Politics has become a huge distraction. It is absorbing too much time and energy. Concentrating on gossip and impossible dreams, we are neglecting the hidden, ever-widening fault line that is splitting the country, as well as many parties, into two factions fighting for two negatives.

The center must hold. We must make our own position clear. No, we will not stand for the demise of The Market; no, we will not stand for the demise of The Government.

Followers of Keynes urge us to abandon the one; followers of Hayek urge us to abandon the other.

The sad truth is not that these factions are wrong. The tragedy is that they are both right. The problem is that they think they are absolutely right.

Economic theory of the right and economic theory of the left (is not this a strong indication that there is something rotten in Denmark?) does not allow politicians—and economists as well, for that matter—to see the limitations of their positions. Those are complementary positions; one does not stand without the other.

Do not listen to me or to Concordian economics; do not listen to those four fantastic American economists—Benjamin Franklin, Henry George, Louis D. Brandeis, and Louis O. Kelso—who uniquely reached a deep understanding of key parts of the economic process.

Unfortunately, individually, apart from a core of indisputable validity, the claims of fanatic followers of these four great economists do not stand to the touch of reason. It is together that they form an impregnable fortress erected on four integrated indispensable economic policies that address the needs of the four factors of production: land and natural resources, labor, financial capital, and physical capital.

But these days when we, lucky Americans, celebrate the achievement of that impossible dream, our political Independence from England, let us forget all theories. Let us simply meditate on the recommendations of a key creator of our political independence, George Washington.

This is what George Washington said: “[T]he foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, [will] be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world” (1789 Inaugural Address).

Is this not a Market based on morality and a Government that serves the needs of the people?

Well, it is. But how to apply these firm principles to the complexities of the modern world?

First, notice that our First President called on the forces of both the Market and the Government.

Then, let us remember why was the War of Independence fought and won. Contrary to common wisdom that stops at the fig leaf of “no taxation without representation,” it was to preserve the right of access to national credit, our commonwealth, upon which the American Colonists had fortuitously stumbled, that the war was waged and won.

Do read the Address and see that George Washington did not attribute the fortune of the American Colonists to evolution or to chance. He said he would consider “peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to… the Great Author of every public and private good.”

No, he was not going to meet all the responsibilities laying ahead of him all by himself.

Whenever I say, “Thank God,” my wife says: “And thank Moona.”

Yes, much of the extraordinary fortune of the American Colonists was indubitably due to God. Equally indubitably, much of the extraordinary fortune of the American Colonists was due to Benjamin Franklin.

It was Benjamin Franklin, a lad barely 23-year-old, who wrote that extraordinary essay titled “A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency” (1729), which in no uncertain terms proclaimed for the colonists the right of access to national credit that was first exercised in the Western world by the freemen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1690.

It was Benjamin Franklin, with his “disaffection” toward England, who contributed to powerfully coalesce the spirit of the colonists in favor of the War of Independence.

It was Benjamin Franklin, with his deep understanding of money and constant reliance on the will of the people, who caused the right of access to national credit (our national financial capital) to be written in the first (!) Article of the US Constitution.

If we exercise this right wisely, namely

• if we use our national credit to increase our real wealth only, and not the ”fake” value of financial assets;
• if we use our national credit to refurbish our public infrastructure and we repay these loans by increasing taxes on land values—and in parallel gradually reduce all other taxes;
• if we gradually make workers the owners of the corporations that benefit from the use of our national credit;
• if we do not use our national credit to keep alive zombie corporations, but we let the Market determine their fate;

if we do put these just policies in place, as William Jennings Bryan exhorted us to do long ago, “all other necessary reforms will be possible.” Do not set monetary policy alright, and all our efforts at social, economic, and political improvement come to naught.   

I put all these things together in a paper that I sent to Dr. Janet L. Yellen, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Fed); the Fed graciously examined the work, granted it the status of a “proposal,” and wisely recommended that it be presented to our “state and federal representatives.”

This is a two-pronged proposal on how to stabilize the monetary system, first, to prevent a widely expected financial crisis and, then, whether the crisis occurs or not, to shift our 5,000-year-old paradigm that lets money control people to a new, Concordian paradigm, in which people control the money.

Let us hope that this Fourth of July celebration grants us all the grace to stir our minds away from gossip and impossible political dreams. Let us hope that this Fourth of July celebration grants us all the grace to concentrate our minds on a set of All-American economic policies. Let us hope that this Fourth of July celebration grants us all the grace to focus our minds on acquiring a brilliant future for all.

The chance is ours to lose. The chance is within our grasp. How?

Allow me to repeat, Wall Street is the only undivided, powerful institution in America today that, wisely guided by the Fed, can stir us all to the pursuit of our common good.