Lietaer begins by addressing what he sees as the four "megatrends" currently driving society--an "Age Wave", the growth of an increasingly aged population, the Information Revolution, Monetary Instability, and Climate Change. Lietaer argues that "all crises contain hidden opportunities", which leads him to his central thesis that "we are now engaged in a structural shift of the world system, and this shift offers an unprecedented opportunity to give birth to Sustainable Development". Much of the rest of the book deals with defining sustainable development, and offering practical scenarios for its implementation. Much of this seems vague and utopian, but along the way Lietaer offers a wonderfully lucid account of the philosophy of money, the liquidity of currency and the nature of personal savings. As a financial map of the 21st century, The Future of Money is a little hazy, but as a story of the current state of money, it's extremely entertaining. --Jerry Brotton

Book Description
Bernard Lietaer’s extraordinary book is a devastating and controversial analysis of the challenges facing monetary systems now. The debate it will create will be a contentious and passionate one. There is no such thing as money: it is only an agreement of society to use something as a medium of exchange. This agreement is being placed under an unprecedented strain, due to a wide range of factors (from the creation of cybermoney, to social and political issues). This momentum of change could become even faster, and the effects more brutal, if the instability of the monetary system continues to spread. The global monetary crises of the 1990s (Mexico, Russia, Asia and Brazil) proved that money is modern society’s central information system – equivalent to the nervous system in our own bodies. In order to prevent a global monetary meltdown, a unique vision of sustainable abundance, and the mechanisms for achieving this, is proposed.

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