출처: J. M. Keynes, A Treatise on Money (October 31, 1930)
자료: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007150328 ; 차례
※ 발췌 / excerpts of which:
Chapter 1. The Classification of Money
(1) Money and Money-of-Account
Money-of-Account, namely that in which Debts and Prices and General Purchasing Power are ^expressed^, is the primary concept of a Theory of Money.
A Money-of-Account comes into existence along with Debts, which are contracts for deferred payment, and Price-Lists, which are offers of contracts for sale or purchase. Such Debts and Price-Lists, whether they are recorded by word of mouth or by book entry on baked bricks or paper documents, can only be expressed in terms of a Money-of-Account.
Money itself, namely that by delivery of which debt-contracts and price-contracts are discharged, and in the shape of which a store of General Purchasing Power is held, derives its character from its relationship to the Money-of-Account, since the debts and prices must first have been expressed in terms of the latter. Something which is merely used as a convenient medium of exchange on the spot may approach to being Money, inasmuch as it may represent a means of holding General Purchasing Power. But if this is all, we have scarcely emerged from the stage of Barter. Money-Proper in the full sense of the term can only exist in relation to a Money-of-Account.
Perhaps we may elucidate the distinction between money and money-of-account by saying that the money-of-account is the description or title and the money is the thing which answers to the description. Now if the same thing always answered to the the same description, the distinction would have no practical interest. But if the thing can change, whilst the description remains the same, then the distinction can be highly significant. The difference is like between the King of England (whoever he may be) and King George. A contract to pay ten years hence a weight of gold equal to the weight of the King of England is not the same thing as a contract to pay a weight of gold equal to the weight of the individual who is now King George. It is for the State to declare, when the time comes, who the King of England is.
Now by the mention of contracts and offers, we have introduced Law or Custom, by which they are enforceable; that is to say, we have introduced the State of the Community. Furthermore it is a peculiar characteristic of money contracts that it is the State or Community not only which enforces delivery, but also which decides what it is that must be delivered as a lawful or customary discharge of a contract which has been concluded in terms of the money-of-account. The State, therefore, comes in first of all as the authority of law which enforces the payment of the thing which corresponds to the name or description in the contract. But it comes in doubly when, in addition, it claims the right to determine and declare what thing corresponds to the name, and to vary its declaration from time to timeㅡwhen, that is to say, it claims the right to re-edit the dictionary. This right is claimed by all modern States and has been so claimed for some four thousand years at least. It is when this stage in the evolution of Money has been reached that Knapp's Chartalismㅡthe doctrine that money is peculiarly a creation of the Stateㅡis fully realised.
Thus the Age of Money had succeeded to the Age of Barter as soon as men had adopted a money-of-account. And the Age of Chartalist or State Money was reached when the State claimed the right to declare what thing should answer as money to the current money-of-accountㅡwhen it claimed the right not only to enforce the dictionary but also to write the dictionary. To-day all civilised money is, beyond the possibility of dispute, chartalist.
It will be noticed that the money-of-account must be ^continuous^. When the name is changedㅡwhich may or may not be coincident with a change in the money which answers to itㅡthe new unit must bear a definite relation to the old. The State will, as a rule, promulgate a formula which defines the new money-of-account in terms of the old. If, however, failing a decree by the State, all contracts prior to a certain date are worked out in the old currency, and all contracts subsequent to that date are made in the new, even so the market cannot help establishing for itself a parity between the two. Thus there can be no real breach in the continuity of decent in the pedigree of the money-of-account, except by a catastrophe in which all existing contracts are simultaneously wiped out.
(2) Money-Proper and Bank-Money (p. 5)
We have seen that the introduction of a Money-of-Account gives rise to two derived categoriesㅡ[:]
- Offers of Contracts, Contracts and Acknowledgments-of-Debt, which are in terms of it [=Money-of-Account],
- and Money-Proper, answering to it, delivery of which will discharge the Contract or the Debt.
The first of these prepares the way for the next development, namely the discovery that for many purposes the acknowledgments of debt are themselves a serviceable substitute for Money-Proper in the settlement of transactions. When acknowledgments of debt are used in this way, we may call them Bank-Moneyㅡnot forgetting, however, that they are not Money-Proper. Bank-Money is simply an acknowledgment of a private debt, expressed in the money-of-account, which is used by passing from one hand to another, alternatively with Money-Proper, to settle a transaction. We thus have side by side State-Money or Money-Proper and Bank-Money or Acknowledgments-of-Debt.
(3) Representative Money (p. 6)
This, in its turn, leads the way to a further evolution of State-Money itself. The Bank-Money may represent no longer a private-debt, as in the above definition, but a debt owing by the State; and the State may then use it chartalist prerogative to declare that the debt itself is an acceptable discharge of a liability. A particular kind of Bank-Money is then transformed into Money-Properㅡa species of Money-Proper which we may call Representative Money. When, however, what was merely a debt has become money-proper, it has changed its character and should no longer be reckoned as a debt, since it is of the essence of a debt to be enforceable in terms of something other than itself. To regard Representative Money, even when it conforms to an objective standard, as being still a debt will suggest false analogies.
At the cost of not conforming entirely with current usage, I propose to include as State-Money not only money which is itself compulsory legal-tender but also money which the State or the Central Bank undertakes to accept in payments to itself or to exchange for compulsory legal-tender money.[1] Thus most present-day Bank Notes, and even Central Bank Deposits, are here classified as State-Money, whilst Bank-Money (or non-legal-tender money) is mainly composed, nowadays, of Member Bank Deposits.[2] Historically a good many examples of Representative State-Money, which by being adopted by the State has subsequently passed over from the one category to the other.
(4) The Forms of Money
We are now in a position to proceed to a further analysis having an object different from the above, namely, to classify the three ^forms^ which State-Money can take, which we may call, for short, ^Commodity Money^, ^Fiat Money^ and ^Managed Money^, the last two being sub-species of ^Representative Money^.
^Commodity Money^ is composed of actual units of a particular freely-obtainable, non-monopolised commodity[3] which happens to have been chosen for the familiar purposes of money, but the supply of which is governedㅡlike that of any other commodityㅡby scarcity and cost of production.
At the cost of not conforming entirely with current usage, I propose to include as State-Money not only money which is itself compulsory legal-tender but also money which the State or the Central Bank undertakes to accept in payments to itself or to exchange for compulsory legal-tender money.[1] Thus most present-day Bank Notes, and even Central Bank Deposits, are here classified as State-Money, whilst Bank-Money (or non-legal-tender money) is mainly composed, nowadays, of Member Bank Deposits.[2] Historically a good many examples of Representative State-Money, which by being adopted by the State has subsequently passed over from the one category to the other.
[1] The exact legal status of various moneys is susceptible of considerable variety. For example, the Federal Reserve Bank Notes in the United State are only "optional" money. Knapp accepts as "Money"ㅡrightly, I thinkㅡanything which the State undertakes to accept at its pay-offices, whether or not it is declared legal-tender between citizens.
[2] See below (p. 10) for the explanation of this term.
(4) The Forms of Money
We are now in a position to proceed to a further analysis having an object different from the above, namely, to classify the three ^forms^ which State-Money can take, which we may call, for short, ^Commodity Money^, ^Fiat Money^ and ^Managed Money^, the last two being sub-species of ^Representative Money^.
^Commodity Money^ is composed of actual units of a particular freely-obtainable, non-monopolised commodity[3] which happens to have been chosen for the familiar purposes of money, but the supply of which is governedㅡlike that of any other commodityㅡby scarcity and cost of production.
[3] Or of warehouse warrants for actually existing units of the commodity. E.g. American Gold Certificates are best regarded as Commodity Money.^Fiat Money^ is Representative (or token) Money (i.e. something the intrinsic value of the material substance of which is divorced from its monetary face value)ㅡnow generally made of paper except in the case of small denominationsㅡwhich is created and issued by the State, but is not convertible by law into anything other than itself, and has no fixed value in terms of an objective standard.
^Managed Money^ is similar to Fiat Money, except that the State undertakes to manage the conditions of its issue in such a way that, by convertibilit or otherwise, it shall have a determinate value in terms of an objective standard.
Commodity Money and Managed Money are alike in that they are related to an objective standard of value. Managed Money and Fiat Money are alike in that they are representative or paper money, having relatively little or no intrinsic value apart from the law or practice of the State.
Thus Managed Money is in a sense a hybrid between the other two; and, perhaps for this reason, its qualities are not so easily understood. The public knows Commodity Money and it knows Fiat Money; but, readier to recognise the Standard than the Form, it is apt to consider a Managed Money which has a familiar commodity as its standard as the same thing as a Commodity Money, and a Managed Money which has an unfamiliar standard as a Fiat Money in disguise. In fact, however, the best typical modern Moneys, whilst many of them still remain mixtures of Commodity Money and Managed Money, approximate more and more to the form of Managed Money. Moreover, Managed Money is, in a sense, the most generalised form of moneyㅡwhich may be considered to degenerate into Commodity Money on the one side when the managing authority holds against it a 100% of the objective standard, so that it is in effect a warehouse warrant, and into Fiat Money on the other side when it loses its objective standard. For these reasons the theory which will be developed in the following chapters is expressed with primary reference to a Managed Money; but the formulas reached will be easily modifiable, if necessary, to suit the special conditions either of a Commodity Money or of a Fiat Money.
The scheme of conceptions and forms, set forth above, and their inter-relations, can be displayed in a diagram thus:
Thus we are left with four kinds of instruments of exchange, of which three are Money-Proper and the fourth is not Money-Proper but an acknowledgment of debt.
(5) Current Money
One of the fundamental elements in the Theory of Money is the total quantity of Money of all kinds in the hands of the public; and it often makes but little difference whether the money in question is State-Money or Bank-Money. The aggregate of both may be called ^Current Money^. The relationship between Current Money and State-Money is as follows.
The typical modern Banking System consists of a Sun, namely the Central Bank, and Planet, which following American usage, it is convenient to call the Member Banks. The total stock of State-Money is held partly by the Public, partly by the Member Banks, and partly by the Central Bank. The State Money held by the Central Bank constitutes its "reserve" against its deposits. These deposits we may term ^Central Bank-Money^. It is convenient to assume that all the Central Bank-Money is held by the Member Banksㅡin so far as it may be held by the public, it may be on the same footing as State-Money or as Member Bank-Money, according to circumstances. This Central Bank-Money ^plus^ the State-Money held by the Member Banks makes up the Reserves of the Member Banks, which they, in turn, hold against their Deposits. These Deposits constitute the ^Member Bank-Money^ in the hands of the Public, and make up, together with the State-Money (and Central Bank-Money, if any) held by the Public, the aggregate of ^Current Money^.
We can, therefore, continue our genealogical tree so as to exhibit the relationships thus:
Finally in Chapter 3 we shall further analyse Current Money as follows:
(6) Illustrations from History
Some historical examples will serve to illustrate the argument. The beginning of Money-Proper is often associated by historians withe first coinage, in regard to which the statement of Herodotus that it began in Lydia in the 6th or 7th century B.C. may still be credited. But I do not think that the act of coinage effected so significant a change as it commonly attributed to it. It was, perhaps, the first step towards Representative Money, or at any rate a step which made easier the subsequent transition to Representative Money and to Fiat Money. But it is probable that the fundamental transition, namely the transition to Chartalist or State Money, long preceded it; just as the next important step, namely to Representative Money, was long subsequent.
For Chartalism begins when the State ^designates^ the objective standard which shall correspond to the money-of-account. Representative Money begins when money is no longer composed of its objective standard. Fiat Money only appears when the State goes a step further and abandons the objective standard. Coined Money, which the State alone can mint and which may have a value superior to that of the commodity of which it is composed, is at the most a first step in the direction of Representative Money. Thus Coinage is not one of the three vital innovations in the evolution of Money, and truly Representative Money was not in fact issued until many centuries after the first coinage. On the other hand, it is by no means essential to Chartalism, that is to say the designation of the standard by the State, that the State should mint the standard; the essential characteristics of Chartalism are already present, even when money passes by weight not by tale, provided that it is the State which designates the commodity and the standard of weight.
When the King of Lydia first struck coins, it may have been as a convenient certificate of fineness and weight, or a mere act of ostentation appropriate to the offspring of Croesus and the neighbours of Midas. The stamping of pieces of metal with a trade-mark was just a piece of local vanity, patriotism or advertisement with no far-reaching importance. It is a practice which has never caught on in some important commercial areas. Egypt never coined money before the Ptolemies, and China (broadly speaking) has never coined silver, which is its standard of value, until the most recent times. The Carthaginians were reluctant coiners, and perhaps never coined except for foreign activities. The Semitic races, whose instincts are keenest for the essential qualities of Money, have never paid much attention to the deceptive signatures of Mints, which content the financial amateurs of the North, and have cared only the touch and weight of the metal. It was not necessary, therefore, that talents or shekels should be minted; it was sufficient that these units should be State-created in the sense that it was the State which defined (with the right to vary its definition from time to time) ^what^ weight and fineness of silver would, in the eyes of the law, satisfy a debt or a customary payment expressed in talents or in shekels of silver.
The first State reform of the standard of weight, of which we have definite record, was the Babylonian reform towards the end of the third millennium B.C. But this was not the beginning. Earlier standards existed. And in the primitive age, before man had attained the conception of weight or to the technical contrivance of the scales, when he had to depend for measurement upon ^counting^ barleys-corns or carats or cowries, it may still have been the State or the Community which determined what kind or quality of unit should be a due discharge of an obligation to pay which had been expressed by the numerals one or two or tenㅡas when, so late as the 13th century, the English government defined a penny sterling to be the weight of "32 wheat corns in the midst of the ear". A District Commissioner in Uganda to-day, where goats are the customary native standard, tells me that it is a part of his official duties to decide, in cases of dispute, whether a given goat is or is not too old or too scraggy to constitute a standard goat for the purposes of discharging a debt.
Money, like a certain other essential elements in civilisation, is a far more ancient institution than we were taught to believe some few years ago. Its origins are lost in the mists when the ice was melting, and may well stretch back into the paradisaic intervals in human history of interglacial periods, when the weather was delightful and the mind free to be fertile of new ideasㅡin the Islands of the Hesperides or Atlantis or some Eden of Central Asia.
The Solonic Reform of the Athenian currency in the 6th century B.C. was an exercise of the chartalist prerogative which was contemporary with, but in no way dependent upon, the existence of coined money. It was just a change of standard. Nor am I aware of any chartalist change of standard, expressly designed to benefit the State at the expense of the public, earlier than the second Punic WarㅡRome being the first original to add this instrument to the armoury of statecraft. From that time on chartalist changes of standard, generally in the form of debasements, sometimes for one purpose or sometime for another, are the familiar theme of historians.
Nevertheless these changes of standard do not, so far as affects the ^form^ of Money, carry us beyond the stage of Commodity Money. The ^debasement^ of the standard, i.e. a change of standard which abruptly diminishes the value of the money-of-account, does not, in itself, carry us a single step towards Representative Money. Commodity Money does not cease to be such merely because the unit of commodity is changed in kind or diminished in quantity. There is no evidence, until long subsequently, of money which was, in any significant degree, representative or token. A coin might have a value somewhat superior to that its metal content, because of the convenience and prestige of the coin, or because the stamp was a guarantee of fineness and acceptability, or merely because of its aesthetic qualitiesㅡas the dollar of Maria Theresa has, in modern times, commended itself to the nomadic Arabs of Africa. A seigniorage, too, might be charged for the service of mintage. There were token coins for very small denominations of currency. And clipt or worn money might circulate amongst the vulgar at its face value. But the characteristic of these examples are not enough to constitute Representative Money in the proper sense of the term. The true link between Commodity Money and Representative Money is to be found, perhaps, in Commodity Money, the supply of which is limited by absolute scarcity rather than by cost of production, and the demand for which is wholly dependent upon the fact that it has been selected by law or convention as the material of money and not upon its intrinsic value in other usesㅡas, for example, in the case of the primitive stone moneys of Polynesia.
Leaving on one side the paper moneys, which are alleged to have been anciently current in China, and also those of John Law and other precursors, the historical importance of Representative Money dates from so recent an epoch as the of the French Revolution, the exigent consequences of which led to the adoption not merely of Representative Money but of Fiat Money for many years in what were then the leading financial centres of the world, France and England.
Nevertheless, whilst Representative Money is a relatively modern devices, it was, as we have seen, adapted and taken over by the State from a far more ancient contrivance of private financeㅡnamely Bank-Money. The earliest beginings of Bank-Money, like those of Chartalist Money, are lost in antiquity. Perhaps Bank-Money, especially in the shape of Bills of Exchange and letters of credit for travellers abroad, may have existed almost as long as Money-Proper. For the use of Bank-Money depends on nothing except the discovery that, in many cases, the transference of the debts themselves is just as serviceable for the settlement of transactions as it the transference of the money in terms of which they are expressed. A title to a debt is a title to money at one remove, and, to the extent and within the field that confidence is felt in the prompt convertibility of the debt into the money, the element of remoteness is irrelevant to the serviceability of Bank-Money for settling transactions. Bank-Money in the shape of Bills of Exchange was not less useful and necessary in the ancient world than to-day for the purpose of settling transactions at a distance, owing to the cheapness of its cost of transmission as compared with the costs and risks of transporting Money-Proper.
(7) The Evolution of Managed Money
That species of Representative Money which I have called Managed Money is, as the diagram shows, the most mixed form of all and, alone of the four forms, has relationships to each of the other three. It has come into existence by easy stages, and many existing monetary systems are still composite in character, made up partly of Managed Money and partly of Commodity Money.
The first important attempt to lay down scientific principles for the management of a managed money, so as to make it conform to its standard (whatever that standard may be), arose out of the controversy which culminated in the British Bank Charter Act of 1844. In the 18th century Commodity Money was still the rule; but the evolution of Bank-Money in the shape of Bank Notes was showing the way towards Representative Money. [1] The consequences of the French Revolution swung the currencies of France and England right over into Fiat Money; and when in England this stage was brought to an end by the introduction of the Gold Standard, the uses of Representative Money had become so familiar and acceptable to the public, and so profitable to the Treasury and the Bank of England, that the new system was not a pure Commodity Money but a mixed Managed System. If Ricardo had had his way with his Ingot Proposals, Commodity Money would never have been restored, and a pure Managed Money would have come into force in England in 1819.
The gradual evolution of bank-rate policy under conditions, in London, peculiarly well adapted to it, coupled with a prodigious growth of Bank-Money, characterised British monetary developments for the next 70 years. But, whilst the practical efficacy of bank-rate became not merely familiar but an article of faith and dogma, its precise ^modus operandi^ and the varying results to expected from its application in varying conditions were not clearly understoodㅡand have not been clearly understood, in my opinion, down to this day.
Meanwhile other variants of Managed Money were coming into vogue, particularly those which have been discussed under the generic name of Exchange Standards, of which the Indian Rupee has been the classic instanceㅡthe Indian Ruppee being the subject of the leading theoretical discussions of this method of management and also of its actual operation on the largest scale. Some years ago (in my ^Indian Currency and Finance^, 1913) I wrote at length on the subject of Exchange Standards. But a brief digression may be in place here, bringing up to date my views as to how this type of standard is most conveniently classified.
There is, I think, an ambiguity in some discussions of this topic between ^Exchange Standards^ and what it would be more correct to call ^Exchange Management^. I define an ^Exchange Standard^ as a Managed Representative Money the objective standard of which is the legal-tender money of some other country. The controversy as to whether the Indian Rupee should be fixed in terms of sterling or in terms of gold was a controversy as to whether or not the rupee should be an Exchange Standard. One of the transitional standards in the process of stabilising the German mark was an Exchange Standard, whereas the mark as finally established is on a Gold Standard. On the other hand, where the objective standard is not a foreign money but (e.g.) gold, but where, nevertheless, the method of managing the Money in question so as to conform to this standard consists, wholly or mainly, in maintaining reserves at foreign centres and in buying or selling foreign exchange at stated rates rather than in buying or selling gold on the spot at stated rates, this I should designate as ^Exchange Management^. The objective standard at which Exchange Management aims may be an Exchange Standard; but not necessarily so. The characteristic of Exchange Management Moneys is to be found not in their Standard but in their Form.
For countries which are small compared with their neighbours, or do not contain independent financial centres of international importance, an Exchange Standard may be ideal. But it does undoubtedly involve some measure of dependence on the country whose money is chosen as the basis of the Exchange Standard, which may be hurtful to the national pride. Exchange Management, on the other hand, whilst partly free from this objection, possesses great technical advantages arising from economy in the transport of bullion and from the avoidance of loss of interest. Many countries, as for example Japan, have employed it for many years with great advantage, keeping reserves at more than one foreign centres and varying the proportions at each centre in accordance with circumstances. Germany appears to fluctuate in her attitude towards Exchange Management, with some signs of bias against it on the part of the Reichsbank authorities. The prejudice shown against Exchange Management by some sections of Indian opinion has been partly due. I think, to a confusion between Exchange Management and an Exchange Standard, the element of dependence which is more characteristic of the latter being erroneously attributed to the former in an equal degree.
Sterling during the war, or rather from 1915 to 1919, was an example of Exchange Management. From January13, 1916, to March 19, 1919, sterling was maintained at about the value of $4.76½ in terms of U.S. dollars, by Messrs. J. P. Morgan and Co., acting as agents of the British Treasury, standing ready in the New York foreign exchange market to buy any quantity of sterling offered at this rate, or, alternatively, to buy dollars for sterling at 4.77. [1]
Finally, just before the war, there came into being the greatest managed system which the world has yet seenㅡthe Federal Reserve System of the United States, a system which was mainly borrowed at its inception from the British system but has since been developing along new and original lines of its ownㅡthough what, precisely, these are to be still a matter of some doubt and controversy.
As regards the British System, in the form in which it has emerged, by virtue of the Currency Act of 1925, out of several years of Fiat Money, it is still to soon to speak. One definite change, however, is embodied in the Actㅡthe British currency is no longer a composite system. Pre-war commodity money, in the shape of the sovereign, has not been restored; Ricardo's proposal of a hundred years previously has been adopted; and sterling is established by law as a pure Managed Money.
The controversy which preceded the restoration of the Gold Standard in Great Britain was believed by many people to concern the question whether sterling should be henceforward a Managed Money or an "automatic" money. But this was a misapprehension. Unless "automatic" money means a money rigidly linked in quantity to the supply of "commodity" money, it means nothing; and of this there was no likelihood or possibility. The misapprehension occurred because the public knew no third alternative between the Fiat Money of the post-war period and the Commodity Money of the pre-modern age. Nevertheless it was precisely this third form which was certain to be adopted, whatever decisions might be made on other mattersㅡnamely a Representative Money managed so as to conform to an objective standard.
The real subject of the controversy were two. First, was it expedient to change the standard of sterling at such a time or in such a way that the transition would involve a significant alteration in the level of money-incomes? Should not any change of standard be so made that the purchasing power of the new standard is, at the moment of transition, both equal to the purchasing power of the existing money-of-account and in equilibrium with money-incomes, with the result that the change of standard, in itself and at the moment, does not involve any alternation, up or down, in the current level of money-values? The opposition, more impressed than the official party with the objections to a deliberate lowering of money-values, maintained that it was inexpedient to alter the standard in conditions which would necessitate such a lowering. But the official party attached great importance to the ^precise number^ of Troy ounces of gold which was to answer to the money-of-account. They were willing neither to adapt the number of ounces to the existing purchasing power of the money-of-account nor to wait until the purchasing power of the money-of-account was adapted to the desired number of ounces, but preferred, for a variety of reasons, to run the risks which must attend any forced or sudden disequilibrium in the existing levels of incomes and prices.
This bone of contention was quite distinct from the further subject of controversy concerning the choice of the Standard itself, namely whether or not gold was the most suitable objective standard. Those who came to be known as the Monetary Reformers were not less anxious than others to bring to an end the period of Fiat Money; indeed they laid ^more^ stress than their opponents on the importance of a stable objective standard. But they argued that gold possesses now, even less than formerly, the qualities of a satisfactory objective standard, and they proposed to substitute for it some composite representative commodity on the general lines of the so-called Tabular Standard which has been long familiar in economic writings.
p. 22.
Commodity Money and Managed Money are alike in that they are related to an objective standard of value. Managed Money and Fiat Money are alike in that they are representative or paper money, having relatively little or no intrinsic value apart from the law or practice of the State.
Thus Managed Money is in a sense a hybrid between the other two; and, perhaps for this reason, its qualities are not so easily understood. The public knows Commodity Money and it knows Fiat Money; but, readier to recognise the Standard than the Form, it is apt to consider a Managed Money which has a familiar commodity as its standard as the same thing as a Commodity Money, and a Managed Money which has an unfamiliar standard as a Fiat Money in disguise. In fact, however, the best typical modern Moneys, whilst many of them still remain mixtures of Commodity Money and Managed Money, approximate more and more to the form of Managed Money. Moreover, Managed Money is, in a sense, the most generalised form of moneyㅡwhich may be considered to degenerate into Commodity Money on the one side when the managing authority holds against it a 100% of the objective standard, so that it is in effect a warehouse warrant, and into Fiat Money on the other side when it loses its objective standard. For these reasons the theory which will be developed in the following chapters is expressed with primary reference to a Managed Money; but the formulas reached will be easily modifiable, if necessary, to suit the special conditions either of a Commodity Money or of a Fiat Money.
The scheme of conceptions and forms, set forth above, and their inter-relations, can be displayed in a diagram thus:
Thus we are left with four kinds of instruments of exchange, of which three are Money-Proper and the fourth is not Money-Proper but an acknowledgment of debt.
(5) Current Money
One of the fundamental elements in the Theory of Money is the total quantity of Money of all kinds in the hands of the public; and it often makes but little difference whether the money in question is State-Money or Bank-Money. The aggregate of both may be called ^Current Money^. The relationship between Current Money and State-Money is as follows.
The typical modern Banking System consists of a Sun, namely the Central Bank, and Planet, which following American usage, it is convenient to call the Member Banks. The total stock of State-Money is held partly by the Public, partly by the Member Banks, and partly by the Central Bank. The State Money held by the Central Bank constitutes its "reserve" against its deposits. These deposits we may term ^Central Bank-Money^. It is convenient to assume that all the Central Bank-Money is held by the Member Banksㅡin so far as it may be held by the public, it may be on the same footing as State-Money or as Member Bank-Money, according to circumstances. This Central Bank-Money ^plus^ the State-Money held by the Member Banks makes up the Reserves of the Member Banks, which they, in turn, hold against their Deposits. These Deposits constitute the ^Member Bank-Money^ in the hands of the Public, and make up, together with the State-Money (and Central Bank-Money, if any) held by the Public, the aggregate of ^Current Money^.
We can, therefore, continue our genealogical tree so as to exhibit the relationships thus:
Finally in Chapter 3 we shall further analyse Current Money as follows:
(6) Illustrations from History
Some historical examples will serve to illustrate the argument. The beginning of Money-Proper is often associated by historians withe first coinage, in regard to which the statement of Herodotus that it began in Lydia in the 6th or 7th century B.C. may still be credited. But I do not think that the act of coinage effected so significant a change as it commonly attributed to it. It was, perhaps, the first step towards Representative Money, or at any rate a step which made easier the subsequent transition to Representative Money and to Fiat Money. But it is probable that the fundamental transition, namely the transition to Chartalist or State Money, long preceded it; just as the next important step, namely to Representative Money, was long subsequent.
For Chartalism begins when the State ^designates^ the objective standard which shall correspond to the money-of-account. Representative Money begins when money is no longer composed of its objective standard. Fiat Money only appears when the State goes a step further and abandons the objective standard. Coined Money, which the State alone can mint and which may have a value superior to that of the commodity of which it is composed, is at the most a first step in the direction of Representative Money. Thus Coinage is not one of the three vital innovations in the evolution of Money, and truly Representative Money was not in fact issued until many centuries after the first coinage. On the other hand, it is by no means essential to Chartalism, that is to say the designation of the standard by the State, that the State should mint the standard; the essential characteristics of Chartalism are already present, even when money passes by weight not by tale, provided that it is the State which designates the commodity and the standard of weight.
When the King of Lydia first struck coins, it may have been as a convenient certificate of fineness and weight, or a mere act of ostentation appropriate to the offspring of Croesus and the neighbours of Midas. The stamping of pieces of metal with a trade-mark was just a piece of local vanity, patriotism or advertisement with no far-reaching importance. It is a practice which has never caught on in some important commercial areas. Egypt never coined money before the Ptolemies, and China (broadly speaking) has never coined silver, which is its standard of value, until the most recent times. The Carthaginians were reluctant coiners, and perhaps never coined except for foreign activities. The Semitic races, whose instincts are keenest for the essential qualities of Money, have never paid much attention to the deceptive signatures of Mints, which content the financial amateurs of the North, and have cared only the touch and weight of the metal. It was not necessary, therefore, that talents or shekels should be minted; it was sufficient that these units should be State-created in the sense that it was the State which defined (with the right to vary its definition from time to time) ^what^ weight and fineness of silver would, in the eyes of the law, satisfy a debt or a customary payment expressed in talents or in shekels of silver.
The first State reform of the standard of weight, of which we have definite record, was the Babylonian reform towards the end of the third millennium B.C. But this was not the beginning. Earlier standards existed. And in the primitive age, before man had attained the conception of weight or to the technical contrivance of the scales, when he had to depend for measurement upon ^counting^ barleys-corns or carats or cowries, it may still have been the State or the Community which determined what kind or quality of unit should be a due discharge of an obligation to pay which had been expressed by the numerals one or two or tenㅡas when, so late as the 13th century, the English government defined a penny sterling to be the weight of "32 wheat corns in the midst of the ear". A District Commissioner in Uganda to-day, where goats are the customary native standard, tells me that it is a part of his official duties to decide, in cases of dispute, whether a given goat is or is not too old or too scraggy to constitute a standard goat for the purposes of discharging a debt.
Money, like a certain other essential elements in civilisation, is a far more ancient institution than we were taught to believe some few years ago. Its origins are lost in the mists when the ice was melting, and may well stretch back into the paradisaic intervals in human history of interglacial periods, when the weather was delightful and the mind free to be fertile of new ideasㅡin the Islands of the Hesperides or Atlantis or some Eden of Central Asia.
The Solonic Reform of the Athenian currency in the 6th century B.C. was an exercise of the chartalist prerogative which was contemporary with, but in no way dependent upon, the existence of coined money. It was just a change of standard. Nor am I aware of any chartalist change of standard, expressly designed to benefit the State at the expense of the public, earlier than the second Punic WarㅡRome being the first original to add this instrument to the armoury of statecraft. From that time on chartalist changes of standard, generally in the form of debasements, sometimes for one purpose or sometime for another, are the familiar theme of historians.
Nevertheless these changes of standard do not, so far as affects the ^form^ of Money, carry us beyond the stage of Commodity Money. The ^debasement^ of the standard, i.e. a change of standard which abruptly diminishes the value of the money-of-account, does not, in itself, carry us a single step towards Representative Money. Commodity Money does not cease to be such merely because the unit of commodity is changed in kind or diminished in quantity. There is no evidence, until long subsequently, of money which was, in any significant degree, representative or token. A coin might have a value somewhat superior to that its metal content, because of the convenience and prestige of the coin, or because the stamp was a guarantee of fineness and acceptability, or merely because of its aesthetic qualitiesㅡas the dollar of Maria Theresa has, in modern times, commended itself to the nomadic Arabs of Africa. A seigniorage, too, might be charged for the service of mintage. There were token coins for very small denominations of currency. And clipt or worn money might circulate amongst the vulgar at its face value. But the characteristic of these examples are not enough to constitute Representative Money in the proper sense of the term. The true link between Commodity Money and Representative Money is to be found, perhaps, in Commodity Money, the supply of which is limited by absolute scarcity rather than by cost of production, and the demand for which is wholly dependent upon the fact that it has been selected by law or convention as the material of money and not upon its intrinsic value in other usesㅡas, for example, in the case of the primitive stone moneys of Polynesia.
Leaving on one side the paper moneys, which are alleged to have been anciently current in China, and also those of John Law and other precursors, the historical importance of Representative Money dates from so recent an epoch as the of the French Revolution, the exigent consequences of which led to the adoption not merely of Representative Money but of Fiat Money for many years in what were then the leading financial centres of the world, France and England.
Nevertheless, whilst Representative Money is a relatively modern devices, it was, as we have seen, adapted and taken over by the State from a far more ancient contrivance of private financeㅡnamely Bank-Money. The earliest beginings of Bank-Money, like those of Chartalist Money, are lost in antiquity. Perhaps Bank-Money, especially in the shape of Bills of Exchange and letters of credit for travellers abroad, may have existed almost as long as Money-Proper. For the use of Bank-Money depends on nothing except the discovery that, in many cases, the transference of the debts themselves is just as serviceable for the settlement of transactions as it the transference of the money in terms of which they are expressed. A title to a debt is a title to money at one remove, and, to the extent and within the field that confidence is felt in the prompt convertibility of the debt into the money, the element of remoteness is irrelevant to the serviceability of Bank-Money for settling transactions. Bank-Money in the shape of Bills of Exchange was not less useful and necessary in the ancient world than to-day for the purpose of settling transactions at a distance, owing to the cheapness of its cost of transmission as compared with the costs and risks of transporting Money-Proper.
(7) The Evolution of Managed Money
That species of Representative Money which I have called Managed Money is, as the diagram shows, the most mixed form of all and, alone of the four forms, has relationships to each of the other three. It has come into existence by easy stages, and many existing monetary systems are still composite in character, made up partly of Managed Money and partly of Commodity Money.
The first important attempt to lay down scientific principles for the management of a managed money, so as to make it conform to its standard (whatever that standard may be), arose out of the controversy which culminated in the British Bank Charter Act of 1844. In the 18th century Commodity Money was still the rule; but the evolution of Bank-Money in the shape of Bank Notes was showing the way towards Representative Money. [1] The consequences of the French Revolution swung the currencies of France and England right over into Fiat Money; and when in England this stage was brought to an end by the introduction of the Gold Standard, the uses of Representative Money had become so familiar and acceptable to the public, and so profitable to the Treasury and the Bank of England, that the new system was not a pure Commodity Money but a mixed Managed System. If Ricardo had had his way with his Ingot Proposals, Commodity Money would never have been restored, and a pure Managed Money would have come into force in England in 1819.
[1] By the middle of the 18th century the circulation of Bank Notes was already predominant in Scotland, the glittering economies of ^not^ holding metal being as characteristically attractive to North Britain as the glittering certainties of holding it to Nearer Asia.But whilst a Managed Money came into force as from that date, the principles and methods of currency management were but ill understood by those responsible for its management, namely the Governors and Court of the Bank of Englandㅡindeed it may be said that they were not understood at all. Twenty-five years of trouble and threatened collapse of the standard ensued, until the reformers of that day brought in a new era of management methods with the Act of 1844. This Act was compounded of one sound principle and one serious confusion. The sound principle consisted in the stress laid on the limitation of the quantity of the representative money as a means of ensuring the maintenance of the standard. The confusion lay in the futile attempt to ignore the existence of Bank-Money and consequently the inter-relationships of Money and Bank-Credit, and to make Representative Money behave exactly as though it were Commodity Money. Indeed the confusion was so serious that it would probably have led to an actual breakdown if it had not been for a second sound principle which, whilst not actually embodied in the Act, swam into the consciousness of the best practical financiers at about the same date, namely the principle of Bank-rate. The efficacy of Bank-rate for the management of a managed money was a great discovery and also a most novel oneㅡa few years earlier the Bank of England had not had the slightest understanding of any connection between bank-rate policy and the maintenance of the standard.
The gradual evolution of bank-rate policy under conditions, in London, peculiarly well adapted to it, coupled with a prodigious growth of Bank-Money, characterised British monetary developments for the next 70 years. But, whilst the practical efficacy of bank-rate became not merely familiar but an article of faith and dogma, its precise ^modus operandi^ and the varying results to expected from its application in varying conditions were not clearly understoodㅡand have not been clearly understood, in my opinion, down to this day.
Meanwhile other variants of Managed Money were coming into vogue, particularly those which have been discussed under the generic name of Exchange Standards, of which the Indian Rupee has been the classic instanceㅡthe Indian Ruppee being the subject of the leading theoretical discussions of this method of management and also of its actual operation on the largest scale. Some years ago (in my ^Indian Currency and Finance^, 1913) I wrote at length on the subject of Exchange Standards. But a brief digression may be in place here, bringing up to date my views as to how this type of standard is most conveniently classified.
There is, I think, an ambiguity in some discussions of this topic between ^Exchange Standards^ and what it would be more correct to call ^Exchange Management^. I define an ^Exchange Standard^ as a Managed Representative Money the objective standard of which is the legal-tender money of some other country. The controversy as to whether the Indian Rupee should be fixed in terms of sterling or in terms of gold was a controversy as to whether or not the rupee should be an Exchange Standard. One of the transitional standards in the process of stabilising the German mark was an Exchange Standard, whereas the mark as finally established is on a Gold Standard. On the other hand, where the objective standard is not a foreign money but (e.g.) gold, but where, nevertheless, the method of managing the Money in question so as to conform to this standard consists, wholly or mainly, in maintaining reserves at foreign centres and in buying or selling foreign exchange at stated rates rather than in buying or selling gold on the spot at stated rates, this I should designate as ^Exchange Management^. The objective standard at which Exchange Management aims may be an Exchange Standard; but not necessarily so. The characteristic of Exchange Management Moneys is to be found not in their Standard but in their Form.
For countries which are small compared with their neighbours, or do not contain independent financial centres of international importance, an Exchange Standard may be ideal. But it does undoubtedly involve some measure of dependence on the country whose money is chosen as the basis of the Exchange Standard, which may be hurtful to the national pride. Exchange Management, on the other hand, whilst partly free from this objection, possesses great technical advantages arising from economy in the transport of bullion and from the avoidance of loss of interest. Many countries, as for example Japan, have employed it for many years with great advantage, keeping reserves at more than one foreign centres and varying the proportions at each centre in accordance with circumstances. Germany appears to fluctuate in her attitude towards Exchange Management, with some signs of bias against it on the part of the Reichsbank authorities. The prejudice shown against Exchange Management by some sections of Indian opinion has been partly due. I think, to a confusion between Exchange Management and an Exchange Standard, the element of dependence which is more characteristic of the latter being erroneously attributed to the former in an equal degree.
Sterling during the war, or rather from 1915 to 1919, was an example of Exchange Management. From January13, 1916, to March 19, 1919, sterling was maintained at about the value of $4.76½ in terms of U.S. dollars, by Messrs. J. P. Morgan and Co., acting as agents of the British Treasury, standing ready in the New York foreign exchange market to buy any quantity of sterling offered at this rate, or, alternatively, to buy dollars for sterling at 4.77. [1]
[1] Exchange management began in August 1915, but the exchange was not "pegged" until January 13, 1916, from which date the rate was kept steady between 4.76½ and 4.77. After May 1916 the fluctuation was kept between 4.76 7/16 and 4.76 9/16.Exchange Management has been frequently adopted in the case of Fiat Moneys which have no fixed objective standard. The cases of "official support" and of "pegging" of rates of exchange, variable from time to time, during the post-war period of European currency collapse are well-known examples of this.
Finally, just before the war, there came into being the greatest managed system which the world has yet seenㅡthe Federal Reserve System of the United States, a system which was mainly borrowed at its inception from the British system but has since been developing along new and original lines of its ownㅡthough what, precisely, these are to be still a matter of some doubt and controversy.
As regards the British System, in the form in which it has emerged, by virtue of the Currency Act of 1925, out of several years of Fiat Money, it is still to soon to speak. One definite change, however, is embodied in the Actㅡthe British currency is no longer a composite system. Pre-war commodity money, in the shape of the sovereign, has not been restored; Ricardo's proposal of a hundred years previously has been adopted; and sterling is established by law as a pure Managed Money.
The controversy which preceded the restoration of the Gold Standard in Great Britain was believed by many people to concern the question whether sterling should be henceforward a Managed Money or an "automatic" money. But this was a misapprehension. Unless "automatic" money means a money rigidly linked in quantity to the supply of "commodity" money, it means nothing; and of this there was no likelihood or possibility. The misapprehension occurred because the public knew no third alternative between the Fiat Money of the post-war period and the Commodity Money of the pre-modern age. Nevertheless it was precisely this third form which was certain to be adopted, whatever decisions might be made on other mattersㅡnamely a Representative Money managed so as to conform to an objective standard.
The real subject of the controversy were two. First, was it expedient to change the standard of sterling at such a time or in such a way that the transition would involve a significant alteration in the level of money-incomes? Should not any change of standard be so made that the purchasing power of the new standard is, at the moment of transition, both equal to the purchasing power of the existing money-of-account and in equilibrium with money-incomes, with the result that the change of standard, in itself and at the moment, does not involve any alternation, up or down, in the current level of money-values? The opposition, more impressed than the official party with the objections to a deliberate lowering of money-values, maintained that it was inexpedient to alter the standard in conditions which would necessitate such a lowering. But the official party attached great importance to the ^precise number^ of Troy ounces of gold which was to answer to the money-of-account. They were willing neither to adapt the number of ounces to the existing purchasing power of the money-of-account nor to wait until the purchasing power of the money-of-account was adapted to the desired number of ounces, but preferred, for a variety of reasons, to run the risks which must attend any forced or sudden disequilibrium in the existing levels of incomes and prices.
This bone of contention was quite distinct from the further subject of controversy concerning the choice of the Standard itself, namely whether or not gold was the most suitable objective standard. Those who came to be known as the Monetary Reformers were not less anxious than others to bring to an end the period of Fiat Money; indeed they laid ^more^ stress than their opponents on the importance of a stable objective standard. But they argued that gold possesses now, even less than formerly, the qualities of a satisfactory objective standard, and they proposed to substitute for it some composite representative commodity on the general lines of the so-called Tabular Standard which has been long familiar in economic writings.
p. 22.
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