How MONEY could be so that it SERVES US

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The American Monetary Institute, the Public Banking Institute, the Complementary Currency Resource Center, New Economic Institute and many others are all working on new ways to do money.

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Thomas Greco is best known for helping create mutual credit clearing systems and his book "the End of Money and the Future of Civilization" is indispensable.

 

Common Good Finance has developed the most comprehensive alternative currency system that I am aware of, called CommonGood.  "Empowering ourselves with Community-created Credits" is their motto, along with "Democratic Economics for a Sustainable World"  and "Real Money, Real Democracy, Real Power"   Common Good has proved the concept in Greenfield, MA.  Check it out at CommonGood.earth

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My Vision of the Money Power

John G Root Jr

I see money as a right.  It is a right because it is a creature of the law, of government, and it is the most determining element in the shaping of our individual lives.  The economy and society are a result of what gets funded and what doesn't get funded.

 

I see money as a right.  We have the right to a currency that holds its value.  We have a right to a currency that accurately represents the value of what we have created and what we have the potential to create.  We have the right to a currency that we control, that serves us, that reflects our values and that gives us a just and sustainable abundance.

 

I see money as a right.  I see the flow of money in society following a lawfulness that has to do with discerning the truth about our social nature and our relationship with the natural world that sustains us.  I see economics as the way we satisfy our material needs. I see rights and the law as how we regulate our relationships, how we govern ourselves. I see culture, including religion, spirituality, education, science and all the arts, as how we express our true nature and manifest our ideals -- what we are here to accomplish.  I see economics, government and culture in the right relationship to each other. I see us all cooperating in creating an economy that satisfies our material needs. I see us sitting together face to face as equals deciding together what is right, what would benefit all of us, and I see us all competing to be the best artist, teacher, pastor, scientist, leader, that we can be.  When it comes to economics we cooperate, when it comes to governance we are all equal, and when it comes to culture we are all free and competing.

 

The reason that we can have a just and sustainable abundance is that every freely entered into honest exchange facilitated with money makes both parties to the exchange better off.  In the aggregate we should all be increasingly better off. The better off, i.e. the surplus, the profit, is a function of our human nature. Money makes everything with a price comparable so that we can decide what to exchange what we have done (goods and services) - represented by our money - for what the other has done - represented by their money.  Since the goods or services are exchanged with money the increase in value that results from exchange needs to be represented by a concomitant increase in the money supply. If we are all to be increasingly better off then we will need to receive more money based on our overall productivity and the surplus generated by exchange.

 

In the current system in which about half the prices we pay for things is attributable to interest and taxes the surplus is going to the owners of the banks and the government.  Interest automatically transfers the wealth from those of us who pay more interest than we receive to those who receive more interest than they pay.  Our reality, this system that is decimating the middle class and destroying the planet, is a result of interest and taxes. Interest bearing loans are mathematical, they are not based on reality, they have no regard for what happens in your life or business or the economy.  As a result we are all doing whatever is necessary to pay the interest. We live in existential fear of not having the money to live and so we do whatever is necessary to have the money we need. It is increasingly difficult to do something that you love that will also provide for your need for money, and it is only when we are deciding together what to fund that we will discover together our true nature, and realize that we can create a just and sustainable abundance for all of us, each and every one of us.