Chapter 01
第一章
1
The New Deal Regulatory Order
新政监管体系
Saving Capitalism
拯救资本主义
When Franklin D. Roosevelt swore his inauguration oath on March 4, 1933, the American financial system had collapsed. Between January 1930 and March 1933, 5,722 distressed banks had merged or permanently closed. To prevent further failures, most states ordered all banks to shut their doors. Whatever Roosevelt’s future ambitions, the rescue and reform of the American banking system had to come first. Without safe, stable, and sufficient finance, national recovery could not proceed. Under the leadership of Southern Democrats in Congress, the New Deal’s financial reforms hewed conservative. They preserved the existing structure of primarily small, local banks, while imposing new boundaries on price- and business-line competition on all banking firms. In exchange, bankers received government support through federal deposit insurance and recapitalization. New Dealers, however, soon became frustrated by bankers’ failure to support recovery. Credit was the lifeblood of the capitalist economy. The government had rescued the banks. It now needed the banks to lend. “Had it not been for the Government support . . . there would be no private banking system in operation today,” Treasury official Marriner Eccles wrote to Bank of America chairman A. P. Giannini in October 1934. No one, Eccles continued, “has received more aid from the Government than the bankers and . . . they are the last ones, in their own interests, who should criticize and complain.” Eccles, a banker himself, was fast gaining influence over New Deal financial policy. His message to Giannini, head of the nation’s largest bank, was intended for all bankers. The time had come to get in line. 1
1933 年 3 月 4 日，当富兰克林·D·罗斯福宣誓就职时，美国金融体系已全面崩溃。1930 年 1 月至 1933 年 3 月间，5,722 家陷入困境的银行被迫合并或永久关闭。为阻止危机蔓延，多数州政府勒令所有银行停业。无论罗斯福未来有何宏图大计，拯救和改革美国银行体系都成为当务之急。没有安全、稳定且充足的资金支持，国家复兴就无从谈起。在国会南方民主党人的主导下，新政金融改革采取了保守路线。他们保留了以小型地方银行为主的现有架构，同时对所有银行机构的价格竞争和业务范围施加新限制。作为交换条件，银行家们通过联邦存款保险和资本重组获得了政府支持。然而新政派很快对银行家未能支持经济复苏感到失望。信贷是资本主义经济的命脉。政府拯救了银行，现在需要银行放贷。"若非政府施以援手......" "如今根本不会有私营银行体系在运作，"财政部官员马里纳·埃克尔斯在 1934 年 10 月写给美国银行董事长 A.P.詹尼尼的信中如此说道。埃克尔斯继续写道："没有人比银行家们从政府那里获得了更多援助……出于自身利益考虑，他们最不该做的就是批评和抱怨。"身为银行家的埃克尔斯正迅速获得对新政金融政策的影响力。他写给全美最大银行掌舵人詹尼尼的这封信，实则是向所有银行家传递信号：是时候站队了。1
Eccles also recognized that by saving capitalism—as the New Dealers congratulated themselves for doing—the government had left capitalists in power. Their cooperation could not be willed; it had to be bought. With the banks on a sound footing, Eccles and his allies devised policies to encourage bankers to lend in the public interest. In part, Eccles channeled the still-percolating ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who attributed the Depression’s severity to a collapse in demand. Famously, Keynes called for government spending to make up the difference. Eccles embraced this idea. He also recognized Roosevelt’s antipathy to federal deficits, and he therefore looked to consumer purchasing power, and particularly consumer credit, as an alternate path to recovery. Consumers, borrowing to buy industrial products, would support investment and employment in production industries, generating purchasing power for reemployed workers and yet more consumer demand as workers spent their wages. In June 1934, Eccles helped secure the National Housing Act, which created federal subsidies for consumer installment loans and home mortgages. Federal subsidies convinced bankers to lend. Giannini, for one, strongly supported this program. “Today,” Giannini wrote in a widely reproduced October 1936 editorial, the consumer “is a better loan prospect for a bank than ever before.” The reason: New Deal policy. “Social security, old age pensions, Federal insurance of bank deposits, and governmental insurance of various types of installment loans, have made bank loans to individuals a preferred investment,” Giannini insisted. Few bankers were so publicly effusive. In their offices, though, they followed the federal money and developed new consumer lending divisions, building a foundation for credit-financed consumer prosperity. 2
埃克尔斯也意识到，新政派自诩挽救了资本主义，实则让资本家继续掌权。他们的合作无法强求，必须用利益换取。随着银行体系趋于稳固，埃克尔斯及其盟友制定政策，鼓励银行家为公共利益放贷。埃克尔斯部分借鉴了英国经济学家约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯仍在发酵的理论——凯恩斯将大萧条的严重性归因于需求崩溃，并提出了著名的政府支出填补缺口的方案。埃克尔斯接纳这一理念的同时，也注意到罗斯福对联邦赤字的抵触，因此将消费者购买力（尤其是消费信贷）视为复苏的替代路径。通过贷款购买工业品的消费者将支撑生产行业的投资与就业，为再就业工人创造购买力，进而通过工资消费形成更多需求。1934 年 6 月，埃克尔斯推动《国家住房法案》通过，该法案为消费分期贷款和住房抵押贷款提供联邦补贴。这些补贴最终说服银行家打开了信贷闸门。 詹尼尼就是这一计划的坚定支持者之一。他在 1936 年 10 月一篇被广泛转载的社论中写道："如今，消费者'比以往任何时候都更适合成为银行的贷款对象'。"原因在于新政政策。"社会保障、养老金、联邦银行存款保险以及政府对各类分期贷款的担保，使个人银行贷款成为优选投资，"詹尼尼坚称。很少有银行家会如此公开地热情洋溢。但在办公室里，他们追随联邦资金流向，纷纷成立新的消费信贷部门，为信贷推动的消费繁荣奠定基础。
The New Deal thus brought commercial bankers into consumer lending markets in service of national recovery, infusing private lending with public purpose. Yet by channeling public policy through private firms, the New Deal’s credit programs allowed lenders to maintain pre-Depression beliefs about the superiority of individual economic autonomy and privately ordered markets over governmental planning and control. Building on experience regulating consumer credit during World War II, policymakers like Eccles sought to extend federal credit management into the postwar era to meet the government’s new obligations for economic stability and full employment. Lenders balked. Under the terms set by the New Deal, they, not the federal government, would determine how best to allocate credit in their communities. Some lenders circumvented wartime credit controls, transitioning consumers from fixed-term and regulated installment lending to variable-term and initially unregulated charge accounts. After the war, creditors joined a wide-ranging business effort to roll back federal authority. Private lenders sought and achieved autonomy over local lending decisions. They claimed, through public rhetoric and credit advertising, the mantle of prosperity. By promoting consumer borrowing as a private engine of recovery, the New Deal legitimated it as a private vector of prosperity. In 1936, an estimated 24 percent of households held installment debt. By 1952, 38 percent did, a figure that jumped to 45 percent by 1956. Although bankers remained at the margins of consumer lending, the New Deal’s federal credit programs and the wider societal embrace of credit-driven consumer prosperity eventually created pathways for bankers to retake control. 3
新政由此将商业银行引入消费信贷市场，以服务国家经济复苏，为私人借贷注入公共目标。然而通过私营企业实施公共政策的方式，新政信贷计划仍让放贷机构延续了大萧条前的理念——坚信个体经济自主与市场自发秩序优于政府计划与管控。基于二战期间监管消费信贷的经验，埃克尔斯等政策制定者试图将联邦信贷管理延伸至战后，以履行政府维持经济稳定与充分就业的新职责。放贷机构却拒不配合。根据新政条款，信贷分配权掌握在他们而非联邦政府手中，由他们决定如何最优配置社区信贷资源。部分机构甚至规避战时信贷管制，将消费者从固定期限、受监管的分期贷款转向弹性期限、初期不受监管的赊购账户。战后，债权人广泛参与商业游说，意图削弱联邦权力。私营放贷机构最终成功获得了地方信贷决策的自主权。 他们通过公开言论和信贷广告，披上了繁荣的外衣。新政将消费者借贷作为经济复苏的私人引擎来推广，从而使其成为个人实现繁荣的合法途径。1936 年，约 24%的家庭持有分期付款债务。到 1952 年，这一比例升至 38%，而到 1956 年更是跃升至 45%。尽管银行家在消费贷款领域仍处于边缘地位，但新政的联邦信贷计划以及社会对信贷驱动型消费繁荣的广泛接受，最终为银行家重新掌控局面开辟了道路。3
The Roots of the Postwar Financial System
战后金融体系的根源
The financial landscape that unfolded before American consumers in the post–World War II years appeared as long-tended farmland, divided by hedges and fences and habits of mind built up over generations. It owed its shape to deep-rooted traditions of local financial control dating to the colonial era, successively reaffirmed by political resistance to big, nationwide banks. Americans—or at least middling American elites spread through townhalls and statehouses across the nation’s vast interior—remained committed to local popular sovereignty, expressed variously as states’ rights, tax resistance, and antimonopoly politics. They believed, in a general way, that every town should have its own bank managed by its own best citizens. And they succeeded. By the early 1920s, these ideals existed as the stone fronts and columns of almost 30,000 independent banks. An overwhelmingly white, exceedingly male, financial elite controlled these institutions. They justified their financial authority through commitments to community prosperity, commitments which gave moral content to banking’s place-based social contract. “Remembering that the banker is a trustee for the community’s funds,” bank reformer Henry M. Dawes contended in May 1930, “he has no more right to withhold them unreasonably than he has to distribute them carelessly.” As comptroller of the currency in the 1920s, Dawes crafted federal reforms that preserved local financial control. His paean to trusteeship echoed speeches small-town bankers had made at club meetings and civic celebrations for half a century. Bankers were custodians. Their community leadership reflected a symbolic moral economy and paternalistic masculinity, which, while imperfectly practiced, legitimized their financial profits. 4
二战后展现在美国消费者面前的金融格局，犹如世代耕耘的农田，被树篱、栅栏和根深蒂固的思维习惯所分割。这种格局源于殖民地时期延续的地方金融自治传统，并通过历次对全国性大银行的政治抵制得以强化。美国人——至少是遍布广阔内陆城镇议会和州议会的普通精英阶层——始终坚守地方自治原则，这种理念以州权主张、抗税运动和反垄断政治等多种形式呈现。他们普遍认为每个城镇都应由当地最杰出的公民管理自己的银行。这一理念获得了成功：截至 1920 年代初，近三万间独立银行的石砌门廊与立柱便是明证。一个以白人男性为主的金融精英阶层掌控着这些机构，他们通过促进社区繁荣的承诺来维护其金融权威，这种承诺为银行业基于地域的社会契约赋予了道德内涵。 "要记住银行家是社区资金的受托人,"1930 年 5 月银行改革家亨利·M·道斯主张道,"他既无权无理扣留这些资金,也无权随意分发这些资金。"作为 1920 年代的货币监理官,道斯制定了保留地方金融控制权的联邦改革方案。他对受托人制度的颂扬,呼应了半个世纪以来小镇银行家在俱乐部会议和市民庆典上的演讲。银行家是保管人。他们的社区领导地位体现了一种象征性的道德经济与家长式男子气概,虽然实践得并不完美,却使其金融利润获得了正当性。4
America’s traditions of local finance provided ideological foundation for the legal and geographic structure of financial federalism, which combined federal oversight of the financial system with state control of financial institutions within their borders. The dynamic relationship between state and federal banking law began during the Civil War, when Congress forged a new national banking system to provide a uniform bank note currency and to enable the northern states to finance their war effort. The National Banking Acts (1863 and 1864) authorized the federal government to charter and regulate national banks, while also retaining a competing system of state-chartered banks regulated by individual states. In what became known as the dual banking system, national and state banks were confined within state-defined markets. Most banks remained small. National banks were permitted just one banking office, though state banks could build branches if permitted by their states. No bank, meanwhile, could build branches across state lines. Federal banking laws created distinct state and federal banking regimes, yet they also gave states significant regulatory control over all banking institutions within their borders. National banks, for instance, had to observe interest rate ceilings on loans established by their home state, giving states significant statutory control over their internal financial markets. 5
美国地方财政的传统为金融联邦主义的法律和地理结构提供了思想基础，这种结构将联邦对金融体系的监督与各州对其境内金融机构的控制相结合。州与联邦银行法之间的动态关系始于内战时期，当时国会建立了一个新的国家银行体系，以提供统一的银行票据货币，并使北方各州能够为其战争努力提供资金。《国家银行法》（1863 年和 1864 年）授权联邦政府特许并监管国家银行，同时保留了由各州监管的州特许银行的竞争体系。在被称为双重银行体系的制度下，国家银行和州银行被限制在州界内经营。大多数银行规模仍然很小。国家银行只允许设立一个银行办事处，而州银行如果获得州政府许可则可以设立分支机构。与此同时，任何银行都不能跨州设立分支机构。 联邦银行法构建了州与联邦并行的银行监管体系，同时也赋予各州对其境内所有银行机构的重大监管权。例如，国民银行必须遵守其注册州设定的贷款利率上限，这使得各州对其内部金融市场拥有实质性的法定控制权。5
Over time, financial federalism and its political economy of small finance became deeply ingrained, but countervailing trends toward growth and scale, always present, gained momentum at the turn of the century. In America’s growing cities, large banks sought to keep pace with consolidating industrial firms. Big businesses needed big banks. Further, branching restrictions limited the size and scope of banking markets and made individual banks dependent on local economies. Reformers and financial entrepreneurs pursued branch banking as a safer, more profitable alternative. By the early 1920s, an exodus of banks from the national system to more permissive state systems pressured Congress to liberalize rules governing nationally chartered banks. The McFadden Act (1927), drawn up by Henry Dawes and sponsored by Louis T. McFadden (R-PA), the House Banking Committee chairman, enabled national banks to operate citywide offices if they were located in a state that permitted branching. California, for example, allowed branch banking, and so a national bank headquartered in San Francisco could branch across the city. A bank headquartered in Chicago, however, could not, since Illinois remained a unit banking state. State rules varied but one constant remained: banks could not branch across state lines. Despite urbanization, industrial consolidation, and the integration of nationwide markets, in banking, financial federalism and state authority over local financial institutions remained paramount. 6
随着时间的推移，财政联邦主义及其小型金融的政治经济学已根深蒂固，但与之抗衡的增长与规模化趋势始终存在，并在世纪之交加速发展。在美国不断扩张的城市中，大型银行试图跟上工业公司兼并的步伐。大企业需要大银行。此外，分行设立限制制约了银行市场的规模和范围，使单个银行依赖于地方经济。改革者和金融企业家将分行银行体系视为更安全、更有利可图的替代方案。到 20 世纪 20 年代初，大批银行从国家体系转向监管更宽松的州级体系，迫使国会放宽对联邦特许银行的管制。由亨利·道斯起草、众议院银行委员会主席路易斯·T·麦克法登（共和党-宾州）推动的《麦克法登法案》（1927 年）规定：若联邦银行所在州允许设立分行，则该银行可在全市范围内开展业务。例如加利福尼亚州允许设立银行分支机构，因此总部位于旧金山的联邦银行便可在全市开设分行。 然而，一家总部位于芝加哥的银行则无法这样做，因为伊利诺伊州仍实行单一银行制。各州规定虽有差异，但有一条始终未变：银行不得跨州设立分支机构。尽管城市化进程加快、产业不断整合、全国市场趋于一体化，但在银行业领域，金融联邦主义与州政府对地方金融机构的监管权仍占据主导地位。6
The Great Depression leveled the political economy of small finance but not the ideology that undergirded it. During the 1920s, a festering agricultural downturn claimed hundreds of banks each year. Successive banking crises in the early 1930s claimed thousands more. In the fires of failure, some bankers lost faith. “Friends whose estates I managed, my family, whose interests I represented, and the community at large, in whose economic life I played a sensitive role, all expected me to find a way out of the pit,” Eccles remembered. “All I could find within myself was despair.” Despair led Eccles to abandon the free-market principles of his youth, determining instead that the federal government must act to rebalance the economy. Eccles, though, was an exception. While many bankers shared his despair, few willingly abandoned their convictions. Moreover, even after Roosevelt’s inauguration in March 1933, federalism remained the structural anchor of the American political order. Members of Congress—elected to represent states and communities—were not prepared to uproot localized finance, despite its profound shortcomings. The most powerful members of Congress, entrenched Southern Democrats, sought to preserve federalism, and with it the racial caste system, at all costs. Even Roosevelt, though his administration shouldered the full burden of national financial safety, remained committed to a financial world ordered, as Eccles recalled, by “small local units of power.” 7
大萧条重创了小型金融的政治经济体系，但未能撼动其背后的意识形态。20 世纪 20 年代，持续恶化的农业衰退每年导致数百家银行倒闭。30 年代初接连爆发的银行业危机又吞噬了数千家金融机构。在失败的烈焰中，部分银行家丧失了信念。"我受托管理的友人资产、我所代表的家族利益，以及我在其经济生活中扮演关键角色的整个社区，都指望我能找到脱困之道，"埃克尔斯回忆道，"而我内心只找到绝望。"这种绝望使埃克尔斯摒弃了年轻时的自由市场原则，转而认定联邦政府必须出手重整经济平衡。但埃克尔斯只是个例外。尽管许多银行家与他同样绝望，却鲜有人自愿放弃信念。更重要的是，即便在 1933 年 3 月罗斯福就职后，联邦制仍是美国政治秩序的结构基石。由各州和社区选举产生的国会议员们，尽管深知地方金融体系的严重缺陷，仍不愿将其连根拔起。 国会中最有权势的成员——根深蒂固的南方民主党人——不惜一切代价试图维护联邦制，以及与之相伴的种族等级制度。就连罗斯福也不例外，尽管他的政府承担着国家金融安全的全部重担，却仍致力于建立一个如埃克尔斯回忆中所说的由"小型地方权力单元"所主导的金融秩序。7
Thus the New Deal financial reforms did not challenge financial federalism; they reinforced it. The Banking Act of 1933—known as Glass-Steagall—embodied complex and sometimes contradictory goals, but at its core the law buttressed local financial control. House Banking chairman and Alabama populist Henry B. Steagall (D-AL) insisted that the law include federal deposit insurance, which shifted risk from community bankers to the federal government. The new Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protected individual accounts in the case of bank failure. If a bank practiced sound lending but the local economy went bust, the FDIC would preserve the community’s financial resources. Small bankers remained in business and in power. Yet the law also contained countercurrents, which encouraged bigger, safer banks. Glass-Steagall further liberalized federal branching rules, allowing nationally chartered banks full parity with state banks. A San Francisco bank could build branches across California. A Chicago bank remained confined to one office, in line with local rules. Overall, banks remained rooted in individual states and subject to those states’ geographic and interest rate policies. The New Deal thus centralized financial risk in the federal government while maintaining state authority in financial regulation. 8
因此，新政金融改革并未挑战金融联邦主义，反而强化了这一体系。1933 年颁布的《银行法》——即《格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法案》——体现了复杂且时而矛盾的目标，但其核心在于巩固地方金融控制权。众议院银行委员会主席、阿拉巴马州民粹主义者亨利·B·斯蒂格尔（民主党-阿拉巴马州）坚持要求该法案纳入联邦存款保险制度，将风险从社区银行家转移至联邦政府。新成立的联邦存款保险公司（FDIC）为银行倒闭时的个人账户提供保障。若某家银行遵循审慎放贷原则但当地经济崩溃，FDIC 将保护该社区的金融资源。小型银行家得以继续经营并掌权。然而该法案也包含逆流而动的条款，鼓励发展规模更大、更安全的银行。《格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法案》进一步放宽了联邦分支机构设立规则，允许全国性特许银行与州立银行享有完全平等权利。旧金山银行可在全加州设立分支机构，而芝加哥银行根据当地法规仍被限制为单一办公场所。 总体而言，银行仍扎根于各州，并受制于各州的地理和利率政策。因此，新政将金融风险集中到联邦政府，同时保留了各州在金融监管方面的权力。8
The New Deal financial reforms preserved financial federalism, which distributed authority geographically, and they also introduced or reinforced divisions between different types of financial firms. Congress imposed this fragmentation, or industry siloing, to limit what Senator Carter Glass (D-VA) saw as destructive competition among financial service providers. Glass most feared securities speculation. In the 1920s, large commercial banks created affiliate companies, which sold stocks and bonds to the public and ventured on their own account. Glass, the architect of the Federal Reserve System and congressional don of financial regulation, had long opposed “the dangerous use of the resources of bank depositors for the purpose of making speculative profits.” To prevent firms from taking excessive risks with depositors’ money, businesses were compartmentalized into specific fields, such as investment banking, insurance, consumer finance, and commercial lending. Congress defined these fields by the kinds of liabilities firms could assume (e.g., deposits), the kinds of assets they could hold, and the kinds of services they could provide. Specialization, policymakers believed, meant safety. As New Dealers became more interested in national economic management, siloing created specialized channels for directing the flow of financial resources through the offices of private financial firms. 9
新政金融改革保留了金融联邦主义，即在地理上分散权力，同时也引入或强化了不同类型金融机构之间的区隔。国会强加的这种分割——或称行业隔离——旨在限制参议员卡特·格拉斯（民主党-弗吉尼亚州）眼中金融服务提供商之间的破坏性竞争。格拉斯最担忧的是证券投机行为。20 世纪 20 年代，大型商业银行设立附属公司，向公众销售股票债券并自行开展投机交易。作为美联储体系的设计者和国会金融监管权威，格拉斯长期反对"滥用银行储户资源谋取投机利润"。为防止企业用储户资金进行过度风险操作，各类业务被划分至特定领域，如投资银行、保险、消费金融和商业贷款。国会通过企业可承担的负债类型（如存款）、可持有的资产类别以及可提供的服务种类来界定这些领域。 政策制定者们认为，专业化意味着安全。随着新政推行者对国家经济管理日益关注，职能隔离创造了通过私营金融机构办公室引导金融资源流动的专业化渠道。
In addition to confining firms to specific lines of business, the New Deal reforms also limited price competition by establishing price ceilings, directly through federal regulation and indirectly through state interest rate laws. First, Glass-Steagall barred commercial banks from paying interest on demand accounts (i.e., checking accounts) and required the Federal Reserve to establish maximum rates for savings accounts, a rule known as Regulation Q. Price controls prevented commercial banks from drawing away deposits from their competitors by taking on dangerously expensive deposit liabilities. Meanwhile, nearly universal state-level interest rate laws, known as usury limits, restrained the prices banks could charge on loans. Federal policymakers understood state interest ceilings as direct compliments to federal deposit rate controls. After observing that Regulation Q fixed low deposit rates for banks, ensuring high profits if banks channeled inexpensive deposits into high-interest lending, a concerned congressman asked Eccles if “there is no attempt to fix the maximum interest” banks “might charge when they loan that money?” Eccles, now Federal Reserve governor, replied, “Most states have usury laws.” Through price controls, financial reformers envisioned commercial banks operating safely within closely monitored bands of competition, risk, and profit. 10
除了将企业限制在特定业务领域外，新政改革还通过建立价格上限来限制价格竞争——既通过联邦法规直接实现，也通过州级利率法律间接实现。首先，《格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法案》禁止商业银行对活期账户（即支票账户）支付利息，并要求美联储为储蓄账户设定最高利率（即著名的 Q 条例）。价格管制防止商业银行通过承担风险过高的存款债务来吸走竞争对手的存款。与此同时，近乎全美各州普遍实施的高利贷限制法，约束了银行对贷款收取的利率。联邦政策制定者将各州利率上限视为对联邦存款利率管制的直接补充。 在观察到 Q 条例为银行设定了较低的存款利率，确保银行若将低成本存款用于高息贷款即可获得高额利润后，一位忧心忡忡的国会议员询问埃克尔斯："难道没有试图限制银行放贷时可能收取的最高利息吗？"时任美联储主席的埃克尔斯回答："大多数州都有反高利贷法。"通过价格管制，金融改革者设想商业银行能在严格监管的竞争、风险和利润区间内安全运营。10
Together, financial federalism, industry siloing, and price controls constituted the New Deal financial reform’s three pillars, which would structure the American banking industry until the 1980s. They also reflected tense political compromise. Carter Glass strongly opposed deposit insurance. So, initially, did Roosevelt. Eccles, impatient with the political economy of small finance, wanted to be rid of “mushroom miscalled banks.” Nevertheless, although the New Deal reforms grew from different intellectual and ideological ground, by the mid-1930s they interlaced, bound by the institutional gravity of the FDIC and a reformed, centralized, Federal Reserve. Assembled in parts, by the postwar era the financial system resembled a functional whole. Pluralism gave the system strength. By subdividing businesses through policy, the New Deal fragmented the financial services industry politically. Over the next generation, siloed firms spent their political capital protecting their market privileges against less or differently regulated rivals. The system required maintenance, ranging from periodic adjustment to active and vigorous defense. But it was—or at least appeared—solid. 11
金融联邦主义、行业隔离与价格管制共同构成了新政金融改革的三大支柱，这一架构将主导美国银行业直至 1980 年代。它们也折射出紧张的政治妥协——卡特·格拉斯强烈反对存款保险制度，罗斯福最初亦是如此；而埃克尔斯对小型金融机构的政治经济形态深感不耐，执意要清除那些"滥竽充数的蘑菇银行"。尽管新政改革脱胎于不同的思想与意识形态土壤，但到 1930 年代中期，这些措施已通过联邦存款保险公司（FDIC）的制度引力与改革后的中央化美联储体系相互交织。战后时期，这些拼装而成的金融部件已形似一个功能完整的体系。多元主义赋予了这个体系韧性：新政通过政策细分业务领域，在政治上碎片化了金融服务行业。此后数十年间，各自为政的企业不断消耗政治资本，以维护其市场特权，抵御监管程度不同的竞争对手。这个体系需要持续维护——从周期性调整到积极有力的防御——但它确实（至少表面上）坚如磐石。11
Consumer Credit and New Deal Economic Planning
消费者信贷与新政经济规划
In the early months of the New Deal, financial reformers worked to reconstitute a financial system that had fallen apart, to provide stability and calm in the face of economic chaos. Once the system stabilized in 1933, their concern turned from rescue to recovery. Here, if possible, debates were larger, more complicated, and more contentious. With the backdrop of massive unemployment and still grinding economic hardship, the New Dealers aspired to save capitalism from itself. They could not agree, however, on the system’s primary illness or the appropriate course of treatment. Within the administration, factions prescribing central planning, cartelization, and antimonopoly all vied for influence. Early reform programs, especially the National Recovery Administration, bogged down in these debates. On technical matters, Roosevelt remained ambivalent. He knew that the legitimacy of his reform agenda—whatever form it took—rested on rebuilding the economy, on providing Americans economic security and meaningful work. Those goals, administration officials believed, required the banking industry’s cooperation. Roosevelt, along with Henry Morgenthau Jr., his Treasury secretary, and other key advisers remained skeptical of aggressive government spending. Once the financial system was stable, they expected bankers to lend and business activity to resume. Their hopes were disappointed. The 1930s financial crises made lenders cautious. Bankers kept their money on the sidelines. They waited. The New Deal, however, could not wait. 12
新政初期，金融改革者们致力于重建已然崩溃的金融体系，在经济混乱中提供稳定与安宁。1933 年金融体系企稳后，他们的关注点从救助转向复苏。此时的争论——如果可能的话——规模更大、更复杂、更具争议性。在失业率居高不下与经济困境持续加剧的背景下，新政推行者力图挽救资本主义免于自我毁灭。然而对于体制的根本症结与恰当治疗方案，他们始终无法达成共识。政府内部主张中央计划、企业联盟化与反垄断的各个派系相互角力。早期改革计划——尤其是国家复兴管理局——便深陷这些争论泥潭。在技术性议题上，罗斯福始终持矛盾态度。他明白改革议程的合法性（无论采取何种形式）取决于经济重建的成效，取决于能否为美国民众提供经济保障与有价值的工作。政府官员们认为，这些目标的实现需要银行业积极配合。 罗斯福与财政部长小亨利·摩根索及其他核心顾问仍对激进的政府支出持怀疑态度。一旦金融体系稳定，他们便期待银行恢复放贷、商业活动重启。但希望落空了。1930 年代的金融危机令放贷机构变得谨慎。银行家们持币观望。他们等待着。然而新政已刻不容缓。12
Administration officials, from Roosevelt down, looked for policies that would revive the flow of private credit and in doing so redirect idle capital from bank balance sheets into purchasing power and productive investment. Eccles, who joined the administration in February 1934 as Morgenthau’s special assistant, understood the problem clearly. A banker, Eccles thought like a banker. With the economy stagnant and factories empty, private lenders would not risk their funds. “The question is not how bankers . . . can bring about recovery,” he told a Utah audience in October 1933, “but why they should do so, so long as there is no incentive offered in any field for profitable investment.” In Eccles’s view, the root of the nation’s prolonged depression was the collapse of consumer spending. Only the resumption of that spending, and with it demand for the products of industry, would generate incentives for new investment. Only then would private capital flow. “The profit incentive,” Eccles argued, “will continue to be absent until spending increases, consumption increases, and people get back to work.” Eccles initially called for direct government spending to energize the profit incentive. Once in the Treasury, though, he embraced an alternative approach, advocating for federal credit programs that would encourage bankers to lend to consumers, who would then spend, stoke demand, and revive profitable opportunities across the economy. 13
从罗斯福总统以下的政府官员都在寻找能够重振私人信贷流动的政策，从而将闲置资本从银行资产负债表中释放出来，转化为购买力和生产性投资。埃克尔斯于 1934 年 2 月作为摩根索的特别助理加入政府，他清楚地认识到这个问题。身为银行家，埃克尔斯以银行家的思维思考问题。在经济停滞、工厂闲置的情况下，私人贷款机构不愿冒险动用资金。"问题不在于银行家们如何推动经济复苏，"他在 1933 年 10 月对犹他州的听众说，"而在于他们为什么要这样做——只要没有任何领域能为盈利性投资提供激励。"在埃克尔斯看来，美国长期萧条的根源在于消费支出的崩溃。只有恢复这种支出，随之而来的对工业产品的需求，才能为新投资创造动力。到那时，私人资本才会重新流动。 "利润激励，"埃克尔斯主张道，"在支出增加、消费增长和人们重返工作岗位之前，将持续缺失。"埃克尔斯最初呼吁通过政府直接支出来激活利润激励。然而进入财政部后，他转而支持另一种方案——主张推行联邦信贷计划，以此鼓励银行家向消费者放贷，进而刺激消费、提振需求，重振整个经济中的盈利机会。13
The New Dealers’ embrace of consumer credit in 1934 reflected the transformed place of consumer borrowing in American economic life. Consumer credit changed significantly in the 1910s and 1920s, as consumer durables manufacturers and urban department stores used credit to drive sales and broaden their markets. Industrial firms in consumer goods industries developed installment credit to sell expensive products, like sewing machines, radios, and, most importantly, automobiles to salaried and wage workers. For a reasonable down payment and a series of equal weekly or monthly payments thereafter, consumers could participate in the mass consumption economy. New financial institutions—finance companies—emerged at the time to enable small, independent retailers to offer mass installment credit. These firms financed retailer inventories on one side, and then bought, consolidated, and collected on consumer installment contracts on the other. Specialization increased the flow of credit. For proponents, installment selling initiated a virtuous circle. Credit created demand for pricey goods, encouraged economies of scale in manufacturing, drove down unit costs, and made expensive goods less expensive. Opponents saw only vice. Predatory retailers used installment contracts to sell shoddy goods at high markups, especially to poor and minority customers. When borrowers failed to make payments, lenders repossessed the items, leaving borrowers with nothing but debt. Both theories told part of the story. Both reflected reality for some borrowers. During the 1920s boom, installment lending increased significantly, even as debates about its economic consequences and moral efficacy remained unresolved. 14
1934 年新政推行者对消费信贷的接纳，折射出消费借贷在美国经济生活中地位的转变。20 世纪 10 至 20 年代间，消费信贷发生了显著变化——耐用消费品制造商与都市百货公司通过信贷手段刺激销售、拓展市场。消费品行业的工业企业开发出分期付款信贷，将缝纫机、收音机等高价商品（最重要的是汽车）推销给工薪阶层。消费者只需支付合理首付，再按期缴纳等额周供或月供，即可融入大众消费经济。新型金融机构——金融公司应运而生，使小型独立零售商也能提供大规模分期信贷。这类公司一方面为零售商库存融资，另一方面收购、整合并催收消费者分期合同。专业化分工促进了信贷流动。在支持者看来，分期销售开启了良性循环。 信贷催生了对高价商品的需求，促进了制造业的规模经济，降低了单位成本，使昂贵商品变得更为平价。反对者只看到了弊端——掠夺性零售商利用分期付款合同，以高额加价销售劣质商品，尤其是针对贫困和少数族裔顾客。当借款人无力偿还时，贷方收回物品，使借款人只剩债务缠身。两种观点都揭示了部分真相，也都反映了部分借款人的现实境遇。1920 年代经济繁荣期间，分期贷款显著增长，而关于其经济影响与道德效用的争论始终悬而未决。14
While durable goods retailers refined installment credit to sell expansive goods to wage earners, urban department stores experimented with charge accounts as a new way to sell soft goods to well-to-do buyers. Charge accounts were a high-status evolution of traditional retail credit, scaled up and systematized through new credit technologies. Like installment lending, department stores developed charge plans to drive sales, in this case by making credit quick and convenient. Charge accounts granted affluent consumers a fixed line of credit that they repaid each month without paying interest. Consumers applied with a store’s credit department, and once approved they often received a charge token—a metal badge shaped as a key fob or small plate—that featured identifying information such as the store’s name and the customer’s account number. To access their line of credit, customers presented charge tokens at checkout, using the metal badges to physically demonstrate their creditworthy status and enabling clerks to recognize valued customers in cities overflowing with strangers. 15
当耐用消费品零售商通过完善分期付款信贷向工薪阶层销售高价商品时，都市百货商店则尝试以记账账户作为向富裕买家销售纺织品的新方式。记账账户是传统零售信贷的高端进化形态，通过新型信贷技术实现了规模化与系统化。与分期贷款类似，百货商店开发记账方案旨在促进销售——其核心在于使信贷流程快速便捷。这种账户为 affluent 消费者提供固定信用额度，他们只需每月还款且无需支付利息。消费者向商店信贷部门提出申请，获批后通常会获得一枚 charge token——形似钥匙扣或小牌子的金属徽章——上面刻有商店名称和客户账号等识别信息。在结账时，顾客出示 charge token 即可使用信用额度，这些金属徽章既实体化地彰显了持卡人的信用价值，也让店员能在陌生人充斥的城市中识别出尊贵客户。15
On the back of these innovations, consumer credit surged in the 1920s, but like the banking system, it crashed when the economy turned south at decade’s end. Lenders were not eager to take new risks when the economy was in free fall. Consumers likewise retreated, repaying old debts before assuming new ones. Consumer credit augmented swings in the business cycle. It bolstered consumer purchasing power on the upswing, generating increased consumer demand and drawing in additional investment in manufacturing capacity. On the downswing, consumers stopped spending income and credit. Industries dependent on credit-enhanced buying suffered a double loss, leaving factories idle and workers without work. Only by fully replacing pre-crisis purchasing power, officials like Eccles argued, would business investment, and with it industrial employment, return on the supply side. 16
在这些创新的推动下，20 世纪 20 年代消费者信贷激增，但和银行体系一样，随着 20 年代末经济下行而崩溃。当经济自由落体时，贷款机构不愿承担新风险。消费者同样退缩，在承担新债务前先偿还旧债。消费者信贷放大了商业周期的波动——上行期增强消费者购买力，刺激消费需求增长并吸引制造业产能的追加投资；下行期则导致消费者停止动用收入与信贷。依赖信贷消费的行业遭受双重打击，工厂闲置、工人失业。埃克尔斯等官员主张：只有完全恢复危机前的购买力，商业投资及随之而来的工业就业才能从供给侧回归。16
Forced to action by the slow recovery in 1934, administration officials developed policies that would recreate consumer demand by encouraging lenders to offer low cost, widely available consumer credit. Eccles led this effort. In June 1934, he guided the National Housing Act (NHA) through Congress, legislation that transformed national markets for home mortgage and durable goods credit by introducing government insurance for private lending. Cyclical credit swings had also undercut the housing market. During the Depression, mortgage lending evaporated. Home construction, Roosevelt recognized, was a critical nexus of productive activity, linking industries from lumber to lace curtains. The president was eager to revive home building and recover these jobs. Policymakers developed the NHA to restart private investment in housing. That meant convincing bankers to lend. To draw bankers in, the law created a novel system of federal insurance covering home mortgages and housing-related installment credit, loans made for immovable home improvements like electrification and air conditioning. The insurance protected lenders in the case of consumer default. In exchange, the law required financiers to lend at low, federally mandated rates, prices balanced by the still lower interest banks paid to depositors under the new banking laws. Thus, the NHA enabled lenders to extend credit, risk free, at a modest but guaranteed profit. The approach, Eccles claimed, would generate “a maximum degree of private spending through a minimum of public spending,” bolstering purchasing power with borrowed funds. 17
1934 年经济复苏缓慢迫使政府采取行动，官员们制定了通过鼓励放贷机构提供低成本、普及型消费信贷来重建消费需求的政策。埃克尔斯主导了这项工作。1934 年 6 月，他推动国会通过了《国家住房法案》，该立法通过引入政府担保的私人贷款，彻底改变了住房抵押贷款和耐用消费品信贷的全国市场。周期性信贷波动也曾重创住房市场。大萧条期间，抵押贷款业务几近枯竭。罗斯福认识到，住宅建设是连接从木材到蕾丝窗帘等各行业生产活动的关键枢纽。总统迫切希望重振住宅建设以恢复这些就业岗位。政策制定者制定《国家住房法案》旨在重启住房领域的私人投资。这意味着要说服银行家恢复放贷。为吸引银行参与，该法律创建了覆盖住房抵押贷款及住房相关分期信贷（如电气化和空调等不可移动房屋改善工程贷款）的联邦保险创新体系。当消费者违约时，这类保险可为贷款机构提供保护。 作为交换，该法案要求金融机构以联邦政府规定的低利率放贷，而银行根据新银行法向储户支付的更低利率则平衡了贷款价格。因此，《国家住房法》使贷款机构能够以适度但稳定的利润无风险地发放信贷。埃克尔斯声称，这种方法将"以最少的公共支出激发最大程度的私人消费"，通过借贷资金增强购买力。17
The National Housing Act laid the groundwork for a U.S. home loan industry that was at once structured by federal policy and managed at the local level by networks of community elites. Private appraisers evaluated residential properties, private real estate agents mediated home purchases, and private banks financed home loans. Federal officials issued standards and provided insurance, but they did so largely out of sight. As a consequence, federally subsidized credit flowed to neighborhoods—white, often suburban—where these publicly empowered private actors expected property values to go up. Mixed race, minority, and urban areas were cut off, redlined into self-fulfilling prophesies of decay and decline. 18
《国家住房法》为美国住房贷款行业奠定了基础，该行业既受联邦政策规范，又由地方社区精英网络具体运作。私人评估师负责房产估值，私人房地产经纪人促成房屋交易，私人银行提供住房贷款。联邦官员制定标准并提供保险，但这些工作大多在幕后进行。其结果是，获得联邦补贴的信贷流向了那些被这些获得公共授权的私人主体预期房产会升值的社区——主要是白人聚居的郊区。而种族混杂、少数族裔聚居的城市区域则被切断信贷渠道，红线划区政策使这些地区陷入衰败的自我实现预言。18
Credit insurance revolutionized mortgage lending; it also pulled commercial bankers, who traditionally focused on business lending, into consumer markets. Before the New Deal, few commercial banks offered consumer credit. Bankers, as custodians, cloaked themselves in traditionalism and prudence. Bankers lent to businesses. Businesses produced value. Value ensured repayment. Consumption, like the illness, was a wasting disease. In 1934, commercial banks made just 1 percent of all installment loans (though they funded consumer borrowing indirectly through business loans to finance companies). By guaranteeing modest profits, the installment lending provisions of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), known as Title I, convinced commercial bankers to develop consumer lending departments. By the end of 1934, more than 6,400 banks participated in the Title I program. On the back of this experience, commercial banks steadily increased their lending to consumers. In 1937, banks extended 3 percent of installment loan debt. By 1941, that figure rose to 8 percent. More banks waded into consumer credit markets. By 1946, the American Bankers Association reported that 8,770 of 14,029 commercial banks, or 63 percent, offered some form of consumer credit. 19
信用保险彻底改变了抵押贷款业务，同时也将传统上专注于企业贷款的商业银行家们拉入了消费市场。在新政实施前，提供消费信贷的商业银行寥寥无几。作为资金托管人，银行家们以传统主义和审慎原则为外衣。他们只向企业放贷——企业创造价值，价值确保还款。而消费则如同痼疾，被视为财富的挥霍。1934 年，商业银行仅占所有分期贷款的 1%（尽管他们通过向金融公司提供商业贷款间接资助了消费借贷）。凭借联邦住房管理局（FHA）《第一条款》分期贷款条款对适度利润的保障，商业银行开始建立消费信贷部门。截至 1934 年底，超过 6,400 家银行参与了该计划。借此经验，商业银行逐步扩大消费贷款规模：1937 年银行分期贷款占比升至 3%，1941 年达到 8%。越来越多的银行开始涉足消费信贷市场。 到 1946 年，美国银行家协会报告称，在 14,029 家商业银行中，有 8,770 家（占比 63%）提供某种形式的消费信贷。19
Like the New Deal’s financial reforms, federal credit programs created an enduring structure that carried forward into the postwar era. Federal support for credit-driven purchasing power made credit access a defining component of economic citizenship in the United States. Credit citizenship, however, remained circumscribed, reserved for privileged borrowers, who tended to be white and affluent. Under the continued sway of financial federalism, New Dealers vested authority over credit access in financial firms and local financial elites. Doing so, they ensured that credit-driven purchasing power flowed according to local elites’ prejudices and in support of their profits. “The watchwords,” Eccles intoned in November 1934, were “profits [and] decentralization.” Social benefits thus accrued only to the creditworthy, and creditworthiness remained a function of perceived individual traits, including race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. Privileged groups, especially straight white men and their dependents, enjoyed protected access to credit-financed abundance. Others did not. 20
如同新政时期的金融改革一样，联邦信贷计划构建了一个延续至战后时代的持久体系。联邦政府对信贷驱动购买力的支持，使信贷获取成为美国经济公民权的核心要素。然而这种信贷公民权始终存在边界，仅为特权借款人保留——他们往往是白人和富裕阶层。在金融联邦主义的持续影响下，新政推行者将信贷准入权赋予金融机构和地方金融精英。此举确保了信贷驱动的购买力始终遵循地方精英的偏见流动，并维护其利益。"核心原则，"埃克尔斯在 1934 年 11 月强调，"就是利润与分权。"因此社会福利仅惠及信用良好者，而信用评估仍取决于种族、阶级、性别和性取向等个人特征。特权群体——尤其是异性恋白人男性及其家属——享有受保护的信贷消费特权，其他人则被排除在外。20
Moreover, the New Deal’s credit programs enabled lenders to maintain fervent belief in individualism and free markets, even as the federal government took responsibility for ensuring those markets provided stability and abundant credit. “No class,” Eccles wrote, “received more aid from the government than the bankers.” Yet by retaining the political economy of small finance and channeling social policy through it, the New Deal fomented a building tension between lenders, who sought to preserve their economic and social power, and federal policymakers, who, in accepting responsibility for national economic well-being, increasingly favored centralized credit management. The New Deal’s financial reforms, built on pillars of financial federalism, industry siloing, and price controls, in conjunction with targeted credit policies like the NHA, gave policymakers a variety of tools for managing the economy through the financial system. By also preserving the position of financial elites, these same programs encouraged ready and sustained opposition to their use. 21
此外，新政的信贷计划让贷款机构得以保持对个人主义与自由市场的狂热信仰，即便联邦政府已承担起确保这些市场提供稳定与充足信贷的责任。"没有哪个阶层，"埃克尔斯写道，"比银行家从政府获得了更多援助。"然而通过维系小型金融的政治经济体系并以其作为社会政策通道，新政激化了贷款方与联邦政策制定者之间日益加剧的矛盾——前者力图维持其经济与社会权力，后者则因承担国家经济福祉责任而日益倾向集中化信贷管理。新政金融改革建立在金融联邦主义、行业隔离与价格管制三大支柱之上，配合如《国家住房法》等定向信贷政策，为政策制定者提供了通过金融体系调控经济的多样化工具。这些在维护金融精英地位的同时，也催生了对政策工具持续而强烈的抵制。
Credit Control in War and Peace
战争与和平时期的信贷管控
During the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration and Congress restructured the American financial system, and in so doing created new incentives for private lenders to offer widely distributed, low-cost consumer credit. They did so during the Depression to increase the flow of credit as purchasing power into industries still suffering from excess capacity. They hoped to jumpstart a positive cycle of demand, new employment, and further demand. Soon, however, policymakers needed to twist the knobs the other way. As the United States confronted prospects of international conflict in 1940 and 1941, Eccles, now chairman of the Federal Reserve, feared consumer credit would stoke inflation in an economy geared for war. When the nation’s productive capacity turned toward armaments and armor, Eccles believed, the positive cycle of credit-driven demand combined with wartime scarcity of consumer goods would quickly drive up consumer prices. When the storm of war broke, Eccles and Roosevelt acted decisively to curtail credit buying in order, as Roosevelt explained, “to keep the cost of living from spiraling upward.” But whereas financial firms and business groups had supported policies that expanded credit and guaranteed profits, they resisted policies that pushed in the opposite direction. 22
20 世纪 30 年代，罗斯福政府与国会重组了美国金融体系，此举为私人贷款机构创造了提供广泛分布、低成本消费信贷的新动力。他们在大萧条时期实施这些措施，旨在将信贷资金作为购买力注入仍受产能过剩困扰的行业，期望能启动"需求增长-新增就业-进一步刺激需求"的良性循环。然而政策制定者很快需要反向调控。当 1940 至 1941 年美国面临国际冲突前景时，时任美联储主席的埃克尔斯担忧，在转向战时经济的情况下，消费信贷会加剧通货膨胀。他认为当国家产能转向武器装备生产时，信贷驱动的需求增长与战时消费品短缺相结合，将迅速推高消费价格。 战争风暴爆发时，埃克尔斯和罗斯福果断采取行动限制信贷消费，正如罗斯福解释的那样，"防止生活成本螺旋式上升"。然而与金融机构和商业团体此前支持扩大信贷、保障利润的政策形成鲜明对比的是，他们强烈抵制这些逆向调控措施。22
For administration officials, wartime credit controls, administered under provisions of the War Powers Act, provided a testing ground for still emergent ideas about national economic management and federal regulation of consumer credit markets. In the short term, proponents hoped to channel consumer purchasing power into patriotic saving and redirect the nation’s financial flows from consumption to wartime production. “We must discourage credit and installment buying, and encourage the paying off of debts, mortgages, and other obligations,” Roosevelt demanded, “for this promotes savings, retards excessive buying and adds to the amount available to the creditors for the purchase of war bonds.” At the same time, some policymakers saw wartime controls as a means of continuing the New Deal reform agenda. Office of Price Administration (OPA) officials Rolf Nugent and Leon Henderson, who with Eccles designed and implemented the credit control program, wanted to initiate permanent federal regulation of consumer credit. In their pre–New Deal careers, these administrators had worked to protect consumers from predatory lending. States, however, regulated consumer credit, and reformers had struggled to achieve consumer protections across forty-eight jurisdictions. Better to have uniform federal regulation, legitimized through wartime experience. Nugent, Henderson, and Eccles all also feared the macro-economic consequences of relying too much on consumer borrowing to deliver national abundance. Credit controls, by adjusting the price and availability of credit, could temper the swings of the business cycle, first in war and then in peace. 23
对政府官员而言，根据《战争权力法》条款实施的战时信贷管制，为尚处萌芽阶段的国民经济管理理念及联邦政府对消费信贷市场的监管提供了试验场。短期来看，支持者希望将民众购买力引导至爱国储蓄，并将国家资金流从消费领域转向战时生产。"我们必须抑制信贷和分期付款消费，鼓励清偿债务、抵押贷款及其他义务，"罗斯福要求道，"因为这能促进储蓄、遏制过度消费，并增加债权人可用于购买战争债券的资金。"与此同时，部分政策制定者将战时管制视为延续新政改革议程的手段。物价管理局官员罗尔夫·纽金特与利昂·亨德森（他们与埃克尔斯共同设计并实施了信贷管制计划）希望建立联邦对消费信贷的永久性监管机制。这些行政官员在新政前的职业生涯中，就一直致力于保护消费者免受掠夺性贷款的侵害。 然而，各州对消费信贷实施监管，改革者曾艰难地在四十八个司法管辖区推动消费者保护措施。不如通过战时经验确立统一的联邦法规。纽金特、亨德森和埃克尔斯还担忧过度依赖消费者借贷来实现国家繁荣所带来的宏观经济后果。通过调节信贷价格和可获得性，信贷管控能够平缓经济周期的波动，战时如此，和平时期亦然。23
In 1941, Federal Reserve and OPA officials crafted controls to restrain installment lending, but retailers quickly thwarted regulatory efforts by developing new forms of credit which blurred the boundaries between fixed installment credit and more flexible charge accounts. Fed officials sought to curtail consumer purchases of durable goods, such as refrigerators and automobiles. Officials mandated higher down payments and shorter repayment periods on installment loans, increasing the up-front cost of credit purchasing. Although the Fed restricted installment loans, which consumers paid over time, it ignored retail charge accounts, which consumers paid off every month. Charge accounts, regulators believed, made up just a small fraction of overall consumer borrowing and were too complicated to regulate effectively. Retailers capitalized on this omission. First, they lengthened charge account repayment periods, converting short-term credit into long-term financing. Second, retailers began to assess monthly interest charges, so that charge accounts functioned more like installment credit. Retailers thus created a new form of lending, revolving credit, which gave consumers a fixed credit limit—like a charge account—but allowed them to pay over time—like installment credit. In short, retailers pursued financial innovation to thwart government regulation. 24
1941 年，美联储与物价管理局官员制定了限制分期贷款的措施，但零售商迅速通过开发新型信贷方式规避监管，模糊了固定分期信贷与灵活赊购账户的界限。美联储试图抑制消费者购买冰箱、汽车等耐用商品，强制要求分期贷款提高首付比例并缩短还款期限，从而增加信贷消费的前期成本。虽然美联储限制了需分期偿还的贷款，却忽视了每月结清的零售赊购账户——监管者认为这类账户仅占消费信贷总量很小部分，且监管难度过大。零售商充分利用了这一漏洞：首先延长赊购账户还款周期，将短期信贷转化为长期融资；其次开始征收月度利息，使赊购账户运作更接近分期信贷模式。 零售商因此创造了一种新型信贷形式——循环信贷，它既像赊购账户一样给予消费者固定信用额度，又允许他们像分期付款信贷那样延后支付。简而言之，零售商通过金融创新来规避政府监管。24
In response, the Federal Reserve extended controls to cover charge accounts, which prompted further innovation, not to circumvent controls but to comply with them. Under new, complicated rules, Fed officials required retailers to freeze charge accounts of customers who failed to pay off their balances by the tenth day of the second month after each credit purchase. Store personnel, however, often struggled to transmit delinquent account information from the billing department to the sales floor. Charga-Plate technology, a billing system marketed by Boston’s Farrington Manufacturing Company, provided an effective solution. Originally developed in the 1920s, Charga-Plate technology employed metal plates embossed with the customer’s name and account number. When processing a credit transaction, sales clerks imprinted the account information onto carbon paper sales slips. A clerk could then compare the account number to a list of frozen accounts before finalizing the purchase. By simplifying regulatory compliance, Charga-Plate became the industry standard for large retailers and department stores. The plates—or cards—soon symbolized credit buying. 25
作为回应，美联储将管控范围扩展至赊购账户，这促使业界进一步创新——并非为了规避监管，而是为了合规。根据新出台的复杂规定，美联储要求零售商冻结那些在信用消费后第二个月第十天仍未结清余额的客户账户。然而，商店员工往往难以及时将逾期账户信息从财务部门传递至销售柜台。由波士顿法林顿制造公司推广的 Charga-Plate 记账技术提供了有效解决方案。这项起源于 1920 年代的技术使用压印有客户姓名和账号的金属板。在办理信用交易时，销售员将账户信息转印到复写纸销售单上，随后通过比对冻结账户清单来核准交易。由于简化了合规流程，Charga-Plate 成为大型零售商和百货公司的行业标准，这些金属板（或称卡片）很快成为信用消费的象征。25
For many retailers, wartime controls created a tangible link between revolving credit and payment card technologies like Charga-Plate. Charge accounts, which remained more widespread, relied on the same card-based accounting systems. After the war, large retailers transitioned from offering fixed charge accounts to flexible revolving credit, a transformation often reflected in practice but not terminology. Many retailer “charge account” plans featured revolving credit; others had to be repaid promptly each month. Likewise, although “credit card” later came to be exclusively associated with revolving credit, in the 1950s, the term remained ambiguous. What ultimately held these types of credit together was the status attached to them. Charge accounts were for well-to-do people. They were not the installment credit of the working class nor the fringe finance—the pawn shops, loan companies, and loan sharks—of the working poor. 26
对许多零售商而言，战时管制措施在循环信贷与"签账板"等支付卡技术之间建立了切实联系。当时更为普遍的赊购账户，同样依赖于基于卡片的记账系统。战后，大型零售商从提供固定赊购账户转向灵活的循环信贷，这种转变虽常见于实践却未体现在术语中。许多零售商的"赊购账户"计划实际采用循环信贷模式；另一些则要求每月及时还款。同样，尽管"信用卡"后来专指循环信贷，但在 1950 年代这个术语仍具多义性。最终将这些信贷形式联系在一起的，是它们所附带的社会属性。赊购账户面向富裕阶层，既非工人阶级的分期付款信贷，也非贫困劳工依赖的边缘金融——当铺、贷款公司与高利贷。26
Federal policymakers recognized that formerly distinct credit categories had converged during the war years, but when the United States returned to peace in 1945, they were principally concerned with maintaining controls to restrain inflation. The Truman administration and the Eccles Fed believed that reconversion and the return to mass consumption would cause consumer demand to outstrip the supply of goods. Americans had accumulated significant wartime savings. They were eager to buy consumer durables whose production had been limited by the war. To keep credit from bolstering already abundant purchasing power, the Fed maintained controls in the months after V-J Day. Anticipating pressure to lift them prematurely, Eccles told a congressional committee in March 1944 that “the danger” of inflation “carries over after peace comes and war-weary people, tired of wartime controls and restraints, are eager to throw them off.” Truman asked Congress to extend credit control authority in 1947. After Congress assented, the administration maintained controls until the authority expired in June 1949. 27
联邦政策制定者意识到，在战争年代原本泾渭分明的信贷类别已趋于融合。但当 1945 年美国恢复和平时，他们主要关注的是维持管控以抑制通货膨胀。杜鲁门政府与埃克尔斯领导的美联储认为，经济转型与大众消费的回归将导致商品供不应求——美国人已积累了可观的战时储蓄，他们迫切希望购买那些因战争限制而产量不足的耐用消费品。为防止信贷进一步助长本已充裕的购买力，美联储在二战胜利后的数月间持续实施管控措施。埃克尔斯预见到提前解除管控的压力，早在 1944 年 3 月就向国会委员会警告："通胀的危险在和平到来后仍将持续，而厌倦战争管控的人们会急于摆脱这些束缚"。1947 年杜鲁门要求国会延长信贷管控权限，获准后该管控措施一直延续至 1949 年 6 月授权到期。27
Although the administration framed continued controls as essential for war reconversion, Eccles and his colleagues believed permanent federal controls could ensure stable economic growth within the context of Keynesian demand management. Federal officials were desperate not to repeat the Depression experience. In their most ambitious moments, they believed they had the knowledge and authority to tame the business cycle. Under the Employment Act of 1946, they were affirmatively charged with pursuing “maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.” Unpredictable credit markets threatened these goals. Drawing on the consensus of postwar economic thought, Eccles told the Senate Banking Committee in June 1947 that installment credit “accentuates the boom and it accentuates the downswing. It tends to make for instability.” Instability was exactly what policymakers wanted to avoid. Eccles continued to believe in a virtuous credit cycle that supported employment, production, and purchasing power. Consumers bought industrial products with installment credit, thus supporting well-paid, unionized industrial labor. To keep production stable and unionized workers at work, the credit system required federal management. 28
尽管政府将延续管控措施描述为战后经济转型的关键，但埃克尔斯及其同僚认为，永久性的联邦管控能确保凯恩斯主义需求管理框架下的经济稳定增长。联邦官员们竭力避免重蹈大萧条的覆辙。在他们最具雄心的设想中，相信自己已掌握驯服商业周期的知识与权力。根据 1946 年《就业法案》，他们被明确赋予实现"最大就业、生产与购买力"的使命。变幻莫测的信贷市场对这些目标构成威胁。基于战后经济学界的共识，埃克尔斯在 1947 年 6 月向参议院银行委员会陈述时指出，分期信贷"会放大繁荣，也会加剧衰退，导致经济不稳定"。而政策制定者最想规避的正是这种不稳定性。埃克尔斯始终坚信良性的信贷循环能支撑就业、生产与购买力——消费者通过分期信贷购买工业品，从而维持高薪酬的工会化工业劳动力体系。 为了维持生产稳定并让工会工人继续工作，信贷体系需要联邦政府的管理。28
Retail and credit industry lobbyists urged Congress to end the administration’s control authority, seeking to establish an alternative theory of political economy where prosperity flowed through abundant, privately administered credit, not government management. In the early postwar years, they joined a wider movement of business leaders, who worked to roll back the New Deal’s expansion of federal power. The Consumer Bankers Association captured the scope of the credit community’s grievances: “Regulation of consumer credit by Federal authority is unnecessary, ineffective, un-American, unsocial, inconsistent, and impractical.” The legions of retail and financial trade groups that descended on Congress in the late 1940s hammered these claims: only local lenders, whether department stores, auto dealers, or community banks, had the knowledge and experience to make individual credit decisions. They knew their customers. They knew their communities. Creditors drew on the longstanding values that undergirded financial federalism. They claimed the right to manage, to decide the best course in a free economy. As employers sought to wrest labor negotiations from federal oversight, so too did creditors seek dominion over credit relationships. Following relentless lobbying, they convinced Congress to allow credit control authority to expire. 29
零售业和信贷业的游说者敦促国会终止政府对信贷的管控权，试图建立一种新的政治经济学理论——在这种理论中，繁荣不是通过政府管理，而是通过由私营机构主导的充裕信贷来实现。战后初期，他们与更广泛的企业领袖运动联合，致力于扭转新政时期联邦权力的扩张。消费者银行家协会道出了信贷界的普遍不满："联邦政府对消费信贷的监管既无必要又无效果，既不符合美国精神又违背社会伦理，既缺乏连贯性又不切实际。"20 世纪 40 年代末，成群结队的零售和金融行业团体涌向国会，反复强调这些主张：只有本地贷款机构——无论是百货商店、汽车经销商还是社区银行——才具备个人信贷决策所需的专业知识和经验。他们了解自己的客户。他们熟悉自己的社区。债权人援引支撑金融联邦主义的传统价值观，宣称在自由经济中享有自主经营权，有权决定最佳发展路径。 雇主们试图将劳资谈判从联邦监管中剥离的同时，债权人也谋求对信贷关系的掌控权。经过不懈游说，他们成功说服国会让信贷管控权到期失效。29
Although officials lost the fight over direct controls, throughout the 1950s federal policymakers, including Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, remained concerned that cyclical credit swings threatened postwar prosperity. In their annual Economic Report of the President, both Truman and Eisenhower urged Congress to reinstate control authority. For the federal managers of the postwar economy, controlling credit never meant denying credit. Federal welfare ran through the financial system. Suburbanization, a major driver of postwar economic growth, depended on mortgage lending, auto financing, and municipal borrowing. If credit extensions moved abreast of advancements in disposable income, if they did not threaten to exacerbate inflation, and if adequate credit flowed toward social priorities such as home mortgages, agriculture lending, municipal borrowing, and the credit needs of businesses, policymakers were content to let credit follow its course. Such a benign credit environment, however, was never present. Under the tidal force of monetary policy, credit rushed or receded unpredictably. Administration officials wanted to implement, or at least have the authority to implement, credit controls to manage the ebbs and flows of finance, to fine-tune the economy at the micro as well as macro levels. Outside of wartime, policymakers did not get their wish. 30
尽管官员们在直接管控的争论中落败，但整个 1950 年代，包括哈里·杜鲁门和德怀特·艾森豪威尔在内的联邦政策制定者始终担忧周期性信贷波动会威胁战后繁荣。在每年发布的《总统经济报告》中，杜鲁门与艾森豪威尔都敦促国会恢复管控权限。对于战后经济的联邦管理者而言，管控信贷绝不意味着限制信贷——联邦福利正是通过金融体系实现的。作为战后经济增长主要引擎的郊区化进程，就依赖于住房抵押贷款、汽车金融和市政债券。只要信贷扩张与可支配收入增长保持同步，只要不加剧通胀威胁，只要住房按揭、农业贷款、市政债券和企业信贷需求等社会优先领域获得充足资金，政策制定者便乐于让信贷自然流动。然而这种良性的信贷环境从未真正存在——在货币政策的潮汐力作用下，信贷总是以难以预测的方式奔涌或退却。 政府官员希望实施信贷管控，或至少获得实施管控的权限，以调控金融的起伏波动，在微观和宏观层面精准调节经济。然而在非战争时期，政策制定者未能如愿以偿。30
Instead, consumer lenders, successful in their campaign against controls, now carried the political burden of the credit-driven economy. They did so eagerly, championing credit as the motive force of broad-based prosperity. In an address to the National Association of Credit Men in June 1951, executive manager Henry H. Heimann praised consumer credit in typically hyperbolic terms: “Next to atomic energy it has the greatest power and influence in the development of industry and commerce, of a high standard of living, and of a happy citizenship.” Throughout the 1950s, at trade association meetings and in the banking and retail press, self-identified credit men aligned consumer credit with the broader political compromises between labor and capital which stabilized the New Deal order in the postwar era. Privately administered consumer credit, they argued, not antagonistic labor organizing, would facilitate mass purchasing power and support industrial employment. The legitimacy of consumer credit hinged on its relationship to production; consumer credit was the engine of the Fordist economy because it financed Fords. Within this compromise, lenders maintained coveted power to administer credit—to make day-to-day decisions about who could access credit, for what purpose, at what price—decisions decisively shaped by notions of creditworthiness rooted in race, gender, and social class. Contrary forces remained: the postwar expansion of consumer credit also proceeded under broadly shared understandings, likewise rooted in the legacy of the New Deal, that mass credit should be safe and inexpensive. Meanwhile, credit exploitation continued at the margins and became more visible as credit use became more widespread. Overall, creditors promoted a credit politics closely aligned with mass consumer prosperity and economic growth, channeled through private, locally managed institutions. The watchwords remained profits and decentralization. 31
然而，消费信贷机构在成功抵制管控后，如今却背负着信贷驱动型经济的政治包袱。他们热切地承担起这一角色，将信贷标榜为普惠繁荣的驱动力。1951 年 6 月在全美信贷从业者协会的演讲中，执行董事亨利·H·海曼以标志性的夸张辞令盛赞消费信贷："其对于工商业发展、高标准生活及幸福公民社会的推动力，仅次于原子能。"整个 1950 年代，在行业协会会议及银行零售业刊物上，自称"信贷人"的从业者将消费信贷与战后稳定新政秩序的劳资政治妥协相勾连。他们宣称，由私营机构主导的消费信贷——而非对抗性的劳工组织——才能提升大众购买力并支撑工业就业。消费信贷的合法性取决于其与生产的关系；正是因为它为福特汽车提供融资，才成为福特主义经济的引擎。 在这一妥协方案中，贷款机构保留了令人垂涎的信贷管理权——他们可以决定谁能在何种条件下获得信贷，用于什么目的，以什么价格——这些决定深受植根于种族、性别和社会阶级的信用评估观念影响。与之抗衡的力量依然存在：战后消费信贷的扩张也建立在广泛共识之上，这种共识同样源于新政遗产，即大众信贷应当安全且廉价。与此同时，随着信贷使用日益普及，边缘群体的信贷剥削现象持续存在并愈发显眼。总体而言，债权人通过私营的地方管理机构，推行了一种与大众消费繁荣和经济增长紧密相连的信贷政治。其核心理念始终是利润与权力下放。31
Postwar credit advocates’ view of consumer credit as a driver of economic growth was (and is still) somewhat circular because it relied on the belief that credit purchasing would raise wages and enable consumers to repay old debts and incur new ones, continuing the growth cycle. With time, key federal institutions accepted that privately administered consumer credit would constitute a driving force in American economic prosperity. In a six-volume 1957 study, the Federal Reserve found that more American families used more credit, year after year. At the end of World War II, consumer debt comprised one-fifth of all private debt. A decade later, it had risen to a third, claiming ground from business and agricultural lending. The report presented such growth as inevitable and beneficial. “Debt,” one Fed economist wrote, “flows from and contributes to the achievements of a free economy, and continued growth of debt is to be expected as the economy makes further progress.” Yet critics did not retire from the field. In his influential 1958 book, The Affluent Society, Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith leveled a sustained attack on the ways private consumption crowded out public goods in postwar America. Galbraith had served with Nugent and Henderson at the OPA. He wrote The Affluent Society with the Fed’s consumer credit report close at hand. “Can the bill collector be the central figure in the good society?” Galbraith asked. Certainly not. Still, whatever audience Galbraith and other critics of debt-fueled affluence found among the public, they did little to turn the tide. Credit, as Galbraith again predicted, intensified swings in the business cycle. For advocates, success came when recovery, fueled by credit, followed each trough with equal conviction. 32
战后信贷倡导者将消费信贷视为经济增长驱动力的观点（至今仍）带有某种循环论证的色彩，因为它基于这样一种信念：信贷消费将提高工资水平，使消费者既能偿还旧债又能承担新债务，从而维持增长循环。随着时间的推移，美国核心联邦机构逐渐接受了由私营部门主导的消费信贷将成为经济繁荣推动力的理念。美联储在 1957 年发布的六卷本研究中发现，年复一年有更多美国家庭使用更多信贷。二战结束时，消费债务仅占私人债务总额的五分之一；十年后这一比例已升至三分之一，蚕食了商业和农业贷款的市场份额。该报告将这种增长描述为必然且有益的。"债务，"一位美联储经济学家写道，"既是自由经济成就的产物，又反过来推动其发展。随着经济持续进步，债务的持续增长是可预期的。"然而批评之声并未就此消退。 哈佛经济学家约翰·肯尼斯·加尔布雷思在其 1958 年颇具影响力的著作《丰裕社会》中，对战后美国私人消费挤占公共产品的现象发起了持续抨击。加尔布雷思曾与纽金特和亨德森共事于物价管理局。他撰写《丰裕社会》时，手边常备着美联储的消费者信贷报告。"收债员能成为美好社会的核心人物吗？"加尔布雷思质问道。答案显然是否定的。然而，尽管加尔布雷思和其他批评债务驱动型繁荣的声音在公众中引起共鸣，却未能扭转潮流。正如加尔布雷思再次预言的那样，信贷加剧了商业周期的波动。对倡导者而言，当信贷推动的经济复苏以同样坚定的姿态走出每个低谷时，便是成功的明证。32
During the early New Deal, the Roosevelt administration rescued the private financial system and imposed on it a three-part regulatory framework of financial federalism, industry siloing, and price controls. Although the policy motivations undergirding this system emerged from conflicting ideological positions, the regulatory order reinforced the political economy of small finance and restrained the power and profits of financial firms. Within this framework, federal policymakers developed credit programs to channel idle financial resources, through private businesses, into consumer purchasing power. They preserved and bolstered the role of privately administered consumer credit and brought the commercial banking industry into consumer markets. After World War II, officials sought greater regulatory authority to meet their obligations for managed prosperity. But because the New Deal had rescued and built on the ideology of private enterprise and decentralized control, those values retained vigorous force. As Eccles feared, war-weary people, tired of controls and restraints, were eager to throw them off. Credit moved to the center of the business cycle.
新政初期，罗斯福政府挽救了私营金融体系，并对其施加了由金融联邦主义、行业隔离与价格管制构成的三重监管框架。尽管支撑该体系的政策动机源于相互冲突的意识形态立场，但这一监管秩序强化了小型金融的政治经济学，抑制了金融企业的权力与利润。在此框架下，联邦政策制定者开发信贷项目，通过私营企业将闲置金融资源转化为消费者购买力。他们维护并强化了私营消费信贷的作用，使商业银行体系进入消费市场。二战后，官员们寻求更大监管权限以履行其管理繁荣的职责。但由于新政挽救并延续了私营企业与分权控制的意识形态，这些价值观仍具有强大生命力。正如埃克尔斯所担忧的，厌倦战争的人们对管控约束感到疲惫，急于摆脱束缚。信贷由此成为商业周期的核心。
In this, the U.S. followed a different path than its peer nations in Western Europe and Japan. In those countries, central governments established, and central banks managed, robust credit control policies, often aimed at restraining consumer lending in favor of supporting business investment, suppressing inflation, and protecting consumers from excessive debt. European countries especially made bureaucratic credit allocation a key feature of postwar economic planning and the backbone of the postwar economic miracle—the trente glorieuses in France, the Wirtschaftswunder in Germany, the miracolo economico in Italy. Considerable national distinctions remained in terms of aims and implementation, yet collectively, developed economies embraced interventionist credit control policies as core to postwar economic management. Public officials, not private elites, determined the course of credit. By contrast, U.S. policy remained decentralized. Without credit control authority, the Federal Reserve managed the business cycle through blunt interest rate adjustments, which refracted through the overlapping institutions of financial federalism, industry siloing, and price controls, and through targeted lending programs like the FHA. In periods of financial disruption, American policymakers would revisit centralized credit controls, looking to wartime experience and foreign examples for inspiration. Overall, however, the U.S. remained an outlier in its commitment to a privately administered, credit-driven prosperity. 33
在这方面，美国走了一条与西欧和日本等同类国家不同的道路。这些国家的中央政府制定并由央行管理强有力的信贷管控政策，通常旨在抑制消费贷款，以支持商业投资、压制通胀并保护消费者免受过重债务负担。欧洲国家尤其将官僚式信贷分配作为战后经济规划的核心特征，以及战后经济奇迹的支柱——法国的"光辉三十年"、德国的"经济奇迹"、意大利的"经济奇迹"。尽管在目标和实施层面仍存在显著的国家差异，但发达经济体整体上将干预主义信贷管控政策视为战后经济管理的核心。决定信贷流向的是政府官员，而非私人精英阶层。相比之下，美国的政策仍保持去中心化特征。 在缺乏信贷管控权的情况下，美联储通过生硬的利率调整来管理经济周期，这些调整经由金融联邦制、行业壁垒和价格管制等相互重叠的制度架构折射传导，并通过联邦住房管理局等定向贷款计划实施。每当金融体系出现动荡时，美国政策制定者便会重新审视中央集权式的信贷管控，从战时经验和外国案例中寻找灵感。但总体而言，美国始终执着于由私营部门主导、信贷驱动的繁荣模式，这在全球范围内显得特立独行。33
That the New Deal laid the groundwork for an unstable, credit-driven consumer economy is ironic. The New Deal’s financial reforms and credit policies formed two strands of its broad commitment to economic security, which also embraced the creation of a sustained social safety net along with protections and power for many workers. Taken together, the strands of security had a unified consequence: The New Deal made Americans creditworthy, or at least the white industrial workers and their dependents who primarily benefited from New Deal welfare policies. Giannini argued precisely this point in 1936. Consumer lending became a sound investment because of Social Security and government credit insurance. The calculous worked as well for borrowers as for lenders. With security, consumers could hazard more risk. By the postwar era, lenders across the economy shared Giannini’s assessment. They clamored for consumer profits, and they did so, conveniently, by forgetting the federal role in securing those profits in the first place. 34
新政为一个不稳定的、信贷驱动的消费经济奠定了基础，这颇具讽刺意味。新政的金融改革与信贷政策构成了其广泛经济安全承诺的两大支柱，这一承诺还包括建立持久的社会安全网，并为众多工人提供保护与赋权。这些安全措施共同产生了统一的效果：新政使美国人获得了信贷资格，至少那些主要受益于新政福利政策的白人产业工人及其家属是如此。贾尼尼在 1936 年就明确提出了这一观点。由于社会保障和政府信用保险的存在，消费信贷成为可靠的投资。这种计算对借款人和贷款人同样有利。有了安全保障，消费者可以承担更多风险。到了战后时期，整个经济领域的贷款人都认同贾尼尼的评估。他们争相追逐消费利润，却 conveniently 地忘记了联邦政府最初在确保这些利润方面所起的作用。34