The End of Money and the Future of Civilization [Paperback]

I just finished reading possibly the most important book of the year: "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization" by Thomas H. Greco. After having what he calls an 'epiphany' that shook him out of his slumber, Greco spent the next decades of his life tirelessly researching the corrupt money system - and more importantly, figuring out how we can transcend it, through developing alternative exchange systems that avoid the use of 'political money' and thus put power back in the hands of individuals and communities. This particular book is Greco's fourth one on the subject of money and has been called his master work.

The first half of the book is a thorough critical analysis of the financial system which will probably be familiar to conspiracy-heads like myself, but it's well done and, in any case, it never does any harm to hear it reiterated. He traces the history of banking, the worsening concentration of power & wealth in the hands of a few, the problem with usury, the cause of inflation, and the evolution of 'money' as an exchange medium, from simple barter to commodity money to symbolic money right through to our current credit system which is largely based on mere numbers on a screen. Indeed, it has often struck me how abstract & intangible are the economy and the nature of today's money; of course, in the context of the politicized, centralized money system, that abstractness makes it more vulnerable than ever to manipulation and abuse.

But unlike other 'money truthers' like Ron Paul, Greco doesn't advocate a return to the gold standard or other measures to reform the present system. His approach is more radical and basically sidesteps the system altogether. Here's what he has to say on the subject of Ron Paul:

"Among those who have recognized that our money system is problematic there are, on the one hand, those who seek to reform money & banking through political means, and on the other, those who seek to transcend it by private initiative and the creative application of new technologies & methods. ... Given the fact that national politics has come so completely under the control of the elite interests, and given the collusive arrangement that has aligned the political interests with the global financial interests, the political approach would seem to have little chance of solving anything. But reformers have done some good in educating the public about the money problem by making it once again a political issue. Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign has been well worthwhile on that basis alone, but what we really need for government to do is not to take control of the money monopoly, but to end it."

And that's all very well, but what does he say that we can do? "The answer to the abusive issuance and circulation of credit money lies not in turning back the clock and reverting to more primitive forms [e.g. the gold standard], but in perfecting the superior form, credit money, within the arena of free competition." To this end, he proposes a 'mutual credit clearing system', which is reminiscent of the credit card system we are familiar with - minus the drawbacks of being tied to the corrupt politicized money system and having to use banks as an intermediary in the exchange process. I'll try and describe his idea according to my own understanding. Basically, if the people in a community all have goods/services to buy & sell, and say they all start at a baseline of zero credits, then when someone makes a sale they will acquire e.g. 200 credits, whilst the buyer will have -200 on their account. The buyer will then cancel their debt when they in turn make a sale, whether it's a product they're selling or their own labour. Essentially it's little different from getting your wages paid into your bank account by direct electronic transfer, and then using your card to transfer some of that money to a vendor when you make a purchase. Obviously these 'credits' I speak of would be measured against some objective standard so they wouldn't be subject to fluctuating value as is our present currency. And there'd be no interest on debt which makes the conventional credit card system so problematic.

There is more to Greco's proposal than what I've outlined here; he spends many chapters describing how his ideas can be put into practice whilst avoiding all the pitfalls of conventional money & finance. If readers have any questions about this, or if it sounds like something you'd be interested in, then please go straight to the source - get the book. I'm no economics scholar, but to me his ideas certainly sound feasible, practical and just so right. Why isn't everybody doing this? Alternative exchange systems have apparently been tried before, but fizzled out before they really gained momentum; this doesn't mean they don't or can't work, it's just that people are so inured to the present system, which has the advantage of short-term convenience, that alternatives have failed to reach critical mass.

I guess breaking free from the present money system with its familiar currency is as daunting as unplugging from the Matrix - but the economic turbulence and ever-expanding political control we are witnessing really makes it increasingly necessary to take the plunge and liberate ourselves. It's weird to imagine trading without using those familiar coins & paper notes, but think about it - those notes & coins have no inherent use or value, and are only worth something to us because the central bank says so, and because vendors are obliged to accept them.

In conclusion: if you're interested in 'conspiracy', economics, the money system, enlightened business, positive change or empowerment, then you really ought to get this book. Currently we are scarily dependent on the elite's criminally corrupt system to provide for our needs, but Greco shows us that it doesn't have to be this way, and with this book he provides an initial sort of roadmap to help communities and businesses take back their power. Read it!

The End of Money and the Future of Civilization by Thomas H. Greco Jr. is the first coherent and intelligible narrative on why the money problem matters and how to do something about it. A masterly synthesis followed by innovative proposals on what must be done. Greco's chapter on the evolution of money is one of few accurate accounts since Hartley Withers...Walter Bagehot's son-in-law and a former editor of The Economist...wrote The Meaning of Money a century ago. Greco is one of a select few to have understood the deceit inherent in the Venetian trick of double entry book-keeping that makes credit money appear the same as 'claim check' money...despite its vastly different default risk. For Greco, the way forward is not to return to metallic money, but to separate 'Money and State' and harness the power of credit money, not for the benefit of a tiny elite who deploy it to destroy the planet and starve the southern half to death, but for the common good. A lucid introduction to the money problem comes from the Canadian economist Paul Grignon as the third part of Money as Debt at [...]. This is an accurate and comprehensive account of the money issue and its complexities and covers the complete contents of this Pandora's Box instead of peeling off a tiny layer from the Loan-Interest-Debt (LID) issue and claiming it as everything...as Truthers and Environmentalists tend to do. The narrative of the film follows closely the Greco line and begins and ends with a quote from E.C. Riegel...the writer on monetary matters that Greco has long exhorted non-specialists to read. As few will have struggled through to the end of this book to understand the butterfly emerging after the attempts over millennia to make the caterpillar fly, watch the Grignon film first before grappling with Greco's book.