Global Finance Strategies for Peace, Prosperity, and Regeneration for All
Starting with a phenomenology of finance, to a history of finance, The End of Finance, by Massismo Amato & Luca Fantacci, is intended to be read from the beginning to the end. However, each part is rich, clear, and savory. I’ve begun with this chunk (the fourth chapter in the third and final section) in order to “begin with the end in mind” as Stephen Covey proposes. I am also currently in discussion about global financial reform and climate change and for the purposes of those discussions wanted to distill the final chapters.
Matthew Slater (aka the Barefoot Economist), a longtime advocate and educator for mutual credit and credit commons, has made this book available in audio format on his website here. Again, thank you, Matthew, for your passion and tireless work to address monetary solutions.
Section 3: Politics
Chapter 4- Another Finance
As long as currency can be saved and exchanged, it will be preferred to any other money, any other good, or any other object of value. (It will be more valuable to people than our values!)
Therefore, change cannot just be made at the local level, or even the national level. Financial reform must be made at the global level. And at the global level, the same definitions and design principles must be applied, if we are going to have money to spend and relieve ourselves of the constant debt burden.
A clearing system for international trade is necessary.
This is because:
1- We need a medium of exchange that circulates exclusively for payment of trade, and cannot be saved or hoarded by some countries (who then loan it out at interest to other, less financially fortunate countries.)
In order to do this, the circulating currency must be subjected to a rate of depreciation, or demurrage.
The velocity of money is far more powerful, valuable, and virtuous than the quantity.
Therefore, we must design money to circulate, rather than simply continue to increase the amount of money in circulation by loaning more of it.
2- International investments should be direct, focusing on and valuing long-term relationships of exchanging skills and knowledge, not short-term monetary gains (which inevitably cause harm and a global culture of war, where the closest to peace that we get is truce).
3- Reduce the advantage of storing money over storing commodities of real value as a means of deterring power hoarding.
To do this, the market can be supplemented with public storage programs for raw materials and foodstuff.
This can help to significantly stabilize the prices of primary goods, benefitting producers and consumers alike, by absorbing surplus and providing supply in periods of scarcity.
This is a return to traditional principles of food administration (akin to the longhouses in many Native American cultures), making it possible for primary goods to regain their character as reserves, to be built up and distributed promptly and fairly when needed.
In this way, goods, rather than money, could once again be wealth par excellence.
Money as a store of value would cease.
These are the principles and tools for reforming our financial system.
What responses do you have to the solutions proposed?
**As I write, I imagine the warring mentality overtaking the logic processors of our brains to refute the possibility of storing goods in public coffers. That these would be raided, or be a cause for war, especially as things get safe. I’m interested to hear what comes up for people, and the extent to which we can see that global security comes from designing for distribution more than shoring up and protecting what we hoard. How do we address these concerns at an individual, local, and national level, and get beyond the power hoarding and politics that our reactive fingers on the triggers?
