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

'Corporate Millennium' (next chapter) where ‘information barons'
play the role of the 'robber barons' of the early Industrial Age.
-What really matters is not the technology, but the way we use it.
The whole money game is going to change. Additional choices
beyond national currencies are both unavoidable and necessary. This
process started before the new technologies were available, and such
technologies have the capacity to amplify their spread and scale. For
the first time in several centuries, new players are moving in to create
totally new ways for defining money, creating it, and using it. This
new money frontier provides unprecedented opportunities for
rethinking the kind of money we want, and for incorporating
features to help address issues our societies will be facing in the
foreseeable future. For example, the possibilities that new money
systems offer to address the unemployment problems likely to occur
during the transition to the brave new information society should be
of interest to many people. Similarly, elderly care, community and
environmental restoration are goals to which a majority should be
able to subscribe.
- Private corporate currencies are not a problem per se. After all, as
outlined in the Primer and Chapter 2, our familiar 'national'
currencies are bank- debt currencies, i.e. are in reality privately
issued corporate currencies which have been homogenised on a
national level. Potential problems may arise when currencies private
or public become de facto or legally enforced monopolies, reducing
people's choices, and leading to potential abuse of power by those
who enjoy that monopoly.
On the positive side, information-as-resource is giving more people
than ever the opportunity to create their own currencies that can
reflect their own values. The starting point is to be aware that choice
in money systems exists, and that choice matters. Historically, most
features within money systems have not been consciously designed.