1. Silvio Gesell was the founder of, an economic model for market socialism.
23 Facts About Silvio Gesell
1. 2.
Silvio Gesell was detained for several months on a charge of treason, but was acquitted by a Munich court after a speech he gave in his own defense.
3.
Since the beginning of the century, Silvio Gesell has caught increasing attention among the general public.
4.
Silvio Gesell's mother was Walloon and his father was German, originally from Aachen, who worked as a clerk in the then-Prussian district of Malmedy, now part of Belgium.
5.
Silvio Gesell then returned to Berlin involuntarily to complete his military service.
6.
In 1887, Silvio Gesell relocated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he opened a franchise of his brother's business.
7.
Silvio Gesell then wrote Nervus Rerum and The Nationalization of Money.
8.
Silvio Gesell gave his business to his brother and returned to Europe in 1892.
9.
From 1907 to 1911, Silvio Gesell was in Argentina again, then he returned to Germany and lived in the vegetarian commune Obstbausiedlung Eden, which was founded by Franz Oppenheimer in Oranienburg, north of Berlin.
10.
In 1915, Silvio Gesell left Germany to return to his farm in Les Hauts-Geneveys.
11.
Silvio Gesell chose the Swiss mathematician Theophil Christen and the economist Ernst Polenske as his assistants and immediately wrote a law for the creation of Freigeld, a currency system he had developed.
12.
Silvio Gesell claimed that he didn't have anything to do with the political decisions of the Republic and was just trying to offer a plan to restructure the economy.
13.
Silvio Gesell then relocated first to Nuthetal, Potsdam-Mittelmark, then back to Oranienburg.
14.
Silvio Gesell promoted his ideas in German and in Spanish.
15.
Silvio Gesell considered himself a world citizen and was inspired by Henry George to believe that the earth should belong to all people, regardless of race, class, wealth, religion, or age, and that borders should be made obsolete.
16.
Silvio Gesell believed that taxes could not solve the problem of rent on land, as taxes could be transferred to tenants.
17.
Silvio Gesell thought we must abolish the private ownership of land and put free-land reform, a sort of public lease of land, into effect.
18.
In order not to cancel the effects of welfare policies, Silvio Gesell believed that Free-Land reform was needed.
19.
Silvio Gesell based his economic thought on the self-interest of individuals, which he saw as a "natural" and healthy motive, in satisfying their needs and being productive.
20.
Silvio Gesell believed that an economic system must do justice to individual proclivities; otherwise the system would fail.
21.
Silvio Gesell believed that this stance put him in opposition to Marxism, which, Gesell considered, proposed an economic system that was against human nature.
22.
The difference between them is that, with the free-money reforms of Silvio Gesell, hoarding money becomes impossible because the face-value of money is depreciated regularly.
23.
Silvio Gesell thought that value theory is useless and prevents economics from becoming science, and that a currency administration guided by value theory was doomed to sterility and inactivity.