Hi Occupy Houston,

I am a newcomer to the movement, but I´d like to express my solidarity with its causes. Some inspiring words this evening reminded me of a lecture I attended in 2008, given by Berkeley professor Bernard Lietaer, an expert on monetary systems, one of the Euro´s architects and a proponent of implementing parallel currencies – and it is to his ideas I´d like to dedicate this post.

He points out the systemic weakness inherent in our current "monoculture" monetary systems, which makes them extremely unstable, and prone to frequent bubbles and bursts, of which the recent two crises are but the most spectacular in decades. To find a solution to this, he draws comparisons to other complex systems – from electric circuits to ecosystems. Ecosystems, for example, are far more resilient to collapse than monetary systems because of their diversity. An organism higher up in the food chain typically has several sources of energy/prey, should one of them fail. The single currency monetary system however, has no alternatives, should it fail. A system´s effectiveness rests on an optimum balance between efficiency and resilience. The current system sits entirely on the efficiency side of the scale.

I am certainly no economist by training, but I´d like to introduce this idea to the debate! I include a link below, where Dr. Lietaer explains far better than I can, his proposals, and examples of parallel currencies which are already in operation. (Even Brooklyn has one!)

I think the occupy movement should set up a similar parallel currency cooperative ASAP!

Cheers,

Amanda