Distribute or Destroy

Experimental Economic Theories: An Energy Theory of Wealth, Technocracy, Social Credit, Stable Money and Barter Systems by Shamcher Bryn Beorse (Brynjolf Bjorset) Now, almost 100 years since some of these theories were first drafted, we can look with fresh eyes at the ideas that were emerging in those tumultuous times after the first World War. Rapidly increasing production power, expanding industrial output and the revolution in electric power met both left- and right-wing political ideologies in an arena of war debt and post-war shock. The Great Depression caused economists the world over to re-examine the economic cycles of the century past. New fermenting ideas were everywhere. Combining the work of various “heretical” economists into one accessible volume, this book by Brynjolf Bjorset (aka Bryn Beorse) leads up to a tested Scandinavian economic experiment: Nordic Clearing, which was established during the Depression as a bridge to a new applied economy. Behind it was a radical overview dedicated to rethinking the nature of money, particularly in the climate after WWI. When asked to outline the basic work of the best known new economists of the day who offered an assessment of the situation of poverty in the midst of plenty, Beorse produced Efter Oss Kommer Overfloden (After Us the Glut), his world economic survey (published by Aschehoug in Norway in 1934.) It was immediately translated into English, and released in Britain and the US as Distribute or Destroy, subtitled A Survey of the World’s Glut of Goods with a Description of Various Proposals and Practical Experiments for its Distribution. This is the book that brought the young civil engineer, Brynjolf Bjorset, on to the world stage as a firebrand economic thinker who applied radical theories for the greater good.