My thesis is that the "dollar" has become totally and thoroughly corrupted by the power or authority necessary to support it. Money has become an amoral force that has become destructive to society and individuals. Perhaps "Anti Life" is a good name for it, as suggested by: Catholic Profs: Ryan budget is "anti-life" -
- Beyond the fold lets consider the announcement of a community project I'm proposing for Vallejo. Updated January 20, 2013: My activism in Vallejo, California has involved me in a Participatory Budgeting Project. The project I'm working on is to create "free WiFi" access points in the downtown business district to use as a backbone for experimenting with "downtown dollars" as an alternative economy token of exchange. As part of the proposal there will be a "web portal" accessible via the access points that will coordinate the accounting of the "downtown dollars."
I propose creating a "complementary economy" that has operates within bounded geographic area. This "complementary economy" will be carefully created such that exchange tokens serve the diminishing of life's suffering. This "Empathy Dollar" will contain some of the best elements found in complementary economies as attempted before. See: Complementary Economies Revisited for a introduction to alternative economies.
As a token for bargaining, money circulates in the opposite direction to goods and services and therefore tends to move away from consumers and accumulate at the producers. But as it must follow a closed path in the social body, it is necessary for an artificial mechanism to carry in the opposite direction. Such a mechanism can depend only on the structure of society, on authority: in this way money is imbued with the gradient of authority (grad u) by the process of taxes. ... snip Thus, in all societies, the gradient of production and the gradient of authority have a tendency to organize themselves in an antagonistic manner and so bring about a sufficiently stable circulation of money From Structural Stability and Morphogenesis - Rene Thom
I know I'm a bit idealistic but I know it can be done. That is why I'm involved in local Vallejo politics. I have long thought that the mandate of local governance could include the authority for creating a local currency. An alternative economic system might appeal to a sizable fraction of community. Manifested rejection of the Banking System is the ultimate threat to the 1 Percent. Imagine a significant number of the 99% opting out and investing in a local alternative economy. I would highly recommend everyone read The Web of Debt by Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D. This book details the history of the Banking System and how it has suppressed complimentary currency economies. This book is a must read for the OWS movement and brings into clear focus the 1% / 99% issue and suggests complimentary economies may be the answer. I would like to think there could be two orthogonal currency flows in a local region that was stable. The question is how to implement an complimentary economy. -
Web of Debt unravels the deceptions in our money scheme and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. If you care about financial security, your own or the nation's, you should read this book. The Web of Debt by Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D.
- I think gaining the City of Vallejo's support for this complimentary economy is critical for its success. Most all of the successful historical examples of complimentary economies mention in Web of Debt owed their success to the city or government accepting the complimentary economies monetary tokens as a payment of taxes. My next step is putting together a team of planners to develop the technical details of the implementation of the complementary currency in Vallejo along the lines suggested in the declaration statement above. As things develop over the next few months I will share how the project is going. To this end I'm setting up a group on DAILY KOS to post articles every few weeks about alternative economies. The group is called Changing the Script. (I'm voting for Dukkha!) Best, Jonathan Gordon Vallejo Community Activist