Marco Dondi - Outgrowing Capitalism: Rethinking Money to Reshape Society and Pursue Purpose

Praise for Outgrowing Capitalism

Capitalism is now in crisis, unable to address some of todays great challenges. Chief among these is climate change, an existential threat to life on this planet. Marco Dondi, in this excellent book, offers an important contribution to this examination, focusing on money supply through a new concept of monetism. It is this kind of fresh thinking from the next generation of business leaders that offers hope that we can come to terms with our global challenges, before it is too late.

ANDREW J. HOFFMAN, Holcim (US), professor of sustainable
enterprise at the University of Michigan and author
of several books on business and sustainability

At the heart of a bold alternative to capitalism as we know it, Outgrowing Capitalism contains the most sophisticated and persuasive plea ever for an unconditional basic income funded by inflation-proof money creation.

PHILIPPE VAN PARIJS, author of Basic Income,
professor at the University of Louvain, Hoover Chair
of Economic and Social Ethics, and chair of the
Advisory Board of the Basic Income Earth Network

Dondi eloquently makes the case that modern banking actually hinders capitalisms creative forces, whilst a fiat-money-based universal income scheme he calls monetism would unleash them, reducing debt and poverty in the process. This book is easy to read, and Dondis ambitious proposals are grounded in a unique understanding of banking and reallife economics. His excellent arguments deserve serious consideration.

STEVE KEEN, author of Debunking Economics,
honorary professor University College London,
and former head of economics at Kingston University

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Print ISBN: 978-1-7354245-7-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-7354245-8-3

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First Edition

CONTENTS

Introduction

You Think Society Is in Danger
and Then You Get Donald Trump

I t was February 2013 and I was about to start an experience that would refocus my life. I took off for a country I didnt even know existed to volunteer for a pro bono consulting company. My task: to analyze the maize value chain in Swaziland and recommend ways to increase crop yields of small farmers. As the months flew by, the excitement of spending most of my time helping others had become a non-negotiable feature for my life.

Many people come to a similar resolution and end up dedicating their time in the most diverse activities. We each tell ourselves the story of how what we do is the best we can to help others. Myself? As a strategy consultant, I solve problems or define ways to pursue new opportunities. My question was therefore, What is the most critical problem or untapped opportunity I should focus on as my life mission?

The Swazi experience nudged me toward helping developing countries achieve Western standards of living. Yet once back in Europe, it became clear that Western economies were in no position to be role models for developing countries. The constant smiles, the simple life, and the close connections of the Swazi communities gave way to the frenzied, stressful, and individualistic life in the north of Italy. I could not tell whether the life of a poor Swazi was more or less enriching than that of the average busy man or woman in the Western world.

Three years later, Brexit and the election of Donald Trump confirmed my intuition. Western economies cannot be held as exemplary targets, and, unless some radical changes happen, they might as well become another historic example of how great empires fall. It is the so-called developed economies that show the biggest gap between opportunity and reality, between what life could be and what we seem to have settled for. Solving this conundrum became my life purpose.

And an urgent one at that.

We face fundamental threats, beyond one American president. But the opportunity is dazzling.

Consider: Around 40 million Americans live in poverty, In some respect, the UK fares even worse. Most other high-income countries do only marginally better.

We can end this.

The opportunity to thrive in society is strongly linked to access to quality education, but attending four years of United States (US) colleges includes board cost on average $170k at private colleges and $110k at public ones, with the cost to attend the best universities easily exceeding the $250k mark. On average, students graduate with more than $30k in debts and take more than 10 years to repay. A student who needs to finance the full cost of a university education may never be able to repay. Americans owe $1.6 trillion in student debt, large enough to destabilize the economy if all students refusedor for some reason were unableto repay. Other high-income countries do have better access to quality education. Yet their social mobility is only marginally better than in the US.

We can end this.

The crash in 2008 was destructive. But we now have more debt than in 2007, real median wages to repay them are stuck at 1980s levels, and central bank interest rates and balance sheets are nowhere near pre-crisis levels. The COVID-19 pandemic has further increased public debts, and a prolonged economic crash would be far worse than that of 2008.