Our call for signature

May 2020

The beginning of the 21st century is characterized by a succession of threatening events for humanity. We are alarmed by the economic and financial crisis, devastated by several health crisis of which the present COVID-19 pandemic is the culminating point, stricken by repeat extreme meteorological events, all forerunners of climate change. We are desperate by the poor living conditions of millions of human beings and horrified by the extermination of Life on earth.

And yet, all of this can be avoided, as it is the consequence of our adherence to human conventions and a designed socio-economic model.

Our personal analyses, made by the members of the group in their respective fields of expertise (economy, sociology, history, engineering, etc) all come to the same conclusion : it’s no longer acceptable to destroy Life on earth, nor it is acceptable to abuse other human beings and deplete natural resources. We must abandon extractivism, growthism and rampant consumerism. We must turn away from the goal of infinite asset building. In order to escape this deadly model, it is imperative to rethink our monetary policy based on ever growing debt.

There are two main reasons for this : first, this model reduces wealth exclusively to what generates a financial benefit, regardless of collateral damage such as destroyed social connections and ecosystems; and second, it makes the economy dependent on infinite growth. We recognize that the infinite growth model brought material comfort and prosperity to an unprecedented degree, but on the flip side, it leads our society straight to the collapse of Life and generates intolerable social injustice. Therefore, we urgently appeal for a structural change of our monetary and financial system.

This key social institution organizes our relationships to the world, our trade, our solidarities, our power relations; it sculptures our personal and collective psychology. We need a financial system that promotes the living world, preserves our ecosystems and our societies, regenerate what has been damaged and bring us resilience for the future. Based on financial profitability, none of the above mentioned goals can be achieved with the present financial system. Thus, we propose to establish an innovative and complementary money system, by creating financial debt-free money, yet connected to societal objectives.

This innovation shall enable us to finance the regeneration of the planet ecosystems, staying within Nature’s boundaries while providing all the basic commodities : healthy food, general well-being, good health, a rewarding activity, and access to culture and knowledge.

Many institutional or citizen proposals (2) exist to this end.  We carry some of them and call, through deliberative citizen assemblies, randomly selected by lottery, to open a democratic debate on this question: « What monetary model do we want? »

1. Common goods: air, water, health, food, culture, education, public services,…

2. Social currencies, perpetual public debts, emission linked to CO2 quotas, unconditional emission, etc

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The Econologists

Belgium:

• André Peters: sociologist of money systems, author, central bank manager
• Jean-Luc Roux: sociologist of transition, author and scriptwriter, former POLITICAL director of Greenpeace International

Canada :

• Cédric Michaud: deep adaptation consultant
• Philippe Derudder: Author, former enterprise director, researcher in the fields of alternative economics and finances
• Michele Choquet:

France :

• Jean-Christophe Duval: Author in the fields of economic and social science and ecology
• Fabien Fert: Engineer in the field of software design, author, consultant and coach, designer/creator of the project “World Eco Currency”
• Ariane Tichit: Teacher, PhD Economist
• Bénédicte Fumey: Public Speaker, PhD in society mutations and Mankind civilisation resilience, passionated by sustainable development
• Sylvie Pavès: Ex-HeadQuarter into financial holding, work also on universal incomes, interrested in financial economy.

Switzerland:

• Yan Eperon: graduate at the “Ecole polytechnique », designer of innovating and humanistic projects
• Stéphanie B. Overbeck: Architect designer, co-fonder of  zo2studios, a green creative though «going further more than the conventional architecturals practices». Co-fonder of GameChangers.world, a NGO who develop games to teach children and adult new paradigms.