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  • From: Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] The Earth Bank
  • Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:19:47 -0500

Andrew, have you looked at the Mondragon cooperative movement and its associated bank?

While it's not clear to me exactly what you have in mind, I suggest that

one ought not to be too ambitious about any particular instance of the kind of organization you are are thinking of, and

and it's more important that the pattern should be robust and adaptable, and capable of being reproduced many times,

and that the basic information about how to make it work should be easily understandable and widespread.

I wouldn't worry too much about sucking money from the conventional financial sector; more about enabling people to keep their own money doing what they want it to do; enabling healthy enterprises to grow and starving the unhealthy.

Keep biological evolution in mind.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


Andrew McSwain wrote:
Thank you very much Wesley and Robyn. Just the little effort you guys put in
to share this information has already helped me tremendously in
understanding the field that stands before me. I'll check out the Credit
Union and hunt down copies of that Journal.

I am a business and investment specialist, but I started my foray into the
permaculture scene and "alternative perspectives" long before i got heavily
involved with the finance world.

Basically what I am creating is a mechanism that functions like a siphon- a
Robin Hood Bank- to suck money from the financial sector (financial capital;
i.e. money) through a variety of convoluted investment schemes then and
transform it into social and ecological capital, that is, forms that can
benefit society and the earth. Hopefully in the process it will also provide
a solution to some of our culture's pathologies/neurosis and improve the
quality of our spiritual life.

Projects like
•Credit Unions that fund renewable energy installations for schools,
•Insurance and Retirement for Change-Agents,
•and funding permaculture initiatives in the Brazillian Forests (in
conjunction with the Landless Movement) as a solution for deforestation
(among the fifty million other issues that permaculture addresses)

I've become almost positive that the structure of this enterprise will have
more than one legal title. I've been looking at a number of different
models, and i think the one it comes closest to it is a Japanese Keiretsu: A
central holding company that controls a variety of inter-dependent
organizations. I understand how it would function, but there are some doubts
about how to actually go about putting it into practice effectively.

Having a record of what Robyn called a "comprehensive written record" would
be invaluable for my efforts.




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