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Rather than one currency, "a single global yardstick" is needed "against which governments can value their currencies - some independent measure (by) which merchants can negotiate their contracts and be sure of getting what they bargained for." How to do it is the question?
A New Bretton Woods
Michael Rowbotham picked up on John Maynard Keynes idea of pegging currencies to a basket of commodities, calling it "a profoundly democratic idea." He states:
"Today, wheat grown in one country may, due to a devalued currency, cost a fraction of wheat grown in another. This leads to (cheap wheat producers) becoming (heavy exporters) regardless of need, or the capacity to produce better quality wheat in other locations. In addition, currency values can change dramatically and the situation can reverse. Critically, such wheat 'prices' bear no relation to genuine comparative advantage of climate, soil type, geography and even less to indigenous/local/regional needs." Nor does it stabilize production in relation to need. By "imputing value to a nation's produce, and allowing this to determine the value of (its) currency, one is imputing value to its resources, its labourers and acknowledging its own needs."
An international trade unit could be established based on a basket of commodities representative enough to fend off speculators - just a "yardstick for pegging currencies and negotiating contracts." Exchange rates would be fixed everywhere but not forever. Changes would "reflect the national market for real goods and services," not currencies. They'd be "no room for speculation or hedging."
Various proposals involve "private international currency exchanges, but the same (type) reference unit (could) stabilize exchange rates among official national currencies." One calls for:
-- a new fixed exchange rate system;
-- a treaty banning speculation in derivatives;
-- canceling or reorganizing international debt; and
-- having governments issue enough "credit" to create full employment, then used for technical innovation and infrastructure development.
The plan is for exchange rates to be "based on an international unit of account pegged against the price of an agreed-upon basket of hard commodities."
Other plans are around as well, all stressing the same idea - "the urgent need for change" because the current system is corrupted and broken.
How then to stabilize national currencies? "The simplest and most comprehensive....international currency yardstick (measure) seems to be the Consumer Price Index....modified to reflect" real consumer expenditures, not the quantity of currencies traded in international markets by speculators. Henceforth, currencies "would just be coupons for units of value recognized globally" - stable enough for "commercial traders (to) 'bank' on them."
National currencies "would become what (they) should have been all along - (contracts) or promise(s) to return value in goods and services of a certain worth, as measured against a universally recognized yardstick for determining value."
Government without Taxes or Debt
Only a "radical shift in our concepts of money and banking will save us from the cement wall looming ahead" - an abyss otherwise named. Letting bankers hold "an illusory sum of gold," to be multiplied many times over by fractional reserve alchemy, entraps everyone in debt bondage. "The result was a (giant) Ponzi scheme that has pumped the global money supply into a gigantic credit bubble" now imploding.
