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We live in a world grappling with vast economic inequality, environmental crises often linked to unchecked consumption, and a pervasive sense of unfairness simmering beneath the surface of our global marketplace. We look to economists, politicians, and activists for solutions, often finding incremental changes or complex theories. But what if the most radical, transformative proposal came from a source far more unexpected?
In Neale Donald Walsch’s provocative book, Conversations with God volume 2, a dialogue unfolds presenting a startlingly direct, challenging, and potentially revolutionary blueprint for reshaping our entire economic system. This isn’t about adjusting interest rates or debating tax codes; it’s a fundamental reimagining of value, exchange, and societal priorities, allegedly proposed by the divine itself. Prepare to suspend disbelief and consider a vision that cuts through complexity with the sharp edge of absolute transparency.
The Diagnosis: Why Our Current System Fails Us
According to the dialogue, our current economic woes stem from a deep-seated human focus on “the satisfying of your own passions, the meeting of your own immediate (and mostly bloated) needs, and quenching the endless human desire for Bigger, Better, More.” This relentless pursuit, disconnected from a sense of “enough,” fuels practices that harm the planet and create profound societal imbalances.
When asked why we ignore warnings, particularly environmental ones, the answer given is stark: “Follow the money trail.” This points to a core problem: secrecy. Money, in its current form, is easily hidden. Its movements, its accumulation, and its uses are largely private matters. “Most people hide the things they are ashamed of or don’t want other people to know about,” the text states, drawing a parallel between hidden finances and hidden sexuality. “You consider your money to be a very private matter. And therein lies the problem.”
This secrecy, this invisibility of money, allows rampant inequity and “double-dealing” to flourish. The text gives the explicit example of gender pay discrimination – paying a woman significantly less than a man for the exact same job – something made possible because individual compensation is hidden. Corporations can exploit information asymmetry, playing employees against each other or acquiring labor for less simply because they can get away with it unnoticed. The system enables manipulation, “apple polishing,” “kissing up to the boss,” the “inside track,” and countless other political maneuverings driven by hidden financial realities and motivations. The stark assessment is that if everyone truly knew everything about everyone else’s financial situation and corporate dealings, “there would be an uprising… the likes of which you have never seen,” leading ultimately to “fairness and equity, honesty and true for-the-good-of-all priority.”
The Prescription: Absolute Visibility
The simplest, most direct solution proposed is blunt: “Eliminate money.” However, acknowledging the potential resistance to such a drastic step, a more detailed alternative is offered, focusing on eliminating money’s invisibility. This forms the core of the proposed economic revolution: a system built on absolute, unwavering transparency.
The proposal calls for throwing out all existing national currencies, coins, and paper money. In its place, a “Worldwide Compensation System” (WCS) would be established. This system wouldn’t use dollars or euros, but rather “Credits” for services rendered and products produced, and “Debits” for services used and products consumed. Critically, everything would flow through this system – wages, investments, inheritances, winnings, tips – everything. There would be “no other negotiable currency.”
The cornerstone of the WCS is its radical openness: “everyone’s records would be open to everyone else.” Any person or organization’s account could be inspected by anyone, anytime. No secrets, no privacy in financial dealings. Imagine the implications:
- Workplace Equity: Companies would be forced to publish not just salary ranges, but the actual compensation awarded to each individual employee. Pay discrimination based on gender, race, or favouritism would become glaringly obvious and difficult to sustain.
- Fair Pricing: Corporations would potentially need to display two figures on every price tag: their cost to produce/provide the item/service, and the price they are charging. The text asks rhetorically, “Would that bring prices down, or what! Would that increase competition, and boost fair trade?” The potential for “ripping off” consumers diminishes when the profit margin is laid bare.
- Accountability: Knowing precisely how much money individuals and corporations hold, how they earn it, and how they spend it would drastically alter public perception and tolerance.
The Rationale: Why Visibility Breeds Fairness
Why would such radical transparency work? The text argues passionately that “Nothing breeds appropriate behavior faster than exposure to the light of public scrutiny.” It compares this financial visibility to the positive effects of “Sunshine Laws” in government, which have helped curb backroom political deals through public hearings and accountability.
Visibility is equated directly with truth: “Visibility is simply another word for truth. Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” By bringing all financial dealings into the light, the system removes the shadows where unfairness, manipulation, and corruption thrive. It eliminates the possibility of “playing two ends against the middle,” or taking advantage of someone’s ignorance.
The text acknowledges that the initial revelation of current hidden inequities would likely cause significant anger and frustration. However, it predicts that visibility itself would “clean most of that up within 60 days.” The sheer weight of public knowledge would compel fairer practices. It estimates that “half the world’s ills would go away tomorrow” – conflicts, worries, anger, frustration – if such a system were implemented.
Furthermore, the system proposes replacing traditional taxation with a voluntary 10% deduction from Credits earned, designated for the “general good of all” to fund government programs and services. Since all records are open, everyone would see who chooses to contribute and who does not, relying on social visibility rather than coercion to fund the collective.
A Deeper Shift: From Survival of the Fittest to Survival of All
This economic model isn’t just a technical fix; it necessitates and encourages a profound shift in consciousness. The current system, based on “taking advantage,” “getting the edge,” and “survival of the so-called fittest,” would need to yield to one where the “chief aim and goal… is the survival of all; the benefit, equally, of all; the providing of a good life for all.”
In such an “enlightened society,” the text suggests, secrecy becomes unnecessary because “no one… is willing to get anything, or have anything, at someone else’s expense.” The need to hide disappears when the fundamental operating principle shifts from competition at all costs to collective well-being and fairness. This requires individuals and corporations to be “just as concerned with your customers or clients as you are with yourself.”
This principle of visibility is even extended, tentatively, to personal relationships, advocating for honesty, openness, and “telling it like it is,” while cautioning against a literal, insane sharing of every fleeting thought. The fear of visibility, whether financial or personal, is linked to the fear of judgment and loss – the fear that if people knew the whole truth, they wouldn’t like us or we would lose our advantage.
The Challenge and The Dare: Can We Live in the Light?
The text frankly admits the world would likely not agree to such a system, precisely because it dismantles the ability to hide actions and motives. Those benefiting from the current opaque system (“people of money and power”) would resist fiercely.
Yet, it issues a direct challenge, a “dare,” not just to contemplate this system, but to begin implementing its principles now. Business owners are dared to tell employees exactly what they and everyone else makes, to tell customers their cost alongside their price, and to adjust pricing towards fairness rather than maximum extraction. Individuals are challenged to embrace truth-telling and visibility in their own lives.
The ultimate question posed is deeply personal: Can you live a life of absolute visibility, with no secrets in your dealings? If not, why not? What are you afraid of revealing? Has secrecy truly served us well? The text connects this fear to the ultimate fear of divine judgment, suggesting that releasing the fear of being “seen” after death can help us embrace visibility in life.
Conclusion: A Revolution Waiting to Happen?
The economic vision presented in Conversations with God is undeniably radical. A global system of Credits and Debits, underpinned by absolute transparency, where every transaction and holding is public knowledge, represents a departure from millennia of human practice. It promises a world free from hidden corruption, gross inequity, and the manipulation inherent in financial secrecy. It envisions a shift from cutthroat competition to collective flourishing.
While its implementation faces monumental practical and political hurdles, rooted in humanity’s current consciousness and power structures, its core principle – visibility breeds fairness – resonates powerfully. It forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about our own relationship with money, secrecy, and truth. It challenges us to imagine if a system built not on guarded privacy but on open accountability could truly create a more just and equitable world.
Perhaps the most potent takeaway is the final question posed: “If the whole world followed you, would you be pleased with where you took it?” Maybe the revolution starts not with a global decree, but with the courage to embrace visibility and fairness in our own businesses, our own relationships, our own lives, daring to “Be the new way.”
