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Of course you are right that debt abd credit will always exist.
When I read GB’s comment I read it as referring to fractional reserve banking as we currently have it – controlled by the private banks. It is that kind of sovereign debt I was thinking of in my reply.
I don’t think many people object to one person lending to another or a chit of credit acting as a temporary store and means of transferring wealth. Perhaps some do. I am not one.
Credit is a useful social mechanism. But it has got out of hand and into the hands of a few who use it to cause destitution and as the means to create huge and increasingly non-democratic power.
I think we can and must move away from such a distorted and morally corrupt social construction.
I am not looking for moral or political purity in some utopian fashion. I am simply looking for a better social compact and one that fits to an environmentally constrained world not the old idea of ever expanding growth.’
In response, here is a proposal for an Aristotelian Asset Money System.
‘When the lamp of money is lit a circle of shadows form filled with usurers, counterfeiters, thieves, swindlers and sociopaths. The light must be protected at all costs or the destiny of humanity is stolen.’
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Richard Buckminster Fuller
’So Aristotle calls money a creature of the law. Not a commodity from nature but an abstract social institution. Its essence is not tangible wealth in itself, but a power to obtain wealth. THIS IS REGARDED AS A SUPREMELY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION – BETWEEN MONEY and wealth. If you are always trading in “things” it’s just an advanced form of barter.’
Zarlenga, ‘The Lost Science of Money.
1 – The Aristotelian system
I suggest we create a pure Aristotelian money system as an education device, as a system which is both transparent and yet resistant to fraud, a system designed to maximise freedom and value for its participants, with money acting simply as a medium for trade and not as a tool for usury.
This maximises the human potential for relationship, art, self discovery, growth and the pursuit of higher states of consciousness.
2 – What software to use?
The software platform would probably be the Cyclos software which runs many community currencies. There is a Cyclos 4 version now available in Beta form which will be free to non-profit organisations. (
There are two fundamental ways of creating abstract money once we move beyond gifts, barter and commodity exchanges. They are primarily debt money in private hands and asset money in the hands of the nation.
Debt money usually comes into existence at the moment of the loan creation and is burdened with the three demons of inflation, interest and taxation.
Asset money exists like the waters behind a dam wall, self-existing, relatively eternal, and when controlled correctly it supplies water and power in amounts to cause neither drought nor flood. It is the money system proposed by Aristotle.
4 – The Money Unit
I propose that the money unit for the system would be similar to the scientific measurement for the metre which is the meeting point for time, space and the speed of light. (” a metre is the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.)
The money unit then, the Aristotelian unit of A, is the distance the human body-mind of a normal 80kg human covers at walking speed (5km/hr) in a period of one hour (5000m.) This A unit deems walking, the state of ‘relaxed falling’, to be similar in value to one hour of focused mind in study and intent.
These units can then be converted into joules, calories, light quanta, etc, as desired.
This measurement is the historical meeting point for human physiology, mind, time, space and the speed of light – a measurement which has been inflation proof for the last four million years of human hunter-gatherer existence and which is inherently logical to the human psyche.
(To say that we have no money while we have the life force of the community is to be simply hung upon the ‘cross of gold’ of William Bryan.)
Further, just as all previous measurement systems used by western science became redundant when the speed of light was measured in metres, so too does this system reflect a crossing of the ‘historical Rubicon’ into the realm of quantum finance.
(FAQ1 – Why talk of walking speed when we now travel at the speed of a Ferrari? Answer – when we add the hours spent in learning the craft to make the money to own the Ferrari we may be travelling slower than the hunter-gatherers from four million years ago at 5km/hr!)
FAQ2 – What differentiates between the work hour of a doctor and a street sweeper? Answer – the sweeper can charge 10 units an hour, the doctor 100. These measures simply reflect the completed hours of learning and experience which the professional brings to the task.)
Note: At this point the A unit would not be transferable into global financial currency systems because of the inherent problems with the legal and taxation systems. The A system would simply be a self functioning marketplace to demonstrate Aristotelian principles.
5 – Central Monetary Authority
The A system will have a central Monetary Authority for the creation and removal of A money, it will not be a peer to peer system, nor a debt or gift system.
The Authority will have the power to issue A money to itself instead of external taxation for its cost structure and projects. All efforts to avoid charging interest will be made.
(Interest on loaning a commodity such as gold is logical, interest on debt money created from nothing at the point of the loan however is simply criminal.
The problem Arab banking has with the interest problem with commodity backed money should be avoided with money based simply upon human life force. Losses can simply be voided within the system and penalties imposed.
There will however be strict guidelines with the initial loans and without the charges of taxation and interest echoing through the system I suspect the losses would be minimal as interest alone can be 40% of the final cost of goods and services.
This of course is all part of the educational experiment and the belief in the essence of human integrity!)
Note: If the A system was to be used for a nation, perhaps after a debt Jubilee and a debt Commission, then the Monetary Authority would have members elected by the general population, with four year tenures, who must approve the budgets of the Monetary Authority. This removes the potential power abuses of the professional bureaucracy and the inherent human tendency to create secret cabals.
6 – Starting the system running
Upon signing up to the A system each person would receive 100 A units plus a further 20 A’s per month for five months to make a seed fund of 200 A’s.
The Monetary Authority can also create A’s to expand the system according to need and numbers. A’s can also be withdrawn if the system starts to overheat.
Each A unit would be numbered with no rehypothecation, securitisation or fractional reserve creation. Each A’s position within the system would be instantly traceable. Accounts would also be transparent so that people can view the transaction history of the people they are dealing with.
People can apply to the Authority for business loans according to basic lending principles. They can also apply to other system members with excess capital.
There could perhaps be a monthly social dividend – say 20A depending upon the flow within each personal account. Zero transactions would be a zero dividend, a normal flow of
STRO’s objective is to move money as a major steering mechanism in society from causing environmental abuse and preventing many poor to optimise their capacities, to become an instrument that serves a qualitative human development. The first STRO was founded in 1970
Back to the heart of the western tradition in philosophy, free will v determinism, Paramenides v Hericlitus, Timonism v cynicism. HAMILTON: Had a noted business-financial bias; believed in original sin—the natural depravity of human beings, therefore strong controls called for; he had authoritarian inclinations and an entrepreneurial spirit. JEFFERSON: He had an agricultural bias; he also believed in human perfectibility and was wedded to ideas of reason and science; he therefore mistrusted government because of his belief in human goodness.“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam”, nihil sub sole novum.
Rockerfellers v Rothschilds Aristotelians v Platonists Left V Right . In the Heuristics of Going DIrect its UP and Down and RIch and Poor not Left and Right.
The Giant Sucking Sound , A Sharp intake of Breath, A duel to the death. The New United States Republic 1776-2016.
In 1729 Benjamin Franklin wrote a pamphlet ´´A modest Enquiry into the nature and the necessity of a paper Currency.”
a modest enquiry,
”There is no Science, the Study of which is more useful and commendable than the Knowledge of the true Interest of one’s Country; and perhaps there is no Kind of Learning more abstruse and intricate, more difficult to acquire in any Degree of Perfection than This, and therefore none more generally neglected. Hence it is, that we every Day find Men in Conversation contending warmly on some Point in Politicks, which, altho’ it may nearly concern them both, neither of them understand any more than they do each other.
Thus much by way of Apology for this present Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. And if any Thing I shall say, may be a Means of fixing a Subject that is now the chief Concern of my Countrymen, in a clearer Light, I shall have the Satisfaction of thinking my Time and Pains well employed.
To proceed, then,
There is a certain proportionate Quantity of Money requisite to carry on the Trade of a Country freely and currently; More than which would be of no Advantage in Trade, and Less, if much less, exceedingly detrimental to it.
This leads us to the following general Considerations.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/grubstreetinexile/p/the-full-money-enchilada?r=l1oox&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Money ,
Some omissions worth expanding on.
The BIS , the central bank of Central Banks.
Definition of the unit of account, is money a measure?
An honest measure must be fixed as opposed to rigged.
The Jeffersonian view is per pro Honest money and congressional oversight.
The Hamiltonian view is decidedly elitist, Whig like.
Walter Buriens, a rock thrown in the pond. In the link, rulers of the world, Michael Journal in the link.
A huge subject, start with Aristotle and end with Elexirs comment on the Golem XIV Blog in May 2013.
Elixer May 31, 2013 at 10:25 am #
Golem you wrote:
‘Hello Robin,
Of course you are right that debt abd credit will always exist.
When I read GB’s comment I read it as referring to fractional reserve banking as we currently have it – controlled by the private banks. It is that kind of sovereign debt I was thinking of in my reply.
I don’t think many people object to one person lending to another or a chit of credit acting as a temporary store and means of transferring wealth. Perhaps some do. I am not one.
Credit is a useful social mechanism. But it has got out of hand and into the hands of a few who use it to cause destitution and as the means to create huge and increasingly non-democratic power.
I think we can and must move away from such a distorted and morally corrupt social construction.
I am not looking for moral or political purity in some utopian fashion. I am simply looking for a better social compact and one that fits to an environmentally constrained world not the old idea of ever expanding growth.’
In response, here is a proposal for an Aristotelian Asset Money System.
‘When the lamp of money is lit a circle of shadows form filled with usurers, counterfeiters, thieves, swindlers and sociopaths. The light must be protected at all costs or the destiny of humanity is stolen.’
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Richard Buckminster Fuller
’So Aristotle calls money a creature of the law. Not a commodity from nature but an abstract social institution. Its essence is not tangible wealth in itself, but a power to obtain wealth. THIS IS REGARDED AS A SUPREMELY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION – BETWEEN MONEY and wealth. If you are always trading in “things” it’s just an advanced form of barter.’
Zarlenga, ‘The Lost Science of Money.
1 – The Aristotelian system
I suggest we create a pure Aristotelian money system as an education device, as a system which is both transparent and yet resistant to fraud, a system designed to maximise freedom and value for its participants, with money acting simply as a medium for trade and not as a tool for usury.
This maximises the human potential for relationship, art, self discovery, growth and the pursuit of higher states of consciousness.
2 – What software to use?
The software platform would probably be the Cyclos software which runs many community currencies. There is a Cyclos 4 version now available in Beta form which will be free to non-profit organisations. (
http://www.cyclos.org/
)
This Cyclos software includes online banking, mobile banking, credit and debit card creation, and marketplace e-commerce.
https://www.cyclos.org/features
3 – Two forms of money
There are two fundamental ways of creating abstract money once we move beyond gifts, barter and commodity exchanges. They are primarily debt money in private hands and asset money in the hands of the nation.
Debt money usually comes into existence at the moment of the loan creation and is burdened with the three demons of inflation, interest and taxation.
Asset money exists like the waters behind a dam wall, self-existing, relatively eternal, and when controlled correctly it supplies water and power in amounts to cause neither drought nor flood. It is the money system proposed by Aristotle.
4 – The Money Unit
I propose that the money unit for the system would be similar to the scientific measurement for the metre which is the meeting point for time, space and the speed of light. (” a metre is the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.)
The money unit then, the Aristotelian unit of A, is the distance the human body-mind of a normal 80kg human covers at walking speed (5km/hr) in a period of one hour (5000m.) This A unit deems walking, the state of ‘relaxed falling’, to be similar in value to one hour of focused mind in study and intent.
These units can then be converted into joules, calories, light quanta, etc, as desired.
This measurement is the historical meeting point for human physiology, mind, time, space and the speed of light – a measurement which has been inflation proof for the last four million years of human hunter-gatherer existence and which is inherently logical to the human psyche.
(To say that we have no money while we have the life force of the community is to be simply hung upon the ‘cross of gold’ of William Bryan.)
Further, just as all previous measurement systems used by western science became redundant when the speed of light was measured in metres, so too does this system reflect a crossing of the ‘historical Rubicon’ into the realm of quantum finance.
(FAQ1 – Why talk of walking speed when we now travel at the speed of a Ferrari? Answer – when we add the hours spent in learning the craft to make the money to own the Ferrari we may be travelling slower than the hunter-gatherers from four million years ago at 5km/hr!)
FAQ2 – What differentiates between the work hour of a doctor and a street sweeper? Answer – the sweeper can charge 10 units an hour, the doctor 100. These measures simply reflect the completed hours of learning and experience which the professional brings to the task.)
Note: At this point the A unit would not be transferable into global financial currency systems because of the inherent problems with the legal and taxation systems. The A system would simply be a self functioning marketplace to demonstrate Aristotelian principles.
5 – Central Monetary Authority
The A system will have a central Monetary Authority for the creation and removal of A money, it will not be a peer to peer system, nor a debt or gift system.
The Authority will have the power to issue A money to itself instead of external taxation for its cost structure and projects. All efforts to avoid charging interest will be made.
(Interest on loaning a commodity such as gold is logical, interest on debt money created from nothing at the point of the loan however is simply criminal.
The problem Arab banking has with the interest problem with commodity backed money should be avoided with money based simply upon human life force. Losses can simply be voided within the system and penalties imposed.
There will however be strict guidelines with the initial loans and without the charges of taxation and interest echoing through the system I suspect the losses would be minimal as interest alone can be 40% of the final cost of goods and services.
This of course is all part of the educational experiment and the belief in the essence of human integrity!)
Note: If the A system was to be used for a nation, perhaps after a debt Jubilee and a debt Commission, then the Monetary Authority would have members elected by the general population, with four year tenures, who must approve the budgets of the Monetary Authority. This removes the potential power abuses of the professional bureaucracy and the inherent human tendency to create secret cabals.
6 – Starting the system running
Upon signing up to the A system each person would receive 100 A units plus a further 20 A’s per month for five months to make a seed fund of 200 A’s.
The Monetary Authority can also create A’s to expand the system according to need and numbers. A’s can also be withdrawn if the system starts to overheat.
Each A unit would be numbered with no rehypothecation, securitisation or fractional reserve creation. Each A’s position within the system would be instantly traceable. Accounts would also be transparent so that people can view the transaction history of the people they are dealing with.
People can apply to the Authority for business loans according to basic lending principles. They can also apply to other system members with excess capital.
There could perhaps be a monthly social dividend – say 20A depending upon the flow within each personal account. Zero transactions would be a zero dividend, a normal flow of
http://www.cyclos.org/
STRO’s objective is to move money as a major steering mechanism in society from causing environmental abuse and preventing many poor to optimise their capacities, to become an instrument that serves a qualitative human development. The first STRO was founded in 1970
https://open.substack.com/pub/grubstreetinexile/p/creorder-out-of-chaos-capital-as?r=l1oox&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
https://substack.com/@grubstreetinexile/note/c-120848927
Back to the heart of the western tradition in philosophy, free will v determinism, Paramenides v Hericlitus, Timonism v cynicism. HAMILTON: Had a noted business-financial bias; believed in original sin—the natural depravity of human beings, therefore strong controls called for; he had authoritarian inclinations and an entrepreneurial spirit. JEFFERSON: He had an agricultural bias; he also believed in human perfectibility and was wedded to ideas of reason and science; he therefore mistrusted government because of his belief in human goodness.“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam”, nihil sub sole novum.
Rockerfellers v Rothschilds Aristotelians v Platonists Left V Right . In the Heuristics of Going DIrect its UP and Down and RIch and Poor not Left and Right.
https://substack.com/@grubstreetinexile/note/c-120182202
https://open.substack.com/pub/grubstreetinexile/p/the-full-money-enchilada?r=l1oox&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
The Money Myth Exploded Money is created as debt
This results in exponential growth of debt: P′=D(1+rt)2P′=D(1+rt)2
https://open.substack.com/pub/grubstreetinexile/p/the-money-myth-exploded-money-is?r=l1oox&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
https://web.archive.org/web/20201029185751/https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2016/11/05/the-giant-sucking-sound-a-sharp-intake-of-breath-a-duel-to-the-death-the-new-united-states-republic-1776-2016/
The Giant Sucking Sound , A Sharp intake of Breath, A duel to the death. The New United States Republic 1776-2016.
In 1729 Benjamin Franklin wrote a pamphlet ´´A modest Enquiry into the nature and the necessity of a paper Currency.”
a modest enquiry,
”There is no Science, the Study of which is more useful and commendable than the Knowledge of the true Interest of one’s Country; and perhaps there is no Kind of Learning more abstruse and intricate, more difficult to acquire in any Degree of Perfection than This, and therefore none more generally neglected. Hence it is, that we every Day find Men in Conversation contending warmly on some Point in Politicks, which, altho’ it may nearly concern them both, neither of them understand any more than they do each other.
Thus much by way of Apology for this present Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. And if any Thing I shall say, may be a Means of fixing a Subject that is now the chief Concern of my Countrymen, in a clearer Light, I shall have the Satisfaction of thinking my Time and Pains well employed.
To proceed, then,
There is a certain proportionate Quantity of Money requisite to carry on the Trade of a Country freely and currently; More than which would be of no Advantage in Trade, and Less, if much less, exceedingly detrimental to it.
This leads us to the following general Considerations.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20201029185751/http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0041