Future Money

by Jon Freeman

Our way of thinking about money has become one of the major constraints to human development. “Future Money” looks at how and why we got into difficulty, and explains in clear and simple terms why we have to change our wonky beliefs about money and the systems they have built.Our economic system reflects some basic misunderstandings about the world. Our fear of scarcity and our belief in competition have led to greed and exploitation. They have turned our healthy urge to improve into desire for power over others and over nature. Most recently we came to believe that money was real, that we can “make” money, that there is a free lunch which comes from selling pieces of paper to one another. This book explodes that fantasy.Instead of ensuring that the money serves us, we have run the systems in ways that serve the money. This is not making us happy. Our systems do not embody our impulses to co-operate, to care or to cherish the natural world. They are out of touch with the reality of the material world, mean-spirited and unable to distinguish price from value. As a result we live on the edge, not just economically but in relation to our unresolved resource challenges, climatic instability and political insecurity. We need systems that achieve the essential goals of financial stability, integrity, sustainable planetary management and reduction in political conflict. We have to put money in its proper place as a tool that we use. This requires us to end its hold over our emotions.Our life conditions have changed; the knife-edge that we live on demands that we adapt consciously to them. “Future Money” is a journey into that new thinking. It maps the way out of our current crisis. It presents a manifesto for the systemic changes we must make, underwritten by our need to think differently in order to birth a new system and to make it work. This book makes no promises to change your life. But it can awaken you to the need and desire to change and help you know what changes to make.

Paperback

First published November 22, 2010