If you want money more than anything, you will be bought and sold. If you have a greed for food, you will become a loaf of bread. This is a subtle truth. Whatever you love, you are.
(Rumi)
Money is an illusion, an invention, an abstraction. It represents a promise and by honouring such promise, we pledge our blind trust, faith and submission to the government that issues that currency and gives same its value.
Money was created as an ingenious, simple and convenient method to handle exchanges of goods and services. Money ceased to serve its purpose, it no longer is what it was supposed to be, nor does what it was conceived to do.
It is time to give money back its meaning as a facilitator of trade, and build again credibility on its value.
We must prepare to transition into a new system of money whose value is given by Nature by adopting a Nature standard, in anticipation of the imminent collapse of money as the illusion it has become.
Money for Trade
Money was invented by humans as a revolutionary and astute creation that permitted to go from a trading system that was limited to swapping goods to a system that facilitated trade by using a reference, what we would call generally money, or when referring to money accepted in a certain area, currency.
Therefore, humans agreed to determine a value to a currency, normally a material that was rare, durable and easy to standardise, such as beads, shells or metal coins. Such currency would be used to set a price for goods and permit to use such currency to buy and trade goods.
The Gold Standard
Eventually, precious metals were widely used as currencies, what is also called as "commodity money", that is, money represented by metal coins (or jewels or other material) with an intrinsic value.
And that takes us to the gold standard that means quite literally that money was made out of gold coins or eventually, that was represented by paper money or a currency backed-up with gold reserves.
The gold standard permitted to build confidence over money as it was backed-up by a gold reserve and also limited the ability of governments to create money artificially, that is, without having a gold reserve to back-up any such money.
The foregoing shaped our civilisation around gold, as the governments required gold to be able to have more money.
As the world economy expanded, more and more gold was needed to keep up with the increasing amounts of economic transactions which required money.
Fiat Money
The link between money and gold was completely broken in the 1970s, and now money is not backed up by gold or any other commodity.
Money has no intrinsic value, nor is backed-up with any commodity, its value solely resides in the promises that governments and people make to each other and our trust in those promises.
This system currently in place, also called fiat money is that in which money is valuable just because the government says it is.
Today almost all our money is something that would otherwise be useless. Yes, that is right, the value of our money is based solely on trust. We give money value by agreeing to use it and treat it as valuable. Otherwise, it’d just be metal, paper, and numbers on a page.
As long as everyone plays along, money is accepted to be valuable, and can be used regularly to buy and sell things.
This means the value of fiat money comes primarily from the trust we have in the institutions issuing and upholding it.
With a fiat currency it’s fairly easy for governments to print more money whenever they want.
The US Dollar bills bear the legend "In God We Trust" and money's value is based on trust, the same trust we place on God is the one that we place on a US Dollars, there is no difference whatsoever. How could it be so?
In Nature we Trust
It is time to give money the meaning it used to have, one of the most dreadful consequences of moving from the gold standard to the fiat system that is currently being used throughout the world is that money has become not a mean but the end.
When the restrictions to the creation of money were lifted, we sealed our inexorable path to extinction by living under the illusion that natural resources from our planet were unlimited, which they are not.
Everything we consume comes from what nature provides us "for free", the system of creating value and pursuing monetary gains from exploiting what was given us for free is not only unethical, but also criminal. We are making a profit out of something that we receive gratuitously. The foregoing has created a terrible imbalance that we owe as humanity to nature. We have no option but to use money for the purpose it was created and limit the circulation of money by setting-up again a standard, in this case, I propose to implement a Nature standard.
The current state of affairs is showing us all the extent to which a system led and measured by the false concept of generation of money as an equivalent measure to that of wealth and prosperity is broken and failed.
My trust in the value that governments give to money has not only been damaged, but completely severed. The veil covering my eyes was lifted, I wondered the value of money, that to which we all are so attached; and why would it be so, when money actually has no value whatsoever, it is just an illusion in which we all have agreed to be a part of.
I still believe that currencies facilitate the exchange of goods and services, and help facilitate to maintain a balance between those that provide a service or create a good and those that receive the service or use a good, and for that reason, I believe that we must do something to give money back the credibility that it no longer has.
It is time to make a wrong wright and reconnect with nature by creating and incorporating a Nature standard supporting the monetary system, a standard that values money in general and currencies in particular, based on the preservation of nature in its natural state, in which the value of all activities and services rendered is based on these being produced or given without damaging nature, our own nature, that of other beings and in general nature itself.
By incorporating a Nature standard, it shall be a precondition to the feasibility and viability of any venture that it not only refrains from doing any harm to nature, and hence prevents us from continue harming ourselves, but also that they contribute to the protection and preservation of our habitat in a manner such that all us inhabitants of this planet live our lives pursuing something different than economic gratification, but rather: personal realisation, a much rewarding goal to pursue in our lives.
It may be harder, but there is nothing more satisfactory and constructive to us all than be happy with ourselves and with our lives, not because of what we have, but rather, because of who we are.
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature
(Socrates)
By determining the value of money and currency based on conservation of nature, we will be realigning our personal objectives and goals with those of the collective; starting by reconnecting with nature, and basing the value of our exchanges, trade and services to the higher value of the conservation of the whole, contributing to balancing personal and collective development and creating benefits to everything and everyone coexisting in this planet as part of a whole.
Let us imagine a world in which no one has to worry about money, no one pursues money as a goal, as an objective, a world and a system in which your wealth is measured on the manner in which you have preserved nature, and preservation of nature begins by being self-sufficient, taking care of yourself and of all those that cannot take care of themselves; by creating self-sustainable and self-sufficient communities that are not only resilient, but interconnected.
We are nowadays starting to experience what it feels like living this way and we know that this is the way to live by being, rather than doing.
By adopting the Nature standard and giving money its true meaning and purpose, we will contribute to build a new present with a future.
We are all one.
I believe so
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