Howard Switzer
2 min readSep 1, 2024

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“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” Prov 22:7

The big commercial banks control the creation and allocation of all the money in the global banking system as interest bearing debt, as loans consisting of the principal created as a deposit and the interest is added to the debt. As the principal is paid off, that money is extinguished while the interest, which must come from the principal of another loan, goes to profit the bank owners and into asset pools owned by the wealthy. This is the economic growth imperative as society competes to pay the interest on the debt and not lose their collateral. However, when loan payments (money destroyed) exceeds loans being made (money created) the system crashes into recession or depression for lack of money and loans default. This has been called "the business cycle" but is more a monetary/finance system cycle. This then allows a transfer of wealth as the real wealth collateral from the loan defaults is picked up for pennies on the dollar, further concentrating wealth to the top which is then used for more power and control.

Capitalism began as a French word, capitalisme, used to refer the system of war finance, or the practice of borrowing large amounts of money to fund the costs of war. War debt was in fact how the capitalists got nations to hand over their monetary authority to the banking system which they dominate. So, capitalism dominates the ownership of the raw materials, the means of production, exploits earth's resources and labor, concentrates wealth, creates poverty, drives destructive growth, predatory competition and all wars are banker’s wars. That is what capitalism does …but what IS capitalism?

What does the word literally mean?

Capitalism = (capital = money) + (ism = system) = money system. The central feature and source of awesome power for capitalism is the debt based private global monetary system they own and operate through the global banking system. Money is the governing factor. Capitalism is often wrongly conflated with “free enterprise” and “free markets” but capitalism assures that these are NOT free. This is because Capitalism is a debt parasite on the back of free enterprise making every household, business and government in this world in debt and dependent on the banking system. There is far more debt than there is money. Global debt is about $315T while the entire global money supply is only $85T. On average 50% of the price we pay for goods and services are due to “capital costs”, interest being paid to the banks. We need to change the monetary system to one that serves the many, not just the few. monetaryalliance.org

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Howard Switzer

Howard Switzer is an ecological architect and monetary reformer in rural Tennessee.