Liebe Hivegemeinde,
Liebe Freiheitsfreunde,
Liebe Freiheitsfeinde,

eines der interessantesten Beispiele aus der Geschichte über die Entwicklung von Märkten, ist der Bericht von dem britisch-amerikanischen Ökonomen Richard A. Radford, der im zweiten Weltkrieg von 1942-1945 als Kriegsgefangener im Lager Stalag VII-A interniert war.

Überall wo es Angebot und Nachfrage gibt, bilden sich Märkte.
So auch in diesem Kriegsgefangenenlager.

Das Angebot bestand aus den vom Lager bereitgestellten Rationen und aus den Hilfspaketen vom Roten Kreuz bzw. privaten Hilfspaketen.

Die Nachfrage drückte sich aus in den unterschiedlichen Vorlieben der Gefangenen.
Die Inder konnten mit Rindfleisch nichts anfangen, die Engländer liebten Tee, die Franzosen und Amerikaner Kaffee und auf Zigaretten waren alle (auch die Wachen) scharf.

Our supplies consisted of rations provided by the detaining power and (principally) the contents of Red Cross food parcels - tinned milk, jam, butter, biscuits, bully, chocolate, sugar, etc., and cigarettes. So far the supplies to each person were equal and regular. Private parcels of clothing, toilet requisites and cigarettes were also received, and here equality ceased owing to the different numbers dispatched and the vagaries of the post. All these articles were the subject of trade and exchange.

Relativ schnell wurde die Zigarette zur Ersatzwährung.

By the end of a month, when we reached our permanent camp, there was a lively trade in all commodities and their relative values were well known, and expressed not in terms of one another - one didn't quote bully in terms of sugar - but in terms of cigarettes. The cigarette became the standard of value. In the permanent camp people started by wandering through the bungalows calling their offers - "cheese for seven" (cigarettes) and the hours after parcel issue were Bedlam. The inconveniences of this system soon led to its replacement by an Exchange and Mart notice board in every bungalow, where under the headings "name," "room number," "wanted" and "offered" sales and wants were advertised. When a deal went through, it was crossed off the board. The public and semi permanent records of transactions led to cigarette prices being well known and thus tending to equality throughout the camp, although there were always opportunities for an astute trader to make a profit from arbitrage. With this development everyone, including non-smokers, was willing to sell for cigarettes, using them to buy at another time and place. Cigarettes became the normal currency, though, of course, barter was never extinguished.

Auch Arbitrage gab es und sogar Export.
Die Franzosen kauften billig Kaffee bei den teetrinkenden Engländern und verkauften ihn über den Zaun an Münchner Schwarzmarkthändler.

The people who first visited the highly organized French trading center, with its stalls and known prices, found coffee extract - relatively cheap among the tea-drinking English - commanding a fancy price in biscuits or cigarettes, and some enterprising people made small fortunes that way. (Incidentally we found out later that much of the coffee went "over the wire" and sold for phenomenal prices at black market cafes in Munich: some of the French prisoners were said to have made substantial sums in RMk.s. This was one of the few occasions on which our normally closed economy came into contact with other economic worlds.

Auch einen Arbeitsmarkt gab es:

Actually there was an embryo labor market. Even when cigarettes were not scarce, there was usually some unlucky person willing to perform services for them. Laundrymen advertised at two cigarettes a garment. Battle-dress was scrubbed and pressed and a pair of trousers lent for the interim period for twelve. A good pastel portrait cost thirty or a tin of "Kam." Odd tailoring and other jobs similarly had their prices.

Sowie Unternehmertum:

There were also entrepreneurial services. There was a coffee stall owner who sold tea, coffee or cocoa at two cigarettes a cup, buying his raw materials at market prices and hiring labor to gather fuel and to stoke; he actually enjoyed the services of a chartered accountant at one stage. After a period of great prosperity he overreached himself and failed disastrously for several hundred cigarettes.

Und natürlich die professionellen Trader (inklusive cornering):

the more subdivided the market, the less perfect the advertisement of prices, and the less stable the prices, the greater was the scope for these operators. 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, though to the end a "contact" among the Indians was valuable, as linguistic difficulties pre-vented the trade from being quite free. Some were specialists in the Indian trade, the food, clothing or even the watch trade. Middlemen traded on their own account or on commission. Price rings and agreements were suspected and the traders certainly co-operated.

Die Königsdisziplin unter den Tradern war die Arbitrage:

One trader in food and cigarettes, operating in a period of dearth, enjoyed a high reputation. His capital, carefully saved, was originally about 50 cigarettes, with which he bought rations on issue days and held them until the price rose just before the next issue. He also picked up a little by arbitrage; several times a day he visited every Exchange or Mart notice board and took advantage of every discrepancy between prices of goods offered and wanted. His knowledge of prices, markets and names of those who had received cigarette parcels was phenomena l. By these means he kept himself smoking steadily - his profits - while his capital remained intact.

Ohne Kredit und Terminhandel geht es auch im Kriegsgefangenenlager nicht:

Credit entered into many, perhaps into most, transactions, in one form or another. Sam paid in advance as a rule for his purchases of future deliveries of sugar, but many buyers asked for credit, whether the commodity was sold spot or future. Naturally prices varied according to the terms of sale. A treacle ration might be advertised for four cigarettes now or five next week. And in the future market "bread now" was a vastly different thing from "bread Thursday.” Bread was issued on Thursday and Monday, four and three days' rations respectively, and by Wednesday and Sunday night it had risen at least one cigarette per ration, from seven to eight, by supper time. One man always saved a ration to sell then at the peak price: his offer of "bread now" stood out on the board among a number of "bread Monday's" fetching one or two less, or not selling at all - and he always smoked on Sunday night.

Natürlich gab es auch Volatilität:

Many factors affected prices, the strongest and most noticeable being the periodical currency inflation and deflation described in the last paragraphs. The periodicity of this price cycle depended on cigarette and, to a far lesser extent, on food deliveries. At one time in the early days, before any private parcels had arrived and when there were no individual stocks, the weekly issue of cigarettes and food parcels occurred on a Monday. The non-monetary demand for cigarettes was great, and less elastic than the demand for food: consequently prices fluctuated weekly, falling towards Sunday night and rising sharply on Monday morning. Later, when many people held reserves, the weekly issue had no such effect, being too small a proportion of the total available. Credit allowed people with no reserves to meet their non--monetary demand over the weekend.
The general price level was affected by other factors. An influx of new prisoners, proverbially hungry, raised it. Heavy air raids in the vicinity of the camp probably increased the non-monetary demand for cigarettes and accentuated deflation. Good and bad war news certainly had its effect, and the general waves of optimism and pessimism which swept the camp were reflected in prices. Before breakfast one morning in March of this year, a rumor of the arrival of parcels and cigarettes was circulated. Within ten minutes I sold a treacle ration, for four cigarettes (hitherto offered in vain for three), and many similar deals went through. By 10 o'clock the rumor was denied, and treacle that day found no more buyers even at two cigarettes.

Man sah auch die deflationären Schocks, die so typisch sind für das System des Goldstandards:

Consequently our economy was repeatedly subject to deflation and to periods of monetary stringency. While the Red Cross issue of 50 or 25 cigarettes per man per week came in regularly and while there were fair stocks held, the cigarette currency suited its purpose admirably. But when the issue was interrupted, stocks soon ran out, prices fell, trading declined in volume and became increasingly a matter of barter. This deflationary tendency was periodically offset by the sudden injection of new currency. Private cigarette parcels arrived in a trickle throughout the year, but the big numbers came in quarterly when the Red Cross received its allocation of transport. Several hundred thousand cigarettes might arrive in the space of a fortnight. Prices soared, and then began to fall, slowly at first but with increasing rapidity as stocks ran out, until the next big delivery. Most of our economic troubles could be attributed to this fundamental instability.

Auch eine Papierwährung (gedeckt) wurde eingeführt:

To increase and facilitate trade, and to stimulate supplies and customers therefore, and secondarily to avoid the worst effects of deflation when it should come, a paper currency was organized by the Restaurant and the Shop. The Shop bought food on behalf of the Restaurant with paper notes and the paper was accepted equally with the cigarettes in the Restaurant or Shop, and passed backto the Shop to purchase more food. The Shop acted as a bank of issue. The paper money was baked 100 percent by food; hence its name, the Bully Mark. The BMk. was backed 100 per cent by food: there could be no over issues, as is permissible with a normal bank of issue, since the eventual dispersal of the camp and consequent redemption of all BMk.s was anticipated in the near future.

Spätestens jetzt dürfte es einige meiner Kritiker in den Fingern jucken.
Ich höre sie schon sagen:

Da siehst du es! Geld bildet sich spontan in einem freien Markt immer als Warengeld und eben nicht als Kredit.

Nicht so schnell!

Das Kriegsgefangenlager war kein freier Markt, sondern Sozialismus in Reinform.

Es gab kostenlose Unterkunft, Kleidung und Lebensmittel.
Alle der Insassen waren gleich. Jeder bekam die gleichen Rationen.
Die Lagerleitung (der Staat) kümmerte sich um alles.
Der einzigen Preis, den man bezahlen musste, war die Freiheit.
Regelmäßige Hilfspakete aus dem Westen machten das Leben erträglicher und wie in jedem Sozialismus entwickelte sich ein Schwarzmarkt.

Es ist kein Wunder, dass sich hier keine richtige Geldwirtschaft (Kreditwirtschaft) entwickeln konnte.

Für eine Kreditwirtschaft braucht es Leute die kreditwürdig sind.
Menschen sind kreditwürdig, wenn sie entweder Eigentum haben, welches man beleihen kann und/oder wenn sie marktfähige Waren produzieren.
Schulden bezahlt man zwar direkt mit Geld, aber indirekt mit Produktion.
Das Geldsystem zeigt nur an, wer mehr produziert als konsumiert hat (Guthaben) bzw. wer mehr konsumiert hat, als er produziert hat (Schulden)

Natürlich konnte man im Lager einige Waren kurzfristig auf Kredit kaufen, es kam aber nie so weit, dass die Schuldscheine der Schuldner (falls es die überhaupt gab) wie Geld weitergereicht wurden.

Die Vertreter der MMT sagen:

Taxes drive money

Ich sage:

debt drives money

Dazu gehören natürlich auch Steuerschulden.
Auch wenn man selbst keine Schulden hat, nimmt man Bankengeld als Bezahlung an, weil man weiß, dass es genug Leute gibt, die Schulden bei den Banken haben.
Währungsgeld wird nur deshalb zur Bezahlung angenommen, weil praktisch jeder Steuerschulden zu begleichen hat und dies nur in Form von Währungsgeld geht.

In einem Gefangenlager gibt es keine Steuern, es gibt aber Nikotinsüchtige.
Deshalb auch die Zigarette als allgemein anerkannte Währung.
Auch wenn man selbst nicht raucht, gibt es genug (süchtige) Raucher, die ganz scharf auf die Zigaretten sind.
Fürs Kriegsgefangenlager gilt also:

Nicotine addiction drives money.

Bis bald.
Stephan Haller

Quellen:
http://icm.clsbe.lisboa.ucp.pt/docentes/url/jcn/ie2/0POWCamp.pdf