Dale Pond made a very good post re the 5th plank of the Communist
Manifesto. The centralization of power in the hands of a few is
clearly tied to the creation of money. In order to recapture freedom
we have to learn how to create and control a decentralized system.
Few writers can offer better understanding of what a money system is
and who should really create money than Thomas Greco. His book is
online and free. A newer version is near printing stage and I for one
will definitely buy a copy. These lines are from the online version:
http://www.ic.org/market/money/toc.html
If you have studied money at all you already know that all paper
currencies are IOUs. But the IOU has a very important and much ignored
feature which was observed by Greco.
Greco: . . .one must first recognize this essential fact, that [paper]
money has a beginning and an ending; it is created and it is
extinguished.
The money issued may be thought of as an IOU which the buyer uses to
pay for the goods and services he bought. That IOU might be passed
along from hand-to-hand as each recipient in turn uses it to pay for
his/her own purchase.
Eventually, it must come back to the originator of the IOU who redeems
it by selling something of value.
As an example, The originator, Mr. Able, buys something of value from
Mr. Baker. He gives Mr. Baker his IOU Baker then uses the IOU to buy
something from Mr. Cook, who, in turn uses it to buy something from Ms.
Drew. The IOU may continue to change hands any number of times as
others use it to buy and sell, but eventually, it must return to Mr.
Able. At that point, Able has fulfilled his commitment to redeem the
money he issued (the IOU).
And this from J Walter Plinge of France that adds to the above:
"So, keeping to the fundamentals, we can deduce that any legitimate
paper money which can be called commodity backed is issued as an IOU
to the producer of real goods or commodities and that money must
return to the issuer for payment with something of equivalent value.
That brings us to the logical conclusion. . .
A citation by Greco, of E. C. Riegel, 1944: That the Government can
issue money for the people, is an utter fallacy.
That is, we lack any explanation of how a central authority -- being
neither the producer of commodities, nor having anything of value with
which to redeem the currency it issues -- might come to issue and
redeem money."
end of Plinge material
From Cal: I mostly lurk on the egold list as I regard egold as one
approach to building a decentralized world currency. I personally do
not regard gold as the only possibility. Understanding and implementing
a mutual credit system is another possibility.
I have a word document of eight pages which will cause some of you to
rethink your positions on money in general which I will send to any
request. Sends at 60 Kb. Send an email to calsch(at)montana.com Called
"Theoretical on Nature of Money"
Cal
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