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| http://www.greenbooks.co.uk/Book/414/Future-Money.html |
Future Money explains in plain language and convincing detail how our money system is propelling us toward the self-destruction of our species – and what we should do about it. Our present money system frustrates the well-meaning efforts of active citizens, NGOs and governments to deal with our present ills and problems – including worldwide poverty, environmental destruction, social injustice, economic inefficiency and political unrest and violence within and between nations. Failure to reform the world’s money system urgently and radically – that is, from its roots up – could bring disaster for human civilisation before the end of this century. Future Money shows clearly how our money system operates and how it could be reformed so that it acts for the benefit of people and society rather than the opposite, and describes the obstacles that currently prevent that reform.
The world’s financial experts and leaders in politics, government and business, and most mainstream academic and media commentators, have demonstrated that they are not yet able or willing to diagnose and treat the profound and pervasive problems that are directly caused by the money system. Future Money speaks explicitly to active, independent-minded citizens, including young people, with the hope that it will help them to understand why people committed to careers in almost every important walk of life today find it difficult to recognise the problem and grasp the nettle. It shows why we have to take the initiative now, and urgently, to get the issue on to mainstream agendas worldwide.
James Robertson grew up and went to schools in Scotland and Yorkshire during the war, and then studied classics, history and philosophy at Oxford. In the 1950s he worked in the Colonial Office in Whitehall, as the remaining British colonies came towards independence. Development plans for Mauritius and Seychelles introduced him to the UK Treasury and public policy-making on money. The highlight was travelling with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on his 1960 ‘Wind of Change’ tour of Africa.
Three years in the Cabinet Office, working personally with the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, led to his first book, Reform of British Central Government (1971), and eventually to leaving the Civil Service for management consultancy and systems analysis. James then worked for nearly five years setting up and directing the Inter-Bank Research Organisation (IBRO) for the big banks. In 1973, with Alison Pritchard (later his wife), James started working independently. As a writer and adviser on future economic, social and ecological change, he combined his earlier experience and a new interest in ecology, feminism, futures studies and the ‘convivial society’ and ‘small is beautiful’ ideas of Ivan Illich and E. F. Schumacher. His book The Sane Alternative followed in 1978. Then in 1983 James and Alison helped Jonathon Porritt and Paul Ekins to set up The Other Economic Summit (TOES), later the New Economics Foundation (nef).
James has worked and lectured in many countries for many organisations and people, including the World Health Organisation, the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He has written other books and many articles and papers on aspects of sustainable development, government and money. In 1998 Green Books published his Schumacher Briefing (No. 1), Transforming Economic Life. His new book, Future Money, is due out in 2012.
In 2003 James received a gold medal from the Pio Manzù Centre, an international institute for the in-depth study of the main economic and scientific aspects of the relationship between man and his environment. Its Scientific Committee, whose President is Mikhail Gorbachev, called James “an outstanding example of a modern thinker at the service of society”.
James and Alison live in Oxfordshire. Until recently they have kept hens and ducks. They still grow vegetables and fruit, and get a modest amount of hot water and electricity from solar panels and photovoltaic (PV) slates.
Source: http://www.greenbooks.co.uk/Book/414/Future-Money.html
