Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

Thomas Henry Greco, Jr. (born October 9, 1936) is a community economist, who blogs, writes, and speaks on the subject of free market alternative currency and monetary systems.

Life and work

Greco graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Villanova University, acquired a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Rochester and did additional course work pursuant to a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at Syracuse University. For fourteen years he taught economics, finance, statistics, entrepreneurship, and forecasting as a faculty member in the college of business at Rochester Institute of Technology.

In 1979 Thomas Greco became a private consultant and community activist, working with local Rochester, New York peace and justice groups. From 1981 to 1990 he served as trustee and then president of the School of Living which promotes "decentralized, ecologically-sound, self-governed and humane communities." A frequent contributor to the decentralist publication Fourth World Review, Greco organized of the Fourth World Assembly and New Economics Symposium held in San Francisco in 1987.

Greco writes and consults on monetary exchange alternatives, including private credit clearing systems, complementary currencies and local currencies.

After moving to Arizona, Greco assisted in the development of LETSonora (a Local Exchange Trading System) and helped organize Tucson Traders, both now defunct. He has advised groups like Current Innovations, and Alliance for Human Empowerment. He has traveled widely promoting and assisting currency projects in the United States, Mexico and South America, Europe, India, Indonesia, China and New Zealand.

Greco was the keynote speaker at the 1998 conference on "Sustainability: From Vision to Practice", held at Sirius Community and was a forum leader for the 2001 Radical Consultation Forum on Globalization, Money & Trade held in Swindon, England. In 2006, he participated in a discussion at the conference on Knowledge, Business and Consciousness held at the international community of Auroville, India; the keynote speaker at the annual convention of the International Reciprocal Trade Association (IRTA), the trade association for the commercial "barter" industry; and a speaker at the E.F. Schumacher Society "Money in Local Living Economies" forum in Burlington, Vermont. In 2007, Greco was the featured speaker at forums in Beijing and Hang Zhou, China and one of the main speakers at The International Conference On the Dinar Economy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Greco has authored four books on monetary theory and how monetary alternatives can empower communities. He has published articles in many publications, including the Whole Earth Review, World Business Academy Perspectives, Earth Island Journal, Yes! Magazine, Green Revolution, and The Permaculture Activist.

Approach to Alternative Currencies

Jon Rutter, a journalist, described Greco's goal as "junking the dominant monetary system". He notes Greco's opinion that a centralized banking and investment system concentrates wealth, causing misery for average families. Rather than reform, Greco advocates "an entirely new system of money and exchange" which "democratizes credit and emphasizes local control."

Greco says:

The mission of this site is to demystify money by presenting the best leading-edge ideas on monetary and non-monetary exchange. It is a resource devoted to the advancement of economic democracy, self-determination, and global harmony.

He holds that:

The primary lever of power in today's world is the overly centralized, monopolistic control over money, banking, and finance. Money constitutes the greatest and most acute current problem, while being at once the structural domain that is most ready for a transformational shift. It is clear that the best and most promising approaches to liberating economic exchange are in the realm of private, voluntary, free-market initiatives ...

In a review of Greco’s Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, Brian Leslie writes:

Greco is more concerned with the details of current and potential alternative currencies, devoting much of his book to descriptions of current examples and a selection of past ones, their strengths and weaknesses, and theoretical possibilities and recommendations for future systems, several of which are his own proposals. He notes that alternative currencies start and are most successful at times (and in places) when the failings of official money are having the greatest impact, and mostly discontinue when conditions improve.

Brian Martin writes in his review of Greco's New Money for Healthy Communities that the book's purpose is to describe guidelines for establishing a local currency. He concludes that even if one does not agree with all of Greco views, the book "is a good place to begin thinking through this important issue."

Greco’s 2009 book The End of Money and the Future of Civilization was reviewed in The Ecologist magazine. The reviewer described Greco's analysis of the alleged problem and his alternatives which range from "a complete web-based trading system to creating local, community- based exchange systems which can be linked to regional, national and international networks." He noted "The book leaves you thinking that given the political will and empowerment of grassroots and community -based systems, the environment and civilisation as we know it is not doomed after all."

Bibliography

• The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, Chelsea Green (June 4, 2009). Also at Books.Google ISBN 1-60358-078-6
• Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, PDF, Chelsea Green (November 1, 2001). ISBN 1-890132-37-3
• New Money for Healthy Communities, self-published, 1994.
• Money and Debt: A Solution to the Global Crisis, self-published, 1990.
• Chapter 7, "New Mechanisms for Monetary Exchange," in Willis W. Harman, Maya Porter, The New Business of Business: Sharing Responsibility for a Positive Global Future, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1997, ISBN 1-57675-018-3

See also

• Credit money
• Commodity money
• Digital cash
• Electronic money
• Economic Democracy
• Private bank
• Private currency

External links

• Beyond Money, Thomas H. Greco, Jr.’s alternative currency blog.
• Thomas H. Greco, Jr., Improving Local Currencies, or How To Make a Good Thing Better at Global Development Research Center.