Tag: Natural Money

Joseph Interprets Pharaoh's Dream, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Public Domain.

Coincidences for Starters

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Suspicious van

Now comes a selection of coincidences that occurred during my psychosis following the discovery of Natural Money in 2008. These incidents made me think there was more afoot than just me having a psychotic episode, and that God was pulling pranks on me. There is a link between Natural Money and the Bible. Ancient Egypt used money backed by grain stored in the state’s granaries. It had a storage fee like Natural Money. The biblical story of Joseph in Genesis recounts how these granaries came into existence, allegedly that is, for it is unlikely the truth. Only, the Bible being full of shit doesn’t mean that there is no God, or so I had just found out. Just after the discovery of Natural Money, an advertising campaign for the Dutch version of the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, based on the story of Joseph in Egypt, began. There was a fuss about it in the media, including television episodes in the Autumn of 2008 to select the leading player, so the musical’s start didn’t go unnoticed, not even by me, who doesn’t care about musicals.

The Joseph story gave Natural Money a biblical connection. And it was a usury-free financial system. The Bible, and the Quran even more, oppose usury, which was very suspicious indeed, not to mention that I lived in a town called Sneek, pronounced like ‘snake’, while there was allegedly a snake in Eden. It happens that A******* lived in a suburb of Eindhoven, which means Final Gardens, while the story goes that our journey is from the Garden of Eden to our final destination, the New Eden. And as a cherry on the proverbial pie, the Dutch capital Amsterdam often gets abbreviated to Adam, making it seem that I had been caught up in A*******’s fantasy world. Think of the preparation that has gone into making this happen. Sneek is over 1,000 years old. She could be God. And that was what the psychosis suggested.

Around that same time, a shabby old van with lettering De Windroos (The Windflower) had been parked in front of our home on the other side of the road. It had never been there before and had been there for several weeks. The lettering said it belonged to a furniture company from a nearby village. There seemed to be no reason for the van to be parked there for so long, so it began to attract my attention. Then, my sister-in-law noted that De Windroos is the name of a foundation helping people with psychosis. Not that she knew. And what was happening to me was precisely that: a psychosis. So, that was a most mysterious coincidence, almost spooky even.

It made me ask myself, ‘Are there mind control devices hidden inside that van causing my condition?’ One evening, I checked it out with my son Rob, who had also become curious. We took a flashlight to peek inside. It was nearly empty. There was only a suitcase, an ordinary suitcase, so not one with flashing lights and the like. There were no signs of suspicious activity. I later found out that the furniture company was in liquidation. The lawyer next door executed the liquidation. He held the van in custody and had parked it there. Nothing was worrying about that at least.

It was early December, the time of the Dutch festival of Saint Nicholas, a tradition giving presents and prank poems, which was, together with 1 April Fool’s Day, Ingrid’s favourite time of the year, as she was quite a prankster herself, but no match for the AlmighAlmightyy Eternal Prankster who had disguised Herself as A******* this time, after having been, among others, Mary Magdalene, to prank Jesus, or so I could surmise from the evidence, or so I could surmise from the evidence. We all know what happened to Jesus, so that explained my lack of enthusiasm. So Ingrid’s being a prankster was just part of the preparation for this, it suddenly seemed. We all know what happened to Jesus, so that explained my lack of enthusiasm. So Ingrid’s being a prankster was just part of the preparation for this, it suddenly seemed. In any case, Ingrid made me a present and added a poem, which was meant as a prank. It goes like so (it rhymes in Dutch),

The van that didn’t come,
but was already there

Whose van is that?
That van in front of the door.
It’s been there for a week
and gives off a strange smell.

That weird little van
is in complete control of you.
It comes from an upholstery company from Heeg,
and that is very suspicious.

You have already felt the door handle
But the door was locked
Today, you walked around it with your son
And you discovered something… oh my God!

A suitcase!
Just a suitcase, lying in that van.
What if that thing explodes?
What a disgrace to the street.

Be prepared
and stop whining.
Put this on your head,
then nothing can happen anymore.

The Merciful Saint

A most fitting present to go by that poem would have been a tin foil hat, but it was something else I don’t recall. The poem did not accurately depict the events: the van had been there for more than a week and didn’t smell. The title refers to a song named Het Busje Komt Zo (The Van Is Coming Soon) by Höllenboer, about two drug addicts waiting for the methadone bus that didn’t show up. It is also a well-known phrase in Twente, where I came from, meaning that they will take you to the loony bin soon. That didn’t happen, for I was aware of having a psychosis, making me cautious to act on the suggestions it gave. Among others, I didn’t leave Ingrid, thinking that if A******* wanted me for Herself, She could make Her intentions clear by coming over and taking me. That didn’t happen.

Curing memory loss

In the weeks leading up to the psychosis, Ingrid had added massive doses of curcumin to our food because she feared having dementia. Curcumin is an agent found in turmeric and used in curry powders. In early 2009, the gossip magazines had a windfall when Dutch celebrity Adam Curry left his much older wife, Patricia Paay, for a woman his own age. The furious left-behind Paay filled the tabloids for years to come. Among the noteworthy incidents is Paay pressing a hot bitterball on the head of a gossip journalist and threatening him with a more serious attack involving a much larger croquette. Ingrid is nine years older than I am, while A******* is my age. His first name was Adam, and his last name was Curry. Curry powders contain curcumin. Curcumin supposedly prevents memory loss, and suddenly, after being stuffed with that agent, I ‘remembered’ being the biblical Adam. It was the psychosis, of course, but this coincidence made it all the more remarkable. Ingrid believed that the curcumin had caused my condition.

My neighbour was a real estate agent. We discussed the credit crisis and the real estate market. Then he suddenly said, ‘This is quite strange. Two weeks ago, someone asked if your house was for sale.’ There had never been any interest in my house before. And it happened during the credit crisis, which made it all the more remarkable. As the psychosis had suggested that I might have to leave home soon, selling the house made sense. Ingrid and I decided to sell if there was a high bid. We had discussed moving to a smaller home earlier, so it was not an erratic move in itself. Even a second potential buyer turned up, but no one made a bid, so we kept on living there.

After, as part of the psychosis, discovering hidden messages in pop music, I set out to buy a portable CD player to listen to my old CDs and look for more. I went to an electronics shop and asked for such a device. The man behind the counter said it was an obsolete product. MP3 and MP4 players were in vogue. Then I tried my luck at another shop. The man behind the counter looked at me, flabbergasted, and said, ‘A portable CD player? Are you serious? Someone had just ordered one. The thing arrived a few just days ago, but now that guy doesn’t want it anymore.’ Well, if that isn’t coming in handy, then what is?

A few weeks later, the CD player’s earplugs had gone into hiding in a place I couldn’t think of. After a prolonged search that involved checking the usual places, I still hadn’t found them. It could be that God was making fun of me, once again, making me think, ‘Do You want me to kneel for You?’ I knelt then and saw an MP3 player lying on the ground, along with earplugs I could use. You get the picture. God was making fun of me.

My fortieth birthday was on 26 November 2008. At breakfast, Ingrid lit several candles and said there was a Christmas atmosphere. Afterwards, she blew out the candles and said they smelled like Christmas. Ingrid had never said this on my birthday before, so it contributed to the suggestion that I was the reincarnation of Jesus. That day, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai took place. I found out days later. What happened to me occupied my mind, keeping me from paying attention to the news. It seemed like A*******’s birthday present for me. It is not up to me to criticise God. I had never thought of God being a prankster murdering a few people here and there as a token of Her love. And it seemed better not to say no to this love, as I could be next in line for culling.

That same day, I met Bobby from Romania, who was selling the Street Magazine. He consistently called me lord instead of mister. The Dutch words for lord and mister are similar, so a foreigner can easily make such a mistake. Bobby lived in a holiday cottage on a campsite named De Blauwe Lantaarn (The Blue Lantern) with his wife and two children. He invited me there. When I arrived, he was waiting for me with a blue flashlight. The Dutch word for ‘flashlight’ is ‘zak lantaarn,’ which literally means ‘pocket lantern’. Hence, he showed up with a blue lantern. Strange. I gave him some money to start a new life in Romania.

Natural Money is a reform proposal for the financial system. Someone had copied it and published it on the conspiracy website Niburu.nl. Niburu.nl featured articles about NESARA, another reform proposal for the financial system. NESARA was a cult promoted by a woman calling herself the Dove of Oneness. At the time, I surmised it could be a cover for A*******. On 6 December 2008, I signed up for the email list. In the text body of the signup email, I placed ‘xxx’, just in case the Dove of Oneness was A*******. After signing up, the site displayed the following message: ‘Please note that it will take three days to process your request.’

Three days later, I came across a billboard advertising women’s underwear featuring a woman in her underwear. Next to her was the face of a man resembling Adolf Hitler. The advertisement’s text was, ‘Don’t make up, just break up.’ That was noteworthy as I supposedly was the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, and A******* had claimed me for Herself. Had She broken up with P*****, and did She want me to leave Ingrid? That same day, Ingrid’s golden necklace, which I once gave her, broke. Ingrid felt that was a bad omen. She saw it as a symbol of our relationship. Also, that same day, I was in the swimming pool and saw the clock reading 13:13:13, which seemed like a bad omen. Yet, a psychosis is weak evidence, making me think that A******* had to make Her intentions clearer for me to leave Ingrid.

The next week, as I was leaving the swimming pool, the door malfunctioned. More precisely, I went out, and the door opened. Then I realised I had left something inside, and the door opened again. Then I wanted to go out again, but it suddenly wouldn’t open. No one had passed that door in the meantime, so it seemed to have something to do with me, and it looked like an invisible psi-force. The door stayed closed as more people gathered at the entrance, trying to get in or out. It took about 15 to 30 minutes for an employee to resolve the issue. By then, I had started resisting the psychosis and had decided not to act upon the suggestions it gave and to wait for more evidence, which didn’t come. The NESARA newsletter was crap, not suggestive of knowledge of monetary matters, so I discontinued the subscription a few months later.

The trumpets blow

On my father’s birthday, 12 December 2008, we visited him in Nijverdal. It was the day I learned about the new hobby of my parents’ neighbours: midwinter horn-blowing. They were blowing Midwinter horns all day. They had been doing that for several years at the start of winter, but it was the first time I heard them do it. The prediction that the blowing of trumpets would herald the End of Times made it seem eerie. By then, the psychosis had receded, and the telepathic connection with A******* had vanished, but I was still open to suggestion. When hearing these same horns blowing years later, they didn’t sound like trumpets at all. So, that is what suggestions can do with you.

The interior of the Catholic Church in Sneek perfectly aligned with my taste. I had been inside at the funeral of Ingrid’s mother a few years before. It was the most beautiful interior, even better than cathedrals. Could God have done this on purpose? So, I said to Ingrid, ‘Perhaps, we should visit the Church one more time and attend a mass.’ Ingrid was fine with the proposal, so we went there on 21 December. There weren’t many people. Most were ageing, so the prospects of this parish seemed bleak. And yet, the Church interior was as I had imagined, perfectly matching my taste. So perhaps God made it especially for me, or fiddled with my taste to make me appreciate that Church’s interior.

That evening, a few days before Christmas, there was a bright star in the sky. It was Venus, but it was unusually bright, much brighter than any star I had ever seen. Now, I had never paid much attention to the stars, so that doesn’t say much. Yet, the so-called Christmas Star became a topic on a few message boards. A spiritual guru from Bilthoven, the village A******* came from, had predicted its coming, which makes it a noteworthy coincidence. The guru further claimed that a Messiah would come soon. She had claimed that several times before, and those predictions had all failed, but this time there indeed was a Christmas Star. Perhaps God tried to make me believe I am the Messiah. There were indeed signs, if you can call these events that, but there was no further evidence, so plenty of reason to remain cautious about what they meant.

Ingrid tried to rent a cottage on Ameland. After a series of miscommunications with people offering cottages, she rented a cottage named Jutter, which added some juice to the coincidence. But there were two cottages named Jutter on Ameland, and Ingrid had rented one while believing she had rented the other. Later, the owner cancelled the booking because he had sold the cottage. Ameland was the island where A******* spent her holidays with her fancy man, P***** in 1989, in 1989, who might be the son of the former presenter of a famous Dutch pop music programme.

And it runs deeper. God might have interfered with my final exams at secondary school. Despite being the worst performer in the literature explanation, I received the best grade after praying that it wouldn’t be terrible. The teacher’s name was Amelink, suggesting a link with Ameland. A******* was often busy with cryptic crosswords. These are about hidden messages, while the explanation of literature is about the hidden messages in literature.

Next to the beach at De Banjaard in Zeeland, where we usually went when we stayed there, and where my parents had gone with my sister and me before, was a hotel. They refurbished it and renamed it Amadore. As AM were the initials of A*******’s first and middle name, and Her last name began with Dor. My parents went to that particular hotel once. Amadore is a hotel chain with multiple hotels in Zeeland. Yet Amadore ran a television advertising campaign featuring the De Banjaard hotel. Strange, but true.

In December 2008, my son Rob watched an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. In this particular episode, someone lit a fire. SpongeBob takes place underwater. And so, I told Rob that we see water burning, a Dutch saying for seeing something extraordinary or impossible. A few seconds later, a siren began to wail, and a fire engine passed.

A few days later, we made a trip to Groningen. Ingrid noticed a damaged car by the side of the road. A few moments later, the vehicle in front of us broke down. It went on and on. A total of eight cars broke down on the road or stood broken down at the side of the road. The weather wasn’t unusual, but it was noteworthy, as you hardly ever see broken cars, and definitely not more than one during a single trip of that length. Well, well, those were the days. Strange things were happening nearly every day.

Meanwhile at work

Once, I bicycled to the office like I did every day. Next to it was the municipal health service, GGD. When looking at the lettering on the GGD building, perhaps because of the other peculiar events, a thought came up that GGD might stand for ‘Great God’. I then tried to convince myself that it was a stretch to believe that God was showing off Her powers and had put such a sign there. Then, I noticed a car in front of the GGD building with licence plate number 99-GRG-9 (the nines being numbers I don’t recall). GRG could also refer to ‘Great God’. A few days later, when cycling in the same spot near the GGD building, I thought, ‘Now that I have discovered that God exists, what could happen to me?’ Within a second, I ran into a flat tyre. Religious people have to keep the faith on far fewer signs or none at all, and they keep on praying. So, how could I not believe?

On my last day at work in 2008, I updated the agenda with my holidays, so my colleagues would know I wasn’t in. The programme malfunctioned and left out the end date. I checked whether I had specified the end date correctly, and I had. Then I tried again, verifying the end date, but the same error occurred. It could have been a software bug. Only, no one else had that same problem, which, in the light of all that had transpired, made the incident peculiar. It was God’s way of suggesting that it might be my last day at work, and that something might happen during the holidays. Nothing happened, as expected, so it was yet another prank. So God’s plans with me remained obscure.

The following transpired in March 2009. There were two colleagues named Rene in my team. One had a last name starting with an E. The other’s a last name that begins with an H. On that fateful day, an urgent situation required us to access a new system. Rene H knew the password but had not yet arrived. I asked another colleague for his number, and he gave it to me. I called Rene H on his mobile phone. After dialling the number, the phone rang. Suddenly, there was a switching sound, and then a woman with the same last name as Rene E. answered the phone. I excused myself to her. It was the wrong connection.

Then I told the colleague who had given me the number, ‘You have given me the number of the wrong Rene. Please give me the correct number.’ He told me the number was correct. I checked it with a few other colleagues, who confirmed the number. I redialled it, and the same kind of switching occurred again. I put down the phone before someone answered. Then Rene H arrived at the office. The number was correct. His phone was working, and he hadn’t forwarded calls to another number. It made some colleagues make funny remarks about Rene H messing with Rene E’s wife. A technical glitch was out of the question, so it must have been one of God’s pranks.

On 30 January 2009, there was a quiet hour at work. I browsed the Internet and discovered the website Waarmaarraar.nl (true, but strange), which features unusual news items. A particular story caught my attention. It was about a man sexually assaulting a woman who, at the same time, sexually assaulted him during her wet dream. The man’s name was Paul Kut. Kut is the Dutch word for vagina. The following day, I discovered I had had a wet dream that night, but I did not remember it. That is for the better, as I would otherwise have to report on that as well, as you would have been desperate to know.

As I work at the government agency responsible for traffic fines, the following sequence of incidents is noteworthy as well. Around 1995, I lived in Groningen and received a fine for riding my bicycle on the wrong side of the road. That shortcut could make you skip four traffic lights and save up to five minutes. So many people did that. Once, a police officer had positioned himself on that stretch to fine passing bicyclists. He asked me for an ID, which I presented. It was the day before my birthday, so I said, ‘This is a great birthday present.’ The police officer said, ‘Had it been your birthday, I would have let it pass.’

Many years later, probably in 2007, I received a parking ticket for parking in a forbidden spot in the forest near Nijverdal. There were other cars, making me think it was allowed. Had I read the signs, I could have known it wasn’t. We went for a walk, and all the cars had tickets when we returned. That happened to be precisely on my birthday. That made it a remarkable coincidence, since it was my second ticket, and there had been none between them. You could complain, so I wrote a joking complaint letter about a promise a police officer made over a decade earlier. Perhaps it was time to make good on the promise and let it pass, I suggested. As expected, the ‘complaint’ was dismissed.

That story did get a sequel, as I was to get a pass. A few years later, there was road work. One lane was closed, and a traffic light handled the traffic. Just before I passed, it turned red. Also, the car behind me drove on. A police officer stopped me and issued me a fine. I said jokingly to the officer, ‘I am going to save for that one.’ It would have been my third ticket, but it never came. Perhaps the police officer had shredded it because I was driving an old vehicle and appeared poor. When I discussed it at a birthday party, someone suggested I had destroyed that fine, since I worked for the office processing these fines. You must be careful with what you say. People gossip, and even when they are joking, these rumours spread, and your enemies will take advantage.

That third ticket came in nonetheless. In 2017, my sister had moved. The first time I visited her at her new home in Arnhem, I missed a sign saying the speed limit was 50 kilometres per hour. There was a speed camera on that stretch. I drove 63 kilometres per hour. The fine was €111, a remarkable amount.

Featured image: Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dream, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Public Domain.

1919 Cover of The Natural Economic Order

Feasibility of Interest-Free Demurrage Currency

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Setup

Natural Money is an interest-free demurrage currency. It features a holding fee on currency and a maximum interest rate of zero on money and loans. The Natural Money currency is an accounting unit only, as the holding fee, which may range from 0.5% to 1% per month, makes the currency unattractive to hold. Therefore, the currency will not circulate, nor will anyone invest in it. Cash, bank deposits, bonds, stocks, real estate, and other investments aren’t currency and therefore not subject to the holding fee. Not paying the holding fee and curtailing credit, thereby promoting inflation, can make negative-interest lending attractive.

Natural Money distinguishes between regular banking, also known as commercial banking, which involves lending and borrowing, and investment banking, also known as participation banking, which involves participating in businesses. Regular banks guarantee returns to their depositors and use their capital to cover losses. Participating banks have shareholders who share in the profits and the losses. These two bank types should remain separated, even though one bank might offer both in distinct accounts. A commercial bank’s funds should be used only for lending. The maximum interest rate limits lending, allowing equity to replace debt in the financial system.

Evidence from history

There is little historical data on interest-free demurrage currency. Financial systems founded on interest-free money with a holding fee have never existed. There were holding fees and interest bans, but not a combination of both. In other words, it is a theoretical fantasy land. But so are many scientists working on fundamental breakthroughs. Moreover, a usury-free financial system requires a high-trust society founded on moral values, in which investments are safe. That is only feasible with the help of several relatively modern financial innovations. It all seems too good to be true, but we can have dreams. In any case, historical evidence is of limited value.

Ancient societies have seen usury-induced economic crises. Extreme wealth inequality, often accelerated by usurious lending, coincided with societal collapses. Yet other factors, like misharvests, trigger the problems. It is a recurring pattern that has existed since time immemorial. The Sumerians were already familiar with charging interest and its disastrous social consequences. Sumerian rulers began implementing debt jubilees as early as 2,400 BC, cancelling debts and freeing debt slaves. Other cultures, such as those in Israel, have banned charging interest. Israel also had debt jubilees every fifty years.

The Egyptian grain-backed currency existed for over 1,000 years, suggesting it provided monetary stability. Nevertheless, ancient Egypt has experienced economic crises, often due to droughts that caused crop failures, high taxation during warfare, or a weakening central government. The government mitigated famines with its grain reserves, but prolonged famines depleted these facilities, leading to civil unrest and, sometimes, a collapse of order. There is no evidence of social benefits of this money for Egyptian society. Charging interest was common, and Egypt had debt cancellations.

In the Middle Ages, the Church forbade charging interest. Christians, like Jews, were each other’s brothers and couldn’t charge each other interest. When economic life became more developed, the ban on interest became difficult to enforce. In the 14th century, partnerships emerged where creditors received a share of the profits from a business venture. As long as the share remained profit-dependent, it was not illegal, as it was a participation in a business rather than lending at interest.1 Islamic finance works with similar principles.2

In the 17th and 18th centuries, interest ceilings replaced bans. To circumvent the interest ceilings, a creditor and debtor could secretly agree on a fraud, whereby the creditor handed over less money than stated in the loan contract, so that the borrower actually paid more interest.3 More recent experiences with Regulation Q in the United States, which imposed maximum interest rates on bank accounts, suggest that a maximum interest rate is enforceable only if it does not significantly impact the bulk of borrowing and lending.4

A ban on usury requires a society grounded in moral values rather than profit. It requires us to live modestly and within the planet’s limits. It also requires societies to care for vulnerable individuals, so that they don’t fall prey to usurers. You shouldn’t charge interest, not merely because it is illegal, but because it contributes to something profoundly evil. That points to a broader problem. We should care about the world and consider the consequences of our actions. Even when what we do is legal, it doesn’t mean that it is good.

Implementation

To implement Natural Money, interest rates must already be low or negative. Efforts to lower interest rates when market conditions don’t warrant it scare investors. Low interest rates require trust, which in turn requires financial discipline, including fiscal discipline by governments. That doesn’t equal austerity, since governments earn interest on their debts when interest rates are negative. The transition is preferably a gradual process that the authorities communicate in advance. Whether that is possible at all remains to be seen, as the implementation may occur in exceptional times.

If there is a functional currency, the government should balance the budget first, allowing interest rates to decline. The second step is to decouple cash currency from the administrative or central bank currency. The move encompasses retiring central bank-issued banknotes and replacing them with treasury-issued banknotes. Not everyone will hurry to a local bank office to exchange banknotes, so the central bank-issued banknotes must be exchangeable at par for the new banknotes for a considerable period.

As long as interest rates are significantly above zero, a holding fee won’t bring them down. Setting a maximum interest rate can lower interest rates by curtailing credit, thereby cooling the economy. To avoid disrupting financial markets, the implementation must be gradual. The maximum interest rate should be high enough to avoid disrupting the economy. Initially, authorities could set the holding fee at a low percentage, or not at all. As interest rates fall, authorities can lower them.

The zero lower bound is a minimum interest rate. It operates like a price control by preventing interest rates from moving freely to the rate where supply and demand for money and capital balance. That is to the advantage of the wealthy, as they can take the economy hostage by demanding a minimum return on their investments. When returns are low, investors may prefer cash over investments, which can hinder an economic recovery. Economists call it liquidity preference.

Low interest rates can prompt lenders to seek higher yields and take on more risk. Low interest rates allow borrowers to take on more debt. Low interest rates can encourage investments that become unprofitable when the economy slows. A maximum interest rate can prevent these situations from happening. A maximum interest rate caps the risk lenders are willing to take and promotes balance-sheet deleveraging, so that low-yielding ventures don’t go bankrupt because of interest-bearing debt.

Issues with the maximum interest rate

A holding fee will cause few difficulties, but a maximum interest rate is more problematic. Insofar as the maximum interest rate affects questionable segments of credit, such as credit card debt and subprime lending, this is beneficial overall. More serious issues can emerge with financing small and medium-sized businesses. Partnership schemes can fill in the gap, but it is hard to predict how that will play out. The maximum yield on loans is zero, making partnerships more attractive, as they can offer higher returns.

There may be objections to the limits Natural Money imposes on consumer credit. Still, there is little doubt that a maximum interest rate can improve consumers’ purchasing power, as borrowers won’t have to pay interest. As a result, there are fewer borrowing options, which may lead to the emergence of black markets. To make illegal schemes unattractive for lenders, lenders who charge interest could lose the money they have lent.

Zero is the only non-arbitrary number, making it more difficult to change the maximum interest rate. That may happen for political or other reasons. If it is one, why not two? Zero is a clear line. A positive interest rate, however small, contributes to financial instability. All positive growth rates compound to infinity, so once we start the fire of usury, it will eventually consume us.

A maximum interest rate seems feasible if it is above the rate at which most borrowing and lending occur, thereby limiting the effects on liquidity in the fixed-income market. A maximum interest rate creates room for alternatives, such as private equity and partnership schemes. These alternatives can supplement the fixed-income market and mitigate the effects of the maximum interest rate. A maximum interest rate is beneficial overall if it mainly affects questionable segments of credit, such as subprime lending.

For bonds, the maximum interest rate is zero at issuance. Due to economic circumstances or issues with the debtor, the interest rate may rise and enter positive territory. Likewise, governments may issue long-term bonds that may yield positive returns if interest rates rise later. That is not a serious issue, as long as the interest rate was zero or lower at the time of issuance.

A serious issue is liquidity. When interest rates rise, less credit becomes available at zero or lower rates. Interest rates might increase due to a strong economy with inflationary pressures. There are always economic agents who must borrow at all costs to meet their present obligations. If they can’t borrow, they might go bankrupt. Businesses and individuals need to deleverage and arrange credit in advance, such as an overdraft facility, with their banks.

Another equally serious question is the profitability of banks with Natural Money. Their lending business will likely shrink. The assumption is that risk-free lending will be profitable. But what if it isn’t? In that case, banks may need to lower deposit account interest rates below the interest rate on short-term government debt. In that case, the cash interest rate may need to be lower than the interest rate on short-term government debt for it to work.

Inherent stability

Ending usury is impossible without investors’ trust in the political economy or in the political and economic institutions of the polity issuing the currency. The most trusted political economies have the lowest interest rates because their governments are fiscally responsible. Natural Money requires taking it to the next level. With Natural Money, to borrow, the government must find lenders willing to lend in the currency at negative interest rates. The government will be better off borrowing at negative interest rates, which provides an incentive for budgetary discipline. That is the foundation of stability.

Extracting a fixed income from a variable income stream contributes to financial instability. Fixed interest payments can bankrupt a corporation even when it is profitable overall. Interest contributes to moral hazard by serving as a reward for taking risks. Investors expect to earn higher yields on riskier debt, so lenders take on these risks. The more uncertain an income source, the higher the interest rate needs to be to compensate for the risk of lending; but the higher the fixed interest rate, the more likely failure becomes, revealing the destructive consequence of interest being a reward for taking risks.

All parts of the financial system are intertwined. Individual banks can transfer these risks to the system. And so, the risk management of individual agents can increase the system’s overall risk level. The payment and lending system is a key public interest, so governments and central banks back it. Banks take risks and reap rewards in the form of interest, while public guarantees back up the financial system. The arrangement leads to moral hazard, a mispricing of risk and private profits at the expense of the public. A maximum interest rate can end these problems.

A maximum interest rate causes a deleveraging and a reduction in problematic debts, which has a stabilising effect on the financial system and the economy. Individuals and businesses must already take action before their debts become problematic. Maximum interest rates can distort financial markets. Most notably, there will be fewer options for smaller firms to borrow. Partnership schemes should fill that void.

Interest payments also affect business cycles. The mainstream view is that central banks should raise interest rates during economic booms to curb investment and spending, thereby preventing the economy from overheating. A rosy view of the future prevails during a boom, so higher interest rates seem justified, and borrowing continues for some time. When the bust sets in, the picture alters, and an overhang of debt at high interest rates worsens the woes. It would have been better if these debts hadn’t existed in the first place.

That makes a usury-based financial system inherently unstable. Natural Money changes this dynamic. When the economy improves, higher interest rates increase the attractiveness of equity investments relative to debt. That reduces the funds available for lending. The curtailment of credit will prevent the economy from overheating and avoid a debt overhang. When the economy slows, negative interest rates provide stimulus. In the absence of a debt overhang, the economy is likely to recover soon. A Natural Money financial system is inherently stable.

Featured image: 1919 Cover of The Natural Economic Order. Wikimedia Commons.

1. Simon Smith Kuznets, Stephanie Lo, Eric Glen Weyl (2009). The Doctrine of Usury in the Middle Ages. Simon Smith Kuznets, transcribed by Stephanie Lo. An appendix to Simon Kuznets: Cautious Empiricist of the Eastern European Jewish Diaspora.
2. Sekreter, Ahmet (2011). Sharing of Risks in Islamic Finance. IBSU Scientific Journal, 5(2): 13-20.
3. K. Samuelsson (1955). International Payments and Credit Movements by the Swedish Merchant Houses, 1730-1815. Scandinavian Economic History Review.
4. R. Alton Gilbert (1986). Requiem for Regulation Q: What It Did and Why It Passed Away. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

1919 Cover of The Natural Economic Order

Discovery of Interest-Free Money

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It was September 2008. The banking crisis was getting out of hand. Things were falling apart. Apocalypse was in the air. It seemed as if the financial system could collapse at any moment and that civilisation, as we know it, could end. Today, the 2008 financial crisis is a distant memory, but at the time, the financial press was worried. Panic was setting in, as the jobs of suit-wearers in finance were at stake. And it was potentially apocalyptic. It was like 1929, but modern people are not as resilient as they were in the early 1900s. I had long feared an apocalyptic financial collapse and believed that usury, or charging interest on money and debts, would be the underlying cause. On the surface, the reason may seem irresponsible lending, but interest is a reward for bearing the risk of default. So, without interest charges on debts, there would be far less irresponsible lending.

The unfolding financial crisis led me to watch the animated film ‘Money as Debt’ on YouTube and to reflect once again on Silvio Gesell’s idea of charging a holding fee on money to eliminate interest. I jotted down my thoughts and tried to make an ordered, coherent whole out of them. The idea had never seemed workable. Why should you lend out money interest-free if you can receive interest elsewhere? It is why interest-free money had remained a fringe idea, mainly attracting eccentrics like me.

Then, in the first days of October, I made a startling discovery. Banning interest promotes financial stability by preventing usurious, irresponsible, and unproductive financial schemes. That would improve the economy. Think of it like so. When credit card debt and high-interest payday lending disappear, people will have more disposable income, and there will be no usurers living off others’ work. That would be more efficient. It also reduces the need for government and central bank interventions to manage the interest-bearing debt. Usury requires government deficits and central bank money creation.

That is because most of our money is debt-backed. If you go to a bank and take out a loan, the bank creates money out of thin air, but you must pay back the loan with interest. You repay the loan with money borrowed by someone else. And the money you need to pay the interest doesn’t exist. Someone else must borrow that as well. On a larger scale, due to interest charges, we need to take on additional debt to repay existing debt with interest. To prevent the usury scheme from collapsing, governments run deficits and central banks print money, which leads to inflation. The inflation rate is often higher than the interest rate you get on a bank account. The profits are for the usurers. The above, and also what follows, is a reconstruction of a thought process that was not as clear as the description suggests, but it was nonetheless something like that.

Now comes the skinny. The economy would do better without usury. If the economy performs better, investment yields would be higher, so investors would receive higher returns despite the negative interest rates. The difference comes from inflation. Without interest charges, there is no need for government deficits and money printing. The economy can thrive without more debt, so there would be no inflation. During the Great Depression, the Austrian town of Wörgl issued a currency with a holding fee. Those holding the money had to pay a 1% monthly fee to keep it valid, thereby encouraging them to spend it rather than save it. The existing money continued to circulate, and Wörgl’s economy boomed without money issuance, while Austria suffered from the depression.

If the money is interest-free, the currency’s value may rise more than the interest you would receive on an interest-bearing currency. Think of it like so. You can have 2% interest with 5% inflation or -2% interest with 0% inflation. The latter would be a better deal. The question then becomes: why lend money at interest when interest-free money offers higher returns? If the idea is that good, and the ‘Miracle of Wörgl’ suggests so, investors would bring their money to the interest-free economy, and the usury economy would end. If this became more widely known, the idea would spread and change the world.

Until then, I had believed that interest-free money was sound in theory but impossible in practice. Force, rather than good intentions, drives change in this world. It is a constant in history: the strong dominate the weak. But this money could be the terminator of usury, and a better future for humankind seemed possible. Making this knowledge public, I speculated, could unleash an unspeakable force. The Austrian central bank banned the Wörgl money, so we don’t know how it would have ended if it had continued. Perhaps we would have lived in an entirely different world. A similar money lasted for over a thousand years in ancient Egypt. Had I discovered the secret that explains these successes? That seemed doubtful. How could an amateur have found what the experts have missed?

Amateurs who think they know better than the experts have become quite a plague recently. ‘Think for yourself and do your own research,’ has become the motto of an ever-expanding squad of nutters that the Dutch call Wappies. Often, there is something afoot, but there is little or no evidence, so people speculate and go crazy. I was anxious about having it wrong, which made me doubt the discovery’s greatness. It might be a good idea, but it can’t be that good. And that is correct, a decade of research has confirmed, but it is possible. And the proof came when Europe saw negative interest rates in the next decade. While pondering all that and the unlikelihood that I would accidentally hit on such an epic discovery, I found the following quotes on a website promoting Gesell’s idea of charging a holding fee,

‘The creation of money that cannot be hoarded will lead to a different and more real kind of property.’

– Albert Einstein

‘Gesell’s name will be a leading name in history once it has been disentangled.’

– H.G. Wells

‘The application of Gesell’s principle of circulation of money will lead the nation out of the depression within two to three weeks. I am a humble student of this German-Argentine businessman.’

– Irving Fisher

‘The future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell than from that of Marx.’

– John Maynard Keynes

‘Gesell’s work will initiate a new epoch in the history of mankind.’

– Prof. Dr. B. Uhlemayr

‘Gesell’s discoveries and proposals are of the greatest importance for centuries to come.’

– Dr. Theophil Christen

These brilliant minds agreed that something epic lay beneath the surface and that it could change the future, which made me doubt my doubts. John Maynard Keynes and Irving Fisher were among the greatest economists of their time. Keynes believed Gesell would make us forget Marx, and I might have found out why. And so, the Miracle of Wörgl and the grain money in ancient Egypt may not have been freak accidents but a sign of something more. Ending usury, the scourge that had haunted humankind for thousands of years, seemed within reach, and I could be on to something huge, and so huge that it might mark the beginning of a new era. While considering these implications with great bafflement, the following song played on the radio,

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
Like my father’s come to pass
Twenty years have gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

– Green Day, Wake me up when September ends

September had just ended. Silvio Gesell first proposed money with a holding fee in his book ‘Natural Economic Order,’ which he first published in German in 1916 as ‘Natürliche Wirtschaftsordnung.’ I figure that its abbreviation could be NWO, which stands for New World Order, not realising that the German ‘Wirtschaftsordnung’ is a single word, unlike in English and Dutch. So, was my discovery part of a plan? Was it part of something bigger? These thoughts arose, ironically, because I erred by seeing ‘Wirtschaftsordnung’ as a single word. It made me feel small and insignificant. Paranoia was creeping in.

Less well known but worth noting is that the Nazis also sought to abolish interest and considered Gesell’s ideas. Gesell himself was not a Nazi, but more a merger of a liberal, an anarchist and an internationalist. Adolf Hitler was more impressed by the ideas of Gottfried Feder, who had the same kind of moustache Hitler had. Feder wrote ‘The Manifesto for the Abolition of Interest-Slavery’ around the same time as Gesell wrote ‘The Natural Economic Order.’ Feder proposed nationalising all banks and abolishing interest. Gesell argued for charging a holding fee on currency and had no plans to interfere with markets and banks. However, and that is also a crucial issue, Gesell hoped that efficient financial markets would drive interest rates to zero, so that the privileges of capital would disappear. He aimed for a merit-based economy.

I named the discovery Natural Money as a reference to the Natural Economic Order. Strange things began to happen. When I woke up at night, the clock always showed times like 2:22, 4:44, or 5:55, without exception. That was creepy. Something seemed seriously off with reality. Then, my wife told me she was seeing those time prompts as well. Until then, I hadn’t told her that I was seeing them. Once you enter the Twilight Zone, it begins to affect you. Meaningful coincidences started to occur, making me open to suggestions. What happened around me and in the world seemed to interact with my thoughts. Even the covers and titles of the books in the bookshop at the train station in Leeuwarden radiated a sense of spookiness, with references to my situation. They call it synchronicity.

The animated picture Money as Debt started with a list of assassinated US Presidents who supposedly opposed the banking system, suggesting evil bankers were behind these assassinations, making me fear death under suspicious circumstances if Natural Money would get serious attention. Still, if a repetition of the miracle of Wörgl were to occur, the news would spread fast, and if it were that good, it would be impossible to stop. Killing me wouldn’t help. The Secret Service would be too late. Of course, I had worried far too much. I posted the idea on several message boards. Most people didn’t get it. I mailed the findings to 200 Dutch economic researchers. None of them was interested.

Natural Money had a more favourable reception on the progressive Opednews.com message board. It became one of the most popular articles that month and sparked a lively discussion among its visitors, several of whom recognised its potential. Others saw what I saw, so the find was not just something I imagined. Still, it didn’t lead to a further propagation of the idea. The editor of the Gold-eagle.com website, which is mostly visited by conservatives, also expressed interest in my anti-usury monetary views, so it was not just progressives showing interest. Over the years, I have had several articles published on both websites. On Maroc.nl, a moderator pinned my post about Natural Money because the idea aligned with Islamic views on interest. It remained on the top of the message board for weeks.

Finally, I went to Strohalm’s office in Utrecht. They had been working on interest-free currencies for decades. The people of Strohalm received me politely, but they had other priorities. They had a promising project in Uruguay. Doubt crept in again. I didn’t know enough about monetary economics to see whether it was an idea worth pursuing. Even if I were right, no one would listen, so I planned to give up and resume my life.

It was all very disappointing. It seemed an epic idea, but no one was interested. Yet it was not as bad, and by far, as being evicted from the dormitory by A******* nineteen years earlier. To feel better, I reminded myself of that low point in my life and played Gerry Rafferty’s album Sleepwalking, which I had come to associate with the events at the dormitory because of the lyrics of the first song, ‘Sleepwalking.’ Then I wondered whether A******* had something to do with the discovery of Natural Money. Over the years, several peculiar incidents had occurred, reminding me of Her. It didn’t take long for so-called clues to surface. There is a thin line between paranoia and psychosis. The lyrics of the fourth song of the album ‘On The Way’ were noteworthy,

Drifting along with the wind, telling yourself you can’t win
It’s over, and now we begin, oh yeah, we are on the way
…
Only one woman, one man, just doing the best that we can
There’s so much we don’t understand,
Oh yeah, but we’re on the way
Light shining down from the east,
bringing a love that won’t cease

– Gerry Raffery, On The Way

In my bed, I was imagining again. By giving up, I had just told myself I couldn’t win. Was this just the beginning? The beginning of what? What did I not understand? What was this love that won’t cease? Was my destiny connected with that of A*? I had loved Her in secret all that time, but never thought, or even hoped, that we could be together. The distinction between my make-believe world and reality, which had been there since I was a child, began to blur. The lyric wasn’t specific, so the suggestion came from me linking the album to the events in the dormitory. And I might still have ignored it if it weren’t for the fifth song,

People come and people go, friends, they disappear
There’s only one thing that I wanna know, tell me where do we go from here
Everybody’s on the make, everybody’s trying to get ahead
In a world like this, you just exist to feed the walking dead.
…
Lookin’ out on a world gone crazy, waitin’ for the fun to begin
The race is on, yeah, they’re gettin’ ready, Jesus, what a state we’re in
Meanwhile, down in my backyard, I’m sitting doing solitary
Now that I’ve milked the sacred cow, I just worry ’bout the military.
…
Get ready
Get ready

– Gerry Raffery, Sleepwalking

Is the world about to go crazy, and is something about to start? We exist to feed the walking dead, which could be the defunct banking system, I reasoned. The phrase might refer to what Karl Marx once wrote, ‘Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.’ That was something I didn’t know at the time, which allowed me to make this connection. The sacred cow made me think of Joseph explaining the Pharaoh’s dreams. The story originates in a holy book, and one of the Pharaoh’s dreams involved cows. Joseph introduced the granaries in Egypt, the story goes. Grain stored in these granaries became the basis for Egyptian grain money, which, like Natural Money, had a holding fee to cover storage costs.

These are incredible leaps of thought that most people wouldn’t make if they weren’t psychotic. Yet, I could, and had done so before, knowing it was just imagination, but this time was different, crossing the line into la-land. The name of the album was particularly apt for the occasion. Sleepwalking was the only album Gerry Rafferty had recorded outside the United Kingdom, and in the Netherlands, of all places. That did not seem like a coincidence, and I was right about that at least as it turned out. I had grown open to suggestions. Natural Money could change the world, some of the most brilliant minds had agreed on, and it was something epic, and it had to do with A. And so, I was well on my way towards the shadow world where I was about to meet A again after nineteen years. That evening, I felt A******* trying to do a mind melt with me, as the Vulcans do in Star Trek, once again. This time, I didn’t resist. And there She was, on the other side. It seemed like a telepathic connection. By then, it was 11 November 2008.

Latest revision: 19 August 2026

Featured image: 1919 Cover of The Natural Economic Order. Wikimedia Commons.

Wörgl bank note with stamps. Public Domain.

Complementary Currencies

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Collapse of complex societies

In today’s globalised economy, imports and exports account for 40-60% of most nations’ GDP, so nearly every country has integrated into the world economy. That may change if the world economy collapses. A possible cause is a sudden loss of confidence in the US dollar, which is the world’s reserve and trade currency. A collapse of the world economy may trigger a reduction in complexity, commonly referred to as the collapse of world civilisation. Such a scenario is plausible, so it is prudent to plan for it. Perhaps, we can rebuild our civilisation with local initiatives. Usually, a collapse is involuntary. Things fall apart, not because we want to, but because we can’t afford our lifestyles anymore.

In his book ‘The Collapse of Complex Societies,’ Joseph Tainter argues that collapse is a sudden loss of complexity, and that collapses occur because the cost of complexity outstrips its benefits, leaving us better off with simpler lives. If you can’t afford food, life can be better without mortgages, taxes, medical bills, tuition, and most other things you buy, if it means you have something to eat. It is not that housing, government, education, and businesses have no use. After all, complexity solves problems. We could do with less, accept life as it is, and lead agreeable lives without social media and new treatments for cancer. It may seem disagreeable, but the Amish are content with such a lifestyle.

If we simplify the organisation of society, communities and families take on a greater role at the expense of markets and states. Village life in the past was far from ideal. Abusive parents could often do as they pleased and get away with it. And if you were gay, you had better not tell. Today, the idea of community has changed. You can set up a community with like-minded people. And there has been some progress in how much diversity people accept. Simplification means that states and markets retreat, even though the degree to which they will is unknown at present. Ideally, self-sufficiency and widely agreed-upon moral values will fill the void, while we will not return to the dark ages.

Perhaps we can learn to live in harmony with one another and with nature. That requires us to break free from the stranglehold of usury and trade. Local money enabled Wörgl to achieve some economic independence by keeping the money circulating within the local economy and encouraging townspeople to buy local products. When you use regular money, such as the euro, you can buy on international markets. If you do, the money will leave the community and may end up anywhere. You don’t know what your money will do there. It might facilitate drug trades or child labour. If you don’t care, don’t expect the market to, because the market is like a psychopath that might come for you.

Breaking free from markets

Thousands of local and regional vouchers circulate, but few were as successful as the Wörgl scrip. One notable exception was the Red Global de Clubes de Trueque (Global Network of Barter Clubs) during the Argentine Great Depression of 1998-2002. It was an even more spectacular success. The network emerged from local initiatives following the collapse of the Argentine banking system, enabling millions to exchange goods and services using local vouchers called créditos. Argentinians lacked a reliable medium of exchange, so barter clubs, which had initially been a lifeline for the unemployed, eventually helped middle-class people, many businesses, and some factories.

You can see the role of usury and international trade and finance in these crises. In Wörgl, a holding fee on money brought the local economy back to life, indicating that the global economy required negative interest rates, which were impossible in a usury-based financial system. To maintain a stable currency for their payments, the Argentinians could have borrowed US dollars in global markets. Due to Argentina’s creditworthiness, it could only do so at a high interest rate, which would have further eroded the country’s finances. The Argentinians would have used these US dollars to purchase foreign goods on international markets, leaving them without a means of payment again soon.

Had Argentina been a closed economy that had bartered with the outside world, the crisis wouldn’t have materialised. That is only hard to carry out. Traders would smuggle marketable goods in and out of the country. Only a few totalitarian regimes, like Nazi Germany and North Korea, have succeeded in doing this. These aren’t agreeable places. Still, it explains why these barter clubs were so successful. And it partly explains the economic miracle of Nazi Germany. The Argentinians participating in the barter clubs had nothing to offer to international markets. Or, they supported the clubs to help their communities and were willing to forego better deals available in global markets.

Limitations

Amid a worsening depression, the Wörgl economy improved, and unemployment dropped. Wörgl achieved this by breaking free from the usury financial system and world markets. The Argentinian network of barter clubs also did. And there lies a significant issue. Modern economies utilise goods and services that require a scale that only larger markets or global initiatives can provide. One of them is finance. It is probably impossible to develop financial markets for local scrip, let alone make them usury-free. The options for spreading risks in small markets are limited. The day you can go to the bank to get a mortgage in local scrip may never come.

The local initiatives were also successful because of an emergency. There was no reliable medium of exchange. The Argentinian barter vouchers weren’t legal tender and had no backing of a national currency. Millions of people joined the network, but it declined after 2001. The network had no organised structure. There were thousands of barter clubs in the network, each with its own notes. The clubs accepted each other’s vouchers, so some clubs committed fraud by printing additional vouchers. The Argentinian economy recovered in 2002, so the need for the barter clubs also diminished.

Whether the local or regional money is a currency or a voucher depends on the setup. An exchangeable government currency inspires trust. Most initiatives issue vouchers, but some have a currency reserve backing them. Most are private, and the money is hardly ever legal tender. Typically, these initiatives have a specific goal, such as strengthening the local community or economy. The money issued by the Austrian town of Wörgl was as close to a currency as local money can get. A government issued it, accepted it for tax payments, and guaranteed the exchange rate with the regular currency.

The Wörgl scrip and the Argentinian barter clubs demonstrate that local currencies and vouchers can succeed in times of crisis when the circular money flows have collapsed, either due to deflation (leading people to hoard money) or inflation (making the country’s currency worthless). It is also possible to integrate these local economies into a larger economy through these monetary exchanges. However, when the economy is doing well and the circular flows are functioning, the role of these monies becomes marginal. And so, they complement the regular financial system and are complementary currencies.

If you can receive internationally accepted currency, such as euros, you prefer it to barter vouchers because it inspires more trust. In times of crisis, you may be willing to take less trustworthy money if that is the only one available. It will be impossible to have a global network of local vouchers. Money operates in a hierarchy of trust. Exchangeability in a regular currency makes them more trustworthy. Imagine that there are 1,000,000 barter clubs issuing vouchers worldwide. How can you know that a note is genuine, and, if so, that the club issuing it is not scamming the system? And so, a voucher or currency can best only circulate in the area where everyone knows it.

Credit means trust, and as a Dutch proverb says, trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback. It is hard to build, but easy to lose. There are always individuals trying to scam the system. The human desire to live off the work of others is eternal. It is the foundation of capitalism, as it is what investors seek to do. And people try to use the government for their gain by demanding benefits, favourable regulations, or lower taxes. It is also a reason why trade and usury exist, not the only one, of course, but it is good to keep this in mind. The Greek god of the merchants was also the god of the thieves. It is a cynical view, as most people are honest, but systems of trust are as strong as their weakest link.

A local economy typically offers fewer choices and often poorer-quality products than international markets. You may accept these drawbacks to support your local community, since the best deal in the market may not be the best deal for your village or country. Walmart might be cheaper and offer a wider variety of choices, but buying at Walmart comes at the expense of local stores, factories, and suppliers, so that if you buy at Walmart, your sister or neighbour ends up unemployed and must move to the city to find a telesales job in the bullshit economy.

Making it work

Imagine that everyone does something helpful rather than wasting energy and resources in the bullshit economy, that no one is on the dole, and that people with limited abilities contribute what they can. Imagine that we respect nature and that the economy is sustainable. That might be possible after ending the stranglehold of usury and markets. In that case, we may work only twenty hours per week, have enough to live on, and can do as we please for the remainder of our time. Okay, we can’t visit Disney World, watch Formula 1, or ruin the planet with other senseless, wasteful activities, so we must entertain ourselves with other things, like playing football or singing in a choir. For the rest, we may have to rely on a trustworthy friend named Boredom to pass our time.

The ground is hard
The time is long
Life plods along
Its leaden way
There’s work to do
There’s time for play
But mostly, there’s
A lot of boredom

Yet, viewed from
The other side—
The little village
In the rigid land,
A sanctuary
Wrapped in snow—
It brings to mind
A different age

Drs. P, Winterdorp

Since 1934, Switzerland has been home to a business-to-business barter cooperative, WIR, which issues credit, the WIR franc backed by assets the members have pledged in collateral. Businesses trade goods and services without using cash, allowing them to work with less financial capital, clear excess inventory, and build new business relationships. Today, the WIR, like any other banking cooperative, looks like a traditional bank. That is mainly due to market pressures. A cooperative must offer a competitive product and deal with credit risk. Otherwise, cooperative members are often better off in the market. The United States has several barter organisations with varying credibility. Most are for-profit, so serving a community is not their primary objective.

Another scheme that can strengthen the local community is the Farmer-Citizens Initiative, also known as the Pergola Association. The market for agricultural produce is competitive, subjecting farmers to international finance and global markets. That is why immigrants often take these jobs and work long hours for low wages. Farmer-citizens’ initiatives have varying setups. Usually, citizens pay a subscription fee to cover the farm’s expenses in exchange for a share of the produce. It enables farms to diversify and offer a broader range of food products. Rather than exploiting immigrants, farmers may hire local workers to do chores at fair wages. The transactions can be in local scrip.

That might seem impossible, but community economics can be highly efficient because in ‘advanced’ economies, 75% of the people may now work in bullshit jobs. In contrast, in ‘developing’ economies, many live in slums wasting their time or doing bullshit jobs that pay little. People who produce the things we need keep them alive, either by buying unnecessary products and services or paying taxes. Things could be better if there were no IT specialists, salespeople, lawyers, actresses, financial advisors, and, most notably, traders, as they organise the competition that makes it hard to earn a living wage doing essential jobs at a reasonable pace.

Trade drives the inefficiency. When we don’t have to pay for people occupying themselves with bullshit, and more people can do the work, living sustainably comes within reach. Working the land and other essential jobs will then require shorter working weeks and bring acceptable, even though not higher, wages. After all, the standard of living will be lower because we won’t buy non-essential items. If working twenty hours per week on average is enough, and it might be, we will have plenty of time to pursue more gratifying activities. That is what Paradise might look like. It is not realistic to have a world without trade, but trade is the core problem that we face.

Government support can help. The municipality of Wörgl accepted its currency for tax payments. Complementary currencies are not a recent invention. Accepting a currency as payment for taxes, or even requiring payment in that currency, has been a way for governments to generate demand for it, allowing them to issue currency without backing it with precious metals. In England, tally-stick money circulated within the country, as it had value only there, allowing local state money to coexist alongside the merchant’s money, gold coin, insulating the nation’s economy from the whims of international trade.

In a Natural Money financial system, local governments, such as municipalities, can issue local and regional currencies backed by national currencies or by the global reserve currency (GRC), which is a debt of national governments or the world government in the International Currency Unit (ICU). In a more decentralised world with a uniform law system, nation-states aren’t the highest authority. They, however, issue debts in the ICU, so there can be national currencies based on these debts. Municipalities can issue debts in the ICU. Using them as backing for local currencies makes it challenging to maintain parity with the national currency. And so, full backing is essential.

To end usury and enable lending, you need not only trust but also efficient financial markets. Interest rates below zero can only exist when lenders expect repayment and the currency to have a stable value. In a small community, there are few lenders and borrowers, resulting in limited options. Raising capital for a new business or a mortgage in a local currency is probably impossible. And if a single business fails, a small bank can get into trouble. In larger financial markets, banks can diversify their investments.

Local monies are complementary, supplementing the regular financial system rather than replacing it. Preferably, their value stays on par with the regular currency. Only a full backing, as in Wörgl, can guarantee that. Small-scale lending and borrowing in these currencies, based on personal trust, are possible. It is not feasible to develop financial markets in them. Still, in a future where communities become increasingly self-sufficient, complementary currencies will play a more significant role than they do today.

To make it work, we should have motives beyond securing the best deal or maximising profit. So far, these other motives haven’t moved mountains. That is because only faith can. Money gives us a false sense of security. It promises us that we can buy anything we want, at any time we want. But money is not a basement full of foodstuffs or safety on the streets. Once we have ruined this planet and society falls apart, we will find out. Still, we put our faith in money. If it is not the euro, we put our faith in gold and silver rather than our communities. That is because trade and usury destroy them.

Requirements for a post-apocalyptic economy

As we could be heading for an economic apocalypse, it is a good idea to prepare, develop a vision of what the future world civilisation should look like, and see whether we can make it a reality. Without a vision to guide us, we will remain clueless victims of circumstances. Complementary currencies likely play a larger role in the future world economy than they do today. The solution needs to be global, meaning that no country can opt out. A global community-centred usury-free economy will probably need:

  • A global social contract guaranteeing a fundamental equality of all humans. The ecological footprint divides us into givers and takers.
  • A greater role of communities and families in the political economy, and a reduction of the role of markets and states.
  • A modest lifestyle and accepting life as it is to live sustainably within the planet’s limits. We are not individuals, but an integral part of creation.
  • An honest society with social trust and motives other than wealth and profit driving decisions. That also requires dealing with those who don’t fit in.
  • Local governments administering and supporting complementary currencies by providing an exchange for them.
  • Local initiatives, such as barter clubs and farmer-citizen initiatives utilising community currencies to strengthen the local economy.
  • Discouraging long-distance trade with tariffs. Banning the use of harmful products, or taxing them, for instance, in the case of fossil fuels.
  • People helping each other as the consequences of the shift will be enormous due to the massive imbalances in the global economy.
  • An equal right to means of existence for everyone, which will require land reform and people migrating in search of a living.
  • Limiting the right to property to our needs and what is functional in society. Existing property rights can’t stand in the way of what we must do.

Land reform may be required, but having competent farmers working the land is even more crucial. Some land reforms have failed because they were political projects that took no heed of the issue. And so the greatest caution is advised, as ill-conceived plans or poor execution may result in famines. At least in theory, everyone has the same right to land, and existing property rights shouldn’t be an obstacle. A computer system for administering complementary currencies already exists. The Dutch non-profit STRO (formerly the Strohalm Foundation) has developed Cyclos, the most widely used system for this purpose and, likely, the best. Their experience can help us to restart the world economy with local and regional initiatives on short notice.

Latest revision: 3 November 2026

Featured image: Wörgl bank note with stamps. Public Domain.

Wörgl bank note with stamps. Public Domain.

Short Introduction

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End of growth

The last 200 years have been an era of exceptional economic growth, unlike anything the world has ever seen. As with any exponential phenomenon in a limited space, the growth of human economic activities will end in one way or another. An innovation drive fuels economic growth. Economists call it creative destruction. We are now reaching the point where humans will be no match for artificial intelligence, and humanity is about to be creatively destroyed in the process. If humanity is to survive, and I have worked with that hypothetical scenario in mind, it will have implications for financial markets. And we have limited resources. If we halt innovation, we can be sure this will remain the case. For most of history, people had barely enough. Today, there is a massive excess in the bullshit economy, transforming energy and resources into waste and pollution to make money for investors by producing and marketing non-essential products and services.

For most of history, economic growth has been negligible. However, it averaged 1.5% over the last two centuries. It will soon return to zero, or possibly lower, in the hypothetical scenario that seems to require a miracle. Miracles are outside the scope of finance and economics, so also outside the scope of this treatise. It has implications for returns on investments, the financial system and interest rates. Investors have become hooked on positive returns. Without growth, investors lose confidence, which may cause collapse because the economy runs on credit, and credit means trust. And so, it is grow or die. Before modern times, humans managed to live without economic growth because there was hardly any capital or interest-bearing debt. Past civilisations facing usury-induced economic collapses either disappeared, banned interest, or instituted debt cancellations.

Indeed, the past 200 years have been an exceptional phase in human history. And because we don’t live that long, we think growth is normal. Low interest rates were essential for prosperity. Efficient financial markets promoted growth by depressing interest rates, thereby making the Industrial Revolution profitable. Low interest rates have brought unprecedented wealth, albeit at the expense of the planet and future generations. That doesn’t sound all good. Yet, after growth has ended, low interest rates remain key to prosperity, even when it is making the most of what we have. The benefit of low interest rates is an enduring rule that doesn’t depend on temporary economic conditions. Even more so, when economic growth returns to sustainable levels, so close to zero, there is no growth to pay interest from, so that we will either have to end lending or end usury. Luckily, a usury-free financial system already exists: Natural Money.

The nature of usury

Suppose Jesus’ mother, as a lady of great foresight, had opened a retirement account for Jesus shortly after his birth in 1 AD at the Bank of the Money Changers next to the Temple in Jerusalem. Suppose further that she had put a small gold coin weighing three grammes in Jesus’ retirement account at 4% interest. Jesus never retired, but he promised to return. Suppose now that the bank held the money for this eventuality. How much gold would there be in the account in the year 2020? It would be an amount of gold weighing 12 million times Earth’s mass. There isn’t enough gold to pay out Jesus if he returns.

And so the usurers hope he doesn’t come back, also for other reasons, of course. For every lending, there is borrowing. The bank is merely an intermediary. And so, there must be people in debt for an amount of gold weighing twelve million times the mass of the Earth. That would never happen. The scheme would have collapsed long before that, and the debtors would have become the serfs of the moneylenders. That is why religions like Christianity and Islam forbade charging interest on money or debts.

Yet, the usurers, those sneaky goatlike creatures, have found a way around the issue. Our money isn’t gold anymore. Banks create money from thin air, so the nature of usury has changed. When you go to a bank and take out a loan, such as a car loan, you receive a deposit in exchange for a debt, which the bank creates on the spot through two bookkeeping entries. This magic is commonly referred to as creating money. You keep the debt, but the deposit becomes someone else’s money once you purchase the car. When you repay the loan, the deposit and the debt vanish into thin air. You must repay the loan with interest. If the interest rate is 5% and you have borrowed €100 for a year, you must return €105. Something doesn’t add up there.

Nearly all the money we use is created from loans that borrowers must repay with interest. If our borrowing creates money, and we repay our debts with interest, then we may do so by borrowing the interest. That is also what happens in reality, and that is why debt levels continue to rise. So, where does the extra €5 come from? Here are the options:

  • Borrowers borrow more.
  • Depositors spend some of their balance.
  • Borrowers fail to repay their loans.
  • The government borrows more.
  • The central bank prints the money.

Problems arise when borrowers don’t take on more debt and depositors don’t spend their money. In that case, borrowers as a group are short of funds, and some of them are unable to repay their loans. If too many borrowers can’t pay at once, a financial crisis occurs. To prevent that from happening, the government borrows more, and the central bank prints money. They bring that money into the economy, allowing debtors to pay off their debts with interest. Interest compounds to infinity, and there is no limit to human imagination, so frivolous accounting schemes like usury can go a long way before they collapse. But eventually, they collapse. And others may attribute it to different causes. It is possible to have responsible lending at interest. And so, it is pointless to argue.

Necessity of interest

We take interest for granted, and economists believe that we need it. Without lending and borrowing, a modern capitalist economy would have been impossible. And without interest, making loans would be impossible. Money is to the economy what blood is to the body. If lending and borrowing halt, money stops flowing, and the economy comes to a standstill. That is akin to a cardiac arrest. If left untreated, it brings about the economy’s funeral. That is why the financial press reads the lips of central bankers as if our lives depend on it. They manage the flow. Lenders have reasons to demand interest. These are:

  • When you lend out money, you can’t use it yourself. That is inconvenient. And so, you expect compensation for the use of your money.
  • The borrower may not repay the loan, so you desire compensation for that risk.
  • You can invest your money and earn a return. To lenders, the interest rate must be attractive relative to other investments.

That has been the case for a long time, and economists have gradually become quite good at explaining the past. Since then, we have seen financial innovations and are now facing the end of growth. Changes in the economy and the economic system may lead to the end of interest on money and debts. These are:

  • You can use the money in a bank account at any time. You can use the money you have lent as if it were cash. And a debit card is more convenient than cash.
  • Banks spread their risks, central banks help out banks when needed, and governments guarantee bank deposits, so bank deposits are as safe as cash.
  • There is a global savings glut. There are ample savings and limited investment options, which can make negative interest rates attractive for lending.

Negative interest rates are possible. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, the proof came when most of Europe entered negative interest-rate territory. The ECB was unable to set interest rates below -0.5%. Had it set interest rates even lower, account holders would have emptied their bank accounts and stuffed their mattresses with banknotes to avoid paying interest on their deposits, disrupting the circular flows.

As interest rates couldn’t go lower, the ECB took extraordinary measures, flooding the banking system with new money to boost the economy. Had there been a holding fee on cash, interest rates could have gone lower, and there would have been no need to print money. It has happened before. The Austrian town of Wörgl charged a holding fee on banknotes during the Great Depression, which led to an economic miracle by encouraging existing banknotes to circulate more freely rather than printing new money. Ancient Egypt had a similar payment system for over a thousand years under the Pharaohs.

Miracle of Wörgl

In the midst of the Great Depression, the Austrian town of Wörgl was in dire straits and prepared to try anything. Of its 4,500 residents, 1,500 were jobless, and 200 families were penniless. Mayor Michael Unterguggenberger had a list of projects he wanted to accomplish, but there wasn’t enough money to fund them all. These projects included paving roads, installing street lights, extending water distribution throughout the town, and planting trees along the streets.1

Rather than spending the remaining 32,000 Austrian Schilling in the town’s coffers to start these projects, he deposited them in a local savings bank as a guarantee to back the issue of a currency known as stamp scrip. A crucial feature of this money was the holding fee. The Wörgl money required a monthly stamp on circulating notes to keep them valid, at 1% of the note’s value. The German-Argentine businessman Silvio Gesell had first proposed this idea in his book The Natural Economic Order.2

Nobody wanted to pay for the monthly stamps, so everyone spent the notes they received. The 32,000 schilling deposit allowed anyone to exchange scrip for 98 per cent of its value in schillings. Few did this because the scrip was worth one Austrian schilling after buying a new stamp. But the townspeople didn’t keep more scrip than they needed. Only 5,000 schillings circulated. The stamp fees paid for a soup kitchen that fed 220 families.1

The municipality carried out the works, including the construction of houses, a reservoir, a ski jump, and a bridge. The key to this success was the circulation of scrip money within the local economy. It circulated fourteen times as often as the schilling. It increased trade and employment. Unemployment in Wörgl decreased while it rose in the rest of Austria. Six neighbouring villages successfully copied the idea. The French Prime Minister, Édouard Daladier, visited the town to witness the ‘miracle of Wörgl’ himself.1

In January 1933, the neighbouring city of Kitzbühel copied the idea. In June 1933, Mayor Unterguggenberger addressed a meeting with representatives from 170 Austrian towns and villages. Two hundred Austrian townships were interested in introducing scrip money. At this point, the central bank decided to ban scrip money.1 The depression returned, and in 1938, the Austrians turned to Hitler, as they voted to join Germany.

Since then, several local scrip monies have circulated, but none has been as successful as the one in Wörgl. In Wörgl, the payment of taxes in arrears generated additional revenue for the town council, which it then spent on public projects. Once the townspeople had paid their taxes, they would have fewer spending options and might have exchanged their scrip for schillings to avoid paying for the stamps. Once all the taxes in arrears had been paid, the economic boost would have petered out. That never happened because the central bank had halted the project prematurely.

The economy of Wörgl also did well because the holding fee kept the existing money circulating. A negative interest rate encourages people to spend their money, eliminating the need to borrow and keeping the money circulating in the economy. It demonstrated that the economy performed better under negative interest rates. A holding fee makes negative interest rates possible, as lenders do not have to pay it after lending the money. The one who holds the money pays the charge. That can make lending money at an interest rate of -2% to a reliable borrower more attractive than paying 12% for the stamps.

Joseph in Egypt

In the time of the Pharaohs, the Egyptian state operated granaries for over 1,500 years. Wheat and barley were the primary food sources in Egypt. Whenever farmers brought their harvest to one of the granaries, state officials issued them receipts stating the amount of grain they had brought in. Egyptians held accounts at the granaries. They transferred grain to others as payment or withdrew grain after paying the storage cost.

The Egyptians thus used grain stored in their granaries for making payments. Everyone needed to eat, so grain stored in the granaries had value.1 Due to storage costs, the money gradually lost its value. With this kind of money, interest-free loans might be possible. If you save grain money, you pay for storage. And so, lending the money interest-free to a trustworthy borrower can be attractive. There is no evidence that this happened.

The origin of these granaries remains unclear. Probably, the state collected a portion of the harvests as taxes and stored them in its facilities. The government storage proved convenient for farmers, as it relieved them of the work of storing and selling their produce. And it made sense to have a public grain reserve in case of harvest failures.

The Bible includes a story claiming that a Jewish man named Joseph built these granaries. As the story goes, a Pharaoh once had a few dreams that his advisers couldn’t explain. He dreamed about seven lean cows eating seven fat cows and seven thin, blasted ears of grain devouring seven full ears of grain. Joseph explained those dreams to the Pharaoh. He told the Pharaoh that seven years of good harvests would follow, followed by seven years of crop failures. Joseph advised the Egyptians to store food for hard times. They followed his advice and built grain storehouses. In this way, Egypt managed to survive the seven years of scarcity that followed.

The grain money gradually lost value due to storage costs. It works like buying stamps to keep the money valid, like in Wörgl. Both are holding fees. The difference is that you don’t have to buy stamps to keep the money valid. Instead, the granary officials netted the charge with the principal when someone made a payment or exchanged a voucher for grain. The grain money circulated for over 1,500 years until the Romans conquered Egypt around 40 BC. It didn’t end in a debt crisis, which suggests that a holding fee on money or negative interest rates can create a stable financial system that lasts forever.

Storing food makes sense today, even when it costs money. Harvests may become more unpredictable due to global warming and intensive farming. We have enough food in storage to feed humanity for only a few months, as storing more is unprofitable. Food storage ties up capital, so there is an interest cost. But you can’t eat money, so storing food to deal with harvest failures is as sensible now as it was in the time of the Pharaohs. It reveals the foolishness of our money-centred thinking. We only survive if it is financially viable. Imagine how that will play out once artificial intelligence and robots do a better job than we do at a lower cost.

Natural Money

The miracle of Wörgl suggests that national currencies with holding fees could have ended the Great Depression. A myth circulating in the interest-free currency movement is that had the Austrian central bank not banned the experiment, the idea would have spread, the Great Depression would have ended, Hitler wouldn’t have come to power, and World War II wouldn’t have happened. That is a tad imaginative, to say the least, but a holding fee could have allowed for negative interest rates, and they could have prevented the Great Depression from starting in the first place.

And such money can last. The grain money in ancient Egypt provided a stable financial system for over 1,000 years. The grain backing provided financial discipline. The holding fee prevented money hoarding that could have impeded the flow of money. The money, however, didn’t promote interest-free lending, so the Egyptian state regulated interest-bearing lending to prevent debt slavery. Egyptian wisdom literature condemned greed and exploitative lending, encouraging empathy for vulnerable individuals.

A holding fee of 10-12% per year punishes cash users. If the interest rate on bank accounts is -2%, a -3% interest rate on cash is sufficient to prevent people from withdrawing their money from the bank. That becomes possible once cash is a separate currency backed by government debt, on which the interest rate on short-term government debt applies. Banknotes and coins can be separate from the administrative currency. So, if the interest rate on the cash currency is -3%, one cash euro will be worth 0.97 administrative euros after one year. And now, we have a definition of Natural Money:

  • Cash is a separate currency backed by short-term government debt and has the negative interest rate of short-term government debt.
  • Natural Money administrative currencies carry a holding fee of 10-12% per year, allowing for negative interest rates.
  • Loans, including bank loans, have negative interest rates. Zero is the maximum interest rate on debts.

Consequences

Natural Money doesn’t fundamentally alter the nature of bank lending. Banks borrow from depositors at a lower rate to lend it at a higher rate. With Natural Money, banks may offer deposit interest rates of -2% and lend at 0% instead of borrowing at 2% to lend at 4%. A maximum interest rate of zero, however, has a profound impact on lending volume, as it severely constrains it, most notably speculative lending and usurious consumer credit, and it favours equity financing over borrowing in business. The strict lending requirements affect business loans, leading to deleveraging.

Businesses still need to attract capital. To address the issue, Natural Money distinguishes between regular banks and investment banks. Regular banks can guarantee promised returns and have government backing because the payment system is a public service. Investment banks invest in businesses and take risks. They are comparable to Islamic banks. Investment banks don’t guarantee returns. Depositors take on risk to earn higher returns, but they might incur losses or temporarily lose access to their deposits.

While the maximum interest rate restricts lending, the holding fee provides a stimulus, thereby stabilising the financial system. When the economy slows, interest rates decrease, and more money becomes available for lending as risk appetite increases, making zero-interest lending more attractive. Conversely, if the economy booms, interest rates increase, and the maximum interest rate curtails lending. Consequently, central banks don’t need to set interest rates and manage the money supply, and governments don’t need to manage aggregate demand with their spending.

Reasons to do research

Stamp scrip and other kinds of emergency money have helped communities during times of economic hardship. The economic miracle of Wörgl during the Great Depression of the 1930s, however, was exceptional. The payment of local taxes inflated the impact of the money. Many townspeople had been late on their taxes, but once the economy recovered, they had the money to pay them. Some even paid their taxes in advance to avoid paying the holding fee. It generated additional revenues for the town, which it could spend on the projects. It provided a boost that would have petered out once the villagers had paid their taxes.3 It was not a miracle. It was too good to be true. However, there is more to it, which makes the idea worth researching.

Once interest rates reach zero, the markets for money and capital cease to function, as interest rates can’t go lower. Money is to an economy what blood is to a body, so it must flow. When the money stops flowing, the effect is like a cardiac arrest, and the economy is in dead waters. To keep the money circulating, those with a surplus must lend it to those with a deficit, and the interest rate should be where the supply and demand for money are equal. When the interest rate reaches zero, lenders stop lending because the return is not worth the risk. They wait for interest rates to rise. Money ends up on the sidelines, leading to a cardiac arrest that can entail an economic depression.


It happened during the Great Depression. Had interest rates been lower, the markets for money and capital could have remained operational. We had seen negative interest rates in Europe for nearly a decade. They could have gone lower had there been a holding fee on cash, or, even better, a negative interest rate low enough to prevent people from hoarding it. Once interest rates can go lower, a usury-free global financial system may become possible. It gives rise to several questions. Is it possible? Under which circumstances? What are the benefits and the drawbacks? What are the implications for individuals, businesses and governments? And how does it affect the financial system?

There is no alternative

Several monetary reform proposals do not view the financial system as a system, which it is, and that isn’t hard to guess because the term ‘financial system’ already implies this. You can’t attach the wings of a Boeing to an Airbus and expect the thing to fly. The financial system is complex, with numerous relationships that many existing reform proposals overlook. For instance, if you shut down the central bank without further measures, the economy will crash, even if it is flying smoothly. And that isn’t even hard to find out.

Also, private currencies are a troublesome idea. The payment system is a key public interest, so governments and central banks stand behind it. Most banks are private corporations driven by profit. They take risks that might bring down the economy. And so, governments and central banks make regulations and oversee the banks. And banks create money, from which they profit, and we all pay for it via inflation. That is not good, but replacing the system with something worse is worse, like the word ‘worse’ implies.

Finally, Natural Money itself comes with serious consequences, most notably, credit not being as readily available as it is now. Charging interest on money and loans is the root cause of many dysfunctions in the financial system, so it is usury for good reason, but rooting out usury leads to restrictions. Yet, a sound reform proposal acknowledges that the financial system is complex, with intricate relationships that interact with one another. And so, we have to be aware of the consequences. There is no free lunch here.

The theory of Natural Money encompasses a systems approach to identify the relevant relationships within the financial system and the consequences of altering them. It is a comprehensive design that focuses on the whole. As the tale about the fictional island Barataria makes abundantly clear, seemingly minor oversights can have enormous consequences. It would be a grave error to pick only the elements you like. That design will never fly. Nor would an Airbus take off with Boeing wings. You either buy Airbus or Boeing, not some hybrid of both.

A focus on the whole comes at the expense of detail. Natural Money is an outline for a global usury-free financial system. There is no prototype, let alone one that has proven to fly. Local currencies with a holding charge exist, so the project is like envisioning a jet aeroplane just after the Wright brothers had proven that planes can fly. Natural Money is a leap into the unknown, and if prototypes crash, that doesn’t prove that we can’t do it. Natural Money comes with constraints. Credit will not be as abundantly available as it is today. Still, the theory is sound, and there might be no alternative.

Latest revision: 1 November 2025

Featured image: Wörgl bank notes with stamps

1. The Future Of Money. Bernard Lietaer (2002). Cornerstone / Cornerstone Ras.
2. The Natural Economic Order. Silvio Gesell (1918).
3. A Free Money Miracle? Jonathan Goodwin (2013). Mises.org.