Bernard Lietaer - The future of money

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