The Selfless Revanchist A note on Cioran

One can gauge the significance, or at least the independence, of a thinker not least by how long and by what means he eludes his emulators, even those who purport to be faithful commentators or to have been called upon to develop his impulses. In this respect, Cioran might without further inquiry have to be reckoned among the most significant philosophical writers of the twentieth century, since in a manner other than the star philosophers of existentialism, Critical Theory, or poststructuralism, who achieved their goals in protest of imitation, Cioran invested his intellectual suffering entirely in his inimitability. Yet the concept of significance does not do justice to the phenomenon that is Cioran, since the fundamental impetus of his thought is not that of seeing his name registered in a history of ideas or in an account of great authors. Rather, he wants to see that his pride in defending his inimitability against students and copycats is satisfied. While the great masters of the modern culture of dissidence, that is to say, Heidegger, Sartre, Adorno, and Derrida, could reckon their successes in multitudes of emulators, Cioran, more proud, more demonic, more despairing than they were, recognizes his success in discouraging potential emulators already when they are on the brink of making the attempt. He knew that all emulation ends up in parody and that whoever takes his ideas more seriously than their success shields them from the parodies that follow their impact.

The question is thus how one manages to transition from emulative negativity, which as revolutionary engagement, radical critique, aesthetic anarchism, or deconstructivist subversion forms a school, to an inimitable, completely idiosyncratic negativity that nonetheless shines light on the whole. In this context, we might recall the relevant difference in late ancient Egyptian and Syrian monasticism between friars living in cloisters and anchorites, of which the first, according to an observation by Hugo Ball, existed as athletes of mourning, while the second existed as athletes of despair. It cannot be doubted that Cioran’s place in this alternative must be sought among the anchorites, those who have withdrawn and cut themselves off from the terrestrial realm. In this position, it is no longer a matter of struggling with and reworking beings according to critical methods, but rather of putting God and the world on trial by holding one’s own shattered existence against them as proof of their failure and waywardness. While critical or subversive negativity has the effect of forming schools to the degree that its standpoint can be charted, established, copied, and simulated in beings, despairing negativity withdraws into an exile that cannot be taught, is fathomless, and cannot be emulated. In the elaboration of this position of exile lie Cioran’s singular strengths. After Kierkegaard, he is the only thinker of distinction who had the irrevocable insight that no one can despair according to sure methods.

Whoever intends to obtain his doctorat should not take the trouble to first ask Cioran whether he would like to supervise the work. The distance from the world that is characteristic of critical theorists, aesthetic anarchists, and deconstructivists is always based on a reserve from which the respective schools claim, not unjustly, that within limits they can be learned by means of a method. What Husserl called the epochē, the break with the natural attitude, means nothing other than the perfectible practice of opting out of the stream of gesticulating, intending, involved life. To this belongs the methodical cheerfulness of theory’s spectating disposition, even for mournful miens. In contrast, Cioran works with a pathological epochē, of which it cannot be ascertained how one should copy or convey it. His uprootedness is not grounded in a theoretical distancing from a normal and naive life; it arises from the curse of finding oneself to be a really existing anomaly. His reserve is anything but methodological, it is demonic. In his case, critique was preceded by torture. While ordinary critical theory, to say nothing of ordinary positive theory, distances itself from merely living out one’s life, in order to emancipate the thinker from his conditions and provide him with the resources to resist and rework the real, desperate theory is only interested in bearing witness to the failure of the construct of reality as such. Its distance is not taken up arbitrarily, but rather can be found already before all theory as an effect of a suffering in the thinker.

Cioran’s Archimedean point, from which he unhinges the normative view of the world and its philosophical and ethical superstructure, is the discovery of the privilege of sleeping, from which all other minds, not least such as take themselves to be relentlessly critical, profit as though from something self-evident. His unparalleled clear-sightedness in the disenchantment of all positive and utopian constructs has its basis in the pervasive stigma of his existence—in a sleeplessness that was undoubtedly of a psychogenic character and which marked him for years in his formative phase. This is what lends an envenomed epochē to the thinker, Cioran. The insomniac knows, in contradistinction to the critic, that he is not the master of his premises. Insomnia is not an assumption that is made, not a disposition of the practicing subject, not a provisional vacation from one’s own life in support of a pure attentiveness, and certainly not a theoretical preparatory exercise for practical revolution. A putting into question of existence and its fictions imposes itself on the insomniac, which reaches deeper than any reflective, subversive, or aggressive deconstruction. For the subject of insomnia the evidence is produced, in a way that is not sought, that all acts of both the naive and the critical life are descendants of the privilege of sleep, which again and again makes possible for its possessors the return to a minimal vital illusion. Sleep fulfills the tired human being’s demand for relief by means of discreet downfalls of the world; it is the small change of the redemption from evil; its coming to pass answers the natural prayer of fatigue. Cioran’s insomniaapriori, in contrast, opens up for thought the possibility that the subject’s plea for a temporary cancellation of the world’s compulsion of life is not answered. It is in this sense the meditation of the unanswered, which must be endured as continual wakefulness. Such an existence is a kind of torture in which the torturer is not identified and his questions not precisely posed. Already the early Cioran thinks from the position of a permanent ontological crucifixion that never reaches the point at which the victim may say consummatum est. Because sleeplessness is not a work, neither one that redeems nor one that is enlightening, it can never be declared to be finished. The insomniac is not nailed to the cross of reality, but rather is included in the gelatinous mass of the half-real. He finds out that what is gelatinous is more implacable than what is hard. While one is shattered by the latter and meets his end, one is wrecked by the former and remains spared for endless continuations. Sleeplessness is deconstruction without deconstructivists.

Cioran often noted that the characteristic impulse of his thought and writing was the reversal of a curse into a distinction. But how can the crippling effect of lost sleep be reversed into an active disposition? In a twofold way: insofar as the author, as he says himself, changes his being worn down into something chosen, and insofar as he gains an intense desire for vengeance from his forced vigilance.

With both turnings, Cioran proves himself to be a Judeo-Christian theologian in the Nietzschean sense of the term. The analyses from Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality on the origin of the spirit of the theologian from out of ressentiment are initially fully accurate when applied to him. Cioran is in fact a theologian of reactive wrath, who imputes to the creator God his failure and to the created world its inability to take him in. In the mode of his reaction, Cioran reveals himself to be a dark doppelganger of Heidegger. Where the latter elaborated the crypto-Catholic thesis that thinking means thanking, Cioran unfolds the black-Gnostic counter-thesis that thinking means avenging oneself. In both cases thinking is a corresponding: a logical gathering and giving back of that which was sent to the thinker as a gift of Being. But while Heidegger’s thoughtful giving back—after its heroic beginnings—subsides into a mild, positive wanting-to-be-an-answer, in Cioran the instinct for an immense restitution remains acute. It is always clear to him that where there is a gift there is always a giver who remains to be exposed. While the spirit of the fundamental ontologist, relieved by sleep, continually and gratefully meditates anew on Being as giver and gift [Gabe], the consciousness which revolts, continually sharpened by the deprivation of sleep, devotes itself to the task of transforming the poison of Being [Seinsgift] in its own existence into precise powers of immunity and of denouncing the poisoner. Nihil contra venenum nisi venenum ispe.1Cioran’s singularity can be recognized in the fact that he developed a systematically revanchist praxis of thinking. He did not declaim against the temptations of Being and invitations to faith as an avenger in some private affair, nor as someone debased and aggrieved in the sociological sense, but rather as a medium of a transcendental wrath and as an agent of an offensive skepticism. He is a wrathful Job, who displays his defects as striking arguments against the sadistic creator. As the guardian of a chosen wrath he is as selfless as only the founder of an ascetic order could be. As guardian of his pride in this wrath he is as egomaniacal as only a Satanist could be. His philosophical revanchism is the negative of thoughtful thankfulness. Like no one else in this or any century he made it clear that thinking is a thankless occupation—especially when the intelligible future today belongs less than ever before to thinking, which is not able to move beyond meditating and stewing in its wrath, than it does to the will that formulates projects and sets operations in motion. Cioran is only lucid in not-willing, while willing for him—as for his distant kinsman Heidegger—remains an alien mode. He never sets foot in the world of willing; his whole life long he will hear nothing of what is pragmatic. He is suspicious of those who are able to believe. His hatred applies to those who are able to will.

His thankless thought lapsed into absurdity, because in him the impulse for vengeance against God extends further than does the belief in God. Under the auspices of the absurd, Cioran, the son of a priest, reaped an anachronistic aftercrop of the era of religious metaphysics, by contriving for himself the role of the reactionary blasphemer. He toppled the idols that were no longer up to date; he holed up in his garret like an anchorite, whose ascetic practice consists in piling up disappointments. By virtue of his revanchism, Cioran held onto a juvenile, vicious negativity his whole life long. It was his early and never revised pride in not lowering himself to maturity. This is what makes his writings so uniquely dense, insistent, and monotonous. He knew that his malaise was his strength and that he as an author should only treat a single theme so as not to sink into arbitrariness. He grasped it early enough: his only chance consisted in repeating himself. Sartre’s critical words, that vice is on principle the love of failure,2 registers what Cioran should have chosen as his motto. In contrast to Nietzsche, another son of a clergyman of whom there is continual talk, Cioran marked an important point through his insistence on revenge. If the former was committed to the attempt to bank his thought completely on aristocratic, affirmative, and non-reactive drives, Cioran abandoned himself to a descent into the hell of a non-aristocratism and reaction. On the basis of his degradation he also bore within himself the discovery that there is a magnanimity of vengeance which rivals allaffirming thought. His work is vengeance without an avenger and payback that knows no loss.

For this reason, his writings have therapeutic effects. Their clarity in forlornness immunizes against the temptation to amorphously surrender. In a manner different than Nietzsche, Cioran did not behave like someone who has overcome his own decadence, perhaps because he even saw through Nietzsche’s ultimate illusion, the sick dream of a great health. He accepted his decadence, his morbidity, his foreordained condemnation to skepticism as poisons of Being and distilled his writings as antidotes. The knowers and the needy may make use of this as it seems wise to them. Yet the emulators will not find in Cioran’s apothecary what their ambition seeks.

I recall a conversation with the old Cioran in the German House of the Cité Universitaire in Paris in the mid-1980s, in the course of which I brought the conversation around to his suspicious and disparaging statements about Epicurus. He immediately seemed to understand what I had in mind with my query. He candidly explained that he recanted his claims and now felt Epicurus to be very close, that he saw in him today one of the real benefactors of humanity. The word ‘benefactor,’ quietly uttered aloud, sounded oddly significant on his tongue. For on this occasion he dispensed with any sarcasm. Perhaps the recognition had ripened in the garden of his sleeplessness that there is need of a special kind of generosity that allows the human being a retreat from the fronts of the real, and that this world can less than ever do without teachers of retreat. Our century has known none more decisive than him.

Not Saved

Essays after Heidegger

Peter Sloterdijk

The Ideology of Sameness

   ‘I regard the history of the world, and that of societies, as being fully interpretable in accordance with two major principles: the principle of equalisation and that of differentiation (i.e. the propensity for similarity and the tendency to be different), which are always connected through constant relations of re-balancing, (genuine, fake, symbolic or real) compensation, or consolation’, writes sociologist Paul Yonnet.16 

I personally share this point of view, which is why I think that, lurking behind the egalitarian rhetoric, one must actually distinguish something else: a rising aspiration for homogeneity, for the resorption of all differences — the rise of what one could term the ‘ideology of Sameness’.

The ideology of Sameness unfolds from what all men have in common. In fact, it unfurls by only taking into account their commonalities and interpreting them as being the Same. In the absence of a precise criterion allowing it to be assessed in a more specific manner, equality is but another way of referring to Sameness. The ideology of Sameness thus presents universal human equality as being equality per se, remaining disconnected from any concrete element that would actually make it possible to ascertain or invalidate such equality. To put things more simply, the ideology of Sameness surfaces as soon as equality is (wrongly) posited as a synonym for Sameness. It is an ideology that is allergic to anything that specifies, one which interprets any distinction as potentially devaluing and considers all differences to be incidental, transitory, inessential or secondary. Its driving force is the notion of the Unique, with the latter defined as anything that cannot bear otherness and that aims to reduce everything to a state of unity: one God, one civilisation, and one line of thought. Nowadays, the ideology of Sameness remains largely prevalent, acting simultaneously as the fundamental norm (in the Kelsenian sense of the Grundnorm17  ) — i.e. as one from which all the others stem — and the unique norm of a norm-less era refusing to experience any other norms.

This ideology is meant to be both descriptive and normative, since it presents the fundamental identity of all men as both an established fact and a desirable and achievable objective — without ever (or rarely) questioning the origin of the gap that separates the existing state of affairs from future reality. It thus seems to proceed from what actually is to what should be. In reality, however, it is on the basis of its own normativity, of its own conception of what should be, that it postulates an imaginary unitary being, a simple reflection of the mentality that inspires it.

Insofar as it emphasises the fundamental identity of individuals, of course, the ideology of Sameness comes up against everything that, in real life, actually sets them apart. It thus finds itself compelled to explain that these differences are but secondary and fundamentally insignificant specifications. Men may well differ in appearance, but are nonetheless essentially the same. Essence and existence are thus disconnected, as are the soul and the body, spirit and matter, and even rights and duties (the former stemming from the attributes of ‘human nature’ and the latter only performed within a social relationship and in a specific context). Concrete existence is then nothing more than a deceptive embellishment, one that prevents you from perceiving the essential. It thus follows that the ideology of Sameness itself is not unitary in its postulate at all. Heir to both the Platonic myth of the cave and to the theological distinction between the created and the uncreated, it is dualistic in terms of structure and inspiration, in the sense that it can only convey the perspective of Sameness by relying on something that is foreign to diversity or that actually transcends it.

To eradicate diversity and guide humanity back to political and social unity through its profane formulations, the ideology of Sameness usually resorts to theories that identify the social superstructure, the effects of domination, and the influence of upbringing or the environment as the very source of the distinctions that it regards as a transitory and temporary evil. (Note, in passing, that the theories in question identify the immediate causes of the state of affairs that they deplore, without ever wondering about the cause of these causes, that is to say, about their original source and the reasons why they never cease to re-emerge). Evil (fons et origo malorum18  ) is thus said to be external to man, as if the exterior were not, most and foremost, a product of the interior. By modifying the external causes, one could thus alter man’s inner core, or even bring out his true ‘nature’. In order to achieve this, one alternatively makes use of authoritarian and coercive methods, social conditioning or counter-conditioning, and ‘dialogue’ and ‘appeals to reason’, never achieving better results in one case than in the other and with failure always attributed not to erroneous starting assumptions, but to the ever-insufficient character of the means employed. The underlying vision is that of a pacified or ideal society, or, at the very least, that of a society rendered ‘just’ as soon as one has removed the external contingencies that impede the advent of Sameness.

The ideology of Sameness was initially formulated on a theological level, surfacing in the West through the Christian notion that all men, regardless of their personal characteristics and of the specific context of their actual existence, are endowed with a soul as part of an equal relationship with God. All men are thus, by their very nature, equal when it comes to the honour of having been created in the image of the one single God. And that is precisely why Christian society, no matter how diverse it may have managed to remain over the ages, revolves around a specific ideal, namely that of the Oneness of the collective body (and power). Hence this observation made by Hannah Arendt:19 

Such is the monotheistic representation of God — of God, in whose image man is supposed to have been created. Hence only man can exist, men only being, after all, a more or less successful repetition of the Same.20 

The corollary, which was developed in great detail by Saint Augustine, is that of a humanity fundamentally defined as one single whole, all of whose elements are said to be destined to advance in the same direction by achieving an ever-increasing convergence. This is the Christian root of the notion of progress. When applied to our world on earth through the slow process of secularisation, this idea gives birth to that of a rationale that is common to all (‘one complete whole in every one of us’, Descartes would say), one that every man would partake in as a result of his very humanity. ‘Thanks to this representation of a single world history’, writes Hannah Arendt once again, ‘the multiplicity of men is melted into one single human individual known as humanity.’21 

This here is, of course, not the right place for us to analyse the very manner in which the ideology of Sameness has given rise, within Western culture, to all those normative/repressive strategies described by Michel Foucault.22  Let us simply bear in mind that over the course of its historical development, the nation-state has always been less concerned with integrating than with assimilating, that is to say, with the purpose of further reducing differences by standardising society as a whole. This process was taken further and accelerated by the French Revolution of 1789, a revolution which, ever faithful to geometrical logic, decreed the abolishment of all the intermediary bodies that the Old Regime had allowed to exist. Henceforth, one was merely willing to acknowledge the existence of humanity and, simultaneously, that of a citizenship whose very exercise is conceived of as one’s participation in the universality of public affairs. Jews thus became ‘citizens like any others’ and women ‘men like any others’. Whatever defined them specifically, be it their belonging to a given gender or to a given people, was deemed non-existent or required to be kept invisible by remaining confined to the private sphere. Marcel Gauchet23  remarks:

Spawned by the age of heteronomy, the configuration of Oneness would hence be destined to govern even the most extreme versions of autonomy. The preeminent commitment that the future will be imbued with is thus that of the restoration or establishment of collective unity … From this angle, the primary ideological concern can be summarised as follows: to find a way to generate the collective Oneness once produced by religion using non-religious means.24 

The main modern ideologies would, in point of fact, alternatively fantasise about the unification of the world by means of the market, about a ‘homogeneous’ society purged of all ‘foreign’ social negativity, and about a humanity that is at peace with itself, having at long last rediscovered all that defines its essence. The political ideal would thus be rooted in the gradual erasure of all those borders that arbitrarily separate men: we would thus call ourselves ‘citizens of the world’, as if the ‘world’ were (or could ever be) a political entity — which it is not.

The ideology of Sameness, however, did more than just lay the theoretical foundations of egalitarianism. Indeed, it also enabled the emergence of colonialism (in the name of the right of the most advanced ones on the road towards human convergence to bring about the ‘progress’ of those that were lagging behind on the path to progress), while simultaneously legitimising, within different states, the use of repression against all kinds of individuals that allegedly deviated from the ‘general’ standards. In the age of modernity, this tendency towards homogeneity was taken to the extreme in totalitarian societies by a central power asserting itself as the only possible source of legitimacy. And in Western post-modern societies, the same result has been achieved through the universalisation of the logic of profit and global commodification. It is a gentler yet more effective process: indeed, the degree of homogeneity characterising present-day Western societies greatly exceeds that of the totalitarian societies of the previous century.

The universalist ambition, which tends towards unity, always correlates with individualism, which, in turn, leads to separation and dissociation. The ideology that strives the most for the unification of the world is therefore also the very same one that triggers the greatest possible disunion. Such is the most flagrant contradiction engendered by the ideology of Sameness. The universalist aim is thus inevitably linked to individualism, as it can only present humanity as one fundamental whole by envisioning it as a composite of individual atoms, all of which are viewed as abstractly as possible, that is to say, completely out of context (‘soil-less’) and beyond all mediation, thus ultimately defined as both substitutable and interchangeable — which is why it aims to bring about the disappearance of all that separates the individual from humanity, namely popular cultures, intermediary bodies, and differentiated lifestyles. One thus readily understands the importance of not confusing the notion of difference with that of division. It is by eradicating differences and destroying the latter’s very source, namely flexible structures (which also differ, and within which these differences fall), that the ideology of Sameness extends its hold. Targeting any differences organised in accordance with an organic principle, it simultaneously arouses fragmentation and division. In the absence of any integrative framework, the feverish excitement surrounding the ambition of Oneness leads to the dissolution of social cohesion.

It is thus perfectly logical that the rise of individualism, which liberals are ever so pleased with, has brought about the advent of the welfare state, whose emergence they now lament. The more community structures collapsed, the more the state had to take charge of people’s protection. Conversely, the more it guaranteed their protection, the more it exempted them from ‘maintaining family-related or community-related ties that had previously been the source of indispensable protections’,25  thus fostering assistantship and irresponsibility. A dialectical movement and vicious circle thus ensue: on the one hand, our differentiated society is now unravelling, and on the other, the homogenising state is advancing at the same pace as individualism itself. The greater the number of isolated individuals, the more uniformly they are treated by the state.

In constant competition and opposition with each other, the great modern ideologies have, as a result of their clashes, further aggravated the divisions and dissociations triggered by the spread of individualism. This paradoxical result has, however, only served to stimulate them in their ambition: faced with the spectre of ‘anarchy’ and ‘social dissolution’, with class struggle, civil war and social anomie, they argued with even greater ardour in favour of present alignment and future levelling. Once again, Marcel Gauchet remarks:

Even those who strive to highlight the very scope and inexpiable character of the antagonisms plaguing their contemporary societies do so in order to emphasise, by means of contrast, the promise to resolve the contradictions held by the future. This is typical of Marx. Bearing witness to the convulsions and heartbreaks of the present thus only strengthens one’s faith in, and hope for, the coming unity.26 

The problem is that the ideology of Sameness is bound to demand the radical exclusion of all that cannot be reduced to such Sameness. Irreconcilable otherness thus becomes the primary enemy, one that must be eradicated once and for all. Such is the motivation of all totalitarian ideologies — the elimination of all those ‘redundant men’ who, owing to their very existence, impede the advent of a homogeneous society or unified world. Whosoever speaks in the name of ‘humanity’ inevitably excludes his adversaries from it.

The contradictory logic espoused by both universalism and individualism is not the only contradiction that shapes the ideology of Sameness. In its argumentations, for instance, the latter either proceeds from the idea of ‘human nature’ (one that has been reconstructed in accordance with its own postulates, of course) or from the assertion that all natural characteristics are secondary and that man could never embrace his own humanity more faithfully than by freeing himself from these incidental characteristics. Not only do these two statements contradict each other, but the second is also at odds with scientistic ideology, according to which man can be entirely regarded as any other natural object, so much so that ‘there is nothing about him which natural sciences could, one day, fail to unveil’.27 

The corollary of abstract equality is the principle of non-difference. The logical consequence is that if all men are equal, all their opinions are equally valid — hence contemporary relativism and the liberal theory of the necessary neutrality of the state with regard to all that pertains to values and purposes (the ‘good life’ defined by Aristotle). This neutrality can only be apparent, however, because the mere fact of choosing to be neutral is, in itself, not neutral at all. In addition to this, it is obvious that liberals do not recognise antiliberal theories as having the same value as liberal ones. And obviously enough, the opinion according to which all opinions are equal does not prevent anyone from rallying against certain opinions, beginning with the one according to which not all opinions are equal.28 

There is, of course, a contradiction between planetary homogenisation and the fact of championing the cause of all peoples, which implies the recognition and preservation of their plurality. We cannot, therefore, defend both the ideal of a unified world and the right of all peoples to shape their own destiny, as there is nothing to guarantee that they will shape it in accordance with this very ideal. Similarly, one cannot advocate pluralism — defined as the legitimisation and recognition of all differences — while arguing in favour of equal conditions, which would result in the reduction of these differences. Last but not least, if the earth is indeed only populated by people who are ‘equal to each other’, what is the use of asserting the inalienable rights of each and every individual? How can one praise both what makes us unique and irreplaceable and what is said to make us virtually interchangeable? One could, admittedly, evade the issue through various slogans involving mental pirouettes, as in ‘equality in difference’. Such an expression, however, makes no sense at all, for it only refers to non-differentiating ‘difference’. One cannot support people’s right to be different while simultaneously believing that that which unites men in Sameness is fundamentally more defining with regard to their social identity than what distinguishes them from one another. Pietro Barcellona29  was thus absolutely right when using the expression ‘the tragedy of equality’ to describe the paradox according to which one can, by resorting to the notion of equality, simultaneously invalidate all forms of hierarchy and guarantee ‘diversity or what makes individuals unique’.

Alain de Benoist

You are in a Third World country if :

 

If everything in and of the state is basically and profoundly corrupt (which naturally prompts the question if there is any political state in the world that is not corrupt and thus Third World?).

If nothing really works but there is always ‘a way’.

If you have to pay the authorities when entering or leaving the country. If you have to do both you’re actually in a Fourth World country! 

If the price of taxis are either totally negotiable or strictly determined by government regulations — amounting to the same. 

If there’s always a taxi and a willing driver to be found. 

If there are no ways of proving whether you’ve been drinking and/or speeding behind the wheel.

If the government doesn’t care whether you’ve been drinking and/or speeding.

If road patrols routinely consist of heavily armed military.

If general traffic rules and regulations are mainly interpreted by the public as recommendations that one does best not to follow, and the only rule that applies for real is the ‘one way street’, although one has to know this beforehand since there will nowhere be a sign to warn you against driving towards oncoming traffic.

If the paint on the bathroom walls have been allowed to stain the shower tiles as well. In this particular respect, Italy, Spain and France would easily qualify as ‘Third World countries’. The Greeks and the peoples of the Balkan countries, on the other hand, don’t do this. I guess they admire the Germans and have to some degree been influenced by them.

If painting the doors also on the inside is considered an unnecessary expense.

If rebars are still sticking up through the concrete in building constructions generally considered ‘finished’.

If electric fixtures look like a nest of vipers and in effect is just as dangerous to touch (here again Italy, Spain and France are earnest candidates).

If you have to get up from bed to turn the light off in the room.

If the Internet only sometimes works, or works badly, and there is absolutely no explanation as to why, let alone a possibility to have the connection re-established, the bottom line invariably being: ‘Use the Internet while you can!’

If the shower only sometimes works properly.

If the shower has only cold or only hot water (this actually sometimes happen!). 

If it’s very difficult to turn the shower on and/or off.

If the trickle from the shower is feebler than your own stream.

If the torrent of cold water from the 2 inch wide shower pipe rather makes you believe you’re standing in the midst of the Niagara Falls.

If there are frequent water cuts for no apparent reason and without previous warning (such interruptions can in fact go on for weeks).

If the water closet gets stuck because of cotton ball thrown in it (you’d be very happy to see waste alone disappear when flushed, since it’s never to be taken for granted that it will). 

If there are frequent power cuts unprovoked by natural disaster, and rather provoked by political leaders not making sure that the country’s energy bills are paid on time.

If the ATM machine doesn’t accept your credit card, informing you that the problem lies with your bank. 

If the ATM machine credits your card without giving you the money (see account on page  72  ).

If making a credit card transaction (for example buying an airline ticket) online is nearly always refused and you never will receive an explanation as to why.

If VISA, Mastercard or American Express are not accepted as means of payment in major food and department stores (as is the case in Germany).

If it takes the car rental company two weeks to waive the security deposit on your bank account and meanwhile sold your credit information to a third party.

If tipping is appreciated by taxis, in hotels, restaurants and bars, but not really expected.

If people smile and are nice to you for no reason.

If everybody around you calls you ‘my friend’ (‘my brother’, qualifies as well).

If inequality between human beings is taken for granted. 

If equality between human beings is taken for granted but largely remains a concept waiting for a content. 

If nobody, except a bunch of university students demonstrating in the capital, has ever heard of ‘human rights’ but everybody knows the word ‘respect’.

If people around you seize any pretext to produce noise (again France, Italy and Spain are given candidates). 

If there are scooters and motorbikes everywhere, at all times.

If people attend religious services other than those associated with weddings, funerals and baptisms.

If people dress up in traditional attire year round.

If the bank is either closed or overfilled with people patiently — waiting. 

If the banks and companies don’t even bother to invent pretexts for stealing your money.

If you can pay yourself out of nearly every problem.

If there are cheap and good shoe shiners.

If the bar ‘bouncers’ rather try to throw you into the bar than out of it.

If waiters are actually nice and doing their job without dragging their guests into it.

If, as a rule, the paved roads are full of holes.

If you hesitate to brush your teeth with tap water.

If bureaucracy is as complicated as bribing is easy.

If you start to grow patient with everything that doesn’t work and can’t be fixed.

If there’s always another way of doing it.

If the idea of having a thirty years younger girlfriend starts to appear both reasonable and advisable to you.

If prostitution both quickens and saddens your heart. 

If you find yourself brooding about what ‘all this would have cost back home’.

If availing yourself of a gun for self-defence at times seem like a reasonable idea (I’m here primarily addressing a non-American reader, as an American one is likely to take such need for granted).

Lars Holger Holm

Incidents of Travel in Latian America 

The Role of Language in Thinking

   What of language? How much does language determine what is called thinking? How much of what we call thinking is limited, or made possible, by the language we speak? What do the theories of linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism tell us? Is language the fabric of thought, as Humboldt claims? Language determines our worldview, he said. “The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world.”

The nature of language lies in the relatedness of ideas words contain. That’s a complex thought, a difficult sentence to grasp. I’ll try to explain what I mean more simply. Every word has a meaning. Every meaning is related to an idea. Put all the words together and it forms a language. It is a living thing, a language. Words are constantly added, while others are forgotten, left to moulder in dictionaries. Who uses croton, finnimbrun or pintle these days?

The verb “to be” is an idea. It is the idea of existence. The verb “to have” is the idea of possession. The verb “to want” is the idea of desire or need. We learn the meanings of words as we grow up. When a parent wants a child to behave in a certain way, it’s necessary for the word that contains the idea to be explained. A child must listen before it has understanding. Learning comes from thinking and understanding. It’s a small thinking step that helps us make sense of the world.

No word can exist alone, because a language of one word is not a language. I am reminded of the thinking pathway I mentioned at the beginning, about how thought is a journey across an ever-changing landscape, a billowing ocean. Our thoughts are a process of discovery, and to communicate them, they become movement within a language. How much does the language we speak create its own shifting ground? How much does it make the sea of thought surge and swell? Can it act like a damper on our waves of thought? Do some languages offer a smoother thought crossing than others? Is a language with more waves, which takes us across deeper waters, more poetic and refined than one that walks with shallow calmness?

If a language is unable to describe what is called thinking, explain what it is, how can the concept of thought be fully understood? When a language is uniformly available to everyone, what uniformity in thinking does this create? Does it constrain thinking by enforcing a particular way of thought?

Does someone with a mediocre vocabulary think less, or think less well? Do thinkers we might refer to as “crude”, those who lack an understanding of many words, suffer from poorer thought? Is their vocabulary lacking, or their imagination, their ability to think?

Is there such a thing as pure thought, a perfect way to think? How much does the purity of thought depend on the language used?

For many years, it was believed those who spoke “superior” languages had superior thinking. While this idea is very little discussed today, because the implications are no longer politically acceptable, this does not mean the notion is wrong, nor right. Some languages, pidgin and creole for example, are regarded as simple. Though there is no specific ranking, it is clear that other languages have much more complex structures and much greater lexical complexity. Do societies with more complex languages achieve more? It obviously depends how we track it. If we use the measures of today, the size of an economy, the level of technological advancement, a sense of cultural superiority, the answer would seem to be affirmative. Cultures with complex languages are more successful. If we think about the societies that created the finest music, poetry and art, it appears to be true too. If we think about the cultures that have started the greatest conflicts, that have done the greatest damage to nature, then it is surely true as well.

Measuring language complexity is extremely difficult of course, as is measuring complexity of thought. Linguistics lacks any coherent theory of complexity. Most of the research on the link between language and thought is within the discipline of psychology, which surely boxes in what can be thought and said. The interconnections between language and thought are a question on which a cornucopia of disciplines could provide helpful insights, not just psychology. Neither language nor thought find their main intellectual home in psychology, I would argue. It may be a natural home for cognition, no more.

It is surely possible to demonstrate that some linguistic structures are more complex than others but that does not necessarily mean the thinking is more complex, or more advanced.

The German language has four cases and three genders while English has no cases and no genders. It is sometimes necessary for German speakers to hold a single sentence in their heads, which can extend to more than a written page, and which cannot be fully understood until the last word. This could negate the whole sentence or provide an essential verb to give it meaning. German speakers have to hold a lot of ideas in their head at once. Does this mean they think more, or better?

The Cantonese dialect in Chinese has nine tones, and it is very hard for those without experience of tonal languages to learn. Manlai says it is a language that evolves more quickly than most, with new word combinations and structures appearing all the time. But this does not necessarily mean it is more complex than other languages, from a thinking perspective. It is hard to see how this might mean Cantonese speakers think differently from the four-tone language used by most Taiwanese people, for example, especially when both use the same written script.

Does it matter if a language exists in written form? Some languages are only spoken. And, yes, this appears to suggest a lower potential level of thinking. When communication is limited to the spoken word, then the transmission of complex ideas is constrained by the intellectual and lexical limitations of the person speaking, their ability to comprehend and relate an idea. It is harder to verify what’s being said without a definitive, written source.

Is it possible to think without language? A baby can respond to a stimulus without being able to say what’s happening. It experiences the world at some level. Primitive humans, even without language and living in isolation, must have been able to think. Our minds are thinking constantly; it is impossible to stop the flow. Thoughts do not appear to us as words. How they appear is hard to say. How one person sees a thought may not be the way others see a thought.

We can probably conclude that it is possible to think without language, though only in a relatively limited way.

We can also surely agree that people brought up to speak different languages think slightly differently, at least to some degree, in ways that are not simply cultural.

In Spanish there are two versions of the verb “to be”. One indicates permanence, the other transience. Death uses the temporary verb. This suggests Spanish speakers think a little differently about death compared to most English speakers.

In German, there are concepts expressed in single words, pillars of Germanic thought, that need several sentences to translate into English. German has several words for Being, awareness, consciousness, and existence that are hard to translate directly. The German word for passion is linked to the word for suffering, a derivation partly lost to contemporary English-language interpretations. The novels section in German bookshops is labelled “beautiful sadness”, an idea that is strange to English readers.

In Chinese, there is not really any word for “no”. There is only the negation of a verb. People say, “don’t want”, “don’t have”, “don’t need”, “not correct”, not alright”, “is not”, for example. Perhaps this suggests that Chinese speakers don’t think as negatively as English speakers, not in such black and white terms. The Chinese response leaves a little more room for interpretation and discussion. It is a slightly different way to think, more nuanced. It’s a slightly different way to behave towards others.

If a group of people who speak a particular language think slightly differently about a concept as simple as yes and no, perhaps they think differently about more complex ideas as well.

Similarly, in German, there is a word (doch) that can mean both yes or no, depending on the context.

The tonal nature of the Chinese language means multiple interpretations, and a great deal of humour, hidden in the homophones is lost in direct translation to other languages. The Chinese see a range of meanings in many sentences, and this would suggest they also think slightly differently. I imagine it must be a bit like colour blindness. A Chinese sentence can be red and green, either or both. One is never completely sure which is intended.

The number four is unlucky in Chinese because it is the same as the word for death, using a different tone, while the number eight sounds like another word which means wealth. So apartments on the eighth floor are worth more, while those on the fourth floor are rented out to foreigners, who are unaware of the bad fate that comes with their new home. A popular politician in Taiwan is known as “Korean fish” because this is what his name with different tones becomes. “Do you like Korean fish?” is a subtle way to ask about someone’s political leanings. Thanks to double meanings, a man will never wear a green hat, because it suggests his wife has a lover, while to say someone is “eating soft ice cream” means a man is being looked after by his wife financially, which is not thought good.

Many languages retain the polite form of communicating, a mental construct that maintains a distance with strangers. Again, it is a different way of thinking, and relating to people. It changes perceptions of trust, and closeness. In German, there is a construction that allows someone to be quoted in a way that makes it clear that the person reporting takes no responsibility for what was said.

Can we say thinking is determined by language? There seems to be a strong case to support this idea. Different languages place different concepts in entirely different places. The thinking pillars of languages vary in significant ways, ways that lie at the root of understanding.

While German and English speakers have expressions that say being near a goal might as well be a mile away, the Chinese have an expression meaning exactly the opposite, that “nearly there” is good enough. In Singapore there’s a word, kiasu, which means the satisfaction of winning when others are forced to lose. Because of this idea, Singaporeans sometimes take the best food from a buffet and throw it away, so others lose out. In a lift, they sometimes press the close-door button to frustrate someone approaching. Drivers block the exit road so those in the middle lane are unable to leave a motorway. These are all deliberate attempts to force others to lose, a way of thinking.

Do you remember Miyaki? She has a wonderful story about how the Japanese think. When the French built a high-speed train that went faster than the Japanese Shinkansen, the Japanese decided to re-engineer their train. They made it travel precisely 1 kph slower than the French one. Why? Because this sent a signal. Japanese engineers could easily make their train go faster than the French one. But to do so would be seen as crass and showy, unnecessarily competitive. Japanese engineers didn’t need to do that.

I also remember going to a Toyota car showroom in Tokyo with her one day. I commented on the small hand-written signs on car windscreens, telling buyers about the car. I thought they looked a bit amateurish. Why didn’t they print them out, and make them look neat?, I asked. She said this would not be seen by customers as friendly and approachable. It was a different way of thinking.

After, we looked at a large Mercedes car in a dealer selling foreign vehicles and the signs on the windscreens were neatly printed out. Then she shrieked in horror when she saw one of the buttons on the dashboard of the German car, the one used to recirculate the air. It was written in characters. “That’s just so wrong!”, she squawked. German engineers had adapted it for the Japanese market, thinking this was better. They had used characters for Japanese people to read. But Japanese people who drive foreign cars don’t want that, she told me. If they drive a foreign car it must look foreign; everything must be foreign. That’s what makes it cool, and distinctive, she said. Having a button with characters on it was just naff.

In Russian, words that express a sense of longing with nothing to long for, of boredom, melancholy, or spiritual anguish and yearning are closely interconnected, in a way that defies easy translation. While the Russian language blends conscience and morality with a sense of shame, Japanese thinking takes a different perspective. Face matters more than shame. The idea of being caught doing something embarrassing is more important to the Japanese than any thoughts about the morality of the act itself.

I had an American teacher of English at school. He taught us the plays of Shakespeare and was very good at it, except for one thing. He could never properly explain the meaning of the word irony. It’s certainly a word that’s difficult to explain and define, but it’s also an idea that’s essential to understand these plays. He had terrible problems explaining its meaning. It was as if he just couldn’t grasp it. My friends and I wondered if it was a cultural issue. Was the fact that he was American the reason he didn’t understand irony? When I watch American comedy shows, I sense the same problem.

There’s an Alanis Morrisette song called “Ironic” where she sings “it’s a black fly in your Chardonnay, good advice you just didn’t take, or rain on your wedding day”. She offers these as examples of irony. But none are good examples of irony. Perhaps the song is the problem.

Some societies dismiss ideas prominent in other languages as superstition, as if they believe their way of thinking is superior. They largely ignore the notion that people speaking other languages might be thinking and talking in metaphor. They don’t really believe in dragons or elves, but they do believe in some force they are unable to otherwise explain.

In his book The Tyranny of History,47  Jenner offers many insights into the differences between Chinese and Western thinking. While Westerners tend to look forward, he says, the Chinese tend to look back. People in the West are always focussed on what comes next, about their own plans and ambitions, while the Chinese view of the world is better imagined as someone walking backwards. Rather than seeing the past behind them, they face it, while stepping backwards. Chinese speakers are more concerned about their responsibilities to those who came before them. Their thinking is strongly influenced by what their ancestors did and achieved. The past is not to be undermined, but built on. It is a different worldview.

Similarly, Mandarin Chinese speakers think about time in a different way to English speakers.48  Time is perceived more vertically. How does this change thinking, when time is a central idea to most languages?

Legal systems offer another example. The West prefers clear rules. Some actions are illegal, with each bad deed met with a counterbalancing penalty. As Nietzsche says, the Western legal system is essentially about revenge. Someone commits a crime and the state takes revenge by imposing a punishment that it says “fits the crime”.

Legal thinking is different elsewhere. Laws in China are less specific, and designed to promote three interrelated concepts: China’s worldview, China’s values, and Chinese ethics. Laws are more inclined to express a general intention than a specific rule. The state expects people to behave in a certain way. They should not to be disruptive or act against the interests of others, for example. The laws reflect this broad intention, rather than having having hard-and-fast rules for every misdeed.

Similarly, thinking on the notion of freedom varies. This word, which seems relatively simple to translate, means different things in different places. In some societies freedom is about the chance to think without restraint. In the English-speaking world, it is generally about acting without restraint. In Russia, freedom can simply mean not being in captivity, while in Asia the concept of freedom comes with obligations to the rest of society and the family, because collective harmony is seen as more important than individual freedom. When American politicians talk of promoting freedom, the message received is not the message sent.

There are three other examples of differences in linguistics I will mention in my lecture.

1.) The way people think changes their views on government.

Variations in thinking can lead one society to embrace a particular political philosophy. A society that thinks individual freedom is more important than collective harmony inevitably requires a different political, legal and governmental structure. When different cultures have different ways of thinking about how they should organise, it leads to misunderstandings not simply over the meaning of words but also about social goals, and the role and purpose of government. Different thinking can lead to disharmony between cultures.

Flexibility in thinking plays an important role here. In the West, some thought pillars are rigid. I examined this idea in my research notes on the currency of thinking. Ideas about free trade, economic development and light-touch regulation are deeply embedded in the West. They are not seen as a worldview but the worldview. They are an embedded “common-sense” way of thinking which dismisses any other approach. Common-sense thinking is not always good. It is the last resort of those who are envious of thinking by nature. Its soundness lies in its immunity from any accusation that it failed to address a new need. It has a rigidity that creates a block in thinking, an inability to consider alternative systems objectively. It is a glittering deception, with the pretence of being true and valid. It holds humanity back.

We all have a duty to shout out common-sense thinking when we see it, especially when it exists to make judgements on thought. How else will people wake up, unless they see what they are doing? Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the idea that there is only one form of social and political organisation that works, the one based on democracy, liberalism and capitalism, has become fixed in the minds of people in the West, a common sense. This rigidity makes it hard for them to understand the thinking of others, or even to understand that a different way of thinking exists.

When a state-run society partially embraces some aspects of Western capitalism, as China has done, the West is confounded. It appears stunned, outraged. When China applies Western economic thinking, free-market liberalism, to parts of the economic system where it offers an advantage, but retains state direction where this offers other advantages, the West decries it as wrong. For the Chinese it is win-win, and perfectly sensible. For the West it is seen as unfair because it offers advantages the West doesn’t like, or is not willing to think about. Western thinking on economics and politics is fossilised.

2.) The way people think changes their views on personal relationships.

In China,49  the idea of getting married for love alone is not embraced. It is called a “naked marriage” because it leaves the couple exposed to financial instability. Two people coming together should always think about their future financial welfare and economic suitability. Love alone is not enough. Similarly, children are expected to support their parents when they get older. Looking after parents in old age is seen as a filial duty. Parents make a sacrifice to bring up children, and in return they depend on their children when they are old. These ideas reflect different values and opinions, and different ways of thinking.

3.) The way people think changes their approach to business.

In the West, businesses are expected to grow and focus on boosting profitability. It is not the same in much of Asia where profit is not necessarily the main objective of a firm. The primary goal might be to employ people, to provide a service to a community, or to support a family, for example.

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One final thought on the language of thinking, on framing, and propaganda. People in the West have been led to think that propaganda only exists in times of war, and mostly in other places. The reality is that it exists everywhere and always. Some people always want to change the thinking of others, in their own interests. The words that people choose change the thoughts of those who hear them.

When a country is referred to as a democracy, this is a code in the West for saying it is good. When it is not a democracy, it is called a regime, a code for bad. The word socialist is meant in a disparaging sense, to frame thinking negatively, even though the word simply means that government is organised in the interests of everyone, for society, while capitalism means government is organised in the interests of the rich.

Research to find a cure for cancer is called a fight or a battle, suggesting the disease is more likely to be fatal than others. The word sustainable is applied to products that are not sustainable at all. The word is ill-defined in any case, which is why it’s used. What does sustainable mean, exactly? Nothing humans do involving the use of finite resources, or that creates rising pollution, is sustainable. Attaching the word is mostly done to give a false impression. It is a framing. Similarly, a new government policy that encourages personal responsibility usually means that people who once received support have been abandoned. Saying 80% of patients survive a treatment, isn’t as bad as saying every patient has a one in five chance of dying.

Varying the words used, the language, like this is a thinking game which most are unaware is being played. That’s the idea. It’s another reason why people need to think more.

I want to come back to the word democracy as a final example. Democracy literally means rule by the people. As I’ve already mentioned, the word and the concept are sometimes used as a weapon by the West, to condemn or ostracise countries viewed as non-democratic. Some countries believe it is a governance system that is imposed by the West to sow chaos in traditional societies deliberately, to gain economic advantage.

There is also a framing here, which is important. The West only permits one interpretation of the word. To be accepted as democratic, a country must have several political parties, none of which is extreme in its views, and the people must have the chance to elect a government made up of these parties once every four or five years. That government then creates laws and makes other decisions, to fight wars for example, on behalf of the population, even when the ruling party is elected by a minority of voters, as is often the case.

Other forms of democracy are not accepted as valid, especially if there is only one party. This denies or misunderstands how other systems work. The Chinese government is democratic too: it just uses a different system. It is a system that thinks and calls itself democratic where people are voted into power and govern. Candidates are elected at a grass-roots level, for their village or community. Some are elected to represent business, the military, and other sections of society. Once in government, those elected rise within the party, generally on merit. Rather than a leadership with little or no experience of running a country, China is led by people who have been doing the job for decades.

I find it mildly amusing that, from the outside, many Western democracies and the US actually look very much like one-party states too, and yet they condemn China for that. In the US, there is very little to separate the Democrats from the Republicans, ideologically. They both stand for the same basic system — rule by the rich — capitalism, and US exceptionalism.

In Russia, despite Western media claims, President Putin is enormously popular, even after many years as leader. President Kim in North Korea is also hugely popular. This is not because they are dictators, or the opinions of citizens are manipulated and everyone is brainwashed. Just as Russia has a different system, North Korean society chooses a paternalistic style of leadership. Russians and North Koreans think it’s Western society that’s been brainwashed. They think the US, Europe and Australia are led by unqualified people who are puppets of a system of thinking, not true leaders. They say big corporations are in charge. The West’s system is corrupt and manipulated by a small majority in their own interests, they say. Their evidence is compelling.

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So, what is this thing called thinking?

We can conclude that what is called thinking is poorly understood, medically, linguistically and philosophically. It is one of the most basic of human functions, as vital as breathing and digestion, something which lies at the core of human consciousness, and yet it is barely understood at all.

We must conclude too that thinking is not the same as awareness. Nor is thinking a good word to describe the daily noise in our heads, which is hard to stop. Thinking requires effort, to actively consider the world and attempt to understand it. The endless chatter in our minds is a barrier to thinking.

Thinking defines us. It is Being. It is consciousness, the spirit, our soul. Thinking is a thing, an element, an activity, a way of being, that lacks most of the characteristics scientists and philosophers use to try to define it, which is why they fail.

When I spoke to Suzanna recently, and we talked about thinking, language, the spirit and soul, she said something interesting and unusual:

“Ich komme auch immer mehr drauf, dass wir Schöpfer sind! Und DARIN Gott ähnlich. Das ist so unglaublich genial. Wir könnten Welten schöpfen, erschaffen!!! Wir müssen es sogar tun! Schöpfungskraft!”50 

She refers to what I said earlier, about the whole universe being present within each of us, when I talked about a living, conscious universe, developing and evolving around us, which we can all tune into. Is there a universal consciousness present in all living things? I asked. Is this what gives life? Do each of us have the whole universe within us, just as a fragment of a hologram contains the entire picture within it?

As you know, Suzanna has an otherworldly sense, and she feels strongly that this is so. She may be right. But what she said during our call is additionally interesting. She believes that we are also the creators of the world, that we create the world around us. More than that, we must create it, we must create the world around us. It is a calling, a need.

She may be on to something here. I think about Siddhartha, that wonderful book by Hermann Hesse, on the path to enlightenment and contemplation, on the need to surrender oneself to the irrational, about embracing the twisting, odd forms of nature until we find a sense of harmony with our inner Being, which appears as shapes, as our own creations, created by our moods.

The boundary between thinking and other worlds is very thin at times, and sometimes it can vanish. In another of his books,51  Hesse puts it this way:

To a great extent we are creators, our souls have a part in the continuous creation of the world. It is the same invisible godhead, which is active in us and nature. If the outside world fell into ruins, one of us would be capable of building it up again, for mountain and stream, tree and leaf, root and blossom, all that is shaped by nature lies modelled within us, comes from our soul, whose essence is eternity, but which is revealed to us for the most part as the love-force and in our creative power.

Perhaps he is right. Perhaps we all contain the accumulated souls and knowledge of the world, of the universe. Perhaps this wisdom is somewhere within us, all the experiences of every soul that has ever lived, all those who were good and bad, the essence of every race and nation, all those desires, all those starting points, and the ability to create it all. If the world really is our own idea, as Schopenhauer says, then all this must be true. Everything we perceive depends entirely on our consciousness for its existence. Everything is a journey of the mind, a reality of exploration and discovery.

Yet I find people are afraid, scared of this idea. They are afraid of themselves, because they have never had the courage to Be, to be themselves. They are afraid of the unknown. At the same time, the laws they create no longer mean anything, and their commandments have become outworn. They know how to kill, how to pray, how to consume, and how to scroll, how to flick left and right, how to amuse themselves for a fleeting moment, and how to distract themselves from their empty reality for a short moment. But no cheerfulness or serenity can ever come from any of this. These creatures, who move so uneasily together. Their ideals have ceased to exist and yet they stone everyone who proposes anything new.

The pathway to something better is not difficult to see. Should people seek out that godhead, should they want to explore their inner wisdom, and become one with nature and the universe again, they have all the tools they need. They only need to think. That’s all.

They need to learn to think again.

My final thought after all this research is this: thinking is difficult. It cannot be analysed using simple questions because misinterpretations threaten on all sides. That is because all mortal doings belong within thinking’s realm.

The Folies of the Western  Mind:...

Graeme Maxton

Alternative Monetary Systems

 3. Alternative Monetary Systems  For a state to say that it cannot realise its objectives 

 because there is no money

is the same as saying that one cannot build roads 

 because there are no kilometres.

Ezra Pound63  

There are, to put it mildly, very different opinions on how the monetary system should be reformed. Some even think that money in itself is an evil and for that reason want to abolish the monetary system altogether. The focus of this third chapter is to show different aspects of alternative monetary systems, which can differ depending on how a specific system is designed. At least seven such aspects, listed on the following page, can be distinguished.

1) Control. Who has control over the creation of money? What agenda are those in control serving? What principles are consequently applied in regulating the monetary system and the monetary supply?

2) Reserves. Should the banking system be based on fractional or full reserves? This is indirectly connected to the first aspect because fractional reserve banking means banks can create money when they issue loans. Full reserve banking means that banks cannot lend money without the permission of the depositor and thus cannot create money by granting credit.

3) Convertibility. Should a currency be tied to, for example, gold? Should it be a fiat currency, which is not tied to a certain quantity of a specific good or service?

4) The interest mechanism. Should the interest mechanism keep the same role it has today? Should all interest be viewed as usury? Should it be something in-between, for example by making the process under which new money is issued interest-free?

5) Integrity and transparency. Should the aim of a currency be to monitor all transactions or to maximise personal integrity and make anonymous transactions possible? Is the banking and monetary system easy to understand for the public and thus transparent from the point of view of scrutiny?

6) Monoculture or multiculture. Should one strive to have a single currency in a society or should there be monetary diversity on a global and national level?

7) Goal function. The goal function refers to the aggregate purpose (whether it is articulated or not) of a certain monetary and banking system. All of the above mentioned aspects are based on the goal function for what a certain system strives to accomplish and can be adapted to the specific conditions in a specific society.

3.1 Control  

The control of the banking and monetary system can be centralised to a single institution or distributed among several institutions. The most basic aspect of this control is regulation of money supply, including its creation and destruction. John Maynard Keynes argued that inflow of new money does not cause a general rise of the price level as long as there is untapped production capacity because of low purchasing power. However, Keynes did not put as much focus on how such influx would come about. There is a crucial difference between money being issued as interest-bearing debt to commercial agents, as is the case today, compared with an institution issuing it by buying goods and services on behalf of the public without commercial banks as intermediaries. The inventor Thomas Edison was perhaps an unexpected advocate public reform according to this principle, notably in an interview with The New York Times in December 1921: 

If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who directly contribute to [society] in some useful way. … It is absurd to say our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.64  

There is reason to suppose that the most central public projects can be financed by spending new money into circulation, rather than lending it into circulation as is done today. Even if the purchasing power is already maximised, and new money thereby causes a general rise in the price level instead of increasing productivity, one might accept a minor annual rise in the general price level, of for example two per cent, as a form of indirect taxation. Certain investments can potentially also give returns that can be recirculated into the economy, whereupon it is paid back — for example, a new energy plant that charges a fee for electricity. Such investments consequently do not affect the monetary supply over the whole process.

An alternative way to spend currency into circulation by public purchases is so-called social credit, formulated in C. H. Douglas’ Social Credit of 192465  , which suggests that the state issues new currency directly into citizens’ wallets as a form of basic income. In certain contexts, currency spent into circulation through the public budget is referred to as ‘Greenbacks’, named after the special form of dollars with a green backside that were issued by Abraham Lincoln’s administration to finance the Union forces in the American Civil War.66   An example of a monetary system in which the state spends money into circulation, rather than first borrowing and then spending it into circulation like today, can be found even further back in history. Tally sticks operated as legal tender in medieval England. The tallies were decorated pieces of wood broken into two matching parts. One half was spent into circulation by the royal power and was accepted as tax payment. As all pieces were broken in a unique way, the tallies were hard to counterfeit and fraud was detected at the latest when the tally was returned to the issuer. The tally currency functioned as means of exchange until a gold standard succeeded it after the introduction of the Bank of England in 1694.67   According to Thorold Rogers, a 19th century economist and historian from Oxford, by the end of the 15th century an ordinary peasant or worker in England could provide food for his family for a year by working between 10 and 15 weeks.68   Such a number indicates that the economic system of the time functioned well for the broader public, which should be possible to ascribe at least partly to the tally currency.

The hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic between 1920 and 1923 has been used as a warning of why it is not a good idea for the state to control the money machine. However, Hjalmar Schacht, director of the Reichsbank in the Weimar Republic between 1923 and 1931, and in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1939, testified about aspects of the German economy in those periods that are generally not mentioned in modern textbooks. In his book The Magic of Money, published three years before his death in 1970, Schacht mentions that loans granted by the Reichsbank for private speculation in the early 1920s were a contributing factor to the runaway inflation.69   Furthermore, Schachts offers a complementary explanation to how following Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Germany was able to recover from economic ruin and mass unemployment in such a short time and become Europe’s leading industrial nation, with full employment. The economic recovery in 1930s Germany is especially spectacular considering that it took place during the Great Depression, a time in which the rest of the world suffered severe economic hardship. Some point towards the discontinued payments of the war indemnities imposed under the Treaty of Versailles as a contributing factor while others have supposed that it was made possible by the confiscation of Jewish-owned assets. Foreign investment and support from the Bank for International Settlements have also been mentioned as possible variables in the equation. According to Schacht, the primary factor was the implementation of the MEFO bills that the state, in cooperation with the Reichsbank, started to inject into the economy soon after Hitler’s takeover:

The MEFO system was a noteworthy example of the fact that it is possible to make up for a lack of capital by means of credit without any risk of engendering an inflation that causes price rises. [...] The English economist J. M. Keynes has dealt with the problem theoretically, and the MEFO transactions proved the practical applicability of such an idea.70  

Schacht describes the design of the MEFO system as follows:

The system worked in the following way: a company with a paid-up capital of one million marks was formed. A quarter of the capital was subscribed by each of the four firms Siemens, A. G. Gutehoffunungshiitte, Rheinstahl and Krupps. Suppliers who fulfilled state orders drew up bills of exchange for their goods, and these bills were accepted by the company [as payment]. This company was given the registered title of Metallforschungsgesellschaft (Metal Research Company, ‘MEFO’ for short), and for this reason the bills drawn on it were called MEFO bills. The Reich guaranteed all obligations entered into by MEFO, and thus also guaranteed the MEFO bills in full. […]

One other aspect was even more unusual. The Reichsbank undertook to accept all MEFO bills at all times, irrespective of their size, number, and due date, and change them into money. The bills were discounted at a uniform rate of four per cent. By these means the MEFO bills were almost given the character of money, and interest-carrying money at that. Banks, savings banks, and firms could hold them in their safes exactly as if they were cash.71  

With these words, Schacht recognised the success of the MEFO bills. At the same time, in the final years of his leadership, he did not want to advance the system in the way that the highest state leadership wished for. Schacht claims that this was the reason why he was forced to abandon his post in January 1939.72   In Mein Kampf (1925) it appears Hitler had strong personal opinions on banking and monetary policy. In chapter 8, titled Beginnings of My Political Activity, Hitler writes that the monetary question became part of his political platform as early as 1919, thanks to a Gottfried Feder:

When listening to Gottfried Feder’s first lecture about the breaking of the tyranny of interest, I knew immediately that the question involved was a theoretical truth that would reach enormous importance for the German people’s future. [...] Germany’s development already stood before my eyes too clearly for me not to know that the hardest battle had to be fought, not against hostile nations, but rather against international capital. […] The fight against international finance and loan capital has become the most important point in the program of the German nation’s fight for its independence and freedom.73  

Along with Anton Drexler, Feder was one of the Nazi Party’s earliest key personalities. As its leading economic ideologue, Feder formulated, among other things, the party’s plans for the decisive elections in 1932 and 1933. Besides the anti-Semitic features, the party programme states of its economic principle on page 30: ‘Finance shall exist for the benefit of the state; the financial magnates shall not form a state within the state. Hence our aim to break the thraldom of interest.’ In more concrete terms, it is advocated that the state should abolish its debts to the great financial houses, issue interest-free currency to finance public projects and establish a bank in order to grant interest-free loans for business development.74   Schacht, who was not a National Socialist, opposed several of these reforms and also seems to have managed to ward them off during his leadership. Schacht writes in The Magic of Money:

National Socialist agitation under the leadership of Gottfried Feder was directed in great fury against private banking and against the entire currency system. Nationalisation of the banks, liberation from the bondage of interest, the introduction of a state ‘Feder’ giro money, these were the catchphrases by which an end was to be made to our monetary and banking economy. I had to try to steer Hitler away from these destructive conceptions.75  

Schacht’s statement, together with his background in the international financial sector, makes it seem curious that upon the National Socialists taking power Feder only got a marginal position in the new government while Schacht was appointed president of the Reichsbank and minister of economics. Even though Schacht’s MEFO bills saved the country in the short-term they were emitted, if Schacht’s description is correct, as an interest-bearing debt according to principles that are very similar to the dynamics of the modern monetary system. One of several possible explanations for the appointment of Schacht rather than Feder is his earlier experience and that it was part of alliance building with industrial interests, among which Schacht was far more popular than the more populistically-focused Feder. Despite the tragedies that this epoch brought with it, one can conclude that it constitutes a remarkable chapter in monetary history that shines further light on the great political drama that has surrounded the control of the banking and monetary system.

Options for reforms intended to raise awareness of money power as a central social instrument of power include acknowledging it as a fourth independent power alongside the legislative, executive and judicial, and introducing general elections for a chief executive or a board of governors to oversee this power. One might also emphasise that money power does not necessarily have to be a public institution. It can also be controlled by a non-profit organisation or commons trusts, according to Peter Barnes’ description in Capitalism 3.0.76   The Wikimedia Foundation is one example of how such commons trusts can be used, in that case to manage the non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia. Theoretically, it is possible to build a currency commons using the same principle. Local Exchange Trading Systems, or LETS, offer many examples of how such currency commons can be designed on a local level. LETS first developed in the 1980s in Courtenay, Canada — a town blighted by an unemployment level of around 40 per cent. Having noticeably improved the situation, the local population embraced the new currency and it has since spread over the whole world in many variations.77   The name of a specific currency can vary and LETS is just a common denominator for the basic idea of constructing a currency commons under local, regional, national or potentially even under global control. A business-to-business variation of a LETS-like system is the Swiss currency WIR, which has operated on a national level in parallel with conventional currency and has helped stabilise the Swiss economy since 1934.

According to a study from 2010, the WIR was used by 16 per cent of all Swiss companies.78   A typical LETS scheme gives every person in a currency commons (geographical or with another common denominator for its users) the right to a certain amount of interest-free credit, which they can use to buy goods and services. For example, a person can go to the hairdresser and agree to pay, let’s say, €5 and L15. The customer’s LETS account is then debited with -L15 while the hairdresser is credited +L15 for the service. In this moment, new money gets created. The amount of credit every person is allowed to create, and the rules applied to grant credit, can be designed freely depending on the needs and goals of the society in question.

3.2 Reserves  In order for money creation to be shifted from private to public or other common control, the current system based on fractional reserves must be reformed into a system based on what is called full reserves. Fractional reserve banking also makes the system vulnerable. This is because problematic situations can arise if a certain amount of depositors decide to withdraw their money from the bank or cannot meet their loan obligations. The International Monetary Fund counts the number of financial crises between 1970 and 2010 at 425, which splits as 145 banking crises, 208 currency crises and 72 national debt crises.79   Of these, at least the banking crises are interlinked with the fragility built into systems based on fractional reserves.

Regarding financial stability, it is also worth mentioning the big insurance companies. When the financial crisis of 2008 set in, it was not only banks that needed extra support to avoid collapse. Big insurance companies such as AIG were also in need of rescue packages, in large part because of Credit Default Swaps (CDS), which in the aftermath of the crisis became known as financial weapons of mass destruction. In practice, CDS is an equivalent in the insurance business of fractional reserve banking, in the sense that they originate from insurance companies making far greater commitments than they can carry out in times of financial crisis.

A reform designed to prevent such financial crises is the Chicago Plan, which was presented as early as 1933 at the University of Chicago. Its authors took inspiration from Frederick Soddy’s work in an attempt to reform the American economy during the Great Depression. IMF economist Michael Kumhof, mentioned in the second chapter, is among those who have brought up the plan in a modernised version.80   In general terms, the Chicago plan entails a transition to the system many people mistakenly believe is already in place — that banks can only lend money they get from deposits. After such a reform, lending would demand the permission of the depositor, which means the depositor cannot demand the money back while the money is lent out for the simple reason that both lender and borrower are very aware that the money is lent out. With such a reform, bank runs would no longer be a potential problem as all the money available on the customer’s account, in a system based on full reserves, must always be in the bank. Another consequence of this reform is that depositors can more easily control the ways in which their money is used. Under the Chicago Plan seigniorage, which is the profit from creating new money, would be transferred from commercial banks to the public. The proposal by Chicago-inspired IMF economists has a strong resemblance to a proposal by British think-tank Positive Money.81  

Positive Money’s vision includes a transition to full reserves by distinguishing deposit accounts, in which money is simply stored, and accounts for lending and investment. Furthermore, the proposal advocates, among other things, allowing money creation to be controlled by an independent and democratically elected committee, which would decide on the amount of money to be added into the economy while the government would be responsible for the spending of the money. Such a system differs from the current central banking system in that new money is injected into the real economy first, rather than today’s entry via mortgage loans and purchasing various security papers on the financial markets, which only indirectly stimulates the real economy. These measures aim to decrease the risk of housing market bubbles and stimulate employment more effectively.

Soddy’s suggestion on how a transition to full reserves could be implemented without causing financial meltdown, which is the danger if the process is handled carelessly, was to let banks lend new money from the state bank to cover their reserve deficits. With this maneuver, the banks would retain their liquidity without having to recall loans and public debt would be decreased, settled or turn into a demand. Viewed in the context of fractional versus full reserves, the Single Resolution Mechanism under which the European Banking Union’s member countries have a collective responsibility to rescue failing banks is thus a solution focusing on the symptoms and not on the underlying causes of the current instability of the financial system.

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3.4 The Interest Mechanism  

An old story tells of a Persian emperor who was so excited about the new game of chess that he offered to grant its inventor any wish. The inventor was a very clever mathematician and asked for one grain for the first square on the board, two grains for the second and a doubling amount on each of the remaining squares. The emperor was at first very happy at the apparent modesty of the mathematician, until he realised that this exponential growth would demand that he gave him more grain than was available in the whole world, only to satisfy the amount of grain asked for in the last square.

Perhaps it is such exponential dynamics on compound interest that led Aristotle and the prophets of the old Middle East to clearly articulate how one is supposed to use and lend money in accordance with the higher natural order.

It is stated in the Koran that trade is not contrary to God’s will. However, interest (referred to as usury) is categorically condemned:

Those who eat usury (Riba) will not stand (on the Day of Resurrection) except like the standing of a person beaten by Satan leading him to insanity. That is because they say ‘Trading is only like usury,’ whereas Allah has permitted trading and forbidden usury. So whosoever receives an admonition from his Lord and stops eating usury shall not be punished for the past; his case is for Allah (to judge); but whoever returns to usury, such are the dwellers of the Fire — they will abide therein.86  

In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy presents a markedly different approach that shows the perspective on loans and interest as mechanisms of social control is very old:

For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you. [...]

You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.87  

With such diametrically opposed take-off points as those above, it’s understandable that the interest issue has been a contributing factor to tensions between the Abrahamic religions. Jesus was, at least based on the New Testament, not as explicit in this regard as were Moses and Muhammad. Nevertheless, one might note that the only time Jesus is said to have been violent was when he drove the money changers out of the temple and accused them of having made it into a den of robbers.88 This Biblical episode might have been a contributing ideological factor to the temporary restrictions regarding interest applied by the Catholic Church.

A general moral objection to interest is that it provides a profit for the creditor without production of a good or service. The systemic challenge for an interest-free banking and monetary system, as is advocated by the Koran, is to find functioning substitutes to the advantages of interest such as incentives to lend money and repay loans. JAK Member bank in Sweden has developed its own solution to this by demanding a certain amount of saving before, during and after the borrowing period as a counter-performance to the granting of credit. The monthly costs of the loan are about the same as the costs of an ordinary bank loan but the difference is that a borrower at JAK, after paying off the loan, has saved a considerable amount of capital they can then freely dispose of. Besides completely interest-free models such as JAK, there are other modern alternatives for reforming the role of the interest mechanism in the societal order. Ellen Brown suggests that interest should finance the costs of the public and uses a vivid fiction to illustrate this:

The Wicked Witch of the West rules over a dark fiefdom with a single private bank owned by the Witch. The bank issues and lends all the money in the realm, charging an interest rate of 10 per cent. The Witch prints 100 witch-dollars, lends them to her constituents and demands 110 back. The people don’t have the extra 10, so the Witch creates 10 more on her books and lends them as well. The money supply must continually increase to cover the interest, which winds up in the Witch’s private coffers. She gets progressively richer, as the people slip further into debt. She uses her accumulated profits to buy things she wants. She is particularly fond of little thatched houses and shops, of which she has an increasingly large collection. To fund the operations of her fiefdom, she taxes the people heavily, adding to their financial burdens.

Glinda the Good Witch of the South runs her realm in a more people-friendly way. All of the money in the land is issued and lent by a ‘people’s bank’ operated for their benefit. She begins by creating 110 people’s-dollars. She lends 100 of these dollars at 10 per cent interest and spends the extra 10 dollars into the community on schemes designed to improve the general welfare — things such as pensions for retirees, social services, infrastructure, education and research and development. The $110 circulates in the community and comes back to the people’s bank as principal and interest on its loans. Glinda again lends $100 of this money into the community and spends the other $10 on public schemes, supplying the interest for the next round of loans while providing the people with jobs and benefits. For many years, she just recycles the same $110, without creating new money. [...] Best of all, taxes are unknown in the realm.89  

An example of a government owning its own commercial bank, with the possibility to grant credit and use interest income for public purposes, is the Bank of North Dakota, which has been active in the state of the same name since 1919. A political objection to public ownership of banks (or other types of ownership such as commons trusts) is that it is a type of socialism or communism not suited to a modern market economy. However, if interest profits are used to fully or partly replace taxation, one can argue that there is also a capitalistic aspect that is as essential as the socialistic aspect of public ownership of banks. One can also conclude that concepts such as socialism and capitalism are not always used in a consistent manner in the political debate. One example of this is that buy-ups financed by the public can be referred to as ‘socialistic threats’ while bailouts financed in exactly the same way (e.g. during and after the financial crisis of 2008) can be referred to as ‘a prerequisite for capitalism’. An alternative to both buy-ups and bailouts is to issue future rescue packages to failing financial institutions as loan packages and thereby compensate the public with an interest-bearing claim on the banks in question.

The Chicago Plan and the reform proposals by Positive Money mentioned in chapter 3.2, under which money is created only by a public institution while a commercial bank would still be allowed to lend against interest, are in this context more moderate alternatives that can possibly lessen the negative effects of interest on a macro level.

When discussing interest mechanism reform, we must finally mention demurrage fees, which may be viewed as a form of negative interest. Demurrage is not negative interest in the sense that one gets paid to borrow money but that one pays a fee to hold money. The earlier analysis of Terra is a theoretical example of such a set-up. The most famous practical example of a monetary system based on demurrage fees is the Austrian currency Wörgl, which was used in a small town of the same name in 1932.90 In 1931, the mayor of the town, Michael Unterguggenberger, was in a desperate economic situation in the aftermath of the Great Depression and convinced the town’s administration to test the principles laid out by the German economist Silvio Gesell in his book The Natural Economic Order (1918). The experiment was based on a currency with a monthly demurrage fee of one per cent. The fee was represented with stamps, which could be bought in local shops and were put on matured notes at the end of each month.

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3.7 Goal Function  

The goal function of the monetary system is not to be confused with the goals of the central bank, such as, for example, price stability or full employment. This is because the central bank only makes up one aspect of the banking and monetary system. The goal function describes the purpose of the monetary system as a whole, whether it is explicitly stated or not. Viewed as a whole, the current system is in practice, even though it is not explicit, based on what can be described as a chrematistic goal function by which financial and (indirectly) political capital is concentrated to financial institutions. On the one hand, the goal function is a more general aspect that can seem less concrete than the previously mentioned aspects. On the other hand, one should bear in mind that the goal function makes up the basic foundation that the six previously mentioned aspects must be based upon. The systems presented in the third chapter are mainly based on goal functions that have a common denominator in that they strive for the monetary system to serve the interests of the public rather than to make the public serve a financial elite, with a money flow that meets the potential supply of goods and services or, according to Soddy’s terminology, the virtual wealth. In such systems, the aggregated capacity of the economy does not depend on whether there is enough money or not but on access to human capital and raw materials. It is from this perspective that one should read the quote from Ezra Pound’s article What Is Money For, which opened this chapter:

For a state to say that it cannot realise its objectives 

 because there is no money

is the same as saying that one cannot build roads 

 because there are no kilometres.

Francis Bacon is said to have coined the phrase that money is a good servant but a bad master, which is a good summary of a chrematistic goal function that accumulates capital to an elite, in contrast with an alternative goal function that serves the interests of the public.

Epilogue Based on what has been presented in this book, it should be evident that there are dimensions of the monetary field that have to a large extent been neglected in science, media and politics. In the discussion it has been shown that money power can be viewed as a social management tool, just as with the executive, legislative and judicial powers. From this perspective, it can be noted that the discrepancy between different banking and monetary systems is as significant as that between radically different political systems. 

The current monetary system furthers centralisation of economic and political power to a financial elite, which has been possible because the system is difficult to grasp not only for the masses but also for the so-called intellectual elite. Because banks, money and debt have generally been viewed as fringe issues without any importance to economic and social development, economists have not put enough attention on exploring the field from new perspectives that can give a better understanding of the properties of money power. 

A perspective that can offer new possibilities for analyzing different types of monetary systems and their socio-economic consequences is to view economics as an energy science analogous to electrics and mechanics. Based on the document Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, money can be viewed as potential economic energy moving in the opposite direction of goods and service production, which in turn correspond to dissipative and kinetic energy respectively. Compared with conventional theoretical frameworks such as the quantity theory, the energy theory implicitly makes it clear that it is not enough (although necessary) to take into account money supply and speed of circulation in order to understand fluctuations in price and production, and that tendencies in the monetary flow must also be taken into account.

An example of how an analysis of monetary flows can contribute with more clarity is the way in which quantitative easing (QE) by central banks can exist in parallel with low price inflation or even deflation. A model such as the quantity theory does not catch up that QE is issued by buying obligations that primarily affect the stock market rather than the real economy. 

Conventional models also overlook to a large extent the way in which economic actors are indebted to each other and how these relations affect power relationships in different sectors of society. The current situation in which individuals, corporations and whole nations have been put in a position of dependency in relation to global finance could most probably not go on for very long if economists established new standard models that exposed this dynamic. A related area that could benefit from flow-based analysis is how the flow of interest income and expenditure affects private and public actors, and whether negative interest systems such as, for example, that of Wörgl can give rise to a different dynamic.

The author’s ambition with this work is not to suggest an all-encompassing monetary solution on a national and international level but it is highly desirable that other economists eventually respond to that challenge. However, regarding potential solutions, one can conclude that several of the alternative monetary systems presented in the third chapter have a common denominator in that they do not let the banking and monetary system automatically serve the interests of a specific group of people or institutions and instead put it in service of the public interest. One might add that alternative monetary systems have different characteristics and different types of economies can make use of this by adapting the respective aspects of a monetary system such as control, convertibility and interest (in a classical sense or negative interest in the form of demurrage), depending on the conditions of the economy in question. The increasing number of cryptocurrencies in the wake of Bitcoin, together with the increased use of parallel local currencies, could be an early sign of an impending monetary revolution that might eventually change the financial system in a way similar to the internet’s impact on the media landscape, even if change proves to be impossible to make from a political level. Economists are therefore urged to prepare for such a scenario by putting a greater focus on the monetary question.

The author hopes that this book can encourage other researchers to pick up and further clarify the dynamics of the current system, including its political consequences, and explore which alternative systems are most appropriate from national, regional and international perspectives. Hopefully, the study of money power can continue in the spirit of Frederick Soddy, whose words from 1934 neatly sum up what should be the fundamental purpose of continued research and its application:

Let us not enslave men that pretenders may rule, but take back our sovereign powers over money in order that men can be free.99

Money Power

A Force for Freedom or Slavery?

Isac Boman