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Received: "Breaking the Thralldom of Interest"

http://egroups.com/group/cea-usa/messages

BOOK REVIEW

The Future of Money: a new way to create wealth, work and a wiser
world, by Bernard Lietaer, Century/Random House, 2001, ISBN 0 7126
8399 2

Reviewed by J Walter Plinge, France

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"Unless precautions are taken, there is at least a 50-50 chance
that the next five to ten years will see a dollar crisis that
would amount to a global meltdown."

Right. Global Economic Meltdown. Well we are well aware of the
alarmist theories of the militiamen of the midwestern United
States and their conspiracy theories so what's the surprise that
they should write a book about them? The thing is, the citation
above is from Bernard Lietaer, an ex-senior executive of the
central bank of Belgium, from his book, The Future of Money. His
message is clear. This is not a book loaded down with economic
mumbo-jumbo; the text is in plain English and easy for the
layperson to understand but economists will not be disappointed
either.

So, for people who are generally concerned with social and
environmental issues, why bother with economics? Lietaer's answer
is that social and environmental breakdown are directly associated
with how currencies are designed. Most of us never consider the
"design" of money because we think of money as something that just
exists in the environment like air and water. But for Lietaer, who
was on the team that designed the Euro, and has devoted
considerable thought and research to the design of money systems,
money is designed with features that affect how societies and
communities function and their relationship to the environment.
See Lietaer's website: http://www.transaction.net

For example he notes, "... the historian Arnold Toynbee concluded
that only two common causes explain the collapse of 21 past
civilizations: extreme concentration of wealth and inflexibility
in the face of changing conditions." The cause: the design of
their money.

Here are some design features of modern money worldwide.
 - It is all fiat money: created from nothing
 - All money is lent into existence
 - All money is created with interest
 - Money is the tool of nation states

These design features lead to:
 - scarcity of money; leading inevitably to poverty and bankruptcies
 - encourage systematic competition
 - fuel the need for continuous economic growth
 - concentrates wealth into the hands of a few individuals

People concerned with social issues and the environment would do
well to note the last four items. Each carries severe
consequences. For a single example, the need for continuous
economic growth, carried to its logical conclusion, means that
environmental and social devastation will continue unchecked until
the earth, in its entirety, looks like New York City... at which
time we presume the system will collapse for any number of
reasons.

Says Lietaer, "The world's 200 largest corporations now control 28
percent of the global economy, yet need to employ only 0.3 percent
of its population to achieve that" How is that possible? The
design of the money system actively promotes it.

In chapter six Lietaer describes how community breakdown is caused
by a single major factor: "... both the cause of the problem and
its solution can be found in money systems." Of course. Money
systems of yesteryear were designed with features that served the
creators. The new development on the horizon, Community
Currencies, were designed by people interested in their local
communities.

As regards money being the tool of nation states, Lietaer
observes, "...the US dollar has become the global currency. This
arrangement has serious negative consequences for all
participants, including the US." The recent collapse of the
currencies of Asia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey and Russia
are a direct result of dollar hegemony and the ecological and
social devastation are clear. These multiple crashes -- unknown in
the history of the world -- are "signs of systemic dislocations of
the official monetary system."

SOLUTIONS

The resolution Lietaer suggests is to be found in these "new
monetary experiments" that have been cropping up all over the
world: Community Currencies. They deserve the support of the
state. "My view is that these innovations offer realistic
possibilities for gradually correcting the excesses and imbalances
of the current system without revolutions or violence."

And his citation of John F. Kennedy may be relevant here: "Those
who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable." [Right. Note that JFK himself met a
violent end shortly after he ordered the issuance of a debt-free
U.S. currency. So when the peaceful revolutionaries get blown
away, what then? -- AEL] To which we might add, the sooner the
changes are made the less drastic and disruptive they will be...
doing nothing is not much of an option. Those who would be clever
by moving the WTO meeting to Qatar or by developing new
"anti-protest" weapons are demonstrating their opposition to
peaceful revolution.

What is more, if the individuals and organizations now protesting
the WTO, IMF, World Bank, GATS, FTAA and the like, remain
oblivious to the information in this book and many others, they
are spinning their wheels.

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ELECT YOURSELF! ACT LOCALLY - ACT GLOBALLY.

Citizens Executive Administration of the United States of America
http://egroups/group/cea-usa
http://thealliancefordemocracy.org
http://www.awea.org
http://bfi.org
http://www.cdi.org
http://www.citizen.org
http://cinetopia.net
http://communitycurrency.org
http://covertactionquarterly.org
http://futurenet.org
http://homepower.com
http://opensecrets.org
http://poclad.org
http://rmi.org
http://secession.net
http://tompaine.com
http://www.transaction.net

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