Fundación Pachamama Publishes Alternative Monetary Systems Guide

November 23, 2011 | By The Pachamama Alliance

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Over the past few months, The Pachamama Alliance and Fundación Pachamama have been working together with the Ecuadorian author Leonardo Wild to publish a book discussing the “game of money.”

The author says: “Our lives depend on this game but it is dangerous to play at if you do not know the rules.”

On Friday, November 18, the book was launched in Quito, Ecuador in Spanish. Soon the book will also be published in English for audiences in the United States.

Money as a Tool for Liberation

Money is an invention wrought from human ingenuity and as such, it is able to adapt itself to our needs. Yet money has evolved during its 9,000 years of existence and has become an instrument of submission rather than one of liberation.

It is not that money is “evil”, but that we as individuals and as a society have lost control over it, its creation, and its function. We have now gotten to a critical point in which money is one of the principal causes of the economic, environmental, and social crises that threaten to destroy us as a civilization.

The book Demystifying Money: A Practical Guide to Monetary Alchemy is a reference manual for those who want to know more about money and its social function, as well as for those who are undertaking projects in alternative, complementary, and/or local monetary systems.

Photo above, from left to right: Carlos Rota, Independent; Javier Felix, Complementary Currency Project, Fundación Pachamama; Erik Brenes, Associated Consultant, STRO Foundation; Leonardo Wild, Author; Natalia Greene, Coordinator of the Plurinationalty and Rights of Nature Program Area, Fundación Pachamama; Alberto Acosta, economist and former president of Ecuador's Constituent Assembly.