1. Objectives of the book

2. How does Decontaminate the Economy compare with other books in the same field?

3. Key points

4. What readership does the book address?

5. The author, in a few words

6. Table of Contents

7. Back cover text

1. Objectives of the book

On the basis of what the real economy is at its foundations, Michel Laloux sought how money should be so that the real economy is healthy, that is to say, at the service of humanity.

The question that had to be solved is the following: are speculation and the Unreal Economy^[1] that arises out of it a necessary evil, or can we find a monetary system that would work without them? This book is a contribution to the resolution of this question. What it proposes is revolutionary compared to the usual conception of money.

The present volume thus addresses one of the issues most vital to the economy and social life.

In the second volume, Michel Laloux will address the other fundamentals for a healthy economy: capital, labour and real estate, leading to the key issue, that of the prices of goods and services. It will then be obvious that  if we arrange for money, capital, labour and real estate to no more be delivered into speculation, and therefore no longer behave as if they were commodities, then the price of real economy products will be subject to a different dynamic than that of supply and demand. This new dynamic can result from consultations between producers, distributors and consumers. It will be the basis for a whole new approach to marketing.

All the proposals that will be made in the two volumes constitute what Michel Laloux called Economics with ​​Added Human Values, that is to say, an economy in which only value created by human activity is brought into play. In other words, what is called real economy.

2. How does Decontaminate the Economy compare with other books in the same field?

Many books describe the dysfunctions of the economy, with particular regard to money and the financial system. Very few offer solutions other than a face-lift of the legacy of the Bretton Woods system. Rare are those which are based on a global vision of the economy, and which go back to the root causes of the problems.

3. Key points

• Consumption Money, and Consumption Money Banks to manage its circulation.

• Financing Money, and Financing Institutes which manage its creation and destruction.

• Contribution Money, and Contribution Money Funds to collect the surplus of the merchant economy that they receive from the citizens.

• The separation between the activities of deposit and financing banks demanded by politicians, but which is modelled under an entirely new form that allows the real economy not to have recourse any more to the money accumulated by investors.

• The operation of Financing Institutes is designed so that the international transfer of financial capital is unnecessary.The financing of firms is done inside each country by these institutes. This principle enables an entirely new approach to currency exchange rates and therefore to the International Monetary System (see below).

• As for Contribution Money, it allows citizens to practice a form of conscious donation, instead of the mechanical and impersonal process of conventional taxation.

• This triple monetary circulation is a new form of public service, not centralised nor State-controlled, but a public service of civil society. This status allows the disappearance of the notion of interest, whose devastating effect can be seen today.

• This triple monetary circulation is applicable internationally and leads to a new approach regarding exchange rates and the balance of payments. At a time when there is talk about social taxes, environmental taxes and social VAT, Michel Laloux offers an entirely different determination of the rates of exchange of currencies. This determination would integrate into economic dynamics that which is sought to be achieved by such taxation, which in reality are alien to the process of the real economy.

• The book therefore culminates in an International Monetary System for the Real Economy, presented in 70 articles.There again, it is a public service of civil society, which will be under the supervision of NGOs specialized in the field of money, environment and social issues.

4. What readership does the book address?

Written in simple language, the book is intended for all those economists or laymen, who have questions on the functioning or rather on the dysfunction(ing) of the current system, and who are seeking new answers.

5. The author, in a few words

Economist and philosopher of education, Michel Laloux carries out research on lighter and evolutive forms of organising society and institutions, so as to allow human initiative and creativity to constantly animate and renew them.

A graduate of l'Institut Supérieur du Commerce de Paris (the Higher Institute of Commerce in Paris), Michel Laloux worked in marketing before moving to the education of youth and the adult training, notably as a professor of economy. He quickly found himself faced with the mismatch between the needs of youth and the school system. It seemed to him that between the heavy machinery of State education on one side, and a private-liberal system on the other, there was the place for a public education service directly run by its actors; the teachers and parents. He therefore created the concept of the Civil Society School, which he developed in his first essay "L'éducation Dénationale" (Non-State education) (L'Atelier, 1977), and then in “Torrent de Jeunesse” (Torrent of Youth) (Les Trois Arches, 1992).

But the State school is itself the product of a centralized concept of democracy, which proves itself unfit to evolve at the same pace as the needs of the civil society. Top-down governance seem to Michel Laloux to be outdated and inadequate, so he designed lightweight and evolutive administration modes, which enable civil society to directly address the issues that are usually delegated to the Government (Executive) and to the National Assembly (Parliament). His essay La Démocratie Évolutive (Evolutive Democracy) (Yves Michel, 2007) proposes, in its first part, practical tools to metamorphose the unitary State and the representative democracy.

In the second part, it describes what would be necessary, at the economic level, for such a democracy to function.

His new essay, Dépolluer l'Économie (Decontaminate the Economy), goes much further by proposing new concepts and methods to implement them.

6. Table of Contents

1. The polluted economy

2. Sustainable revolution

3. Thinking the unthinkable

4. The debt crisis: a deficit of economic thought?

5. Money for the real economy

6. A new Bretton Woods?

7. The Real economy VS the Unreal economy

8. The creation of value

9. Ethics and Economics

10. Consumption Money

11. Monetary Demurrage

12. The Bank of Consumption Money

13. The Institute of Cash Money

14. The convertibility of Consumption Money

15. The interest-free loan

16. Interest rate policy and central banks

17. The central bank, an anachronism

18. The illusion of the money supply

19. “Future-orientated” money

20. Financing Institutes

21. The experience of the WIR

22. A third form of money: Contribution Money

23. Money as a public service

24. State Budget and Public Treasury

25. A new International Monetary System

26. Financing Money in the International Monetary System for the Real Economy

27. Contribution Money in the International Monetary System for the Real Economy

28. The principle features of an International Monetary System for the real economy

29. Let us not fight the wrong battle

30. Evolutive realisation

Notes

7. Back cover text

Decontaminate the economy 

A monetary revolution

Michel Laloux

There is an alternative to disaster capitalism and to the dictatorship of the financial markets. It requires a revolution in our concepts about money, share-capital, labour-remuneration and land-real estate. In this first volume by Michel Laloux, we discover a triple circulation of money - for everyday consumption, financing enterprises and the contribution to the non-merchant economy. This triple circulation of money is therefore at the service of the real economy and dispenses with the fictitious and with speculation. Three forms of monetary institutions are conceived as a new type of public service, run by civil society. These institutions will organise this threefold circulation, without recourse to investors nor to a central bank.

A new foreign currency exchange rate approach, based on the real economy, will resolve the issues of wage, social and environmental dumping. This new concept will provide the foundation for an International Monetary System for the Real Economy, whose necessary mechanisms and institutions we will discover.

For Michel Laloux, the real economy contains within itself that which makes it healthy and humane, from the moment when all forms of speculation are removed from it. Without moralising on solidarity and social justice, he makes us dive into economic phenomena, enlightening them from the inside, and deducing the operational laws of an Economy with Human Added Values.

A revolutionary book that reassures us that: “Another economy is possible!”

Economist and philosopher of education, Michel Laloux carries out research on lighter and evolutive forms of organising society and institutions, so as to allow human initiative and creativity to constantly animate and renew them. He is the author of: "L'éducation Dénationale" (Denationalising education) (L'Atelier, 1977); “Torrent de Jeunesse” (Torrent of Youth) (Les Trois Arches, 1992); and "La Démocratie Évolutive" (Evolutive Democracy) (Yves Michel, 2007).