Welcome back! In the previous entry, the evolution of money was explored to the extent that we could see how its essence changed at every step in the ladder of economic civilization. The essence of modern money is credit. This time, I cover the second half of Thomas Greco’s book where he shares an abundance of wisdom and guidance.

After thinking about The End of Money and the Future of Civilization some more, it occurred to me that the money system is like Windows 95.  In the same way Windows 95 didn’t know whether it was an archaic 16 bit operating system or a modern 32 bit operating system, our current money system doesn’t know whether it is using commodity money or credit money.  Windows 95 tried to reform Windows 3.11.  This effort generated billions of dollars for Microsoft which produced two more commercially successful versions (98 and Me) but this effort was eventually abandoned.  Today, it’s easy to forget what it was like losing all of your work.  Cue Barbara Streisand singing Memory.

To mix things up, I thought it would be fun to share some knowledge gained from Thomas Greco’s The End of Money and the Future of Civilization across two blog posts.  This first post will cover the challenges facing us (ch. 1-10).  The second post will cover how we can navigate into the future (ch. 11-20).  

I apologize in advance for any misinterpretations of the material and look forward to corrections.  I can think of no better executive summary than to quote Greco directly.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trl5_BCL0qs]
Update 9/20: Extra interviews are generously being made available by themoneyfix.org through this RSS feed. As they become available, I’ll add direct links to the videos from the feed here for those who don’t use a newsreader:

1. Hazel Henderson m4v, youtube
2. Bernard Lietaer m4v

Comments

Author: necronomy

Date: 2008-03-30 13:25:00

Alternative possibility means freedom of choice: < HREF=“http://cromalternativemoney.org” REL=“nofollow”>Crom Alternative Money<>

PRI’s “The World” ran a great story on a Time Bank experience in Barcelona.

The World’s Gerry Hadden reports that a barter system is catching on in Barcelona, Spain. People register with what’s called a time bank to trade services. They might teach a language or do home repairs. The hours they work become time bank credits they can spend. Time banking saves people cash. And for many, it provides a sense of community.

Kellan suggested that some books are read better together and asks “Do you have favorite pairings?” Following Rich’s post on the Creative Commons, I’ve been thinking about Lessig’s The Future of Ideas and ever since the Naropa Workshop on Intentional Economics, I have thought it would be great to pair Lessig with Bernard Lietaer, author of The Future of Money.

I talked to Bernard about Lessig’s code/architecture as the fourth category of ways to regulate. When a complementary currency is introduced, does it merely fall in the economic incentive category or is it a lower level change to code and architecture?