#43 Idealism and Other Terms

“If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.” Voltaire

This morning, as I was listening to a 1976 performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 in G Major Op. 58 (my personal favourite of all Beethoven's concertos) played by Claudio Arrau, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, I was reminded that I had put off discussing a few items that may seem off topic to some, which however form a firm conceptual basis for what we are placing before the public, the design for a new monetary system, etc.

Idealism

I want to dispense with all the usual sentimental fluff connected with idealism and focus on what it actually means to say one has an ideal, to say that one is an idealist or believes that idealism is a form of virtue (that which cannot help but be good as understood throughout this blog), when in fact it turns out to be exactly the opposite. An ideal, usually toward which one strives, is a conceptual perfection that may not exist in the real world. Anything that is ideal is by definition least likely to exist; unreal.

Formal idealism pervades the philosophical schools stemming from Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the man credited by most researchers with having steered the philosophical opinion of the world from a rational course, to one based on creating a new mystical order, in every sense of the word “mystical,” including or especially the “hate eaten” quality attributed to it by Ayn Rand (1905-1982). Humanism is revealed as merely another brand of “hate eaten” mysticism, one of the points on which we agree with Rand. Idealism has been tremendously influential on all aspects of public and private life from its inception in the 18^th century as in opposition to reason.

Were there idealists before it was a philosophical movement? Certainly there were. Idealism preoccupies itself with the “could be” and the “should be” (emphasis on planning of all sorts, executed from above by FORCE as usual) rather than the “what is”: how real people must live in the real world, how natural systems really work, etc. In fact true idealism always betrays itself by willingly casting aside anything much connected to how the real possibilities of things they are planning, their “big useless plans” as one of our French friends remarked, would really work in the real world. They really do not want to accept reality, they seek to confront it, for their own purposes. Idealists believe they can change the world, that they are “change agents,” and what no one seems to see is that they have arrogated to themselves the right to do so for millions nay billions of people. Worst of it is their authoritarian stance. Just who gave them their authority? If it turns out to be based on easily verified frauds and lies, then what exactly is the basis for this authority? FORCE?

Idealism is a fairly widespread phenomenon these days, either tacitly accepted or actively cheered on and a certain number of people who like nothing better than telling others what to do and how to do it are attracted to it. Idealists as a group tend to be wavering in their support for reasoning to a factual and truthful conclusion. In fact, idealism may deviate from reality far enough not to care at all about the truth of anything; the end justifies the means, the goal is worth any means to attain it, etc. Our rulers, being captives to the powers that be, are everywhere idealists.

Idealism is the necessary prerequisite for setting up a dialectic. Without it, people would use reason (with the trivium and other simpler common sense approaches) and arrive at the truth (the ultimate authority) and thus be free from mental hoodwinking and other impositions, lies, chicanery, etc. with which the modern world abounds. Idealism is also the root cause of every ideology. We have been describing on this blog, for quite a while, the whole concept of getting two antagonists to go to war with each other and someone else paying for them to do it, but that the money is all loaned with certain conditions; advantages and disadvantages for the winner and loser, etc. usually including assumption of all debts for the winner and slavery for the loser. The antagonists are the idealists, the banker is the realist, the realist being the only one of the protagonists who actually knows how the system will function naturally to benefit him.

Now imagine that you can actually get people to believe in something that isn't real and maybe is impossible to ever make real, EVER, and certainly has no sensible plan of action for its attainment (as if the ideal itself didn't serve as perfect cover to hide some very sinister FORCES and follies). We've posted #41 and #42 to present ample evidence of this. We also notice as obvious that the emphasis is on mass solutions, corporate solutions that benefit the few and leadership by the “too big to fails.” Has anyone ever heard of the law of gravity? Has anyone ever heard of the diminishing returns to scale rule? Has anyone taken seriously the very simple fact that the larger any human enterprise gets the more inefficient it becomes until it fails? There are realistic considerations that ALL of the globalists and statists and their lackeys everywhere have conveniently neglected because their ideals are so much greater, eh, more “scientific” (obviously not), etc. etc.

Meanwhile the reality is human need and human greed. This is not meant to sound like some glib statement typical of an Austrian economist. For we have in our proposal the means of eliminating human need and allowing human greed to face nature, without assistance from government FORCE or other available legal means to skirt responsibilities for their actions. We accept E. C. Riegel's reasoning; that the only people permitted to create money in a truthful monetary system are the poor and that the rich must face dealing in the real world of unlimited liability for their actions. rather than hiding behind limited liability and absentee ownership, as we shall not allow these to operate within our Value Exchange Network (VEN). One does not automatically favour the rich, just because they are rich, or the privileged just because they have been allowed their privileges.

E. C. Riegel believed that each human being had a natural requirement for individual advancement and that this was thwarted by the present order in most cases. One could argue that the present order and its captive market is the truth, because it exists, and that any discussion of any alternative to it is idealistic. This would be a deliberate misdirection. On closer critical examination, it is not possible to assert that the present order operates according to truth or that it is even logically true. It is merely customary, in the sense of people having tolerated it for as long as it has existed. Since we claim that trade is necessary and will find a way; certainly any reasonable alternative will, under the present circumstances, find acceptance and where once starts a trickle, eventually a torrent ensues.

What we are about here is not idealism but something quite different, akin to needing to replace a badly malfunctioning but practical machine, a machine that has become dangerous to everyone that uses it but a scant few who benefit from the way the machine operates, or again more precisely, a machine that has been discovered to have caused much harm already and that same harm grows exponentially with that machine's spread throughout the world.

There are those out there, quite a few actually, with a considerable following, that imagine that simply repairing the same old machine will do just fine, when history amply shows they have no basis for either optimism or confidence. Most, who are at all aware, no longer trust the financial system and the state is losing reputation daily, as having any effect other than to promote ultimate disaster. On closer examination, it can be determined with certainty that the old machine never worked perfectly and in fact was responsible for the deaths of many millions of people, certainly by war or famine, at least. Oh, the machine worked all right, as any machine of this kind would, under FORCE of various kinds and especially, as all the world knows now, for certain special people. Our basis for searching out a new machine is in fact based on our practical experiences with the present one.

There is no idealism about it. One knows certain things about how people will respond to something based on practical experience that supports one's convictions. Things like that ultimately “cash is king,” because when people believe its purchasing power to be stable, they will hold it to make larger purchases, knowing that paying cash will give them the best possible price, when it comes time to buy. We also know what happens to cash when it is observed that prices are going up, that their cash is losing value daily; a Wiemar meltdown; they want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. We know all these things from practical experience.

The normal tendency to hold cash is made more so when money seems to be in short supply, as when employment for money becomes scarce (recall Labour is Value) and when most people are using all the “public” cash they can just to pay off their debts. There wouldn't be much basis for a Weimar meltdown until people in the street are paid cartloads of cash. That isn't the case right now; prices are high and money is scarce. The tendency is deflationary; prices must and will fall.

We note specifically that idealism has been, from its philosophical inception, a vehicle to be used for political and economic purposes; for purposes whereby the few can attempt to control the many, of course by FORCE. As philosophical positions go, an idealistic one is usually in league with some recourse to state FORCE, which implies at base a desire by the idealist to get over on other people, to have control over them, etc. In order to achieve some ideal, one must convince others to agree and follow along, it's the basic herd mastering mentality that we probably inherited from our ancient ancestors. Of course, what then of those who don't want to go along with it? They're the enemies, the “reactionaries.” with whom the idealist invariably “struggles.”

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, just some crazy aberration, except that some people think they can make money from sponsoring wars between antagonists. History has proven that they could and did over and over and over again, in a predictable never ending pattern. It's still going on now. Do you see it yet? It didn't matter if it was a war concerning who could be king of this or that place (like the 100 Years' War), or some war concocted about whose religious system would be considered legal – because all the money the churches collected was by FORCE, so that mattered (like the 30 Years' War). In both cases and numerous others going back into ancient times, they were all financed by bankers, who reaped profits while other people died. We can see the reality of where this has led in the world all around us. It does not take that much sense to know where it will ultimately end.

Independent Exchanges and Money

So instead of being idealistic, let's be rational. Let's assume that people, places, things and yes ideas are all objectifiable, identifiable and real, the law of identity, things are real, reality exists. Some aspects of the present system, money as cash in notes and coins (which we may call weights instead, because that's what they will be designed to be), and checks, will seem familiar.

[UPDATE: 5/19/15: At present, the making of (private minting of) coins to represent tokens of money in an exchange system is illegal, this legal franchise is a monopoly of the government and perhaps that's as it should be, because coins represent the smallest values within the monetary system, slots usually taken up by taxes, which must be paid in the local national currencies. The issuance of actual genuine circulating notes is also under certain legal provisions a monopoly of the central banks, likewise deliberately set up as monopolies. The only vehicle remaining is the private check, which we call a V-Check. These can have a six months limitation to their circulation among VEN members, with two additional provisos; that at any time an out of date V-Check can be refunded – replaced by another V-Check, or deposited into a member's account. Real and additional truly private checks could be designed to have other features which might include an encoded representation so that individuals within the VEN can circulate them anonymously, thus affording their private checks the same character as cash as in any other monetary system.  Of course all of these ideas would have to pass ratification by a properly constituted IVES first.  Until then, anything proposed by this blog are just ideas seeking an objective representation.]

Of course these days we have electronic computers and the internet and other devices that we are getting used to using all the time, so we will anticipate one or even many internet sites where Value Units are used as a means of trade, identity encrypted of course. In any case, our model has to include these kinds of money.

Swipe cards may be a little more difficult, because that's one of their technologies designed to leave a trail. The internet will always have encryption of some kind to secure its trade (they have bit-coin and others out there, don't they?), especially now (since revelations of NSA universal spying [which in any case doesn't work as the whistle blower remains at large as of 7-3-13]), and especially us (not yet active on the internet, but learning from experience and designing ahead of time).

The primary focus is going to be something like a local post office or bank branch in each locality that forms an IE, except that we wont be in the business of loaning any money. These could be more like small kiosks that would deal in Value Unit cash and other matters for our members. These would not be public offices, open to the public. Only members would be allowed entrance. These places would become more like private clubs, eventually, some even with museums attached (to be explained), that they might charge admission to, in Value Units only of course.

The IVES

The proposed network of IE''s would be contributors to and owners of the International Value Exchange Society (IVES). IVES has the following responsibilities: 

1. Certification of Independent Exchanges within the VEN

Someone has to do it, but it's a matter provided through a service agreement. This certification would also include the designation by number within the VEN that would appear on all notes that originate with each certified IE. Those who operate each IE are a little like a franchise except that they have the right to set certain policies within their geographical designation, something like a private club, in a similar manner as The Lawful Bank was to be owned by those who contributed money to its “public” and “retired” monetary reserves. In our case however, all members of an IE are its owners who pay nothing to join, that elect a rotating team of at least 3 exchange officers to run each IE. It is even possible that an IE might have several neighbourhood branches, each run by a team of at least 3 exchange officers elected by the members. [12/11/17: We were advised that nothing is respected that is offered for free and that a minimum yearly dues of V1 in whatever the local "public" money is, would be acceptable.  Right now V1 = $2.74 which is hardly a lot of money.]

2. Production and distribution of Value Unit cash (notes and coins)

IVES could operate as a set of companies that all operate the same way for more local areas instead of having just one, or it might consist of a set of organizations that each do one job for all IE's (more likely). We might have someone contracted as a mint to produce our weights (coins), which will be more valuable in our monetary system than coins in other systems. See our discussion of coins here. Since there are various standard weights for gold under 1 oz. we will want our coins to be able to accurately measure in a scale any of these standard coins.

Another IVES unit or company might be involved with producing the notes. Based on values right now, perhaps the first three notes, the 1,5 and 10, would be most useful. Some have even suggested that a 2 VU note would be useful as right now (6-30-13), solely on paper (here), the Value Unit is around $2.80. That's pretty hard money.

We'd also seek advice on the cheapest strongest “paper” on which to print our notes. We'd want to subject them to tests confirming that they would pass crinkle and washing machine treatment, etc. They have to be durable as well as look good. No matter where they end up they have to pass the dimensions and reverse design tests, as well as the front to back numbers tests, in order to qualify as legitimate notes. There may be other ideas to prevent counterfeiting too. The idea was to create and circulate so many obverse (front) side designs that no single one would dominate. Counterfeiting would further be intimidated and complicated by design changes every seven years after each IE's launch.

We've set up as a bare minimum the need to attract a certain number of “subscribers” who would form at least 3 IE's. We thought to have each IE provide their own exchange note (obverse side) designs. Each IE would be given a designation by number that would appear on both sides of all their notes. On each valid note, these numbers would have to match. Defacement of the numbers so that they could not be read would void the note. IVES or its separate companies, would operate as B members of every certified IE.

3. Dispute resolution, based on clear operations described in the VEN charter.

Cases of dispute may indeed involve where someone, for whatever reason, has managed to acquire a lot of VU notes and they happened to have gotten damaged by something and they want a redemption. We don't anticipate this happening very often, but again someone has to deal with it. 

4. Determination of exchange rates between Value Units and silver and gold bullion prices, and hence the exchange therefrom, for all other currencies.

Since the Value Unit is not “pegged” to either gold or silver but remains where it began on 2 November, 2011, any prices for metals today would have to be assessed, based on the deviance from prices on the date of the VU's inception. IVES is tasked with providing that information for business daily, for every operating IE within the VEN, so we will always have a means of exchange. Eventually this will become a widespread app on people's phones. Q: What's the current value of a VU in dollars? A: $2,77 [2 July, 2013]

Our Own “Stakeholders” - Securing Pools of Liquidity

We have maintained, and shall proclaim on every obverse (front) side of every Value Unit exchange note, who “backed” the money; they will say “The People of” this or that place. But we will need the “juice” to spark the new engine (that's sort of what it is) to life in the form of pools of potential money, just as there are pools of potential energy. Here's our proposal again in brief:

A vast number of people receive pensions from government (Social Security) or private issuance (Labour unions, etc. Teachers' pensions count). We would like to suggest to ALL of you that you get together and agree to set up “potential accounts” for each other that follow these simple but exact rules:

1. The inception of the “potential account” has to be no earlier than the date of Value Unit inception: 2 November, 2011. We will allow those that can prove it a “grandfathering in” before the present, but they may not want to use an earlier month than January, 2013 once they hear the second rule.

2. A dollar (or whatever) amount per month is chosen as the “Figure 1” basis for each account and once chosen that number does not change. So if you choose to start at the end of 2011, maybe you were operating at a lower payment per month than from January, 2013, the month you'd normally choose in order to base your account on the latest monthly payment amount.

What if you have more than one pension? Then you would apply the same rules for each and summarize the results. 

What you would anticipate seeing is that the number of Value Units you'd receive per month would probably stay the same or diminish, as the dollar (etc.) loses its value This will happen anyway whether the prices of gold or silver ever rebound back near where they were at the Value Unit's inception. A paper on this is forthcoming.

3. Proof of pension payout (a copy of one will do).

Remember folks, we are talking private here. Exchange this information only with a disinterested friend who you would accept as a member with you in a private club. Some have even suggested that you take these forms, make copies of them and then black out the names, addresses, etc. and that a set of codes be used to identify the owner who can identify themselves by presenting the original documents. Remember, Domicile applies. No member (subscriber for now), decides to become a member (an A member), they have to be recommended by 2 other A members. There has to be a minimal recognition of the need for trust and honesty in business practices as one achieves in friendship. Two friends seek out a third and they do the same, etc. We try and weed out the “bad apples” this way. The first three who decide to “subscribe” in their community become the basis for the future IE if they can get enough subscribers to join.

Will non members be able to get their hands on our money? In cash they will and that's all to the good. Will they ever be able to leverage it away from us? Unless they're using purely cash measures, it would be a cold day in hell that any IE would ever let any of these “businesses” join or allow their contracts. That's another thing IVES is charged with. As we say, someone has to be a watch dog in this system and it logically resides within IVES. That's why we'd certainly appreciate former police investigators joining our ranks as they'd know best how to spot these types of people and their fraudulent operations.

4. Each member does another's paperwork.

This keeps people honest and spreads the work. All one does is take the monthly dollar, yen , euro, etc. amount, the figure 1 chosen by rule 2 above and divide that amount by the monthly VU prices in dollars and other currencies that will be made available as people in a particular region become interested. This tells you how many VU's their money would buy that month. So you write that down next to the date. You will be keeping a simple ledger page that looks like this:

Copy and print this page

For each succeeding month, you indicate the number of VUs rounding up to the nearest cento (fen): 0,000.00. An additional column summarizes the VU's as a running total that is always growing.

When the time comes to begin operations, the number of subscribers in a local area meets or exceeds benchmark requirements; minimum 120,000 subscribers (A members) and 1,800 businesses (B members), then evidence of these preliminary accounts, as they will be known, will be presented at the local IE and their monthly credits to these accounts would continue until either the member says stop or the member dies. This potential money will all be created by the members themselves and not the IE. The basis for the member's backing of the money they create is past service to the community. That will become a widely interpreted idea that will include all those who are receiving something because they are disabled. The same provisions also hold for all Social Security recipients, exclusive of Medicare payments.

Welfare recipients will be in another category, because we shall enforce Domicile as a real rule; you must have provided to another member (recall you need 2 to recommend you) sufficient evidence that you have a legal right to be where you are. We will not accept the responsibility of dealing with illegal immigrants. Of course, as time goes on, they can and probably will get and use our cash and as I said, this would be all to the good. But we would prefer that they return home and start an IE in their own countries.

After IE's open and not until, persons on welfare will be considered for what they need to survive in each local area and will be permitted to issue their own money each month up to limits determined by each community.

Kinds of businesses associated with an IE.

Obviously, since we will not ever need to hold anyone else's money but our own, and since the only other ready means of buying any of it is gold and silver bullion, there will be a natural relationship with reputable precious metals dealers. In fact, we predict that our volume will eventually provide the bulk of all transactions in precious metals! Therefore, every IE will have a precious metals dealer as a B member. The more the better.

One of the latest innovations in this field is the 1 gram 9999 gold card.

This is something the size and dimensions of a standard credit card that contains 1 gram of pure gold. There are 31.1 grams to the troy ounce. Paul Drockton is even offering vending machines for these cards. See gold vend, here. 

We could anticipate having one of these machines at or near one of our IE branches where one would purchase these cards and then trade them for our money at prices that would also be posted; another phone app. Q: how many VU's do I get for one of Paul Drockton's gold cards today? A: VU 18.11 [3 July, 2013 with each VU equal to $2.77]. Of course we would never want your $2.77 but we would certainly take one of Paul's cards.

By the way, when you buy one of Paul's cards, you will be paying a premium over the normal bullion price of gold and there is a well known reason for this. If a seller's standard price is based on a quantity larger than most normal people would buy, then it stands to reason that smaller quantities are more expensive, and the smallest usable quantity, a gram, is going to have the most premium attached to it. The inverse is also true and proves the “cash is king” rule; the more quantity of anything you are willing to buy and pay for with cash, the cheaper each measure of that thing will be. The premium is the convenience the buyer pays for using a smaller quantity than the seller usually deals in and is usually recouped when the buyer in turn sells later. In all our cases, these cards would be available to sell back into the market for dollars (etc.), largely to pay unto Caesar what is Caesar's. 

Another kind of business would be a finance business, a B member of the IE but not a part of the IE as with conventional banks. These businesses are usually involved in buying something cheap and selling it to customers on terms. They would work with car dealers, real estate brokers, etc. These would of necessity specialize in products or services they understand best. Terms of one year or less are bills, out to seven is a note and beyond that is a bond. These are all standard credit contracts within the VEN, whose terms and conditions will be made simple so that the average person with mean intelligence can understand what they say. Believe me, if it can't be logically understood, it's probably bogus. We want to stop making the same mistakes going forward that we have allowed heretofore, like allowing ourselves to be pledged to over complicated, ambiguous and beside the point matters connected with contractual agreements. These will all be validated through local IE's.

Another kind of service business, one suggested by Roger Hayes in his Lawful Bank proposal in the UK, would be an independent land registry. If you don't know what they're doing with the land, you wont get a handle on their grip or the extent of their thefts already. That's in fact being rather kind about it, as has adequately been seen over the past several years, the large “bodies” who claim ownership over increasing amounts of land are themselves controlled by people far from the land who have little or no responsibility for anything happening there (or to its neighbouring community) except either to turn a profit or allow it to “return to nature” in response to some Agenda from some universally foreign power. Our objective is to take our wealth back from them. It begins with the land.

And yet another kind of business will be involved with land reclamation; one that is exemplified by the work of Geoff Lawton, in the field of permaculture. Find out more here. 

We have not contacted Geoff, and he may seem to some a rather grizzled fellow from Australia, but we are tremendously impressed by his ideas and his work. We believe he has the basis for transforming waste areas into habitable and productive areas. Perhaps he knows already that what he is doing also has the potential to transform climate for the better in many presently inhospitable places. In any case it is going to be new technologies and redeployment of sensible older ones that will form the basis for the human societies of the future.

Likewise there will be businesses devoted to cleaning up the land destroyed by the “savage babies” running their “too big to fail” businesses or governments. There are likely to be other unused ideas, banned by the patent industry which supports monopolies and privilege, that can be turned to eradicating the effects of GMO's, poisons of various kinds, etc Any “off the grid” technologies will see a tremendous boost from any decentralization of power, which must happen if the world is to survive.

 

Yes, the rulers of this world are idealists, they behave according to ideologies supported by their idealism, their idealism is based on an ideal that while it may be by itself noble, whatever that is supposed to mean anymore, is proved by simple examination to be tantamount to every tyrannical evil imaginable. Let us instead learn from our mistakes and get busy building something that we will still need after the present order ceases to be. Those with fixed incomes had better decide to become “stakeholders” in this system as you certainly aren't in theirs. Pensioners can do it for little or no effort right now. It will cost them nothing. Veterans and grandmothers should take the lead, all other pensioners should follow. What we are advocating is a transition out of one system into another, where there may not be any pensions, because in a better financial and economic order run by, for and of the people, there may no longer be any need for any.

Please contact me with your questions.

David Burton
dpbmss@mail.com