A visionary case for a new monetary system that is interest-free, just and stable
As a medium of exchange, money is one of the most ingenious inventions of mankind, as it facilitates the trade of goods and services and allows for specialization and the division of labor. However, compound interest and inflation have caused our monetary system to balloon to the point where bailing out banks, large corporations, and even entire countries will not prevent a complete breakdown of the global economy-unless we change the system in fundamental ways.
It's time for a grassroots movement to knock conventional money off its pedestal and replace it with a fresh paradigm that puts people before profits. A guide not only for the 99% but also for the 1%, Occupy Money demonstrates that the creation of a stable and sustainable monetary system will reflect real wealth rather than the smoke and mirrors of speculative profit, thus providing an alternative to the Age of Austerity. This vision can be realized through such creative initiatives as:
- Establishing time banks and complementary currencies geared to specific services such as health and education
- Eliminating interest through interest-free loans and "demurrage", which rewards currency circulation
- Re-localizing economies through regional currencies.
For many years financial insiders have hidden economic truths by describing them in arcane terms that no layperson can understand. Occupy Money uses clear, simple and concise language to explain how money will serve people instead of people serving money, and in doing so it issues a challenge to the very foundations of conventional economic doctrine.
About the Author: Margrit Kennedy , born in 1939, is an architect and an urban and regional planner with a doctorate in public and international affairs. As the head of the Research Department Ecology and Energy at the International Building Exhibition in Berlin from 1979-1984, and in her teaching and research as a professor for "Building Technology and Resource-Efficient Construction" at the University of Hanover from 1991-2002, she came to understand that the monetary system is a primary cause of our ecological and economic problems. In 1987, she wrote the bestseller "Interest and Inflation Free Money," which has been translated into 23 languages, revised and updated in 1991 and in the expanded German version in 2006. Her book Regional Currencies: A New Path to Sustainable Prosperity , 2004, written in cooperation with Bernard Lietaer, has become a standard of the regional money movement in Germany. It has also become a point of entry for such models in other parts of Europe, owing to its translation into Spanish and French. Triarchy Press in the UK (triarchypress.com) is publishing the first English-language edition, edited and abridged by John Rogers, in 2012.
For almost 30 years, Margrit Kennedy has been explaining in lectures and seminars how to overcome "economic illiteracy" so that money can finally serve people rather than vice versa, as is the case today. Currently her work focuses on introducing and testing complementary payment media.
