What Kind of Archival Material Does ReinventingMoney.com Offer?
Updated
ReinventingMoney.com is an archival site focused on monetary history and alternative currency thought, built mainly for monetary researchers and historians. Its core holdings are documents and resources from the "free money" movement of the 1930s and 1940s, especially the body of work that John Zube calls the "Swiss, German, Jewish school of monetary freedom." If your interest is in historical proposals for monetary reform, currency alternatives, or economic democracy, the site is directly relevant. If you want current commentary and ongoing coverage, the site itself points visitors to BeyondMoney.net instead.
What the archive contains
The site describes itself as a collection of "important documents and resources from the past and present" intended to advance economic democracy, self-determination, and global harmony. In practice, the emphasis falls on the past. Two sections carry most of the material:
- Case Studies — the site explicitly encourages visitors to use these.
- Library — described as containing many works from the Swiss, German, Jewish school of monetary freedom, a collection the site calls unique and not available elsewhere.
The site also lists sections for Sites, My Presentations, Research, and Links, plus an About page.
The authors and works at the center
The archive's distinguishing feature is a set of early twentieth-century authors. The site names these figures directly:
| Author | Background as described |
|---|---|
| Heinrich Rittershausen | German |
| Ulrich von Beckerath | German |
| Edgard Milhaud | Swiss |
| Walter Zander | Jewish contributor to the Four Law Drafts; escaped to England |
| Walter Unger | Jewish contributor to the Four Law Drafts; murdered by the Nazis |
The "Four Law Drafts" are a key document set tied to Zander and Unger. The site argues that had these drafts been enacted in Germany during the 1930s, Hitler might never have come to power and World War II might never have happened — a strong historical claim you should treat as the site's interpretive position rather than settled fact.
Where the material originally comes from
A significant portion of the scholarship was published in The Annals of Collective Economy, now called the Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics. The site notes that much of this scholarly publication has been absorbed into for-profit channels, which is part of why it treats its own collection as a preserved commons.
How to use the archive
- Start with Case Studies if you want applied examples of currency alternatives and exchange experiments.
- Move to the Library for the primary works of the free money school — this is where the Rittershausen, von Beckerath, Milhaud, Zander, and Unger material sits.
- Use Research and Links to trace related sources and follow the scholarly trail.
- Check My Presentations for the site owner's own framing of the material.
The site itself advises first-time visitors to "dig deep" rather than skim, because the value is in the assembled documents rather than in a quick overview.
What it is not
This is not a news site or a blog. The site states plainly that it is archival and aimed at monetary researchers and historians, and it directs practitioners, social entrepreneurs, and students to BeyondMoney.net for regular posts, articles, presentations, interviews, and more current coverage. There is a subscription signal on the site, but no pricing details are given here, so do not assume the material is free or requires no login — verify access conditions yourself before relying on it for a project.
Who should use it
- Monetary historians researching the free money movement of the 1930s–1940s.
- Researchers on currency alternatives and economic democracy who need primary documents.
- Students working on the Four Law Drafts or the Swiss-German-Jewish school of monetary freedom.
If you need present-day analysis instead, go to BeyondMoney.net. If you need the historical record, this archive is built for exactly that.