Culture

“Money Power: A Force For Freedom Or Slavery?”

“Money Power: A Force for Freedom or Slavery?” (Arktos, 2016).

First off, allow me to extend my apologies to you all for the delay in producing this review (I aim for one a month). I had been busy helping out with the French presidential election, translating an article by Guillaume Faye on the very same election, subsequently helping out with the French legislative elections and then moderating on the AltRight.com discord server (which I encourage you all to join).

All in all, I’ve been active but elsewhere. However, now that things have calmed down somewhat, I have been able to review Isac Boman’s Money Power.

I shall start by saying that many times have I heard those within the AR movement (but not exclusively them) lament over the power the banking sector has over government and society. By extension, this influence belongs, in many cases, to (((those in charge))). However, rarely is it that those decrying the current system are able to cobble together a cogent argument as to why they do so (a case in point would be the economic crash of 2008 – which, incidentally, began far earlier than said year – whereby many were angry at the bankers but few really knew why they should be due to a lack of understanding of how the system functions). Indeed, Isac Boman reiterates the opinion of renowned economists that the matter of banks (and the way in which they operate) is barely touched on in the study of economics.

Isac Boman, author of “Money Power”.

This month’s book, in attempting to elucidate upon the above, targets a broad potential audience ranging from the aforementioned individuals (those who possess a healthy weariness, to put it mildly, of banks and the monetary system but remain ill-versed in the underlying mechanisms), to those who have an understanding of how banks fulfil their roles but who would, nonetheless, appreciate a novel yet incisive interpretation and perhaps enjoy cogitating over alternatives thereof.

Money Power: A Force for Freedom or Slavery? aims to answer that very question as to whether the current monetary system in the West (read “systems” plural due to the subtle differences between them that Boman highlights) is conducive to our freedom of choice, or whether it facilitates a form of modern slavery that benefits a rich and powerful minority. The foreword to Money Power (a glowing review that serves to clarify how Money Power elucidates on a world presented as self-evident) states that the book’s main purpose is to expose the blind spot inhabited by those that steer the money market.

Boman’s book is 79 pages long (when excluding his list of sources, the foreword, and the prologue) and is broken down into three main sections (which are further divided by area of focus).

The first is entitled What Is Money? and lays down the foundations for the rest of the book namely by attempting to explain what money actually is. This is done by, firstly, presenting Adam Smith‘s definition of money from his Magnum Opus The Wealth of Nations. In doing so, Boman frames money as a means of measuring, exchanging and storing economic value (with “economic value” to be interpreted as “value in use” and “value in exchange”). Boman then proceeds to add to our understanding of money by submitting to us Frederick Soddy‘s interpretation of money as a representation of a debt owed to the person holding the note; money represents something waiting to be bought.

In combining these two established, universally recognised perceptions, Boman builds himself a springboard from which he is able to dive into more interesting and perhaps unusual interpretations of how money works from a diverse array of sources (an example of one of his more arcane selections being the comparison of money to energy from the conspiratorial Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars).

Finally, the What Is Money? portion of the book sets the reader up for the second part by encouraging him/her to think critically and invest in the subject matter advanced by Money Power by hinting at certain topics all whilst holding back from spoon-feeding ideas and lines of inquiry. For instance, Boman looks at Igor Solonko’s idea of money as a conceptual power; an alternative to using political command power to achieve a goal is to use the market. Therefore if money is power, then financial institutions are to be viewed as powerful. One could then ponder as to whom this power belongs. Indeed, who owns the banks? (((Who))) indeed…

Section two of Money Power is called The Modern Monetary System and begins by asking the question “how is money created?” (the answer seemingly remains an item upon which economic experts, as per usual, are unable to agree).

Boman attempts to summarize the modern banking and monetary system in seven points quickly illustrated here:

  1. Issuance of bonds: The government issues bonds to banks and other financial institutions for money.
  2. Bonds get converted into currency: The banks or institutions can sell the bonds to the central bank which pays for them by using the bank note press or the credit press. Thus, purchase of bonds by the central bank expands the money supply.
  3. Financing the budget of the government: Money consequently put into circulation is multiplied by the banking system in the next step.
  4. The multiplier effect: Public employees, and others, put their money in a bank. This is then multiplied via the system based on “fractional reserves” which issues out the money as loans from commercial banks.
  5. The role of citizens: If the banking system is threatened by collapse, it is primarily tax money directed by the state which serves as a rescue package. This ultimately comes from the citizenry.
  6. The debt spiral:As all money except coins are created as interest-bearing debt, new loans must continuously be granted if the interest is to be paid back.” As a result of the way the monetary system works, there is never enough money available to pay off all of the debt.
  7. Dividend: Central banks pay dividends to their owners which tend to be banks and financial institutions.

I found that the above was very well outlined in Money Power however, I did feel that a more in-depth explanation of “fractional reserve banking” could have been beneficial to the uninitiated. This is a minor criticism and the analysis provided by Boman is clear, succinct and enables the reader to conduct their own research on any of the points he broaches.

The second section also critically evaluates the interest phenomenon. Money Power seems to reach the conclusion that interest, at its current levels, is ultimately usury. This is a common sentiment held amongst those on the right (that is to say the social right). However, Money Power does not try to put this across as fact rather, the pros and cons of interest are discussed with the former including the encouragement of quicker repayment and the incentivising of lenders to actually lend in the first place. In the end, though, it does seem that the cons somewhat outweigh these benefits as one considers that high-interest rates prey on the vulnerable and transfer wealth from the lesser well off to the almost infinitely more wealthy.

By the end of the section, the reader is led to face the reality that loans ultimately put power in the hands of lenders. This can even be seen on a global scale where lenders have authority over nation states such as Greece!

The Money Power section sums up its message by citing a quote from John Perkins, a so called “economic hit man”:

…we use many different techniques, but probably the most typical is that we’ll identify a company [country] that has resources that corporations covet, like oil. We’ll arrange a huge loan from an organisation like the World Bank for that country; but the money won’t go to that country at all. It goes to big U.S. corporations — Bechtel, Haliburton, ones we hear about all the time – to build infrastructure projects in that country.

These projects, like industrial parks and power plants, benefit the very rich of those countries and do nothing for the poor, except to leave the country in huge debt, one it can’t possibly repay, which means it can’t give social services, education, health to its poor, and it’s put in a position where it doesn’t repay its debts; so, at some point, we economic hitmen go back in and we say: ‘Look, you can’t repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh. Sell oil to our oil companies real cheap or vote with us at the next U.N. vote, or send troops in support of some of ours some place in the world’. And that’s how we’ve created this empire; and we’ve done it without most Americans even realizing that it’s happening’.

Quite insidious.

Lastly, Money Power‘s third and final section is named Alternative Money Systems and does exactly what it says on the tin; introduces and expounds several alternative monetary systems and financial concepts. These include the “Terra currency”, alternatives to interest (such as demurrage fees) and “full reserve banking”. Exploring these may stimulate some thought amongst readers and will serve to challenge the perceptions that many of us hold about money. To those with expertise in finance and banking, some ideas may prove exhilarating, bizarre, impractical, quaint but never without interest!

All in all, Boman’s Money Power provides an intriguing read and is accessible to anybody with an interest in banking and finance whether they be experts or complete beginners.

As alluded to above, I would have liked to have seen some areas further explained especially given the book is under 100 pages long. Fundamentally, I found that the book serves to make readers question the financial world around them and, by broaching a wide range of subjects, prompts them to investigate further (perhaps by engaging in further reading on the topics they found stimulating in Money Power).

Boman’s title for his book poses a question. For me, the answer given was “both, depending on who you are and what your personal situation is”. It seems though, in a macroeconomic context, the current monetary system does certainly serve the powerful few whilst it is up for debate how effective it is at benefiting the many.

Money Power is available over at Arktos and Amazon.

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Martel Mosley
the authorMartel Mosley
A beleaguered Brit doing all he can (which is never enough).

41 Comments

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  • Regarding money and politics, the right ultimately must either 1) take over the financial system such that its will can be imposed on it by force, or 2) establish an independent monetary system and economy that is not readily subject to confiscation or disruption by the federal government. In 2024, the Democrats will take permanent control of the Presidency and therefore the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve system is currently a monopoly. Anything in it can be confiscated by the government, which means the left will be able to destroy you by taking all your savings and investments.

  • One aspect of this that is not often mentioned is the connection between debt-backed currency and immigration. A growing national debt would ordinarily be inflationary, but mass immigration hides the inflation. The (((bankers))) are literally making money off of our racial dispossession.

    Setting up an elastic currency system is tricky, but not rocket science. As Ron Paul has pointed out, while the current system of privately owned central banks may have performed a useful service at one time, we don’t need them anymore. Modern information technology makes it possible to take the scheming, megalomaniacal (((banking elite))) out of the equation. The power to create money can be taken away from privately owned central banks and returned to governments, and it can be made easy for anyone to find out how much money is in circulation, since it will be in the public record.

    Even something like Bitcoin seems unnecessarily cryptic. We don’t want people to be able to use computers to “mine” for currency. We want our currency to be created by our governments, in a straightforward and transparent manner.

  • The house of cards that is the stock market, 401K’s, bank accounts are utterly useless, or could be real soon. It’s physical metals, your skills, especially ones in survival, weapons and food making that truly count. Anyone that has medical training, big value too!

  • We first need to understand that the USA and most of the world has NO REAL MONEY. They use debt credit only, and all it can do is discharge a debt, never paying it. The Alt Right must think of a private system that it can start like bit coin… It must also start financial services that are openly Alt Right and ones that are owned by us – but publicly “GOP Right”… Then with your own banks, you can use the system to lead to your own people big sums to build what we need – The 1st should be private towns… Member only stores…. ect.. .

  • Quite insidious.

    And quite beside the point, since the topic is money per se, not U.S. economic power.

    The more the alt right strays from race and identity, the more it opens itself up to disdain – and never more so than when it blathers on idiotically about money.

    • The two are inextricably linked.
      Of course, the movement should only ever focus on the JQ and race and never broaden its horizons, that’s a sure-fire way to success…

    • If we do not over turn the Money power in our lives in some way – you will have no Race to defend my friend ….

      • What’s the “money power,” Bob? As far as I can tell, it’s the fact that money exists at all that frustrates people like the author of this piece. Well, if you’re going to have an economy, you’re going to have money – and some people are going to have more of it than others. May as well just get used to that.

        • Before the Bank Of England came along – it was the Kings who were in the name of the Volk / State the money power – now it is the Khazar debt credit mafia. Our States must reclaim the detect ownership of our own peoples money; which is the symbol of its work / economic out put. Like Hitler, Lincoln, Stalin and JFK we must reattach our own wealth to ourselves and stop allowing the enemy to own our future and its wealth … Exp – Nationalize the Fed and reopen the Tres Debt (it was closed in 1922). hope that helped?

          • it was the Kings who were in the name of the Volk / State the money power

            Kings (and other rulers) cared about their own interests, not about “the Volk.”

            Exp – Nationalize the Fed

            For all intents and purposes, the Federal Reserve is already nationalized. After paying a token dividend to its owners (all of them commercial banks) – which amounted to a paltry $1.5 billion in 2015 – the Federal Reserve returned its annual profit – some $100 billion in 2015 – to the U.S. Treasury.

            Even if all commercial banks were nationalized and their annual profits distributed to households, the total per household would not come to much more than $1000. For many people, that would be a welcome sum, but hardly anything we could fairly call revolutionary.

          • We are in our 3rd bankruptcy – the lawful Tres Dept went under in 1922. The Gov’t was disbanded on 3/9/33 – after the passed the Emergency Banking Act (no one read it). So when you say that the 100 billion comes back – to whom? The creditors – which is the City of London. The Issue here is that if you own your own money (ect) you have no usury payments – which you did not include in your numbers and no one really knows how much that really is cuz we can NEVER see their book – We do know that the US “Gov’t” is missing over 10 TRILLION $$… but who cares.. That is only about 308,000 per US citizen – real chump change … i see your point

          • I don’t know anything about missing trillions, but I do know that commercial banks’ net profit is about $150 billion (according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp stats) – which is really not that much money, if you’re going to distribute it equally.

            I said any profit the Federal Reserve makes is returned to the Treasury – in other words, to tax-payers. It’s not going to any “creditors.”

          • One more thing – the Fed money pump gives the Deep State unlimited amounts of credit to bribe the whole gov’t into a slave bankers Nation…

        • Silver is it just me, or are these kids world-class ad hoc rationalizers? It’s unreal the ease with which they distort reality to, uh, serve their narrative. And when you back them into a corner they just give you meme-level slogans, or say you fuck your mother. I gotta stop looking at this shit. Was it this bad in 2003? I can’t recall exactly but I seem to remember more civility, depth, etc.

          • 2003? Hey, I’m not that ancient! Actually, 2003, I’m fairly sure, is the year I first started reading Stormfront. I can vouch it was just as bad as this because one of the first things that put me off the pro-white position was the relentless irascibility of the commenters (after that it was the actual content which kept me swimming in the safety of anti-racist waters for a few more years). I’ve maintained for a while now that if whites manage to secure some sort of decent future, it will be in spite of the far right’s best efforts, not because of them.

          • No need for self-promotion, I know what you think. But I didn’t know I had a few years on you as far as wasting time on the ol’ “stuckment”. I don’t mean irascibility, of course; no one can top the guys we talked to. Fred Scrooby killed himself through his use of italics. I mean specifically a certain degraded ability to reason, supplanted by ad hoc rationalization and Tourette’s-like reliance on slogans and memes. It’s pretty much the mirror image of the vicious tumbrlinas and SJWs they cut their teeth on: and after all, they’re the same cohort demographically, raised on the same internet, so why wouldn’t they be shallow wannabe Nazis? Most amusing of all is how they have this simplified genealogy that goes Rockwell –> Spencer –> memes –> Altright. Anything outside of this ideological bubble is totally unreal, and can be dismissed with any number of devices — parenthesis, “edgy”, “cool story bro”, etc. Indeed, since the trolls appeared, the world population of Jews has shot up from eleven million to pretty much anyone who disagrees with a 20-sthg memeboy. What a kooky anti-world, this internet.

          • Perhaps what you’re referring to crept up on me so slowly I never really noticed it. If you reread old VNN and SF archives, though, there truly was no end of stupidity there too, so even if the meming was absent, there were clearly vast numbers incapable of reasoned argument.

            And lol, the ole Scroob. I came across him just as I was turning towards racialism. No one on the whole internet has ever caused me as much consternation as that sonva bitch. I’d dwell on some of his comments for hours (even days) afterwards, searching for ways to counter them while staying true to the facts as I now understood them. Nowadays, I concede that he was right and I was wrong, but fuck it upset me at the time. Sorry to prattle on about myself again, but you reawakened some painful memories there.

          • Didn’t realize you were so invested in the Scroob. My only pain there is that I ever spent five minutes on this stuff. How a man could balance the stress of the bickering and real-life concerns is just beyond me.

            I’m also surprised you’re not more aware of how superficial this new crop is. But of course there is continuity as far as shitty, self-serving worldview, little experience of the world, etc. I guess I’ll just stop looking. Lord knows I’ve told enough people to do that over the years.

          • My only pain there is that I ever spent five minutes on this stuff.

            Oh, I’ve experienced that particular pain, too, be certain. It’s mainly force of habit (rather than force of conviction) that brings me back to these realms nowadays.

            You’re probably right about the superficiality. I guess I just don’t care enough to notice. There’s still good stuff out there though. Greg Johnson usually puts out good product – his own essays are great, he just insists on shooting himself in the foot with that whole ridiculous ‘trad’ horseshit that pervades his website. This site (AltRight) is mostly bs, not any real improvement on the equally amateurish Right Stuff it seems to have supplanted.

          • I was just re-reading some old MR threads. Man there were some outstanding debates on there. (Some of those posters totally outshone me. Very humbling.) Such a shame the way that site degenerated under the “stewardship” of Daniel dickwad.

          • I’m not sure I have words for DanielS. It’s so easy to say “compensation”, because what do we really know about him or anyone. But there really were amazing debates. When it was GW, Scroob, Narrator, you, me, DanielJ, and fucking PF — these stupid, vicious altright kids can’t even begin to appreciate where we were.

          • Why didn’t we just write books? Do you remember when I said you couldn’t write because you had to react to something? Obviously I knew that only because I’m the same way. We should both quit entirely and try real writing.

          • Yes, I do indeed remember. I’ve long felt I could pull it off, but when it seems so damn daunting. I can’t get anywhere because I’m sooo much more self-critical than when reacting to someone else’s work. Then again, sometimes I think that some authors put out so much mindless blather and seem completely at ease about it that surely the problem is solely in my own head.

          • Yea, Dunning-Kruger effect.

            How would you feel about a friendly competition? Say we both have to write, and if possible publish, something by January 1, 2018. A summation of our respective positions on all of this.

            That is, if you ever wanted to do it in the first place.

          • As in an essay? And you mean write and get published, or just produce something reasonably worthy of publication? You set a generous deadline, so probably yeah.

          • No essay, something as book-like as possible, published or worthy of publishing.

            I thought you’d say January is too soon, but ok, good.

            Well get in touch if you want. First name dot last name at gmail.

          • Book-like is really upping the ante. I’ll email you.

    • Part of my studies included micro and macro and I found the book still pointed me in different, alternative directions.

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