Reproduced from: https://philoma.org/wp-content/uploads/docs/2009/09_10_24_-_Texte_-_The_future_of_Money_-_B._Lietaer.pdf & http://www.philosophie-management.com/docs/2009/09_10_24_-_Texte_-_The_future_of_Money_-_B._Lietaer.pdf
The Future of Money © Bernard Lietaer August 1998
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 8
Three Promises 8
Underlying Viewpoint 9
CHAPTER 1: MONEY – THE ROOT OF ALL POSSIBILITIES 12
The Time-Compacting Machine 13
1. Age Wave 15
2. Information Revolution 18
3. Climate Change and Biodiversity Extinction 20
4. Monetary Instability 23
Money at the Core of the Time Compacting Machine 24
What is Sustainable Abundance? 26
What Prevents Sustainable Abundance? 30
Four Seasons in 2020 31
Spring 32
Summer 34
Fall 38
Winter 39
Creating Sustainable Abundance with Complementary Currencies 40
A Road Map to Your Money, Your Future 42
PART ONE: WHAT IS MONEY? 44
Synthesis of Part One 45
Chapter by Chapter Outline 46
A PRIMER ON HOW MONEY WORKS 48
“Money is the crowbar of power” 48
“Your” Money 49
How does Banking Work? 50
How Did Banking and “Modern” Money Start? 50
The Secret of “Modern” Money 51
Credit Markets 55
Your Savings: Storing Value 57
A Scorecard 58
Real Estate 59
Stocks 60
Bonds 60
Currencies 61
Central Banks and Other Firemen 71
National Level 71
“Money’s Family Portrait” 73
Money as a System 75
The Firemen’s Viewpoint 75
Back Full Circle to You 80
CHAPTER 2: TODAY’S MONEY 84
A “Simple” Question 85
Where is the money mystery coming from? 86
The History of Money 86
The Needs of the Confidence Game 90
Why Money is not a Thing 91
A Working Definition of Money 93
The Origin of Money’s Power 94
Money Shifts and Power Shifts 95
Today’s Money 95
Four Key Design Features 96
The Effects of Interest 102
What next? 110
CHAPTER 3: CYBERSPHERE–THE NEW MONEY FRONTIER 111
Post-Industrial Society = Knowledge Age 112
The Nature of Information 115
Implications for the Economy and Society 118
The Positive Forces 119
The Negative Forces 120
Distribution and Retail 123
Implications for Money 126
Payment Systems 126
New Money 127
Implications for Banks and Financial Services 128
Wisdom in the Information Age? 132
CHAPTER 4: FIVE SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE 136
Scenarios – Windows on the Future 137
The Official Future: “More of the Same” 138
Why the Official Future is Not Going to Happen 139
The Corporate Millennium 142
Timetable for the Transition 146
How is this Possible? 147
The Case of the Stealth Mega-Store 150
From Information Age to Corporate Millennium 154
Careful Communities 173
Assessing Possibilities of Breakdowns 177
The Forces Feeding “Careful Communities” 178
Hell on Earth 181
Sustainable Abundance 190
The Four Scenarios in Perspective 194
The Two Driving Forces 194
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[New Numbering]
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
PART TWO: CHOOSING YOUR FUTURE OF MONEY 6
Chapter by Chapter Outline 9
CHAPTER 5: WORK-ENABLING CURRENCIES 11
An Important Distinction 12
The Connection to Public Health 13
The Money Connection 13
Unemployed? Who? Me? 14
Today’s Job Problem 14
The Age of Downsizing 16
Economic Consequences 19
Keynes’ Foresight 21
Socio-Political Consequences 22
Case Studies 26
Traditional Solutions 27
Neither Left, nor Right, but Forward? 34
The Path not Taken in the 1930s 38
1930’s Problems: Some Differences and Parallels 39
1930s Solutions 39
The German Wara System 42
Wörgl Stamp Script 45
US Depression Scrips 47
Some Political Lessons 50
Today’s systems 53
Clarifying Some Distinctions 54
LETS 56
WIR 62
Regional Development Currencies 65
Financing Small Businesses 69
Local Loyalty Schemes 70
Conclusion: Complementary Currencies as “Early Prototypes”. 71
CHAPTER 6: COMMUNITY CURRENCIES 73
Community Breakdown 74
Community building and the “gift economy” 79
Some examples 80
How communities break down. 83
Currencies that Build Community 86
The Magick Box Fairytale 86
Some Real-Life Examples 87
1. Time Dollars 88
2. Ithaca HOURS 91
3. The Pen Exchange 93
4. Curitiba: the Brazilian City which left the Third World 95
5. Japanese Health-Care Currency 100
6. Tlaloc 101
Complementary Currencies in the Information Age 102
An Example of an Integrated Currency Design: Commonweal Inc. of Minneapolis 102
Internet Money for Virtual Communities 106
Conclusions 110
Another Way than Welfare? 110
CHAPTER 7: SOME PRACTICAL ISSUES 111
Complementary Currencies, Legal and Tax Authorities 112
Are Complementary Currencies Legal? 112
What about Taxes? 112
Complementary Currencies, Central Banks and Inflationary Pressures 113
Central Bank Reactions to Complementary currencies 114
Why New Zealand is right 117
How to Start Your Own Complementary Currency 123
Three Keys to Successful Implementation 123
Some Technical Lessons from the 1930’s usable today 127
CHAPTER 8: A GLOBAL REFERENCE CURRENCY – MAKING MONEY SUSTAINABLE 129
Long-term Sustainability 131
Positive Results of the Modern Money system 131
Status Report on Biosphere Earth 133
The Three Tools of Persuasion 134|
Relationship between Money systems, Time Perception and Sustainability 135
“Discounted Cash Flow” = “Discounting the Future” 137
Short-term Vision versus Sustainability 140
Relationship with Interest Rates 140
Far-Seeing Glasses? 142
A Global Reference Currency (GRC) and the Terra Unit 144
Theoretical and Practical Soundness 148
Implementation Options 150
GRC as a Business Initiative 151
Barter Standardization 151
International Standard of Value 151
An Antidote to the Risk of Depression 153
Business and the Environment: A Business Viewpoint 153
Conclusions 154
CHAPTER 9: A BROADER VIEW – THE TAO OF MONEY 156
Nine Metaphors 157
1. Traditional Economics Viewpoint 157
2. Alternative Economics Viewpoint 158
3. Biological Metaphor 160
4. The Brain Metaphor 162
5. Mythological Metaphor 164
6. A Western Philosophy Viewpoint 164
7. A Humanistic View: Money and the Crisis of Meaning 167
8. A Taoist Viewpoint: All is About Balance 168
9. A Whole Systems Viewpoint 171
CHAPTER 10: SUSTAINABLE ABUNDANCE 184
A Visit to the Stanford Campus 184
Defining Sustainable Abundance as a Yin-Yang Synergy 193
The Three Waves toward Sustainable Abundance 194
1. The Value-Shift Wave 195
2. The Information Wave 202
3. The Money Wave 203
A Monetary System for Sustainable Abundance 204
Why a Multi-level Currency System? 205
The Monetary System of 2020: a Four-Level Gear Box 209
The Four Seasons of 2020 Revisited 216
The Four Scenarios Revisited 218
Conclusion 220
EPILOGUE AND PRELUDE 221
LINKS TO OTHER CHAPTERS
INTRODUCTION| CHAPTER 1: MONEY – THE ROOT OF ALL POSSIBILITIES | PART ONE: WHAT IS MONEY?
CHAPTER 2: TODAY’S MONEY | CHAPTER 3: CYBERSPHERE–THE NEW MONEY FRONTIER
CHAPTER 4: FIVE SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE
PART TWO: CHOOSING YOUR FUTURE OF MONEY | CHAPTER 5: WORK-ENABLING CURRENCIES
CHAPTER 6: COMMUNITY CURRENCIES
CHAPTER 7: SOME PRACTICAL ISSUES | CHAPTER 8: A GLOBAL REFERENCE CURRENCY – MAKING MONEY SUSTAINABLE
