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Robert Williams left a comment on my post "The Fallacy of the Misean Vision":
Mr. Williams says, “Rockwell joins Mises and Rothbard as one of the few people who understand the origins of money and its purpose in a free society.”
He said, “You agree with a number of Lew Rockwell's statements about freedom and liberty, but what is more important to you - freedom, or a society that does not use money? What if free men choose voluntarily to use money as a means of facilitating exchange? Should this be outlawed in order to guarantee the moneyless world you envision?”
Adding, “Humans have needs and desires. They act purposefully towards fulfilling those needs and desires. Exchange is one way humans work together to achieve their common goals. For example, a farmer who grows wheat might want some fish. That farmer could exchange some of his wheat for some of a fisherman's fish. This exchange would only take place if both the farmer and the fisherman believe that it will be to their own benefit. Both act in their own self-interest, and both benefit. But what if the farmer who wants fish can't find any fishermen who want or need any wheat? What if the fishermen didn't want wheat but did want berries. If the farmer could find someone with berries that wanted some wheat, then he could exchange the wheat for berries and then exchange the berries for fish. This example illustrates how and why money came about. People began to exchange what they had for whatever good was the most marketable to the whole of society, which they would then use to exchange for what they needed. No government was involved in the creation of money - it evolved out of free exchange between free people.”
And, in conclusion, he said, “Today, however, money is controlled by government. Few are aware of the problems this creates, but it is truly at the center of virtually all economic problems we face.”
Freedom is important to me. However, one is not free unless one is 100 % free 100 % of the time. That kind of freedom can only take place in a moneyless society, where ones freedom is not limited. In a money-based society, your freedom to do certain things is always limited by the amount of dollars and cents you possess. One of freedom’s principles is a right to unrestricted use, and one is certainly not free unless he is equal to others in society. In a money-based society, its members are restricted to full use of resources based on the money they have to purchase them, and its members are not in any way equal. In a moneyless society, one would only be restricted by the availability of resources and application of law.
Mr. Williams’s farmer-fisherman example is an example of a moneyless system. That system evolved to the money-based economic paradigm of today. In the days of the farmer-fisherman, there was never consideration for profit, or to acquire power and control, or for marketplace predominance, but only for the purpose of mutual exchange of goods and services.
Our money-based economic system of today is a result centuries of economic manipulations by J.P.Morgan, the House of Rothschild, London Bankers, and other economic policymakers of the world’s financial elite. As an example, a meeting in November of 1910 at Jekyll Island, Georgia, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Paul M. Warburg, Benjamin Strong of J.P.Morgan, and four other bankers and economic policymakers, who at the time represented an estimated one-fourth of the world’s wealth, conceived and put into motion events that eventually became the Federal Reserve System, and they involved government in the creation of money. To this day, there continues to be secret cabals who meet to manipulate the economy in order to enhance their profit, to gain economic world dominance and to influence and control world governance.
This is at the center of virtually all the economic problems we face, not just government control; it’s a fallacy to blame government hook line and sinker. A moneyless world would not be without its problems, but it would certainly be 100 % free 100 % of the time and egalitarian. Government, medicine, education, science, research, and the arts would not be hindered and burdened with considerations of money or the profit for business, and society and business would not be contaminated with the lure for wealth.
From a farmer-fisherman world of simple exchange through the contemporary, commodity, and fiat money evolution of medium of exchange systems, they were all manipulated and tweaked for the sake of maximizing somebody’s profit, power, and control.
Now, if a satisfactory and viable system could be devised in which everything was non-profit as with the farmer-fisherman example, it would be satisfactory to me. But, what would then be the point in money for a medium of exchange.
The moneyless world I envision is an evolutionary process that may take fifty years or more to be realized. We will not get there by force, regulation or law. However, it is the only achievable, viable way to authentic freedom and is a solution to almost all of today’s problems.
Furthermore, neither government nor money can improve on the benefit of voluntary association and creativity that resource-based systems allow; it’s the only way to world peace.
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