The End of Money and the Future of Civilization
This book takes a look at how “the economy” evolved, what causes its instability, and what could be done to create a healthier exchange system. The early chapters describe the author’s personal background in economics, crisis and metamorphosis, and opposing philosophies of control.
The next several chapters concern economic evolution: central banking and the rise of the money power, usury, inflation, and related issues. Greco proposes the separation of money and state as a solution to many economic problems. He also discusses the evolution of money from commodity money to credit money and how the emergence of credit clearing could help solve the money problem. He takes a detailed look at the alternative exchange movement, how complementary currencies succeed or fail, and the ups and downs of commercial trade exchanges.
Later chapters delve into applying possible solutions: regional economic development, web-based trading platforms, useful forms and structures for organizations, the role of governments, and ways of storing value. Two strong appendices present a model membership agreement for credit clearing and an objective composite standard measure of value. The chapter notes, references, and index are thorough and well done.
The End of Money and the Future of Civilization averages out to three stars because it does some things well and others poorly. On the up side, it clearly explains the evolution of money and economics, providing an excellent overview of relevant history and how we got into this mess. It also introduces some excellent concepts, such as the halal or “equity” mortgage that avoids debt by having the lender and borrower share ownership in real estate; if you want to buy a house, definitely research that option. Another is the credit-clearing organization, which largely avoids the use of money by using open accounts which are periodically balanced. On the down side, this book tries to make a case for largely doing away with hard cash, and it’s not very convincing in that regard. There are too many possible problems which are not adequately addressed, such as how much easier it is for errors to occur with “virtual” money and how much harder those are to correct with no hardcopy tokens or records. The writing is relatively clear and well organized, but it’s definitely on the dry side.
This book will be most useful to students of economics or people interested in exploring alternative exchange systems such as local currencies or credit-clearing. It’s also worth a look if you want to understand what’s wrong with the economy today, particularly if you like to write about current economic events. Recommended.
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