A pathway toward building a decentralized, peaceful, convivial society

Posted on September 16, 2024 | 2 comments

This short video about Sarvodaya describes with great clarity the pathway toward creating a decentralized, peaceful, convivial society that Gandhi and others have envisioned, and the Symbiotic Culture that Richard Flyer has for a long time been working on and writing about.

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Posted in Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Prescriptions

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Scott Ritter, champion of peace and defender of the Constitution. Listen to him.

Posted on September 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer and chief weapons inspector for the wapons treaty between the US and USSR. He has been working diligently to reduce the threat on nuclear war, a war which is becoming ever more likely given the aggressive stance of the recent US administrations that have not only refused to negotiate with presumed adversaries been but seem bent on extending at all costs US and western control of resources in counries around the world. Scott tells his story in his recent post titled, My Lost Summer, on Substack. I hope you will read it.

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Posted in Geopolitics, War and peace

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Now published, Chapter 11—Credit Clearing, the “UnMoney”

Posted on August 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

This is the latest chapter to be published of my new 2024 edition of The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. It continues the story about “credit clearing” that was begun in the previous chapter and shows how it will revolutionize trade and payments and make money, as we have known it, obsolete.  

Here is a brief excerpt:

If there were no money, any system of crediting sellers and debiting buyers would be fully competent to accomplish the work now performed by money. – Hugo Bilgram, 1914

In Chapter 10 we explained that the highest stage in the evolution of reciprocal exchange is “credit clearing,” and that banks have been using it for the past few hundred years to settle obligations amongst themselves.  In this chapter we will further describe the history and applications of credit clearing, and we will show how clearing can be used to offset claims among not only groups of banks, but also among any persons or entities that have financial claims against one another. Most significantly, it is a process that may be applied among buyers and sellers of goods and services to directly offset their respective claims without involving banks as middle-men and without the need for conventional bank- or government-created currencies.

Direct Clearing Among Buyers and Sellers

Credit clearing is actually an ancient process. During the Middle Ages, credit played a major role in the various European “market towns” which hosted, at regular intervals, trading fairs in which merchants from widely scattered areas would gather to trade their goods. It is reasonable to conclude that the process of credit clearing would have been fundamental in their trading activities. This is evidenced by the fact that these market towns typically provided market courts for settling disputes under “merchant law” that was separate from common law and could be adjudicated in a matter of hours or days. James Davis points out that, “At the pettiest level of sales credit, many traders appear to have acted both as creditors and debtors, and there is evidence for running accounts, reciprocal dealings and a ‘complex of claims and counterclaims,’” and that, “Credit oiled the wheels of trade, and market courts dealt in small-scale sales debts that were integral to local retail and wholesale commerce. A market court ostensibly lowered transaction costs and thus attracted more traders by aiding a perception of the market as ‘fair, affordable, efficient’”. 

The possibilities of direct credit clearing among buyers and sellers have long been recognized. In modern times, as early as 1914, Hugo Bilgram and L. E. Levy noted that, “If there were no money, any system of crediting sellers and debiting buyers would be fully competent to accomplish the work now performed by money.”  They further suggested that:

“Were a number of businessmen to combine for the purpose of organizing a system of exchange, effective among themselves, they could clearly demonstrate how simple the money system can really be made. The greater the number of businessmen that would thus cooperate, the more complete would be their own emancipation from the obstruction to commerce and industry which existing currency laws impose.”

They then went on to propose such a system and describe how it might operate, which I summarized in one of my previous books and in a website post.  I’ll not repeat that here because the context today is much different from what it was in 1914, but we will present a similar proposal based on what has since been learned and tailored to our current realities. I believe that it is no exaggeration to say that the creation and operation of such credit clearing systems is crucial to reversing the present trend toward economic ruin and global tyranny and changing the course toward realizing our human potential and the emergence of a peaceful, convivial civilization in which all can thrive.

You can read or listen to the entire chapter here.

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Posted in credit, Developing Alternatives, Finance and Economics

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Newsletter, August 2024 – Weathering the storm and emerging together

Posted on August 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

In this issue:

  • Breaking Together
  • Symbiotic Culture
  • Chapter 10, The Third Evolutionary Stage—The Emergence of Credit Clearing

Breaking Together

Jem Bendell, former professor and founder of the Initiative for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria (UK) has a highly credentialed background that is impressive by any measure. After a life changing experience, he embarked upon a different life path, delving deeply into diverse disciplines, including the latest climate science, that led to his writing, in 2023, his book, Breaking Together: A freedom-loving response to collapse, in which he summarized his startling conclusions:

“The collapse of modern societies has begun. That is the conclusion of two years of research by the interdisciplinary team behind Breaking Together. How did it come to this? Because monetary systems caused us to harm each other & nature to such an extent it broke the foundations of our societies. So what should we do? This book describes people allowing the full pain of our predicament to liberate them into living more courageously & creatively. They demonstrate we can be breaking together, not apart, in this era of collapse. Jem Bendell argues that reclaiming our freedoms is essential to soften the fall & regenerate the natural world. Escaping the efforts of panicking elites, we can advance an ecolibertarian agenda for both politics & practical action in a broken world.

Jem has since abandoned academia and his “illustrious career of delusion” in favor of a different path that embraces reality and includes practical decentralized actions of adaptation. Breaking Together is available as a free download, but if you would like to get a taste of it before plunging into his 500 page volume, I highly recommend that you listen to this two-part interview in which he quite articulately explains his main ideas, and how we can, by working together, adapt to the inevitable and ongoing collapse of our present version of civilization, and in the process build a better one. Interview Part 1; Part 2.

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Symbiotic Culture

The work of Richard Flyer puts my own work, and that of Jem Bendell and others within a more comprehensive and foundational context.

In a recent message, Richard Flyer alerts readers to a short video that he posted a couple years ago on his YouTube channel to explain his work of empowerment and societal change. By his own description, “It not only provides solid content about building Symbiotic Cultures and Networks, but it really captures the Spirit, enthusiasm, and hope we need now more than ever—the possibility and reality of Fractal Community Empowerment. It was released more than a year before the book Birthing the Symbiotic Age: An Ancient Blueprint for a New Creation came out on Substack as a weekly series. It shares many of the stories of on-the-ground grassroots movements I have been affiliated with, including San Diego, CA, and Reno, NV, as well as the Sarvodaya Shramadana movement of Sri Lanka – and their relevance today.”

I highly recommend that you take a few minutes to watch his inspiring message, and read the 2-minute synopsis of his book. 

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Chapter 10, The Third Evolutionary Stage—The Emergence of Credit Clearing

This is the latest chapter to be published of my new 2024 edition of The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. It continues the story begun in the previous chapter of how money has evolved and changed its character over time.

Here is a brief excerpt:

Money has become merely an accounting system, a way of “keeping score” in the economic “game” of give and take. —Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

Let us begin by summarizing the evolution of the various kinds of money that have been used to mediate reciprocal exchange:

  1. The circulation of gold and silver coins gave way to paper banknotes that were redeemable for gold or silver coins, which made the notes essentially warehouse receipts for gold on deposit.
  2. Then, banks began to lend bank notes into circulation based on the pledge of collateral assets (some valuable and others not) other than gold, some of which included government obligations (bonds, notes, etc.).
  3. But ALL notes were redeemable in gold. This became known as the “fractional reserve banking” system.
  4. Bank account balances (checkable bank “deposits”) increasingly took the place of paper bank notes, and bank customers began to write checks against their deposits instead of using bank notes to make payments.
  5. As banks created ever greater amounts of non-bona-fide money based on national government debts and other illegitimate collateral assets, the fiction of gold-backing and redeemability could no longer be supported, and governments reneged on their promise to redeem their currency for gold. This broke the final link between political fiat money and the real economy of valuable goods and services.
  6. But, despite that, the emergence of credit clearing to offset credit obligation against credit claims was a major leap forward in facilitating the reciprocal exchange of value.

You can now read or listen to the entire chapter at Future Brightly:

Chapter 10—The Third Evolutionary Stage—The Emergence of Credit Clearing-Text

Chapter 10—The Third Evolutionary Stage—The Emergence of Credit Clearing-Audio narration

____________

The pieces are now all coming together. In what way will you participate in the great adventure?

Thomas

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Posted in Community, Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm

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Now published, Chapter 10—The Third Evolutionary Stage—The Emergence of Credit Clearing

Posted on August 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

This is the latest chapter to be published of my new 2024 edition of The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. It continues the story begun in the previous chapter of how money has evolved and changed its character over time.

Here is a brief excerpt:

Money has become merely an accounting system, a way of “keeping score” in the economic “game” of give and take. —Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

Let us begin by summarizing the evolution of the various kinds of money that have been used to mediate reciprocal exchange:

  1. The circulation of gold and silver coins gave way to paper banknotes that were redeemable for gold or silver coins, which made the notes essentially warehouse receipts for gold on deposit.
  2. Then, banks began to lend bank notes into circulation based on the pledge of collateral assets (some valuable and others not) other than gold, some of which included government obligations (bonds, notes, etc.).
  3. But ALL notes were redeemable in gold. This became known as the “fractional reserve banking” system.
  4. Bank account balances (checkable bank “deposits”) increasingly took the place of paper bank notes, and bank customers began to write checks against their deposits instead of using bank notes to make payments.
  5. As banks created ever greater amounts of non-bona-fide money based on national government debts and other illegitimate collateral assets, the fiction of gold-backing and redeemability could no longer be supported, and governments reneged on their promise to redeem their currency for gold. This broke the final link between political fiat money and the real economy of valuable goods and services.
  6. But, despite that, the emergence of credit clearing to offset credit obligation against credit claims was a major leap forward in facilitating the reciprocal exchange of value.

For now, you can read or listen to the entire chapter at Future Brightly:

Chapter 10—The Third Evolutionary Stage—The Emergence of Credit Clearing-Text
Chapter 10—The Third Evolutionary Stage—The Emergence of Credit Clearing-Audio narration

It will also be published soon here, and on my own Substack channel. Further chapters will continue to be posted as they are completed. Watch for Chapter 11 to be posted soon.

As always, your comments and suggestions are welcomed,
Thomas

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Posted in Banking, credit, Debt, money

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Social Credit and the End of Meta-Feudalism

Posted on August 6, 2024 | Leave a comment

I am pleased to present this guest editorial by my long-time friend and correspondent, Christopher Quigley. Christopher in an expert in market analysis, and a proponent of the Social Credit philosophy of C. H. Douglas. I think you will find it useful.  —  T.H.G.

Excerpt:

Social Credit and the End of Meta-Feudalism

The King is dead long live the King” so goes the feudal aristocratic mantra establishing power continuity. Death and birth are a part of reality and amidst the pain of death the love of life must prevail. Currently many say that American society is dying but in fact it is experiencing a transformation.  
—  Major Clifford Douglas

The quote above, made in 1934, perhaps would have been more correct if Douglas had said that America was going through a “paradigm shift” rather than a transformation. This shift was in essence a revolution at the time, a revolution based on growing consciousness, labour unrest, social dysfunction and expanding poverty. Today this trend is still emerging with other forces driving the trend, forces such as the growth of internet learning networks and the diminished effectiveness of mass broadcasting. Thus, average Americans are finally starting to think as sovereigns again. Their enlightened thinking had stopped following the disaster of the civil war of 1861-1865. This national cessation of practical awareness allowed the then Federal micro-system to usurp the Union macro-system through credit power. As a result, today the Federal Government is now macro, and the Union of States micro, but this could change over the next 50 years.

The global elites want the real American economy to contract. They desire a constrained and hobbled society which is more dependent and demanding, more complex, more controlled, more diverse, more fractured, more locally ineffective— In a word, meta-feudal. To understand a world that is meta-feudal you should watch movies such as “Brazil,” “Rollerball,” and “Blade Runner.” These worlds are technologically advanced but disintegrated and astonishingly unequal.

The meta-powers work through fabricated “crises.” The elite set up the last economic “crisis” through the “originate to distribute” Basel banking agreement of 1998. From this model evolved the hyper property bubble of post-2000, the “credit” collapse of 2007-2008, and the market-fixing credit derivative system and asset laundering off-balance-sheet accounting protocols currently in place. The credit collapse eventually led to the new “improved” post-Covid, bailed-out banking oligarchy now in place. This club involves far fewer players than existed heretofore but the financial club that is in power is now manifestly more globally influential.

Please read the entire editorial HERE.

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Posted in Emerging paradigm, Finance and Economics, Geopolitics

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Your Money Power

Posted on July 29, 2024 | 1 comment

Worth repeating, from my August 2012 Newsletter

Your Money Power

The vast majority of people remain unaware of it, but the fact is, we have in our own hands, right now, the power to create or completely transcend money. As I’ve been preaching for many years, money is nothing more than credit, i.e., the willingness to trust that the value we provide as sellers of goods and services will be reciprocated when we become buyers. But, as we are now becoming so painfully aware, our trust in conventional political currencies and banks has been misplaced; we have been betrayed. It’s not only a matter of fraud and malfeasance, bad as that is, rather, the entire system was designed from the very start to enable the few to exploit the many.

There are two parasitic elements that are built into the central banking, debt-money system—interest and inflation. Every national currency is supported by the collective credit of the people. It is our own credit that we entrust to the bankers, then beg them to lend it back to us, and pay interest for the privilege. Besides that, the national government gets first priority in the allocation of credit. Banks like to lend to governments instead of to producers, because government securities are relatively risk-free and provide a guaranteed profit. When our collective savings prove insufficient to satisfy government’s spending demands, the banks will create enough new money to enable deficit spending, which is the essence of inflation. It is a hidden tax that eventually shows up as higher prices in the markets.

All of that will continue until the people are able to take back the reins of government, but that cannot happen until the people take back control of their economy, and that requires that we adopt new ways of mediating the exchange of goods and services that puts control in the hands of the people. E. C. Riegel eloquently expressed that prospect:

“To trade goods and services is a natural right of all people. To issue the money necessary to make these exchanges is also the natural right of all people who are intelligent enough to do so. We need not beg for money. We do not need to be money slaves: we can be money masters. When we have become money masters we shall master all our economic and political problems.

Dig up this treasure, your money power, that has been lying dormant in your consciousness and express it for wealth, health, peace and happiness by associating with others who are similarly awakened.”

The way to express our “money power,” and to achieve true democracy is to organize businesses and individuals into credit clearing associations and networks for the direct allocation of credit and payment without the use of political money. My writings, and those of E. C. Riegel, provide directions on how to do that.

I am currently in the process of publishing a major rewrite of my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009). The first nine chapters are already available for free download on this website here, and the works of E. C. Riegel are available on this website in the Library.

2012 was a very busy year for me, which included a five-week tour of Europe and the UK during which I gave a total of 15 presentations and workshops to various groups, in addition to consultations, discussions, and meet-ups with many kindred spirits and colleagues working in the realm of societal transformation. If you’re interested, you can read my report about it in my November 2012 Newsletter.

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Posted in Banking, credit, Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Exchange Design

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Webinar — Money, Power, Democracy, and War

Posted on July 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

My webinar, Money, Power, Democracy, and War, that was aired on Humanity Rising last Tuesday, July 16, was recorded. In case you missed it, you can view it on YouTube. During the first 16 minutes or so, our host Jim Garrison expressed his thoughts on current national and world events; that was followed by his introduction, our presentation, and some further conversation.  A few of the questions addressed were:

  • Why are nations continually at war when people want peace?
  • What do wars produce, and what do they destroy?
  • Who gains and who loses in war?
  • Where do governments get the money they need to finance war?
  • Is there a link between the monetary system and the political system?

In the process, I delved into some pertinent history and events that set the stage for our present deepening crisis, then began to describe the pathways towards re-empowerment of the people through decentralized initiatives involving independent means for measuring and exchanging value, beginning at the community level. Toward the end of the discussion, I offered my views on Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain technology. I’d be happy to have your comments.
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Posted in Geopolitics, My activities, War and peace

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Upcoming webinar: Money, Power, Democracy, and War

Posted on July 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

I will be appearing in a free webinar on Humanity Rising this Tuesday, July 16, at 8 AM Pacific time (11 AM Eastern time). You can get details and register to participate via Zoom by clicking here: Money, Power, Democracy, and War. You will receive the Zoom link a few hours prior to the event. I will be answering such questions as:

  • Why are nations continually at war when people want peace?
  • What do wars produce, and what do they destroy?
  • Who gains and who loses in war?
  • Where do governments get the money they need to finance war?
  • Is there a link between the monetary system and the political system?

If you choose not to register, you can watch the live stream on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD7JpJetKtA.

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Posted in Freedom, Geopolitics, money, My activities

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