Citizen Dialogues About Monetary Transformation
* (French) book: Money, Money, Money: Dialogues entre citoyens, artistes et chercheurs. Ed. by Emmannuelle Grangier. Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2025.
URL = https://www.puv-editions.fr/ouvrage/money-money-money/
Participating authors, including Michel Bauwens: Benoit Peter, Bolko Adrien, Derudder Philippe, Fouché Louis, Grangier Emmanuelle, Kotobi Henri, Lajnef Anice, Maffesoli Michel, Métais Philippe, Noizat Pierre, Selim Monique, Slim Assen, Théret Bruno, Tichit Ariane
Description
"This book is born of a challenge: to reclaim Money—a system that, at its root, shapes and imposes all forms of human relationships, submission, domination, emancipation, and sharing in our societies.
Many of us sense that only a radical transformation of our modes of exchange, our systems of value, and ultimately our relationship to otherness could truly save humanity and all living ecosystems.
To respond to this challenge, a series of performance-debates have been organized since 2021 in various public spaces under the name “Take a Seat!” The goal: to bring citizens, artists, and researchers into dialogue around the question of money—so as to invent new ways of constituting money as a common, and to make it once again a question of democracy."
Contents
Commerce des biens, commerce des idées, commerce amoureux. Michel Maffesoli
Développer l’activité citoyenne en réduisant le temps de travail et en instituant un impôt et une monnaie en temps. Bruno Théret
En la terre promise coulent le lait et le miel, en rivières abondantes. Louis Fouché
Gouvernance de la donnée impossédée. Philippe Métais
La monnaie libre, de la démocratie dans la création monétaire. Adrien Bolko
L’antidote au chaos. Anice Lajnef
L’argent des génies et ses fluctuations au Laos. Monique Selim
Le bien commun a besoin de sa monnaie. Philippe Derudder
Le bitcoin : une monnaie en devenir. Assen Slim
Le réveil des mondes. Peter Benoît
Monnaie et énergie : promesses ou preuves ? Pierre Noizat
Les communs comme mécanisme de régénération planétaire. Michel Bauwens et Jose Ramos. English version: Placing the Commons in a Temporal Framework.
Vers des cryptomonnaies locales ? Ariane Tichit
Vers une permaculture monétaire. Henri Kotobi
Excerpt
From the Introduction, by Emmanuelle Grangier & Henri Kotobi:
"We are in early 2019. The Yellow Vests movement is in full swing, and more than two-thirds of the population supports it. Among these "defiant Gauls," the first to point to debt as a means of subjugating populations are the so-called constituent Yellow Vests. Where does debt come from? Very quickly, the question shifts to its origins, then to the origin of money itself, and finally to how money is created. Then comes the diagnosis. And it is unequivocal: the creation of money has been hijacked by the private banking cartel. A formidable weapon fallen into invisible hands—hands devoid of humanity... We pay tribute to the constituent Yellow Vests for bringing this truth to light. For without control over money creation, there is no sovereignty. No "embodiment of public power," no individual or collective freedom, no creativity, no future beyond submission.
From that point, everything becomes clear: money is the ultimate weapon of the powerful, and debt is the lever used to subjugate us. No bloodshed—or very little. No new revolution—or only a very quiet one. In its place? Step by step: pressure, depressions, dismantling of public services, outsourcing, perverse laws, the quiet overhaul of our institutions... With ever more control, threats, false hopes, suicides, sanctions—and everyone playing along in unison!
Among the Yellow Vest initiatives of that time, one small text was published on social media in the form of ten questions and answers about money. For what purpose? To pass on to everyone the vital minimum of knowledge on this topic. Because the vast majority of people do not know how money is created, by whom, or—worse still—what money really is. Yet, one cannot understand today’s world without first grasping these few essential keys.
Prenez Place! ("Take Your Place!") is another initiative born from the outpouring of indignation and thought sparked by the Yellow Vests. A civic and artistic initiative. And what an initiative it is! To place money at the heart of public debate. To bring that debate to public squares. To publicly illuminate the close ties between money and democracy. To restore money to its rightful place as part of the commons.
Naturally, the time of encounters came next. A first year of online debates on YouTube—due to Covid—followed by live performance-debates in public spaces, leading to this book, which recounts the early steps of the adventure. A true testimony to the bubbling of ideas, initiatives, and hopes experienced by the adventurers of Prenez Place!
Along the way, the idea took root to begin this book with that initial initiative: the “ten questions/answers.” As a citizen-led reclamation of the monetary issue, it faithfully reflects one of the fundamental dimensions of Prenez Place! A minimal foundation of knowledge on money that, we hope, will guide readers on this beautiful journey—one whose story is only just beginning!
Encounters, complementarities, tensions, exchanges, friendships, collective intelligence, reflections, experiments... Don’t hesitate to take your place in the work, too—so that we can build together the world that is coming."
More information
- Article: Placing the Commons in a Temporal Framework: THE COMMONS AS A PLANETARY REGENERATION MECHANISM. By Michel Bauwens and Jose Ramos. In: Money, Money, Money: Dialogues entre citoyens, artistes et chercheurs. Ed. by Emmannuelle Grangier. Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2025.
URL = https://www.puv-editions.fr/ouvrage/money-money-money/