I have been interested in money and economics since I first read Marilyn Waring who wrote If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics when I was in high school.
I went on in high school to read Hazel Henderson‘s books like Politics of the Solar Age. and Herman Daily’s work on Ecological Economics. I was deep into these ideas. I thought I would maybe even study ecological economics in university but by the time I got there I had read all that I could about it and had moved on.
These themes emerged again when I enchanted Planetwork and their 2000 Conference. The Identity Commons emerged out so did the Link Tank but so did the Interra Project. Both projects shared Chaordic Ideas and were in regular dialogue.
Jim Fournier founder of Planetwork, now a good friend and mentor, has been tracking currency and money for a long time and knew Bernard Lietaer. His book The Future of Money is quite good.
Tom Greco‘s has been working with folks for decades helping build alternative and complementary currencies. He wrote the End of Money and the Future of Civilization. It talks about how debt/fiat based money is toxic and creating destructive game rules. I had the opportunity to spend two days with Tom when he was in the Lakes District in the UK when I was visiting Jem Bendell.
Jem! He is fantastic and a fellow YGL. He has put together a fantastic MOOC on Money and Society.
I’ve been tracking Art Brock‘s work since I met him at Planetwork. He has a site about MetaCurrency and the most sophisticated taxonomy that is utterly amazing and mind expanding in terms of thinking about money. He has built the CEPTR project and HoloChain as well.
David Birch who I know from the Identity Space actually has been a payments guy for much longer. He wrote Identity is the New Money.
He has two new books out Currency Cold War and Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin. I also had a chat with him on my Podcast with Seth.
I produced two UnMoney convergences one in 2008 and one in 2012.
Grace recently put on a 4 week class about currency that I enjoyed and is now working on Sufficiency Currency idea/project in Europe.