[p2p-research] Fwd: Back to California and Arizona

Mon Jun 1 07:25:51 CEST 2009

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas Greco -- thg <thg at mindspring.com>
Date: Sun, May 31, 2009 at 9:05 AM
Subject: Back to California and Arizona
To: Thomas Greco -- thg <thg at mindspring.com>

 *Back to California and Arizona*

* *

Saturday, May 30, 2009

It seems like ages since I sent out my last missive. Checking my files, I
see that it was on April 21, the day I flew from New Zealand to Australia.
It’s taken a while for me to get up the motivation to complete this next
installment that I started writing weeks ago. As usual, there’s been a lot
going on, and I must confess to a bit of travel weariness. Despite a six
week long sinus infection that lingered through the end of my tour, a lot
was accomplished, but it left me more depleted than I first realized. I
think I need to stay put for a while.

I’ll start with a few highlights. Yes, I’m back in the USA, having flown
from Adelaide to Melbourne to Auckland to San Francisco all in the same
elongated day (April 27). I was warmly welcomed by the Lub family who took
me into their home where I was able to rest up. After a couple weeks in
California I drove my Dodge Caravan to Tucson where I intend to base myself
for the next few months. I’ll fill in a few details below—but first a word
from our sponsor (that would be me).

After more than a year of intensive labor I finally got to hold my new book
in my hands. It arrived in the mail at my California address just a few days
after my return to the U.S. What a thrill it was to look at it, to feel the
weight of it in my hands, and to riffle its pages. Even the cover is
pleasing to the eye. The more I look at it the better I like it; its imagery
portrays the proper hopeful message of the book.

My choice of title for this book is intentionally provocative, but not at
all based on wishful thinking. It expresses what is actually happening NOW.
The recent emergence of commercial “barter” exchanges, mutual credit
clearing associations, private voucher systems and community currencies
represent the early stages of a process of power devolution that will
inevitably lead to the end of POLITICAL money. But *the end of money* refers
NOT ONLY to the end of *political* money, but also to the evolutionary
process by which the essential nature of money has changed over the past two
or three centuries—from commodity money, to symbolic (redeemable paper)
money, to credit money. Of course, the *reciprocal exchange* process that
money is intended to facilitate will continue, but in a different way from
before, a way that does not require the use of conventional money or banks.
The ultimate stage in the evolution of money and the exchange process that
is now emerging is the *direct credit clearing* amongst buyers and sellers,
i.e., the offset of their purchases against their sales. The widespread
application of this process does indeed mean, in a very real sense, the end
of money.

The more than a dozen prepublication reviews of the book have been uniformly
positive and we’ve gotten important endorsements from a number of people who
are both knowledgeable and well-known. You can see all of their comments at
the publisher’s website under “Praise” at
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_end_of_money_and_the_future_of_civilization:paperback/praise/,
as well as on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603580786/ref=s9_simx_gw_s0_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=16EJTTMDGNH8HG8R3CKS&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846
.

The important thing now is to get large numbers of people to read the book.
I truly believe that it provides information that is essential for people to
have as we negotiate what futurist Robert Theobald called, “the rapids of
change.” You can help by placing orders through conventional channels,
especially your local independent bookstore. If they get enough orders, they
will stock it* *and* *hopefully* display it*. It is also important for
readers to rate the book and post their reviews on Amazon.com.

*Australia*

My Australia visit during April was tacked on to the end of my New Zealand
tour. While only a brief six days, it was both interesting and productive. I
was able to renew and deepen relationships with a long-time correspondents,
John Zube and Shann Turnbull, to initiate some new working relationships,
and to present my ideas to an attentive audience in Adelaide, the latter
resulting in several new members for the host organization, Economic Reform
Australia (ERA).

To all of my Kiwi and Aussie friends, both old and new, I want you to know
that it was a great pleasure for me to spend time and to share ideas with
you. I appreciate having had the opportunity to enjoy your warm hospitality
and experience the beauty and culture of your great countries. I hope that
my visits may have helped in moving your projects forward.

*Reentry*

Living abroad for significant amounts of time, one gets and a chance to see
a broader range of lifestyles, and a different perspective on the world.
Returning to the United States can be a bit of a shock. The most striking
thing about Asian cities, for example, is their liveliness. The people are
hard-working and enterprising, and the streets are filled with hawkers, and
vendors of all sorts. Besides the food vendors who cook up amazingly
delicious food right out on the street from propane-fueled carts, there are
various kinds of craftspeople, too. It is common to see cobblers and sewers
working right out on the sidewalk, fixing shoes or sewing up bags for
passers-by. American cities by comparison are orderly and quiet, segmented
into districts by function—commercial, residential, and industrial, that may
be active only at particular times of day or night. In Asia, except for
heavy industry, all of these happen together in the same spaces or in close
proximity. I’m not saying that one way is necessarily better than the other.
Both have their advantages, as well as disadvantages.

Tucson is a medium-sized city that has many cultural advantages. It is home
to a major university and a sizeable population of well educated citizens,
many of whom have relocated or retired from colder climes. A few nights ago
I went to the Museum of Art to attended a screening of the documentary film,
*Manufactured Landscapes.* The film is a stunning portrayal of places and
scenes that have been impacted by human activity. Filmed in China, it show
factories, mines, quarries, scrap yards, buildings and dams. There is a
certain beauty in the images as abstractions of color and form, but that’s
only because the medium separates us from the full experience of what we
see—the odors, the tastes, the tactile sensations, the discomforts, and the
long-term personal impact on health and sanity.

One of the most astounding things about it is the massive scale of the
things that are shown. The Three Gorges Dam, for example, which is shown in
various stages of completion, is half again as large as any other dam in the
world. Over a million people had to be relocated to make way for the
resulting reservoir. Entire cities were not only evacuated but demolished,
mostly by hand, by the residents themselves, who were hired to take down the
buildings to prevent their becoming navigation hazards. The film opens with
a slow pan across a factory floor that extends for two thirds of a mile,
filled with row upon row of work benches and machines staffed by thousands
of ant-like workers engaged in mostly repetitive tasks. But this film is no
polemic; it merely shows what is. Much of it is junk. Where does your
discarded computer or electronic gadget end up. Chances are 50-50 that it
ends up in China along with similar items imported from all over the
industrialized world to be disassembled, smashed, cut up, and sorted
bit-by-bit by legions of workers who earn pennies per day to do it.

One of the most moving scenes showed teenaged kids inside the hulks of
decommissioned oil tankers, scooping out tar and sludge so that the steel
could be cut up and salvaged. These are things that we don’t normally see
that reveal the hidden costs of out own lifestyles. Something to think
about….

#     #     #

-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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