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Shifting the global economy towards sustainability Making Money Our Servant Rather Than Our Master Right Livelihood Social enterprise Legal and Financial Issues
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"Market economics values what is scarce - not the real work of society which is caring, loving, being a citizen, a neighbour and a human being." - Dr Edgar Cahn, founder of international time banking movement |
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Reforming Money To Make It Work For People and PlanetTo address these various problems, a number of reforms have been proposed. Among the most prevalent of these is that governments should take back from banks responsibility for the creation of money. It has been proposed that rather than creating money as debt, governments should simply spend currency into circulation through investment in public infrastructure and services – such as schools, hospitals, community centres and the like. This, it is argued, would enable governments to voluntarily shrink the economy if they so choose without risking economic breakdown and would remove the tendency for current money systems to exacerbate wealth disparities. There is also growing interest among alternative economists in the concepts underlying Islamic banking. In its purer forms, this involves the banks taking a share in the businesses they invest in rather than charging interest. This, it is argued, would both create a greater community of interest between entrepreneur and banker in ensuring that the business is a success and remove the need for year on year growth in order to keep up with compound interest payments. Reform of the reserve currency is also the subject of many proposals for monetary reform. A number of countries have for some years been discussing diversification away from the dollar and permitting trade in other currencies. (These include the ‘Axis of Evil’ countries – Iraq, Iran and North Korea – together with Venezuela which may account, at least to some degree, for the high level of intimidation these countries have faced from the country with most to lose from such a change – the United States.) The solution often explored is simply to shift to trading in the world’s next most powerful currency, the Euro. However, this would simply transfer the subsidy currently enjoyed by the US economy to the world’s second most powerful economic block, Western Europe. It would not address the structural problem. Other ideas have included the creation of a new currency for international trade. These include the Terra (Lietaer 2001), whose value would be determined on the basis of a ‘basket’ of about a dozen real commodities, thus tying it to real wealth; and the Emissions-Based Currency Unit that would shrink in volume over time in line with the contraction in emissions permits, thus also facilitating a contraction in global trade (Douthwaite 1999). |
Investment in schools and hospitals
The Islamic gold dinar |
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