EUREKA ! - LOCALISED CAPITALISM

I was reading the superb article by the writer Richard Cook on his blog here ;

http://www.richardccook.com/2009/11/23/economic-crisis-what-must-be-done/


when his ideas suddenly gelled with some ideas I have been working on for a while.

I call this LOCALISED CAPITALISM.

This is the construction of an entire national based banking system based on economic autarky to operate alongside the existing international capitalist banking and trading system.

This would be a 'sealed' internal British banking system based on local banks and local currencies designed soely for internal national strategic infrastructure development, to generate supply and demand for essential industrial and other sectors of the national economy, to develop local energy, agricultural and services production systems and to create local jobs and raise individual and community incomes.

This system would operate as an internal banking system sealed off from all international trading or interference.

The National Bank would supervise the functions and powers of local banks who issue local currencies.

So we have a National banking system which delivers benefits at the community level.

The entire system is double locked and protected from any external crisis in international capitalism - for the National Bank and local banks operate ONLY in the NATIONAL and the COMMUNITY interest.

This in a very basic form is my embryonic new economic model to save Britain and the British economy.

As it is a work in progress, feel free to participate and critique.

My writings are those in the middle of the excerpt from the above article of Richard Cook ;



Except…. and that’s what each person caught up in these travesties must decide. What are you going to do about it?

In mulling over this question, it would be wise to recognize that the dominance of the financial elite has largely been exercised through their control of the international monetary system based on bank lending and government debt. Therefore it’s through the monetary system that change can and must be made.

The progressives are wrong to think the government should go deeper in debt to create more jobs. This will just create an even deeper hole of debt future generations will have to crawl out of.

Rather the key is monetary reform, whether at the local or national levels. People have lost control of their ability to earn a living. But change could be accomplished through sovereign control by people and nations of the monetary means of exchange.

This control has been stolen. It is time to take it back. One way would be for the federal government to make a relief payment to each adult of $1,000 a month until the crisis lifted. This money could be earmarked for goods and services produced within the U.S. and used to capitalize a new series of community development banks. I have called this the “Cook Plan.”

The plan could be funded through direct payment from a Treasury relief account without new taxes or government borrowing. The payments would be balanced on the credit side by GDP growth or be used by individuals to pay off debt. It would be direct government spending as was done with Greenbacks before and after the Civil War without significant inflation.

( This can also be applied via the creation of a National Bank Of Britain that funds the network of local banks which run and regulate registered local currencies.

The local currencies can only be spent in locally designated areas, each note issued is monitored to ensure only stays and is spent in the local area, tax benefits accrue from saved the local currency money in local banks, each local note has designated expiry date which has to be spent in certain time period or it is erased from circulation and any trade made illegal - so each note can be monitored from its creation to destruction in order to prevent criminals abusing the system or from colonists exporting that capital out of the country.

The Bank of Britain supplies and guarantees capital deposits of local banks and payments of the National Income Payment to individuals. The money paid to registered British citizens entitled to the money would go into the accounts of the local banks who will issue the local currency to the registered individual beneficiary.

These local banks which will run this system can be all those all recently nationalised banks which were bought by the government - they can be assimilated into the new system and run their existing systems alongside the new banking system.

This money for the project comes from a Treasury Relief Account set up by the government to fund the new economic system, and with private investment bonds bought by the public with fixed rate income and with guaranteed deposits.

At same time strategic national infra-structure projects can be set up and delivered via the new integrated national banking system.

These would be national projects but run on local development agendas, such as hiring local companies and local workers and incentivisation for industrial companies to re-develop a national industrial complex to re-equip coal mines, build new power projects, supply wave power plant, etc etc.

Set up and invest in local renewable energy projects, canals, coal mines, wave farms, water mills, wind farms, community farms, community home building projects etc - these projects must employ local labour first and only British workers.

The wages paid would be pounds and also local currency money - so that local workers can buy in local shops, and so competition exists to keep prices low as an individual would have a choice to buy a local commodity with local currency income or spend their usual money and welfare cash on buying that project in the pound system eg fruit and vegetables from a local farm shop or from Tesco's or a TV from a local outlet of a British company such as Argos or from a high street shop.

Local currencies could also be spent on national businesses that are owned by and trade in Britain and that have local branches that employ local people - thereby generating both new demand and supply for British products.

The money paid to people in local currencies that could only be spent in listed shops in a specific area - eg local carpenters, plumbers, buy food in local farm shops that produce locally made goods, buy British goods and products eg TV's, fridges and other goods.

Could be paid via Community Banks to those on welfare.

We can raise welfare payments but supply this money in the form of local currencies to be used in local communities.

This is Democratic Localism in action, which in turn becomes Community Building and Industrial Re-development - using the state to knit together a new social network and nexus based on community self sufficiency.

Local businesses could apply for loans and credit , local people to set up local businesses - fund local growth and development.

Only legal and registered British citizens can apply for and recieve these local currency payments.

Money cannot be exported abroad, cannot be given to people other than local people and locally registered shops and businesses in exchange for local goods and services.

Money cannot be swopped or exchanged for pounds or other currencies - criminal offense to be a money changer or use or charge usury in the exchange of the currency for goods and services.

Fixed rate loans for long term energy projects, building local markets and consumer bases for local energy production and energy supply networks - national projects have to be based on localisation of labour and British national based sourcing of infrastructure and industry.

We will leave the money changers in charge of their temples and the international banking and global financial system of privately owned capital, stocks and shares to the bankers and private investors - what we will do alongside the existing system of corporate banking we will create a new form of Localised Capitalism, in other words we will decouple the internal national community economic and money supply system from the international system and create a national banking system that will protect us a nation, as a community and as families and individuals from the ravages and failures of the international banking system.


1) We set up a new Bank of Britain under a new Emergency Banking Act.

2) The Bank of Britain then organises the network of EXISTING nationalised banks already owned by the government to run the new network of local banks alongside their existing services.

3) The local banks would be authorised to issue local currencies to local people.

4) Issue local currencies to local people

= NATIONAL LIBERATION.

All applications for the new income have to vetted - new NI numbers issued with entitlement card to access the money.

At same restrict access to services only to registered British citizens - local money going to fund local hospitals - a revolution in health care.

Local banks will invest government funding money in local schemes to build local projects and hire local workers and companies for local projects to satisfy local needs with those funds.

150 billion a year from EU.

Plus all other savings.

Inject money into schemes for renewable / nuclear money projects. )



Another method increasingly being used within the U.S. today is local and regional credit clearing exchanges and the use of local currencies or “scrip.” Use of such currencies could be enhanced by legislation at the state and federal levels allowing these currencies to be used for payment of taxes and government fees as well as payment of mortgages and other forms of bank debt. The credit clearing exchanges could be organized as private non-profit regional currency co-operatives similar to credit unions.

These would be immediate emergency measures. In the longer run, sovereign control of money and credit must be returned to the public commons and treated as public utilities. This does not mean exclusive government control to replace bank control. As stated previously, it would be done in partnership between government and private trade exchanges. Nor does it mean government takeover of business, industry, or the banking system, though all should be regulated for the common good and fairly taxed.

This program would lead to a new monetary paradigm where money and credit would be available by, as, when, and where needed, to facilitate trade between and among legitimate producers of goods and services. In this way trade and commerce will come to serve human freedom, not diminish it as is done with today’s dysfunctional partnership between big government trillions of dollars in debt and big finance with the entire world in hock.

Such a change would be a true populist revolution.