Money and Serfdom

Interesting article

Below is an excerpt. The cart analogy is clear. He suggests either local money or go bankrupt and move to Mexico. This is a British article.

What Is Money?

Jon Ronnquist – Information Clearing House Dec 13, 2008

The problem with money is essentially a question of faith. Money is a promise represented in paper, metal and digits and is as valuable as it is trustworthy. And because trust is a volatile and abstract thing at best, so is money a risky business. Its usefulness is of course undeniable. In a world as complex and multifaceted as this one, barter becomes increasingly limited as a practical means of exchange. And yet we should do well to remember that for all its practicality, money posses a very real danger, the obvious one being devaluation. But that is by no means the only or the most serious threat posed by money. As in all matters of faith, manipulation is the far greater evil.

The gold standard against which currency was once levelled is now the distant memory of a bygone age. Whatever value is represented by your Dollars, Pounds and Euros is now set solely against the trust of the user, which is to say what buyers and sellers believe it to be worth. And so it should be and must be. No man would take money for his livestock or labour if he did not believe it would be accepted in kind by the purveyors of his own needs. This is basic economics and I see no reason to bore anybody with such things. The point is that money, as a concept, is sound and necessary. But what happens when it falls into the hands of those who see money as something more than a simple mechanism of trade? Those who see in it also an opportunity to consolidate power. Then we are in trouble...

Fourth and last, money must be introduced into circulation as payment, not debt. To make money available on the condition that it must be taken back out of circulation in equal or greater measure is a violation of its purpose and leads to all manner of problems. Earth in the twenty-first century being the most obvious one.

As populations rise, production increases and trade expands, more money must be made available to facilitate it. The question of how this is done fairly is simple but requires first and foremost a sound government. Money must be introduced through payment for goods and services of universal benefit to the population. This means direct investment into public infrastructure, services and institutions. Healthcare, roads, bridges, libraries, parks, highways, schools, research and science, welfare institutions, water and power infrastructure, the maintenance of public parks and wildlife reserves and public transport to name a few. ...

What we live today is a twist on that reality and one that we better star seeing for what it is. Contrary to popular belief, the great failed Marxist experiments of the age are not failures of those philosophies so much as proof that there is no room left in the order of things to even try them.

...And where the common man agrees, it is only on the understanding that modern government are not really governments at all, but representatives of private power. A government run by and for the people is an absolute must if society is to progress at all.

...Another thing that should not be allowed to happen to money is it's pining against the value of other currencies. When it is, it immediately becomes a commodity in its own right, traded like goods with the aim of increasing wealth. This is an essential violation of the axioms which govern money and a gateway to extensive abuse...

Before the post office, the water works, the phone companies and the coal mines were auctioned out of the hands of the people and into those of for-profit private enterprise, another public service was sold to the private sector, the money works. In an age none are old enough to remember, and a frighteningly small percentage of us even know about, the production, supply and regulation of national currencies was surrender by government after government. ...

THIS IS GREAT:

... Think of it this way. A trader does business between two markets several miles apart. To move his products back and forth between them he needs carts. But carts cannot be made or owned, they can only be borrowed. And for every cart that is borrowed two must be returned in due course. So he borrows ten carts on the understanding that he must return twenty by year's end. Only by year's end he not only has but ten carts, he needs another ten to keep up with his expanding business. His only choice is two borrow forty new carts. Twenty to return as payment for the first ten and twenty for use. And now he owes eighty carts by year's end. And the better things get, the deeper in debt he is. And the circle can never be broken. So why doesn't he just make his own carts? It would be easy enough. Only by the time he comes to this simple conclusion, the law, the courts and the police are all in the cart borrowing enforcement business.

And so it is with the money supply today. All the money, the land and the commodities on earth could not pay all the debt. And as interest is ever due and mounting, borrowing must grow to keep up. Where does the cycle end? By all appearances, it's ending now...Your willingness to work hasn't changed and nor has your desire for the things you would buy with your earnings. Everything is in place to allow life to go on, bar one thing. The worthless paper and coinage that serve as nothing but a tool of interaction. If everyone simply agreed, we could start printing our own money at home and use it to go on as we did. Provided it didn't get out of hand...

...Delegate your divine right of money creation for interest to commercial banks and watch the population strangle itself with unmanageable debt. Allow Wall Street to create value out of thin air by turning confidence into price tags which soon have no comparable relation to the things they are attached to, as banks increase lending to make them affordable to you and me. Wait for the population to buckle under under the strain of unmanageable debt, then lend more to their governments. Watch wars begin and lend to each side. Every time the cycle comes full circle, the concentration of power is a little less diluted and a lot more frightening...

One means of circumventing a crash created by a lack of national currency is the creation of a local currency. This has been done throughout history on many occasions to counter the collapse of national banks. It's a shame to think that the ingenuity such a bold plan would require is fatally lacking in most modern communities, who have become so dependant on the vicious circle of big banks, big employers and big chain stores for their survival that such a radical departure from the comfort of the status quo would almost certainly be beyond the imagination. Saying that, pressure can have a miraculous effect on the mindset.

I don't know if things are too far gone to allow for hope of real change, but I think we are about to find out one way or the other.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21451.htm

He also said one could just stop paying debts, declare bankruptcy and move to Mexico. The creditors don't really like you anyway.