The concept of Free Banking is perhaps the most important thing that men today can dedicate themselves to, for it is the lack of Freedom when it comes to currency and credit which has lead to stripping of the earth’s resources and the resulting environmental problems which a number of developing nations suffer from in a disproportionate manner.

Specifically, the suppression of Free Banking has caused the activities of man to create what is an unsustainable imbalance with the demands of the earth’s natural systems.

So what is Free banking?  As the name may suggest to many in the developed world, it is not a lack of monthly charges on a bank account, rather, it is the freedom for banks to compete as issuers of credit and safe keepers of currency in any form.

The current slave banking system’s fatal flaw is that it is obligated to issue credit and accept deposits in currencies which are nothing more than debt issued by a Central Bank.  This constraint causes the currency created by the Central Bank to be the basis of all of man’s activities out of a necessity to pay a tax to the government in said currency.

To compound this fatal flaw, the issuing Central Banks actively manipulate the interest rates, which affect the price of the flawed currency and credit, making the value of both the credit and savings of everyone completely subject to the whims of the Central Bank.

If the currency which everyone was working for had been created legitimately by the labor of another man and its price, via the interest rate mechanism, allowed to respond to real supply and demand signals, a natural balance would be struck between credit and savings in society.  This balance would express itself as conservation and eventual increase of the earth’s resources.

However, the currency which everyone is working for is nothing more than a piece of data created by a computer and printed onto a piece of paper and, via the active suppression of the interest rate mechanism, is not allowed to be properly discounted.  As such, all of the labors of man are set towards destroying the earth, turning it into more pieces of paper, and depositing them into a bank in order to close out the credit account created by the computer.

We observed the zeal with which Evo Morales and other revolutionary leaders have implemented reforms by closing down a majority of the ministries of the government almost immediately upon gaining the power to do so.  It is a swift move in which they attempt to consolidate their power.  However, as one studies these cases, they will see that often there was one notable exception that was allowed to continue operating:  The Central Bank.

The Central Bank is often seen as a sacred cow, even by those who vehemently opposite it, on the grounds that the currency and interest rates are too important to day to day life to be to the incapable hands of the people, which is what the concept of Free banking is all about.

However, it is for this very reason, the indispensible role of currency and credit in society, that currency and interest rates CANNOT be left in the hands of any one entity, no matter how much clairvoyance is attributed to them.

No one would argue that grains and fuel are important to everyday life in nearly all the earth.  However, even hard core Marxists would be hard pressed to admit that all peoples would be better off were only one entity given the ability to produce and set the price for either.  As such, it has been proven over and over again that the expansion of the ability to produce such indispensible items not only provides them in sufficient quantities to satisfy demand, it will do so at a price that is more or less tolerable for all (this argument, of course, is null if the price is controlled by a single entity).

While free market proponents are quick to recognize the benefits of the freedom to produce grains, fuels, and healthcare, for example, they become hardcore Marxists when it comes to currency and credit.  What those who fall into this trap fail to realize is that all of the virtues of free markets are worthless if the most basic economic common denominators of currency and credit are not allowed to operate in as nature intended.

Free banking would allow free markets to solve all the problem of scarcity in currency and credit in the most efficient way possible.  Why, then, is Free banking seen as the ultimate boogeyman by those in authority?  It is for one reason and one reason only:

Control of currency and credit represents the ultimate authority in the material world.

While free market reforms can go a long way towards liberating the peoples of the world, the task and to close down the Central Bank and allow both the banks and the people to choose in what currency they will issue credit and maintain their savings.  Far from leading to anarchic chaos, the basic need for exchange and the issuance of credit amongst humans would cause all of society who wished to trade with one another to arrive at a tacit decision as to what is best suited to serve as currency.

While in most cases, this tacit decision has arrived on Gold and Silver, the British and American empires, the most recent examples of empire, grew so wealthy that lesser metals, such as copper, were thrust into use as currency.

As a practical matter, it must be admitted that closing down the Central Bank would be a shock.  For this reason, we look to solutions such as those seen in the actions of Canupa Gluha Mani, the Ithanchan of the Free Lakota Bank, as a path to free banking and the ultimate freedom of the peoples of the world.

The Lakota people declared their freedom from the sovereignty from the Government of the United States government in 2007.  As an important part of this process, they knew that it would be necessary to establish their own monetary system.  Further, they recognized that to simply choose another currency would again make them slaves to the creators of that currency.

To solve this problem, they opened the Free Lakota Bank and adopted what is known as the American Open Currency Standard, which is attempt to return to a balanced system of metallic weights and measures to use as currency which is recognized and traded internationally.

While this may seem now like an impossible step to take, the Peoples of the earth must enjoy free banking if they are to enjoy Liberty, Private Property, and Equality before the law in any meaningful way.  For the lack of options in currencies in favor of the Central Bank’s monopoly on the issue of credit will keep the Peoples of the earth and their governments in the bonds of financial slavery until the Freedom of Banking is restored.

Free banking, by its very nature, does not obligate a people to adopt a currency standard, as the native Lakota people have.  While the most likely outcome of the liberation of the currency and credit markets is for all involved to quickly settle on a new currency standard, it is necessary to guarantee that all Peoples the right to choose which currency they want to hold and to bank in.  This is the only way that man can live in harmony with one another and with the natural world.  This freedom is the spirit of the principle of Free Banking.