A commenter in the Global Mind Shift discussion said:

I feel that I disagree with you to the extent that you try and incorporate the conventional monetary economy into a vision of the future. I feel that it is too destructive, on the planet and on people. It dehumanizes trade, making it anonymous, removing soul or responsibility to another person - as something becomes more anonymous it becomes more dangerous."

and my initial response was:

Yes, I understand the sentiment - but focusing on what is bad about the way money works only increases the resistance to change from the majority in the world who see only the objects of their desire and believe that money is the only way to obtain what they desire.

but after thinking about that I wrote:

I have been thinking about my last response - and find that I have adjusted it in the way that I often do because I know that my correspondent does not know the whole story . Since you do know the whole story - I should have responded in its terms:

All that we know is a set of bridges over which we exchange gifts. It does no good to try to decide what bridges are good and what bridges are bad - each bridge exists because of the choice of the parties to the exchange and every one gets to make their own choices. So, there is no good or bad - only choices and consequences.

One of the benefits of the financial system has to do with the availability of all those source materials - allowing us many more options in how we choose to share our gift. Without the existence of financial resources we would be severely restricted in the type of living resources we could create for our communities.

It is not necessary to end the financial system to build better communities. Each of us maintains lots of bridges to businesses - as owners, employees and customers - to our religious organizations - to our countries - to our clubs and social organizations - it will be no big deal to extend a few more bridges to our neighbors. Perhaps some of the old bridges will fall away - but remember, there is more in the world with each new bridge we create and there is less in the world with each bridge that is lost. See Systems to Complement the Market .