communist government lasted only from March 21, to August 1, 1919. 然后，出于同样的目的，人们开始购买金属条、宝石和珍珠，甚至图片、其他艺术品和邮票。取代不再有用的货币的另一个步骤是转向以外币或金属商品货币进行信贷交易，就所有实际目的而言，这仅意味着黄金。最后，如果即使在商品交易中国内货币的使用也停止了，那么工资也必须以其他方式支付，而不是用不再进行交易的纸币支付。

Only the hopelessly confirmed statist can cherish the hope that a money, continually declining in value, may be maintained in use as money over the long run. That the German mark is still used as money today [January 1923] is due simply to the fact that the belief generally prevails that its progressive depreciation will soon stop, or perhaps even that its value per unit will once more improve. The moment that this opinion is recognized as untenable, the process of ousting paper notes from their position as money will begin. If the process can still be delayed somewhat, it can only denote another sudden shift of opinion as to the state of the mark’s future value. The phenomena described as frenzied purchases have given us some advance warning as to how the process will begin. It may be that we shall see it run its full course.

Obviously the notes cannot be forced out of their position as the legal media of exchange, except by an act of law. Even if they become completely worthless, even if nothing at all could be purchased for a billion marks, obligations payable in marks could still be legally satisfied by the delivery of mark notes. This means simply that creditors, to whom marks are owed, are precisely those who will be hurt most by the collapse of the paper standard. As a result, it will become impossible to save the purchasing power of the mark from destruction.

5. Effect of Speculation

投机者实际上为票据作为货币的地位提供了最有力的支持。然而，当前的中央集权主义解释却恰恰相反。根据这一学说，自 1914 年以来德国货币报价的不利配置主要或至少在很大程度上归因于预期其价值下降的投机活动的破坏性影响。事实上，在战争期间和后来的情况下，大量马克被吸收到国外，正是因为预期马克汇率未来会上涨。如果这些资金没有被吸引到国外，必然会导致国内市场的价格进一步大幅上涨。很明显，各地，或者至少直到最近，甚至国内居民都预计价格会进一步下降。人们一次又一次地听到，或者经常听到，现在所有的东西都太贵了，除了那些不可能推迟的采购之外，所有的采购都应该推迟到以后。另一方面，据说目前的价格状况特别有利于出售。然而，无可争议的是，这种观点已经处于突变的边缘。

Placing obstacles in the way of foreign exchange speculation, and making transactions in foreign exchange futures especially difficult, was detrimental to the formation of the exchange rate for notes. Still, not even speculative activity can help at the time when the opinion becomes general that no hope remains for stopping the progressive depreciation of the money. Then, even the optimists will retreat from German marks and Austrian crowns, part company with those who anticipate a rise and join with those who expect a decline. Once only one view prevails on the market, there can be no more exchanges based on differences of opinion.

6. Final Phases

使纸币停止作为货币使用的过程可能会相对缓慢地发生，也可能会在恐慌中突然发生，可能需要几天甚至几个小时。如果变化缓慢发生，则意味着贸易正在逐步转向普遍使用另一种交换媒介来代替纸币。这种用外币或黄金进行和结算国内交易的做法已在许多商业部门中占据相当大的比例，并且正在被越来越多地采用。结果，当个人将越来越多的现金持有量从德国马克转移到外国货币时，就会有更多的外汇进入该国。由于对外汇的需求不断增长，相当于运往国外的货物价值的一部分的各种外汇被进口，而不是商品。逐渐地，国内积累了外国资金的供应。这大大削弱了国内纸张标准最终崩溃的影响。那么，如果即使是小额交易也需要外汇，如果结果是，甚至工资也必须用外汇支付，首先是部分，然后是全部，如果最终连政府也承认在征税时也必须这样做税收和支付官员工资，那么用于这些目的所需的外国资金大部分已经在国内可用。由于政府货币崩溃而出现的情况不需要易货贸易，即商品与商品之间繁琐的直接交换。来自不同来源的外国资金发挥着货币的作用，尽管效果有些不尽如人意。

不仅无可争议的理论考虑导致了这一假设。货币崩溃的历史经验也是如此。霍勒斯·怀特（Horace White）在谈到“大陆货币”在叛逆的美洲殖民地的崩溃（1781 年）时说道：“纸币一旦消亡，硬通货就开始生机勃勃，并且对于各种用途来说都是丰富的。很多东西被囤积起来，还有更多的东西被法国和英国的陆军和海军运来。外汇如此充裕，以至于出现了折扣。”[8]Horace White, Money and Banking: Illustrated by American History （波士顿，1895 年），第 142 页。 1895. [注：我们无法找到 5 年版本的副本来验证此引文。然而，它出现在第 1911 版（99 年）第 XNUMX 页，但没有最后一句。 XNUMX.——编者。]

In 1796, the value of French territorial mandats fell to zero. Louis Adolphe Thiers commented on the situation as follows:

Nobody traded except for metallic money. The specie, which people had believed hoarded or exported abroad, found its way back into circulation. That which had been hidden appeared. That which had left France returned. The southern provinces were full of piasters, which came from Spain, drawn across the border by the need for them. Gold and silver, like all commodities, go wherever demand calls them. An increased demand raises what is offered for them to the point that attracts a sufficient quantity to satisfy the need. People were still being swindled by being paid in mandats, because the laws, giving legal tender value to paper money, permitted people to use it for the satisfaction of written obligations. But few dared to do this and all new agreements were made in metallic money. In all markets, one saw only gold or silver. The workers were also paid in this manner. One would have said there was no longer any paper in France. The mandats were then found only in the hands of speculators, who received them from the government and resold them to the buyers of national lands. In this way, the financial crisis, although still existing for the state, had almost ended for private persons.[9]Louis Adolphe Thiers, 法国革命史, 7th ed., vol. V (Brussels, 1838), p. 171. The interpretation placed on these events by the “School” of G.F. Knapp is especially fantastic. See H. Illig’s Das 法兰克时代的革命之终结 [The French monetary system at the time of the first revolution to the end of the paper currency] (Strassburg, 1914), p. 56. After mentioning attempts by the state to “manipulate the exchange rate of silver,” he points out: “Attempts to reintroduce the desired cash situation began to succeed in 1796.” Thus, even the collapse of the paper money standard was a “success” for the State Theory of Money. [NOTE: The “State Theory of Money” has been the basis of the monetary policies of most governments in this century. Mises frequently credited the book of Georg Friedrich Knapp (3rd German edition, 1921; English translation by H.M. Lucas and J. Bonar, 国家货币理论，伦敦，1924 年）因其在德语国家中的普及而闻名。纳普认为，货币就是政府规定的货币——个人在市场上的行为和交易与之无关。参见米塞斯的 货币信贷理论 （康涅狄格州纽黑文：耶鲁大学出版社，1953 年），第 463-69 页；和（印第安纳州印第安纳波利斯：Liberty 古典文学, 1980), pp. 506–12.—Ed.]

7. 货币对现代经济更加重要

当然，我们必须小心，不要将这场灾难的影响与上述两起事件的后果相提并论，我们的钱正在冲向这场灾难。 1781年，美国还是一个以农业为主的国家。 1796年，法国在劳动分工和货币使用以及现金和信贷交易的经济发展方面也处于较低的阶段。在德国这样的工业国家，货币崩溃的后果必定与大部分人口仍处于原始经济状况的国家完全不同。

Things will necessarily be much worse if the breakdown of the paper money does not take place step-by-step, but comes, as now seems likely, all of a sudden in panic. The supplies within the country of gold and silver money and of foreign notes are insignificant. The practice, pursued so eagerly during the war, of concentrating domestic stocks of gold in the central banks and the restrictions, for many years placed on trade in foreign moneys, have operated so that the total supplies of hoarded good money have long been insufficient to permit a smooth development of monetary circulation during the early days and weeks after the collapse of the paper note standard. Some time must elapse before the amount of foreign money needed in domestic trade is obtained by the sale of stocks and commodities, by raising credit, and by withdrawing balances from abroad. In the meantime, people will have to make out with various kinds of emergency money tokens.

Precisely at the moment when all savers and pensioners are most severely affected by the complete depreciation of the notes, and when the government’s entire financial and economic policy must undergo a radical transformation, as a result of being denied access to the printing press, technical difficulties will emerge in conducting trade and making payments. It will become immediately obvious that these difficulties must seriously aggravate the unrest of the people. Still, there is no point in describing the specific details of such a catastrophe. They should only be referred to in order to show that inflation is not a policy that can be carried on forever. The printing presses must be shut down in time, because a dreadful catastrophe awaits if their operations go on to the end. No one can say how far we still are from such a finish.

It is immaterial whether the continuation of inflation is considered desirable or merely not harmful. It is immaterial whether inflation is looked on as an evil, although perhaps a lesser evil in view of other possibilities. Inflation can be pursued only so long as the public still does not believe it will continue. Once the people generally realize that the inflation will be continued on and on and that the value of the monetary unit will decline more and more, then the fate of the money is sealed. Only the belief, that the inflation will come to a stop, maintains the value of the notes.

1. Stop Presses and Credit Expansion

任何货币改革的首要条件是停止印钞机。德国必须避免通过直接或间接发行票据来为政府赤字融资。德国国家银行（从 1875 年到二战后不久的德国中央银行）不得进一步扩大其纸币的流通。德意志帝国银行存款只能在现有德意志帝国银行账户转移或以票据或其他本国或外国货币换取的情况下开立和增加。德国央行只应在资金可用的情况下提供信贷——来自其自己的储备金和债权人可供其支配的其他资源。它不应创造信贷来增加其未由黄金或外国货币覆盖的票据数量，或提高其未偿负债总额。如果它从其储备中释放任何黄金或外国货币，那么它必须在同等程度上减少其纸币的流通或转移义务的使用。[10]外币和类似的法律债权可能被归类为外币。然而，这里的外国货币显然仅指至少货币条件相当健全的国家的货币。

Absolutely no evasions of these conditions should be tolerated. However, it might be possible to permit a limited increase—for two or three weeks at a time—only to facilitate clearings at the end of quarters, especially at the close of September and December. This additional circulation credit introduced into the economy, above the otherwise strictly-adhered to limits, should be statistically moderate and generally precisely prescribed by law.[11][米塞斯后来更全面地阐述了他在这些问题上的立场。他撤回了对货币和银行业应不受立法干预这一总论点的如此精心规定的法律豁免的支持。即使是银行之间的清算安排也应该由市场的变化决定。请参阅他对自由银行业务的呼吁 货币稳定与周期性政策 (1928) in this volume especially pp. 124–25 below. Also in 人类行为, chapter XVII, section 12 on “Indirect Exchange” and the essay on “Monetary Reconstruction” written for publication as the Epilogue to the 1953 (and later) editions of 货币信贷理论.——编者]仅从 21 年 1 月 1919 日到 XNUMX 月 XNUMX 日执政。

毫无疑问，这将立即有效地停止货币单位的持续贬值。届时，德国货币单位的购买力甚至会出现增长——之前德国货币单位的购买力相对于大宗商品和外汇的购买力，已经反映了通货膨胀将会持续的观点。购买力的增加将上升到与实际情况相对应的程度。

2. 货币单位与世界货币的关系——黄金

However, stopping the inflation by no means signifies stabilization of the value of the German monetary unit in terms of foreign money. Once strict limits are placed on any further inflation, the quantity of German money will no longer be changing. Still, with changes in the demand for money, changes will also be taking place in the exchange ratios between German and foreign moneys. The German economy will no longer have to endure the disadvantages that come from inflation and continual monetary depreciation; but it will still have to face the consequences of the fact that foreign exchange rates remain subject to continual, even if not severe, fluctuations.

If, with the suspension of printing press operations, the monetary policy reforms are declared at an end, then obviously the value of the German monetary unit in relation to the world money, gold, would rise, slowly but steadily. For the supply of gold, used as money, grows steadily due to the output of mines while the quantity of the German money [not backed by gold or foreign money] would be limited once and for all. Thus, it should be considered quite likely that the repercussions of changes in the relationship between the quantity of, and demand for, money in Germany and in gold standard countries would cause the German monetary unit to rise on the foreign exchange market. An illustration of this is furnished by the developments of the Austrian money on the foreign exchange market in the years 1888–1891.

为了稳定境外货币单位的相对价值，仅仅使货币价值的形成摆脱政府的影响是不够的。还应努力建立世界货币和德国货币单位之间的联系，将德国马克的价值与黄金的价值牢固地结合在一起。

It should be emphasized again and again that stabilization of the gold value of a monetary unit can only be attained if the printing presses are silenced. Every attempt to accomplish this by other means is futile. It is useless to interfere on the foreign exchange market. If the German government acquires dollars, perhaps through a loan, and sells the loan for paper marks, it is exerting pressure, in the process, on the dollar exchange rate. However, if the printing presses continue to run, the monetary depreciation will only be slowed down, not brought to a standstill as a result. Once the impetus of the intervention is exhausted, then the depreciation resumes again, even more rapidly. However, if the increase in notes has actually stopped, no intervention is needed to stabilize the mark in terms of gold.

3. TREND OF DEPRECIATION

In this connection, it is pointed out that the increase in notes and the depreciation of the monetary unit do not exactly coincide chronologically. The value of the monetary unit often remains almost stable for weeks and even months, while the supply of notes increases continually. Then again, commodity prices and foreign exchange quotations climb sharply upward, in spite of the fact that the current increase in notes is not proceeding any faster or may even be slowing down. The explanation for this lies in the processes of market operations. The tendency to exaggerate every change is inherent in speculation. Should the conduct inaugurated by the few, who rely on their own independent judgment, be exaggerated and carried too far by those who follow their lead, then a reaction, or at least a standstill, must take place. So ignorance of the principles underlying the formation of monetary value leads to a reaction on the market.

In the course of speculation in stocks and securities, the speculator has developed the procedure which is his tool in trade. What he learned there he now tries to apply in the field of foreign exchange speculations. His experience has been that stocks which have dropped sharply on the market usually offer favorable investment opportunities and so he believes the situation to be similar with respect to the monetary unit. He looks on the monetary unit as if it were a share of stock in the government. When the German mark was quoted in Zurich at 10 francs, one banker said: “Now is the time to buy marks. The German economy is surely poorer today than before the war so that a lower evaluation for the mark is justified. Yet the wealth of the German people has certainly not fallen to a twelfth of their prewar assets. Thus, the mark must rise in value.” And when the Polish mark had fallen to 5 francs in Zurich, another banker said: “To me this low price is incomprehensible! Poland is a rich country. It has a profitable agricultural economy, forests, coal, petroleum. So the rate of exchange 应该 会高得多。”

同样，1919 年春，匈牙利苏维埃共和国的一位领导官员[12]In power from March 21, to August 1, 1919, only. told me: “Actually, the paper money issued by the Hungarian Soviet Republic should have the highest rate of exchange, except for that of Russia. Next to the Russian government, the Hungarian government, by socializing private property throughout Hungary, has become the richest and thus the most credit-worthy in the world.”

These observers do not understand that the valuation of a monetary unit depends 不能 on the wealth of a country, but rather on the relationship between the quantity of, and demand for, money. Thus, even the richest country can have a bad currency and the poorest country a good one. Nevertheless, even though the theory of these bankers is false, and must eventually lead to losses for all who use it as a guide for action, it can temporarily slow down and even put a stop to the decline in the foreign exchange value of the monetary unit.

1. Eminence of Gold

In the years preceding and during the war, the authors who prepared the way for the present monetary chaos were eager to sever the connection between the monetary standard and gold. So, in place of a standard based directly on gold, it was proposed to develop a standard which would promise no more than a constant exchange ratio in foreign money. These proposals, insofar as they aimed at transferring control over the formulation of monetary value to government, need not be discussed any further. The reason for using a 商品 money is precisely to prevent political influence from affecting directly the value of the monetary unit. Gold is not the standard money solely on account of its brilliance or its physical and chemical characteristics. Gold is the standard money primarily because an increase or decrease in the available quantity is independent of the orders issued by political authorities. The distinctive feature of the gold standard is that it makes changes in the quantity of money dependent on the profitability of gold production.

Instead of the gold standard, a monetary standard based on a foreign currency could be introduced. The value of the mark would then be related, 不能 to gold, but to the value of a specific foreign money, at a definite exchange ratio. The Reichsbank would be ready at all times to buy or sell marks, in unlimited quantities at a fixed exchange rate, against the specified foreign money. If the monetary unit chosen as the basis for such a system is not on a sound gold standard, the conditions created would be absolutely untenable. The purchasing power of the German money would then hinge on fluctuations in the purchasing power of that foreign money. German policy would have renounced its influence on the creation of monetary value for the benefit of the policy of a foreign government. Then too, even if the foreign money, chosen as the basis for the German monetary unit, were on an absolutely sound gold standard at the moment, the possibility would remain that its tie to gold might be cut at some later time. So there is no basis for choosing this roundabout route in order to attain a sound monetary system. It is not true that adopting the gold standard leads to economic dependence on England, gold producers, or some other power. Quite the contrary! As a matter of fact, it is the monetary standard which relies on the money of a foreign government that deserves the name of a “subsidiary [dependent] or vassal standard.”[13]卡尔·A·谢弗， Klassische Valutastabilisierungen （汉堡，1922 年），第 65 页。 XNUMX.

2. 可用黄金的充足性

There are no grounds for saying that there is not enough gold available to enable all the countries in the world to have the gold standard. There can never be too much, nor too little, gold to serve the purpose of money. Supply and demand are brought into balance by the formation of prices. Nor is there reason to fear that prices generally would be depressed too severely by a return to the gold standard on the part of countries with depreciated currencies. The world’s gold supplies have not decreased since 1914. They have increased. In view of the decline in trade and the increase in poverty, the demand for gold should be lower than it was before 1914, even after a complete return to the gold standard. After all, a return to the gold standard would not mean a return to the actual use of gold money within the country to pay for small- and medium-sized transactions. For even the gold exchange standard [Goldkernwährung] developed by Ricardo in his work, 经济和安全货币的提案 (1816), is a legitimate and adequate gold standard,[14][By 1928, when Mises wrote “Monetary Stabilization and Cyclical Policy,” the second essay in this volume, he had rejected the flexible (gold exchange) standard (see below, pp. 60ff.) pointing out that the only hope of curbing the powerful political incentives to inflate lay in having a “pure” gold coin standard. He “confessed” this shift in views in 人类行为 （第一版，1 年，第 1949 页；第二版和第三版，780 年和 2 年，第 3 页；学者版 1963 年，第 1966 页）。—编辑] 近几十年来的货币历史清楚地表明了这一点。

Basing the German monetary system on some foreign money instead of the metal gold would have only one significance: By obscuring the true nature of reform, it would make a reversal easier for inflationist writers and politicians. The first condition of any real monetary reform is still to rout completely all populist doctrines advocating Chartism,[15]Chartism, an English working class movement, arose as a revolt against the Poor Law of 1835 which forced those able to work to enter workhouses before receiving public support. The movement was endorsed by both Marx and Engels and accepted the labor theory of value. Its members included those seeking inconvertible paper money and all sorts of political interventions and welfare measures. The advocates of various schemes were unified only in the advocacy of a charter providing for universal adult male suffrage, which each faction thought would lead to the adoption of its particular nostrums. Chartists’s attempts to obtain popular support failed conspicuously and after 1848 the movement faded away. the creation of money, the dethronement of gold and free money. Any imperfection and lack of clarity here is prejudicial. Inflationists of every variety must be completely demolished. We should not be satisfied to settle for compromises with them. The slogan, “Down with gold,” must be ousted. The solution rests on substituting in its place: “No governmental interference with the value of the monetary unit!”

1. Victory and Inflation

没有人能够再严肃地坚持认为，德国纸马克的汇率可以[1923年]按照其旧的黄金价值重新建立——正如4年1871月9日的立法和1873月XNUMX日的铸币法所规定的那样， XNUMX年。然而，许多人仍然抵制将马克的黄金价值稳定在当前低汇率的提议。对民族自豪感的相当模糊的考虑常常被联合起来反对它。人们被关于货币贬值原因的错误观念所迷惑，习惯于将一个国家的货币视为祖国和政府的资本存量。人们认为，马克汇率走低反映了对德国政治经济形势的不利判断。他们不明白，货币价值仅受货币需求和数量之间关系的变化以及对这种关系的预期变化（包括政府货币政策产生的变化）的普遍看法的影响。

During the course of the war, it was said that “the currency of the victor” would turn out to be the best. But war and defeat on the field of battle can only influence the formation of monetary value indirectly. It is generally expected that a victorious government will be able to stop the use of the printing press sooner. The victorious government will find it easier both to restrict its expenditures and to obtain credit. This same interpretation would also argue that the rate of exchange of the defeated country would become more favorable as the prospects for peace improved. The values of both the German mark and the Austrian crown rose in October 1918. It was thought that a halt to the inflation could be expected even in Germany and Austria, but obviously this expectation was not fulfilled.

历史表明，“胜利者的钱”的外汇价值也可能很低。很少有比华盛顿领导下的美国起义军最终战胜英国军队更辉煌的胜利了。然而美国的资金并没有因此受益。星条旗越高举，“大陆币”（反叛州发行的纸币被称为“大陆币”）的汇率就越低。然后，当叛军终于取得胜利时，这些“大陆人”就变得一文不值了。不久之后，法国也出现了类似的情况。尽管革命党取得了胜利，但金属的升水却越来越高，直到 1796 年，纸币单位的价值最终降为零。在每种情况下，获胜政府都将通货膨胀追求到底。

2. 建立黄金“比率”

It is completely wrong to look on “devaluation” as governmental bankruptcy. Stabilization of the present depressed monetary value, even if considered only with respect to its effect on the existing debts, is something very different from governmental bankruptcy. It is both 更多 and, at the same time, less than governmental bankruptcy. It is more than governmental bankruptcy to the extent that it affects not only public debts, but also all private debts. It is less than governmental bankruptcy to the extent that it affects only the government’s outstanding debts payable in paper money, while leaving undisturbed its obligations payable in hard money or foreign currency. Then too, monetary stabilization brings with it no change in the relationships among contracting parties, with respect to paper money debts already contracted without any assurance of an increase in the value of the money.

To compensate the owners of claims to marks for the losses suffered, between 1914 and 1923, calls for something other than raising the mark’s exchange rate. Debts originating during this period would have to be converted by law into obligations payable in old gold marks according to the mark’s value at the time each obligation was contracted. It is extremely doubtful if the desired goal could be attained even by this means. The present title-holders to claims are not always the same ones who have borne the loss. The bulk of claims outstanding are represented by securities payable to the bearer and a considerable portion of all other claims have changed hands in the course of the years. When it comes to determining the currency profits and losses over the years, accounting methods are presented with tremendous obstacles by the technology of trade and the legal structure of business.

The effects of changes in general economic conditions on commerce, especially those of every cash-induced change in monetary value, and every increase in its purchasing power, militate against trying to raise the value of the monetary unit before [redefining and] stabilizing it in terms of gold. The value of the monetary unit should be [legally defined and] stabilized in terms of gold at the rate (ratio) which prevails at the moment.

As long as monetary depreciation is still going on, it is obviously impossible to speak of a specific “rate” for the value of money. For changes in the value of the monetary unit do not affect all goods and services throughout the whole economy at the same time and to the same extent. These changes in monetary value necessarily work themselves out irregularly and step-by-step. It is generally recognized that in the short, or even the longer run, a discrepancy may exist between the value of the monetary unit, as expressed in the quotation for various foreign currencies, and its purchasing power in goods and services on the domestic market.

鉴于货币单位购买力目前正在发生但尚未完成的变化，外汇交易所的报价始终反映投机利率。然而，货币贬值在其逐渐演变的早期阶段，在其完全体现在所有国内商品和服务的价格中之前，就已经对外汇汇率产生了全面的影响。商品价格落后于外汇汇率上涨的滞后现象持续时间有限。归根结底，外汇汇率只不过是由每种货币单位的预期未来购​​买力决定的。外汇汇率必须设定在这样的高度，即货币单位的购买力保持不变，无论是直接用于购买商品，还是首先用于购买另一种货币来购买商品。从长远来看，利率不能偏离由其购买力决定的比率。该比率称为“自然”或“静态”比率。[16][米塞斯后来更喜欢“最终利率”这个术语，或者是在实际达到“最终静止状态”时所采用的利率，反映了所有已经启动的变化的最终影响。看 人类行为, chapter XIV, section 5.—Ed.]

In order to stabilize the value of a monetary unit at its present value, the decline in monetary value must first be brought to a stop. The value of the monetary unit in terms of gold must first attain some stability. Only then can the relationship of the monetary unit to gold be given any lasting status. First of all, as pointed out above, the progress of inflation must be blocked by halting any further increase in the issue of notes. Then one must wait a while until after foreign exchange quotations and commodity prices, which will fluctuate for a time, have become adjusted. As has already been explained, this adjustment would come about not only through an increase in commodity prices but also, to some extent, with a drop in the foreign exchange rate.[17][For a later elaboration of this position, see Mises’s “货币重建” 1953 年（及以后）版本的结语 货币信贷理论……编者。]

1. Refined Quantity Theory of Money

普遍接受的学说认为，只有在“有利的国际收支”的情况下，货币之间才能建立良好的关系。根据这种观点，一个“国际收支不利”的国家无法维持其货币价值的稳定。在这种情况下，汇率恶化被认为是结构性的，并且认为只有消除结构性缺陷才能有效抵消。

这个问题和类似论点的答案是数量论和格雷欣定律所固有的。

The Quantity Theory demonstrated that in a country which uses only commodity money, the “purely metallic currency” standard of the Currency Theory, money can never flow abroad continuously for any length of time. The outflow of a part of the gold supply brings about a contraction in the quantity of money available in the domestic market. This reduces commodity prices, promotes exports and restricts imports, until the quantity of money in the domestic economy is replenished from abroad. The precious metals being used as money are dispersed among the various individual enterprises and thus among the several national economies, according to the extent and intensity of their respective demands for money. Governmental interventions, which seek to regulate international monetary movements in order to assure the economy a “needed” quantity of money, are superfluous.

The undesirable outflow of money must always be simply the result of a governmental intervention which has endowed differently valued moneys with the same legal purchasing power. All that the government need do to avoid disrupting the monetary situation, and all it can do, is to abandon such interventions. That is the essence of the monetary theory of Classical economics and of those who follow in its footsteps, the theoreticians of the Currency School.[18][See Mises’s 货币信贷理论, pp. 180–86; 1980, pp. 207–13.—Ed.]

借助现代主观理论，这一理论可以得到更加彻底的发展和完善。但还是不能拆除。没有其他理论可以取代它。那些忽视这一理论的人只能证明他们不是经济学家。

2. Purchasing Power Parity

One frequently hears, when commodity money is being replaced in one country by credit or token money—because the legally-decreed equality between the over-issued paper and the metallic money has prompted the sequence of events described by Gresham’s Law—that it is the balance of payments that determines the rates of foreign exchange. That is completely wrong. Exchange rates are determined by the relative purchasing power per unit of each kind of money. As pointed out above, exchange rates must eventually be established at a height at which it makes no difference whether one uses a piece of money directly to buy a commodity, or whether one first exchanges this money for units of a foreign currency and then spends that foreign currency for the desired commodity. Should the rate deviate from that determined by the purchasing power parity, which is known as the “natural” or “static” rate, an opportunity would emerge for undertaking profit-making ventures.

It would then be profitable to buy commodities with the money which is legally 低估 on the exchange, as compared with its purchasing power parity, and to sell those commodities for that money which is legally 超过valued on the exchange, as compared with its actual purchasing power. Whenever such opportunities for profit exist, buyers would appear on the foreign exchange market with a demand for the undervalued money. This demand drives the exchange up until it reaches its “final rate.”[19]See my paper “Zahlungsbilanz und Valutenkurse,” 奥地利银行和银行家协会 II 中心 (1919): 39ff. [NOTE: Pertinent excerpts from this explanation of the “balance of payments” fallacy have been translated and appear here in the Appendix, pp. 44–51. See also 人类行为, 1966, pp. 450–58; 1998, pp. 447–55.—Ed.] 外汇汇率上升是因为[国内]货币数量增加且商品价格上涨。正如已经解释过的，只是由于市场技术问题，这种因果关系也没有在事件的早期过程中显现出来。在投机的影响下，交易所对外汇汇率的配置预测预期了未来大宗商品价格的变化。

The balance of payments doctrine overlooks the fact that the extent of foreign trade depends entirely on prices. It disregards the fact that nothing can be imported or exported if price differences, which make the trade profitable, do not exist. The balance of payments doctrine derives from superficialities. Anyone who simply looks at what is taking place on the Bourse every day and every hour sees, to be sure, only that the momentary state of the balance of payments is decisive for supply and demand on the foreign exchange market. Yet this diagnosis is merely the start of the inquiry into the factors determining foreign exchange rates. The next question is: What determines the momentary state of the balance of payments? This must lead only to the conclusion that the balance of payments is determined by the structure of prices and by the sales and purchases inspired by differences in prices.

3. Foreign Exchange Rates

With rising foreign exchange quotations, foreign commodities can be imported only if they find buyers at their higher prices. One version of the balance of payments doctrine seeks to distinguish between the importation of necessities of life and articles which are considered less vital or necessary. It is thought that the necessities of life must be obtained at any price, because it is absolutely impossible to get along without them. As a result, it is held that a country’s foreign exchange must deteriorate continuously if it must import vitally-needed commodities while it can export only less-necessary items. This reasoning ignores the fact that the greater or lesser need for certain goods, the size and intensity of the demand for them, or the ability to get along without them, is already fully expressed by the relative height of the prices assigned to the various goods on the market.

无论奥地利人对外国面包、肉类、煤炭或糖的渴望有多么强烈，他们只有在有能力支付的情况下才能满足这种渴望。如果他们想进口更多，就必须出口更多。如果他们不能出口更多的制成品或半制成品，他们就必须出口股票、债券和各种财产的所有权。

If the quantity of notes were not increased, then the prices of the items for sale would be lower. If they then demand more imported goods, the prices of these imported items must rise. Or else the rise in the prices of vital necessities must be offset by a decline in the prices of less vital articles, the purchase of which is restricted to permit the purchase of more necessities. Thus a general rise in prices is out of the question [without an increase in the quantity of notes]. The international payments would come into balance either with an increase in the export of dispensable goods or with the export of securities and similar items. It is only because the quantity of notes has been increased that they can maintain their imports at the higher exchange rates without increasing their exports. This is the only reason that the increase in the rate of exchange does not completely choke off imports and encourage exports until the “balance of payments” is once again “favorable.”[20]From the tremendous literature on the subject, I will mention here only T.E. Gregory’s 战前、战中和战后的外汇 （伦敦，1921年）。

Certainly no proof is needed to demonstrate that speculation is not responsible for the deterioration of the foreign exchange situation. The foreign exchange speculator tries to anticipate prospective fluctuations in rates. He may perhaps blunder. In that case he must pay for his mistakes. However, speculators can never maintain for any length of time a quotation which is not in accord with market ratios. Governments and politicians, who blame the deterioration of the currency on speculation, know this very well. If they thought differently with respect to future foreign exchange rates, they could speculate for the government’s account, against a rise and in anticipation of a decline. By this single act they could not only improve the foreign exchange rate, but also reap a handsome profit for the Treasury.

4. Foreign Exchange Regulations

The ancient Mercantilist fallacies paint a specter which we have no cause to fear. No people, not even the poorest, need abandon sound monetary policy. It is neither the poverty of the individual nor of the group, it is neither foreign indebtedness nor unfavorable conditions of production, that drives foreign exchange rates way up. Only inflation does this.

因此，对抗汇率上升的任何其他手段都是无用的。如果通货膨胀持续下去，它们将失去作用。如果没有通货膨胀，它们就是多余的。这些其他手段中最重要的是禁止或至少限制某些被认为是可有可无或至少不是绝对必要的货物的进口。国内本来用于购买这些商品的资金现在用于其他购买。显然，所涉及的唯一商品是本来可以销往国外的商品。现在，国内居民购买这些商品的价格高于外国人的出价。其结果是，一方面进口减少，外汇需求减少，另一方面出口同样大幅减少，外汇供应减少。进口是通过出口支付的，而不是像肤浅的新重商主义学说仍然坚持的那样用货币支付。

If one really wants to check the demand for foreign exchange, then, to the extent that one wants to reduce imports, money must actually be taken away from the people—perhaps through taxes. This sum should be completely withdrawn from circulation, not even given out for government purposes, but rather destroyed. This means adopting a policy of deflation. Instead of restricting the importation of chocolate, wine and cigarettes, the sums people would have spent for these commodities must be taken away from them. The people would then either have to reduce their consumption of these or of some other commodities. In the former case [i.e., if the consumption of imported goods is reduced] less foreign exchange is sought. In the latter case [i.e., if the consumption of domestic articles declines] more goods are exported and thus more foreign exchange becomes available.

It is equally impossible to influence the foreign exchange market by prohibiting the hoarding of foreign moneys. If the people mistrust the reliability of the value of the notes, they will seek to invest a portion of their cash holdings in foreign money. If this is made impossible, then the people will either sell fewer commodities and stocks or they will buy more commodities, stocks, and the like. However, they will certainly not hold more domestic currency in place of foreign exchange. In any case, this behavior reduces total exports. The demand for foreign exchange for hoarding disappears and, at the same time, the supply of foreign exchange coming into the country in payment of exports declines. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that making it more difficult to amass foreign exchange hampers the accumulation of a reserve fund that could help the economy weather the critical time which immediately follows the collapse of a paper monetary standard. As a matter of fact, this policy could eventually lead to even more serious trouble.

令人完全无法理解的是，增加本国纸币出口难度是降低外汇汇率的适当方法的想法是如何产生的？如果离开该国的纸币减少，则必须出口更多商品或减少进口商品。国外外汇市场上的纸币报价并不取决于那里可用纸币的供应量的多少。相反，这取决于商品价格。外国投机者购买并囤积票据，导致投机热潮，这一事实只会提高其报价。如果外国投机者持有的资金留在国内，国内大宗商品价格以及外汇的“最终汇率”将会进一步上涨。

如果通货膨胀持续下去，无论是外汇管制还是外汇清算控制都无法阻止国外货币单位的贬值。

1. Substitute for Taxes

Nowadays, the thesis is maintained that sound monetary relationships may certainly be worth striving for, but public policy is said to have other higher and more important goals. As serious an evil as inflation is, it is not considered the most serious. If it is a choice of protecting the homeland from enemies, feeding the starving and keeping the country from destruction, then let the currency go to rack and ruin. And if the German people must pay off a tremendous war debt, then the only way they can help themselves is through inflation.

This line of reasoning in favor of inflationism must be sharply distinguished from the old inflationist argument which actually approved of the economic consequences of continual monetary depreciation and considered inflationism a worthwhile political goal. According to the later doctrine, inflationism is still considered an evil although, under certain circumstances, a lesser evil. In its eyes, monetary depreciation is not considered the inevitable outcome of a certain pattern of economic conditions, as it is by adherents of the “balance of payments” doctrine discussed in the preceding section. Advocates of limited inflationism tacitly, if not openly, admit in their argumentation that paper money inflation, as well as the resulting monetary depreciation, is always a product of inflationist policy. However, they believe that a government may get into a situation in which it would be more advantageous to counter a greater evil with the lesser evil of inflationism.

The argument for limited inflationism is often stated so as to represent inflationism as a kind of a tax which is called for under certain conditions. In some situations it is considered more advantageous to cover government expenditures by issuing new notes, than by increasing the burden of taxes or borrowing money. This was the argument during the war, when it was a question of defraying the expenses of the army and navy. The same argument is now advanced when it comes to supplying some of the population with cheap foodstuffs, covering the operating deficits of public enterprises (the railroads, etc.) and arranging for reparations payments. The truth is that inflationism is resorted to when raising taxes is considered disagreeable and when borrowing is considered impossible. The question now is to explore the reasons why it is considered disagreeable or impossible to employ these two normally routine ways of obtaining money for government expenditures.

2. Financing Unpopular Expenditures

High taxes can be imposed only if the general public is in agreement with the purposes for which the funds collected will be used. In this connection, it is worth noting that the higher the general burden of taxes, the more difficult it becomes to deceive public opinion as to the fact that the taxes cannot be borne by the more affluent minority of the population alone. Even taxes levied on property owners and the more affluent affect the entire economy. Their indirect effects on the less well-to-do are often felt more intensely than would be those from direct proportional taxation. It may not be easy to detect these relationships when tax rates are relatively low, but they can hardly be overlooked when taxes are higher. However, there is no doubt that the present system of taxing “property” can hardly be carried any farther than it already has been in the countries where inflationism now prevails. Thus the decision will have to be made to rely more directly on the masses for providing funds. For policy makers who enjoy the confidence of the masses only if they impose no obvious sacrifice, this is something they dare not risk.

如果欧洲交战各国政府明确、坦诚、迅速地向欧洲交战人民提出军费账单，他们会更快地厌倦冲突吗？任何欧洲国家的战争政党都不敢向群众征收巨额税收来支付战争费用。即使在英国，印刷机也已启动。通货膨胀具有创造经济福祉和财富增加的表象的巨大优势。它还通过伪造货币计算来掩盖资本消耗。通货膨胀导致了虚幻的企业家和资本主义利润，这些利润可以作为收入以特别高的税率征税。这可以在没有大众的情况下完成，甚至常常甚至在纳税人本身没有注意到一部分资本本身被征税的情况下完成。通货膨胀使人民的愤怒转向“战争奸商、投机者和走私者”。因此，通货膨胀被证明是对战争政策的极好的心理援助，导致破坏和消灭。

What the war began, the revolution continues. A socialistic or semi-socialistic government needs money to operate unprofitable enterprises, to subsidize the unemployed and to provide the people with cheap food supplies. Yet, it cannot raise the funds through taxes. It dares not tell the people the truth. The pro-statist, pro-socialist doctrine calling for government operation of the railroads would lose its popularity very quickly if a special tax were levied to cover the operating losses of the government railroads. If the Austrian masses themselves had been asked to pay a special bread tax, they would very soon have realized from whence came the funds to make the bread cheaper.

3. War Reparations

德国经济的决定性因素显然是《凡尔赛条约》及其补充协定所规定的赔款负担的支付。根据卡尔·赫尔弗里奇的说法，[21]Karl Helfferich, 复兴的政治 （慕尼黑，1922 年），第 22 页。 1872. [注：Helfferich（1924-1915），1916-XNUMX 年担任德意志帝国财政部长，后来担任各种官方和非官方职务，在促进通货膨胀和反对赔款支付方面发挥了重要作用。——编辑。] these payments imposed on the German people an annual obligation estimated at two-thirds of their national income. This figure is undoubtedly much too high. No doubt, other estimates, especially those pronounced by French observers, considerably underestimate the actual ratio. In any event, the fact remains that a very sizeable portion of Germany’s current income is consumed by the levy imposed on the nation, and that, if the specified sum is to be withdrawn every year from income, the living standard of the German people must be substantially reduced.

Even though somewhat hampered by the remnants of feudalism, an authoritarian constitution and the rise of statism and socialism, capitalism was able to develop to a considerable extent on German soil. In recent generations, the capitalistic economic system has multiplied German wealth many times over. In 1914, the German economy could support three times as many people as a hundred years earlier and still offer them incomparably more. The war and its immediate consequences have drastically reduced the living standards of the German people. Socialistic destruction has continued this process of impoverishment. Even if the German people did not have to fulfill any reparations payments, they would still be much, much poorer than they were before the war. The burden of these obligations must inevitably reduce their living standard still further—to that of the thirties and forties of the last century. It may be hoped that this impoverishment will lead to a reexamination of the socialist ideology which dominates the German spirit today, that this will succeed in removing the obstacles now preventing an increase in productivity, and that the unlimited opening up of possibilities for development, which exist under capitalism and only under capitalism, will increase many times over the output of German labor. Still the fact remains that if the obligation assumed is to be paid for out of income, the only way is to produce more and consume less.

A part of the burden, or even all of it, could of course be paid off by the export of capital goods. Shares of stock, bonds,[22]因此，筹集外国贷款也属于这一类。 business assets, land, buildings, would have to be transferred from German to foreign ownership. This would also reduce the total income of the people in the future, if not right away.

4. The Alternatives

These various means, however, are the only ways by which the reparations obligations can be met. Goods or capital, which would otherwise have been consumed within the country, can be exported. To discuss which is more practical is not the task of this essay. The only question which concerns us is how the government can proceed in order to shift to the individual citizens the burden of payments, which devolves first of all on the German treasury. Three ways are possible: raising taxes; borrowing within the country; and issuing paper money. Whichever one of the three methods may be chosen, the nature of its effect abroad remains unaltered. These three ways differ only in their distribution of the burden among citizens.

如果资金是通过筹集国内贷款筹集的，那么贷款的认购人必须减少消费或处置部分资本。如果征税，那么纳税人也必须这样做。从税收或贷款流入政府国库并用于购买黄金、外币和外币以履行其对外负债的资金，由贷方和纳税人通过向国外出售商品和资本货物来提供。政府只能购买通过这些销售进入该国的可用外汇。只要政府有权仅分配从纳税和浮动贷款中获得的资金，其购买外汇就不会推高黄金和外币的价格。在任何时候，政府只能购买公民通过出口销售获得的黄金和外汇。事实上，世界商品和服务价格不可能因此而上涨。相反，由于出售数量增加，它们的价格将会下降。

然而，如果政府走第三条路，发行新纸币购买黄金和外汇，而不是提高税收和浮动贷款，那么它对黄金和外汇的需求显然无法通过相应的供应来平衡，推高各种外国货币的价格。这样，外国人获得更多马克，以便以尚未反映新比率的价格在德国境内购买资本货物和商品就变得有利。这些采购立即推高了德国的价格，并使其再次与世界市场进行调整。这就是实际情况。支付赔款义务的外汇来自德国资本和商品的海外销售。唯一的区别在于政府如何获得外汇。在这种情况下，政府首先用马克在国外购买外汇，然后外国人用这些马克在德国进行购买，而不是德国政府从德国境内那些收到了之前国外销售付款的人那里获取外汇。

From this one learns that the continuing depreciation of the German mark cannot be the consequence of reparations payments. The depreciation of the mark is simply a result of the fact that the government supplies the funds needed for the payments through new issues of notes. Even those who wish to attribute the decline in the rate of exchange on the market to the payment of reparations, rather than to inflation, point out that the quotation for marks is inevitably disturbed by the government’s offering of marks for the purchase of foreign exchange.[23]See Walter Rathenau’s addresses—January 12, 1922, before the Senate of the Allied Powers at Cannes, and March 29, 1922, to the Reichstag (Cannes und Genua, Vier Reden zum Reparationsproblem [Berlin 1922], pp. 11ff. and 34ff.). [NOTE: Rathenau (1867–1922), a German industrialist, became an official in the post-World War I German government—Minister of Reconstruction (1921) and Foreign Minister (1922).—Ed.] Still, if the government had available for these foreign exchange purchases only the number of marks which it received from taxes or loans, then its demand would not exceed the supply. It is only because it is offering newly created notes, that it drives the foreign exchange rates up.

5. The Government’s Dilemma

Nevertheless, this is the only method available for the German government to defray the reparations debt. Should it try to raise the sums demanded through loans or taxes, it would fail. As conditions with the German people are now, if the economic consequences of compliance were clearly understood and there was no deception as to the costs of that policy, the government could not count on majority support for it. Public opinion would turn with tremendous force against any government that tried to carry out in full the obligations to the Allied Powers. It is not our task to explore whether or not that might be a wise policy.

然而，说德国马克的贬值不是赔款的直接后果，而是德国政府收取赔款的方式造成的，毫无意义。法国和其他外国政治家。他们认为，从世界政策的角度来看，让德国人民承受如此沉重的负担是合理的。这种对德国货币贬值的解释与从停战条款来看，盟军的总体需求及其高度是否建立在正义之上绝对无关。

The only significant thing for us, however, since it explains the political role of the inflationist procedure, is yet another insight. We have seen that if a government is not in a position to negotiate loans and does not dare levy additional taxation for fear that the financial and general economic effects will be revealed too clearly too soon, so that it will lose support for its program, it always considers it necessary to undertake inflationary measures. Thus inflation becomes one of the most important psychological aids to an economic policy which tries to camouflage its effects. In this sense, it may be described as a tool of antidemocratic policy. By deceiving public opinion, it permits a system of government to continue which would have no hope of receiving the approval of the people if conditions were frankly explained to them.

通货膨胀政策从来都不是特定经济形势的必然结果。它始终是人类行动——人为政策的产物。无论出于何种原因，流通中的货币数量都会增加。人们可能受到关于货币价值发展方式的错误理论学说的影响，并且没有意识到这种行为的后果。也许，在充分了解通货膨胀的影响的情况下，他们出于某种原因故意降低货币单位的价值。因此，我们不能为通货膨胀政策道歉。如果它建立在理论上不正确的货币学说的基础上，那么它是不可原谅的，因为错误的理论永远不应该得到任何宽恕。如果它基于对货币贬值影响的明确判断，那么 想 “原谅”是不一致的。如果货币贬值是故意设计的，其支持者不会想为其辩解，而是试图证明这是一项好的政策。他们希望表明，在这种情况下，让货币贬值甚至比进一步提高税收或允许赤字缠身的国有化铁路从政府控制权转移到私人手中更好。

甚至政府也必须再次学会调整支出以获取收入。一旦人们认识到通货膨胀必然导致的最终结果，政府有理由发行纸币来弥补资金短缺的论点就会从政治战略手册中消失。

1.第一步

The bedrock and cornerstone of the provisional new monetary system must be the absolute prohibition of the issue of any additional notes not completely covered by gold. The maximum limit for German notes in circulation [not completely covered by gold] will be the sum of the banknotes, Loan Bureau Notes (Darlehenskassenscheinen), emergency currency (诺格德) of every kind, and small coins, actually in circulation at the instant of the monetary reform, less the gold stock and supply of foreign bills held in the reserves of the Reichsbank and the private banks of issue. There must be absolutely no expansion above this maximum under any circumstances, except for the relaxation mentioned above at the end of each quarter. [See above pp. 29–30.] Notes of any kind over and above this amount must be fully covered by deposits of gold or foreign exchange in the Reichsbank. As may be seen, this constitutes acceptance of the leading principle of Peel’s Bank Act, with all its shortcomings. However, these flaws have little significance at the moment. Our first concern is only to get rid of the inflation by stopping the printing presses. This goal, the only immediate one, will be most effectively served by a strict prohibition of the issue of additional notes not backed by metal.

Once adjustments have been made to the new situation, then it will be time enough to consider:

1. On the one hand, whether it might not perhaps be expedient to tolerate the issue, within very narrow limits, of notes not covered by metal.
2. 另一方面，是否也有必要通过对银行现金余额及其支票和汇票交易制定法规来限制其他信托媒体的问题。

然后，必须根据基本原则反复讨论银行业自由问题。不过，这一切都可以等到以后再说。现在需要的只是禁止发行金属以外的附加纸币。目前能做的就是这些了。理想情况下，即使是现在，对货币发行的限制也可以扩展到德国国家银行的转移余额（存款）。[24]参见第 26 页。 XNUMX 以上。 [注：德语术语是“Giroguthaben”。在德国，“转账”银行系统盛行，存款人不写支票，而是授权银行将指定金额转入他们希望支付的账户。——编辑] However, this is not of as critical importance, for the present currency inflation has been and can be brought about only by the issue of notes.

Simultaneously with the enactment of the prohibition against the issue of additional notes not covered by metal, the Reichsbank should be required to purchase all supplies of gold offered them in exchange for notes at prices precisely corresponding to the new ratio. At the same time, the Reichsbank should be obliged to supply any amount of gold requested at that ratio, to anyone able to offer German notes in payment. With this reform, the German standard would become a gold exchange standard (Goldkernwährung). Later will be time enough to examine whether or not to renounce permanently the actual circulation of gold within the country. Careful consideration should be given to whether or not the higher costs needed to maintain the actual circulation of gold within the country might not be amply repaid by the fact that this would permit the people to discontinue using notes. Weaning the people away from paper money could perhaps forestall future efforts aimed at the over-issue of notes endowed with legal tender status. Nevertheless, the gold exchange standard is undoubtedly sufficient for the time being.[25][In view of Mises’s comments here, it appears that he then intended that the Reichsbank redeem at this point only larger sums of marks in gold and foreign exchange. Mises’s insistence in later years on a gold coin standard, 与日常使用的金币, even in the early stages of monetary reform, represents a significant refinement of these earlier recommendations. See 人类行为，第三十一章，第 3 节，以及他 1953 年的文章《货币重建》的结语 货币信贷理论，1953 年，第 448–52 页； 1980 年，第 490-95 页。同样在上面，第 20 页。 14，注 XNUMX。——编辑] The legal rate for notes in making payments can be temporarily maintained without risk.

It should also be specifically pointed out that the obligation of the Reichsbank to redeem its notes must be interpreted in the strictest possible manner. Every subterfuge, by which European central banks sought to follow some form of “gold premium policy”[26][在 货币信贷理论 (1953, pp. 377ff.; 1980, pp. 416ff.), Mises describes the “gold premium policy” of making it difficult and expensive to obtain gold—by hampering its export through the manipulation of discount rates and by limiting the redemption of domestic money in gold.—Ed.] during the decades preceding the World War, must be discontinued.

2. Market Interest Rates

如果德国央行按照这些原则运作，它显然无法向货币市场提供通过增加非金属票据流通量而获得的资金。除了以前可能不受限制的此类转移的可能性外，银行将只能借出其自己的资源和债权人提供的资金。因此，为了私人和公共信贷需求的利益而增加纸币发行量的通货膨胀将被排除。届时，央行将无法遵循其一再尝试的人为降低市场利率的政策。

The explanation of the balance of payments doctrine presented here shows that under this arrangement the Reichsbank would not run the risk of an outflow of its gold and foreign exchange (货币) 持股。公民对未来的银行政策缺乏信心，他们在新货币体系的早期尝试用纸币兑换黄金或外汇（货币), will not be satisfied with the assertion that the Bank will be required to redeem its notes only in larger sums, for gold bars and foreign exchange, not for gold coins. Then it will not be possible to eliminate all notes from circulation. In the beginning a larger amount [of foreign currencies and metallic money] may even be withdrawn from the Bank and hoarded. However, as soon as some confidence in the reliability of the new money develops, the hoards of foreign moneys and gold accumulated will flow into the Bank.

德国央行必须放弃一切将利率降低到反映资本市场实际供求关系以下的尝试，从而鼓励只能通过增加纸币数量来满足的贷款需求。货币改革的这一先决条件将招致商界天真的通货膨胀主义者的批评。随着未来几年为德国经济提供信贷的难度增加，这些批评将会增加。在商人看来，发行央行的作用是提供廉价信贷。这位商人认为，银行不应该拒绝向那些想要额外信贷的人提供新发行的纸币。几十年来，英国银行学派理论家的错误在德国盛行。本迪克森最近通过他的易读性使它们变得流行 古典主义理论.[27][显然弗里德里希·本迪克森（Friedrich Bendixen，1864-1920）的作品没有英文翻译。——编者。]

People keep forgetting that the increase in the cost of credit—which has become known by the very misleading term, “scarcity of money”—cannot be overcome in the long run by inflationist measures. They also forget that the interest rate cannot be reduced in the long run by credit expansion. The expansion of credit always leads to higher commodity prices and quotations for foreign exchange and foreign moneys.

1. The Ideological Conflict

现在用来解释所有事件的纯粹唯物主义学说将货币贬值视为由某些“物质”原因引起的现象。人们试图通过各种货币技术来抵消这些想象的原因。人们或许有意地忽视了货币贬值的根源本质上是意识形态。导致货币贬值的始终是通货膨胀政策，而不是“经济状况”。邪恶本质上是哲学性的。今天人们普遍谴责的这种状况，是由于对货币本质的误解和对货币贬值后果的错误判断造成的。

Inflationism, however, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is only one piece in the total framework of politico-economic and socio-philosophical ideas of our time. Just as the sound money policy of gold standard advocates went hand in hand with liberalism, free trade, capitalism and peace, so is inflationism part and parcel of imperialism, militarism, protectionism, statism and socialism.[28][在米塞斯后来的著作中，除了“社会主义”之外，米塞斯用“干预主义”或“阻碍市场”等术语涵盖了所有这些思想。——编者注。] 正如1914年以来席卷人类的世界灾难不是自然现象，而是主导我们这个时代的思想的必然结果一样，货币危机也只不过是某些关于货币的意识形态至上的必然结果。政策。

Statist Theory has tried to explain every social phenomenon by the operation of mysterious power factors. It has disputed the possibility that economic laws for the formation of prices could be demonstrated. Failing to recognize the significance of commodity prices for the development of exchange relationships among various moneys, it has tried to distinguish between the domestic and foreign values of money. It has tried to attribute changes in exchange rates to various causes—the balance of payments, speculative activity, and political factors. Ignoring completely the Currency Theory’s important criticism of the Banking Theory, Statist Theory has actually prescribed the Banking Theory. It has moreover even revived the doctrine of the canonists and of the legal authorities of the Middle Ages to the effect that money is a creature of the government and the legal order. Thus, Statist Theory prepared the philosophical groundwork from which the inflationism of recent years developed.

The belief that a sound monetary system can once again be attained without making substantial changes in economic policy is a serious error. What is needed first and foremost is to renounce all inflationist fallacies. This renunciation cannot last, however, if it is not firmly grounded on a full and complete divorce of ideology from all imperialist, militarist, protectionist, statist, and socialist ideas.

印刷机在创造进行战争的手段方面发挥了重要作用。[29]Originally published as “Zahlungsbilanz und Devisenkurse” in Mitteilungen des Verbandes Oesterreichischer Banken und Bankiers 2、编号。 3-4（1919）。此翻译摘录约占原始文章的三分之一。 Every belligerent nation and many neutral ones used it. With the cessation of hostilities, however, no halt was called to the money-creating activities of the banks of issue. Previously, notes were printed to finance the war. Today, notes are still being printed, at least in some countries, to satisfy domestic demands of various kinds. The entire world is under the sway of inflation. The prices of all goods and services rise from day to day and no one can say when these increases will come to an end.

Inflation today is a general phenomenon, but its magnitude is not the same in every country. The increase in the quantity of money in the different currency areas is neither equal statistically—an equality which, given the different demands for money in the different areas, would be 明显的 只是，并非所有领域的增长都与货币需求的比率相同。因此，就货币方面的变化引起的价格上涨而言，各地的情况并不相同。 ……

Price increases, which are called into existence by an increase in the quantity of money, do not appear overnight. A certain amount of time passes before they appear. The additional quantity of money enters the economy at a certain point. It is only from there, step by step, that it is dispersed. It goes first to certain individuals in the economy only and to certain branches of production. As a result, in the beginning it raises the demand for certain goods and services only, not for all of them. Only later do the prices of other goods and services also rise. Foreign exchange quotations, however, are speculative rates of exchange—that is, they arise out of the transactions of business people, who, in their operations, consider not only the present but also potential future developments. Thus, the depreciation of the money becomes apparent relatively soon in the foreign exchange quotations on the Bourse—long before the prices of other goods and services are affected. …

Now, there is one theory which seeks to explain the formation of foreign exchange rates by the balance of payments, rather than by a currency’s purchasing power. This theory makes a distinction in the depreciation of the money between the decline in the currency’s value on international markets and the reduction in its purchasing power domestically. It maintains that there is only a very slight connection between the two or, as many say, no connection at all. The exchange rate of foreign currencies is a result of the momentary balance of payments. If the payments going abroad rise without a corresponding increase in the payments coming into the country, or if the payments coming from abroad should decline without a corresponding reduction of the payments going out of the country, then foreign exchange rates must rise.

我们不去猜测为什么这样的理论能够被提出。外币汇率的变化与货币单位的国内购买力的变化之间通常存在或更短或更长的时间滞后。因此，肤浅的观察很容易得出两个数据相互独立的结论。我们还听说，国际收支平衡是汇率每日波动的直接原因。只讲表面现象，不深入分析实际情况的理论，很容易忽视这样一个事实：（一）由国际收支决定的日常外汇供求比例只能引起暂时的变化。从各种货币的购买力形成的“静态”汇率来看，（b）这些偏差必须迅速消失，（c）对贸易的限制越少，投机越自由，这些偏差就会消失得更快、更彻底。是。

当然，没有任何理由进一步检验这个理论。已经科学解决了。它在经济政策中发挥着重要作用，这一事实可能是调查其在政府官员和作家中无疑受欢迎的政治基础的一个原因。这仍然可以留给其他人。

However, we must concern ourselves with a new variety of this balance of payments doctrine which originated with the war. People say it may be generally true that the purchasing power of the money, rather than the balance of payments, determines the exchange rate of foreign currencies. But now, in view of the reduction of trade brought about by the war, this is not the case. Since trade is hampered, the process which would restore the disrupted “static” exchange ratios among foreign currencies is held in check. As a result, therefore, the balance of payments becomes decisive for the exchange rates of foreign currencies.[30]For the sake of completeness only, it should be mentioned that the adherents of this theory attribute domestic price increases, not to the inflation, but to the shortage of goods exclusively. 如果希望提高外汇汇率，或者防止其进一步下降，就必须努力建立有利的国际收支平衡。 ……

The basic fallacy in this theory is that it completely ignores the fact that the height of imports and exports depends primarily on prices. Neither imports nor exports are undertaken out of caprice or just for fun. They are undertaken to carry on a profitable trade, that is to earn money from the differences in prices on either side. Thus imports or exports are carried on until price differences disappear. …

The balance of payments doctrine of foreign exchange rates completely overlooks the meaning of prices for the international movement of goods. It proceeds erroneously from the act of payment, instead of from the business transaction itself. That is a result of the pseudo-legal monetary theory—a theory which has brought the most cruel consequences to German science—the theory which looks on money as a means of payment only, and not as a general medium of exchange.

当决定进行商业交易时，商家不会忽视获取必要外币的成本，直到付款实际到期为止。这样做的商人不会长久地成为商人。商人在计算时非常重视外币比率，因为他总是关注售价。此外，无论他是对冲未来汇率的变化，还是他自己承担外币价值变动的风险，他都会考虑预期的外汇波动。同样的情况也存在 比照 with reference to tourist traffic and international freight. …

It is easy to recognize that we find here only a new form of the old favorable and unfavorable balance of trade theory championed by the Mercantilist School of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. That was before the widespread use of banknotes and other bank currency. The fear was then expressed that a country with an unfavorable balance of trade could lose its entire supply of the precious metals to other lands. Therefore, it was held that by encouraging exports and limiting imports so far as possible, a country could take precautions to prevent this from happening. Later, the idea developed that the trade balance alone was not decisive, that it was only 一种 创造国际收支平衡的因素，并且必须考虑整个国际收支平衡。结果，该理论经历了部分重组。然而，它的基本原则——即当一个政府不控制其对外贸易关系时，其所有贵金属都可能流向国外——一直持续到最后输给了对古典经济学的严厉批评。

The balance of payments of a country is nothing but the sum of the balances of payments of all its individual enterprises. The essence of every balance is that the debit and credit sides are equal. If one compares the credit entries and the debit entries of an enterprise the two totals must be in balance. The situation can be no different in the case of the balance of payments of an entire country. Then too, the totals must always be in balance. This equilibrium, that must necessarily prevail because goods are exchanged—not given away—in economic trading, is not brought about by undertaking all exports and imports first, without considering the means of payment, and then only later adjusting the balance in money. Rather, money occupies precisely the same position in undertaking a transaction as do the other commodities being exchanged. Money may even be the usual reason for making exchanges.

在商品交易即货币交易的社会中，每个个体企业都必须时刻注意手头有一定数量的货币。它不得允许其现金持有量低于进行交易所需的确定金额。另一方面，企业不会允许其现金持有量超过必要的数量，因为闲置该数量的现金会导致利息损失。如果资金太少，就必须减少采购或出售一些商品。如果它有太多钱，那么它就必须购买商品。

For our purposes here, it is immaterial whether the enterprise buys producers’ or consumers’ goods. In this way, every individual sees to it that he is not without money. Because everyone pursues his own interest in doing this, it is impossible for the free play of market forces to cause a drain of all money out of a city, a province or an entire country. The government need not concern itself with this problem any more than does the city of Vienna with the loss of its monetary stock to the surrounding countryside. Nor—assuming a precious metals standard (the purely metallic currency of the English Currency School)—need government concern itself with the possibility that the entire country’s stock of precious metals will flow out.

If we had a pure gold standard, therefore, the government need not be in the least concerned about the balance of payments. It could safely relinquish to the market the responsibility for maintaining a sufficient quantity of gold within the country. Under the influence of free trade forces, precious metals would leave the country only if a surplus was on hand and they would always flow in if too little was available, in the same way that all other commodities are imported if in short supply and exported if in surplus. Thus, we see that gold is constantly moving from large-scale gold producing countries to those in which the demand for gold exceeds the quantity mined—without the need for any government action to bring this about[31]See Hertzka, Das Wesen des Geldes (Leipzig, 1887), pp. 44ff.; Wieser, “Der Geldwert und seine Veränderungen,” 法国社会日报 132 (Leipzig, 1910): 530ff.。 ......

然而，有人可能会问，历史上不是有很多金属货币（黄金和白银）流向国外的国家的例子吗？德国市场上的金币不是最近就消失了吗？银币不是在奥地利本土消失了吗？这个证据难道不是与贸易自发维持货币存量的主张截然矛盾吗？这不正是国家需要干预国际收支的证据吗？

然而，这些事实与我们的说法丝毫不矛盾。钱不会流出，因为国际收支不利，而且国家没有干预。相反，资金流出正是因为国家干预，而干预引发了著名的格雷欣法则所描述的现象。政府本身所采取的措施已经毁掉了货币。然后政府试图通过其他措施恢复被其破坏的货币，但徒劳无功。

金币从贸易中消失是因为国家在合法购买力方面将价值较低的货币与价值较高的货币等同起来。如果政府在贸易中引入一定数量的不可兑换纸币或政府纸币，那么这必定会导致货币贬值。货币单位的价值下降。然而，这种价值贬值只会影响不可兑换票据。金币在国际上保留了全部或几乎全部价值。然而，由于国家有权使用法律的力量，宣布较低价值的纸币与较高价值的金币具有相同的购买力，并禁止金币以高于纸币的价格进行交易。 ，金币必须从市场上消失。他们可能会消失在国外。它们可以被熔化用于国内工业。或者它们可能被囤积起来。这就是阿里斯托芬很久以前观察到的良币被劣币驱逐的现象，我们称之为格雷欣法则。

不需要特殊的政府干预来保持贵金属在一个国家内的流通。国家放弃一切通过印钞来缓解财政困境的尝试就足够了。为了维护货币的安全，只需要做这些就可以了。它需要做 仅由 来实现这个目标。一切命令和禁令、一切限制外汇交易的措施等等，都是完全没有用的、没有目的的。

If we had a pure gold standard, measures to prevent a gold outflow from the country due to an unfavorable balance of payments would be completely superfluous. He who has no money to buy abroad, because he has neither exported goods nor performed services abroad, will be able to buy abroad only if foreigners give him credit. However, his foreign purchases then will in no way disturb the stability of the domestic currency.

I. THE PROBLEM

1. “Stable Value” Money

Gold and silver had already served mankind for thousands of years as generally accepted media of exchange—that is, as money—before there was any clear idea of the formation of the exchange relationship between these metals and consumers’ goods, i.e., before there was an understanding as to how money prices for goods and services are formed. At best, some attention was given to fluctuations in the mutual exchange relationships of the two precious metals. But so little understanding was achieved that men clung, without hesitation, to the naïve belief that the precious metals were “stable in value” and hence a useful measure of the value of goods and prices. Only much later did the recognition come that supply and demand determine the exchange relationship between money, on the one hand, and consumers’ goods and services, on the other. With this realization, the first versions of the Quantity Theory, still somewhat imperfect and vulnerable, were formulated. It was known that violent changes in the volume of production of the monetary metals led to all-round shifts in money prices. When “paper money” was used along side “hard money,” this connection was still easier to see. The consequences of a tremendous paper inflation could not be mistaken.

From this insight, the doctrine of monetary policy emerged that the issue of “paper money” should be avoided completely. However, before long other authors made still further stipulations. They called the attention of politicians and businessmen to the fluctuations in the purchasing power of the precious metals and proposed that the substance of monetary claims be made independent of these variations. Side by side with money as the standard of deferred payments,[3][In the German text Mises uses the English term, “Standard of deferred payments,” commenting in a footnote: “Standard of deferred payments is ‘Zahlungsmittel’ in German. Unfortunately this German expression must be avoided nowadays. Its meaning has been so compromised through its use by Nominalists and Chartists that it brings to mind the recently exploded errors of the state theory of money.” See above for comments on “state theory of money,” p. 12, n. 9, and “chartism,” p. 20, n. 15.—Ed.] or in place of it, there should be a tabular, index, or multiple commodity standard. Cash transactions, in which the terms of both sides of the contract are fulfilled simultaneously, would not be altered. However, a new procedure would be introduced for credit transactions. Such transactions would not be completed in the sum of money indicated in the contract. Instead, either by means of a universally compulsory legal regulation or else by specific agreement of the two parties concerned, they would be fulfilled by a sum with the purchasing power deemed to correspond to that of the original sum at the time the contract was made. The intent of this proposal was to prevent one party to a contract from being hurt to the other’s advantage. These proposals were made more than one hundred years ago by Joseph Lowe (1822) and repeated shortly thereafter by G. Poulett Scrope (1833).[4]威廉·斯坦利·杰文斯， 货币与交换机制, 13th ed. (London, 1902), pp. 328ff. 从那时起，它们一再出现，但没有任何人尝试将它们付诸实践。

2. Recent Proposals

One of the proposals, for a multiple commodity standard, was intended simply to supplement the precious metals standard. Putting it into practice would have left metallic money as a universally acceptable medium of exchange for all transactions not involving deferred monetary payments. (For the sake of simplicity in the discussion that follows, when referring to metallic money we shall speak only of gold.) Side by side with gold as the universally acceptable medium of exchange, the index or multiple commodity standard would appear as a standard of deferred payments.

Proposals have been made in recent years, however, which go still farther. These would introduce a “tabular,” or “multiple commodity,” standard for 所有 exchanges when one commodity is not exchanged directly for another. This is essentially Keynes’s proposal. Keynes wants to oust gold from its position as money. He wants gold to be replaced by a paper standard, at least for trade within a country’s borders. The government, or the authority entrusted by the government with the management of monetary policy, should regulate the quantity in circulation so that the purchasing power of the monetary unit would remain unchanged.[5]约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）， 货币改革的动向 （伦敦，1923 年；纽约，1924 年），第 177 页。

The American, Irving Fisher, wants to create a standard under which the paper dollar in circulation would be redeemable, not in a previously specified weight of gold, but in a weight of gold which has the same purchasing power the dollar had at the moment of the transition to the new currency system. The dollar would then cease to represent a fixed amount of gold with changing purchasing power and would become a changing amount of gold supposedly with unchanging purchasing power. It was Fisher’s idea that the amount of gold which would correspond to a dollar should be determined anew from month to month, according to variations detected by the index number.[6]欧文·费舍尔 稳定美元 （1925年，纽约），第79页。 Thus, in the view of both these reformers, in place of monetary gold, the value of which is independent of the influence of government, a standard should be adopted which the government “manipulates” in an attempt to hold the purchasing power of the monetary unit stable.

然而，尽管这些建议经过了认真考虑，但尚未在任何地方付诸实施。在美国，也许没有其他经济问题像稳定货币单位的购买力一样受到如此热烈、如此充满精神和创造力的辩论。众议院议员已经详细讨论了这个问题。许多科学著作都与它有关。杂志和日报为此发表了长篇文章和文章，而重要的组织则试图影响公众舆论以支持实施费舍尔的想法。

二.黄金标准

1. The Demand for Money

金本位制下，货币单位的价值形成不是 直接 subject to the action of the government. The production of gold is free and responds only to the opportunity for profit. All gold not introduced into trade for consumption or for some other purpose flows into the economy as money, either as coins in circulation or as bars or coins in bank reserves. Should the increase in the quantity of money exceed the increase in the demand for money, then the purchasing power of the monetary unit must fall. Likewise, if the increase in the quantity of money lags behind the increase in the demand for money, the purchasing power of the monetary unit will rise.[7][This is not the place to examine further the theory of the formation of the purchasing power of the monetary unit. In this connection, see 货币与信用理论； 1953, pp. 97–165; 1980, pp. 117–85.—Ed.]

There is no doubt about the fact that, in the last generation, the purchasing power of gold has declined. Yet earlier, during the two decades following the German monetary reform and the great economic crisis of 1873, there was widespread complaint over the decline of commodity prices. Governments consulted experts for advice on how to eliminate this generally prevailing “evil.” Powerful political parties recommended measures for pushing prices up by increasing the quantity of money. In place of the gold standard, they advocated the silver standard, the double standard [bimetallism] or even a paper standard, for they considered the annual production of gold too small to meet the growing demand for money without increasing the purchasing power of the monetary unit. However, these complaints died out in the last five years of the nineteenth century, and soon men everywhere began to grumble about the opposite situation, i.e., the increasing cost of living. Just as they had proposed monetary reforms in the 1880s and 1890s to counteract the 下降 in prices, they 现在suggested measures to stop prices from rising.

以黄金计价的所有商品和服务价格的普遍上涨是由于黄金生产状况和对黄金的需求，无论是用作货币还是其他用途。关于黄金的生产及其对黄金与其他商品价值比率的影响，几乎没有什么可说的。显然，黄金供应量的小幅增长可能抵消了黄金的贬值。关于黄金的工业用途也无需特别说明。但涉及的第三个因素，即黄金作为货币的需求产生方式，却是另一回事了。应该非常仔细地关注这个问题，特别是因为习惯分析极其不公平地忽视了对黄金的货币需求。

During the period for which we are considering the development of the purchasing power of gold, various parts of the world, which formerly used silver or credit money (“paper money”) domestically, have changed over to the gold standard. Everywhere, the volume of money transactions has increased considerably. The division of labor has made great progress. Economic self-sufficiency and barter have declined. Monetary exchanges now play a role in phases of economic life where earlier they were completely unknown. The result has been a decided increase in the demand for money. There is no point in asking whether this increase in the demand for cash holdings by individuals, together with the demand for gold for nonmonetary uses, was sufficient to counteract the effect on prices of the new gold flowing into the market from production. Statistics on the height and fluctuations of cash holdings are not available. Even if they could be known, they would tell us little because the changes in prices do not correspond with changes in the relationship between supply and demand for cash holdings. Of greater importance, however, is the observation that the increase in the demand for money is not the same thing as an increase in the demand for gold for monetary purposes.

As far as the individual’s cash holding is concerned, claims payable in money, which may be redeemed at any time and are universally considered safe, perform the service of money. These money substitutes—small coins, banknotes and bank deposits subject to check or similar payment on demand (checking accounts)—may be used just like money itself for the settlement of all transactions. Only a part of these money substitutes, however, is fully covered by stocks of gold on deposit in the banks’ reserves. In the decades of which we speak, the use of money substitutes has increased considerably more than has the rise in the demand for money and, at the same time, its reserve ratio has worsened. As a result, in spite of an appreciable increase in the demand for money, the demand for gold has not risen enough for the market to absorb the new quantities of gold flowing from production without lowering its purchasing power.

2. Economizing on Money

If one complains of the decline in the purchasing power of gold today, and contemplates the creation of a monetary unit whose purchasing power shall be more constant than that of gold in recent decades, it should not be forgotten that the principal cause of the decline in the value of gold during this period is to be found in monetary policy and not in gold production itself. Money substitutes not covered by gold, which we call fiduciary media, occupy a relatively more important position today in the world’s total quantity of money[8]“广义货币”的数量等于货币本身的数量（即商品货币）加上信托媒介的数量（即纸币、无金属支持的银行存款和附属硬币）。 than in earlier years. But this is not a development which would have taken place without the cooperation, or even without the express support, of governmental monetary policies. As a matter of fact, it was monetary policy itself which was deliberately aimed at a “saving” of gold and, which created, thereby, the conditions that led inevitably to the depreciation of gold.

The fact that we use as money a commodity like gold, which is produced only with a considerable expenditure of capital and labor, saddles mankind with certain costs. If the amount of capital and labor spent for the production of monetary gold could be released and used in other ways, people could be better supplied with goods for their immediate needs. There is no doubt about that! However, it should be noted that, in return for this expenditure, we receive the advantage of having available, for settling transactions, a money with a relatively steady value and, what is more important, the value of which is not directly influenced by governments and political parties. However, it is easy to understand why men began to ponder the possibility of creating a monetary system that would combine all the advantages offered by the gold standard with the added virtue of lower costs.

Adam Smith drew a parallel between the gold and silver which circulated in a land as money and a highway on which nothing grew, but over which fodder and grain were brought to market. The substitution of notes for the precious metals would create, so to speak, a “wagon-way through the air,” making it possible to convert a large part of the roads into fields and pastures and, thus, to increase considerably the yearly output of the economy. Then in 1816, Ricardo devised his famous plan for a gold exchange standard. According to his proposal, England should retain the gold standard, which had proved its value in every respect. However, gold coins should be replaced in domestic trade by banknotes, and these notes should be redeemable, not in gold coins, but in bullion only. Thus the notes would be assured of a value equivalent to that of gold and the country would have the advantage of possessing a monetary standard with all the attributes of the gold standard but at a lower cost.

李嘉图的建议几十年后才付诸实施。事实上，他们甚至被遗忘了。尽管如此，金汇兑本位制在 1890 年代被许多国家采用——一开始通常只是作为临时权宜之计，无意将货币政策引向新的方向。今天，它是如此普遍，以至于我们完全有理由将其描述为“我们时代的货币标准”。[9]弗里茨·麦克鲁普（Fritz Machlup）， Die Goldkernwährung (Halberstadt, 1925), p. xi. However, in a majority, or at least in quite a number of these countries, the gold exchange standard has undergone a development which entitles it to be spoken of rather as a flexible gold exchange standard.[10][A monetary standard based on a unit with a flexible gold parity; 黄金设计中心，字面意思是一种基于可兑换为外币单位的标准，实际上是“灵活的黄金兑换标准”。在后来的著作中，米塞斯教授将其缩写为“灵活标准”，此后的翻译中将使用该术语。看 人类行为 (1949; 3rd rev. ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966); Scholar’s Edition (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1998), chapter XXXI, section 3.—Ed.]根据李嘉图的计划，储蓄不仅可以通过避免铸币成本和硬币在使用中磨损而造成的损失来实现，而且还因为流通所需的黄金数量和银行储备将低于“纯”金本位。

显然，在一个国家实施这一计划必须， 鸡翅鹦鹉，降低黄金的购买力。而且该制度采用得越广泛，黄金的购买力必然下降得越多。如果一个国家采用金汇兑本位制，而其他国家则维持“纯”金本位制，那么金汇兑本位国就能比其他地区的成本获得立竿见影的优势。在金汇本位下，与“纯”金本位下所需的黄金相比，黄金是盈余的，可以在国外购买其他商品。这些额外的商品代表了由于引入金汇兑本位制而导致的国家福利的改善。金汇兑本位制为该国提供了金本位制的所有服务，并以商品增加的形式带来了额外的优势。

However, should every country in the world shift at the same time from the “pure” gold standard to a similar gold exchange standard, no gain of this kind would be possible. The distribution of gold throughout the world would remain unchanged. There would be no country where one could exchange a quantity of gold, made superfluous by the adoption of the new monetary system, for other goods. Embracing the new standard would result only in a universally more severe reduction in the purchasing power of gold. This monetary depreciation, like every change in the value of money, would bring about dislocations in the relationships of wealth and income of the various individuals in the economy. As a result, it could also lead indirectly, under certain circumstances, to an increase in capital accumulation. However, this indirect method will make the world richer only insofar as (1) the demand for gold for other uses (industrial and similar purposes) can be better satisfied and (2) a decline in profitability leads to a restriction of gold production and so releases capital and labor for other purposes.

3. Interest on “idle” Reserves

In addition to these attempts toward “economy” in the operation of the gold standard, by reducing the domestic demand for gold, other efforts have also aimed at the same objective. Holding gold reserves is costly to the banks of issue because of the loss of interest. Consequently, it was but a short step to the reduction of these costs by permitting noninterest-bearing gold reserves in bank vaults to be replaced by interest-bearing credit balances abroad, payable in gold on demand, and by bills of exchange payable in gold. Assets of this type enable the banks of issue to satisfy demands for gold in foreign trade just as the possession of a stock of gold coins and bars would. As a matter of fact, the dealer in arbitrage who presents notes for redemption will prefer payment in the form of checks, and bills of exchange—foreign financial paper—to redemption in gold because the costs of shipping foreign financial papers are lower than those for the transport of gold. The banks of smaller and poorer lands especially converted a part of their reserves into foreign bills of exchange. The inducement was particularly strong in countries on the gold exchange standard, where the banks did not have to consider a demand for gold for use in domestic circulation. In this way, the gold exchange standard [Goldkernwährung] became the flexible gold exchange standard [黄金设计中心], i.e., the flexible standard.

Nevertheless, the goal of this policy was not only to reduce the costs involved in the maintenance and circulation of an actual stock of gold. In many countries, including Germany and Austria, this was thought to be a way to reduce the rate of interest. The influence of the Currency Theory had led, decades earlier, to banking legislation intended to avoid the consequences of a paper money inflation. These laws, limiting the issue of banknotes not covered by gold, were still in force. Reared in the Historical-Realistic School of economic thinking, the new generation, insofar as it dealt with these problems, was under the spell of the Banking Theory, and thus no longer understood the meaning of these laws.

Lack of originality prevented the new generation from embarking upon any startling reversal in policy. In line with currently prevailing opinion, it abolished the limitation on the issue of banknotes not covered by metal. The old laws were allowed to stay on the books essentially unchanged. However, various attempts were made to reduce their effect. The most noteworthy of these measures was to encourage, systematically and purposefully, the settlement of transactions without the use of cash. By supplanting cash transactions with checks and other transfer payments, it was expected not only that there would be a reduction in the demand for banknotes but also a flow of gold coins back to the bank and, consequently, a strengthening of the bank’s cash position. As German, and also Austrian, banking legislation prescribed a certain percentage of gold cover for notes issued, gold flowing back to the bank meant that more notes could be issued—up to three times their gold value in Germany and two and a half times in Austria. During recent decades, the banking theory has been characterized by a belief that this should result in a reduction in the rate of interest.

4. 黄金仍然有钱

如果我们简单地看一下近年来货币和银行政策的努力，就会发现黄金贬值在很大程度上可能归因于政治措施。黄金购买力的下降以及所有商品和服务的金价持续上涨并不是自然现象。它们是经济政策的后果，经济政策的目标当然是其他目标，但也必然导致这些结果。正如已经提到的，永远无法对这些问题进行准确的定量观察。然而，很明显，黄金产量的增加肯定不是1896年以来出现的黄金贬值的原因，或者至少不是唯一的原因。政策旨在取代实际流通中的黄金，其目的是以金汇兑本位制和灵活本位制取代旧的“纯”金本位制，迫使金价下跌，或者至少有助于压低金价。也许，如果不遵循这一政策，我们今天会听到有关黄金价值上涨而不是贬值的抱怨。

Gold has not been demonetized by the new monetary policy, as silver was a short time ago, for it remains the basis of our entire monetary system. Gold is still, as it was formerly, our money. There is no basis for saying that it has been de-throned, as suggested by scatterbrained innovators of catchwords and slogans who want to cure the world of the “money illusion.” Nevertheless, gold has been removed from actual use in transactions by the public at large. It has disappeared from view and has been concentrated in bank vaults and monetary reserves. Gold has been taken out of common use and this must necessarily tend to lower its value.

用近年来物价普遍上涨来说明金本位制的不足是错误的。这并不是英国和德国金本位倡导者所推荐的旧式金本位制，它给我们带来了近年来导致物价上涨的货币体系。相反，这些价格上涨是货币和银行政策的结果，这些政策允许“纯”或“古典”金本位被黄金交易所和灵活的标准所取代，只留下纸币和小额硬币在流通，并将黄金库存集中在银行和货币储备。

III. THE “MANIPULATION OF THE GOLD STANDARD”

1. Monetary Policy and Purchasing Power of Gold

Most important for the old, “pure,” or classical gold standard, as originally formulated in England and later, after the formation of the Empire, adopted in Germany, was the fact that it made the formation of prices independent of political influence and the shifting views which sway political action. This feature especially recommended the gold standard to liberals[11]I employ the term “liberal” in the sense attached to it everywhere in the nineteenth century and still today in the countries of continental Europe. This usage is imperative because there is simply no other term available to signify the political and intellectual movement that substituted free enterprise and the market economy for the precapitalistic methods of production; constitutional representative government from the absolutism of kings or oligarchies; and freedom of all individuals from slavery, serfdom, and other forms of bondage. (“Foreword to the Third Edition,” 人类行为 [康涅狄格州纽黑文：耶鲁大学出版社，1963 年]，第 XNUMX 页。五） who feared that economic productivity might be impaired as a result of the tendency of governments to favor certain groups of persons at the expense of others.

However, it should certainly not be forgotten that under the “pure” gold standard governmental measures may also have a significant influence on the formation of the value of gold. In the first place, governmental actions determine whether to adopt the gold standard, abandon it, or return to it. However, the effect of these governmental actions, which we need not consider any further here, is conceived as very different from those described by the various “state theories of money”—theories which, now at long last, are generally recognized as absurd. The continual displacement of the silver standard by the gold standard and the shift in some countries from credit money to gold added to the demand for monetary gold in the years before the World War [1914–1918]. War measures resulted in monetary policies that led the belligerent nations, as well as some neutral states, to release large parts of their gold reserves, thus releasing more gold for world markets. Every political act in this area, insofar as it affects the demand for, and the quantity of, gold as money, represents a “manipulation” of the gold standard and affects all countries adhering to the gold standard.

正如“纯”黄金、黄金交易所和灵活本位制在原则上没有区别，只是货币替代品在流通中实际使用的程度不同，因此它们对操纵的敏感性没有根本区别。 “纯”金本位受到货币措施的影响——一方面，货币政策可能影响政治领域对金本位的接受或拒绝，另一方面，货币政策虽然原则上仍然坚持金本位，但可能会通过实际黄金流通量的增加或减少，或者纸币和支票账户准备金要求的变化，带来黄金需求的变化。货币政策对黄金价值（即购买力）形成的影响也仅限于此，在黄金交易所和灵活的标准下不会再进一步​​。同样，政府和负责货币政策的机构可以通过改变货币政策的进程来影响黄金价值的形成。这种影响的程度取决于各国黄金需求相对于世界黄金总需求的增加或减少的幅度。

如果旧的“纯”金本位制的拥护者谈到黄金的价值不受政府影响，那么他们的意思是，一旦金本位制在各地得到采用（而十九世纪最后三十年的金本位制拥护者并没有哪怕有一点点怀疑，这很快就会实现，因为金本位制已经几乎被普遍接受），任何进一步的政治行动都不会影响货币价值的形成。对于黄金交易所和灵活的标准来说同样如此。如果说黄金的价值将受到美国联邦储备委员会政策变化的显着影响，例如恢复黄金流通或欧洲国家保留更多黄金储备。从这个意义上说，在当今的经济条件下，所有货币标准都可能被“操纵”。金本位制的优势——无论是“纯粹的”还是“黄金交换的”——仅仅是因为，一旦以一定的形式普遍采用并遵守，它就不再受到特定的政治干预。

战争和战后的货币政策行动从根本上改变了全世界的货币状况。各个国家现在正在[1928]一一恢复金本位，这一过程很可能很快就会完成。现在，这就引出了第二个问题：当今普遍流行的交换标准是否应该保留？或者是否应该再次回到“纯”金本位下，像以前一样在中等规模的交易中实际使用黄金？另外，如果决定继续采用兑换本位制，储备实际上应该以黄金形式维持吗？以及在什么高度？或者个别国家会对以黄金支付的外汇储备感到满意吗？ （显然，灵活标准不可能完全普及。至少一个国家必须继续将其储备投资于真实黄金，即使它在实际流通中不使用黄金。）前提是每个国家在某一特定时刻普遍存在的事态维持单一区域，而且只有保持现状，当然包括银行准备金比例，才能说金本位不能以上述方式被操纵。如果这些问题的处理方式能够显着改变货币目的对黄金的需求，那么黄金的购买力也必然发生相应的变化。

To repeat for the sake of clarity, this represents no essential disagreement with the advocates of the gold standard as to what they considered its special superiority. Changes in the monetary system of any large and wealthy land will necessarily influence substantially the creation of monetary value. Once these changes have been carried out and have worked their effect on the purchasing power of gold, the value of money will necessarily be affected again by a return to the previous monetary system. However, this detracts in no way from the truth of the statement that the creation of value under the gold standard is independent of politics, so long as no essential changes are made in its structure, nor in the size of the area where it prevails.

2. Changes in Purchasing Power of Gold

欧文·费舍尔（Irving Fisher）以及许多其他人批评金本位制，因为自 1896 年以来，尤其是自 1914 年以来，黄金的购买力大幅下降。为了避免误解，应该指出的是，黄金购买力的下降必须追溯到货币政策——货币政策通过1896年至1914年间采取的措施促进黄金购买力的下降，以“节约”黄金，并且自1914年以来，通过拒绝黄金作为许多国家的货币基础国家。如果其他人谴责金本位制是因为黄金即将恢复实际使用流通以及汇兑本位制国家黄金储备的加强会带来黄金购买力的增加，那么很明显我们正在处理货币政策政治变化的后果改变了金本位的结构。

黄金的购买力并不稳定。需要指出的是，“稳定”的购买力并不存在，也不可能存在。 “稳定价值”的概念是模糊且模糊的。严格来说，只有处于最终静止状态（所有价格保持不变）的经济体才能拥有具有固定购买力的货币。然而，无可争议的事实是，金本位制一旦被普遍采用和坚持而不改变，就会使黄金购买力的形成独立于政治努力转变的运作。

As gold is obtained only from a few sources, which sooner or later will be exhausted, the fear is repeatedly expressed that there may someday be a scarcity of gold and, as a consequence, a continuing decline in commodity prices. Such fears became especially great in the late 1870s and the 1880s. Then they quieted down. Only in recent years have they been revived again. Calculations are made indicating that the placers and mines currently being worked will be exhausted within the foreseeable future. No prospects are seen that any new rich sources of gold will be opened up. Should the demand for money increase in the future, to the same extent as it has in the recent past, then a general price drop appears inevitable, if we remain on the gold standard.[12]古斯塔夫·卡塞尔, Währungsstabilisierung als Weltproblem （莱比锡，1928年），第12页。 XNUMX

Now one must be very cautious with forecasts of this kind. A half century ago, Eduard Suess, the geologist, claimed—and he sought to establish this scientifically—that an unavoidable decline in gold production should be expected.[13][Eduard Suess（1831-1914）用德语（1877）发表了一篇关于“黄金的未来”的研究。——编者。] Facts very soon proved him wrong. And it may be that those who express similar ideas today will also be refuted just as quickly and just as thoroughly. Still we must agree that they are right in the final analysis, that prices are tending to fall [1928] and that all the social consequences of an increase in purchasing power are making their appearance. What may be ventured, given the circumstances, in order to change the economic pessimism, will be discussed at the end of the second part of this study.

IV. “MEASURING” CHANGES IN THE PURCHASING POWER OF THE MONETARY UNIT

1. 想象的结构

All proposals to replace the commodity money, gold, with a money thought to be better, because it is more “stable” in value, are based on the vague idea that changes in purchasing power can somehow be measured. Only by starting from such an assumption is it possible to conceive of a monetary unit with unchanging purchasing power as the ideal and to consider seeking ways to reach this goal. These proposals, vague and basically contradictory, are derived from the old, long since exploded, objective theory of value. Yet they are not even completely consistent with that theory. They now appear very much out of place in the company of modern, subjective economics.

The prestige which they still enjoy can be explained only by the fact that, until very recently, studies in subjective economics have been restricted to the theory of direct exchange (barter). Only lately have such studies been expanded to include also the theory of intermediate (indirect) exchange, i.e., the theory of a generally accepted medium of exchange (monetary theory) and the theory of fiduciary media (banking theory) with all their relevant problems.[14][货币信贷理论， 1953 年，第 116 页； 1980 年，第 138 页——编者注] 现在确实是时候彻底揭露购买力可衡量这一基本概念的错误和缺陷了。

市场上的兑换比率不断变化。如果我们想象一个不使用普遍接受的交换媒介（即不使用货币）的市场，那么很容易认识到试图衡量交换比率发生的变化的想法是多么荒谬。只有当我们诉诸货币以外的所有商品之间完全固定的交换比率的虚构，然后将这些其他商品与货币进行比较时，我们才能设想货币与其他每种交换商品之间的交换关系均匀变化。只有这样，才能说所有商品的货币价格统一涨跌，才能说“价格水平”统一涨跌。尽管如此，我们绝不能忘记这个概念纯粹是虚构的，维辛格称之为“仿佛”。[15]Hans Vaihinger (1852–1933), author of The Philosophy of As If （德文，1911 年；英文翻译，1924 年）。 它是一种经过深思熟虑的想象建构，对于科学思维来说是不可或缺的。

如果我们不是用市场的客观交换价值，而是用行动个体的主观交换价值来表达的话，也许这种想象的构建的必要性会变得更加清晰。为此，我们必须想象一个具有不变价值观的不变的人。这样的人可以从他不变的价值尺度中决定金钱的购买力。他可以准确地说出为了获得一定程度的满足而必须花费的金钱数量发生了怎样的变化。然而，确定的价格结构、统一提高或降低的“价格水平”的想法同样是虚构的。然而，它使我们能够清楚地认识到，商品与货币之间交换比率的每一次变化都必然导致行动个体之间财富和收入配置的变化。因此，每一个这样的变化也充当了一个动态的推动者。因此，鉴于这种情况，不允许做出价格“水平”统一变化的假设。

This imaginary construction is necessary, however, to explain that the exchange ratios of the various economic goods may undergo a change from the side of one individual commodity. This fictional concept is the 鸡翅鹦鹉 of the theory of exchange relationships. It is just as fictitious and, at the same time, just as indispensable as any 鸡翅鹦鹉. If extraordinary circumstances lead to exceptionally large and hence conspicuous changes in exchange ratios, data on market phenomena may help to facilitate sound thinking on these problems. However, then even more than ever, if we want to see the situation at all clearly, we must resort to the imaginary construction necessary for an understanding of our theory.

“通货膨胀”和“通货紧缩”这两个词几年前在德国经济文献中还鲜为人知，但如今却在日常使用。尽管它们不精确，但它们无疑适合在经济和政治问题的公共讨论中普遍使用。[16][货币信贷理论， 1953 年，第 239 页； 1980 年，第 271 页——编者注] 但为了准确地理解它们，我们必须用严格的逻辑来阐述这一虚构的概念[除货币之外的所有商品之间完全固定的交换比率的想象结构]，其虚假性已被清楚地认识到。

Among the significant services performed by this fiction is that it enables us to distinguish and determine whether changes in exchange relationships between money and other commodities arise on the money side or the commodity side. In order to understand the changes which take place constantly on the market, this distinction is urgently needed. It is still more indispensable for judging the significance of measures proposed or adopted in the field of monetary and banking policy. Even in these cases, however, we can never succeed in constructing a fictional representation that coincides with the situation which actually appears on the market. The imaginary construction makes it easier to understand reality, but we must remain conscious of the distinction between fiction and reality.[17][At this point, in a footnote, Professor Mises commented on a controversy he had had with a student over terminology. He again recommended, as he had in 1923 (see above, p. 1, n. 1), continuing to use Menger’s terms which enjoyed general acceptance. The simpler English terms, which Mises developed and adopted later—notably in 人类行为 (3rd rev. ed., 1966, pp. 419–24; 1998, pp. 416–21), where he describes “goods-induced” or “cash-induced” changes in the value of the monetary unit—are used in this translation. For those who may be interested in this controversy, the original footnote follows: Carl Menger referred to the nature and extent of the influence exerted on money/goods exchange ratios [prices] by changes from the money side as the problem of the “internal” exchange value （内 Tauschwert） of money [translated in this volume as “cash-induced changes”]. He referred to the variations in the purchasing power of the monetary unit due to other causes as changes in the “external” exchange value (aussere Tauschwert）的货币[翻译为“商品引起的变化”]。我批评这两种表达方式相当不幸——因为可能与罗马教规学说以及十七和十八世纪英国作家所使用的术语“外在价值和内在价值”相混淆。 （参见我的书的德文版 货币信贷理论，1912, p. 132; 1924, p. 104). Nevertheless, this terminology has attained scientific acceptance through its use by Menger and it will be used in this study when appropriate. There is no need to discuss an expression which describes a useful and indispensable idea. It is the concept itself, not the term used to describe it, which is important. Serious mischief is done if an author chooses a new term unnecessarily to express a concept for which a name already exists. My student, Gottfried Haberler, has criticized me severely for taking this position, reproaching me for being a slave to semantics. (See Haberler, Der Sinn der Indexzahlen [Tübingen, 1927], pp. 109ff.). However, in his relevant remarks on this problem, Haberler says nothing more than I have. He too distinguishes between price changes arising on the goods and money sides. Beginners should seek to expand knowledge and avoid spending time on useless terminological disputes. As Haberler points out, it would obviously be wasted effort to “seek internal and external exchange values of money in the real world.” Ideas do not belong to the “real world” at all, but to the world of thought and knowledge. It is even more astonishing that Haberler finds my critique of attempts to measure the value of the monetary unit “inexpedient,” especially as his analysis rests entirely on mine.—Ed.]

2.索引号

Attempts have been made to measure changes in the purchasing power of money by using data derived from changes in the money prices of individual economic goods. These attempts rest on the theory that, in a carefully selected index of a large number, or of all consumers’ goods, influences from the commodity side affecting commodity prices cancel each other out. Thus, so the theory goes, the direction and extent of the influence on prices of factors arising on the money side may be discovered from such an index. Essentially, therefore, by computing an arithmetical mean, this method seeks to convert the price changes emerging among the various consumers’ goods into a figure which may then be considered an index to the change in the value of money. In this discussion, we shall disregard the practical difficulties which arise in assembling the price quotations necessary to serve as the basis for such calculations and restrict ourselves to commenting on the fundamental usefulness of this method for the solution of our problem.

首先应该指出的是，存在多种算术平均值。应该选择哪一个呢？这是一个老问题了。每一项都可以提出理由，也可以提出反对意见。从我们的角度来看，在这样的辩论中唯一需要学习的重要一点是，问题不能得到最终解决，以至于每个人都会接受任何单一答案为“正确”。

The other fundamental question concerns the relative importance of the various consumer goods. In developing the index, if the price of each and every commodity is considered as having the same weight, a 50 percent increase in the price of bread, for instance, would be offset in calculating the arithmetical average by a drop of one-half in the price of diamonds. The index would then indicate no change in purchasing power, or “price level.” As such a conclusion is obviously preposterous, attempts are made in fabricating index numbers, to use the prices of various commodities according to their relative importance. Prices should be included in the calculations according to the coefficient of their importance. The result is then known as a “weighted” average.

This brings us to the second arbitrary decision necessary for developing such an index. What is “importance”? Several different approaches have been tried and arguments pro and con each have been raised. Obviously, a clear-cut, all-round satisfactory solution to the problem cannot be found. Special attention has been given the difficulty arising from the fact that, if the usual method is followed, the very circumstances involved in determining “importance” are constantly in flux; thus the coefficient of importance itself is also continuously changing.

As soon as one starts to take into consideration the “importance” of the various goods, one forsakes the assumption of objective exchange value—which often leads to nonsensical conclusions as pointed out above—and enters the area of subjective values. Since there is no generally recognized immutable “importance” to various goods, since “subjective” value has meaning only from the point of view of the acting individual, further reflection leads eventually to the subjective method already discussed—namely the inexcusable fiction of a never-changing man with never-changing values. To avoid arriving at this conclusion, which is also obviously absurd, one remains indecisively on the fence, midway between two equally nonsensical methods—on the one side the un-weighted average and on the other the fiction of a never-changing individual with never-changing values. Yet one believes he has discovered something useful. Truth is not the halfway point between two untruths. The fact that each of these two methods, if followed to its logical conclusion, is shown to be preposterous, in no way proves that a combination of the two is the correct one.

All index computations pass quickly over these unanswerable objections. The calculations are made with whatever coefficients of importance are selected. However, we have established that even the problem of determining “importance” is not capable of solution, with certainty, in such a way as to be recognized by everyone as “right.”

因此，可以衡量货币购买力变化的想法在科学上是站不住脚的。对于任何熟悉现代主观主义交换学基本问题并认识到近期研究在价值测量方面的重要性的人来说，这并不奇怪。[18][看到 货币信贷理论，1953 年，第 38 页； 1980 年，第 51 页——编者注]and the meaning of monetary calculation.[19][看到 社会主义 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1951), pp. 121ff. and (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1981), pp. 104.—Ed.]

One can certainly try to devise index numbers. Nowadays nothing is more popular among statisticians than this. Nevertheless, all these computations rest on a shaky foundation. Disregarding entirely the difficulties which, from time to time, even thwart agreement as to the commodities whose prices will form the basis of these calculations, these computations are arbitrary in two ways—first, with respect to the arithmetical mean chosen and, secondly, with respect to the coefficient of importance selected. There is no way to characterize one of the many possible methods as the only “correct” one and the others as “false.” Each is equally legitimate or illegitimate. None is scientifically meaningful.

It is small consolation to point out that the results of the various methods do not differ substantially from one another. Even if that is the case, it cannot in the least affect the conclusions we must draw from the observations we have made. The fact that people can conceive of such a scheme at all, that they are not more critical, may be explained only by the eventuality of the great inflations, especially the greatest and most recent one.

任何指数方法都足以对货币单位价值的极度严重贬值做出粗略的陈述，例如德国通货膨胀造成的贬值。在那里，该指数起到了指导作用，启发了那些倾向于“货币国家理论”思想的人们。然而，一种能让人们大开眼界的方法，并不一定是科学正确的，也不一定适用于实际。

五、费舍尔的稳定计划

1. 政治问题

The superiority of the gold standard consists in the fact that the value of gold develops independent of political actions. It is clear that its value is not “stable.” There is not, and never can be, any such thing as stability of value. If, under a “manipulated” monetary standard, it was government’s task to influence the value of money, the question of how this influence was to be exercised would soon become the main issue among political and economic interests. Government would be asked to influence the purchasing power of money so that certain politically powerful groups would be favored by its intervention, at the expense of the rest of the population. Intense political battles would rage over the direction and scope of the edicts affecting monetary policy. At times, steps would be taken in one direction, and at other times in other directions—in response to the momentary balance of political power. The steady, progressive development of the economy would continually experience disturbances from the side of money. The result of the manipulation would be to provide us with a monetary system which would certainly not be any more stable than the gold standard.

If the decision were made to alter the purchasing power of money so that the index number always remained unchanged, the situation would not be any different. We have seen that there are many possible ways, not just one single way, to determine the index number. No single one of these methods can be considered the only correct one. Moreover, each leads to a different conclusion. Each political party would advocate the index method which promised results consistent with its political aims at the time. Since it is not scientifically possible to find one of the many methods objectively right and to reject all others as false, no judge could decide impartially among groups disputing the correct method of calculation.

然而除此之外，还有一个非常重要的考虑因素。数量论的早期支持者认为，货币数量变化引起的货币单位购买力的变化恰好是成反比的。根据这一理论，货币数量加倍会使货币单位的购买力减半。正是由于最近发展起来的货币理论，这个版本的数量理论已被证明是站不住脚的。毫无疑问，货币数量的增加必然导致 鸡翅鹦鹉 to a decline in the purchasing power of the monetary unit. Still the extent of this decrease in no way corresponds to the extent of the increase in the quantity of money. No fixed quantitative relationship can be established between the changes in the quantity of money and those of the unit’s purchasing power.[20][看到 货币信贷理论，1953 年，第 139 页； 1980 年，第 161 页——编者注] Hence, every manipulation of the monetary standard will lead to serious difficulties. Political controversies would arise not only over the “need” for a measure, but also over the degree of inflation or restriction, even after agreement had been reached on the purpose the measure was supposed to serve.

所有这些都足以解释为什么建立操纵标准的提议并未受到欢迎。它还解释了——即使人们不考虑财政部长滥用权力的方式——为什么信贷货币（俗称“纸币”）被认为是“劣币”。信贷货币被认为是“劣币”，正是因为它可能被操纵。

2. Multiple Commodity Standard

多种商品标准取代或补充基于贵金属的货币标准（作为延期付款标准）的提议绝不是为了创造一种被操纵的货币。它们无意改变贵金属标准本身或其对价值的影响。它们只是寻求提供一种方法，使所有涉及未来货币支付的交易免受货币单位价值变化的影响。很容易理解为什么这些建议没有付诸实施。由于他们所依赖的指数计算的基础不稳固，无法科学地建立，因此他们无法为延期付款制定稳定的价值标准。他们只会创建一个不同的标准，其价值变化与黄金金属标准下的标准不同。

To some extent Fisher’s proposals parallel the early ideas of advocates of a multiple commodity standard. These forerunners also tried to eliminate only the influence of the social effects of changes in monetary value on the content of future monetary obligations. Like most Anglo-American students of this problem, as well as earlier advocates of a multiple commodity standard, Fisher took little notice of the fact that changes in the value of money have other social effects also.

Fisher, too, based his proposals entirely on index numbers. What seems to recommend his scheme, as compared with proposals for introducing a “multiple standard,” is the fact that he does not use index numbers directly to determine changes in purchasing power over a long period of time. Rather he uses them primarily to understand changes taking place from month to month only. Many objections raised against the use of the index method for analyzing longer periods of time will perhaps appear less justified when considering only shorter periods. But there is no need to discuss this question here, for Fisher did not confine the application of his plan to short periods only. Also, even if adjustments are always made from month to month only, they were to be carried forward, on and on, until eventually calculations were being made, with the help of the index number, which extended over long periods of time. Because of the imperfection of the index number, these calculations would necessarily lead in time to errors of very considerable proportions.

3. 价格溢价

Fisher’s most important contribution to monetary theory is the emphasis he gave to the previously little noted effect of changes in the value of money on the formation of the interest rate.[21]欧文·费舍尔 利率 （1907年，纽约），第77页。 只要货币购买力的变动可以预见，它们就会在毛利率中得到体现——不仅体现在它们将采取的方向上，而且还体现在它们的大致幅度上。鉴于购买力的预期变化而要求和授予的毛利率部分称为购买力变化溢价或价格变化溢价。我们将使用一个较短的术语来代替这些笨拙的表达——“价格溢价”。无需任何进一步解释，这个术语就可以理解这样一个事实：考虑到总体价格上涨的预期，价格溢价是“正的”，从而提高了毛利率。另一方面，对总体价格的预期 减少， the price premium becomes “negative” and so reduces the gross interest rate.

The individual businessman is not generally aware of the fact that monetary value is affected by changes from the side of money. Even if he were, the difficulties which hamper the formation of a halfway reliable judgment, as to the direction and extent of anticipated changes, are tremendous, if not outright insurmountable. Consequently, monetary units used in credit transactions are generally regarded rather naïvely as being “stable” in value. So, with agreement as to conditions under which credit will be applied for and granted, a price premium is not generally considered in the calculation. This is practically always true, even for long-term credit. If opinion is shaken as to the “stability of value” of a certain kind of money, this money is not used at all in long-term credit transactions. Thus, in all nations using credit money, whose purchasing power fluctuated violently, long-term credit obligations were drawn up in gold, whose value was held to be “stable.”

However, because of obstinacy and pro-government bias, this course of action was not employed in Germany, nor in other countries during the recent inflation. Instead, the idea was conceived of making loans in terms of rye and potash. If there had been no hope at all of a later compensating revaluation of these loans, their price on the exchange in German marks, Austrian crowns and similarly inflated currencies would have been so high that a positive price premium corresponding to the magnitude of the anticipated further depreciation of these currencies would have been reflected in the actual interest payment.

The situation is different with respect to short-term credit transactions. Every businessman estimates the price changes anticipated in the immediate future and guides himself accordingly in making sales and purchases. If he expects an increase in prices, he will make purchases and postpone sales. To secure the means for carrying out this plan, he will be ready to offer higher interest than otherwise. If he expects a drop in prices, then he will seek to sell and to refrain from purchasing. He will then be prepared to lend out, at a cheaper rate, the money made available as a result. Thus, the expectation of price increases leads to a positive price premium, that of price declines to a negative price premium.

To the extent that this process correctly anticipates the price movements that actually result, with respect to short-term credit, it cannot very well be maintained that the content of contractual obligations are transformed by the change in the purchasing power of money in a way which was neither foreseen nor contemplated by the parties concerned. Nor can it be maintained that, as a result, shifts take place in the wealth and income relationship between creditor and debtor. Consequently, it is unnecessary, so far as short-term credit is concerned, to look for a more perfect standard of deferred payments.

因此，我们可以看到费舍尔的提案实际上所提供的内容并不比任何先前的多重标准计划所提供的内容更多。关于货币作为延期付款标准的作用，结论必须是，对于长期合同，费舍尔的方案是不够的。对于短期承诺来说，这既是不够的，也是多余的。

4. 财富和收入的变化

However, the social consequences of changes in the value of money are not limited to altering the content of future monetary obligations. In addition to these social effects, which are generally the only ones dealt with in Anglo-American literature, there are still others. Changes in money prices never reach all commodities at the same time, and they do not affect the prices of the various goods to the same extent. Shifts in relationships between the demand for, and the quantity of, money for cash holdings generated by changes in the value of money from the money side do not appear simultaneously and uniformly throughout the entire economy. They must necessarily appear on the market at some definite point, affecting only one group in the economy at first, influencing only 其 judgments of value in the beginning and, as a result, only the prices of commodities these particular persons are demanding. Only gradually does the change in the purchasing power of the monetary unit make its way throughout the entire economy.

For example, if the quantity of money increases, the additional new quantity of money must necessarily flow first of all into the hands of certain definite individuals—gold producers, for example, or, in the case of paper money inflation, the coffers of the government. It changes only 其 首先是收入和财富，然后是 其 value judgments. Not all goods go up in price in the beginning, but only those goods which are demanded by these first beneficiaries of the inflation. Only later are prices of the remaining goods raised, as the increased quantity of money progresses step by step throughout the land and eventually reaches every participant in the economy.[22]Hermann Heinrich Gossen, Entwicklung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs und der daraus fliessenden Regeln für menschliches Handeln (new ed.; Berlin, 1889), p. 206. 但即便如此，当新货币数量导致的价格波动最终结束时，所有商品和服务的价格也不会上涨到同样的程度。正是因为价格上涨并没有同时影响所有商品，所以财富和收入关系发生了变化，从而对个别商品和服务的供需产生了不同的影响。因此，这些转变必须导致市场和市场价格的新定位。

假设我们忽略货币价值变化对未来货币义务的影响。进一步假设整个经济中所有商品的货币购买力变化同时且一致地发生。那么，很明显，货币价值的变化不会导致个体企业家的财富发生变化。那么，货币单位价值的变化对他们来说并不比度量衡或日历的变化更重要。

只是因为货币购买力的变化永远不会同时影响世界各地的所有商品，因此它们还带来了财富和收入的其他变化（除了对债务交易的影响之外）。生产和销售价格首先上涨的商品的群体从通货膨胀中受益，因为他们一开始就获得了更高的利润，但他们仍然可以以较低的价格购买他们需要的商品，反映了先前的货币存量。因此，在第一次世界大战[1914-1918]的通货膨胀期间，战争物资的生产者和军工工业的工人比其他人群更早地获得了印刷机的产出，他们从货币贬值中受益。与此同时，那些名义上收入保持不变的人却遭受了通货膨胀的困扰，因为他们被迫与那些收入因战争而膨胀的人竞争购买商品。政府雇员的情况尤其明显。毫无疑问，他们是失败者。加薪对他们来说来得太晚了。在一段时间内，他们不得不支付已经受到货币数量增加影响的价格，而货币收入则与先前的条件有关。

5. Uncompensatable Changes

就外贸而言，很容易看出各种商品的价格变化不同时发生的后果。货币单位价值的恶化鼓励了出口，因为制造出口商品所需的部分原材料、半成品生产要素和劳动力都是以以前的较低价格采购的。与此同时，购买力的变化虽然暂时只影响了部分国内生产的商品，但已经对交易所的汇率产生了影响。结果是出口商实现了特定的货币收益。

货币方面出现的购买力变化被认为令人不安，不仅仅是因为它们带来了未来货币义务内容的转变。由于各种商品和服务的价格变化时间不均匀，他们也感到不安。费舍尔的“价值稳定”能否消除 这些 price changes?

In order to answer this question, it must be restated that Fisher’s proposal does not eliminate changes in the value of the monetary unit. It attempts instead to compensate for these changes continuously—from month to month. Thus the consequences associated with the step-by-step emergence of changes in purchasing power are not eliminated. Rather they materialize during the course of the month. Then, when the correction is made at the end of the month, the course of monetary depreciation is still not ended. The adjustment calculated at that time is based on the index number of the 以前 month when the full extent of that month’s monetary depreciation had not then been felt because all prices had not yet been affected. However, the prices of goods for which demand was forced up first by the additional quantity of money undoubtedly reached heights that may not be maintained later.

这两种价格偏差是否对应，其影响是否相互抵消，将取决于每个案例的具体数据。因此，即使该月货币数量没有出现进一步增加，货币贬值也将在下个月继续。这种情况将持续下去，直到这一过程最终结束，以黄金计价的大宗商品价格普遍上涨，从而导致基于指数的金美元价值上涨。因此，由于各种商品和服务价格变动时间不均的现象无法消除，因此价格变动时间不均的社会后果是无法避免的。[23]另请参阅我对费舍尔提案的批评 货币信贷理论， pp. 403ff.; 1980, pp. 442ff.

So there is no need to go into more detail with respect to the technical difficulties that stand in the way of realizing Fisher’s Plan. Even if it could be put into operation successfully, it would not provide us with a monetary system that would leave the disposition of wealth and income undisturbed.

VI. GOODS-INDUCED AND CASH-INDUCED CHANGES IN THE PURCHASING POWER OF THE MARKET

1. The Inherent Instability of Market Ratios

Changes in the exchange ratios between money and the various other commodities may originate either from the money side or from the commodity side of the transaction. Stabilization policy does not aim only at eliminating changes arising on the side of money. It also seeks to prevent all future price changes, even if this is not always clearly expressed and may sometimes be disputed.

为了我们的目的，没有必要进一步探讨如果货币数量保持不变，商品的增加或减少必然引起的市场现象。[24]这是否被视为货币方面或商品方面购买力的变化纯粹是术语问题。 It is sufficient to point out that, in addition to changes in the exchange ratios among individual commodities, shifts would also appear in the exchange ratios between money and the majority of the other commodities in the market. A decrease in the quantity of other commodities would weaken the purchasing power of the monetary unit. An increase would enhance it. It should be noted, however, that the social adjustments which must result from these changes in the quantity of other commodities will lead to a reorganization in the demand for money and hence cash holdings. These shifts can occur in such a way as to counteract the immediate effect of the change in the quantity of goods on the purchasing power of the monetary unit. Still for the time being, we may ignore this situation.

The goal of all stabilization proposals, as we have seen, is to maintain unchanged the original content 未来货币义务。债权人和债务人的购买力不应增加或减少。这被认为是“公正的”。当然，什么是“正义”或“不正义”，是无法用科学来判定的。这是一个最终目的和道德判断的问题。这不是事实问题。

It is impossible to know just why the advocates of purchasing power stabilization see as “just” only the maintenance of an unchanged purchasing power 对未来monetary obligations. However, it is easy to understand that they do not want to permit either debtor or creditor to gain or lose. They want contractual liabilities to continue in force as little altered as possible in the midst of the constantly changing world economy. They want to transplant contractual liabilities out of the flow of events, so to speak, and into a timeless existence.

现在让我们看看这意味着什么。想象一下，所有的生产都变得更加富有成果。货物流动比以往任何时候都更加丰富。以前只有一个单位可供消费，现在有两个。由于货币数量没有增加，货币单位的购买力提高了，用一个货币单位可以购买比以前多一倍半的商品。如果不尝试“稳定政策”，这是否实际上意味着债务人现在处于劣势而债权人处于优势，目前尚不清楚。

If you look at the situation from the viewpoint of the prices of the factors of production, it is easy to see why this is the case. For the debtor could use the borrowed sum to buy at lower prices factors of production whose output has not gone up; or if their output has gone up, their prices have not risen correspondingly. It might now be possible to buy for less money, factors of production with a productive capacity comparable to that of the factors of production one could have bought with the borrowed money at the time of the loan. There is no point in exploring the uncertainties of theories which do not take into consideration the influence that ensuing changes exert on entrepreneurial profit, interest and rent.

然而，如果我们考虑到产量增加导致的实际收入变化，很明显，这种情况可能与那些赞成“稳定”的人的看法截然不同。如果债权人拿回相同的名义金额，他显然可以购买更多的商品。尽管如此，他的经济状况并没有因此而改善。相对于实际收入的普遍增长，他并没有受益。如果多重商品标准减少部分名义债务，他的经济状况将会恶化。他将被剥夺一些在他看来公平地说属于他的东西。在多重商品标准下，随时间推移的利息、终身年金、低保、养老金等将根据指数增加或减少。因此，从消费者的角度来看，这些考虑因素不能因为无关紧要而被草率地忽略。

We find, on the one hand, that neither the multiple commodity standard nor Irving Fisher’s specific proposal is capable of eliminating the economic concomitants of changes in the value of the monetary unit due to the unequal timing in appearance and the irregularity in size of price changes. On the other hand, we see that these proposals seek to eliminate the repercussions on the content of debt agreements, circumstances permitting, in such a way as to cause definite shifts in wealth and income relations, shifts which appear obviously “unjust,” at least to those on whom their burden falls. The “justice” of these proposed reforms, therefore, is somewhat more doubtful than their advocates are inclined to assume.

2. The Misplaced Partiality to Debtors

It is certainly regrettable that this worthy goal cannot be attained, at least not by this particular route. These and similar efforts are usually acknowledged with sympathy by many who recognize their fallacy and their unworkability. This sympathy is based ultimately on the intellectual and physical inclination of men to be both lazy and resistant to change at the same time. Surely everyone wants to see his situation improved with respect to his supply of goods and the satisfaction of his wants. Surely everyone hopes for changes which would make him richer. Many circumstances make it appear that the old and the traditional, being familiar, are preferable to the new. Such circumstances would include distrust of the individual’s own powers and abilities, aversion to being forced to adapt in thought and action to new situations and, finally, the knowledge that one is no longer able, in advanced years of life, to meet his obligations with the vitality of youth.

当然，如果新事物对个人的福利有益，那么新事物就会受到欢迎并感激地接受。然而，任何带来不利或仅仅看似带来不利的变化，无论是否应归咎于该变化，都被认为是“不公正的”。那些因自身没有特殊优点而受到新事态青睐的人，默默地接受了日益繁荣的现象，认为这是理所当然的，甚至是早就应该发生的事情。然而，那些因这一变化而受到伤害的人却大声抱怨。从这些观察中，发展出了“公正价格”和“公正工资”的概念。谁跟不上时代的步伐，不能满足时代的要求，谁就成为过去的歌颂者和现状的拥护者。然而，稳定经济的理想与持续进步的理想是直接对立的。

For some time popular opinion has been in sympathy with the debtor. The picture of the rich creditor, demanding payment from the poor debtor, and the vindictive teachings of moralists dominate popular thinking on indebtedness. A byproduct of this is to be found in the contrast, made by the contemporaries of the Classical School and their followers, between the “idle rich” and the “industrious poor.” However, with the development of bonds and savings deposits, and with the decline of small-scale enterprise and the rise of big business, a reversal of the former situation took place. It then became possible for the masses, with their increasing prosperity, to become creditors. The “rich man” is no longer the typical creditor, nor the “poor man” the typical debtor. In many cases, perhaps even in the majority of cases, the relationship is completely reversed. Today, except in the lands of farmers and small property owners, the debtor viewpoint is no longer that of the masses. Consequently it is also no longer the view of the political demagogues. Once upon a time inflation may have found its strongest support among the masses, who were burdened with debts. But the situation is now very different. A policy of monetary restriction would not be unwelcome among the masses today, for they would hope to reap a sure gain from it as creditors. They would expect the decline in their wages and salaries to lag behind, or at any rate not to exceed, the drop in commodity prices.

It is understandable, therefore, that proposals for the creation of a “stable value” standard of deferred payments, almost completely forgotten in the years when commodity prices were declining, have been revived again in the twentieth century. Proposals of this kind are always primarily intended for the prevention of losses to creditors, hardly ever to safeguard jeopardized debtor interests. They cropped up in England when she was the great world banker. They turned up again in the United States at the moment when she started to become a creditor nation instead of a land of debtors, and they became quite popular there when America became the great world creditor.

许多迹象似乎表明，[由于通货膨胀]货币贬值的时期即将结束。如果情况确实如此，那么操纵标准的想法现在在债权国中所享有的吸引力也会减弱。

VII. THE GOAL OF MONETARY POLICY

1.自由主义[25]IE，“古典自由主义”。见上文，第 68 页。 11，注 XNUMX。 and the Gold Standard

前自由主义时代的货币政策要么是为了金融管理的利益而使原币贬值（很少是为了 Seisachtheia,[26][在谈话中，米塞斯教授解释说，这是一个希腊术语，意思是“摆脱负担”。它在公元前七世纪和后来被用来描述为完全或部分取消公共和私人债务而制定的措施。然后债权人必须承担责任，除非他们可能得到政府的赔偿。——编者。] i.e., to nullify outstanding debts), or still more crude paper money inflation. However, in addition to, sometimes even instead of, its fiscal goal, the driving motive behind paper money inflation very soon became the desire to favor the debtor at the expense of the creditor.

In opposing the depreciated paper standard, liberalism frequently took the position that after an inflation the value of paper money should be raised, through contraction, to its former parity with metallic money. It was only when men had learned that such a policy could not undo or reverse the “unfair” changes in wealth and income brought about by the previous inflationary period and that an increase in the purchasing power per unit [by contraction or deflation] also brings other unwanted shifts of wealth and income, that the demand for return to a metallic standard at the debased monetary unit’s 当前 平价逐渐取代了恢复旧平价的需求。

In opposing a single precious metal standard, monetary policy exhausted itself in the fruitless attempt to make bimetallism an actuality. The results which must follow the establishment of a legal exchange ratio between the two precious metals, gold and silver, have long been known, even before Classical economics developed an understanding of the regularity of market phenomena. Again and again Gresham’s Law, which applied the general theory of price controls to the special case of money, demonstrated its validity. Eventually, efforts were abandoned to reach the ideal of a bimetallic standard. The next goal then became to free international trade, which was growing more and more important, from the effects of fluctuations in the ratio between the prices of the gold standard and the suppression of the alternating [bimetallic] and silver standards. Gold then became the world’s money.

With the attainment of gold monometallism, liberals believed the goal of monetary policy had been reached. (The fact that they considered it necessary to supplement monetary policy through banking policy will be examined later in considerable detail.) The value of gold was then independent of any 直接 manipulation by governments, political policies, public opinion or Parliaments. So long as the gold standard was maintained, there was no need to fear severe price disturbances from the side of money. The adherents of the gold standard wanted no more than this, even though it was not clear to them at first that this was all that 可以 be attained.

2. “Pure” Gold Standard Disregarded

We have seen how the purchasing power of gold has continuously declined since the turn of the century. That was not, as frequently maintained, simply the consequence of increased gold production. There is no way to know whether the increased production of gold would have been sufficient to satisfy the increased demand for money without increasing its purchasing power, if monetary policy had not intervened as it did. The gold exchange and flexible standards were adopted in a number of countries, not the “pure” gold standard as its advocates had expected. “Pure” gold standard countries embraced measures which were thought to be, and actually were, steps toward the exchange standard. Finally, since 1914, gold has been withdrawn from actual circulation almost everywhere. It is primarily due to these measures that gold declined in value, thus generating the current debate on monetary policy.

因此，今天金本位制的缺陷并不是金本位制本身造成的。相反，它是故意破坏金本位制的政策的结果，以降低使用货币的成本，特别是获得“廉价货币”，即降低贷款利率。显然，这一政策无法达到其自身设定的目标。它最终必然带来的不是低贷款利息，而是价格上涨和经济发展的扭曲。那么，放弃一切利用银行和货币政策降低利率、降低货币使用和流通成本、通过推动纸面通胀来满足“需要”的尝试，不就足够了吗？

The “pure” gold standard formed the foundation of the monetary system in the most important countries of Europe and America, as well as in Australia. This system remained in force until the outbreak of the World War [1914]. In the literature on the subject, it was also considered the ideal monetary policy until very recently. Yet the champions of this “pure” gold standard undoubtedly paid too little attention to changes in the purchasing power of monetary gold originating on the side of money. They scarcely noted the problem of the “stabilization” of the purchasing power of money, very likely considering it completely impractical. Today we may pride ourselves on having grasped the basic questions of price and monetary theory more thoroughly and on having discarded many of the concepts which dominated works on monetary policy of the recent past. However, precisely because we believe we have a better understanding of the problem of value today, we can no longer consider acceptable the proposals to construct a monetary system based on index numbers.

三、指数标准

It is characteristic of current political thinking to welcome every suggestion which aims at enlarging the influence of government. If the Fisher and Keynes[27]凯恩斯 1923 年的提议， A Tract on Monetary Reform. 提案获得批准的理由是它们旨在利用政府使货币价值的形成直接服从于某些经济和政治目的，这是可以理解的。然而，任何因为希望看到购买力“稳定”而赞成指数标准的人都会发现自己犯了严重的错误。

Abandoning the pursuit of the chimera of a money of unchanging purchasing power calls for neither resignation nor disregard of the social consequences of changes in monetary value. The necessary conclusion from this discussion is that stability of the purchasing power of the monetary unit presumes stability of all exchange relationships and, therefore, the absolute abandonment of the market economy.

这个问题一再被提出：如果由于技术革命，黄金产量增加到使进一步遵守金本位变得不可能的程度，将会发生什么？指数标准的转换 必须 follow then, it is asserted, so that it would only be expedient to make this change voluntarily now. However, it is futile to deal with monetary problems today which may or may not arise in the future. We do not know under what conditions steps will have to be taken toward solving them. It could be that, under certain circumstances, the solution may be to adopt a system based on an index number. However, this would appear doubtful. Even so, an index standard would hardly be a more suitable monetary standard than the one we now have. In spite of all its defects, the gold standard is a useful and not inexpedient standard.

I. STABILIZATION OF THE PURCHASING POWER OF THE MONETARY UNIT AND ELIMINATION OF THE TRADE CYCLE

1. Currency School’s Contribution

同时，货币单位购买力的“稳定”也将导致经济不发生任何变化的理想。在固定经济中，企业不会有“起起落落”。然后，事情的发展就会顺利、稳定地进行。这样，任何不可预见的事件都不会中断货物的供应。然后，行动者就不会感到幻灭，因为事件并没有按照他在计划事务以满足未来需求时所假设的那样发展。

First, we have seen that this ideal cannot be realized. Second, we have seen that this ideal is generally proposed as a goal only because the problems involved in the formation of purchasing power have not been thought through completely. Finally, we have seen that even if a stationary economy 可以 如果真的实现了，肯定达不到预期的效果。然而，这些事实以及货币政策仅限于维持“纯”金本位并不意味着“消除商业周期”的政治口号没有价值。

确实，一些研究这些问题的作者有一个相当模糊的想法，即“稳定价格水平”是实现他们为周期性政策设定的目标的途径。然而，周期性政策并没有完全用于固定货币购买力的徒劳尝试。事实证明，我们采取了措施，通过银行政策遏制繁荣，从而防止随着经济的增长而不可避免地出现衰退，如果事情顺其自然的话。这些努力是在人们没有意识到像稳定货币价值这样的事情会被构想和追求的时候热情地进行的，导致了产生深远影响的措施。

我们不应忘记货币学派为澄清我们的问题所做的贡献。它不仅在理论上和科学上做出了贡献，而且还对实际政策做出了贡献。最近对这个问题的理论处理——在事件和统计数据的研究以及政治上——完全依赖于货币学派的成就。我们还没有超越奥弗斯通勋爵[28][Lord Samuel Jones Loyd Overstone (1796–1883) was an early opponent of inconvertible paper money and a leading proponent of the principles of the Peel’s Act of 1844.—Ed.] so far as to be justified in disparaging his achievement.

Many modern students of cyclical movements are contemptuous of theory—not only of this or that theory but of 所有 theories—and profess to let the facts speak for themselves. The delusion that theory must be distilled from the results of an impartial investigation of facts is more popular in cyclical theory than in any other field of economics. Yet, nowhere else is it clearer that there can be no understanding of the facts without theory.

Certainly it is no longer necessary to expose once more the errors in logic of the Historical-Empirical-Realistic approach to the “social sciences.”[29][看到 理论与历史 (1957; 1969; Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1985).—Ed.] Only recently has this task been most thoroughly undertaken once more by competent scholars. Nevertheless, we continually encounter attempts to deal with the business cycle problem while presumably rejecting theory.

如果采用这种方法，人们就会陷入一种难以理解的错觉。假设经济波动数据以明确、直接且无可争议的方式给出。因此，科学仍然只是解释这些波动，而政治艺术则只是寻找消除它们的方法和手段。

2. Early Trade Cycle Theories

所有商业机构有时表现良好，有时表现不佳。有时，企业家发现自己的利润每天增长超过他的预期，受到这些“意外之财”的鼓舞，他开始扩大业务。然后，由于形势的突然变化，这种上升带来了严重的幻灭，出现了严重的损失，历史悠久的企业倒闭，直到普遍的悲观情绪出现，这种情况往往会持续数年。早在有关危机问题的讨论开始出现在文献中之前，这些经验就已经引起了资本主义经济中商人的注意。从繁荣的急剧上升——至少是表面上的繁荣——突然转变为利润机会的急剧下降，这一转变太明显了，无法不引起普遍关注。即使是那些不想与商界“拜不义之财”扯上关系的人，也不能忽视这样一个事实：昨天还是富人，或者曾经被认为是富人的人，突然陷入贫困，工厂被关闭，建筑业被毁。项目未完成，工人找不到工作。自然，没有什么比这个问题更让商人关心的了。

If an entrepreneur is asked what is going on here—leaving aside changes in the prices of individual commodities due to recognizable causes—he may very well reply that at times the entire “price level” tends upward and then at other times it tends downward. For inexplicable reasons, he would say, conditions arise under which it is impossible to dispose of all commodities, or almost all commodities, except at a loss. And what is most curious is that these depressing times always come when least expected, just when all business had been improving for some time so that people finally believed that a new age of steady and rapid progress was emerging.

Eventually, it must have become obvious to the more keenly thinking businessman that the genesis of the crisis should be sought in the preceding boom. The scientific investigator, whose view is naturally focused on the longer period, soon realized that economic upswings and downturns alternated with seeming regularity. Once this was established, the problem was halfway exposed and scientists began to ask questions as to how this apparent regularity might be explained and understood.

Theoretical analysis was able to reject, as completely false, two attempts to explain the crisis—the theories of general overproduction and of underconsumption. These two doctrines have disappeared from serious scientific discussion. They persist today only outside the realm of science—the theory of general overproduction, among the ideas held by the average citizen; and the underconsumption theory, in Marxist literature.

批评第三组尝试的解释并不那么容易，这些解释试图将经济波动追溯到影响农业生产的自然现象的周期性变化。这些学说不能仅通过理论探究来达成。可以想象，此类事件可能会定期发生和重复发生。事实是否如此，只能通过观察来尝试验证该理论来证明。然而，到目前为止，这些“天气理论”都没有[30][关于威廉·斯坦利·杰文斯、亨利·L·摩尔和威廉·贝弗里奇的理论，请参阅韦斯利·克莱尔·米切尔的 商业周期（纽约：国家经济研究局，1927 年），第 12 页 - 编者注] has successfully passed this test.

解释这场危机的一系列截然不同的尝试都是基于人们的心理和智力天赋的明显不规则性。这种不规则性在经济中表现为从对未来的信心（激发繁荣）到沮丧（导致危机和商业停滞）的变化。或者说，这种不规则性似乎是一种转变，从大胆地开辟新方向到静静地沿着已经陈旧的道路走下去。

What should be pointed out about these doctrines and about the many other similar theories based on psychological variations is, first of all, that they do not explain. They merely pose the problem in a different way. They are not able to trace the change in business conditions back to a previously established and identified phenomenon. From the periodical fluctuations in psychological and intellectual data alone, without any further observation concerning the field of labor in the social or other sciences, we learn that such economic shifts as these may also be conceived of in a different way. So long as the course of such changes appears plausible only because of economic fluctuations between boom and bust, psychological and other related theories of the crisis amount to no more than tracing one unknown factor back to something else equally unknown.

三、流通信用理论

在所有贸易周期理论中，只有一种理论达到并保持了成熟经济学说的地位。这就是货币学派提出的理论，将商业条件变化的原因追溯到流通信用现象。所有其他关于危机的理论，即使它们试图在其他方面与货币学派所采用的推理路线有所不同，也会一次又一次地追随其脚步。因此，我们的注意力不断地集中在似乎证实了货币学派解释的观察上。

In fact, it may be said that the Circulation Credit Theory of the Trade Cycle[31]如上所述，该理论最常用的名称是“货币理论”。由于多种原因，“流通信用理论”这个名称更可取。 is now accepted by all writers in the field and that the other theories advanced today aim only at explaining why the volume of circulation credit granted by the banks varies from time to time. All attempts to study the course of business fluctuations empirically and statistically, as well as all efforts to influence the shape of changes in business conditions by political action, are based on the Circulation Credit Theory of the Trade Cycle.

To show that an investigation of business cycles is not dealing with an imaginary problem, it is necessary to formulate a cycle theory that recognizes a cyclical regularity of changes in business conditions. If we could not find a satisfactory theory of cyclical changes, then the question would remain as to whether or not each individual crisis arose from a special cause which we would have to track down first. Originally, economics approached the problem of the crisis by trying to trace all crises back to specific “visible” and “spectacular” causes such as war, cataclysms of nature, adjustments to new economic data—for example, changes in consumption and technology, or the discovery of easier and more favorable methods of production. Crises which could not be explained in this way became the specific “problem of the crisis.”

无法解释的危机仍然一再发生的事实，以及危机之前总是有一个明显的繁荣时期的事实，都不足以确定地证明要处理的问题是源于特定原因的独特现象。复发不会定期出现。不难相信，一场危机与前一时期的情况反差越大，它就被认为越严重。因此，可以假设根本不存在具体的“危机问题”，而至今无法解释的危机必须用各种特殊原因来解释，有点像自欧洲崛起以来中欧农业所面临的“危机”。来自东欧和海外耕种更肥沃土壤的竞争，或者美国内战时期欧洲棉花工业的“危机”。危机的道理也适用于繁荣。在这里，我们不再需要寻找一般的繁荣理论，而是可以为每个单独的繁荣寻找特殊的原因。

Neither the connection between boom and bust nor the cyclical change of business conditions is a fact that can be established independent of theory. Only theory, business cycle theory, permits us to detect the wavy outline of a cycle in the tangled confusion of events.[32]If expressions such as cycle, wave, etc., are used in business cycle theory, they are merely illustrations to simplify the presentation. One cannot and should not expect more from a simile which, as such, must always fall short of reality.

II. CIRCULATION CREDIT THEORY

1.银行学院谬论

如果银行发行了票据，或者开立了要进行支票或其他索偿的银行存款，但超出了保管库中保管的货币数量，则对价格的影响类似于通过数量增加而获得的影响。钱。 由于这些受托媒体被称为没有金属支持的票据和银行存款，使货币服务安全且普遍接受，可以按需支付货币索赔，因此它们可以在所有交易中用作货币。 因此，它们是真正的金钱替代品。 因为从广义上讲，它们超出了给定的货币总量，所以从广义上说，它们代表了货币数量的增加。

这些毫无争议和无可争议的结论在价格形成中的实际意义被银行学院否认，因为它认为这种信托媒体的发行受到经济中货币需求的严格限制。 银行学院的学说坚持认为，如果银行发行的受托媒体仅是为了打折短期商品账单，那么流通中的清算交易所需的便不会超过“需要”。 根据这一原则，银行管理不能对已激活的商品交易量产生任何影响。 通过这种交易，产生短期商品账单的购销将已经存在纸质信用证，可以通过进一步的谈判将其用于交换商品和服务。 如果银行将票据贴现并让我们对票据开具票据，即根据银行学院的说法，就市场而言，这是一笔中立的交易。 没有什么比用一种更合适的票据代替一本技术上不太适合流通的票据（即汇票）所涉及的更多了。 因此，根据该学校的说法，发行纸币的效果不必是增加流通货币的数量。 如果汇票到期，则钞票将流回银行，并且只有当由于新业务而产生新的商品钞票时，新的钞票才可以再次进入流通。

这种众所周知的推理方法中的薄弱环节在于，断言，作为可以产生商品票据的买卖，完成的交易量与银行的行为无关。 如果银行以较低而不是较高的利率贴现，那么就会产生更多的贷款。 5％的利润率无利可图，因此不采取行动的企业，可能会以4％的利润率获利。 因此，通过降低他们收取的利率，银行可以增加对信贷的需求。 然后，通过满足此需求，他们可以增加循环中的基准介质的数量。 一旦认识到这一点，银行理论的唯一论点即价格不受信托媒体问题的影响就瓦解了。

人们必须小心，不要简单地谈论信贷对价格的总体影响，而要明确说明“信贷增加”或“信贷扩张”的影响。必须明确区分以下两者：（1）银行通过借出自有资金或储户支配的资金而提供的信贷（我们称之为“商品信贷”）和（2）通过信托机构的创建而提供的信贷媒介，即未被货币覆盖的票据和存款，我们称之为“流通信用”。[33][For further explanation of the distinction between “commodity credit” and “circulation credit” see Mises’s 1946 essay “The Trade Cycle and Credit Expansion: The Economic Consequences of Cheap Money” included later in this volume, especially, pp. 193–94.—Ed.] It is only through the granting of circulation credit that the prices of all commodities and services are directly affected.

如果银行通过贴现三个月汇票来提供流通信贷，他们就会用未来商品（三个月内应付的债权）来交换他们无中生有的当前商品。因此，认为汇票是否由发行银行贴现或是否保持流通并从一个手中传递到另一个手中并不重要的说法是不正确的。无论谁在贸易中拿汇票，只要他有资源就可以这样做。但发行银行通过创造必要的资金并将其投入流通来进行贴现。可以肯定的是，信托媒介在票据到期时会再次流回银行。如果银行不再提供信托媒介，就会出现与广义上的货币数量减少完全相同的后果。

2.信贷扩张的早期影响

事实上，在银行业务的常规过程中，银行仅向生产者和商人发放信托媒介，这意味着它们并不直接用于消费目的。[34][1928 年，信托媒介仅通过贴现米塞斯所谓的商品汇票或由买方和卖方背书的短期（90 天或更短）汇票并构成所售货物的留置权来发行。——编者。] Rather, these fiduciary media are used first of all for production, that is to buy factors of production and pay wages. The first prices to rise, therefore, as a result of an increase of the quantity of money in the broader sense, caused by the issue of such fiduciary media, are those of raw materials, semimanufactured products, other goods of higher orders, and wage rates. Only later do the prices of goods of the first order [consumers’ goods] follow. Changes in the purchasing power of a monetary unit, brought about by the issue of fiduciary media, follow a different path and have different accompanying social side effects from those produced by a new discovery of precious metals or by the issue of paper money. Still in the last analysis, the effect on prices is similar in both instances.

货币单位购买力的变化不会直接影响利率的高低。 由于财富和收入关系的变化（由于货币单位价值的变化而出现）的事实，可能对利率的高低产生间接影响，从而影响储蓄并因此积累资本。 如果货币单位的贬值有利于社会上的较富裕的成员而损害了较贫穷的人，则其影响可能是资本积累的增加，因为富裕者是更重要的储蓄者。 他们拨出的钱越多，他们的收入和财富就会增加。

如果货币贬值是由信托媒体引起的，并且如果工资率不能及时跟随商品价格的上涨，那么购买力的下降肯定会使这种影响更加严重。 这是“强迫储蓄”，在最近的文献中已经很恰当地强调了这一点。[35]Albert Hahn and Joseph Schumpeter have given me credit for the expression “forced savings” or “compulsory savings.” See Hahn’s article on “Credit” in 维也纳州立大学手册 （第 4 版，第 V 卷，第 951 页）和熊彼特的 经济发展理论 (2nd German language ed., 1926 [English translation, Harvard University Press, 1934), p. 109n.]). To be sure, I described the phenomenon in 1912 in the first German language edition of 货币信贷理论 [see 1953, pp. 208ff. and 347ff.; 1980, pp. 238ff. and 385ff. of the English translations]. However, I do not believe the expression itself was actually used there. 但是，不应忘记三件事。 首先，总是取决于特定情况的数据，实际上是否导致了财富和收入的转移，从而导致储蓄增加。 其次，在不需要在此进一步讨论的情况下，通过伪造经济核算，根据货币记账核算，非常大幅的贬值会导致资本消耗（这种情况在最近的通货膨胀时期确实是暂时发生的）。 第三，正如通过信贷扩张来倡导通货膨胀的倡导者所观察到的那样，任何以牺牲“穷人”为代价将资源转移给“富人”的立法措施也将促进资本形成。

Eventually, the issue of fiduciary media in such manner can also lead to increased capital accumulation within narrow limits and, hence, to a further reduction of the interest rate. In the beginning, however, an immediate and direct decrease in the loan rate appears with the issue of fiduciary media, but this immediate decrease in the loan rate is distinct in character and degree from the later reduction. The new funds offered on the money market by the banks must obviously bring pressure to bear on the rate of interest. The supply and demand for loan money were adjusted at the interest rate prevailing before the issue of any additional supply of fiduciary media. Additional loans can be placed only if the interest rate is lowered. Such loans are profitable for the banks because the increase in the supply of fiduciary media calls for no expenditure except for the mechanical costs of banking (i.e., printing the notes and bookkeeping). The banks can, therefore, undercut the interest rates which would otherwise appear on the loan market, in the absence of their intervention. Since competition from them compels other money lenders to lower 其 利息费用增加，市场利率必然因此下降。但这种减少能维持下去吗？ 那个 是问题。

3.信贷扩张对利率的必然影响

按照Wicksell的术语，我们将使用“自然利率”来描述该利率，如果借用实际商品，该利率将由供求关系确定。 在自然 [直接，如以物易物]没有金钱的中介。 “货币利率”将用于以货币或货币替代物取得的贷款所要求的利率。 通过继续扩大信托媒体，银行有可能将利率降低到银行业务的实际成本，实际上几乎是零。 结果，一些作者得出结论，可以用这种方式完全消除兴趣。 整个改革派学校都希望利用银行政策来获得无偿信贷，从而解决“社会问题”。 但是，今天没有任何一个有理智的人相信可以永远取消利息，也没有疑问，但是，如果受信托媒体的扩张压制了“货币利率”，那它迟早必须再次恢复到“自然利率”吗？ 。” 问题仅在于这种不可避免的调整是如何发生的。 答案将同时解释商业周期的波动。

货币理论对问题的限制太大了。它只考虑了对当时的英国具有实际意义的情况，即信托媒体问题在一个国家增加而在其他国家保持不变。在这些假设下，情况非常明显：国内物价普遍上涨；因此进口增加，商品出口下降；由此，由于纸币只能在国内流通，金属货币就会外流。为了获得用于出口的金属货币，票据持有者将其赎回；银行的金属储备下降；然后，出于对自身偿付能力的考虑，他们会限制所提供的信贷。

在那一刻，由于容易获得信贷而引起的业务增长被证明是虚幻的繁荣。 突然的反应开始了。 撤出信贷的企业倒闭，并与作为债权人的银行一道清算。 现在，业务停滞的持续时间很长。 以此经验警告银行，银行应保持克制，不仅不再低估“自然利率”，而且在发放信贷时要格外谨慎。

4.价格溢价

为了完成这种解释，我们首先必须考虑价格溢价。 随着银行开始扩大流通信贷，预期的价格上涨会导致出现正的价格溢价。 即使银行不再降低实际利率，“货币利率”和“自然利率”之间的差距也会拉大，如果没有干预，这种差距将普遍存在。 由于现在获得贷款的钱比情况需要的便宜，因此企业家的野心扩大了。

期望可以通过获得信贷来保证必要的资本来启动新业务。 可以肯定的是，面对不断增长的需求，银行现在提高了“货币利率”。 他们仍然不停止给予进一步的信贷。 他们扩大了发行的信托媒体的供应，结果货币单位的购买力必须进一步下降。 当然，在繁荣时期，实际的“货币利率”会增加，但仍会滞后于与市场相符的利率，即“自然利率”加上正的价格溢价。

只要这种情况持续存在，上升趋势就会持续下去。 货物库存很容易售出。 价格和利润上升。 商业企业的订单不堪重负，因为每个人都希望价格进一步上涨，而工人找到的工资率却越来越高。 但是，这种情况不会永远持续下去！

5.可用资本货物投资不当

“自然利率”建立在趋于市场均衡的那个高度。 这种趋势趋向于这样一种状况，即没有闲置的资本货物，没有开发任何有利可图的企业的机会，并且唯一没有进行的项目是那些不再以现行“自然利率”产生利润的项目。 但是，假设市场正在朝着均衡方向发展，而银行的干预则扰乱了均衡。 可以低于“自然利率”获得金钱。 结果，可能开始经营以前从未盈利的业务，​​而这些业务只有通过低于随着流通信贷扩张而出现的“自然利率”才能盈利。

在这里，我们再次看到，流通信贷的扩张导致购买力下降与货币数量增加带来的购买力下降之间存在着差异。 在后一种情况下（即，从狭义上讲，货币数量增加了），首先受到影响的价格要么是（1）仅是消费者商品的价格，要么是（2）消费者商品和生产者商品的价格。 这将取决于那些首先获得新数量货币的人是否将这些新财富用于消费或生产。 但是，如果购买力的下降是由银行创建的受托媒体的增加引起的，那么首先影响生产者商品的价格。 消费者商品的价格仅在工资和利润增加的范围内跟随。

由于市场总是需要一些时间才能达到完全的“均衡”，因此“静态”或“自然”[36]用纳特·威克塞尔（Knut Wicksell）和古典经济学家的语言。 价格，工资率和利率实际上从未出现过。 建立它们的过程从未在更改发生之前完成，更改再次表明新的“平衡”。 有时，即使在没有阻碍的市场上，也有一些失业的工人，未售出的消费者的商品以及未使用的生产要素的数量，这些在“静态均衡”下是不存在的。 随着商业和生产活动的复兴，这些储备马上就被需求了。 但是，一旦它们消失了，信托媒体的供应量必然会导致某种特殊的干扰。

In a given economic situation, the opportunities for production, which may actually be carried out, are limited by the supply of capital goods available. Roundabout methods of production can be adopted only so far as the means for subsistence exist to maintain the workers during the entire period of the expanded process. All those projects, for the completion of which means are not available, must be left uncompleted, even though they may appear technically feasible—that is, if one disregards the supply of capital. However, such businesses, because of the lower loan rate offered by the banks, appear for the moment to be profitable and are, therefore, initiated. However, the existing resources are insufficient. Sooner or later this must become evident. Then it will become apparent that production has gone astray, that plans were drawn up in excess of the economic means available, that speculation, i.e., activity aimed at the provision of future goods, was misdirected.

6.“强制储蓄”

近年来，相当大的意义归因于以下事实：“强制储蓄”（由于受信媒介增加而导致的购买力下降）可能导致资本供给增加。 由于以下事实，使生活基金的资金走得更远：（1）工人的消费减少，因为工资率往往落后于商品价格的上涨；（2）那些从中受益的人工人的收入至少可以节省一部分收益。 如上所述，是否实际出现“强制储蓄”取决于每种情况下的情况。 无需进一步讨论。

然而，确定“强迫储蓄”的存在并不意味着银行的流通信贷扩张不会导致启动round回生产的数量超出可用能力所能保证的范围。 为了证明这一点，必须证明银行只能压低“货币利率”并扩大信托媒体的范围，以至于“自然利率”由于“强迫”而下降。储蓄。” 这个假设简直是荒谬的，没有必要进一步论证。 任何人都想要维护它几乎是不可想象的。

让我们担心的是银行所带来的问题，即降低了“货币利率” 如下。“自然汇率”。 对于我们的问题，由于银行的这一行动，在某些情况下以及在狭窄范围内，“自然利率”也可能下降多少并不重要。 与降低产生“强制储蓄”的“货币利率”相比，没有人怀疑“强制储蓄”只能部分地降低“自然利率”。[37]I believe this should be pointed out here again, although I have exhausted everything to be said on the subject (pp. 105–07) and in 货币信贷理论 [1953, pp. 361ff.; 1980, pp. 400ff.]. Anyone who has followed the discussions of recent years will realize how important it is to stress these things again and again.

新近启动的耗时的生产方法所要求的资源对于原本应该使用的那些过程是不可用的。 贷款利率的降低使所有生产者受益，因此所有生产者现在都能够为生产的物质因素支付更高的工资率和更高的价格。 他们的竞争提高了工资率和其他生产要素的价格。 尽管如此，除了已经讨论过的可能性之外，这不会增加劳动力的规模或更高级别的可用商品的供应。 生计手段不足以在延长的生产期内为工人提供食物。 显然，新的，更长的longer回生产的建议并未根据实际的资本状况进行调整。 一方面，企业意识到他们可用的资源不足以继续其运营。 他们发现“钱”是稀缺的。

这正是发生的事情。 价格的普遍上涨意味着所有企业所需的资金都比其“启动”时的预期要多。 需要更多资源才能完成它们。 但是，银行借出的越来越多的信托媒体已经用尽了。 银行不能再以相同的利率再贷款。 结果，由于两个原因，他们必须再次提高贷款利率。 首先，正价溢价的出现迫使他们为借入的外部资金支付更高的利息。 然后，他们还必须在许多信贷申请者之间进行区分。 并非所有企业都能负担得起这种增加的利率。 那些不会遇到困难的人。

7.习惯形成政策

现在，在扩大流通信贷时，银行不会通过将有限剂量的新信托介质注入流通然后停下来来进行。 他们持续扩展受托媒体一段时间，可以说在第一个产品发行之后发送第二，第三，第四等等。 他们不会简单地一次降低“自然利率”，然后迅速适应新情况。 相反，他们继续将贷款低于“自然利率”的做法持续了一段时间。 可以肯定的是，对他们的信贷需求量不断增加可能会导致他们提高“货币利率”。 然而，即使银行恢复了以前的“自然利率”，即信贷扩张影响市场之前的普遍利率，但如果他们不继续扩大信贷，它们仍然落后于现在市场上存在的利率。 这是因为现在必须在新的“自然汇率”中包含正的价格溢价。 借助这种新的信托媒体，银行现在可以满足商人不断增长的信贷需求。 因此，危机尚未出现。 继续使用已经开始使用更多回旋生产方法的企业。 由于价格进一步上涨，企业家的早期计算得以实现。 他们赚钱。 简而言之，繁荣仍在继续。

8.不可避免的危机和周期

只有当银行改变其行为，停止发行更多新的信托媒介并停止削弱“自然利率”时，危机才会爆发。他们甚至可能采取措施限制流通信贷。他们何时真正这样做以及为什么这样做，仍有待研究。然而，首先我们必须问自己，银行是否有可能继续走既定的道路，允许新数量的信托媒介不断流入流通，并始终以低于利率的价格发放贷款。如果他们不干扰新创建的信托媒体，这将在市场上盛行。

如果银行能够以这种方式进行下去，并且业务不断改善，那么它们是否可以提供持久的美好时光？ 这样一来，他们就能使繁荣发展成为永恒吗？

他们无法做到这一点。 他们之所以不能这样做，是因为通货膨胀主义仍在继续 循环往复 这不是可行的政策。 如果信托媒体的问题不断扩大，价格将越来越高，同时正价溢价也将上升。 （我们将忽略以下事实：（1）相对于信托媒体的货币储备不断下降，以及（2）银行的运营成本必须迟早迫使它们停止流通信贷的进一步扩张。）正是因为并且，仅因为没有预见到信托媒体不断扩展的漫长“洪流”，会导致价格进一步急剧上升，最后，导致价格和贷款利率异常上升的恐慌。

假设银行仍然不想放弃比赛？ 假设为了降低贷款利率，他们想通过发行更多的流通信贷来满足不断扩大的信贷需求？ 然后他们只会加速结束，整个信托媒体系统崩溃。 通货膨胀只有在有一天将停止的信念持续存在的情况下才能继续下去。 一旦人们被说服，通货膨胀将会 不能 停止，他们从使用这笔钱转向。 然后，他们逃往“实际价值”，外国货币，贵金属和易货贸易。

危机迟早 必须 银行行为的改变不可避免地会爆发。 镇压的时间越晚，企业家的计算被额外的信托媒体问题所误导的时间就越长。 信托资金的增加越多，就越坚定地以投资形式坚定了生产要素，这些投资仅由于人为降低的利率而显得有利可图，而由于再次提高了利率而被证明是无利可图的。 错误的资本投资导致了巨大的损失。 许多新结构尚未完成。 其他已完成的操作将关闭。 之所以继续进行其他活动，是因为在冲销了表示浪费资金的损失后，现有结构的运营至少要付出一定的代价。

危机以其独特的特征而停滞不前。 繁荣时期的误导企业和企业已经被清算。 破产和调整已经清除了这种情况。 银行已变得谨慎。 他们反对扩大流通信贷。 他们不愿意听从计划者和发起人的信贷申请。 通过扩大，缺乏流通信贷，人为刺激商业，不仅是商业刺激，甚至包括 将 考虑到现有的资本品，没有任何可行的方法，因为总体的沮丧感使每项创新都令人怀疑。 普遍的“货币利率”下降 如下。 “自然利率”。

当危机爆发时，贷款利率急剧上升，因为受到威胁的企业为获得资源的资金提供了极高的利率，他们希望借助这些利率来挽救自己。 后来，随着恐慌情绪的消退，由于流通信贷受到限制并试图处置大量库存而导致局势发展，导致价格[和“货币利率”]稳步下降，并出现了负数。价格溢价。 即使在价格下降停滞后，负的溢价不再符合条件时，这种降低的贷款利率仍会坚持一段时间。 因此，得出的结果是“货币利率”低于“自然利率”。 但是，由于最近危机的不幸经历使每个人都感到不安，因此开展业务活动的动机并不像其他情况所需要的那样强烈。 在此之前一段时间，资本资金又因积累的储蓄而再次增加，对贷款利率施加了足够的压力，使企业家活动得以恢复。 随着这一发展，低谷过去了，新的繁荣开始了。

III. THE REAPPEARANCE OF CYCLES

1. Metallic Standard Fluctuations

From the instant when the banks start expanding the volume of circulation credit, until the moment they stop such behavior, the course of events is substantially similar to that provoked by any increase in the quantity of money. The difference results from the fact that fiduciary media generally come into circulation through the banks, i.e., as loans, while increases in the quantity of money appear as additions to the wealth and income of specific individuals. This has already been mentioned and will not be further considered here. Considerably more significant for us is another distinction between the two.

Such increases and decreases in the quantity of money have no connection with increases or decreases in the demand for money. If the demand for money grows in the wake of a population increase or a progressive reduction of barter and self-sufficiency resulting in increased monetary transactions, there is absolutely no need to increase the quantity of money. It might even decrease. In any event, it would be most extraordinary if changes in the demand for money were balanced by reciprocal changes in its quantity so that both changes were concealed and no change took place in the monetary unit’s purchasing power.

Changes in the value of the monetary unit are always taking place in the economy. Periods of declining purchasing power alternate with those of increasing purchasing power. Under a metallic standard, these changes are usually so slow and so insignificant that their effect is not at all violent. Nevertheless, we must recognize that even under a precious metal standard periods of ups and downs would still alternate at irregular intervals. In addition to the standard metallic money, such a standard would recognize only token coins for petty transactions. There would, of course, be no paper money or any other currency (i.e., either notes or bank accounts subject to check which are not fully covered). Yet even then, one would be able to speak of economic “ups,” “downs” and “waves.” However, one would hardly be inclined to refer to such minor alternating “ups” and “downs” as regularly recurring cycles. During these periods when purchasing power moved in one direction, whether up or down, it would probably move so slightly that businessmen would scarcely notice the changes. Only economic historians would become aware of them. Moreover, the fact is that the transition from a period of rising prices to one of falling prices would be so slight that neither panic nor crisis would appear. This would also mean that businessmen and news reports of market activities would be less occupied with the “long waves” of the trade cycle.[38]To avoid misunderstanding, it should be pointed out that the expression “long-waves” of the trade cycle is not to be understood here as it was used by either Wilhelm Röpke or N.D. Kondratieff. Röpke (Die Konjunktur [Jena, 1922], p. 21) considered “long-wave cycles” to be those which lasted 5–10 years generally. Kondratieff (“Die langen Wellen der Konjunktur” in ArchivfürSozialwissenschaft 56, pp. 573ff.) tried to prove, unsuccessfully in my judgment, that, in addition to the 7–11 year cycles of business conditions which he called medium cycles, there were also regular cyclical waves averaging 50 years in length.

2. Infrequent Recurrences of Paper Money Inflations

The effects of inflations brought about by increases in paper money are quite different. They also produce price increases and hence “good business conditions,” which are further intensified by the apparent encouragement of exports and the hampering of imports. Once the inflation comes to an end, whether by a providential halt to further increases in the quantity of money (as for instance recently in France and Italy) or through complete debasement of the paper money due to inflationary policy carried to its final conclusions (as in Germany in 1923), then the “stabilization crisis”[39][德语术语， “Sanierungskrise,” 字面意思是“恢复危机”，即向更“健康”的货币关系转变时发生的危机。在英语中，这场危机被称为“稳定危机”。——编者。] appears. The cause and appearance of this crisis correspond precisely to those of the crisis which comes at the close of a period of circulation credit expansion. One must clearly distinguish Free Introduction crisis [i.e., when increases in the quantity of money are simply halted] from the consequences which must result when the cessation of inflation is followed by deflation.

纸币通货膨胀的反复出现并没有规律性。它们通常源于某种政治态度，而不是经济本身内部的事件。人们只能肯定地说，当一个国家彻底推行通货膨胀政策或至少推行到相当大的程度后，它不可能很快再次成功地利用这一手段来服务于其金融利益。由于他们的经历，人民将变得不信任，并抵制任何恢复通货膨胀的企图。

Even at the very beginning of a new inflation, people would reject the notes or accept them only at a far greater discount than the actual increased quantity would otherwise warrant. As a 排除, such an unusually high discount is characteristic of the final phases of an inflation. Thus an early attempt to return to a policy of paper money inflation must either fail entirely or come very quickly to a catastrophic conclusion. One can assume—and monetary history confirms this, or at least does not contradict it—that a new generation must grow up before consideration can again be given to bolstering the government’s finances with the printing press.

许多州从未推行过纸币通胀政策。许多人在他们的历史上只使用过一次。即使是传统上以印钞闻名的州也没有经常重复这种实验。拿破仑时代的纸币通货膨胀之后，奥地利等待了近一代人的时间才再次开始实行通货膨胀政策。即便如此，通货膨胀的比例也比十九世纪初要温和。从第二次通货膨胀期结束到第三次通货膨胀期开始，已经过去了近半个世纪。纸币通货膨胀的周期性再现是不可能的。

三、信贷扩张的周期过程

Regularity can be detected only with respect to the phenomena originating out of circulation credit. Crises have reappeared every few years since banks issuing fiduciary media began to play an important role in the economic life of people. Stagnation followed crisis, and following these came the boom again. More than ninety years ago Lord Overstone described the sequence in a remarkably graphic manner:

We find it [the “state of trade”] subject to various conditions which are periodically returning; it revolves apparently in an established cycle. First we find it in a state of quiescence,—next improvement,—growing confidence,—prosperity,—excitement,—overtrading,—convulsion,—pressure,—stagnation,—distress,—ending again in quiescence.[40]Lord Samuel Jones Loyd Overstone, “Reflections Suggested by a Perusal of Mr. J. Horsley Palmer’s Pamphlet on the Causes and Consequences of the Pressure on the Money Market,” 1837. (Reprinted in 金属和纸币通论和其他出版物 [伦敦，1857 年]，第 31 页。 XNUMX.) This description, unrivaled for its brevity and clarity, must be kept in mind to realize how wrong it is to give later economists credit for transforming the problem of the crisis into the problem of general business conditions.

Attempts have been made, with little success, to supplement the observation that business cycles recur by attributing a definite time period to the sequence of events. Theories which sought the source of economic change in recurring cosmic events have, as might be expected, leaned in this direction. A study of economic history fails to support such assumptions. It shows recurring ups and downs in business conditions, but not ups and downs of equal length.

要解决的问题是商业活动波动的反复出现。流通信用理论粗略地向我们展示了一个周期的典型过程。然而，就我们迄今为止的理论分析而言，它仍然不能解释为什么循环总是重复发生。

根据流通信用理论，引发波动的直接刺激显然是在银行的行为中寻找。只要他们开始将“货币利率”降低到“自然利率”以下，他们就扩大了流通信贷，从而使事态的发展偏离了正常发展的轨道。它们带来关系的变化，必然导致繁荣和危机。因此，问题在于追问是什么导致银行一次又一次地尝试扩大流通信贷量。

Many authors believe that the instigation of the banks’ behavior comes from outside, that certain events induce them to pump more fiduciary media into circulation and that they would behave differently if these circumstances failed to appear. I was also inclined to this view in the first edition of my book on monetary theory.[41]41见 格尔德斯与乌姆劳斯密特理论 (1912), pp. 433ff. I had been deeply impressed by the fact that Lord Overstone was also apparently inclined to this interpretation. See his “Reflections,” pp. 32ff. [NOTE: These paragraphs were deleted from the 2nd German edition (1924) from which was made the H.E. Batson English translation, 货币信贷理论， published 1934, 1953, and 1971.—Ed.] I could not understand why the banks didn’t learn from experience. I thought they would certainly persist in a policy of caution and restraint, if they were not led by outside circumstances to abandon it. Only later did I become convinced that it was useless to look to an outside stimulus for the change in the conduct of the banks. Only later did I also become convinced that fluctuations in general business conditions were completely dependent on the relationship of the quantity of fiduciary media in circulation to demand.

每一期新的信托媒体都会产生上述后果。首先，它压低了贷款利率，然后降低了货币单位的购买力。随后的每个问题都会带来相同的结果。新发行银行的建立和流通信贷的逐步扩张为商业繁荣提供了手段，但结果却导致了危机和随之而来的衰退。我们不难理解，发行信托媒介的银行为了提高盈利机会，可能会准备扩大授信规模和发行票据数量。需要特别解释的是，为什么人们一而再、再而三地试图通过扩大流通信贷来改善总体经济状况，尽管过去这种努力都以失败告终。

The answer must run as follows: According to the prevailing ideology of businessman and economist-politician, the reduction of the interest rate is considered an essential goal of economic policy. Moreover, the expansion of circulation credit is assumed to be the appropriate means to achieve this goal.

4. 对低利率的狂热

The naïve inflationist theory of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could not stand up in the long run against the criticism of economics. In the nineteenth century, that doctrine was held only by obscure authors who had no connection with scientific inquiry or practical economic policy. For purely political reasons, the school of empirical and historical “Realism” did not pay attention to problems of economic theory. It was due only to this neglect of theory that the naïve theory of inflation was once more able to gain prestige temporarily during the World War, especially in Germany.

The doctrine of inflationism by way of fiduciary media was more durable. Adam Smith had battered it severely, as had others even before him, especially the American William Douglass.[42]William Douglass (1691–1752), a renowned physician, came to America in 1716. His “A Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America” (1739) first appeared anonymously. Many, notably in the Currency School, had followed. But then came a reversal. The Banking School confused the situation. Its founders failed to see the error in their doctrine. They failed to see that the expansion of circulation credit lowered the interest rate. They even argued that it was impossible to expand credit beyond the “needs of business.” So there are seeds in the Banking Theory which need only to be developed to reach the conclusion that the interest rate can be reduced by the conduct of the banks. At the very least, it must be admitted that those who dealt with those problems did not sufficiently understand the reasons for opposing credit expansion to be able to overcome the public clamor for the banks to provide “cheap money.”

In discussions of the rate of interest, the economic press adopted the questionable jargon of the business world, speaking of a “scarcity” or an “abundance” of money and calling the short term loan market the “money market.” Banks issuing fiduciary media, warned by experience to be cautious, practiced discretion and hesitated to indulge the universal desire of the press, political parties, parliaments, governments, entrepreneurs, landowners and workers for cheaper credit. Their reluctance to expand credit was falsely attributed to reprehensible motives. Even newspapers, that knew better, and politicians, who should have known better, never tired of asserting that the banks of issue could certainly discount larger sums more cheaply if they were not trying to hold the interest rate as high as possible out of concern for their own profitability and the interests of their controlling capitalists.

Almost without exception, the great European banks of issue on the continent were established with the expectation that the loan rate could be reduced by issuing fiduciary media. Under the influence of the Currency School doctrine, at first in England and then in other countries where old laws did not restrict the issue of notes, arrangements were made to limit the expansion of circulation credit, at least of that part granted through the issue of uncovered banknotes. Still, the Currency Theory lost out as a result of criticism by Tooke (1774–1858) and his followers. Although it was considered risky to abolish the laws which restricted the issue of notes, no harm was seen in circumventing them. Actually, the letter of the banking laws provided for a concentration of the nation’s supply of precious metals in the vaults of banks of issue. This permitted an increase in the issue of fiduciary media and played an important role in the expansion of the gold exchange standard.

Before the war [1914], there was no hesitation in Germany in openly advocating withdrawal of gold from trade so that the Reichsbank might issue sixty marks in notes for every twenty marks in gold added to its stock. Propaganda was also made for expanding the use of payments by check with the explanation that this was a means to lower the interest rate substantially.[43][See the examples cited in 货币信贷理论 (pp. 387ff.; 1980, pp. 426ff.).—Ed.] The situation was similar elsewhere, although perhaps more cautiously expressed.

Every single fluctuation in general business conditions—the upswing to the peak of the wave and the decline into the trough which follows—is prompted by the attempt of the banks of issue to reduce the loan rate and thus expand the volume of circulation credit through an increase in the supply of fiduciary media (i.e., banknotes and checking accounts not fully backed by money). The fact that these efforts are resumed again and again in spite of their widely deplored consequences, causing one business cycle after another, can be attributed to the predominance of an ideology—an ideology which regards rising commodity prices and especially a low rate of interest as goals of economic policy. The theory is that even this second goal may be attained by the expansion of fiduciary media. Both crisis and depression are lamented. Yet, because the causal connection between the behavior of the banks of issue and the evils complained about is not correctly interpreted, a policy with respect to interest is advocated which, in the last analysis, must necessarily always lead to crisis and depression.

5. 免费银行业务

不受阻碍的市场上普遍存在的价格、工资率和利率的每一次偏离都必然会导致经济“均衡”的扰乱。这种人为压低利率带来的扰动，正是危机的根源。

因此，经济一波又一波的起伏现象，其根本原因是意识形态的。只要人们相信利率可以降低，不是通过资本积累，而是通过银行政策，那么周期就不会消失。

即使政府从未关心过信托媒介的问题，仍然会有票据和支票账户形式的发行银行和信托媒介。这样一来，信托媒体的问题就不再受到法律限制。自由银行业务将盛行。然而，银行必须特别谨慎，因为其信托媒体声誉受损很敏感，而没有人会被迫接受这一点。随着时间的推移，资本主义国家的居民将学会区分好银行和坏银行。生活在“不发达国家”的人们会不信任所有银行。没有政府会向银行施加压力，要求它们以比银行本身所能证明的更宽松的条件贴现。然而，有偿付能力且备受尊敬的银行的管理者们会从过去的经验中吸取教训，这些银行的信托媒体将享有对货币替代质量至关重要的普遍信心。即使他们几乎没有发现更深层次的相关性，他们仍然会知道它们可以走多远而不引发崩溃的危险。

The cautious policy of restraint on the part of respected and well-established banks would compel the more irresponsible managers of other banks to follow suit, however much they might want to discount more generously. For the expansion of circulation credit can never be the act of one individual bank alone, nor even of a group of individual banks. It always requires that the fiduciary media be 通常 被接受作为货币替代品。如果几家发行银行并存，各自享有平等的权利，如果其中一些银行试图扩大流通信贷量，而另一些银行不改变其行为，那么在每次银行清算时，需求余额都会定期出现在银行中。保守型企业青睐。由于提出票据赎回和提取现金余额，扩张中的银行很快将被迫再次限制其排放规模。

In the course of the development of a banking system with fiduciary media, crises could not have been avoided. However, as soon as bankers recognized the dangers of expanding circulation credit, they would have done their utmost, in their own interests, to avoid the crisis. They would then have taken the only course leading to this goal: extreme restraint in the issue of fiduciary media.

6. Government Intervention in Banking

The fact that the development of fiduciary media banking took a different turn may be attributed entirely to the circumstance that the issue of banknotes (which for a long time were the only form of fiduciary media and are today [1928] still the more important, even in the United States and England) became a public concern. The private bankers and joint-stock banks were supplanted by the politically privileged banks of issue because the governments favored the expansion of circulation credit for reasons of fiscal and credit policy. The privileged institutions could proceed unhesitatingly in the granting of credit, not only because they usually held a monopoly in the issue of notes, but also because they could rely on the government’s help in an emergency. The private banker would go bankrupt, if he ventured too far in the issue of credit. The privileged bank received permission to suspend payments and its notes were made legal tender at face value.

如果从货币理论中得出的知识得出这样的结论：信托媒介应该被剥夺所有特权，并像其他主张一样，在各个方面无一例外地置于一般法之下，这可能会对消除威胁做出更大的贡献。通过规定以票据形式发行信托媒介的严格比例并限制银行以支票账户形式发行信托媒介的自由，实际上比实际完成的危机要严重得多。自由银行业务的原则仅限于支票账户领域。事实上，它在这里无法发挥对银行和银行家的约束作用。舆论认为政府应该遵循不同的政策——在危机时期向发行央行提供援助的政策。为了允许英格兰银行向因扩大流通信贷而陷入困境的银行伸出援手，《皮尔法案》于 1847 年、1857 年和 1866 年暂停。这种或那种形式的援助已一次又一次地提供到处。

在美国，国家银行立法使得提供此类援助在技术上变得困难，即使不是完全不可能。该制度被认为特别令人不满意，正是因为它在帮助破产信贷授予者和支持他们所授予的流通信贷价值的道路上设置了法律障碍。导致美国银行体系[即1913年联邦储备法]进行重大修改的原因中，最重要的是认为必须为危机时期制定准备金。换句话说，正如票据交换所证书的紧急制度能够拯救扩张中的银行一样，技术上的权宜之计也应该被用来防止银行和银行家的崩溃，而银行家的行为导致了危机。通常认为，保护那些扩大流通信贷的银行免受其行为后果的影响尤为重要。发行央行的主要任务之一就是填补这一缺口。这也被认为是其他银行的责任，这些银行凭借远见，即使在普遍的危机中也成功地保持了偿付能力，以帮助陷入困境的其他银行。

7. Intervention No Remedy

It may well be asked whether the damage inflicted by misguiding entrepreneurial activity by artificially lowering the loan rate would be greater if the crisis were permitted to run its course. Certainly many saved by the intervention would be sacrificed in the panic, but if such enterprises were permitted to fail, others would prosper. Still the total loss brought about by the “boom” (which the crisis did not produce, but only made evident) is largely due to the fact that factors of production were expended for fixed investments which, in the light of economic conditions, were not the most urgent. As a result, these factors of production are now lacking for more urgent uses. If intervention prevents the transfer of goods from the hands of imprudent entrepreneurs to those who would now take over because they have evidenced better foresight, this imbalance becomes neither less significant nor less perceptible.

无论如何，为了因危机而无力偿债的银行以及这些银行的客户的利益而进行干预的做法，导致了阻止经济扩张卷土重来的市场力量的中止，其形式是：新的繁荣，以及随之而来的不可避免的危机。如果银行毫发无伤地走出危机，或者只是稍微受到削弱，那么还有什么能够阻止它们再次尝试人为降低贷款利率和扩大流通信贷呢？如果无情地任由危机继续发展，导致无法履行义务的企业被摧毁，那么所有企业家——不仅是银行，还有其他商人——在未来的信贷发放和使用方面都会更加谨慎。相反，舆论赞成在危机中提供援助。然后，最坏的情况一过去，银行就会受到刺激，开始新一轮的流通信贷扩张。

To the businessman, it appears most natural and understandable that the banks should satisfy his demand for credit by the creation of fiduciary media. The banks, he believes, should have the task and the duty to “stand by” business and trade. There is no dispute but that the expansion of circulation credit furthers the accumulation of capital within the narrow limits of the “forced savings” it brings about and to that extent permits an increase in productivity. Still it can be argued that, given the situation, each step in this direction steers business activity, in the manner described above, on a “wrong” course. The discrepancy between what the entrepreneurs do and what the unhampered market would have prescribed becomes evident in the crisis. The fact that each crisis, with its unpleasant consequences, is followed once more by a new “boom,” which must eventually expend itself as another crisis, is due only to the circumstances that the ideology which dominates all influential groups—political economists, politicians, statesmen, the press and the business world—not only sanctions, but also demands, the expansion of circulation credit.

四．货币学派的危机政策

一、货币学派的不足

迄今为止，解释商业波动问题的每一项进步都归功于货币学派。我们还要感谢这所学校提出的旨在消除商业波动的政策的想法。货币学派的致命错误在于它没有认识到纸币和银行活期存款作为货币替代品以及货币凭证和信托媒介之间的相似性。在他们眼里，只有钞票才是货币的替代品。因此，在他们看来，纯金属货币的流通只能通过引入不被货币覆盖的纸币来掺假。

Consequently, they thought that the only thing that needed to be done to prevent the periodic return of crises was to set a rigid limit for the issue of banknotes not backed by metal. The issue of fiduciary media in the form of demand deposits not covered by metal was left free.[44]Even the countries that have followed different procedures in this respect have, for all practical purposes, placed no obstacle in the way of the development of fiduciary media in the form of bank deposits. Since nothing stood in the way of granting circulation credit through bank deposits, the policy of expanding circulation credit could be continued even in England. When technical difficulties limited further bank loans and precipitated a crisis, it became customary to come to the assistance of the banks and their customers with special issues of notes. The practice of restricting the notes in circulation not covered by metal, by limiting the ratio of such notes to metal, systematized this procedure. Banks could expand the volume of credit with ease if they could count on the support of the bank of issue in an emergency.

如果任何形式的信托媒介的进一步扩张都被禁止，也就是说，如果银行有义务为额外发行的票据和增加接受支票或类似索赔的客户活期存款持有全额准备金——或者至少如果不允许将信托媒介的数量增加到超出严格限制的比例，那么价格就会急剧下降，特别是当货币需求的增长超过其数量的增长时。那么，经济不仅会缺乏任何“强制储蓄”所带来的动力，而且还会暂时受到货币单位购买力上升（即价格下跌）的影响。资本积累将会放缓，但肯定不会停止。无论如何，当时的经济肯定不会经历暴风雨般的上升时期，随后又急剧逆转为危机和衰退。

There is little sense in discussing whether it would have been better to restrict, in this way, the issue of fiduciary media by the banks than it was to pursue the policy actually followed. The alternatives are not merely restriction or freedom in the issue of fiduciary media. The alternatives are, or at least were, privilege in the granting of fiduciary media or true free banking.

几乎没有人提出自由银行业务的可能性。当银行政策成为经济和政治讨论的前沿时，干预措施首次给资本主义体系蒙上了阴影。可以肯定的是，一些捍卫自由银行业的作者出现了。然而，他们的声音却被压倒了。期望的目标是保护票据持有人免受银行的侵害。人们忘记了，那些因发行银行危险的暂停付款而受到伤害的人始终是法律旨在帮助的人。无论人们预期在绝对自由的银行体系下银行崩溃会产生多么严重的后果，人们都必须承认，他们永远无法接近战争和战后银行政策所带来的严重后果。三个欧洲帝国。[45][按照米塞斯教授的说法，“欧洲三大帝国”是奥匈帝国、德国和俄罗斯。这个名称可能来自“三皇同盟”（1872 年），这是这些政府之间的非正式联盟。到 1890 年，其有效性逐渐下降，第一次世界大战给了它最后的打击。——编者注]

2.“繁荣”受青睐

In the last two generations, hardly anyone, who has given this matter some thought, can fail to know that a crisis follows a boom. Nevertheless, it would have been impossible for even the sharpest and cleverest banker to suppress in time the expansion of circulation credit. Public opinion stood in the way. The fact that business conditions fluctuated violently was generally assumed to be inherent in the capitalistic system. Under the influence of the Banking Theory, it was thought that the banks merely went along with the upswing and that their conduct had nothing to do with bringing it about or advancing it. If, after a long period of stagnation, the banks again began to respond to the general demand for easier credit, public opinion was always delighted by the signs of the start of a boom.

In view of the prevailing ideology, it would have been completely unthinkable for the banks to apply the brakes at the start of such a boom. If business conditions continued to improve, then, in conformity with the principles of Lord Overstone, prophecies of a reaction certainly increased in number. However, even those who gave this warning usually did not call for a rigorous halt to all further expansion of circulation credit. They asked only for moderation and for restricting newly granted credits to “non-speculative” businesses.

Then finally, if the banks changed their policy and the crisis came, it was always easy to find culprits. But there was no desire to locate the real offender—the false theoretical doctrine. So no changes were made in traditional procedures. Economic waves continued to follow one another.

发行银行的管理者在执行其政策时并没有对其基础进行太多反思。如果流通信贷的扩张开始引起他们的警觉，他们就会提高贴现率，但并不总是很巧妙。因此，他们因自己的行为引发了危机而受到公众的谴责。显然，危机迟早会到来。同样明显的是，危机总是主要和直接地由银行行为的变化引起的。然而，如果我们谈论银行方面的错误，我们必须指出它们在鼓励经济复苏方面犯下的错误。问题不在于加息政策，而在于加息得太晚。

V. MODERN CYCLICAL POLICY

1. Pre-World War I Policy

今天所推荐的周期性政策，在大多数涉及商业波动问题的文献中，并且在美国已经取得了长足的进步，完全依赖于流通信用理论的推理。[46][Mises undoubtedly refers here to the way the Federal Reserve System reacted to the post World War I boom, when it brought an end to credit expansion by raising the discount rate, thus precipitating the 1920–1921 correction period, popularly called a “recession.”—Ed.] 这些文献的大部分目的是通过使用精确的统计方法研究商业状况，使该理论在实践中发挥作用。

无需进一步解释，经济周期理论只有一种——流通信用理论。所有其他解决这个问题的尝试都未能经受住批评。每一个危机政策和每一个周期性政策都是从这个理论衍生出来的。它的思想构成了战前几十年奉行的周期性和危机政策的基础。因此，当时在文献中被认为是唯一正确解释的银行理论，以及所有将问题与直接交换理论联系起来的解释，都已经被忽视了。人们可能仍然流行说流通中的纸币的弹性取决于商品汇票的贴现。然而，在制定周期性政策的银行经理们的世界里，其他观点盛行。

因此，从这个意义上来说，我们不能说当今周期性政策背后的理论是新的。可以肯定的是，流通信用理论与旧的货币理论相比已经有了很大的进步。瓦尔拉斯、威克塞尔和我对这个问题的研究将其视为一种更普遍的现象。这些研究将其与整个经济过程联系起来。他们试图将其特别作为利率制定和贷款市场“均衡”的问题来处理。为了认识所取得的进步的程度，可以比较一下巴斯夏和蒲鲁东之间关于自由信贷的著名争论。[47][Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) replied to an open letter addressed to him by an editor of 人民之声 (October 22, 1849). Then the Socialist, Pierre Jean Proudhon (1809–1865), answered. Proudhon, an advocate of unlimited monetary expansion by reduction of the interest rate to zero, and Bastiat, who favored moderate credit expansion and only a limited reduction of interest rates, carried on a lengthy exchange for several months, until March 7, 1850. (Oeuvres Completes de Frédéric Bastiat, 4th ed., vol. 5 [Paris, 1878], pp. 93–336.)—Ed.] Or compare the usual criticism of the Quantity Theory in prewar German literature with recent discussions on the subject. However, no matter how significant this progress may be considered for the development of our understanding, we should not forget that the Currency Theory had already offered policy making every assistance in this regard that a theory can.

毫无疑问，在考虑这个问题时，不仅从信托媒体的角度，而且从整个货币购买力问题的角度来看，都取得了实质性进展。货币学派只关注因流通信用增加或减少而产生的价格变化，但他们只考虑发行纸币所赋予的流通信用。因此，货币学派距离稳定货币单位购买力还有很长的路要走。

2. 第一次世界大战后的政策

今天，信托媒介的发行和货币单位的购买力这两个问题被视为与流通信用理论密切相关。现代周期性政策的倾向之一是将这两个问题视为一个问题。因此，周期性政策的目标之一就是稳定货币购买力。有关此问题的讨论，请参阅本研究的第一部分。

Like the Currency School, the other aim is not to stabilize purchasing power but only to avoid the crisis. However, a still further goal is contemplated—similar to that sought by the Peel Act and by prewar cyclical policy. It is proposed to counteract a boom, whether caused by an expansion of fiduciary media or by a monetary inflation (for example, an increase in the production of gold). Then, again, depression is to be avoided when there is restriction irrespective of whether it starts with a contraction in the quantity of money or of fiduciary media. The aim is not to keep prices stable, but to prevent the free market interest rate from being reduced temporarily by the banks of issue or by monetary inflation.

为了解释这一新政策的本质，我们现在更详细地探讨两个具体案例：

1. The production of gold increases and prices rise. A price premium appears in the interest rate that would limit the demand for loans to the supply of lendable funds available. The banks, however, have no reason to raise their lending rate. As a matter of fact, they become more willing to discount at a lower rate as the relationship between their obligations and their stock of gold has been improved. It has certainly not deteriorated. The actual loan rate they are asking lags behind the interest rate that would prevail on a free market, thus providing the initiative for a boom. In this instance, prewar crisis policy would not have intervened since it considered only the ratio of the bank’s cover which had not deteriorated. As prices and wages rise [resulting in an increased demand for business loans], modern theory maintains that the interest rates should rise and circulation credit be restricted.

2. The inducement to the boom has been given by the banks in response, let us say, to the general pressure to make credit cheaper in order to combat depression, without any change in the quantity of money in the narrower sense. Since the cover ratio deteriorates as a result, even the older crisis policy would have called for increasing the interest rate as a brake. Only in the first of these two instances does a fundamental difference exist between old and new policies.

3. Empirical Studies

Many now engaged in cyclical research maintain that the special superiority of current crisis policy in America rests on the use of more precise statistical methods than those previously available. Presumably, means for eliminating seasonal fluctuations and the secular general trend have been developed from statistical series and curves. Obviously, it is only with such manipulations that the findings of a market study may become a study of the business cycle. However, even if one should agree with the American investigators in their evaluation of the success of this effort, the question remains as to the usefulness of index numbers. Nothing more can be added to what has been said above on the subject, in Part I of this study.

三个市场晴雨表的发展[48]This Harvard barometer was developed at the University by the Committee on Economic Research from three statistical series which are presumed to reveal (1) the extent of stock speculation, (2) the condition of industry and trade and (3) the supply of funds. 被认为是哈佛调查中最重要的成就。由于无法确定 Wicksell 的自然利率或“理想”溢价，因此建议我们将利率变化与价格变动以及其他指示业务状况的数据进行比较，例如生产数据、失业人数等。这已经做了几十年了。人们只需浏览一下过去两代人的日报、经济周报、月刊和年刊的报道，就会发现今天自豪地提出的许多声称是第一个认识到这些数据对于理解经济发展进程的重要性的人。商业条件，毫无根据。然而，哈佛大学研究所已经做出了贡献，它试图在这三条曲线的运动时间上建立一个经验规律。

哈佛晴雨表在美国商界已经盛行了一段时间，但我们没有必要对它的实际用途抱有过高的期望。可以很容易地承认，这个晴雨表对于增加和加深我们对周期性运动的了解几乎没有做出任何贡献。尽管如此，哈佛晴雨表对于商业状况调查的意义仍然值得高度重视，因为它确实为流通信用理论提供了统计证实。二十年前，人们认为不可能整理和操纵统计材料以使其对商业状况的研究有用。在这里，经济学家和统计学家共同完成的巧妙工作取得了真正的成功。

Upon examining the curves developed by institutes using the Harvard method, it becomes apparent that the movement of the money market curve (C Curve) in relation to the stock market curve (A Curve) and the commodity market curve (B Curve) corresponds exactly to what the Circulation Credit Theory asserts. The fact that the movements of A Curve generally anticipate those of B Curve is explained by the greater sensitivity of stock, as opposed to commodity, speculation. The stock market reacts more promptly than does the commodity market. It sees more and it sees farther. It is quicker to draw coming events (in this case, the changes in the interest rate) into the sphere of its conjectures.

4. Arbitrary Political Decisions

然而，关键问题仍然存在：三个市场晴雨表能为真正制定银行政策的人提供什么？研究商业状况的现代方法是否比前者（当然不那么彻底）更适合为旨在尽可能减少商业波动的折扣政策决策奠定基础？即使是战前的银行政策也以此为目标。毫无疑问，负责金融政策的政府机构、发行的中央银行以及大型私人银行和银行的董事都坦率而真诚地有兴趣实现这一目标。他们朝这个方向的努力——当然只有在繁荣已经全面展开的时候——至少得到了一部分公众舆论和媒体的支持。他们非常清楚需要什么才能达到预期的效果。他们知道，只有及时、足够广泛地提高贷款利率才能抵消通常所说的“过度投机”。

他们没有认识到根本问题。他们不明白，流通信贷量的每一次增加（无论是通过发行纸币还是扩大银行存款带来的）都会导致业务激增，从而启动一个循环，在危机结束后再次导致经济衰退。商业活动下降。简而言之，他们接受了导致业务波动的意识形态。然而，这一事实并没有阻止他们在周期性上涨变得明显后思考其不可避免的结果。他们不知道经济增长是由银行的行为造成的。如果他们这样做了，他们很可能只会将其视为银行政策的祝福，因为对他们来说，经济政策最重要的任务就是克服萧条，至少在萧条持续期间如此。但他们仍然知道，持续的经济增长必定会导致危机，然后导致停滞。

As a result, the trade boom evoked misgivings at once. The immediate problem became simply how to counteract the onward course of the “unhealthy” development. There was no question of “whether,” but only of “how.” Since the method—increasing the interest rate—was already settled, the question of “how” was only a matter of timing and degree: When and how much should the interest rate be raised?

关键在于，这个问题无法根据无可争议的数据得到准确回答。因此，决策必须始终由酌情判断决定。现在，责任人越坚信他们通过提高利率进行干预将结束繁荣，他们的行动就越必须谨慎。那些坚持认为上涨是正确的声音可能不是正确的吗？ 不能 “artificially” produced, that there wasn’t any “overspeculation” at all, that the boom was only the natural outgrowth of technical progress, the development of means of communication, the discovery of new supplies of raw materials, the opening up of new markets? Should this delightful and happy state of affairs be rudely interrupted? Should the government act in such a way that the economic improvement, for which it took credit, gives way to crisis?

The hesitation of officials to intervene is sufficient to explain the situation. To be sure, they had the best of intentions for stopping in time. Even so, the steps they took were usually “too little and too late.” There was always a time lag before the interest rate reached the point at which prices must start down again. In the interim, capital had become frozen in investments for which it would not have been used if the interest rate on money had not been held below its “natural rate.”

This drawback to cyclical policy is not changed in any respect if it is carried out in accordance with the business barometer. No one who has carefully studied the conclusions, drawn from observations of business conditions made by institutions working with modern methods, will dare to contend that these results may be used to establish, incontrovertibly, when and how much to raise the interest rate in order to end the boom in time before it has led to capital malinvestment. The accomplishment of economic journalism in reporting regularly on business conditions during the last two generations should not be 被低估。 Nor should the contribution of contemporary business cycle research institutes, working with substantial means, be overrated. Despite all the improvements which the preparation of statistics and graphic interpretations have undergone, their use in the determination of interest rate policy still leaves a wide margin for judgment.

5.声音理论必不可少

Moreover, it should not be forgotten that it is impossible to answer in a straightforward manner not only how seasonal variations and growth factors are to be eliminated, but also how to decide unequivocably from what data and by what method the curves of each of the Three Markets should be constructed. Arguments which cannot be easily refuted may be raised on every point with respect to the business barometer. Also, no matter how much the business barometer may help us to survey the many heterogeneous operations of the market and of production, they certainly do not offer a solid basis for weighing contingencies. Business barometers are not even in a position to furnish clear and certain answers to the questions concerning cyclical policy which are crucial for their operation. Thus, the great expectations generally associated with recent cyclical policy today are not justified.

For the future of cyclical policy more profound theoretical knowledge concerning the nature of changes in business conditions would inevitably be of incomparably greater value than any conceivable manipulation of statistical methods. Some business cycle research institutes are imbued with the erroneous idea that they are conducting impartial factual research, free of any prejudice due to theoretical considerations. In fact, all their work rests on the groundwork of the Circulation Credit Theory. In spite of the reluctance which exists today against logical reasoning in economics and against thinking problems and theories through to their ultimate conclusions, a great deal would be gained if it were decided to base cyclical policy deliberately on this theory. Then, one would know that every expansion of circulation credit must be counteracted in order to even out the waves of the business cycle. Then, a force operating on one side to reduce the purchasing power of money would be offset from the other side. The difficulties, due to the impossibility of finding any method for measuring changes in purchasing power, cannot be overcome. It is impossible to realize the ideal of either a monetary unit of unchanging value or economic stability. However, once it is resolved to forgo the artificial stimulation of business activity by means of banking policy, fluctuations in business conditions will surely be substantially reduced. To be sure this will mean giving up many a well-loved slogan, for example, “easy money” to encourage credit transactions. However, a still greater ideological sacrifice than that is called for. The desire to reduce the interest rate in any way must also be abandoned.

已经有人指出，如果不背离银行业完全自由的原则，并且如果信托媒体问题决不能免除商法规则，那么事情的结果将会大不相同。也许只有建立完全自由的银行业才能最终解决这个问题。然而，几代人持续努力形成的信用结构并不是一击就能改变的。未来几代人将认识到所有干预主义企图的根本荒谬性，也将不得不处理这个问题。然而，时机尚未成熟——无论是现在还是近期。

六．货币市场的控制

1. International Competition or Cooperation

There are many indications that public opinion has recognized the significance of the role banks play in initiating the cycle by their expansion of circulation credit. If this view should actually prevail, then the previous popularity of efforts aimed at artificially reducing the interest rate on loans would disappear. Banks that wanted to expand their issue of fiduciary media would no longer be able to count on public approval or government support. They would become more careful and more temperate. That would smooth out the waves of the cycle and reduce the severity of the sudden shift from rise to fall.

However, there are some indications which seem to contradict this view of public opinion. Most important among these are the attempts or, more precisely, the reasoning which underlies the attempts to bring about 国际 cooperation among the banks of issue.

在过去的投机时期，各国银行没有按照协议系统地合作，这一事实构成了最有效的刹车。由于国际经济关系紧密，流通信用的扩张只有成为一种国际现象才能成为普遍现象。因此，由于缺乏任何国际协议，个别银行担心资本大量外流，在设定利率时小心翼翼，不要远远低于其他国家银行的利率。因此，为了应对利率套利和价格上涨导致的贸易平衡恶化，贷款资金外流到其他国家，一方面会损害银行的覆盖率，因为外国对其黄金和外汇的债权，这些条件强加给发行银行。银行有义务考虑其偿付能力，然后将被迫限制信贷。此外，国际收支不断变化的损害将导致货币市场资金短缺，而银行将无力应对。各国人民之间的经济联系越密切，实现共同发展的可能性就越小。 国民 boom. The business climate becomes an international phenomenon.

However, in many countries, especially in the German Reich, the view has frequently been expressed by friends of “cheap money” that it is only the gold standard that forces the bank of issue to consider interest rates abroad in determining its own interest policy. According to this view, if the bank were free of this shackle, it could then better satisfy the demands of the domestic money market, to the advantage of the national economy. With this view in mind, there were in Germany advocates of bimetallism, as well as of a gold premium policy.[49][See above p. 41, note 26.—Ed.] 在奥地利，有人抵制将其合法化 事实上的 赎回其票据的做法。

It is easy to see the fallacy in this doctrine that only the tie of the monetary unit to gold keeps the banks from reducing interest rates at will. Even if all ties with the gold standard were broken, this would not have given the banks the power to lower the interest rate, below the height of the “natural” interest rate, with impunity. To be sure, the paper standard would have permitted them to continue the expansion of circulation credit without hesitation, because a bank of issue, relieved of the obligation of redeeming its notes, need have no fear with respect to its solvency. Still, the increase in notes would have led first to price increases and consequently to a deterioration in the rate of exchange. Second, the crisis would have come—later, to be sure, but all the more severely.

如果发行银行认真考虑就贴现政策达成协议，这将消除一项有效的支票。通过一致行动，银行可以提供比现在更多的流通信贷，而不必担心后果会导致货币市场资金外流。可以肯定的是，如果消除了对国外局势的担忧，从长远来看，银行仍然无法始终将货币利率降低到“自然”利率以下。然而，两种利率之间的差异可以维持更长时间，从而导致不可避免的结果——资本不当投资——更大规模地出现。这必定会加剧不可避免的危机并加深萧条。

迄今为止，发行银行确实尚未就周期性政策达成重大协议。尽管如此，各方肯定都在提出旨在达成此类协议的努力。

2. “Boom” Promotional Problems

Another dangerous sign is that the slogan concerning the need to “control the money market,” through the banks of issue, still retains its prestige.

Given the situation, especially as it has developed in Europe, only the central banks are entitled to issue notes. Under that system, attempts to expand circulation credit universally can only originate with the central bank of issue. Every venture on the part of private banks, against the wish or the plan of the central bank, is doomed from the very beginning. Even banking techniques, learned from the Anglo-Saxons, are of no service to private banks, since the opportunity for granting credit, by opening bank deposits, is insignificant in countries where the use of checks (except for central bank clearings and the circulation of postal checks) is confined to a narrow circle in the business world. However, if the central bank of issue embarks upon a policy of credit expansion and thus begins to force down the rate of interest, it may be advantageous for the largest private banks to follow suit and expand the volume of circulation credit they grant too. Such a procedure has still a further advantage for them. It involves them in no risk. If confidence is shaken during the crisis, they can survive the critical stage with the aid of the bank of issue.

However, the bank of issue’s credit expansion policy certainly offers a large number of banks a profitable field for speculation—arbitrage in the loan rates of interest. They seek to profit from the shifting ratio between domestic and foreign interest rates by investing domestically obtained funds in short term funds abroad. In this process, they are acting in opposition to the discount policy of the bank of issue and hurting the alleged interests of those groups which hope to benefit from the artificial reduction of the interest rate and from the boom it produces. The ideology, which sees salvation in every effort to lower the interest rate and regards expansion of circulation credit as the best method of attaining this goal, is consistent with the policy of branding the actions of the interest rate arbitrageur as scandalous and disgraceful, even as a betrayal of the interests of his own people to the advantage of foreigners. The policy of granting the banks of issue every possible assistance in the fight against these speculators is also consistent with this ideology. Both government and bank of issue seek to intimidate the malefactors with threats, to dissuade them from their plan. In the liberal[50][See above p. 68, note 11.—Ed.] 对于西欧国家来说，至少在过去，通过这种方法几乎无法取得什么成果。在中东欧的干涉主义国家，这种尝试取得了更大的成功。

不难看出发行银行“控制”货币市场的努力背后隐藏着什么。该银行希望防止其旨在降低利率的信贷扩张政策因考虑国外相对严格的政策而受到阻碍。它寻求在不受国际反应干扰的情况下促进国内繁荣。

3. 推动更严格的控制

然而，根据流行的意识形态，在其他情况下，发行银行应该对货币市场拥有更强的控制权。如果由于流通信贷扩张而导致的利率套利暂时仅导致从发行银行的准备金中提取资金，而该银行则因其票据背后的安全性恶化而感到不安尽管已经开始提高贴现率，但在某些条件下，公开货币市场上的贷款利率可能仍然没有上升的理由。目前尚未有资金从国内市场撤出。黄金出口来自银行的储备，贴现率的提高并没有导致银行授信的减少。由于一些本来可以提供给银行贴现的商业票据在公开市场上被处置，贷款资金需要一段时间才能变得稀缺。然而，发卡银行并不想等这么久才让其策略生效。它对其黄金和外汇资产的状况感到震惊，希望立即得到缓解。为了实现这一目标，它必须努力让市场上的资金变得稀缺。它通常试图通过在市场上以借款人的身份出现来实现这一目标。

Another case, when control of the money market is contested, concerns the utilization of funds made available to the market by the generous discount policy. The dominant ideology favors “cheap money.” It also favors high commodity prices, but not always high stock market prices. The moderated interest rate is intended to stimulate production and not to cause a stock market boom. However, stock prices increase first of all. At the outset, commodity prices are not caught up in the boom. There are stock exchange booms and stock exchange profits. Yet, the “producer” is dissatisfied. He envies the “speculator” his “easy profit.” Those in power are not willing to accept this situation. They believe that production is being deprived of money which is flowing into the stock market. Besides, it is precisely in the stock market boom that the serious threat of a crisis lies hidden.

Therefore, the aim is to withdraw money from stock exchange loans in order to inject it into the “economy.” Trying to do this simply by raising the interest rate offers no special attraction. Such a rise in the interest rate is certainly unavoidable in the end. It is only a question of whether it comes sooner or later. Whenever the interest rate rises sufficiently, it brings an end to the business boom. Therefore, other measures are tried to transfer funds from the stock market into production, without changing the cheap rate for loans. The bank of issue exerts pressure on borrowers to influence the use made of the sums loaned out. Or else it proceeds directly to set different terms for credit depending on its use.

Thus we can see what it means if the central bank of issue aims at domination of the money market. Either the expansion of circulation credit is freed from the limitations which would eventually restrict it or the boom is shifted by certain measures along a course different from the one it would otherwise have followed. Thus, the pressure for “control of the money market” specifically envisions the encouragement of the boom—the boom which must end in a crisis. If a cyclical policy is to be followed to eliminate crises, this desire, the desire to control and dominate the money market, must be abandoned.

If it were seriously desired to counteract price increases resulting from an increase in the quantity of money—due to an increase in the mining of gold, for example—by restricting circulation credit, the central banks of issue would borrow more on the market. Paying off these obligations later could hardly be described as “controlling the money market.” For the bank of issue, the restriction of circulation credit means the renunciation of profits. It may even mean losses.

此外，只有发行银行之间达成一致，这样的政策才能成功。如果仅由一国央行实施限制，就会导致该国境内的借贷成本相对较高。这样做的主要后果将是黄金将从国外流入。就银行合作所寻求的目标而言，这当然不能被视为试图平息商业周期波动的政策中的危险一步。

VII. BUSINESS FORECASTING FOR CYCLICAL POLICY AND THE BUSINESSMAN

一、经济周期研究的贡献

The popularity enjoyed by contemporary business cycle research, the development of which is due above all to American economic researchers, derives from exaggerated expectations as to its usefulness in practice. With its help, it had been hoped to mechanize banking policy and business activity. It had been hoped that a glance at the business barometer would tell businessmen and those who determine banking policy how to act.

At present, this is certainly out of the question. It has already been emphasized often enough that the results of business cycle studies have only described past events and that they may be used for predicting future developments only on the basis of extremely inadequate principles. However—and this is not sufficiently noted—these principles apply solely on the assumption that the ideology calling for expansion of circulation credit has not lost its standing in the field of economic and banking policy. Once a serious start is made at directing cyclical policy toward the 消除 危机发生后，这种意识形态的力量已经消散。

Nevertheless, one broad field remains for the employment of the results of contemporary business cycle studies. They should indicate to the makers of banking policy when the interest rate must be raised to avoid instigating credit expansion. If the study of business conditions were clear on this point and gave answers admitting of only one interpretation, so that there could be only one opinion, not only as to whether but also as to ，尤其是 和 多少 to increase the discount rate, then the advantage of such studies could not be rated highly enough. However, this is not the case. Everything that the observation of business conditions contributes in the form of manipulated data and material can be interpreted in various ways.

Even before the development of business barometers, it was already known that increases in stock market quotations and commodity prices, a rise in profits on raw materials, a drop in unemployment, an increase in business orders, the selling off of inventories, and so on, signified a boom. The question is, when should, or when must, the brakes be applied. However, no business cycle institute answers this question straightforwardly and without equivocation. What should be done will always depend on an examination of the driving forces which shape business conditions and on the objectives set for cyclical policy. Whether the right moment for action is seized can never be decided except on the basis of a careful observation of all market phenomena. Moreover, it has never been possible to answer this question in any other way. The fact that we now know how to classify and describe the various market data more clearly than before does not make the task essentially any easier.

A glance at the continuous reports on the economy and the stock market in the large daily newspapers and in the economic weeklies, which appeared from 1840 to 1910, shows that attempts have been made for decades to draw conclusions from events of the most recent past, on the basis of empirical rules, as to the shape of the immediate future. If we compare the statistical groundwork used in these attempts with those now at our disposal, then it is obvious that we have recourse to more data today. We also understand better how to organize this material, how to arrange it clearly and interpret it for graphic presentation. However, we can by no means claim, with the modern methods of studying business conditions, to have embarked on some new principle.

2. Difficulties of Precise Prediction

No businessman may safely neglect any available source of information. Thus no businessman can refuse to pay close attention to newspaper reports. Still diligent newspaper reading is no guarantee of business success. If success were that easy, what wealth would the journalists have already amassed! In the business world, success depends on comprehending the situation sooner than others do—and acting accordingly. What is recognized as “fact” must first be evaluated correctly to make it useful for an undertaking. Precisely this is the problem of putting theory into practice.

A prediction, which makes judgments which are 定性 仅且不 定量， is practically useless even if it is eventually proved right by the later course of events. There is also the crucial question of timing. Decades ago, Herbert Spencer recognized, with brilliant perception, that militarism, imperialism, socialism and interventionism must lead to great wars, severe wars. However, anyone who had started about 1890, to speculate on the strength of that insight on a depreciation of the bonds of the Three Empires[51]Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia. [See above p. 130, note 45.—Ed.] would have sustained heavy losses. Large historical perspectives furnish no basis for stock market speculations which must be reviewed daily, weekly, or monthly at least.

众所周知，每一次繁荣都有结束的一天。然而，商人的情况取决于准确地知道突破将在何时何地首次出现。没有任何经济晴雨表能够回答这些问题。经济晴雨表仅提供可以得出结论的数据。由于发行央行仍有可能通过贴现政策推迟灾难的发生，因此情况主要取决于对这些当局行为的判断。显然，此时所有可用数据都失效了。

But once public opinion is completely dominated by the view that the crisis is imminent and businessmen act on this basis, then it is already too late to derive business profit from this knowledge. Or even merely to avoid losses. For then the panic breaks out. The crisis has come.

VIII. THE AIMS AND METHOD OF CYCLICAL POLICY

1. Revised Currency School Theory

Without doubt, expanding the sphere of scientific investigation from the narrow problem of the crisis into the broader problem of the cycle represents progress.[52]此外，因此，更容易区分源自特定原因（战争和政治动乱、自然剧烈动荡、供给或需求形态变化）的危机与周期性危机。 然而，这对于政治政策来说当然并不同样有利。他们的范围扩大了。他们开始渴望超越可行的目标。

只有满足以下条件，经济才能被组织起来以消除周期性变化：（1）货币单位价值的变化是可以衡量的这一概念背后不仅仅是混乱的思维，（2）可以提前确定货币数量和信托媒介发生一定变化所产生的影响程度。由于这些条件并不普遍，周期性政策的目标必须更加有限。然而，即使未来能够避免像 1857 年、1873 年、1900 年 01 月和 1907 年那样的严重冲击，也已经取得了很大的成就。

The most important prerequisite of any cyclical policy, no matter how modest its goal may be, is to renounce every attempt to reduce the interest rate, by means of banking policy, below the rate which develops on the market. That means a return to the theory of the Currency School, which sought to suppress all future expansion of circulation credit and thus all further creation of fiduciary media. However, this does not mean a return to the old Currency School program, the application of which was limited to banknotes. Rather it means the introduction of a new program based on the old Currency School theory, but expanded in the light of the present state of knowledge to include fiduciary media issued in the form of bank deposits.

The banks would be obliged at all times to maintain metallic backing for all notes—except for the sum of those outstanding which are not now covered by metal—equal to the total sum of the notes issued and bank deposits opened. That would mean a complete reorganization of central bank legislation. The banks of issue would have to return to the principles of Peel’s Bank Act, but with the provisions expanded to cover also bank balances subject to check. The same stipulations with respect to reserves must also be applied to the large national deposit institutions, especially the postal savings.[53][邮局储蓄机构于 1880 年代在奥地利成立，并在其他几个欧洲国家效仿，在货币事务中发挥了重要作用，尽管作用有限。参见米塞斯的评论 人类行为 pp. 445–46.—Ed.] 当然，对于这些二级发行银行来说，央行为其票据和存款准备金将相当于黄金储备。在那些私人商业银行的支票账户在贸易中发挥重要作用的国家（尤其是美国和英国），这些银行也必须承担同样的义务。

By this act alone, cyclical policy would be directed in earnest toward the elimination of crises.

2. “Price Level” Stabilization

Under present circumstances, it is out of the question, in the foreseeable future, to establish complete “free banking” and place all banking transactions, including the granting of credit, under ordinary commercial law. Those who speak and write today on behalf of “stabilization,” “maintenance of purchasing power” and “elimination of the trade cycle,” can certainly not call this more limited approach “extreme.” On the contrary! They will reject this suggestion as not going far enough. They are demanding much more. In their view, the “price level” should be maintained by countering rising prices with a restriction in the circulation of fiduciary media and, similarly, countering falling prices by the expansion of fiduciary media.

可以提出的论点 有利于 this modest program have already been set forth above in the first part of this work. In our judgment, the arguments which militate 驳 所有货币操纵都如此严重，必须避免将购买力形成的决定权交到银行官员、议会和政府手中，从而使其受到不断变化的政治影响。用于衡量购买力变化的方法必然是有缺陷的。旨在影响购买力的各种举措的效果无法定量确定——无论是提前还是发生后。因此，仅相当于对购买力进行近似调整的建议必须被认为是完全不切实际的。

Nothing more will be said here concerning the fundamental absurdity of the concept of “stable purchasing power” in a changing economy. This has already been discussed at some length. For practical economic policy, the only problem is what inflationist or restrictionist measures to consider for the partial adjustment of severe price declines or increases. Such measures, carried out in stages, step by step, through piecemeal international agreements, would benefit either creditors or debtors. However, one question remains: Whether, in view of the conflicts among interests, agreements on this issue could be reached among nations.

The viewpoints of creditors and debtors will no doubt differ widely, and these conflicts of interest will complicate still more the manipulation of money internationally, than on the national level.

3. International Complications

也可以将货币操纵视为国家经济政策的一个方面，独立采取措施调节货币价值，而不参考国际形势。根据凯恩斯的说法，[54]约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）， 货币改革的动向 （伦敦，1923 年；纽约，1924 年），第 156 页。 if there is a choice between stabilization of prices and stabilization of the foreign exchange rate, the decision should be in favor of price stabilization and against stabilization of the rate of exchange. However, a nation which chose to proceed in this way would create international complications because of the repercussions its policy would have on the content of contractual obligations.

例如，如果美国提高美元的购买力使其超过目前的黄金平价，那么持有美元的外国人的利益肯定会受到影响。然而，如果债务国试图压低其货币单位的购买力，债权人的利益就会受到损害。尽管如此，货币单位价值的每一次变化都会对对外贸易产生影响。其价值的上升将促进进口的增加，而其价值的下降将被视为增加出口的力量。

In recent generations, consideration of these factors has led to pressure for a single monetary standard based on gold. If this situation is ignored, then it will certainly not be possible to fashion monetary value so that it will generally be considered satisfactory. In view of the ideas prevailing today with respect to trade policy, especially in connection with foreign relations, a rising value for money is not considered desirable, because of its power to promote imports and to hamper exports.

试图推出一项国家政策，以便独立于国外发生的情况影响价格，同时仍然坚持金本位和相应的汇率，这是完全行不通的。这一点无需多言。

4.未来

阻碍旨在完全消除周期性变化的政策的障碍确实相当大。出于这个原因，这种限制信托媒体创建的货币和银行政策新方法不太可能被采用。完全禁止信托媒体的扩张可能不会得到解决。扩张也不可能仅限于足以抵消价格普遍下降的明确而明显的趋势。由于不知道如何评估针对各种货币价值操纵而引发的严重政治和经济疑虑，人们可能会放弃果断行动，而将其留给央行管理者逐案处理，由他们自己决定。正如过去一样，不久的将来的周期性政策将落入控制各大央行行为的人和影响其思想的人（即公众舆论的塑造者）手中。

然而，未来的周期性政策将与其前任有明显不同。它将有意识地基于贸易周期的流通信用理论。通过不断扩大流通信贷来无限期降低贷款利率的无望尝试，今后不会再重演。信托媒体的数量可能会被故意扩大或收缩，以影响购买力。然而，人们将不再抱有这样的幻想：技术性银行程序可以降低信贷成本，从而创造繁荣而不产生任何影响。

The only way to do away with, or even to alleviate, the periodic return of the trade cycle—with its denouement, the crisis—is to reject the fallacy that prosperity can be produced by using banking procedures to make credit cheap.

1. The Marxian “Anarchy of Production” Myth[*][经济危机的根源：Ein Vortrag (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, Paul Siebeck, 1931). Presented February 28, 1931, at Teplitz-Schönau, Czechoslovakia, before an assembly of German industrialists (Deutscher Hauptverband der Industrie).—Ed.]

The Marxian critique censures the capitalistic social order for the anarchy and planlessness of its production methods. Allegedly, every entrepreneur produces blindly, guided only by his desire for profit, without any concern as to whether his action satisfies a need. Thus, for Marxists, it is not surprising if severe disturbances appear again and again in the form of periodical economic crises. They maintain it would be futile to fight against all this with capitalism. It is their contention that only socialism will provide the remedy by replacing the anarchistic profit economy with a planned economic system aimed at the satisfaction of needs.

Strictly speaking, the reproach that the market economy is “anarchistic” says no more than that it is just not socialistic. That is, the actual management of production is not surrendered to a central office which directs the employment of all factors of production, but this is left to entrepreneurs and owners of the means of production. Calling the capitalistic economy “anarchistic,” therefore, means only that capitalistic production is not a function of governmental institutions.

Yet, the expression “anarchy” carries with it other connotations. We usually use the word “anarchy” to refer to social conditions in which, for lack of a governmental apparatus of force to protect peace and respect for the law, the chaos of continual conflict prevails. The word “anarchy,” therefore, is associated with the concept of intolerable conditions. Marxian theorists delight in using such expressions. Marxian theory needs the implications such expressions give to arouse the emotional sympathies and antipathies that are likely to hinder critical analysis. The “anarchy of production” slogan has performed this service to perfection. Whole generations have permitted it to confuse them. It has influenced the economic and political ideas of all currently active political parties and, to a remarkable extent, even those parties which loudly proclaim themselves anti-Marxist.

2. The Role and Rule of Consumers

Even if the capitalistic method of production were “anarchistic,” i.e., lacking systematic regulation from a central office, and even if individual entrepreneurs and capitalists did, in the hope of profit, direct their actions independently of one another, it is still completely wrong to suppose they have no guide for arranging production to satisfy need. It is inherent in the nature of the capitalistic economy that, in the final analysis, the employment of the factors of production is aimed only toward serving the wishes of consumers. In allocating labor and capital goods, the entrepreneurs and the capitalists are bound, by forces they are unable to escape, to satisfy the needs of consumers as fully as possible, given the state of economic wealth and technology. Thus, the contrast drawn between the capitalistic method of production, as production for profit, and the socialistic method, as production for use, is completely misleading. In the capitalistic economy, it is consumer demand that determines the pattern and direction of production, precisely because entrepreneurs and capitalists 必须consider the profitability of their enterprises.

基于生产要素私有制的经济通过市场变得有意义。市场通过改变价格高度来运作，以便一次又一次地使需求和供给趋于一致。如果一种商品的需求增加，那么它的价格就会上涨，而价格上涨会导致供应增加。企业家试图生产那些能够为他们带来尽可能高收益的产品。他们扩大任何特定产品的生产，直至不再盈利。如果企业家只生产那些销售承诺产生利润的商品，这意味着他们没有生产必须使用劳动力和资本品来制造消费者更迫切需要的其他商品的商品。

In the final analysis, it is the consumers who decide what shall be produced, and how. The law of the market compels entrepreneurs and capitalists to obey the orders of consumers and to fulfill their wishes with the least expenditure of time, labor and capital goods. Competition on the market sees to it that entrepreneurs and capitalists, who are not up to this task, will lose their position of control over the production process. If they cannot survive in competition, that is, in satisfying the wishes of consumers cheaper and better, then they suffer losses which diminish their importance in the economic process. If they do not soon correct the shortcomings in the management of their enterprise and capital investment, they are eliminated completely through the loss of their capital and entrepreneurial position. Henceforth, they must be content as employees with a more modest role and reduced income.

3. 为消费而生产

The law of the market applies to labor also. Like other factors of production, labor is also valued according to its usefulness in satisfying human wants. Its price, the wage rate, is a market phenomenon like any other market phenomenon, determined by supply and demand, by the value the product of labor has in the eye of consumers. By shifting the height of wages, the market directs workers into those branches of production in which they are most urgently needed. Thus the market supplies to each type of employment that quality and quantity of labor needed to satisfy consumer wants in the best possible way.

In the feudal society, men became rich by war and conquest and through the largesse of the sovereign ruler. Men became poor if they were defeated in battle or if they fell from the monarch’s good graces. In the capitalistic society, men become rich—directly as the producer of consumers’ goods, or indirectly as the producer of raw materials and semi-produced factors of production—by serving consumers in large numbers. This means that men who become rich in the capitalistic society are serving the people. The capitalistic market economy is a democracy in which every penny constitutes a vote. The wealth of the successful businessman is the result of a consumer plebiscite. Wealth, once acquired, can be preserved only by those who keep on earning it anew by satisfying the wishes of consumers.

因此，资本主义社会秩序是最严格意义上的经济民主。归根结底，一切决定都取决于作为消费者的人们的意愿。因此，每当消费者的观点与企业管理者的观点发生冲突时，市场压力都会确保消费者的观点最终获胜。这当然与工会所追求的伪经济民主有很大不同。在他们提出的这样一个体系中，人民应该作为生产者而不是消费者来指导生产。他们不是作为产品的买家，而是作为劳动力的卖家，即生产要素之一的卖家来发挥影响力。如果实行这种制度，就会破坏整个生产装置，从而毁灭我们的文明。只要考虑到生产本身并不是目的，这种立场的荒谬就显而易见了。其目的是服务消费。

4. The Perniciousness of a “Producer’s Policy”

在市场压力下，企业家和资本家必须有序生产，才能实现消费者的意愿。他们的安排和对工人的要求始终是为了满足消费者最迫切的需求。正是这一点，保证了消费者的意愿是经营的唯一准则。然而，资本主义通常被指责为将权宜之计的逻辑置于情感之上，并且不带感情和客观地安排经济事务，只为了货币利润。这是因为市场迫使企业家开展业务，以便他从中获得最大可能的回报，从而以最好、最便宜的方式满足消费者的需求。如果企业不再考虑潜在利润，而是以工人的意愿为标准，最大限度地方便他们安排工作，那么消费者的利益就会受到损害。如果企业家以尽可能高的利润为目标，那么他管理企业就是在为社会服务。无论谁阻碍他这样做，以优先考虑商业利润之外的因素，都是违背社会利益并危害消费者需求满足的。

Workers and consumers are, of course, identical. If we distinguish between them, we are only differentiating mentally between their respective functions within the economic framework. We should not let this lead us into the error of thinking they are different groups of people. The fact that entrepreneurs and capitalists also are consuming plays a less important role quantitatively; for the market economy, the significant consumption is mass consumption. Directly or indirectly, capitalistic production serves primarily the consumption of the masses.

The only way to improve the situation of the consumer, therefore, is to make enterprises still more productive, or as people may say today, to “rationalize” still further. Only if one wants to reduce consumption, should one urge what is known as “producers’ policy”—specifically the adoption of those measures which place the interests of producers over those of consumers.

反对市场规定的生产经济法则必须始终以牺牲消费为代价。每当提倡采取干预措施以使生产者摆脱遵守市场的必要性时，都应牢记这一点。

The market processes give meaning to the capitalistic economy. They place entrepreneurs and capitalists in the service of satisfying the wants of consumers. If the workings of these complex processes are interfered with, then disturbances are brought about which hamper the adjustment of supply to demand and lead production astray, along paths which keep them from attaining the goal of economic action—i.e., the satisfaction of wants.

These disturbances constitute the economic crisis.

1. 利率的作用

In our economic system, times of good business commonly alternate more or less regularly with times of bad business. Decline follows economic upswing, upswing follows decline, and so on. The attention of economic theory has quite understandably been greatly stimulated by this problem of cyclical changes in business conditions. In the beginning, several hypotheses were set forth, which could not stand up under critical examination. However, a theory of cyclical fluctuations was finally developed which fulfilled the demands legitimately expected from a scientific solution to the problem. This is the circulation credit theory, usually called the monetary theory of the trade cycle. This theory is generally recognized by science. All cyclical policy measures, which are taken seriously, proceed from the reasoning which lies at the root of this theory.

According to the circulation credit theory (monetary theory of the trade cycle), cyclical changes in business conditions stem from attempts to reduce artificially the interest rates on loans through measures of banking policy—expansion of bank credit by the issue or creation of additional fiduciary media (that is banknotes and/or checking deposits not covered 100 percent by gold). On a market, which is not disturbed by the interference of such an “inflationist” banking policy, interest rates develop at which the means are available to carry out all the plans and enterprises that are initiated. Such unhampered market interest rates are known as “natural” or “static” interest rates. If these interest rates were adhered to, then economic development would proceed without interruption—except for the influence of natural cataclysms or political acts such as war, revolution, and the like. The fact that economic development follows a wavy pattern must be attributed to the intervention of the banks through their interest rate policy.

政治家、商界人士、媒体和舆论普遍普遍认为，将利率降低到市场条件以下是经济政策的一个有价值的目标，而实现这一目标的最简单方法是扩大银行信贷。在这种观点的影响下，人们一次又一次地尝试通过发放额外贷款来刺激经济复苏。首先，可以肯定的是，这种信贷扩张的效果符合预期。生意又恢复了。上升趋势正在发展。然而，信贷扩张带来的刺激效应不可能永远持续下去。以这种方式创造的商业繁荣迟早会崩溃。

At the interest rates which developed on the market, before any interference by the banks through the creation of additional circulation credit, only those enterprises and businesses appeared profitable for which the needed factors of production were available in the economy. The interest rates are reduced through the expansion of credit, and then some businesses, which did not previously seem profitable, appear to be profitable. It is precisely the fact that such businesses are undertaken that initiates the upswing. However, the economy is not wealthy enough for them. The resources they need for completion are not available. The resources they need must first be withdrawn from other enterprises. If the means 民政事务总署 been available, then the credit expansion would not have been necessary to make the new projects appear possible.

2. 信贷扩张的后果

信贷扩张不能增加实际商品的供给。它只是带来了重新安排。它使资本投资偏离经济财富状况和市场条件规定的方向。它导致生产走上一条除非经济获得物质产品增长否则它不会走的道路。因此，上涨缺乏坚实的基础。这是 不能 真正的繁荣。这是 虚幻 prosperity. It did not develop from an increase in economic wealth. Rather, it arose because the credit expansion created the illusion of such an increase. Sooner or later it must become apparent that this economic situation is built on sand.

通过创建额外的信托媒介，信贷扩张迟早必须陷入停滞。即使银行愿意，他们也不能无限期地执行这一政策，即使他们是在外部最强大的压力下被迫这样做的。信托媒体数量的持续增加导致价格持续上涨。只有当人们坚持认为通货膨胀将在可预见的未来停止时，通货膨胀才会持续下去。然而，一旦通胀不会停止的信念站稳脚跟，恐慌就会爆发。在评估货币和商品时，公众会提前考虑预期的价格上涨。结果，价格无规律地疯狂上涨。人们不再使用金钱，因为信托媒体的增加损害了金钱的使用。他们“逃往”外国货币、金属条、“实际价值”、易货贸易。简而言之，货币崩溃了。

扩大信贷的政策通常在达到这一临界点之前就被放弃了。它之所以被终止，是因为国际贸易关系的发展情况，特别是因为以往危机的经验，这些经验经常导致中央银行发行纸币和创造信贷的权利受到法律限制。无论如何，扩大信贷的政策必须结束——如果不是因为银行的转变而提前结束，那么稍后就会因为灾难性的崩溃而结束。信贷扩张政策越早停止，企业活动误导所造成的损害就越小，危机就越温和，随后的经济停滞和普遍萧条的时期也就越短。

周期性经济危机的出现是通过银行政策反复尝试降低市场“自然”利率的必然结果。只要人们还没有学会避免这种刺激，危机就永远不会消失，因为人为刺激的繁荣必然会导致危机和萧条。

The crisis from which we are now suffering is also the outcome of a credit expansion. The present crisis is the unavoidable sequel to a boom. Such a crisis necessarily follows every boom generated by the attempt to reduce the “natural rate of interest” through increasing the fiduciary media. However, the present crisis differs in some essential points from earlier crises, just as the preceding boom differed from earlier economic upswings.

The most recent boom period did not run its course completely, at least not in Europe. Some countries and some branches of production were not generally or very seriously affected by the upswing which, in many lands, was quite turbulent. A bit of the previous depression continued, even into the upswing. On that account—in line with our theory and on the basis of past experience—one would assume that this time the crisis will be milder. However, it is certainly much more severe than earlier crises and it does not appear likely that business conditions will soon improve.

许多生产部门无利可图、相当一部分工人失业，显然不能仅仅归因于商业放缓。目前，普遍的萧条加剧了无利可图和失业现象。然而，在战后时期，它们已成为持久现象，即使在经济复苏时期也不会完全消失。我们在这里面临着一个新问题，这个问题不能仅靠周期性变化理论来回答。

让我们首先考虑失业问题。

A. UNEMPLOYMENT

1. 市场工资流程

Wage rates are market phenomena, just as interest rates and commodity prices are. Wage rates are determined by the productivity of labor. At the wage rates toward which the market is tending, all those seeking work find employment and all entrepreneurs find the workers they are seeking. However, the interrelated phenomena of the market from which the “static” or “natural” wage rates evolve are always undergoing changes that generate shifts in wage rates among the various occupational groups. There is also always a definite time lag before those seeking work and those offering work have found one another. As a result, there are always sure to be a certain number of unemployed.

Just as there are always houses standing empty and persons looking for housing on the unhampered market, just as there are always unsold wares in markets and persons eager to purchase wares they have not yet found, so there are always persons who are looking for work. However, on the unhampered market, this unemployment cannot attain vast proportions. Those capable of work will not be looking for work over a considerable period—many months or even years—without finding it.

如果一个工人很长一段时间没有找到他以前从事的职业所寻求的工作，他必须要么降低他所要求的工资水平，要么转向其他他希望获得比他现在从事以前的职业更高的工资的领域。对于企业家来说，雇佣工人是做生意的一部分。如果工资率下降，他的企业的盈利能力就会上升，他就可以雇用更多的工人。因此，通过降低他们寻求的工资率，工人们能够提高对劳动力的需求。

This in no way means that the market would tend to push wage rates down indefinitely. Just as competition among workers has the tendency to lower wages, so does competition among employers tend to drive them up again. Market wage rates thus develop from the interplay of demand and supply.

通过参考十九世纪和二十世纪初的两次大规模移民，可以清楚地看出雇主之间的竞争对工人的影响。人们经常提到的人口外流是基于农业不得不将工人释放到工业这一事实。农业无法支付工业可以支付的更高工资，事实上，工业也可以支付更高的工资。 民政事务总署 to offer in order to attract workers from housework, hand labor and agriculture. The migration of workers was continually out of regions where wages were held down by the inferiority of general conditions of production and into areas where the productivity made it possible to pay higher wages.

Out of every increase in productivity, the wage earner receives his share. For profitable enterprises seeking to expand, the only means available to attract more workers is to raise wage rates. The prodigious increase in the living standard of the masses, that accompanied the development of capitalism, is the result of the rise in real wages which kept abreast of the increase in industrial productivity.

市场的这种自我调整过程现在受到工会的干扰的严重干扰，而工会的有效性是在政府权力的保护和帮助下发展起来的。

2. The Labor Union Wage Rate Concept

According to labor union doctrine, wages are determined by the balance of power. According to this view, if the unions succeed in intimidating the entrepreneurs, through force or threat of force, and holding nonunion workers off with the use of brute force, then wage rates can be set at whatever height desired without the appearance of any undesirable side effects. Thus, the conflict between employers and workers seems to be a struggle in which justice and morality are entirely on the side of the workers. Interest on capital and entrepreneurial profit appear to be ill-gotten gains. They are alleged to come from the exploitation of the worker and should be set aside for unemployment relief. This task, according to union doctrine, should be accomplished not only by increased wage rates but also through taxes and welfare spending which, in a regime dominated by pro-labor union parties, is to be used indirectly for the benefit of the workers.

工会使用武力来实现其目标。只有要求工会工资标准并按照工会规定的方法工作的工会会员才可以在工业企业工作。如果雇主拒绝接受工会条件，就会停工。尽管工会对这一举措进行了严厉谴责，但仍愿意工作的工人却因暴力行为而被迫放弃任何此类计划。当然，工会采取这种策略的前提是政府至少默许他们的行为。

3. The Cause of Unemployment

If the government were to proceed against those who molest persons willing to work and those who destroy machines and industrial equipment in enterprises that want to hire strikebreakers, as it normally does against the other perpetrators of violence, the situation would be very different. However, the characteristic feature of modern governments is that they have capitulated to the labor unions.

工会现在有权将工资率提高到高于不受阻碍的市场水平的水平。然而，这种类型的干预会引起反应。按照市场工资水平，每个找工作的人都可以找到工作。确切地说，这就是市场工资的本质——它们是在需求和供给趋于一致的点上确定的。如果工资率高于此，就业工人数量就会下降。失业就会成为一种持久现象。按照工会制定的工资标准，很大一部分工人根本找不到工作。部分工人工资的上涨是以失业人数急剧增加为代价的。

那些没有工作的人可能只能在有限的时间内忍受这种情况。最终他们会说：“低工资总比没有工资好。”即使是工会也无法承受数十万或数百万潜在工人的攻击。工会阻止那些愿意工作的人的政策将会崩溃。市场工资率将再次占主导地位。失业救济正是在这里发挥作用，其作用无需进一步解释。

Thus, we see that unemployment, as a long-term mass phenomenon, is the consequence of the labor union policy of driving wage rates up. Without unemployment relief, this policy would have collapsed long ago. Thus, unemployment relief is not a means for alleviating the want caused by unemployment, as is assumed by misguided public opinion. It is on the contrary, one link in the chain of causes which actually makes unemployment a long-term mass phenomenon.

4. The Remedy for Mass Unemployment

Appreciation of this relationship has certainly become more widespread in recent years. With all due caution and with a thousand reservations, it is even generally admitted that labor union wage policy is responsible for the extent and duration of unemployment. All serious proposals for fighting unemployment depend on recognition of this theory. When proposals are made to reimburse entrepreneurs, directly or indirectly from public funds, for a part of their wage costs, if they seek to recruit the unemployed in their plants, then it is being recognized that entrepreneurs would employ more workers at a lower wage scale. If it is suggested that the national or municipal government undertake projects without considering their profitability, projects which private enterprise does not want to carry out because they are not profitable, this too simply means that wage rates are so high that they do not permit these undertakings to make profits. (Incidentally, it may be noted that this latter proposal entirely overlooks the fact that a government can build and invest only if it withdraws the necessary means from the private economy. So putting this proposal into effect must lead to just as much new unemployment on one side as it eliminates on the other.)

Then again, if a reduction in hours of work is considered, this too implies recognition of our thesis. For after all, this proposal seeks to shorten the working hours in such a way that all the unemployed will find work, and so that each individual worker, to the extent that he will have less work than he does today, will be entitled to receive less pay. Obviously this assumes that no more work is to be found at the present rate of pay than is currently being provided. The fact that wage rates are too high to give employment to everyone is also admitted by anyone who asks workers to increase production without raising wage rates. It goes without saying that, wherever hourly wages prevail, this means a reduction in the price of labor. If one assumes a cut in the piece rate, labor would also be cheaper where piece work prevails. Obviously then, the crucial factor is not the absolute height of hourly or daily wage rates, but the wage costs which yield a definite output.

然而，现在也公开提出降低工资率的要求。事实上，不少企业已经大幅降低工资水平。媒体和政府官员呼吁工人们放宽一些工资要求，并为整体福利做出牺牲。为了让这种情况可以忍受，降价的前景向工人提出，政府试图通过向企业家施加压力来确保降价。

然而，这不是降低工资率的问题。这一点值得特别强调。问题是重新建立确定工资率的自由。确实，一开始这会导致许多工人群体的货币工资率下降。工资率下降到什么程度才能消除失业这一持久现象，只能通过劳动力市场上工资率的自由决定来表明。工会领导人和企业合并之间的谈判，无论是否有官员的合作、仲裁员的决定或类似的干预主义技术都无法替代。工资率的决定必须再次变得自由。工资率的形成不应受到罢工纠察队或政府武力机构的阻碍。只有工资率的决定是自由的，它们才能发挥调节劳动力市场供求平衡的功能。

5. The Effects of Government Intervention

将价格下降与工资率下降联系起来的要求忽视了这样一个事实：工资率显得过高，正是因为工资下降并没有伴随着价格的实际普遍下降。诚然，许多商品的价格无法像在不受阻碍的市场上那样随价格下跌而下跌，要么是因为它们受到特殊的政府干预措施（例如关税）的保护，要么是因为它们包含以税收和更高的成本形式存在的大量成本。高于不受阻碍的市场工资率。由于硬煤开采中的工资率达到产值的 56%，德国煤炭价格的下跌一直受到阻碍。[1][This address to German industrialists was given in 1931.—Ed.] The domestic price of iron in Germany can remain above the world market price only because tariff policy permits the creation of a national iron cartel and international agreements among national cartels. Here too, one need ask only that those interferences which thwart the free market formation of prices be abolished. There is no need to call for a price reduction to be dictated by government, labor unions, public opinion or anyone else.

Against the assertion that unemployment is due to the extreme height of wages, it is entirely wrong to introduce the argument that wages are still higher elsewhere. If workers enjoyed complete freedom to move, there would be a tendency throughout the economic world for wage rates for similar work to be uniform. However, in recent years, the freedom of movement for workers has been considerably reduced, even almost completely abolished. The labor unions ask the government to forbid the migration of workers from abroad lest such immigrants frustrate union policy by underbidding the wage rates demanded by the unions.

If there had been no immigration restrictions, millions of workers would have migrated from Europe to the United States in recent decades. This migration would have reduced the differences between American and European wage rates. By stopping immigration into the United States, wage rates are raised there and lowered in Europe. It is not the hardheartedness of European capitalists, but the labor policy of the United States (and of Australia and other foreign countries too) which is responsible for the size of the gap between wage rates here in Europe and overseas. After all, the workers in most European countries follow the same policy of keeping out foreign competitors. They, too, restrict or even prohibit foreign workers from coming into their countries so as to protect in this way the labor union policy of holding up wage rates.

6. The Process of Progress

一种流行的学说认为“合理化”是失业的原因。人们认为，由于“合理化”，实际上是普遍的“合理化”，那些在任何地方都找不到工作的工人变成了剩余。 “合理化”是一个现代术语，使用时间很短。然而，这个概念绝不是新的。资本主义企业家不断努力提高生产和营销的效率。与近几年相比，“合理化”的进程有时会相对更加动荡。当铁匠被钢铁厂和轧钢厂取代，手工编织和纺纱被机械织布机和纺锤取代，驿马车被蒸汽机取代时，“合理化”正在大规模发生——尽管“合理化”这个词当时还不为人所知，尽管当时没有官员、咨询委员会和委员会提供与今天的技术革命相一致的报告、计划和教条。

Industrial progress has always set workers free. There have always been shortsighted persons who, fearing that no employment would be found for the released workers, have tried to stop the progress. Workers have always resisted technical improvement and writers have always been found to justify this opposition. Every increase in the productivity of labor has been carried out in spite of the determined resistance of governments, “philanthropists,” “moralists” and workers. If the theory which attributes unemployment to “rationalization” were correct, then 99 out of 100 workers at the end of the nineteenth century would have been out of work.

Workers released by the introduction of industrial technology find employment in other positions. The ranks of newly developing branches of industry are filled with these workers. The additional commodities available for consumption, which come in the wake of “rationalization,” are produced with their labor. Today this process is hampered by the fact that those workers who are released receive unemployment relief and so do not consider it necessary to change their occupation and place of work in order to find employment again. It is not on account of “rationalization,” but because the unemployed are relieved of the necessity of looking around for new work, that unemployment has become a lasting phenomenon.

B. PRICE DECLINES AND PRICE SUPPORTS

1. The Subsidization of Surpluses

The opposition to market determination of prices is not limited to wages and interest rates. Once the stand is taken not to permit the structure of market prices to work its effect on production there is no reason to stop short of commodity prices.

If the prices of coal, sugar, coffee or rye go down, this means that consumers are asking more urgently for other commodities. As a result of the decline in such prices, some concerns producing these commodities become unprofitable and are forced to reduce production or shut down completely. The capital and labor thus released are then shifted to other branches of the economy in order to produce commodities for which a stronger demand prevails.

However, politics interferes once again. It tries to hinder the adjustment of production to the requirements of consumption—by coming to the aid of the producer who is hurt by price reductions.

In recent years, capitalistic methods of production have been applied more and more extensively to the production of raw materials. As always, wherever capitalism prevails, the result has been an astonishing increase in productivity. Grain, fruit, meat, rubber, wool, cotton, oil, copper, coal, minerals are all much more readily available now than they were before the war and in the early postwar years. Yet, it was just a short while ago that governments believed they had to devise ways and means to ease the shortage of raw materials. When, without any help from them, the years of plenty came, they immediately took up the cudgels to prevent this wealth from having its full effect for economic well-being. The Brazilian government wants to prevent the decline in the price of coffee so as to protect plantation owners who operate on poorer soil or with less capital from having to cut down or give up cultivation. The much richer United States government wants to stop the decline in the price of wheat and in many other prices because it wants to relieve the farmer working on poorer soil of the need to adjust or discontinue his enterprise.

为了阻止资本主义生产条件下所取得的进步所产生的影响，世界各地付出了巨大的代价，这是完全无望的尝试。数十亿美元被花费在维持价格的徒劳努力以及对那些竞争能力较弱的生产者的直接补贴上。通过保护性关税和迫使消费者支付更高价格的类似措施，还有数十亿美元间接用于相同的目标。所有这些干预措施的目的——将价格推高到让原本无法应对竞争的生产商留在企业中——肯定永远无法实现。然而，所有这些措施都拖延了使用资本和劳动力的加工业调整其资源以适应新生产的原材料供应的过程。因此，商品的增加主要代表着一种尴尬，而不是生活水平的提高。如果消费者必须以更高的税收和关税的形式支付政府干预的费用，那么财富非但不会成为消费者的福祉，反而会成为他的负担。

2. The Need for Readjustments

The cultivation of wheat in central Europe was jeopardized by the increase in overseas production. Even if European farmers were more efficient, more skilled in modern methods and better supplied with capital, even if the prevailing industrial arrangement were not small and pygmy-sized, wasteful, productivity-hampering enterprises, these farms on less fertile soil with less favorable weather conditions, still could not rival the wheat farms of Canada. Central Europe must reduce its cultivation of grain, as it cut down on the breeding of sheep decades ago. The billions which the hopeless struggle against the better soil of America has already cost is money uselessly squandered. The future of central European agriculture does not lie in the cultivation of grain. Denmark and Holland have shown that agriculture can exist in Europe even without the protection of tariffs, subsidies and special privileges. However, the economy of central Europe will depend in the future, to a still greater extent than before, on industry.

到了这个时候，我们就很容易理解原材料和食品生产中较高产量造成危害这一现象的悖论了。政府和特权集团的干预，试图阻碍市场适应新形势的调整，意味着丰收会给每个人带来不幸。

近几十年来，世界上几乎所有国家都试图利用高保护性关税来发展中小型领域的经济自给自足（自给自足）。大量资金投资于没有经济需求的制造工厂。结果是，我们今天拥有丰富的物质结构，但其设施却无法充分利用，甚至可能根本没有使用。

The result of all these efforts to annul the laws which the market decrees for the capitalistic economy is, briefly, lasting unemployment of many millions, unprofitability for industry and agriculture, and idle factories. As a result of all these, political controversies become seriously aggravated, not only within countries but also among nations.

C. TAX POLICY

1. 反资本主义心态

政治对经济的有害影响远远超出了前面讨论的干预主义措施的后果。

There is no need to mention the mobilization policies of the government, the continual controversies constantly emerging from nationalistic conflicts in multi-lingual communities and the anxiety caused by saber rattling ministers and political parties. All of these things create unrest. Thus, they may 间接 aggravate the crisis situation and especially the uneasiness of the business world.

Financial policy, however, works 直接.

The share of the people’s income which government exacts for its expenditures, even entirely apart from military spending, is continually rising. There is hardly a single country in Europe in which tremendous sums are not being wasted on largely misguided national and municipal economic undertakings. Everywhere, we see government continually taking over new tasks when it is hardly able to carry out satisfactorily its previous obligations. Everywhere, we see the bureaucracy swell in size. As a result, taxes are rising everywhere. At a time when the need to reduce production costs is being universally discussed, new taxes are being imposed on production. Thus the economic crisis is, at the same time, a crisis in public finance also. This crisis in public finance will not be resolved without a complete revision of government operations.

One widely held view, which easily dominates public opinion today, maintains that taxes on wealth are harmless. Thus every governmental expenditure is justified, if the funds to pay for it are not raised by taxing mass consumption or imposing income taxes on the masses. This idea, which must be held responsible for the mania toward extravagance in government expenditures, has caused those in charge of government financial policy to lose completely any feeling of a need for economy. Spending a large part of the people’s income in senseless ways—in order to carry out futile price support operations, to undertake the hopeless task of trying to support with subsidies unprofitable enterprises which could not otherwise survive, to cover the losses of unprofitable public enterprises and to finance the unemployment of millions—would not be justified, even if the funds for the purpose were collected in ways that do not aggravate the crisis. However, tax policy is aimed primarily, or even exclusively, at taxing the yield on capital and the capital itself. This leads to a slowing down of capital formation and even, in many countries, to capital consumption. However, this concerns not capitalists only, as generally assumed. The quantitatively lower the ratio of capital to workers, the lower the wage rates which develop on the free labor market. Thus, even workers are affected by this policy.

由于税收立法的原因，企业家必须经常以与理性所表明的方式不同的方式经营他们的业务。结果，生产力下降，消费商品的供应也随之下降。正如人们所预料的那样，资本家不愿将资本留在税收最高的国家，而是转向税收较低的国家。因此，生产体系适应不断变化的经济需求模式变得更加困难。

Financial policy certainly did not create the crisis. However, it does contribute substantially to making it worse.

D. GOLD PRODUCTION

1. The Decline in Prices

One popular doctrine blames the crisis on the insufficiency of gold production.

The basic error in this attempt to explain the crisis rests on equating a drop in prices with a crisis. A slow, steady, downward slide in the prices of all goods and services could be explained by the relationship to the production of gold. Businessmen have become accustomed to a relationship of the demand for, and supply of, gold from which a slow steady rise in prices emerges as a secular (continuing) trend. However, they could just as easily have become reconciled to some other arrangement—and they certainly would have if developments had made that necessary. After all, the businessman’s most important characteristic is flexibility. The businessman can operate at a profit, even if the general tendency of prices is downward, and economic conditions can even improve then too.

The turbulent price declines since 1929 were definitely not generated by the gold production situation. Moreover, gold production has nothing to do with the fact that the decline in prices is not universal, nor that it does not specifically involve wages also.

It is true that there is a close connection between the quantity of gold produced and the formation of prices. Fortunately, this is no longer in dispute. If gold production had been considerably greater than it actually was in recent years, then the drop in prices would have been moderated or perhaps even prevented from appearing. It would be wrong, however, to assume that the phenomenon of the crisis would not then have occurred. The attempts of labor unions to drive wages up higher than they would have been on the unhampered market and the efforts of governments to alleviate the difficulties of various groups of producers have nothing to do with whether actual money prices are higher or lower.

Labor unions no longer contend over the height of 钱 工资，但超过了 真实 wages. It is not because of low prices that producers of rye, wheat, coffee and so on are impelled to ask for government interventions. It is because of the unprofitability of their enterprises. However, the profitability of these enterprises would be no greater, even if prices were higher. For if the gold supply had been increased, not only would the prices of the products which the enterprises in question produce and want to sell have become or have remained proportionately higher, but so also would the prices of all the goods which comprise their costs. Then too, as in any inflation, an increase in the gold supply does not affect all prices at the same time, nor to the same extent. It helps some groups in the economy and hurts others. Thus no reason remains for assuming that an increase in the gold supply must, in a particular case, improve the situation for precisely those producers who now have cause to complain about the unprofitability of their undertakings. It could be that their situation would not only not be improved; it might even be worsened.

将价格下跌与危机等同起来并因此将这场危机的原因视为黄金生产不足的错误尤其危险。这导致人们认为可以通过增加信托媒体的流通来克服危机。因此，银行被要求通过发行额外的纸币和通过信贷条目进行额外的信贷扩张来刺激商业条件。首先，可以肯定的是，通过这种方式可以产生繁荣。然而，正如我们所看到的，这种上涨最终必然导致商业前景崩溃和新的危机。

2. 通货膨胀作为“补救措施”

It is astonishing that sincere persons can either make such a demand or lend it support. Every possible argument in favor of such a scheme has already been raised a hundred times, and demolished a thousand times over. Only one argument is new, although on that account no less false. This is to the effect that the higher than unhampered market wage rates can be brought into proper relationship most easily by an inflation.

This argument shows how seriously concerned our political economists are to avoid displeasing the labor unions. Although they cannot help but recognize that wage rates are too high and must be reduced, they dare not openly call for a halt to such overpayments. Instead, they propose to outsmart the unions in some way. They propose that the actual money wage rate remain unchanged in the coming inflation. In effect, this would amount to reducing the real wage. This assumes, of course, that the unions will refrain from making further wage demands in the ensuing boom and that they will, instead, remain passive while their real wage rates deteriorate. Even if this entirely unjustified optimistic expectation is accepted as true, nothing is gained thereby. A boom caused by banking policy measures must still lead eventually to a crisis and a depression. So, by this method, the problem of lowering wage rates is not resolved but simply postponed.

Yet, all things considered, many may think it advantageous to delay the unavoidable showdown with labor union policy. However, this ignores the fact that, with each artificial boom, large sums of capital are malinvested and, as a result, wasted. Every diminution in society’s stock of capital must lead toward a reduction in the “natural” or “static” wage rate. Thus, postponing the decision costs the masses a great deal. Moreover, it will make the final confrontation still more difficult, rather than easier.

一、我们困难的原因

The severe convulsions of the economy are the inevitable result of policies which hamper market activity, the regulator of capitalistic production. If everything possible is done to prevent the market from fulfilling its function of bringing supply and demand into balance, it should come as no surprise that a serious disproportionality between supply and demand persists, that commodities remain unsold, factories stand idle, many millions are unemployed, destitution and misery are growing and that finally, in the wake of all these, destructive radicalism is rampant in politics.

The periodically returning crises of cyclical changes in business conditions are the effect of attempts, undertaken repeatedly, to underbid the interest rates which develop on the unhampered market. These attempts to underbid unhampered market interest rates are made through the intervention of banking policy—by credit expansion through the additional creation of uncovered notes and checking deposits—in order to bring about a boom. The crisis under which we are now suffering is of this type, too. However, it goes beyond the typical business cycle depression, not only in scale but also in character—because the interventions with market processes which evoked the crisis were not limited only to influencing the rate of interest. The interventions have directly affected wage rates and commodity prices, too.

With the economic crisis, the breakdown of interventionist economic policy—the policy being followed today by all governments, irrespective of whether they are responsible to parliaments or rule openly as dictatorships—becomes apparent. This catastrophe obviously comes as no surprise. Economic theory has long been predicting such an outcome to interventionism.

The capitalistic economic system, that is the social system based on private ownership of the means of production, is rejected unanimously today by all political parties and governments. No similar agreement may be found with respect to what economic system should replace it in the future. Many, although not all, look to socialism as the goal. They stubbornly reject the result of the scientific examination of the socialistic ideology, which has demonstrated the unworkability of socialism. They refuse to learn anything from the experiences of the Russian and other European experiments with socialism.

2. The Unwanted Solution

然而，关于当前经济政策的任务，人们达成了完全一致的意见。目标是一种经济安排，被认为代表一种妥协的解决方案，即社会主义和资本主义之间的“中间道路”。可以肯定的是，我们无意废除生产资料私有制。私有财产将被允许继续存在，尽管受到政府和社会强制机构的其他代理人的指导、监管和控制。对于这种干预主义体系，经济学以不容置疑的逻辑指出，构成这一体系的干预措施永远不可能达到其主张者所希望达到的目标，这是违背理性的，并且每一次干预都会产生没人想要的后果。

The capitalistic social order acquires meaning and purpose through the market. Hampering the functions of the market and the formation of prices does not create order. Instead it leads to chaos, to economic crisis.

All attempts to emerge from the crisis by new interventionist measures are completely misguided. There is only 一种 way out of the crisis: Forgo every attempt to prevent the impact of market prices on production. Give up the pursuit of policies which seek to establish interest rates, wage rates and commodity prices different from those the market indicates. This may contradict the prevailing view. It certainly is not popular. Today all governments and political parties have full confidence in interventionism and it is not likely that they will abandon their program. However, it is perhaps not too optimistic to assume that those governments and parties whose policies have led to this crisis will some day disappear from the stage and make way for men whose economic program

人们经常声称，如果了解周期性变化的原因，就会采取适合消除周期性“波浪”的经济计划。[*][米塞斯的贡献 节日 for Arthur Spiethoff, Die Stellung und der nächste Zukunft der Konjunkturforschung， pp. 175–80 (Munich: Duncker and Humblot, 1933). All the contributors were asked to address themselves to the same topic. Another translation of this article, by Joseph R. Stromberg, then a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Florida, appeared in 自由主义者论坛 (June 1975). This is a completely different translation, made by Bettina Bien Greaves and edited by Percy L. Greaves.—Ed.] 然后，上涨将被及时抑制，以缓解随之而来的不可避免的下跌。因此，经济发展将以更加均衡的速度进行。许多人认为繁荣带来的副作用是不受欢迎的，但随后将基本上甚至完全消除。然而，最重要的是，几乎所有人都痛惜的危机和衰退造成的损失将大大减少，甚至完全避免。

对于许多人来说，这种前景没有什么吸引力。在他们看来，萧条的弊端并不足以为经济繁荣的繁荣付出过高的代价。他们说，并非繁荣时期生产的所有产品都是不当投资，必须通过危机来清算。他们认为，繁荣的一些成果仍然存在，不断进步的经济离不开它们。然而，大多数经济学家认为消除周期性变化既是可取的，也是必要的。一些人之所以采取这一立场，是因为他们认为，如果经济能够免受每隔几年反复出现的危机的冲击，将有助于维护他们所认可的资本主义制度。其他人则对没有危机的时代的前景表示欢迎，正是因为他们看到，在一个不受商业波动干扰的经济中，消灭企业家并不困难，在他们看来，企业家只是其他人努力的多余受益者。 。

无论这些作者认为消除周期性波动的前景是有利还是不利，他们都认为，更彻底地研究周期性经济变化的原因将有助于创造一个波动不那么严重的时代。他们是对的吗？

经济理论无法回答这个问题——这不是一个理论问题。这是一个经济政策问题，或者更准确地说，是一个经济历史问题。尽管他们的措施可能会产生严重混乱的结果，但如今负责指导经济政策进程的人比以前的同行，特别是欧洲大陆的同行，更了解流通信贷扩张的后果。然而，问题仍然存在。未来是否会再次推出必由繁荣走向萧条的措施？

贸易周期的流通信用（货币）理论必须被视为当前盛行的周期性变化学说。即使持有另一种理论的人也发现有必要对流通信用理论做出让步。为应对当前经济危机而提出的每一项建议都采用了流通信用理论所提出的推理。一些人坚持要把所有价格从暂时的困境中拯救出来，即使这种困境在新的危机之后会出现上涨。为此，他们将通过进一步扩大信托媒介的数量来“启动泵”。其他人则反对这种人为刺激，因为他们希望避免虚幻的信贷扩张所带来的繁荣以及随之而来的不可避免的危机。

However, even those who advocate programs to spark and stimulate a boom recognize, if they are not completely hopeless dilettantes and ignoramuses, the conclusiveness of the Circulation Credit Theory’s reasoning. They do not contest the truth of the Circulation Credit Theory’s objections to their position. Instead, they try to ward them off by pointing out that they propose only a “moderate,” a carefully prescribed “dosage” of credit expansion or “monetary creation” which, they say, would merely soften, or bring to a halt, the further decline of prices. Even the term “re-deflation,”[1][The more modern term for what Mises apparently meant by “re-deflation” is undoubtedly “reflation.”—Ed.] newly introduced in this connection with such enthusiasm, implies recognition of the Circulation Credit Theory. However, there are also fallacies implied in the use of this term.

The credit expansion which evokes the upswing always originates from the idea that business stagnation must be overcome by “easy money.” Attempts to demonstrate that this is 不能 the case have been in vain. If anyone argues that lower interest rates have not been constantly portrayed as the ideal goal for economic policy, it can only be due to lack of knowledge concerning economic history and recent economic literature. Practically no one has dared to maintain that it would be desirable to have higher interest rates sooner.[2]一直如此；公众舆论始终站在债务人一边。 （参见杰里米·边沁， 捍卫高利贷， 2nd ed. [London, 1790], pp. 102ff.). The idea that the creditors are the idle rich, hardhearted exploiters of workers, and that the debtors are the unfortunate poor, has not been abandoned even in this age of bonds, bank deposits and savings accounts. People, who sought cheap credit, clamored for the establishment of credit-issuing banks and for these banks to reduce interest rates. Every measure seized upon to avoid “raising the discount rate” has had its roots in the concept that credit must be made “easy.” The fact that reducing interest rates through credit expansion must lead to price increases has generally been ignored. However, the cheap money policy would not have been abandoned even if this 民政事务总署 被认可。

对于价格的高低，公众舆论并不像利率那样只持有一种单一的观点。关于价格，一直存在两种不同的观点：一方面，生产者的需求。 更高 prices and, on the other side, the demand of consumers for 降低 价格。各国政府和政党都支持这两项要求，即使不是同时支持，也会根据目前他们所追求的选民群体而不断变化。首先是一个口号，然后另一个口号被刻在他们的横幅上，具体取决于所需价格的临时变化。如果物价上涨，他们就会努力应对生活成本的上涨。如果价格下跌，他们表示希望尽一切可能确保生产者获得“合理”价格。尽管如此，当谈到尝试 减少 prices, they generally sponsor programs which cannot attain that goal. No one wants to adopt the only effective means—the limitation of circulation credit—because they do not want to drive interest rates up.[3]一个极端的例子：通货膨胀时期德国央行的贴现政策。参见弗兰克·格雷厄姆， 德国恶性通货膨胀时期的交换、价格和生产，1920 年至 1923 年 (Princeton, N.J., 1930), pp. 65ff. In times of declining prices, however, they have been more than ready to adopt credit expansion measures, as Free Introduction goal is attainable by the means already desired, i.e., by reducing interest rates.

如今，那些寻求扩大信贷流通的人反驳了反对意见，他们解释说，他们只想针对近年来已经发生的价格下跌进行调整，或者至少防止价格进一步下跌。因此，据称，这种扩展并没有带来任何新内容。 [在十九世纪]在推动复本位制时也听到了类似的论点。

It is generally recognized that the social consequences of changes in the value of money—apart from the effect such changes have on the value of monetary obligations—may be attributed solely to the fact that these changes are not effected equally and simultaneously with respect to all goods and services. That is, not all prices rise to the same extent and at the same time. Hardly anyone disputes this today. Moreover, it is no longer denied, as it generally was a few years ago, that the duration of the present crisis is caused primarily by the fact that wage rates and certain prices have become inflexible, as a result of union wage policy and various price support activities. Thus, the rigid wage rates and prices do not fully participate in the downward movement of most prices, or do so only after a protracted delay. In spite of all contradictory political interventions, it is also admitted that the continuing mass unemployment is a necessary consequence of the attempts to maintain wage rates above those that would prevail on the unhampered market. However, in forming economic policy, the correct inference from this is not drawn.

Almost all who propose priming the pump through credit expansion consider it self-evident that money wage rates will not follow the upward movement of prices until their relative excess [over the earlier market prices] has disappeared. Inflationary projects of all kinds are agreed to because no one openly dares to attack the union wage policy, which is approved by public opinion and promoted by government. Therefore, so long as today’s prevailing view, concerning the maintenance of higher than unhampered market wage rates and the interventionist measures supporting them, exists, there is no reason to assume that money wage rates can be held steady in a period of rising prices.

The causal connection [between credit expansion and rising prices] is denied still more intensely if the proposal for limiting credit expansion is tied in with certain anticipations. If the entrepreneurs expect low interest rates to continue, they will use the low interest rates as a basis for their computations. Only then will entrepreneurs allow themselves to be tempted, by the offer of more ample and cheaper credit, to consider business enterprises which would not appear profitable at the higher interest rates that would prevail on the unaltered loan market.

If it is publicly proclaimed that care will be taken to stop the creation of additional credit in time, then the hoped-for gains must fail to appear. No entrepreneur will want to embark on a new business if it is clear to him in advance that the business cannot be carried through to completion successfully. The failure of recent pump-priming attempts and statements of the authorities responsible for banking policy make it evident that the time of cheap money will very soon come to an end. If there is talk of restriction in the future, one cannot continue to “prime the pump” with credit expansion.

Economists have long known that every expansion of credit must someday come to an end and that, when the creation of additional credit stops, this stoppage must cause a sudden change in business conditions. A glance at the daily and weekly press in the “boom” years since the middle of the last century shows that this understanding was by no means limited to a few persons. Still the speculators, averse to theory as such, did not know it, and they continued to engage in new enterprises. However, if the governments were to let it be known that the credit expansion would continue only a little longer, then its intention to stop expanding would not be concealed from anyone.

今天的人们倾向于 超过value the significance of recent accomplishments in clarifying the business cycle problem and to 低估 the Currency School’s tremendous contribution. The benefit which practical cyclical policy could derive from the old Currency School theoreticians has still not been fully exploited. Modern cyclical theory has contributed little to practical policy that could not have been learned from the Currency Theory.

Unfortunately, economic theory is weakest precisely where help is most needed—in analyzing the effects of declining prices. A general decline in prices has always been considered unfortunate. Yet today, even more than ever before, the rigidity of wage rates and the costs of many other factors of production hamper an unbiased consideration of the problem. Therefore, it would certainly be timely now to investigate thoroughly the effects of declining money prices and to analyze the widely held idea that declining prices are incompatible with the increased production of goods and services and an improvement in general welfare. The investigation should include a discussion of whether it is true that only inflationistic steps permit the progressive accumulation of capital and productive facilities. So long as this naïve inflationist theory of development is firmly held, proposals for using credit expansion to produce a boom will continue to be successful.

The Currency Theory described some time ago the necessary connection between credit expansion and the cycle of economic changes. Its chain of reasoning was only concerned with a credit expansion limited to one nation. It did not do justice to the situation, of special importance in our age of attempted cooperation among the banks of issue, in which all countries expanded equally. In spite of the Currency Theory’s explanation, the banks of issue have persistently advised further expansion of credit.

发行银行的这种强劲动力可能源于一种普遍的观念，即价格上涨对于“进步”是有用的且绝对必要的，并且相信信贷扩张是保持低利率的合适方法。今天，信托媒介问题与利率形成之间的关系已得到充分解释，至少对于确定经济政策的直接要求而言是这样。但仍有待解释清楚的是价格普遍下降的问题。

这个战争和破坏时代的特征之一是各国政府和压力集团对债权人权利的全面攻击。布尔什维克政府的第一个行动是完全废除贷款和利息支付。使纳粹掌权的最受欢迎的口号是 津斯克内希特公司，废除利益奴役。债务国意图通过各种手段剥夺外国债权人的债权，其中最有效的手段是外汇管制。他们的经济民族主义旨在消除所谓的殖民主义回归。他们假装对外国剥削者发动了一场新的独立战争，同时冒险打电话给那些为他们提供改善经济状况所需资本的人。由于当今最大的债权国是美国，这场斗争实际上是针对美国人民的。只有外交上保持沉默的旧用法才让经济民族主义者明智地把他们正在对抗的恶魔称为“华尔街”，而不是洋基队。

“Wall Street” is no less the target at which the monetary authorities of this country are directing their blows when embarking upon an “easy money” policy. It is generally assumed that measures designed to lower the rate of interest, below the height at which the unhampered market would fix it, are extremely beneficial to the immense majority at the expense of a small minority of capitalists and hardboiled moneylenders. It is tacitly implied that the creditors are the idle rich while the debtors are the industrious poor, However, this belief is atavistic and utterly misjudges contemporary conditions.

In the days of Solon, Athens’s wise legislator, in the time of ancient Rome’s agrarian laws, in the Middle Ages and even for some centuries later, one was by and large right in identifying the creditors with the rich and the debtors with the poor. It is quite different in our age of bonds and debentures, of savings banks, of life insurance and social security. The proprietary classes are the owners of big plants and farms, of common stock, of urban real estate and, as such, they are very often debtors. The people of more modest income are bondholders, owners of saving deposits and insurance policies and beneficiaries of social security. As such, they are creditors. Their interests are impaired by endeavors to lower the rate of interest and the national currency’s purchasing power.

It is true that the masses do not think of themselves as creditors and thus sympathize with the noncreditor policies. However, this ignorance does not alter the fact that the immense majority of the nation are to be classified as creditors and that these people, in approving of an “easy money” policy, unwittingly hurt their own material interests. It merely explodes the Marxian fable that a social class never errs in recognizing its particular class interests and always acts in accordance with these interests.

现代“宽松货币”政策的拥护者以称自己为非正统而自豪，并诽谤他们的对手是正统的、守旧的和反动的。阿巴·勒纳教授是功能性金融学最雄辩的代言人之一，他假装在判断财政措施时，他和他的朋友们诉诸“所谓的科学方法，而不是经院哲学”。事实是，凯恩斯勋爵、阿尔文·H·汉森教授和勒纳教授在对利息的激烈谴责中，受到了中世纪经院哲学经济学说的本质——对利息的否定——的指导。尽管他们断言不可能回到十九世纪的经济政策，但他们却热心主张复兴黑暗时代的方法和旧教规的正统观念。

There is no difference between the ultimate objectives of the anti-interest policies of canon law and the policies recommended by modern interest-baiting. But the methods applied are different. Medieval orthodoxy was intent first upon prohibiting by decree interest altogether and later upon limiting the height of interest rates by the so-called usury laws. Modern self-styled unorthodoxy aims at lowering or even abolishing interest by means of credit expansion.

Every serious discussion of the problem of credit expansion must start from the distinction between two classes of credit: commodity credit and circulation credit.

Commodity credit is the transfer of savings from the hands of the original saver into those of the entrepreneurs who plan to use these funds in production. The original saver has saved money by not consuming what he could have consumed by spending it for consumption. He transfers purchasing power to the debtor and thus enables the latter to buy these nonconsumed commodities for use in further production. Thus the amount of commodity credit is strictly limited by the amount of saving, i.e., abstention from consumption. Additional credit can only be granted to the extent that additional savings have been accumulated. The whole process does not affect the purchasing power of the monetary unit.

Circulation credit is credit granted out of funds especially created for this purpose by the banks. In order to grant a loan, the bank prints banknotes or credits the debtor on a deposit account. It is creation of credit out of nothing. It is tantamount to the creation of fiat money, to undisguised, manifest inflation. It increases the amount of money substitutes, of things which are taken and spent by the public in the same way in which they deal with money proper. It increases the buying power of the debtors. The debtors enter the market of factors of production with an additional demand, which would not have existed except for the creation of such banknotes and deposits. This additional demand brings about a general tendency toward a rise in commodity prices and wage rates.

商品信贷的数量严格取决于先前储蓄积累的资本量，而流通信贷的数量则取决于银行的业务开展情况。商品信用不能扩大，但流通信用可以。在没有流通信贷的情况下，银行只能在储户委托其增加存款的范围内增加贷款。奇怪的是，只要有流通信贷，银行就可以通过所谓的“更加自由化”来扩大放贷。

Credit expansion not only brings about an inextricable tendency for commodity prices and wage rates to rise it also affects the market rate of interest. As it represents an additional quantity of money offered for loans, it generates a tendency for interest rates to drop below the height they would have reached on a loan market not manipulated by credit expansion. It owes its popularity with quacks and cranks not only to the inflationary rise in prices and wage rates which it engenders, but no less to its short-run effect of lowering interest rates. It is today the main tool of policies aiming at cheap or easy money.

The rate of interest is a market phenomenon. In the market economy it is the structure of prices, wage rates and interest rates, as determined by the market, that directs the activities of the entrepreneurs toward those lines in which they satisfy the wants of the consumers in the best possible and cheapest way. The prices of the material factors of production, wage rates and interest rates on the one hand and the anticipated future prices of the consumers’ goods on the other hand are the items that enter into the planning businessman’s calculations. The result of these calculations shows the businessman whether or not a definite project will pay. If the market data underlying his calculations are falsified by the interference of the government, the result must be misleading. Deluded by an arithmetical operation with illusory figures, the entrepreneurs embark upon the realization of projects that are at variance with the most urgent desires of consumers. The disagreement of the consumers becomes manifest when the products of capital malinvestment reach the market and cannot be sold at satisfactory prices. Then, there appears what is called “bad business.”

If, on a market not hampered by government tampering with the market data, the examination of a definite project shows its unprofitability, it is proved that under the given state of affairs the consumers prefer the execution of other projects. The fact that a definite business venture is not profitable means that the consumers, in buying its products, are not ready to reimburse entrepreneurs for the prices of the complementary factors of production required, while on the other hand, in buying other products, they are ready to reimburse entrepreneurs for the prices of the same factors. Thus the sovereign consumers express their wishes and force business to adjust its activities to the satisfaction of those wants which they consider the most urgent. The consumers thus bring about a tendency for profitable industries to expand and for unprofitable ones to shrink.

It is permissible to say that what proximately prevents the execution of certain projects is the state of prices, wage rates and interest rates. It is a serious blunder to believe that if only these items were lower, production activities could be expanded. What limits the size of production is the scarcity of the factors of production. Prices, wage rates and interest rates are only indices expressive of the degree of this scarcity. They are pointers, as it were. Through these market phenomena, society sends out a warning to the entrepreneurs planning a definite project: Don’t touch this factor of production; it is earmarked for the satisfaction of another, more urgent need.

The expansionists, as the champions of inflation style themselves today, see in the rate of interest nothing but an obstacle to the expansion of production. If they were consistent, they would have to look in the same way at the prices of the material factors of production and at wage rates. A government decree cutting down wage rates to 50 percent of those on the unhampered labor market would likewise give to certain projects, which do not appear profitable in a calculation based on the actual market data, the appearance of profitability. There is no more sense in the assertion that the height of interest rates prevents a further expansion of production than in the assertion that the height of wage rates brings about these effects. The fact that the expansionists apply this kind of fallacious argumentation only to interest rates and not also to the prices of primary commodities and to the prices of labor is the proof that they are guided by emotions and passions and not by cool reasoning. They are driven by resentment. They envy what they believe is the rich man’s take. They are unaware of the fact that in attacking interest they are attacking the broad masses of savers, bondholders and beneficiaries of insurance policies.

The expansionists are quite right in asserting that credit expansion succeeds in bringing about booming business. They are mistaken only in ignoring the fact that such an artificial prosperity cannot last and must inextricably lead to a slump, a general depression.

If the market rate of interest is reduced by credit expansion, many projects which were previously deemed unprofitable get the appearance of profitability. The entrepreneur who embarks upon their execution must, however, very soon discover that his calculation was based on erroneous assumptions. He has reckoned with those prices of the factors of production which corresponded to market conditions as they were on the eve of the credit expansion. But now, as a result of credit expansion, these prices have risen. The project no longer appears so promising as before. The businessman’s funds are not sufficient for the purchase of the required factors of production. He would be forced to discontinue the pursuit of his plans if the credit expansion were not to continue. However, as the banks do not stop expanding credit and providing business with “easy money,” the entrepreneurs see no cause to worry. They borrow more and more. Prices and wage rates boom. Everybody feels happy and is convinced that now finally mankind has overcome forever the gloomy state of scarcity and reached everlasting prosperity.

In fact, all this amazing wealth is fragile, a castle built on the sands of illusion. It cannot last. There is no means to substitute banknotes and deposits for nonexisting capital goods. Lord Keynes, in a poetical mood, asserted that credit expansion has performed “the miracle… of turning a stone into bread.”[1]英国专家论文 （四月8，1943）。 But this miracle, on closer examination, appears no less questionable than the tricks of Indian fakirs.

There are only two alternatives.

One, the expanding banks may stubbornly cling to their expansionist policies and never stop providing the money business needs in order to go on in spite of the inflationary rise in production costs. They are intent upon satisfying the ever increasing demand for credit. The more credit business demands, the more it gets. Prices and wage rates sky-rocket. The quantity of banknotes and deposits increases beyond all measure. Finally, the public becomes aware of what is happening. People realize that there will be no end to the issue of more and more money substitutes—that prices will consequently rise at an accelerated pace. They comprehend that under such a state of affairs it is detrimental to keep cash. In order to prevent being victimized by the progressing drop in money’s purchasing power, they rush to buy commodities, no matter what their prices may be and whether or not they need them. They prefer everything else to money. They arrange what in 1923 in Germany, when the Reich set the classical example for the policy of endless credit expansion, was called die Flucht in die Sachwerte, the flight into real values. The whole currency system breaks down. Its unit’s purchasing power dwindles to zero. People resort to barter or to the use of another type of foreign or domestic money. The crisis emerges.

The other alternative is that the banks or the monetary authorities become aware of the dangers involved in endless credit expansion before the common man does. They stop, of their own accord, any further addition to the quantity of banknotes and deposits. They no longer satisfy the business applications for additional credits. Then the panic breaks out. Interest rates jump to an excessive level, because many firms badly need money in order to avoid bankruptcy. Prices drop suddenly, as distressed firms try to obtain cash by throwing inventories on the market dirt cheap. Production activities shrink, workers are discharged.

Thus, credit expansion unavoidably results in the economic crisis. In either of the two alternatives, the artificial boom is doomed. In the long run, it must collapse. The short-run effect, the period of prosperity, may last sometimes several years. While it lasts, the authorities, the expanding banks and their public relations agencies arrogantly defy the warnings of the economists and pride themselves on the manifest success of their policies. But when the bitter end comes, they wash their hands of it.

The artificial prosperity cannot last because the lowering of the rate of interest, purely technical as it was and not corresponding to the real state of the market data, has misled entrepreneurial calculations. It has created the illusion that certain projects offer the chances of profitability when, in fact, the available supply of factors of production was not sufficient for their execution. Deluded by false reckoning, businessmen have expanded their activities beyond the limits drawn by the state of society’s wealth. They have underrated the degree of the scarcity of factors of production and overtaxed their capacity to produce. In short: they have squandered scarce capital goods by malinvestment.

The whole entrepreneurial class is, as it were, in the position of a master builder whose task it is to construct a building out of a limited supply of building materials. If this man overestimates the quantity of the available supply, he drafts a plan for the execution of which the means at his disposal are not sufficient. He overbuilds the groundwork and the foundations and discovers only later, in the progress of the construction, that he lacks the material needed for the completion of the structure. This belated discovery does not create our master builder’s plight. It merely discloses errors committed in the past. It brushes away illusions and forces him to face stark reality.

There is need to stress this point, because the public, always in search of a scapegoat, is as a rule ready to blame the monetary authorities and the banks for the outbreak of the crisis. They are guilty, it is asserted, because in stopping the further expansion of credit, they have produced a deflationary pressure on trade. Now, the monetary authorities and the banks were certainly responsible for the orgies of credit expansion and the resulting boom; although public opinion, which always approves such inflationary ventures wholeheartedly, should not forget that the fault rests not alone with others. The crisis is not an outgrowth of the abandonment of the expansionist policy. It is the inextricable and unavoidable aftermath of this policy. The question is only whether one should continue expansionism until the final collapse of the whole monetary and credit system or whether one should stop at an earlier date. The sooner one stops, the less grievous are the damages inflicted and the losses suffered.

Public opinion is utterly wrong in its appraisal of the phases of the trade cycle. The artificial boom is not prosperity, but the deceptive appearance of good business. Its illusions lead people astray and cause malinvestment and the consumption of unreal apparent gains which amount to virtual consumption of capital. The depression is the necessary process of readjusting the structure of business activities to the real state of the market data, i.e., the supply of capital goods and the valuations of the public. The depression is thus the first step on the return to normal conditions, the beginning of recovery and the foundation of real prosperity based on the solid production of goods and not on the sands of credit expansion.

Additional credit is sound in the market economy only to the extent that it is evoked by an increase in the public’s savings and the resulting increase in the amount of commodity credit. Then, it is the public’s conduct that provides the means needed for additional investment. If the public does not provide these means, they cannot be conjured up by the magic of banking tricks. The rate of interest, as it is determined on a loan market not manipulated by an “easy money” policy, is expressive of the people’s readiness to withhold from current consumption a part of the income really earned and to devote it to a further expansion of business. It provides the businessman reliable guidance in determining how far he may go in expanding investment, what projects are in compliance with the true size of saving and capital accumulation and what are not. The policy of artificially lowering the rate of interest below its potential market height seduces the entrepreneurs to embark upon certain projects of which the public does not approve. In the market economy, each member of society has his share in determining the amount of additional investment. There is no means of fooling the public all of the time by tampering with the rate of interest. Sooner or later, the public’s disapproval of a policy of over-expansion takes effect. Then the airy structure of the artificial prosperity collapses.

Interest is not a product of the machinations of rugged exploiters. The discount of future goods as against present goods is an eternal category of human action and cannot be abolished by bureaucratic measures. As long as there are people who prefer one apple available today to two apples available in twenty-five years, there will be interest. It does not matter whether society is organized on the basis of private ownership of the means of production, viz., capitalism, or on the basis of public ownership, viz., socialism or communism. For the conduct of affairs by a totalitarian government, interest, the different valuation of present and of future goods, plays the same role it plays under capitalism.

Of course, in a socialist economy, the people are deprived of any means to make their own value judgments prevail and only the government’s value judgments count. A dictator does not bother whether or not the masses approve of his decision of how much to devote for current consumption and how much for additional investment. If the dictator invests more and thus curtails the means available for current consumption, the people must eat less and hold their tongues. No crisis emerges, because the subjects have no opportunity to utter their dissatisfaction. But in the market economy, with its economic democracy, the consumers are supreme. Their buying or abstention from buying creates entrepreneurial profit or loss. It is the ultimate yardstick of business activities.

It is essential to realize that what makes the economic crisis emerge is the public’s disapproval of the expansionist ventures made possible by the manipulation of the rate of interest. The collapse of the house of cards is a manifestation of the democratic process of the market.

It is vain to object that the public favors the policy of cheap money. The masses are misled by the assertions of the pseudo-experts that cheap money can make them prosperous at no expense whatever. They do not realize that investment can be expanded only to the extent that more capital is accumulated by savings. They are deceived by the fairy tales of monetary cranks from John Law down to Major C.H. Douglas. Yet, what counts in reality is not fairy tales, but people’s conduct. If men are not prepared to save more by cutting down their current consumption, the means for a substantial expansion of investment are lacking. These means cannot be provided by printing banknotes or by loans on the bank books.

In discussing the situation as it developed under the expansionist pressure on trade created by years of cheap interest rates policy, one must be fully aware of the fact that the termination of this policy will make visible the havoc it has spread. The incorrigible inflationists will cry out against alleged deflation and will advertise again their patent medicine, inflation, rebaptizing it re-deflation.[2][See note on p. 185, note 1.—Ed.] What generates the evils is the expansionist policy. Its termination only makes the evils visible. This termination must at any rate come sooner or later, and the later it comes, the more severe are the damages which the artificial boom has caused. As things are now, after a long period of artificially low interest rates, the question is not how to avoid the hardships of the process of recovery altogether, but how to reduce them to a minimum. If one does not terminate the expansionist policy in time by a return to balanced budgets, by abstaining from government borrowing from the commercial banks and by letting the market determine the height of interest rates, one chooses the German way of 1923.