MEMO from
Thomas H. Greco
Dear friends,
Here's your link to the excerpted,
e-book version (in PDF format) of my new
book, MONEY: Understanding and
Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, just
published by Chelsea Green in
January, 2002 (Paper, 295 pp,
$19.95):
http://www.chelseagreen.com/Livelihood/MoneyEBook.htm.
This
book has been in the works for more than 4 years. It goes well beyond my
previous books in demystifying the subject of money and outlining equitable,
community-based exchange alternatives. Once you've read MONEY, you'll never
think the same about what money is, what money does, how it is created, whom
it
benefits, and how the creation of parallel currencies outside of money as
legal
tender has the potential to transform community economic
life.
Vicki Robin, co-author of the best-selling YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE
and writer
of the book's Foreword, gives us the metaphor we need: Dorothy's
little dog
Toto pulling back the curtain to reveal the "wizard" for what he
really is, a
fraud and a deception. So it is with money. We are dazzled by
the glittering Oz
of money, banking, and finance, thinking it magical and
beyond our
comprehension. But wait a minute, like the little man at the
controls trying
desperately to pull the curtain closed, the financial
cognoscenti are happy to
keep us uninformed. Money is actually nothing more
than a human idea, an
agreement about how goods and services are
exchanged.
And, guess what? The rules of the money game are made to favor
particular
groups. They're set and controlled by the banks, (not the
government, not the
people) where 95% of all money is created as
interest-bearing debt. This
inherently unstable system (the money
supply is always lagging behind the
growing amount of debt) creates and
fuels the cancerous growth that now
threatens to overwhelm the life support
systems of the planet. Imagine playing
a game of Monopoly in which all money
must be borrowed at interest from the
bank who do you
think would win?
But, there's hope. "The forgotten history of money is
about how people can
create their own." This book shows how the creation of
parallel currency and
credit systems can work to sustain and protect
communities and their local
economies, reinforcing the values of social
justice, self-reliance, economic
equity, and personal freedom. These
alternative money systems have a long
history, from depression-era scrip, to
the Swiss WIR business group trading
system (17% of Swiss businesses and 2.5
billion Swiss francs in annual
trading), to the newer LETS (local employment
and trading) systems, Toronto
Dollars, YES (youth employment scrip),
e-currency models, and more. The growth
of alternative currency systems
world-wide has been astonishing, from less
than 100 in 1990 to well
over 2000 today.
In Argentina, currently perched on a mountain of debt
and threatening to topple
into default, the RGT (Global Trading Network) is
a social money movement that
sustains a half a million families and offers
insulation and protection from
the adverse effects of economic
globalization. Perhaps New York City should
look to this model as it
struggles to counter the severe economic effects of
the World Trade Center
attacks (see my letter to Mayor-elect Bloomberg).
Need more
reasons to read MONEY? Check out the above website.
Bound copies can be
ordered through Chelsea Green, Amazon.com, or Green Books
(UK).
Sincerely,
Tom
Greco