Int'l

by Francis Harris

Created on: September 16, 2011

While ordinary citizens from different nations across the globe have the illusion that their nation has its own currency - yens, pounds, dollars, yuan, franks and so on - in the world of international trade, central banks and governments nothing could be further from the truth. There is already a common "reserve" currency" - an anchor currency - in which major trading is done and for all intents and purposes this is an "international currency" for the major world powers.

This international currency is used by governments and wealthy international organizations to purchase commodities like oil and gold. Prices for these commodities are even quoted in the reserve currency. For the latter part of the 20th century the US dollar has been the global reserve currency. Prior to that the British pound was a dominant world player, going back to the gold and "pieces of eight" and Greek drachma of more ancient times.

While the elite already have an "international currency" should ordinary citizens have one? Unless you want to maintain the status quo of an imbalanced world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer the only answer you can give is "yes". There should be a single currency for everyone. Why?

1. The need to eliminate profit from changing money. In the final days of his life Jesus drove money changers from the temple. The money changers made profits from visitors selling them "temple currency", a special money that could be used within the temple to buy animal sacrifices, taking their foreign currency. The exchange rate would vary and during peak times the money changers would make great profits from poor pilgrims simply seeking to worship. The money changers changed the temple from a house of prayer into a market place so that they could increase their profit.

Today across the world ordinary people are still at the mercy of exchange rates set by the powerful. Whether ordinary people want to trade or travel or something else it is the money changers who win. An international currency for all would eliminate the false profits that can be made from exploiting people's need to live and move in different parts of the same planet.

2. The need to level the marketplace. The two tiered world where the rich and powerful have assets in the international "reserve currency" and ordinary people do not means that the marketplace is uneven. The reserve currency allows banks, governments and major organizations to pick the time of optimum trade deals using the mutually understood international reserve currency for purchasing the commodity. If demand for the commodity increases, so does the exchange rate of the reserve currency, making it impossible for ordinary people to purchase significant assets in the reserve currency hence the commodity, like oil.

The two tiered world where ordinary people do not use the same "reserve currency" that the powerful entities do means that everyday life is forever limited. Only the already rich and powerful can perform any significant world trade. A single international currency for all would help to level the marketplace and prevent rich organizations getting even richer while the poor get poorer.

3. The need to ground "wealth" in tangible reality. An international currency would ultimately help all of humanity to ground the concept of wealth in a tangible reality - like a mineral or resource, air or water, that the planet has. Currently wealth is a very abstract notion that is related to pieces of paper that banks print and which powerful people buy and sell to do trades for commodities. Sometimes economies experience turmoil and there is inflationary chaos for local currencies. In extreme cases the prices of everyday items slips to thousands and millions of the local currency or incredible debts mount up that are all "artificial" creations derived from the pieces of paper themselves.

Many problems emerge from the idea of limitless wealth that is not grounded in the reality of finite resources in a finite world. An international currency for all would help return the concept of wealth to the actual things that people need and would trade, rather than the pieces of paper used to represent the things people need, and the foreign asset portfolios that companies and governments buid in huge reserves from buying and selling currencies, not real things.

An international currency for all would further help shift the world away from pieces of paper representing wealth towards tangible realities - like the actual commodities themselves. More and more governments are including vouchers - food and clothing and education etc. - in social security payments to help people spend the money on the proper things. It is the first step towards grounding the idea of "wealth" in a tangible reality, especially something that is needed.

With an international currency for all people may not return to primitive society trading eggs for fruit and spare clothes for transport but we would all gain a greater sense of "reality" about the limits to the "wealth" of planet earth and make more sensible decisions with its management once we have eliminated the unreal idea that there is a limitless possibility to getting rich.

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