"NATIONAL QUESTIONING" 

Thursday, 28th September, AD 2006

We've been talking about 'value questioning'. "We are entering a period of 'value questioning'," writes my friend Franklin Sanders. 

"The spiritual shouldn't be forgotten and in-fact is more important than the financial and temporal when it comes to value questioning," wrote one reader this morning. I couldn't agree more; in-fact many times we have said that it seems the two are very closely interrelated.

Take the monetary issue ; examine any example throughout all of history and you will see the monetary health of a nation, society or empire has exactly paralleled and inter-linked its spiritual, moral and ethical health. 

As a nation or society has stuck to a monetary system of integrity (i), that society has  flourished spiritually, morally, ethically and financially, as its people have traded, prospered and lived in peace one with another. 

But, when that society stops correctly questioning the true value of money and begins debasing its monetary unit, that society has quickly fallen into spiritual, moral, ethical and financial decline; the greater the rate of monetary debasement, the greater the rate and level of decline. A society chooses the road of debasement because it sees greater value in 'cheap money' than it does in 'valuable money' (ii). "Its almost as though that economy has immediately lost its spiritual blessing" wrote one historian when observing this unmistakable pattern. 

So it seems that on a national and social level, those societies that have constantly questioned value and have stuck to a system of monetary integrity have prospered spiritually, morally, ethically and materially. 

But what about us as individuals? What is the difference between those individuals that faithfully evaluate and question true value, opposed to those others that have value questioning suddenly thrust upon them? How can we correctly use 'value questioning' to prepare and help 
prevent sudden and violent 'value questioning' being thrust upon us? 

(i) throughout most of history, gold and silver has intrinsically provided a sound monetary system of integrity. A gold and silver monetary system has fairly protected and embodied the labor of man and represented stable value over time. 

(ii) To 'debase' is to 'lower in quality, value or character' (Oxford). To debase money is to remove its 'value'. A nation debases its money so that it can 'inflate' or increase the amount in circulation (it is quicker and easier to inflate the monetary unit than it is to go and dig more gold and silver from the ground). The great crime of monetary debasement is that it directly robs men and women of their labor. A society chooses the road of debasement because it sees NO value in the labor of its people and sees greater value in 'cheap money' than it does in 'valuable money'. 

Sincerely - Philip Judge pjudge@anglofareast.com