[GJM] Is Money Obsolete?

[Steve Consilvio]

Hi All,

In watching the discussion here, there and everywhere, always the  
discussion is about money. The rich fear the poor, the poor fear the  
rich. Nobody can get their budget to balance. Corporations,  
governments, NGO's are all perpetually seeking more money to survive,  
the same as the individual and families.

Maybe the time has come to recognize the obvious: Money itself is the  
problem. Not who has more of it, or who has less of it, but the  
intellectual idea that time and land should be "valued" by this third  
party we call "The Marketplace," and the concept of money.

We need to have a Jubillee and move on. What you possess is what you  
own. The Charters are meaningless. In reading over some peace  
treaties of prior centuries yesterday, I was amazed at how the  
concept of debt endures even at the end of war and a cycle of  
destruction. Why is there so much fear in regard to forgiving debt  
and moving on? This is all indicative of an inability to trust one  
another, and a perpetuation of the idea that money is "real" and of  
primary importance.

Until we recognize that money is meaningless, and that it is the  
relationship between people that is the most important, any attempt  
at reform is simply to recreate the problem anew. The marketplace of  
profit and interest is not about making fair exchanges (much less  
charity) it is about "regulating" unfair exchanges. What an oxymoron!  
Like "the rules of war," it simply makes no sense to regulate what is  
an insane behavior with "rules" to legitimize the insanity.

Money is all the media and everyone talks about. Prices are good,  
bad, too rich, too poor, going up, going down, meeting expectations,  
passing expectations not meeting expectations, needing relief,  
underbudget, foreclose, bankruptcy, eviction, overpaid, underpaid,  
fines, penalty etc., and so on. All of these "financial  
relationships" are defined by the supremacy of money in the exchanges  
between men and institutions. The law creates money, but it is men  
that accept the concept.

Rather than burning books, burning buildings, burning people, burning  
ships, burning bridges and burning our possessions, maybe what we  
need to burn is the currency. Forgive all debts, erase all the rules,  
and start over. All of those things that were just burned, however,  
belong to "other" people. We need to start locally, in our own  
community, and with ourself.

The only promise that democracy ever offered was the ability to  
change the world without the need for blood being spilled. Thus far  
it is a failure because both the people and the leaders think alike  
regarding money. (Even Cromwell returned to the idea of tolerating  
Interest once victorious.) Democracy can only solve a political  
problem, it takes a change in economic behavior to solve an economic  
problem.  The politically ambitious do not have an economic analysis  
of what is wrong, only WHO is to blame. What I am describing is not a  
political action, it does not require political power; what it does  
require is a change in social mores regarding money. In essence, we  
need a divestiture movement from banking, insurance and the stock  
market. The promise of making wealth grow is the seduction that  
creates this ponzi scheme we are all trapped in. These institutions  
find it impossible to survive, too.

In other words, by creating a PERSONAL DIVESTITURE MOVEMENT, the net  
effect is that the ponzi scheme will collapse. The ponzi scheme only  
works if new people are perpetually buying into the existing scheme.   
This should prevent an economic collapse, or war, because the net  
effect, as it is done slowly, will be to create a pricing  
equilibrium. As institutions follow suit, because they only do what  
everybody else does, too, we eventually end up with a society where  
people and relationships are valued more than money and objects. If  
the ponzi scheme cannot pay its dividends, then nobody will play, and  
there will be nobody working its ropes in a desperate attempt to  
survive. Mao's "paper tiger" will be slayed. At a minimum, the next  
generation will be warned not to play, whereas today they are  
indoctrinated into playing, and are taught the idea that stockholders  
are "owners" of the company.

The world doesn't need more absentee "owners" it needs more people  
sharing and working together. That is true of both political and  
economic power. Our crisis can be understood as the economic  
mismanagement of surplus. People can only invest what they can afford  
to lose. Rather than using their surplus, what they are really doing  
is abusing their surplus, and devaluing it by creating inflation, the  
very thing they hoped to avoid. The more successfully money "grows"  
the less value it holds. The cure is worse than the disease. Our  
money, and our money system, is obsolete. A better world is possible.

peace,
steve consilvio
www.behappyandfree.com