Question: When can you sign-up and start trading and sharing?
Answer: New members can start now! If you want to know more about becoming a member and meet some members, join us for our monthly potluck (to be announced, but very soon!). Email kisses@activatekauai.org for our annoucenments mailing list.
Question: If not money, then what?
Answer: Life Dollars is the unit of exchange for this alternative local currency we are proposing.
What's the difference between money and Life Dollars? Here's our short answer, more to come!
Money |
Life Dollars |
- Money makes us competitors.
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* Life Dollars nurture cooperation. |
- Money creates hierarchies and economic classes.
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* Life Dollars destroy hierarchies and foster egalitarian relationships. |
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* Life Dollars have a human face and build personal connections. |
- Money does not necessarily reflect real value or contributions to community.
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* Life Dollars always reflect real value and contributions to community. |
- Money is artificially scarce.
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* Life Dollars are infinitely abundant. |
- Money alienates us from true community.
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* Life Dollars create true, sustainable community. |
- Money creates dependence.
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* Life Dollars create healthy interdependence. |
- Money scatters resources.
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* Life Dollars foster local exchange of resources. |
- Money concentrates power in the hands of a few individuals and corporations.
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* Life Dollars produce an equitable distribution of power. |
- Money undermines democracy.
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* Life Dollars empower people and strengthen democracy. |
- Money dictates or replaces true culture.
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* Life Dollars are an expression of culture, or our deepest commonly held values. |
- Money destroys autonomy and independence
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* Life Dollars build autonomy and independence |
Here's a few great questions about changing our relationship with money, rebuilding our local communities and reclaiming the right to manage our own economic power -- helpful answers from an interview with author and global activist Lynne Twist --
Q. How can understanding our relationship with money change our lives?
LYNNE TWIST: When we are engrossed in the money game we often grow selfish, greedy, petty,
fearful, or controlling. We get caught up in our fears of not having enough and become disconnected from our soul in order to “get what’s ours” or constantly “get more.” When we let go of the unquestioned chase for more, and ground ourselves in appreciation of what we have, we discover the wealth of our own sufficiency. We experience the prosperity of “enough” and we find a kind of peace and freedom with money and with ourselves. When we express that by directing our money – no matter what the amount – toward things we believe in, we can discover and experience that generous, courageous and committed place in ourselves.
Q. How does one begin to practice sufficiency?
LYNNE TWIST: Popular culture promotes owning, holding, collecting and accumulating. We become burdened by our excess; it clutters our thinking and our lives as we become attached to our possessions and identify who we are by what we have. In the practice of sufficiency, we experience wealth in the action of sharing, giving, allocating, distributing and nourishing the projects, people and purpose that we believe in and care about with the resources that flow to us and through us. Accumulation in moderation – saving money and buying things we need – is part of responsible approach to personal finances. But when “holdings” hold us back from using money in meaningful ways, then money becomes an end in itself and an obstacle to well being. Money is only useful when it is moving and flowing, contributed and shared, directed and invested in that which is life affirming. One of my favorite sayings about this comes from Haiti: “If you get a piece of cake and eat the whole thing you will feel empty. If you get a piece of cake and share half of it, you will feel both full and fulfilled.” The happiest people I know are those who express themselves through channeling their resources to their highest commitments.
Lynne Twist: A veteran global activist and fundraiser living in San Francisco, she is one of the founding executives of The Hunger Project, vice-chair of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and trustee of Fetzer Institute, is also the co-founder with her husband of The Pachamama Alliance. The Alliance is dedicated to preserving the Earth's tropical rainforests and its indigenous cultures, and to the creation of a new global vision of sustainability for us all.
Please visit www.soulofmoney.org.
