Using MONOPOLY to explain Local Exchange Transaction Systems

Don:

You've played monopoly......4 players start the game by each taking $2500.00 from the bank.  That is the money the players use to spend around the board, make their trades etc.  Each player has an equal chance to win the game.

Now, let's change the rules of the game and add a 5th player.  The 5th player is the BANK.  Instead of starting the game by each of the 4 players taking $2500.00 they instead have to BORROW $2,500.00 from the 5th player - THE BANKER.

Since the 4 players have BORROWED their money, every time they go around the board, they have to pay interest to the 5th player - THE BANKER.

Who is ALWAYS going to win the game?

The player who is the BANKER.

The BANK is just a place where the currency is kept.  Currency is just a means of exchange.  It does not have a value in and of itself.  Or rather it should not.  The two primary ways that currency as a fair means of exchange is perverted is when the users of the means of exchange are charged interest or have to pay for something that has no value, with something that has real value - their time and goods.    The other way to pervert the means of exchange is to tie it to a commodity that can be made scarce by HOARDING.  This is what the bankers did with gold.  

When a commodity such as gold is not just a commodity in and of itself that has some sort of desirable quality, but is also made the single or primary measure of exchange, the value of that gold or other commodity will inflate relative to any real or legitimate consumptive value that it might have.

Via HOARDING that single commodity, the hoarders manipulate the value of the commodity that they hoard relative to other commodities and thereby gain by hedging.   This would be simple unethical gambling or gaining something for nothing, but they make it even worse by deliberately deceiving those in the market who are making straight forward trades within the free market.