[wsfii-discuss] Worldchanging article on Complementary currencies

Thu Oct 6 18:11:49 UTC 2005

Paula,

I am my collegues at uniteddiversity have studied economics (we're 
London School of Economics graduates)

To be honest though, economists are the last people you want to ask 
about such issues since most of them don't understand the issues at all, 
thinking that money is essentially neutral.

As stuff like The Ecology of Money makes clear (written by Richard 
Douthwaite who was himself previously a senior gov't economist) how, why 
and by whom money is created makes a massive difference.

See http://www.feasta.org/documents/moneyecology/intro.htm

Josef.

> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:28:35 +0100
> From: Paula <pmg at gmx.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [wsfii-discuss] Worldchanging article on Complementary
> 	currencies
> To: Discuss list on the World Summit on Free Information
> 	Infrastructure	<wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
> Message-ID: <434550B3.3080000 at gmx.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> Well, so far my economist friend hasn't responded  but I am, indeed,
> expecting to be told I'm an old hippy with a touching, if misplaced,
> faith in human nature! - I'll let you know ;-) 
> 
> I'm personally a big fan of microeconomic community solutions and ol'
> fashioned stuff like credit unions . . . And also think that such
> schemes can be a powerful example which, even if not adopted wholesale,
> offer practical solutions to specific probelms and, maybe more
> importantly, vision which inspires wider social change.
> 
> Paula
> 
> piksieben at gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
>>Paula wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I was just rather defensively hoping to head off a relatively
>>>conservative development economist friend telling me I'm bonkers. I sent
>>>it to him cos I think he ought to consider it since he's interested in
>>>working with micro-economic collectives - but, of course, it *would*
>>>manage to copy itself to the list via the reply-to field!
>>
>>
>>I'd love to hear the opinion of an economist (or two) on this. I'm
>>pretty sure they'll kill it in an instant.
>>
>>Anyway, when I was "forced" to exchange 5 pounds to limes on the
>>weekend i was pretty annoyed, because effectively it made me to have
>>my lunch in one of a very few shops that were selected for
>>non-economic reasons by people that I have no influence on.
>>
>>I'd also like to hear the opinion on this from local shop owners who
>>weren't part of the program. I suppose they wouldn't be thrilled if
>>they knew about this unfair scheme.
>>
>>Basically this was simply a transfer of power from me to the issuers
>>of Limes. That's not good at all. Well if it was more than 5 quid that
>>is, plus the food was actually okay, so I'm not *really* complaining
>>but just trying to make a point. :)
>>
>>Torsten
>>
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>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
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