Money Money is the driving force of our economies. Every step of the production and distribution process involves money and almost all our activities revolve around money. In fact, most of our actions and behaviors are forced by money. Money is by far the most important invention of human kind ever since the dawn of creativity simply because of the fact that it allows exchange. Money has the potential of making our lives a living hell as it is today or a happy hunting ground. I don’t know about you but I love to be in happy places doing fun things and unraveling the secrets of nature. It won’t hurt to acknowledge the reality of our lives and seek to design a better one for our older selves and our children, after all John F. Kennedy in 1963 said that, “Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again (and again).” Let’s begin with startups – the surviving seeds from the fountain of creativity that later on become the big corporations we see around – responsible for the production and in some cases distribution of goods and services. If you are a startup founder (like me) or a wanting startup founder, you would sure have noticed that that your genius idea is worth absolutely nothing. It is only worth something when you implement it. And to implement it, you need money. As a to-be startup founder, there are only four ways through which you can get money; either you receive free money (1) or you work and save (2) or you provide collateral (which most of us naturally don’t have) (3) or you give up a large chunk of your business at a very early age if you’re lucky for an exchange of the seeding capital (4). But if Bezos comes up with a silly idea and wants to implement it, believe you me, nothing will stop him. That’s the difference. Permit me elaborate on the four sources of capital;  Free Money: This is the money one receives in the form of donations, gifts, grants, inheritance etc. The thing is, there is actually nothing as free money (except inheritance). Once a business man always a business man. Believe me; whenever you receive this kind of money, know that somebody somewhere is benefitting from it somehow. It’s not like one shouldn’t start a business with the money, please by all means, do. What pains me is the fact that the execution of our genius ideas is left to the mercy of some benevolent benefactors. For God’s sake we are humans and by the force of existence we are born equal; we deserve equal right to make it out here.  Work and save: The thing with working to save is that you are never paid an equivalent amount of what you worked for; always the bare minimum and that amount remain pretty constant over time. Meanwhile the returns from your contributions are almost always over the roof especially when you are one of those high performers described by Price’s law. Chances are you can barely survive on the salary talk less of saving up. In a just society, our share of the profit should be proportional and equivalent to the amount of useful work we put in. For example, if you are putting in 50% of the work, then you own 50% of the return. Notwithstanding, one can always save up if he wishes to sacrifice the present for the future he is not certain of. People often say work hard and save up. I for one don’t believe in working hard, I believe in working smart and working smart doesn’t mean I should work for the luxury of other people.  Collateral loans/debt: A dedicated lender cannot lend money to people with just ideas except in special cases such as the case where the borrower is family or close acquaintance. This is because the business hasn’t existed before hence no financial history. To-be startup founders generally don’t qualify for most business loans. They can only take collateral loans where they are required to pledge an asset for the loans which more often than not they don’t have. Or they can borrow to pay back with no interest but not from banks obviously. If you have ever tried to borrow money from your circle of friends, then you know what this entails. But what’s up with a system like that? A system whose building blocks are prescribed by us and any systems prescribed by us can always be optimized or modified or replaced completely. I say if you choose to remain stewards of others excellence, then it’s your cup of tea.  Giving equity: This is a situation where a to-be startup founder promises a certain share of the company to someone willing to provide the necessary capital to kick start operations. This early investors or angel investors often take a good portion of the company and in order to invest in the first place they must believe in your idea. It is rather sad that the people that often understand our ideas, believe in our visions, appreciate our talents and know the limits of our capabilities don’t usually have the money to invest in us. This is where words like patience which is just another word for killing time, persistence – another word for putting up with and not questioning the mistakes of our founding fathers comes in. Basically, the system is designed in such a way that, for a “nobody” to become a “somebody”, he must make the existing rich folks richer. As a matter of fact the system literarily behaves like gravity; people with much wealth tend to attract more while people with little, tend to attract less. This phenomenon is known in economics as the Mathew effect of accumulated advantage. The distribution of wealth however, follows the Pareto distribution – where 20% of the population owns 80% of the wealth. We can go on to say that, 20% of that 20% owns 80% of the 80% and the progression continues. Ok, this is the sad reality: the banks whose primary purpose of existence ought to be facilitating exchanges have chosen the rich as their only clients. The banks are out to make money, so they can only lend money (cash) or issue credit to credit worthy individuals. These individuals are the rich folks – those who have made it in life. By so doing, they financially cripple the have-nots. Anyways the point is; people don’t have the same access to money which they need in order to put their skills to use. The rich keep getting richer while the poor get poorer and it is very difficult for people with nothing to get something to begin with and climbing. So, one of the purposes of this section is to present an economic system which gives each and every one equal access to money and an equal opportunity to put their sets of skills into practice.