Changing the way money is created to serve society

More and more people around the globe realize that many of the social, ecological and economic problems we’re facing today are connected to money and in particular to money creation. The International Movement for Monetary Reform is a coalition of national not-for-profit campaign and research organisations aiming to change the way money is created.

An important first step in this process is to understand the current money system. Most of us learn that only the government can create money. This is not true. Nowadays in most developed countries the vast majority (around 95%) of money is created by private commercial banks when they give someone a loan through a simple accounting procedure. The money these private banks create isn’t the paper money you keep in your wallet. It’s the electronic money that flashes up when you check your balance at an ATM. It’s just numbers in a computer system. Since almost all money is currently based on debt and has to be borrowed from private banks, to get more money into the economy, we have to increase the amount of debt. Money creation is debt creation.

The International Movement for Monetary Reform believes that taking the power to create money away from private banks could give us a more stable, social and sustainable economy. Our proposals explain how we can fix the design flaw at the heart of the financial system. We propose returning the power to create money to the state and allowing the quantity and direction of new debt-free money to be determined democratically. Today the creation and allocation of money into the economy is completely undemocratic, as commercial banks determine the direction and amount of new money in the economy. Rather than leaving these decisions in the hands of the private banks it should be in the hands of a body with transparency, oversight and accountability. We invite you to join our movement to democratise money and banking so that it works for society and not against it.

Martijn Jeroen van der Linden,  member of board Foundation Ons Geld (part of the Movement for International Reform). Last month I wrote this article for ANPED’s newsletter The Switch.