THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

The importance of realigning financial interests with long-term
sustain- ability is even more critical because many of the issues
involved need to be addressed on a global level (e.g. global climate
changes, acid rain, ozone layer, etc.) or it just won't make much of a
difference. And there is little chance that we can regulate or morally
persuade the whole world. For example: by the year 2015, the
Chinese are planning to emit as much carbon dioxide by themselves
as the whole world does today. This forecast is based on coal-fuelled
electric power plants currently being built or already on the drawing
boards in China. What can we do?
The well-known architect William McDonough claims that
'Regulation is a signal that you have a design failure'. He asks the
question: 'Who is in charge of a ship?' The answer is the designer,
who has already built into the ship ninety per cent of what the
captain can do. I claim the same is happening to the business world:
the design of the money system is preordaining ninety per cent of the
investment decisions made or not made in the world. And
regulations aiming at sustainability just try to correct the flaws built
into our money system. Furthermore, regulations have proved so far
mostly ineffective in reaching that goal.
Our economics textbooks claim that corporations and individuals
are competing for markets or resources. In reality, they compete for
money, using markets and resources in this process. If we were able
to redesign money in a way that favours long-term vision, we could
harness the massive resources of the global corporations in a
direction of a more sustainable future.
Relationship between money systems, time perceptions and
sustainability