Manado, 02 oct 2012

Yasuyuki Hirota(Univ. of Valencia, Spain)

[email protected]: migjp2003

Asian Solidarity Economy Forum, 02 Oct 2012

Economy: comes fom the Greek word “οικονομία” (“οἶκος” (house) + “νέμω” (management))

Economy in East-Asian languages: “keizai” (“ 経済” ) in Japanese “Jīng jì” (“ 經濟 / 经济“ ) in Mandarin ”gyeongje” ( 경제“ ) in Korean All come from the Chinese phrase ”Jīng shì jì

mín“ (” 經 世 濟 民 / 经 世 济 民“ , “manage the world and satisfy people“)

None of these concepts say about maximising profits but about the management

We should produce to satisfy our own needs, not to make money sacrificing others!!

Compound interest which forces the permanent and exponential growth: “like cancer in our social structure” (“Inflation and Interest-free Money, Kennedy): Both the Islam and the Christianity forbid it

Concentration of wealth for the rich, for big cities and for the North at the cost of the poor, the countryside and the South

Preference to short-term investments at the cost of long-term ones

Monopoly of the money creation process by commercial banks: most money is created as credit, “no debt no money”

A: Human being’s growth

C: Cancer’s growth and what our money system demands us

With compound interest rate our economy is destined to eat up all natural resources of our planet

Source: Kennedy (1995)

The interest improverished most people while enriching the few rich

Source: “Inflation and Interest-free money” (Kennedy, 1995) available at: http://kennedy-bibliothek.info/data/bibo/media/GeldbuchEnglisch.pdf

Each regional economy: tends to be export-oriented > only produces exportable goods (monoculture) while giving up self-sufficiency (stops producing goods for local demands and starts importing them)

Dependency on exports: shows vulnerability in case of economic crisis as customers stop buying your products

Self-sufficiency: way to soften the crisis

“An agreement within a community to use something as a means of exchange” (B. Lietaer): we can have other agreements too if we want

Legal tender (rupiah, US$ etc): useful for inter-regional/national trades > promotes export-oriented monoculture > money tends to leave your community easily and lots of efforts are needed to get it back

Social and complementary currencies: usually used only within a certain community > reinforces local production and consumption (self-sufficiency)

Founded in 1998 at Fortaleza, Ceará to struggle against the financial exclusion: originally operated only with real (Brazil’s official currency, R$) but now provides loans in R$ and Palma (local currency, although backed with R$) too

Their slogan: “No community is poor, but there are impoverished ones!” More info in English: http://dowbor.org/ar/community_development_banks-instituto_palmas_methodogy.pdf (also try Wikipedia on Banco Palmas)

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lOt-0kCyd0

Operational since 1934 to stimulate B2B transactions among Swiss small businesses: one sixth of small businesses join

The bank provides loans in WIR, only accepted by other WIRBank-member businesses, at lower interest rate

1.55 billion CHF is traded annually in this currency. More info (in German, French and Italian): http://www.wir.ch/

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMy8zmWSrFA

A tool for regional macroeconomy: try to cover all what is available within the region (food, construction, industries, services etc.)

Appropriate design for your community: Read http://www.global-community.org/gc/newsfiles/25/Community%20Currency%20Guide.pdf for details

Plugging the Leaks: a good programme to discover and leverage unused resources for the community’s endogenous development. http://www.pluggingtheleaks.org/downloads/ptl_handbook.pdf

Marketing: different marketing strategies are needed to attract consumers / retail shops / other local businesses / farmers etc.

“The Future of Money” (Bernard Lietaer, Century, 2001)

“Inflation and Interest-free Money” (Margrit Kennedy, http://kennedy-bibliothek.info/data/bibo/media/GeldbuchEnglisch.pdf )

“Creating Wealth” (Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island (Canada),2011)

“People Money” (Margrit Kennedy, Triarchy Press, 2012)

“New Money for a New World” (Bernard Lietaer and Steven Belgin, Qitarra Press, Boulder (Colorado, US), 2012)

TEM (Volos, Greece): video (in English) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTMXhSSOBSk

Hanbat LETS (Daejeon, Korea): http://www.tjlets.or.kr/ (in Korean). Video (with English subtitle): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SggqtHBEHmU

CES (South Africa - World): http://www.ces.org.za/ “Money as Debt”: a 47-minute documentary which

shows our money system’s structural faults. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5_JE_gOys

Bristol Pound: http://www.bristolpound.org/ a video by BBC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzIqfQsWL3I

Yasuyuki Hirota(Univ. of Valencia, Spain)

[email protected]: migjp2003

Asian Solidarity Economy Forum, 02 Oct 2012