Our monetary system has failed. Game over.
Most of the problems and misalignments in our world today exist because of money.
Think about it… Get rid of the monetary system and you eradicate most issues. Only a very small percentage of privileged people, those who know how to play the game efficiently, benefit from this monetary system that has been established at one point in history.
At its core, though, this ancient, destructive, ego-driven system of currency, exchange, power, politics, and getting paid for things is based on fear instead of love—doomed to failure.
What would people do if they would not receive money for, or a monetary benefit from, the things they know and do? Some say money wouldn’t bring happiness. Why then do millions and millions of people suffer so horribly on our planet? At the same time there are others who watch this with the intention of retaining the status quo, due to money and the fear of loss.
What would you do if you would get the things you need and desire, without the need for receiving money for anything? Would you still do the same work you do now? Would you still lie and cheat? Would you still give the impression of being someone that you actually aren’t and doing things that you actually don’t do? Would you still be together with the same person? Would you still hurt people (and, in turn, hurt yourself)?
I think that most of these negative emotions and destructive behaviors are due to the monetary system on planet earth. And when you get rid of it you eliminate fearful and harmful behavior at the same time.
We need a new system that benefits all equally, all 7 billion of us.
Here’s part of my vision for a better world in which most, if not all, people would benefit greatly and enjoy a good and better life.
- No more money.
- No money = no more crime.
- No money = no more wars.
- No money = no more poverty.
- No more competitive, egocentric, better-than-thou thinking & attitudes.
- Prosperity is shared equally among all. We don’t work for one person or one company or one government. Instead, every individual works for the prosperity and well-being of all 7 billion people on our planet at the same time.
- People still work, but everyone is being compensated or rewarded equally—solely based on the amount of hours contributed to the local, national, and global community.
- With this substantial change comes an elevated awareness of one-consciousness.
- Life is filled with, and based on, affinity and harmony.
- Decisions are lead by unconditional love.
Now, some might be wondering how we could possibly survive without money. How would we get food and something to drink, for example? What about shelter? How could we “afford” that new gadget, car, dress, dinner when money doesn’t exist anymore?
I am confident that we are smart enough to figure these kind of things out. As a matter of fact, we do that already every single day. Our planet exists, survives, and thrives because of us.
Living in a world without money.
Without money, we would still continue to do the things we already do, or, even better, do what we love to do.
How exactly could this work out? Hmm, perhaps with some sort of a collective reward system from the community? Like the “thumbs up” way of approval you see on social platforms—where good and truly beneficial things are being evaluated, valued, and approved by the collective wisdom.
These types of approvals could be on papers, ID cards, websites, whatever.
As far as such a collective reward system is concerned, I can imagine 4 – 8 “levels” here, according to the amount of hours contributed (one “level” per hour per day). Those who don’t work would receive (nonetheless good) primary care, whereas those who spent 4 – 8 hours per day working for the prosperity and well-being of all would receive (i.e., could “order”) whatever they desire. Then the other levels in-between.
You think that people would get lazy and stop working? Think again…
People have desires. Although guaranteeing survival, we want more than the basic stuff and primary care. So we’ll continue working in order to enjoy a better lifestyle (travel, a better car, electronics, jewelry, certain clothes, bigger homes, help, services, etc.). And because we’re being rewarded equally, our motivation rises.
Why a maximum of 8 levels? This is to prevent the craziness that’s going on right now, with just a handful of smart or lucky millionaires & billionaires on one hand and an insane amount of people who can’t afford simple basic stuff on the other.
By the way, I don’t think that there would be a need for yet another political control mechanism for this type of system. What I do think is that the local, national, and global community enlarge would manage itself quite well—much better than certain people fear. ;-)
Let’s use a real-world example.
Do you like fresh bread in the morning? The baker continues to prepare fresh bread because he still wants to, not only see your happy smile when you pick up your bread, but also receive your approval for that he did a good job. And the truck driver will continue to deliver the goods necessary to prepare fresh bread as he wants the local community to thrive and be well, as well as receive the collective approval for doing a good job so that he can order/receive the things he desires. Similarly, the truck driver will still receive the gas (from the gas station) necessary to drive his truck, and support from car mechanics. And on it goes…
Folks would receive approval from the community for doing a good job and helping everyone to thrive. As a result, they can order the things they desire, according to the hours contributed—without any monetary exchanges.
No more differentiation.
I see no differences anymore in terms of the amount of reward one receives per hour of work. You spend one hour doing something for the local, national, and/or global community? You get the same amount of approval and prosperity—no matter where you live, which skin color you have, which language you speak, which education you received, which relationships you maintain, which people you know, your ability—or inability—to communicate and persuade, etc.
For example, the maid who’ll spent 5 hours cleaning my home tomorrow would enjoy the same level of prosperity than a boss of a big corporation who spent 5 hours in a meeting. Seeing this with the ancient way of life, the boss of the corporation would still have the same lifestyle (more or less), but for the maid it would mean a substantially better lifestyle—elevated to that of the boss.
The nurse who saved the life of two people would receive the same amount than the person who manages the hospital.
The guy who keeps a city’s streets neat and clean would receive the same amount than the city’s major.
The guys and girls who prepare and serve food in a restaurant would receive the same amount than the owner of the establishment.
Isn’t it amazing what that would lead us to?
No more political restrictions and borders.
I further see country borders vanish. Again, no money = no crime. Due to the elevated prosperity among all and the eradication of the monetary system, there would be no need anymore to politically “control” and “protect” stuff.
Heightened productivity.
With that being said, I think we can spend 50% less time working and still have the same amount, if not more, prosperity and well-being on our planet. If you look at it, most people that work in a 9 – 5 job environment are not that productive anyway, knowing that they only get a very small share of what they actually contribute time-wise. They could deliver the same amount of work in half the time, with more fun at work—knowing that what they do is for the greater good, for the expansion of their own prosperity and well-being as well as that of the local, national, and global community—rather than just for one person or a select few privileged.
If you still think that people would simply get lazy and fake things, again, I don’t think so. The local, national, and/or global community would notice it and point it out accordingly (lovingly & supportively, though). In addition, because prosperity is shared equally among all, the desire for pressure and cheating vanishes.
Again, remove fear from the equation and start to truly love and trust.
Raised motivation.
That being said, whatever we do we do it not just for a select few smart people but for all 7 billion. Don’t you think that this alone would give us a huge boost in motivation and productivity?
I do think so.
Also, as you can’t control (at least not for very long) the way someone lives his or her life (for example, you don’t like the way someone leads a company or country), removing the monetary system would automatically alter someone’s attitude and behavior to one that serves the good for all. Because, once you eliminate money, what is left?
The things one wholeheartedly wishes and desires.
Conclusion.
I hope & wish that we eradicate the ancient and destructive monetary system sooner rather than later; that we head towards oneness; that everyone enjoys a prosperous lifestyle on our planet; that we help and contribute to the local, national, and global community and benefit from it equally—without money, fears, lies, egocentricity, and laws, but with altruism, harmony, honesty, prosperity, trust, and unconditional love.
By the way, recent studies show that by sharing the currently available wealth equally across the planet, everyone would essentially be a millionaire (that is, in the outdated monetary system). However, since most people would or could not keep those millions of money, we need a new system in place that guarantees long-lasting welfare for all.
Our planet enlarge already does prosper, the wealth is just unfairly and unequally shared.
I very welcome the phase of time we are currently in. If you are fearful, don’t be. Trust in the good in humanity. Everything will work out well for everybody, including you. People will not stop working. Remember, we need each other.
Welcome changes. Applaud the demolition of the monetary system as it will bring us a much better, more beneficial system with infinite, equal possibilities for everyone.
Life is supposed to be fun, right? So let’s establish a system that ensures a fun experience for everyone. I’m so ready for it.
I barely scratched the surface here, though, and I’m open for more ideas from, um, the global community. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
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You can’t have an econonmy without some kind of “money”. Otherwise we would be back in the stone age, trading goods against each other. It’s not money that’s evil, it is treating money as if it were a product onto itself that is evil. Then you get the stock market, derivatives, securitisation, etc. that does not produce anything useful, but instead produces crises and shocks that damage the real economy.
That’s why I spoke about another reward system, one that’s based on the amount of hours contributed and, thus, benefits everyone equally. It’s been proven that the current monetary system failed miserably in that regard.
What needs to happen and is stated in detail in the Venus project is have everyone make a system that works to provide us with all we need, we don’t even need a reward system. People will want to help the cause and evolution for the sake of long term benefits. Life was meant be easy and we have the technology and knowledge to build a world based around our resources and a correction of population will naturally follow.
What you wrote is the exact reason why we need to get rid of the money system. Humans have been abusing it in all sorts of ways.
You Sir, are blind or one of the very few fortunate people who is taking advantage of the situation at the expense of others.
This is one of the most realistic an intelligent articles I’ve read in years.
I would often bring up that very subject in conversations, which had the result of people looking at me like I was completely insane.
Unfortunately, the banking system is shrouded in secrecy, especially how money is created and introduced into the current economic system.
Money is the root of all evil, it is the cause of the vast majority of suffering all around the world and this continues because the people who have control over this system extract huge benefits at the expense of the rest of us.
Your days are numbered, this cannot continue much longer.
Money IS a reward system. It’s a way to keep score of how much you’ve contributed to others. If you mow your neighbor’s lawn for $10, then you gave $10 worth of productivity and you now have a simple way to claim $10 worth of productivity from someone else.
Money came about to make these types of transactions easy. So that no one has to trade half a live cow for a pound of sugar.
Where our monetary systems fail is when governments get involved via central banks. They can create money out of nothing, which is an obvious way of counterfeiting the “productivity” or value that money represents. They then literally add money to the accounts of people they choose. Or they add cheap money to the system where large banks can borrow the money first and profit from it… before the system fully absorbs the extra money and responds with inflation. That means some rich folks benefit while the average persons savings and wages/income is decreased.
This is all terrible. But it’s a condemnation of central banks, not of money.
Money is an important tool for allocating resources in an economy. It helps create prices, which contains valuable information that helps distribute resources to their best uses.
You get rid of money and you’ll have poverty for all.
A social reward system? That wouldn’t take in to account that some things are more valuable to one individual than they are to another. It’s important that individuals are allowed to judge for themselves how valuable things are, because that’s how prices form.
Money’s not the problem. Central banks are the problem.
It does keep score, somewhat, but this unevenly and unfairly. Here’s one of many examples:
How can it be that someone spent an enormous amount of hours helping people in an online forum to be more successful, have a better live, learn how to do something, etc., etc., that such a person is not being rewarded properly as far as a monetary reward is concerned? Even more so, thousands of people (i.e., members and visitors to/of that forum) benefit from the contribution of that single person, yet, still, s/he doesn’t receive a single cent from it?
See? Something is substantially wrong at the core of this system, hence my vision for a completely new one.
When you get rid of money you do not have poverty at all. Think about it… How will you get the goods you desire? Just like today, you gotta do something, right? And preferably spend a certain amount of HOURS—not money—contributing to the success, welfare, and well-being of all.
Again, when you share the wealth equally and establish an entirely new rewarding system—one that can’t be cheated anymore—most, if not all, people will benefit from it greatly.
As far as letting people judge for themselves what’s valuable for them and what not, that’s exactly what such a community-driven, social reward system would ensure. In contrast, the current monetary system does not allow you that—or at least, it’s very limiting.
For example, I would love to be able to give a LOT more people a job. But I can’t. Why? Because I don’t have the money…
Money is a much better way than “hours” to keep track of the value a person has added. If a doctor works 10 hours and a guy on an Internet forum works 10 hours… they may have worked the same amount of time but they have not provided the same amount of value. If they had, what incentive would there be for anyone to attain the skills to be a doctor when they could just sit on an Internet forum and spout opinions all day?
Money and prices in a free market provides the proper incentives for people to develop their strengths and go to work on jobs where they’re the most productive. That’s extremely valuable to a society. If the best scientist never became a scientist because he could get by just picking grapes or something, society would be less off.
And if people are putting in long hours of work and are not getting paid properly, then they should highly consider stopping immediately and moving to a task where someone is willing to pay. Because the fact that no one is willing to pay for what you’re doing is a sign that there’s something more valuable that you could be doing to help society. Do the things people are willing to pay for. Money and prices move people towards what is most beneficial for everyone.
For example, I might be helping some people with my post right now. But most people know the best use of my time would be putting my best skills to work. If I just sat here and talked to people all day I might feel fulfilled, but society would be less off. Money keeps me attentive to my skilled work.
Now if you’re doing work out of goodwill or charity, you can decide it’s worth it to keep at the task even if you’re not being paid well. But you need to be able to afford the charity or find people to finance you, or again, it may not be as beneficial as you think.
Also, hiring people benefits the employer. Anyone would love to have the money to give someone a job, because they’d make money from their employees work! But you have to work yourself first and build up capital to be able to hire people. That’s also a good thing, because then you’re risking your capital on whatever given task – and thus are more likely to make a better decision about which productive tasks to assign.
Money is a fantastic way to allocate resources, when it’s not fiat money. Maybe you’re just proposing a new monetary system and are mistakenly criticizing “money” when you should be criticizing fiat money. Fiat money is created out of thin air by elites, and so it benefits them at the expense of everyone else. That was not the case when money was good as gold.
I know where you’re coming from, Stephen, I used to think that way too. ;-)
It’s the typical competitive, egocentric, better-than-thou thinking & behavior ultimately caused by this monetary system. Speaking of one’s own return on investment, making profits, increasing sales, lowering expenses, persuade, MWR, CTR…
Blah blah blah, the game is over. The time has come for something much, much better.
For some people it’ll be tough to let go of the old paradigm and accept—and support—a completely new one where everyone “wins.”
LOL. Well if you used to think that way, then maybe I’m just not smart enough yet.
But I don’t think you did used to think that way, or you’d describe it as a system of checks and balances and win-win transactions that has led to more prosperity than the world has ever seen.
It’s fitting that you describe a society where everyone works for everyone and no one works for themselves on American Thanksgiving. There’s a story we retell in America about the first pilgrims from the Mayflower and how they almost starved to death following that system. When they instead switched to property rights and allowed people to keep the fruits of their labor, they flourished.
http://lewrockwell.com/orig10/maybury1.1.1.html
Your system dismisses the idea of working to better one’s own position as selfish, or egoist or even an “I’m better than you” attitude. But all it really is, is you get what you work for. That is a fair system and one most people gladly accept.
Fiat money has failed. “Money” most certainly has not.
I am an advocate for a society without money. But the approach to it is rather obscure, because we look at the possibility with our money-driven mentality and our concept of fairness and equality is mostly dictated by it.
Stephen, to give you a simple example of what I mean. You think that a person solely goes to med school because of the money they make? There are tons jobs that provide bigger monetary rewards than being a doctor. People are more motivated by the idea of mastering a skill, being helpful to others and being acknowledged (not necessarily with money) than revenues. On that same case, who determines the value of a profession….the market does…not the group of people who are receiving the service or products. Or would you say a baseball player deserves more money than a doctor?
On another hand the problem is we view “economizing” as handling monetary transactions rather than the resources of our planets and its distribution (Something inevitable because money existed before we started thinking about the concept of economy). Whoever gets the resources is not who needs it but who has the money to pay for it, regardless of deserving it. (Obviously in our current economic system deserving is equal to having the power of acquisition regardless of political and social practices).
And I am sorry I still haven’t seen/read what you posted, Stephen, but I don’t think that the people on the Mayflower had the technological advances and social structures and interconnectivity that we have now in order to make something of that sort work. What we are missing now a days is the educational and social cohesion to accomplish it.
Now I do not agree with a system of rewards either….because money is exactly a system of rewards if we are going to have one, why not keep the one we have and work on the structural level of it (through sensible political and social advocacy).
If we were to attempt living in a moneyless society, we need to reestructure our social, political and educational institutions. We would have to develop a social and global culture of understanding that the well being of my neighbour is my wellbeing and subsequently that of human beings. And we cannot wait to eliminate money to do so…..if we do that! I monetary system will be eliminated be itself.
I agree. The system’s being run inaccurately; thus, producing massive negative economic efffects. It’s not really the money which is the problem.
Your vision sounds a lot like communism. People trade as an instinct. Without trade and money you get free riders. I say eradicate welfare and put the people on welfare into massive state owned enterprises. I also think banks should be accountable for their losses.
I’m not a communist. However, when I read The Communist Manifesto years ago, I remember thinking that Marx & Engels had written a poem, a song of the human spirit. It’s a wonderful idea they had of everyone working together for the common good. It’s utopian, and of course, that’s the problem. Utopias don’t work, for many reasons.
As an economic system, communism was/is opposed to private ownership of property, which is dear to the heart of capitalism. But money, as such, is a significant element in both systems.
Marcus’s article is a tremendous contribution to the views on today’s monetary & economic problems. It’s a bit idealistic, bordering on utopian, but a valuable steppingstone in the search for solutions. It’s obvious he’s invested considerable time and thought in the subject.
Thank you, Don. :-)
They did during the US housing crisis. But the central bank does set the reserve requirement for the commercial banks, so it’s their doing.
Very interesting content in that video, Martin!
It’s obvious that the monetary system is a crutch that we have used for a long time. The problem with ridding ourselves of this is our society. It won’t happen in a very short span. It will take generations of work to progress. Our generation is too attached to the monetary system. I have had the idea that money needed to be gone for many years now. It will take a small system in place to slowly win people over. The utopia that has failed in the past was just one path taken. If a non-monetary system is to last it’ll take generations to implement properly. Behavioral changes will need to take place as well. We are brought up from birth to think we have to work our butts off just to have something; so, it is going to seem like an impossible task.
Marcus is on the right path, it may not be the exact model to take; however, it is ideas like this that lead to better ideas. You can’t build on an idea without something to start from. Don’t fear a plan like this. Chances are your lifetime won’t see it. We can only hope our ideas are eventually built upon and implemented.
Hmm… I don’t think it’s an utopia, nor that it’ll take that long. It can become very real very soon if we just let it happen and trust that all will be well, even better than before. Much better.
Many people, however, are afraid of the unknown and fear that they will have less than today. That’s because we are so sucked into this destructive monetary system that one thinks that this is the only way to survive on planet Earth.
It’s not. It’s beneficial for a select view and humiliates the rest of us.
Imagine the political and economical system goes bankrupt worldwide, initiated by the outage of one large economy (I’m talking about one of the Big 7) that pulls down other big economies. And then the rest follows naturally.
This could happen in a couple months or even weeks from now.
It is something to applaud and welcome, not fear.
We people would not go down because we know how to do the things we do and love to do. In other words, if you think about it, we don’t need money to do the things we do.
This is the 21st century. We can do much better than that.
No money = no more crime.some how I disagree with this formula or theory. Since people get like a war freak when they ran out of money. Robbers even commit crime and steal from banks because they don’t have money.
And there’s the crux in your “disagreement.” Ask yourself why these kind of things happen and you’ll come to the conclusion that it is because of money and money only. ;-)
I can conceive of a situation in which all work is for goods and the betterment of fellow humans, but there is a select individual who doesn’t like to work, and who just steals food from others.
Especially in the scenario that the current monetary system collapses violently – which I suspect will almost inevitably be the case. People are ingenious, but often only in a situation of great risk. Thus, in such a scenario, there will obviously be people working for themselves and/or for others, but there will also be ‘parasites’, per se, whose work is to live off the work of others.
It’s very difficult to consider the right way forward. I keep swinging between capitalist and communist notions. I think either of them are doomed to fail in one way or another. For example, how does one eradicate greed, but retain a free market? Or, in a community where all produce is commonly owned, how do you settle a dispute between someone who has worked very hard, and someone who has worked very little? Say the hard worker believes they deserve more then the poor worker, rather than just “to each his need”? I believe this is where money comes in – real, tangible money. Not currency or credit.
Now, these things are definitely clear to me:
-governmental-corporate affiliations should be discouraged, because these affiliations encourage government sell-outs and debt to corporations, whose primary focus is wealth. This allows corporations to push political agendas, resulting in such monopolies as we now see over the medical, housing, education and food industries, and also commodities such as water or coal. Government and corporations perform separate functions, and have no good business merging with eachother. It is for precisely this reason that beneficial advancements in science, medicine, economy, etc. have been hindered from implementation, in the place of profitable counterfeits.
What was said previously about earning the value of one’s work? I agree with that here:
-Politicians should not have such exorbitant incomes. Their function is to do as instructed by we, the people. Politicians found acting in contradiction with the wishes of the public, or found in any way breaking the law or the trust of the people, should have their service terminated. All governmental and political workings should be made entirely accessible to the public. Why should they hide?
-Media should be publicly owned, and unrestricted in its broadcasting, for the use of educating people and exhibiting a broad spectrum of views and opinions.
-Healthcare and education should be free so as to be widely available. A HUGE PORTION OF TODAY’S PROBLEMS stem from a miseducated public. This is manifest in the healthcare system through the vast array of preventable illnesses and diseases present due to the unhealthy lifestyle choices made by people who don’t know the facts, or are given the wrong facts, as is often the case.
-Fiat money should be removed from the system. This will remove debt and real money will return to its intended use – to universally measure the value of goods and services. It makes sense to base a monetary system on a finite amount of money, because you can’t print gold.
But as much as these are the major problems I see in the world today, they are reflected in every individual. If the world is to change, so are we. For example, such things as greed have only a pejorative effect on the advancement of a just and prosperous world, in that people take what they can, and give as little as they can.
Our destructive economies cause us to support and pursue destructive ways of life, often unintentionally. They engender such views as racism, self-superiority, greed, mistrust and other maladies of the mind.
Thus for any change to truly work, we have to change the way we think, and that is half the problem.
Marcus,
I don’t think a country’s economy will be any successful without any type of monetary system. I don’t believe that money makes people harbor evil thoughts. I think that money is a need in order to survive our everyday life because it is part of the big picture. Money may not really make the world go round, but perhaps it helps push it into moving :)
It’s not a need. We know how to do the things we do every day, and, if you think about it, we really don’t need money to do these things.
Back to the time when people were just trading and there was no monetary system. I agree there was a least number of crimes. Well, there must be something there holding the economy together. Some people just can’t handle money and responsibilities it’s entailed with; thus, these bad things happen.
I agree. The system’s being run inaccurately; thus, producing massive negative economic effect.Since people get like a war freak when they ran out of money.
It’s really not the monetary system but the use of money is the culprit. Top it off with graft and corruption. These people in positions sometimes get lured by money; therefore, they commit and produce crimes everywhere.
See? Remove the money and you remove crime.
Crime is relative to the law, not money.
There can still be greed in the absence of money. There can still be hatred in the absence of money.
Consider religion. Although an extraordinarily lucrative industry, religion is the kind of thing such as binds tightly to a person’s moral identity. Thus, when two people clash over religious differences, the result can amount to capital crimes, regardless of the presence of money.
The problem is that the fiat monetary system engenders an economic climate in which greed is acceptable, meaning greed-based crimes occur more frequently.
Though, it may be the case that the dismantling of the fiat system will make it a lot easier to stop the selling of world heritage sites to logging and mining companies, curb the exponential growth rate of the world population and halt the mass extinctions occurring as a result of this woefully misguided system. Among other things.
Reading you article make me imagine what it was like during stone age. During those time we only have few people living in a certain area and the supplies are adequate for everybody. But you know we progressed. Lacking funds means that we are moving forward for me because we are aiming for something better. Just a thought.
I can understand that some people compare this concept with something in the past, even so far as the stone age.
We’re not in the stone age, and we’re much more intelligent and developed than we were in the stone age. So it’s really not about going back but rather moving forward to something much better and more beneficial for the good of all.
No money hmm. It’s a nice thought but how. Your post is like listening to the song “Imagine”. I don’t think that the money is the problem but more of the people who’s managing it. I dont think we can go back to that life again.
It’s not “back to” but rather a change to something entirely new. Read my article again to get a better understanding.
Oh, and please stop using my blog for SEO, or I’ll disapprove future comments from you. ;-) Thanks.
I agree with you.Your vision sounds a lot like communism. People trade as an instinct. Without trade and money you get free riders.
I see that you like to put tags…”communism”. This is not about politics. The communists used banks and army to protect their establishment. You say “free riders’ because of our value system that we’ve been educated by the marketing structures…a really powerful psychological weapon. As the current system is shaking to it’s roots a transition period towards an improved system will take some time. A resource based economy is ideal. The length of this transition is quite difficult to predict. The people in charge with the current one will try to protect it….even… using force and hide the attacks under some moral values. It will be what it will be and I hope the energy, food & water supplies and ecosystem will not suffer, otherwise a large number of the population will go down together with the current monetary system.
I am agree that money are the caused of crimes and other evil things happening around us. That’s is because we are human and we have desire. In my opinion, if we get rid of the monetary system there still will be a crime but it will be decrease.
Monetary is our economic system but the problem is that we are using a paper as a money in our system. Where the paper itself is no value in it. Human should use a commodity which having a value in it as a medium in our economic system.
I read most of the comments and someone down there is saying that the banks are printing the money to stabilize the economy and they think it can be solve. We cannot blame the banks because the banks also is managed by a human. And a human turns to followed their desire or lust to achieved their objective.
Gold, silver and precious metals are not the only commodities that we can use in our economic system. Oats, barley, rice, salt and other food that having a good life time and not rot also can be use in our daily trading systems. This is more suitable for a small trade in the market. The precious metals can be used to trade on the high value stuffs. But we can not use animals as the trading currencies because animal dies.
Let’s look at the fact in our history. What was the value in 1970 for one ounce of gold? What can you get with that value in 1970? 01 ounce of gold in 1970 was at USD35. With USD35 a young married couples can easily manage their economy for a month. How about 2012? 01 once of gold on 07th January 2012 is trade at USD1612. I believe a young married couples in 2012 also still can manage their daily life with that income. The same 01 ounce of gold is having the same value from 1970 to 2012 while USD35 is 97.8% decrease its value if someone keep its dollar instead of gold from 1970 to 2012. Now let’s investigate how much the crime rate increase from 1970 to 2012. You can take your nearest big city as an example. Is it the rate increase proportionally with the decreasing value of our money?
It should be a medium in our economic system but it is 100% not the paper or electronic money. Because it can be easily create and manipulate by human where 7 billion of us are having our own desire.
I find this post both inspiring and intriguing. I’m not sure if we really can survive without money as it’s becoming the basis of existence. I remember when I was little when exchanging goods and clothes were common in my village. But then money was also an issue because how can one buy clothes without money then. Now, money is some kind of a reward, too, because we get a job and we get money by working. People’s need of money differs in many ways. The more luxurious we live, the higher expenses we create thus more need of money.
I’ve heard of the Venus Project before, and I even have a drawing course by Jacque Fresco. Very interesting!
Under socialism we had (USSR after Stalin until the socalled “freedom of capitalism /perestroika) virtually no jails in towns of 500k and more.
We didn’t lock our doors.
Women were bosses of entire factories back in the 1960’s.
We didn’t have sexism so to speak (every school we sat girl,boy,girl boy)
Bosses/Managers lived in the same buildings with similar flats.
There was no homeless (until capitalism came)
Divorce? What divorce?
The whole neighborhood got together (social bond) to clean the neighborhood we all lived in. (Everyone!)
No unemployment.
Health care for all.
We knew everyone, and stayed out until midnight sometimes without parental supervision, because there was no worry of sexual pedophiles/rapists etc.
I really believe people have been brainwashed by ‘education’ about all the so-called ‘benefits’ of capitalism.
Shows you the power of propaganda.
The problem with capitalism is that it is by it’s nature a ‘skimming’ of value system.
Capitalism (because of competition) always is a downward pressure on:
Workers wages & benefits
Production costs & values
The producers/benefactors in a consumptive society skim value, but rarely
introducing the supposed benefit of capitalism (ingenuity).
CEO’s ingenuity consists of the following things:
Cutting wages and benefits
Cooking the books, to acquire more investment by newcomers
Corporate socialism on the backs of the workers/taxpayers
Hyping inferior products that have been designed for ‘planned obsolescence’
Buying companies and liquidating their assets while posting profits for additional outside investment
Moving jobs to the countries that give them a tax shelter and slave labor wage workers.
Not a real rewarding life for workers, unless they get that debt slavery education that boosts them up a few points in salary.
Our greed based health insurance system leaves millions uninsured and vulnerable to a life of poor health. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, Health care should be human right; however, now healthcare is being sold as goods, and the poor cannot afford to get treated when they are sick. Instead, insurance companies profit at the expense of those who cannot afford coverage and are neglected in our system which has failed to solve the problem of adequate health care distribution.
Most of this can be linked to us getting away from the Gold Standard. As it stands right now, our money isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
World without money? Hope you are joking, ok it was possible in 100 d.c. maybe, even if at that time all worked perfectly, but now there is a huge differentiation and nobody would like something like this.. nobody means, powerful people of course.
Instead a good idea would be to have same currency over the world, but also this would not be possible before 100-500 years. But I’m sure that it will happen.. as universal language will be teached in less than 100 years.
Trust a fan of Story ;)
Regards LazyCash44.comELISA
When was 100 d.c.? Nobody would like to live in a world without money? Yea by nobody you mean rich and powerful, and YOURSELF. A 1 world currency is not so much a good idea, because you are spreading the monetary issues that we have today across the entire globe. And it’s become increasingly clear that monetary society is a means of controlling people. A one world currency chains every person in the world morphing them into a society of automatons.
and i would add that after reading i agree with @Rick herns
The economy is going down.
It’s common knowledge that central banks hardly create money these days.
It’s commercial banks who create money by giving out credits.
It’s a wonderful idea they had of everyone working together for the common good. It’s utopian, and of course, that’s the problem.
Change the human heart and evolve the human brain and maybe, just maybe the monetary system will disappear. Human beings are fundamentally, evil and corrupt at their very core. This is more I think a result of the environment of scarcity that has existed since the dawn of time….we’re made to be that way. Technological advancement has made resource scarcity obsolete. This leaves a huge cultural lag that will take years to adapt to.
Interesting school of thought analyzed here. i had a good time reading through.
Now commercial banks create money by giving out credits…
Hello thank you for writing this article.I have read the entire article and most of the comments my view on this is most of the readers here don’t understand the history of the monetary system.The problem we are now facing is nothing new it has happen in the past of our economic system we have used in our history.The problem is we are not learning from our economic history we are just repeating the same problems but just on a larger scale.I see in the future ww3 because of our economic system.Yes ! It is corruption of our governments of banks to world ruling families that are the ones to blame for.But the core of the problem is the system its self not the people behind the problem that is a fact many do not want to accept. Now in our days if you have an ideal for a new system that promotes resourced based economy a system that is radical then its most the person/persons/society will say thats just again communism a utopia bla bla bla.Our history is well written of fears in our time capitalism is good socialism is some what good communism is evil and any sort of utopia is evil.The best part of all is that all of the systems i have mention or all of the systems that have been tryed in your history are all systems that work to archive capital are all monetary systems !To archive a better world you first have to change the society the mentality of the society that is the first step to world change.
Who controls the education system controls the state and the upcoming state a quote most of you should know.
My mentor is Jacque Fresco from the The Venus Project and i am proud to say this and myself of course.
I highly recommend his philosophy of how to fix our world to a better place.
Sincerely. John CZ
Do not miss this site is very interesting
I’d like to point something out.
First, the system you invented here still focusses on rewards of some kind. And yet, you say that the monetary system is ego-based. How is your reward system, the one that rewards with approval, not ego-based?
If you really want a system that is not ego-based, I say skip the rewards!
I’ve been thinking about this myself a lot lately. Let’s start with the question: why do we participate in a society in the first place? It’s because we can’t make a living on our own, can we? There are lots of things we can’t do that others can, so we participate in a society to have those people do those things for us. We like warm houses to live in, and we need people to build it for us. We like to buy our food in a store, so we need people to collect and prepare that food for us. The sole function of society is to have people serve each other. At least that’s how I see it.
Now, next question: why do we work? Lots of people in this age would say: to earn money. And it’s true, lots of people work merely because it brings them money. Not because they love to do the work they do, not because they happily, altruistically offer their services to another, but because it brings money in the pocket so they can pay their bills and feed their bellies. Now, if money would disappear just like that, there wouldn’t be bills to pay anymore and they can feed their bellies for free, so why would they work? Well, if their mentality doesn’t change, there’s no reason for them to work anymore. So yeah, we would end up with a bunch of lazy asses.
It doesn’t have to be that way though. When I look at a simple household, there’s no direct exchange or reward in that sense for the work that is done. In a household, the dishes get done, the floor gets cleaned, the windows wiped and the beds made up. And we see nothing in return for doing those things. Unless you’re a kid whose parents give you money for those chores. But why on earth would we do these things if there’s no immediate reward for it? Well actually, there is too a reward for it. We like to eat off of clean plates, that’s why we do the dishes. We like to sleep between nice smelling sheets, so we make the beds. We like the place to be tidy and to smell fresh, that’s why we clean up. We like to be able to see through a clear window, that’s why we wipe them. To put it simple: we do the work because we like the result. On a conscious level: we do the work simply because it needs to be done.
Do you see where I’m going? We do the work simply because it needs to be done! Not to earn money or any other kind of reward. It needs to be done, so we do it! Why not apply this mentality on a larger scale? The exchange of money disappears, but we keep on working. BUT, we will do the work that suits us. We all have things we love to do and that we’re good at, and there’s always someone out there who can benefit from our skills and passions. There are people who love to paint, and there are people who love those paintings to decorate their houses with. There are people who love to cook, and, well, everyone has to eat. There are people who love to travel, and those people can bring along the things we need from other countries on their way back. And the jobs that no one likes to do? We’ll divide them equally and we’ll find ways to make it a little bit more fun.
Now how does that sound? No need for rewards, everything that needs to be done, gets done, and for everyone who needs something done, there will be someone who can get it done. The only thing we’d need to take care of is making sure people can find each other. I mean, when someone needs bread, he needs to know where the baker is. But that shouldn’t be too hard with advertisement and all.
I do think it’s a bit naive to think that getting rid of the monetary system will be the end of all problems, since there are still numerous problems that aren’t caused by poverty or greed. But I agree that the monetary system is failing us bigtime. There is a lot of poverty, even in the countries that are labeled ‘wealthy’. Too many people are struggling for their basic needs, and I don’t think it’s supposed to be that way when those people are participating in a society that’s supposed to support them. So yeah, getting rid of the monetary system would be a huge improvement! All of our basic needs will be covered, and we’ll even have some luxury as well, if not a lot! And once we get our basic needs covered, we can focus on the growth of humanity and figure out a way to solve the rest of the problems that we deal with today.
This leaves me with just one question: how do we get rid of the monetary system?
good blog.
HI Marcus,
You have a very nteresting vision that resonates with mine as far as helping people create and fully enjoy prosperity and a life of abundance.
I agree with you that the need as well as the greed for money trigger that nagging fear of loss around us.
Now, speaking of everybody’s getting rid of that fear as well as creating and fully enjoying their ever desired dream prosperity, I’d suggest the law of attraction as let’s say a good substitution or replacement for money.
With all due respect you have to bear in mind that every person is different in terms of having their own vision of prosperity and success in life. For example, look at Sir Richard Branson who is super excited about the space tourism which is the kind of source of his own prosperity.
So, speaking of both your and my wholehearted desire to help everybody on earth prosper, we at the same time must be aware that everybody is different. In that context the vision of that desired prosperity and success is different among different people.
Having said that while reading your interesting post I’ve got reminded me of different niche markets or different groups of people where each group is characteristic for having some kind of interest, passion or problem in common.
So, I’d suggest realizing your vision of helping all people enjoy prosperity by looking at the world as the community of many different groups of people.
Now I guess that your vision of having no money as the means of compensation might be much more achievable in a group of likeminded people rather than globally.
The latter is reinforced with my belief that a group of likeminded people who share the same passion will be very happy to help one another achieve their ultimate goals or dreams around that passion without asking for money in return.
Another thing that could exclude the need for money to get things is simply through asking for what you need or want. And, believe or not, you are going to get it. I can tell you this from my own experience when I was dead broke and literally going from shop to shop asking for free food.
To summarize, I think that looking at the world as the community of many different groups of people on one side, and the communication skills and attitude of asking for what we really and truly need, want or desire could well enable each of us to realize our own prosperity and dream without any need to worry about money.
Hope this helps add value to this post’s topic in one way or another.
Thank you.
To your own prosperity and success!
Bruno Babic
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, Health care should be human right; however, now healthcare is being sold as goods.
This planet functions with or without money, period. People thinking that if money is removed we will all be come cave dwelling individuals This is just NOT TRUE. We have all the technology needed to sustain every single human on the planet. Moneys only purpose is to make more money, interest and debt. All these things are the number one contributor to the problems with our little blue planet. This planet only need love , caring and understanding from us. Nothing more, nothing less. Once we change our global focus to these simple things, we all will be richer than you can imagine.
I am patiently waiting for this needed global change and will do all I can to educate my children and my friends and the dude at the corner store, anyone who will listen.
Check out the Zeitgeist Movement.
Love, peace and happiness.
This Idea does not work, I tried it with my family and my extented family, and we all could not agree that our individual efforts had equal echange value. My neighborhood is the same way everyone basically thinks they individually are worth more time-effort-energy-concern than everyone else. Try doing away with religion instead if you really want to attain equality.
Money isn’t the problem, it’s some peoples love of money that creates the problems.
The world is not going to fall apart or end if we get rid of the money system. In fact, there would probably be more peace in the world because everyone would have enough. If there was a vote to get rid of the money system, i would vote yes. Humans created money, therefore, we can abolish it to.
Marcus,
Nice try, but I think that if that your idea of some kind of utopian society based on removing the monetary system is quite bogus from the start my friend. If that were a possibility, some society would have already tried it and would be thriving in this 21st century. Your primary or basic premise was not correct when you mentioned that basically everyone should trust in the good of humanity. We could never trust in the basic good of humanity because basically humanity is NOT good. Man is born into this world with a bent towards evil and he has a heart that is bound up with depravity, greed and selfishness. When a child is first born into this world, they have a selfish and unruly behavior and nature. You have to TEACH them to be have and be good, not the other way around. Because man is basically depraved and has a heart that is filled with greed and selfishness and is ego centered, they are inclined to want to have more than their fair share. No society that has tried socialism has thrived…just the opposite. Here in the United States, we have always been the greatest nation on the planet because of our founding and our religious moorings in the Judeo-Christian principles based on the teachings of Christ. Don’t go off on a hateful tangent. I don’t have time to debate this right now. You need to realize that people are not equal nor can you give that woman who sacrificially gives to their disabled child 24 X 7 the same as someone who sits on their butt all day waiting for their handout. There is no incentive for that person to work any harder if they know that by doing nothing, they get the same as someone who works 10 x’s as hard as them. We have freedom but any society that misuses that freedom by not exercising responsibility or who treads on other peoples rights for their own personal piece of the pie which they did not earn, is only going to do more damage and harm than good. You said that most of the negatives in our society are due to the monetary system, I disagree, they are from evil men exercising their power or greed over others who have less or who are weaker. Money is not evil….it’s THE LOVE of money…(GREED and SELFISHNESS) which comes from the heart of the individual. That sin nature needs to be dealt with FIRST, then when that individual gains the capacity to LOVE in the same selfless fashion that Christ demonstrated and follow the teachings of Christ, then and only then will we see what you hope for. Smarts is not enough….Look how much evil was in Hitler and yet he was a very smart man. Look at all the great minds in the past who did evil. And, who ever said life is supposed to be fun? I have certainly never heard that. Jesus said in this world you will have tribulation! If you were born in an underprivileged country, you still may have the capacity to love and do good because you were created in the image and likeness of God, . Even Jesus taught that even an evil man knows how to give good gifts to his own children, yet he himself is not fit for Heaven because he himself is lost and incapable of being Holy enough to merit Heaven by his own good works, If they crucified Jesus, then what makes you think that someone less than Jesus should go through life having fun all the time? If I was given everything I ever needed and wanted, I would not appreciate what I had but would rather project a sense of entitlement and think I deserved anything and everything that I received. NO you need to EARN your way if you are to acquire more than others and you don’t need a monetary system or lack thereof, to dictate how much you give to the poor and needy or the underprivileged or some charity. That is determined by the individual, some give it away so as not to have to pay a penalty in taxes or capital gains while others do it out of compassion and the goodness of their heart. The reason people suffer is not due to lack of the distribution of goods, but rather because of greed over the centuries and the wickedness of man not willing to share with others because their heart is basically evil. In addition to that, there are whole societies that are much harder to civilize and reach and logistically it is extremely difficult to give to them all that they need. This is an enormous undertaking and as I said the takers and the wicked, evil greedy men, would still act violently no matter what, until they had their hearts changed. It is the
United States who is the only nation that acts benevolent and charitable towards those poor nations and 3rd world countries and look into who is behind all of that goodness…the church, the Christians, The organizations like the Salvation Army, the people like Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, Outreaches like the Red Cross, and so many more which were originally founded and organized by good and decent people of faith. Yes I am a Christian. I am a man of faith and I’ve seen the good and the bad in both and in all, I myself was once a very bad person until I met the Lord and He changed my life, so now I see things much differently than before and believe me it is a remarkable change for the good. No I am not perfect, none of us are, but, if man would humble themselves and accept the gift of love and grace and forgiveness from God, that indeed would begin to make a huge difference in this world…not the abolition of the method of currency exchange we have in the US and the rest of the world. I love you man! Great ideas and I appreciate your good intentions!
Actually Bill your comments are flawed. A human being, or a new born baby is not born with an evil streak, moreover a new born baby that becomes a child and then progresses to adulthood is a product; (result) of circumstance. No baby can decide where it is born and to what environment it is born into, period!!! Your comment that all human kind errs towards evil is flawed in every dimension because I’m an example and I guarantee you
my friend there are many like minded me’s in this world. A new born human being cannot differentiate between good and evil, try sitting your newborn baby down in front of a movie such as Tim Burtons a Nightmare Before Christmas and it will not know the difference between Christmas Town and Halloween. Does that compute?!
“No money” is stupid ! The “capitalist idea” is a good way to make the progress of the world efficient ! BUT, today it is all corrupted by few people that don’t want to use the sharing system of capitalism. At starting, the idea of capitalism is to give possibility to employee to participate to the life of ther society (by buying or given to him) actions. BUT today all societies doesn’t want to see their employee to have actions nor be integrated into general assembly partners. If all compagies would be managed as like as french scoop, it should’nt be have povery in the world. Of course, it is not perfect, but every people should have any ressources to live properly.
Actualy societies enslave people with work to make proffit for only few people. If a day there is enough people to take control of enough societies to build a network of key societies in french scoop model in the economical world this could be able to end the enslavement and raise a new world of free(dom) people well remunerated to their work and able to build a better world.
People don’t see that a world cannot be without money because they worship it and fear the unknown. I completly concur with no money, people have lived before it and will continue to do so in an environment where equality is key and the poisoning of the world is finally done away with. People than ask well we have 7 billion people on the planet that is proposterous. I suppose that the erradication of our ozone and animals: complete plutonium and oil base destruction of our seas and land are ok right, well we will all be done away with if we don’t change back and close the corporations of the world who suppress magnetic motors. The only reason solar and wind capabilities currently exist here is because they can’t completly control the market just yet! May God bless the ones who try to take down the tyrants of the world. And may the endless lookers of happiness through money finally see the light.
The Meaning of Money
Tuesday, January 1, 1957
By: Ayn Rand
The following is an excerpt from the novel Atlas Shrugged, Copyright © 1957, by Ayn Rand. It is reprinted with permission from the estate of Ayn Rand. All rights reserved. Do not reprint without permission.
“So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
“When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?
“Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions–and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
“But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made–before it can be looted or mooched–made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.
“To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss–the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery–that you must offer them values, not wounds–that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade–with reason, not force, as their final arbiter–it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability–and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?
“But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality–the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.
“Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he’s evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he’s evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
“Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth–the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
“Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you’ll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?
“Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?
“Or did you say it’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money–and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.
“Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another–their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
“But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich–will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt–and of his life, as he deserves.
“Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard–the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money–the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law–men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims–then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world?’ You are.
“You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it’s crumbling around you, while you’re damning its life-blood–money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves–slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody’s mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers–as industrialists.
“To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money–and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man’s mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being–the self-made man–the American industrialist.
“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose–because it contains all the others–the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity–to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.
“Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters’ continents. Now the looters’ credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide–as, I think, he will.
“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other–and your time is running out.”
Two problems with this synopsis. The first almost completely makes the second disappear. First: With not only technology but mainly efficiency as to the main reason jobs are few and far between. the “job creators” want things more efficient for profit and speed of service. Second: What will the disabled, elderly and children do in this fast and efficient “job market”?
Every time I look in the Politics section, seonmoe is whining about poor people getting government assistance or food stamps or whatever. I’m pretty neutral on the issue but it just makes the people whining about it all the time come off as being insensitive assholes. I know the usual arguments about why people should not get assistance. But have you people ever been on public assistance? Do you even know any impoverished people? Do you even care? Why do you care so much about poor people getting food to feed their families versus say rich people to who cheat the government or receive corporate welfare?
Wonderful read! I agree 1000% we need to scrap the monetary system as its creating debt and poverty. We could use resource based economy, people need to realise we’ve long had the technology and resources for everyone to live happily. People need to wake up and see one day this system of our isn’t working and we are damaging ourselves and our plant. People should look into the Venus project and what that stands for! I’m all for it! And I’ve long been ready for it.
I would think you are joking, but i suspect you are not. The baker would bake to see our happy faces? Have you had a job? Do you know people? It is unfortunate perhaps that people are mostly motivated by need or desire and not by a love for their fellow humans, but that is reality. It has been that way since the fall of Adam.
Also, you are somewhat right in your initial sentence, but it is not money that is the problem; it is the love of money. “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil for which some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1 Timothy 6:10)
Removing the system of capitalism will not solve the problem. People will still be selfish and seek to have power and control one over another. They will just use other ways to do that. What is needed is a change of heart, so that people become loving rather than selfish at the core. This can come about only through repentance and faith in Jesus of Nazareth, our Savior, Who died for our sins and was raised on the third day.
He is the Solution to all our problems and He is already working to solve them. We who trust in Him have the certain hope that the day is soon coming when He will set all things right and we will live in a true paradise, established by the perfect God and not a supposed imitation concocted by clever but corrupt humans.
Come Lord Jesus! Amen!
The monetary system is a tool used by those in power to control the masses. Thank you for writing this article. Your contribution is appreciated.
I’d like to ad that more money will not solve the world’s problems. Logically speaking, when the system itself is the root cause of most of humanity’s problems, like war, famine (that’s right millions of people on this planet are starving every day when there clearly is more than enough resources to feed every single one of us), greed, and corruption.
The present monetary system, isolates us, preventing collaboration due to personal interests, it pits us against each other, and believe it or not, it stops us from doing what we want. Have you ever had a dream, felt a calling to do something, but “needed” more money. You wait, you work hard, save for your project/goal. As you attempt to do this, most of us will get distracted, caught up in other “financial obligations.” The result being, more often than not, that it is highly improbable that you will not be able to do what it was you were setting out to do. This is a very clear example on how money gets in the way of humanity realizing our full potential. We are enslaved by the current system and we are being lied to on so many levels.