THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

The truth is that the world economy poses more dangers than we
had imagined. Problems we thought we knew how to cure have once
again become intractable, like temporarily suppressed bacteria that
eventually evolve a resistance to antibiotics. ... There is, in short, a
definite whiff of the 1930s in the air.
In the Primer you will learn why these repeated crashes are not
random accidents, but signs of systemic dislocations of the official
monetary system. This implies that no country should consider itself
immune from such problems: not China, not the UK, not even all of
Europe, nor the US. a The last money question is straightforward:
How can we prepare for the possibility of a monetary crisis?
Money at the core of the Time-Compacting Machine
The extraordinary convergence of these four megatrends over the
next two decades shows why Peter Russell was right in predicting
that 'over the next 20 years, as much change will happen in the world
as has occurred over the past 200 years'.'* I would add that, in order
to deal with the challenges just described, we are going to have to
change as much in our consciousness about money over the next 20 years as
we have over the past 5,000 years.
Figure 1.3 summarizes the four money questions of the Time-
Compacting Machine. Whether we like it or not, there will be some
kind of answer for each one of these questions. Together, they
indicate that something fundamental will have to change in our
current way of dealing with money.
Today's interpretation of money needs to be questioned if we are to
address these issues. Remaining locked within the prevailing money
paradigm amounts to collectively doing what the cartoonist Cardon
depicts so soberly.