Christchurch has had a crisis that we cannot recover from given the
present way we think about, money, debt, rates and the future. The
insurance money we've been promised is not enough. The government isn't
willing to pay more. The citizens are not in a position to pay more
either. We have a problem that seems to have no good solution.
After reading "Money and Sustainability: The Missing Link", I think
that's not the case. There are many things we can do to help ourselves
if we just stop looking to someone else to help us.
I've been impressed over many years by the efforts of the Club of Rome.
They promised an update on how to deal with "The Problematique" in 2010,
and they delivered on that promise a few months ago.
In particular the new book "Money and Sustainability: The Missing Link"
by Bernard Lietaer, Christian Arnsperger, Sally Goerner and Steffan
Brunnhuber has been of interest to me. I've just finished reading it.
Quick Summary:
Intro - We don't tell the truth about money.
Foreword - Dennis Meadows: "I did not hink about the money system at
all. I took it for granted as a neutral aspect of human society. ... I
now understand, as proven clearly in this text, that the prevailing
financial system is incompatible with sustainability .... "
CH 1 - The financial and monetary instabilities plaguing Europe ... have
a structural cause.
Systematic changes in the monetary domain happen only after a crash.
CH 2 - The systematic status quo was institutionalised through the
creation of central banks as enforcers of monetary policy.
CH 3 - Details the extent of the 2007-2008 crisis. The extent of
sovereign debt. The coming age-related costs to pay for pensions and
medical care. The need to deal with climate change now, not some time in
the future. We suffer from gross financial mismanagement.
CH 4 - The economy is an open system. The stability of the economy
depends on the balance struck between efficiency and resilience. We've
put too much emphasis on efficiency, creating a monetary monoculture.
We need to develop a monetary ecosystem.
CH 5 - Detailed discussion about the destructiveness of monetary and
financial crises. Amplification of business cycles, short term decision
making, compulsion to grow, concentraton of wealth and power, and
devaluation of social capital.
CH 6 - History of money. Official myth that governments are like
households and have to pay their way. Fiat currency; the importance of
government laws creating legal tender, and the obligation to pay taxes
in this nominated currency.
CH 7 - Five examples of local systems of creating credit and paying
debts using electronic or voucher based systems that are not legal tender.
Doraland - Used to encourage everyone to be a learner in Lithuania.
Wellness Tokens - To encourage healthy lifestyles.
Natural Savings - Investment in trees to protect and grow savings rather
than in banks.
C3 - Instant payment of certified invoices for SME's, applied in both
Brazil and Uruguary.
TRC - A business to business currency proposal, for international use.
CH 8 - Four examples of City or Regional or Government initiatives.
Torekes - City based scheme to encourage volunteering.
Biwa Kippu - Proposal to fund labour for ecological work on the
restoration of Lake Biwa. (Japan)
Civics - City or regional proposal. The labour component of social,
educational and ecological projects is paid in civics. A poll tax or
similar is declared requiring payment in Civics by everyone. You can
either work for Civics, or buy Civics to pay the tax.
ECO's - An interest free currency issues by governments to fund large
scale ecological projects - Europe wide suggested.
CH 9 - Arnold Toynbee: Attributed the collapse of twenty-one different
civilisations to just two causes; too much concentration of wealth and
an elite unwilling to respond the changing circumstances.
The fiat currency we use is a money system based on an 18th Century
legacy information system. "How will we explain to our children and
grandchildren that ... we sacrificed the planetary biosphere in order to
keep our monetary system operation for just one more decade. "
The sort of changes Bernard Lietaer insists are essential to fix the
global financial crisis, cannot be implemented until we suffer a
catastrophic collapse. So for the world we have to wait until the old
system surrenders.
But locally we don't have to wait. There are resources in our community
that we can liberate if we choose the right tools. More money is often a
problem not a help. Pour in more cash and the price of everything rises
and we're no better off. We can create instruments that are not money,
that are still valuable and that people will seek to earn and to hold.
Think of Fly Buy's as a tiny example.
If we created Civics which were payable to citizens for work in the
restoration and maintenance of the city, a considerable chunk of cash
demand could be removed from the CCC budget. We'd make better use of
our resources, and we'd all be better off.
I think the problem of inner city land owners and the proposal to take
over their land for the new city development could also be resolved by
creating a new instrument giving them continued ownership of the land,
and it's increased value, even though it's now the site of the
Convention Centre. We don't need to be trapped by 18th or 19th Century
thinking.
John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador
http://www.openfuture.co.nz