Local initiatives can lead to modest gains in sustainability, but not the large-scale transformation we need. Meeting that challenge will require, among other critical factors, substantial changes in how we create and use money. As its history demonstrates, money is a social and political construct. It is the privatization of money—and not money itself—that has fueled social exploitation and environmental destruction. Money could, by contrast, help advance a Great Transition—but only if it is reclaimed for the public. Contrary to neoliberal assertions, the state can create money free of the debt that drives destructive growth and fosters inequality. Such public money can facilitate the provision of economic security and sustainable livelihoods for all. But for such a system of public money to work, there must be robust democratic control over monetary decision-making along with vigorous oversight of its implementation.Why Money?
If we want to transition to a more just and sustainable society, we then need to be clear about where we are today.1 The majority of the world’s population—in both developed and developing countries—now lives in urban areas. This demographic reality is unlikely to change as people have shown no eagerness to return en masse to rural livelihoods. Local, face-to-face innovations in production and exchange can be important steps, prefiguring the progressive society-wide changes needed. However, they are most appropriate for relatively self-contained areas, and cannot aggregate to the systemic transformation required.
In the contemporary world, provisioning, the creation and distribution of basic goods and services, depends on money.2 Most people live in market economies with moderate- to long-distance supply chains. Under market-driven capitalism, individual livelihoods and public services depend on the success of the market, and money functions both as the medium of exchange and as the driving force behind market participation.
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