Goodsmoney+
Samira Kenawi's Full-Reserve Approach from the „Geld der Zukunft" Project

Samira Kenawi is a monetary researcher and author. She contributed to the documentary Oeconomia; the fourth and final volume of her main work „Die Quadratur des Geldes" ("The Squaring of Money") was published in 2023 and lays out a comprehensive plan for solving monetary problems, building on the analysis of the origin and workings of today's money set out in volumes 2 and 3.

The Goodsmoney concept is one of eight solutions in the curated project „Geld der Zukunft" – democratic, sustainable, fair. This page documents Kenawi's contribution fairly and closely follows her own word-for-word presentation, not as a refutation but as an independent voice in the spectrum of monetary reform concepts.

Money creation: still through democratic, decentralised, state-supervised private banks – as credit money created at the click of a mouse, but strictly coupled to goods-value creation.

Credit & interest: money remains credit money. In periods where the real economy's credit demand exceeds society's total savings volume, positive savings interest is paid. But because private money holding stays permanently coupled to private consumption spending, no compound interest can arise – balances cannot grow without limit given the finite nature of real consumption needs.

Financial markets: capital, currency and stock markets are wound down entirely in an orderly way, since they serve no necessary function. Capital raising for companies happens fully through banks, risk cover fully through insurance. An international clearing bank in the spirit of Keynes' clearing union also makes currency trading unnecessary – money for international trade arises through the settlement of trade transactions.

Capital accumulation: apart from occasional savings interest, there are neither dividends nor capital gains – no capital income from money holdings at all. Modifying property rights is meant to make capital income from real assets impossible too. Equity capital then brings no market advantage and no longer needs to be accumulated.

Central bank: becomes a clearing house. Today's two-tier banking system becomes a single-tier one: the clearing house supervises money creation by goods-money banks and lending by savings banks, manages every institution's risk reserves, and oversees the coupling of money supply to goods value.

Democratic control on the ground: decentralised, democratically controlled goods-money banks give local communities direct say over credit decisions – allowing social and ecological criteria to be agreed and enforced locally.

Property: is reduced to its original dimension – possession. By merging possession and property rights again, every claim to a return on capital ownership (ownership without an accompanying duty of possession) disappears – explicitly including real assets such as land and real estate, not only financial assets.

Reference theories: feminist economics, Keynesianism and the Keynes Plan, Henry George's single tax, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's people's/exchange bank, John Maynard Keynes' clearing currency, and Silvio Gesell's demurrage money. Target picture: steady-state economy / post-growth society, full employment, no land or real-estate speculation, balanced current accounts.

Backing mechanism: Kenawi relies on full-reserve / 100% goods-coverage – money is created and extinguished in lockstep with goods-value creation. RICH relies on Silvio Gesell's circulation-securing money (demurrage / negative holding costs) as its value-storage mechanism. Both prevent compound interest – by different routes.

Property – two very different paths: Kenawi reforms property rights directly: ownership is reduced to possession, capital income from real assets (land, real estate) is made impossible by changing the law itself.

RICH deliberately takes a different route without a new law of land ownership: wealth is regulated through value-storage certificates, which must always carry real-economy backing – not through balance mechanics. In addition, high taxes on unearned income are levied: on rents, leases, the sale of real assets, real estate and land, and on inheritance. The goal – no unlimited capital income from mere possession – is similar in both concepts; the route there differs fundamentally: Kenawi changes property law itself, RICH steers through mandatory backing and taxation.

Financial markets: Kenawi winds down capital, currency and stock markets entirely. Under RICH, shares generally remain – the lever there sits more with heavy taxation of unearned gains (60–70%) than with abolishing the market itself.