Virtually everyone senses that there is something drastically wrong with the state of our world. Many rail against the governments, institutions, and people that they hold responsible for the various aspects they recognize as unfair, unsustainable, destructive, and utterly inhuman. But what are the root causes of this situation and what can we do to change it? This video overview provides answers that are based on a few seemingly unrelated sources which actually blend together to provide a clear picture and course of action.
In 2013 I wrote an article that was published in the online academic journal, Internet Journal of Community Currency Research (IJCCR). That article, Taking Moneyless Exchange to Scale: Measuring and Maintaining the Health of a Credit Clearing System, was intended to bring order out of the chaos that prevailed within the movement to create decentralized moneyless systems of reciprocal exchange based on the credit clearing process.
Alas, that article attracted little notice and stimulated no significant action to correct common errors and improve system operations. But this matter is far too important to leave it at that. Fortunately, the past few years have seen the development and deployment of some powerful new communication tools that are able to create high quality, short audio and video overviews that make concepts and prescriptions accessible to anyone.
Over the past several weeks I have been making extensive use of these tools with amazing results and posting the output on my website, https://beyondmoney.net/, and elsewhere; I am doing the same in this case. is a 7 minute video overview of the article:
And here is a longer, more comprehensive 14 minute audio overview.
If you have any interest at all in reclaiming the “credit commons,” participating in decentralized, community-controlled exchange alternatives, and transcending the destructive political money regime, these are essential to understanding how to move forward.
Upon the recent completion and publication of my new Chapter 20—Exchange, Finance, and the Store of Value, for the revised edition of my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, I loaded it into NotebookLM and asked it to create a video overview. I continue to be amazed at the quality of the output that this AI tool produces. Here it is:
I subscribe to Alex Krainer’s Trend Compass channel on Substack, as well as his YouTube channel. Krainer provides historical lessons which highlight persistent patterns that impact our lives today. He recently published a two part essay on the West under oligarchs which describes today’s reality, which is the prevalence of oligarchic governments in the West hiding behind a facade of democracy. You can read them on Krainer’s Substack or view his video about it on YouTube, but I’ve taken the liberty of asking Google’s NotebookLM to provide this 7 minute video overview to whet your appetite.
And today I asked NotebookLM to generate another video overview (below) of Krainer’s Part 2 which tells the modern story of the oligarch’s takeover of Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and describes how Vladamir Putin after his election as President, managed to reestablish government control and the rule of law. Can the US and other so-called Western “democracies” learn the lessons and do likewise?
The first edition of my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, was published by Chelsea Green Publishing in 2009. While it remains as relevant today as it was when first published the printed book has been out of print for several years. But, having had the rights reverted to me by my publisher, I am making the entire book available for free in PDF format. You can read it or download it HERE. If you would like a hard copy of the first edition used copies can still be found on Amazon.com, Abe books, Thrift books and elsewhere.
Better still, you can avail yourself of the new revised and expanded 2024 edition which I have been working on for almost two years and is almost complete. Eighteen chapters have already been posted and can be freely read or download HERE.
My previous books, as published, may be freely accessed in digital format by clicking the title below.
Beyond Money 