Essay
Our Money, Our Power: Reclaiming Money for an Ethical Post-Growth Future
By Tom Foster - May 2026
“We have to shift from ‘their money’ to ‘our money’. Money belongs to us. It’s the people’s money. Our money, our power.”
Rev Delman Coates, Founder of Our Money (Poitras 2023, 1:32:06)
What does Reverend Coates mean when he urges us to shift from their money to our money? And what does this have to do with the ethics of creating just, liveable, ecologically grounded futures?
He is not speaking about whether households can afford groceries or whether rising interest rates will squeeze budgets. Nor is he focused on familiar election debates in which candidates are asked whether we can ‘afford’ a school, hospital or climate programme.
Rev Coates is asking something more foundational:• What is money?• Where does it come from?• Who controls it?• And what is its purpose?
Most of us never ask these questions. From early in life we absorb a taken-for-granted view of money as finite and scarce: something we must earn, save and budget prudently. Falling short is framed as a moral failure.
This household-budget mindset becomes our default model of the economy, applied uncritically to businesses, not-for-profits and governments alike.
Our belief that money is a commodity-like token used to facilitate exchange rests on a familiar origin story, reinforced in textbooks and popular media, that money evolved from barter.
Villagers in pre-history, the story goes, once traded for essentials directly. A fisher swapped fish for beer; the brewer swapped beer for shoes. But barter suffered from the ‘double coincidence of wants': if the brewer wanted fish on a day the fisher had none, trade stalled. So people supposedly invented money - grain, shells or a precious metal like gold or silver - as a neutral medium of exchange. Societies are then said to have followed an almost predetermined path, from simple barter to money, then credit, and ultimately today’s advanced finance and banking systems.
In this telling, barter is “seen as a ‘natural’ phenomenon of human nature" (Humphrey 1985, p. 48). Markets appear ancient and natural; governments arrive later and mostly interfere in an otherwise stable system. Humans are cast as inherently self-interested traders – ‘Homo economicus' - whose pursuit of private gain supposedly generates prosperity for all.
It is a tidy, comforting story. And it is almost entirely wrong.
He is not speaking about whether households can afford groceries or whether rising interest rates will squeeze budgets. Nor is he focused on familiar election debates in which candidates are asked whether we can ‘afford’ a school, hospital or climate programme.
Rev Coates is asking something more foundational:• What is money?• Where does it come from?• Who controls it?• And what is its purpose?
Most of us never ask these questions. From early in life we absorb a taken-for-granted view of money as finite and scarce: something we must earn, save and budget prudently. Falling short is framed as a moral failure.
This household-budget mindset becomes our default model of the economy, applied uncritically to businesses, not-for-profits and governments alike.
Our belief that money is a commodity-like token used to facilitate exchange rests on a familiar origin story, reinforced in textbooks and popular media, that money evolved from barter.
Villagers in pre-history, the story goes, once traded for essentials directly. A fisher swapped fish for beer; the brewer swapped beer for shoes. But barter suffered from the ‘double coincidence of wants': if the brewer wanted fish on a day the fisher had none, trade stalled. So people supposedly invented money - grain, shells or a precious metal like gold or silver - as a neutral medium of exchange. Societies are then said to have followed an almost predetermined path, from simple barter to money, then credit, and ultimately today’s advanced finance and banking systems.
In this telling, barter is “seen as a ‘natural’ phenomenon of human nature" (Humphrey 1985, p. 48). Markets appear ancient and natural; governments arrive later and mostly interfere in an otherwise stable system. Humans are cast as inherently self-interested traders – ‘Homo economicus' - whose pursuit of private gain supposedly generates prosperity for all.
It is a tidy, comforting story. And it is almost entirely wrong.
The Ethical Problem With a Story That Isn’t True
The problem is not only historical accuracy, though that matters. The deeper issue is that the barter story defines what we believe is economically possible.• If money is scarce, poverty appears inevitable.• If governments are like households, they must ‘live within their means', even when doing so underfunds health, education or climate resilience.• If markets are ‘natural', inequality and involuntary unemployment seem unavoidable.• If the private sector is assumed to create money, democracy and the non-wealthy become subordinate to wealth. But evidence from anthropology, archaeology and history tells a radically different story. As anthropologist Caroline Humphrey observed:“No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money… there has never been such a thing."(Humphrey 1985, in Graeber 2011, p. 29) Non-monetary societies did not rely on barter for everyday essentials. Food, shelter and clothing were organised through collective arrangements, kin obligations and shared responsibility. Where exchanges did occur, they served social, ceremonial and political purposes. “Primitive monies" helped “create social alliances", prevent conflict, restore relationships or mark status; they bore little resemblance to profit-seeking transactions and behaviour “akin to the Western practice of gift-giving at Christmas" (Wray 2012, pp. 10–11). If money did not emerge from barter, where did it come from?
The problem is not only historical accuracy, though that matters. The deeper issue is that the barter story defines what we believe is economically possible.• If money is scarce, poverty appears inevitable.• If governments are like households, they must ‘live within their means', even when doing so underfunds health, education or climate resilience.• If markets are ‘natural', inequality and involuntary unemployment seem unavoidable.• If the private sector is assumed to create money, democracy and the non-wealthy become subordinate to wealth. But evidence from anthropology, archaeology and history tells a radically different story. As anthropologist Caroline Humphrey observed:“No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money… there has never been such a thing."(Humphrey 1985, in Graeber 2011, p. 29) Non-monetary societies did not rely on barter for everyday essentials. Food, shelter and clothing were organised through collective arrangements, kin obligations and shared responsibility. Where exchanges did occur, they served social, ceremonial and political purposes. “Primitive monies" helped “create social alliances", prevent conflict, restore relationships or mark status; they bore little resemblance to profit-seeking transactions and behaviour “akin to the Western practice of gift-giving at Christmas" (Wray 2012, pp. 10–11). If money did not emerge from barter, where did it come from?
The Real Origin Story: Money as Public Purpose
Scientific evidence points to ancient Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago (Graeber 2011). As societies grew beyond interpersonal trust, temple-city authorities developed clay tablets to record credits and debits – IOUs (‘I owe you’) - denominating obligations in a common unit of account. A brewer might supply beer for temple workers; farmers provided grain; labourers built irrigation canals or city walls. The temple or palace recorded these obligations on clay tablets and ticked them off as they were fulfilled (Finkel 2019, 5:35). In return, people accessed food stores, military protection, ritual services and other collective goods, what we now call public services. To meet these obligations, people organised themselves to provision the state. When individuals needed goods they did not produce themselves - to meet obligations or daily needs - they exchanged with one another, giving rise to early markets. Thus, governments and money came first; markets emerged in response (Wray 2012, pp. 16–18). Across millennia, monetary systems evolved, but several core features remain, each contradicting the barter myth:1. Money originated as public credit, not as a commodity.2. Its purpose was, and remains, collective provisioning, with markets emerging only later.3. Money is an IOU, a legal and accounting construct constrained by real resources, not financial ones.4. Credit preceded money, which preceded barter; early economies were built on cooperation and obligation.5. Currency-issuing governments, such as Australia’s Federal Government, spend first and tax after. Public money enters the economy through collective provisioning, not private accumulation. This is not merely a historical correction; it is a paradigm shift with profound ethical implications.
Scientific evidence points to ancient Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago (Graeber 2011). As societies grew beyond interpersonal trust, temple-city authorities developed clay tablets to record credits and debits – IOUs (‘I owe you’) - denominating obligations in a common unit of account. A brewer might supply beer for temple workers; farmers provided grain; labourers built irrigation canals or city walls. The temple or palace recorded these obligations on clay tablets and ticked them off as they were fulfilled (Finkel 2019, 5:35). In return, people accessed food stores, military protection, ritual services and other collective goods, what we now call public services. To meet these obligations, people organised themselves to provision the state. When individuals needed goods they did not produce themselves - to meet obligations or daily needs - they exchanged with one another, giving rise to early markets. Thus, governments and money came first; markets emerged in response (Wray 2012, pp. 16–18). Across millennia, monetary systems evolved, but several core features remain, each contradicting the barter myth:1. Money originated as public credit, not as a commodity.2. Its purpose was, and remains, collective provisioning, with markets emerging only later.3. Money is an IOU, a legal and accounting construct constrained by real resources, not financial ones.4. Credit preceded money, which preceded barter; early economies were built on cooperation and obligation.5. Currency-issuing governments, such as Australia’s Federal Government, spend first and tax after. Public money enters the economy through collective provisioning, not private accumulation. This is not merely a historical correction; it is a paradigm shift with profound ethical implications.
Reclaiming Money as a Public Resource
When Rev Coates urges us to move from “their money" to “our money", he is inviting a fundamental reframing.
Money is ‘a creature of the state', as the economist John Maynard Keynes argued. It is brought into existence through law and accounting, not mined or discovered. Entrepreneurs and banks do not create the monetary system, they operate within one designed by public authority.
Understanding money as public credit reframes it from a private-sector resource into a democratic tool for societal flourishing.
This raises unavoidable ethical questions:• Should public and ecological wellbeing be constrained by myths of monetary scarcity?• If money is created by the public, not the wealthy, why accept a democracy subordinated to wealth?• And if money is public, how should we steward it?
When Rev Coates urges us to move from “their money" to “our money", he is inviting a fundamental reframing.
Money is ‘a creature of the state', as the economist John Maynard Keynes argued. It is brought into existence through law and accounting, not mined or discovered. Entrepreneurs and banks do not create the monetary system, they operate within one designed by public authority.
Understanding money as public credit reframes it from a private-sector resource into a democratic tool for societal flourishing.
This raises unavoidable ethical questions:• Should public and ecological wellbeing be constrained by myths of monetary scarcity?• If money is created by the public, not the wealthy, why accept a democracy subordinated to wealth?• And if money is public, how should we steward it?
Australian Aboriginal Relationalism: Aligning with the True Nature of Money
The accurate history of money - as a social, relational tool - aligns more closely with Australian Aboriginal socio-political philosophy than with barter-based economic assumptions.
Mary Graham and Morgan Brigg (2021) contrast mainstream European political thought - rooted in “survivalism" (individualism, competition, power and utility maximisation) - with Aboriginal "relationalism", which places personal autonomy within a wider web of relationships and responsibilities “beyond oneself". Relationalism, they note, “does not seek to escape survivalism but to keep it in its proper place."
Graham’s “relational ethos" emphasises that “the first relationship is between people and land (or Country), and the second is between people and people" (Graham 1999). From these relationships emerge obligations to care for Country and maintain balanced relationships within and between communities.
At the 2023 New Economics Network Australia (NENA) conference, Graham characterised centralised universal public service (UPS) institutions - exemplified by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), and reflected in systems such as Australia’s Medicare system - as expressing a broader “stewardship and custodial ethos": collective infrastructures grounded in responsibility and care rather than competition. They show how a relational ethos, expressed through public money, can operate in modern societies of millions, where large institutions must carry relational responsibilities.
These relationalism themes also resonate with steady-state, post-growth economic frameworks such as Doughnut Economics, which seek to place markets and competition back within ecological and social boundaries.
Once money is understood as a public tool rather than a scarce commodity, its alignment with relational ethics, and steady-state economics, becomes clear. Under this lens, money becomes:• a tool for care rather than accumulation• a mechanism of social and ecological responsibility• a means of supporting human and non-human wellbeing
This stands in stark contrast to the barter-derived story of inherent self-interest and the belief that wellbeing depends on continuous material growth.
The accurate history of money - as a social, relational tool - aligns more closely with Australian Aboriginal socio-political philosophy than with barter-based economic assumptions.
Mary Graham and Morgan Brigg (2021) contrast mainstream European political thought - rooted in “survivalism" (individualism, competition, power and utility maximisation) - with Aboriginal "relationalism", which places personal autonomy within a wider web of relationships and responsibilities “beyond oneself". Relationalism, they note, “does not seek to escape survivalism but to keep it in its proper place."
Graham’s “relational ethos" emphasises that “the first relationship is between people and land (or Country), and the second is between people and people" (Graham 1999). From these relationships emerge obligations to care for Country and maintain balanced relationships within and between communities.
At the 2023 New Economics Network Australia (NENA) conference, Graham characterised centralised universal public service (UPS) institutions - exemplified by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), and reflected in systems such as Australia’s Medicare system - as expressing a broader “stewardship and custodial ethos": collective infrastructures grounded in responsibility and care rather than competition. They show how a relational ethos, expressed through public money, can operate in modern societies of millions, where large institutions must carry relational responsibilities.
These relationalism themes also resonate with steady-state, post-growth economic frameworks such as Doughnut Economics, which seek to place markets and competition back within ecological and social boundaries.
Once money is understood as a public tool rather than a scarce commodity, its alignment with relational ethics, and steady-state economics, becomes clear. Under this lens, money becomes:• a tool for care rather than accumulation• a mechanism of social and ecological responsibility• a means of supporting human and non-human wellbeing
This stands in stark contrast to the barter-derived story of inherent self-interest and the belief that wellbeing depends on continuous material growth.
Ethical Governance When We Tell the Truth About Money
With an accurate understanding of money, many features of modern economic life become ethically indefensible.
1. Extreme inequality loses ethical justification.If wealth represents accumulated public credit, the existence of billionaires, along with the resource overuse and political influence they wield, lacks grounding.
2. ‘Free-market’ ideology collapses.Free-market arguments rely on the barter myth. Once the myth falls, markets reveal themselves as state-designed and governed institutions that should serve public purpose.
3. Austerity becomes an ethical violation.A currency-issuing government is not financially constrained like a household. It can fund high-quality universal public services and ensure true full employment, bounded only by ecological limits.
4. Monetary myths undermine climate action.Scare campaigns about ‘costs’ - for example, warnings that a carbon price would cause ‘$100 legs of lamb’ - work only when people believe governments lack money.
5. Ecological transition becomes fully financeable.Many essential climate resilience and mitigation projects are unprofitable for private capital, particularly in rural and remote regions. That does not make them unaffordable for a currency-issuing government; their limit is real resources, not money.
6. Banking can be reoriented toward public purpose.Banks exist only through government charter granting them the privilege of creating public money. It is ethical and reasonable to require banks to lend only towards positive social and ecological purposes - and to prohibit financing harmful practices such as fossil fuels or online gambling.
1. Extreme inequality loses ethical justification.If wealth represents accumulated public credit, the existence of billionaires, along with the resource overuse and political influence they wield, lacks grounding.
2. ‘Free-market’ ideology collapses.Free-market arguments rely on the barter myth. Once the myth falls, markets reveal themselves as state-designed and governed institutions that should serve public purpose.
3. Austerity becomes an ethical violation.A currency-issuing government is not financially constrained like a household. It can fund high-quality universal public services and ensure true full employment, bounded only by ecological limits.
4. Monetary myths undermine climate action.Scare campaigns about ‘costs’ - for example, warnings that a carbon price would cause ‘$100 legs of lamb’ - work only when people believe governments lack money.
5. Ecological transition becomes fully financeable.Many essential climate resilience and mitigation projects are unprofitable for private capital, particularly in rural and remote regions. That does not make them unaffordable for a currency-issuing government; their limit is real resources, not money.
6. Banking can be reoriented toward public purpose.Banks exist only through government charter granting them the privilege of creating public money. It is ethical and reasonable to require banks to lend only towards positive social and ecological purposes - and to prohibit financing harmful practices such as fossil fuels or online gambling.
Why Do We Cling to the Old Story?
The barter myth persists partly because of Scottish philosopher Adam Smith’s influential 18th-century account of money’s origins, which rested on what Wray (2012) calls a “hypothetical, logical” view of history, treating the present as a linear descendant of an imagined barter past.
But even after more than a century of scholarship - from Innes’ (1913) studies of money to modern anthropology - debunking the myth, mainstream frameworks continue to rely on it.
The reason is simple: power benefits from this misunderstanding.
Wealthy interests depend on the public believing money is scarce and governments are fiscally constrained. The mainstream economics profession also remains structurally tied to the barter money-origin story. Remove this myth and economic's theoretical tower upon which it is built collapses like in a game of Jenga.
False stories preserve hierarchies. True stories enable democratic agency.
The barter myth persists partly because of Scottish philosopher Adam Smith’s influential 18th-century account of money’s origins, which rested on what Wray (2012) calls a “hypothetical, logical” view of history, treating the present as a linear descendant of an imagined barter past.
But even after more than a century of scholarship - from Innes’ (1913) studies of money to modern anthropology - debunking the myth, mainstream frameworks continue to rely on it.
The reason is simple: power benefits from this misunderstanding.
Wealthy interests depend on the public believing money is scarce and governments are fiscally constrained. The mainstream economics profession also remains structurally tied to the barter money-origin story. Remove this myth and economic's theoretical tower upon which it is built collapses like in a game of Jenga.
False stories preserve hierarchies. True stories enable democratic agency.
Reconstructing an Ethical Economy
“The economy is extremely complex, but it is important to understand that it’s a human creation, guided by rules and laws. We can change those rules and laws."
Economist L. Randall Wray (Poitras 2023, 1:26:42)
If money is a public tool, and the economy is something we design, then we have an ethical responsibility to shape monetary systems – and the economies they make possible - toward ecological safety, social wellbeing and intergenerational flourishing.
Crucially, the rules and laws that govern the economy do not arise from nature. They are written, interpreted and implemented by people, often economists in privileged positions across public policy, finance and academia. And those economists, in turn, are guided by the theories they were taught, hence:
• Change the theory, and you change the rules.
• Change the rules, and you change society.
This is why it matters that much of the economics profession still rests on the old myth, and why rethinking money is so powerful. We already possess the core tools - money and the institutions that issue and manage it. What is required is not inventing new ones, but changing how we understand and use the tools we have. That is a quicker path in an era of ecological urgency.
Fortunately, a growing body of macroeconomic, ecological and post-growth theory starts from the accurate history of money and opens new ethical possibilities.
The old story confines us to scarcity, competition, inequality and ecological neglect.
The true story opens space for sufficiency, care, climate action, democratic empowerment and a relational understanding of prosperity that meets the urgency of our times.
If we want ethical futures for people and planet, we must reclaim the tool we use to build those futures.
Money belongs to us.It is the people’s money.Our money, our power.
Tom Foster is the founder of EcoProsper Consulting. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) (Honours) from UNSW, a Graduate Diploma in Management (MGSM), and is currently completing a Master of Economics of Sustainability. He provides consulting and workshops - including Climate Fresk and Doughnut Design for Business - to commercial and mission-led organisations seeking to navigate the transition to operating within social foundations and non-negotiable ecological limits, and in doing so help build a safer, saner, and fairer world.
- References:
- Brigg, M. & Graham, M. (2021, Oct 26). The relevance of Aboriginal political concepts (8): The relationalist ethos for managing survivalism. [Opinion]. Religion & Ethics. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). https://www.abc.net.au/religion/mary-graham-morgan-brigg-relationalist-ethos/13604298
- Finkel, I. (2019). Cracking Ancient Codes: Cuneiform Writing - with Irving Finkel. [Video]. The Royal Institution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfYYraMgiBA
- Graeber, D. (2011). Debt: The First 5,000 Years. [Non-fiction book]. Melville House. https://davidgraeber.org/books/debt-the-first-5000-years/
- Graham, M. (1999). Some Thoughts about the Philosophical Underpinnings of Aboriginal Worldviews. [Publication]. Australian Humanities Review. https://australianhumanitiesreview.org/2008/11/01/some-thoughts-about-the-philosophical-underpinnings-of-aboriginal-worldviews/
- Humphrey, C. (1985). Barter and economic disintegration. [Academic paper]. Man, 20(1), 48–72. https://doi.org/10.2307/2802221
- Innes, A. M. (1913). What is Money? [Essay]. The Banking Law Journal. https://cooperative-individualism.org/innes-a-mitchell_what-is-money-1913-may.pdf
- Poitras, M. (Director) (2023). Finding the Money. [Documentary film]. Hand Hewn Productions LLC, USA. https://findingmoneyfilm.com
- Wray, L. R. (2012). Introduction to an Alternative History of Money. [Academic paper]. Working Paper No. 717. Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_717.pdf