加国头条 i4cc.ca ｜英国高中生获奖作文：货币的未来

英国中央银行“英格兰银行”(Bank of England)和国际著名财经媒体英国“金融时报”(Financial Times)去年底合办了一场高中生作文比赛，获奖作品近日揭晓了。

本次比赛向英国全体高中学生开放，题材为“货币的未来是什么“。二百多名高中生踊跃参赛，而英格兰银行和金融时报也刊登了最终获奖的三篇文章。

三篇文章文笔和想象力不用说，同时逻辑缜密、贴近现实、可圈可点。想起笔者高中时代只会念叨”生产、分配、交换、消费“或“生产力决定生产关系”云云，真是自叹弗如。

现将三篇作文罗列如下，供各位鉴赏。

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第一名作品题为“货币将不再由当权者掌控”，文章从全球化写起，引入未来全球统一货币的可能性，但当提到虚拟货币时，作者断然声明，货币的未来不会由少数西方白人所掌控！作者接下来谈了自己对肯尼亚支付服务M-Pesa的认识和理解，并论证了未来货币权力掌握在新兴人群手中的必然。

Currency Will Be No Long Determined By Those in Power

Estelle McCool, King’s College London Maths School

Our world today is dominated by globalisation. We’ve been trading globally since before the Vikings left Scandinavia, yet the face of world trade has been altered by technological revolution and the removal of economic barriers. A global currency seems the next logical step in international integration. But what would provide the prototype of this new money?

Preparing for the somewhat distant future, let’s think further than Pax Americana. Although cryptocurrencies are all the rage from Silicon Valley to Germany’s Silicon Allee, the future does not lie in the hands of white men from the west. The currency of the future will be brought about by the powerful economies of the future. According to the IMF, of the top ten fastest developing economies, six are in Africa. Focusing our attention in Africa is key for understanding of the future of money.

The currency of the future will most likely arise from existing infrastructure, as a gradual adoption would be the most feasible way to achieve an international currency. We need to also consider that for this to be a true international currency, it would need to be accessible to everyone.

So we’re looking for a future of money, relying on existing infrastructure, coming out of the developing world, that is accessible to all. Simple.

The major prototype could be Mpesa. A development from using mobile phone airtime as a medium of exchange, Mpesa originated in Kenya. The brilliance of the system is that it was based on existing infrastructure: shops selling mobile phone credit. Phone minutes were being sent from person to person, as a form of currency. It evolved very much like our modern day currencies with the exchange of something that holds intrinsic value, which now has a value separate from its functional use.

Mpesa now has 20m users in Kenya alone and is used in 96 per cent of Kenyan households. Cryptocurrencies are unsustainable due to the amount of energy they require and are exclusionary in nature, with the poorest struggling to access them at all. Mpesa can capture almost all economically active people, as it does not require a bank account, only a phone. In fact, Mpesa is actively fighting poverty, as it lends itself to micro-financing and giving the people the ability to save without a traditional bank account. Growth in Africa will be driven by its population and empowering individuals, especially women, to shift from agricultural to commercial work may be key in the rise of Africa on to the world stage.

The scale of Mpesa’s usage is massive; it transferred 6.9tn Kenyan Shilling in 2017. Mpesa has continued to spread, but rather than target the west, it’s moving into other African nations, like Tanzania, into Romania, one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, and into India, an emerging superpower. Admittedly, the future of Mpesa itself is still unsure, but the future of money does lie in the hands of the people moving up, not the powerful people of today.

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第二名作品题为“货币大幅贬值让人们想象替代品”，文章从委内瑞拉货币贬值说起，谈到货币的交换中介、贮存价值和记账单位属性，并想象未来货币可能被什么替代。

A Nearly Worthless Currency Ignites Imaginations

Sofia Comper-Cavanna, Burgess Hill Girls School

The Venezuelan bolívar is practically worthless. When money has become so far devalued that the quantity of paper notes used to purchase toilet rolls is more than the quantity of paper you buy, is there any way for society to find a purpose for money again?

Venezuela is in disarray. Complete economic and political dysfunction has led to dramatic hyperinflation reaching incredible heights — 1.62m per cent. With 1kg of rice costing 2.5m bolívars before the most recent devaluation, how can Venezuelans find a useful future for their worthless currency? For some, money has ignited imaginations. Craftsmen have turned to resourcefulness, creating useful items from money. Instead of buying goods with stacks of notes, they’re making them from fewer notes than it would take to make a purchase.

Money is designed to be durable and hard wearing. It naturally makes an excellent textile material, a substitute for otherwise costly resources. A key characteristic of money is also to hold value over time; as the value of the bolívar plummets, many in the Venezuelan community have developed innovative methods to retain the currency’s value, making purses and various fashion accessories, that hold their value over time as goods, rather than currency. The sale of money-made goods puts food on the table. Ignited imaginations are giving people a new source of income. For Venezuela, money could be gaining a new function in society.

Currently, money’s function is as a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and as a store of value. It is designed to help society, to prevent us being forced back into the barter economy of the past, the haggling we love a taste of on holiday which, long term, would exhaust the easy internet-shopping generation of today. Money benefits society. However, what if there was a new function allowing it to benefit a modernised society — art?

“The Craftsmen Series” honours industrious US working-class labourers with a saw, hammer and screwdrivers. Crafted from dimes, quarters and penny coins, American artist Stacey Lee Webber uses money to produce art. She gives money a new value in society.

Ms Webber is conveying what she describes as “the continued decreasing value of hand labour in the United States”. The artwork not only holds value as a creative piece, but could be seen as giving power to the working-class people this collection represents. The art raises an awareness of society’s growing disregard for primary sector jobs, as quaternary sectors grow rapidly.

Money ignites imaginations. Artistic pieces are not only creatively enriching society, but giving money a new ability to store value, regardless of a currency’s worth.

The future may not necessarily be free of cash payments. Or the future may be entirely plastic cards, PayPal passwords and contactless mobile payment. Money may leave financial circulation altogether. Either way, money could always have a place in society as an inspiration for artists, a resource for Venezuelan people, and new art imaginations have yet to create. Money will ignite imaginations.

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而第三名作品题为“无现金社会的问题”，探讨了信用卡等非现金支付手段，利用消费者心理变化，促进消费和个人信贷激增所带来的问题。作者认为金融知识和教育，以及网上预算工具是降低过度消费的答案。

The Problem with Cashless Societies

Utkarsh Dandanayak, Royal Grammar School, Guildford

No one likes parting ways with hard-earned cash. As consumers, this behavioural trait of ours allows us to think twice before engaging in transactions that we may later regret. However, now there is a chance that this trait will be lost, with the introduction of Mastercard, Apple Pay and the like, which digitalise payment processes to provide transactional convenience. What is often forgotten is the subtle but potent side effect — financial abstraction — the fundamental problem with a cashless society.

Financial abstraction is simply a rewording of “out of sight, out of mind”. When we don’t see a physical transfer of money from consumer to vendor (and instead swipe a credit card, for example), it results in a reduction in our perceived value of money. Making money less tangible and thus adding to its abstract nature induces in us a spendthrift attitude.

Disney has invested $1bn in exploiting this habit, with the introduction of “MagicBands” to their theme parks. These allow the wearer to purchase meals and souvenirs from anywhere within Disneyland premises with a wave of their wrist. The result? Per capita spending increased by 8 per cent in the first quarter after their inception due to higher ticket prices and increased food and drink sales.

Financial abstraction can step outside the gates of Disneyland and into consumer markets, the most palpable example being the establishment of mobile payment systems.

A strong upward trend in the usage of mobile payment services is evident. Success is most apparent in China, where the consumer spending boom has allowed “WeChat Pay” (its largest mobile payment provider) to flourish. WeChat had more than 1.09bn users in 2018. Businesses have inevitably followed the money, with countless retailers flocking to offer such payment methods. This story is similar to when credit cards came to the masses 50 years ago.

Between 2012 and 2017, global mobile payment volume grew by 328 per cent and UK consumer debt rose by 30 per cent. Abstraction is at play once more. Our natural pragmatism incentivises the usage of cashless payments, while our conception of money is distorted to become more illusory, increasing one’s propensity to spend indiscriminately, thus inducing debt.

Although debt is fine in moderation, extreme levels mean that “millions are living on the financial precipice, leaving them vulnerable to financial shocks,” explains Mike O’ Connor, the former chief executive of debt charity StepChange.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that younger generations are using these services extensively. Such abstraction may cause children, who are more likely to see money as limitless, to be prone to future financial mismanagement.

While I do not oppose the use of electronic payment systems, financial education must become a priority in anticipation of the transition to cashless societies. Furthermore, I believe that we should employ the free online financial tools made available to most individuals, including budgeting apps such as Mint, that allow one to track digital spending as well as informing one when certain bills are due.

Only with the use of technology can we mitigate the adverse effect of technology.

在各大央行中，英格兰银行在金融知识普及、经济学教育创新、虚拟货币研究等领域一直走在前面，诸如以上中学生征文之类别出心裁的活动在培养学生对经济学兴趣的同时，还为央行决策者和研究者本身对经济体和理解注入了一股清流。

征文比赛获奖作品原文链接：

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/competitions/school-blog-2018

英格兰银行分年龄段教育资源：

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/education-resources

英格兰银行为中小学学生和教师专门设计的课程：

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/econome

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