[Note: This article was originally published on 11/4/97 as "Alternative Currency System." It has been extensively revised.]

Extract from E.C. Riegel's The New Approach to Freedom:

There is a treasure buried in your consciousness. If you will dig it up from the debris of superstition and fear that covers it you will gain a freedom and self-mastery that will lift your life to a higher plane.

This is the money power in you.

The power to create money with which to purchase wealth, health and happiness actually lies dormant within you. You have thought of the money power as something remote from you and beyond your grasp. You have dreamed of the good you could and would do if you had money power. You have blamed others for not accomplishing this good. You have blamed them for evil economic and political conditions; for unemployment, for poverty, for crime, for war.

It is quite logical to blame these maladies upon the malfunction of the money power, but you have not suspected that the money power resides in you and because of your failure to exert it the world is afflicted with miseries.

You have the power; you have the responsibility. The power and responsibility to banish poverty, unemployment, insecurity, misery and war rests entirely with you. You, in cooperation with other intelligent persons, can drive economic and political evils further and further from the area of your life and ultimately they may be driven from the face of the earth. You can do this by the money power in you, expressed first in your own prosperity and happiness, and radiating to others. You can do it and you must do it. There is no power outside of you that can bring these blessings to you. Petitioning the Government is like writing to Santa Claus.

You need no laws -- there is a law, a natural law that governs your money power. You need no government aid. You need only cooperation with and from persons who, like you, have resolved to exert the money power inherent in us all. This power in each of us needs only the recognition and respect of our fellows to spring forth and exert its blessings. We need not petition Congress and we need not waste time to denounce bankers, for they can neither help nor hinder our natural right to extend credit to each other, and this is the perfect basis for a money system.

Banish monetary inferiority from your consciousness and resolve to exert the dignity, the responsibility and the power for personal and social betterment that is rightly yours. Inspire others to join these qualities with yours and out of it will come mutual action that will realize money mastery and a richer life in a better world.

Appendix 2 - E.C. Riegel and Alternative Currencies

As far as I know, Riegel's The New Approach to Freedom and Private Enterprise Money are out of print. You may be able to obtain them from libraries and used-book stores. The complete text of Private Enterprise Money is available at http://www.mind-trek.com/treatise/ecr-pem/index.htm.

Riegel's Flight from Inflation may be available from The International Society for Individual Liberty.

FLIGHT FROM INFLATION: The Monetary Alternative by E. C. Riegel

A very well-written explanation of the nature of money and inflation, has a good short U.S. monetary history, and calls for a fully-private money system. This book was well ahead of its time (late 1940's), and predicted the inflation that has ravaged us since, and ultimately, the complete destruction of the dollar [still possible with today's rampant inflation via the credit markets]. (hardcover) 168 pg. ........ $5.95

Flight from Inflation is also available from Thomas H. Greco at http://azstarnet.com/~circ/.

NEW MONEY FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES by Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

This book:

• Is the how-to-do-it manual for local trading systems.

• Describes exchange alternatives which reward people fairly and reflect the reality of an abundant earth.

• Shows how voluntary groups can revitalize local economies.

• Outlines the true nature of money and new approaches to transforming money. New Money for Healthy Communities takes the reader well beyond the rutted road of orthodox thinking, describing in detail the essential features of equitable and dynamic exchange systems, and shows how they can be set up by voluntary local associations. It describes both past and present examples of local currencies and exchange systems, including their strengths, limitations, and errors. It then proposes innovative ways of transforming exchange, using mechanisms which are democratic, humane, ecologically sound, sustainable, and implementable at the grass-roots level.

New Money for Healthy Communities is based on thorough research conducted by the author, a former professor of business, over the past dozen years. It is well-illustrated, footnoted, and indexed, and provides extensive lists of contacts, resources, and references.

"New Money for Healthy Communities lifts the veil on the secret power of money creation and lucidly explains how alternative currencies can give this power back to those who create wealth. It is destined to be a classic handbook for community activists and all conscious people." -- Gordon Davidson, co-author, Spiritual Politics, Builders of the Dawn.

1994. Paper, 216 pp, illustrated, index, $15.95 + $3 postage. ISBN 0-9625208-2-9

Thomas H. Greco, Jr., Publisher P.O. Box 42663, Tucson, Arizona 85733 (520) 577-2187. E-mail: circ@azstarnet.com

Considerable information on alternative currencies is available on the Internet by searching "alternative currency(ies)." Roy Davies's Money Page has many links -- http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/money.html.

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