New Monetary Systems for a Sustainable Democracy and "The Great Turning"

Wednesday, 31 July 2013 00:00  
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Truthout | News Analysis

Our money system is ill-equipped to help us solve the pervasive socio-economic and ecological challenges we face. Transformation of our money system is critical because monetary diversity is just as important to human survival as biodiversity is to the fate of the earth.

There is a lot that we can learn from nature, and one important lesson is that diverse systems have greater strength and resilience. When conditions change, various components within a diverse system will step in to pick up where others fail. The weaknesses of monocultures are evident in agricultural systems where crops either flourish or wither each season. We also know that using permaculture, in which multiple types of plants are grown together to fill different functions and aid each other, creates greater abundance.

Less obvious is that these same principles can be applied to monetary systems. The dominant type of money, a fiat currency, essentially a mono-currency based on debt and scarcity, is failing most of us. Inherently, it encourages competition and hoarding, traits that mean some will win, and some will be left out. It is also required to perform functions that are at odds with each other: to both circulate in the economy and to be accumulated for future use. And it requires constant growth to survive, a trait that becomes more maladaptive as we bump into the limits of a finite planet.