Korten's books get high marks even though they tend a little to the side of
the meliorist's utopian dream of a sudden egalitarian and populist satori
which by all evidence of today's standards must translate as a "triumph of
superficiality and apotheosis of the raw" (James), still preferable to
cannibalism.
    "If you don't got the coin,
    You don't get the loin."
Otherwise we have recently been reminded that "an angel in a whirlwind"
still guides us. He may be a coke-head driving his BMW with one hand on the
L.A. Freeway while talking on his cell phone telling his broker to sell the
shares in Dork.com, but we may rest assured we are being guided nonetheless.
There has to be SOME EXIT out of this Kali Yuga.
    Another book on the subject, and one which is endorsed by Korten, is
Michael Rowbotham"s <The Grip of Death: A Study o Modern Money, Debt Slavery
and Destructive Economics> 1998. What a title!
    Perhaps what Pound sensed is now becoming more self-evident. Is money
reaching the end of its tether? 60% to 80% of our U.S. currency is now
overseas. We may never want it back. But let's pause a moment and reflect on
a note from Spengler (1922)-
    "The philosopher who has built up an ethical-social system that is
replete with virtue and (of course) the only true one, may enlighten the
economic life as to how it should behave and at what it should aim. It is
even the same spectacle, whether labeled liberal, anarchistic, or
socialistic, or derived from Plato, Proudhon, or Marx. Here, too, economy
carries on undisturbed and leaves the thinker to choose between withdrawing
to pour out on paper his lamentations of this world, and entering it as an
economic politician, in which case he either makes himself ridiculous, or
else promptly throws his theory to the devil and starts to win himself a
leading place."
    The reality of the situation, he later points out is both willed and
obligatory at the same time, and how could it be otherwise?

    On another note in a different altitude- Does anyone know if Pound ever
read any of the works of Julius Evola or Robert Graves' <The White Goddess>?

CDM

----------
>From: Gerald Steen <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Negative-Interest Currency
>Date: Tue, Jan 23, 2001, 2:55 PM
>

> CDM - Thank you for your references. I had hoped other scholars would join
> you in the currency discussion.
> I read the Bernard Lietaer interview on the Web site your recommended.
> Excellent. Would you recommend a book?
>
> Lietaer seems to be advocating local currencies which would be used along
> with a national currency. However, he didn't identify the type of national
> currency. I believe Pound was advocating a national solution; stamped
> script not being practical, he sought a non-usurious alternative. Today, a
> negative-interest currency could easily be incorporated in the banking
software.
>
> Can you comment on a book written by David Korten, titled "The
> Post-Corporate World, Life After Capitalism". I was told Korten developed
> his writings using ideals from C. H. Douglas' Social Credit.
>
> Gerald Steen
>