Threads of thoughts, unbroken.
- E.C.Riegel’s work (below) was “saved from obscurity by his editor Spencer MacCallum” in the 1950’s
- Riegel reminds me of Catherine Austin Fitts’ contemporary work on RESURRECTING THE POWER OF LOCAL ECONOMIES
2012-12-10 Finance Guru Explains: ‘We’ve Been Lured to Create Our Own Prison’. Catherine Austin Fitts. From CHD by Mercola..
If you don’t want to contribute to building this global prison, you have to actually take action and change how and who you do business with, says Catherine Austin Fitts.
NEW APPROACH TO FREEDOM
http://www.newapproachtofreedom.info/
“To desire freedom is an instinct. To secure it requires intelligence. It must be comprehended and self—asserted. To petition for it is to stultify oneself, for a petitioner is a confessed subject and lacks the spirit of a freeman. To rail and rant against tyranny is to manifest inferiority, for there is no tyranny but ignorance; to be conscious of one’s powers is to lose consciousness of tyranny. Self government is not a remote aim. It is an intimate and inescapable fact. To govern oneself is a natural imperative, and all tyranny is the miscarriage of self government. The first requisite of freedom is to accept responsibility for the lack of it.”
E.C. Riegel
= = = = = = = = = = =
I (Sandra) have had this since at least 2004. Time to do something with it!
As a young man in the early 1900s, Edwin C. Riegel was compelled by the vision of a more just world for all human kind. His private research led him to two important insights:
- The central role of the monetary system in determining the conditions of social and economic life; and
- A recognition that it is the responsibility of every citizen to help implement a sound, fair, and sustainable monetary system in order to create a truly democratic society.
In “Flight from Inflation,” Riegel sought a separation between money issues and the state.
He identified government’s ability to issue money for debt as the major source of inflation in the economy.
He proposed a system of local, privately issued currencies which he called Valun. Valuns would be non-interest bearing and “backed” by the production of goods and services for which they were issued.
“To desire freedom is an instinct. To secure it requires intelligence. It must be comprehended and self—asserted. To petition for it is to stultify oneself, for a petitioner is a confessed subject and lacks the spirit of a freeman. To rail and rant against tyranny is to manifest inferiority, for there is no tyranny but ignorance; to be conscious of one’s powers is to lose consciousness of tyranny. Self government is not a remote aim. It is an intimate and inescapable fact. To govern oneself is a natural imperative, and all tyranny is the miscarriage of self government. The first requisite of freedom is to accept responsibility for the lack of it.” After his death in 1954 Riegel’s work was saved from obscurity by his editor Spencer MacCallum. The clarity of his thinking on monetary issues has helped to inform the current movement for local currencies. The following passages were taken from the forward of his book appropriately called, “The New Approach to Freedom,” privately printed by the author in 1949 and then republished by the Heather Foundation. The full text of Riegel’s books are available at www.newapproachtofreedom.info.
Robert Swann, founding President of the E.F. Schumacher Society, understood Riegel’s arguments and was convinced of the necessity of creating a system
of community and regionally controlled money. Honoring Bob and Riegel and those other pioneers of the Twentieth Century who worked for a stable system
of local currencies, we are pleased to be offering the seminal conference, “Local Currencies in the 21st Century,” taking place June 25th-27th (2004, I think) at Bard College on the Hudson River of New York. Bernard Lietaer, Margrit Kennedy,Edgar Cahn and other leading scholars and activists in the field will offer three days of talks and workshops.
Michael Shuman, author of “Going Local” will sum up the proceedings with a closing talk, followed by a local food festival featuring a performance by legendary singer/song writer/ community advocate, Pete Seeger.
Join us. Become informed about the principles of community-based monetary issue. And then be a part of bringing the economic vision of Twentieth Century social pioneers into reality, community by community in the Twenty-First Century. If you are unable to attend, arrange with others to sponsor a representative from your community who can return with conference material, excitement, and a vision for understanding money, renewing your community, and rebuilding your local economy.
Cooperatively,
The Conference Team
- F. Schumacher Society
140 Jug End Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230 USA
(413) 5281737
efssociety@smallisbeautiful.org
www.smallisbeautiful.org <<<<<<< I RECOMMEND
* * * * * *
“Why is it that Human aspirations to freedom are thwarted in spite of all
the devices that man has thus far adopted? To answer that question and
offer a new approach is the purpose of this book.
Man has ever dreamed of a promised land of freedom and steadily pursued his
ideal. Though ever dissatisfied with today’s accomplishment, he has held to
his hope of tomorrow. He has rejected the autocratic idea of government and
adopted the democratic. But in his assertion of self-sovereignty he
has,through ignorance, abdicated his most vital inherent power. He has not
only
permitted the state to pervert this power, but he has actually thrust it
upon the state, to the inevitable miscarriage of all his devices to conserve
freedom.
So universal is this innocence of self-power and this self-imposed
frustration in the pursuit of freedom that man is himself the tyrant over
man, and no imposing power exists to be overthrown. Only a revolution in
the mind of the individual is needed to accomplish the greatest stroke for
freedom of all time. The present perplexity induced by the world-wide
perversion of the social order is conducive to introspection as the
impotency of the state becomes apparent in its effort to free man from a
vice that man has imposed upon himself. Man must free the state, not the
state the man.
When the earth was believed to be flat, the belief was based upon the
immediately obvious and hence was universal. Until there arose thinkers who
dared to challenge the obvious, mankind remained oblivious of its
self-imposed physical, intellectual and moral limitations.
So it is today. The obvious must be challenged by reason. A universal
misconception must be abandoned and replaced with the true concept to effect
the liberation of mankind-indeed, to save it from decline into another dark
age. What is this universal misconception?
It is the belief that money issuance is a function of the state.”
* * * * * *
“There are no black beasts or scapegoats in this treatise upon which the
reader can pin the blame for the evils from which we suffer and thus ease
his conscience or vent his emotions. Where guilt is found, the finger
points straight at you, and there are no alibis. There are no monetary
master-minds who have conspired to enslave or exploit society by imposing
the prevailing system. All are as ignorant of the fundamentals of money as
you, though some are cunning enough to favorably align themselves with the
existing order, just as you would like to do.
But since all responsibility is yours, so is all power. Is it not a
satisfaction to begin the study of a problem that offers a solution within
your own power to realize? For once you are not confronted with the
discouraging, if not hopeless, endeavor of seeking relief through political
action with all that that involves. You are indeed sovereign, if you but
realize that your money power is you sovereign power. You need no political
laws to liberate your power for prosperity and peace; you are the master of
your fate by natural law, if you but discover that law.
Realize that the state’s power of disservice as well as service springs
solely from your delegation of wholesome power and your imposition of
perversive power. Money power is one power that you cannot delegate, nor
can the state usurp it. It can only pervert it and thus pervert the whole
social order. You and your fellows must exert it, for, unless you exert it,
this greatest of all social agencies lies fallow and human progress is
stayed.
As you scan the world scene with all its miseries, its drab outlook, the
discouraging prospect of a solution for humanity’s problems by political
means, and the remoteness from you of the capitols through which promised
salvation is desperately hoped for, you are saddened by a sense of
frustration. But if you realize that the citadel of power is your own home
and that yours is the majesty and sovereignty, sadness will be dispelled by
gladness. To bring this transformation, you must comprehend the power of
money and that you are the money power.
The world is not flat, as we now know, and the money power of the state is a
delusion. The inherency of money power in man is a fact, as we shall learn.
This revolution in the minds of men will assure freedom, for freedom is
constituted in unrestricted power to exchange, which in turn means
prosperity and peace.”
