David Boyle

There is an argument that the emergence of a new economics based on human dignity and sustainability is a phenomenon that emerged from the environmental crisis and the modern corruption of bankers and financial markets.

Prosperity Parade, funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, includes eight tales about the new entrepreneurial spirit, where people are finding ways of kickstarting their local economic engines, often in very poor areas, and by doing so increasing their independence from central and local government.

We have become so used to the idea that the middle classes are the winners that it is difficult to get our heads around the fact that something important is changing. It isn’t just the poor who are under pressure: the middle classes are no longer winning either.

When it comes to creating those new kinds of money there is no one perfect currency that can right all the wrongs of the past and every flaw in the conventional money we use. There are currencies fit for the job in hand, and which have specific challenges as a result.

The truth is that the English still believe that their bank manager is at his desk, drinking sherry, umming and aahing about their overdrafts. In fact, he has long since been replaced by risk software. That’s our national failing. It is endearing in a way, but it’s also dreadfully frustrating. Because it means we’re stuck in the oldest fantasy about money that there is. We imagine that it’s real. And in some ways, this is the source of the crisis in the euro-zone as well. In England, our politicians never argue about this issue — who creates money, where it comes from, what it means — for the reasons I say. But in America, it’s always been the heart of political debate.