Jacqui Dunne - Author - Rethinking Money

The single most important economic discussion of our time is one that we have yet to address—and it may be killing us. As the United States staggers through “the Great Recession” and the economies of Europe suffer and are near collapse, we continue to view the world through the outdated monetary prism that assumes we need to do everything with a single scarce currency. An outdated monetary system is unwittingly destroying societies around the world and it’s time to rethink it, says international monetary expert Bernard Lietaer and award-winning journalist Jacqui Dunne, visionary authors of RETHINKING MONEY: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity into Prosperity. Using scientific proof they explain why the monoculture of a single type of currency is a root cause of the financial instabilities that have manifested throughout modern history. It’s time to lift the veil in order to explain our unexamined money system built on bank debt that perpetuates scarcity and greed. “It is possible to realize that there are thousands of other ways to escape the existing financial morass. We can actually attain sufficiency and reach the inherent human goals of cooperation, community and even contentment,” say the authors. A large part of the answer lies in cooperative currencies. Through real-world examples the authors explain how thousands of communities across the globe are reassessing and re- engineering money with astonishing results. These strategies do not replace the conventional monetary system, but work in parallel with it, providing new options and resources that promote sustainable abundance and cooperation. In fact, since 1980 the number of cooperative currencies has increased from a mere handful to more than 4,000 mature systems today.