“La principal matización que ha de realizarse en relación con el sistema de banca libre ejercida con reserva fraccionaria en ausencia de un banco central, es que los procesos espontáneos del mercado que revierten los efectos distorsionadores de la expansión crediticia tienden a desencadenarse más rápidamente que en caso de que exista un banco central, por lo que los abusos y distorsiones no pueden llegar tan lejos como a menudo se desarrollan cuando existe un prestamista de última instancia que orquesta todo el proceso expansivo.

Así, cabe concebir que, en un sistema de banca libre, la actitud de vigilancia por parte de los clientes sobre la actividad y solvencia de sus bancos, la reconsideración constante de la confianza depositada en los mismos y, sobre todo, el efecto de las cámaras de compensación interbancaria, harán que de una manera relativamente ágil, rápida y espontánea se ponga coto a las iniciativas aisladas de algunos bancos para expandir su crédito. En efecto, aquellos bancos que de forma aislada decidan expandir su crédito a un ritmo más rápido que la media del sector, o incrementen la emisión de billetes a un ritmo superior al de la mayoría, verán cómo, a través de los mecanismos de liquidación y compensación interbancaria, el volumen de sus reservas disminuirá rápidamente, de manera que se verán forzados a interrumpir el crecimiento de su expansión si es que no quieren verse abocados a la suspensión de pagos y, eventualmente, a la quiebra.

Sin embargo, y a pesar de que esta indudable reacción del mercado tienda a poner coto a los abusos e iniciativas aisladas de expansión por parte de determinados bancos, no cabe duda alguna de que el proceso sólo actúa a posteriori y no es capaz de bloquear en su totalidad la emisión de nuevos medios fiduciarios. […]

Por otro lado, el ejercicio de la banca libre con reserva fraccionaria, no sólo no es capaz de evitar las expansiones y la aparición de ciclos, sino que además genera una tendencia a que los bancos en general se vean tentados a expandir sus créditos, emprendiendo una política de expansión crediticia en la que todos, en mayor o menor medida, se dejan llevar por el optimismo en la concesión de préstamos y en la creación de depósitos. […]

Aunque existen procesos autónomos de reversión que tienden a poner coto a los abusos antes que en un sistema de banca con reserva fraccionaria controlado y liderado por un banco central, el efecto más negativo de la banca libre con reserva fraccionaria es que crea un fortísimo incentivo para que los bancos se pongan de acuerdo a la hora de expandir sus créditos y, sobre todo, para que se esfuercen en pedir a las autoridades la creación de un banco central que les apoye en las etapas de apuro económico y organice y orqueste de forma conjunta y generalizada la expansión crediticia.”

Open Source Money There's a lot of books emerging on the use of complementary and local currencies. I got a ton of email on this subject already, from people concerned that I'm referring to scrip or the kinds of currencies used in the US prior to the 1930's. If the brilliant and free Bernard Latier text I recommended was too involved, there's a book I've just been made aware of that looks at some of the more practical implications of creating a community money supply called Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, by Thomas H. Greco. If you don't have five bucks for the paperback, there's an abridged PDF here.

It could very well be that banks will rule our world - but along ethical principles - as national governments with their privileges of national military and national currencies are on their way out. Just google for 'national currencies' and you'll see.

We do live in interesting times!

The Campaign for Liberty's Shadow Republican Convention is moving on up - to the Target Center! I'm so excited for all of us, and if I wasn't moving so close to the date, you bet I'd be there. I expect our revolution to light up Minnesota (to be clear, that's a metaphor).

My favorite part of the article linked above was where Paulites were described as "loud and sometimes rowdy, usually young, sign-waving blimp renters." They might as well have called us 'wacky, waving, inflatable, arm-flailing tube men.' I guess there are worse insults...

Whatever his strategy, Dr. Paul moved liberty from an ignored concept to a ridiculed concept. So, according to Schopenhauer, we're on the map! Now, we must face violent opposition, and finally acceptance. I sure hope I live to see that last one.

P.S. Did you hear Dr. Paul just received a huge advance for his memoirs? Congratulations, Doc; you deserve it.

Lew Rockwell is a great website to casually frequent to get your fill of freedom's fire when the normal news is too much of a wet blanket. And boy is it ever. The Lew Blog is now reporting that several key Cato Institute members are telling the press they favor a Fannie/Freddie bailout. Another one bites the dust...

The Confederal Government would be truly predicated on the consent of its participant states – including their right to unilateral withdrawal – and could come to include any states that met our accession criteria, including Canadian provinces or Mexican states. But before we consider enlarging our club, we must first put our own house in order.

All decisions not related to defense, keeping the borders open between states, or settling disputes between states would be handled by the sovereign state governments. Hopefully, those state governments will exercise little force over their citizens, but the plethora of states and open borders will allow residents to vote with their feet if one state goes sour. Affecting policy within a state will be handled by the Free State Society, Libertarian Party, or other freedom-organization of that state. The Confederation Society will be free to make recommendations to state governments on strategies to increase liberty, including the use of sortition and range voting to select legislatures, strengthening constitutional bills of rights, and preventing unions and corporations from undermining the civil power.

The program will include:

• Empower the Senate. If President of the Senate (Vice-President) can command majority of the Senate, then he may represent the Senate. If not, then he will select a President Pro Tempore who can command majority to represent the Senate.

• Disempower President into figurehead. President may select and dismiss Cabinet (Order of Administration) and Supreme Court (Order of Adjudication) only on the advice of the Senate.

• Disband House of Representatives. Senate becomes known as the ‘Congress of the Confederation’ and its members as ‘Delegates.’ President becomes ‘President of the Confederation, in Congress Assembled’ selected by anti-voting (to be explained in a later post) in Congress. President of the Senate (Vice-President) and Speaker of the House merged into ‘Speaker for the Congress,’ commanding a majority in the Congress and directing the Cabinet. Repeal direct election of Senators (17th Amendment) in favor of selection determined by the laws of the States.

• Repeal 16th Amendment, Commerce Clause, and other onerous parts of the Constitution. Disband the Federal Reserve and eliminate federal jurisdiction over currency. Disband the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the NSA, and all other federal criminal organizations. Disband the myriad federal departments that do not deal directly with defense.

• Make federal land and assets available for homesteading in order to reduce federal holdings to those which are necessary to pursue its limited functions.

• Default on the federal debt and entitlement obligations. It wasn't our fault that our imperial masters sold our futures down the river for their political expedience. Consequences will be limited if we no longer depend on a fiat currency that could potentially devalue.

There is more about the Confederation Society here. I am in the process of drafting proposed Articles of the Confederation Society. Each current federation or large nation-state has its own challenges in becoming a peaceful confederation. Hopefully, I can address a potential program for several of them in future posts. If you believe in this program, please start a local chapter of the Confederation Society, keep me in the loop, and check back for more innovative reform strategies and proposals.

Demolisce con un colpo di spazzone l'architettura teorica e l'evidenza empirica che hanno portato il Nobel a Stiglitz spiegando che non vi e' nessuna crisi fra quelle degli utlimi 20 anni che si sarebbe potuta evitare fornendo maggiori informazioni nelle transazioni finanziarie (more disclosure). Il problema risulta sempre essere l'azzardo morale.

Consiglio la lettura dell'articolo. Sul fronte delle conclusioni, siamo daccapo: per risolvere un problema conclamato di regolamentazione sbagliata, si propone maggiore intervento pubblico.

Ecco le tre ricette che Persaud propone:

The alternative model rests on three pillars. The first recognises that the biggest source of market and systemic failure is the economic cycle and so regulation cannot be blind and deaf to the cycle – it must put it close to the centre. Charles Goodhart and I have proposed contra-cyclical charges – capital charges that rise as the market price of risk falls as measured by financial market prices – and a good starting point for implementation of such charges is the Spanish system of dynamic provisioning (Goodhart and Persaud 2008).

Una sorta di ammortizzatori automatici anticiclici da applicare al rischio d'impresa. Da rabbrividire.

Inoltre assume che in ogni momento possiamo sapere in che punto del ciclo ci troviamo (e pensare che pure Greenspan diceva che fosse impossibile identificare in che punto della bolla ci troviamo) e di quanto il rischio e' scostato da un non ben precisano giusto valore.

Il movente e' buono (disincentivare il malinvestment), la ricetta pessima.

The second pillar focuses regulation on systemically important distinctions, such as maturity mismatches and leverage, and not on out-dated distinctions between banks and non-banks. Institutions without leverage or mismatch should be lightly regulated – if at all – and in particular would not be required to adhere to short term rules such as mark-to-market accounting or market-price risk sensitivity that contribute to market dislocation. Bankers will argue against this, saying that it creates an unlevel playing field, but financial markets are based on diversity, not homogeneity. Incentivising long-term investors to behave long-term will mean that there will be more buyers when banks are forced to sell.

Non chiarissimo, ma se si puo leggere in termini di disincentivare la riserva frazionaria, sembrerebbe un'ottima strada.

The third pillar is requiring banks to pay an insurance premium to tax payers against the risk that the tax payer will be required to bail them out. If such a market could be created, it would not only incentivise good banking and push the focus of regulation away from process to outcomes, but it would provide an incentive for banks to be less systemic. Today, banks have an incentive to be more systemic as a bail out is then guaranteed. The right response to Citibank’s routine failure to anticipate its credit risks is not for it to keep on getting bigger so that it can remain too big to fail, but for it to whither away under rising insurance premiums paid to tax payers.

Giustissimo, al di la dell'argomento demagogico del fatto che i contribuenti pagano il bail out.

Il fatto che il salvataggio apra le porte ad un enorme azzardo morale e' accettato da tutti, austriaci e mainstream. E delegare al mercato assicurativo la valutazione dell'esposizione e del rischio di credito di una banca e delle operazioni che fa, mi sembra un'ottima idea.

Obbligatorio? parliamone... in un libero mercato bancario (free banking) con riserva frazionaria non vi sarebbe bait out, percio strumenti come questi sarabbero gia' al lavoro per disincentivare e risolvere problemi legati a posizioni insostenibili. Mentre in un free banking senza riserva frazionaria (riserva 100%) questo problema non si porrebbe e punto (vedi Huerta de Soto).

Tuttavia oggi non viviamo in regime di free banking. La politica delle banche centrali ha fatto scomparire la necessita' di questi strumenti, percio per educare il mercato alla loro introduzione occorrerebbe, primo, terminare per sempre il bail out operato dalle banche centrali, e secondo, introdurre misure progressive per arrivare ad un'adozione free market di questi strumenti.

Certo, sarebbe sufficiente un passo indietro delle banche centrali e l'adozione in un regime di riserva frazionaria avverrebbe spontaneamente. Cio' che mi preoccupa e' il transitorio, che influenzerebbe in maniera non ben precisata tutti coloro che hanno un prestito, ad esempio ipotecario.

• Open Formats and Standards
• a Free Market (MIC Code)
• a Free SWIFT (BIC Code)
• a Free Banking System (IBAN Code)
• a Free Payment Service Provider (FreePay PSP)
• a Free Credit Card Validation (FreeCard)
• an E-Commerce (FreeShop)
• a Free Stock Exchange (FSX)

Available here

[slideshare id=81079&doc=presentation-banque-libre4335&w=425]

Download a brochure (.pdf) (.odp)

Libertarians hardly realize that they are often using the language of authoritarians. Partly, this is due to our movement lacking a comprehensive political theory. We certainly surpass the Greens and others in having an original policy proposal for every political issue, but we noticeably overlook questions of the form of government and answers phrased in words illustrative of libertarian thought.

Liberatic, or Free State, Theory seeks to address this. It seeks to formulate a political theory, vocabulary, and worldview for libertarians in the postmodern age.

For example, libertarians should start by taking back the word 'liberal.' It described us from its coinage to its cooptation by socialists in liberal clothing. When we speak of liberals, we will mean the 'big tent' of people in the libertarian quadrant of the Nolan Chart. Correspondingly, libertarians might forego recent tradition and work within 'liberal' parties rather than 'conservative' parties.

Which brings us to another point. Libertarians are not conservatives, right-wingers, or nationalists. Though they seem to find us more comfortable bedfellows recently than socialists do, we are not them and have traditionally opposed them. Conservatism is a chronological ideology: it seeks to preserve the recent past, regardless of what that was. That's why it is so hard to define across states and time periods. It's opposite is not liberalism, which is a philosophical ideology, but progressivism - which seeks to move politics toward the next fashion. Libertarians will be conservatives in places like the States, where libertarianism is losing ground to authoritarianism, but they will be progressives in places like Italy, which have no recent period of widespread libertarianism. Does this make sense? Right-winger has the same problem. As you can see on the Nolan Chart above, the right-to-left political spectrum is designed to exclude libertarianism. It allocates half of the libertarian program to the right and half to the left. This has caused great damage to public understanding of what liberty is, as it isn't taught in government schools. If we are anything, we are 'up-wing,' and totalitarians are 'down.' That sounds about right, doesn't it? We are the 'light-side,' and they are the 'dark.' Traditional politics is endless shades of grey. Finally on this point, we arrive at the term 'nationalist.'

This hits at the heart of the lesson. With reference made to The Ethics of Secession, which informed the liberatic position, let us all understand that fighting for a 'nation,' promoting 'nation-states,' supporting the 'United Nations,' or even using the word 'international,' are all very un-libertarian things to do. A nation-state is a particular political order, dominant in the modern world, that identifies the principle right of self-determination not by the voluntary cooperation of sovereign individuals but rather by the correspondence between a state/political class and a particular socio-ethno-linguistic group. Democrats do the same, but their group is called the 'demos' instead of the 'nation,' and its only requirement is that is be identifiable and constant. Both ideologies have an utter duopoly on political theory, and we are almost forced to use their language. That is why liberals are often called 'liberal democrats,' and why centrist Americans support 'freedom and democracy' - as if they were inextricably linked.

So, we don't want to promote concepts like: democracy, nationalism, internationalism, the nation-state, federalism, social liberalism, conservatism, socialism, etc. Then we must have our own vocabulary. What does the postmodern liberal, the liberatic libertarian, want to see in the world?

He wants to see unitary 'free states,' or 'liberacies,' based on individual sovereignty, existing not to serve a nation or demos but to protect the liberty of all human beings within a territory. These liberacies will permit secession, incorporate sortition and other power-mediating strategies, follow an agreed system of law with no legislative capacity for the government, subordinate and divide the executive, focus only on night-watchman functions, but will remain as strong as possible in counteracting aggression. They will evolve by four methods: confederation, union, accession, and secession. Confederation is a league of two or more states, with each sending a delegation to a Congress, to provide for mutual defense. Union is the creation of one new liberacy from two, both of which are subsumed into a new government for the whole territory. Accession is the joining of one liberacy into another, where the former is subsumed into the latter. Secession is the withdrawal of a territory from a liberacy, the exercise of which is a right of all free people.

Liberacy itself is a latin construction from the root 'liber,' meaning freedom, and the suffix '-acy,' to indicate being in the state of. Therefore, to live within a Liberacy is 'to be in a state of freedom.' This is similar in meaning to 'being in a state of happiness:' a matter-of-fact statement on the way things are. This is differentiated from other forms of government, which have terms ending in -archy or -ocracy. These latter forms indicate the rule of a state by a particular group. For example, democracy means 'rule of the people' or 'rule of the majority.' The term 'free state' is something of an English translation, already in use by The Free State Project. The adjectival form of liberacy is 'liberatic,' while the noun is liberal or libertarian. So now, I expect to see libertarian parties support liberacy (the libertarian state) over democracy (the majoritarian state) or nationalism (the nation-state). I expect talk in libertarian clubs to discuss globalization, a libertarian phenomenon, over internationalism, a statist phenomenon. In parallel, terms like 'interstate,' 'intercontinental,' or 'global' should entirely replace 'international' as a term of art.

We should be talking up concepts like sortition, like private mass transit, like private urban design, like anti-federalism or confederalism. Here in the Canadian Confederation (notice my use of liberatic terminology to describe Canada), we should be pushing for the elimination of the Canadian House of Commons, the expansion of the Senate with a delegation from each province (selected by whatever method that province chooses), the reduction of the role of the Confederal (currently Federal) government to defense, the end of the monarchy, the changing of the term 'province' to 'free state,' the welcoming of all immigrants and even new members to the confederation, the use of sortition for free state offices, the end of the RCMP, the end of the Social Insurance Number, the institution of free banking (or rather, the de-institution of central banking), and more.

But it all starts with how we speak. We have to affect the worldview of our local cultures. Most people can't imagine a world without nations, without fiat currency, without zoning. First, libertarians must examine their own vocabulary and worldview, then spread the words. So spread the words!

Libertarians hardly realize that they are often using the language of authoritarians. Partly, this is due to our movement lacking a comprehensive political theory. We certainly surpass the Greens and others in having an original policy proposal for every political issue, but we noticeably overlook questions of the form of government and answers phrased in words illustrative of libertarian thought.

Liberatic Theory, or Free State Theory, seeks to address this. It seeks to formulate a political theory, vocabulary, and worldview for libertarians in the postmodern age.

For example, libertarians should start by taking back the word 'liberal.' It described us from its coinage to its cooptation by socialists in liberal clothing. When we speak of liberals, we will mean the 'big tent' of people in the libertarian quadrant of the Nolan Chart. Correspondingly, libertarians might forego recent tradition and work within 'liberal' parties rather than 'conservative' parties.

Which brings us to another point. Libertarians are not conservatives, right-wingers, or nationalists. Though they seem to find us more comfortable bedfellows recently than socialists do, we are not them and have traditionally opposed them. Conservatism is a chronological ideology: it seeks to preserve the recent past, regardless of what that was. That's why it is so hard to define across states and time periods. It's opposite is not liberalism, which is a philosophical ideology, but progressivism - which seeks to move politics toward the next fashion. Libertarians will be conservatives in places like the States, where libertarianism is losing ground to authoritarianism, but they will be progressives in places like Italy, which have no recent period of widespread libertarianism. Does this make sense? Right-winger has the same problem. As you can see on the Nolan Chart above, the right-to-left political spectrum is designed to exclude libertarianism. It allocates half of the libertarian program to the right and half to the left. This has caused great damage to public understanding of what liberty is, as it isn't taught in government schools. If we are anything, we are 'up-wing,' and totalitarians are 'down.' That sounds about right, doesn't it? We are the 'light-side,' and they are the 'dark.' Traditional politics is endless shades of grey. Finally on this point, we arrive at the term 'nationalist.'

This hits at the heart of the lesson. With reference made to The Ethics of Secession, which informed the liberatic position, let us all understand that fighting for a 'nation,' promoting 'nation-states,' supporting the 'United Nations,' or even using the word 'international,' are all very un-libertarian things to do. A nation-state is a particular political order, dominant in the modern world, that identifies the principle right of self-determination not by the voluntary cooperation of sovereign individuals but rather by the correspondence between a state/political class and a particular socio-ethno-linguistic group. Democrats do the same, but their group is called the 'demos' instead of the 'nation,' and its only requirement is that is be identifiable and constant. Both ideologies have an utter duopoly on political theory, and we are almost forced to use their language. That is why liberals are often called 'liberal democrats,' and why centrist Americans support 'freedom and democracy' - as if they were inextricably linked.

So, we don't want to promote concepts like: democracy, nationalism, internationalism, the nation-state, federalism, social liberalism, conservatism, socialism, etc. Then we must have our own vocabulary. What does the postmodern liberal, the liberatic libertarian, want to see in the world?

He wants to see unitary 'free states,' or 'liberacies,' based on individual sovereignty, existing not to serve a nation or demos but to protect the liberty of all human beings within a territory. These liberacies will permit secession, incorporate sortition and other power-mediating strategies, follow an agreed system of law with no legislative capacity for the government, subordinate and divide the executive, focus only on night-watchman functions, but will remain as strong as possible in counteracting aggression. They will evolve by four methods: confederation, union, accession, and secession. Confederation is a league of two or more states, with each sending a delegation to a Congress, to provide for mutual defense. Union is the creation of one new liberacy from two, both of which are subsumed into a new government for the whole territory. Accession is the joining of one liberacy into another, where the former is subsumed into the latter. Secession is the withdrawal of a territory from a liberacy, the exercise of which is a right of all free people.

Liberacy itself is a latin construction from the root 'liber,' meaning freedom, and the suffix '-acy,' to indicate being in the state of. Therefore, to live within a Liberacy is 'to be in a state of freedom.' This is similar in meaning to 'being in a state of happiness:' a matter-of-fact statement on the way things are. This is differentiated from other forms of government, which have terms ending in -archy or -ocracy. These latter forms indicate the rule of a state by a particular group. For example, democracy means 'rule of the people' or 'rule of the majority.' The term 'free state' is something of an English translation, already in use by The Free State Project. The adjectival form of liberacy is 'liberatic,' while the noun is liberal or libertarian. So now, I expect to see libertarian parties support liberacy (the libertarian state) over democracy (the majoritarian state) or nationalism (the nation-state). I expect talk in libertarian clubs to discuss globalization, a libertarian phenomenon, over internationalism, a statist phenomenon. In parallel, terms like 'interstate,' 'intercontinental,' or 'global' should entirely replace 'international' as a term of art.

We should be talking up concepts like sortition, like private mass transit, like private urban design, like anti-federalism or confederalism. Here in the Canadian Confederation (notice my use of liberatic terminology to describe Canada), we should be pushing for the elimination of the Canadian House of Commons, the expansion of the Senate with a delegation from each province (selected by whatever method that province chooses), the reduction of the role of the Confederal (currently Federal) government to defense, the end of the monarchy, the changing of the term 'province' to 'free state,' the welcoming of all immigrants and even new members to the confederation, the use of sortition for free state offices, the end of the RCMP, the end of the Social Insurance Number, the institution of free banking (or rather, the de-institution of central banking), and more.

But it all starts with how we speak. We have to affect the worldview of our local cultures. Most people can't imagine a world without nations, without fiat currency, without zoning. First, libertarians must examine their own vocabulary and worldview, then spread the words. So spread the words!

A 'blog' is a podium for excluded voices. Allow me to join the conversation.

Théorie

La question la plus fondamentale généralement adressé à la théorie des banques libres est, comment un système bancaire et monétaire peut-il s'organiser sous une politique de Laissez-faire ?^[2]

Sortit en 1987, l'article The Evolution of a Free Banking System offre une explication de la progression de la dématérialisation des dépôts sous une politique de laissez-faire. Cette explication débute par l'idée de création d'une monnaie comme moyen d'échange et se termine sur les institutions de compensation bancaires.^[3]

Le fait que les systèmes monétaires peuvent fonctionner facilement sans régulations des gouvernements soulève la question suivante : Pourquoi les gouvernements interviennent-ils dans la régulation de la monnaie?^[4]

Tel que le suggère Lawrence White et George A. Selgin, professeurs d'économie, la cause de cette intervention s'explique du fait que les pressions fiscales imposés aux gouvernements leur imposent de rechercher à extraire des sources de capitaux aux principaux détenteurs de la monnaie.

Or, de ce que dit Friedrich Hayek dans son livre Denationalisation of Money, c'est que la concurrence est bonne et qu'un système de monnaie privée ne pose pas de problèmes. A l'opposé, dit-il, il y a de gros problèmes si le gouvernement s'en charge.

Bibliographie

• Henry Meulen, Free Banking. An outline of a policy of individualism, 1934
• Vera Lutz, The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking Alternative, 1936.
• Friedrich Hayek, Denationalisation of Money: An Analysis of the Theory and Practice of Concurrent Currencies, 1976, (ISBN 0255362390 )
• Lawrence H. White, Free Banking in Britain: Theory, Experience and Debate 1800-1845, Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), 1995, (ISBN 0255363753 )
• Lawrence White et George A. Selgin, A Fiscal Theory of Government's Role in Money
• Kevin Dowd, The Experience of Free Banking (ISBN 0415048087 )
• Kevin Dowd, Laissez-Faire Banking, Routledge, (ISBN 0415137322)

Notes et références de l'article

1. ↑ Free Banking Homepage by Kevin Dowd
2. ↑ George Selgin's Free Banking
3. ↑ The Evolution of a Free Banking System
4. ↑ George A. Selgin Associate Professor of Economics

Lien externe

Free Banking and Monetary Economics Links

Notes et références

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/36/15b

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedmoney

http://testbank.freedmoney.org/

http://www.digitalcurrency.info/aggregator/sources/10

Liens externes

• Le site officiel
• Le blog officiel
• Le test d'une Banque Open Source