Rationale for Monetary Reform

Greg Martin:

I believe we need to create alternative currencies because our monetary system is incompatible with our basic human needs. Money problems intrude into every part of our lives, filling us with anxiety about bills and expenses and loans. About just getting by. Wages, the availability of jobs and the cost of putting a roof over our heads all impact our individual happiness and family relationships. In two-income families spouses become alienated from each other and from their children. Other people work multiple jobs and spend their free time recovering from mental and physical exhaustion.

The nature of money as we know it compels people to sacrifice their physical, mental, social and emotional health to just make a living. We have subordinated ourselves to dollars and cents.

Adding insult to injury, money accumulates by the billions into the hands of a few while everybody else has to work that much harder for what's left. Jobs get outsourced to poorer countries where people are desperate enough to work in sweatshops for slave wages. Starving countries export their crops in order to pay off debts to industrialized nations.

This is the very nature of the money we use. It is inherently exploitive. When one person lends money under the condition of interest, it is exploiting the person who has need of that money. Not surprisingly it is just as exploitive on a larger scale in the global economy.

Money has to change. It was created to serve us, not the other way around. It needs to change so that it meets our needs instead of exploiting them.

To do this I believe money itself needs to go open source. We need to crack open the black box we call money and start experimenting with it. Monetary concepts such as depreciating currency, mutual credit and various community currencies are being tried all over the world and my goal is to create a forum for these people to share their ideas and experiences with each other.