Tag Archives: money power

Chapter Five, The New World Order

Posted on February 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.
        —Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister under Queen Victoria  

Chapter Five, the latest chapter in The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, new 2024 edition, is now available. It is being published first on Ken Richings; Substack channel, Future Brightly. Ken has greatly assisted my work in many ways, including editorial assistance and narration of each chapter. He has now posted all previous chapters, and starting now with Chapter 5, each new chapter will appear on his channel two weeks before being posted here on my website or elsewhere. I do not wish to place paywalls between me and my readers so all content will continue to remain freely available to read and download, either from Ken’s site or my own sites but I encourage you to reward Ken for his good work by opting to take a paid subscription to https://futurebrightly.substack.com/.

Further chapters will continue to be posted as they are completed on Future Brightly, and then on the other sites two weeks later. Watch for Chapter Six, Usury, the Engine of Destruction,  to be posted in about three weeks.
As always, your comments and suggestions will be welcomed.
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Chapter Five, The New World Order-Text
Chapter Five, The New World Order-Audio narration

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Posted in Developing Alternatives, Freedom, Geopolitics, My activities

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Private Currency Vouchers: an Answer to the Money Problem

Posted on January 16, 2023 | 8 comments

Unlike, government and central bank fiat currencies which promise nothing but their acceptance as tax payments, private currency vouchers promise to be redeemed for real valuable goods and services. If the issuer is trustworthy and can be counted on to honor their pledge of redemption, their currency vouchers can provide traders with an exchange and payment medium that is superior to government and central bank fiat monies. Such honest currencies are neither novel nor odd, but have a long history and are an absolute necessity for the decentralization of economic and political power and the emergence of a peaceful and equitable social order.  

So what sorts of entities can be trusted to keep their promises, how do they put their currencies into circulation, are such currencies legal, have such currencies ever been issued before? In brief, a currency voucher is spent into circulation when the issuer offers it as payment to a supplier, employee or a creditor, who accepts it as such. In the United States and most other “free” countries, private currency vouchers are entirely legal and there are numerous historical instances of their issuance and circulation. These questions and many other details have been fully answered over the years in my various writings and presentations, most of which have been posted or linked on my website, https://beyondmoney.net/.  Particularly relevant are my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, as well as my 2021 presentation, Transcending the present political money system–the urgent need and the way to do it, and my 2021 webinar series, Our Money System – What’s Wrong with it and How to Fix it.

A few years ago I wrote up a proposal for a private currency voucher that I call the Solar Dollar which attracted some significant interest. My intention was twofold, one, to provide an independent payment medium for a local community, i.e., a currency that can be created outside of the banking system and thus empower participants in a local economy by compensating for shortages and mal-distribution of government fiat money, and two, to incentivize the shift of energy production, sales and usage toward solar and other renewable sources of electric power. My hope was that some electric utility company somewhere would implement the plan and become a model for others utilities to follow. That, unfortunately, has not yet happened but I am confident that it, or something like it, eventually will. In the meantime, I’ve continued to publicize it, and in 2021 I was invited to give a presentation titled, Solar Dollars–Empowering Communities While Powering Communities With Renewable Energy, for a virtual conference that was sponsored by the Zero Carbon Lab at the University of Hertfordshire (UK). Later that year, under the good auspices of Professor Ljubomir Jankovic, my original white paper was revised and published with the title, Solar Dollars: A Complementary Currency that Incentivizes Renewable Energy, in the academic journal, Frontiers in Built Environment.

Overall, the primary objective of my work has been, and remains, the decentralization of financial, economic, and political power. The most promising strategy for achieving that is the design and deployment of private credit currencies that are spent into circulation by trusted issuers that are ready, willing, and able to redeem their currencies promptly for the real goods and services that are their normal stock in trade. By breaking the credit monopoly that the banking cartel presently holds, and empowering producers and sellers of real value, it then becomes possible to reverse the longstanding trend toward ever greater power and wealth in the hands of the global elite who have captured the machinery of finance, economics, and government.

The Solar Dollar is a special case and example of a private credit currency issued by a trusted producer and provider of real value, but similar objectives could be achieved by companies in other lines of business, for example, by:

  • The issuance of local Farm Produce Dollars that would be spent into circulation by a single local farmer or jointly by a cooperating group of local farmers and ranchers, or by
  • The issuance of local Shelter Certificates that are spent into circulation by a single local owner of rental property or jointly by a cooperating group of local owners of rental property, or by
  • The issuance of Service Certificates by a local provider of some sort of professional or household services, or jointly by a cooperating group of such service providers, or by
  • The issuance of currency vouchers by all of the above producers/providers and others  who band together to cooperatively issue a sound complementary currency under a common “brand.” Such a currency would provide a means of payment that is not only independent of the banking system but solidly backed by the combined production and distribution capacity of all participating businesses. (Many “community currencies” have been created over the years in many places around the world but virtually all of them are  “sold” for government fiat currencies which defeats the main objective of creating a currency that is independent of government and the banking system).

All of these currency vouchers or credits are able to circulate as payment media throughout their local communities to enable trading despite any scarcity or unavailability of official money. There are many historical and contemporary examples of such private credit instruments, so most of what I’m suggesting has already been shown to be workable. The main problem I have observed is getting producers of real value to recognize the power they already have and to exercise it on their own behalf and that of their communities.

In his 1944 book, Private Enterprise Money, E. C. Riegel made that point very clear, saying:

“The stream of political monies from the beginning to the present day runs deep and dirty, yet to suggest that money can spring from any other source is to surprise if not even to dismay. So has tradition dulled men’s senses. No matter how often the state fails to supply a virtuous money system, men rush back to it in desperation and beg it to try again. Indeed, until we learn that the money power resides in us, we must abjectly beg the state to give us an exploitative system because we cannot return to a moneyless civilization. Yet, no matter how often and earnestly the state tries to provide a true money system, it must fail because of an inherent antipathy between the money issuing power and the taxing power. A money issuer must be a seller who bids for money, not a taxer who requisitions it in whole or in part, as politically expedient and without a quid pro quid.” — pp. 25-26.

Political democracy cannot work without economic democracy; and the money power is the franchise of the latter. — p. 35

It is the false concept of political money power that converts citizens into petitioners, and makes government a dispenser of patronage instead of a public servant. This power of patronage utterly destroys the democratic system of government – since the people cannot be both petitioners and rulers.” — pp. 78-79

Throughout my career as a monetary theorist, educator, and advisor, taking up where Riegel and others have left off, I have tried to influence producers, entrepreneurs, and social organizers toward effective action based on sound principles of credit allocation and management. But superstitious myths die hard and old habits are difficult to break. The great majority of people remain in thrall to official currencies. That is what the oligarchs depend upon to keep us in debt and under their control. I have learned to be patient and await the changes in financial, economic, and political conditions that will open people’s minds to adopting self-help and cooperative approaches to getting our needs met, specifically, the need for free and fair exchange of value in the marketplace.

Surely, the day will come, and is rapidly approaching, when the failures and demands of the dominant global central banking, political, interest-based, debt-money regime will become so clearly evident and abysmal that the only peaceful option will be for we-the-people to implement our own systems of exchange and finance grounded in our own initiative and judgment in allocating credit based on productive capacity and trustworthiness.

Diagram of the reciprocity circuit. Issuance, circulation and redemption of Private Currency Vouchers
Issuance, circulation and redemption of Private Currency Vouchers

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Posted in Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Exchange Design, Finance and Economics, Prescriptions, The Political Money System

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E. C. Riegel and Private Enterprise Money

Posted on October 27, 2021 | 1 comment

Announcing,  The Monetary Wisdom of E. C. Riegel: An annotated précis of Private Enterprise Money, with commentary compiled by Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

I have long credited E. C. Riegel as the foremost authority in shaping my understanding of money and the process of reciprocal PEMexchange. His penetrating insights and proposals for a new independent system for the exchange of value have provided a solid foundation for my own work of developing improved exchange mechanisms that I consider to be crucial to the future of civilization.

Riegel’s book, Private Enterprise Money, published in 1944, is perhaps the most complete and concise statement of his insights and proposals. For that reason I have undertaken the task to extract what I consider to be Riegel’s most important insights, interpret for the contemporary reader the passages that seem difficult to understand, and articulate the few points on which I disagree with Riegel. With that said, I urge every serious student of money and exchange to read Riegel’s book, Private Enterprise Money, in its entirety, as well as Riegel’s other works which are available to be freely downloaded from my website, BeyondMoney.net.  

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Posted in Basic Concepts, Developing Alternatives, Exchange Design, Finance and Economics, Implementation Strategies, Prescriptions

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Sovereign or Slave? How perversion of the money power has decided the issue—until now!

Posted on December 3, 2020 | 1 comment

As I indicated in my previous post, No democracy when government has the money power, E. C. Riegel, more than 75 years ago, explained, better than anyone else I’ve encountered, the nature of money, its fundamental function, and the history and consequences of its politicization, and outlined a way of transcending the perverse and dysfunctional system that we have lived under for far too long. His work is perhaps best summarized in his book, Private Enterprise Money, from which I quoted. I continue here with further quotes that elucidate the key points of sovereignty, money and government.

Riegel’s solution involved the organization of credit clearing circles that he called “Valun Exchanges” that would be joined together in networks for exchanging goods and services. He argues, as I do, that it is the individual person that is sovereign, not any king, emperor or government, and that the power to issue money, therefore, also resides in the individual. When we realize that money is really only short-term credit, it becomes clear that it is in our power as individuals to give it or withhold it as we go about our daily business of exchanging the value (goods and services) we produce and consume.

In Chapter 9 of his book, Riegel proposes that the Valun Exchanges be organized on a “state-wise” basis. He observes that:  “The sovereign power of the citizen rises to the state government; and from there it is delegated upward to the federal government, and downward to subdivisions. We are, first of all, citizens of our respective states; and this implies citizenship also in local and national governments.” p. 139

He then recounts the history of the union of the American colonies after their separation from British rule and argues that: “The advantage in abolishing this multiplicity of monies [of the various colonies] was obvious, but the implications involved in surrendering the money issuing power to the federal government was not comprehended. The gain to all in uniformity of money unit was visualized; the loss in sovereignty thereby suffered, was not.”  p. 140

From this point onward, I will let Riegel’s words speak for themselves. All page number refer to the printed edition.

“We now realize that the money power of the private citizen is in fact his sovereignty; and that in yielding it he yields his sovereignty. Thus the transferring of the money power from the states to the federal government was the transferring of the citizens’ sovereignty to the national government, and the reducing of the state to the status of a subordinate. p. 140

“The political money system implies that the citizen will abate his natural money issuing power, and make the criterion of his exchanges and the regulation of the money system entirely dependent upon the government that he recognizes as the money power. By making the federal government the sole money issuing power, the individual states transferred the fealty of their citizens to the national government, because they became thereby dependent upon its money power. The citizen having thus had his fealty transferred to the national  government—it was taken from the state governments—and the latter are now dismayed by the increase of federal power and the commensurate subordination of state power.”

“What has actually transpired is a reversal of the intent of the federal plan whereby the national government was to be dependent upon the states for grants of power. The national government, through its money power, is now supreme and in reality holds the state governments in subjection to it. Federal fiscal policy now determines the bounds of state sovereignty. It took many years to reveal this structural weakness because, in the earlier days of the federation, the economy depended more upon the private issuance of money through the banking system, and thus federal fiscal power was dormant. The policy of the federal government up to 1932 was to leave to the banks the function of supplying money. During the Jackson administration, with the abolishment of the United States Bank, government participation in money supply reached its lowest point—with the government confining itself to the mere minting of gold and silver coins at a seigniorage charge to any one who brought the metal to the mint.” pp. 140-141.

Money Power Is Sovereignty
“The states, to recapture their independence and sovereignty, must look to their citizens who, in turn, must assert their sovereignty by exercising their inherent money power. It was right that the states should have surrendered their money power; but they should have surrendered it to their citizens, and not to another government. At the time the federation was formed the nature of the money power was not understood; and it was not realized that it is the essence of sovereignty. But we know now that it is and if we wish to preserve the federation and also home rule, we must now deal intelligently with the money power.

“While the states have surrendered their money power, their citizens have not. The citizens have merely failed to exercise their natural powers against which there is no prohibition in either state or federal constitutions. This is not a political issue – requiring legislation or repeal of legislation, or constitutional amendments, or any official action – but it is, nevertheless, a profound political movement; because, as the people assert their money power, their natural intimacy with their state and local governments asserts itself – since there is no other power that can step between. Today, the federal government stands between the citizen and local government, and thus alienates him.

“If our states are to develop their individuality and counter the stereotyping influence of a monetary dictatorship, if local government and private enterprise are to work out their natural virtues, if democracy is to prevail in business and government, and if our federal republican system is to survive, we must meet our problems by dealing with their fundamental causes – the political money system.”

To accomplish these broad and vital aims, the Governor or some other public official should take the leadership of this cause within his state. In the absence of this, leadership must be taken by private citizens. It offers an incomparable opportunity for public service.”

“While the money issuing power is inherent in every man, it can be realized only by a pact among many. Therefore, the individual is helpless, and organized action is necessary. The method of organizing a Valun Exchange should be no different from organizing any other cooperative movement.” pp. 143-144.

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Posted in Emerging paradigm, Exchange Design, Finance and Economics, Geo-politics, Government, money, Politics, The state of democracy

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No democracy when government has the money power

Posted on November 28, 2020 | 6 comments

Think for a moment about the basic necessities of life. One can live only a few minutes without air, a few days without water, and a few weeks without food. We also need shelter from the heat and cold, from rain and snow and sun. We need energy–gas, oil, electricity–to warm us when the weather is cold and to cool us when it is hot, to help us do our work and enable us to move about­.

And how do we acquire those things? Air is still freely available, although it may not always be clean or healthy to breathe. Water is increasingly not free, even if we draw it from the kitchen faucet, and all of those other necessities, we depend upon others to provide. But at every turn there is someone with an outstretched hand saying, “Pay me.” The point is that there is another element that we are utterly dependent upon–MONEY!

As Adam Smith observed long ago, “When the division of labor has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man’s wants which the produce of his own labor can supply” (Wealth of Nations). That puts economic exchange and the devices we use to facilitate it at the center of human interaction. Money has become so familiar to us in our daily lives that we hardly even notice it, except when it is lacking. But our ignorance of the nature of money, where it comes from, and how it is created has cost us dearly both in terms of material comfort and increasingly in our loss of freedom.  

Economics and politics are inextricably linked; they are in fact a unitary system which early economists like Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau recognized, using the term “political economy” to categorize their work. Economics as a separate discipline did not exist until about a hundred years ago when latter day academicians sought to cloak the fact behind a mask of mathematical rigor. But it cannot be denied that economic structures and policies have heretofore made implicit choices about who would be the winners and who would be the losers. The challenge before us today is to build political-economic systems that allow everyone to win, not just in terms of material comfort, but in terms of peace, harmony, dignity, and freedom. We cannot change politics without changing economics, and we cannot change economics without changing money.

In my own work I have often credited E. C. Riegel for much of my enlightenment on these matters. He said:

“We have been pursuing the illusion that by voting political ballots biennially and quadrenially, we controlled our affairs. While the government must beg us each two years for our political ballot, we beg the government every day for our economic ballot. Since we are dependent upon our government for our daily dollar ballot, there stands over our political democracy a monetary autocracy. Therefore, we are not democratic governors; we are economic subjects. … The process whereby parchment freedoms become sterile is quite simple. It begins with the fact that we need a constant money supply to effect our exchanges whereby we live. The supply is completely in the hands of government. We beseech the government to issue it. … Is not every public expenditure the result of pressure by some large or small segment of the citizenry? And are not these pressure groups impelled by the necessity of petitioning government since it is the only source of the economy’s life blood? How can we blame the government for spending and on the other hand, how can we blame those who invent schemes for spending, without which our economy would stagnate? It is the false concept of political money power that converts citizens into petitioners, and makes government a dispenser of patronage instead of a public servant. This power of patronage utterly destroys the democratic system of government–since the people cannot be both petitioners and rulers” (Private Enterprise Money (1944. pp. 78-79 in print edition).

Riegel devoted his life to showing not only how the political money system corrupts both economics and politics, but also how it can be transcended, a work that I have taken up and pursued over the past 40 years. My own books, lectures, interviews, and web posts have built upon, interpreted, and extended the works of E. C. Riegel, Henry George, Ralph Borsodi, Ulrich von Beckerath, Heinrich Ritterschausen, and many others. My latest book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, is a comprehensive treatment of money and politics and a guide to how to create effective exchange media that are independent of government, banks, and political money. Once we realize that money is credit, and that it is in our power to give or withhold it, we can take back control of the exchange process and our government.

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Posted in Finance and Economics, Government, Politics, Prescriptions

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New Year’s Newsletter — January 2020

Posted on January 18, 2020 | 1 comment

cool art8

The dirty secret of capitalism — and a new way forward
In this TED talk, billionaire businessman, Nick Hanauer debunks the assumptions of neo-liberal economics and shines light on the path toward a new economics that promotes a more sustainable, Hanauer_biz_tedtalks_0517prosperous and equitable society. Hanauer argues that neoliberal economic theory has sold itself to us as “unchangeable natural law, when in fact it’s social norms and constructed narratives, based on pseudo science.” He says that “If we want a new economics all we have to do is choose to have it.” Watch it here.

Of course, implementing that choice depends on “we” having enough power to tilt the political landscape back toward something closer to level. I continue to argue that E. C. Riegel had it right when he said:

We have not even made a beginning in democracy by merely putting at the westPointAdjdisposal of man an occasional ballot to choose who should be his governor under a system that is inherently paternalistic and autocratic. Man must have untrammeled command of a daily – an hourly ballot which he casts in the market place to support the things and services he desires and which he withholds from others and which he transmits to the state or denies it according as it merits his patronage. He must have the power to create this money ballot in a measure commensurate with his power to produce and serve his fellow man without hindrance from his servant, the state. The moment we limit or thwart or bias this money power, which is natural to man, and the very criterion of his sovereignty, we pervert democracy beyond the power of any political ballot or any parliament to remedy. Money power cannot be separated from democratic power without miscarriage and ensuing frustration – political and economic. Democracy implies the sovereignty of man; and, since man cannot be sovereign without the money power, there cannot be democracy under the political money system.

Until, through the assertion of his money power, man can requisition from industry all he produces, and put government under his direct patronage, human aspirations will be unattainable.
— From Private Enterprise Money.

 

How to assert our “money power” has been the substance of my work for more than 40 years. See my books, articles, presentations and interviews at my website, https://beyondmoney.net
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Presidential Debate
I took a pass on watching the January 14 Presidential debate which pitted Bernie against five establishment candidates in what was a predictably bland rehash that Tulsiwas limited in scope. I chose instead to watch the discussion between Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich, Lawrence Lessig, and Stephen Kinzer which was live streamed on YouTube. The discussion focused on the key policy issue, the US interventionist foreign policy, and the fact that most Senators and Representatives of both parties in Congress are beholden to the military-industrial [and banking] complex, and are complicit in the immoral, illegal, and wasteful pursuit of global domination. If you missed it you can still see it at https://tulsi.to/discussion.
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All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars
Anyone who wishes to be well informed and understand civilization’s present predicament would do well to watch this video. I may not agree with all the specific details but the basic story is correct and well documented, and congruent with my argument that the global interest-based, debt-money regime that centralizes power and concentrates wealth is the primary obstacle to social justice, economic equity and peaceful relations among people and nations, and indeed, an existential threat to civilization itself. View it here.

Wishing all a happy, productive, and peaceful year,
Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

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Posted in Developing Alternatives, Economics, Emerging paradigm, Geo-politics, money, My sites, Politics, The state of democracy

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My latest article: Confronting the power elite

Posted on June 2, 2018 | 6 comments

Confronting the power elite
Thomas H. Greco, Jr.
[PDF version]

The world today is controlled by a small elite group that has been increasingly concentrating power and wealth in their own hands. There are many observable facets to this power structure, including the military security complex that president Eisenhower warned against, the fossil fuel interests, and the neocons that are promoting U.S.  hegemony around the world, but the most powerful and overarching force is “the money power” that controls money, banking, and finance worldwide. It is clear that those who control the creation and allocation of money through the banking system are able to control virtually every other aspect of global society.

Having taken control of the political leadership in North America and western Europe, they are determined to use military force, if necessary, to create a unipolar world order in which the power elite enjoy “full spectrum dominance.” Based on a long established pattern of covert and overt interventions, it is evident that they are willing to employ, either directly or through proxies, a wide range of tactics, including propaganda, bribery, cooptation, deception, assassinations, false-flag attacks and war. Large segments of the media and entertainment industries, education, and the military power have been captured to help manufacture public consent.

Be that as it may, I believe that the natural course of human evolution tends toward a multi-polar world order based on honesty, openness, compassion, cooperation, and fairness, but that requires a well-educated and informed populace and “broad spectrum” participation in the political process. Fortunately, the internet and world wide web have enabled people to be better informed than ever before and to engage with one another directly, bypassing intermediaries that control and limit what people can share. On the other hand, the political machinery has been so thoroughly taken over by the power elite that the will of the people has thus far been of little consequence in deciding the course of world affairs.

So what can be done to turn the tide? How can we the people empower ourselves to effectively assert our desires for a more fair, humane and peaceful world order? Is it possible to influence the behavior of those in power? Or is it possible to install new leaders who will act more responsibly and in accordance with the popular will? Or is necessary, or even possible, to reinvent and deploy political and economic structures by which people can more directly assert themselves?

It seems reasonable to assert that action must be taken on all levels, but I am inclined to believe that the greatest possibility of bringing about the desired changes lies in economic and political innovation and restructuring.

The monopolization of credit

I came to realize many years ago that the primary mechanism by which people can be, and are controlled, is the system of money, banking, and finance. The power elite have long known this and have used it to enrich themselves and consolidate their grip on power. Though we take it for granted, money has become an utter necessity for surviving in the modern world. But unlike water, air, food, and energy, money is not a natural substance—it is a human contrivance, and it has been contrived in such a way as to centralize power and concentrate wealth.

Money today is essentially credit, and the control of our collective credit has been monopolized in the hands of a cartel comprised of huge private banks with the complicity of politicians who control central governments. This collusive arrangement between bankers and politicians disempowers people, businesses, and communities and enables the elite super-class to use the present centralized control mechanisms to their own advantage and purpose. It misallocates credit, making it both scarce and expensive for the productive private sector while enabling central governments to circumvent, by deficit spending, the natural limits imposed by its revenue streams of taxes and fees. Thus, there is virtually no limit to the amounts of resources that are lavished on the machinery of war and domination.[i]

In today’s world, banks get to lend our collective credit back to us and charge interest for it while central governments get to spend more than they earn in overt tax revenues, relying on the banking system to monetize government debts as needed. These two parasitic drains on the economy, interest and inflationary monetization of government debts, create a growth imperative that is destroying the environment, shredding the social fabric, and creating ever greater disparities of income and wealth. At the same time, this scarcity and misallocation of money, which belies the abundance that exists in the real economy, leads to violent conflicts and provides the power elite with the means to pursue policies of domination, even at the risk of global nuclear war.

What most people still fail to recognize is that regardless of the nominal form of their government, their political power has been neutralized and exhausted by the political money and banking system. Democratic government in today’s world is more an illusion and a hope than a reality. As Prof. Carrol Quigley wrote in his book, Tragedy and Hope (1966), “… the powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.”[ii]

In the succeeding decades since Quigley’s revelation, their control mechanisms have been refined and extended to include the intelligence services and military power, political think tanks, the media, and virtually every segment of society. The U.S. agenda of regime change over the past several years[iii] is not so much about taking mineral and petroleum resources, that is a side benefit. By examining the pattern of interventions by the U.S. and NATO powers, it is clear that the primary objective is to force every country of the world into a single global interest-based, debt-money regime. No exceptions will be tolerated. Thus, Saddam Hussein had to go, Gaddafi had to go, Assad has to go, and Putin has to go (but deposing Putin will not be so easy). The war against Islam is also related because a significant proportion of Islamists are serious about eliminating riba (usury) which is an essential feature in the creation of all political money throughout the world today. The United States military is the enforcer that is used when threats, bribes, cooptation and covert operations prove insufficient. Thus, the United States, Britain and their NATO allies have become the greatest perpetrators of state-sponsored terror in the post-World war II era.

How can such a power be confronted?

Fortunately, we the people have in our hands the means of our own liberation. It is the power to allocate our credit directly without the use of banks or political money. How to effectively assert that power is the main theme of my most recent book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.

Over the years there has been a long parade of “reformers” who wish to take the power to create money away from the banks. This is an admirable objective that I wholeheartedly endorse. But the alternatives that they propose have been either to revert to commodity money, like gold, which has proven to be inadequate, or to transfer the money-issuing power to the central government—what I call the “greenback solution.” The latter harks back to Abraham Lincoln’s scheme for financing the Civil War. That proposal calls for the federal government to bypass the Federal Reserve and the banks by issuing a national currency directly into circulation from the Treasury. At first glance that may seem like a good idea, but there are many flies in that ointment. First of all, the greenback solution does not propose to end the money monopoly but merely to put it under new management. But it is a gross delusion to think that the Treasury is, or might become, independent of the interests that now control the Federal Reserve and the major banks. Consider the fact that most of the recent Treasury secretaries have been former executives of Goldman Sachs, the most powerful financial establishment in the country. It is naïve to expect that they will serve the common good rather than the money power that has spawned them.

Second, central planning of complex economic factors has been shown to be unworkable. That is especially true with regard to money. Neither the Fed nor the treasury is qualified to decide what kind of money and how much of it is necessary for the economy to function smoothly. The issuance and control of credit money should be decentralized in the hands of producers of needed and desired goods and services. Thus the supply of money (credit) must automatically rise and fall in accordance with the quantity of goods and services that are available to be bought and sold. If private currencies and credit clearing exchanges are allowed to develop and grow without interference from the vested interests in political money, their superiority will quickly become apparent.

Third, the greenback solution does nothing to eliminate deficit spending and inflation which are enabled by legal tender laws. As long as political currencies are legally forced to circulate at face value, the abusive issuance of money, the debasement of national currency value, and the centralization of power will continue. All government programs, including social programs and the military budget, ought to be funded by legitimate government revenues, not by the underhanded means of monetary debasement. Centralized control of credit money and the imposition of legal tender laws enable the hidden tax that is called inflation. Salmon P. Chase, who as Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary presided over the issuance of greenbacks, argued later as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that the issuance of greenback currency was unconstitutional and exceeded the powers of the federal government. He said, “the legal tender quality is only valuable for the purposes of dishonesty.” Finally, the political process has been so thoroughly corrupted and taken over by the power elite that political approaches to solving the money problem have virtually no chance of passage anyway.

Toward effective means of empowerment

Business people, farmers, professionals, and others who are engaged in productive enterprise are clamoring to gain access to credit, credit which they fail to recognize is already in their collective hands. Under the present arrangements, we give our credit to the banks, then beg them to lend some of it back to us, and pay them interest for the “privilege.” But there is no good reason for credit to be monopolized. Business routinely offer credit to one another when they deliver goods and services then allow some period of time for payment to be made. This practice can be extended and organized on a multilateral basis.

The real solution to the problem lies in creating new structures for allocating credit based on the legitimate needs and the resources of businesses, workers, and state and local governments. Competition in currency can transcend the dysfunctions that are inherent in the present centralized system and ensure that there will be sufficient amounts of exchange media to enable all desirable trades. Competing currencies will also ensure that political currencies (like the dollar, euro, pound, etc.) cannot be abused without losing patronage in the market. Rather than establishing the state as the money power, we need to promote the separation of money and state by deploying exchange mechanisms that decentralize and democratize the control of credit.

Money is first and foremost a medium for facilitating the exchange of goods and services and other forms of real value, but the exchange function can be effectively and efficiently provided outside the banking system and without the use of conventional political money.[iv] This is already being done through credit clearing exchanges and through the issuance of private currencies or vouchers by businesses that produce real valuable goods and services. Both approaches have the capacity to provide exchange media that can be also be used by general public to mediate all manner of transactions.

Is there any practical possibility of organizing producers on a sufficiently large scale to achieve this? I strongly maintain that there is. This approach, based on private initiative, is far more practical and empowering than any political approach to reform of money and banking that is currently on offer. Improvement in the human condition have always stemmed from the creativity, industriousness, and goodwill of people. A cooperative, compassionate, society can emerge from the creation of exchange alternatives based on voluntary, free-market, and community-based initiatives that enable people to transcend the money monopoly and the “war machine.”[v]

This is begun at the local level by utilizing the credit of local producers to mediate the exchange of goods and services that are locally produced or sold. There are many historical examples of successful private currencies that have been circulated in various times and places. Call them vouchers, scrip, credits, certificates, or coupons—sound private and community currencies can be SPENT (issued) into circulation by any trusted producer or reseller who is ready, willing, and able to reciprocate by accepting it back (redeem it) as payment for real value, i.e., the goods or services that are their normal stock in trade and are in regular demand. There is nothing mysterious or complicated about this process.[vi]

The exchange of goods and services is also enabled on a moneyless basis by using a process of direct credit clearing among buyers and sellers. This is already being done by the scores of commercial trade exchanges (sometimes called “barter” exchanges) that have been operating successfully around the world for more than 40 years. These commercial credit circles, comprised of thousands of businesses of all kinds, presently mediate an estimated 20 to 30 billion dollars’ worth of trades annually, and these numbers continue to grow. As operational improvements are made and credit management procedures become standardized, these exchanges will be networked together to more fully realize the vast potential of moneyless credit clearing arrangements.[vii] In this emerging worldwide web of exchange, members of each local circle or node are known to one another and allocate credit to one another based on their reputation and ability to provide valuable goods and services. Thus we can eventually have an independent system of non-monetary payment in which credit is locally controlled but globally useful.

In conclusion, I maintain that it is essential and entirely feasible that we reduce our dependence upon the banking system and conventional political monies. Through the deployment of innovative mechanisms of exchange, like private currencies and credit clearing networks, individuals, businesses and communities can empower themselves economically and politically to build a society that is free, fair, prosperous and peaceful.  The way forward is clear. The blueprints have been drawn. What remains is for entrepreneurs, business leaders, and community activists to act boldly to implement these exchange mechanisms in ways that are sound, credible, effective, and scalable.

Thomas H. Greco, Jr. is an educator, author, and consultant dedicated to economic equity, social justice, and community empowerment. He specializes in the design and implementation of private and community currencies and mutual credit clearing networks. His latest book is The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. His main website is https://beyondmoney.net/. He can be reached at thgreco@mindspring.com.
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[i] As E.C. Riegel put it in his book, A New Approach to Freedom, “…as long as our governments are vast counterfeiting machines, Mars can laugh at peace projects.”

[ii] This and other works of Carroll Quigley can be downloaded at the Quigley website, http://www.carrollquigley.net/ .

[iii] View General Wesley Clark’s two minute revelation at https://youtu.be/9RC1Mepk_Sw.

[iv] An animated video that makes clear the credit nature of money and its sound basis is The Essence of Money, https://youtu.be/uO7uwCpcau8.

[v] My 15 minute video, Disruptive Technologies Making Money Obsolete, https://youtu.be/ty7APADAa8g, describes how communities and businesses can escape the debt trap and become more resilient and self-reliant.

[vi] These arguments are more fully developed in my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. My Solar Dollar white paper at https://beyondmoney.net/2016/08/26/solar-dollars-a-private-currency-with-multiple-benefits/ provides the basic framework for the design and issuance of a private currency.

[vii] Some details on how to do this are outlined in chapter 15 of my book, an excerpt of which can be found at https://beyondmoney.net/excerpts/limiting-factors-in-the-operation-of-commercial-trade-exchanges/.

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Can governments and banks be trusted with the money power?

Posted on March 23, 2013 | 1 comment

As governments around the world struggle to manage their soaring debt burdens, the wisdom of E. C. Riegel rings ever more true. The masters of the political debt-money regime are pressuring Cyprus to confiscate part of the savings of their citizens, and Greece and other countries to impose budgetary cuts that burden the poor and middle class. Argentina wants to grab their people’s savings by nationalizing their pension funds. All the while, the purchasing power of national currencies shrinks as governments inflate them to enable deficit spending.

Riegel’s call for monetary freedom must no longer be ignored. –t.h.g.   

LET FREEDOM RING THE CASH REGISTER

[by E. C. Riegel, written circa 1940s]

Old Liberty Bell rang out the political freedom that we cherish. But unless we learn how to make freedom ring the cash register, bureaucracy will ring down the curtain on our liberties.

What is the strange power that makes the government at Washington grow stronger and our state and local governments grow weaker while the people suffer the torment of war and the travail of insecurity and the shadow of dictatorship falls across the land? It is the same power that oppresses the people of all the world — the political money power.

The political money power is the power of national governments to buy the people’s sweat and blood with scraps of paper – paper that falls like a blotter upon our production and our freedom. Each day our

wealth diminishes and more of our liberties vanish. Inflation that threatens to bring chaos is just around the corner. As our sons bleed and our mothers weep, the same grinding power throws its pall over other lands.  Yet our chains are paper – paper money that, through our ignorance, binds us to the treadmill of our own destruction.

We can be masters of our destiny; we are all powerful, if we but realize it. In each of us resides the power to assure liberty, prosperity, security and peace. In each of us lies the money power, which, when springing from us, is democratic and virtuous; when springing from government is authoritarian and vicious. As we liberate our inherent money power we curb the political money power, for the more we use our self-created money, the less we need political money. Thus we defeat dictatorship. Thus we reconstruct the shattered world on a free democratic basis. Thus we save civilization.

Parchment freedoms are but taunts and mockeries without money freedom. A people dependent upon their government for money is a subject people regardless of the form of their government. No people can declare their independence and govern their government unless they assert their money freedom. A government that is not dependent upon its people for money supply is a tyranny regardless of its professions. Government must be made to beg the people for money; the people cannot be sovereign while petitioning government for money. The citizen must command both government and business through his money power. Political democracy is a delusion without economic democracy and economic democracy can function only through the power to issue money – the power to ring the cash register – the power to support and the power to withhold support. To prevent political dictatorship the citizen must himself be a dictator. To prevent centralization of power, power must be reserved by the people. Money power is sovereignty; without it democracy is impossible.

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From Money Freedom, organ of The Private Enterprise Money Movement.

More monetary wisdom from E. C. Riegel, including his book, Private Enterprise Money, can be found at http://www.newapproachtofreedom.info/, and via my website https://beyondmoney.net/.

— Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

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Posted in The Political Money System, The state of democracy

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Who’s Left, who’s Right, and who should issue money?

Posted on July 19, 2012 | 4 comments

I have in my possession, a copy of a copy of an essay by E. C. Riegel, one of many that I gleaned from the files of Spencer MacCallum who had the foresight to rescue Riegel’s literary legacy from oblivion, and the good sense to make his insightful works on money and freedom generally available. The article titled, The Right Is Still To Come, is transcribed below. It bears no date, but I would guess that it was probably written sometime between 1945 and Riegel’s death in 1953.

In the very first paragraph, Riegel sets forth the essential target of his argument, saying, “The professed socialists and the professed anti-socialists are united as monetary socialists in the common superstition that money springs from the State.” I long ago took Riegel’s argument to heart and have taken up the cause of dispelling that superstition, most notably in Chapter 8, The Separation of Money and State, in my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.

I personally try to avoid using imprecise terminology and political clichés that are emotionally charged and tend to get in the way of rational thinking. Riegel, on the other hand, can be forgiven for some slight indulgence in political rhetoric that seems to us perhaps judgmental and outdated.  Keep in mind that he lived in tumultuous times that were scarred by two world wars, the great depression, and the rise of totalitarian governments bearing the various labels of fascist, communist, or socialist (any critique of Capitalism in the west at that time was overwhelmed and suppressed in a number of ways). These are the terms that defined people’s loyalties, as nations contested violently with one another to decide how people should be governed. The reader should not be put off by Riegel’s framing his arguments in terms of left, right, socialist, capitalist, and collectivist. His writings clearly show that he was, after all, a champion of peace, freedom, and social justice.

The emphasis of particular sections in the following essay has been added by me to highlight major points.–t.h.g.

THE RIGHT IS STILL TO COME by E.C. Riegel

On the left stands the socialist, back of him stand a hundred capitalists.  All society is composed of conscious and unconscious socialists.  The professed socialists and the professed anti-socialists are united as monetary socialists in the common superstition that money springs from the State.  The birth of the Right awaits disillusionment from this all-confounding fallacy.

There are advocates of many different money reforms but none renounces the basic error of the socialization of the money system.  To none of the believers in free enterprise does it seem incongruous to leave the State in complete control of the medium whereby free enterprise must articulate.  The right to freely contract and the sanctity of contract is seen as cardinal to free enterprise.  Yet, to leave to the State the power to alter contracts by altering the meaning of the money unit in terms of which all contracts are expressed, does not seem to professed capitalists contradictory.  Thus the State exercises its most vicious interventionism by making itself a party to all contracts, an unbidden and perverting party.

Some would limit, by various devices, the amount of “money” the State should issue.  Others would limit the amount of “credit money” that business men should issue.  Still others would abolish the later entirely, counting only government issues as genuine money.  None would abolish so-called money issues by government, leaving the money issuing power to the only true issuers, the private enterprisers.

With monetary socialization accepted, the choice is confined to different methods of perversion.  There is no monetary Right and since free money is basic to a free economy, there is no philosophy of the Right.  To merely complain against the drift toward socialism does not make one a true anti-socialist.  To propose or support political money reforms does not make one’s surrender to socialization any less abject, nor betrayal of free enterprise less vicious.

The trend toward socialism was set when business men accepted the cry, better called superstition, that money issuance and control are functions of political government—the political money system.  That fallacy, until exploded, makes the progressive socialization of the entire economy inevitable.  The pace of this perversion is not determined by the amount of resistance offered by the alleged opponents of socialism, but by the degree that the State indulges its perversive power by emissions of false money into the blood stream of business.

The pace of this perversion is quickening all over the world; a huge flood of water-money threatens to inundate all.  Can we preclude disaster by bringing those who call themselves anti-socialists over from the Left to the yet unoccupied Right?  Can we induce businessmen to think and act in terms of the economic means rather than the political means?  Can we build an economic statesmanship?  In short, can we sell capitalism to capitalists?  If we can we will save private enterprise and the social order.  If not, the deluge.

Painful as it may be to change habits of thought, (if indeed, prevailing money ideas can be called the product of thought) the triumph of free enterprise over socialism and tyranny can be accomplished only by the renunciation of the fallacy of political money power and the assertion of exclusive power of private enterprise to control and issue money.  When we realize that the political money system has operated almost from the beginning of money, it may be seen what a break with tradition this proposal involves.

The long existence of the political money system does not, however, imply continuity of operation or vindication.  There have been countless instances of the breakdown of national money units through excessive dilution of the money stream by the State.  All money circulations have been a mixture of genuine money issued by private enterprisers and spurious issues by the State.  Following these breakdowns the State set up new money units and repudiated the old.  During the transition from the old to the new, exchange has been kept alive by resort to other national units that were still relatively stable.

What makes the present inflationary crisis unprecedented is the universality of the decline of political money units and that the U.S. dollar, the strongest unit, is being subjected to blood transfusion to sustain other units.  Thus the superstructure of the entire political money system is being bolstered by timbers taken from the foundation with the ultimate result that the whole structure will collapse together.  It is therefore imperative that we change superstitious money ideas for rational ones before it is too late to avoid worldwide chaos.

Why no State Can Issue Money

To understand money is to understand why it cannot spring from any government, national, state or city.

The purpose of money is to obviate the necessity for contemporary delivery of value by both parties to an exchange transaction and thus greatly expand exchange.

By means of money its issuer is enabled to purchase values from any supplier, who, in turn, is enabled to do likewise, the money ultimately reaching a supplier who has need of the issuer’s values and thus the reciprocating trader is found and exchange is completed and the money retired.  Account is balanced by passage of value both ways, the medium, money, having no value.

Money can be issued only by a buyer who later, as seller, redeems his issue.  He must, to stay in business, bid for money with value because that is his only way of gaining income. He must price his values competitively or he can make no sale.  Thus, by his circumstance of being a private enterpriser he is ideally suited to issue and redeem money.

Contrast the State’s situation.  It is not a trader; it does not sell.  It needs not bid for money; it merely requisitions it by taxation. Since it has no way of redeeming money by open competitive bidding, it cannot issue it and its professed money issues are inescapably spurious.

The power and need to issue money is inherent in private enterprisers and thus it operates under natural checks and balances, while to the State it is entirely unnecessary and unnatural and no amount of fixing can supply the requisites that it lacks, nor is there the slightest reason for undertaking such artificiality.  The State would never have gotten into its present unnatural position of its own necessities, for, it always had its taxing power, before the advent of money, to levy in kind and under money exchange to levy on money.  It was forced into its anomalous position by the ignorance of businessmen who, not understanding money resorted to the superstitious belief that it needed the State’s imprimatur.

In spite of all the abortiveness of the political money experience professed friends of private enterprise and self-styled anti-socialists continue their efforts to perpetuate it by added gadgets.  None has contributed in the slightest degree toward liberating private enterprise from it.  Private enterprisers do not even know that, as bank borrower they are money issuers.  They think that their participation in the money system is a secondary one and that even this depends upon a grant from the State.  The truth is that every money unit ever issued has come from private enterprisers and that no money has ever or ever can be issued by any state.  The only thing that makes it possible for the delusive political money system to operate at all is that the true money issued by businessmen serves as a host for the parasite issues of government to feed upon.  No government could build a money circulation of itself anymore than a farmer can produce watered milk from the pump alone.  In this metaphor government is the pump and private business is the cow.

How the political Money System Sabotages Private Enterprise

Every businessman knows that stock splits involve an increase in the number of shares without an increase in capital.  What he does not understand is that so-called money issues by government are but money splits involving merely an increase in the number of units without an increase in the money supply.  The analogy ends there.  In stock splits the corporation does not rob the stock holder.  In the process of money splits the government issues them by taking goods and services out of the market, thus robbing the economy, thereby depreciating the power of each money unit.  This is called inflation and inflation is in turn defined, naively, as “too much money chasing too few goods”, whereas it is but the same amount of real money mixed with spurious money with the economy robbed in the sum of the spurious money.

With the so-called capitalist world deluded into thinking that what government issues is money, the process of sabotaging the economy has open sesame.  It enables the State to practice paternalism and paternalism is the mother of socialism.

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E. C. Riegel’s Money Quiz and the True Money System

Posted on June 20, 2012 | 4 comments

How many people in the world really understand money—its essence, its purpose, its proper management, its potential either to free us or enslave us? Sadly the number is close to nil as Riegel discovered decades ago, an opinion that was shared by renowned monetary economist Irving Fisher of Yale University. According to Riegel, Prof. Fisher, in a public speech “indicated that most persons who undertook to discuss money did not understand the subject and that those ‘who understood the real meaning of money’ were very few.” That was sometime in the mid-1930s, but it seems that the same situation still prevails today.

A little later, Riegel wrote a letter asking Fisher to specify whom those few might be, to which Fisher responded with a list of ten names, along with the caveat that the list was by no means exhaustive, and that there were probably several other of which he (Fisher) was unaware.

Next, Riegel, under the banner of the Consumer Guild of America, prepared a questionnaire which he sent out to the ten “experts” that Fisher had named. Riegel then published, in 1935, the results of his survey in a book titled, The Meaning of Money. I’m not aware of the existence of any digital file of that book, but there are a few bound volumes and photocopies still available.

My intention here is not to review or summarize that book, but simply to provide some background showing Riegel’s diligent research of the subject and to set the stage for presenting some of his eventual conclusions.

Riegel died in 1953, but part of the vast legacy he left behind is a one page document that bears the heading, Are These Propositions Correct? This document bears no date, but was probably written late in his life, and seems to be a concise summary of what he discovered and came to believe as result of his many decades of research and cogitation in the areas of money and the exchange process. I have transcribed that document, and present it below for your consideration.

Are These Propositions Correct?

  1. Money is a means of facilitating trade by splitting transactions in halves, giving the buyer value and the seller a claim for equivalent value upon any one or more traders in the community of traders.
  2. The issuance of money arises out of a purchase and sale transaction requiring tender and acceptance. Therefore, it is a bi-lateral function that can be exerted only by a buyer and a seller and there can be no money issue on behalf of another. Therefore governments cannot issue money on behalf of their constituency.
  3. Implicit in the act of issue is the agreement of the issuer (in common with all others in the trading community) to accept the issue in exchange for value when tendered. Therefore, only one who is prepared to accept money in exchange for value, when tendered, is qualified to be a money issuer and all persons so qualified to accept are ipso facto qualified to issue. Thus the power to issue is inherent in all traders.
  4. Money circulation is a cycle wherein the money passes from issuer to acceptor and from acceptor to acceptor until finally accepted by the issuer and thus retired. The money system is therefore a bookkeeping system whereunder money springs from a debit and is retired by an offsetting credit. The instrument evidencing the bookkeeping process need have no intrinsic value.
  5. Money is actually backed by the value surrendered by the seller and potentially backed by the value in possession of the next seller. Therefore, all “reserves” such as precious metals or other values are purely gratuitous and irrelevant.

Conclusion

If the above propositions are correct, we must conclude that a true money system, not only may, but must be established as an integral part of the private enterprise system and the issuing power must be denied to all except private enterprisers, the exclusion to include all governments and non-profit institutions. The true money system must be based upon voluntary cooperation of the participants. Therefore no legislative or political action is required. Therefore, without political sponsorship or boundaries, the true money system is potentially universal and uniting all traders with one monetary language.

Sometimes Riegel’s statements require clarification and elaboration, which I have done in some of my own writings, and there are a (very) few points on which I disagree. But Riegel has given us here a clear view into the simple essence of money and the true nature of the exchange process, providing the material we need for building a solid foundation upon which economic democracy can be erected. –t.h.g.

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