by Elina St-Onge

2014

excerpted from How to Change the World
 

 

 



 

 


First of all, what is money? Rectangular pieces of paper, circular pieces of metal or digits on a computer screen.

 

And what is it for?

  • The more money you have, the more you have access to resources such as food, transport, shelter, clothing, technology, luxury and so on.

     

  • The less money you have, the harder it is to have access to these resources, and the more your life becomes centered on survival.

Plain and simple:

you are not supposed to survive without money.

According to society, money equals life.

 

That is why earning a living is synonymous with earning money. That is why our education system itself is modeled to make everyone fit for the job market more than anything else.

 

That is why passion and creativity is not considered as important as simply getting the job that will allow you to survive.

 

If it were not for money, most people would not willingly go and do things like shuffle paper or input data into a computer all day.

"'Normal' is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."
Ellen Goodman

 


 


If we are lucky, we are able to earn a living doing something that we love.

 

But most people work simply because they have to. We have to work to pay our bills. We have to work to earn the food that is on our plate. It does not matter if we are homeless and starving; the rule says that we cannot feed ourselves without money.

 

We could end the story there, stop questioning, go on with our lives and decide that money will and should always rule.

 

But how about asking even more basic questions:

  • Why is it this way?

  • Why does money come in between human beings and basic necessities?

  • What makes that possible?

The answer is ownership.

 

Since almost everything is owned on the planet, we need to work and pay for pretty well everything.

 


"LAND:

A part of the earth's surface, considered as property.


The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.

 

Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living."
Ambrose Bierce

 

 


# 1 - OWNERSHIP & HIERARCHY

 


 


In a global context, ownership is the concept where individuals can take possession of what is already freely given by the Earth - such as land, water, food or even energy - and can choose to forbid others from having access to them unless they are willing to pay.

 

Ownership is the very foundation of the money system.

 

If nothing were owned, there would be nothing to sell back to the population and thus no economic growth.

"Basically, economic growth means that you have to find something that people once got for free, or did for themselves or for each other, and then take it away and sell it back to them somehow."
Charles Eisenstein

Ownership is a product of the ingrained belief that there will never be enough space, opportunity and resource in the world for everybody to share.

 

This has in turn made the concepts of competition, "survival of the fittest," rich and poor, and ruler and ruled - a reality amongst the human race. One where you must earn your spot in the world, hold on to it, own it, protect it and ideally profit from it.

The concept of ownership is what makes it possible for a few to monopolize land and resources while the majority become subject to their rules and conditions. This has created a human society based on a pyramidal structure:

the powerful few at the top and the rest of humanity at the bottom.

We call it a "hierarchy..."

By definition, a hierarchy is a system in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to their level of authority, status, control and privilege. In the context of a global hierarchy, the higher you are ranked, the wealthier you are and the more power you have over the earth and its people.

 

The lower you are ranked, the more you have to abide by the rules dictated from above and/or slave to survive in the world. Many would be quick to label this as one of those "conspiracy theories."

 

But as much as this hierarchy sounds harsh, it is not some hidden information written by a guy in a tinfoil hat. It is in fact "hidden" in plain sight. This system is considered the norm and has been given a popular name:

Social Class.

To keep it simple for people, the global hierarchy has been divided in four social classes:

  • the upper class

  • the middle class

  • the lower class

  • the underclass

 


 

  • The Underclass is often overlooked and represents the most disadvantaged people within the social hierarchy.

     

    It consists of the poor, homeless, disabled and unemployed whom have no participation whatsoever within the system. Members of the underclass often inherited this lifestyle from their impoverished family or country.

     

    They usually struggle to survive or simply fail to survive -  unless they are able to become members of the working class and earn enough money to feed themselves.
     

  • The Lower Class and Middle Class (Working Class) are terms used to represent those who do what the system sets out for them: work, pay taxes and pay bills.

    • The Lower Class consists of people on a low income who can barely afford to keep up with bills.

       

    • The Middle Class refers to people with a higher income who can live comfortably if they are willing to keep working.

  • The Upper Class is commonly referred to as the "rich and powerful."

     

    Millionaires, politicians and celebrities are its most widely known members. However, a less talked about portion of the upper class could be referred to as 'the owner class.'

     

    They belong to the very top of the hierarchy and their wealth is generated by how much land, resources and major industries they own and profit from - as opposed to how much money they were able to make through regular commercial activity.

     

    These individuals have no financial limitations, wield the greatest political power and exert the most control over the use of natural resources.

     

    While they make up only 1% of the overall population, they own and control a disproportionately large amount of the overall wealth and resources of the world.
     

 

 

 

"The members of the tiny capitalist class at the top of the hierarchy have an influence on economy and society far beyond their numbers.

 

They make investment decisions that open or close employment opportunities for millions of others. They contribute money to political parties, and they often own media enterprises that allow them influence over the thinking of other classes...

 

The capitalist class strives to perpetuate itself: Assets, lifestyles, values and social networks... are all passed from one generation to the next."
Dennis Gilbert

The American Class Structure

 

 


WHO ARE THEY?
 



 


This elite is made up of,

They do not partake in the system like everybody else; they run it.

 

They do not deliver political speeches on television; they pull the strings behind the scenes. Such individuals are often born into it and their immense wealth is passed from generation to generation in order to maintain the high status, nobility and power within their bloodline.

 

The Royal Family, the Rothschild's, the Rockefeller's and the Morgan's - amongst several other bloodlines - all are key players within this elite.

 

Their power is symbolically represented on the back of the US dollar bill by the "all-seeing-eye" at the top of the hierarchy. These same families are traceable throughout our history and have always been at the forefront of the money system.

 

Although many private societies are tied to the elite, the most publicly known groups in which they are involved in are,

...all of which were "coincidentally" created by one or more of the elite bloodlines.

 

These five organizations are the key rulers and decision-makers in the sphere of politics, banking, business, military, education, religion, media, energy, health and agriculture.

 

Although most of these organizations are not so secret, what goes on inside of them is - hence why the media is forbidden to cover what transpires at the annual Bilderberg meetings.

 


"The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."
Benjamin Disraeli

first Prime Minister of England

 


 


The wealth gap between the upper class and the underclass families who cannot even afford a meal is outrageous, however many people consider it an inevitable part of life.

 

It is believed that poverty is the result of overpopulation, poor education, racial inferiority or even laziness.

 

But because most people never think to question the concepts of hierarchy and ownership, few realize that they represent an important building block in today's inequality of consumption.

 

The passage below describes this reality very well:
 


THE CAUSE OF POVERTY

Is it Overpopulation or Who Owns and Controls The Land?

"The often heard comment (one I once accepted as fact) that 'there are too many people in the world, and overpopulation is the cause of hunger', can be compared to the same myth that expounded sixteenth-century England and revived continuously since.

 

Through repeated acts of enclosure the peasants were pushed off the land so that the gentry could make money raising wool for the new and highly productive power looms.

 

They could not do this if the peasants were to retain their historic entitlement to a share of production from the land. Massive starvation was the inevitable result of this expropriation. (…)"

There were serious discussions in learned circles about overpopulation as the cause of this poverty.

 

This was the accepted reason because a social and intellectual elite were doing the rationalizing. It was they who controlled the educational institutions which studied the problem. Naturally the final conclusions (at least those published) absolved the wealthy of any responsibility for the plight of the poor.

 

The absurdity of suggesting that England was then overpopulated is clear when we realize that,

'the total population of England in the sixteenth century was less than in any one of several present-day English cities.'

The hunger in underdeveloped countries today is equally tragic and absurd.

 

Their European colonizers understood well that ownership of land gave the owner control over what society produced. If ever re-established, this ancient practice would reduce the rights of these new owners.

 

For this reason, much of the land went unused or underused until the owners could do so profitably. This is the pattern of land use that characterizes most Third World countries today, and it is this that generates hunger in the world.

These conquered people are kept in a state of relative impoverishment.

 

Permitting them any substantial share of the wealth would negate the historic reason for conquest - namely plunder. The ongoing role of Third World countries is to be the supplier of cheap and plentiful raw materials and agricultural products to the developed world.

Nature's wealth was, and is, being controlled to fulfill the needs of the world's affluent people.

The U.S. is one of the prime beneficiaries of this well-established system. Our great universities search diligently for 'the answer' to the problem of poverty and hunger.

 

They invariably find it in,

'lack of motivation, inadequate or no education,' or some other self-serving excuse.

They look at everything except the cause - the powerful own the world's social wealth.

As a major beneficiary, we have much to gain by perpetuating the myths of overpopulations, cultural and racial inferiority, and so forth.

 

The real causes must be kept from ourselves, as how else can this systematic damaging of others be squared with what we are taught about democracy, rights, freedom, and justice?
J.W. Smith

The World's Wasted Wealth: the political economy of waste

(New World's Press, 1989), pp. 44, 45.


 


DID YOU KNOW?
Source: globalissues.org

  • An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and the poorest countries was about:

    • 3 to 1 in 1820

    • 11 to 1 in 1913

    • 35 to 1 in 1950

    • 44 to 1 in 1973

    • 72 to 1 in 1992

  • More than 80% of the world's population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.

It is well enough that there is a huge gap between the world's rich and poor, but,

  • How has it come to be so big?

  • And why is it growing?

The one word answer: debt.

 

 

 


# 2 - DEBT

"And to preserve independence, we must not let our leaders load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."
Thomas Jefferson

Ever wonder where money comes from?

 

Many people still believe that it is the government who creates money and that it does so in proportion to how much gold exists in reserve. However, both assumptions are false.

 

Private central banks create money - not by printing it, minting coins or moving around precious metals - but by simply typing it into existence whenever a borrower asks for a loan.

 

Yes, money is created out of thin air.

 

As stated by the Boston Federal Reserve,

"When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money."



 


The catch is:

whenever money is borrowed into existence, bankers expect it to be paid back with interest.

However, the interest attached to each loan is never created.

 

This means that the debt generated by interest rates will always exceed the total amount of money in circulation.

  • So how can we ever repay money that does not yet exist?

  • Do we have the power to create money out of thin air?

No, the banks do.

Therefore, we need to repeat the cycle of borrowing more money to the banks.


But more loans equal more debt.

 

Welcome to the debt-based monetary system...

"Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing."

Ralph M. Hawtry

former secretary of the treasury

 

 

DID YOU KNOW?

  • ?For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment to the rich. (2008, globalissues.org)
     

  • $550 billion has been paid in both principal and interest over the last three decades, on $540 billion of loans, and yet there is still a $523 billion debt burden. (2005, globalissues.org)
     

  • Debt kills. Around 11 million children die each year due to conditions of poverty and debt. (globalissues.org)

 

"The history of third world debt is the history of a massive siphoning-off by international finance of the resources of the most deprived people.

 

This process is designed to perpetuate itself, thanks to a diabolical mechanism whereby debt replicates itself on an even grander scale, a cycle that can only be broken by cancelling the debt."

Third World Debt, a Continuing Legacy of Colonialism

 


 


The more you are able to make the world be indebted to you, the more you can manipulate the population into spending their entire lives trying to survive as debt slaves to your self-serving system.

 

This is the intention behind our modern banking system.

 

Mortgages, taxes, credit cards, payment plans… all of it is designed to perpetuate debt, since it is debt itself that feeds this economic machine.
 



 


Instead of going into greater detail about the workings of our debt-based economy here, below are links to documentaries and videos covering the subject matter in greater detail.

 


DOCUMENTARIES - Money System

 

"We protest not only at our exclusion from the American Dream; we protest at its bleakness.

  • If it cannot include everyone on Earth, every ecosystem and bioregion, every people and culture in its richness

  • If the wealth of one must be the debt of another

  • If it entails sweatshops and underclasses and fracking and all the rest of the ugliness our system has created,

...then we want none of it."
Charles Eisenstein

 

 

 

# 3 - DEPENDENCY

In addition to the perpetual debt it creates, the monetary system needs the population to continually buy new stuff and pay for services, or else it will collapse.

 

Notice how we are commonly referred to as "consumers" rather than human beings.

 

That is because a consumer is what the powers that be need us to be. In order to uphold this economy, it is necessary to create mental and/or physical dependency to industries, whether it is the banking industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the oil industry, the food industry, the beauty industry etc.

 

Creating dependency is crucial for the few to overpower the many.

 


 

"The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favors that there will be no opposition from that class.

 

While on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."
The Rothschild brothers of London

writing to associates in New York, 1863

Dependency is created in 3 simple steps.

  • First, you must create something - whether it be the first dollar in existence, a service or a product (this step is to be skipped of course in the case of natural resources)

  • Secondly, you must claim ownership of it

  • Thirdly, you must ensure that others will continually need (or think they need) to get it from you

Then, you're in control...

 


 


However, if you do not claim ownership and control over resources - or create meaningful products and systems that would allow people to be self-sufficient - your power hungry or profit-making mentality is quite useless.

 

You would have to be okay with creating and providing solely for the greater good and freedom of all - even if it means they will no longer depend on you - instead of thinking solely in terms of short-term personal gain.

 

This is obviously not good for business.

It is only a matter of observation to see how major industries altogether form an interlocked web of dependency that feed each other by creating more need, instead actually liberating the world from need.

 

Because of this business model, the natural desire to contribute for the betterment of all has gradually been replaced by the robotic desire to accumulate numbers and pieces of paper.

 

We can see the result of this short-sightedness in today's industrial practices.

  • Manufacturers keep cutting corners and producing lower-quality products with a shorter lifespan to keep sales going (planned obsolescence).
     

  • Food companies ignore health hazards in the name of cheaper fillers and chemical additives to maximize flavor and prolong shelf life.
     

  • The medical industry prioritizes the creation of dependant "pill-takers" simply because there is no money in healthy people.
     

  • Free energy technologies are suppressed to protect the billion-dollar oil industry.
     

  • Scams and false-advertisement are considered legitimate business tactics.
     

  • The education system prioritizes standardization to create good workers and consumers, while human creativity takes the back burner.

This is perpetuating a world in which everyone focuses on competing against each other, making money and hoarding mostly unneeded stuff, as opposed to exploring our potential to co-create better products, better systems and better lifestyles for the freedom and greater good of the whole.

  • "Over-producing, over-consuming and over-wasting" is the motto we live by, which does not only ravage the planet but further deprives the poor.

     

  • "But it's good for the economy" is what supposedly justifies this.

     

  • "But it's bad for the economy" is what supposedly justifies the suppression of any alternative that would not be about profit but about truly benefiting the world.

Our old ways may be profitable to a system that thrives on controlling the masses by maintaining a hierarchy of power, but the price is high when you think in terms of freedom and human evolution.

"Now, why are they going to war?

 

Why isn't alternative energy used instead of oil? Why aren't all the hungry and homeless fed and sheltered? Why are people suffering in trafficking? Why is there a huge drug trade in the world?

 

Why is the rainforest cut down? Why are the oceans overfished?

 

Why? Why?? Why???

 

And the answer is:

  • Profit

  • Money

  • Greed

  • Property"

Harald Sandø

The following quotes are from thinkers and whistleblowers that understand how each of the major industries of our world prioritize the creation of dependency as opposed to enabling freedom and truth.

 

Please consider doing your own research about each industry to further substantiate the following points.

 

POLITICS

"Presidents are selected, not elected."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

"I don't vote as I believe democracy is a pointless spectacle where we choose between two indistinguishable political parties, neither of whom represent the people but the interest of powerful business elites that run the world."
Russell Brand



 



PHARMACEUTICAL/HEALTH INDUSTRY
 

 

The Pharmaceutical Industry

Does Not Create Cures,
They Create Customers

 

"I would like to dispel the myth that the pharmaceutical industry is in the business of health and healing, because, in fact, what the pharmaceutical industry is in the business of doing is 'disease maintenance' and 'symptoms management.'

 

They are not in the business to cure Cancer, to cure Alzheimer's, to cure heart disease because if they were, they would be in the business of putting themselves out of business; and that in fact doesn't make sense."
Gwen Olson

former pharmaceutical representative

 


 



 

 


 

 


FOOD INDUSTRY
 

 

Healthy Locally Grown Organic Food

has No Economic Value
 

"Industrial food manufacturing involves appropriating raw materials from nature and turning them into profitable commodities.

 

Kellogg, for example, takes whole corn, removes almost all naturally occurring nutrients, adds sugar, salt, and chemical additives to maximize flavor, stability, and shelf life, and puts the ingredients through a complex manufacturing process to create Corn Pops […]

 

Other food companies like McDonald's, and Coca-Cola also maximize profit by taking raw materials such as wheat, potatoes, salt, and sugar and process them with chemical additives.

 

Companies make more money selling unhealthy food because truly healthy food doesn't come in a box. They simply cannot produce healthy food in a way that both maximizes profits and benefits public health."
Michele Simon

JD, MPH, public health lawyer

who has been researching and writing about the food industry and food politics since 1996.



 



SEED INDUSTRY

"Once they have established the norm that seed can be owned as their property and royalties can be collected, we will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow.

 

If they control seed, they control food, they know it, it's strategic. It's more powerful than bombs, it's more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world."
Vandana Shiva

Philosopher, environmentalist, author



 



ENERGY INDUSTRY

"J.P. Morgan got Lorentz to cripple the Heaviside equations so that the new EE (electrical engineering) concepts being taught in the universities would not ever contain free energy and over unity systems.

 

This deliberate mutilation and crippling of electrical engineering is the real and single cause of our dependence on oil and of much of the pollution of our biosphere…

 

The 'High Cabal' - Churchill's name for the secret consortium of elite families and organization we loosely refer to as the 'control groups' - has been ruthlessly suppressing free energy inventors for a century, including by direct assassination.

 

Having personally survived several such assassination attempts, I have experienced what I'm speaking of."
 Tom Bearden

Inventor, Author, Energy from the Vacuum


"If these new energy technologies were to be set free world-wide, the change would be profound; it would affect everybody: it would be applicable everywhere.

 

These technologies are absolutely the most important thing that has happened in the history of the world."
 Brian O'Leary

Physics Professor, NASA Astronaut




 


ARMS INDUSTRY

You Can't Feed The Poor But You Can Fund A War?

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.

 

It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people.

 

Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.

 

Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
Smedley D. Butler

(retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient)


"We'd be trundling through Taliban-controlled areas in armored vehicles, dodging ambushes and hitting IEDs, and the soldiers would be saying,

'We're funding both sides of this war.'

It seemed preposterous at first. But as I dug into the story, officers, diplomats, and aid officials confirmed the rough outlines of the pernicious system.

 

One sardonic US intelligence officer told me,

'It's the perfect war. Everyone is making money.'"

Douglas A. Wissing

Award-winning independent journalist


 

 
 


MASS MEDIA

"(…) The ones who have access to the media, including the intellectual journals, and who essentially control the educational apparatus, should properly be referred to as a class of 'commissars.'

 

That's their essential function:

to design, propagate and create a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent understanding and analysis of institutional structures and their functions."

Noam Chomsky

Chronicles of Dissent


"The bottom line is that the government is getting what they ordered. They do not want your children to be educated. They do not want you to think too much.

 

That is why our country and our world has become so proliferated with entertainments, mass media, television shows, amusement parks, drugs, alcohol, and every kind of entertainment to keep the human mind entertained, so that you don't get in the way of important people by doing too much thinking.

 

You better wake up and understand that there are people who are guiding your life and you don't even know it."
Jordan Maxwell



A system that is so 'sane', that the more successful it is in its own terms, the quicker it destroys the planet.

 

It insists every year that we take more from the earth even quicker, turn it into more things, sell even more things, consume even more things, throw away even more things, to worship the real god of the modern world - economic growth...

It insists that every year 20% of the people of the world consume 80% of the resources while leaving the other 80% to get by on the remaining 20%.

 

Crazy? Of course it is!

 

This is the economic system - take, make and throw away - that controls your life and mine, and of the 6 billion people here.
 David Icke