Most people don’t understand money’s true nature. By money: any currency being used today represented in physical form. That’s cash, coin, checks, credit cards.
Humanity has lived with one form of money or another for so long, we take it for granted, like the air we breathe or the fact that we can walk. We also ignore money’s true nature: it’s amorality.
Money may not be the root of all evil. Yet money’s amorality enables those who conduct evil – or other immoral acts – to earn handsome rewards.
Money’s amorality has corrupted governments, finance, nonprofits, business, even personal relationships. Nothing has escaped it.
So how to resolve that?
Making money moral is missing the point. The way to deal with money’s amorality is doing away with money altogether. Find another way to reward people who create value, a way that doesn’t require “currency”. Then you once and for all solve the money problem.
Create a better way.
An “alternate currency” doesn’t go far enough. What is needed is “no currency.”
How do you run a society in which there is no currency? In essence, you rewrite the social contract. The new social contract says you no longer must give up certain freedoms in order to enjoy safety and security that comes with community. It disavows the belief that individuals must trade certain freedoms and submit to rulers, or other governmental forms.
Second, a new social contract would stipulate that individuals owe no debt to society. Rather, society has the capacity to reward individuals who freely employ their effort to make “society” better off. “Society” here includes other individuals, and the ecosystem in which those individuals live. This capacity to reward, is the only authority society as entity has according to the new social contract.
Third, this new social contract would establish a mechanism society uses to actually do the rewarding. The reward itself would make accessible highly-desired items which are not accessible to those not rewarded. The reward, in effect, unlocks “gifts” when earned.
At this point, we simply have to write the rules which allow society to distribute rewards. We also must create a set of simple processes which make highly-desired items inaccessible. Unless one has received rewards.
In essence, this new social contract says society recognizes and rewards people who work to make other people and the planet better off, by allowing such people to access certain goods and services which are otherwise inaccessible.
The indirect effect of such an approach makes “money” (the reward) moral. After all, if your actions make a person or people worse off, no reward is given. Evil acts, immoral acts earn nothing.
This work is underway. If you’re interested in participating (at no financial cost to you), read this.