With our current monetary system, all of the money in existence already belongs to someone. There is no way for individuals to create new money for themselves. Everyone must compete for a share of the existing money supply. Everyone must rely on a chosen few who have been given an exclusive right to create, control, and own, the nation's currency and credit supply. Every dollar in existence is being rented by someone, somewhere in the economy, from the money creators. Welcome to the cage of capitalism.
The Financial Party believes that the money supply should be created automatically, by the people themselves, based upon their willingness to make a productive contribution to society. Money should be nothing more than a receipt for productive labour already provided. Since contributions of productive labour are most easily measured in hours, money too should be denominated in hours. Hours are a stable, universal constant. The number of hours in a day is immune to inflation from human greed or economic magic.
If money is based solely on productive contributions already made, the amount of money in circulation will always equal the value of the goods and services produced exactly. No longer will an artificial scarcity of money limit the productive capacity of the individual. No longer will individuals need the permission of an elite group of money controllers to unlock and develop their full human potential.
For too long, monetary reformers have been divided and bogged down, arguing over three primary questions. Who should create the money supply, what asset should be used to back it, and what is the correct quantity of money to create? The Financial Party suggests the following answers. Neither the government or the banks should create the money supply. It should be created by the people themselves each time they make a productive contribution to society. Neither gold or silver, or any other physical asset should be used to back the value of money. Productive human labour (measured in finite hours) is the value that it should be based upon. And if money is simply a receipt for productive labour already provided, the correct quantity is determined automatically solely by the willingness of the people to work.
With our current monetary system, all employers must compete to extract enough "money of others" from the marketplace, in advance, to pay the next round of employee wages. When money is scarce, not all employers may be able to do so. Without this essential supply of "money from others" an employer has only two choices. Either borrow some "money of others" from a willing lender or investor, or stop producing and layoff workers. With layoffs, society loses valuable productive capacity and workers lose their income. Although people remain willing to work and the employer's productive assets remain fully operational, a sudden restriction in the supply of "money from others" can shut down the plant. What a ridiculous waste of resources. What a ridiculous cause of human suffering.
With the monetary system we propose, the dependency on "money from others" is eliminated. When employees show up for work, the work they do creates the means to pay them. No "money from others" is required in advance. The role of the employer is simply to issue receipts that acknowledge and represent the hours of work that each employee contributes. The act of working automatically creates just the right amount of new money (receipts) needed to pay the workers. The total production value created at work (priced in hours) always equals the value of new money (receipts) created to acknowledge the work done. When workers spend their pay to consume goods and services, the money (receipts) that they spend is extinguished. It does not recirculate. There is no reason for it to do so, since employers are no longer dependent on "money from others" for their operations.
With our system, the life cycle of money is short and simple. Its is created by individuals, to acknowledge the value of their productive contributions to society. It is extinguished by individuals, when they consume the productive contributions of others. Society's dependence on "money from others" is completely eliminated. The entire concept of debt and interest becomes an ugly relic from a dark and cruel past. By simply choosing to work, individuals can create for themselves all of the money that is necessary to enjoy life fully and freely, without usury or any monetary exploitation by others. To see how all this will affect prices, click on the Prices button in the top menu bar.
Economic Equality
At some point in their life, most people begin to really appreciate that their time on this Earth is extremely limited and running out fast. From that moment on, discussing the value of a person's time becomes meaningless to them, for they realize that their time on Earth is actually priceless. Once you realize the true value of your own life is infinite, then a genuine respect for others implies that the same must be true for everyone else on the planet... other people's lives must also be of infinite valuable to them. And if the value of an individual's life is infinite, the value of each week or day or hour of that life is also infinite, and thus, the relative value of each and every individual's time can be nothing other than equal. We may all have different talents and abilities, and some may have been blessed with greater gifts than others, but if we are all honestly trying to develop and contribute our very best to society, then don't we all deserve to enjoy the beauty of life and the bounty of the Earth equally?
Some will argue no, that a person who devotes many years of his life to education and becomes more productive by increasing his skill and knowledge deserves a higher reward for his time. But if you are paid to be educated, and the knowledge that you receive ultimately belongs to the society that teaches you, are the superior natural gifts that you have been blessed with not enough of a reward in themselves to satisfy you? Must you take away someone else's right to live as happily as you? No one is given a choice before their birth of selecting their abilities or attributes. We all have to make the best out of what we are given. How is it reasonable then to devalue the worth of another human being on the basis of something that was beyond their control? Our time on Earth is all that we have to give. What more can a person possibly offer to society than their full-time labour? All full-time workers should have the highest standard of living there is. We all need love and respect. We all have families that we care about. Who honestly has the right, or wisdom, to judge another person's worth?
Many have expressed concerns that paying people equally will destroy the incentive and motivation of our most talented people. In our current economic jungle, the struggle for financial security and a fear of poverty is certainly a powerful motivator. But income alone cannot explain why people choose to develop their talent and ability. Most people are reasonably content once their income level enables them to live comfortably and avoid the risk of poverty. Finding work that is interesting, socially meaningful and personally challenging becomes much more important to them than merely earning more money.
People who have been blessed with extraordinary natural gifts only rarely turn away from them. The brilliant and artistically gifted are driven by their desire to express themselves. The depth and meaning of their lives comes from the pursuit of this expression. The true artist or genius has no choice. It is simply who they are. If they try to ignore their gifts, they will destroy themselves. They must release the creative urges that drive them, whether they are paid for it or not. Albert Einstein would not have chosen to work in a coffee shop even if a coffee shop worker earned the same as a physicist. John Lennon would not have worked at Walmart even if they paid him as much as he earned on the road.
A small percentage of people do currently suffer from the "fever of wealth" which creates an insatiable thirst for money, power and control. An unnatural swelling of their ego causes severe personality disorders which distort their perceptions of their rights and responsibilities to others. Our current economic system facilitates and glorifies this illness, causing it to spread. However, the "fever of wealth" is merely a symptom of the deeper economic disorder that plaques humanity... a perpetual financial insecurity. To believe that true economic equality would eliminate human motivation confuses a symptom of the disease with its underlying cause.
When human labour itself creates the money to pay workers, financial insecurity and the fear of poverty are eliminated completely. All workers are free, right from the start of their lives, to focus on what interests them the most. When public capital is freely available to all to help them reach for their best, then most people will welcome the chance to return the best of themselves to society.
