Advantage 87 – Worldwide introduction

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

» Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood.

Make big plans: aim high in hope and work.«

– Daniel Hudson Burnham

American architect and town planner,

of, among other things, downtown Chicago and San Francisco

The gradido has the potential to become a new world currency that is established decentrally in the individual countries. This can, of course, also happen by virtue of a joint resolution by all nations.

At present it does not in fact look as if the many nations –  some at war with each other – will agree on a new world currency at the same time. But we do not know everything that is going to happen in the near future. Anything is possible, also the concerted introduction of gradido as a world currency. That would then be plan A from advantage 78, the scenario of the Joytopia story. 

Advantage 88 – Ethics

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»We were not born for ourselves alone.«

– Marcus Tullius Cicero

Roman politician, writer and philospher

It is a bold venture to write about ethics. Something that is ethical for one person may be completely unacceptable to another. Particularly in the various cultural areas absolutely different ethical principles apply. Is it possible at all to find a common ground worldwide? If it is, what might a common ethical approach look like? Once again, nature may be able to give us some good stimuli.

Over billions of year nature has proved that she knows how life functions. She is like a »great mother«, who is anxious for her »children« to thrive. The wish to »thrive« indeed seems to be common to all beings.

The Natural Economy of Life provides a system of incentives that promotes prosperity for all. Win-win situations are created for everyone time and time again.

Advantage 89 – The threefold good

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»Only great cooperation is fruitful,

 when one person shares in it through another.«

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

French writer

Every decision, every action, every product and every service must, if possible, serve the threefold good – the good of the individual, the good of the community and the good of the big scheme of things (all beings, the environment and nature). The threefold good is, to a certain extent, the paramount decision criterion of the Natural Economy of Life. In everything we do we ask ourselves:

1. Does it serve the good of every single person?
2. Does it serve the good of the community?
3. Does it serve the good of the big scheme of things?

Only when all three questions can be answered with a clear »yes« have we passed the test. If one of the criteria is not met, we should rethink something.

The threefold good is also the basis for the threefold creation of money: the active basic income primarily serves the good of the individual, the national income serves the good of the community and the Equalisation and Environment Fund serves the good of the big scheme of things. The most important criterion has thus been met for the creation of money.

Advantage 90 – The good of the individual

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Never do anything you wouldn’t like

to be done unto you.«

– Confucius

Chinese philosopher

Self-interest is probably the greatest motivation factor of all. Everyone is, first of all, their own neighbour, even if altruistic reasons are given. A functioning system of incentives – and money is nothing but an incentive system – must address the self-interest of each individual or, in other words, protect the good of the individual.

With the gradido this starts with unconditional participation. Everyone has the right to contribute to the community and thus receive their active basic income. This automatically results in the common good being served at the same time.

Advantage 91 – The good of the community

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»I let go the desire for the general good

and the good spreads as generally as grass.«

– Laotse

Chinese philosopher

Not only the good of the individual is served with the active basic income. As it is generated through service to the community, it enhances the general good at the same time. That is one of the typical win-win situations that frequently arise all by themselves in the gradido system.

The creation of the second amount of money is explicitly intended for the good of the community – the national income that is automatically created by each citizen. This is used to finance all the things a nation’s government is responsible for. The good of the state naturally also benefits the individual since, after all, the state is the community of all citizens.

The common good is integrated into the Natural Economy of Life as a matter of course. There are no more conflicts between the good of the individual and the good of the community, in which a decision has to be made for one of them. We can let go of the desire for the general good as the threefold good spreads automatically by itself.

Advantage 92 – The good of the big scheme of things

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»Paradise is seldom recognized as such until it is considered from the outside.«

– Hermann Hesse

Swiss writer

For the good of the big scheme of things the Equalisation and Environment Fund provides a pool of money equal in amount to the national budgets of all countries together. This fund is filled by the third amount of money created amounting to 1,000 gradidos per person per month.

This is by far the largest environmental fund that has ever existed or is planned anywhere, as far as we know. It many times exceeds all environment funds in the world. The good of the big scheme of things thus has equal importance from a financial point of view to the good of all nations together.

Protection and decontamination of the environment are going to be the most important and profitable economic sectors in the world. Or, in other words, only companies that make and offer their products and services in harmony with nature will be able to survive. Things will be made easy for companies as they receive support in making the changeover. Organic and biological products will thus be lower in price than others. The world economy will switch to biological quality.

Advantage 93 – Reinforce what is positive

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Attention brings reinforcement – lack of attention brings liberation«

– Nikolaus B. Enkelmann:

the 11th law of thinking

Once when we were refurbishing our house the architect asked us what colour the rainwater pipe from the roof gutter should be painted. At that time I did not know what this pipe was and so I will explain that it is the pipe that leads down the wall of the house and disappears into the earth, ending up in the drainage system. At that time I was not even aware of the existence of rainwater pipes, let alone what they looked like. So we decided to have a look at the rainwater pipes on houses on our next walk.

And indeed we saw at least one, if not more, on every house. Some of them had a golden sheen because they were made of copper and were still quite new. Old copper pipes were a dark reddish brown. Pipes made of tinplate were sometimes painted in the colour of the roof tiles and sometimes in the colour of the house wall. One particular specimen was even painted in three colours because the wall of the house was painted in a different colour on each floor.

During the following few weeks we almost exclusively saw rainwater pipes in many different colours and models. We now encountered them constantly merely because of our attention to them, although I had not even known of their existence before. They had always been there but they did not enter our lives until we paid attention to them.

The law of attention works with everything: when we primarily pay attention to negative things, actions, circumstances, etc., we will discover more and more of them in our lives. Conversely, when we focus on positive things, actions and circumstances, we will become aware of how many of these are already part of our lives. Both the positive and negative categories were already there before; only our attention to them makes us perceive our lives as having either a negative or a positive tendency.

But unlike the rainwater pipes, which do not really care if we pay attention to them or not, people react very strongly to attention. People who are criticised for their negative qualities in general reinforce these, thus becoming »worse«. Conversely, people become »better« when we praise their positive qualities and actions.

In the present times people mostly pay attention to negative things. They try to fight undesirable things or at least protect themselves from them. We wage wars against terror; we fight unemployment, demographic change, poverty and hunger; we protect ourselves from flower pollen, the sun, rain, insects and body odour. The results are more terrorism, unemployment, poverty and hunger and more allergies to pollen, sun and insect bites. Oh yes, I’d almost forgotten: we try to fight the state debts but they are increasing all the time worldwide.

Now you will certainly understand why the gradido system only provides for positive account balances; why we do not propose punishments for environmental sinners but the Equalisation and Environment to subsidise protection and decontamination of the environment; why the government does not burden citizens with taxes but encourages them to develop their full potential through unconditional participation.

By paying attention to the positive we reinforce it. What works with the individual functions even better in the community because the effects are exponential. By introducing the Natural Economy of Life we can transmit a positive basic attitude to the whole of humanity. The positive effects even exponentiate many times over. A swarm intelligence develops, giving us common abilities we had never even dared dream of before.