Long, long ago, before history was written or the alphabet invented, when the world was young, a gift economy existed. The gifts of Nature were abundant, the relationship between people, the Earth, the animals and plants were sacred. Harmony and balance meant peace and prosperity for people and the world that sustained them. A continual flow of gifts strengthened and reaffirmed the interdependence of people before agriculture was invented. Sustainability was achieved by many diverse indigenous cultures throughout the world.
Western civilization has systematically disrupted and destroyed those cultures. While, in typical Western fashion, scientists have identified and rushed to collect genetic materials from those remaining cultures that are in danger of extinction, they have not recognized their wisdom, except on occasion when their botanical knowledge has been acknowledged as being very useful and lucrative for the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. A double tragedy is occurring right now, indigenous people are losing their lives and land, and the world is losing the carriers of ancient wisdom, those who have known and lived in a gift economy, who recognize the sacred relationship between people, the Earth and all living things.
Even in a gift economy, people traveled, sought spouses outside of their family and came into contact with others who did not share the same language or customs. Over the centuries certain norms of hospitality extended over large areas where people lived in harmony and peace with one another. Before money was invented, people would barter and trade their goods. Transactions within communities were more personal or friendly; transactions between communities encouraged relationships. Exchanges brought people together and conveyed more than mere objects; communication was established; bonds were formed. The spirit of the gift relationship was often extended to traders. Recognition of value given and reciprocal generosity were expected for a true relationship to develop and grow. Amongst indigenous people, wampum, feathers, stones, shells which had been worked to become objects of beauty, held a karmic quality, a promise, a consolation, a meaning far beyond their weight, size, or utility.
With the advent of agriculture, the building of permanent structures, the accumulation of goods, the creation of hierarchy, the increasing complexity and division within societies, money was invented. Originally, money was a token, a symbol, to facilitate exchanges. Imprinted with the head of a cow or a sheaf of wheat, it was redeemable for a cow or a certain amount of grain or it could be used in a religious ceremony to obtain sex at the temple with a priestess. Just precisely what money did and how it was used is not uniform throughout history.
According to the dictionary money is "officially issued coins and paper currency that serve as a medium of exchange and may be used as payment for goods and services and for the settlement of debts" and "property of any type having monetary value" and "money of account." According to theory it is supposed to activate the production of goods and services; to facilitate and simplify the exchange of goods and services; and to provide a means of storing values or savings. It also has one other major function- it is a tool of empire. Certainly armies and the weapons of war are indispensable to empires, but to facilitate the concentration of wealth and power, to redirect resources from the producers to the soldiers, money has been an invaluable tool.
Empires have risen and fallen throughout history, and there are some disturbing parallels between the situation that we are in today and the decline of other empires who have had monetary systems similar to our own. The best analysis of the problem with current system that I've found is in the book Debt Virus-- A Compelling Solution to the World's Debt Problems by Dr. Jacques S. Jaikaran, who writes: "The most pernicious of all viruses is the one that confiscates the wealth of the productive elements of society and transfers it to the hands of a nonproductive few." One of my favorite sci-fi writers, Orson Scott Card, wrote an article entitled The Triumph of the Parasites alluding to the wealth and ease of an upper class that contributes little to the health of the planet or the well being and sustenance of its inhabitants. For the rich have never been richer nor the poor poorer. The monetary system itself, based upon debt, functions to transfer land, money and wealth from the many to the few.
The origins of modern banking can be traced back to the days when goldsmiths began giving out receipts for gold that they safeguarded. They soon realized that the receipts were more useful for business transactions than heavy amounts of gold. Some enterprising goldsmith figured out that large amounts of gold weren't even necessary to insure the utility of receipts; the goldsmith began loaning gold and receipts at interest, hence the birth of the fractional reserve system and "debt money."
"They say that knowledge is power. I used to think so, but now I know that they mean money." said Lord Byron centuries ago. In G. William Domhoff's book- Who Rules America Now? Domhoff writes "By far the most frequent preoccupation of men of the upper class is business and finance...A classification of the occupations of a sample of the graduates of four private schools...for the years 1906 and 1926 showed that the most frequent occupation for all but the Andover graduates was some facet of finance and banking." They must surely realize that when money is created by the banks and loaned to the government or business at interest, it is mathematically impossible to pay back all the money with interest. Invariably some debts cannot be repaid; foreclosures occur. Those with the most money profit at the expense of those with the least money. Wealth is transferred from the poor to the rich.
In the past, Egypt fell, when a mere 4% of the population controlled all the wealth. Babylon fell when 3% of the population controlled all the wealth. In Persia, when 2% of the people controlled all the wealth the empire collapsed. The Roman Empire fell when only 2000 people held all the wealth. Today the top 358 billionaires are worth the combined income of 45% of the planet's population- or 2.5 billion people.
The business cycle of recession and prosperity isn't natural like spring, summer and fall; it is induced artificially with predictable results. A shortage of money will cause a recession or depression. Although most people suffer from the lack of money, and even smaller banks and businesses will fail during hard times, the largest institutions and the wealthiest people often benefit and increase their holdings at bargain prices.
The bankers, like magicians, do not like to reveal their secrets. Able to create money out of thin air; they have learned that belief of belief is the key to their success. When people begin to doubt the purchasing power of money or the strength of its issuer, banks fail; a currency collapses. What is a Federal Reserve Note? Is it issued by the U.S. government or a private bank primarily owned by foreigners? Is it backed by gold or silver or the country's ability to tax its citizens? Does it matter so long as I'm sure I'll be
able to trade it for a pizza or an airline ticket?
Since 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the ruling elite decided to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to smooth the way for their domination of the world economy. Working hand in hand with elites in other countries throughout the world, the "Bretton Woods Institutions" have forcibly resettled more than two million of the poorest people on the planet, many of them indigenous minorities. This means taking away their land, destroying their production systems, weakening their community structures, dispersing kin, cultural identity, traditional authority and diminishing potential, mutual help. Anthropologist Thayer Scudder insists that "resettlement is about the worst thing you can do to people, next to killing them." The World Bank's projects, particularly in the Earth's forests, mineral deposits, and rivers, are among the most destructive on the planet. Its support of repressive regimes has exacerbated human rights violation. Its loans facilitate the extraction of a country's resources. Money has flowed from the poor countries to the rich industrialized nations, leaving starvation and misery in its wake. The Structural Adjustment Programs forced upon nations by the World Bank and the IMF have meant shifting food production from domestic needs to export crops, devaluing the local currency to encourage exports, cutting social spending on health and education, reducing wages, privatizing national industries, selling off their natural resources, and removing tariff protections for local industries. Hunger, unemployment, hardship and inequality are the direct and calculated results of World Bank policies.
The U.S. dollar is the de facto world currency in the current fiasco. Loans are in dollars and must be repaid with interest in dollars. For Argentina to trade with Chile, it needs dollars. Like a casino, dollars are chasing more dollars with 95% of the foreign exchange transactions consisting of sheer speculation. Less than 5% has to do with exchanging real goods or production and that amount is dominated by the world's largest 500 transnational corporations whose economics are much larger than many countries.
The dramatic fall of the peso in January was a harbinger of things to come. The infamous Chase Manhattan memo to crush the Zapatistas should herald a warning to those who have forgotten that fascism means when business controls government. Democracy can exist when governments can control business. Nowadays it is obvious that the financial markets determine what governments can or cannot do.
According to Margrit Kennedy:
"We are living in World War III already, an economic war. It is a non-declared war: A war of usurious interest rates, ruinous prices, and distorted exchange conditions. Remote controlled interest rates and terms of trade have killed millions of people on a plundered planet. They are killed by hunger, sickness, unemployment and criminality... Every day the Third World pays us 300 million dollars in interest."
They used to call it usury and it was condemned by many of the world's religions. Charity was once a virtue. Hospitality was the ancient custom of the land. Greed and gluttony were condemned as sins. When did it become acceptable to charge interest on loans? When did it become socially acceptable and even normal? Was it when the Catholic Church suddenly discovered that it had become the largest landowner in Europe, and, with its subsequent wealth, decided it could prosper if it loaned out its money at interest, instead of squandering it on the poor? The Church taught Christians how to circumvent canon law. If a prince needed a loan he would approach a wealthy bishop or archbishop who would be quite willing to provide gold or silver in return for a mortgage on good real estate. During the time of the loan, the lender enjoyed the income from the land; then, should the principal remain unpaid, he continued his possession indefinitely. Among the moneylenders of Europe there were many Jews, but during the thirteenth century their operations were confined to the less progressive regions where banking was not monopolized by the Christians
There was a time in Europe when "an almost incredible prosperity set in and the wealth created was so well distributed among the people that there was hardly any difference between the castles and the farmers' homes" some chroniclers wrote..."After six centuries of misery came the expansion of the three glorious centuries of the Middle Ages, one of the greatest periods of art and faith in the history of humanity." Historians and contemporary writers of that period agree that "that era was an age of plenty, that poverty was unknown, that general prosperity had spread to all who worked, that workers found as much work as they wanted to perform, that wages were unbelievably high, measured by their purchasing power, that the satisfaction of material wants gradually led to working a shorter number of hours and days of the week, that almost everything was paid for in cash, that long indebtedness had disappeared, that more and more quality goods were made, that clothes of the finest texture and highest durability were worn, that the homes were richly equipped with beautiful furniture and fine pottery, that peasants-- considered the lowest class--were wearing silver buttons on vest and coat, in double line mostly, and using big silver buckles and ornaments on their shoes, and that social differences between high and low, between nobleman and peasant, had almost been done away with." Hugo R. Fack in his 1945 pamphlet- History's Greatest Lesson- The Gothic 1150-1450, attributes the general prosperity and extraordinary flourishing of the arts and architecture to the monetary system of the time.
At the start of the Gothic, rulers began to recall the coin of the realm and remint it. Since a reminting fee proved to be a very profitable means of taxation, it gradually began to occur with greater frequency. As a result of this practice, hoarding money became impractical and holders of money were just as desirous of getting rid of their money as were the holders of commodities of getting rid of their goods. Money was not looked upon as wealth, works of art which retained their value were greatly prized. With prosperity, the townspeople felt emancipated and called themselves "free citizens." Cities aspired to become "free cities." There were, to be sure an amazing kaleidoscope of differences between communes, villages, independent local government and large cities. There was almost infinite variety in the forms of government, local laws, the charter provisions of many towns, those with their individual sovereignty, their unique politics, their own saints, architecture, language, proverbs, superstitions and ballads. They learned from one another, copied each other's laws, and evolved at their own rates. The changes occurred over centuries, some places led, some followed, some were caught in back eddies, oblivious to the rest of Europe.
People don't like to pay taxes. When the sovereigns continually recalled and debased the coins of the realm, no one enjoyed it or guessed that the general prosperity might have something to do with the accelerated velocity of the currency. Those who wished to hoard money, particularly loathed it.
Those who profited the most by the old system, the money changers, eventually persuaded the sovereigns to stop recalling money and levy taxes on windows, doors, fireplaces, and beverages instead. Not only was construction and consumption discouraged by the shift in taxation, but the process of urbanization was halted, as well as the progress of the bourgeois class.
Venice led the way with the introduction of a penny of fine silver, followed by the golden ducat and florin which were suitable for large economic transactions and very lucrative lending and financing. All prominent industrial centers came to be dominated by big businessmen who were financiers rather than manufacturers. They reduced the craftsmen to little more than hired artisans, doomed to a precarious existence which their guilds were powerless to remedy. The concentration of wealth and power meant a decline in the general prosperity.
Then money began to be hoarded. Unemployment rose. The proud and free workers were reduced to beggars. The peasants were forced off their land. Discontent grew into revolutionary activities and popular insurrections. There were bloody revolts, wars, and pestilence Wars were financed; kings became indebted. The rulers supported the leaders of the Reformation for secession from Rome to stop the migration of money. The greed and economic roots of the wars of conquest are transparent, although they were cloaked in their time by the rhetoric of nationalism and lofty idealism.
History is generally written by the conquerors, or those under their pay. Conventional historic anecdote bears as much relation to truth as soap operas to the life of a Guatemalan peasant. Everyone knows that times change, but some changes are so gradual and insidious that they don't get noticed by the general population and it is difficult to draw them to everyone's attention, especially when they are omitted from most history books. The power of oligarchies, and monopolies over financial empires which extend beyond political boundaries continues to this day. The power of corporations over the lives of "free citizens" and the gradual loss of human rights, as opposed to the ever expanding rights of corporations is one example. The cumulative effects of compound interest upon most people's lives is another.
The Queen of England might notice the two million dollars a day that she receives in interest and the child who is sold into sexual slavery to pay off her parents debts might realize the dire straits of her family's circumstances. Both represent the extremes of the current monetary system. However for the majority of people living in industrialized nations the cost of money is somewhat hidden, included in the price of goods and services we buy. Perhaps it is only twelve percent of the garbage fee, maybe it is seventy-seven percent of our housing costs. On the average it is about fifty percent of the cost of the necessities of life. If interest rates were abolished with a more equitable monetary system, most people would be twice as rich or be able to work half as much as they currently do, to maintain the same standard of living.
Under the current system, the world has become divided into the "haves" and the "have nots." While 80% must pay more than they receive in interest, 20% enjoy an "unearned" income from the wealth that they have inherited or accumulated. The tendency of money and wealth to concentrate into fewer and fewer hands is escalating. Oligarchies of a few extremely wealthy families exist in countries throughout the world. Enormous monopolies continue to consolidate in most industries. The creation of the World Trade Organization, and the passing of G.A.T.T., are living testimonies to the power of multinational corporations and their ability to override the sovereignty of nations demonstrates how money and wealth can determine national and international policy.
For fifty years inflation has become institutionalized; it is a hidden sort of taxation. As government debts outgrow government income, governments must respond to their creditors. In the United States, social programs are being slashed left and right. The poor, who have the least voice in our society, will be hurt the most, while the wealthy will receive tax breaks and lucrative contracts and subsidies.
With the dollar shrinking in purchasing power, you might ask, wouldn't that have the same sort of effect upon people as the debasing of the currency during the Gothic Period? To a small degree, a certain amount of inflation encourages people to spend money while it is still worth something, but that is where the similarity ends. With inflation those who have money, motivated by fear or greed or both, "invest it" or "speculate with it." Most of the money saved by countless people for their retirement ends up in the hands of money managers who think only of the bottom line; so the money sponsors the rape and pillage of resources and people around the world, or gets caught up in the global casino of sheer speculation. There is also an ebb and flow to inflation; when money tightens, its purchasing power increases and this does happen periodically.
In 1890 Silvio Gesell formulated a theory of money and a "natural economic order" which turns our current economic notions on their heads not unlike the revolutionary notion that it was the Earth that circled the sun rather than the other way around- despite appearances. Gesell suggested securing the money flow by making money a governmental service subject to a use fee. Instead of paying interest to those who have more money than they need, in order to bring money back into circulation, people would pay a small fee if they kept the money out of circulation. The fee would have to return into circulation in order to maintain the balance between the volume of money and the volume of economic activity. The fee would serve as an income to the government and reduce the amount of taxes needed to carry out public tasks.
Gesell's ideas were tested by the mayor of Woergl, Austria in July 1932 when the economic conditions of its 4300 inhabitants were deplorable. There were 1500 unemployed industrial workers and it was expected that more businesses would go under to add to the ranks of unemployed. The town itself almost ceased to receive tax payments; the savings bank had hardly any money left available. For lack of money people had returned to barter.
He proposed to substitute a local currency for the national currency, which because of its nature, was bound to remain a medium of exchange, and could not be hoarded, to alleviate want, give work and bread.
They were called work certificates and on the first of every month the holder had to affix a 1 percent stamp of the face value of the certificate. The "taxes" went into the community chest, to provide a relief fund for the invalid or elderly who were unable to work. Because of the stamp tax, taxes were paid quickly; accounts were settled without the usual delays, even the bank became eager to loan out the money, as fast as it received it.
The mayor was then able to embark upon his Public Works Program, and even exceed his high hopes. The conditions of the streets of Woergl had been a standing joke of the surrounding country. In less than four months sewers and improvements were completed. The second project was to macadamize the main street and extend other streets and sidewalks. Later, other streets were paved or macadamized and streets outside of Woergl repaired, while previously Woergl had been unable to provide even ordinary stone pavement. A ski-hill was built providing jumps up to a 100 yards to attract winter tourists. A modern concrete bridge was constructed. Streetlights were provided, etc.
In summary the effects of the currency were
1. Creation of employment to the point of eliminating all unemployment.
2. Increasing of the people's purchasing power and stimulation of business.
3. Increase in tax revenues. (Although it must be said that taxes were not raised and suddenly people began to pay their taxes in advance.)
The miracle of Woergl attracted international attention. Dr. Erna J. Broda, an economist wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt:
"I visited Woergl several times during and after the recovery experiment and was deeply impressed by its obvious prosperity in the midst of a starving and decaying country. Its inhabitants-- grown ups and children likewise-- were well fed, well clad and cheerful. Its public works had created a new school building, a new automobile road, a new bridge, and new trails for mountain climbers. All old houses had been repaired and repainted, and looked charming with their window sills covered with flowers. In the evening the movie theater was packed."
A meeting of 200 Austrian mayors decided unanimously to follow the Woergl example in their impoverished communities, in order to revive them to economic life and prosperity. It was then that the private Austrian National Bank protested against the shattering of its privileged money making monopoly. After a legal fight extending many months, the Austrian Supreme Court sided with the bank.
In addition to Woergl, another monetary experiment occurred during roughly the same time period in Swankirk, Bavaria, Germany. Also suffering from a severe depression, the shops were devoid of customers and work was not to be found. The coal mine had been shut down. The owner of the mine couldn't find any working capital and so got in touch with the "Wara Exchange Association" which issued, in exchange of ordinary money, a new kind of money which could not be withheld from circulation. As in Woergl, it also had a monthly stamp tax. The coal miners accepted it; the shops accepted it. The place prospered and the prosperity spread. Dozens of cities tried Wara. Again it was the success of the Wara which brought about its extinction.
While the depression deepened in Germany, more and more businesses and banks failed. When one of the biggest banks in the country failed, there was a run on the banks. As money was stashed in socks and mattresses, the Wara continued to circulate. It was so reliable that many banks began to accept it and soon a tremendous demand for this Wara money arose all over the country. Again the private German Reichsbank, by order of the "Deflation Advocate" Bruening, stepped in and stopped, by an unconstitutional decree the continuance of the circulation and issuance of the Wara.
According to Hugo R. Fack in his pamphlet When Money Power-- Suppressing Successful Money Reform-- Prepared the Way for Hitler -
"Without such intervention, the almost 7 million unemployed would have been rapidly absorbed by the industrial recovery under the dynamic circulation of Wara...the result of the various German elections unmistakably proved that whenever economic conditions improved, the Hitler party suffered hopeless loss. Hitler would never have found the support of the millions of unemployed workers and never gained political power."
In 1933 advocates of "Stamp Scrip," inspired by European example, abounded. There were three or four hundred scrips in circulation in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Often their implementation was somewhat flawed or ill-conceived which prompted the top economist of the day, Irving Fisher, to write a small book on the subject entitled Stamp Scrip. Again the possibility and promise of "local currencies" sealed their fate. Fisher urged President Roosevelt. to encourage "Stamp Scrip," but F.D.R opted for "The New Deal" which flooded the nation with Federal Reserve Notes, put an end to the localized currency experiments and effectively centralized power.
Today it would be relatively easy to create a currency electronically with a negative interest rate which mimics "Stamp Scrip" and contains a demurrage feature which discourages hoarding. Such a currency could be created on a global, national or local level. Such a currency would encourage individuals and business to think long term instead of short term "profits." While it is now economical to chop down forests, put the money in the bank and earn interest, a demurrage feature would encourage the planting of forests. If the money currently floating in the global casino was redirected to reforestation projects, with the idea that a healthy ecosystem will be more valuable in the future than any short-term monetary gain today, the perilous trajectory that we are on now could be altered.
By eliminating unemployment and spurring local economic activity; there is a danger of increased land speculation. Monetary reform, ideally should be accompanied by land and tax reforms. Henry George
pioneered the idea of land reform in his classic Progress and Poverty. The board game Monopoly was originally devised to teach what would happen if people were allowed to monopolize the land- precisely what has happened over time, the growing concentration of ownership which eliminates the many from the possibility of owning or using any land without the permission and servitude imposed by those with wealth and power. Money and land are two things that everybody needs in order to live. Land, like air and water, therefore, should belong to everyone. The notion of the sacredness of private property was imposed with the advent of military conquest, dividing the spoils of war amongst the conquerors. The village "commons" were gradually enclosed or lost over the centuries with the increasing criminalization of poverty. It is the vast majority of people of people which pay for the huge profits in land speculation. In California, 1% of the population owns over 2/3 of the land. A United Nations Study of 83 countries showed that less than 5% of rural landholders control 3/4 of the land. According to Susan George in her book How the Other Half Dies
"The most pressing cause of abject poverty... is that a mere 2.5% of landowners with more than 100 hectares control nearly three-quarters of all land in the world-- with the top .23% controlling over half."
In the U.S., back in 1979, 3% of the population owned 95% of the privately held land. Despite the myths perpetuated about the American Dream, the real problem in capitalist countries is private ownership of land (not to mention the monopolization of the public airwaves and the communication industry). Whereas property taxes have been shifted from the major landholders, and corporations, to the small number of homeowners. Isolated cities and countries which have taken the ideas of Henry George to heart are much more equitable with lower land and housing costs. On the other hand, in a communist country, where land was communally owned and used, about 60% of the food was being produced on that 4% of the land which was farmed privately.
The solution to the problem requires a combination of private use and communal ownership to achieve social justice and allow individual growth. This was suggested by Henry George in 1879, Silvio Gesell in 1904, and Yoshito Otani in 1981. In practical terms, it would mean that a community buy up all its land (over a period of time) and lease it out to its inhabitants. Or more simply, the imposition of a land tax and the elimination of all taxes on labor. Under a land tax, more land would become available and the price of land would fall. In developing countries, this would enable more small scale farms to flourish and supply local produce for local needs. In the United States, it would also encourage small scale, organic, sustainable agriculture, as opposed to the enormous agribusiness style farms which destroy the soil, are overly reliant upon pesticides and threaten biodiversity. The change would take an enormous burden off the shoulders of the working population.
Taxes need to be shifted from encouraging the exploitation and destruction of the world's natural resources, including its people, to encouraging a healthy stewardship and ecologically sustainable existence. There is much "good work" to be done- to restore the land, as well as to transform cities, towns, and schools to healthy, thriving, places of activity; and there is a global unemployment crisis.
The existing system is corrupt, rotting and an abysmal failure. New systems are needed. Curitiba, Brazil is one city that doesn't accept money from the national government, has reduced traffic dramatically, recycles, has planted gardens on reclaimed streets, as well as 1.5 million trees. The mayor says, "When we provide good buses and schools and health clinics, everybody feels respected. The strategic vision... leads us to put the first priorities on the child and the environment. For there is no deeper feeling of solidarity than that of dealing with the citizen of tomorrow, the child, and the environment in which that child is going to live."
Sweden and Germany have developed new systems to prevent pollution at its source. Taxes need to be shifted from income to products. An assessment of the costs to the environment should be included in the product tax. This change would change the "consumption" patterns and encourage the development of Earth friendly products which are more likely to be more labor intensive and less reliant upon cheap fossil fuels which conceal ecologically absurd transportation costs.
People should marvel at how cheaply something can be produced and imported from the Third World. What they don't see is the hidden cost- the enormous military budget which support the dictators which oppress their people; the huge subsidy granted to the oil industry which lubricates the wheels of the global system. I feel like crying sometimes when my children pick up cheap toys that come from distant places and I think of the pain and suffering of the children, the young women or the prisoners who must slave in the toy factories. It is precisely the great distance that allows foreign companies to exploit labor. If people knew or suspected the amount of sweat, blood and tears that went into the cheap imports they consumed, they would stop buying them.
A more equitable distribution of the world's wealth would eliminate much of the world's tensions and reasons for conflict. In a chicken versus the egg type of paradox, it is hard to say which must come first- redirecting resources from the world's military budgets to meeting human needs or a more equitable redistribution of power, true democracy, an end to the military rule which supports and perpetuates the current system, The U.S. is the world's largest consumer, as well as the greatest exporter of arms. The disparity between the rich and the poor in the U.S. is the root cause of the flourishing prison and private security business in an increasingly overt police state. The U.S. military is dedicated to the protection of the economic interests of transnational corporations despite the lip service to democracy or human rights. There are many disturbing parallels between Germany under Hitler and the United States today.
As the millennium draws to an end, change seems inevitable; there has been a paradigm shift, but some have missed the boat. The old leaders with patriarchal, linear views are obsolete. The numbers game and the bottom line are going to be increasingly irrelevant. The radicals are turning up in corporations, now and even shaking them up. In a desparate bid for survival, the corporations are adopting the rhetoric of transformation and furiously greenwashing their activities. "If you can't understand it, buy it." Has become the mantra of even more outrageous mergers in a doomed attempt to maintain control. The real battle that will determine the future of every person is raging within each heart and mind; it's a battle of conflicting information from official sources and direct experience, and casting ones efforts to supporting the global empire or to transforming the world into something better- humane, just, life-sustaining. It's time to stop looking upward and look inward. Time to listen to one's heart. Time to stop compartmentalizing all the aspects of one's being, connect the dots, connect with other people, join forces with others and do what no individual can or should do alone. Time to replace competition with cooperation. Time to recognize wisdom and redirect our support and energy from oppressive institutions to new, cooperative, alternatives which benefit the Earth, life and people. Time to reinvent work, money, community. Time to rediscover meaning, joy, ritual, and to reconnect with nature.
The far right and the far left are beginning to realize that the real problem is one of the top and the bottom. Whether motivated by fear and ignorance or by truth and justice, our best hope lies in embracing a non-violent solution which offers the realization of the deepest aspirations of all people.
Monetary reform would offer-
-the elimination of inflation
-the increase of social equity
-decreasing unemployment
-the lowering of prices for goods and services
-a reduction in the work-week
-an initial economic boom
-a stable and increasingly sustainable economy, when additional land and tax reforms are implemented.
But don't waste your time trying to reach politicians about this, unless they are exceptional ones. We have to create our own money at the grassroots level, along with a local communications network. Then when the local community is active and aware enough to control local government- local government could issue its own currency. We need to unplug ourselves from the exploitative global economy and build sustainable, healthy local economies. Vermont is the only state that has kept Wal-Mart, the cannibal of small towns outside of its borders. In Wisconsin five years ago, it was a felony for corporations to make political campaign contributions. Regaining control at the local and state level are needed to push legislation which can rein in the power of corporations or revoke their charters. To achieve this we need communications networks that are not dominated by corporations. Alternative electronic systems, community access television, community radio, community newspapers and magazines need to be supported or developed, along with monetary systems or resource exchange banks which keep resolurces within the community and help build community.
There are already hundreds of alternative or complementary currencies in existence. There are over 130 electronic alternative currency systems in operation in England. In France a local currency was introduced three years ago, and now there are three hundred in existence. The central bank of New Zealand is actually encouraging local currencies.
The most successful local currency in the United States "Ithaca Hours" was started by Paul Glover, with almost no capital, in Ithaca, New York. Paul sells a "hometown money making kit" for $25. or two and a half Hours. As the economic crisis worsens, more and more places are likely to develop their own systems. The idea needs to be seeded; historical examples and successful regional debt-free alternative currencies need to be heralded as the wave of the future. The money creation monopoly must be broken.
How might the 10% of the population who benefit from the hidden redistribution mechanism in the current system allow any change to occur which might eliminate their chance to extract a work-free income from the large majority of people? First they have to realize that "the branch on which they are sitting grows on a very sick tree" and that there is a "healthy alternative tree" which is not going to collapse sooner or later. Social evolution or social revolution, the wise path would be the soft path. Many rich people simply do not understand how the system works and invest in a wide range of stocks, bonds, real estate and financial instruments because they are afraid of inflation and are insecure. Given the option of being rich in a very dangerous world or secure financially in a more just,equitable world, the choice is clear. The interdependence of all the Earth's systems has been ignored long enough. The destruction of the Earth's forests, pollution from chemicals, the nuclear industry affect and threaten everyone.
When people feel that their lives or the lives of their children are threatened, they do react and do get organized for survival. It would take many Earth's to pay off all the accumulated debts; blood cannot be squeezed from a stone; at some point the system is simply bound to breakdown. Right now, the Third World is being squeezed for "odious" debts- debts incurred by corrupt rulers to finance the internal security forces which perpetuate their regimes, repress their people and permit the flow of resources from the productive many to the elite which feel a greater allegiance to their class than to their respective countries. According to International Law these debts should be written off.
In the film Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies, and Global Economics (distributed by Bullfrog Films- 800-543-3764) and in her book If Women Counted Marilyn Waring looks at economics from a feminist perspective and notes that all economic statistics gathered since the 1940's on a nation's GNP were devised from methods whose intention was "to calculate a country's ability to pay for war." Economists and public policy makers give little or no weight to the life giving, sustaining contribution of the Earth and the un-paid labor of women. Economic data does not indicate how healthy the environment is, nor the strength of a community that exists in a "gift" economy where the sharing of labor, ideas, resources are pooled and people help one another with no money changing hands. Money has little or no value in societies which are self-sufficient, closely attuned to the natural world and are far more spiritual than contemporary Western societies. Indeed she shows that it is in the economic interest of the five major powers to always have a war going on somewhere. It is the most lucrative business on the planet which benefits few and causes great suffering, as well as the destruction of the environment. A small percentage of the world's military budget could provide clean water for everyone, as well as education and meet the basic human needs, but the budget itself is a means of transferring the wealth from the many to the few.
In My Name is Chellis and I'm in recovery from Western Civilization, Chellis Glendinning looks at how humanity has separated itself from nature and wounded itself simultaneously in the process. The more psychologically damaged man has become; the more harm he seems to be capable of doing. Millions of years of evolution and a scant few thousand years of "civilization" means the damage is not irreversible. Beneath the surface, all people are capable of reconnecting to the Earth, and healing themselves as they work towards restoring the natural world. Chellis is one of the more moving voices in the new field of Ecopsychology. A Chorus of Stones- The Private Life of War by Susan Griffin also looks at the individuals most responsible for the horrendous acts of war, creating the instruments of war, and at the secrets those individuals carried in their hearts, kept from their families and to some degree, surely, from their selves.
We live in a world that is in deep denial. Well paid actors omit the most vital, damning, pertinent information and analysis from the daily news. A careful study of the newspaper might catch some bits an pieces of what's going on. Carefully veiled by the mass media, it requires a great effort on the part of individuals to discover the reality hidden beneath all the rhetoric. It is an Orwellian world where language has been so corrupted that it almost needs to be inverted to find the truth.
It has been scientifically proven that if a human being is shown a picture where there is something disturbing going on inside, his eyes will instinctively avert themselves from that part of the picture. When there is something massively wrong going on, it is also easier to blame "them" rather than acknowledge any personal responsibility. Labor would like to blame "capital" or "management." However it is the cumulative savings and pension funds of average Americans that has provided the vital capital necessary to propel global capitalism to where it is today. Right now too many people are in denial and don't want to know what their money is doing, so long as they get a high return. When individuals start realizing what their money and savings are doing and redirect it towards socially responsible investments or direct community improvements and projects; the world will change dramatically. Conversely there are also people who blame themselves as opposed to the system. They think something is wrong with them, if they lose their jobs rather than a global system of corporate downsizing. These people need to realize that the fault lies in the system and they need to join with other people to help change that system.
I am currently trying to create a local currency based on time, like Paul Glover's Ithaca Hours,
and promote the idea of local currencies. I think this is a first step towards awakening people to rethink the role of money in their own lives and the effect money and the global economy have had upon the world. Once people understand how horrendously undemocratic and destructive the system is, I think they will be moved to change it, if they can find an alternative or imagine a way to redirect their money and power from the global economy to a project which captures their heart and imagination.
My real dream is to create another currency which would encourage right livelihood and facilitate exchanges between ecologically minded people. This currency would depend upon the networking of a vibrant, strong, local, national and international local currency movement and the creation of a chaordic organization, not unlike Visa, which has no head, and works by cooperative, independent agreement, breaking down traditional political boundaries.
I would call it something like Gaia Futures, in recognition of life-giving nature of the planet and the hopeful design of the currency to restore and nurture life. Gaia Futures which would be backed by renewable energy and products which are environmentally sound and support basic human needs or restore the environment (as opposed to backing a currency with gold or silver, which encourage mining, or oil, fossil fuels, and the other major commodities traded worldwide which harm and poison people and the environment). Gaia Futures would have a demurrage feature, which would be used to encourage right livelihood and ecological projects which meet human and environmental needs. Grants or interest-free revolving loans could provide the seed money for local endeavors, as well as facilitate the transference of excess wealth to distant areas, in sister communities, or impoverished areas where the need is great. Building the infrastructure for an equitable, just, healthy world would become economical viable and by creating the various components of the currency, people and places would be creating true wealth- healthy people and a healthy world.
Gaia Futures would acknowledge that true security lies in the well being of every member of society, that the health of our ecosystems benefits all. The currency would help to channel energy and resources to eliminate poverity, injustice, and restore the land, the rivers, the lakes, the ocean, and the endangered species., Eliminating the need for military force, and prisons, encouraging peace and justice would be the goals. By encouraging creativity, self esteem, participation in community renewal and projects which directly meet local human and environmental needs, I foresee the rebuilding of humanity's immune system, the dismantling of the cancerous nuclear and oil industries which threaten everyone's health and well-being. I foresee the blossoming of incredibly diverse architecture and appropriate technologies which reharmonize human activity with the natural world and inspire others to find beautiful, simple, elegant solutions to the problems of education, transportation, housing, agriculture, medicine, business, and communication. In a perfect world, currency would become obsolete, and the gift economy would flourish. One's time would be honored as the greatest gift of all- the essence of life.
Inspired by Jerry Mander's books- Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and In the Absence of the Sacred , I would like to see a shift from technologies which control people and demand centralized power to technologies that, by nature, support the needs of self reliant communities, and recognize The Sacred. The effort of transnational corporations to patent bioengineered lifeforms, to control, commodotize and domesticate people and all living things to serve them or be regarded as expendable needs to be stopped. The global piracy that is occurring needs to be recognized for what it is. Conflicting trends will continue to clash, and my hope is that our efforts to create a good future will shift the balance of power and nurture that future into existence.
The danger, I see, in creating currency, is that it could be abused. I simply wouldn't trust Congress or the World Bank or the multi-national corporations to create a new national or international currency; their track record is too abysmal. The World Bank did its best at the Rio Earth Summit to obtain control of the "Global Environmental Facility"- a green grant making arm- endorsed as the "interim" fiscal agent for both the climate and biodiversity treaties and positioned to channel funds from rich countries to realize their agenda. The Bank used the small green grants as bait for its larger regular massive delelopment projects which so devastate people and the environment. The unmitigated disaster of the GEF grants should prove to any who look closely at the Bank's consistent record that it is beyond reform. Under great attack by right and left wing activists, the Bank finally decided to embark on a new advertising campaign- its theme- The World Bank- A Good Investment. IDA- not welfare, but welfare reform- "aid' is not aid at all, but an export-promotion fund. Burying feigned altruism, the Bank says- Development: What do we get out of it?
The corporations are also on to the money game, and since their economies are so large, they have already created their own currencies- Disney Dollars and Canadian Tire Dollars are even being accepted in the brothels of Mexico.
All is connected, each individual is a microcosmic reflection of their society and the world, capable of change and being a catalyst for change. Despite the magnitude of the Earth's problems, there are solutions out there, and they are accessible and implementable to anyone and everyone with a heart, a brain, two hands or a spirit. Blind faith in the system is eroding daily, as it continues to fail to meet the needs of most people and serves the interests of an elite minority. The courageous work of countless artists, writers, journalists, film-makers, and historians help to reveal the disparity between the constructed images in the mass media and the reality of the world today. Congress's current "attempt" at balancing the budget by axing all programs which benefit the environment, the poor, education, the general public and actually increase military spending and corporate welfare only improve the impetus to organize at the local level, since no one can count on aid from other sources. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the uprising of the Zapatistas could herald the collapse of the U.S. Empire. I agree with the E.F. Schumacher Society, Kirkpatrick Sale, and those who share the bioregional vision. The Center for Economic Conversion is trying to help industries and communities shift away from military production.to producing things for human needs. Partnerships for Change assists in organizing community summits and developing resource exchange banks which nurtures community building and paves the way for developing local currencies. There is also a good book on the subject- Building Communities From the Inside Out- A Path Toward Finding an Mobilizing a Community's Assets by John Kretzmann and John McKnight.
Many of these ideas came from Margrit Kennedy's excellent book- Interest and Inflation Free Money- Creating an Exchange Medium that Works For Everybody and Protects the Earth. recently revised and published by New Society Publishers. I also recommend Tom Greco's New Money for Healthy Communities. A conference addressing these issues is being organized by the E.F. Schumacher Society for June 28-30, 1996; their address is Box 76, RD 3, Great Barrington, MA 01230, tel. 413-528-1737, http://member.aol.com/efssociety.
This paper is a composite of other papers I wrote, with some additional material. I've been networking with other writers including Bernard Lietaer, an ex-central banker and currency trader whose working on a book entitled Beyond Greed and Scarcity which looks into the Jungian archtype that is missing from our society and have cast the shadows of greed and scarcity. We need to revive the Goddess, generosity and abundance. Jerry Martien's The Shell Game, examines the meaning and history of wampum at the founding of this country, and the nature of the gift.
I am primarily a mother with three small children, one still in diapers. I am an activist in my almost nonexistent free time. This past year I have also been working on a half hour national alternative radio program called Making Contact which is now on over eighty stations (http://www.peacenet.org/MakingContact/.
Anyone is welcome to reprint this entire article or any part of it.
Carol Brouillet, 4060 Verdosa, Palo Alto, CA 94306 tel. 415-857-0927. cbrouillet@igc.apc.org