From the SynEARTH Archives. I have argued it is time to move beyond democracy. But, how will we make decisions in a synergic future? Remember synergy means working together. We are seeking the win-win-win-win solution. This is where I win, you win, Life wins, and the Earth wins.

---

Consensus & Consent

Timothy Wilken, MD

Unanimous Rule Democracy or Synocracy is a much more powerful mechanism of decision making than the majority rule of present day democracy.

Synocracy is a synergic form of government. Synergy means working together—operating together as in Co-Operation—laboring together as in Co-Laboration—acting together as in Co-Action. The goal of synergic union is to accomplish a larger or more difficult task than can be accomplished by individuals working separately.

However Synocracy, which gives us humans the opportunity to accomplish more together than we can accomplish separately, also requires more from us. It requires synergic consensus. For any group of humans, synergic consensus can provide a much more powerful mechanism of decision making than even the best majority rule democracy carefully following Roberts Rules of Order.

Synergic consensus occurs when a group of humans sit as equals and negotiate to reach a decision in which they all win and in which no one loses. In synergic science this is called heterarchy. That means all members of the deciding group sit on the same level as “equals”. All decisions within a truly synergic group are made within “decision heterarchy”. A decision heterarchy is made up of a group of humans with common purpose. The minimum number is 2 the maximum number is presently unknown. I believe the ideal size may be ~six or seven individuals. The group is organized horizontally with all individuals sharing equal authority and equal responsibility.

Most Western humans are familiar with the democratic committee system. It is very different from the decision heterarchy. While both are methods of organizing human individuals to make decisions for group action. Committees are filled with conflict and highly ineffective. In a committee no individual is held responsible for the actions taken by the group. And decision is made by majority ultimatum. A desenting minority member is forced to support the action he voted against or leave the committee. Heterarchy within a synergic group, in contrast organizes individuals to have equal authority to decide on joint action with equal responsibility for the resultant that is produced by that joint action.

Synergic consensus occurs when a group of humans sitting in heterarchy negotiate and reach a decision in which they all win and in which no one loses. In a synergic heterarchy, all members sit on the same level as “equals”. No one has more authority than anyone else. Every one has equal responsibility and equal authority within the heterarchy. The assignment for the heterarchy is to find a plan of action so that all members win. It is the collective responsibility of the entire heterarchy to find this “best” solution. Anyone can propose a plan to accomplish the needs of the group. All problems related to accomplishing the needs would be discussed at length in the heterarchy.

The proposed plan of action for solving a problem is examined by all members of the heterarchy. Anyone can suggest a modification, or even an alternative action to solve the problem. All members of the heterarchy serve as information sources for each other. The heterarchy continues in discussion until a plan of action is found that will work for everyone. When all are in agreement and only then can the plan be implemented. The plan insures that all members of the synergic heterarchy win.

Synergic Veto

All members are required to veto any plan where they or anyone else would lose. This is not an arbitrary veto. This is a veto to prevent loss. The heterarchy is seeking to win together. Plans causing loss need to modified to plans that insure winning.

Therefore all vetoes are immediately followed by renegotiation to modify the plan of action so that loss can be eliminated.

Synergic consensus is unanimous consensus. Unanimous consensus is protected by the judicious use of the synergic veto. Synergic relationship requires that when any party within a group is losing, the action causing the loss must stop. But again all vetoes are immediately followed by renegotiation to modify the plan of action so that loss can be eliminated, and action can continue.

Thus synergic consensus is a two step process. 1) consensus–to find mutual agreement, and 2) consent–to find specific disagreements and eliminate those through modification and re-negotiation of proposed plans. This second step is initiated by use of the synergic veto.

After I designed Ortegrity, which uses the process of synergic consensus and synergic veto, I learned about Sociocracy. It is from Sociocracy that I have borrowed the term consent for the second phase of synergic consensus.

Sociocracy

Originated in the Netherlands in 1945 by Kees Boeke, a Dutch educator and pacifist, Sociocracy was a way to adapt Quaker egalitarian principles to secular organizations.

It uses the decision-making process of consent which is different than most systems of  ‘consensus’.

Consent looks for disagreement and uses the reasons for disagreeing to come up with an amended proposal that is within everyone’s limits. Consensus looks for agreement.

If a group wants to paint an outbuilding, consensus would require everyone agreeing on a color. Consent would require everyone defining their limits and then allowing the choice to be made within those limits. The painter might end up with 10 colors that are within everyone’s limits and then choose from those.

Synergic Consensus as described in ORTEGRITY seeks both consensus and consent by utilization of the synergic veto. When any member of the deciding group is in conflict and vetos a proposed plan, they are asked how would they change the proposal to accomodate their objection. Let’s take a deeper look at Sociocracy to see what we can learn. I will mark my annotations with an asterick.

The Four Principles of Sociocracy

1) Governance by Consent: The consent principle says that a decision can only be made when none of the circle members present has a reasoned, substantial objection to making the decision. The consent principle is different than “consensus” and “veto.” With consensus the participants must be “for” the decision. With consent decision-making they must be not against. With many forms of consensus a veto blocks the decision without an argument. With consent decision making, opposition must always be supported with an argument.

* Synergic veto always requires renegotiation to find a plan of action that will solve the group problems without causing loss. Veto is never arbitrary in Ortegrity.

Every decision doesn’t require consent, but consent must exist concerning an agreement to make decisions regularly through another method. Thus, many decisions are not made by consent. Rather, with consent, persons or groups are given the authority to make independent decisions. Consent can also be used with non-human elements.

2) Circle Organization: The organization arranges for a decision making structure, built from mutually double-linked circles, in which consent governs. This decision-making structure includes all members of the organization. Each circle has its own aim, performs the three functions of directing, operating and measuring (feedback), and maintains its own memory system by means of integral education. A good way to evaluate how well a circle is functioning is to use 9-block charting. Every circle formulates its own vision, “mission statement” and aim/objective (which must fit in with the vision, mission and aim of the organization as a whole and with the vision, mission and aim of all the other circles in the organization).

* Circles are equivalent to heterarchies. In  ORTEGRITY, they are similar to Decision-Action Tensegrities.

3) Double-Linking: Coupling a circle with the next higher circle is handled through a double link. That is, at least two persons, the supervisor of the circle and at least one representative of the circle, belong to the next higher circle.

* Decision-Action Tensegrities as described in ORTEGRITY are single linked by the Organizers-Organized or the O-O.

Using a double link would add redundancy, security and allow more information to flow between Decison-Action Tensegrities–two heads are better than one, but at a price of decreased efficiency.

4) Sociocratic Elections: Choosing people for functions and/or responsibilities is done by consent after an open discussion. The discussion is very important because it uncovers pertinent information about the members of the circle.

* In Ortegrity, once the primary synergic task is defined and unanimously elected by the heterarchy, then a plan for synergic action must be developed using synergic negotiation. Now the members of the heterarchy will accept hierarchical roles with individual responsibility and authority.

In addition to the four main principles of Sociocracy, there are also these guidelines:

• No secrets may be kept  (*Transparency in Ortegrity)
  
• Everything is open to discussion – limits of an exec’s power, policy decisions, personnel decisions, investment policy, profit distribution, all rulesÖ.
• Everyone has a right to be part of a decision that affects them.
• Every decision may be reexamined at any time

* I am in agreement with most of what I read about Sociocracy. In many ways Sociocracy and Ortegrity are complimentary mechanisms with lots of similarities.

Sociocracy accomodates growth by creation of new circles that are then connected by double linking. Sociocracy can be regarded as a fractal structure, which means that the same patterns occur at different levels in the structure. That is why, once the basics are understood, the procedures at the highest level are as clear as the procedures at the grassroots level. It also doesn’t require very many levels to include a great number of people.

ORTEGRITY grows by shreddng out. If the primary synergic task is within the abilites of the primary Decision-Action Tensegrity to accomplish it,then they accomplish it operating in action-hierarchy. When they are done, they reconfigure back into decision-heterarchy to define their next synergic task.

If however, the synergic task is too large for the primary Decision-Action Tensegrity to accomplish, then part of the primary synergic task will be to make the Ortegrity larger. This is accomplished by having the primary members recruit and organize secondary D-A Tensegrities.

TopDown Self-Organization

Once all members have agreed to a primary plan of action, they then divide it into smaller secondary plans for distribution among themselves. This results in the self-assignment of tasks. The members of the primary tensegrity, then divide labor through the voluntarily formation of a action-hierarchy to implement the plan. Each “organizer”, the term “manager” is scraped altogether, then takes his task down to the secondary tensegrity which he is responsible for organizing.

The pattern of organization is from the top down. This is not the “other-directed” hierarchy of American Capitalism. The process of organization is from the top down, but the mechanism is “self directed” heterarchy. Only when synergic consensus has been achieved at the higher level can the organizational focus move down to a lower level.

Within the Ortegrity, most “organizers” will function at two levels of tensegrity. Within the primary tensegrity, they are “organized” by the primary “organizer” — the synergic alternative to a CEO. In addition these members are also the “coodinators” of their own secondary tensegrities which they are responsible for organizing.

Within the Ortegrity, those individuals operating at two levels are then both organized and organizers. As members of the primary tensegrity, they are organized by the “primary organizer” — the O’ (called the O prime) and they are also the organizers of their own secondary tensegrities. Each of these is therefore an “organized-organizer” — the O-O  (called the double O).

An organization can have any number of Decision-Action Tensegrities. These Decision-Action Tensegrities can be on different levels. Large organizations would include several levels of Decision-Action Tensegrities. These different levels are referred to simply as first level, second level, third level and so on in synergic terminology.

Compound Tensegrities

The following illustration is of a base five, level two O.T.. Twenty five employees with one five-member primary DA-Tensegrity and five (five-member) secondary DA-Tensegrities.

 

The central DA-Tensegrity is the primary Tensegrity it is demarcated with the Omega symbol. It divides the primary tasks of the company into secondary tasks, these are then carried down to the secondary Tensegrities for solution by the O-Os, “organized-organizers”. In this example the O’ functions as both primary organizer and one of the O-Os.

Ultimately Flexible

No known system of organization is more flexible and adaptive then Living systems. The Ortegrity is a pattern of life.

The Ortegrity is ultimately flexible. There can be two to twenty individuals within the base D-A Tensegrities. Bases can be regular — all with the same number of members or irregular — all with different numbers of members or any mixture of regular and irregular.

There can be any number of levels, and any number of branches on each level. The system is so powerful that twelve levels looks like enough for most of our needs.

The following chart is based on a base seven regular tensegrity. All DA-Tensegrities would have seven members. 
 

LEVEL	# of base tensegrities	# of individuals
1	1	7
2	8	49
3	57	343
4	400	2401
5	2801	16,807
6	19,608	117,649
7	137,257	823,543
8	960,800	5,764,801
9	6,725,601	40,353,607
10	47,079,208	282,475,249
11	329,554,457	1,977,326,743
12	2,306,881,200	13,841,287,201

A level 12 Ortegrity would be adequate for organizing the entire humans species within a single organization. Recalling that the larger a tensegrity the more powerful it will is. Synergic science predicts this will also be true for human organizations structured as Ortegrities. Therefore, I would expect a trend towards very large organizations.

Imagine, what could be possible if the entire human species were a single organization. No conflict, no wars, no crimes. Is there anything we could not accomplish?

Synocracy—Unanimous Rule Democracy

Any group of humans organized as an Ortegrity are using synocracy. If a nation of people chose to organize as an ortegrity they would have a synocracy. If all of humanity were organized as an Ortegrity, we would have world wide synocracy.

Synergic consensus is unanimous consensus. I can hear the objections now. “That’s impossible, you will never get everyone in the group to agree.” “Decisions will never get made.” “It is hard enough to get a majority to agree.”

A Japanese business heterarchy is slower at making decisions than a single manager in an American business hierarcy. It takes longer for a group of individuals to discuss, negotiate, and come to agreement than it takes for a single American manager to decide all by himself and order his subordinates to follow his instructions. If the speed of making decisions is the only criteria for choosing a mechanism of decision making then the dictatorship—the rule by one is the clear standout.

However, humanity has moved beyond dictatorships for reasons of fairness and justice. Majority rule democracy is not a rapid decision making process. Individuals within a group deciding—whether the group is a small committee or a large nation choosing a President—are seeking to gain the majority of support. This takes time—sometimes a lot of time. Our national elections often take place over an entire year. The focus is on lining up votes—working deals—in a word—politics. This process is anything but rapid. If all decisions in American businesses were made by majority rule, decision making would probably be even slower than in Japanese companies using heterarchical consensus.

Synergic consensus is not commonly availability to humanity today. We do not yet know how fast it will be at making decisions. But, I predict that unanimous rule democracy will prove faster than majority rule democracy. Synergic consensus elimates conflict. Recall conflict is the stuggle to avoid loss. Conflict is at the very heart of majority rule democracy. The focus of synergic consensus is very different. The entire group knows from the outset that they cannot lose. They are focused on choosing a plan of action that serves the needs of all the members in the group—to choose a plan of action that causes no one to lose.  The synergic veto is not invoked capriciously. The only basis for synergic veto is to prevent someone from losing. This is a mechanism to eliminate loss—to choose the very best plan of action for everyone. This may well speed up the process of decison making. In any event regardless of the speed of decision, implimentation will be rapid. There is no conflict. This is a major advantage over majority rule democracy.

Life Utilizes Synergic Consensus

Today, mind and brain scientists have made enormous progress in understanding how the human brain works. There has been many surprises in these recent advances. But the biggest shocker is that the brain doesn’t decide what to do. Decision making is not controlled centrally in the brain. The mind-brain appears to act as a coordination and consensus system for meeting all the needs of the cells, tissues, and organs of the body. The brain doesn’t decide to eat. The cells of the body decide to eat, the brain coordinates their activity and carries out the consensus will.

Our human brain stores the gathered information from the body’s sensing of its environment, the brain presents opportunities for action reflective of both the sensing of environment and the needs and goals of the 40,000,000,000 cells it serves. The brain is not the leader of the body, it is the follower of the body. It is a system that matches needs of the body with its sensing of opportunities to meet these needs by action within the environment. The brain is a ‘synergic government’ that truly serves its constituents—the cells, tissues, and organs that make up the human body. The body is governed by a unanimous rule democracy that has survived millions of years.

The apparent ‘I’ is not real. It is really a ‘we’. We humans have mistaken the self-organization of synergic consensus for the directed organization of an ego decider.

If the human body can using unanimous rule democracy and synergic consensus can organize and coordinate the actions of 40,000,000,000 cells so totally that we identify the whole organism as a single individual, then we humans should be able to use these same mechanisms to organize our species and solve our human problems. 

---

More on Ortegrity. More on Sociocracy. Read a Synergic Version of Robert’s Rules of Order

---

References and Acknowledgements:

Barbara Hubbard originally coined the term Synocracy to refer to a not yet defined future system of “rule by the people” in a co-Operative society.

Barry Carter the author of Infinite Wealth also independently created the term Synocracy. He writes: “Barbara Marx Hubbard created the term synocracy. Having never read her book, I independently created the synocracy concept by way of mass privatization. When people are owning partners in a mass privatization organization they must participate because owners operate on profit and loss. As mass privatization communities work together we move beyond representative democracy and even beyond consensus democracy to create synergy-ocracy and synthesis-ocracy or synocracy. Infinite Wealth shows mass synocracy to be the new system of social order for the information Age to replace representative democracy. It even replaces the notion of government with the broader notion of social order. Just as learning is driven internally where education is driven externally representative government is external and where as self-organizing mass synocracy is internally driven.”

Happy Jesus of Nazareth Day!

Go Be Reconciled With Thy Brother

---

The Golden Rule

Timothy Wilken, MD

Edward Haskell, a pioneer of synergic science, explained:

“The first formulation of the MORAL LAW for a non-human “kingdom” of Universe was Dimitri Mendeleev’s discovery of the Periodic Law in 1869. “The properties of the chemical elements are functions of their atomic weights.”

“What Mendeleev’s discovery states for Atoms is that “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” where “reaping” is the properties of the chemical elements and “sowing” is the co-Action between the atom’s two components ≠ its vast, light, electron cloud, and its tiny, massive nucleus.”

Haskell’s analysis of the Atomic elements showed that these two components ≠ the electron cloud and the massive nucleus related in only three ways ≠ positive, neutral, or negative. Haskell called this the Moral Law of Unified Science.

For humans, the earliest formulation of the Moral Law of Unified Science appeared 3500 years ago as the doctrine of karma.

“Hinduism began in India about 1500 BC. The belief in rebirth, or samsara, as a potentially endless series of worldly existences in which every being is caught up was associated with the doctrine of karma (Sanskrit: karman; literally “act,” or “deed”). According to the doctrine of karma, good conduct brings a pleasant and happy result and creates a tendency toward similar good acts, while bad conduct brings an evil result and creates a tendency toward repeated evil actions. This furnishes the basic context for the moral life of the individual.”

The doctrine of karma was accepted by Buddha ~500 BC and is incorporated in modern Buddhism today. It appeared in western thought ~300 BC, in the Old Testament of the Bible as the phrase: 

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

Two thousand years ago Jesus of Nazareth stated this law this way:

“Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.“

Recall Universe is now understood to be process. Reality is a happening. Many things are going on all at once. Living systems ≠the plants, animals, and we humans all live within the EVENT paradigm. Buckminster Fuller defined an event to be a triad of related phenomena≠ action, reaction, resultant.

The dynamics of all behavior can be understood using these three concepts. Fuller discovered for every action there is a reaction, and a precessional resultant.

I can decide on an action. I can then implement my action. The environment including all life forms react to my action, the vector sum of the two (my action and the world’s reaction) produce a resultant. I act, the rest of the world reacts, and when it all settles down the change made by the interaction of the action and reaction is the resultant.

Now reformulating Haskell’s The Moral Law of Unified Science to include Fuller’s Principle of Action≠-Reaction≠-Resultant, we get:

Adversary action tends to provoke adversary reaction ending in an adversary resultant.

Neutral action tends to provoke neutral reaction ending in a neutral resultant.

And synergic action tends to provoke synergic reaction ending in a synergic resultant.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

We humans have three choices. We can sow adversary actions and reap adversary resultants. We can sow neutral actions and reap neutral resultants. Or we can sow synergic actions and reap synergic resultants.

The First Synergic Scientist

The first formulation of the synergic corollary of the Moral Law of Unified Science was:

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

This formulation is credited to Jesus of Nazareth who intuitively discovered the synergic way 2000 years ago. He gave us the rules for synergic relationship in his sermon on the mount.

 “You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Ö Go be reconciled with thy brother.”

But, can we modern humans do this? Can North American whites love the South American browns? Can the Jews love the Arabs? Can the Northern Irish love the English? Can the Bosnians love the Serbs? Can the South African whites love the South African blacks?

Are we humans better able to love today? Have we learned enough in 2000 years—“To reconcile with our brother”?

Jesus of Nazareth may have been the first human to embrace synergy. His words seem to capture the very essence of synergic morality. Synergic morality is more than not hurting other, it requires helping other. Jesus was the first human to state the fundamental law of synergic relationship. It is known as the Golden Rule:

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law.”

What would you have others do to you? The best one word answer I can find for this question is help. “Help others as you would have them help you.” Synergic morality is helping.

Andrew J. Galambos, in his lectures describing Moral Capitalism, often quoted the negative version of the Golden Rule:

“Do not do to others what you would have them not do to you.”

What would you have others not do to you?

Here the best one word answer is hurt. “Do not hurt others as you would have them not hurt you.”

The negative version of the Golden Rule is true and correct as far as it goes. In fact, it is the underlying premise for the Neutral Morality found in the western world today. But, Synergic Morality requires more of us than simply not hurting. It requires more of us than simply ignoring others. It requires us to help others ≠ to help each other.

Jesus of Nazareth understood this on the deepest of levels. He called for more than a prohibition against hurting others. He asked all humans to help each other.

Synergic Morality is more than the absence of hurting. It is the presence of helping. Synergic Morality rests then on the premise≠ that when you help others, you will find yourself helped in return.

So whether you believe Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ foretold in the Old Testament, or just a man, his words bring wisdom to all of humanity.

---

What’s wrong with wishing others a Merry Christmas?

 As we reach the end of 2008, the magic of money and the market place is quickly losing its luster. The following essay was first posted here in 2001. It seems more relevant today. From the SynEARTH Archives.

---

What is so wrong with just making money?

Timothy Wilken, MD

Making money is not the same as creating life support. Elsewhere I have defined mutual life support to be synergic wealth. Money was defined as neutral wealth. We humans are an interdependent species. We meet our needs by making exchanges in the marketplace. Supply and demand often determines the value of things that we need. High demand raises the value of a particular good, as does low supply. It is scarcity that gives everything its maximum value.

The laws of supply and demand were originally formulated by Adam Smith before the invention of advertising. Advertising is a powerful tool designed to create demand. This tool is a constant and insideous companion to modern life. It is enormously effective at creating demand. You can’t watch television, listen to radio, read a magazine, or even drive on the public highways without being bombarded with advertising. This prolific advertising creates a strong demand for products and services that have little or no benefit to humankind.

Most of this advertising created demand is for our wants not for our needs. Wants and needs are not the same.

I want a Mercedes, but I need transportation.

I want a gold Rolex, but I need to know the time.

I want Gucci loafers, but I only need shoes.

I want a million dollar architectually designed home, but I only need safe, comfortable housing.

Our present culture is dominated by the idea that more is always better than less–that expensive is always better than inexpensive. Two phrases in common use today encapsulate this attitude: “The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.” and “He who dies with the most toys wins!”

Scientists have discovered that Nature is always seeking more for less–always seeking maximum efficiency in all that she does. R. Buckminster Fuller called this principle of seeking more for less the “dymaxion” way.

This is of course simply another way of stating the “Principle of Least Action”. In science the most elegant solution is the one that explains the most with the fewest variables. A synergic culture will be dominated by the dymaxion ideal. The best will be that which accomplishes the most with the least.

Doing more with less will makes more available to help others. Helping others so that you are helped in return is the operating basis of synergic culture. There our human wants will move towards congruence with our human needs.

But, back to the present world, today’s wants are not only more than we need, but they often are not even good for us.

I want a cigarette, but what I need is to relax.

I want a drink of alcohol, but what I need in to reduce the stress in my life.

I want an extra dessert, but what I need is more love in my life.

Much of what we want is not helpful for us and often times even harmful. But the laws of supply and demand respond as well to human wants as they do to human needs.

Those products most demanded whether for wants or needs are considered valuable. And it is the possession of valuable things that is the usually definition of wealth. This means in today’s world many harmful things are valuable–cocaine is very valuable, and possession of a ton of cocaine would make me wealthy.

In a synergic science, we make a major distinction between creating mutual life support or synergic wealth and just making money which is neutral wealth.

Synergic wealth is more than just what humans want or value. Synergic wealth is that which supports mutual human life. Synergic Wealth is defined as life itself and that which promotes human well being generally–that which satisfies the human needs of self and other–that which promotes mutual survival and makes life meaningful for self and other.

While money is considered wealth in our present neutral society, even here it is not really wealth. Money is a symbolic tool that can be used to represent real wealth. It was originally invented as a mechanism to protect real wealth. This distinction has been lost in our modern world. Today there is no distinction between money and real wealth.

Most of the activities found in today’s neutral cultures have as their only purpose the making of money. As R. Buckminster Fuller explains:

“Those who have learned how to make money with money–which money can never be anything but a medium of wealth exchanging–have now completely severed money from its constant functional identity with real wealth . . . About 90 percent of all U.S.A. employment is engaged in tasks producing no life-support wealth.”

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. How can you tell if you are helping the human condition or simply making it worse?

You must ask yourself, am I creating real wealth with my actions and my leverage or am I just making money to purchase the life support I need? Do my actions and leverage create life support–that which promotes human well being–that which satisfies human needs–that which promotes both human survival and human meaning? Do I create the real wealth necessary to support myself and my family, or do I live off the real wealth created by others.

When we analyze our present world, we discover that most individuals in today’s world do not create the real wealth that supports them and their families. They live off the productivity of others. These are not obvious criminals or thieves. Most of them are completely ignorant of their unknowing participation in the plundering of their fellow humans. They are busy making money which in today’s world is easily exchanged for life support–real wealth.

If as Fuller tells us 90% of employed Americans are engaged in tasks that make money, but produce no real wealth, what are these Amercans doing?

Obnoxico

Some of those making money, but producing no real wealth are involved in making products to satisfy human wants. In 1947 Buckminster Fuller coined the term Obnoxico to represent a fictious private-enterprise corporation  whose only purpose was to exploit the “wants” of humanity to make money. As Fuller explains:

“In my theoretical Obnoxico’s catalog the number-one item suggested that on the last day that your baby wears diapers you very carefully remove them, repin them empty, and stuff them full of tissue paper in just the shape in which they were when last occupied by your baby. You pack this assembly carefully into a strong corrugated-paperboard container and send it to Obnoxico, which will base-metallize the diapers, then gold- or silverplate them and send them back to you to be filled with ferns and hung in the back window of your car. The easily forecastable profits from this one item ran into millions of dollars per year.

“Somehow or other the theoretical Obnoxico concept has now twenty-five years later become a burgeoning reality. Private enterpriseis now building airports with ever-longer walkways and hotels with ever-increasing numbers of levels of ground-floor and basement arcades to accommodate the ever-more-swiftly multiplying Obnoxico stores. “Human beings traveling away from home with cash in their pockets, thinking fondly of those left behind or soon-to-be-joined loved ones, are hooked by the realistic statuettes of four-year-old girls and boys with upturned faces saying in a cartoon “balloon,” “What did you bring me, Daddy?”

“As the banking system pleads for more saving-account deposits (so that they can loan your money out to others at interest plus costs) the Obnoxico industry bleeds off an ever-greater percentage of all the potential savings as they are sentimentally or jokingly spent for acrylic toilet seats with dollar bills cast into the transparent plastic material, two teddy bears hugging an alligator, etc..”

Look around today, and you will find no shortage of products that fit in with Fuller’s concept of “Obnoxico”. Television, radio, and our sunday newspapers are filled with ads for these silly products that are of little or no value to humanity. Those creating these obnoxious products are simply seeking to earn their livings by making money.

They are unaware that making money is not the same as creating life support.

Advertising

Some of those making money, but creating no life support are engaged in selling products and services to satisfy human wants. Recall human wants are not human needs. Advertising is the creation of  human wants so that individuals will buy products they don’t need so that others can make money.

In today’s great market, which is the very hallmark of our neutral society, enormous amounts of money and effort are spent in advertising to create human wants where none exist. When you really need something, do you require someone to inform you that you need it. I don’t think so.  If you need something, you will automatically go and look for it.

Wants now are a very different case. I don’t know I want something until I see or hear an advertisement for it. It is estimated that $170, 000, 000, 000 is spent annually on advertising to generate demand for products and services that we almost never need. And the entire cost of all advertising is added on to the price of the products and services we are being urged to buy. As David Shenk explains:

“In 1971 the average American was targeted by at least 560 daily advertising messages. Twenty years later, that number had risen sixfold, to 3,000 messages per day. More than 1,000 telemarketing companies employ 4 million Americans, and generate $650 billion in annual sales. Today’s commercial messages have crept into every nook and cranny of our lives–onto our jackets, ties, hats, shirts, and wristbands; onto bikes, benches, cars, trucks, even tennis nets; onto banners trailing behind planes, hanging above sporting and concert events and now, in smaller form, bordering Internet Web pages; onto the sides of blimps hovering in the sky. Magazine ads now communicate not only through color and text but also through smell and even sound.”

This barrage of 3000 messages a day is not to sell us any thing that we really need. We don’t need advertising to urge us to meet our human needs. We may benefit from a directory, i.e. the Yellow Pages of the telephone book, or a catalogue of available products, but we certainly don’t require a constant bombardment of messages telling us where to get out needs met.

The purpose of advertising is to make money, not to create life support.

And it is very effective at making money by generating enormous demand for unneeded products and services to satisfy artificially created human wants.

 Advertising injures humanity

Even, if we were somehow wise enough to ignore advertising and never purchased a single unneeded product or service, advertising would still be very damaging to the quality of our lives.

It intrudes into every facet of modern life, wastes so much of our precious time, and disrupts the very fabric of our lives.

Imagine a world without advertising. Imagine a world where  magazines, newspapers, radio, and television contain no advertising. Take a few minutes to really imagine it.

It would be wonderful.

Play money

Some of those making money, but creating no life support are speculating in currencies, commodities, and of course the stock and bond markets. Speculators buy low and sell high. They do not invest in anything. They are seeking to gain a momentary price advantage and realize a quick profit. Their only interest is making money.

Today’s markets are such a large part of our political-economic world that most living humans assume they have always existed. This is of course not true as Hazel Henderson explains:

“Until the sixteenth century the notion of purely economic phenomena, isolated from the fabric of life, did not exist. Nor was there a national system of markets. That, too, is a relatively recent phenomena which originated in seventeenth century England.

“Of course markets have existed since the Stone Age, but they were based on barter, not cash, and so they were bound to be local. The motive of individual gain from economic activities was generally absent. The very idea of profit, let alone interest, was either inconceivable or banned.”

Day traders are new breed of speculator emerging in the current American stock market. These individuals are drawing a lot of attention by buying and selling stocks many times a day. They hold on to their purchases sometimes for only a few minutes to a few hours again seeking to buy low and sell high.

Collectively, all these speculators are having a large effect on the global economy. Henderson explains:

 “Regulators and central bankers were forced into collective action on a crisis basis after the 1994-95 Mexican peso crisis, since none could defend their currencies, even in concert. Central bankers’ policies are defeated each day by the collective action of currency traders staging “bear raids” on weak currencies at will. U.S. treasury Secretary Robert Tubinand and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan’s efforts to coordinate thirteen countries’ central banks to boost the dollar prior to the June 1995 Economic Summit meeting between the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, and Japan and later efforts gave only short-lived warning to currency traders–at a cost to their respective taxpayers of over $2 billion each. Increasingly, central banks will have to shift from managing domestic money supply to focusing on global aggregates. No longer is it only developing countries that are swamped by waves of hot money washing across thier borders. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the total stock of financial assets traded in global capital markets will increase from $35 trillion in 1992 to $83 trillion in 2000.”

Speculators do not create life support. They are only making money. And all the money they make through this process is at the expense of life support created by someone else. Speculators do not really invest in anything. But what about the Stock Market? Surely, this is a place where real investment takes place in companies that are creating life support.

It depends of course on whether I invest in a company creating products and services that support life, or I invest in a company just making money by creating products and services to satisfy human wants. But let us suppose, I do invest in a company creating life support then surely my investment is contributing to the creation of life support. The following description is found on the internet at the Financial Forecast Center.

How the Stock Market works

“It all starts when a company wants to raise money to invest in something they think will be profitable, such as a new manufacturing process, more production capacity, or a new product. The company can do this a number of ways, but the two most popular are to borrow the money or sell part of the company. Borrowing the money is usually done by issuing a “bond” which is a promise to repay the borrowed money with interest.

“The next most popular way for a company to get money is to sell “stock” in the company. This is essentially selling a bit of the company in return for a promise of getting a split of the profits when there are profits to split. Stocks are also called “equity” because the owner of the stock has equity, or part ownership, of the company.

“When a company is formed, or incorporated, it sets up a certain amount of stock, which is worth about as much as the paper it is printed on–stock in its infancy carries no real value outside of the company. When the original owner of the company needs to raise money, he has to find good natured people with money to burn and sell this stock person by person, one person at a time. A share of stock signifies the holder owns some fraction of the company and allows the owner to enjoy part of the profits of the company. The stock may have a “face value” given to it when the company was formed, but you couldn’t walk into a grocery store with $10 worth of this stock and buy a loaf of bread.

“As the company becomes even larger and needs to raise even more money (usually several hundred million dollars), the stock will be offered on the open market. This is when it gets interesting. An initial public offering is made of so many shares of stock at a predetermined price, say $15 a share. People who invest in the stock market usually read the Wall Street Journal looking for initial public offerings, or IPO’s. At the moment the stock is sold to a shareholder it is worth its selling price of $15 a share. Now, you could turn around and sell it for $15 dollars to someone else and then go buy a loaf of bread, if someone is willing to pay you $15 dollars for it. The stock has now gone from being held by a few owners of the company, who would have a hard time selling it, to being held by thousands of owners who could sell it more easily because it is now being traded at stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange or via the NASDAQ.

“Soon after trading hands a few time, the people buying the stock now determine the value of the stock by what they are willing to pay for it. Sometimes the price of a stock that sold for $15 a share at its initial public offering will drop like a rock. Other times, it will skyrocket. The value of the stock is set by many, many people trading it in a free market. And even though a person buying a share of stock may be a hundred times removed from the person originally buying the stock from the company at the IPO, that person still owns some teeny, tiny fraction of the company. I don’t know how they do it, but the company keeps track of all their stockholders, even if a person holds one share for a week.

“Sometimes the value of a share of stock is determined by crazes, such as the internet which tends to drive the price up quickly, but the price may also fall as quickly when the craze looses it “newness”. More often than not, the price of stock is set by how much profit the owner will receive, or dividend, and by the company’s current earnings and their prospects for future earnings. A company with little hope for the future will be frowned upon by the people wanting to buy their stock, and the buyer will not pay very much for it (its price usually doesn’t drop to $0 right away, as there are optimists and opportunist who will take a chance on disfavored stocks and will keep the price from falling to nothingness over night).

“It’s just like trading baseball cards. When stock is traded on the open market, the only reason it is worth so much is because there is someone out there willing to pay that much for it. No magic, no mystery.”

The stock market is really two different markets–the primary market for new shares and the secondary market for existing shares. The primary market is where companies offer new securities for sale to the public. When a company first joins the Stock Exchange their initial public offering is made offering new shares to the public. Also established companies listed on the Stock Exchange from time to time may issue additional new shares to raise additional money. It is this selling of new shares in this primary market that raises money for companies. Once the public has purchased these new shares, they are then free to turn around and trade these now existing shares as they like in the secondary market.

The proceeds from such trades goes entirely to the shareholder. Sales of existing shares in the secondary market does not raise money for the companies. Now the vast majority of stocks bought and sold every day are existing shares in this secondary market. Most investors are not seeking the small return that comes from dividends paid by the companies on the stocks they purchased, but rather hope that the market value of these shares will increase enough so that they will profit when they sell later.

Again, we have a case of buying low and selling high–we are just making money rather than creating life support. Buying and selling stock is almost completely divorced from the companies whose shares are purchased. The rise and fall of stock prices often have little or nothing to do with the real value or health of the companies themselves.

The stock market has become like a global casino. Will I get lucky. Will I buy low and sell high. Will I make money. There is no thought of creating life support.

Crack dwelling

Some of those making money, but creating no life support are dwelling in the cracks between the creators of life support. These cracks have been created by our adversary-neutral government.

Crack dwellers include the service industry that surrounds the Stock Market. You are not allowed to purchase stocks or bonds directly. You require a stock broker to be sure that you pay a commission everytime a trade is made. Commissions are paid with every buy and every sell.

The stock brokers are always winners regardless of whether the stocks go up or down. They make lots of money, but of course create no life support.

Government employees are fully supported by by tax dollars. The American government (federal, state, and local) consumed 44% of our national income in 1996. To the extent that government action does not help the people, and certainly in all instances where it hurts the people, this represents plunder–crack-dwellers. Our government wastes much of the national income it siezes in the name of the public good. As Hazel Henderson explains:

“As most U.S. citzens know, state and local governments in the United States are often the most corrupt, dominated by financial and corporate special interests. Local politicians almost routinely line their pockets, thanks to inside information on where airports, roads, and other projects are to be sited, allowing profits for politicians and their friends from real estate and construction deals.”

Accountants and attorneys spend many hours working in the cracks between the people and the government. They are living off the productivity of their clients–crack dwellers.

Before you buy a house a Title Search is legally required. Fees are charged for this service that is many times greater than its real value. Fuller told us that the Banking industry collected over $1 billion in 1978 just for transferring home-ownership deeds–crack-dwellers.

The entire Real Estate Industry is based on government licensed Realtors getting into the cracks between the buyer and seller and “earning” 12% of the selling price of the house–crack-dwellers.

Once a home is sold it must be financed and here again the banking industry charges “points” to originate the loan in addition to the prevailing interest of the moment–crack-dwellers.

Today’s health care system is full of crack-dwellers. Occupying the cracks between the providers and users of health care, some CEOs of today’s modern HMOs are “earning” as much as $400 million a year by denying needed health care to their members. As a practicing Physician, I now spend hours each week playing “may I help my patients” with clerks who know nothing of medicine but are instructed in blocking all requests for authorization–crack-dwellers.

Insurance clerks at some of our largest Health Insurance companies routinely throw away every third claim they receive on the basis that this practice will significantly delay payment, and if the insurance company is lucky as many as one third of providers will not rebill–crack-dwellers.

These are only a few examples. If you look around, you will discover that our adversary-neutral world makes cracks between every buyer and seller–between every producer and consumer.

Today many modern humans are living in the cracks “earning their livings” off the productivity of others.

What’s so wrong with wanting things?

Human wanting will survive a synergic revolution. In a synergic culture we humans will also want things that we may not need. But our wants won’t be artificially generated just so someone else can make money. This change will mean an end to unsolicited advertising.

Some would argue that this would mean an end to free television, or cheap newspapers. I would argue that commerical television, and newspapers full of adverstisments are neither free nor cheap. When we purchase any advertised product we are paying for our “free” televison and our “cheap” newspaper. And, this ignores all the time we waste being distracted by misdirected advertisements.

When humans have need for a product or service, they will take action to meet their needs. Clear and easily accessible information about all available products and services will be a part of synergic culture. However, advertising as we know it today will go the way of the dinosaur.

What’s wrong with just making money?

The money makers in today’s world are among the most respected and admired. The vast majority of humanity thinks there is nothing wrong with just making money since they are completely unaware of the difference between just making money and creating life support.

Of course the difference is that making money is making neutral wealth, but it is not creating synergic wealth. Those just making money are often the “winners” in the neutral-adversary reality of our modern world. But the price humanity pays for this minority to win is the necessity for the majority of living humans to lose.

Those who just make money still need life support. They get it by trading their Neutral wealth–money for Synergic wealth–life support. If as Fuller tells us 90% of Americans are just making money then only 10% of Americans are creating life support. No wonder the majority of humans are losing.

The truth is especially hard to believe if it requires that we take action–if it requires that we change. If humanity is to have a future, we must take action–we must change. If humanity is to have a future, we must believe the truth.

---

Read More on Ortegrity and on Sociocracy  Read a  Synergic Version of Robert’s Rules of Order

Read the Synergic Future Series: 1) Beyond Property 2) Redefining Wealth 3) Synergic Wealth 4) Synergic Wealth II: Deepening Our Understanding 5) Trustegrities — Protecting the Future and 6) Synergic Guardians — Protecting the Future.

Wise woman Ellen Brown explains that building a positive future will depend on creating a sustainable government that is founded on reality based principles. Reposted from YES! Magazine.

---

---

Sustainable Government

Ellen Brown

As our 45th President prepares to enter the Oval Office, bank lending has seized up, some of the nation’s largest banks are on life support, and the big three automakers are bankrupt. Housing continues to crash, and so does the economy.

Little wonder that Obama is being compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who entered the White House in similar financial straits in 1932. Even before taking office, Obama has started his version of the “fireside chats” (updated from radio to online video) given by Roosevelt nearly weekly to reassure the public. He said on November 22 that he plans to create 2.5 million new jobs by 2011 and kick-start the economy by building roads and bridges, modernizing schools, and creating technology and infrastructure for renewable energy. These are excellent ideas, but what will they be funded with—more government debt?

Obama has pledged to honor the commitments of the outgoing administration to rescue financial markets, on the theory that if we don’t, our credit system could freeze up completely. But as noted by Barry Ritholtz in a December 2 article, the bailout has already cost more than the New Deal, the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the moonshot, the savings and loan bailout, the Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, and NASA’s lifetime budget combined.(1) Increasing the debt burden could break the back of the taxpayers and plunge the nation itself into bankruptcy.

How can the new President resolve these enormous funding challenges? Thomas Jefferson realized two centuries ago that there is a way to finance government without taxes or debt. Unfortunately, he came to that realization only after he had left the White House, and he was unable to put it into action. With any luck, Obama will discover this funding solution early in his upcoming term, before the country is declared bankrupt and abandoned by its creditors.

The Key to a Solution: Understanding Money and Credit
Jefferson realized too late that the Founding Fathers had been misled. He wrote to Treasury Secretary Gallatin in 1815:

“The treasury, lacking confidence in the country, delivered itself bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt adventurers and bankers pretending to have money, whom it could have crushed at any moment.”

He wrote to John Eppes in 1813:

“Although we have so foolishly allowed the field of circulating medium to be filched from us by private individuals, I think we may recover it Ö The states should be asked to transfer the right of issuing paper money to Congress, in perpetuity.”

It had long been held to be the sovereign right of governments to create the national money supply, something the colonies had done successfully for a hundred years before the Revolution. So why did the new government hand over the money-creating power to private bankers merely “pretending to have money”? Why are we still, 200 years later, groveling before private banks that are admittedly bankrupt themselves? The answer may simply be that, then as now, legislators along with most other people have not understood how money creation works. Only about 3% of the U.S. money supply now consists of “hard” currency—coins (issued by the government) and dollar bills (issued by the private Federal Reserve and lent to the government). All of the rest exists merely on computer screens or in paper accounts, and this money is all created by banks when they make loans. Contrary to popular belief, banks do not lend their own money or their depositors’ money. They merely “monetize” the borrower’s promise to repay. Many creditable authorities have attested to this fact. Here are a few:

Not only are banks merely pretending to have the money they lend to us, but today they are shamelessly demanding that we bail them out of their own imprudent gambling debts so they can continue to lend us money they don’t have. According to the Comptroller of the Currency, the books of U.S. banks now carry over $180 trillion in a form of speculative wager known as derivatives. Particularly at issue today are betting arrangements called credit default swaps (CDS), which have been sold by banks as insurance against loan defaults. The problem is that CDS are just private bets, and there is no insurance commissioner insuring that the “protection sellers” have the money to pay the “protection buyers” if they lose. As loans have gone into default, the elaborate gambling scheme built on them has teetered near collapse, threatening to take the banking system down with it. Now the players are demanding that the government underwrite their bets with taxpayer funds, on the theory that if the banking system collapses the public will have no credit and no money. That is the theory, but it misconstrues the nature of money and credit. If a private bank can create money simply by writing credit into a deposit account, so can the federal government. The Constitution says “Congress shall have the power to coin money,” and that is all it says about who has the power to create money. It does not say Congress can delegate to private banks the right to create 97% of the national money supply in the form of loans. Nothing backs our money except “the full faith and credit of the United States.” The government could and should have its own system of public banks with the authority to issue the credit of the nation directly.

Buyouts, not Bailouts
Accumulating a network of publicly-owned banks would be a simple matter today. As banks became insolvent, instead of trying to bail them out, the government could just put them into bankruptcy and take them over. Insolvent banks are dealt with by the FDIC, which is authorized to proceed in one of three ways. It can order a payout, in which the bank is liquidated and ceases to exist. It can arrange for a purchase and assumption, in which another bank buys the failed bank and assumes its liabilities. Or it can take the bridge bank option, in which the FDIC replaces the board of directors and provides the capital to get it running again in exchange for an equity stake in the bank. An “equity stake” means an ownership interest: the bank’s stock becomes the property of the government.(2) Nationalization is an option routinely pursued in Europe for bankrupt banks. As William Engdahl observed in a September 30 article, citing economist Nouriel Roubini for authority:

“[I]n almost every case of recent banking crises in which emergency action was needed to save the financial system, the most economical (to taxpayers) method was to have the Government, as in Sweden or Finland in the early 1990’s, nationalize the troubled banks [and] take over their management and assets Ö In the Swedish case, the Government held the assets, mostly real estate, for several years until the economy again improved at which point they could sell them onto the market Ö In the Swedish case the end cost to taxpayers was estimated to have been almost nil. The state never did as Paulson proposed, to buy the toxic waste of the banks, leaving them to get off free from their follies of securitization and speculation abuses.”(3)

As in any corporate acquisition, business in the banks nationalized by the government could carry on as before. Not much would need to change beyond the names on the stock certificates. The banks would just be under new management. They could advance loans as accounting entries, just as they do now. The difference would be that interest on advances of credit, rather than going into private vaults for private profit, would go into the coffers of the government. The “full faith and credit of the United States” would become an asset of the United States. Instead of paying half a trillion dollars annually in interest, the U.S. could be receiving interest on its credit, replacing or eliminating the need to tax its citizens.

3 Ways to Fund the “New” New Deal
There are three ways government could fund itself without either going into debt to private lenders or taxing the people: (1) the federal government could set up its own federally-owned lending facility; (2) the states could set up state-owned lending facilities; or (3) the federal government could issue currency directly, to be spent into the economy on public projects. Viable precedent exists for each of these alternatives:

1. The Federal Bank Option
The federal government could issue credit through its own lending facility, leveraging “reserves” into many times their face value in loans just as banks do now. Franklin Roosevelt funded his New Deal through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), a government-owned lending institution. However, the RFC borrowed the money before lending it.(4) A debt-free alternative would be for a government-owned bank to issue the money simply as “credit,” without having to borrow it first. This was done by the state-owned central banks of Australia and New Zealand in the 1930s, allowing them to avoid the worldwide depression of that era.(5) In the informative booklet “Modern Money Mechanics,” the Chicago Federal Reserve confirms that under the fractional reserve system in use today, one dollar in reserves is routinely fanned by private banks into ten dollars in new loans.(6)  Following that accepted protocol, the government could fan the $700 billion already earmarked to unfreeze credit markets into $7 trillion in low-interest loans.

Apparently, that is how Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are planning to generate the $7 trillion they say they are now prepared to advance to rescue the financial system: they will just leverage the $700 billion bailout money through the banking system into $7 trillion in new loans.(7)  But the Federal Reserve is a privately-owned banking corporation, and the recipients of its largesse have not been revealed.(8) The $700 billion in seed money belongs to the taxpayers. The taxpayers should be getting the benefit of it, not a propped-up private banking system that uses taxpayer money for the “reserves” to create ten times that sum in “credit” that is then lent back to the taxpayers at interest.

Seven trillion dollars in government-issued credit could furnish all the money needed to fund Obama’s New Deal with a few trillion to spare. Among other worthy recipients of this low-interest credit would be state and local governments. Many state and municipal governments are going bankrupt through no fault of their own, just because interest rates shot up when the monoline insurers lost their triple-A ratings gambling in the derivatives market.(9)

2. The State Bank Option
While states are waiting for the federal government to step in, they could charter their own state-owned banks that issue low-interest credit on the fractional reserve model. Article I, Section 10, of the Constitution says that states shall not “emit bills of credit,” which has been interpreted to mean they cannot issue their own paper currency. But there is no rule against a state owning or chartering a bank that issues ten times its deposit base in loans, using standard fractional reserve principles.

	Archive photographs from 1919 of the founding of the Bank of North Dakota. Visit www.banknd.nd.gov

Precedent for this approach is found in the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the nation’s only state-owned bank. BND was formed in 1919 to encourage and promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota. Its primary deposit base is the State of North Dakota, and state law requires that all state funds and funds of state institutions be deposited with the bank. The bank’s earnings belong to the state, and their use is at the discretion of the state legislature. As an agent of the state, BND can make subsidized loans to spur economic and agricultural development, and it is more lenient than other banks in pressing foreclosures. Under a program called Ag PACE (Agriculture Partnership in Assisting Community Expansion), the interest on loans made by BND and local lenders may be reduced to as low as 1 percent.(10)  North Dakota remains fiscally sound at a time when other state governments swim in red ink, and its educational system is particularly strong. While disruptions in capital markets have hampered student loan operations elsewhere, BND continues to operate a robust student loan business and is one of the nation’s leading banks in the number of student loans issued.(11) North Dakota’s fiscal track record is particularly impressive considering that its economy consists largely of isolated farms in an inhospitable climate. Ready low-interest credit from its own state-owned bank may help explain this unusual success.

3. Government-issued Currency
A third option for creating a self-sustaining government would be for Congress to simply create the money it needs on a printing press or with accounting entries, then spend this money directly into the economy. The usual objection to that alternative is that it would be highly inflationary, but if the money were spent on productive endeavors that increased the supply of goods and services—public transportation, low-cost housing, alternative energy development and the like—supply and demand would rise together and price inflation would not result. The American colonial governments issued their own money all through the eighteenth century. According to Benjamin Franklin, it was this original funding scheme that was responsible for the remarkable abundance in the colonies at a time when England was suffering the depression conditions of the Industrial Revolution. After the American Revolution, private bankers got control of the money supply, but Abraham Lincoln followed the colonial model and authorized government-issued Greenbacks during the Civil War. Not only did this allow the North to win the war without plunging it into debt to the bankers, but it funded a period of unprecedented expansion and productivity for the country.

Obama would do well to consider these funding solutions for his “smarter” government. He has been quick to assemble his advisers and form policy, but a fast start down the wrong road could do more harm than good. The bailout scheme of the current administration is serving merely to keep a failed banking system alive by draining assets away from the productive economy. The conventional wisdom is that we must continue down the path we are on, because the alternative means frightening, radical change. Financing a new New Deal without putting the country further into insolvency, however, would not be a radical departure from tradition but would represent a return to our roots, to the uniquely American monetary policy advocated by our venerable forebears Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

---

CITATIONS:

(1) Barry Ritholtz, “Bailout Costs More than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, Moonshot, S & L Bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq War, Vietnam War,”, Global Research (December 2, 2008).

(2) G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island (Westlake Village, California: American Media, 1998), pages 63, 65.

(3) “William Engdahl, “Financial Tsunami: The End of the World as We Knew It,” Global Research (September 30, 2008).

(4) See Ellen Brown, “The Collapse of a 300 Year Ponzi Scheme,” webofdebt.com/articles, October 16, 2008.

(5) See “Sustainable Energy Development: How Costs Can Be Cut in Half,” ibid., (November 5, 2007).

(6) Chicago Federal Reserve, “Modern Money Mechanics” (1963, updated 1992), originally produced and distributed free by the Public Information Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, now available on the Internet.

(7) Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry, “U.S. Pledges $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit,” Bloomberg.com (November 25, 2008).

(8) Ellen Brown, “The Fed Now Owns the World’s Largest Insurance Company – But Who Owns the Fed?”, www.webofdebt.com (October 7, 2008); Mark Pittman, et al., “Fed Denies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose,” Bloomberg.com (November 10, 2008).

(9) Tami Luhby, “Credit Crisis Hits Main Street,” CNNMoney.com (February 21, 2008); “Bond Failures May Bankrupt Cities,” Marketplace (February 28, 2008).

(10) “The Bank of North Dakota,” New Rules Project, newrules.org; “Ag PACE,” banknd.com (2007).

(11) Richard Sisson, et al., The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (2007), page 41; Liz Wheeler, “Bank of North Dakota Keeps Student Loan Funds Flowing,” Northwestern Financial Review, BNET.com (September 15, 2008).

---

Ellen Brown, J.D., wrote this article in December, 2008, for Path to a New Economy, a collection of online articles for YES! Magazine, on economic and financial solutions. Ellen developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her eleven books include the bestselling Nature’s Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, and Forbidden Medicine. Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.

---

Read More on Ortegrity and on Sociocracy  Read a  Synergic Version of Robert’s Rules of Order

Read the Synergic Future Series: 1) Beyond Property 2) Redefining Wealth 3) Synergic Wealth 4) Synergic Wealth II: Deepening Our Understanding 5) Trustegrities — Protecting the Future and 6) Synergic Guardians — Protecting the Future.