史上50大商业对手：威尼斯vs.热那亚

    意大利海上共和国产生了许多当今商业世界耳熟能详的发明。

    首先是减税政策。威尼斯与热那亚都耐心地见证了封建时代的消亡，因为这两个城市并没有产生盈余所需要的土地——威尼斯位于一个泻湖当中，而热那亚则是四面环山。但它们却都是开展贸易的黄金地段。两个城市将海军租借给统治者来驱赶入侵者，因而赢得了进行贸易免交关税的特权。

    12世纪末，这种条件给两个城市带来了惊人的繁荣，进而加剧了两个城市之间的矛盾。为了筹钱造船、召集水手和购买货物，贸易商想出了出售股份的点子。而为了分散风险，他们还发明了海损保险。

    对船只的需求刺激了威尼斯兵船厂的发展。工业革命发生之前，威尼斯兵船厂是欧洲最大的造船厂。那里的造船工人使用组装线上生产的标准化配件，可以批量生产船舶——据称他们一天内就能造出一艘桨帆船。

    最后，为了保持清晰的记录，一种绝妙的发明横空出世：复式记账法。据说歌德曾经说过：“复式记账法是人类最伟大的发明。”虽然他说这话的时候可能喝了点杜松子酒，但我们还是能够理解他此番言论的意图。如果没有“债权”与“债务”，以及资产负债表这些概念，当代资本主义便不可能出现。

    获胜者：威尼斯（财富中文网）

    The Italian Maritime republics invented many now familiar features of the business world.

    It started with tax breaks. Venice and Genoa sat out the feudal era because they didn't have the land needed to produce surpluses -- Venice is in a lagoon, and Genoa is hemmed in by mountains. But they were in the sweet spot for trade. By lending their navies to rulers fending off invaders, they won special privileges to trade without paying tariffs.

    Around the end of the 12th century, these conditions created an astonishing boom that fueled their feud. To raise the money to assemble ships, crews, and cargo, traders came up with the idea of selling shares in their operations. To spread the risk they invented marine insurance.

    The demand for ships spurred the development, at the Venice Arsenale, of the largest factory complex in Europe before the Industrial Revolution. Builders there mass-produced vessels using standardized parts on an assembly line -- it was said that they could build a galley in a single day. (Dante even gave it a cameo in his Inferno.)

    Eventually, to maintain clear records, there arose a sublime invention: double-entry bookkeeping. Goethe may have been into the schnapps when he (reputedly) said that "double-entry bookkeeping is one of the most beautiful discoveries of the human spirit," but you can see what he was driving at. Without the concepts of credito and debito and the balance sheet, modern capitalism wouldn't be possible.

    Winner:Venice