Bernard Lietaer, ex-banker in Belgium and author of The Future of Money believes in alternative currencies. According to him, the design of money is the root of all that happens or doesn’t happen in society- that money is not really needed to solve the world problems, but it is the cause of the world problems. His solution is to introduce complementary money systems, alongside the existing one. Lietaer believes that these alternative systems that will be based on barter trade will come in handy when the normal money is unavailable. He does take me back to the article on fame being the currency that is already replacing money. Think about it. The name Kim Kardashian alone will get you free goodies now, wont it? If you are Kim Kardashian, that is. Lietaer is in no way suggesting that the alternative money system will be the solution to our problems, but weakening the vitality of money would lead to positive changes.
We have put together three excerpts from Bernard Lietaer’s interviews where he explains further his belief in the alternative currency:
From his interview with Odewire
Everything revolves around money. It’s more than a cliché; it’s the daily experience of just about every world citizen not part of an indigenous tribe in the Amazon rain forest. And this daily experience involves, above all else, a continuous shortage of money. There is not enough money to send the children to school. Not enough money for hospitals, or to care for the ever-greater numbers of old people who are getting ever older. Not enough money to clean up the environment and keep it that way. There is a lot of work to do, but no money to pay for it. Who among us is not familiar with the feeling of wanting to contribute something but having “no money” to pay for that valuable contribution? The sad conclusion: If we just had more money, the world and our lives would be better.
From his interview with Yes Magazine
While economic textbooks claim that people and corporations are competing for markets and resources, I claim that in reality they are competing for money – using markets and resources to do so. So designing new money systems really amounts to redesigning the target that orients much human effort.
Furthermore, I believe that greed and competition are not a result of immutable human temperament; I have come to the conclusion that greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using.
For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.
I am tempted to go back to the article on the man who quit money. Daniel Suelo back in 2000 decided to break up with the capitalist system, leaving all his life savings to live in a cave, away from the clutter of money. Daniel’s belief is that money is the root of all our problems, and quitting it would solve all our problems. The issue I had with Daniel was how possible it would be for one to survive in a money economy without money, unless all the world systems do away with money. And money isn’t really the problem. Money is a measure of value. And as I asked in that article, as long as humans find it necessary to measure value, can something like money ever become obsolete?
Then comes Bernard Lietaer with his proposal for alternative currencies to solve our problems. Would this work? Would the alternative solve our many money problems?