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Bradley Schott's avatar

Interesting. Debt and money have been simply accepted as reality since Marx had a crack at them, yet debt and interest are at the very core of the exponential, destructive nature of the economic system.

Debt demands exponential growth to repay compound interest, while interest grants money the special power to accumulate itself. The accumulation of money is the accumulation of power. The creditor has power over the debtor. Because money can substitute for everything, it permits ownership, which allows for further accumulation. The cycle of self-accumulation through interest and rent becomes differential accumulation, the more you have the more you get. Contract law is a particularly insidious manifestation of this power. The exercise of this power is an act of violence, and the entire mythology of capitalism, freedom and justice exists to conceal this fact.

Achieving a just and sustainable society will require nothing less than the destruction of the self-accumulating power of money and its value as a store of wealth; the total prohibition of usury; the nationalisation of all credit creation; and the decolonisation of ownership, so that ownership is only the entitlement to hold, use, and care - not to extract rent. All of these are prerequisites for the creation of an economics that is not dependent on exponential growth to prevent its own collapse under the weight of differential accumulation.

No form of capitalism can achieve this, and I can't see a form of socialism that can either. This must be a complete redesign, starting with ecological principles. Instead of asking what is, we need to ask: what do we want? What do we need?

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Steve Hummel's avatar

We are doomed unless every economist and economic pundit quits fiddle faddling around with genuine but separate insights that are aligned with the new paradigm of direct and reciprocal monetary gifting….but are unconscious of that concept and precisely where, when and how to implement it.

Every data point, every reform, every preaching to the academic and chattering class choir moves us a thousandth of a millimeter closer to the goal of monetary freedom, economic stability and ecological survival.

On the other hand communicating the benefits to both the individual and enterprise of the handful of policies, regulations and structural changes of the new paradigm and building a mass movement that herds the political apparatus toward legislating and executing it would integrate the good intentions of all such reform movements and save us from our own apparent lack of survival instincts, and perhaps egocentric self interests in communicating one's separate theories and reforms.

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