My presentation at the Asian Solidarity Economy Forum 2012 at Manado, Indonesia on Tue, 02nd Oct 2012.

1. Yasuyuki Hirota
(Univ. of Valencia, Spain)
mig@olccjp.net
Skype: migjp2003
Asian Solidarity Economy Forum, 02 Oct 2012

2.  Economy: comes fom the Greek word
“οικονομία” (“οἶκος” (house) + “νέμω”
(management))
 Economy in East-Asian languages:
 “keizai” (“ 経済” ) in Japanese
 “Jīng jì” (“ 經濟 / 经济“ ) in Mandarin
 ”gyeongje” ( 경제“ ) in Korean
 All come from the Chinese phrase ”Jīng shì jì
mín“ (” 經 世 濟 民 / 经 世 济 民 “ , “manage the
world and satisfy people“)
 None of these concepts say about maximising
profits but about the management
 We should produce to satisfy our own needs,
not to make money sacrificing others!!

4.  Compound interest which forces the permanent and
exponential growth: “like cancer in our social
structure” (“Inflation and Interest-free Money,
Kennedy): Both the Islam and the Christianity
forbid it
 Concentration of wealth for the rich, for big cities
and for the North at the cost of the poor, the
countryside and the South
 Preference to short-term investments at the cost of
long-term ones
 Monopoly of the money creation process by
commercial banks: most money is created as
credit, “no debt no money”

5.  A: Human being’s
growth
 C: Cancer’s growth
and what our
money system
demands us
 With compound
interest rate our
economy is destined
to eat up all natural
resources of our
planet
 Source: Kennedy
(1995)

6.  The interest
improverished most
people while
enriching the few
rich
 Source: “Inflation
and Interest-free
money” (Kennedy,
1995) available at:
http://kennedy-bibliot

8.  Each regional economy: tends to be export-
oriented > only produces exportable goods
(monoculture) while giving up self-sufficiency
(stops producing goods for local demands and
starts importing them)
 Dependency on exports: shows vulnerability in case
of economic crisis as customers stop buying your
products
 Self-sufficiency: way to soften the crisis

9.  “An agreement within a community to use
something as a means of exchange” (B. Lietaer):
we can have other agreements too if we want
 Legal tender (rupiah, US$ etc): useful for inter-
regional/national trades > promotes export-
oriented monoculture > money tends to leave your
community easily and lots of efforts are needed to
get it back
 Social and complementary currencies: usually used
only within a certain community > reinforces local
production and consumption (self-sufficiency)

10.  Founded in 1998 at Fortaleza, Ceará to struggle
against the financial exclusion: originally operated
only with real (Brazil’s official currency, R$) but
now provides loans in R$ and Palma (local
currency, although backed with R$) too
 Their slogan: “No community is poor, but there are
impoverished ones!” More info in English:
http://dowbor.org/ar/community_development_banks
(also try Wikipedia on Banco Palmas)
 Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lOt-0kCyd0

11.  Operational since 1934 to stimulate B2B
transactions among Swiss small businesses: one
sixth of small businesses join
 The bank provides loans in WIR, only accepted by
other WIRBank-member businesses, at lower
interest rate
 1.55 billion CHF is traded annually in this currency.
More info (in German, French and Italian):
http://www.wir.ch/
 Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMy8zmWSrFA

12.  A tool for regional macroeconomy: try to cover all
what is available within the region (food,
construction, industries, services etc.)
 Appropriate design for your community: Read
http://www.global-
community.org/gc/newsfiles/25/Community
%20Currency%20Guide.pdf for details
 Plugging the Leaks: a good programme to discover
and leverage unused resources for the community’s
endogenous development.
http://www.pluggingtheleaks.org/downloads/ptl_han
dbook.pdf
 Marketing: different marketing strategies are
needed to attract consumers / retail shops / other
local businesses / farmers etc.

13.  “The Future of Money” (Bernard Lietaer, Century,
2001)
 “Inflation and Interest-free Money” (Margrit
Kennedy, http://kennedy-
bibliothek.info/data/bibo/media/GeldbuchEnglisch.p
df )
 “Creating Wealth” (Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn
Hallsmith, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island
(Canada),2011)
 “People Money” (Margrit Kennedy, Triarchy Press,
2012)
 “New Money for a New World” (Bernard Lietaer and
Steven Belgin, Qitarra Press, Boulder (Colorado,
US), 2012)

14.  TEM (Volos, Greece): video (in English)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTMXhSSOBSk
 Hanbat LETS (Daejeon, Korea):
http://www.tjlets.or.kr/ (in Korean). Video (with
English subtitle): http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=SggqtHBEHmU
 CES (South Africa - World): http://www.ces.org.za/
 “Money as Debt”: a 47-minute documentary which
shows our money system’s structural faults.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5_JE_gOys
 Bristol Pound: http://www.bristolpound.org/ a
video by BBC: www.youtube.com/watch?
v=kzIqfQsWL3I

15. Yasuyuki Hirota
(Univ. of Valencia, Spain)
mig@olccjp.net
Skype: migjp2003
Asian Solidarity Economy Forum, 02 Oct 2012