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

the rate at which humanity destroys the biosphere is still accelerating.
'The full extent of the damage is only now becoming apparent as we
begin to piece together a comprehensive overview of the extremely
complex, interconnected web that is our life support system.
The big question that should be asked is: 'Is economic progress
killing the planet.’
My personal balance sheet of all the above can be summarised in
three points as follows:
· The encouraging results on the positive side prove clearly that we
can reverse the ecological degradation process if we so choose, but
our window of time in which to do so is closing down.
· The means used to encourage businesses and people to do so (i.e.
mostly regulation and moral persuasion) are too narrow in both
geography and scope to achieve sustainability.
Finally, the rest of this chapter shows that a change in our money
system offers a pragmatic possibility to harness the massive energy of
the global economy towards long-term sustainability.
The three tools of persuasion
Why change our monetary system to attain long-term
sustainability? Isn't there a more direct way to attain this objective?
There are only three ways to persuade people or institutions to
engage in any non-spontaneous change in behaviour:
· Education and moral persuasion;
· Regulation;