Initiative for a free monetary system

Money The use of money occurs together with the division of labour as soon as labour is separated from the natural context. Money simplifies the exchange of goods. Money is what mediates the exchange of goods. Money receives its value through its exchangeability into goods, services or rights. The value of money is therefore directly related to the fact that a good is available. Thus a monetary value arises simultaneously with the creation of exchangeable things, goods, services or capital goods. If these things lose their value, for example if food spoils due to too long storage, the resulting monetary value would still exist. But then there would no longer be a corresponding value of goods. This is a phenomenon of today's financial system, that money was created with the goods, but that money has been decoupled from the life cycles of goods and even if goods disappear again, money partly keeps its value. Money should keep the connection to the exchange of goods in economic life. Money that is used for goods must also lose its value in the same way as the goods associated with it or their value-added possibilities (means of production) lose their value. "Money, just like other goods, should wear out. That is, if we have non-depleting money inside the economic body, then we may give money an advantage over depreciable goods", (B024, 3.8.1922). Money was created as a means to facilitate the exchange of goods: When one good is exchanged for another, a value is thereby established for the quantity of good A in its exchange for the value of the quantity of good G. If such good G cannot be completely consumed by itself, good G can also be used to exchange it for good B and, if there is still enough supply, also for good C. It is therefore possible to exchange commodity G for other commodities A,B,C,D,... as long as there is sufficient stock of commodity G, and as long as the sellers of commodities A,B,C,D,... consider commodity G as a means of exchange and consider it to have a value equal to the value of their offered commodities. A means of exchange for commodities is money (commodity G), if it is accepted by those offering the commodities as something corresponding to the value of their commodities. And it can only represent such a value if it is itself a value derived from the goods. "All money has once changed from commodity to money", (B024, 2.8.1922). These are two conditions for money, it must be in a real relationship with existing and tradable goods and people must give it a corresponding value in their consciousness. Through this consciousness money is also to be regarded as a legal document. The money is issued by a responsible body (e.g. central bank). For example, it is lent for the production of goods, it thereby acquires its value, flows in the economic cycle and loses its value when it flows again from the consumer via the company to the issuing point. The money makes the value and goods flows billable. It corresponds to the awareness of the value-added activities, each price arises in the consciousness of the people involved through the agreed service and consideration. The money is therefore "... in a fluctuating sense an accounting system ...", (B157, 5.8.1922) which represents all worldwide exchanges of goods and services. Money is the detached, freely moving accounting value of economic flows. The value of money is formed from the connection and interaction of consumption and production possibilities. It is like the expression of a world accounting system on which the economic transactions are represented and processed. "We actually have what you might call the bookkeeping, accounting system that spans the entire world economy." (B024, 6.8.1922). The value of money is formed by and constantly changes in the influencing factors of means of production, income, available money supply, production possibilities, prices and consumption. "Money is nothing other than the externally expressed value produced by the division of labor, which is transferred from one to the other." (B024, 27.7.1922). Based on the recognized monetary theories, today's financial system pursues the goal of the lowest possible loss of monetary value by the central bank. Those who see their task in achieving low inflation rates and the financial industry, which wants to increase the money of the investors. The existing financial system therefore does not take into account the slow aging of money and has no awareness of the money supply corresponding to the economic value-added system. The natural characteristics of money must therefore appear unconscious and unplanned. Monetary depreciation through inflation as a degenerated form of money aging. And stock market crises, in which many billions or trillions of apparent monetary values disappear, are the pathological effect of an uncontrolled and far too large money supply. Money actually loses its value with the disappearance of goods and value creation opportunities. But this is not realistically represented in today's financial system. Today, the money supply is artificially increased by its connection with land, by speculation on the stock exchanges or by central banks. Thus, fictitious money is created without any real economic consideration. These circumstances give money an advantage over goods. The economic system thus has in itself the characteristic that work on goods or services brings less income than the possession of money. "It is enough for him to do nothing at all, to withdraw all his labor from the social organism and let the others work, that he borrows and lets the others work". (B024, 3.8.1922). These financial bubbles will continue to exist as long as the function of money is not understood and people maintain in their consciousness the illusion of these great unreal monetary values. In the 19th century the economic impulses begin to become financial. "This makes the whole thing not only impersonal, but even unnatural; it draws everything into itself moving money flows", (B024, 1.8.1922). As long as man believes in the value of money in his consciousness, it has this value; if a large part of people lose this belief, this monetary value dissolves. Payment for goods, the consumption money The process of the exchange of goods between producer and consumer is the point in economic life where need and manufacturing skills meet. Here it is decided whether this service (goods) is also needed, what value it can have for the consumer, whether the needs can be satisfied in reality. The value creation process finds a stopping point there. Paying belongs directly to the economic process, a value and a price are only achieved if a price is paid for a good. If the payment follows only later, the connection with the goods is no longer immediately given, thus another value is paid. For example, if I pay months later, the goods may already have been used up for a long time, the producer is already producing completely different goods and can then use the late payment only for the goods now being produced. "And something becomes a commodity of the market by paying for it immediately", (B024, 29.7.1922). An unpunctual payment of services therefore leads to a distortion of prices and a change in the goods that can be produced. Although the consumer pays for the goods or services, all expenses up to the time of payment, have already been paid by another party. Thus the producer can use the money he receives only for future activities. The existence of goods and performance, is an advance payment of the community, which is made available to us as consumers. The more we succeed in becoming aware of the value-added process and what our fellow human beings have achieved for us, the more fruitful our behaviour in the economic process will be. Because every purchase has a suction effect on the value-added process, with a purchase the supplier is given money as an assignment for his next (future) performance. Loans Whoever gets (capital) money borrowed can apply his mind to this borrowed capital. He who lends money becomes a creditor, he who borrows money becomes a debtor. If someone is spiritually capable of doing something useful for people, it must also be possible in the social context that this person gets a capital (freedom of action) for his actions. This capital is part of the economic whole organism and is lent to the debtor, so it can also be called loan money. Whoever lends money has a surplus of money at this moment, whoever borrows money either has a need and wants to overcome it or wants to realize things with the money that could not be done without it. Seen in this way, the money lender also starts from the condition that later the same principle, namely that the other person will also lend him money. Because the former recipient of the loan money has now overcome his misery or has realized his idea and now has a money surplus at his disposal and can and wants to lend money. But the introduction of interest for loan money now prevents this to a large extent. Who has received loan money, can not build up a surplus (interest), because he must pay the surplus to the lender. Lending without interest is therefore a mutuality based on trust in economic life, while lending with interest is a renunciation of direct reciprocity (brotherhood). "Interest is the replacement for something that plays between man and man, is the retribution for something that plays in the economic process as human reciprocity." (B024, 2.8.1922). But the interest is also a share that is available to the people who have borrowed money, as the fruit of the action thus made possible. Thus income is generated from capital property. This is how the interest of the capital owner arises, that capital is used fruitfully. The value of the loan money depends on the ideas and technical abilities of the person who receives this loan money for his enterprise and what he can form from it, therefore, in fruitful economic things (B024, 4.8.1922). Capital can now be lent in an anxious striving for security (land, raw materials), then this behaviour will hinder new developments, it can be lent in excessive greed for rapid capital increase and high interest, then the tendency of lending goes towards ruthless economic activity (share-holder-value). Or the lending of money looks at the borrower, his professional and moral abilities in a Christian humanity. "Lending money must gradually change completely into gift money. Borrowing money must not, in a sense, be allowed to back up into the buying field to interfere with it." (B024, 4.8.1922). If capital goods are created, they begin to create surpluses that have not yet been there. Surpluses that arise because human mental power has been used to create new machines and tools. If these surpluses are now invested to the advantage of less in land and financial exchanges, the effect is much worse, in contrast to pouring these surpluses into new mental activities. So it can be recognized that the most promising are donations, money that is used for intellectual work, for innovation, for education. Entrepreneurs can only realize their activities through borrowed money. Whether it is equity or borrowed capital, it is always just a kind of loan money provided by the community. Thus, a given tendency of entrepreneurs to cheapen or devalue this loan money, with the least possible return (B024, 30.7.1922). The present financial system makes this tendency impossible to a large extent, even wants to valorise it. However, many entrepreneurial activities are only possible where loan money is devalued. So instead of a natural devaluation of loan money, companies become insolvent. Many of these insolvencies are caused by the non-existent devaluation of loan money. Money flows from the consumption money sphere to the lending money sphere. In order to maintain a balance here, the loan money that is no longer needed must also flow out again. It does this in the direction of the gift money sphere. Money comes young from the consumption money sphere, is older in the lending money sphere and dies into the gift money sphere. There it ideally still serves for a one-time consumption. The amount of loan money should be regulated by an association that can increase the amount of loan money by lending (investments in trade, corporate and industrial capital) and reduce the amount of loan money by disinvestment, investment termination and donation. Ultimately, all loan money must be transformed into gift money in the life cycle of the money. Giving People who prepare the future, develop ideas and skills do not contribute to the economic value added in the present, they only consume. But be it artists, intellectual creators, trainers or children they prepare what will be value-adding in human society in the future. They can only carry out their present activities through donations. If they were not given anything, children could not develop according to their own self, trainers could no longer offer education appropriate to children and cultural development, artists could no longer be free creators and spiritual workers could no longer develop ideas for human society, priests could no longer hold services. So it is not the question how much someone receives as a gift (inherited, ...), but how well he can deal with what he receives. A society is sustainable if it succeeds in creating and distributing gifts to the people who receive them. For this purpose, ways must be found to direct available capital directly to spiritually productive (institutions). The custom to store capital instead of converting it into gift money must be made uninteresting by appropriate financial instruments. "There is now the possibility to raise the interest rate for natural property to almost one hundred percent by giving as much of the natural property as possible to the intellectual producers as a free gift. (B024, 29.7.1922). The same applies also to the speculation with capital on the stock exchanges that must be made unprofitable. One can recognize giving as the most productive of all in the money cycle in relation to the buy-sell and the borrowing process. Assuming here, of course, that the recipient of the money can also do something useful with it. Thus, a buy-sell transaction will maintain the existing value-added process, a loan transaction for new business ideas will turn new additional value-added abilities into reality, and gift money will be able to create new abilities and knowledge from intellectual creation (B024, 1.8.1922). Thus it would be important for the overall economic structure if capital would not accumulate in land and soil or stock exchange speculation and thus hinder the development of society, but if capital would flow into scholarships and foundations, which would then take responsibility for a humane donation to training and intellectual research institutions. Giving places high demands on the donor, who has the responsibility to ensure that available gift money is given to people who have the donor's needs or corresponding moral, intellectual and professional qualifications. Just as the donee has a responsibility to the human community, he or she must use the money entrusted to him or her accordingly. "If you give directly, your reason is within." (B024, 4.8.1922) He who gives, connects karmically also with the one he gives. The gift that leads to the financing of the spiritual life is the basis for the development of human abilities. Without education, without cultural creation and without intellectual thinking, people run the risk of falling into a standstill. The problems and tasks of humanity will not be solved by old solutions, but only by new ideas and impulses drawn from the spirit (B075, 23.11.19). Used sensibly, gift-giving is a process in the same way that the powers of the spirit are assessed for the future. Gift money is basically everything that is spent for education, for free spiritual development, for schools, training centres and foundations active in the spiritual field. Gift money benefits the spiritual life of the social organism and this spiritual life is the place where the I of this being can work most strongly and positively. Through gift money the spiritual life, the I of the divine spiritual being that has connected itself with the social organism, comes to the earthly life and work. If loan money is not transformed into gift money, but invested (dammed) in land or stock exchange speculation, the prices of land will rise, and this will make economic processes in general more expensive, immovable and difficult, and some can obtain income or wealth at the expense of the functioning of economic processes. If there were no money given by one person to another, there would be no money for children so that they would be able to live and educate themselves until the day they had an income themselves. A society without gift money, a society in which nobody wants to give any more, would be a society without a future. However, gift money is used by the recipients for consumption and with the consumption the loan money, which is now gift money, goes into its dissolution. Gift money should be the oldest money so that only for private consumption (consumption) is given to people who work in the spiritual areas. The sum of what is available as gift money should be based on the balance of the money areas, the loan money coming into old age (duration1 of the investment expires or disinvestment) and the quantity of food produced (B024, 3.8.1922). The value of living money Money is created (is born), is young, becomes old and money disappears again (dies). Money is something living that is related to the ability to create value (means of production), exchange of goods and services. For example, when money is created in 2011 it is young, has its highest value, when it gets older it slowly loses its value. If it has completely lost its value after a period of e.g. 30 years, then it will be useless in economic processes. When it is very young, it finds its use as purchase money in the value creation process, through consumer restraint2 the loan money is created, this will then, because it is still young money for long-term investments, for enterprises planned over long periods of time, over decades, then the money will also be most valuable. If you want to carry out ventures that are planned to last several years, you will take older money, i.e. money that is worth less. And money that is old, that is before dying, that will be passed on as a gift money and thus lead directly to a consumption of goods. With new goods that are produced new money will then again come into the economic organism. Money has the quality of something living, a living being. This being can be called mammon. This being either develops its own life because it is left free by man (free market in the financial markets) or is brought under control by man. There is a consumption money sphere, a loan money sphere and a gift money sphere. These must be consciously grasped by the responsible people. Just as a wild animal must be tamed, so must the nature of money. Where it can move uncontrolled and freely, it leads to economic upheaval, disturbances and damage. As can be seen in the stock market bubbles, currency, real estate, derivative speculation, stock market trading with life (CO2 emission trading) and food and its catastrophic effects. What used to be compensated for in terms of imbalances in domestic economies, by the export or import of goods, or by fluctuations in the external value of a currency, is now reflected in fluctuating exchange rates, prices and economic sentiment. This can be brought back into balance by regulating the distribution of money between purchase money, loan money and gift money, the associations will be responsible for this. "If the purchase money causes a disturbance, then money flows in the appropriate manner to or from the purchase money sphere, the loan money sphere - as is otherwise the case in other countries - or gift money sphere." (B024, 4.8.1922). We must understand that there is no uniform money, but rather purchase money, gift money and loan money, and that money arises in a similar way to goods3, is young money, and ages, loses value4. Perhaps also money that has a future date, which increases in value until it is invested and decreases in value afterwards? The cost of money would then be lower at the beginning in the investment and development phase, highest in the phase when the company is new and successful, and would then decrease again. Money gets its value at one point in time through the purchase of goods and then loses its value over the years. At the end of its life money should be given away, be consumed. Money dies into the gift. Money is created with the goods or the abilities to produce goods that are needed. So the money supply is related to the goods and the useful means of production. "From this you will see that no kind of money can be anything other than an expression of the sum of useful means of production." (B024, 6.8.1922). Money is a right, a claim to receive a certain amount of fruit that these means of production can produce5. The one who works intellectually can do so because others relieve him of his value-creating work on nature. They do this because they have a need for the fruits of spiritual work. While working on a book, the writer needs as much money as he needs to pay for his life during this time (saving of work on nature). This is then also the economic value of his book. There is the connection between means of production, ability to produce goods, value and price formation. Money with concrete reference to the ability to feed would reveal this connection (B024, 6.8.1922). Every human being needs a certain amount of arable land for his life and a certain amount of usable means of production for his prosperity. Money should therefore express the right to receive a certain amount of food6 , so that every consumer has a real connection to the services provided for him. At the same time, however, the available land is also allocated to the population that is based on it. This promotes awareness of the need for sensible use of land and means of production. This land, which is in individual community ownership, can then be administered by corresponding associations. These associations lend this useful land, these useful means of production to the correspondingly qualified farmers and entrepreneurs. This makes it more visible, money is only a tool for economic activity and the economy should be there for the people. Money creates nothing, people create living things; money can be a tool. It does not stand above but below people and must also be consciously controlled by them, otherwise it can have a suppressive and destructive effect. Money itself doesn't work, it doesn't create anything, it can only be given to people and open up possibilities for them. The possession of money cannot be with a person, family or group for all time, which then acquires from it an ever greater possession at the expense of the fellow human beings. Money possession must therefore find a certain time limit in a certain way. "Money ownership is transferred to the general public in an appropriate form after a certain period of time." (B179, "III Capitalism and Social Ideas"). A savings balance is a (saved) consumption held back for the future and must be in proportion to the available consumption of goods and services. Savings credits are based on a service rendered for which no consideration has yet been given, but they can only be applied to the extent that goods are available. Here lies a natural relationship between the size of the savings credit and the economic performance.
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