If we take a more precise look at the last 10% of the population in terms of income from interest, another exponential growth pattern emerges. For the last 1 % of the population the income column would have to be enlarged about 15 times. For the last 0.01 % it would have to be enlarged more than 2,000 times. In other words, within our monetary system we allow the operation of a hidden redistribution mechanism which constantly shuffles money from those who have less money than they need to those who have more money than they need. This is a different and far more subtle and effective form of exploitation than the one Marx tried to overcome. There is no question, that he was right in pointing to the source of the "added value" in the production sphere. The distribution of the "added value," however, happens to a large extent in the circulation sphere. This can be seen more clearly today than in his time. Ever larger amounts of money are concentrated in the hands of ever fewer individuals and corporations. For instance, the cash flow surplus, which refers to money floating around the world to wherever gains may be expected from changes in national currency or stock exchange rates, has more than doubled since 1980. The daily exchange of currencies in New York alone grew from $18 billion to $50 billion between 1980 and 1986. (3) The World Bank has estimated that money transactions on a world wide scale are from 15 to 20 times greater than necessary for financing world trade. (4) The interest and compound interest mechanism not only creates an impetus for pathological economic growth but, as Dieter Suhr has pointed out, it works against the constitutional rights of the individual in most countries. (5) If a constitution guarantees equal access by every individual to government services - and the money system may be defined as such - then it is illegal to have a system in which 10% of the people continually receive more than they pay for that service at the expense of 80% of the people who receive less than they pay. It may seem as if a change in our monetary system would serve "only" 80% of the population, i.e., those who at present pay more than their fair share. However, I will show in Chapter 3 that everybody profits from a cure, even those who profit from the cancerous system we have now.
Fourth Misconception: INFLATION IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF FREE MARKET ECONOMIES A fourth misconception relates to the role of inflation in our economic system. Most people see inflation as an integral part of any money system, almost "natural," since there is no capitalist country in the world with a free market economy without inflation. Figure 5, Development of Various Economic Indicators, shows some of the factors that may cause inflation. While the governmental income, the Gross National Product, and the salaries and wages of the average income earner "only" rose by about 400% between 1968 and 1989, the interest payments of the government rose by 1,360%.
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