6. Bruce A. Babcock. “Cheap Food and Farm Subsidies: Policy Impacts of a Mythical Connection.” Iowa Ag Review (Spring, 2006).
7. Institute for Food and Development Policy. “Food, Fuel, and Green Revolutions: The U.S. 2007 Farm Bill Slogs Forward.” Food First: News and Views, October 5, 2007. [online]. [cited November 11, 2008]. foodfirst.org/en/node/1777.
8. International Relations Center. “Congress Rejects Food Aid for Local Development.” Global Policy Forum. [online]. [cited November 14, 2008]. globalpolicy.org/socecon/hunger/relief/2005/1021congr.htm.
9. State of New Jersey Department of Agriculture. “School Lunch Commodity Distribution Program.” [online]. [cited November 14, 2008]. www.state.nj.us/agriculture/divisions/fn/fooddistrib/slcd.html.
10. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children and Diabetes — More Information. [online]. [cited December 10, 2010]. cdc.gov/diabetes/projects/cda2.htm.
11. Woody Tasch. Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered. Chelsea Green, 2010.
12. Elizabeth Sawin et al. Commodity System Challenges: Moving Sustainability into the Mainstream of Natural Resource Economies. Sustainability Institute Report, 2003. [online]. [cited December 13, 2010]. sustainer.org/pubs/SustainableCommoditySys.2.1.pdf.
13. Michael Pollan. “Why Bother.” New York Times Magazine, April 20, 2008.
14. Leesa Woodhouse. Rice as Currency. October 2006. [online]. [cited December 11, 2009]. e-articles.info/e/a/title/Rice-Currency/.
15. Ibid.
16. Jason Bradford. “Food-backed Local Money.” The Oil Drum:Campfire website, March 4, 2009. [online]. [cited January 11, 2011]. campfire.theoildrum.com/node/5158.
17. Farm Stand website: vtfarmstand.org.
Chapter 13
1. Mark Lipton (Guiding Growth: How Vision Keeps Companies On Course. Harvard Business Press, 2003) in an interview with Martha Lagace. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge for Business Leaders, February 24, 2003. [online]. [cited December 14, 2010]. wiki.aalto.fi/download/attachments/44302349/Lagace +(2003)+Why+Vision +Matters+More+Than+Ever.pdf?version=1&modificationDate =1272361748000.
2. Gwendolyn Hallsmith. The Key to Sustainable Cities: Meeting Human Needs, Transforming Community Systems. New Society, 2003.
3. Burlington Legacy Plan, p. 10. [online]. [cited December 13, 2010]. cedo .ci .burlington.vt.us/legacy/BurlingtonLegacyPlan.pdf.
4. Ibid, p. 26.
5. Burlington Legacy Project. Projects and Activities. [online]. [cited December 13, 2010]. cedo.ci.burlington.vt.us/legacy/projects.html.
6. Ibid.
7. City of Burlington Energy and Environment Coordinating Committee. Suggestions to Advance Sustainable Transportation in Burlington. [online]. [cited December 13, 2010]. cedo.ci.burlington.vt.us/legacy/CityCouncilRecsUpdateMay12.pdf.
8. Ibid.
9. Burlington Legacy Project. Projects and Activities.
10. Wanda Hines. Social Equity Investment Project Annual Report 2007–2008. City of Burlington. [online]. [cited May 19, 2009]. cedo.ci.burlington.vt.us/legacy/SEIP2008AnnualReport.pdf.
Chapter 14
1. The Melbourne Principles had a link to the Earth Charter in their embryonic stages — even though the principles were named after the City of Melbourne, Australia they had their genesis in Toronto, Ontario in 2002, where UNEP sponsored a meeting about sustainable city planning. Gwendolyn was invited to this meeting and presented the Earth Charter’s history and how it inspired the cities and towns in Vermont to endorse it, along with information about the Burlington project. The idea of a set of principles to guide city planning caught on, but instead of simply adopting the Earth Charter, the team from UNEP decided to create something new. The Melbourne Principles hold a lot in common with the Earth Charter, and were going to reference the document in the second and final draft, but the final draft never got printed as the personalities involved went off in different directions. Unlike the Earth Charter, the Melbourne Principles do not have a broad base of support from a global audience, nor do they have an ongoing educational effort to keep them relevant. ICLEI Oceania. Melbourne Principles for Sustainable Cities. [online]. [cited December 14, 2010]. www.iclei.org/index.php?id=4490.
2. Through all this work, a rich set of resources on how to apply systems thinking to cities was created. This material is all available now on the LASER website (more about LASER in Chapter 3), which you can read by going directly to: global-laser.org/resources/trend_analysis.pdf.
3. Noted down by Gwendolyn during a joint lecture for the Cities PLUS Network at the World Urban Forum in June of 2006.
4. ImagineCALGARY Plan for Long Range Urban Sustainability. June 2006, p. 192. [online]. [cited December 16, 2010]. imaginecalgary.ca/imagineCALGARY_long_range_plan.pdf.
5. Ibid. p. 194.
6. Calgary had enough funding for the project to develop their own, but a free version of it is available on the EarthCAT website: earthcat.org.
7. ImagineCALGARY Plan for Long Range Urban Sustainability, p. 1.
8. More information about the currency can be found on the website calgarydollars.ca.
9. Plan-It Newburgh: Sustainable Master Plan, Adopted December 8, 2008, p. 8 [online]. [cited December 17, 2010]. cityofnewburgh-ny.gov/master plan/docs/MasterPlan2006-9-10.pdf.
10. Jean-Ann McGrane in a video interview at the kickoff event for Plan-It Newburgh.
11. Doyle Murphy. “Newburgh Begins Search for New City Manager.” Times Herald-Record, January 14, 2009.
12. Sociocracy: The Organization of Decision-Making is the title of a book by Gerard Endenburg (Eburon, 1998), about a unique model of group process he developed for his manufacturing business in the Netherlands. It has been further articulated and developed by many social change professionals. The structure of enVision Montpelier — with two interlinking chairs for each committee, one appointed from the main decision making body and one elected from the group — reflects one of the principles Endenburg advocates. The election process is a particularly good one for sustainability planning (and other public purposes). To conduct an election, everyone nominates someone, writing their nominee on a piece of paper with their own name on it too. The election is facilitated by either a neutral party or by someone who volunteers from the group, and the facilitator collects the nominations and reads them out loud. After this, each person talks about why they nominated the person they offered. Then each of the nominees have a chance to say a few words (including whether or not they are willing to serve). After this, a decision making round is held, where each person states whether they have changed their mind, and if they have, whom they would like to lead the group. It is an excellent way to bring people forward into leadership who might not be ones who usually volunteer for these positions.
Conclusion
1. See various examples of such evidence, for instance, in any issue of the International Journal of Community Currency Research. [online]. [cited December 20, 2010]. uea.ac.uk/env/ijccr/.
2. See Chapter 2.
3. Robert Ulanowicz, Sally Goerner, Bernard Lietaer, Rocio Gomez. “Quantifying Sustainability: Resilience, Efficiency and the Return of Information Theory.” Ecological Complexity Vol 6 #1 (March 2009), pp. 27–36.
4. Bernard Lietaer, Robert Ulanowicz and Sally Goerner. “Is Our Monetary Structure a Systemic Cause for Financial Instability? Evidence and Remedies from Nature.” Journal of Future Studies (April 2010); Bernard Lietaer, Robert Ulanowicz and Sally Goerner. “Options for Managing Systemic Financial Crisis.” Sapiens Vol 2 #1 (March 2009).
5. Sally Goerner, Bernard Lietaer, Robert Ulanowicz. “Quantifying Economic Sustainability: Implications for Free Enterprise Theory, Policy and Practice.” Ecological Economics Vol 69 #1 (October 2009), pp. 76–81.
6. See Chapter 7.
7. Gerhard Rösl. Regional Currencies in Germany: Local Competition for the Euro? Deutsche Bundesbank Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies, No. 43/2006. [online]. [cited December
20, 2010]. bundesbank.de/download/volkswirtschaft/dkp/2006/200643dkp_en.pdf.
8. Chartalism was developed by economist G. F. Knapp into the 1920s. It was influential on the 1930 Treatise on Money by John Maynard Keynes — Knapp and Chartalism are cited approvingly in its opening pages. Chartalism experienced a revival under Abba P. Lerner in The Economics of Control (1944) and later in The Economics of Employment (1951). It also has a number of modern proponents who largely identify as post-Keynesian economists. A good recent synthesis is provided by L. Randall Wray in Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability. Edward Elgar, 2006.
9. See Chapter 9.
10. See Chapter 11.
Appendix
1. It was Chartalist Georg Friedrich Knapp who defined money as anything that the government declares as acceptable in payment for taxes. See Georg Friedrich Knapp. The State Theory of Money. Augustus M. Kelley, 1924 and L. Randall Wray. Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability. Edward Edgar, 2006.
2. There are nevertheless exceptions, but they tend to be temporary in today’s world: for instance, in Russia the government accepted commodities and goods from corporations in payment of taxes after the collapse of the Ruble in 1998.
3. See Chapter 9.
4. Ibid.
5. The first (in chronological order) post-war complementary currency pioneer was Teruko Mizushima, who was born in 1920 in Osaka. In 1950 she wrote a visionary article about a “Labor Bank,” a paper that was honored at that time with the Newspaper Companies’ Prize.
6. The organization involved is called Regeltante: see regeltante.nl.
7. For more information on all the Japanese currency projects, see Bernard Lietaer. “Complementary Currencies in Japan Today: History, Originality and Relevance.” International Journal of Community Currency Research, Vol. 8 (2004), pp.1-23 [online]. [cited December 21, 2010]. uea.ac.uk/env/ijccr/abstracts/vol8(1)lietaer.html.
8. Global Community Initiatives. [online]. [cited December 20, 2010]. global-community.org/.
9. History of Money: 1930-1933. [online]. [cited January 16, 2011]. mindcontagion.org/money/hm1930.html.
10. The Terra (TRC) Trade Reference Currency. [online]. [cited December 22, 2010]. terratrc.org/.
11. The Department of Economic History of Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, has undertaken a systematic study of such historical complementary currencies. They have discovered many such currencies widely used locally in Europe from the 8th century to the 18th. Such currencies were circulating in parallel with centrally issued currency, some were even issued by central authorities, but they were not accepted for payment in taxes by the central government (royal or imperial). See Luca Fantacci. Storia della moneta immaginaria. Marsilio Editore, 2004; Jacques Labrot. Une histoire économique et populaire du Moyen-Age: les jetons et les méreaux. Editions Errance, 1989.
12. The banking system partially resolves that problem by relending funds that people deposit with them. But, particularly from a regional viewpoint, there is no guarantee that the money will become available within the same community or area where it originated.
13. Ken Anderson. “Katahdin Time Dollar Exchange.” Magic City Morning Star, May 18, 2005. [online]. [cited December 27, 2010]. magic-city-news.com/Community_5/Katahdin_Time_Dollar_Exchange_38833883.shtml.
14. Barter Systems, Inc. Success Stories. [online]. [cited December 27, 2010]. bartersys.com/success.asp.
About the Authors
GWENDOLYN HALLSMITH, The Director of Planning and Community Development for the City of Montpelier and founder and director of Global Community Initiatives, is author of The Key to Sustainable Cities, Taking Action: the EarthCAT Guide to Community Development, and Local Action for Sustainable Economic Renewal, has over 20 years of experience working with municipal, regional and state government in the United States and internationally. She has served as the Town Manager of Randolph, Vermont, the Regional Planning Director in Franklin County, MA, as a Senior Planner for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy Resources, as the Deputy Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and for over ten years as an international specialist on sustainable community development.
Her international experience has included work with the United Nations Environment Program, the United Nations Development Program, the Institute for Sustainable Communities, the International City/County Management Association and Earth Charter International. She has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Brown University and studied at the Andover Newton Theological School, exploring the links between our wisdom traditions, spirituality and work on the community level.
BERNARD LIETAER, the author of The Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity and the forthcoming Of Human Wealth, has been active in the realm of money systems in a wide variety of functions for close to 40 years. With the publication of his post-graduate thesis at MIT in 1971 (which included a description of floating exchanges) and the Nixon Shock of that same year which eradicated the Bretton Woods system by unhinging the US dollar value from its gold standard and inaugurated the new era of universal floating exchanges (previous to that time the only floating exchanges involved some exotic currencies in Latin America), the fledgling management consultant suddenly found himself at the center of the financial world’s attention.
The techniques that he had developed for those marginal Latin American currencies were overnight the only systematic research which could be used to deal with all of the major currencies of the world. A major US bank negotiated exclusive rights to Bernard’s approach, which required that he begin another career. While at the central bank in Belgium (National Bank of Belgium) he implemented the convergence mechanism (ECU) to the single European currency system. During that period, he also served as President of Belgium’s Electronic Payment System. His experience as a consultant in monetary matters on four continents ranges from multinational corporations to developing countries.
Bernard co-founded one of the largest and most successful currency management firms, GaiaCorp, and managed an offshore currency fund (Gaia Hedge II) which was the world’s top-performing managed currency fund during the period (1987–1991) he ran it. Business Week magazine named him “the world’s top currency trader” in 1992.
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