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The LETSystem is now clearly demonstrated, but it has a much wider application than has been achieved so far.
Further organisation is now needed.
The following is an extract from the
LETSystem Design Manual v2
by Michael Linton & Angus Soutar
So now what? So now the next level.
Given that the appeal, and indeed the need, is universal, and that the system is stable within any reasonable limits, there is a clear opportunity and a responsibility.
If the social and ecological components of our planetary process were to hold together long enough, LETSystems in various forms would eventually become commonplace, without much significant effort from any of us. Just because the process is powerfully contagious, and largely irresistible.
However there is little hope that the social and ecological context can hold together that long. The very pattern of conventional money trading is destroying our world, and far faster than all the efforts of all those dedicated to arresting or modifying the process.
LETSystems must become mainstream very soon if we are to have any hope of leaving to future generations a world in which they can even survive, much less thrive.
So what do we have to do? Basically, we have to get our acts together; we have to start behaving as though this were a matter of life or death, which it very probably is. That doesn't so much mean working harder - some of us are already putting everything we have into this. It does mean that we have to work smarter - and that more of us have to get to work.
We have to start applying the lessons of the LETSystem to our work on the LETSystem. And the most important lesson is simply this - that organisation matters. LETSystems don't depend primarily on how people are, as individual actors; they depend on how people connect and interact.
It will not serve us to continue to suppose that, and act as though, the manner in which we manage our LETSystems is merely a matter of local style and preference. Clearly, some arrangements are effective, some are not - and some are entirely detrimental. It is proof of the extraordinary resilience of the LETSystem concept that it survives almost all of our often misguided efforts on its behalf. To rephrase an old line - the operation was a failure, but the patient lives.
Let's get organised so that our development programs are aimed at realistic ends.
Yet clearly the efforts that people apply in one locality to establish their LETSystems will directly affect growth and development in those of their neighbours. Thus there is a clear need to organise so that there is some degree of group co-ordination of efforts throughout the region; and equally that there is a clearly defined process whereby those who do the work share equitably in the financial rewards that will emerge in time.
A further consideration is the need to form organisations of an appropriate local scale, large enough to be effective and well funded, and small enough to avoid becoming centralised and disconnected from their source - the local community.
The LETSystem design is complete it just needs implementing.
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