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Books and documents:
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà, Brauli Tamarit Tamarit.
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà.
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà.
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà.
Magdalena Grau, Agustí Chalaux.
Martí Olivella.
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Chapter 19. Let us imagine that...
Electronic money, duly controlled, may become an instrument to
try to solve conflicts which up to now were unsurmontable: between documented
liability and freedom of action; between social solidarity (socialism)
and personal freedom (democracy; between creation of wealth and redistribution
of surpluses.
It may bring about the separation and the free personal choice between
trade activities (profit motive) and communal-liberal activities (non-profit
motive). It may help to complement the information centralization (global
viewpoint) and decentralization of action (individuals, communities,
districts, townships, regions, nations, companies, organizations... freely
confederated according to the subsidiarity principle). It may help the
quantification of materials and energies dispersed or degraded and the
collection of funds for their protection or substitution.
This is a difficult chapter. It is usually easier to limit oneself to criticize
than to imagine possible futures. Even so, we shall submit a number of
possible steps to give shape to new rules of the game. This list of imagined
steps is only a sketch. We should like to help to promote research and
debate, at a time when we have been left without reference models to orientate,
from the present, the construction of a society taking advantage of the
creative possibilities brought about by the fall of dogmas, and essaying
other solutions other than the ones which have failed, to solve old and
new problems.
All these steps can help to better fathom the inner dynamics of the
suggested model, which will be submitted in greater detail in another volume.
We shall have mainly to imagine..., to imagine a bold stage, which we
think is technically and economically possible. A stage which, in any case,
may help us to reflect and compare reality to discover its failures and
possibilities.
The rules of the game which we shall submit, in a short
form, are just a list of explicit or latent suggestions which, in democratic
cultures, have been tried or claimed. We think they may be, mostly, a contribution
to research by those who want to find ways to go beyond socialism and capitalism.
The only novelty, perhaps, is in the fact of presenting them as related
parts of an overall model which can become feasible thanks to the capacity
to have an informative instrument which points out liabilities to carry
them out in a little coactive and little bureaucratic way.
Some aspects of these rules of the game are a sine que non condition
for a consistent and democratic application of electronic money and, at
the same time, a feasible objective thanks, precisely, to the possibilities
brought about by electronic money. They look for a cleaner, clearer, freeer,
more responsible and solidary game:
- Liability and new organization of government institutions: political, judicial and civic.
- Independent, open, documented and free justice.
- Free but documentally liable market.
- Independent and free communal services.
- Self-balanced, ecologic and informative economy.
- Free political federation and civic confederation of the ethnic groupswhich make up the geopolitical society.
- Balanced and interdependent foreign relations.
We shall finish this chapter with a description of possible benefits for
citizens in such day-to-day aspects as those concerning citizens' security.
1.
Liability and new organization of government institutions: political, judicial
and social.
Public institutions and officials show a trend to convert their service
responsibility into a power irresponsibility. The political theory born
of the French Revolution consecrated formal democratic principles (independence
among the executive, legislative and judicial powers; universal suffrage...)
but did not make sure of how to grant their observance. Lacking liability
systems, public administration falls easily and with impunity into breach
of trust and elightened despotism: formal-official democracy and actual
non-official powers.
In spite of the two hundred years from the proclamation of democratic
liberties, even at a formal level they have scarcely ever been fully in
force: monarchic restorations, executive despotisms, limitation of vote,
association and expression... We may say that, except for some few States,
and for some few periods, the legacy of the French Revolution must still
find its formal, and even more its actual definition. Why?
Before suggesting possible ways to deepen democracy, here is one preliminary
recommendation: it is necessary to situate the following proposals within
a framework where socialization of accounting monetary information and
automatic redistribution of money to finance cultural, relief and territorial
self-government needs, might avoid the endless discussions on the financing
of these activities. Most conflicts between the State and other institutions
(cultural and territorial), caused by the lack of clear accounts, might
be solved, thanks to automatic processes out of every discussion. In this
way the accounting centralization would offer a socialized information
which would help decentralization of Government.
In order to avoid the social control officials to become a power against
the people, it would be necessary to start a number of 'anti-power' steps
to bring about the free responsibility of the governing body. Some of the
feasible steps, to develop with more rigour the democratic political theory
and make it really operative, might be:
- Radical separation between the functions and the election systems of the
legislative, executive and judicial bodies at all levels of society.
Ensuring the independence between the executive and the legislative
powers would avoid to formation of 'executive parliamentarisms' -which
govern by executive decree-, a procedure typical of any dictatorship. Ensuring
independence between State (executive and legislative powers) and Justice
would allow this one to defend the lawful State.
- Equal terms for common financing and advertising spaces for all candidates
to any election. The impossibility of private financing because candidates
would be enclosed in the communal statute and could only receive communal
financing. Candidatures with open lists, from which persons would be voted,
who submitted specific programmes and engagements, and who would not be
submitted to vote discipline.
Equal terms for all options and the system of proportional representation
would allow the influence of minorities (the seeds of future transformations).
Communal financing could avoid the influence of pressure groups which 'buy'
votes by means of bank credits or donations for electoral campaigns. Open
lists would allow to ask for personal liabilities from the elected, in
whom electors have deposited their trust.
- Documented liability of all the acts of public control, when the legal
term of office had finished, in face of an independent Justice.
We must strive for all 'responsible public person' to be actually so
in face of Justice, and this will only be effective if it has the documentation
of the decisions taken. Political immunity during the term of office must
correspond to a total transparency when it comes to its end. It must be
avoided that only 'God and history' be the ones to judge the rulers' 'liability'.
For example, it must be avoided that, at the end of their term, public
officials become (as it often happens) members of the boards of directors
of the companies to which they have done favours. The publication of all
the assets of public officials when they start their term of office and
an auditing at the end are also systems of clarification and liability,
which might become almost automatic.
- Limiting continuous re-elections with suitable systems, different for the
executive and the legislative officials.
The present possibility of re-election 'professionalizes' politics and
increases the possibility of transforming it into power; it makes the active
participation of more citizens difficult, who are never 'prepared' to carry
out public commitments.
- Reduction of all the functions that the State has usurped and their transfer
to the civilian society (districts, townships, regions, ethnic groups,
utilitarian concerns, communal bodies...) for their free exercise, independent
and grounded on the citizens.
The reduction of functions of present statism is fundamental to avoid
the reproduction of bureaucratic power structures. The welfare state should
be substituted by the liability of citizens and their basic institutions
which, united, should take up the free and plural management of communal
services (health, education, information, arts, self-government...) and
of productive activity (company, initiative, investment, work, innovation...)
according to the subsidiarity rule (every level takes up what it can).
2.
Independent, open, documented and free justice.
Most of the political theories formally acknowledge the need for an
independent Justice. In practice, however, the State or the factual powers
have found the way to make this independence only apparent, mediatizing
it and conditioning it. The independence of Justice is a complex matter.
In order to avoid this independence to be an excuse to create closed corporative
powers, to perpetuate ruling classes..., a number of steps such as the
following should be taken:
- Suppression of the system of competitive examinations and numerus clausus
to enter into the body of judges.
For example: any lawyer with six years practice could register free
in the school of judges (the Organic Law forsees this system of access
but only for one third of the places). At the end he would act as an assistant
for three years to a judge that the candidate would choose freely. If the
judge, under his responsibility and public prestige, gave him his approval,
he would be automatically appointed as judge and would start to practise
in any of the vacant places which would always be available in order to
improve the judicial service according to priorities in the budget of Justice.
«A country with more judges than policemen could probably be more
solidary and free than a country with more policemen than judges.»
What can we expect if in Spain there are over 100,000 policemen and only
2,000 judges?
- Open associations of judges, responsible of appointments without any interference
from the State.
Closed corporativism contributes to the constitution of factual powers.
With our proposal, the corporations of judges would break their closed
and classist structure (going from 2,000 to 6,000 or 10,000 judges would
change magistrature also with respect to quality. Open professional bodies,
with self-discipline among colleagues of every professional category, and
the urge for pestige, honesty and effectiveness of the judicial body (endowed
with the exact and comprehensive documentation to fund its sentences and
prevent the possibility of bribery) are very important elements for making
Justice self-responsible in the appointment and removal of judges.
- Financing Justice through a system other than the conditioning budget of
the Ministry of Justice (an evidently surplus Ministry) is a sine qua
non condition for its independent and completely free management.
For example, a percentage established constitutionally -on the GNP,
or on the general State budget- administered with accounting clarity by
the associations of judges, could ensure a free and effective judicial
action against any interference or attempt to drown it through lack of
money. The existence of a Ministry of Justice and of a Government's budget
for Justice attempts against the proclaimed necessary independence of this
institution.
- The activation of judicial procedures does not only demand a greater number
of judges but also their specialization, diversified by subjects and areas.
For example, every trial judge, in his territorial level, would carry
one only case until it was finished. The existing judicial specialties,
and those which would have to be created in such a complex world as ours
(penal, civil, political, medical, mercantile...), would allow a much more
exact action to solve specific conflicts of every social group. The judicial
extension to all territorial levels (district, township, region, ethnic
and interethnic groups...) would allow to solve at every level many conflicts
which today are piled up in provincial or state courts.
- With the suppression of anonymous currency, the possibilities of abuse
by Justice are instrumentally and practically much reduced. With informative
and personalized currency, Justice - which protects against any interference
whatsoever the monetary data bases- has, at the same time, an exhaustive
and exact information to document -in public, if necessary- many of its
sentences.
There is a terribly great mistrust generated by Justice among population,
because the scandals of bribery, the lack of means and the arbitrary sentences
-for lack of conclusive evidence- are recurrent.
- Today's audio-visual recording systems and self-control telematic systems
allow to solve greatly the famous question of 'who controls the controller?
who controls Justice?'
Among other means, the installation of three informatic systems (each
one with different machines, programmes and human teams) to process the
monetary information independently and simultaneously would stop (to a
high degree of statistical probability) all sorts of manipulation of information,
and would grant the total inviolability of the citizens' privacy. The audio-visual
recording of the judicial acts would help the lodging of complaints against
judicial outrage and the revision of sentences at higher levels.
3.
A free market, but documentally liable.
A clear and responsbile policy, based on a lawful State guaranteed by
the impossibility of unpunished wrongdoing by the factual powers, and by
the independence of a documentary Justice, is an element of fair rules
of the game, which can improve the highest and best liberties, responsible
in all social fields. Beyond some crippled markets -planned or falsely
free- which are shelter of all sorts of exploitation (on persons and on
natural life), it is necessary to make true some steps to help the market
with as many real liberties as possible within accountable and solidary
rules of the game. Without these rules of the game, the factual powers
of any system decide on and against the remaining population. The introduction
of a telematic currency could improve a policy of freedom and of social
solidarity, as long as the market did work. Production and sale of utilitarian
products is the wealth-generating motor, and its redistribution is not
only a solidary actitude, but it is necessary for the good working of the
market and for the wealth of productors (operators, workers, investors
and inventors). Production is prior to consumption and investment. But
generating consumption (purchasing power) and investment (credits) capacity
allows to carry on producing more and better.
The 'free market' has been the lid for all sorts of foul play. The 'suppression
of the market by decree', however, has been the lid for productive foolishness
and ineffectivness. The market is a very ancient and useful human invention.
Even if it is prohibited, sooner or later it emerges again under shape
of 'black market' or officially camouflaged under the name of 'socialist
mixed economy'. The problem is not market yes or market no, but disorderly
market or responsible market. These rules of the game might take into account,
among others, the following elements:
- One single telematic monetary system, as a sales-purchase system allowing
a documentarily liable freedom; supplying a total information to duly orientate
the investments and production of free investors, operators, inventors
and workers; opening a path to make state planning useless, and to contribute
elements to overcome mercantilist crises.
The informative darkness of the present market does not help at all
the liable freedom of the market agents (producers and consumers). This
informative darkness, based on an irrational and uninformative monetary
system, does not allow to know what is being produced nor what is actually
consumed, and, therefore, stops a free action to reestablish the constant
imbalances which are generated.
- The free competition and private initiative might help the production and
sale of goods insofar as means were available so that this market freedom
did not become a licence to help the foul play of the monopolies and oligopolies.
The documentation for every act of sale-purchase; the understandable
and free socialization of all the monetary-mercantile information; the
establishment of minimum antidumping prices; the substitution of company
advertising through an agile and operative information of products and
services in every area; the free hiring and unhiring; the establishing
of an indefinite salary of forced unemployment; the communal support of
savings; the suppression of all the Social Security fees and of taxes on
production or incomes; the improvement of citizens' safety with the instrumental
impossibility of frauds, swindles, unpaid debts, robberies and hold-ups...
are steps which might help to create a market more responsible and free
than the present one.
4.
Voluntary and free communal services.
If the market function is to produce and consume goods useful for life,
the function of the communal area is to offer 'cultural' services in the
widest sense of the word. The feature of communal-liberal professions and
institutions is that, since always, they proclaim themselves altruistic
and unselfish. The confusion between the market and the communal area has
included this one, usually, within the tertiary mercantile sector of 'services'.
It has been allowed to become one of the most influential factual powers,
that of 'knowledge', which is related to and is at the service of those
'having money'.
- It would be necessary to cause the demercantilization and the nationalization
of communal professions and institutions, to put them at the free and unselfish
service of all individuals, nationalities and collectivities.
To reach the gratuity of services, while helping the free practice of
professionals and the freedom of choice of 'customers' or 'users', it would
be necessary to supply the communal statute of a communal funding, to allow
the free practice with the necessary equipments. The struggle between public
and private -health, education, mass media, research...- is a deceit which
attempts against the freedom of education (teachers), of expression (journalists)
and of creation (artists) and against the free choice by 'customers' or
users of the services. In short, it is a struggle between two private interests:
the official private powers and the factual private powers.
- The access system to any communal profession and the working system of
any communal institution might be similar to those which have been submitted
for Justice.
Suppression of competitive examinations and tests, direct access after
the studies and probationary period without numerus clausus, communal
funding, total gratuity of services, limitation of the professional practice
outside the communal statute, incompatibility with any mercantile job and
remuneration...
- In principle the communal statute would be open to all the professions
and institutions that have since always proclaimed themselves altruistic
and unselfish. That is, according to their respective deontologies, non-profit
and at the unconditional service of anybody requesting their service for
assitance, culture, etc. The communal statute would include in the first
place, all the persons and institutions dedicated to the public administration
(politicians and public official). There might also be included non-profit
bodies and associations (sports, cultural, trade-unions, political...),
and most professionals and institutions which today are discussing whether
they are public or private in the field of health, education and information,
research, assitance...; also, the professionals in the field of culture
and art (writers, artists...) and of religious communities.
The main feature of all these services would be their gratuity and,
therefore, they would be financed by the community. The community would
pay the persons, the equipments and the expenses of the daily operation.
The second feature would be their total freedom of action within the communal
statute: everybody could carry out his profession as he thought fitting,
as long as his help were free to 'customers' and did not harm anybody,
under sanction of his professional association or the corresponding specialized
justice. In the current accounts of the persons of the communal area -individuals
or institutions- only money of communal origin could be deposited. In this
way the 'operations' of those having money to control politics, Justice,
education, health, information... would become difficult. It would therefore
be incompatible to receive money from the 'community' for a communal job
and, at the same time, to receive money for mercantile jobs or operations.
- The amount of money necessary for financing those included in the communal
statute could be obtained mainly by the communal creation of money (now
this creation is mainly done by the private bank). So the money for the
public services would not come out only from taxes nor from emissions of
public debt. This is one possibility which an informative monetary system
can offer: to know how much monetary value must be created and to distribute
it so that production may be consumed. (It is one of the hypotheses we
are studying and which can upset the conventional views of economy. Because
of its importance it will be dealt with in a separate essay).
To understand the dynamics of the communal statute something very important
must be underlined. The communal sector does not produce goods directly
essential for survival. We can say that it is an addition, very human,
and important, but still an addition to the actually basic world of the
production of 'material' goods for life. In the market dynamics goods are
created, bought and sold. Its consumption surpluses allow those not producing
'material' goods to consume them, and, therefore, to be financed to buy
them. If the production of consumption goods diminishes, the retribution
of those depending on the communal statute in time will inevitably diminish.
This will push them to help to produce more or better, either directly
(getting into the market), or indirectly (improving education, health,
research, services, information, politics...).
- To make this dynamics feasible, everybody receiving communal salaries or
allowances would have a number of communal 'points' allotted. The total
sum of points allotted with respect to the communal monetary mass would
give the monetary value of the point, which might vary according to the
value of the consumption production, on the one hand, and according to
the total number of points allotted, on the other.
In this way a feed-back mechanism would be established for self-regulation,
which might be a good system to avoid the bureaucracy of the public services.
The competitivity which improves service, would take place in the whole
of the liberal professions, thanks to this self-regulating mechanism -variation
of salaries according to the value of points-, and it would also take place
within each professional category, by stimulating the increase of salary
and/or category. So, in this last case, in order to reward a well done
job in the communal sector, it could be established that each 'professional
category' might vote every year a given percentage of associates so that
they might step up in the professional category as far as salary was concerned,
even if they had not the preparation or there were no places available-
to get there from the point of view of the professional practice.
- Every communal professional could go into the market and viceversa, but
with a waiting time and cautionary steps, to be applied according to cases.
The separation between the two statutes would also allow the creation of
a mixed statute (communal-mercantile) to help either crafts, or some works
and services of general interest which need political prices, but for which
the help of private capital is missing to carry them out.
A daily application of the distinction between the mercantile sector
and the communal sector would evidently present a number of doubts and
objections both with respect to the distinction standards, and to the process
of gradual and sectorial introduction. The study of these doubts, however,
does not correspond to the level of diagrammatic exposition we are carrying
out.
5.
Balanced, ecological and informative economy.
Up to now, the economic system has been defined as an apparently balanced
system: so much production is equal to so much savings-investment plus
so much consumption. This balance has been deceitful, mainly because there
was no available system that would document, quantify and direct the different
trade flows; an impossible system under an irrational currency.
But the economic system as a whole is also irrational because, being
a closed system it forgets the inputs and outputs of the system in their
entirety. That is, it forgets the inputs of energy and materials, and their
output with a larger degree of entropy, as residues or pollution.
A rational currency not only tries to help to equilibrate the economic
system, but can also contribute elements to locate the balanced economic
system within an ecological framework.
One of the functions of currency is to offer a homogenizing system of
all the productions and of all the consumptions. But besides this, the
function of a rational currency might be to offer information on the productions
and their materials and energies, all of them heterogeneous.
This information might be very valuable to rationalize the use of materials
and energies: by socializing the information on their use and penalizing
or helping some production processes or some products automatically (introducing
an ecological tax). With the income obtained the use of recirculated energies
and materials might be fostered, a fund for the research and application
of new, less depleting and less polluting processes might be created, and
a plan of integral ecology (land, woods, water, air...) might be financed.
The information and the financing possibilities would help to get off
the trading system, and to put under communal property all the natural
resources strategic for the survival of mankind and for the balance of
the ecosystems. The demercantilization of resources -under communal property
and management- might avoid the squandering of many of them which today
is carried out only because it is cheaper than other methods (as far as
prices are concerned) or because they give, to some companies, more short-term
benefits.
In this way we might start to consider that some, up to now, unquestionable
'economic goods' may become 'economic evils'. The economic growth, measured
only with homogenizing monetary units may become very questionable if we
consider it under the point of view of growth of the degree of entropy
or of the production of pollution implied.
The working out of a lawful State, with equal actual freedom and solidarity
legally for everybody, demands the establishment of an economic democracy,
that is, of an economic system allowing actual freedom and solidarity for
everybody also in trading aspects.
- The first social freedom and solidarity is to have a right to consumption,
that is, to have money to buy what is vitally necessary. Without the ability
to consume this vital minimum, and without free cultural-communal services,
democracy is only for those who already have money and culture.
- The possibility of giving out money to every person just for their sake
and of financing the communal services could be feasible thanks to the
monetary system which would allow the right communal invention of money
for balancing the market, and a simplified automatic fiscal collection.
- The quantitative and qualitative increase of consumption goods depends
on the ability of the production agents to generate them. So, it would
be necessary to strengthen those who produce private wealth (workers, managers,
investors, inventors), because from their ability would depend explicitly
the financing of those depending on the communal statute. The more or better
private wealth, the more or better communal wealth for distribution. And
better communal services. With this distributive system, private good would
not be opposed to common good, but it could improve it greatly and, as
a consequence, the common good would also improve private good.
- The overcoming of the inflation-deflation crises might be one contribution
of a rational monetary system: in every sale-purchase operation the cheque
value corresponds to the invoice value. The speed of circulation of money
would be under control and it would not disturb the economic balance (ratio
between the value of the offered goods and the value of the monetary demand),
which would become almost automatic: it would be possible to invent communally,
and in the right measure, the amount of money necessary for every increase
of the trade value of production.
- The socialization of trade information, that is, putting it within reach
of all the society, would open the possibility of a more intelligent and
effective democratic action both in the market and in public finance, an
action which would allow to go beyond the 'centralist planning' and the
'mercantilist misappropriation'.
- The necessary reduction of the legal working time, in order to face structural
unemployment, might be financed by means of a communal plan avoiding the
extent possible to inflict its cost on the companies or on the workers.
Salaried work would become less and less important in the whole of production,
and forced unemployment should be faced by restating the motto 'who does
not work should not eat', while fostering creative communal occupations.
6.
Free federation and confederation of ethnic groups making up the geopolitical
society.
To defend actual liberties calls for the fostering of autonomy and independence
of everybody. But not only individuals must be considered as persons, but
also national persons. To avoid confusions in such a delicate matter we
understand that national persons (also called ethnic groups) are
those making up a geopolitical society (which usually is multinational
and is co-ordinated, and often dominated, by a State. An ethnic group is
a nation with a conscience of having a culture, an ethics and, sometimes,
its own language.
Respect of human rights includes not only individuals and collectivities,
but also human nations (ethnic groups), from the most basic nuclei (families,
communities of neighbours, districts...) to the most complex ones (townships,
regions, historical ethnic and interethnic groups).
- Respect to ethnic groups would demand their free and negotiated adherence
to the federal agreement constituting the geopolitical society they make
up either willingly or conditioned by the world geostrategic situation.
There is no important reason to keep the anachronistic centralist Nation-States,
beyond that of fostering the concentration of power in the hands of despotic
statisms. The free bond of every ethnic and interethnic group to a project
of political society is one of the most important democratic indicators,
and is the basis of any attempt of peaceful solution of the interethnic
relations. In our nearest reality, the construction of a Europe of ethnic
groups may be an exciting project to overcome the chauvinisms of the nation-states,
unable, up to now, to create a European federation overcoming statisms,
and to positively channel the resurgence of ethnic groups.
- The federal framework, protecting in face of the outside all the ethnic
groups which make up the geopolitical society, would also allow the free
multiple inner federation among them at all territorial levels for an effective
and free government of each of them.
The districts, the townships, the regions, the historical ethnic groups
and their respective autonomous governments may apply today, with due knowledge,
thanks to the telematic information, the subsidiarity principle: each assumes
what it can do, and federates with others for what it cannot do alone.
This could be done, keeping in mind the different overall factors participating
in the solution of a problem. A complete information and a fair, undiscussed,
financement allow the assumption of responsibilities, very interesting
in order to attack the creation of centralist powers, and to foster the
actual participation of citizens, starting the democratic practice from
the basis.
7.
Balanced and interdependent foreign relations.
In the hypothetic stage of the application of the monetary change in
one single State, the new rules of the game might open new possibilities
in the relationship with other geopolitical societies (States) and, specially,
in the balance of foreign trade.
In a world becoming more and more interrelated in all aspects, a hypothetical
global change must be relocated within a wide geopolitical framework in
order to help to overcome the Nation-States and to give cohesion to projects
of political federation of many ethnic and interethnic groups, as for example
in the case of the construction of a Europe of ethnic groups. But it is
possible that the necessary construction of a Europe, solidary among the
different ethnic groups making it up, and solidary with the other peoples
of the Earth, be not the project of the Europe of the present Nation-States.
Any change in the rules of the game of one of the present Nation-States,
or of Europe as a whole, would need the establishment of a new system of
relations with the rest of the world.
Relations should be restated at different levels:
- At the economic level: finding a balance between incomings and outgoings;
to stop exploitation and to give back -when necessary-; to cancel the foreign
debt generated by debatable bank operations; to foster the establishment
of a new monetary system against the speculation and the hegemony of some
currencies (dollar, mark, yen...).
- At the political level: to improve co-operation, overcoming military blocks
and fostering the free federation of larger areas.
- At the cultural level: to respect the different cultures and economies,
and to improve mutual knowledge and dialogue.
- At the ecological level: to improve the balance of planetary ecosystems
and to reconvert contaminating industrial systems.
The suggestions which have been submitted all along this book in the monetary
and trade aspect must now be applied in the interstate relations. In order
to improve this change some principles, agreements and instruments should
be established to allow:
- To stop the futile circulation of currencies and their speculative use
in the Stock Exchange.
Money, as a notation in current accounts, could only take place from
company to company, as a counterpart of a sale-purchase of merchandise
-goods and services- or as an anticipated purchase power -credit- to buy
some. The country's currency, therefore, could not be quoted in the Exchange,
and it could not be speculated with.
- The equilibrium of trade balances among geopolitical societies to avoid
the dependence of some and the imperialism of others, to avoid irresponsible
foreign indebtment.
Recording every trade operation with abroad (sale-purchase, credits,
interests) would help to obtain a very reliable information to attain an
equilibrium between the value of imports and that of exports. Customs duties
might become a regulating element of free trade and to burden both imports
and exports if the agreed equilibrium of a bilateral or multilateral agreement
of foreign trade were broken. This equilibrium would compel, for example,
to pay well raw materials of the countries which have been exploited up
to now, because, on the contrary, they could not buy manufactured products
for the same value. It is absolutely unreasonable to expect to have an
always favourable balance of trade, because if this is so then other countries
have it unfavourable. With this system the terrible problem of indebtment
would be limited.
- Establishing the purchasing value for each currency with respect to the
purchasing value of some given merchandise -or of a number of them-, a
value as stable as possible which would allow, to relate the value of this
currency with the others so that trade could take place under fair conditions.
This could be a system as long as a rational international system were
not introduced.
The present acceptance of dollar and of a few other strong currencies
for international payments, seriously imbalances the world trade because
they fluctuate according to many different interests: the dollar going
up or down means wealth for some or poverty for others.
- The possibility of the world redistribution of resources, especially of
production surpluses, thanks to the possibility of invention of money with
respect to the surpluses in the domestic market, which in this way could
be exported to lacking countries without having to destroy them for fear
of not selling them or of prices sinking below the cost price.
When money is not documentally rational, its lack may stop another country
from buying goods and produce a loss for the producing country which cannot
sell it -in the case of a saturated domestic market. This infernal circle,
which does not benefit anybody, might be studied with an informative currency
channelling trade offers and supplying purchasing power to the possible
exporting-importing dealer (with credits) and at the same time the possible
consumers (financed by the community) of another geopolitical society lacking
this merchandise.
To avoid immigration, because of the great differences of life conditions
among countries, the possibility of granting non-retrievable credits to
countries in difficulties, according to the unused, own productive capacity,
might help to introduce similar rational monetary systems in other places.
It would be necessary to keep watch, however, so that 'co-operation' did
not become the cause of destruction of the market in the receiving country
or of creating new artificial needs for their culture.
- The movement of people from one country to another, without having to change
national currencies, thanks to the utilization of their own money card
of international diffusion.
All the above rules of the game, submitted schematically, may not give
a clear enough idea of the possible advantages that common citizens would
have in their daily life. Trying to overcome this difficulty we might imagine
their repercussions in such a complex matter as that of security.
Insecurity is today the excuse to strengthen the police statism. On
the other hand, it does not help to avoid the causes of small delinquency
nor to solve 'terrorism', always a profitable business for power.
With a system of personalized and informative telematic money, security
would not need arbitrary, ineffective and corrupt police bodies. On the
one hand, the personalization of monetary and trade relations, and on the
other the solution of the main subjects of social violence (destitution,
poverty, proscription, drugs... and the lack of federative freedom of ethnic
groups), might contribute a drastic reduction of social violence.
The suppression of anonymous money would stop the practical realization
of most crimes related to money (which are the most). The allocation to
every person (especially to dropouts and jobless) of communal salaries,
together with free cultural and assistance services, would strike at the
root some of the causes of most present delinquency. A special help to
women would allow them to be more easily free from the consequences of
crimes which today are not even denounced (beatings by the husband, rape...)
and would depenalize acts which present legislation condemns (abortion,
divorce...).
The legalization, controlled by the monetary system, of the use and
trade of drugs (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, acid...) would avoid rackets
and harmful adulterations of products; and would allow to eliminate the
taste of subversive and dangerous adventure generated by the prohibition.
Suitable treatments of detoxication in the hands of independent professionals
with enough means, a clear information on the effect of drugs and the possibility
of developing personal interests up to now forbidden for lack of means,
seem to us better systems than police search.
Most common crimes (currency evasion, forgery of documents, swindles,
blackmail, hostages, hold-ups, robberies, prostitution, white slave trade,
pandering, traffic of drugs, arms, works of art, bribery of officials,
politicians, judges, murder or devastations to order, extorsions...) need,
use or look for anonymous money. Its suppression would stop the use of
the corpus delicti. Probably new forms of delinquency would appear,
but it would be a success if, for some time, most of the causes and instruments
of the present ones could be eliminated.
The armed struggle for class freedom or for national freedom, within
the framework of a society freely federative of the ethnic groups which
make it up, and effectively solidary, specially with the underprivileged,
would practically loose its inducement. But also without a possibility
of working with personalized currency, as it would preclude the usual sources
of financement of these organizations (secret funds, hold-ups, revolutionary
tax...) and the traffic of arms.
All these steps might bring back the leisure of walking without being
besieged by beggars, robbers, layers of bombs, or... by antiriot police
actions.
The function of the police forces would be to watch over the respect
of the rules of the constitutional game and the coexistence rules of every
ethnic community. Under normal conditions the police might go unarmed.
The execution of the rules of the constituional game would not depend so
much from repression -always ineffective in the long run- as from the taking-on
of documented liability of free acts of persons in face of Justice, which
would have available this documentation for investigating or judging a
case. Insofar as the flexibility of democratic institutions were real,
the voice of minorities would be heard much more easily, without condemning
them to the use of violence.
These are some of the rules of the game which, one way
or other, might serve to introduce and at the same time take advantage
of the informative and personalized currency. It is understood that they
are only proposals for a deeper study. It is always risky to explain complex
and interconnected matters in a simple and straightforward way. But not
explaining them may stop seeing the relation between the suggested monetary
change and the possible new stage for the social change.
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