What we’re doing fits within the framework of “whole systems development.” It is made possible by the new levels of human coordination and communication in the digital age — what some people have called the emergence of “the global brain” — and by the possibility of pragmatic and sustainable solutions to human problems.
We are, in our own way, an expression of the most significant event so far in the course of human history, where we graduate to a new level of integrity, responsibility, and interrelationship with ourselves, with other species, and with the universe as a whole. If we’re aware of it, if it’s happening here, it’s likely also happening in many other places and contexts on the Earth. But it’s significant either way: whether we’re leading or joining the parade does not matter as much as the fact of our participation and our stand.
We have a number of ideas that we want to contribute to society, and we want that contribution to be recognized and rewarded in a way that’s proportionate to the value that’s created, so we’ve come up with the idea of a Contribution Economy. This economy would be fueled by an alternative global currency, Commons Credits (CC), awarded according to rules established and continuously updated by a collaborative of the best minds of our era.
It’s notable that after several years of watching the U.S. Fed do it, the European Central Bank is now proposing to embark on a significant amount of “quantitative easing,” or injecting money into the economy through the banking system. But as we’re also able to see in the U.S., QE simply isn’t enough. We need access to a currency that serves the common interest, that rewards people for doing what they know is right, and that recognizes the provision of those things that the Earth needs to thrive and to flourish.
CRCS is a vehicle for helping to create, in Buckminster Fuller’s phrase, “a world that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out.” Or in Charles Eisenstein’s: creating “that more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible.” Or in the words of the Pachamama Alliance, “an environmentally sustainable, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling human presence on the Earth.” This has only become possible in our age. And it has become necessary in our age, because otherwise we are on a clear course toward ecological collapse, runaway climate change, and massive species extinction. We need to chart a different course, and let people know that it is indeed possible.
