MONEY SYSTEMS

Feasta believes that a radical monetary reform is one of the keys to sustainability and a number of members are currently working to establish a debt-free exchange system which they plan to introduce to overcome the problems created by the failure of the present debt-based system. You can find details of the project here. We also have a money forum for more general discussion on this topic.

MONEY-RELATED ARTICLES AND MULTIMEDIA ON THIS WEBSITE:

The articles are ordered with the most recent ones first.

The Need For Benign Inflation by Richard Douthwaite, Thursday 26th June 2008
QuickTime multimedia file, 36:00, 40.1 MB
An inflation is needed for two reasons. One is that, as energy prices rise in relation to labour, the cost of everything needs to change by differing amounts, and the only pleasant way this can happen is if all prices move up. The other reason is that the burden of debt being carried in Ireland has got out of step with incomes. Asset values are also out of line. An inflation would correct both relatively painlessly. But who would create the money which allowed the inflation to happen?

Cap and Share: A Fair Way to Cut Greenhouse Emissions - May 2008
Drastic cuts in the world's greenhouse gas emissions are required to avoid a climate catastrophe. A worldwide agreement to secure such cuts will be impossible to negotiate unless both the pain and the benefits are shared equitably around the world. Moreover, the sharing system must be robust enough to ensure that the cuts agreed actually happen. This paper suggests a way forward which includes the implementation of the emissions-backed global currency system mentioned below.

Emissions Rationing and the Oil Price Crisis - Feasta Briefing, March 2007
This document examines a way in which the poor in many countries could be protected if, as oil and gas get scarcer, their cost goes higher and higher over the years ahead. One of the things proposed is the introduction of a global currency which would be backed by carbon emissions.

Web Version

PDF Version

The Economic Challenge of Sustainability  by Richard Douthwaite and Emer Ó Siochrú, August 2006

This paper, which was written for CORI Justice, gives an overview of Feasta's ideas about economic growth, money systems, peak oil, and the need for a land value tax and for citizen carbon quotas.

The Ecology of Money by Richard Douthwaite, June 2006 (updated and expanded edition).

Schumacher Briefing. Richard Douthwaite argues that just as different insects and animals have different effects on human society and the natural world, money has different effects according to its origins and purposes.

PDF files of the individual chapters can be downloaded from the contents page.

From the second Feasta review, November 2004:

Petrodollar or Petroeuro? A new source of global conflict by Cóilín Nunan.

The current political and economic rift between the US and the European Union has been called a 'clash of civilizations'. Its major cause is a struggle over the gains to be had from producing the world's leading currency.

Using common resources to solve common problems by James Robertson

Public revenue should be raised from the use of common resources. Today's taxes are unfair and illogical. They penalise value added - the positive contributions people make to society - but fail to penalise value subtracted.

A practical look at interest-free banking by Ana Carrie

The Swedish JAK bank operates successfully without charging interest on the loans it makes to its members or paying interest on their deposits. It represents an important step towards a more sustainable economy.

Panel: Why interest-free banking matters

Book review: Making energy the basis of our money supply

Brian Davey reviews Not By Money Alone by Malcolm Slesser and Jane King

Book review: The problem with the money system and competing solutions

Patrick Mangan reviews The Future of Money by Bernard Lietaer, and Money by Thomas H Greco

Curing Global Crises: let's treat the disease not the symptoms March 24, 2004

A background paper for Feasta's conference on debt, climate and global justice.

Web Version

PDF Version

Climate and Currency: Proposals for Global Monetary Reform (PDF document, 152 K)

New Financial Architecture for Sustainability

23rd April, 2002

Proposals by Earth Summit Ireland, an umbrella group of Irish NGOs which includes Feasta, for acheiving a more sustainable and just world economic system.

From Short Circuit, 2003:

Chapter Three: Cutting the Monetary Tie

If people living in an area cannot trade among themselves without using money issued by outsiders, their local economy will always be at the mercy of events elsewhere. The first step for any community aiming to become more self-reliant is therefore to establish its own currency system.

Chapter Four: Banking On Ourselves

High interest rates are not the only way people can get a healthy return on their savings. Organisations which recycle savings locally provide social dividends as well.

From the first Feasta Review, June 2001:

Rights of money versus rights of living persons

David Korten argues that property rights should be limited by law to prevent those who have more than enough using them to deny others their right to the means of making a livelihood. Moreover, companies should be banned from political activities of any kind because political rights reside only in real people.

Web version

PDF version

Sharing the value of common resources through taxation and public expenditure

James Robertson argues that radical changes in the taxation system and the introduction of a citizen's income would help the move towards sustainability.

Web version

PDF version

What next for slowing climate change?

by Aubrey Meyer. A group within Feasta used the opportunity presented by a conference in Holland to draw up plans for a radical restructuring of the world's monetary systems. They incorporate a carbon dioxide emissions backed currency.

Web version

PDF version

Panel: Proposed World Currency System

Web version

PDF version

Book review: Modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics

Joseph Glynn reviews The Grip Of Death by Michael Rowbotham

Web version

PDF version

Book Review: An intriguing suggestion...but would it work?

David Cronin reviews Creating New Money: a Monetary Reform for the Information Age by Joseph Huber and James Robertson

Web version

PDF version

Book Review: Different monies bring different results

Lothar Lüken reviews The Ecology Of Money by Richard Douthwaite (see below)

Web version

PDF version

EVENTS - MONEY

The Ecology of Money - course given by Richard Douthwaite
Date: Friday 12 - Sunday 14 January 2007
Venue: Monkton Wyld Court, Charmouth, Bridport, Dorset, UK
More Information

Workshop on Community Currencies - John Rogers.
Date: Friday, December 1st 2006.
Venue: 24, Northbrook Road, Dublin 6
John is project co-ordinator of the Welsh Institute for Community Currencies - wicc.newport.ac.uk. The event was held by the Feasta money group in conjunction with the Partners (Training for Transformation) organisation at 24, Northbrook Road, Dublin 6. It was intended for people from community groups interested in finding out what starting a community currency might enable them to achieve.

Money, democracy and human rights - Caroline Whyte
Date: November 23, 2006
Venue: Malmö Högskola, Malmö, Sweden
This seminar was part of the Swedish Human Rights Forum (MR-Dagarna), a two-day event which takes place every year at a different venue in Sweden. More information can be found on the forum website at www.mrdagarna.se.

The Ecology of Money - course given by Richard Douthwaite
Date: Friday 7 - Sunday 9 July 2006
Venue: Monkton Wyld Court, Charmouth, Bridport, Dorset, UK
More Information

Joined Up Thinking and Sustainability - Davie Philip
Date: Wednesday nights, September 13 - October 18th, 2006
Venue: Cultivate Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin
6 evenings of presentation and discussion, which explored the issues of Money, Growth, Climate and Oil, Energy, Food, & Community
More information

Campaign to fight change in Building Society Law
Date: June 11 2004
Here's why.

Conference: Debt, Climate and Global Justice
Date: Wednesday 29 April 2004
Venue: Sustainable Living Centre, SS Michael and John’s, 15 – 19 Essex Street West, Old City Temple Bar, Dublin 8
More Information

Conference: 'Energy, Money and Growth'
Date: February 19-20 2000
Venue: Goldsmith Hall, Pearse Street, Dublin
More Information

The Barataria Project

Venue: Ireland, Scotland, Holland and Spain Date: May 1999
In May of 1999 the Feasta committee travelled to Soesterberg in Holland for a conference hosted by the EU funded Barataria project in which Feasta's Richard Douthwaite acted as consultant.

Barataria is called after the imaginary island of Barataria which Silvio Gesell, the radical 1930s economist and progenitor of the alternative currencies movement, invented in his seminal book Die Wunderinsei. The focus of the project is to devise ways of including local businesses in community exchange networks in order to increase their economic impact in depressed areas.

Feasta members enjoyed presentations from Bernard Lietaer and the four participant projects: the 'SOCs', a newly established inter business trading system covering all of rural Scotland, the 3rd Sector Bartering Co-operative in Madrid, Spain, the 'Amstelnet' in Amsterdam and finally, the ROMA system supported by the Enterprise Connaght Ulster.

Financing Sustainable Communities - Feasta and IEVIN (the Irish Eco-Village Information Network)
Date: January 8 and April 1 1999
Venue: Enfo, Dublin
Meetings with Triodos, the Credo Fund and the Irish League of Credit Unions, on financing sustainable communities

PDF documents will open in your browser. However they can be large documents and so this may take some time. To download the documents directly to your hard drive right-click on the document link and choose 'Save Target As..'

To read the PDF version of a document you will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer. You can get a free copy here.