The Big Shift: Rethinking Money, Tax, Welfare and Governance for the Next Economic System by Deirdre Kent
This important little book is a very dense read. The current growth-dependent economic system is not only broken must be completely replaced with a new paradigm.
The book gives a glimpse of a potential future economy going so well that many have a great deal of leisure time and the arts and sciences flourish. The children so well nurtured and the adolescents so hopeful that the state no longer has so much need for huge mental health budgets. Environmental groups, so used to fighting the system, find they can ease up, as the soil and water are being restored because the tax system is helping not hindering.
Based on the discussions of the New Economics Party of 2011-2015 to develop policy, the author argues that neither monetary reform nor tax reform are possible at central government level as the banks are too powerful these days. A change from an intrusive welfare system to a basic income should come from sharing the rents from land, natural resources and natural monopolies like airports, ports, railways.
To design an economic system to serve the planet in a post fossil fuel age requires new thinking on money design, land tenure and governance. Examples from history are used as evidence of stable and prosperous societies using these principles.
This leads to the conclusion that the most localised government should assume powers of money creation, land purchase and rule-making about taxes for trades in the new currency.
The book is available from the Living Economies website shop.livingeconomies.nz/
It is also available in kindle at http://amzn.to/2wTmdWu