While the full extent to which wealth is redistributed through the monetary and land systems is less obvious in highly industrialized countries, because of the exploitation of developing countries, the working people in the latter really pay the price for the monetary systems of the industrialized world. Although they suffer most, there is little hope that these ideas will be used first in the Third World where small elite groups dominate in terms of money, land and political power. However, there may be a possibility for change in the smaller democratic nations of Europe. Scandinavia, for instance, with a majority of wealthy and well educated people, might prove comparatively well open to social change. And this is what monetary reform is all about. At the U.N. World Commissions Public Hearing in Moscow on December 11, 1986, A. S. Timoschenko of the Institute of State and Law, U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, proposed that: "Today we cannot secure security for one state at the expense of the other. Security can only be universal, but security cannot only be political or military, it must be as well ecological, economical and social. It must ensure the fulfilment of the aspirations of humanity as a whole." (32) The struggle of humankind for social and economic justice has been long and fierce. It has created sharp divisions in political orientations and religious beliefs. It has cost many lives. It is indeed urgent that we come to the understanding that nobody can obtain security for oneself at the expense of another, or at the expense of the environment on which we depend. In order to make this feasible we need some deep and practical changes in the structures of our social framework. Hopefully the changes proposed in this book will contribute to the creation of security and justice for people and our global environment, and finally begin to replace revolution with evolution.
A POSSIBLE SOLUTION FOR THE NEAR FUTURE Before the money system could be reformed, a large section of the population must realize that we have to limit money to its functions as an exchange medium, as a scale for prices and as a constant standard of value. If this recognition is transformed into political action, then the central bank, as directed by the government, would employ a parking fee rather than interest to keep money in circulation.
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