015-B-Means-of-Payment

B. Means of Payment

支付手段

In the simple form of the circulation of commodities hitherto considered, we
found a given value always presented to us in a double shape, as a commodity at
one pole, as money at the opposite pole. The owners of commodities came
therefore into contact as the respective representatives of what were already
equivalents. But with the development of circulation, conditions arise under
which the alienation of commodities becomes separated, by an interval of time,
from the realisation of their prices. It will be sufficient to indicate the most
simple of these conditions. One sort of article requires a longer, another a
shorter time for its production. Again, the production of different commodities
depends on different seasons of the year. One sort of commodity may be born on
its own market place, another has to make a long journey to market.
Commodity-owner No. 1, may therefore be ready to sell, before No. 2 is ready to
buy. When the same transactions are continually repeated between the same
persons, the conditions of sale are regulated in accordance with the conditions
of production. On the other hand, the use of a given commodity, of a house, for
instance, is sold (in common parlance, let) for a definite period. Here, it is
only at the end of the term that the buyer has actually received the use-value
of the commodity. He therefore buys it before he pays for it. The vendor sells
an existing commodity, the purchaser buys as the mere representative of money,
or rather of future money. The vendor becomes a creditor, the purchaser becomes
a debtor. Since the metamorphosis of commodities, or the development of their
value-form, appears here under a new aspect, money also acquires a fresh
function; it becomes the means of payment.

在迄今为止我们考虑的商品流通的简单形式中，我们发现，给定的Value总是呈现为2个形态，左侧的商品形态和右侧的货币形态。商品所有者作为各自的等价物的代表来接触。但随着流通的发展，出现了这样的情况：商品的让渡与商品价格的实现在时间上分离开来。【先发货，后收款。】我们举几个最简单的例子。某物的制造时间可能很长，可能很短。不同商品的生产依赖不同的季节。一种商品的出生地就是他的市场地，另一种商品要旅行很远的距离才能到达市场地。在商品所有者A准备好可以卖的时候，商品所有者B还没有准备好买【手里还没钱】。当同一批人不断重复地进行同类的交易时，商品的出售条件就受生产条件的调节了。另一方面，某些商品（例如房屋的使用权）是出卖一定期限的。此时，只在期末的时候，买方才真正获得了商品的使用价值。因此他是先购买了商品，后支付了商品。【这是期末支付房租的情况。我们这是预付。】卖家出售现有的商品，买家用未来的货币购买。卖家成为债权人，买家成为债务人。商品的形态变化，商品Value形式的发展，呈现出新的面貌，货币也就获得了新的职能：货币成为了支付手段。【到期付钱】

The character of creditor, or of debtor, results here from the simple
circulation. The change in the form of that circulation stamps buyer and seller
with this new die. At first, therefore, these new parts are just as transient
and alternating as those of seller and buyer, and are in turns played by the
same actors. But the opposition is not nearly so pleasant, and is far more
capable of crystallisation. The same characters can, however, be assumed
independently of the circulation of commodities. The class-struggles of the
ancient world took the form chiefly of a contest between debtors and creditors,
which in Rome ended in the ruin of the plebeian debtors. They were displaced by
slaves. In the middle ages the contest ended with the ruin of the feudal
debtors, who lost their political power together with the economic basis on
which it was established. Nevertheless, the money relation of debtor and
creditor that existed at these two periods reflected only the deeper-lying
antagonism between the general economic conditions of existence of the classes
in question.

债权人和债务人的角色，在这里是从简单商品流通中产生的。商品流通形式的改变，给买者和卖者盖上了新的印戳，使他们具有了新的角色。最初，这些角色只是短暂的存在，并且每个人都在扮演债权人和债务人。但这种对立并不愉快，也不能稳固下来。这两种角色可以不依赖商品流通而独立存在。古代阶级斗争的形式，主要就是债权人和债务人的斗争。在罗马，这种斗争以平民债务人的破产（沦为奴隶）而告终。中世纪的斗争，以负债封建主的破产、丧失政治权力、丧失经济基础而告终。然而，这两个时期的债权人和债务人的金钱关系只是在反映阶级之间的深层的经济对抗关系。

Let us return to the circulation of commodities. The appearance of the two
equivalents, commodities and money, at the two poles of the process of sale, has
ceased to be simultaneous. The money functions now, first as a measure of value
in the determination of the price of the commodity sold; the price fixed by the
contract measures the obligation of the debtor, or the sum of money that he has
to pay at a fixed date. Secondly, it serves as an ideal means of purchase.
Although existing only in the promise of the buyer to pay, it causes the
commodity to change hands. It is not before the day fixed for payment that the
means of payment actually steps into circulation, leaves the hand of the buyer
for that of the seller. The circulating medium was transformed into a hoard,
because the process stopped short after the first phase, because the converted
shape of the commodity, viz., the money, was withdrawn from circulation. The
means of payment enters the circulation, but only after the commodity has left
it. The money is no longer the means that brings about the process. It only
brings it to a close, by stepping in as the absolute form of existence of
exchange-value, or as the universal commodity. The seller turned his commodity
into money, in order thereby to satisfy some want, the hoarder did the same in
order to keep his commodity in its money-shape, and the debtor in order to be
able to pay; if he do not pay, his goods will be sold by the sheriff. The
value-form of commodities, money, is therefore now the end and aim of a sale,
and that owing to a social necessity springing out of the process of circulation
itself.

我们回到商品流通上来。商品和货币，在卖的过程的两极上，不再同时出现。首先，货币作为Value标尺，决定了商品的价格；契约确定的价格就是债务人的义务，是他在某个时刻必须支付的货币额。其次，货币充当观念上的购买手段。尽管货币此时只存在于买家的承诺中，它仍旧使得商品成功转手。只有到期时，支付手段才进入流通，即离开买家的手，进入卖家的口袋。流通手段转化为贮藏货币，是因为流通过程在第一阶段中断了，变形后的商品（即货币）退出了流通过程。支付手段进入流通过程的时候，商品早就离开了。货币不再是流通过程的中介。它只是结束了流通过程，凭借它交换价值的绝对存在形式，凭借它是货币。卖家将他的商品转化为货币，是为了满足某些需求。贮藏者将他的商品转化为货币，是为了以货币形式保存他的商品。债务人将他的商品转化为货币，是为了还债；如果他不还，他的财产就会被强制拍卖。由于商品流通本身衍生出的社会必要性，商品的Value形式，即货币，现在成为了销售的终点和目标。

The buyer converts money back into commodities before he has turned commodities
into money: in other words, he achieves the second metamorphosis of commodities
before the first. The seller’s commodity circulates, and realises its price, but
only in the shape of a legal claim upon money. It is converted into a use-value
before it has been converted into money. The completion of its first
metamorphosis follows only at a later period.

买家先将货币【未支付】转化为商品，后将商品转化为货币【后卖掉自己的商品得到货币】，换句话说，买家先完成商品的第二阶段变形，后完成第一阶段变形。卖家的商品实现了流通，实现了价格，但仅仅是以索债权的形式。卖家的商品先成为了他人的使用价值，后成为卖家的货币。卖家的商品的第一阶段变形是在一段时间之后完成的。

The obligations falling due within a given period, represent the sum of the
prices of the commodities, the sale of which gave rise to those obligations. The
quantity of gold necessary to realise this sum, depends, in the first instance,
on the rapidity of currency of the means of payment. That quantity is
conditioned by two circumstances: first the relations between debtors and
creditors form a sort of chain, in such a way that A, when he receives money
from his debtor B, straightway hands it over to C his creditor, and so on; the
second circumstance is the length of the intervals between the different
due-days of the obligations. The continuous chain of payments, or retarded first
metamorphoses, is essentially different from that interlacing of the series of
metamorphoses which we considered on a former page. By the currency of the
circulating medium, the connexion between buyers and sellers, is not merely
expressed. This connexion is originated by, and exists in, the circulation
alone. Contrariwise, the movement of the means of payment expresses a social
relation that was in existence long before.

一定期间内的到期债务总额，代表着产生这些债务的已售商品的价格总额。实现这个总额所需的金量，首先，取决于支付手段的流通速度。它受2个情况影响：一，债务关系链，例如B收到他的债务人A支付的货币，B就把这个货币交给他的债权人C，等等；二，各种不同到期日之间的间隔。【债务链长，到期日之间间隔长，支付手段流通速度就快】支付链，即事后进行的第一形态变化的链条，在本质上与商品变形的交错系列是不同的。货币流通表现出卖家和买家的联系，这个联系也只起源于和存在于商品流通中。相反，支付手段的运动表达的是很久之前就存在的社会关系。

The fact that a number of sales take place simultaneously, and side by side,
limits the extent to which coin can be replaced by the rapidity of currency. On
the other hand, this fact is a new lever in economising the means of payment. In
proportion as payments are concentrated at one spot, special institutions and
methods are developed for their liquidation. Such in the middle ages were the
virements at Lyons. The debts due to A from B, to B from C, to C from A, and
so on, have only to be confronted with each other, in order to annul each other
to a certain extent like positive and negative quantities. There thus remains
only a single balance to pay. The greater the amount of the payments
concentrated, the less is this balance relatively to that amount, and the less
is the mass of the means of payment in circulation.

若干卖的同时进行，使流通速度对铸币的补偿作用受到限制。但是，这种情况也为节省支付手段提供了新的杠杆。支付越集中在一个地点，支付的清算抵销机构就越在那里发展起来。例如，中世纪的里昂（Lyons）的转账处就是。把B欠A，C欠B，A欠C的债务相互抵销，只偿付剩下的差额即可。支付量越集中，差额就越小，流通中的支付手段量就越小。

The function of money as the means of payment implies a contradiction without a
terminus medius. In so far as the payments balance one another, money functions
only ideally as money of account, as a measure of value. In so far as actual
payments have to be made, money does not serve as a circulating medium, as a
mere transient agent in the interchange of products, but as the individual
incarnation of social labour, as the independent form of existence of
exchange-value, as the universal commodity. This contradiction comes to a head
in those phases of industrial and commercial crises which are known as monetary
crises. Such a crisis occurs only where the ever-lengthening chain of payments,
and an artificial system of settling them, has been fully developed. Whenever
there is a general and extensive disturbance of this mechanism, no matter what
its cause, money becomes suddenly and immediately transformed, from its merely
ideal shape of money of account, into hard cash. Profane commodities can no
longer replace it. The use-value of commodities becomes valueless, and their
value vanishes in the presence of its own independent form. On the eve of the
crisis, the bourgeois, with the self-sufficiency that springs from intoxicating
prosperity, declares money to be a vain imagination. Commodities alone are
money. But now the cry is everywhere: money alone is a commodity! As the hart
pants after fresh water, so pants his soul after money, the only wealth. In a
crisis, the antithesis between commodities and their value-form, money, becomes
heightened into an absolute contradiction. Hence, in such events, the form under
which money appears is of no importance. The money famine continues, whether
payments have to be made in gold or in credit money such as bank-notes.

货币作为支付手段的职能暗含着一个直接的矛盾。只要各种支付相互抵销，货币就只充当头脑中的计量货币和Value标尺。【实操中就不需要那么多的货币。】而当支付无法互相抵销，必须全额支付时，货币就不是流通手段，不是转瞬即逝的交易中介，而是社会劳动的独立化身，是交换价值的独立存在形式，是至高无上的存在。【实操中就必须有那么多的货币。人人都在紧张地要求债务人全额支付货币。】这个矛盾在工业危机和商业危机的货币危机阶段就达到了最高点。这种危机只在清算抵销机构充分发展的地方才会发生。当这个机制被打乱的时候，无论是为什么被打乱，人们对观念中的计量货币的需求就会突然变成对硬邦邦的现金的需求。平凡的商品不再能够取代它。商品的使用价值变得毫无意义，商品的Value在货币面前消失了。【商品没人要，人人都只要货币。】在危机的前夜，资产阶级还在繁荣中沉醉，声称货币只是虚幻，商品才是货币。【我不需要货币，我有商品就足矣。】可现在他们到处哭嚎：只有货币才是商品！【给我钱，我只要钱，商品没用！】他的灵魂渴求货币这个唯一的财富，就像恶鬼渴求超度。在危机中，商品与它的Value形式（即货币）的对立，发展成绝对的矛盾。因此，货币的表现形式在这里是不重要的。无论是用金支付，还是用银行券这样的信用货币支付，货币荒都一样爆发。

If we now consider the sum total of the money current during a given period, we
shall find that, given the rapidity of currency of the circulating medium and of
the means of payment, it is equal to the sum of the prices to be realised, plus
the sum of the payments falling due, minus the payments that balance each other,
minus finally the number of circuits in which the same piece of coin serves in
turn as means of circulation and of payment. Hence, even when prices, rapidity
of currency, and the extent of the economy in payments, are given, the quantity
of money current and the mass of commodities circulating during a given period,
such as a day, no longer correspond. Money that represents commodities long
withdrawn from circulation, continues to be current. Commodities circulate,
whose equivalent in money will not appear on the scene till some future day.
Moreover, the debts contracted each day, and the payments falling due on the
same day, are quite incommensurable quantities.

现在我们来考虑一定期间内的流通货币总量y。给定流通手段的流通速度v1和支付手段的流通速度v2，那么，y=待实现的商品总价p1+到期的债务p2-相互抵销的债务p3-同一铸币又充当流通手段又充当支付手段的次数n。因此，即使价格、货币流通速度、支付抵销程度是已定的，一定期间内（例如一天内）流通的货币量与流通的商品量也不再相符。商品已退出流通，对应的货币却还在流通。商品实现了流通，而其等价物货币却只会在将来某刻出现。【先交货后付款。】而且，每天订立的债权债务契约，与每天到期的契约，是不能通约的。

Credit-money springs directly out of the function of money as a means of
payment. Certificates of the debts owing for the purchased commodities circulate
for the purpose of transferring those debts to others. On the other hand, to the
same extent as the system of credit is extended, so is the function of money as
a means of payment. In that character it takes various forms peculiar to itself
under which it makes itself at home in the sphere of great commercial
transactions. Gold and silver coin, on the other hand, are mostly relegated to
the sphere of retail trade.

信用货币直接源于货币的支付手段的职能。赊销产生的应收账款，作为债券，又流通到他人手里。另一方面，随着信用系统的发展，货币作为支付手段的职能也在发展。作为支付手段的货币取得了它特有的各种存在形式，并以这些形式占据了大额交易领域。金币银币主要被挤到了小额零售交易中。

When the production of commodities has sufficiently extended itself, money
begins to serve as the means of payment beyond the sphere of the circulation of
commodities. It becomes the commodity that is the universal subject-matter of
all contracts. Rents, taxes, and such like payments are transformed from
payments in kind into money payments. To what extent this transformation depends
upon the general conditions of production, is shown, to take one example, by the
fact that the Roman Empire twice failed in its attempt to levy all contributions
in money. The unspeakable misery of the French agricultural population under
Louis XIV., a misery so eloquently denounced by Boisguillebert, Marshal Vauban,
and others, was due not only to the weight of the taxes, but also to the
conversion of taxes in kind into money taxes. In Asia, on the other hand, the
fact that state taxes are chiefly composed of rents payable in kind, depends on
conditions of production that are reproduced with the regularity of natural
phenomena. And this mode of payment tends in its turn to maintain the ancient
form of production. It is one of the secrets of the conservation of the Ottoman
Empire. If the foreign trade, forced upon Japan by Europeans, should lead to the
substitution of money rents for rents in kind, it will be all up with the
exemplary agriculture of that country. The narrow economic conditions under
which that agriculture is carried on, will be swept away.

商品生产充分发展之后，货币的支付手段的职能就超出了商品流通的范围。货币成了所有契约的目标商品。租金，税赋等等，都要求使用货币支付了。这种转化在多大程度上取决于生产条件呢？举例来说，罗马帝国两次试图用货币征收所有税赋，然而都失败了。路易十四（Louis XIV.）统治下的法国农民无法形容的困苦，这种受到布阿吉尔贝尔（Boisguillebert）、沃邦元帅（Marshal Vauban）等人有力抨击的现象，不仅来自于税赋的沉重，而且来自于实物税改为货币税。另一方面，在亚洲，税赋主要是上缴实物，这一形式取决于随自然条件而不断重现的生产条件。这一形式也反过来维护了这种古代生产方式。这是奥斯曼帝国（Ottoman Empire）得以保持的诀窍之一。如果欧洲强加给日本的对外贸易，使日本把实物地租改为货币地租，日本的模范农业就会完蛋，这种农业的狭隘经济条件就会消失。

In every country, certain days of the year become by habit recognised settling
days for various large and recurrent payments. These dates depend, apart from
other revolutions in the wheel of reproduction, on conditions closely connected
with the seasons. They also regulate the dates for payments that have no direct
connexion with the circulation of commodities such as taxes, rents, and so on.
The quantity of money requisite to make the payments, falling due on those dates
all over the country, causes periodical, though merely superficial,
perturbations in the economy of the medium of payment.

在每个国家，一年里的某几天都会习惯性地成为公认的清算日，用于清算大额重复的支付。【年底要账的。】撇开再生产的其他变革不说，这些日子部分地是与季节联系的。这些日子还调节着与商品流通没有直接关系的支付，例如税赋，租金，等。这些支付额，在这些日子集中到期，就周期性地引发了支付手段周期性的和表面的混乱。

From the law of the rapidity of currency of the means of payment, it follows
that the quantity of the means of payment required for all periodical payments,
whatever their source, is in inverse proportion to the length of their periods.

根据支付手段的流通速度的规律，无论起因如何，所有周期性的支付所必需的支付手段量，与支付期限的长短成反比。

The development of money into a medium of payment makes it necessary to
accumulate money against the dates fixed for the payment of the sums owing.
While hoarding, as a distinct mode of acquiring riches, vanishes with the
progress of civil society, the formation of reserves of the means of payment
grows with that progress.

货币发展为支付手段，就要求人们积累货币，以便到期支付债务。随着市民社会（资产阶级社会）的发展，作为致富形式的贮藏货币消失了，而作为支付手段准备金的贮藏货币增长了。