The power of local currencies
Communities everywhere are challenged by issues such as health, elder and child care, housing, education, food security and the environment. On the surface, these problems appear to be rooted in economic crisis-forexample budget cuts have triggered reduced public services, soaring food prices have created food security concerns, and the subprime mortgage disaster has spawned record increases in foreclosures and homelessness.
However if communities could match their unmet needs with their underutilized resources, many would find that while their economies may bestruggling when measured in traditional terms, they possess enough genuine wealth to allow all their inhabitants to enjoy a vastly improved quality of life. Creating Wealth demonstrates how a healthy society can beattained through developing new systems of exchange. Using creative initiatives such as time banks, systems of barter and exchange and local currencies, cities and towns can empower themselves and build vibrant, healthy, sustainable local economies.
In addition to presenting many compelling case studies of successful alternative currencies in action, Creating Wealth also explores the different types of capital that communities have to draw on, including natural, built, social, human, institutional, cultural, technological, and financial. This book will appeal to community activists, city planners and other public officials, and anyone interested in developing strong local economies.
Gwendolyn Hallsmith is the founder and director of Global Community Initiatives and the author of The Key to Sustainable Cities .
Bernard Lietaer is the world’s leading authority on complementary currencies and the author of The Future of Money .
Table of Content
Preface by Dennis Meadows
Foreword by Hunter Lovins
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Cities And Economies
PART 1: LOCAL ECONOMICS
1. What Is Wealth?
Redefining Wealth
A Systems Perspective
The Wealth of Cities
The Myth (and Potential) of Individual Wealth
2. Crash and Burn Economics
The Roller Coaster Economy
False Assumption #1: The Economy is Beyond Our Control
False Assumption #2: Money is a Neutral Means of Exchange
The Building Blocks of the Economy: How Assumptions Create Reality
The Banking System
The ‘Free Market’ System
The Financial Market as a System
Systems Change
The Vortex of Urbanization
Cities, Democracy and Economic Change
3. Community Capitalism
Ten Types of Community Capital
Exchange as Social Change
Tools Available Today
An Ecology of Currencies
4. The Possibility of Sufficiency and Abundance
Demurrage Currencies
Cooperative and Competitive Currencies
The Value of Time
The Two-Game Economy
Unmet Needs and Underutilized Resources
The Possibility of Sufficiency and Abundance
PART II: EXAMPLES OF COMPLEMENTARY CURRENCIES
5. Building Equity
Neo-feudal Housing: The New Lords and Serfs
Sweating the Way to Equity
Saving Our Way Out of Poverty
6. Growing Intelligence
Educated Indentured Servants
The Learning Currency
The Brazilian Saber
Buckaroos — University of Missouri, Kansas City
Learning Our Way to the Future
7. The Creative Economy
The Arts: De-cultured Society
Art Tokens
Living the Dream
City Money in History
Culture Cards in Flanders
Core Support for Artists
8. Exchanging Ecologies
Mitigating Carbon
Global Cap and Trade: The Kyoto Treaty
The Carbon Tax
A New Approach: The Vision of a Carbon Currency
Other Ecologically-Positive Currencies: The Biwa Kippu System in Japan
Conclusion
9. Minding the Community’s Business
From Social Responsibility to Sustainability
Progressive Profitability
Businesses that Change the World
Rewarding Loyalty
Recession-Proof Commerce
Commercial Credit Circuits (C3)
A Role for Businesses
10. Putting the Care Back In Healthcare
In Sickness and in Health
Sickness Treatment vs. Wellness Promotion
The Scarcity of Health
The Cost of Failing Health
From Sickness Treatment to Healthcare
Wellness Tokens: Promoting Preventive Care
11. Honoring Our Elders, Caring For Children
A Scarcity of Care
Time Banks and Care Banks
The Japanese System
12. Eating Money
A Shared Meal
From Subsistence to Surplus
The Hidden Cost of Cheap Food
The Expanding Role of Debt
Food Currencies
Systemic Interventions
Farm Stand: Vermont’s Food Currency
PART III: MAKING IT HAPPEN
13. Intentional Cities
Mobilizing Collective Action
Choice of the Methodology
Visionary Cities — Creating Excitement and Momentum
The Legacy Project: Burlington, Vermont
The Earth Charter
14. A Tale of Three Cities
Calgary’s 100 Year Plan
Integration and Whole Systems
Roundtables, Stakeholders and Working Groups
Stakeholder Training
Plan-It Newburgh
en Visioning Montpelier
Moving From Vision to Action
Community and Resource Mobilization
Conclusion: Toward A Monetary Democracy
The Efficiency Argument
Marginal Role of Complementary Currencies
The Bypass Approach
A Vision for a Vibrant Local Economy
Appendix: The Community Currency How-To Manual
Endnotes
Resources
Index
About the Authors
About the author
Bernard Lietaer is the world’s leading authority on complementary currencies. He was instrumental in the development of the single European currency and is the co-founder of ACCESS Foundation, an educational non-profit organization whose goal is the re-alignment of sustainability and global financial interests.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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