Fear of Scarcity

Written by Carmine Gorga, The Somist Institute

This (Part 6) is a continuation of the previous article in this series:  The Expected Effects of Petitions to Improve the Monetary System.  Here we specifically emphasize the import of the second petition to reform the monetary system.  Both of the petitions were described in Part 3 of this series.

The Import of the Second Petition

The attempt to cure the financial system as a whole is the import of the second petition. This petition calls for a systematic reduction of debt through a systematic reduction of zeros. Let us repeat the gist of the issue.

You and Joe have one million dollars each.  You are equally rich.  Joe’s wealth eventually grows by leaps and bounds to $10 million.  Clearly, Joe is now ten times as rich as you are.

But, by hook and by crook, you raise your financial wealth to $10 million as well. You are now again as rich as Joe.

What has occurred – from a purely financial point of view – between the initial and the final position? Nothing has occurred. There has been only an accumulation of zeros.

Hence the second petition on the Internet:  To avoid a cataclysmic reduction of financial wealth by financial crisis, the petition calls for an organized voluntary systematic reduction of zeros.  This is nothing more than a suggested reproduction of the Mosaic Jubilee Solution.

Financial wealth is a pure accumulation of zeros. This is true for the global economy, not only the American economy.

The Deeper Meaning of the Two Petitions

The implementation of the proposed petitions to straighten out our monetary system has a deeper intent than just fixing our financial “mess.” They go to the core of values of inestimable worth.

1.  Personal Dignity

What do we gain through the implementation of a rational plan of systematic reduction of debt coupled with the gradual transformation of privileges into rights? Apart from all economic and financial benefits, we gain a whole set of values of inestimable worth.

Rather than using power to crush human beings under a mountain of debt, we use rational solutions that turn to mutual benefit.

When we transform the privilege of access to national credit reserved to the few under the current prevailing monetary system into a right belonging to each and everyone of us, we foster the personal dignity of each and every human being.

2.  Personal Economic Security

And personal dignity will be built on economic security for everyone: the poor, the middle classes, and the rich. Even the few will live in a regimen of steady security, rather than under the threat of the pitchforks. No more threats of redistribution of wealth. Thus, there will be certainty of protection of personal wealth for everyone. No more fear of losing one’s wealth overnight; no more fear of a financial collapse that will unravel all commercial relationships at once.

3.  Economic Freedom for Individual Human Beings

Economic security built on the basis of the dignity of each and every human being automatically leads to economic freedom for all.

4.  Justice to the Economic System

In turn, economic freedom for all will insure that the social and economic system works with a maximum of social and economic justice for all. We have largely been reduced to a catatonic state in which we do not know any longer what is just; and most certainly we are intimidated from asking that political and economic justice be done to us and to every human being.

5.  Morality to Economics

Thus shall we restore morality to economics: not by preaching; not by practicing methods of moral extortion; but by allowing people to exercise their God-given rights.

6.  Economic Freedom to the Nation

Once we restore morality to economics, we will have automatically assured economic freedom to the nation as a whole. And the chain does not stop there.

7.  Freedom to the Political System

With justice in our social organization, we shall also have freedom in our political system. Money will get out of politics because engaged and knowledgeable people will enter the system in droves. Most of all, we shall abstain from asking our representatives and politicians to play Robin Hood, to steal from the rich to give to the poor. While preserving the right of the rich of access to national credit, we will most assuredly allow the poor and the middle classes to exercise this right as well.

 Fear of Scarcity is the Mother of All Evil

Fear of scarcity is the mother of all evil. When the Fed creates money, not in relation to gold, not in relation to the hunger of voracious bankers but in relation to the real needs of the country, scarcity will be replaced with sufficiency. And all the potential beneficial uses of money will be unleashed within the nation.

Love and Justice

We do much disservice to ourselves when we forget two essential things:

1.  Love is a virtue, a characteristic of our human make-up—just as Justice is a virtue.
2.  One cannot be implemented without the other.

Hence, we are going to betray them both when we keep them separated from each other. Indeed, the work has to be extended in the other direction; We must not separate them from all basic virtues such as prudence, justice, temperance, courage, wisdom, science, understanding, hope, faith, and love. Indeed, the practice of all the virtues has to be integrated into one solid unit, in order to become powerful tools of action and thought.

This is the minimum: It takes love to give—and to receive—economic justice.

Part 1 of this series:  The World of Economics Since 2008

Part 2:  Two Proposals to Stabilize the Monetary System

Part 3:  Can You Petition for Monetary Reform?

Part 4:  Should We Curb the “Animal Spirits” of Mankind?

Part 5:  The Expected Effects of Petitions to Improve the Monetary System

Part 6:  This article.

This article was developed from an article posted at Mother Pelican, October 2015.