Healthy Money Healthy Planet - library.uniteddiversity.coop

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15 Lessons Learnt From Currencies
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness … those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– George Santayana 1
This chapter addresses the issues surrounding currencies and summarises what
has been learnt of their strengths and weaknesses through their use. The lessons
learnt from complementary currencies will also be applied here to national
currencies. Below is a list of the issues, the main points of which I go on to look at
in more depth through the rest of the chapter. (See also Appendix 1 for a
classification of complementary currencies and a condensed version of the
information contained in this chapter.)
1.
Money can be created as and when it is required – nationally, regionally or locally.
2. Limiting ourselves to a national currency alone is unnecessary, as communityissued
money is equally useful when trading with one another. With the use of
technology such as smart cards that can deal with more than one currency, the
move towards currency diversity will be made easier.
3. Money is created at the point when an issuer (a person, state, local authority
paying wages and so on) buys goods or services and gives the seller an IOU. All
money is therefore debt money. The debt is cancelled when the issuer of the
money honours that obligation by accepting the money as payment, for taxes, rates