以物為信：台灣質當品的歷史變遷及其社會意涵，1945-2010

Using Object as Credit Assurance: Historical Transition As Well As Social Implications of Pledges in Taiwan, 1945-2010

本研究分析質當交易、正式金融、以及關係金融借貸有著不同運作的邏輯。質當交易的特殊之處在於以「物」為信的借貸形式，能讓個人的信用存而不論，並讓社會關係隱身至物之後，具有一種社會緩衝（social buffering）的功能。質當交易中的以物為信，能即時填補庶民百姓在日常生活裡可能缺乏正式金融的以制度為信、關係金融的以人為信，這是質當業能長期存在的基礎。質當市場中抵押品的歷史變遷作為一種社會觀察，能具體說明庶民百姓以物為信所面臨的借貸限制。「物」成為抵押品的過程中，雖然能借錢緩急，但面臨商品生命週期不斷地縮短，商品的價格趨於快速波動的狀況下，致使商品使用價值與交換價值脫序，質當交易逐漸從日常生活的消費性商品轉變為當今以「炫耀性商品」為抵押品的借貸。對過去以日常消費用品質當的庶民百姓而言，已經漸漸失去以物為信的能力。

This paper is the analysis on the different borrowing logics in display amongst pledging transactions, formal finance, and relation finance. The unique thing about pledging transaction is the way of lending and borrowing by using ”object” as credit assurance, allowing the existence of personal credibility without any judgment on its accountability, as well as putting the social relationships behind the concealment of things, with a kind of social buffering function. By using object as credit assurance in the pledging transaction, it can immediately fill up what might be lack of in the daily lives of ordinary people, for which there is no assurance of institutions as credit as in formal finance, or no assurance of people as credit as in relation finance. As a result, this is the foundation why the pledging businesses can be in existence for a long period of time.Using the historical transition of pledges in the pawn markets as a kind of social observation, it can concretely illustrate the restrictions of lending and borrowing faced by the ordinary people under the circumstance of using object as credit assurance. During the process of ”object” becoming pledges, even though one can borrow money to cope with personal emergency, nowadays, as the life cycles of products are continuously being shortened, the product pricing is getting more and more fluctuated along the way. Thus, there is an amiss between product value in use and its value in exchange, whereas for the pledging transactions. They gradually transformed from consumer goods for daily life in the past into the collaterals on loans are ”show-off products” these days. For ordinary people who are used to take daily-life goods as pledge in the past, somewhere along the line they have gradually lost the ability to use object as credit assurance.