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Bernard Lietaer Has Died

February 6, 2019

Bernard Lietaer has died yesterday, or by now the day before yesterday, February 4th.

R.I.P.

I only met him once, and know nothing of him personally, but his work has a special place in my heart.

When Bill Still’s Money Masters film suddenly shook me out of my political immaturity, the first real question I had was: ‘ok, when Bankers rule, they’ll rule through money. So I better find out what the hell money actually is.’

This was a quite pertinent question, and I remember that stage vividly. And within days, in a completely natural synchronicity, Bernard’s essential book, ‘Het Geld van de Toekomst’, ‘The Future of Money’ landed in my lap.

This book is brilliant, and quite groundbreaking. It lays out in detail what money is, what the current problems of money are. Including an introduction into the problems of Usury. And it provides one of the first (to my knowledge) rational comparative analyses of several major basic complementary currency designs.

Something I later built on quite substantially in the articles consolidated in the interest-free-economics page on the blog. (http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/interest-free-economics). And of course in the research and development of De Florijn (and the underlying Talent Architecture).

To this day I use (ok, very slightly improved) his basic definition of money: ‘anything that is agreed upon within a community to be used as a means of exchange). In fact, I was just mentioning it earlier today in an interview for Alwareness TV, an Amsterdam based independent media outlet.

Lietaer, in his seldomly astute and truthful analyses most certainly laid a solid groundwork for my own work, and I’m positive he had quite an impact on many more people.

He was definitely a key thinker in the European monetary reform movement, which is much more concerned with Usury and scarce money than the wider Alternative Media´s fascination with ´money printing´ and ´inflation´, which are only symptoms of the core disease. Although in America too, Lietaer had his impact.

Of course, there were also limitations. For instance, when I had the pleasure of meeting him once, in Antwerp, I was actually a little bemused to find he supported the Chicago Plan. Which, as we know, does not really do that much against Usury, and leaves the backdoor (to put it mildly) wide open for the Money Power.

He also was rather mild in his ambitions for complementary currencies. Promoting sustainability, taking off the worst edges of poverty, promoting social cohesion.

All fine and dandy, of course, but in my view there can be no doubt that every self respecting currency designer should have no other goal than working towards the complete obliteration of the Tyranny of Banker Money, by meeting society’s need for credit with stable, easily accessible and ultra cheap interest-free credit.

And while Lietaer undoubtedly realized that the Bank rules, I don’t think he really would have (more than theoretically) agreed with this.

But in life it’s nice to quibble about these trifles, in death what remains is gratitude for such a major contribution to interest-free economics, both in theory and practice.

For what amounts to creating such a ripple in the Matrix.

Related:
Usury: why we don’t build Cathedrals these days….
Positive Money and the Chicago Plan
Margrit Kennedy Dies

From → Bernard Lietaer

7 Comments
  1. Daniel Krynicki permalink

    Anthony wrote: “Of course, there were also limitations. For instance, when I had the pleasure of meeting him once, in Antwerp, I was actually a little bemused to find he supported the Chicago Plan. Which, as we know, does not really do that much against Usury, and leaves the backdoor (to put it mildly) wide open for the Money Power.”

    Daniel: Yes Anthony, I’ve investigated Zarlenga’s writings. One title of his is “The Usury Problem Remains”. There was a section about it in his tome as well. But he never offered a platform from which we should oppose the ‘Usury Problem’.

    Anthony wrote: “All fine and dandy, of course, but in my view there can be no doubt that Every Self Respecting Currency Designer Should Have No Other Goal Than Working Towards The Complete Obliteration Of The Tyranny Of Banker Money, by meeting society’s need for credit with stable, easily accessible and ultra cheap interest-free credit.”

    Daniel: Upon this we should all agree. But along these lines, it is assuredly reasonable to expect unrestricted interest free and fee free credit in any nation knowing that money is nothing more than an artificial construct allowed into existence by a nation’s laws. You assuredly validated this in one of your sentences.
    Anthony: “To this day I use (ok, very slightly improved) his basic definition of money: ‘anything that is agreed upon within a community to be used as a means of exchange).”
    When such is agreed upon within a community is the very definition of law.

  2. Tara Whelan permalink

    Very sorry to hear this. He was a great inspiration and I am sure his work will be continued. RIP

  3. Hugo permalink

    Thank you for the obituary Anthony. I was unfamiliar with the work of Bernard Lietaer, so added his books to my read-list.

    This 10-minute movie shows similarities in your ways of thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0f9_1XzcwA Changing the monetary system is a prerequisite to solving all of our other problems. It’s not enough, but it is a sine-qua-non.

    (From this longer article:
    https://hackernoon.com/bernard-lietaer-a-financial-justice-warrior-who-fought-for-freedom-of-currency-25123ca599dd )

  4. Astrid Ware permalink

    Bernard Lietaer woke me up when his first book came out on the market more than twenty years ago. It revolutionized how I approached Society . It gave me back my self worth; it really was the truly HEALING Medicine for my Soul that was in shreds from the way I was forced to feel about my own poverty stricken life and our UNFAIR Society overall. After I read Lietaers books, money didn’t define me any longer!Thank You, Mr. Lietaer! ???

  5. Reblogged this on RogersLongHairBlog and commented:
    Another Brilliant Article.

    https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/gatekeepers-foundations-and-democracy-usefull-idiot-school/

    Poisitive money and MMT are really deomcratic socialist Fabians and Stalinist commisars perpetuating the status quo. In the same way Feders Monetary radicalism was hijacked and corrupted then forgotten by Schact so it is with Positive Money who have been Hijacked by Green NGO Fascism. #WrongKindofGreen
    the whole campaign is pivoting with The Green New deal, #ExtinctionRebellion and other ruses to bring in CO2 trading schemes debt and Agenda 21 and Agenda 30. With all the nastiness of misanthropic eugenics and population control.
    Then there is #8thwaytothink and DOughnutEconomics again an NGO funded apologist crew for Usury.
    https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/03/06/the-new-kind-of-gore-same-old-yellow-snow-same-old-cool-aid-wrongkindofgreen-carboncurrencyendgame/
    https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2017/04/01/a-complementary-currency-for-the-netherlands/
    March 6, 2019
    THE NEW KIND OF GORE, SAME OLD YELLOW SNOW SAME OLD COOL AID #WRONGKINDOFGREEN @COMPROMISEDNGOS #8THWAYTOTHINK #GREENPARTYUK #EXTINCTIONREBELLION @GRETATHUNBERG#CARBONCURRENCYENDGAME

    Then there’s energy-based economics and the vacuous definition of the monetary unit to contend with.
    https://twitter.com/search?q=%238thwaytothink&src=typd

    https://twitter.com/franboait/status/1105399815150673925

  6. stealth permalink

    omg.i consider myself a student of money systems and didnt realise lietaer was out of the picture.we better fill his shoes quick.i’m reading zarlengas lost science of money for the third time.i’m not a greenbacker but i would recommend everyone read this, especially the austrian republican goldbugs out there who need to go back to the drawing board and not just reach for the first alternate currency they see..has the USA had a genuine politician since dennis kucinich?maybe he was wrong on greenbacks and the road to hell is paved with good intentions but maybe the people with good intentions can recognise each other and move towards a positive future..the problem i have with the greenbackers is that it helps the government but not the people.so,.. maybe greenbacks reduce the government desire to devalue,the taxpayers dont get saddled with the illegitimate debt of the state,the currency isnt open to manipulations by big precious metal players but state issued currency isnt going to stop usury.most money is created as mortage debt-that will still exist in a greenback system unless the government entirely surplants the lending banks.credit creation should be in the hands of the wealth producers..having said that ,money is created by mortgage debt then destroyed again by selling the debt on as securities,tying up savings in non-productive financial products, meaning they need QE to reinflate the money supply..i dont think people can envisage the advances which could come by ridding ourselves of the parasites, we could have had all modern tech and so much more thousands of years ago without greedy elites

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