Our best chance of planning for the future lies, in recognizing that the economy of the future will not be a ‘zero-sum’ game but a more dynamic, efficient and complex of new forms of transactions in an interconnecting matrix of material and energy flows modulated by newer ideas and knowledge and, in working with the Laws that have always sustained life and proved themselves over 4.5 billion years. Designing dynamic Bio-centric Economic/Financial Systems, with proper feedback culture, using computerization to arrive at the underlying asset valuations, is what we should be doing.

Today, we should also consider ‘Block-Chain’ technology that enables tokenization of assets, allowing for fractional ownership and immutability of entries, once a transaction is verified and added to a chain after due compliance, it cannot be altered or deleted. This significantly reduces manual errors and administrative tasks and creates a secure and transparent record that is resistant to tampering and fraud, thereby increases trust in the system. This efficiency could cut costs for Banks and Financial Institutions and also enable faster transaction settlements and also newer financial products.

However, to really work efficiently, it requires far greater network capacity and also resolution of the inherent trade-offs between De-centralization, Security and Scalability and finally for proper integration with existing legacy systems.

Till we can do so efficiently and reliably, perhaps we can use the value of a basket of essential goods, or of the currencies of our major trading partners properly valued, to have a workable alternative.

Whatever the standard backing the currencies, in fixed exchange rate schemes, when trade imbalances reach a limit, the onus is on the countries with a trade deficit to keep the system intact by cutting wages and prices. But countries with surpluses are not similarly, obliged to offset this by boosting their own spending. This defect means fixed exchange rate schemes have a bias towards deflation. Both deficit and surplus countries are equally responsible for making exchange rate systems work. J M. Keynes recognized this in the l 940’s and argued for a global clearing Bank that would tax or even confiscate the excess earnings of surplus countries.

A return to the old, purely gold standard is perhaps no longer practical or even desirable, even though for the present, the value of the gold and silver held in the country, if large enough, like in India, can be properly monetized, but computerization of the global economy has now made a new alternative possible – the transition to a ‘GREEN and EQUITABLE Standard’. A standard based on the Energy, Water, Labour and perhaps even other resources and commodities, and Time embedded in every product or service. This would also, allow for proper pricing of fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources that are mainly an accumulation or ‘Fund’ of ancient energy ‘Flow’ from the only major source of energy in our Solar System – our Sun. (See “Pricing & Taxation Policy – For Fuels & Other Enablers”)

A start could be made by working out an effective exchange rate mechanism on the basis of the cost for few items in the home Country as compared to that in the other Country, measured in the man hours of work (Time) needed to pay for it at the minimum wages payable for labour and a few other measurable things. (See -”lnter-se currency valuation and monetizing of Private & Temples Gold & Silver Holdings.”).

In these days of computerization and ‘carbon – credit’ trading mechanism, such calculation is well within our capacity to make and also, to modify on a regular basis as may be deemed necessary.

A proper understanding of the inevitability of Nature’s laws, the concept of money as a scorecard duly allowing relevant ‘feed-back’ inputs into the system and duly backed by a reasonably accurate way of calculating the energy equivalents of all goods and services (in a sustainable cradle to cradle manner), a proper inclusion of the costs of resources / materials used, and a determination to learn from history to avoid the earlier mistakes, will allow us to develop an ideal financial / monetary system for the good of all. Many Bio-Economists (Sergei Podlinsky, Fredrick Soddy, Alfred Lotka, Howard Odun and others) advocated for such a System.

The setting up of the BRICS Bank could be considered a first step in the formation of a new financial system out of the grasp of the old system. Though perhaps it would need better regulations. Digital/ Crypto currency, with Blockchain technology for security and transparency, based on a valuation system as suggested herein, maybe a better alternative to any particular country’s currency. RBI may consider such an alternative.

As Michael Rothschild notes:- “If the workings of the economy parallel the functions of the ecosystem, if organizations follow the same principles of form and function that govern the evolution of organisms, then there is but one natural mode of economic organization”.

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