How do we develop vibrant and sustainable regions while adapting our economics to respect the limits of our biosphere? How do we create thriving, resilient societies in that context? How can we do this in ways which include everyone instead of exacerbating the widening wealth divide? Finally, how do we build stronger resilience to the crises that we already know exist as well as those yet to come?
The Engine of Industrial Development
The Industrial Revolution was financed through new forms of money the world had not seen much of previously. Credit. Loans. Interest. The treasuries and central banks that issued loans in the early days were replaced by lending through private banks, and then this became the nearly only way, in every country in the world, that money was issued into an economy.
Growth Until Climate Crisis, Species Extinction, Conflict
In the past 40 years, this growth has come to a head. Rapid habitat loss, species extinction, pollution, global warming...all happening primarily as a result of how money is issued into an economy.
Bringing Money in Balance
Professor Bernard Lietaer in his many books outlined how the economies of the world were unbalanced, tipped in favor of male dominance, of unlimited growth over sustainability, of competition over cooperation.
Complementary currencies in their many forms fulfill elements of the Yin side of the duality, restoring balance to the economic cycle and showing the path to sustainability, for those who choose it.
“Below the radar beams of many official monetary experts, fundamental change in our money systems is in fact already well under way, irresistibly driven by the social and technological forces of the Information Age." --Bernard Lietaer, The Future of Money (2010)
