Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Money. What is it? Where does it come from? How is it created? How is it tethered to our biophysical balance sheet? What is on the horizon with our monetary system? How might we create and use money differently in the future during a source and sink contained system?
Beyond Money: A Postcapitalist Strategy urges twenty-first century social and environmental movements to seriously consider a non-monetary vision and strategies to achieve socio-political and economic equality and ecological sustainability.
Redistributing wealth or income isn’t a new idea, but what if redistribution wasn’t necessary at all? What if the system that created money did it in a way that was more fair or more responsive to everyone up front?
Join the Crazy Townies as they swap stories around the virtual fire about spending virtual money in the virtual world. And get advice on how to do the opposite from Nate Hagens, expert on energy, ecological economics, and finance.
How can a civilization last, when its governing force is something so fleeting and artificial as money?
The Covid crisis highlighted an already existing problem: that money is useless if you can’t buy anything useful with it. It is the problem of the shipwrecked sailor on a deserted island.
I mulled over the question for a while and I came to the conclusion that, yes, Erik Assadourian and the others are on to something: it may be time for religion to return in some form. And if religion returns, it may well be in the form of some kind of cult of the Goddess Gaia. But let me try to explain.
The Green New Deal requires a LOT of money, amounts that now look politically impossible. Why is money so scarce? Why is there never enough to meet our needs?
The monetary system we have is a fundamental cause of our problems, and setting up new systems is crucial in the development of alternative economies. However some popular initiatives are sadly mistaken and can have few if any beneficial effects. The goal must be to set up a system that enables previously idle people and resources to begin producing necessities for the locality. This is easily done.
There was a time in this country’s history when knowledge of the fundamentals of the monetary system was wide spread among the common citizens, not just Wall Street financiers and academic economists.
Money is not a store of value. It is a claim upon value.
The current system of issuing money and credit intrinsically benefits the few at the expense of the many.
