- the energy of life

Money as a value

First of all, it is important to realize what is money and where it comes from. Because this is normally what people consider as valuable. It is not a coincidence that we are rarely taught about this topic in schools, even though money, taxation and the rest of the financial literacy are topics which are crucial for our everyday living.

Historically, money was pegged to gold, which meant that its value was directly connected to the value of gold. In theory, anyone who had paper money could go and exchange that money for a specific amount of gold. This system called “gold standard” assured that paper money had its value, directly connected to the value of gold.

However, due to certain political reasons, the gold standard was abandoned and the era of “fiat money” started. What this essentially means is that money and its value is no longer linked to any underlying asset. It also means that money has inherently no value. It allows central banks to print money indefinitely, because they do not have to check whether there is enough of underlying asset (gold) in reserves, which would legitimize creation of new money.

The value of money depends solely on people having trust in their governments and banks that the money has value. This trust is somewhat based on capital markets, where the fiat money is traded for other goods or commodities. Nevertheless, the unlimited creation of fiat money creates so called bubbles on all of these markets, as fiat money keeps losing its value. In effect, all the goods and commodities seem to be more and more expensive and grow towards extremes, because the fiat money, because of its excessive amount, is constantly losing its value (the money inflation is caused).

What is the role of banks?

In our current banking system, in essence, are three types of banks. Central banks, investment banks and commercial banks. They all have certain task in money creation, money distribution and real value extraction. Please note that they are creating and distributing only money, NOT any actual, real value, because money, as shown above, has inherently no value. What they do, however, is extracting real value, using money as a tool to do so.

The role of a central bank (as of a non-governmental institution) is first of all creation of money, or money printing. It also has a role of a regulator of the financial system, which means that it creates rules for every institution, company or individual who likes to take part in the banking / financial system, thus protecting its status quo.

After money is created by a central bank, it usually travels via a lending mechanism (for a certain interest rate) to an investment bank, which role is to distribute the money into the system. The investment bank either invests directly into specific areas or further lends the money to commercial banks (for an interest rate higher than the interest rate that it received from the central bank). Investment banks are politically driven. This means that there are certain political pressures on where the money that was created by central banks will be deployed by investment banks. By this targeted money investing, the banking system assures that people then work on tasks and areas which the political agenda deems to see as important. Money like this becomes a tool how to direct the activities of companies and individuals, as it incentivises such activities by money investments.

Commercial banks than further lend the money (for an interest rate higher than the interest rate received from the investment bank) to companies and individuals, following the rules investment banks gave them, assuring that the required activities of people are supported by loans. At the same time, commercial banks are authorized to issue new money via mechanism called fractional reserve banking and deposit/money multiplier.

Where is the real value?

At the very end of this chain of lending are companies and individuals who are the actual real value creators. They work, i.e. they invest the most precious resource, their time and life energy (the true currency of life), and create some real value in the form of goods and services. They are incentivized to do so in order to repay the debt they acquired from the commercial / investment banks. And they seek profit in money. In other words, people exchange their most precious resource (time and life energy) - the true currency of life - for valueless fiat money. Such acquired money is then cut short for the necessary debt repayments, taxation, consuming and dependency on the system for provision of the basic needs of people (public goods).

But, through their work, companies and individuals also create real value, valuable assets - goods and services. Now the question is, whether the valuable assets they create they get to keep for themselves and whether they create and spend time on activities they really want to. It is important to see that the assets people create are often not in their possession but in possession of someone else. A paid employee spends its time and energy working for someone else, leaving also the valuable asset he or she creates by means of its work to someone else and is left only with fiat money (which is then further taxed and so on). Even the assets that people get to keep or which they work for are mostly pledged or mortgaged to the banks in order to secure the acquired loans.

In effect of all of the above, the system of banks holds the keys to (1) money creation, (2) money distribution, (3) real value creation and (4) real value extraction.

To further explain and summarize, (1) central banks (by way of printing) and commercial banks (by use of fractional reserve banking) create money, (2) investment banks and commercial banks distribute money into the system using loans, (3) the banking system as a whole then decides (through politically driven decision-making using the power of money) which real value will be created and (4) once the real value is created, it gets extracted from the system back to banks (via dependency on public goods and consuming, taxation and public spending, debt repayments, money devaluation or inflation, insolvencies and bankruptcies of the companies and individuals, etc.).

This banking system works towards constant growth and monetary profit and is based on certain unnatural pre-requisites.

What is the basis of the current banking system?

The current banking system (and the “system” as the whole mainstream socio-economical organization of people) is based on (A) debt and excessive consuming, (B) centralized decision-making and dependency on such system and (C) exchange of valueless money for the true value which is time and life energy.

(A) The system wants us to work, which means spending our time and energy on activities that are advantageous for the system. At the same time, certain feeling of scarcity around money is created, so people are motivated to go after it and compete for it. This is based mostly on the fact that there is always less total amount of money in circulation than the total amount of debt. This is logical, because every time someone borrows money on interest, there is a need for more money to repay such interest together with the original amount borrowed. This creates a situation in which some borrowers will not be able to repay their debts, because there is simply not enough money in the system to do so. And therefore a “rat race” between people for the money available begins. This race leads to sense of scarcity, fear, stress, competition, hoarding and isolation. All these are characteristics of our current system which are in the complete opposition with the laws of nature which are abundance, trust, slow solutions, collaboration, giving and sense of togetherness and community.

The system is always trying to convince us that we have never enough. It tries to persuade us that we still lack something. That we should have a better job, a more expensive car, a bigger house, a more luxurious vacation, and so on. This is a motivation to consume more. More consumption means more growth, more activity for the system and also often more debt. It means to be more connected to the system. The system also induces fear for the future. It says that when we will be old it will take care of us by means of money pensions. And for this future security we should work.

(B) The previous example of pensions is a great bridge to the next characteristic of the system, which is centralized decision-making and system dependency. The natural tendency is to trust ourselves and to make our own decisions based on our own intellect, emotions and intuition. This makes us strong individuals who can tap into our natural wisdom and sense of ease and happiness. When we trust ourselves like this, there is a movement towards independency. We become independent on opinions of others and we nurture our authenticity. This eventually leads to creating communities of similar like-minded authentic people, where the goal is not to persuade someone of our own opinions and tendencies and take advantage of others for our own benefit, but rather to collaborate and take advantage of skills and original expressions of others for the benefit of all. In such communities work becomes art, a free expression of individuals, a life energy spent on activities which we are called to do by our own inner nature rather than by mere motivation of making money to sustain ourselves.

The system does not want us to freely express ourselves and to trust ourselves, it wants us to follow centrally based decisions and trust the system. Like this it is easier to control the outcomes, which come from the top-down decision- making process, typical for the centralized systems. It creates a “sheep mentality” where an individual is considered to be a cog in the wheel and therefore needs to be told what to do in order for the wheel to keep spinning.

In the world of finance, this tendency is expressed in the form of a development of so called CBDCs, or central bank digital currencies which came as an answer to the cryptocurrency and digital decentralization movement starting with Bitcoin in 2008. Where cryptocurrencies and the underlaying blockchain technology aimed for transparency and decentralized solutions, CBDCs will most likely aim for secrecy and centrally controlled flows of digital fiat money.

(C) The true value lies in an activity that we truly want to do, that is an expression of our true selves. Such activity is called art. We spend our life energy and our time on creating values which we consider to be utterly important for benefiting ourselves and the society. Such artistic activity is also always a gift. We are giving the best of ourselves for the benefit of all (including ourselves). Under the definition of art in this context falls any thinkable profession. The difference is that we do not do this activity or profession in exchange for money (although it is of course not a problem to receive money), but for pure joy of expressing ourselves in the society. We would do such activity even if we would not be promised money to do so. That is a natural way of being.

The system works with the opposite notion, which is work on things and performance of activities that we would not normally do. It says we have to spend our time and energy on tasks that are given to us because this is the only way how we can sustain ourselves in the society. That we have to do these jobs, because only like this we can survive, only like this we can earn money. This notion leads instead of free expression towards depression, instead of free giving towards hoarding and instead of living freely in society towards isolation from society.

The exchange of our authenticity, time and life energy for money will never lead to the ultimate success, which is happiness. So therefore, we have to choose the future we want in day-to-day choices we make. Not only what we consume, but also where we put our time, attention (energy) and skills.

What are the solutions and alternatives to the (banking) system?

As shown above, the banking system at its core is based on unnatural basis which leads to all kinds of imbalances on the financial, societal and individual level. To heal and restore this system, we have to come back to the laws of the nature. We have to mimic the nature. In the financial terms, it means the following:

The nature never works with debt. The nature does not hoard resources. It is freely giving and allows to freely receive. All the things and resources we truly need are for free. The sun, the air, the water and the soil (food). Also, there is energy of plants and animals that is freely given to us and that work for our benefit. Worms and bacteria fertilizing the soil, forests cleaning the air, bees pollinating the plants, you name it. All these energy exchanges in the nature work towards balance, abundance and good energy administration and efficiency. The economy of nature is regenerative, abundance creating, always distributing resources fairly and freely.

On the other side, the economy of our banking system lies on exploitation of natural resources and its unfair distribution, hoarding of resources, energy inefficiency and drive towards constant growth. If our banking system mimics anything from the natural world, it is cancer. A typical cancer cell is immature, meaning it does not have any purpose and is detached from its neighbouring cells. It only hoards energy from other (healthy) cells and uses it for constant growing and spreading all around the natural (healthy) system. Our economy is based on these behaviours. Immature exploitation of the environment by people who are disconnected from others and who drive themselves and the whole society towards constant growth create the very same effects on our planet similar to how cancer may affect our bodies. Healthy mature cells and organisms have a purpose in the whole system, they are connected and cooperative with its neighbouring cells and they only restore and repair themselves, they never strive for constant growth and expansion.

Please reflect on this analogy here: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/what-is-cancer/how-cancer-starts/cancer-cells

So, the first step towards the new economy must be based on no debt mentality and practice, free and fair distribution of public resources and restoration, rather than growth.

Another aspect of nature is that it does not take more than it needs, it does not hoard anything - it consumes only that which is essential for its sustenance and shares the surplus with its other parts. It is in clear opposition to what our system is trying to suggest, that we should consume more. Overconsumption leads to unnatural and unhealthy states of being.

In nature everything is used and reused, there is no waste. Everything which could be considered waste for one is a resource for other. It goes hand in hand with the right consumption. Whatever is not consumed should always find its other appropriate usage in the system.

The nature works with decentralized solutions, interdependency and collaboration. Decentralization lies in the fact that every cell in the system, every individual, is an autonomous unit of life. In the body, every cell can independently carry out all the activities necessary for its sustenance.

Similarly, in the human society, every individual is able to do the same, they are able to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. However, in order for the body or the human society to work properly, these units have to also work together and collaborate. This is because every unit has a different function, different specialization, they work on different tasks. And when the skills of all these units come together, when they collaborate, they create a functioning organism. The autonomous units are therefore interdependent. On one hand, they have the ability to sustain themselves and in this sense are independent from everything else, but on the other hand, to be able to create a functioning system and to fulfill its purpose, they have to cooperate and co-create with other units. The units correctly functioning like this are independent (autonomous) on the individual level and interdependent (interconnected) on the collective level.

Similar decentralized structure was also proposed for the system of the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin using blockchain technology, where all the nodes (computers in the Bitcoin network) work autonomously, i.e. they all have the ability to sustain the ledger of transactions. But they are also interdependent, because they are also checking this ledger with all the other nodes, thus creating a functioning system of trust.

Similar concepts are introduced also for example in sociocracy governance systems, decentralized autonomous organizations as in a new way of setting up company organizational structures or Fureai Kippu types currencies.

The summary of the flaws of our banking system and the solutions to correct them is thus the following:

• self-sufficiency vs. debt

• autonomy, self-reliance, and trust in oneself vs. centralized decision-making

• bottom-up solutions vs. top-down politics

• reality of abundance vs. notion of scarcity

• collaboration vs. competition

• opening up to the right community vs. isolation and rat race

• giving vs. hording

• art as means of true individual expression in the society vs. labour

• regeneration of natural resources vs. exploitation of natural resources

• decentralization vs. centralization

• interdependency within a community vs. dependency on the system

• essentialism vs. overconsumption

• reusage of resources vs. waste

• truth and transparency vs. corruption

• trust vs. fear

• correct administration of life energy which leads to happiness (the true success) vs. chase for money (the false success)