UNION OF NORTH AMERICA: These private-issue fantasy pattern coins were designed by Mr. Daniel Carr. They “will be struck as an annual series (until such time as it is no longer legal to do so)…The 2007 designs feature various Seated Liberty obverses and a similar Eagle & Globe reverse”. In addition to the “regular issue” Ameros, Mr. Carr also plans to make a special yearly Amero medallion (the 2007 piece is the Jamestown 400th Anniversary commemorative issue which features Pocahontas). In terms of precedence, the Amero series is immediately reminiscent of the coins issued by the República del Centro de América (1824-1851), the Unión Centro-Americana (1889), the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (1970), and the Organización de Estados Centroamericanos (1971). I believe that the existence of the Union of North America coinage is a very historic event, numismatically. Once in a blue moon, the line between “fantasy” coins and “real-world” coins becomes blurred. These Ameros truly reflect a realistic modern-day geo-political scenario, and I think they are definitely “crossover” pieces that will have major implications in our community that go far beyond the usual impact made by a typical privately minted coin. Just days after the first pieces had been produced, members of at least one online numismatic forum were already suggesting, with some very hostile words, that Mr. Carr may be part of a conspiracy to replace the dollar under a global dictatorship. Mr. Carr, a member of that forum, replied: “Wow, I really stirred up a hornet's nest here…I guess the nest was just waiting all along and I just happened to be the one to stir it up. The coins pictured are private-issue fantasy patterns that I've designed and minted as collector's items. Maybe someday there will be government-issue ‘Amero’ currency. There is currently no law that says I can't mint and distribute Amero coins. But in the future, there may come a time when it will be illegal to make private-issue ‘Amero’ coins. But regardless of what happens, my Amero coins are the first!” We must bear in mind that Mr. Carr is an artist and he has to earn a living by selling his work. Amidst all the fuss, he reminded everyone that “The goal of any art work is to provoke some sort of thought or emotion.” He also attempted to reassure them that he was not “responsible for the entire North American Union [NAU] proposal.” All the controversy stemming from that particular scenario “was there floating around long before I came along and shined a flashlight on it. For the record, my interests have nothing to do with promoting a North American Union. I just like making coins.” Meanwhile, a popular right-wing radio talk-show host was railing against the Amero at his Web-site: “One thing is absolutely clear: The governments of the USA, Canada & Mexico are engaged in a conspiracy to merge the three countries without the knowledge or consent of ‘The People.’ In furtherance of this conspiracy, the government of the United States is intentionally spending the nation into absolute, unrecoverable Bankruptcy with the intention that the monetary system collapses. When the U.S. currency collpases, it will take with it, both the Canadian dollar and Mexican Peso because both countries are so heavily invested in the U.S. dollar through trade with the US. During such a collapse, when hundreds of millions of average citizens face absolute destitution because their currencies have been wiped out, these Conspirators will turn to ‘The People’ of each nation and say ‘your only hope is to merge all three countries and make a new start.’ The thinking is that the populations will rush to embrace the merger and forget all about our individual history, rights and systems. In one fell swoop, the Conspirators will clobber us into absolute despotism and we will be helpless to do anything because our money will have become worthless!” Because the coins are dated 2007, he speculates that “this plan seems awfully far along. I guess this means the collapse will be this year?” He views the Amero as evidence of evil treachery on a superlatively massive scale: “This is betrayal folks! Betrayal by our highest elected officials! Deliberate, intentional despicable deceit!”
UNITED MAXXICO AMERICA: In an entertaining composition entitled A Foolish Fantasy, which Lawrence J. Lee composed for the April 2003 Numismatist, he reports that the UMA “confederacy was a short-lived kingdom that had its turbulent beginnings during the Bosco Wars of the mid 1870s.” He goes on to give only a few humorous details about the Maxxico Revolution, a civil war led by the charismatic Commander Zacatecas, and his attempts to overthrow the corrupt regime of King Epud I, who was its first and only monarch. “The details of the Maxxico Revolution are available in any history book, and the theme has been repeated many times before and since...Thus, we know Maxxico existed, and the basic facts surrounding its sudden and complete disappearance. However, we don't have much in the way of artifacts, except for the coins (as is so often the case).” The reverse of the piece in question, dated 1884, is modelled after a Mexican cap-and-rays 8 Reales, like the type produced by the Zacatecas mint from 1825-1897. But the overall appearance of its central image has been artfully altered to show, instead of a liberty cap, an 11-rayed sun rising over the sea. The majority of the article basically describes the copper-nickel coin and interprets all of its devices/symbolism. The piece is, after all, “a link to a lost society.” Mr. Lee reveals, for example, that the eagle on the obverse (he calls it “a jackdaw”) is grasping a leafless sloof lirpa stick in its beak. In the penultimate paragraph, he comically acknowledges that the ANA's specimen was donated by April Phoule (let's see, her name rings a bell...yes, I distinctly remember once seeing an extremely risqué photograph of her, taken by a paparazzi, while she was vacationing on the scenic beaches of San Serriffe, salaciously clenching a long-stemmed eluohp lirpa flower in her teeth). All kidding aside, Mr. Lee penned the entire yarn for his and our amusement. In our personal communications, I was informed that when Mr. Lee was contacted by the chap who found this oddity, he sought the opinion of many other experts/colleagues, but all of them were stumped. In spite of the fact that “no one (other than the owner) believes it to be anything but nonsense”, he then made use of their collective puzzlement to spin an imaginative, deadline-beating spoof. I obtained my sample on eBay. Thanks to Mr. Oded Paz, I’ve learned that there is another 8 Reales piece. It is amazingly similar to the piece I just described, the difference being that this one actually bears the appropriate cap-and-rays reverse (rather than the depiction of a sun rising above the ocean’s horizon), complete with the word “LIBERTAD” directly on the hat.
UNITED TRANSNATIONAL REPUBLICS: This idea was sparked in 1996, during a conversation between an artist named Christian Eckart and a dozen friends. He relayed a story about his Russian girlfriend, whose passport had expired. When she went to get it extended at her embassy in Berlin, the officials refused to renew it. She had lost her citizenship from one moment to the next. They found it shocking that without someone validating our identity on paper, we almost cease to exist! They then discussed “how seemingly bizarre geopolitical borders are in nowadays time. Do borders really reflect our way of life or, more importantly, our way of thinking? Yet, the people of the world depend on nations to confirm their existence with paper documents. Could there be an alternative?” By the year 2000, the societal sway of the Internet had expanded to such an extent that they began to develop a Web-site (along with a currency system, identity cards, and other documents). On April 16, 2001, die Erste TRansnationale Republik (the First TRansnational Republic) was officially created. The Proclamation Party took place at the Atomic Café in Munich, Germany. The founders included the brothers/artists Georg and Jakob Zoche and several of their friends (Tammo Rist, Jakob Schlandt, Cornelius Everding, Edwina Blush, Flo Biehler, Andor Orand). Since then, they've established Immigration Offices in several other cities, including Berlin, Hamburg, and Copenhagen. These well-travelled gents have also taken their message to special functions/events in numerous other countries, such as Finland, Italy, and Switzerland. On October 20, 2001, they were fortunate enough to temporarily occupy the former Staatsbank (State Bank) of the GDR, where they participated in a symposium/concert at this Berlin landmark. More recently, to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1954 Hague Convention, they've been asked to contribute a sample of their cultural assets, which shall be placed in an airtight stainless steel container and stored for 1,500 years at the “Barbara Gallery” in Oberried, under UNESCO special protection.
UNIVERSALA LIGO: For this listing, I am indebted to two numismatists, Mr. William R. Harmon (former president of the Esperanto League of North America, and current Chief Delegate for the American branch of the Universala Esperanto-Asocio) and Mr. Chaim Dov Shiboleth. They each imparted some invaluable knowledge to me about the 2 series of Esperanto coinage. When I separately asked them for a few meager details, they supplied me with many more seemingly unmanageable facts than what I originally bargained for. I was actually bowled over by the mini-avalanches of data, which I then attempted to consolidate into a single tsunami. Both men deserve all the credit for this little-known factual material. What follows is an immoderately condensed/adulterated version of what I received. Let us begin with the more modern Stelo series:
Over the years, Mr. Carr has become a major figure in the field of American numismatics. “A design by Daniel Carr was one of seven official US Mint finalists for the reverse of the Sacagawea dollar. Daniel Carr also designed the actual 2001 New York and Rhode Island state quarters for the US Mint.” Mr. Carr “has worked extensively in the Computer Aided Design (CAD), computer graphics, image processing, and visual arts fields. He is currently using special techniques that he has pioneered for sculpting and engraving coin designs digitally in 3-D.” Mr. Carr has issued numerous U.S.A. Prototype Small Dollars (Apollo Astronaut “One Roller” and “Two Rollers”, Bessie Coleman “Non Dollar”) and Prototype State Quarters. He has also delved into the arena of “fantasy” coinage by producing a series of Altered States of America “CARRter Dollar” parody State Quarters.
In order to fully appreciate Mr. Carr’s Ameros, we must place them in the context of the North American Monetary Union (or North American Currency Union), a speculative entity in which the main countries of North America (Canada, the United States, and Mexico) would share a single/common currency. This idea, which has existed for many years, is based on the common European Union currency, the Euro. The hypothetical currency is sometimes referred to as the “amero”, but I have also seen it referred to as the NAMU (North American Monetary Unit). Upon finding out about the Amero, Mr. Carr read as much as he could about it: “I started asking myself what I would come up with if I was in charge of minting the amero coin for the North American Union.” He decided to change the name to “Union of North America” after giving the matter considerable thought, “because then you end up with U.N.A. and you can say ‘UNA,’ whereas you can't really say ‘NAU’ in a word.” Because he has “received numerous inquiries as to my personal stand on the North American Union (NAU) issue”, Mr. Carr composed the following statement: “My goal with these coins is not to endorse a Union of North America or a common ‘Amero’ currency. I fully support the United States Constitution, and I would not welcome (in any form) a diminishment of its provisions. I expect that these coins will help make more people aware of the issue and the possible ramifications. I leave it up to others to decide if they are in favor of, or against a North American Union. And I encourage citizens to voice their approval or disapproval of government plans that impact them.” I purchased the initial 20 Ameros and 100 Ameros pieces, both dated 2007, directly from Mr. Carr. More details about these numismatic beauties can be found at: http://www.designscomputed.com/coins/amero.html.
The idea of a regional currency has been receiving a lot of attention these days. Benn Steil, the Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the May/June issue of CFR's influential Foreign Affairs magazine that “the world needs to abandon unwanted currencies, replacing them with dollars, euros, and multinational currencies as yet unborn.” He writes, “The right course is not to return to a mythical past of monetary sovereignty, with governments controlling local interest and exchange rates in blissful ignorance of the rest of the world. Governments must let go of the fatal notion that nationhood requires them to make and control the money used in their territory.” He is convinced that economic globalism is irreversible, with national currencies doomed to the dustbin of history. “In order to globalize safely,” he advises, “countries should abandon monetary nationalism and abolish unwanted currencies, the source of much of today's instability.” Steil believes that continued economic growth demands a global flow of capital unimpeded by the barriers inherent to “monetary nationalism”. Obstacles created by monetary nationalism, such as national exchange rates or national monetary policy regimes, inevitably impede capital flow and cause currency crises as a consequence. Therefore, Steil argues that “Monetary nationalism is simply incompatible with globalism.” He imagines the ultimate solution might be to privatize a global currency through a gold-based international monetary system. “A new gold-based international monetary system surely sounds far-fetched,” he admits. “But so, in 1900, did a monetary system without gold. Modern technology makes a revival of gold money, through private gold banks, possible even without government support.”
According to Dr. James R. Lee (of the School of International Service at American University), “The introduction of the Euro to the world's financial markets in 1999 made the idea of one currency for numerous countries seem possible, and attractive…The Euro also made other nations more than a little nervous as to how they would manage to compete with this new, and strengthening, currency. These factors led the US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Columbia to begin to explore the feasibility of creating the ‘Amero’ as a counterpart to the Euro. The ‘Amero’ would be a common currency, not necessarily the US dollar, that all of the countries in the Americas would use as their own.” In this instance, “dollarization” (when a foreign country adopts the United States currency as its main form of currency; the foreign currency would be used in parallel to or instead of the domestic currency), can be viewed as “a stepping stone to the proposed ‘Amero.’” In the Americas, the process of adopting an Amero currency may actually begin with “dollarization”. For many nations (El Salvador, since 2001; Ecuador, since 2000; Panama, since 1904; Liberia, from 1904-85) faced with severe economic woes, a dollarized economy has been the proposed panacea. Nevertheless, “Some economists believe that full Dollarization or the ‘Amero’ associated with a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas will not happen for 5-20 years.” The likelihood of this actually happening especially increases if the global economy moves into regional trading blocs.
At present, Canada currently uses the US dollar as an unofficial second national currency; many people are of the opinion that de facto dollarization is well underway in Canada. In fact, Canada’s private sector is moving rapidly in this direction via the private dollarization of commerce. As evidence of this transformation of the Canadian economy, an increasing number of Canadian firms have listed their shares in US dollars on American stock exchanges. To meet listing qualifications, their financial reports are issued in US dollars. The salaries of top Canadian employees working for multinationals operating in Canada are paid in US dollars. The athletes in the premier baseball, basketball, and ice-hockey leagues are paid in US dollars. The same is true of the referees working in these best leagues. Furthermore, in terms of Canadian manufacturing production, most of these exports are priced in US dollars, with producers requiring increasingly that their suppliers also price their goods in US dollars.
Apparently, Canada has been the source of a good deal of pro-Amero sentiment. The C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based conservative economic and social think tank, advocates the creation of a shared currency for the North American countries. The Fraser Institute, a conservative/libertarian think tank in Vancouver, has also argued in favor of the Amero. Herbert G. Grubel, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at Simon Fraser University and Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, wrote a monograph entitled The Case for the Amero: The Economics and Politics of a North American Monetary Union (published in September of 1999). His “study was stimulated by the recent successful launch of the euro, the prospect of official ‘dollarization’ in Argentina and Mexico, the relatively poor performance of the Canadian economy, and the depreciation of the Canadian dollar during the last 25 years — and especially in 1998.” His paper (its entire text can be read at http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/critical_issues/1999/amero/) conveys an interesting vision of a radical economic metamorphosis that could be in store for the Americas, looming just over the horizon: “The plan for a North American Monetary Union presented in this study is designed to include Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Under the proposed plan, bank notes and coins of the currency” are tentatively called (by the author) the “amero”. Upon creation of the Union (Mr. Grubel arbitrarily gives the date as “perhaps on January 1, 2010”), those 3 countries “will replace their national currencies with the amero. On that day, all American dollar notes and coins will be exchanged at the rate of one US dollar for one amero.” The conversion of existing United States, Canadian, and Mexican “currencies into the amero will take place at rates that leave unchanged each country's real income, wealth, and international competitiveness at the time of conversion.” The prices of goods/services, wages, assets, and liabilities in all three countries “will be simultaneously converted into ameros at the rates at which currency notes are exchanged. At the same time, the national central banks of the three countries will be replaced by the North American Central Bank. The operations of that bank will be governed by a constitution like that of the European Central Bank, which makes it responsible solely for maintaining price stability. It is not required to pursue full employment or maintain certain exchange rates. Its personnel policies will be free from political influences, in particular those arising out of partisan national politics in member countries. The board of governors of the North American Central Bank will consist of members from the United States, Canada, and Mexico chosen by their respective governments in numbers that reflect their economic importance and population. As in Europe, membership in the union will require that countries do not incur persistent budget deficits…It is important to realize that immediately after the adoption of the amero, the living standards and wealth of citizens in all three countries will be completely unchanged.” Furthermore, members of the amero zone “will receive the profits from the issuance of ameros used domestically. Trade among the members of the monetary union will be stimulated by the elimination of the costs of currency trading and risk. There will be greater price stability and, importantly, interest rates in Canada will fall by about one percentage point.”
Mr. Grubel astutely admits that “Many Canadians will oppose a North American Monetary Union on the grounds that it will interfere with national cultural sovereignty and that it represents a further step in a process that will ultimately lead to the political absorption of Canada by the United States.” By joining such a Union, they believe that they would sacrifice too much of Canada’s economic and political autonomy. However, “Nationalists do not have a good case to oppose the amero except on the grounds that it results in the loss of national monetary and fiscal sovereignty. But…this loss is incurred in the expectation of large economic gains.” Elsewhere, he adds: “Canada's cultural sovereignty and political independence are not affected by monetary union. Just as in the case of free trade, there is nothing in any treaty for monetary union that interferes with Canada's ability to pursue taxation, spending, social, regulatory, or foreign policies different from those of the United States. A small political movement for monetary union already exists. It will gain strength if the Canadian economy continues its recent record of poor performance. Even if the world prices of commodities and the exchange rate should recover, history shows that the exchange rate will not return to its old level. All Canadians will be permanently poorer. At the same time, the rise in the exchange rate taking place will cause unemployment and government deficits. Business and the general public will increasingly look to monetary union as a solution to these problems, especially if the euro succeeds. The United States has less to gain from a monetary union than Canada and Mexico but there will be some benefits. Monetary union will reduce the threat to the power of the US dollar resulting from the greater use of the euro in place of the dollar in the rest of the world. Further, the United States will benefit from having more stable and prosperous countries as neighbours. When the United States joined other international organizations like the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, the expected economic and political gains appeared to offset the surrender of some national sovereignty. In this tradition, the United States may well find it worthwhile to join the proposed monetary union.”
What would Mr. Grubel’s version of the controversial currency look like? “The amero notes and coins will have in common abstract designs on one side” and “national emblems on the other to preserve important symbols of national identity.” They “will be produced in each of the three countries according to their own demand”. These “currencies will circulate at par in all three countries and those spent in other member countries will be returned to their countries of origin whenever they find their way into a commercial bank. Therefore, at all times citizens of each country will deal predominantly in notes and coins that carry their national symbols on one side.” Mr. Grubel is keenly aware that “some people believe that symbols of nationalism are important for human well-being since they satisfy the need for affinity to larger human groupings and national identities. The flag, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, geographic landmarks like Lake Louise and Niagara Falls, the design of passports, and the architecture of the Houses of Parliament are such symbols. Canada's history, the settling of a wild continent, the heroics of her armies, multiculturalism, and generous social security nets are intangible but no less important symbols of a national identity. Ranked high on the list of such symbols is the currency bearing images of the Queen, important Canadians, and outstanding geographic sites. Nationalists will deplore the loss of Canada's national currency as a major disaster and will oppose monetary union on these grounds. I agree with the proposition that symbols are an important part of a country's national identity, which is important to many people and can provide social cohesion and peace. Therefore, to minimize the loss of national symbols brought on by a common currency, my proposal envisages the design of North American notes and coins with national symbols on one side and abstract symbols on the other. This solution may not satisfy the most ardent nationalists but I am hopeful that their opinions will not carry the day and that others will remember that the currency is only one of a long list of nationalist symbols important to the Canadian identity. The Canadian identity should be strong and vibrant enough to survive the reduced strength of the currency as a nationalist symbol.”
Out of curiosity, I contacted Mr. Grubel in order to ascertain if he had indeed been the first person to coin the terms “North American Monetary Union” and “Amero”. It turns out that The Case for the Amero does indeed contain “the first and original use of the word [Amero] in print.” In the words of Mr. Grubel, “The term North American Monetary Union has been around for some time and I do not know who came up with the term. However, after the creation of the European Monetary Union, the term seemed very obvious. The same can really be said about the Amero name as well in the light of the Euro, but I will take credit for having it used first in conversation and print. If my memory serves me correctly, the first appearance in print was in the Fraser Institute publication.”
Mr. Grubel’s theories seem to lead the pack of similar philosophers and economists. Robert A. Pastor, Vice President of International Affairs and Professor of International Relations at American University (from 1977-81, he worked at the White House’s National Security Council as Director of the Office of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs), authored a book entitled Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New (2001). In it, he supported Grubel's arguments for the Amero and for the creation of a Central Bank of North America. Hopefully, a successful North American Union would perfect the defects which he believes limited the progress of another super-regional entity, the European Union. I was surprised to learn that the Amero has been discussed on at least two separate occasions on CNBC (one was an interview with Steve Previs, Senior Vice President of Jefferies International Limited, conducted on 11/27/2006).
Lastly, there is actually a Web-site called “The ‘Amero’ Currency” (http://www.amerocurrency.com/), whose intent is “to make United States citizens aware of the advancement of the agenda to launch the nations of North America, including the U.S., into a continental union similar to the European Union.” This undertaking, which has a broad scope, is delineated in several documents authored by the Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America (SPP). The overall goal of the program (Promoting Growth, Competitiveness and Quality of Life) is outlined in the “Prosperity Agenda”, released in March of 2005 by the White House Office of the Press Secretary: “To enhance the competitive position of North American industries in the global marketplace and to provide greater economic opportunity for all of our societies, while maintaining high standards of health and safety for our people, the United States, Mexico, and Canada will work together, and in consultation with stakeholders, to:” Improve Productivity (detailed in the sub-headings Regulatory Cooperation to Generate Growth, Sectoral Collaboration to Facilitate Business, and Investing in Our People), Reduce the Costs of Trade (detailed in the sub-headings Efficient Movement of Goods, and Efficient Movement of People), Enhance the Quality of Life (detailed in the sub-headings Joint Stewardship of our Environment, Creating a Safer and More Reliable Food Supply while Facilitating Agricultural Trade, and Protect Our People from Disease). The people who founded AmeroCurrency were not too thrilled by these proposals. “Initially, these goals sound reasonable. However, upon inspection and understanding of the background of the movement, it becomes clear that, once fully implemented, the newly formed organization will usurp authority of the U.S., and redistribute power and wealth among the three North American nations. The brain trusts behind the philosophies that laid the groundwork for the program, in its current and future forms, elaborate a broader view of economics and ‘sovereignty’ that also redistribute economic and legislative powers.” They go on to add: “It is critical to note, the information presented on this site is not conspiracy theory, shock journalism or speculation. The SPP is an international work-in-progress that the U.S. State Department and Department of Commerce have embarked on without the consent or oversight of the U.S. Senate or Congress…The citizens of the United States must awaken to the impending reality that our sovereign nation is being assimilated by an unconstitutional union — a union with two socialist nations. As the data converge, many unexplained phenomenon, such as the mystery of unenforced immigration laws and the ‘Trans-Texas’ international corridor, will illuminate.” AmeroCurrency elaborates upon this topic at a later point: “A strategic goal of the SPP is to ease restrictions on transport of goods. The U.S. being the primary consumer within the union, it is no mystery who the ‘goods’ are headed for. The SPP intends to diminish, or eliminate, security at U.S. borders, preferring a ‘perimeter’ around the three nations. By eliminating U.S. border checkpoints, the SPP will ‘streamline’ the flow of goods and human traffic by avoiding U.S. Ports Of Entry (ports) — thereby subverting U.S. homeland security — avoiding use of U.S. labor (Teamsters and Longshoremen's unions) and creating an ultra-highway system running from deep in Mexico, through the U.S., and well into Canada. The initial leg of this highway system is already underway in South Texas. Cintra-Macquarie, a joint venture between Spanish and Australian companies, has not only secured contracts to construct the U.S.-Mexico stretch of international tollway, but is actively acquiring billions of dollars and thousands of miles of toll roads throughout the U.S. The flow of traffic through the countries will not be controlled by the ‘union,’ but overseas organizations. The SPP, through NASCO [North America's SuperCorridor Coalition] and NAIPN [North American Inland Ports Network], is redefining our transit, import, export, inspection and distribution networks, at the hands of foreign interests. Goods will be flown into the U.S., directly into the heartland, rather than being stopped and checked at our existing borders. Goods brought in via the ‘Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor’ will not be checked as they enter the U.S. Rather, they will be ‘inspected’ as they enter Mexican ports, then shipped overland within the prosperity union. How will we all pay for this?” With an ominous unitary currency, naturally. “From the mindsets documented above…emerges the concept of the ‘Amero,’ an international currency whereby the American monetary system and our treasury system become homogeneous with those of Mexico and Canada.” Regardless of whether it’s “called the Amero, the Dollar, the Nuevo-Nuevo Peso, or the man in the moon, some system will have to be in place to stabilize and standardize transactions. You can call it whatever you want. For now, we'll call it AmeroCurrency.” The possible threat is understandable. After all, the creation of a new multinational currency might not benefit — fairly and evenly — all the nations involved. “For a ‘middle power’ whose economy is weak and exchange rate declining steadily, such a maneuver may be in the best interest. This is not the case when the strongest economy in the world, the United States of America, considers diluting its monetary system with Mexico, a third world, ‘developing’ nation and Canada, a second socialist nation on our two land borders. Further, U.S. sovereignty is, perhaps, our most precious facet, as defined in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Our sovereignty is part of the formula that makes our Republic the most unique political and cultural experiment in the history of civilization. Rather than try to decode, re-describe and publish commentary on the prevailing philosophies and arguments surrounding the need and advantages for a common hemispheric currency, this site provides links to information from legitimate proponents and detractors.” The Web-site offers some great links leading to additional information about the Amero (none of the official U.S. documents cited by AmeroCurrency ever mention the Amero, of course).
Interestingly, the Amero has also grabbed the attention of an outfit called NAUMINT. Located in Wayne, New Jersey, it was established in 2008 by Mr. Philip Prekel. “At NAUMINT, we design and mint prototype currency.” According to its Web-site (http://www.naumint.com/), “The North American Union (NAU) is a theoretical regional union of Canada, Mexico and the United States similar in structure to the European Union, including a common currency called the Amero. The idea has been discussed and proposed in academic and scholarly circles, either as a union or as a North American community as proposed by the Independent Task Force on North America. The amero is the appellation given to what would be the North American Union’s counterpart to the euro.” NAUMINT has issued its own coin for the North American Union. “The NAUMINT Amero prototype currency is designed with no English text. It is after all supposed to be the future currency of 3 nations with several different languages. It does not contain any imagery unique to one nation, reflecting cultural neutrality. The imagery conveys prosperity and cooperation. On the face of the 2008 1 Amero coin, a sun shines down on a full harvest of wheat. On the obverse, three hands come together, symbolizing the three nations of North America in unity. A cityscape behind the hands represents a constructive future.” They also remind us that this “prototype for the theorized NAU” is “not a legal tender.” I purchased one of these coins directly from Mr. Prekel.
Thanks to Mr. Edwin Johnston, a fellow member of the Unrecognised States Numismatic Society (http://www.usns.info/ and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UnrecognisedStatesNumismaticSociety/), I learned that there is yet another Amero coin! This one seems to even pre-date the ones made by Daniel Carr. The story behind this coin is explained in a document — Amero nothing new to Truth Radio (http://www.truthradio.com/Bell%27sAmero.pdf) — located at the Web-site of Truth Radio (this Internet-based Christian talk radio station, operated by Mr. Richard Palmquist, is located in Nipomo, CA): “Get ready for a change in your money. The new currency will be called the ‘Amero.’ Photos of the new ‘Amero’ are available on the Internet. Coins are already being produced by the US Mint. The new currency reportedly will be issued for the non-nation conglomeration of ‘Canada-United States-Mexico’ after the borders between those countries have been erased. Of course, the name ‘Amero’ echoes the European unified currency, the ‘Euro.’ With amazing foresight, sometime in the early 1990's, famous Tax Realist (the IRS and Federal Court called him a Tax Protester) Paul Bell of Taft, California, saw this change (pardon the pun) coming. Paul had plenty of time to study monetary policy. He had been unlawfully imprisoned for eight years [a footnote explains that ‘Bell's judge unlawfully refused to allow the jury to view Bell's defense evidence. This is common practice in cases involving the Internal Revenue Service.’] and later, again a political prisoner, he served another two or three years. (He died early in the new century.) Resolute in his belief that his research was accurate, and many years before Congressman Ron Paul publicized the same evidence, Bell came to Truth Radio (Then Radio Station KDNO, Delano, California) with a proposal. He wanted to mint a pure silver coin that would shame the Federal Reserve's fraudulent currency. So, KDNO purchased genuine silver rounds from Sunshine Mining, the most reputable producer of blank silver coins, and Paul crafted a manual table top minting machine, using forms he designed. Then he handpressed dozens of ‘Amero’ coins. Bell's ‘Amero’ weighs one ordinary ounce (avoirdupois rather than troy). It is not ‘Legal Tender.’ Bell labeled the coin ‘Public Tender,’ avoiding any accusation that it pretends to be issued by the government. It is not a substitute for coins produced by the U.S. Mint made of base metals. Bell, with good intentions, made the error of placing a U.S. Dollar designation on the coin. He reasoned that if he used the word ‘Par’ he would not be accused of seeking to mimic issuances of the Mint. Thus, the coin's ‘Par’ grew out of line with its U.S. Dollar equivalent as the value of the U.S. Dollar has diminished. The coin never became well known enough to make that an issue. It should be viewed as merely a medallion.” Mr. Palmquist goes on to state that “The ‘Amero’ medallion is about 90 percent as heavy as a troy ounce…The ‘Amero’ has three kinds of REAL value. It is made of pure silver, it is a memorial to the courage of Paul Bell, and it is a collectible produced more than a decade before the official ‘Amero.’” I obtained a specimen directly from Mr. Palmquist. The obverse, dated 1992, bears the phrase “Amero” and a denomination of “$10”; it also features an image of the North American continent. The reverse bears the phrases “Ten U.S. Dollars Par”, “Public Tender”, and “Eklampo Ammiy”; it also features a genie’s lamp.
I asked Mr. Palmquist if he knew what the phrase “Eklampo Ammiy” signified: “Whew. Good question about ‘Eklampo Ammiy.’ Oh dear. I have forgotten. I think though it means something like ‘enlightening the people.’ I could be right. But maybe wrong.” According to information gleaned from the Internet, “Eklampo” is Greek for “to shine forth” and/or “to be resplendent”; “Ammiy” is Hebrew for “my people” and/or “my family”. I also asked him for his opinion about whether I should classify this Amero medallion under “North American Union” or “Union of North America” (I told him that I was curious if Mr. Bell had used one of these terms in their conversations — after all, he must have conceptually equated his “Amero” with some sort of newfangled geo-political entity/name; if the U.S. and Canada and Mexico were to “unite”, then this resulting “union” would have a unique name of some sort). He replied: “First of all, this silver ‘Amero’ coin was created more than a decade before the ‘union’ issue emerged. The present movement toward unification of the nations of our continent is not healthy, in my opinion, by ANY name.” He later added: “I believe you are correct. I think Paul had a sort of prescient ‘vision’ about what was to come and that he saw our sovereignty crumbling…As to the classification question, in terms of the intent of Paul Bell, you would not categorize it under any other name than patriotic irony. Paul was opposed to any loss of sovereignty by the US. He was also put off by the destruction of value of our currency and favored genuine money: gold and silver. Those thoughts combined with the development of the Euro caused him to come up with the term ‘Amero.’” I then suggested that Mr. Bell hadn’t been the first person to use the term “Amero” and I sent him some of the information about Herbert G. Grubel. Mr. Palmquist then wrote: “As to who-did-it. What did it is that it was a natural…Paul probably came to me [with the idea] in late 1990 [somewhere around then], because it took awhile to put together the plan, create the press and then order and get the silver from Sunshine Mine.” As for the puzzling term, “It was a name that invented itself.” Who spoke “Amero” first? We may never know!
In the explanatory text from the Truth Radio Web-site, the assertion that Amero coins “are already being produced by the US Mint” is completely erroneous. But I can understand why there is a mix-up in the minds of many conspiracy theorists. According to Daniel Carr, “All 2009 Ameros will be stamped by a [Grabener] coin press that was actually used in the U.S. Denver Mint from 1986 to 2001. Moonlight Mint, a private facility built by Amero coin minter Daniel Carr acquired this surplus Denver Mint coin press in early 2007 and completed the restoration of it in late 2008. Traditionally, all Ameros have had a symbolic ‘D’ mint mark. But now that all Ameros will be struck on a Denver Mint coin press, the ‘D’ takes on additional meaning. Note that the 2008 100-Amero (1/10th oz gold) coins were also struck on this Denver coin press. So anyone who ordered one of those coins can now rightfully claim that it was stamped by a (former) U.S. government coin press.” More information about the Moonlight Mint and the Grabener coin press can be found at: (http://www.amerocurrency.com/buyameros.html).
Overall, the coin seems to fit in with the overall philosophy of Truth Radio. One of their hopes is: “Liberty for every person on earth with ‘We the people’ sovereign over Limited governments…that structure commerce through issuing money as a valid medium of exchange representing units of labor, a stable unit of account immune from speculation, an honest store of value”.
If anyone out there can provide any concrete details about the true provenience of these coins, please let me know. That may be the only way we can convince our numismatic community that these coins are worthy of our attention, that they deserve our serious-mindedness, and that they are much more than nonsensical, Phoulish pieces of metal.
Amazingly, I've encountered (again on eBay) a second type of Maxxico 8 Reales. To begin with, it's made of bronze. Its reverse once again pays compositional homage to the now-familiar cap-and-rays “1884 Zs 8R”, also with the previously described sunrise motif. But the obverse has undergone some major changes. The stick-carrying eagle, while still very much resembling “a dove of peace with an olive branch in its mouth,” is no longer facing us head-on; it is now standing sideways and looking to the right. The designer has rendered it even more poorly than its predecessor (even the lettering is extremely crude). And this time, instead of being perched on a rock (or “a dunçe, a traditional Maxxicoian one-room mud hut”, according to Mr. Lee) like on the first coin, it rests on a thick branch. I bought it from a seller named Mr. Kenny Ong Yew Chuan; the fact that he lives and works in Malaysia supports my suspicions that these pieces originate somewhere in Southeast Asia (I've seen several being sold from that region). He told me that he did not possess any information specifically about the Maxxican coins, but in regards to numismatics in general, he offered an illuminating cultural insight: “the Mexican dollars in the past are popular in Malaya and they called it Ringgit Helang (Eagle dollar)...it was current until the British issued the British Trade Dollars. The local Malays here believe that a replica of token made and kept by owner so that more money can be generated. it is called ‘ibu duit’ (mother coin)”. This notion is corroborated, somewhat, by another eBay merchant: according to alikabok, who is based in Manila, the Maxxico piece is a “Philippine made ‘ANTING-ANTING’ (amulet) combining the designs of vintage US and Mexican coins. During the Spanish occupation period in the Philippines, many superstitious Filipinos believed that the Mexican Republic 8-reales coins with the design of the eagle holding a snake was lucky especially for business. Up to now, this superstition was still believed in some older provinces. Whoever originally concocted this design on this amulet must have concluded that it would be a MORE POWERFUL amulet if the design on the dollar coin of the USA would be added in. Hence this mixed-up design.”
After winning the bronze piece, I was fortunate enough to enter into correspondence with the only other bidder on that auction, a collector named Mr. Bob Gurney. He is clearly an authority on the entire array of cap-and-rays coinage, especially the spurious examples, and he has been exploring this very diverse and difficult series for nearly 50 years: “I have been in love with these coins since I picked up my first copy in 1957. I saw my first counterfeit of the type in 1960 and I have been hooked on the counterfeits ever since.” For starters, “There are two different designs used — the Profile Eagle — the ‘Hookneck’ was issued 1823 to 1825 by a few mints. The standard or facing eagle was commenced in 1824 and lasted until the end of the series in 1897. Speaking of ‘Standard’, the dies were initially made one by one. This produced nearly innumerable minor varieties that have never been fully catalogued — even today. It also made them easy to forge. The earliest dies even used different eagles on each die so varieties are exceptionally numerous.” The reason for these and other dissimilarities (in quality, silver content, diameter, thickness, even edge design) was that many mints were not run by the Mexican government. “Many were operated under leases by mine owners or other private citizens.” In all, there were 14 mints that produced the series, resulting in 14 separate mintmarks (not counting the distinct subvarieties and variations in the mintmarks themselves). Interestingly, there were two periods of issuance in regards to these 8R pieces: “The early series ends in about 1870 with the introduction of the decimal series — the Peso. The Peso failed in international trade so they resumed making the old 8Rs in 1873 for overseas use. This second phase is similar to the US Trade Dollar series. These later coins were bullion issues not meant to circulate in Mexico. They were legal tender in Mainland China until 1933.”
In all actuality, the Maxxican coins mirror the Mexican 8 Reales only to the extent that the name “Maxxico” partially reflects the word “Mexico”. At first glance, our eyes might initially be deceived by the puzzling Maxxico pieces, but once we subject them to even the most cursory of visual comparisons with the Mexican coin, it becomes clear that the so-called counterfeits are rife with uniquely quirky characteristics, making them so radically unlike the Mexican piece that it would truly be impossible for us to confuse one for the other. The Maxxico's obverse “is a far cry from the Aztec symbol of an Eagle killing a snake while standing on a cactus in the middle of a lake.” The reverse, which is even more of a departure, “is an odd mix of misinterpreted symbols. But some of those errors may point in the direction of the forger. Who ever produced it seems to have missed the point of the original designs entirely.” The ensuing oversights point to a non-western origin — someone unfamiliar with the meaning behind some of its minutiae. One crucial detail seems to be the letters which appear immediately after the date: these are the assayer initials. Typically, these “usually come in pairs. But there are a few dates that have 3 initials. Counterfeits can have 1, 2, 3, 4 and even 5. The JS on the 1884 Zacatecas (Zs) coin is believed to stand for Jesus Maria Sanchez de Santa Anna. There are some years where there are 2, 3 or 4 different assayer combinations — so the overassayer varieties are VERY numerous.” In the Maxxico pieces, “The legend is carried over from a common trade coin but the Mexican straight J is misread as either the letter I or a number 1.” This error was originally made on some Chinese imitations of the 1884 Zs 8R which saw widespread usage. Years of accumulated research has led Mr. Gurney to conclude that “The model for the Maxxico piece was definitely the Counterfeit version of the 1884 Zs coin that was so very common during and after the Vietnam War. The forger who made the dies was the first (I believe) to make the J = I error. From the I it is an easy step to the numeral 1. I own a copy of the 1884 Zs 8R counterfeit that uses the IDENTICAL type face to the Maxxico coin. I suspect that the same master die was used on both coins. I own a progression of forgeries of the 1884 Zs coin in which the legend and designs become more and more corrupt. At present I have identified 6 stages in the transformation. I have 13 different coins. The earliest I would peg the transition from J to I is about 1960 — prior to that the forgers at least had the J correct but often used a full J instead of the Straight J. The newest versions often use a $ in place of the s superscripts in the legend. These $ copies date to the post 1985 era. The Maxxico coin comes rather late in the sequence but prior to the $.” Based on when he first encountered the Maxxico pieces, he estimates that these have existed at least since 2001, or perhaps even five years earlier than that. “But I have heard from other collectors that they have been around far longer.” He laments that we may never know anything factual about these pieces “until we get someone to confess to creating them. I have been able to cultivate a relationship with a couple forgers (the ones that actually make some of these fakes)”, all of them from mainland China. Some of them even offer bulk deals on their ersatz merchandise. “But I have never found the Maxxico piece in anyone's inventory.”
On the one hand, the Maxxican pieces appeal to Mr. Gurney's sensibilities because they closely approximate the 8 Reales; I, on the other hand, collect the Maxxico coins specifically because they do so only up to a certain point. They borrow elements from the Mexican coin solely as a numismatic point of departure. They then metamorphose into something so perplexingly divergent that they nearly approach the illogical, as attested to by the precariously discordant ring rising from the name “United Maxxico America”. The creation of this ungrammatical triple combination of words seems purposeful to me, and suggests that the pieces were meant to stand distinctly apart from their Mexican counterparts. If the maker's intent had been to replicate a Mexican coin as fully as possible, while still managing to utilize his exotic-looking “Maxxico”, he would've employed something to the effect of “Estados Unidos Maxxicanos” or “Republica Maxxicana” on the obverse. But instead, he chose to go against the grain and invent an incongruous-sounding fantasy land where solecism seems to be the norm. Lacking definitive, concrete clues about the provenience of Maxxico's coinage, they remain a tough nut to crack!
Images of one of the Maxxican coins can be viewed at the site of Mr. Haseeb Naz’s private collection:
http://chiefacoins.com/Database/Micro-Nations/United_Maxxico_America.htm
Many specific details about the United TRansnational Republics can be found in a document entitled Globalisation Needs Democracy! (http://www.trnr.org/info/images/UTR-INFO-040910e.pdf). “Globalisation is propelled by the ‘global player’ — globally acting corporations behaving like transnational superpowers constricting the influence of the traditional nation-states. Who then is still defending our global civil rights? Can nation-states act transnationally, or do they merely block one another? Is the traditional idea of the separation of powers rendered obsolete? Shouldn’t we take money into consideration as the ‘fourth power’? Does the geopolitical division of people into nation-states reflect the spirit of modern times? Shouldn’t we learn from Coca-Cola, Shell and Microsoft how interests can be realised at a global level?” Ultimately, “these questions led to the proclamation of the First TRansnational Republic whose citizens are not defined through blood or birthplace but through a similarity in their minds and their communal spirit. To us, the problem in the representation of citizens in the age of globalisation essentially lies in the fact that today’s system of citizen representation by nation-states is NATIONAL, inevitably representing NATIONAL INTERESTS. Thus nation-states are, by definition, not fit to represent citizens’ interests GLOBALLY. As global problems can hardly be solved without adversely affecting national interests, it is unlikely that nation-states will come up with global solutions.” On account of these problematic circumstances, “We therefore suggest a new form of global citizen representation — TRANSNATIONAL REPUBLICS. Transnational Republics are based on one principle thought: All power originates in the individual and is not alienable. What does this mean? First of all it means that the thoughts and the will are free and have to be respected. This has as a consequence for the system of representation of citizens’ rights.” These liberties include freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and the freedom to choose one’s representation. “The first two points are already encoded as fundamental human rights. All of us, however, are still being denied the right to choose one’s representation. At the moment of our birth we hand over our right of representation to a nation-state and have no possibility — except maybe through emigration or marriage — to change our nationality. Moreover, this selection through birth might be a happy one, but equally it might not. Someone unlucky enough to be born into a dictatorship will have to more or less live with it. What makes this more problematic is that the nation-states not only have the ‘birth right’ to represent the citizens, but can even choose whom they want to represent. The respect a nation-state has for its citizens is thus subject to the arbitrariness and the historical and cultural development of the respective national system. The situation is further aggravated as nation-states, sadly, have few incentives to represent their citizens optimally, as there is little fear of losing citizens due to sub-optimal actions. Nation-states lose their citizens only in situations of crisis or war — as in the case of the former GDR or Argentina. A dramatically different situation presents itself in the representation of (trans)national corporations: these can leave any nation-state, any time, and immigrate to another nation-state. For this, transnational corporations don’t even have to change their letterhead! It’s enough to relocate the accounting of the corporation’s profits. This can quickly result in nation-states being manipulated by ‘global players’ — nation-states have no chance of defending interests of their citizens against the interests of globally acting powers. In summary, nation-states’ hands are bound in two ways and they are thus doomed to fail in the representation of their citizens’ global (transnational) interests:” first, “by the conflict of interests between global pressures and national interest”; second, “by the (financial) dependence on global corporations and other transnational organizations”. The document then goes on to describe the basic system of the United Transnational Republics (UTNR). The first main characteristic is that each and every Transnational Republic (TNR) offers flexible citizenship: “Following the principle ‘All power originates in the individual and is not alienable’ every person remains free to choose which Transnational Republic receives the mandate to represent them. This not only means that it’s possible to immigrate into another Transnational Republic at any given moment, but also opens to everybody the possibility of proclaiming a new republic. In doing so, every person will have to find a compromise between joining a bigger and more influential republic or a smaller, less influential one which reflects more precisely their specific personal opinions.” The document goes on to say that “one of the most important principles of Transnational Republics” is that they are subject to free competition amongst one another; this ongoing engagement is thereby healthy because it allows Transnational Republics to undergo evolution. “This means that neither a single political or belief system will be requested. Instead, citizens will choose from a plurality of possible solutions. As each citizen has the choice to emigrate from one Transnational Republic to another Transnational Republic at any given moment, a situation of competition is created. One will become citizen of the Transnational Republic which not only offers the best conditions but also seems to offer the best representation. A Transnational Republic failing to adopt to its citizens demands is prone to lose citizens and therefore influence. Only a Transnational Republic close to its people and working efficiently will be able to attract citizens. It is important to note, however, that there will still be a need for nation-states — only will they no longer represent their citizens outside their nation-state. Transnational Republics will represent citizens in global issues, while national topics — as before — will be dealt with by nation-states.” In other words, Transnational Republics shall coexist with nation-states. “By introducing Transnational Republics, the people of the world will actually be given an additional citizenship: the flexible citizenship in a Transnational Republic of choice. Therefore, Transational Republics can be described as a modernisation or extension of the federal system. While national issues will still be dealt with by the various national governments, international issues will be handled by the United Nations and transnational issues by the United Transnational Republics. Transnational issues are for example all issues of human rights, war crimes and other crimes against humanity or the protection of the global environment. Today’s world still lacks this transnational level of citizen representation; our current global situation could be compared to a nation having only city governments but no national government. Just as we are used to see city governments discussing national issues with their respective national governments, nations will be discussing transnational issues with the United Transnational Republics.”
So what is this United Transnational Republics (UTNR) they keep mentioning? “Together, the various Transnational Republics are forming the United Transnational Republics — where all citizens of the world are represented by their Transnational Republic of choice. Before an organisation can join the [UTNR], it first has to be acknowledged by the [UTNR] as a Transnational Republic by complying to Transnational Republic Standards. The two most important standards are, that everybody can freely join or leave a Transnational Republic at any time and that a Transnational Republic is not representing any national, regional or corporate interests. Within the [UTNR] the voting power of each Transnational Republic is dependent on the number of the citizens it is representing. As mentioned above, the [UTNR] are only responsible for global issues, but the decisions taken by the [UTNR] are binding for the Nation-States. This will for example clear the way for the installation of a Transnational Criminal Court.” The way I see it, the aim of the UTNR is to someday become an overarching representative institution — one which fuels the communal spirit/kinship of the indentured denizens of the world’s nation-states and inspires them to prevail over all the limitations imposed upon them by arbitrary geographical boundaries, thereby providing our planet with a more effective tool/resource for international/supra-national problem-solving and activism. The authors then remind us about “The Power of The Big Number” (power in numbers): “Given a certain size, organisations have political influence.” They mention a few such entities, all of which “have remarkable political influence without having the equivalent political mandate. The influence and therefore the success of Transnational Republics will be dependent on the number of their citizens and their sheer will for change.” They then talk a little bit about how Non-Governmental Organisations can, over time, become Governmental: “There are a big number of Non-Governmental-Organisations (NGO’s) contributing valuable and important work in the defence of civil rights. The existence of theses NGO’s proves that there are certain global problems that many people believe cannot be solved by nation-states. Noteworthy examples are Greenpeace or Amnesty International (ai). Even though these organisations do have remarkable political influence in the meantime, they still have to act — by definition (NGO!) — from the stand of nongovernmental opposition. In the model of Transnational Republics it could be possible that NGO’s — similar to ministries — are representing various topics, e.g. Greenpeace for environmental issues, ai for human rights issues. Thereby they would no longer speak in the name of their various protest movements, but would act in full responsibility with the political mandate of the citizens of Transnational Republics. Global issues, such as global warming or human rights, would then no longer be decided upon by nation-states in the name of their innate citizens, but be negotiated by Transnational Republics in the name of their free citizens.”
A more recent version of Globalisation Needs Democracy! (http://www.transnationalrepublic.org/info/images/INFO%7C060322%7CA4%7Ceng.pdf) features an entirely shortened/updated text: “The United Transnational Republics are dealing with the question how globalisation could be aligned with democracy.” The initial points include the following considerations: “transnational corporations are more influential than most nation-states”; “the classical separation of powers (legislative, judicative, executive) needs to be expanded to include money as the ‘fourth power’”; “nation-states cannot represent their citizens’ transnational interests, as transnational and national interests typically contradict each other”; “at the time being there is no transnational citizen representation — the UN is an assembly of various national interests.” Because of the fact that “in our globalised world there is no citizen representation on a transnational level, today’s situation could be compared to a nation-state that has no national government but only city mayors. In such a nation-state governed by mayors, many topics of national interest could hardly be organized (transport, education, health, environment...). To represent transnational citizen interests, an additional instance responsible only for transnational matters needs to be created: the United Transnational Republics. By introducing the United Transnational Republics (UTNR), the existing system of political representation — which is still limited to the national level — does not need any radical alteration: rather than a radical reform, the current system is simply being expanded by one federal and democratic level. This new level is focusing on the transnational matters that are resulting from globalisation.” Unlike nation-states, “TNRs are communities based on similarity in mindset, rather than on birthplace or heritage.”
Furthermore, the Manifesto of the First TRansnational Republic sums up their basic creed: “Here we are citizens, not subjects. We, the citizens of the First TRansnational Republic, have assembled in order to globally represent our citizenship rights…The citizen rights include in particular the human rights, transnational principles of justice, the protection of our natural environment as well as the democratic rights of the individual. In times of growing globalisation the problem of global representation has not yet been sufficiently addressed, the way of the world as well as the faith of the individuals are increasingly determined by transnational organisations (corporations, churches, trade organisations…). There is no comparable political representation system of the individual. The countries of this world cannot — under the influence of these transnational organisations — represent the interests of their citizens; nations cannot act transnationally. Our aim is the recognition of the First TRansnational Republic by the international community.”
I found a brief overview of the United Transnational Republics at the Complexity and Social Networks Blog of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science and the Program on Networked Governance, Harvard University. It was posted (Nov. 28, 2007) by Mr. Alexander Schellong. As of the time of writing, “the First Transnational Republic has more than 4.300 citizens from around 100 nation-states. Most members are from Germany which is not surprising since the project started there. By contrast only 115 U.S. citizens joined the project. Marking its 6th year of existence the project has only gained very little of the global population it aims to attract. It seems that online social networking functionality could help to offer its members greater value.”
Let us now focus on the economic/monetary philosophy of the First TRansnational Republic. According to Globalisation Needs Democracy!, it is centered on the theory of the “fourth power” of money: “The influence of global corporations is based on their financial power. The essential part, however, is not only the amount of their money but rather the laws and structures which allow them to make political use of this money: globally acting corporations can travel with their wins and losses around the globe, virtually, and can therefore almost freely decide if and where they are paying taxes. This creates a political tool which is used by transnational corporations to greatly influence politics. Even though the sum of the citizens potentially have more capital at their disposal than individual corporations, they do not succeed in having the equivalent political influence necessary to defend their interests against business and political world. This imbalance is a clear fault of current democratic representational systems. Transnational Republics will represent the financial influence of their citizens, when taxes are no longer paid directly, by the individual citizen, to the respective nation-state, but via Transnational Republics as their representatives. This new focus of the financial powers of the individual will restore the equivalent influence of citizens. Even though in such a situation Transnational Republics will be introduced as an additional layer, acting as ‘middlemen’ of tax payments, an improvement of the overall system can still be expected. This situation is comparable to the privatisation of telephone companies resulting in a competition amongst various service providers which in turn led to an improvement of the service at falling prices. Transnational Republics will then be ‘Service Providers’ of citizen services buying the respective use e.g. of infrastructure such as highways, police, educational system…from the geophysical nation-states ‘in bulk’ thereby assuring the equivalent participation right — a mechanism discovered long ago by global corporations. The first step into that direction is the introduction of our own currency — the Payola — which will be used to exchange goods and services amongst citizens of the Transnational Republics. The Payola can be bought at the Central Bank of The United Transnational Republics with any other traded currency.” The authors then focus on explaining why we need the Transnational Citizen Currency System, a.k.a. the Payola: “One basic thought of the United Transnational Republics is to expand the classical separation of powers (legislative, judicative, executive) by the ‘fourth power’ of money. At the time of the introduction of the classical separation of powers, it was unthinkable, that one day there would be corporations that could easily buy out countries and whose global structures — built on money — would be more influential than most governments. One must now admit, that the far reaching influence of global corporations is a sincere threat to basic democratic principles. But as neither the wheel of time nor globalisation can be reversed, smashing corporations to pieces or renouncing the internet cannot be the solution. Other solutions must be sought.” The authors then list the various ways in which the “introduction of citizen currencies (like the Transnational PAYOLA) instead of national currencies is effective”. The first way is: “As a result of citizen currencies replacing national currencies, nation-states will lose their direct influence on money. Therefore, money will actually be introduced as the fourth power.” The second way is: “By means of this expanded separation of powers nation-states will no longer work as an ‘Other People Money System’ in which politicians, governments and state organisations live on the (borrowed) money of their citizens. Expanding the separation of powers therefore will help to prevent misadministration, corruption, nepotism etc…” The third way is “Counteracting forces to the financially based power of global corporations are created by Transnational Republics. The financial power of the citizens is focused in these Transnational Republics and thus the political power tied to this money becomes usable.” The authors conclude: “In summary it may be said, that a Transnational Citizen Currency System will give its citizens the same tool for political influence on the nation-states that, for the time being, is monopolised by global corporations.”
The document then asks: “How realistic is the idea to introduce PAYOLA? Of course, the introduction of a currency system is a highly ambitious project, but certainly not an impossible one. There are numerous examples for non-national currency systems: from cigarettes in times of black-markets to bonus point systems such as the frequent flyer miles introduced by airlines. Nowadays whole lines of business are already dependent on the income generated through the ‘Community Currency’ frequent flyer miles. Every year goods and services totalling billions of dollars are traded using this currency system, already reducing the control of nation-states over this part of the world economic system. The PAYOLA differs from other community currency systems tried in the past, since we are not attempting to create a new and independent currency, but are putting the PAYOLA ‘on top’ of already existing national currencies: The exchange rate between Euro and PAYOLA is fixed: 4 PAYOLA equal 1 Euro. By doing so, the PAYOLA becomes a fully convertible and therefore tradable currency. Therefore, it is possible to either earn Payola through exchange of goods or services, or by simply changing Dollar, Euro, Yen [etc…] into PAYOLA at the Central Bank of the United Transnational Republics. In the same way, of course, PAYOLA can be changed at any given time back into national currencies. The security of the PAYOLA currency system is guaranteed, since PAYOLA have to be bought with Dollar, Euro or other national currencies. Differently expressed: the Central Bank of the United Transnational Republics uses PAYOLA in order to buy national currencies, which are then held as bank reserves. Just as there used to be a gold standard for national currencies, the PAYOLA is currently backed by a Euro standard. It is foreseeable, that in the future a considerable amount of money transfer will be electronic — eg. using a cell phone in order to pay at a drinks machine, or the transferral of money via e-mail. These new technologies are not only making the use of money more comfortable, but also help to facilitate the introduction of community currency systems. Whether the electronic payment of one transnational citizen to another transnational citizen occurs in Dollar, Euro or PAYOLA will then be only a question of the software. Since we don’t want to wait for the wide use of these electronic payment systems, we already have started to circulate PAYOLA bank notes and coins.”
In a document entitled Gold as the Fourth Power of Global Democracy (appended to the more recent version, mentioned above, of Globalisation Needs Democracy!), Georg Zoche writes: “In order to assure the independence of the United Transnational Republics from the nation-states and in order to establish money as the ‘fourth power’, the Central Bank of the United Transnational Republics is issuing the transnational citizen currency PAYOLA. The PAYOLA is backed by Euro reserve funds and at the same time pegged to the Euro with one PAYOLA being equivalent to one Euro. With other words: the Central Bank of the United Transnational Republics is buying national currencies at a fixed exchange rate, effectively replacing these with the transnational currency PAYOLA. Currently, the PAYOLA is both available as bank notes and as coins, with the planned introduction of electronic PAYOLA for monetary transactions in the internet. For the following discussion it is necessary to understand, that currencies are not only used as a unit of account, medium of exchange and to accumulate assets but are also an important means of power. Already, Aristotle considered the power to enforce the use of a currency as a pre-requisite for an empire (quoted after B. Lietaer). This function of power becomes especially clear in the example of the US dollar: the economic and military expansion of the USA was only made possible due to the role of the US dollar as global key currency. The role of the US dollar as global key currency was constituted at the Conference at Bretton Woods (New Hampshire, USA) in 1944, when the so-called Gold-Dollar Standard replaced the Gold Standard that had to be abandoned during the war. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) founded in connection with the Bretton Woods Agreement ‘requested from the individual nation-states to define the parities of their national currencies either in Gold or US dollar and limit the fluctuation of their exchange rates at a maximum of one percent within the “parity”. In order to give nations the time necessary to correct temporary imbalances concerning their international monetary transactions, the Fund granted credits out of its resources’ (J. Dines). Whilst the US dollar was pegged to Gold at a price of 35 dollars per ounce, the other currencies were pegged to the US dollar. Thereby the USA received the unique privilege to be able to print ‘paper gold’. ‘The advantages to the USA were obvious. The new system allowed for the painless financing of wars and economical campaigns around the whole world and made it possible to import expensive foreign products without any limit — simply because the banking system created the required dollars’ (F. Lips). This behaviour resulted in the devaluation of the US dollar against Gold, which finally forced the USA on August 15, 1971, to renege on their promise to sell Gold at a fixed price of 35 $ per ounce. Since then the currencies of the world are not pegged to Gold anymore (with the exception of the Swiss Franc, whose Gold Standard remained until it had to be abandoned due to Switzerland’s entry into the IMF in 1992). However, the role of the US dollar as global key currency remained — putting the USA at an advantage over all other nations in the world. Also IMF and World Bank — originally founded in order to implement the Bretton Woods Agreement — remained in existence despite the unilateral cancellation of the Gold Standard through the USA; today the IMF — with the USA being the only member having veto power — forbids its member states to peg their currencies to Gold, effectively consolidating the position of the US dollar as global key currency.” Zoche argues that “The ‘means of power of national currencies’ is a major prerequisite to lead war: wars could practically not be financed without the possibility of manipulating (e.g. print) one’s own national currency. At the times of the Gold Standard it was common ‘to loosen or abandon the bond to Gold at the beginning of a war and to use the unrestricted capability to create money [through printing] in order to finance the war’ (E. Fraenkel, K. D. Bracher). The possibility to lead wars and the inherent possibility of paper currencies to create money out of the nothingness (hence ‘fiat currency’) are directly connected. Without the possibility to simply print money, it becomes quite difficult to finance any war.” Unfortunately, our worldwide currency system “is better suited to finance wars, than to fight poverty.” Zoche then focuses on other, non-national types of useful currencies. “Just as nation-states are using their currency systems to protect their national interests, ‘corporate currencies’ (paypack systems, [frequent flyer] miles and more...) do not only increase customer loyalty but also increase the influence of the corporations behind these currency systems.” According to an analysis by The Economist magazine, the “bonus miles” doled out by the international airlines (more than 130 airlines issue them) “have become the second biggest currency after the US dollar.” This new global currency has a greater total value than dollars, euros, pounds or yen: by the end of 2004, almost 14 trillion frequent flyer miles had been accumulated worldwide. “This example of the ‘bonus miles’ clearly shows that it is possible to establish complementary currency systems next to national currencies.” A number of examples are mentioned. “Despite the rapid propagation of local complementary currency systems, there is no transnational complementary currency system. Yet, for the protection of transnational citizen interests, the creation of such a transnational currency is indispensable. The current situation — where the global key currency is under the control of one single nation-state — is undesirable. In the case of the transnational currency PAYOLA it made sense, to first peg it to a multi-national currency (the Euro) to ease its introduction. At a later point there will be the possibility to replace the ‘Euro Standard’ by the Gold Standard or a ‘Basket of Commodities Standard’ as proposed by Bernard Lietaer.”
By the way, what is the meaning of the term “payola”? In the American music industry, payola is the illegal practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on music radio, in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast. Under US law, a radio station can play a specific song in exchange for money, but this must be disclosed on the air as being sponsored airtime, and that play of the song should not be counted as a “regular airplay”. The term — it gets its name as a take-off of the names of some early record-playing machines, such as Victrola or Rockola — has come to refer to any secret payment made to cast a product in a positive light (such as obtaining positive reviews). Definitions for payola include: “Bribery of an influential person in exchange for the promotion of a product or service, such that of disc jockeys for the promotion of records”; “A bribe or a number of bribes given to an influential person in exchange for a promotion of a product or service”; “a bribe to secure special treatment, esp. to promote a commercial product”. Mr. Schellong (see above) states that the Payola currency reminds him that a “very similar global monetary system (the BANCOR) was the British proposal promoted by Keynes at the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944.”
As we can see, one of the main purposes of the Transnational Payola is to redress the governmental stranglehold over our medium of exchange. Utilizing this “Currency System”, the citizens of the First TRansnational Republic seek to empower their like-minded compatriots (in other Transnational Republics) to become more influential at home and abroad. The coinage and banknotes of the First TRansnational Republic symbolize these lofty goals, “while at the same time taking the Euro as a standard (1:4) in order to assure the tradeability of this new currency.” For the purposes of this listing, I will focus solely on the coins. To begin with, there is a 4 Payola piece. It is fashioned from a genuine 2002 German € coin. “It was quite a complicated thing to do, as we had to make a minting tool that would re-mint the ‘1’ into a ‘4’ which required positioning the 1-Euro coin very precisely in the tool. The word ‘EURO’ is removed and replaced by ‘PAYOLA’.” There is also a 2002 10 Payola piece. Both of their impressive coins, which I purchased from Georg Zoche ([email protected] or [email protected]), were struck in 2002 for their participation at the International Biennial of Young Art in Turin, Italy. They make sustained efforts to actively exhibit and distribute these coins and banknotes. From June 29-July 11, 2002, the Central Bank of the United Transnational Republics managed an installation in Berlin's Staatliche Münze (Federal Mint). Their Web-site has images of the 10 Payola coin and the banknotes:
http://www.transnationalrepublic.org/centralbank/CB-payola/CB-payola.html
Additional images of their coinage can be viewed at the site of Mr. Chaim Dov Shiboleth's private collection:
http://www.taedivm.org/trans.html
This rebirth of an Esperantist communal currency was the result of a very ambitious initiative of Andreas Cseh (Andreo Cxe), who in 1942 founded the “Universala Ligo” (Universal League), based in The Hague, Netherlands, at the site of the current International Esperanto-Institute (I.E.I.). This event took place in secrecy on April 14, 1942 (the 25th anniversary of the death of Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof, the father of this universal language), during the German occupation of that country. Esperanto had been banned by the Nazis, and their constituents were persecuted; many of its speakers were exterminated. The Ligo, whose mission statement was to unite mankind in harmony through the use of a common language, gained a substantial Dutch and international following in the years after WW2, with more than 15,000 members in the early '50s. During the 1st international assembly of the League on the 16th of March 1946 in The Hague, a decision was made to re-introduce a common world currency with an internationally stable value. Theirs would be an experiment in achieving peace via international economics; in proving to the world that the global conflicts caused by international economic pressures could be resolved by the use of this revolutionary currency. The noble task would fall upon the Stelo (star, one of the symbols of the Esperanto movement), and its value was to be fixed at 1 Stelo = 1 standard loaf of bread, which at the time cost 0.25 Dutch Guilders. That same year, the Ligo started printing coupons (Premio-Kupono) with the value in Steloj, for internal use (payment of activities, leaflets, prize-money, etc...). These were widely used within the movement up until the 1980s.
The minting of the League's first coinage, dated 1959, commenced on June 28, 1960. They were proudly minted in an optimistically large amount by the Royal Dutch Mint (Rijksmunt) in Utrecht. The slogan on the 1 Stelo is “One world, one language, one money”; the 5 Steloj had “The world is one nation, mankind one people”; the 10 Steloj featured the “kreinto” (creator) of Esperanto. Exceeding expectations, the sale of the coins rapidly covered the cost of production. A 25 Steloj was minted in 1965 (I purchased mine from Mr. Frank S. Robinson). These coins actually circulated, though not under any governmental aegis. They were utilized as a unit of account for sales of books and other merchandise within the Netherlands Chapter of the League, and perhaps were even valid for purchasing items at other associated outlets anywhere in the world. These coins remained in use for quite a long time, certainly for more than 30 years, until the Ligo declined in popularity and importance. In 1974, the price of the Stelo was revalued at 0.50 Dutch Guilders and its previous connection to the price of bread was terminated. In 1977, the Stelo was fixed at a new constant, the consumer price-index, which is based on a percentage of the theoretical monthly purchases of an “average” family (the same system used nowadays to calculate minimum wages). The idea behind this was that this index would not be as heavily influenced by inflation as the European currencies were at the time. But because of theoretical differences regarding the key to calculating the value of the Stelo, fierce internal dispute arose between the members of the League's board of directors, finally leading to the departure of its Cashier and financial expert, Mr. Laurence Mee. From the 1980s onwards, the activities of the League stagnated due to lack of new members, until finally in 1993 the Ligo was disbanded and their assets, including the entire remaining stock of coins, were bequeathed to the U.E.A. (Universal Esperanto Association, which had been founded on April 28, 1908), in Rotterdam. The dream of a common world currency leading to international concord had sadly enough not materialized.
Now let us travel backwards in time. Decades earlier, an initial breakthrough was achieved with the Spesmilo series: René de Saussure was the visionary who first proposed a stable, gold-based international monetary system which could easily be converted into many existing currencies of the era. In May of 1907, he published his project for an international Esperantist currency in a special edition of Scienca Revuo (Scientific Review). Therein, he also devised the Esperanto root word “speso”, and the requisite decimal terms, from the French “espéce” (coinage). He received many letters from peers and confreres who generally approved of the concept; among the most pleased was the originator of Esperanto himself, Dr. Zamenhof. He urged de Saussure to “not sway from it” and to do everything in his power “to obtain for it the sanction” of the 3rd World Esperanto Congress later that year in Cambridge, England. De Saussure's proposal turned out successfully, and the Spesmilo system was widely and favorably advertised and propagandized by the Universala Esperanto-Asocio. After his innovative idea caught the eye of this newly-formed alliance, they employed his system by issuing “postcards for their own use and that of UEA members which had a printed franking location with an indication of the needed postage, e.g., 4 spesdekoj.” Though de Saussure continued to make brilliant contributions to Esperanto, he was later expelled from its Academy for attempting to launch a newer language called “Nov-Esperanto”.
As examples of this coinage, 2 denominations were minted in 1912, in very small quantities, by the Swiss firm Holy Frères: a 1 Spesmilo (“milo” meaning “thousand”; 1,000 spesoj; I purchased mine from Aspen Coins), and a 2 Spesmiloj (2,000 spesoj). According to Mr. Harmon, these pieces “had nothing whatever to do with UEA. That was apparently purely a marketing initiative by the mint, which produced many ‘vanity’ coins and fantasies.” The aim was to sell them at the 1913 World Esperanto Congress in Bern. It is possible, although they were not intended for general use at that phase, that they seemingly saw some limited circulation. On these medallions, the dates 1887-1912 suggest not the 50th anniversary of the World Esperanto Congress (the 1st one was in 1905), but the 25 years that had passed since Dr. Zamenhof published his Unua Libro (First Book) in 1887 under the nom de guerre “Doktoro Esperanto”. Three additional patterns may have been produced for a minting that never occurred: spesdeko (10 spesoj), spescento (100 spesoj), spesdekmilo (10,000 spesoj).
The major result of de Saussure's article was that it prompted a German by the name of Dr. Herbert F. Höveler, living in Great Britain and an avid follower of the Esperanto movement, to establish the “Cxekbanko Esperantista” in September of 1908. He embraced the idea of an utopian currency, and under the alias “E. Cxefecx” (pronounced “Chefech”), he founded this international deposit bank. Its home office was in Merton Abbey, London; it also had a branch in Dresden and one in Moscow. The new arrangement, which was an immediate success, would utilize special “checks” payable by this bank; some of them bore the same unifying slogan which later appeared on the Universala Ligo's smallest coin: “Unu Mondo-Unu Lingvo-Unu Mono”. The brotherhood often dealt in small sums for miscellaneous transactions amongst themselves in foreign countries, could now debit their accounts or make payments to the accounts of their fellowmen. During that pre-war period, the catalogs of Esperanto bookstores and magazine subscriptions had their prices shown in Spesmiloj. Membership fees in their organizations were also paid in that currency; during World Esperanto Congresses, payments small and large (even in the restaurants) were paid by those checks. By 1914, this handy and inexpensive system had 730 clients in 43 countries. After the outbreak of World War I, their activities were severely limited. With the death of Höveler in 1918 there was no successor to continue the operation, so it effectively ceased to function. All creditors were repaid. Since the timing appears to be right, we can speculate that the Spesmilo coins may have actually been commissioned by the “Cxekbanko Esperantista”; or if not, then by some enterprising Swiss Esperantist(s).
Afterwards, Dreves Uitterdijk (an old but very active pioneer in the Esperanto movement) and J. Hengel tried to revive the once-promising Spesmilo monetary system. In 1927 they founded the “Universala Spesmila Banko” (Universal Spesmila Bank), and because the Netherlands was one of the few nations whose currency stayed stable during the period, its headquarters was in Laren. They issued several Spesmiloj notes (also backed by gold, with the same idealistic slogan mentioned above) but without favorable results; they disappeared in the early 1930s.
Images of the Esperanto coinage can be viewed at the Coin Library of the USNS:
http://www.usns.info/coin-universala.html
To learn more about Esperanto, a great place to start would be ELNA: http://www.esperanto-usa.org/Return to the Main Index