Look who's talking about it now

Very good of Bruce Hearns to take this topic up. As it enfolds so many deeper issues it is one of the "greenest" of all.

"an agreed medium of exchange to obviate the problems of direct barter"

In long debate with someone I still came away insisting that money as measure of value logically precedes or at least is at the same logically primary level as means of exchange. Without reliable measure (say, by unpublicized inflation or misleading publicized figures), the means can still function for a time but will be eventually destroyed as viable, so it is means of exchange in derivative & degrading fashion only. Store of value is not to be mistaken for measure, the former probably to be mostly discouraged. Encouragement of circulation need also not be via inflation inducement, but can be by set periodic devaluation. Anyway, so much to discuss & at least bring out in a public hopefully politically influential forum. [I wrote that too hastily before seeing that Bruce competently goes on to discuss these things similarly. Good to mention Erich J.-H. as well, who to my eye has shown particular promising ability to consider & develop these matters & should be encouraged.]

"missing in his explanation"

He does admit he's new to considering this most central of "drab, boring topics".

"what 'backs' the value of the scrip is the labour that goes into it"

Labour-based "time dollars", for example, are at work in many places, unfortunately still restricted to too few concerns, but highly useful to study. Errors, even big ones, are sure to abound as humans devise means of exchange. But the circumscribing of these efforts, in a very "green" approach to major relocalization, ideally with central enabling government symbolic, educative (to prevent "in errore perseverare"), and dispute resolution support, such limiting diminishes risk of wider disruption, & even catastrophe, the slide towards which many believe is underway. Remember Schumacher's seminal "small is beautiful"? To what purpose necessarily writing in locally met concerns into a centrally controlled & secretive financial network, if not to foster certain power & control of those situated at the centre? Again, errors in judgement are expected to abound, and for a quick one consider the Social Credit movement as it has been allied to some vile anti-semitism. Yet that does not mean that aspects of Social Credit's approach are to be wholly rejected. To stay with that example, Alberta politics as it has been largely driven by peculiar antipathy to that faraway centralization, is it wrong in that, insofar as it seeks localized redress? But delusions regarding the bases of their own economic well-being allow their political slide into exploitive hands. Back in the UFA & SC heydey, according to good analysis in a book recommended at one of the links above, the Albertan economy largely as it was reliant on "independent" commodity producers were deluded about the degree of their independence in so many ways. The very arrangement & nature of their predominant livelihoods encouraged healthy opposition to centralized financial exploitation, but natural yet unlearned & wrongful extrapolation from that led to short-lived political experimentation. The legacy of that time lives on in Alberta-driven politics today, even as it in part drives our current unfortunate national government. The latest major delusions include those about oilsand reliance.

"confuse it with real wealth"

As in "store of value".

"borrow our national debt against the Bank of Canada"

It has been irresistible for politicians in the generally degraded situation to go private. Taxes paid by banks must be factored in, as well any arguable claim made about increased competence at wealth-generation in private hands, but there is no escaping that politicians see something of an escape from responsibility if they can point to private failings instead of their own. There is much darker motivation to self-preservation as well (as in avoidance of political self-destruction by organized marginalization or removal, to the point even of political assassinations of US presidents deigning to interfere in this privatization ...).

"wealthiest 8% own just over half the wealth in Canada, yet account for only 23% of tax revenues"

And then there's financial "offshoring" to escape taxation. Even Diane Francis in a recent book quotes some of Canada's richest as decrying these practices.

See a well-written piece on banks' influence in Canada & political consequence, "Bank Power in Canada", in which particular attention should be paid to just how the financial deregulation was passed in Parliament.

Lietaer's book notes the corporate need for alternate financing via barter & their own networks.

There are other ways as well of limitation to explore. Look now at what is being said (by a very competent writer) in The Telegraph right around when The Guardian published Monbiot's bit: "Biblical debt jubilee may be the only answer"! The scholarly of work Michael Hudson, mentioned regularly by myself, has taken him to search archaeology & early even pre-biblical history for theory about appropriate financial & economic arrangement. Note his appointment to Kucinich's campaign as advisor, & his focus on "land tax" as well.

These are just some hurried notes I am moved to jot down to spur further discussion. Sorry in my haste not more coherent at this point, but I hope suggestive nonetheless.

"You are prolific."

You be prolific, too! Here can be set the stage for a developing politcial future, with or without seats in Parliament.