The issue
We think there could be a better, more just economic system than we have now, that doesn’t put banks and global companies before local businesses and local peoples’ jobs and quality of life. How?
What Transition Exeter is doing
In the Transition Exeter Economics Group, we’ve been educating ourselves about the current economy and how it could be different; we’re still doing this, but also want to discuss what we’re learning with more people, and help find projects which will move us towards a low carbon economy, and one which doesn’t have a built in self-destruct mechanism.
The Economics Group has three aims:
- to educate ourselves about what a sustainable economy would be like
- to pass on the information to other people
- to develop practical projects
We have regular meetings, which are open. To find out more, please get in touch.
Our Projects
New Prosperity Devon
About the Project New Prosperity Devon (NPD) is a social enterprise that was formed in 2019 through Transition Exeter’s economics working group. NPD is helping to generate a fairer and more sustainable local economy in Devon. It’s working to inspire, catalyse and amplify this new economy. It runs events and training, opportunities to share good practice, create ...Exeter Pound
About the Project The Exeter Pound project is now closed. The Exeter Pound (£E) was a form of local complementary currency, or community currency launched in Exeter, UK on 1 September 2015. Its objective was to ensure more money was spent with local and independent businesses. It was one of the many alternatives in the UK to the official sterling currency. It was discontinued on ...
More about the issues
Current economic theory and practice accepts the economic growth paradigm (as if there were no limits to natural resources). It has fuelled climate change and brought some marine and land ecosystems to collapse, with many more threatened. The way money is created, mainly by being lent into being by the banks as debt, is a driving force in this damage. Households and businesses struggle to pay interest on their debt, having to increase their material throughput to do so without regard to human happiness or ecological costs. Our money systems are not currently democratically controlled or run to benefit the community (see Money as Debt below). How do we address this? Reform of the financial system is needed. Money systems can be used to help create thriving local economies, reducing leakage through large businesses to national and international profit accounts and the fossil-fuelled long distance transport used to supply our needs and wants today.
Our present economy is like an aeroplane. If it doesn’t move forwards fast it falls out of the sky. We need an economy that moves like a helicopter. The only trouble is, that we have to transform the aeroplane into the helicopter in mid-flight!
Watch “Money as Debt” by Paul Grignon
Part I
Part II
Part III