Chapter 7. Minimal political conditions for the introduction of the telematic cheque-invoice.

1. This chapter's goals.

In this chapter we will try to establish the minimal practical conditions which are necessary, so that the introduction of the telematic cheque-invoice be not only technically possible -which has already been demonstrated- but also and above all to be politically possible in the following double meaning:

2. The present day alternative.

The proposal of a transparent and informative monetary instrument as the one described in the previous chapter usually produces many doubts with respect to a fundamental question: won't the cheque-invoice be the sophisticated instrument of a new totalitarism such as the one described by George Orwell in his work «1984», with a power and capacity of oppression never before seen in a state, which now will be able to know almost everything on its subjects? What will happen with personal liberty and intimity, until now founded on anonymity, and very especially on monetary anonymity?

Before adequately replying to this objection, we would like to point out an evident fact. The telematic revolution is today an irreversible fact, which cannot be stopped, and which will influence more and more all the fields of human activity, but always in a purely instrumental-inert dimension, at the service of the ones really in power.

On the other hand, it must also be considered that telematics, as any other technology, can be used in many different ways, according to the ideals and interests behind every single action.

For these two reasons telematics -as an auxiliary instrument very powerful in the field of transmission and information processing- implies necessarily, either a great hope for all the peoples on earth (as long as it is understood and applied as an instrument accessible to everybody, at the service of liberty, dignity and information of all the people) or a great threat of more despotism and power on people (if it becomes a monopoly of the powerful, at the exclusive service of their interests).

The alternative we have submitted is also clear in the case of the telematic cheque-invoice.

Whether we like it or not, the telematic market will be a fact in a few years. In all the technologically advanced countries there are several experiments in course with electronic money which will soon spread widely.

Now, these different initiatives are not yet included within a theoretical reflexion on the global money system and its application in the whole society. In this way, monetics -that is, the telematic money system- can drive us more to the absolute despotism prophesied by orwell and huxley than to a world of real liberty which we all wish.

We therefore must accept the challenge of the telematic revolution, and instead of choosing regressive solutions -which as a matter of fact are not applicable because the phenomenon is irreversible- we must try to find the real mechanisms which will protect the actual liberties of all the citizens.

In this chapter we will submit two of these mechanisms. They will be considered mainly from a practical point of view of technical steps to be taken, while the fundamental grounds and possible social repercussions of these mechanism will be treated in detail in another essay.

3. An independent justice, for the protection of the personalized monetary archives.

The control of population is included in the same social-technological development of monetary telematics which is being introduced, whether we like it or not.

Therefore, the problem to be solved does not depend from control but from the use which will be made of it and from the legitimate authority or illegitimate power which will determine such use.

Among the several social and political organizations which could take up this function, we choose here justicial authority, which, being actually independent from the state, could objectively take in charge the total monetary archives of the geo-political society.

Justice has no direct control on the present of people and it only punishes their documented past. And even if it is really independent from the state -from the executive and the legislative power- it cannot avoid the severe technical frame of law, from which it depends totally and solely.

For these reasons, justice can become the most adequate authority to effectively control:

It would also be advisable that, on the long run, all the teams forming the telematic monetary network -whether machinery or human teams- should depend from justice.

Justice therefore will be the only institution with an access to the whole of the data recorded by the telematic monetary network. The right of access of the state and of private citizens will be constitutionally limited to the data of an analytical-statistic type, that is without reference of names nor personal identification.

The fact that justice should be the sole guardian of the telematic monetary information and the only authority to have full access to the network, does not mean that this right of access should be used indiscriminately. Law should establish that justice can only use the information it guards with reference to a real case of a process. When an instructing judge has founded reasons to peruse monetary documents related to the case he has in hand, this judge, and only he, will be allowed to examine the relevant documents. Only these documents will be made public in the corresponding court.

It is clear, however, that many will consider deceptive the possibility of a neutral, objective, unselfish justice. Cases of corruption among the members of judicial authority are not unknown.

For this reason it is necessary also to take actual technical steps to warrant the real independence of justice with respect to the state and to any sort of power. Only this independence can bring back trust in justice as an effective protection of all the members of the geopolitical society.

Economic independence: to obtain it, it is necessary to constitutionalize a justicial budget completely independent from that of the state, fixed as a given percentage of the general budget, which would be attributed automatically to justice, without any discussion.

Institutional independence: the justicial body must be, as an institution, completely independent from the state. This means, in the first place, the total disappearance of the department of justice. Every justice body, at its local and technical level, and the union of justice bodies at its own general level, must be the only ones with actual decision making and punishing ability within the frame of established law.

Independence of organization: based on the two former sorts of independence, justice can really become self-managed, with complete freedom of organization and decision at all the levels and phases of its specifical task: management, appointments, promotions, studies, deontology, election of superior bodies, etc.

When the government pays, appoints and watches, there cannot be a real independence, neither in personal nor in institutional grounds.

4. Socialization of the analytical-statistical information.

Another political step, necessary to ensure the democratic use of the telematic cheque-invoice, is the socialization of the telematic monetary network and of all the analytical-statistical information obtained through it. This step is the only effective guaranty to ensure that all this information, so important, on the monetary dimensions of the market and society, will not be monopolized by real or official power groups for their own benefit and against the population.

Information is to-day the conclusive element when we must act effectively and with intelligence.

Bankers, for example, have carried on their job effectively since very ancient times, thanks to the fact that they have a good information on the needs of the market at any time. This information allows them to draw high benefits and to offer good business to their clients. But the information at the disposal of every bank and banker has the very serious deficiency of being very partial and subjective, as it is only sectorial depending from the professional peculiarities of its clients, who are always only a few if compared with the total number of inhabitants. If the customer does a good piece of business, the bank does it extra good, since it has only contributed its intelligence and information, while the client has contributed his money -his own or lent by the bank-, his trade spirit, his work and that of his employees.

It is said that «knowledge gives power»: that who has the information can use it to obtain a benefit taking advantage of those who have got none. Almost always when a body of knowledge is held in secret -exoteric, occult, reserved to a minority- this knowledge degenerates into power on and against people.

The present systems of power through information are very sophisticated, because they can make use of information technologies. In many technologically advanced countries, there are telematic systems being prepared for the identification and police control of population. Monetary information is monopolized by the banks, even if each of them only knows information on its own customers. Electronic payment will become more and more widespread and also information on their customers' monetary activities will become more and more complete in the banks.

Under these conditions the varions possibilities of action must be kept in mind:

The last one may seem the most intelligent of the three possibilities.

Therefore, the information produced by the telematic monetary network must be guarded with respect to personal references by a justice independent from the state and from any real or legal power.

But the centralized filing of the cheque-invoices, when they have been emptied of personal references, produces sectorial analytic statistics which include all the geo-political society, and which can be easily socialized: that is, put at the disposal of all the population, in all its social classes and cultural levels.

This socialization of all the telematic monetary network and of all the information produced by it, implies in our proposed plan:

In this way the telematic monetary network can become a real common wealth, at the total, free and gratuitous disposal of:

The democratization and popularization of all this information is easy to organize, through various means: telematic screens in public buildings, special consulting cubicles, the home television screen... The screens can show the information as graphs, synthetic images handling colours and forms in such a way to produce a popularization understandable at any cultural level and by anybody watching television.

5. Legislative suggestions on the monetary transition.

The theoretical proposal of a change in the money system, if it is to be applicable, must go together with a complete and objective study on the way to carry out this change.

This is not the place to make this study, but we can submit some suggestions on the way to go over from the present regime of anonymous money to a regime in which the telematic cheque-invoice would be the only legal monetary instrument.

The first action of any state wishing to introduce the cheque-invoice as the sole legal monetary instrument must be the radical suppression of all the monetary instruments in force. It will be necessary to give a legal term for their conversion into money units recorded in a fully personalized current account.

The next step will introduce the compulsory exclusive use of the cheque-invoice in every market operation. No merchandise will go from one owner to another without its pertinent cheque-invoice; and the other way round, nobody will be allowed to produce a cheque-invoice without the corresponding merchandise movement: this is the basic rule of all the new monetary laws. The practical consequences of this rule are many and important. For example, no illegal merchandise, not included in the tax duty list, will be in a position of being sold or bought through a cheque-invoice, since it is compulsory to indicate the tax duty number of the goods; presents of valuable objects or of money will become impossible, as the cheque-invoice identifies the real and legal owner of each of the purchased goods¹.

Now, probably this change will not be immediately possible, because there will not be enough informatic data, and because the users will not know the way to do it. Therefore the law will have to foresee a system of progressive transformation, according to the different sectors of population.

Fundamentally, two cases must be considered:

At the beginning there will be in force «bearer banknotes» up to, let us say, 25 money units and with a daily maximum of, for example, 1,000 money units obtained from the current account.

Simultaneously, the use of consumers' cheque invoices will be supported through:

As a second step, when the first one is well on its way, the «bearer banknotes» will be demonetized. Only the more stubborn will be able to buy daily and only in the town hall of the place, cheque books of, for example, 1,000 banknotes in money units, which will be valid one day only. These cheque books will be bought through a cheque invoice against the current account of the buyer; the unused banknotes will be exchanged the day after in the town hall. The used banknotes will be sent to his bank by the shop keeper or retail trader after nullifying them, according to law, with his own seal.

6. Telematic teams and equipment.

Another very interesting item when introducing the suggested money system, is that of human teams and material equipment necessary to the system.

As a matter of fact, a telematic money system requires the installation of a complete monetary network at the levels mentioned in chapter 6: invoicing centres; accounting centres; geo-political centres and geo-justicial centres. It also requires the existence of efficient specialized teams to work out and improve the analysis programmes and the monetary statistics.

Therefore, the law will have to foresee a consistent and applicable plan to prepare such technical equipment and human teams.

a. Material equipment. In the same way as the analytic-statistic information on the market, telematic equipment in the long run will have to be socialized as a common property of all the geopolitical society.

But the first practical problem to appear is that of the starting creation of a sufficient network to introduce the telematic money system.

An emergency solution, if there are not enough funds to establish a complete new network, would be that of hiring all the necessary telematic equipment, already present in the geopolitical society under consideration. This equipment could be leased in free periods at market prices and with an option to a final purchase.

b. Human teams. The human teams in charge of preparing and permanently improving the monetary programmes will be financed by the treasury of the geopolitical society. They will have to be reasonably well paid in order to be competitive with private enterprise as far as personal professional ability is concerned.

A very important fact which must be foreseen, is the need for a treble geo-political telematic monetary centre and geo-justicial monetary centre².

As a matter of fact, to warrant a trustworthy system, both justice (complete documentation) and the state (only mercantile documentation) must, each one seprately and with a possibility of comparison, effect a control of market and of society with three different telematic systems and three completely independent human teams. This goal will be gradually reached as the necessary financial means are obtained.

7. Fiscal simplification.

Even if this matter will be studied in detail in chapter 11, we would like to point out here one of the most important political possibilities offered by the telematic cheque invoice, which is that of a great fiscal reform.

As a matter of fact, fear of fisc may actually be one of the main reasons for rejecting our proposal: it is clear that with a fully informative telematic money system, tax fraud is thoroughly impossible and therefore the state can become a despotic master.

The political proposal therefore must be interestig for everybody, avoiding a rejection by the majority. From this point of view, the following option can be reasonable, and it will be detailed in chapter 11:

Notes:

¹It will be necessary to create a specialized institution to study the requests to bestow material or monetary values, and to grant, through a justification or not, the possibility to effect a legal donation.
²The treble telematic network of reciprocal selfcontrol is normal in modern ship or aircraft automatic pilotage. Network number 1, the most modern, gives orders, except cases in which there is a clear contradiction with data handled by the two other networks. In this case, network number 2 takes up action, under control of network number 3, etc. This system allows to control and repair network number 1. Since the three networks have different hardware, and their software is the result of different teams of programming analysts, it is practically impossible for anybody, even for a super-specialist, to act simultaneously on the three processes.

This system avoids data manipulation by anybody, even by those «governing things and commanding men», who prefer not to introduce it to be able to act freely, even if this means being «deceived» by their employees.