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Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender |  | Author: Thomas Greco
Publisher: Chelsea Green
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $16.59
as of 11/23/2009 02:15 CST details
You Save: $8.41 (34%)
New (18) Used (14) from $16.43
Seller: Blue Rocket Books
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 51145
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 1890132373
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.42042
EAN: 9781890132378
ASIN: 1890132373
Publication Date: November 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Cash. Loot. Scratch. Lucre. Bread. Coin. Scrip. Moolah. Green. We all think we know intuitively what money is, and what it can do for us. Tom Greco, director of the Community Information Resource Center, understands and explains money on an eye-popping, fundamental level. Moreover, he provides a roadmap on how to make alternatives to the "legal tender" work for individuals, communities, and local economies. Money will set your mental gears spinning with fantastic ideas. This book explains the mysteries and realities of money in clear and accessible prose, and reveals the true workings, and alarming fragility, of our existing financial system. It also describes concrete and realistic actions that individuals, businesses, social service agencies, and governments can take to enhance productivity and purchasing power, to protect local economies from the ravages of globalization, and to strengthen the bonds of community. Money is a radical critique of our existing financial system, but also a practical and inspirational how-to manual for creating a vibrant and effective community currency system.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 best financial/economic book I ever read September 12, 2009
.999fine (Pasco, WA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Reading this book will give you a paradigm shift. I've read many economics books and have a reasonably good understanding of how the monetary world operates, but the first few chapters of this book took unrelated pieces of knowledge I already had and showed me the big picture. Because I read this book during the financial crisis, I saw the underlying reality stand out in sharp detail. Our fiat currency is based on debt. Thus, when trillions of dollars disappeared from the economy and people asked 'what happened to all the money?', it was obvious that in a credit crisis in which lots of bad debt must be written off, a large part of the money will also disappear. To fix the problem, the logical thing for the politicians to do was rescue the banks, so they could resume 'creating money' by making loans. Of course, this points out the inherently corrupt nature of the entire sorry system. Imagine if the stimulus package had gone to the people instead, to pay off their underwater mortgages rather than the banks. Perhaps we would not have the current situation of zombie banks paying millions of taxpayer dollars to reckless executives, while millions of Americans are moving into homeless shelters and squatting in the legions of foreclosed houses.
Groundbreaking concepts that dispell economic illusions March 5, 2009
Elaine Cornick (Bend, Oregon)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Greco's book is astonishing in what it conveys about the truth and reality of our financial and economic system compared to the illusions we have been consistently led to believe for years. Highly recommended for a good dose of "the truth will set you free."
 Educational but gets redundant. I recommend a used copy. December 29, 2008
RayL (Dallas, Texas)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The topic of this book is interesting. I read about half of the book in one day but then slogged through the remainder before I started skimming to the end. It's well-written but not completely thought out, as many of the community money examples end with summaries like "this may or may not work in your particular community." It seemed to me that those examples were rehashed several times before the end of the book. If you want to learn about money, then this book has something to offer but I think it runs out of gas. For the value, I recommend a used copy.
 The definitive book on alternative currency; somewhat lacking in scholarly rigor December 12, 2007
Alexander C. Zorach (Lancaster, PA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is the most comprehensive book I've found on the subject of alternative or complementary currencies. It outlines what is wrong with current money systems, gives some historical examples of alternative currencies, talks a little bit about different types of alternative currencies and different properties such systems may have, and then proposes ways to improve upon existing systems and implement new systems. I think it succeeds on most points, but falls somewhat short of the quality of scholarly literature at times. I think its final advocacy falls somewhat short of its purported goals...but overall, this book is still a must-read.
The exposition of what is wrong with the current money system (Part I) is very easy to read and extremely compelling. Although it is a stance that many mainstream economists would take issue with, Greco's argument about what is wrong with society is remarkably airtight. I wish, however, that he would make more of an effort to tie his work in with the relevant economic theory, and also with work that has been done in sociology on the topic of poverty, in order to address possible objections that economists would raise. The book falls somewhat short of being scholarly research on this topic as its level of rigor and citing the literature is somewhat lacking; at times the book comes across more as a political advocacy piece than anything else. These weaknesses may explain why the book was not published in a mainstream press.
The discussion of historical complementary currencies (Part II) is by no means comprehensive, as the other reviewers pointed out, but I don't think this is a shortcoming of the book. Greco discusses some systems that were successful and compares them to a few which were not, as a pedagogical tool (in Part III), in order to highlight the effects that certain properties or certain types of management (or mis-management) have on these systems. I don't think Greco intended to make this book a comprehensive historical survey of all alternative currency systems ever used--that would be a massive undertaking.
In terms of the practical and advocacy part of the book (Part IV), which discusses how to improve on existing systems, and how to implement a complementary currency system, this book is more or less on target on most points, but I don't agree with the final conclusions. I feel like Greco recognizes all the key issues, but does not quite solve them (even though he argues that he does). The chapter on complementary currencies for impersonal markets is short and I think what is advocated there (relying on backed currencies for impersonal markets) is a cop-out. I think Greco would do well to explore a bit farther "outside the box", or, if he does not feel qualified to do this, at least end the book saying that more work is necessary. Greco's current stance seems to be that the solutions to the world's problems have already been invented and just need to be implemented--this is not entirely true, as there are a number of complementary currency systems in operation similar to the ones he advocates, and they have not grown to a large enough scale to solve any of the real deep problems that Greco highlighted in the initial part of the book.
Bottom line? Read this book; there's no better book on the subject. This one is well-written, entertaining, and has a huge amount of information that cannot be found in any other single place.
 muddled thnking accompanied by good intentions September 4, 2005
D. T. Anderson (Columbus, Ohio USA)
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
Contrary to the enthusiastic reviews, I have to forewarn possible purchasers of this book. It is a mix good information and superficial, misleading, and wrong information which together are likely to result in un-necessary difficulties if not disaster for projects supporting community based currencies.
Without being tasked to rewrite this book let me cite a few examples. In the context of asset based currencies no mention is given on American Colonial script, the issuance of the Continental Congress's "Continentals," The US Civil War Greenbacks, or of the currently existing right of the US Treasury to issue silver certificates. A first lesson would be to examine successful commons centered currencies.
It doesn't really deal with the various banking and monetary scams, including the Great Depression, version 1.0, that have been inflicted upon the US economy to serve private interests. It doesn't deal with the fact that credit cards are a way of generating debt, and thereby money, particularly when debt as extended in violation of existing fractional reserve laws relative to banking operations.
Often what is described as "brief" historys or descriptions get immediately side tracked onto tangential material of little importance. The basic definition of money is all over the map, and there is little analysis developing a clear definition.
To the extent that it uses material offered by the Federal Reserve it is using material that it deliberately misleading. The Federal Reserve is essential a privately owned and controlled corporation which acts in the interest of its investors and shareholders. Through the strategic political lobbying of the Congress it has obtained the primary right to issue and control our currency in the interest of its share holders and participant banks, not in the interest of the people of the US as a nation. Through the same legislation enabled by the ignorance and duplicity of our bribed politicians it has acquired the branding rights to pretend to be an institution of the US Government. To the extent that the faith in the US Currency is based upon this association it is misinformation.
These are critical times in which we can expect to see a major collapse of the monetary and economic ideologies that have extracted so much wealth from the people of the US and from the World. While I fully support the concept and practice of community based currencies let this book not be your only source of information. Also, check into more serious analyses by sources such as the American Monetary Institute's "The Lost Science of Money." Greco's book seems to be in the lesser sense very much a "new age" sort primer without being serious about monetary history, current policies, or principles.
Given that most people are unable to evaluate financial statements, this sort of feel good, skimming, and muddled presentation could easily lay the foundation for "well intentioned" fraud. On the other side, if these community based currencies are established wrongly it could expose people to a lot of legal and tax related trouble. There is massive irrationality and political ideologies afoot already in the "management" of the US and Global economy. When erecting community currencies it will serve our interests better by developing an understanding of the related material also from more serious sources. Sure this is a cheaper book and appeals to irrational exuberance, but will it provide a solid foundation?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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