Interest rates are never a trivial issue.
First, let me state that I don't trust government. It's modern form is a system of power that's outlived its current Constitutional form's feudal birth. Historical "democracies", including our own, built their societies on authority asserted by violence in the form of land expropriation, tribute, slavery, and legal tender. Government provides violence to enforce injustice at the tip of the pen and the sword. The unjust assertion of absolute authority over any geographical area is how the concept of property, something that is "one's own", has been applied to the Earth. Why would I want to grant this system, of telling people what to do and who they have to pay, a money monopoly? It is a guarantee of the suppression of credit to the benefit of the usurious.
I support a negative interest rate policy because credit is the just basis of value in a money, not the right to demand it in return as rent. The lower the interest rate, the easier it is for people to pay back their loans, increasing the likelihood of them being paid back, especially as they can earn more credit by developing a history of good credit.
Meanwhile, since I can't pretend that the State will disappear tomorrow, the negative interest idea is currently working in Switzerland. "Its central bank on Thursday left its key policy rate at minus 0.75% despite what a government report has called a “booming” economy... the SNB said Swiss gross domestic product should grow between 2.5% and 3% this year. However, it reduced its inflation forecast for 2020 to 1.2% from 1.6%."
The policy is doing exactly what Gesell said it would do when he suggested it as part of his Natural Economic Order. Easy credit, stable prices. The other component of his just society was Georgism, sharing our Earth.
Why are we so against negative interest as an idea? The modern dogma of time-preference, that people deserve and must have "more" in currency than what they lend, is divorced from the consumable goods we all desire and use the most. Why can't we see we're making a bet on society with a money that decays? It is a bet that our cooperation will provide them more value in the future. That seems as fair as money could be to me. It turns it into something that is good to acquire, spend, and invest in your neighbors rather than to simply accumulate and earn interest upon.
One of the loveliest outcomes of the idea to me is that it makes you see clearly that the truly safest way to save is by investing in your community. Legal tender gives someone control of the money supply, creating confusion on the issue of usury through policy and its resulting inflation and deflation.
A stable currency and cheap credit would be best for laborers as it enables them to maximize experience of wealth by maximizing their purchasing power. That's why I support it, even if I'd have to settle for it in the form of central bank for now.
Comments
Post a Comment