016-C-Universal-Money

C. Universal Money

世界货币

When money leaves the home sphere of circulation, it strips off the local garbs
which it there assumes, of a standard of prices, of coin, of tokens, and of a
symbol of value, and returns to its original form of bullion. In the trade
between the markets of the world, the value of commodities is expressed so as to
be universally recognised. Hence their independent value-form also, in these
cases, confronts them under the shape of universal money. It is only in the
markets of the world that money acquires to the full extent the character of the
commodity whose bodily form is also the immediate social incarnation of human
labour in the abstract. Its real mode of existence in this sphere adequately
corresponds to its ideal concept.

货币一旦离开国内的流通领域，就褪去了价格标准、铸币、Value符号的本地装扮，恢复为原来的贵金属块的形式。在世界市场上做贸易时，商品的Value必须表达出来，才能让外国人接受。因此，商品的独立的Value形式，以世界货币的形式面对商品。只有在世界市场上，货币的肉体形式才彻底地成为抽象人类劳动的直接社会化身。货币的存在方式与货币的观念完全一致了。

Within the sphere of home circulation, there can be but one commodity which, by
serving as a measure of value, becomes money. In the markets of the world a
double measure of value holds sway, gold and silver.

在国内流通领域，只有一种商品能成为货币，充当Value标尺。在世界市场，占统治地位的是双重Value标尺，金和银。

Money of the world serves as the universal medium of payment, as the universal
means of purchasing, and as the universally recognised embodiment of all wealth.
Its function as a means of payment in the settling of international balances is
its chief one. Hence the watchword of the mercantilists, balance of trade. Gold
and silver serve as international means of purchasing chiefly and necessarily in
those periods when the customary equilibrium in the interchange of products
between different nations is suddenly disturbed. And lastly, it serves as the
universally recognised embodiment of social wealth, whenever the question is not
of buying or paying, but of transferring wealth from one country to another, and
whenever this transference in the form of commodities is rendered impossible,
either by special conjunctures in the markets or by the purpose itself that is
intended.

世界货币是通用的支付手段、购买手段和一切财富的化身。它的首要职能是在清算国际贸易差额时充当支付手段。由此，重商主义者的口号就成了：贸易差额！【重商主义体系把通过金银来结算贸易差额当作世界贸易的目的。】金银充当购买手段，主要是在各国间产品交换的平衡被破坏的时候。【战时？】最后，它们充当财富的绝对化身，是在这样的场合：不是要买或要支付，而是将财富从一个国家转移到另一个国家，而且这种转移无法用一般商品形式实现。为什么无法实现？要么是因为市场行情决定的，要么是目的本身决定的。

Just as every country needs a reserve of money for its home circulation so, too,
it requires one for external circulation in the markets of the world. The
functions of hoards, therefore, arise in part out of the function of money, as
the medium of the home circulation and home payments, and in part out of its
function of money of the world. For this latter function, the genuine
money-commodity, actual gold and silver, is necessary. On that account, Sir
James Steuart, in order to distinguish them from their purely local substitutes,
calls gold and silver “money of the world.”

每个国家，为了国内流通，需要有准备金；为了在世界市场上的外部流通，也需要有准备金。因此，货币的贮藏职能，一部分源于在国内充当流通手段和支付手段的需要，一部分源于充当世界货币的需要。在充当世界货币的职能上，必须有真实的货币商品，即金和银。因此，詹姆斯·司徒亚特先生（Sir James Steuart）为了将金银与其本土代表区分开，就称金银为“世界货币”。

The current of the stream of gold and silver is a double one. On the one hand,
it spreads itself from its sources over all the markets of the world, in order
to become absorbed, to various extents, into the different national spheres of
circulation, to fill the conduits of currency, to replace abraded gold and
silver coins, to supply the material of articles of luxury, and to petrify into
hoards. This first current is started by the countries that exchange their
labour, realised in commodities, for the labour embodied in the precious metals
by gold and silver-producing countries. On the other hand, there is a continual
flowing backwards and forwards of gold and silver between the different national
spheres of circulation, a current whose motion depends on the ceaseless
fluctuations in the course of exchange.

金银的流通是二重的。一方面，金银从产地流向整个世界市场，进入各个国家内部的流通过程，补充磨损的铸币，提供奢侈品原料，或被贮藏起来。金银产出国的劳动与其他国家的劳动的交换，是这个流动过程的起点。另一方面，金银不断往返于不同国家之间，这是一个随着汇率的不断变化而产生的运动。

Countries in which the bourgeois form of production is developed to a certain
extent, limit the hoards concentrated in the strong rooms of the banks to the
minimum required for the proper performance of their peculiar functions.
Whenever these hoards are strikingly above their average level, it is, with some
exceptions, an indication of stagnation in the circulation of commodities, of an
interruption in the even flow of their metamorphoses.

资产阶级生产发达的国家，把银行保险库里的贮藏货币保持在它执行各种职能的最低限度。除了某些例外，当这些贮藏显著增加的时候，就表明商品流通停滞了，商品的形态变化中断了。