Occupy This

Most people hide the things they are ashamed of or don’t want other people to know about. That is why the largest number of you hide your sexuality, and that is why nearly all of you hide your money. That is to say, you are not open about it. You consider your money to be a very private matter. And therein lies the problem.

If everyone knew everything about everybody’s money situation, there would be an uprising in your country and on your planet, the likes of which you have never seen. And in the aftermath of that there would be fairness and equity, honesty and true for-the-good-of-all priority in the conduct of human affairs.

It is now not possible to bring fairness or equity, honesty, or the common good to the marketplace because money is so easy to hide. You can actually, physically, take it and hide it. There are also all manner of means by which creative accountants can cause corporate money to be “hidden” or to “disappear.”

Since money can be hidden, there is no way for anyone to know exactly how much anyone else has or what they are doing with it. This makes it possible for a plethora of inequity, if not to say double-dealing, to exist. Corporations can pay two people vastly different wages for doing the same job, for instance. They can pay one person $57,000 a year while paying the other $42,000 a year, for performing the exactly identical function, giving one employee more than the other simply because the first employee has something the second employee does not.

What’s that?

A penis.

Oh.

Yes. Oh, indeed.

But You don’t understand. Having a penis makes the first employee more valuable than the second; quicker witted, smarter by half, and, obviously, more capable.

Hmmm. I don’t remember constructing you that way. I mean, so unequal in abilities.

Well, You did, and I’m surprised You don’t know it. Everyone on this planet knows it.

We’d better stop this now, or people will think we’re really serious.

You mean You’re not? Well, we are! The people on this planet are. That’s why women can’t be Roman Catholic or Mormon priests, or show up on the wrong side of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, or climb to the top job in Fortune 500 companies, 

or pilot airliners, or—

Yes, we get the point. And My point is that pay discrimination, at least, would be much more difficult to get away with if all money transactions were made visible, instead of hidden. Can you imagine what would happen in every workplace on the globe if all companies were forced to publish all the salaries of all the employees? Not the salary ranges for particular job classifications, but the actual compensation awarded to each individual.

Well, there goes “playing two ends against the middle,” right out the window. 

Yup.

And there goes, “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Yup.

And there goes, “Hey, if we can get her for a third less, why should we pay more?”

Uh-huh.

And there goes apple polishing, and kissing up to the boss, and the “inside track,” and company politics, and—

And much, much more would disappear from the workplace, and from the world, through the simple expedient of uncovering the money trail. Think of it. If you knew exactly how much money each of you holds and the real earnings of all of your industries and corporations and each of their executives—as well as how each person and corporation is using the money it has—don’t you think that would change things? Think about this. In what ways do you think things would change?

The plain fact is that people would never put up with 90 percent of what is going on in the world if they knew what was going on. Society would never sanction the extraordinarily disproportionate distribution of wealth, much less the means by which it is gained, or the manner in which it is used to gain more, were these facts known, specifically and immediately, by all people everywhere.

Nothing breeds appropriate behaviour faster than exposure to the light of public scrutiny. That is why your so-called Sunshine Laws have done so much good in clearing away some of the awful mess of your political and governance system. Public hearings and public account- ability has gone far toward eliminating the kinds of back-room antics that went on in the twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties in your town halls and school boards and political precincts—and national government as well.

Now it is time to bring some “sunshine” to the way you deal with compensation for goods and services on your planet.

What are You suggesting?

This is not a suggestion, it is a dare. I dare you to throw out all your money, all your papers and coins and individual national currencies, and start over. Develop an international monetary system that is wide open, totally visible, immediately traceable, completely accountable.  Establish a Worldwide Compensation System by which people would be given Credits for services rendered and products produced, and Debits for services used and products consumed. Everything would be on the system of Credits and Debits. Returns on investments, inheritances, winnings of wagers, salaries and wages, tips and gratuities, everything. And nothing could be purchased without Credits. There would be no other negotiable currency. And everyone’s records would be open to everyone else.

It has been said, show me a man’s bank account, and I’ll show you the man. This system comes close to that scenario. People would, or at least could, know a great deal more about you than they know now. But not only would you know more about each other; you would know more about everything. More about what corporations are paying and spending—and what their cost is on an item, as well as their price. (Can you imagine what corporations would do if they had to put two figures on every price tag—the price and their cost? Would that bring prices down, or what! Would that increase competition, and boost fair trade? You can’t even imagine the consequences of such a thing.)

Under the new Worldwide Compensation System, WCS, the transfer of Debits and Credits would be immediate and totally visible. That is, anybody and everybody could inspect the account of any other person or organization at any time. Nothing would be kept secret, nothing would be “private.”

The WCS would deduct 10 percent of all earnings each year from the incomes of those voluntarily requesting such a deduction. There would be no income tax, no forms to file, no deductions to figure, no “escape hatch” to construct or obfuscation to manufacture! Since all records would be open, everyone in the society would be able to observe who was choosing to offer the 10 percent for the general good of all, and who was not. This voluntary deduction would go toward support of all the programs and services of the government, as voted on by the people.

The whole system would be all very simple, all very visible.

The world would never agree to such a thing.

Of course not. And do you know why? Because such a system would make it impossible for anyone to do anything they didn’t want someone else to know about. Yet why would you want to do something like that anyway? I’ll tell you why. Because currently you live within an interactive social system based on “taking advantage,” “getting the edge,” “making the most,” and “the survival of the so-called fittest.”

When the chief aim and goal of your society (as it is in all truly enlightened societies) is the survival of all; the benefit, equally, of all; the providing of a good life for all, then your need for secrecy and quiet dealings and under the table maneuverings and money which can be hidden will disappear.

Do you realize how much good old-fashioned corruption, to say nothing of lesser unfairnesses and inequities, would be eliminated through the implementation of such a system? The secret here, the watchword here, is visibility.

~From chapter 16, Conversations With God book 2 

 Neale Donald Walsch