In the event of a major global economic meltdown, where money becomes valueless, through stagflation with hyperinflation, more radical solutions than mere regulation of the banking system will be needed.
In this case, regeneration will occur at grass roots level
There will be re-localisation of the economy, as Greens have always advocated, through the following means:
Barter
LETS,
Time Banks,
| Local currencies
Although this will occur naturally at local level, it is inevitable that there will be a move to re-create a currency to function at a national or even an international level. The new currency must be based not on gold, not on deregulated private greed (as in money 1971-2009) but on Green Values.
To understand this section, it is necessary to understand the history of money.
This video is a good place to start.
Money is a store of value. It is a symbol, not a thing-in-itself, not a commodity, which is the basic mistake that the money markets have made.
Once bank notes represented specific quantities of gold. In 1971 we all come off the gold standard, and money has come to represent nothing but market value in an deregulated money market. Money was worth whatever it was worth, it was a plaything of the greed merchants. This irrational, self-referential system is in the process of collapsing in on itself, imploding onto a vacuum of astronomical and exponentially building debt. "Nature abhors a vacuum".
In the event of its collapsing comprehensively, as seems likely, we will need to create a new currency which is based on real values: that is, the resources implicit within our environment and society.
How to quantify these resources? An Index can be constructed, based on something like the the NEF's ISEW, as developed into the Happy Planet Index. This measures energy values like wind, tide, wave and sun, with human values such as health, inventiveness and willingness to increase the order in our system.
Carbon equivalents will be built into this Index.
In this way. money is linked to the ultimate physical reality, Gaia. If we do things which increase the health of Gaia, our money will appreciate in value, and if we do the opposite, our money will depreciate.
That is the rationale and aim of green monetary reform.
How can this goal be arrived at?
We need to construct a plan to put forward in the event of severe global economic conditions, which might include stagflation.
Meanwhile, here is a solution in narrative form.
