--> Bill, didn't the Aberhart government try to have a 'ticket system' similar to what you're describing? Wasn't there some problems with its acceptance by merchants? ----------
The Social Credit government issued stamp scrip notes called "Prosperity Certificates." See the attached photocopy also archived at http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium . I think their biggest problem--apart from the fact they were based on Silvio Gesell's harebrained idea of "disappearing money"--was that the banks wouldn't accept them for deposit or in payment of debt to the banks. I think the federal authorities prohibited the Alberta government from accepting them in payment of taxes. They nevertheless did circulate somewhat in facilitation of trade, as should be evident from the visible wear and tear to the note in the photograph. It is definitely not in "mint" condition. -- --> I realize the conditions were very different then, and a massive propaganda effort was being waged against Social Credit and its entire viability. And I'm not saying such a set-up wouldn't, or couldn't work. It may work very well indeed nowadays. ---------- Douglas's ticket metaphor describes the system as it presently exists and has existed for many years. This is from his "King of Norway" address archived at http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium : "The modern economic production system is not a system of individual production and exchange of production between individuals. It is more and more the synthetic assembly, in a central pool, of wealth consisting of goods and services which are preponderantly due to the use of power, to modern scientific processes and all sorts of organisations and other constituent contributions of each one of us which will occur to you. The problem is not to exchange the constituent contributions of each one of us to that central pool, because in fact our contribution to that central pool, in the ordinary sense of tangible economic things, is becoming smaller and smaller. "The correct picture - the incontestably exact picture of the modern production system - is, to my mind, based upon a kind of typewriter with a decreasing number of operators who are tapping the keys, and, by tapping these keys, fewer and fewer operators can produce all that we require. Through the power of the sun (oil power, steam power and so forth consist of what is generalised as solar energy) the so-called curse of Adam is being transferred from the backs of men to machines, so that a small number of persons operating on this machine of industrial "production", can produce all that is required for the use of the population. And the problem is not to exchange between the number of the population, who are less and less required to push keys, but it is to draw from this central pool of wealth by means of what can be visualised as a ticket system." -- --> And possibly overcome the problems you alluded to as the 'two-jobs'. But I wonder if there might be some problems, too? Would having two types of 'money' cause the more universally acceptable type to still end up going where we were trying to prevent it from going? <-- --------- "Gresham's Law" which applies to the extent money remains a "medium of exchange" with perceived commodity or quasi-commodity value "intrinsic" to its nature. To the extent money is a ticket the law does not apply. Food stamps merely clear back to the account of the issuing authority. ____________________________________________________________ Get advanced SPAM filtering on Webmail or POP Mail ... Get Lycos Mail! http://login.mail.lycos.com/r/referral?aid=27005 --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84IaC.bcVIgP.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html --^----------------------------------------------------------------
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