CHAPTER ONE
THE WORLD MARSHALL PLAN:
HOW IT WORKS AND IS
FINANCED
A SUPPLEMENTARY INCOME FOR EACH WOMAN, MAN AND CHILD
A Marshall Plan, carefully targeting the individual development of all people, could result in an immediate improvement in the world economy, a steady regeneration of the environment and an increased caring for our common home, Planet Earth.
If every man, woman and child were given $250 every year to
be spent exclusively on his or her wholesome development, people would do this in quite different ways. The economically poor might concentrate on food production, or pool resources to buy a village water pump, while those whose physical needs are met could focus on art, travel or personal development classes. All would be encouraged to consider such questions as: What is health, what adds depth and meaning to life and how can an individual develop personally without harming others or the environment?
A supplementary income for each individual person would not only affect every person's life, it would also change the world economy unrecognizably.
To that section of the world where many earn as little as $400 a year, a $250 increase in income would constitute a fortune. Individuals could spend it on educational and other resources for soil regeneration and food production, or to start a small business. Communities could pool a part of their resources to buy a waterpump, install a sewage system or build a school. The extra income would help to catapult many within a few years into becoming contributors and consumers in a regenerated world economy.
To those to whom $250 is a percentage only of their weekly income, this bonus provides serious food for thought and would at the very least result in a worldwide consciousness raising campaign which would gain momentum, as every year again each individual would be asked to order goods and/or services for wholesome development. In wealthier communities, individuals could spend their income on culture, education, art, personal and spiritual development, or travel -- services which would not deplete non-renewable resources but which would expand individual 11
horizons and could enhance the quality of interpersonal and even international communication.
There would be a significant boost to the world economy for those goods and services that benefit the development of people, communities and the planet without harming any individual or the environment.
Half would be roughly spent on goods and half for non-material resources, like education. As peoples' physical living conditions improved, there would be more requests for educational, cultural and spiritual services, thus allowing the world economy to expand indefinitely without affecting the health of the planet.
Firms, seeing a decreasing demand for goods and services that deplete non-renewable resources or which are harmful, would be encouraged in a non-violent way to direct their research and development to the production of goods and services for this health generating market. Arms industries would, for example, be able to convert without any lay-offs. The transition would produce neither unemployment nor bankruptcies.
As production of corporations focussed increasingly on goods and services that promote health and sustainable development, their advertising would reinforce this trend. This, in turn would reinforce healthy attitudes and a predisposition among people worldwide to judge goods and services by their positive impact on human beings, on the economy and on the planetary environment. Thus business and peoples attitudes would work together to promote individual satisfaction, and caring and sustainable development worldwide in an upward moving spiral.
WHAT IS REQUIRED?
This World Marshall Plan provides a supplementary income for all people in every nation. It will take about 10 years to build the necessary infrastructure.
The infrastructure will consist of:
1. a worldwide computer network; connected to
2. a U.N. Bank which works exclusively with money transfers, rather than actual currency and is built on the model of the Dutch PTT Giro System; with
3. accounts for every man, woman and child in the world; and
4. two U.N. development experts for every one thousand people, each with access to this fully computerized banking system both for informational and data entry purposes.
WHERE WOULD THE INCOME FOR ALL PEOPLE COME FROM?
In the past, countries created currency, equivalent to the amount of gold they had.
Today, countries create currency, according to the combined value of their marketable goods and services.
At regular intervals, national or federal banks, all over the world decide at the national level how much the combined goods and services in that country are worth. On the basis of this the value of that country's currency is determined.
Ideally, a country's currency is a measurement of the value of its combined goods and services. The amount of money a person has, symbolizes how much of these s/he can use to barter for other goods and services. Money is therefore a means of exchanging goods and services.
It has been estimated that an extra 7% (1) increase in world money could be generated by the end of next year worldwide, if the untapped potential were to be tapped, by, for instance, providing the un- and under employed with well-paying work, expanding markets and doing away with abuses of money. If calculated in a new world currency which we could call U.N. Dollars, this increase can become the source of the money (or, to be precise, purchasing power) to be divided between all people. After payment of the costs of the infrastructure, each person's share of the remainder would amount to $250 per person per year.
Each person would thus be given a share of this future wealth of the world as a whole to use for his or her own wholesome development. Thus the currency would be created for a Supplementary Economy for individual and world economic development.
The U.N. Supplementary Economy has two characteristics, not shared with any economy elsewhere in the world and which are made possible by modern computer technology and census taking infrastructures being developed with the support of the U.N.:
1. It would be known from the outset, each year, exactly what is needed and what can be supplied through the U.N. Economy, and
2. Every human being in the world would have an account and all accounts would be linked through a network of computers, that would connect all countries. With help of the U.N., 155 countries already have the computer technology and other infra structure to enable them to take population censuses.
Modern computer technology has produced a breakthrough in economic relations. It enables the U.N. (or any coordinating body one might care to choose) to create capital which is covered from the outset by guaranteed sales through the Supplementary Economy of the World Marshall Plan for the purposes of the development of people worldwide.
To ensure that people use the money for constructive purposes, no one would receive cash, but instead credit on a "giro" account, which works with automatic bank transactions and can be used only to purchase "life enhancing" goods and services.
AN ELECTRONIC MAIL ORDER ECONOMY
This is how the system would work.
Every year, a census in taken in every country to establish which wholesome, life enhancing goods and\or services every person wishes to order for the year. In the Technical and Evaluation Division of the U.N. Population Fund, it was suggested that countries could agree to attach a questionnaire to the ongoing census programme of each country which could be tabulated separately. This would be particularly useful while the infrastructure for the Marshall Plan is being put into place.
Each person may order the equivalent of U.S. $250 worth of goods and services for her or his personal development. These may on no condition be harmful to anyone or the planet. The credit of those not wishing to participateis cancelled.
These "orders" are entered on a computer banking system, with links to similar set-ups in all countries. Existing commercial banks are connected to this system both for the benefit of the consumers and of the producers. People who can supply the life enhancing goods and services requested also make this known to development workers. Once supply and demand are exactly matched, marketable goods and services have come into being and the currency can be created. Individuals' accounts which would at that moment have an actual credit each of $250 would then be credited or debited respectively, depending on what they have "bought" or "sold". The next year the process would be repeated.
ADMINISTRATION OF THE PLAN
This process could be administered by any organization. Since the United Nations is the closest we have to a universal organization, it is suggested that the plan be administered by the United Nations or one of its Agencies (for example an expanded IFAD). In this way the U.N. acts as a global intermediary between producer and consumer, performing the task of a worldwide social and cultural agency to which all people worldwide are connected. This U.N. service is both suprapolitical and supranational, and is run according to rules and regulations which are like those governing the international traffic and postal systems: they serve everyone and harm no-one and enable people, businesses and governments to perform their functions with greater efficiency and yet without external interference.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CURRENCY
The neutral currency -- let us call it the U.N. dollar -- can only be used in automatic bank transactions, not as cash (it is therefore, strictly speaking, purchasing power rather than money), and is used exclusively for development purposes. This would result in effective development, because people would be allowed to determine their own most pressing needs, or to pool their U.N. Income for the development of their community (to buy a generator which runs on solar energy or to install a sewage system, for instance). This facet of the Plan consists of development from the grass roots upwards.
U.N. dollars are issued by the coordinating agency, i.e. the global U.N. bank (or that of one of the U.N. Specialized Agencies). The currency will be inflation proof because of the exacting way in which the surplus is produced by the Supplementary U.N. Economy. Money is, after all, an agreement, a medium enabling producers and consumers to barter.
Existing banks will be paid to make U.N. funds available to producers interest-free. Within the Supplementary U.N. Economy there can be no fraud using U.N. dollars. There is no speculation, interest, or possibility of inflation, when the initial direct link between production and consumption is made. The whole system is moreover monitored by the census takers (which can be referred to as development workers) and all individual people.
The goods and services provided by the U.N. will be sent to all consumers under the combined supervision of each individual person and that of the two U.N. development workers in their areas. They may be received after showing appropriate identification. In this way everyone will be able to protect their own interest, while no-one will be able to exploit anyone else.
PRECEDENTS FOR THE CREATION OF CURRENCY
Creation Of Currency At The National Level
Creation Of Currency
Since the abolishment of the gold standard, Central Banks have created currency, according to the value of goods and services that people within that country seem certain be able to sell.
Creation Of Currency In Anticipation Of The Future Sale Of Goods And Services
Money is created in anticipation of goods and services a borrower at a bank alleges to be able to sell in the future. If there seems a high degree of certainty that the borrower's assessment is correct, i.e. that the sale will take place for the anticipated amount, currency can be created by that country's Central Bank in anticipation of the sale. The U.N. Dollar is created against the goods and services that will be sold later that same year.
Creating currency, backed by future sales of goods and services can be subject to error, since the exact amount of sales may not actually take place (goods and services may, in fact, be sold for more or less than assessed). If errors are made, the amount of money in circulation in a country has later to be readjusted to prevent inflation or deflation.
The U.N. Dollar is not subject to miscalculation, since currency is ONLY produced for those goods and services which have actually been ordered and can definitely be produced. Since the Supplementary Income in U.N. Dollars is not available as money, only as a credit, U.N. Dollars can not be lost or spent. They are strictly used as credit within the confines of the system.
Any Supplementary Income credit not spent in the space of a year elapses: people can not accumulate U.N. Dollars.
For these reasons the U.N. Dollar is a hard currency, more stable than that of today's hard currencies, as we shall see below.
Precedents Of International Currency
After the Second World War, two proposals were put forward for a new global fiscal system: one by the U.S.A. and one by the U.K. The U.K. proposed an international currency. Eventually, the U.S.A.'s proposal was adopted, not the British one.
Now, almost 50 years later, the European Economic Community is in the process of creating an international currency, the Economic Community Unit or ECU, for use within the Economic Community (EC).
On July 28, 1969, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) officially created an international currency, called "Special Drawing Rights", formed from contributions from Member States, to be administered by a new facility within the International Monetary Fund (IMF).