Healthy Money Healthy Planet - library.uniteddiversity.coop

8
equivalent value to the system at some future time. Money is thus an IOU, a
statement that you have given me something and I owe you something of equal
value in return.
All money is therefore debt money, but the difference between healthy and
unhealthy money is that the former is interest­free. Interest­bearing debt money is
invariably issued for the profit of the agency that creates the money. As seen in
Part 1 of this book, it causes a widening gap between net lenders and net
borrowers, an ever­increasing debt burden on individuals, corporates and
governments, and a pressure for the economy to grow in a manner favouring
short­term investments that result in ecological devastation and social decay. The
best way of ensuring that money is respected and has integrity is to issue it as an
interest­free loan.
In the case of fiat currencies, the money that is issued may appear to be a credit,
but in reality the person or government spending it into circulation must be
prepared to accept an equivalent amount of money when someone offers it as
payment. Local currency schemes that issue fiat money, such as Red Global de
Trueque in Argentina and Ithaca HOURs in New York state, often originally gave
it out in the form of credit to its members. While it appears that the organisers put
money into the system by ‘giving it away’, in fact there was no free lunch for its
users because they were obliged to receive the money for payment as well as use it
for payment. This is true reciprocity. As the organisers of Ithaca HOURs found
over ten years of operation, money is best distributed as an interest­free debt
because the recipient then knows the debt must be repaid.