The end the Fed movement is a major, long term, well financed psyop.

[ThePythonicCow]

A couple of days ago, I responded to a fine post by Yelik: The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind (Documentary) - Hidden Secrets of Money with three posts of my own. My first response post was a long post that began:

In my view, the above video is a deeply deceptive, although rather effective, piece of propaganda.

My third response post summarized what I was saying, stating:

The opening video of this thread is not making the case to end control of the monetary system by a few occult elite bastards ... but rather making the case to transition from one form of that control (centered around the US Federal Reserve) to another form (more global.)

There has been quite a few such documentaries and books in recent years, many of them well produced, from a number of fairly well known names, saying very much the same thing. This is not an accident; this is deliberate. Good money is being spent to teach us that the way that the US Federal Reserve shuffles money and debt between itself, the big banks and the US Treasury, is convoluted, obfuscated, corrupt, and in dire need of replacement ... with a global scheme.

Here are some of the experts who have taken their turn at "teaching" us this, with a date and link for one of their key contributions (their initial or primary contribution to this topic, in many cases). Items are listed in time order, oldest first.

• Eustace Mullins, December 1993, The Secrets of the Federal Reserve (book), Secrets of The Federal Reserve (Youtube)
• G. Edward Griffin, July 1994, The Creature From Jekyll Island (book)
• Patrick Carmack and Bill Still, 1996, Money Masters (Movie uploaded to Youtube)
• James E. Ewart, December 1998, Money: Ye shall have honest weights and measures (book)
• Edwin Vieira, 2002, Pieces of Eight : The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution (out of print book)
• James Jaeger, 2006, Fiat Empire - Why the Federal Reserve Violates the US Constitution (Movie, uploaded to Youtube)
• Peter Joseph, 2007, Zeitgeist (documentary)
• Ron Paul, 2009, End the Fed (book)
• Joseph Stiglitz, March 2010, Federal Reserve system corrupt and undermines democracy (Infowars article)
• Edwin Vieira with James Turk, June 2011, Pieces of Eight and constitutional money (Youtube interview)
• Ellen Brown, June 2011, Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free (book)
• Leesa Stanion, March 2012, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bank? An Uncensored Investigation of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Part 1 of 8, Youtube)
• Foster Gamble, April 2012, Thrive (Youtube)
• Bill Still, February 2013, Jekyll Island: The Truth Behind the Federal Reserve (DVD)
• Frank N. Newman, May 2013, Freedom from National Debt (book)
• Mike Maloney, October 2013, The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind - Hidden Secrets of Money (Youtube documentary)
• Antony C. Sutton, February 2014, The Federal Reserve Conspiracy
• James Corbett, July 2014, Century of Enslavement: The History of The Federal Reserve (Youtube documentary)

Notice that there is a lot of work and a fair bit of money, production and publicity that has gone into the various efforts above. This is no accident.

The above named authors and researchers are some of the best available, and I have read or viewed the work of almost all of them with great interest.

I am confident that more or less all of them hold sincere views on the need to "End the Fed", developed over years or decades of research.

I am confident that they are not knowingly participating in the "major, long term, well financed psyop" I refer to in this thread's title.

Rather, the choice of who gets the money, funding, support and publicity to proceed, and who gets blocked ... is made, on an ongoing basis, by others, more hidden (occult) and far more wealthy, than any of the above.

These authors and researchers are correct in criticizing the Federal Reserve, but (in my view) incorrect in understanding the fundamental role that a debt-based, elite controlled, monetary system has had and continues to have in controlling humanity, for many centuries, at least.

Consequently, these authors and researchers are not sufficiently articulate in opposing the "solution" that will be imposed on us next, after the present Petro-Dollar based, Federal Reserve centered, monetary system collapses ... that solution will combine:

• an even bigger, world-wide, system of monetary issuance, more opaquely controlled by the elite bastards, at the national and supranational levels, with
• a continuance of the debt based issuance of money at the lower levels, to individuals, businesses, and lower levels of government.

Rather these authors and researchers are being used, as part of a Hegelian Dialectic, to pave the way for the demonization and destruction of the US Federal Reserve, as part of the take down of the present US Dollar based global monetary system, to be replaced by the next monetary system.

[christian]

I think the solution is free-market money as explained by the Austrian School of Economics.

Arguably the definite classic about this was written by Ludwig von Mises.

The Theory of Money and Credit

Mises wrote this book for the ages, and it remains the most spirited, thorough, and scientifically rigorous treatise on money to ever appear. It made his reputation across Europe and established him as the most important economist of his age. […]

This classic treatise on monetary theory remains the definitive book on the foundations of monetary theory, and the first really great integration of microeconomics and macroeconomics. As Rothbard points out in his introduction to "the best book on money ever written," economists have yet to absorb all its lessons.

Mises shows how money had its origin in the market, and how its value is based on its usefulness as a commodity in exchange. In a step-by-step manner, Mises presents the case for sound money with no inflation, and presents the beginnings of a full-scale business cycle theory. This edition includes Mises's early blueprint, improved later in life, for a return to a fully backed gold standard and competitive banking.

Friedrich von Hayek was a later Austrian who also produced some useful writings about it.

A Free-Market Monetary System And The Pretense Of Knowledge

The book begins with Hayek's most excellent essay on money. It is also his most radical. He plainly says that central banks cannot be reformed. There can never be sound money so long as they are in charge. He calls for their complete abolition, no compromises accepted. He wants the market in charge of money from top to bottom.

His words predicting crisis followed by wild swings in valuation are up to the minute. He also relates the quality of money with the recurrence of crisis, showing an excellent application of Austrian theory.

Fortunately, many important "truthers" endorse Austrian economics. Ron Paul, the Thrive Movement, and many others.

It all boils down to, "Let's do away with violently imposed monopolies."

[T Smith]

Posted by christian (here)
I think the solution is free-market money as explained by the Austrian School of Economics.

Yes... I agree. That would be the solution for us serfs. But definitely not the solution for the interests controlling the dialectic.

[Snowflower]

I have been reading a not terribly well written book by Michael Tellinger, with what I suspect is a terribly important concept about money. Money did NOT have its origin in the market. There is no indigenous culture on the planet that developed the concept of money within its structure. No, cacao beans were not used as money. No, shells were not used as money. When people wanted to, they used those cacao beans to make chocolate and those shells to make a necklace. They were trade items, not "money."

Money was imposed from the top down: priest-Kings in Sumeria imposed it on the people. Suddenly they were no longer "slaves." They were free to come and go - oh but wait, all the food belonged to the king. So, if they wanted to eat, they had to have these clay tablets that the priests wrote on that said they had done work to earn food.

I've made a complete transition into the belief that money itself is what is evil. As long as money exists, there will be wealthy, poor, and starving to death categories of people. The only solution is a form of Contributionism, whether you call it the Venus Project,the Ubuntu Movement, or anything else.

[Carmody]

Yes, that is the entire idea of money:

The appearance or feel of freedom, for the uninformed and those who cannot encapsulate the requisite level of a data bubble or data volume (and then navigate it).

No matter where one is in such a system, they are still swimming hard (or less hard, milling about, sinking, and so on) toward a pile of non-existent crap.

The more difficult a problem is to solve, the more basic the mistake/error in the formulation of the question.

[robinr1]

The only solution is a form of Contributionism, whether you call it the Venus Project,the Ubuntu Movement, or anything else.



this doesn't work anymore than the system now works....what do you do when 90 percent of the folks who contribute ...don't want to share....force them to by gunpoint like the gov does? no thanks...the answer the no gov. not more government..also what do you do with the group of millions who wont contribute..

just want to be supported by the ones who contribute.

[Kindred]

I agree wholeheartedly with Snowflower in this...

According to the Thiaooubans, the greatest danger to humans is not physical death. The greatest dangers on Earth, in order of importance, are as follows:

1) Money and monetary systems
2) Politicians
3) Journalists and drugs
4) Religions

It's not that 'money' is evil... actually, there is no 'evil' in this world... just ignorance and distractions from what is important. It is what is done With money, and how it is used to manipulate both the individual and collective mind to act in certain negative ways. This influence then filters down into the other aspects in the list.

In Unity, Peace and Love

[T Smith]

Posted by Snowflower (here)
I have been reading a not terribly well written book by Michael Tellinger, with what I suspect is a terribly important concept about money. Money did NOT have its origin in the market. There is no indigenous culture on the planet that developed the concept of money within its structure. No, cacao beans were not used as money. No, shells were not used as money. When people wanted to, they used those cacao beans to make chocolate and those shells to make a necklace. They were trade items, not "money."

Money was imposed from the top down: priest-Kings in Sumeria imposed it on the people. Suddenly they were no longer "slaves." They were free to come and go - oh but wait, all the food belonged to the king. So, if they wanted to eat, they had to have these clay tablets that the priests wrote on that said they had done work to earn food.

I've made a complete transition into the belief that money itself is what is evil. As long as money exists, there will be wealthy, poor, and starving to death categories of people. The only solution is a form of Contributionism, whether you call it the Venus Project,the Ubuntu Movement, or anything else.

I prefer to think of money as how it is economically defined, as a means to exchange. Is there a better means to foster human cooperation than an arbitrary abstraction? Perhaps. And even likely. I'm not biased for a money paradigm, but I cannot reconcile with the idea that money itself is evil. In addition, using money as tool is also not evil. Rather, it's the seizing of control of money, and specifically creating an milieu where money is artificially scarce, that introduces the evil. This triggers and exacerbates a very base and unflattering nature of our species. In a sense, we are all in a petri dish here, folks. But this very same dynamic, what we call "evil" can be socially engineered into any human society and imposed on us no matter what system we employ as a means of cooperation.

We need to dig deeper than money. We need to look at how we are all controlled.... IMHO...

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by christian (here)
Arguably the definite classic about this was written by Ludwig von Mises.

The Theory of Money and Credit

That book can be obtained from Amazon in one of the better editions (the LvMI edition), well adapted to being read on a Kindle, for a mere $2.99: The Theory of Money and Credit (LvMI) by Ludwig von Mises

Reading economics texts written over a century ago in German, subsequently translated into English, is not exactly light reading. I'm only in the first chapter, and find my mind easily distracted when reading it, so I don't have an independent view of it yet, beyond ... yup ... Mises was a smart dude.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by christian (here)
Fortunately, many important "truthers" endorse Austrian economics. Ron Paul, the Thrive Movement, and many others.

Ken, over at Redefininggod.com, is making a very persuasive case that such Austrian economists are being groomed to take lead roles in the "next release" of "Money for Humans", to be instituted after the US Dollar Reserve system collapses and we become sufficiently fed up with the subsequent economic devastation to welcome this new world monetary order.

For example, yesterday, at Globalist Agenda Watch 2015: Update 14 – The coming BRICS gold standard, Ron Paul, and the Rockefellers, Ken wrote:

========

Also worth noting is that the article came from The Mises Institute. I’ve been noticing a lot of positive propaganda surrounding Ludwig von Mises and Austrian Economics, and this leads me to believe that the banksters will impose the Austrian model after the Transition.

========

Posted by christian (here)
It all boils down to, "Let's do away with violently imposed monopolies."

You sound like Stefan Molyneux

[Snowflower]

Robin, the only possible way to introduce and develop a moneyless system is in very small population groups. It can grow from small to large, but cannot be imposed from the top down. I live in a community of 18 people. We are planting a garden this summer. 16 people want to be involved. The other two will not receive a share of the food. No pressure to work, and they understand that means no food. I am the garden manager. I will be in charge of who plants, weeds, waters, harvests, distributes food. I will know who actually contributes. This is my passion, and I know I am setting myself up for more time than others. I volunteered. Children will be expected to contribute, but not as much as adults. If someone sluffs off entirely and just "can't" get out there and work, their share will be commensurate with the level of work done.

Now, if this works with the garden, maybe we can expand it into firewood collection. Or animal care and cost. If it doesn't work, we can't just say, oh that's just human failing. Instead, we need to examine what we actually did with the project and what we might change in the system next summer to try again. And again. And again until we figure it out.

One of the consequences of a world conquered by reptilian psychopaths from a different dimension, is the pervading perception of humans as self-serving psychopaths instead of cooperation toward mutual benefit which is the true nature of humans. Humans cooperate. Psychopaths compete. Down there at the very foundation of the psyche, this is probably one of the most important differences in the two.

If we assume the competitive nature of psychopaths to be a human trait, we take on all the rest of their qualities: lack of empathy, no conscience, no connection on an ethereal level (soul) to anything outside themselves. If we recognize the source of this complete lack (reptilian overlords) then we have hope to throw off these non-human shackles and begin recovery. Money, imposed from above, advances the proto-psychopathic regime (that means humans that take on the characteristics of a psychopath but do not carry the DNA structure of one). Money encourages the valuation of humans by "success standards" rather than something far more intrinsic: the right to live.

Now, the right to live carries with it two more concepts that seem to disappear in a money-driven culture: freedom and personal responsibility. I have the freedom to choose to live anywhere on the planet I desire, but that freedom carries with it the responsibility to accept the consequences of my choice. If I choose not to help grow, raise, hunt, trap, gather, or fish for food (or in today's culture, buy it), then I must also accept the responsibility for not having food. Another method of acquiring food while not actually working to get it directly, is to be contributing another service of value to a community, and receiving a share in the food as a result. I use the word "food," as more of a representation of anything and everything needed to make a community of people thrive in abundance thn the actual substance of edible material.

In a money-driven culture, both freedom and responsibility are subsumed under hierarchy, power, and control from others.

[Dennis Leahy]

First, the thanks button click is just not enough when a forum member puts together a forum post like the one that begins this thread. It doesn't even matter if I (or anyone else) agree with the premise, it still deserves kudos for what it is: an extremely well-presented and referenced big-picture analysis of the top-level money gambit. Outstanding, Paul!

Secondly, Paul's analysis makes perfect sense to me. The multi-generational, empire/family, international, banking warlords would never just leave the temple and take up carpentry work - they will always have a plan and strategy to remain in control. And, a fallback plan "B", and plan "C"...

I'm tempted to now launch into a tangential topic about which monetary system (if any) that I believe could work, and be fair for the general population of a country... but it is a tangent to this topic deserving its own thread, so I won't.

Dennis

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by christian (here)
I think the solution is free-market money as explained by the Austrian School of Economics.

Arguably the definite classic about this was written by Ludwig von Mises.

The Theory of Money and Credit

...

Mises shows how money had its origin in the market, and how its value is based on its usefulness as a commodity in exchange.

Posted by Snowflower (here)
I have been reading a not terribly well written book by Michael Tellinger, with what I suspect is a terribly important concept about money. Money did NOT have its origin in the market. There is no indigenous culture on the planet that developed the concept of money within its structure. No, cacao beans were not used as money. No, shells were not used as money. When people wanted to, they used those cacao beans to make chocolate and those shells to make a necklace. They were trade items, not "money."

Money was imposed from the top down: priest-Kings in Sumeria imposed it on the people. Suddenly they were no longer "slaves." They were free to come and go - oh but wait, all the food belonged to the king. So, if they wanted to eat, they had to have these clay tablets that the priests wrote on that said they had done work to earn food.

I've made a complete transition into the belief that money itself is what is evil. As long as money exists, there will be wealthy, poor, and starving to death categories of people. The only solution is a form of Contributionism, whether you call it the Venus Project,the Ubuntu Movement, or anything else.

That much of Mises, that money has its origins in the market, is in the first chapter that I've read already. It is a very popular explanation for the rise of money, as an increasingly generalized replacement for common barter. I agree with Tellinger that this explanation is likely false.

I would not however agree with Tellinger that, therefore, the only solution is some form of contributionism.

Rather I would recommend a layered approach. Once we get to the point where our human technology is sufficiently well advanced that the basics of food, clothing, shelter, energy, health care, transportation, and "information technology" can be economically provided to all humans, then I recommend:

1. an underlying layer that provides for these common needs, relying on some form of monetary system to impose a self-discipline on those markets, capital investments, and transactions,
2. while, at the same time, relying on a bazillion, small, specialized, contribution-based groups to create and share more interesting stuff, be it music, art, finer furniture, custom software or (as in the case right now on the Avalon forum) moderation and computer server administration of a web forum.

That actually how I have been, in essence, living my life for about 15 years now. In the last 7 or so years of my professional computer programming career, I was working almost exclusively on open source projects that happened to be worth my salary to my employer. That salary covered my living expenses, while my day to day life was focused on entirely voluntary and shared work, with others scattered about the world (France, Japan, ...) who happened to share the same interest I had in improving the management of Linux on massive (10's to 100's of thousands of CPUs) multi-processor systems.

And now for the last four years, I've been involved in another contribution effort ... supporting this forum ... and relying on my Social Security check to cover the basic needs.

The "contribution" model does work ... for the interesting stuff, while I anticipate that we will remain better off depending on a monetary system to handle the essentials, including my Internet connection, over which (so far, thankfully) my Internet Service Provider doesn't much care what I send (so long as they don't get complaints that I'm downloading stuff copyright protected by some big corporation.)

It is entirely fitting and proper, in my view, that I have a finite of some kind of money that I can choose to spend on nice food, faster computers, or art for my wall ... as I choose and as my budget allows. If I choose to have a half dozen working computers, but zero televisions ... that's my choice, but I don't get to have that 18 core Xeon core, 256 GByte RAM system that I lust after, for the simple reason that spending $20,000 on a computer is outside my budget. Money works, to throttle such flows of goods and services, while potentially leaving control in the hands of individuals and businesses, within those limits.

That said ... centralizing the control of the issuance of money to any human controllable bank or institution has been a huge problem for humanity for a long, long time, and I am afraid will remain so. I do not endorse that.

[Zanshin]

Pardon me for being simplistic - would not the removal of usury and fractional reserve lending be a good start?
[as espoused by many of the writers Paul has listed}

I believe the practice of usury was once a hangable offense - now it's so ingrained in 'fiscal policy' it has become
the elephant in the room when viable alternatives are debated.

Of course limited corporate charters would make sense also - ie: disband the incorporated structure once the
bridge over the river was complete.
The road to the next town? > New project - new charter.

Of course the mill/indust. complex Ike warned everyone of, is such a behemoth now it would take some disbanding.
Not to mention the grossly overpaid swathe of paper traders suckling at the teat of the usurious sow.(or should that be goat?)

[Snowflower]

Nah. Goats are way nicer than pigs. I have both. Both stink, but pigs stink worse.

[mgray]

As a larger and larger percentage of the US population receive federal government payments -- many in the form of digital currencies such as debit cards -- the idea of moving to an alt system outside of centralized control appears more difficult.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Zanshin (here)
Pardon me for being simplistic - would not the removal of usury and fractional reserve lending be a good start?
[as espoused by many of the writers Paul has listed}

Debt based monetary systems are a bitch - yes. And we ordinary humans get to be the elite bastards bitches, thanks to the use of such by the elite to control humanity.

I tend to focus my "how can I make it better" thinking time on those areas where I sense I have a decent chance of having an impact. I don't get that sense with the world monetary system.

However I do get the sense that by understanding what's going down, I can help myself and those with whom I share insights to improve our own lots in life, even if we can't fix the planet.

So I continue, as I have pretty much all my life, spending most of my effort on figuring out what's really going on, and less often making a move, when I see an opportunity.

As to whether debt is necessarily harmful ... I don't think it is so. If I loan you $5 for lunch, and you pay me back $6 the next day, by mutual agreement, then I see no harm done.

It is the use of debt to control the creation of money, in economies dependent on money, that is a major control mechanism of the elite bastards over humanity. Eventually, we ordinary humans end up owing our entire productivity to the elite (debt and taxes, as the saying goes), and "our children are waking up homeless on the continent their forefathers conquered."

Thomas Jefferson once said:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

What matters more, in my view, is not the mechanism of interest payments on lent money (harmless in small amounts in my view), but rather the control by the private banks of the issuance of essentially all our money, which they do by lending it into existence.

The banksters do not just print money. That would be less dangerous. Rather they exchange (1) money now for (2) either future income streams or loss/foreclosure/impounding/privitization of collateral/security later.

However they use their control of the money issuance to always negotiate (2) to be bigger than (1), so we end up with the entire economy, from the impoverished individual to the very largest corporation or nation, and all individuals, businesses and governments in between, all deeply in debt, owing more to the banks than they could ever possibly pay off, forfeiting their land, resources, capital equipment, public institutions, and future income streams to make debt and tax (your government's debt) payments.

The amount of physical goods and services committed to be paid back in the future grows exponentially, until the entire planet could not satisfy the promised payments (the present situation, pretty much.)

That which cannot grow exponentially forever ... won't ... as humanity is about to observe.

[Snowflower]

Paul's key phrase, "lending money into existence" is vitally important to the whole mess. The very fact that "they" create money from nothing and then use it to get from us things that exist - that is what's behind the "greatest wealth transfer in recorded history," which is how the 2008 crash has been described.

At the very least, if money is going to exist at all, it should at least exist. No one: no company, government, or entity, should be able to magically bring it into existence with fancy words like, "fractional reserve banking."

¤=[Post Update]=¤

It would help my life a great deal if that collapse were to happen sooner rather than later, as long as it takes county govt down with it!

[wnlight]

So, what should the average, debt-slaved, American worker do? Voting does not help because the ballot box is broken. Can these people do what I did? Work my way out of debt by controlling my spending? Before I left the states to become an expat in Ecuador, I owned a nice house and two cars and was debt-free. This accomplishment was very difficult.

[christian]

Posted by Snowflower (here)
Money did NOT have its origin in the market. There is no indigenous culture on the planet that developed the concept of money within its structure.

If there was no money, I'd invent it. Whoever had that idea had a useful idea, I'd say. It's a means of exchange.

The only scenario in which money would be useless would be when there's enough social capital and knowledge so that people would voluntarily produce, take, and give in perfect moderation. You would have to have an enlightened society (or a very small group with strong shared values). Or you would enforce it at gunpoint. I think using money is a good and realistic option for now…

By the way, here's what Wikipedia says about money: "Anatolian obsidian as a raw material for stone-age tools was distributed as early as 12,000 B.C., with organized trade occurring in the 9th millennium." That was way before Sumeria. I'd strongly assume that people would come up with a means of exchange by themselves, seems like perfectly natural common sense action.

Posted by robinr1 (here)
The only solution is a form of Contributionism, whether you call it the Venus Project,the Ubuntu Movement, or anything else. […] just want to be supported by the ones who contribute.

Does that imply the absence of money? Or does it mean voluntary exchanges on the market?

Posted by Paul (here)
Ken, over at Redefininggod.com, is making a very persuasive case that such Austrian economists are being groomed to take lead roles in the "next release" of "Money for Humans", to be instituted after the US Dollar Reserve system collapses and we become sufficiently fed up with the subsequent economic devastation to welcome this new world monetary order.

Doesn't really make sense to me that the 'elite' would want free-market money. The only tangent which I would find conceivable in this regard is that in face of the avalanche coming from the masses in the information age, the 'elite' wants to do damage control. That would be introducing free-market money while shifting the focus from how many of the 'elite' got their wealth in the first place. This is something that many Austrians miss, in my opinion. They want the total free market, which is a good thing, but in order to start this you have to process how the property situation on the planet came about. Otherwise psychopaths and criminals have a huge unfair advantage from the start.

Posted by Paul (here)

Posted by christian (here)
It all boils down to, "Let's do away with violently imposed monopolies."

You sound like Stefan Molyneux

Like any straight Austrian, Anarchist, Libertarian, Voluntaryist, I'd say…

Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)
I'm tempted to now launch into a tangential topic about which monetary system (if any) that I believe could work, and be fair for the general population of a country...

One essential idea of Austrian Economics is that one person (or a party, government, etc) always has an information deficit against the market participants. That's why they say you're free to have your ideas about what could work, but you may always only suggest it as an offer on the free market. People will either see it as useful or not, they will accept it or not. No force ever.

Posted by Paul (here)
I would recommend a layered approach. Once we get to the point where our human technology is sufficiently well advanced that the basics of food, clothing, shelter, energy, health care, transportation, and "information technology" can be economically provided to all humans, then I recommend:

1. an underlying layer that provides for these common needs, relying on some form of monetary system to impose a self-discipline on those markets, capital investments, and transactions,
2. while, at the same time, relying on a bazillion, small, specialized, contribution-based groups to create and share more interesting stuff, be it music, art, finer furniture, custom software or (as in the case right now on the Avalon forum) moderation and computer server administration of a web forum.

I'd contend we can provide all necessities already. The root of the problem why it doesn't work is complacency within the general population and cunning force by psychopaths. Holding them accountable and establishing a true free market with empowered participants is all it takes to optimize the flow of goods and services, I'd reckon.

Posted by Paul (here)
And now for the last four years, I've been involved in another contribution effort ... supporting this forum ... and relying on my Social Security check to cover the basic needs.

The "contribution" model does work ...

That's not exactly how Contributionism works, though. What you get through social security is not voluntarily given to you, it's collected and handed out through force.

Posted by Snowflower (here)
No one: no company, government, or entity, should be able to magically bring it into existence with fancy words like, "fractional reserve banking."

How about: Everyone should be able to magically bring it into existence!

But no one should be forced to use it.

The Fed could print fiat money all day in a free-market money system. Nobody would want to use it, nobody would use it. Only as toilet paper, maybe…

Posted by wnlight (here)
So, what should the average, debt-slaved, American worker do? Voting does not help because the ballot box is broken.

Fix what you can fix in the short run and hope for the best in the long run. It's pragmatic, it's tedious… It's the only thing that realistically makes sense in my reckoning.

---

One final thought: I think a major obstacle to the transition to an actual free market is the lack of imagination of people who can't see how well a market could work without government regulation and intervention. They say, "How could you organize this and that, how could you pay for this and that?" Many people just can't seem to imagine what a heavy load would be off their backs when a government would be gone. No compulsory anything. Can people imagine that?