Seek To Know

This paper is based on author's buddhist upbringing and Buddha's complete prescription of Noble Eight fold Path for cessation of suffering in this world. Right view (as samyak darshan in Sanskrit or samma ditti in Pali) is the beginning and the end of that path. It simply means to see and to understand things as they really are, and not as one like to see or interpret them. Right view is attained, sustained and enhanced through engaging all faculties of mind. The Pali word "samma" actually means full, complete, wholesome or an all pervading view and somewhat inappropriately translated in English as 'Right". The word 'understanding' is not intended to mean just an intellectual or conceptual comprehension but understanding that is developed through experience. The fifth factor of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Livelihood. In the scriptures the Buddha refers to the practice of 'deceit, treachery, soothsaying, trickery, usury' as wrong (unwholesome) livelihood. Elsewhere he refers to five trades that should be avoided: 'trading in arms, in living beings,in flesh, in intoxicating drinks, and in poison'. Right livelihood is that which brings true benefit to oneself and/or others. Wrong livelihood is that which is to the detriment of oneself or others. Buddha like other enlightened teachers taught that to do harm to others is also to do harm to oneself. Also Buddha talked about overcoming the three unwholesome mental states and mind poisons of greed (lobha) with generosity (dana), ill-will (dosha) with loving-kindness (metta) and delusion (moha) with wisdom (prajna) [see David Loys paper]. Buddha always encouraged reason and rational pursuit of Truth over blind faith. He did not talk about sin, instead he talked about unwholesome (unskillful) actions and consequences (karma) arising out of ignorance (Avijja). Buddha also talked about avijja (ignorance, not-knowing, unconsciousness, non-wisdom) in his discourse on Dependent Co-arising [Pattica Samuppada]. In this age of rapid globalization practitioners of Natural and Conscious Capitalism must move beyond personal, national or ideological sphere to planetary responsibility through collective awakening of our whole heart-mind. We must design a conscious human centered holistic capital and market economy by engaging our collective will and evolutionary intelligence. Satyagraha is a Sanskrit term popularized by Gandhi during his non-violent non-co-operation movements . It means any effort to discover, discern, obtain or apply "Satya' or 'Truth' to correct injustice. Great wisdom can be gained by following the unfoldment of human social values, human beliefs and perception in the way money evolved historically in different times, places and cultures. A final realization of the inherent truth and emptiness of money as a human construct accompanied by inner transformation will lead to organic peaceful outer transformation of all human institutions (see word origins for some common economic terms]

The Present Reality: The current global situation is a reality of extremes of poverty and starvation for the masses and unlimited accumulation of wealth in few hands, massive waste of resources, unchecked pollution, loss of arable lands and watersheds in many parts. About 80% of mankind - live on 15% of world's total GNP. About 3 billion live in poverty on less than two dollar a day of which 1 billion live on less than a $1 a day and 850 million suffer from hunger. [Globalissues.org]. About 35 million in US experience hunger. Vast majority of poor are women and children.

The United States has 13.7% of the total population (36.5 million) under poverty of which about 21 million are women. (see US poverty data). Yet World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase [World Hunger Fact sheet 2006]. Of the 2.2 billion children in the world, UNICEF estimates that 1.9 billion lived in the developing world. One billion of those children lived in poverty and were deprived of at least one of seven amenities that UNICEF regard as basic rights – shelter, water, sanitation, schooling, information, health care and food [Unicef Report on State of World's Children 2005]. About 1.7 billion of world's population is in 15-29 years age group and 85% of them live in Developing Countries. While overall population of this youth group increased by 10% in past 10 years, employment for them incresead by 0.2% only. And 70% of children below 14 years in the Developing countries are not in school [source: Imaginenations.org].

Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half of the world's food, and yet earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than 1% of the world's property. Girls account for 2/3rd's of the world's children without access to education. 17 million people, including 11 million children, die every year from easily preventable diseases and malnutrition. 800 million people are hungry or malnourished. [State of the World]. Half of its food in US is wasted. A new study by Timothy Jones, from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, indicates that a shocking forty to fifty per cent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten [why hunger exists today].

This year 2006, for the first time, everyone in The Forbes 400 has at least $1 billion. The collective net worth of the nation’s wealthiest climbed $120 billion, to $1.25 trillion. [does forbe's list include banking dynasties Rothschilds and Others]

Can Prosperity Built on the Foundation of Debt Sustain Itself? By the end of 2005, the gross debt in the USA reached $7.9 trillion, about 8.7 times its 1980 level. This amounts to $28,412 per head of the U.S. population, or $58,390 per head of the U.S. working population. Total debt is nearly six times the amount of United States currency in circulation (M1 Money Supply), estimated to be $1,372 billion. U.S. official gold reserves are only worth $160 billion, foreign exchange reserves $63 billion and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve $33 billion. The UK national debt as at the end of 2003 - the last date for accurate(ish) figures was US$829.7 billion. The UK population was 60.2 million, leading to a calculation that each British citizen has a share of that debt of $13,782, while debt among the working population (28.5 million) amounts to $29,110. With gross debt exceeding 170% of GDP, measures to reduce Japan’s large government budget deficit have become increasingly urgent.

Much of the current levels of Third world debt were amassed following the 1973 oil crisis when the western members of OPEC pushed the price of oil up making the Arab nations very wealthy. They decided to deposit this money in large Western banks. The banks didn't want all of this money lying around so it is lent to the third world countries. Most of the loans never reached the poor of the country either going towards large-scale development projects, some of which proved of little value, or to the private bank accounts of dictators. Overall, about one-fifth of loans went to purchase of arms. Do we ever stop to think who are owning all this debt or where this excess money in few hands flowing into?

Investment in Military, Arms Trade and Warfare: According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2003 the United States spent approximately 47% of the world's total military spending of US$956 billion. The current (2005) United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next fourteen biggest spenders combined, and nearly seven times larger than China's, which places second [source: wikipedia] Now The CIA black budget is annually in the vicinity of 1.1 trillion dollars. [sourcewatch: CIA methods and Secret Wars] . There are Reports by Solari and others of Trillions of dollar missing from US Treasury and Pentagon [Solari.com].USA, Russia, France and Britain do the largest businesses of arms trade in the world. Sometimes, these arms sales are made secretly and sometimes knowingly to human rights violators, military dictatorships and corrupt governments. Over two years world military spending increased by 18 per cent in real terms, to reach $956 billion (in current dollars) in 2003 [source: globalissues.org]. What if we could redistribute the cost ($334 billion) of Iraq war to take care of the problem of global poverty of 2 billion, and restoration of fragile eco-systems? [National Priorities data].

The Business of Warfare: War brings enormous profit to manufacturer and traders of weapons and arms (physical, chemical and biological WMDs). Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, the three largest weapons manufacturers, together received more than $50 billion from the Pentagon in 2003. Making bombs and fighter jets is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, buoyed by the Bush administration's "war on terrorism."[Corpwatch]. Also see unholy alliances of our current First family [[1], [2]., [3], [4]]. Such relationships can be traced across party lines. [War is a Racket, General Smedley Butler and Iraq for Sale] As Gandhi said, "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" Whose interest this bloated and unadvertised war economy is defending? (See who benefits and NSC-68 the origin of war economy]

How Perception Becomes Reality: The subject of money and banking is fascinating not only from socio-economic or political viewpoints but more so from psychological, philosophical, metaphysical and mathematical perspectives. Money, more than anything else reveals how beliefs and perception create our reality. Market Capitalism has become the new religion and like religion it is adversely affecting all human social-psychological relationships and priorities at every level of human endeavor from science to media, academia, business, politics, education, health care, resuorce allocation and energy use and preservation of healthy habitat and ecology. According to Zarlenga, economics has become the new clandestine religion, masquerading as science. Economists often use confusing definition, poor methodology and overly rely on theoretical modeling at the expense of practical reality and real world data. Myths have been perpetuated through manipulation of language, perception, definition and suppression of monetary history.

Almost all of money (more than 96%) in circulation is issued as credit or debts, also known as promissory notes, with an assurance that the equivalent value will be paid in coin, silver or gold in future. The US dollar notes states "this note is a legal tender for all debts, public and private." Tying the value of money with the backing of gold or silver have been found to be impractical and inefficient many times historically. People trusted in the promise and never actually exercised that promise, except in really bad economic times. If all people demand their deposits and equity back at the same time, banks (the very best ones) will simply fail. We have inherited a colonnial system of money and banking following a belief system that resources, labor and capital are scarce, therefore every person needs to compete against the other in order to survive, and free market where price is determined by unregulated supply and demand is the best way to allocate resource among competing demands. It is time that we question those beliefs.

What is Money? Money, especially paper money itself is a great human invention (first used in China), an abstract tool of symbolic payment, which allows free flow of goods and services. Historically locally available resources (like amber, beads, cowries, drums, eggs, feathers, gongs, hoes, ivory, jade, kettles, leather, mats, nails, oxen, pigs, quartz, rice, salt, thimbles, umiacs, vodka, wampum, tobacco, yarns, zappozats or decorated axes) have been used as money. The average person’s life and living standard has been vastly improved, because of universal acceptance of money as the medium of exchange. However, confusing the symbol for the real things is similar to giving away the real land for the paper map. To this day money-changers have used every form of deceit (including elaborate government taxation and welfare schemes) and control of education, media and research institutions to create myriad diversions through ideologies and scare tactics to keep the control and issue of money power to themselves. Lot of confusion exists about what is money or how to define it. Money is generally confused with wealth since money can buy any wealth (land and its resources, labor, precious minerals and goods). The difference between US Treasury printed cash money and credit (interest bearing loans issued by banks) has also disappeared with the introduction of credit cards. Money is perceived as a medium of exchange (MOE) and as a store of value (SOV). Neither is quite correct, as money exists now. Both paper money (fiat-money) and credit money under fractional reserve system is no longer backed by any precious metal; as such money has no inherent storage value. Since it is not a store of value, it is also not a "real" medium of exchange (which implies exchange of value). Money is a document, a symbolic measure of exchange, a universally transferable acknowledgement receipt (ITU), a human made tool or communication device that allows repeated and complex transaction and delivery of goods and services between parties often separated in space-time. [see Aristotle Vs. Adam Smith's concept of Money by S.Zarlenga]

. Perception Vs. Reality of Money: The history of origin of paper money and commercial banking and the growth of central banks have never been studied systematically, except by a few. The question of what money is and how it is created is not commonly understood; hence this issue have never been discussed or decided democratically by people everywhere. True democracy, equality and sustainability demands replacing the current structurally unsound and grossly unfair system of debt-money (which produces debt-slavery of people, their governments and businesses) with debt-free, interest free trust-money. Changing perception of money from a "store of value" to only a "symbolic measure of value" (in the same way a coupon, ticket or accounting entry is) is going to minimize all volatility arising out of speculation or hoarding of money, over-building of excess capacity or waste due to unused capacity. The current system of fiat money (not backed by gold or precious metals) has no intrinsic value and derives its value solely from the collective legalized agreement to use money as the universal "medium of currency of flow." The continued perception of money (from the old goldsmith and gold standard days) as a "store of value" is simply an illusion. Since fiat money is no longer a store of value (SOV), the continued perception of money (from old barter or mutual commodity trading days) as "medium of exchange" (MOV) is also an illusion. This paradoxical situation however brings the historically unpreceedented global opportunity to redefine money as a universally accepted man-made tool - simply a token and symbol (with units of measure) which enables delivery and transfer of goods and flow of services among all people. This slight shift in perception is actually a Quantum shift in the way we generate and use money for all kind of creative human enterprises.

Private Creation of Debt-Money Through Centralized Banking: Private Banks has been given the legal power to not only create credit (free money to banks but debt-money to people, businesses and government) based on Fractional Reserve System (read and understand this first before going further) but charge interest on it that is compounded annually! It is mathematically impossible to sustain such a grossly unfair system. At the time of issue of a loan, mortgage or credit only the principal is created, not the interest (huge in long term loans)! By design outstanding debt repayable always exceed prinipal issued or credit money put into circulation. This is what actualy creates perpetual inflationary pressure on money created as debt and not enough money to go around debt-free see usury). Price of housing and goods are elevated as consumer income is eroded by compounded debt burden. Fiat or legal money is purely a medium of exchange and has no commodity or storage value; as such must not be issued as debt under fractional reserve system. [see video Money as Debt]

Viscious Cycle of Credit (debt-money), Poverty and Concentration of Wealth: People assume that money loaned by bank is other people's money. This is not so. Entire supply of money depends on people, businesses and government going under debt. "The financial system currently adopted by all nations is often described as "debt based", since the process of going into debt is relied upon almost exclusively to create and supply money to their economies. By the action of lending to borrowers, commercial banks create credit and advance this to industry, consumers and governments. This "bank credit" circulates in the broader economy until such time as the loan is repaid. Such "bank credit" now forms 96% of the money stock in most industrial nations, with a mere 4% the notes and coins created by government, and free from a parallel debt. Thus, almost the entire money stock is supported in circulation by vast debts in four main sectors: Private debts e.g. mortgages, loans, overdrafts, credit-purchases; Industrial and commercial debts, Government "national" debts International, including Third World debt. The supply of money is a direct product of borrowing, and debt maintains this money in circulation. Modern debt is, in aggregate, quite unrepayable. Furthermore, difficulty is experienced in the repayment of individual debts in all four sectors." [see Top Ranking Companies in Forbes2000 Biggest Companies 2007 List, in terms of assets are primarily Banks]

Monetarization of Economy and Third World Poverty: The vicious cycle of poverty in the Third World itself has its root in the colonial times. It was created, by the progressive monetarization of the economy with debt-money alongside destruction of indigenous self-sufficient local economies. The monetarization of economies through the colonial institution of Central Banking created progressive concentration of wealth in a few hands of merchant-banking class and Institutions engaged in financial speculation. It progressively destroyed earlier human scale cooperative barter and gift economies and sustainable agrarian economies. People need to understand how absurd it is for the people and their representative Government to borrow money legalized by itself and pay compound interest on it. Who or where is the government borrowing from? The centralized and monopolized banking system that regulates money supply has its root in colonial times and was designed after the Bank of England. Understanding what money is and how it actually work through the banks is crucial before people will be open to embrace any alternative to the current system with endless loop of debt exceeding money in circulation and funneling of real wealth through accumulation of money at the top from the basic farming, goods and service sectors. War and economic-imperialism and corporate greed becomes a necessary fuel to sustain this corrupt and dysfunctional monetary-financial system that has been institutionalized by law. [The Drive Behind Globalization, 1998, pp 3-4, Income Inequality in the US, The L Curve]

Power of Money comes from People's collective Agreement: It virtually costs nothing to produce money. The power of money actually comes from the legal decree or legal sanction behind it. The power of law only prevails only as long as people collectively trust and believe in the fairness of the law. The current debt-based monopolized banking/financial system is simply unsustainable and unconstitutional. It is turning the planet into a global casino and playing havoc with people's lives.

Just like democracy is a tool to empower people politically, debt-free transparent money can be the most powerful tool of economic transformation and social empowerment for all. Democracy or political freedom does not work without true economic freedom and empowerment for all. There is a peaceful way to accomplish this without war and violent revolutions once "we the people" understand the fundamentals of what money is and how money is made available as debts by centralized banking across the planet.(see Bank Profit in UK), World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Note the current president of World Bank is Paul Wolfowitz of Project for New American Century]

World Bank, IMF and WTO Impacts: The Bretton Woods Institutions or The World Bank group was created in 1944 to establish the supremacy of one singular currency of World Trade, which is US dollar and US supremacy in the world. As the developing countries got increasingly dependant on dollar to buy oil and other industrial goods, it was easy for World bank to advance loan on conditions of structural adjustment to thoreign investors to the detriment of those countries. Instead of helping development and ending poverty the World bank Shareholders (largest US) saddled these countries with mounting debt and transfer of local ownership of of future mineral, oil, forest-logging, even water distribution rights to foreign shareholders. The value of dollar today is also maintained with the support of Japan, China and OPEC countries, which maintain substantial dollar reserve. This gross inequality of world wealth/currency distribution precipitated the migration of low and highly skilled (brain-drain) undocumented and documented aliens from other countries to the US. Read some documents at the grassroot group 50 years is enough and also 50 years of failure of world bank by Heritage foundation

In India, Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (Keep the Promises Campaign) and a group of organisations organized a South Asia Peoples Summit Against Poverty in September 2005. the Summit called for the scrutiny of the foreign capital in the country while describing World Bank, WTO and IMF as part of the “unholy trinity” that is presiding over the misery of people and destruction of planet. Beyond debt-relief, trade justice, and debt-cancellation there is a need for going to the root cause of in-debtedness among nations and institutions [see paper by Dr Muhammad M. Alam]

The Illusion of Free Market with Mounting Debt: We must ask "free market" for whom? For Coporations legally given personhood [See Corporate Personhood] and/or the Central Bankers legally given the right to mint money [Tragedy and Hope, Caroll Quigley]? Farmer and activist Wendel Berry reflects on the god status given to the idea of 'free market' by developed countries and how they are sacrificing to it their farmers, farmlands, and communities, their forests, wetlands, and prairies, their ecosystems and watersheds. They had accepted universal pollution and global warming as normal costs of doing business. "We citizens of the industrial countries must continue the labor of self-criticism and self-correction. We must recognize our mistakes [see Berry's post 9-11 essay In the Face of Fear]. Market is not free or accessible for the vast majority of the planet’s people who do not have regular employment/income or collateral to access bank credit from commercial banks, to pursue life and living as they see fit. Both the national and personal debt is skyrocketing along with breakdown of families and communities.(See Book "The Empire of Debt: Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis." Interest forces workers and businesses to demand more money for the work and goods to pay their ever increasing debts and taxes. This increase in prices and wages is called "inflation." This "inflation" benefits the money-lenders, since it wipes out savings of one generation so they can not finance or help the next generation. With an adequate supply of interest-free money, little borrowing would be required and prices would be established by people and goods [Sheldon Emry]. Also see for yourself the illusion of debt-money and US debt-clock in real-time.

Basic Problem of Circulation of Debt-Money: People will never be free with money that is issued as debt to begin with and reality will continue to contradict the myth of freedom under democracy and free market. "A legitimate government can both spend and lend money into circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. When your bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that you have always too little credit in circulation to give the workers full employment.You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of unpayable debt and usury (Benjamin Franklin autobiography)."

At the international level, trade is deeply affected by the debt-based financial system. The aggressive pursuit of maximum export revenues, rather than seeking a simple balance of trade, is entirely due to the fact that even the wealthiest nations operate from a position of gross insolvency. International trade has degenerated into a competition between nations to alleviate their indebtedness, rather than a process involving a mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services. Endemic Third World debt is also directly attributable to the reliance upon debt and banking to supply money. The theoretical model of borrowing from the World Bank/IMF, investing in development and repaying loans from export revenues, is one of the great failures of contemporary economics. The persistent inability on the part of debtor nations to repay these loans suggests strongly that the nature of the indebtedness suffered by the Third World has absolutely no actual legitimacy or validity.[The Grip of Death by Michael Rowbotham 1998, and Confessions of Economic Hitmen, John Perkins

UBI, Fair Allocation, and Dignity of All Human Life/Labor: The problem of fair allocation of money, as well as mass poverty and ineqaulity can be safely addressed by giving every citizen (consumer) a basic income with non-inflationary and non-speculative trust money. Since money is not a store of value, its value is secured by collective agreement and trust of people to serve the basic needs of all people in the community, region and nation by using the best of collective human wisdom practices and human-scale technology available. Public Money issued debt-free as ITU notes or electronic currency (I Trust you, I Thank You instead of IOUs) can be fairly and easily allocated to all living citizens as basic gauranteed income. This also sets free the providers of basic goods and services from the need to secure markets by agressive marketing or advertisement hypes. With readily available consumer base backed by real purchasing power (effective demand) providers can now concentrate on production and delivery of goods and services. people and productive activities can self-organize inspired by service than motivated by profit. Also money allocated debt-free for basic sector will keep circulating in local economy, building rich community networks and healing relationships that were weakened under predatory capital economy.Universal Basic Income (see below) have the potential to free humanity from physical survival needs, create equality across race and gender, restore dignity of all human labor, promote community spirit of cooperation, strengthen peace, democracy and well being and free the innate creative potential in all human beings. True equity, individual sovereignty and entrepreneurship can thrive only on the foundation of equality! With UBI , all services are honored including services of mothers, homemakers (both men and women), grandparents, volunteers, non-business hobby type craftspeople, caregivers and the like whose services are not counted in the GDP, but without whom families and communities cannot survive.

Public Vs Private and Other Assumptions: The definition and perception of “public” entities Vs. “private” corporations has been blurred historically through a complex system of legislations. Giving gobal mega-corporations with employees in different countries and continents the "private" status to avoid public accountability legally is something that needs to be questioned (see corporate personhood). Each person is simultaneously a public and private citizen in his/her daily life. Any institution dealing with people, land resources and environment must hold a greater degree of civic responsibility and accountability than maximization of profit for a few shareholders alone.

The two basic assumptions of economics regarding "scarcity" and "competition" (as the best model for free market allocation) need to be seriously questioned. Human ingenuity, creativity and enterprise have always overcome scarcity or lack anywhere within society. Such progress has been always accompanied by mutual cooperation and collaborative behavior and ingenuity of individuals rather than competition among private corporations ( see 'Unequal Protection’).

The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans." - Robert F. Kennedy

What's Wrong with Usury? Usury (in the original sense of any interest especially excessive interest) is scripturally and doctrinally forbidden in many religions. Usury was denounced by countless spiritual leaders and philosophers of ancient times, including Plato, Aristotle, Cato, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Aquinas, Moses, Mohammad, Jesus and Buddha. See more on usury at Wikipedia. What wikipedia doesn't mention is that Usury is actually compound interest on principal that is mathematically unsustainable over long run. Usury is also Unearned income, which means no labor is expended in earning usury. Also charging interest on fiat money that has no intrinsic value is deceitful. Usury is exploitative and promotes greed and artficial scarcity in money supply (when principal is issued, the future interest is not, ultimately resulting in inflation and loss of value of money). Also money isssued as debt cannot be fairly allocated to vast majority in the planet without formal full time jobs and much more. It is not just the third world, the developed countries like US, UK, Japan and others are accumulating national debt at a staggering rate. Do we stop to think who are owning all this debt? There is a huge gap in reality and how we are conditioned to believe in TINAC (There Is No Alternative to Capitalism) through diversion of attention to myriad dysfunctions of Capitalism and perpetuating fear and denial of anything else that looks at the cause. A monetary system designed to issue money privately via centralized commericial banking and allocated money as usurious debt (bearing compound interest) gradually shifts wealth from actual productive class (farmers, farm laborers, artisans, manufacturers, service providers) to non-producing bankers, fiancial sectors, beaureaucrats, and middlemen of all kinds. There is a breakdown of relationships between actual producers/providers of food, goods and services and actual consumers/users of those gifts of labor. The dignity of life and labor is lost in the process of mindless production and consumption generated by endless cycle of debt-money and unrepayable debt. Lay-offs, downsizing, outsourcing, sweatshops, pollution and waste are the last survival strategies left to this insane chase for globalization of capital economy and imperialism of financial interests.

According to Stephen Zarlenga of the American Monetary Institute, "by mis-defining the nature of money, special interests have often been able to control a society’s monetary system, and in turn, the society itself." AMI’s research shows that a main arena of human struggle has been over the monetary control of societies. This control is exercised through monetary theory - in obscure doctrines about the nature of money.

All of mankind’s moral and religious codes forbade usury. But the Old Testament strictly forbade Jews from taking usury from their "brothers" (other Jews), and discouraged taking it from strangers. Scholastics (1100 -1500 AD), the Church scholars looked on all mankind as brothers. Other codes restricted usury

Code Of Hammurabi (2130-2088 BC) limited usury to 33%;
Hindoo Law - Damdupat - limited interest to the full amount of the loan; Roman Law limited interest; Justinian’s 6th century Code reduced the 12½% limit of Constantine the Great, to 4-8%, and accumulated interest could not exceed principal. The Koran totally forbids usury, from the 7th century;
Charlemagne’s laws flatly forbade usury in 806 AD.
The Magna Carta placed limits on usury in 1215 AD.

Most States of the United States enforced usury limits until 1981. As economies became more dynamic, with real growth possibilities, it became clear that charging interest on business loans where the borrowing merchant prospered, couldn’t be condemned as greed or lack of charity and by 1516 the idea of a lending institution charging interest for its services had been overwhelming accepted. John Calvin finished off the usury ban in 1536. He considered usury sinful only if it hurt ones neighbor and that it was generally legitimate in business loans. (Zarlenga)

Note: see description of self organization and holistic thinking.

Free market under debt-slavery: Right now money is allocated as debt by a highly dysfunctional system of centralized banking primarily to already wealthy producers and speculators, who have inherited or acquired wealth through collateral property or securities like stocks and bonds. None goes to poor people and consumers without regular income. Creative qualified people who get suddenly unemployed due to business outsourcing or ownership changes have difficulty being self-employed in this so-called free market. Geniuses and gifted people who can empower the people and the planet with their practical revolutionary ideas and inventions cannot find the financial and institutional support for ideas which are a threat to existing corporate profits and power structures. Allocating funds through the discretion of out-of-state banks and venture capitalists is simply not the best way to fund creative enterprises.

Real Vs. Unreal (delusional) Economy: In real economy money is issued in accordance with monetary need for production and distribution of real food, goods and human services. But when money itself is used as a commodity for earning usury or compound interest then all human services and activities (including human labor and life's worth itself) becomes commodified and measured in terms of money. The historic growth of Stock market and lately the foreign exchange currency market (FOREX) are part of the Unreal Economy fueled by excess accumulation of wealth in hands of those who have the inside access and inscrutable knowledge of this unreal economy of global financial/capital and derivatives markets. [see MEL formula of Money]

Speculation, Hoarding and Volatility of Debt-money: Debt-repayment and taxation requires taking out money from circulation for hoarding, saving and profiteering purposes not only to meet current needs but future needs and inflationary uncertainities. "In addition to almost unlimited usury, the bankers have another method of drawing vast amounts of wealth. The banks are able to approve or disapprove large loans to large and successful corporations to the extent that refusal of a loan will bring about a reduction in the selling price of the corporation's stock. After depressing the price, the bankers' agents buy large blocks of the company's stock. Then, if the bank suddenly approves a multi-million dollar loan to the company, the stock rises and is then sold for a profit. In this manner, billions of dollars are made with which to buy more stock. This practice is so refined today that the Federal Reserve Board need only announce to the newspapers an increase or decrease in their "discount rate" to send stocks soaring or crashing at their whim. Banks collect billions in interest by loaning to Government and the Corporations!" [Pastor Sheldon Emry]

Future of Money: "Your money's value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions: $2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stockmarkets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the "real" economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative. This global casino is triggering the foreign exchange crises which shook Mexico in 1994-5, Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998. These emergencies are the dislocation symptoms of the old Industrial Age money system." [Future of Money by Bernard Lietaer]

Money as compound interest bearing ‘debt’ (coupled with creation of monopoly global currencies of trade like dollar and Euro) creates extreme polarization of poverty and wealth distribution, which progressively leads to war and financial imperialism, monopolization of local economies through global corporations driven by profit maximization, rise in various speculative activities with money and currency (the illusion of free market), and destruction of the delicate ecological balance that sustain the rich web of life in the planet, including human lives. Only 2% of over $2 trillion worth of daily foreign exchange transactions relate to the "real" economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative (Bernard Lietaer, former central banker and developer of Euro. Aso see Foreign Currency Speculation Disaster]

Co-operation is the basis of Economic Activity and Life: Every human being begins life as a Consumer of goods and services and continues to be a Consumer even after assuming productive Producer roles in the community. There would be no demand for goods and services and need for creative work, were it not for consumption! So Consumption is the basis or reason for Production and Creative Work. In a traditional family two adults cooperative synergistic work can support a few children, elderly parents and some relatives needing occasional help. In a community, a hundred people working cooperatively can support the needs of many hundreds. This is why we are more frequently a buyer (consumer) than a seller (producer). Giving debt-free legal money in the hands of actual consumers (all citizens) would actually reinvigorate, diversify and decentralize farming, food-processing and basic industries everywhere. Businesses will have ready and willing market and can concentrate on producing products of real value than on wasteful conspicuous consumption. Raising debt-free interest free capital with the support of the community co-op banks to start or expand a business means businesses would be service oriented than profit oriented. Such sustainable businesses can be organized in a flexible basis for duration of five to ten years; they do not need to meet shareholder demand for continuous growth in productivity or merger and lay-offs for profit-maximization, or build overcapacity or wasteful aggressive marketing to push harmful products. Diversifying or changing the business product or services according to changing consumer needs and behavior would be easy for robust decentralized entrepreneurial human-scale businesses than they are now for huge mega-multinational companies.

Abundant Money and Prosperity for All: What kind of money we need in a democracy depends on what kind of society we like to live and create for our children and our children's children. Nature is abundant and human creativity is unlimited. Nature’s capacity itself expands as human innovation, and creativity expands. Why should we limit supply and access to money when both human creativity and natural resources are abundant? As we have seen above that money is an abstract tool created by law that allows free flow of goods and services; unlike barter (which is finished every time with exchange in kind) money allows repeated (almost forever) flow in goods and services as long as it keeps circulating between buyers and sellers. Why should we support a deceptive usurious money and banking system which is fueling excessive concentration of wealth in few private hands - a self-destructive system where money is freely available for unhealthy war-military-industrial-oil-drug-disease-chemical-pollution complex and not available for children’s education, adult-healthcare, clean water, sanitation and other basic social-human services? As president Lincoln said, "the privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity." This opportunity remains unrealized to this day. (see America: Freedom to Fascism)

Unrealized potentials and opportunities within: True cooperation, creativity and genuine free enterprise will replace predatory competition and excess accumulation of wealth and monopoly power in few hands. What could be a better method of fair allocation of resources than giving money to the source (people) whose trust and agreement after all holds the validity of anything including money? Consumers will be bound by a simple social contract of good citizenship to help each other and be their best. There will be too many by-products and bonuses. There will be no forced unemployment and no need for myriad welfare and social services that create dependency. People will begin to value their own life and have their self-worth and faith restored in community and society. Inciting War or violence on the basis of division, inequality or party affiliation will be difficult. Alleviation of poverty itself will bring the population growth down to harmonious level and people will be willing to serve and celebrate life rather than waste life in doing meaningless work or sacrificing life to make a living.

New Economic Thinking and Holistic Measures of Growth: Rather than a simple mathematical equation of GDP, we need a set of measures that includes external costs like costs to the environment, costs to our health and wellbeing and costs to society. And we need a system that allows us to measure the things that are truly valuable in life: happiness, health, community, and life as well as the unpaid work of mothers, caregivers, volunteers and such [GPI Genuine Progress Index]. The associative or relational approach to economics is based on the idea that economic life is the responsibility of every human being in collaboration with humanity as a whole. It proceeds from what we think and do, rather than by way of abstract forces. Associative economics is about making this responsibility conscious and finding ways to give it effect in practical life [Associative Economics Institute]. There are also other emerging fields like Green Economics, Evolutionary Economics and Ecological Economics or NGO's like New Economic Foundation of UK. Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a term coined by Bhutan's King Jigme S. Wangchuck in 1972 to define quality of life in a more holistic (material and spiritual) terms than GNP.

Basic-income and Local Self-sufficiency: Basic survival necessities like food, water, power, shelter are most sanely and economically produced locally in decentralized and distributed way (see related articles). Under current system small farms are not just vanishing in developed countries, small farmers are committing suicide in parts of India because now they have to buy the seeds from multinationals, seeds which require heavy fertilization and pesticide use. Farming has become a system run by banks and large industrial corporations, subsidized by our taxes, that keeps food artificially cheap, driving out the small farmer who is not subsidized and cannot compete with agri-business prices. There is no future for the family farm under this system [To Be of Use by Dave Smith].

With adoption of Basic Income for all, producers of basic goods and necessities will always find a ready and willing market with consumers having purchasing power. Bureaucracy itself will get lean and mean, because people freed from basic survival will freely gravitate to work that feels most satisfying and meaningful to them. Human creativity will self-organize itself when free exchange of human energy is allowed to happen through debt-free money (as it is happening on the web without any central control). Both the people and their Government Representatives could work free of pressures from special interest. All this may sound too Utopian considering the reality we live now. But reality changes only when our perception and understanding of the nature of things changes. No central exchange or bank or interest fluctuation is necessary to preserve the value of money in a decentralized debt-free monetary system. Each Local and State Government can issue its own currency or its share of national currency (regional or local allocation based on population size, creative human capital and natural resources) and decide on its monetary responsibilities and distribution.

Several Arab nations issue interest free loans to their citizens today. (Now you can understand what all the commotion in the Middle East is all about, and why the banker-owned press is brainwashing American citizens to think of all Arabs as terrorists). The Saracen Empire forbade interest on money 1,000 years ago and its wealth outshone even Saxon Europe. Mandarin China issued its own money, interest-free and debt-free. Today, historians and art collectors consider those centuries to be China's time of greatest wealth, culture and peace.[Every citizen as owner of national stocks]

No Usury and No Inflation Money: : Debt-free and usury-free money can always be put into circulation according to the needs and productive capacities of the people and the region. Such money circulation can be tracked easily unlike debt-money/credit produced through multiple banks under fractional-reserve system. As such, it would tend to stabilize price levels by decreasing inflation or recession in money supply. Actually the purchasing power of such money is likely to increase as the productive capacity of people increases. There would be no borrowing or paying back involved in debt-free money. Each person earns handsome living wage for the services they provide. Gifted and creative people would naturally command higher wages following rules of demand and supply. There will be no need to save, hoard or invest money as it is always made available according to need of the people and people willing to work together to meet that need. The minimal cost of printing and replacing money can be done with new money.

Sustainable Natural Resource Develpment Fee and Ground Rent: New thinking is needed in how to manage land and natural resources given to us freely by the planet. Such resources can be jointly held (under custodianship) by the resident and native community and only leased for a reasonable fee to others for sustainable use and development purposes. A genuinely service based economy fulfilling true human needs (that recognizes the inherent value and dignity of all human life and labor, and creativity latent within all human beings) can replace a purely commercial buy-sell economy that emphasizes mindless cycle of production for profit and needless addictive consumption promoted through mass-media suggestions. People would be able to value the planet and its resources (includes human creativity) and the value of creative cooperation and harmonious development in all spheres of human endeavors. It is interesting to note that the sustainable development movement at the level of National Governments, United Nations or progressive media and academia rearely talks about the uncontrollable debt accumulation or ownership issues regarding man-made currency or common habitat we all share.

Sustainability as an Open-ended Balance Seeking Process: With unfair and unsustainable monetary system, everything in human society and economy becomes unsustainable from local to global level. We all have been put on a mindless treadmill of corporation driven capital economy and we do not quite know how to get off of this insane ride that is suicidal and self-destructive to everything that we value in life. The Vienna Institute for Urban Sustainability has yielded an operational definition of sustainability. “Sustainability is a local, informed, participatory, balance-seeking process, operating within its Sustainable Area Budget, exporting no harmful imbalances beyond its territory or into the future, thus opening the spaces of future opportunity and possibility.” William McDonough, an architect and author of the landmark book Cradle to Cradle, contends that every material used in the manufacturing process should ultimately either biodegrade harmlessly or be reusable with no loss of quality.

Sustainable cities need to focus more on developing local economies by taking advantage of locally existing independent and human-scale businesses. These are by far the majority of all businesses, provide most jobs, create nearly all new jobs, and are the source of most innovation [see Living Economies]. Also we can learn from cultures that have lived sustainably for centuries
The word sustainability has become a popular catchphrase in the nineties, with the growth of environmental movement. David Orr identifies two different viewpoints in the sustainability movement. Technologically driven view believes that sustainable solutions can be ound within current market-economic, socio-political system. The second approach ecological sustainability believes the current mind-set of our society is unsustainable and a new mode of thinking must take place. The current economic and socio-political system must be restructured.

The technological approach seems to be more dominant, since it leaves the power in the hands of those already in power. These two approaches are actually complementary once we realize that both high tech and low tech cultures and societies can co-exist peacefully with one another by designing a tool or currency system that is based on holistic, integral and deep understanding of the interdependence of all living systems in our planet and entire cosmos. Community based Sustainability movement is the Great Turning or culmination of last 5000 years of patriarchal society and past 500 years of industrial revolution. Many coomunities after post 9-11 are launching effective grassroots resistance to unfair Corporate encroachments on local rights. (works of CELDF.org)

How to Secure value of Money: Ideally money needs to be secured by the trust of the people and the land, resources (including quality of human labor, entrpreneurism, creativity and civic engagement opportunities), as well as technological and indigeneous skills of the people. Securing money with gold or precious metals will create division and war between haves and have-nots. It will also restrict supply of money in many places without precious metals. Most of all it will sustain the illusion money, as commodity with inherent value, therefore needs to be amassed, traded and hoarded for speculation.

Usury-free Money is a basic Human Right: Every person by virtue of birth is entitled to a reasonable basic living off of earth land, water, air and resources.As Tom Paine (1796, page 611-613) commented "The earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race." ...it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is in individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground rent to every person, rich or poor...because it is in lieu of the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over and above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who did" The gigantic debt-burden on the nations of the Third world and the First World is a total fabrication. The power of a few currencies like Dollar and Euro as world currency has created the new colonialism in the Third World, globalization of corporate/banking power over the people and their Governments everywhere. Government cannot guarantee people's rights because government itself is saddled by artificial debt. If all the nations of the Third World starts trading in mutual currency the value of Dollar or Euro will fall relative to currencies in the Third world, leading to improvement in standards of living in non-Dollar Euro countries. Also development of a Third Asiatic International Currency would promote fair and equitable international trade (see link).

When is Freedom Free? Freedom is free only when we start thinking independently and freely out of the box of conditioned thinking based on unexamined beliefs and assumptios. The failure of reductionist science, economic theories, compartmentalized legal, political, organizational thinking of management gurus and think tanks in solving growing mass poverty and inequality shows how much we are entrapped by our conditioned thinking learned through long years of academic learning (indoctrination). As Einstein rightly commented, "The only thing that blocks my learning is my education". Man is neither conceived, nor destined to be a creature of mere survival. Love, harmony and service are our highest essence. This essence inherent in the seed of every human child cannot flower and flourish under systems that are unfair and limiting instead of allowing spontaneous growth and creativity to take place. The debt-free tax-free money system creates tr