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Counter-economics: THIS is what a REAL revolution looks like
Today James talks to Derrick Broze of TheConsciousResistance.com about the philosophy of agorism, the practice of counter-economics, and how the combination of this theory and practice is the true path to dismantling the state.
SHOW NOTES AND MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=16733
Central Banks Nervous as Alternative Currency with David Bowie’s Face Goes Viral
(John Vibes of ANTIMEDIA) Brixton, U.K. — One of the best ways for the general public to take power back is to develop alternative currencies — both local and global — that allow people to trade outside of the corporate-government banking systems and central bank notes.
Many people in different areas of the world have been moderately successful at implementing local currencies, such as Mountain Hours or Ithaca Hours, which have gained traction in the U.S.
In London, an interesting alternative currency bearing the face of pop singer David Bowie has recently come into circulation. According to Market Watch, the local currency is specialized for the Brixton community in southwest London. It is officially called the “Brixton Pound.”
Tom Shakhli, manager of the Brixton Pound effort, said, “They are using it because they want to feel connected to the local area. Every time you use it, you’re like a financial activist. You’re taking part in this act which is subverting the norm, which is to hand over your £10 note very passively.”
Shakhli pointed out that the project is intended to make a statement about the foundation of money, as well as provide an alternative to the current monopoly.
Shakhli said that his main goal with the project is to ask, “What is money? Does it have to be either printed by the state or created by the banks? Why can’t money be localized? Why can’t money feature a pop star or a black historian? Does it have to feature establishment figures?”
So far, there are currently 200 local businesses that have signed up to participate in the Brixton Pound program.
The increasingly popular Brixton Pound is making central banks nervous — and rightly so. Following the success of the Brixton Pound, new alternative local currencies are now popping up all over the U.K. The Oxford Pound, Kingston Pound, and Palace Pound are just a few of the currencies that have been recently introduced. The Bank of England has been forced to respond to these local currencies because of their popularity, deeming them “voucher schemes” and warning the public that they are unprotected when using them.
A document released by the Bank of England claims that “Local currency schemes lead to significant and unanticipated impacts on aggregate economic activity.” According to the document, the Bank of England will also attempt to delegitimize local currencies by “Design[ing] features and marketing material [to] help users recognise that local currency paper instruments are like vouchers and not banknotes.”
For the economy to really be in the hands of the people, it is necessary to decentralize the currency and to have an open-source network of competing currencies that are community based and easily exchangeable. While it is impossible to predict how we will trade a century or even five years from now, we can still observe how people are innovating within their own areas and take those lessons into account for when state and bank issued currencies finally diminish in value to the point where they are unusable.
Silk Road 1.0 has demonstrated that it's possible to run an anonymous black market. While technologically it wasn't that bad, there was a critical point of failure — its centralized nature. Capture administrator and everything is doomed.
Here is my proposal of a distributed anonymous marketplace that doesn't have a single point of failure.
Apr. 12 2010
If someone told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I’d now be living without money, I’d have probably choked on my microwaved ready meal. The plan back then was to get a ‘good’ job, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would show society I was successful.
For a while I did it - I had a fantastic job managing a big organic food company; had myself a yacht on the harbour. If it hadn’t been for the chance purchase of a video called Gandhi, I’d still be doing it today. Instead, for the last fifteen months, I haven’t spent or received a single penny. Zilch.
The change in life path came one evening on the yacht whilst philosophising with a friend over a glass of merlot. Whilst I had been significantly influenced by the Mahatma’s quote “be the change you want to see in the world”, I had no idea what that change was up until then. We began talking about all major issues in the world - environmental destruction, resource wars, factory farms, sweatshop labour - and wondering which of these we would be best devoting our time to. Not that we felt we could make any difference, being two small drops in a highly polluted ocean.
But that evening I had a realisation. These issues weren’t as unrelated as I had previously thought - they had a common root cause. I believe the fact that we no longer see the direct repercussions our purchases have on the people, environment and animals they affect is the factor that unites these problems. The degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that it now means we’re completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering embodied in the ‘stuff’ we buy.
New technologies are opening new routes around the State, helping connect both protesters in Turkey and anyone who isn't crazy about having the NSA reading over their shoulders.
5 Vital Strategies for Peacefully Underthrowing the Status Quo
In this article I am going to list the 5 strategies for achieving freedom that I am most supportive of right now, and offer a brief description of how they work and why I believe they are effective approaches to meeting this goal.
[Full Article]
Tom Woods Talks Agorism, Economics, and U.S. History on FOX News Station Bestselling author Tom Woods discusses a range of topics in a September 27, 2012 interview on KZNU, FOX News 1450.
