BERNARD LIETAER: THE FUTURE OF MONEY

Daniel Pinchbeck, Time for Change 2012
2011, 10 min

A brilliantly clear-sighted analysis of how on-going money innovations in dozens of countries around the world are proving that they can resolve key societal problems such as: jobless growth, community breakdown, the economic consequences of an aging society, the conflict between short-term financial thinking and long-term sustainability, and monetary instability itself.

Lietaer’s point is that money is only an agreement within a community to use something as a medium of exchange. This agreement is being placed under an unprecedented strain, due to a wide range of factors (from the creation of cybermoney and currency speculation to social and political issues). This momentum of change could become even faster, and the effects more brutal, if the instability of the monetary system continues to spread. And the indications are that it will. The global monetary crises proved that our money system is now sick, and that this affects everything. After all, money plays the role of modern society’s central information system equivalent to the nervous system in our own bodies. In order to prevent a global monetary meltdown, a unique vision of sustainable abundance, and the mechanisms for achieving this, is proposed.