Silvio Gesell

Gesell's chiefwork is written in cool and scientific terms, although it is run through by a more passionate and charged devotion to social justice than many think fit for a scholar. I believe that the future will learn more from Gesell’s than from Marx’s spirit.

—John Maynard Keynes, Economist, Fellow of King's College, University of Cambridge/England

See Wikipedia Article here about Gesell

and read his seminal work, "The Natural Economic Order"

here online

or download it here.

The “Miracle of Wörgl”

This early experiment directly inspired by Gesell's work took place during the Great Depression in Austria from 1932-1933 for fourteen months.

Faced with 25% unemployment and declining funds, the Mayor of the small town of Wørgl thought he would put Silvio Gesell’s ideas into practice.

So he put 20,000 Austrian schillings aside and spent a new currency into existence.

They paid their workers in Work Certificates rather than Austrian schillings and on the back were 12 spaces.

Every month the holder would need to stick a one penny Austrian stamp on the back to validate the note.

This monthly stamp requirement was sufficient to act as an incentive to spend the note or invest it.

Back taxes were paid and there was growing council spending on infrastructure like bridges.

People came from miles around to witness what they called the “Miracle of Wörgl”.

However, soon the banks put enough pressure on the Austrian government to make the whole scheme illegal, and Wörgl went back to unemployment.

This is a section from Land Value Taxation article in the Paradigms and Myth section of this e-book (re-designing money IS a way of re-designingn the economic story which underpins the Destructo-Culture)