R.A. Radford was born in Nottingham, England in 1919. As a young man, he went to Cambridge University to study economics. When World War II started, he had to interrupt his studies to join the British army. Three years later, in 1942, he was captured by enemy forces in Libya. He remained a prisoner of war (POW) until the end of the conflict.
R.A. Radford 於 1919 年出生於英國諾丁漢。年輕時，他前往劍橋大學學習經濟學。當第二次世界大戰開始時，他不得不中斷學業，加入英國軍隊。三年後，即 1942 年，他在利比亞被敵軍俘獲。他一直是戰俘，直到衝突結束。
During his stay in POW camps, Radford observed fellow prisoners as they exchanged goods and, marginally, services. Those observations were gathered in an article entitled “The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp”, published in November 1945. Radford successively analyses the development and organisation of the market, the use of cigarettes as a currency, price movements, the introduction and failure of a paper currency, price fixing by camp authorities and the economic impact of public opinion.
在拉德福德於戰俘營的期間，他觀察到同伴囚犯之間交換物品和部分服務的情況。這些觀察結果被整理成一篇名為《戰俘營的經濟組織》的文章，於 1945 年 11 月發表。拉德福德接著分析了市場的發展與組織、香煙作為貨幣的使用、價格變動、紙幣的引入與失敗、營地當局的價格固定以及公眾意見的經濟影響。
Radford starts with a basic assumption: “After allowance has been made for abnormal circumstances, the social institutions, ideas and habits of groups in the outside world are to be found reflected in a Prisoner of War Camp”. Men do not stop living because they are imprisoned. The constraints may be extremely tight, but men still try to reach a higher level of comfort.
拉德福德以一個基本假設開始：“在考慮到異常情況後，外部世界中群體的社會制度、觀念和習慣會在戰俘營中有所反映。”人們並不因為被囚禁而停止生活。約束可能非常嚴格，但人們仍然試圖達到更高的舒適水平。
From an economist’s perspective, this means that their behaviour can be analysed with the usual framework of mainstream economics. Prisoners are rational actors, who aim at maximising their own well-being or utility.
從經濟學家的角度來看，這意味著他們的行為可以用主流經濟學的常規框架進行分析。囚犯是理性的行為者，旨在最大化他們自己的福祉或效用。
The camp administration provides each prisoner with a given quantity of basic goods, including cigarettes. So “a prisoner is not dependent on his exertions for the provision of the necessaries, or even the luxuries of life, but through his economic activity, the exchange of goods and services, his standard of material comfort is considerably enhanced”. The enhancement of material comfort through trade corresponds to the diversity of preferences among prisoners.
營地管理部門為每位囚犯提供一定數量的基本物品，包括香煙。因此，「囚犯不必依賴自己的努力來獲得生活必需品，甚至是奢侈品，而是通過他的經濟活動、商品和服務的交換，他的物質舒適標準得到了顯著提升」。通過貿易提升物質舒適度與囚犯之間的偏好多樣性相對應。
The immediate response to that diversity is the exchange of goods, “starting with simple direct barter, such as a non-smoker giving a smoker friend his cigarette issue in exchange for a chocolate ration”. Barter enables prisoners to proceed to these basic trades.
對於這種多樣性的直接回應是商品的交換，「從簡單的直接以物易物開始，例如一位不吸煙者將他的香煙配給給一位吸煙的朋友，以換取一份巧克力配給」。以物易物使囚犯能夠進行這些基本的交易。
“Within a week or two, as the volume of trade grew, rough scales of exchange values came into existence”. Soon it became clear that these values should be translated into universally accepted unit of account. “Most trading was for food against cigarettes or other foodstuffs, but cigarettes rose from the status of a normal commodity to that of currency”. Cigarettes had all the characteristics of a currency. “Although cigarettes as currency exhibited certain peculiarities, they performed all the functions of a metallic currency as a unit of account, as a measure of value and as a store of value, and shared most of its characteristics. They were homogeneous, reasonably durable, and of convenient size”.
「在一兩週內，隨著貿易量的增長，粗略的交換價值尺度開始出現。」不久之後，這些價值應該轉換為普遍接受的計量單位變得明朗。「大多數交易是用食物換取香煙或其他食品，但香煙的地位從普通商品上升為貨幣。」香煙具備了貨幣的所有特徵。「儘管香煙作為貨幣展現出某些特異性，但它們執行了金屬貨幣的所有功能，包括作為計量單位、價值衡量和價值儲存，並且擁有大部分的特徵。它們是同質的，耐用性合理，且尺寸方便。」
When the situations of the war allowed for some stability, camp authorities decided to create a shop. The shop was large enough to have access to a larger quantity of cigarettes. Prisoners who were temporarily out of cigarettes were able to borrow from the shop. Credit had emerged. “Thus the cigarette attained its fullest currency status, and the market was almost completely unified.”
當戰爭的情況允許一些穩定時，營地當局決定開設一家商店。這家商店足夠大，可以獲得更多的香煙。暫時沒有香煙的囚犯可以向商店借用。信用開始出現。“因此，香煙達到了其最完整的貨幣地位，市場幾乎完全統一。”
As any currency, “cigarettes were also subject to the working of Gresham’s Law. Certain brands were more popular than others as smokes, but for currency purposes a cigarette was a cigarette”. Gresham’s law predicts that when different qualities of money coexist, bad money drives out good. In the camp, popular brands were kept for smoking. The poorest qualities became exclusively used for exchanges.
如同任何貨幣，「香煙也受到格雷森法則的影響。某些品牌的香煙比其他品牌更受歡迎，但就貨幣用途而言，香煙就是香煙。」格雷森法則預測，當不同品質的貨幣共存時，劣幣會驅逐良幣。在營地中，受歡迎的品牌被保留用來吸煙。最劣質的香煙則專門用於交易。
This situation worsened when prisoners realised that rolled cigarettes were even cheaper. “Hand-rolled cigarettes were not homogeneous and prices could no longer be quoted in them with safety: each cigarette was examined before it was accepted and thin ones were rejected, or extra demanded as a make-weight. For a time we suffered all the inconveniences of a debased currency”. The lower quality of money fuelled inflation, until people came back to trading with standard cigarettes. Unfortunately, Radford does not tell how this happened.
這種情況在囚犯意識到捲煙更便宜時惡化了。「手捲煙並不均勻，價格也無法再安全地報價：每根香煙在接受之前都會被檢查，細的香煙會被拒絕，或者要求額外的香煙作為補償。曾經我們遭受了貶值貨幣帶來的所有不便。」低品質的貨幣助長了通貨膨脹，直到人們重新開始用標準香煙進行交易。不幸的是，拉德福德並沒有說明這是如何發生的。
The analysis of cigarette currency made Radford’s article quite famous. It is a fascinating story of how prisoners try to rebuild their former economic environment to improve their lives in detention.
香煙貨幣的分析使拉德福德的文章相當著名。這是一個引人入勝的故事，講述囚犯如何嘗試重建他們以前的經濟環境，以改善他們在拘留中的生活。
There is another reason for the notoriety of cigarette currency. It perfectly illustrates the mainstream economic theory of money. Men started to exchange goods. They bartered, but this became insufficient in a more complex market structure. So men invented money. POW camps are like an anthropologic experiment that proves the validity of economic theories. In Radford’s words, “a P.O.W. camp provides a living example of a simple economy which might be used as an alternative to the Robinson Crusoe economy beloved by the text-books, and its simplicity renders the demonstration of certain economic hypotheses both amusing and instructive”.
香煙貨幣的臭名昭著還有另一個原因。它完美地說明了主流經濟學對貨幣的理論。人們開始交換商品。他們進行以物易物，但在更複雜的市場結構中，這變得不夠。因此，人們發明了貨幣。戰俘營就像一個人類學實驗，證明了經濟理論的有效性。用拉德福德的話說，「戰俘營提供了一個簡單經濟的活生生例子，可以作為教科書中所喜愛的羅賓遜·克魯索經濟的替代方案，其簡單性使得某些經濟假設的演示既有趣又具啟發性。」
Radford considers that the experiment constitutes a lesson on humanity. “The principal significance is sociological […]. The essential interest lies in the universality and the spontaneity of this economic life; it came into existence not by conscious imitation but as a response to the immediate needs and circumstances”. This boils down to assuming that the POW camp constitutes “a brand new society”, an experiment on which hypotheses on our society can be tested and validated.
拉德福德認為這個實驗構成了一堂關於人性的課程。“主要的意義在於社會學[…]. 本質的興趣在於這種經濟生活的普遍性和自發性；它的存在不是通過有意識的模仿，而是對當前需求和環境的回應。”這歸結為假設戰俘營構成了一個“全新的社會”，一個可以對我們的社會進行假設測試和驗證的實驗。
This approach omits the fact that prisoners were members of our society. They were used to living in a modern market environment, so it is quite natural that they should try and reproduce their former life. It does not prove that money succeeded barter in the history of mankind.
這種方法忽略了囚犯是我們社會成員的事實。他們習慣於生活在現代市場環境中，因此他們試圖重現過去的生活是相當自然的。這並不證明金錢在整個人類歷史中取代了以物易物。
This attachment to life outside of prison has been analysed by anthropologists in other contexts. For example, in Papua New Guinea, the use of cigarettes as currency creates some distance between the economic environment of the prison and the rest of the world. “Part of the problem with national currency is that it risks activating inmates’ memories of transactions outside the gaol [jail] and of debts they have yet to return (children’s school fees, rent payment due to their wives, [etc.]). By contrast, cigarettes help inmates to forget their thoughts” (Reed, 2007).
這種對監獄外生活的依附在其他情境中已被人類學家分析過。例如，在巴布亞新幾內亞，香煙作為貨幣的使用在監獄的經濟環境與外部世界之間創造了一定的距離。「國家貨幣的部分問題在於，它有可能喚起囚犯對監獄外交易的記憶，以及他們尚未償還的債務（孩子的學費、應付給妻子的租金等）。相對而言，香煙幫助囚犯忘記他們的思緒」（里德，2007）。
The omission of the social dimension of money by Radford corresponds to the general economic orientations of his article. The young British economist is a perfect example of what we would today call mainstream economic thinking. Interestingly, this liberal free-market approach was not dominant in the 1940s. Radford does not stand out for his original theories, he stands out for his ability to demonstrate all the major premises of economics through the description of his fellow prisoners.
拉德福德對金錢社會面向的忽略與他文章的一般經濟取向相符。這位年輕的英國經濟學家是我們今天所稱的主流經濟思維的完美範例。有趣的是，這種自由市場的自由主義方法在 1940 年代並不佔主導地位。拉德福德並不是因為他的原創理論而脫穎而出，而是因為他能夠通過描述他的同囚來展示所有主要的經濟前提。
Despite the fixed rations, prisoners managed to have some free competition. “There were entrepreneurial services”. Some became wealthy, others lost everything.
儘管有固定的配給，囚犯們仍然設法進行一些自由競爭。「有創業服務」。有些人變得富有，另一些人則失去了一切。
There were also monopolies. “One man capitalized his knowledge of Urdu* by buying meat from the Sikhs** and selling butter and jam in return: as his operations became better known more and more people entered this trade, prices in the Indian Wing approximated more nearly to those elsewhere”.
也存在壟斷。“一個人利用他對烏爾都語的知識，從錫克人那裡購買肉類，然後以此交換奶油和果醬：隨著他的業務越來越為人所知，越來越多的人進入這個行業，印度區的價格逐漸接近其他地方的價格。”
Monopolies had a poor image in the camp. “Particularly unpopular was the middleman with an element of monopoly, the man who contacted the ration wagon driver, or the man who utilized his knowledge of Urdu”. However, as stated by economic theory, monopolies never lasted long. Others soldiers would finally understand the trick and find a way to communicate with vegetarian Indian prisoners. The free market always wins.
壟斷在營地裡的形象不佳。「特別不受歡迎的是帶有壟斷元素的中間人，與配給車司機聯繫的人，或是利用他對烏爾都語知識的人。」然而，正如經濟理論所述，壟斷從來不會持久。其他士兵最終會理解這個把戲，並找到與素食的印度囚犯溝通的方法。自由市場總是會勝出。
According to Radford, prisoners have a hard time accepting the free market. Two elements considerably affected material comfort by distorting prices: public intervention and opinion.
根據拉德福，囚犯很難接受自由市場。有兩個因素通過扭曲價格顯著影響了物質舒適度：公共干預和輿論。
Public intervention became more important near the end of the war. Conditions improved. There was some room for entertainment. Camp authorities opened a shop and a restaurant. They tried to fix prices and introduce a new paper money called BMk. This worked for a while, in the absence of shocks.
公共干預在戰爭結束前變得更加重要。條件有所改善。娛樂活動有了一些空間。營地當局開設了一家商店和一家餐廳。他們試圖固定價格並引入一種名為 BMk 的新紙幣。在沒有衝擊的情況下，這一措施有效了一段時間。
In wartime in a POW camp, exogenous economic shocks take the form of bombings, important battles and interruptions of the supply chain. The “planned economy” was never able to adapt to those changes. When “the price structure changed, the recommended scale was too rigid”. This inability to follow the evolutions of the market ruined the restaurant. Soon enough, “there was a flight from the BMk., no longer convertible into cigarettes or popular foods. The cigarette re-established itself.”
在戰時的戰俘營中，外部經濟衝擊以轟炸、重要戰役和供應鏈中斷的形式出現。“計劃經濟”從未能適應這些變化。當“價格結構改變時，建議的規模過於僵化”。這種無法跟隨市場變化的能力毀了餐廳。不久後，“BMk.的逃離，無法再兌換香煙或受歡迎的食物。香煙重新建立了自己的地位。”
The welfare first provided by the restaurant was an illusion. It relied on a certain state of the world. Ethical considerations also played a part. “But prices moved with the supply of cigarettes, and refused to stay fixed in accordance with a theory of ethics”. Radford does not believe in the morality of economic life.
餐廳最初提供的福利是一種幻覺。它依賴於世界的某種狀態。倫理考量也起了一定的作用。「但價格隨著香煙的供應而變動，並拒絕根據倫理理論保持不變。」拉德福德不相信經濟生活的道德性。
For example, “in every period of dearth the explosive question of ‘should non-smokers receive a cigarette ration?’ was discussed to profitless length”. For Radford, authorities should not try adapt the preferences of individuals. They should keep on granting each prisoner the same package, and let them trade depending on their tastes and priorities. Similarly, price fixing in the shop seemed fair but “eventually public opinion turned against the recommended scale and authority gave up the struggle”.
例如，「在每一個缺乏的時期，‘非吸煙者是否應該獲得香煙配給？’這個爆炸性的問題被討論得毫無益處。」對於拉德福德來說，當局不應該試圖適應個體的偏好。他們應該繼續給每位囚犯相同的包裹，讓他們根據自己的口味和優先事項進行交易。同樣，商店的價格固定看似公平，但「最終公眾輿論轉向反對建議的標準，當局放棄了這場鬥爭。」
Ultimately, “opinion was always overruled by the hard facts of the market”. Why did free markets work so well in the POW camp? As Radford explains, the camp looks like “the Robinson Crusoe economy”. This designates simple mathematical models where economic actors are isolated from external pressures, like Robinson on his island. In the camp, all prisoners have the same ration and similar needs. There is a limited number of goods. There are no intergenerational inequalities, no externalities and little space for market power. In other words, POW camps prove that Robinson models do work if the corresponding hypotheses are met. They do not prove that free markets always work in more complex societies and environments, such as ours.
最終，“意見總是被市場的硬事實所推翻”。為什麼自由市場在戰俘營中運作得如此良好？正如拉德福德所解釋的，這個營地看起來像是“魯賓遜漂流記經濟”。這指的是簡單的數學模型，其中經濟行為者與外部壓力隔離，就像魯賓遜在他的島上。在營地中，所有囚犯都有相同的口糧和相似的需求。商品數量有限。沒有代際不平等，沒有外部性，市場權力的空間也很小。換句話說，戰俘營證明了魯賓遜模型在滿足相應假設的情況下確實有效。它們並不證明自由市場在我們這樣更複雜的社會和環境中總是有效。
In the course of the article, readers would almost forget that Radford is describing a POW camp during World War II. In that context, ‘opinion’ meant questions of life and death, of solidarity between prisoners. Throughout the text, Radford does not mention that. His writing is worthy and modest. It conveys the message that even in dire times, the forces of the free market are the best way to improve welfare. Of course, people may disagree with that message. But it has rarely been expressed in such a touching way.
在文章的過程中，讀者幾乎會忘記拉德福德正在描述二戰期間的戰俘營。在這個背景下，「意見」意味著生死問題，以及囚犯之間的團結。在整篇文章中，拉德福德並沒有提到這一點。他的寫作值得讚賞且謙遜。它傳達的訊息是，即使在困境中，自由市場的力量仍然是改善福利的最佳方式。當然，人們可能會不同意這個訊息。但這種表達方式卻是少見的感人。
The article ends with the liberation of the camps, which suddenly brings the reader back to the reality of the war. Radford concludes with an enigmatic sentence, whose interpretation is best left open. “On 12th April, with the arrival of elements of the 30th US. Infantry Division, the ushering in of an age of plenty demonstrated the hypothesis that with infinite means economic organization and activity would be redundant, as every want could be satisfied without effort”.
文章以營地的解放作結，這突然讓讀者回到戰爭的現實。拉德福德以一句神秘的話作結，這句話的解釋最好保持開放。“在 4 月 12 日，隨著第 30 美國步兵師部隊的到來，豐裕時代的來臨證明了這一假設：隨著無限的資源，經濟組織和活動將變得多餘，因為每一種需求都可以毫不費力地得到滿足。”
After the war, Radford returned to Cambridge and received a bachelor’s degree in economics. He then moved to Washington to work for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He died on November 7, 2006. “The Economic Organisation of a P.O.W. Camp” was described as a “a remarkable piece of writing” by the Financial Times in 2012. It will remain as a symbol of resilience, and an empathic attempt at understanding the fundamental economic aspirations of men.
戰後，拉德福德回到劍橋，獲得經濟學學士學位。隨後，他搬到華盛頓，為國際貨幣基金組織（IMF）工作。他於 2006 年 11 月 7 日去世。《戰俘營的經濟組織》在 2012 年被《金融時報》形容為「一篇卓越的作品」。它將作為韌性的象徵，以及對理解人類基本經濟願望的同理心嘗試。
Fabien Hassan 法比恩·哈桑
This article concludes our series on money.
本文結束了我們關於金錢的系列文章。
