As long as we cling to the superstition that we must look to government for money supply, instead of requiring it to look to us, just so long must we remain the subjects of government and it is vain to follow this or that policy or party or ism in the hope of salvation. We can control government and our own destiny only through our money power and until we exert that power it is useless for us to debate the pros and cons of political programs.
E.C. RiegelMoney power cannot be separated from democratic power without miscarriage and ensuing frustration - political and economic. Democracy implies the sovereignty of man; and, since man cannot be sovereign without the money power, there can not be democracy under the political money system.
E.C. RiegelTo rail and rant against tyranny is to manifest inferiority, for there is no tyranny but ignorance; to be conscious of one's powers is to lose consciousness of tyranny. Self government is not a remote aim. It is an intimate and inescapable fact. To govern oneself is a natural imperative, and all tyranny is the miscarriage of self government. The first requisite of freedom is to accept responsibility for the lack of it.
E.C. RiegelMoney can be issued only in the act of buying, and can be backed only in the act of selling. Any buyer who is also a seller is qualified to be a money issuer. Government, because it is not and should not be a seller, is not qualified to be a money issuer.
E.C. RiegelMoney is an instrumentality of the profit motive and must be issued and backed only by private enterprisers. Economic and political perversities are inescapable while government is admitted to money power. Since all national governments have, up to the present, been money issuing powers we may justly attribute all the economic and political ills of mankind to this single error.
E.C. RiegelIf the government were obliged to come to the people for money instead of vice-versa, the people would keep government under control and operate their economy satisfactorily with prosperity and peace resulting. The peoples of the nations do not make war. For them peace is the natural and permanent order. Wars are planned and perpetrated by politicians and their diplomats; and the money power of government is the means by which the people are maneuvered into wars.
E.C. Riegel