E. C. Riegel

Riegel, was an American author, consumer advocate and independent scholar who campaigned against restrictions on free markets that harmed consumers and promoted an alternative monetary theory and an early private enterprise currency alternative.

"[1] Author David Boyle, devotes a chapter of his book The Money Changers: Currency Reform from Aristotle to e-cash to E.C.

[3] Riegel was born in Cannelton, Indiana and left home in 1894 at age 15 with a vision of social justice for the common person.

Self-educated, without academic degrees or distinctions, when speaking for groups he labeled himself a "non-academic student of money and credit."

After the Wall Street crash of 1929 and during the Great Depression he published articles and books exposing big business, trade associations, the Better Business Bureau and “blue sky law” manipulation of investment markets which impoverished small investors.

Six replied, but shared no consensus on the subject, as he illustrated in his 1936 book Irving Fisher's World Authorities on The Meaning of Money.

Riegel thought "that a simple and dependable means of exchange would do more to enhance the dignity and well being of the common man than any political reform."

The valun private enterprise money system is designed to break the present money control against the people and (a) raise wages and, salaries to the highest possible level, (b) maintain constant employment, (c) maintain a steady price level and prevent inflation and deflation, (d) abolish bureaucracy and centralization of government, (e) defeat fascism and communism, (f) assure real freedom, prosperity and democracy, (g) preserve peace.Riegel's "Money Freedom Declaration" and Private Enterprise Money were endorsed by several progressive thinkers of the time including James Peter Warbasse, an early leader of the cooperative movement in America;[13] libertarian author Charles Sprading; civil liberties attorney Thorwald Siegfried; and Wing Anderson, author of War's End about the banking system and war.

[12] Endorser Lawrence Labadie wrote that the book "brings out a fact that has not been seen clearly before, namely, that totalitarianism and war would be practically impossible unless the state had control of the money system."