Money Power Manifesto for the Digital Age

 A Letter to Ourselves — We Who Forgot the Essence of Money

 I.    Prologue: Where Did We Go Astray?

In today’s world, we call digital signals made of numbers and data “money.” We believe it to be the source of wealth and power. Paper bills and coins are mere shadows; all exchanges now depend on digital signals and records.

Yet somewhere along the way, we forgot. Money was never meant to be a symbol of power, but a token of gratitude — a record of someone’s voluntary giving, of generosity born from care and consideration. It was the memory of a gift, a reminder of relational flow. And it was in this flow of mutual giving that true wealth circulated.

So we must ask again: Why did we forget gratitude, and become enslaved to indebtedness?

The answer lies in the origin of life — in humanity’s fundamental condition of lack or built-in scarcity. In nature, plants generate energy through chloroplasts. Animals, however, must extract energy from external matter using mitochondria.

Humans were born into this same "dependent nutrition" system(heterotroph). Because we lacked self-sufficiency, we learned to desire what belonged to others — and to justify taking it.

Over time, this biological limitation solidified into a mindset of lack. Civilization took shape around competition, possession, and plunder, creating a structural economy of dependence.

And at the heart of this system was money — no longer a symbol of gratitude, but a tool of control through indebtedness.

II.    The Insight of Hwanung*: Remembering Shinshi**

Yet 6,000 years ago, some ancestors who followed the teachings of Hwanung discovered a different path for humanity.

They realized that scarcity is not an external reality but a limitation of inner perception. True abundance is born not from accumulation, but from giving and regiving(sharing).

So they built a new kind of economy — an accounting of flow of energy rooted in the ethic of gratitude. In this sacred system, called Shinshi, ‘giving and regiving’ formed a natural, cyclical current of generosity.

At its center were tokens that recorded acts of voluntary giving. These were not instruments of ownership, coercion, or physical transaction — they were records of care. Like the meal once shared or the labor once offered, they marked a relationship destined to be remembered and reciprocated.

These tokens said: “I gave freely; and in time, you too will give freely to another.” This promise sustained the community’s true wealth — trust, circulation, and mutual care.

*Hwanung(桓雄): the ancient ancestor of Koreans.      **Shinshi(神市): a divine city

III.    The Corruption of Currency: From Gratitude to Indebtedness

But civilization lost its way again.

When the right to issue these tokens was taken from individuals and entrusted to so-called “reliable authorities,” money transformed from a communal promise into a private weapon of authority.

Initially justified as a safeguard against fraud, and later as a necessity for “public trust,” currency issuance became concentrated in the hands of the powerful few. 

And with it came a profound inversion: money could now be created without any giving. Power could now be exercised without any gratitude.

As the original energy of voluntary sacrifice was stripped away, they filled the void with an illusion called “value.” And soon, the record of gratitude was replaced with the ledger of debt— indebtedness enforced by violence and law.

Credit — once another name for gratitude — was now redefined. No longer a “negative(-) wealth”, it became an asset-like command over others as a “positive(+) wealth”. Thus, money ceased to be a symbol of appreciation and became a command of obligation — not a bridge of relationship, but a tool of subjugation.

Like sunlight mistaken for the sun itself, money is not wealth. Yet we still bow before false suns and hollow riches.  

IV.    The Declaration: Restoring Gratitude and Opening the Infinite

So we ask again: What is money?

We declare: Money is the memory of someone’s voluntary giving. It is the trace of gratitude — nothing more, nothing less.

Humans are both private and public beings. Currency must serve as a medium of relational energy — not a substance of power.

We call for the restoration of the ethics of credit. Credit is not a number. It is a fragile human promise, built on trust, care, and responsibility. On this ethical foundation — being indebted to one another in gratitude — we must rebuild finance, reimagine the economy as a flow of creative exchange, and foster a society grounded in empathy and mutual reliance.

What we seek is not a new currency. What we seek is a new architecture of relationship — one grounded in trust and care. Finance should mediate human connection, and credit should record not risk, but human stories and possibilities.

We reject: All systems of indebtedness that dominate others through money. All illusions of value that justify control.

We recover: The circular flow of generosity and gratitude.

We build: A non-political, non-coercive, and non-extractive monetary system fit for the digital age.

The sun does not charge us for its light. No one pays to bask in sunshine. Light belongs to no one, and no one may hoard it.

Records are not wealth. Trust cannot be printed. Gratitude cannot be stored, only shared.

Yet these — and these alone — are the forces through which true wealth flows.

We will remember Shinshi again. And through our mutual gratitude — being indebted to one another in care — we will open the gates of the infinite.

“A new currency presupposes a new human being. And a new humanity will create a new currency.”