The Monetary System Has Failed
· 65 Comments · In Challenges, Chitchat, Lifestyle, Strategies
Our monetary system has failed. Game over.
Most of the problems and misalignments in our world today exist because of money.
Think about it… Get rid of the monetary system and you eradicate most issues. Only a very small percentage of privileged people, those who know how to play the game efficiently, benefit from this monetary system that has been established at one point in history.
At its core, though, this ancient, destructive, ego-driven system of currency, exchange, power, politics, and getting paid for things is based on fear instead of love—doomed to failure.
What would people do if they would not receive money for, or a monetary benefit from, the things they know and do? Some say money wouldn’t bring happiness. Why then do millions and millions of people suffer so horribly on our planet? At the same time there are others who watch this with the intention of retaining the status quo, due to money and the fear of loss.
What would you do if you would get the things you need and desire, without the need for receiving money for anything? Would you still do the same work you do now? Would you still lie and cheat? Would you still give the impression of being someone that you actually aren’t and doing things that you actually don’t do? Would you still be together with the same person? Would you still hurt people (and, in turn, hurt yourself)?
I think that most of these negative emotions and destructive behaviors are due to the monetary system on planet earth. And when you get rid of it you eliminate fearful and harmful behavior at the same time.
We need a new system that benefits all equally, all 7 billion of us.
Here’s part of my vision for a better world in which most, if not all, people would benefit greatly and enjoy a good and better life.
- No more money.
- No money = no more crime.
- No money = no more wars.
- No money = no more poverty.
- No more competitive, egocentric, better-than-thou thinking & attitudes.
- Prosperity is shared equally among all. We don’t work for one person or one company or one government. Instead, every individual works for the prosperity and well-being of all 7 billion people on our planet at the same time.
- People still work, but everyone is being compensated or rewarded equally—solely based on the amount of hours contributed to the local, national, and global community.
- With this substantial change comes an elevated awareness of one-consciousness.
- Life is filled with, and based on, affinity and harmony.
- Decisions are lead by unconditional love.
Now, some might be wondering how we could possibly survive without money. How would we get food and something to drink, for example? What about shelter? How could we “afford” that new gadget, car, dress, dinner when money doesn’t exist anymore?
I am confident that we are smart enough to figure these kind of things out. As a matter of fact, we do that already every single day. Our planet exists, survives, and thrives because of us.
Living in a world without money.
Without money, we would still continue to do the things we already do, or, even better, do what we love to do.
How exactly could this work out? Hmm, perhaps with some sort of a collective reward system from the community? Like the “thumbs up” way of approval you see on social platforms—where good and truly beneficial things are being evaluated, valued, and approved by the collective wisdom.
These types of approvals could be on papers, ID cards, websites, whatever.
As far as such a collective reward system is concerned, I can imagine 4 – 8 “levels” here, according to the amount of hours contributed (one “level” per hour per day). Those who don’t work would receive (nonetheless good) primary care, whereas those who spent 4 – 8 hours per day working for the prosperity and well-being of all would receive (i.e., could “order”) whatever they desire. Then the other levels in-between.
You think that people would get lazy and stop working? Think again…
People have desires. Although guaranteeing survival, we want more than the basic stuff and primary care. So we’ll continue working in order to enjoy a better lifestyle (travel, a better car, electronics, jewelry, certain clothes, bigger homes, help, services, etc.). And because we’re being rewarded equally, our motivation rises.
Why a maximum of 8 levels? This is to prevent the craziness that’s going on right now, with just a handful of smart or lucky millionaires & billionaires on one hand and an insane amount of people who can’t afford simple basic stuff on the other.
By the way, I don’t think that there would be a need for yet another political control mechanism for this type of system. What I do think is that the local, national, and global community enlarge would manage itself quite well—much better than certain people fear. ;-)
Let’s use a real-world example.
Do you like fresh bread in the morning? The baker continues to prepare fresh bread because he still wants to, not only see your happy smile when you pick up your bread, but also receive your approval for that he did a good job. And the truck driver will continue to deliver the goods necessary to prepare fresh bread as he wants the local community to thrive and be well, as well as receive the collective approval for doing a good job so that he can order/receive the things he desires. Similarly, the truck driver will still receive the gas (from the gas station) necessary to drive his truck, and support from car mechanics. And on it goes…
Folks would receive approval from the community for doing a good job and helping everyone to thrive. As a result, they can order the things they desire, according to the hours contributed—without any monetary exchanges.
No more differentiation.
I see no differences anymore in terms of the amount of reward one receives per hour of work. You spend one hour doing something for the local, national, and/or global community? You get the same amount of approval and prosperity—no matter where you live, which skin color you have, which language you speak, which education you received, which relationships you maintain, which people you know, your ability—or inability—to communicate and persuade, etc.
For example, the maid who’ll spent 5 hours cleaning my home tomorrow would enjoy the same level of prosperity than a boss of a big corporation who spent 5 hours in a meeting. Seeing this with the ancient way of life, the boss of the corporation would still have the same lifestyle (more or less), but for the maid it would mean a substantially better lifestyle—elevated to that of the boss.
The nurse who saved the life of two people would receive the same amount than the person who manages the hospital.
The guy who keeps a city’s streets neat and clean would receive the same amount than the city’s major.
The guys and girls who prepare and serve food in a restaurant would receive the same amount than the owner of the establishment.
Isn’t it amazing what that would lead us to?
No more political restrictions and borders.
I further see country borders vanish. Again, no money = no crime. Due to the elevated prosperity among all and the eradication of the monetary system, there would be no need anymore to politically “control” and “protect” stuff.
Heightened productivity.
With that being said, I think we can spend 50% less time working and still have the same amount, if not more, prosperity and well-being on our planet. If you look at it, most people that work in a 9 – 5 job environment are not that productive anyway, knowing that they only get a very small share of what they actually contribute time-wise. They could deliver the same amount of work in half the time, with more fun at work—knowing that what they do is for the greater good, for the expansion of their own prosperity and well-being as well as that of the local, national, and global community—rather than just for one person or a select few privileged.
If you still think that people would simply get lazy and fake things, again, I don’t think so. The local, national, and/or global community would notice it and point it out accordingly (lovingly & supportively, though). In addition, because prosperity is shared equally among all, the desire for pressure and cheating vanishes.
Again, remove fear from the equation and start to truly love and trust.
Raised motivation.
That being said, whatever we do we do it not just for a select few smart people but for all 7 billion. Don’t you think that this alone would give us a huge boost in motivation and productivity?
I do think so.
Also, as you can’t control (at least not for very long) the way someone lives his or her life (for example, you don’t like the way someone leads a company or country), removing the monetary system would automatically alter someone’s attitude and behavior to one that serves the good for all. Because, once you eliminate money, what is left?
The things one wholeheartedly wishes and desires.
Conclusion.
I hope & wish that we eradicate the ancient and destructive monetary system sooner rather than later; that we head towards oneness; that everyone enjoys a prosperous lifestyle on our planet; that we help and contribute to the local, national, and global community and benefit from it equally—without money, fears, lies, egocentricity, and laws, but with altruism, harmony, honesty, prosperity, trust, and unconditional love.
By the way, recent studies show that by sharing the currently available wealth equally across the planet, everyone would essentially be a millionaire (that is, in the outdated monetary system). However, since most people would or could not keep those millions of money, we need a new system in place that guarantees long-lasting welfare for all.
Our planet enlarge already does prosper, the wealth is just unfairly and unequally shared.
I very welcome the phase of time we are currently in. If you are fearful, don’t be. Trust in the good in humanity. Everything will work out well for everybody, including you. People will not stop working. Remember, we need each other.
Welcome changes. Applaud the demolition of the monetary system as it will bring us a much better, more beneficial system with infinite, equal possibilities for everyone.
Life is supposed to be fun, right? So let’s establish a system that ensures a fun experience for everyone. I’m so ready for it.
I barely scratched the surface here, though, and I’m open for more ideas from, um, the global community. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
Tagged with: freedom • goals • improvement • law of attraction • myths • new world • productivity • progress
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65 Responses to The Monetary System Has Failed
You can’t have an econonmy without some kind of “money”. Otherwise we would be back in the stone age, trading goods against each other. It’s not money that’s evil, it is treating money as if it were a product onto itself that is evil. Then you get the stock market, derivatives, securitisation, etc. that does not produce anything useful, but instead produces crises and shocks that damage the real economy.
That’s why I spoke about another reward system, one that’s based on the amount of hours contributed and, thus, benefits everyone equally. It’s been proven that the current monetary system failed miserably in that regard.
What needs to happen and is stated in detail in the Venus project is have everyone make a system that works to provide us with all we need, we don’t even need a reward system. People will want to help the cause and evolution for the sake of long term benefits. Life was meant be easy and we have the technology and knowledge to build a world based around our resources and a correction of population will naturally follow.
What you wrote is the exact reason why we need to get rid of the money system. Humans have been abusing it in all sorts of ways.
Money IS a reward system. It’s a way to keep score of how much you’ve contributed to others. If you mow your neighbor’s lawn for $10, then you gave $10 worth of productivity and you now have a simple way to claim $10 worth of productivity from someone else.
Money came about to make these types of transactions easy. So that no one has to trade half a live cow for a pound of sugar.
Where our monetary systems fail is when governments get involved via central banks. They can create money out of nothing, which is an obvious way of counterfeiting the “productivity” or value that money represents. They then literally add money to the accounts of people they choose. Or they add cheap money to the system where large banks can borrow the money first and profit from it… before the system fully absorbs the extra money and responds with inflation. That means some rich folks benefit while the average persons savings and wages/income is decreased.
This is all terrible. But it’s a condemnation of central banks, not of money.
Money is an important tool for allocating resources in an economy. It helps create prices, which contains valuable information that helps distribute resources to their best uses.
You get rid of money and you’ll have poverty for all.
A social reward system? That wouldn’t take in to account that some things are more valuable to one individual than they are to another. It’s important that individuals are allowed to judge for themselves how valuable things are, because that’s how prices form.
Money’s not the problem. Central banks are the problem.
It does keep score, somewhat, but this unevenly and unfairly. Here’s one of many examples:
How can it be that someone spent an enormous amount of hours helping people in an online forum to be more successful, have a better live, learn how to do something, etc., etc., that such a person is not being rewarded properly as far as a monetary reward is concerned? Even more so, thousands of people (i.e., members and visitors to/of that forum) benefit from the contribution of that single person, yet, still, s/he doesn’t receive a single cent from it?
See? Something is substantially wrong at the core of this system, hence my vision for a completely new one.
When you get rid of money you do not have poverty at all. Think about it… How will you get the goods you desire? Just like today, you gotta do something, right? And preferably spend a certain amount of HOURS—not money—contributing to the success, welfare, and well-being of all.
Again, when you share the wealth equally and establish an entirely new rewarding system—one that can’t be cheated anymore—most, if not all, people will benefit from it greatly.
As far as letting people judge for themselves what’s valuable for them and what not, that’s exactly what such a community-driven, social reward system would ensure. In contrast, the current monetary system does not allow you that—or at least, it’s very limiting.
For example, I would love to be able to give a LOT more people a job. But I can’t. Why? Because I don’t have the money…
Money is a much better way than “hours” to keep track of the value a person has added. If a doctor works 10 hours and a guy on an Internet forum works 10 hours… they may have worked the same amount of time but they have not provided the same amount of value. If they had, what incentive would there be for anyone to attain the skills to be a doctor when they could just sit on an Internet forum and spout opinions all day?
Money and prices in a free market provides the proper incentives for people to develop their strengths and go to work on jobs where they’re the most productive. That’s extremely valuable to a society. If the best scientist never became a scientist because he could get by just picking grapes or something, society would be less off.
And if people are putting in long hours of work and are not getting paid properly, then they should highly consider stopping immediately and moving to a task where someone is willing to pay. Because the fact that no one is willing to pay for what you’re doing is a sign that there’s something more valuable that you could be doing to help society. Do the things people are willing to pay for. Money and prices move people towards what is most beneficial for everyone.
For example, I might be helping some people with my post right now. But most people know the best use of my time would be putting my best skills to work. If I just sat here and talked to people all day I might feel fulfilled, but society would be less off. Money keeps me attentive to my skilled work.
Now if you’re doing work out of goodwill or charity, you can decide it’s worth it to keep at the task even if you’re not being paid well. But you need to be able to afford the charity or find people to finance you, or again, it may not be as beneficial as you think.
Also, hiring people benefits the employer. Anyone would love to have the money to give someone a job, because they’d make money from their employees work! But you have to work yourself first and build up capital to be able to hire people. That’s also a good thing, because then you’re risking your capital on whatever given task – and thus are more likely to make a better decision about which productive tasks to assign.
Money is a fantastic way to allocate resources, when it’s not fiat money. Maybe you’re just proposing a new monetary system and are mistakenly criticizing “money” when you should be criticizing fiat money. Fiat money is created out of thin air by elites, and so it benefits them at the expense of everyone else. That was not the case when money was good as gold.
I know where you’re coming from, Stephen, I used to think that way too. ;-)
It’s the typical competitive, egocentric, better-than-thou thinking & behavior ultimately caused by this monetary system. Speaking of one’s own return on investment, making profits, increasing sales, lowering expenses, persuade, MWR, CTR…
Blah blah blah, the game is over. The time has come for something much, much better.
For some people it’ll be tough to let go of the old paradigm and accept—and support—a completely new one where everyone “wins.”
LOL. Well if you used to think that way, then maybe I’m just not smart enough yet.
But I don’t think you did used to think that way, or you’d describe it as a system of checks and balances and win-win transactions that has led to more prosperity than the world has ever seen.
It’s fitting that you describe a society where everyone works for everyone and no one works for themselves on American Thanksgiving. There’s a story we retell in America about the first pilgrims from the Mayflower and how they almost starved to death following that system. When they instead switched to property rights and allowed people to keep the fruits of their labor, they flourished.
lewrockwell.com/orig10/maybury1.1.1.html
Your system dismisses the idea of working to better one’s own position as selfish, or egoist or even an “I’m better than you” attitude. But all it really is, is you get what you work for. That is a fair system and one most people gladly accept.
Fiat money has failed. “Money” most certainly has not.
I am an advocate for a society without money. But the approach to it is rather obscure, because we look at the possibility with our money-driven mentality and our concept of fairness and equality is mostly dictated by it.
Stephen, to give you a simple example of what I mean. You think that a person solely goes to med school because of the money they make? There are tons jobs that provide bigger monetary rewards than being a doctor. People are more motivated by the idea of mastering a skill, being helpful to others and being acknowledged (not necessarily with money) than revenues. On that same case, who determines the value of a profession….the market does…not the group of people who are receiving the service or products. Or would you say a baseball player deserves more money than a doctor?
On another hand the problem is we view “economizing” as handling monetary transactions rather than the resources of our planets and its distribution (Something inevitable because money existed before we started thinking about the concept of economy). Whoever gets the resources is not who needs it but who has the money to pay for it, regardless of deserving it. (Obviously in our current economic system deserving is equal to having the power of acquisition regardless of political and social practices).
And I am sorry I still haven’t seen/read what you posted, Stephen, but I don’t think that the people on the Mayflower had the technological advances and social structures and interconnectivity that we have now in order to make something of that sort work. What we are missing now a days is the educational and social cohesion to accomplish it.
Now I do not agree with a system of rewards either….because money is exactly a system of rewards if we are going to have one, why not keep the one we have and work on the structural level of it (through sensible political and social advocacy).
If we were to attempt living in a moneyless society, we need to reestructure our social, political and educational institutions. We would have to develop a social and global culture of understanding that the well being of my neighbour is my wellbeing and subsequently that of human beings. And we cannot wait to eliminate money to do so…..if we do that! I monetary system will be eliminated be itself.
I agree. The system’s being run inaccurately; thus, producing massive negative economic efffects. It’s not really the money which is the problem.
Your vision sounds a lot like communism. People trade as an instinct. Without trade and money you get free riders. I say eradicate welfare and put the people on welfare into massive state owned enterprises. I also think banks should be accountable for their losses.
I’m not a communist. However, when I read The Communist Manifesto years ago, I remember thinking that Marx & Engels had written a poem, a song of the human spirit. It’s a wonderful idea they had of everyone working together for the common good. It’s utopian, and of course, that’s the problem. Utopias don’t work, for many reasons.
As an economic system, communism was/is opposed to private ownership of property, which is dear to the heart of capitalism. But money, as such, is a significant element in both systems.
Marcus’s article is a tremendous contribution to the views on today’s monetary & economic problems. It’s a bit idealistic, bordering on utopian, but a valuable steppingstone in the search for solutions. It’s o