Hallsmith Gwendolyn - Creating wealth: growing local economies with local currencies

Advance Praise for

CREATING
WEALTH

Weve seen the local food movement grow and spread, and the local energy movement too. But the local money idea is just as important; heres some common sense explanation of why and how!

Bill McKibben, author Deep Economy

Creating Wealth is the most practical and comprehensive guide for creating community wealth. It helps cities envision and model richer alternatives; healthier, more equitable, sustainable futures. This timely book deserves a wide audience.

Hazel Henderson, author Ethical Markets: Growing
The Green Economy and the Green Transition Scoreboard

Two masters have come together to create an instant classic. Few can hold a candle to Gwendolyn Hallsmith when it comes to a systems approach that enables communities to vision a different future. Bernard Lietaer as an originator of the Euro is without peer when it comes to both the theory and practice of expanding the possible by creating new currencies. Together, they share a commitment to renewing cities and creating a sustainable world for all endangered species including our own. This is a book that provides framework, theory, examples galore and tools. Get it. Use it. For us at TimeBanking and for our law school course in System Change, this is required reading.

Edgar S. Cahn, PhD, JD, Ashoka Fellow,
Distinguished Professor of Law,
originator, TimeBanking, Washington, DC

I dare consider this is the single most important reflection in economics since Adam Smith.

Dr. Samir Ghabbour, University of Cairo, Chairman,
Egyptian National Committee for the UNESCO
Man and Biosphere Programme (MAB)

Clearly describes the ever-greater role for community credits, as national currencies evaporate.

Paul Glover, founder of Ithaca HOURS
and author of Hometown Money

Not since Natural Capitalism has a book offered new ways for wealth to be created; its a must read for city counselors, local politicians, business people and everyone who wants a vibrant economy without destroying the planet in the process.

Harry Blutstein, Founder, The Lighthouse Bureau,
Northcote, Australia

CREATING
WEALTH

GROWING LOCAL ECONOMIES
WITH LOCAL CURRENCIES

Gwendolyn Hallsmith & Bernard Lietaer

Preface by Dennis Meadows
Foreword by Hunter Lovins

Copyright 2011 by Gwendolyn Hallsmith and Bernard Lietaer.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.
Cover Images: Piggy Bank iStock (3dsguru);
Calgary skyline iStock (SensorSpot); Border design iStock (sunnyfrog)

Printed in Canada. First printing April 2011.

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-86571-667-4
eISBN: 978-1-55092-477-0

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Creating Wealth
should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.

To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America)
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Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers
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(250) 247-9737

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision. We are committed to doing this not just through education, but through action. Our printed, bound books are printed on Forest Stewardship Council-certified acid-free paper that is 100% post-consumer recycled (100% old growth forest-free), processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable-based, low-VOC inks, with covers produced using FSC-certified stock. New Society also works to reduce its carbon footprint, and purchases carbon offsets based on an annual audit to ensure a carbon neutral footprint. For further information, or to browse our full list of books and purchase securely, visit our website at: www.newsociety.com

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Hallsmith, Gwendolyn
Creating wealth : growing local economies with local currencies / Gwendolyn Hallsmith & Bernard Lietaer.

Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-86571-667-4

1. Wealth. 2. Cooperation. 3. Sustainable development. 4. City planning Economic aspects. I. Lietaer, Bernard A. II. Title.

HD75.H34 2011 338.9 C2011-902041-6

www.newsociety.com

As this book goes to print,
we stand at the dawn of a new era on Earth.

We hope that this work will help in some small way
to build the bridge to a brighter future
for all of Earths children.

Contents

by Dennis Meadows

by Hunter Lovins

by Dennis Meadows

A century from now social analysts will look back with angry astonishment at the extent our generation accepted the economists fantasy happiness requires perpetual economic growth. This may have been true once; definitely now it is false. Indeed, the exponentially expanding use of energy and resources brought by pursuit of growth now erodes the foundations for the happiness, even threatens the survival, of our species.

The growing numbers of people who recognize this tend to seek technological changes factor four improvements in resource use, shifts to renewable energy sources, sequestration of carbon dioxide, genetic modifications of plant strains, and others. These are helpful. However, none of these efforts will succeed without a fundamental change in our understanding of human wealth. And that will require profound changes in our systems of money.

Those who gain profit from the current global system obviously will vigorously resist any efforts to change it. And they will prevail until industrial society collapses. Current policies will be desperately pursued until they must be changed in response to crisis. But individuals, families, communities, perhaps even regions, can begin now proactively to make the necessary changes that will lead to true happiness and sustainable wealth.

I know of no other pair better qualified than Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith to offer the theoretical understanding and the practical experience required for useful insights on these issues. This book is an extremely important and very unique resource. It offers theoretical insights and practical actions for those who want to respond now to the most important global issue of our time.

DENNIS MEADOWS is co-author of Limits to Growth and Beyond the Limits .

Natural Capitalism Plus

by Hunter Lovins

Creating Wealth is a book that the world has needed for a very long time.

Arguably, if the economists and accountants who have run the worlds financial system off a cliff had read this book, wed all have a great deal more wealth now, and the world would not be in the parlous straits in which we all now find ourselves.

Its authors know whereof they speak and have practiced wealth creation in communities around the world. Bernard, Gwen and I first worked together on a project called LASER Local Action for Sustainable Economic Renewal. Gwen and I came up with the name for the project on a very long (and scary) drive to Belgrade, Yugoslavia from a workshop wed delivered in Novi Sad, Serbia. The war in Kosovo had just ended, and Serbia was rebuilding their economy from the ruins. Americas Development Foundation (ADF) had invited us to Novi Sad because the local community resource people needed training on how to foster local economic development in hard times. Gwen brought the expertise shed developed in such challenging economies as Kazakhstan and the townships of South Africa. I brought economic development lessons from Afghanistan, Jamaica and the hollows of Appalachia.