Giro-Credit in the 1930s
Next issue will be all Sufi, but this one is strictly economics, but for Shamcher everything he did was Sufi. So today we focus on some history of Giro-credit - in a way, a material aspect of “Toward the One”. As an economist, Shamcher advocated this system, which he introduced and explained in an article below, as well as in his book, Distribute or Destroy. He always insisted that energy and economics were inextricably linked. (Giro-credit is a term used now in European bank transfers. This is the original concept.)
This issue of the Shamcher Bulletin includes:
An excerpt from the introduction to Shamcher’s early book on economics, Distribute or Destroy
Three links of interest:
Re-posting Shamcher’s article and re-introduction of Giro-credit in 1979
How Giro-credit worked (link to undated document from the archives)
PDF from appendix to Distribute or Destroy
Crowdsource requests:
Does anyone have any more info on Nordic Clearing?
Do you know if the current implementation of the term Giro-credit in Europe connects at all with the earlier Nordic Clearing approach?
Intro to “Distribute or Destroy”
Combining the work of various “heretical” economists into one accessible volume, this book by Brynjolf Björset (later known as Bryn Beorse) leads up to a tested Scandinavian economic experiment. Nordic Clearing was established as a bridge to a new applied economy. Behind it was a radical overview dedicated to rethinking the nature of money, particularly in the climate after WWI.
In the early 1930s Björset was asked to outline the basic work of the best known new economists of the day, offering an assessment of the situation of poverty in the midst of plenty. He produced Efter Oss Kommer Overfloden (After Us the Glut), his world economic survey published by Aschehoug in Oslo, Norway in 1934. It was immediately translated into English, and released in Britain and the US as Distribute or Destroy.
This book brought the young civil engineer, Brynjolf Björset, on to the world stage as a firebrand economic thinker who applied radical theories for the greater good.
His engagement with Nordic Clearing was reprised after WWII when he was selected to participate in the group that rebuilt the economy of Norway.
Pushed by the dire global depression, the need for a new approach to distribution of goods and services sparked a variety of innovative thoughts on the economy. Redefining wealth, re-examining the gold standard, placing the new theories into historical contexts, this book gives a great deal of information for further discussion and exploration. It is a start in building a bridge from the old worldview to the new.
Each chapter is dedicated to one economic approach that had received reasonable traction in the thinking of the times. Some had been applied, others remained theoretical, so far untested in the world.
Now almost a hundred years since some of these theories were first drafted we can look with fresh eyes at the ideas that were emerging in those tumultuous times after WWI.
Rapidly increasing production power, expanding industrial output and the revolution in electric power met both left- and right-wing political ideologies in an arena of war debt and post-war shock.
The Great Depression caused economists the world over to re-examine the economic cycles of the century past. New fermenting ideas were everywhere, but were often dismissed by the status quo as merely the wacky fringe activities of marginal cranks and quacks. Each of the systems in this book has been so vilified, yet each has a merit that brings to the fore a new approach for the future.
Björset foregrounds many of the new economists of the day, offering digests of their main tenets, with an invitation for interested parties to examine their work further. He personally met with many of these distinguished economic thinkers, and worked closely with them, not only in creating Nordic Clearing but after WWII in rebuilding the economy of Norway. Applying these concepts, the Nordic Clearing Company’s regulations are listed in the appendix, for those who may wish to also create new non-gold based exchanges.
The re-thinking of money as a means of exchange, of wealth as use and distribution of goods, of the health of a community based not simply on stores of gold but on useful enterprise is a noble ideal to strive toward.
Beorse met and worked with many varied distinguished economic thinkers, and was more concerned with uplifting humanity than with the distinctions and differences that divide our communities.
Widely varied views were brought together in Distribute or Destroy. The book introduced an everyday reader to the principles behind some of the more prominent new economic approaches being discussed in the early 1930s.
(Abridged - from the Introduction to Distribute or Destroy by Carol Sill)
Three links of interest
In a past issue, we featured Shamcher’s article on Giro-credit following a few brief Sufi pieces on silence, healing and participation in the world.
Silence, Healing and Giro-Credit
This post offers some detail on how it worked:
How Giro-credit Worked
If you have further interest, attached is a pdf of the appendix of Distribute or Destroy.
A reader’s request
A reader is researching Nordic Clearing as an existent Giro-credit system. He notes that the Swiss Giro-credit system WIR (which is still existing) mentions the Nordic Clearing in some of its newsletters to participants in the beginning of 1935. If you have any more leads, please reply!
Shamcher’s overview of Giro-credit is based on his personal experience as an economist. His book, Distribute or Destroy, subtitled “A Survey of the World’s Glut of Goods with a Description of Various Proposals and Practical Experiments for its Distribution” can be ordered directly by replying to this email, or from Amazon.
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The Shamcher Bulletin is edited by Carol Sill, whose newsletter, “Personal Papers”, is HERE.
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