Registered: Oct 2003
Posts: 15

Abraham Lincoln had greenbacks issued as money to fight the Civil War. If he had failed to do it, he may not have had enough money for men and arms; and the money he might have borrowed (instead of using greenbacks) would have cost taxpayers a lot of interest.

Behind his decision (to take this radical step) are profound thoughts about money. These are reprinted immediately below. The authenticity of Lincoln's authorship is not certain; so we must judge the advice on the facts and logic it offers -- and on the undeniable fact that greenbacks were used to pay for much of the war. They helped to end slavery -- and, in my opinion, would today help (in partnership with democracy, free enterprise and productive systems) to end unemployment, wage slavery, poverty and pollution, everywhere in the world.

The issue, in terms of number, boils down to preventing inflation and deflation while augmenting money provided by central banks. NKS has a profound affinity to problems of this nature.

Science, itself, is blamed for its amoral application in war and business competition. Certainly economics is blamed for its amoral application in global trade.

NKS would empower more people to become proficient in math and science. Although more people may not always mean a more moral society, more people with more proficiency in math and science are less likely to be fooled by immoral other people.

One can imagine leaders in commercial computing, like Wolfram Science, embracing Lincoln's advice and creating the ways and means for parliaments to finance strategic national programs that kept up with industrial output, paid to protect environmental and social goals and values, and enriched ordinary people who are today so easily coopted to increase their own financial insecurity.

Lincoln's advice and greenbacks would not complete the end of history. But they might delay the day of that literal event.

Lincoln's advice:

Money is the creature of law, and the creation of the original issue of money should be maintained as the exclusive monopoly of national government. Money possesses no value to the state other than that given to it by circulation.

Capital has its proper place and is entitled to every
protection. But the wages of men should be recognized in the structure of and in the social order as more important than the wages of money.

No duty is more imperative for the government than the duty it owes the people to furnish them with a sound and uniform currency, and of regulating the circulation of the medium of exchange so that labour will be protected from a vicious currency, and commerce will be facilitated by cheap and safe exchanges.

The available supply of gold and silver being wholly inadequate to permit the issuance of coins of intrinsic value or paper currency convertible into coin in the volume required to serve the needs of the People, some other basis for the issue of currency must be developed, and some means other than that of convertibility into coin must be developed to prevent undue fluctuation in the value of paper currency or any other substitute for money of intrinsic value that may come into use.

The monetary needs of increasing numbers of people advancing towards higher standards of living can and should be met by the government. Such needs can be met by the issue of national currency and credit through the operation of a national banking system.

The circulation of a medium of exchange issued and backed by the government can be properly regulated and redundancy of issue avoided by withdrawing from circulation such amounts as may be necessary by taxation, re-deposit and otherwise.

Government has the power to regulate the currency and credit of the nation. Government should stand behind its currency and credit and the bank deposits of the nation. No individual should suffer a loss of money through depreciation or inflated currency or Bank bankruptcy.

Government, possessing the power to create and issue currency and credit as money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by taxation and otherwise, need not and should not borrow capital at interest as a means of financing government work and public enterprise.

The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying owner of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity.

By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts, and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government.

Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.

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Last edited by John Gelles on 10-24-2003 at 02:23 AM

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Registered: Oct 2003
Posts: 15

It is possible to interpret this thread's first message as an attempt to market crank ideas for funny money. So I have removed website references in it (and will remove any other that may still be in my profile or signature.)

Still, the content of the first (and even this) messge may remain misunderstood. There is no doubt that when Lincoln said that "some other basis for the issue of currency must be developed", he was NOT aware of computer
programs or defined recursive functions
that might help to guide such issuance.

Moreover, there is no doubt that our evolved money, similar to our evolved mathematical techniques and literature, has staying power and a record of major achievement.

So why would someone, like me, challenge our evolved monetary system of private and public production? Is it for fame or fortune? Or is it to satisfy an obsession? I claim it is not these. Rather I suggest sometyhing else:

Could it really be that that a minor change, to add lawmakers' interest-free money to central bank money, could actually make a difference? That it could tip the system from fostering unemployment and individual insecurity to something more likely to accept exponential growth in output (like of CD's loaded with Mathematica and NKS) without lowering price or reflecting diminishing returns ahead of the time when all who need the CD's have them?

If it could, that is my motive. If it can't that is still my motive.

Possibly money cannot perform this complex task. Perhaps if Lincoln and Wolfram and others were holed up for a year to try to make the system tip they would come up with nothing.

I have no desire to beat this matter to death on the NKS forum. The forum has other fish to fry.

But it would be worth a lot of effort to have found a proper category for a project that turned computation loose to do the job that evolved money fails to do: to halt economic contraction that global trade invites just when supply of necessities seems to be catching up to need.

__________________
John Gelles

Last edited by John Gelles on 10-24-2003 at 03:28 AM

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