THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

'survival of the fittest' was so readily accepted as self-evident truth by
the 18th century English, as well as by any societies that have
accepted, without question, the premises of the money system that
they designed, such as we have today. Fortunately, we now have
ample evidence that supports less harsh interpretations of the
'natural world' (see sidebar).
2. Need for endless growth
The main simplifying assumption of the 'eleventh round' is that
everything remains the same until next year. In reality, we do not live
in a world of zero growth of population, output or money supply. In
the real world, there is typically some growth over time in all these
variables, and the money system just preempts the first component of
that growth to pay for the interest. Even in this respect, there are
long-forgotten religious precedents for this process. The 'first fruit of
the harvest' was ritually sacrificed as an offer to the gods in many
ancient societies.
This dynamic also makes it much harder than in our Eleventh
Round story to notice what is actually going on. Nevertheless,
indefinitely compounded interest in the material world is a
mathematical impossibility (see sidebar).
In this dynamic view, the money system is like a treadmill that
requires continuous economic growth, even if the real standard of
living remains stagnant. The rate of interest fixes the average level of
growth that is needed to remain at the same place. This need for
perpetual growth is another fact of life that we tend to take for
granted in modem societies, and that we usually do not associate
with either interest or even our money system.
3. Concentration of wealth effect