Ten years ago Peter Etherden & Anton Pinschofpublished a joint letter in Fourth World Review (FWR66) which carried the following quotation from Silvio Gesell.

'The only real security of the German mark would be the monetary education of a sufficient number of men who, in the event of legislation affecting monetary standards, would form a bodyguard, so to speak, to protect the mark from bunglers and swindlers. But at present this security does not exist, for the indifference of the general public, of science, of the press, of business men, to monetary theory is so great that it would be difficult to collect among the millions of the German population a dozen persons for a serious discussion of the subject.' 

The letter then continued: 'Well, it is no easier today a century later. But LETS will shortly be in urgent need of such a bodyguard and our work is aimed at responding to Gesell's challenge, beginning with a course in English, French & German on 'Money As It Is' and 'Money As It Should Be', the titles of Parts III & IV of 'The Natural Economic Order'. What Proudhon and Kropotkin began, and Gesell, Borsodi and Kohr continued, we would like to see made intellectually respectable amidst the crumbling dynasties of Marxian and Keynsian monetary dictatorships. This will mean expanding the LETS idea from a work barter system into a monetary system, authorised by our own association of small 'Fourth World' nation states and enabled by a LETS-based tradition of really free local market economy.'

From this small beginning came the first cesc correspondence courses:

The Natural Economic Order - a cesc course

In July 1995 Peter Etherden and Anton Pinschof met for two days and agreed to pilot a cesc correspondence course on The Natural Economic Order.The curriculum for the pilot course was as follows:

Course Topics

Part I: Background readings from Ruskin, Kropotkin and Tolstoy and an account of money & banks in 19th century America

Part II: Readings and commentaries on the five sections of Silvio Gesell's 'The Natural Economic Order'

Part III: Learning presentation skills on self-selected topic; academy-style small group discussions; creative writing programme

The course structure is designed to allow for the later development of a lecture series for single-term college courses in the UK, USA & Sweden. Eventually 60-minute audio-tape lectures will accompany each of the nine required readings (750 pages) for the course. In summary these are:

PART I
1	Ruskin	Unto This Last	100 pages
2	Kropotkin	Fields & Workshops	100 pages
3	Tolstoy	Inquiry Into Money	50 pages
4	Angell	Money in 19th Century America	50 pages
PART II
5	Gesell I	Commentaries, Prefaces & Distribution	100 pages
6	Gesell II	Free Land	50 pages
7	Gesell III	Money As It Is	125 pages
8	Gesell IV	Free Money or Money As It Should Be	100 pages
9	Gesell V	The Free Money Theory of Interest	75 pages
PART III
10	Conclusion	Individual Student Presentations	60 mins
11	Internalise	Academy Discussions	Long Weekend
12	Externalise	Philosophical Players	One Act Play

The third part of the course is designed for subsequent development into a UK Open University-style residential weekend.
Development of video-conferencing and Internet-style discussion groups will be encouraged and individual presentations will be used to teach presentation skills.

The Creative Writing sessions are for students to create a dialogue-play in the J.B.Priestley 'Topside' style for school radio or open university TV production or for local village hall stage performance.

Students requiring college credits would be supervised in the production of essays and articles. Academic theses would be set up as collaborative endeavours between the student, cesc and the accrediting college.

students wanting further details about cesc courses should contact

P.O.Box 36, Rye, Sussex TN31 7ZE, England
Tel/Fax: +44 1797 226397
e-mail: collegecredits@cesc.net

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