Brownian(s)

Brownian(s) is a term coined by the Daily Bell to describe a growing movement triggered by the publication of the book Web of Debt by Ellen Brown. The theme as postulated, which we also refer to as Brownianism, reflects Ms. Brown's desire to bring back a credit-based sovereign fiat-money.

In her book, Ms. Brown argues for public "credit based" fiat-money that is created transparently and apparently available to individuals on a loan basis. Here is a summary of her thought (based on much work done in the past by others with somewhat similar views):

Before World War I, two opposing systems of political economy competed for dominance in the United States. One operated out of Wall Street, the New York financial district that came to be the symbol of American finance. Its most important address was 23 Wall Street, known as the "House of Morgan." J. P. Morgan was an agent of powerful British banking interests. The Wizards of Wall Street and the Old World bankers pulling their strings sought to establish a national currency that was based on the "gold standard," one created privately by the financial elite who controlled the gold. The other system dated back to Benjamin Franklin and operated out of Philadelphia, the country's first capital, where the Constitutional Convention was held and Franklin's "Society for Political Inquiries" planned the industrialization and public works that would free the new republic from economic slavery to England. The Philadelphia faction favored a bank on the model established in provincial Pennsylvania, where a state loan office issued and lent money, collected the interest, and returned it to the provincial government to be used in place of taxes. President Abraham Lincoln returned to the colonial system of government-issued money during the Civil War; but he was assassinated, and the bankers reclaimed control of the money machine. The silent coup of the Wall Street faction culminated with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, something they achieved by misleading Bryan and other wary Congressmen into thinking the Federal Reserve was actually federal.

We would note that Ms. Brown's point of view when it comes to money does not include the perspective taken by the Daily Bell, which may constitute a third alternative to the dialectic she sets forth above. That perspective is one of "free banking" in which the marketplace itself decides on the kind of money and quantity in circulation. This model may include fractional reserve banking as well, so long as those involved in the distribution of fractional reserve notes make it clear that said notes are fractional. Ms. Brown makes a number of startling and interesting points in her book tracing credit-based money back through many eons, and making much of the tally-based system that she claims brought Britain over 700 years of prosperity. Public, transparent credit-money is not only feasible, she writes, but necessary if citizens are ever going to be able to take their economy back from the "banksters" who have hijacked it. Not everyone agrees with Ms. Brown, obviously. Financial historian Ed Griffin (a Bell contributor) wrote the following about Ms. Brown's theories:

"The solution to fiat money is not MORE fiat money. It is REAL money based on tangible assets, and none has yet been discovered that serves as well as gold or silver. The assertion in the videos that wooden tally sticks were successfully used in England as money is grossly misleading. They were occasionally used like government-issued script that could be applied to the payment of taxes, but at no time in history were they ever used as a medium of exchange for substantial economic transactions. To propose that we now can live with fiat money based on that myth is a non-solution." - G. Edward Griffin (Analysis of documentaries Money Masters and Capital Crimes © 2006)

Brownian(s): Site Contributions

News & Analysis

Editorials

View All Contributions for Brownian(s)