Imagine if there was more than one of...

By Tim Jenkin

There are many things in our lives where there is just one of a thing. For example, there is just one air supply, one water supply, one electricity supply, one drainage system, one road system, one telephony supplier (soon to end, we are told), one government, one legal system, one of all kinds of things. We have got so used to there being just one of these things that we never imagine that there could be more than one them.

But imagine if there was more than one of some of these things. Imagine if there was more than one air supply. This might come about one day when our urban air supply is just too polluted to breathe and someone provides fresh, filtered air that we could breathe through some kind of breathing apparatus like astronauts or scuba divers.

Imagine if there was free competition in water supply and we could have four or six taps on our sinks and basins. The water providers would compete with each other by providing filtered water, cooled water, flavoured water, fizzy water and so on. Not very practical. Which lever would we use to flush our toilets?

Imagine if there was competition in electricity and we had four switches for each light and each plug on the wall. Providers could provide super-smoothed electricity, direct current electricity for our electronic apparatuses, electricity that we could use for communicating etc. Again not very practical. Life would become too complicated and we would connect the wrong things to the wrong plugs.

Imagine if we had more than one set of drains. How would we decide which drainage provider gets our dirty bath water? Imagine if there was more than one set of roads. Where would the second or third set go. Would they have to be on stilts or under the ground?

We can all imagine how things will improve when there is more than one telephony provider!

Imagine if there was more than one government in each country. We could decide which one we should pay our taxes to and which one's laws we should obey. Wouldn't work. Each government would try to outlaw the other and there would be constant war. Politicians might even cross the road to the other government if the pay is better.

So it is correct that for many things there should only be one thing. To have more than one of many things would not provide any more convenience; in many cases it would create more inconvenience.

But having more than one of some things that we formerly thought there could only be one of, can create more convenience. There used to be just one postal and delivery system — the post office — now there are many courier and postal services that really have made a difference. There used to be just one refuse removal service, now there are many.

Now imagine if there was more than one money system. We have all grown up with the idea that there is just the one money system, the one provided by, well, the government isn't it? In this country we call our money Rands and cents. It is the only money system operating within our borders, though we can buy Pounds and Dollars if we want to but we can't use them for general trading. They call our national money legal tender and it is the only stuff we can use to pay our taxes, and it is illegal to refuse it if it is offered in payment within the boundaries of South Africa. We are not allowed to copy it or make our own money that looks like the national money, and call it Rands and cents. That is called counterfeiting. If it has no material existence and is called Rands and cents then it is legal for banks to 'create' it by themselves, for themselves on a computer in much the same way as a note forger would print notes for himself on a printing machine.

Would having another money system create more convenience? How would a second or third money system be more useful than the one we already have? Would I have to carry two or three wallets? Would I be richer?

These are not the questions to ask. What should be asked is: Does the current money system do what it claims to do, namely, serve as a neutral mechanism to facilitate trading? Is it serving society well? Is it serving me well?

The answer to all these questions is an unequivocal NO.

The monopolistic Rand money system is NOT something that is provided by the government as a public service but by private companies who do so for private gain. Money in this system is provided by commercial banks as a business service and it is done so for their own profit and for no other reason. While the South African Reserve Bank, also a privately-owned institution, does issue a small amount of debt-free money in the form of cash, most money in our national money system comes into circulation as interest-bearing debt. The overall control of our money system, however, is in the hands of the banks and other financial institutions, not in the government's. The latter can influence fiscal policy and the SARB influences monetary policy, but the overall functioning of the money system is controlled by private institutions. And as they say, those who control money control everything!

If these money-issuing private companies are providing our money for the sole purpose of their own private gain how then can this money system be operating in the best interests of the people who use it? How can we say that money is neutral? The simple answer is that it doesn't operate in our best interests; it operates in the interests of those who provide it.

Banks only provide enough money as it is profitable for them to do so. They do this by granting credit to those who already have money, those who have provable means of repaying it or those who have material assets to act as collateral. Those who do not meet the banks' criteria need money as much as anyone else, but they are cut out of the loop and left to fend for themselves.

Every Rand that banks issue comes with a requirement that more must paid back than is granted as credit. This requirement is never created and can only come from someone else obtaining more bank credit. There is thus a permanent state of more debt than there is money to pay it back - debt chasing debt. To ensure that the principal plus the interest can be paid back there has to be a constant expansion of bank credit (debt). This forces us all to compete and requires that the money supply, and hence the economy, constantly grows. This growth is not inspired by a desire to see more of us living better but out of sheer necessity. Should the money supply stop growing there will not be enough to pay back the interest and so a depression will ensue and banks will go out of business. This need for a constant growth of the money supply is manifested as the growth imperative of our economies, which is leading to the destruction of our environment.

Think about it. The money system that we have is not God given; it is a human creation. It was made to work the way it does by those who control it. Specifically it was designed to enrich those who control the supply of money, and this can only happen if it impoverishes the rest of us.

If it is human beings who create money systems then most definitely we can create another one (or more). The CES is an example of how an alternative money system could work. This might not be immediately apparent because it is so small, but there is no reason why it could not do everything that the conventional money system does, and more. The most fundamental difference is that the CES is controlled by the people who use it. It is a democratic money system because money is created on demand by its users and not by profit-seeking institutions outside the circuit of buyers and sellers. CES money is 'free' in that no interest is demanded and it is not constantly sucked away from those who create it to a parasitic class of usurers.

The point of this article was to help you to come to terms with the notion of multiple money systems. The dominant national money system can be challenged and must be challenged because it is defective and dysfunctional, benefiting only a small fraction of humanity and destroying our planet. Money is not one of those things that there should only be one of...

From Community Exchange News No.24, 10 September 2005

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