“Zero Money”: First Principles Thinking About Monetary Value

Change the Money, Change the World (4)

Preamble (Paragraphs 13 to 18 of 18) An economic paradigm shift

We need to set a course for a revolutionary paradigmatic shift for monetary governance. A course of discovery for building a new world, a true world. This is the internet age, a new register of human cultural history. It is linked on an upward spiral from registers of the enlightenment and the renaissance. These registers encompass paradigm shifts from our assumption of the heliocentric worldview to our present unlimited information access. Scientific revolutions have traversed classical physics to general relativity theory, to quantum mechanics. Technology has accelerated geometrically in application of mathematics and engineering. Now, computation and encryption has offered blockchain technology already suggesting possibilities for an economic paradigm shift through the evolution of technologically scarce monetary mediums. This evolution of new monetary mediums is moving to mass adoption as statistically significant numbers of individuals and financial institutions conclude that it can complement and surpass gold as a store of value. Gold reserves are in centralized control of governments, a major problem previously discussed. Fortunately decentralizing gold reserves ownership is not a necessity. Another world is possible.

I will clarify how it is the case that an internet based blockchain of encrypted transaction information is an immutable sovereign unit of account, free from the possibility of bad governance. The dollar was at one time a paper representation redeemable for gold as an identical unit of account. It remained sound money while enhancing portability and divisibility of gold in storage. In effect the dollar was “paper gold”, as tokens 1:1 to physical gold. Now, digital currencies may be sound tokens provided they are coupled to a sound medium. One thing is certain, when we hold in our own hand a true, immutable sovereign unit of account we participate in that sovereignty free from the control of other individuals and parties. This manifestation of the idea of “Zero Money” leads to positive outcomes provided we do not revert to abdicating that personal relationship to sovereign value. We must never abdicate to the degrading behavior of others, or our own inclination to centralize control of the medium of exchange.

It is not enough to simply realize oneself the necessity for a revolutionary paradigmatic shift for monetary governance, nor is it enough to take personal control and responsibility for the preservation of our own wealth. That might suffice to get ourselves into a gated community in the shorter run, but a true world would encompass the total human family. Even though I can personally move quickly towards a new paradigm, we live in a world dominated by an economic policy legacy entrenched in powerful and rich institutions of banking, government fiscal authority and private entities such as corporations and the Federal Central Bank. There is no choice but to accept that this will continue for some unknown period, but it should continue with fewer and fewer of us granting allegiance to it, especially unknowingly. Then, more and more of us need to be innovative in changing the money for an alternative monetary paradigm that is now only in its nascent stage.

A massive program of cultural deprogramming is needed for a critical mass of wealthy enough people realizing the systemic failure of the current paradigm, and then adopting the one that is needed. Not everyone has the financial resources at this time to invest in a new way of storing monetary value. “Realizing” is knowledge that systemic failure is not just about what that system has done historically, but also grasping that the technological revolution itself is a deflationary force that will destroy even the most unimaginable money printing solution the legacy paradigm can employ. Going forward from that awakening is the need to create transitional political and financial bridges targeting a completely novel monetary system. Creating allegiance to the new paradigm needs continued definition of it, while ensuring its disruption can be managed through phasing out the debasing fiat currency. Is it not likely pan-national political movements will need to emerge to resist the combinations of centralized political and central bank regimes? This is already happening too, as will be discussed.

The transition is occurring, but it is occurring in a context of great social divisions. The oligarchical powers are circling the wagons and deploying police and the military. Populist extremists are sharpening the guillotines. Racist, ethnic, nationalistic, religious and other fragmentation is being exploited by demagogues exaggerating as to how much those divisions are causes for economic disparity. A focus on, and intelligent consideration for fixing the money could do far more for fixing the world, instead of leaving the job to the hubris of the greedy and/or stupid. It is very difficult or not impossible for any individual to do much about this false world of centralized monetary control as a whole. Something however has changed about the possibilities of what we can collectively do with our own personal store of value by investing in digital monetary assets. Some of us are lucky enough to be between the masses living hand to mouth and the category of individuals with massive stores of wealth. We are also now in the early 2020s seeing large allocations of fiat cash for purchase of digital monetary assets by billionaires, and individuals running hedge funds on behalf of investors. These are another class of pioneers.

I hope this essay can add one more voice among many others sounding yet faintly from the future, all saying we are on the verge of a massive historical social, political and financial sea change. Enough people are beginning to listen and take action by shifting away from chasing an ever receding fiat dollar. This will be a peaceful revolution creating an abundant egalitarian future. The initiating event happened with the innovation of the technological medium of money. There will be a struggle of allegiance to this event by a dedicated minority for a period of transition to a future point of mass adoption of a new financial paradigm.

Change the Money (1) Preamble — Monetary value true by nature

Change the Money (3) Preamble — Choices of action rooted in hubris

Change the Money (5) Introduction (1) — Zero Money & First Principles