Who really benefits from a cashless society? Many of us rarely use cash these days. And the reach of corporations into our lives via cards and apps has never been greater. But what we’re told is inevitable is actually the work of powerful interests: the great battle of our time is for ownership of the digital footprints […]

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A new book by Bernard Lietaer shows the way to a sustainable world and calls for concrete measures from individuals and leaders.
Lietaer calls for a new perspective and three paradigm shifts essential for survival. With unsuitable means we half-heartedly try to repair the complicated clockwork of our world. This gets us nowhere. It won’t get us out of the crisis. The time has come to choose a completely different perspective and to lead ourselves and our world through “three paradigm shifts”.
This is what Bernard Lietaer demands in this book, which he dictated on his deathbed.

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Three common Misconceptions Three threatening Results Three possible Solutions In this 2013 presentation late Prof Margrit Kennedy describes three misconceptions most people hold about money; the results of these misconceptions, and thirdly offers three possible solutions in terms of monetary innovations. What is money? Let’s take the good news first. Money is one of the […]

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Mutual Aid Networks (MAN) is a US based initiative with global reach. Its mission is “To create means for everyone to discover and succeed in work they want to do, with the support of their community.” MAN is a natural evolution from twenty years of local economic development work in Wisconsin, beginning with the local […]

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Positive Money describes itself as “the UK branch of a global movement to democratise money so that it works for society and not against it.” It was started by blogger and author Ben Dyson in the wake of the finance crisis of 2008.  There were two or three fringe groups campaigning for monetary reform in […]

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For most of us, ‘currency’ automatically means ‘legal tender’ currency, for example the Dollar or Pound, which we use every day. Running in parallel with this ‘normal’ money there are also many forms of so-called complementary currencies, which complement the national currency without trying to replace it: Regional currencies, Customer Loyalty Programs, Business to Business […]

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The Dutch foundation STRO (Social Trade Organisation or Strohalm) was founded in 1970 by Henk van Arkel. Its original focus on environmental issues has shifted in the last twenty years ever more in the direction of activities in the area of alternative economics and particularly complementary currencies – always following the conviction that economic and […]

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Further economic reforms are being discussed around the world, new concepts are being conceived and new approaches tried. We can distinguish two main approaches here: Top-down reforms, initiated by government bodies Bottom- up reforms through altered economic behaviour between people. On this website you will find further explanations of the following themes: Common Good Economy […]

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Most people think that money is created by the state or the central bank. But central banks only issue the cash we use, which is about 10% of the total money supply. Only a fraction of money has its origin in the state, namely notes and coins. By contrast, around 90% of the money supply […]

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