Abstract:

"Fundamental laws govern all complex flow systems, including natural ecosystems, economic and financial systems. Natural ecosystems are practical exemplars of sustainability: enduring, vital, adaptive. The sustainability of any complex flow system can be measured with a single metric as an emergent property of its structural diversity and interconnectivity; it requires a balance in emphasis between efficiency and resilience. The urgent message for economics from nature is that the monoculture of national currencies, justified on the basis of market efficiency, generates structural instability in our global financial system. Economic sustainability therefore requires diversification in types of currencies, specifically through complementary currencies."

[Emphasis added]

Teaser quote:

It is critical to understand that the findings described in natural ecosystems arise from the very structure of a complex flow system, and therefore that they remain valid for any complex flow network with a similar structure, regardless of what is being processed in the system: it can be biomass in an ecosystem, information in a biological system, electrons in an electrical power network, or money in an economic system.  This is precisely one of the strong points of using a web-like network approach instead of machine-like metaphor.

[Emphasis original]