"By re-thinking money, NOW, we have the

possibility to create a Golden Age of Sustainable
Abundance within one generation"
- Bernard Lietaer
"lf the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their money, first by inflation and
then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will
grow up around them, will deprive the people of their
property until their children will wake up homeless in the
continent their fathers conquered."
Thomas Jefferson

Creating A Regenerative Economy by

Localizing Finance and The Creation of
Money

The Problem

How do we move beyond the current

world of greed, fear and scarcity?

The biggest issues humanity faces today are

sustainability and the inequalities and
breakdown in community, which create tensions
that result in violence and wars

The Goal

A Regenerative Economy

What is it? "Very few people realize that the nature of

money has changed profoundly over the past
"A conscious, inclusive, sustainable three centuries, or that it has become a political
economy that significantly upgrades the instrument used to centralize power, concentrate
capacity for collaborative intelligence and wealth and subvert popular government"
innovation throughout all core societal - Tom Greco
systems and eco-systems."
What are the Attributes of a Regenerative Economy?

Increasing Connectivity
Strong, trusting Relationships
Collaboration, balancing Competition
Radical Transparency
Feed The Commons, Don't Rob from It
Share and serve each other and the Planet

The Current Stuckness

The Political Money System

We've forgotten that we

designed money so why can't
we re-design it?

The Current Design of Money

Money is created when banks lend it into existence

Money = debt - credit utilized = money

EXAMPLE - When a bank provides you with a $100,000

mortgage, it creates only the principal, which you
spend and which then circulates in the economy. The Design a Monetary System
bank expects you to pay back $200,000 over the next 20 that Fosters Abundance
years, but it doesn't create the second $100,000 - the
interest. Instead, the bank sends you out into the tough Make use of "The Demurrage Charge"
world to battle against everybody else to bring back the
second $100,000. A concept developed by
Silvio Gesell about a century
While economic textbooks claim that people and ago
corporations are competing for markets and resources,
in reality they are competing for money - using markets His idea was that money is a
and resources to do so public good and that we
Greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being should charge a small fee for
continuously created and amplified as a direct using it
result of the kind of money we are using. Encourage the use money as a
medium of exchange, but not as
Greed and competition are not a result of a store for value
immutable human temperament
Historical Examples
It is not true that some people have to
lose for others to win Classical Egypt
The Political money system is designed to collapse
Egypt was the breadbasket for the ancient world,
Because of interest, the money supply must grow the gift of the Nile. Why? Because instead of
exponentially keeping value in money, everybody invested in
productive assets that would last forever - things
Anything that grows exponentially must eventually collapse like land improvements and irrigation systems.
Explanation of "discounted cash flow" Ended abruptly as soon as the Romans
replaced the Egyptian 'grain standard'
Example - Under our current system it makes currency with their own money system,
sense to cut down trees and put the money in based on charging interest rates.
the bank; the money in the bank will grow
faster than trees The Age of the Great
Cathedrals
Scarcity needn't be a guiding principle of our
economic system
Middle Ages - the 10th to 13th centuries
Jobs and Why They are Scarce
Local currencies were issued by local lords, and then
periodically recalled and reissued with a tax collected in the
Capitalism 2.0 and the current money system
process. Again, this was a form of demurrage that made money
fosters job scarcity to maximize profits
undesirable as a store of value. The result was the blossoming
There is also a decreasing need for of culture and widespread well-being, corresponding exactly to
"jobs", but not for work the time period when these local currencies were used.

Technology is such that within 30 years 3% of the world's population Practically all the cathedrals were built during this time
will be able to manufacture all the hard goods we need on the planet period. If you think about what is required as investment
for a small town to build a cathedral, it's extraordinary.
What are the remaining 90%+ of the population going to do?
Cathedrals had an important economic function; they
Why do we need a job anyway? attracted pilgrims, who, from a business perspective,
played a similar role to tourists today
The simple answer is "to survive" but what
if that is just an enculturated habit of mind? When the introduction of gunpowder technology
Why aren't adequate food, health care and creative opportunity enabled the kings to centralize power in the early
basic human rights for everyone on the planet? 14th century, the first thing they did was to
monopolize the money system.
The Concentration of Wealth

That the rich are getting richer is a direct

attribute of the current political money system

Compound interest - where money

makes money assures this end result
As Gandhi said, "One of the 7 deadly
sins is "wealth without work".

The Trim-tab Solution

Local Mutual
Credit-clearing Currencies Created by Frank Nuessle
University of Pennsylvania
Economic Democracy at work June, 2009

Develop money systems that will enable

sustainability and community healing on a
local and global scale

Locally Owned and Controlled Financial Networks

for the Creation and Distribution of Money
Designing for Abundance and Local Resilience

A major tool for social design in the 21st century

Local currencies create a bias

toward local sustainability.

Creating Capitalism 3.0 by Localizing the Creation of Money.mmap - 7/12/2009 -