Reorienting the Monetary and Financial System towards the Common Good
Online Course with Christian Felber
28th September - 30th November 2026
Online
Money will shape our future. The question is: who decides – and for what purpose?
Money shapes almost every aspect of our lives, yet the systems that govern it remain among the least democratic, least transparent, and most resistant to change. From deepening inequality and ecological breakdown to recurring financial crises, today’s monetary and financial system is not neutral infrastructure: it actively determines what—and who—thrives.
This bold and timely short course at Schumacher College invites you to rethink money itself.
Guided by internationally renowned economist and founder of the Economy for the Common Good movement, Christian Felber, the course offers a radical yet practical reorientation of finance: from a self-serving system driven by speculative markets to a public infrastructure designed to serve people, planet, and future generations.
At its heart lies a powerful paradigm shift: money as a public good. When money is understood not as a commodity but as shared infrastructure, new democratic possibilities open up, allowing finance to become a tool for social justice, ecological regeneration, and genuine prosperity.
Key Information
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This is an online course
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Course sessions run every Monday from 28th September to 30th November 2026 at 17.00 - 19.30 GMT
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The full cost of the course is £510
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This course is structured across ten (2,5 hour long) live online sessions, each building toward a coherent vision of an economy oriented toward the common good.
What This Course Offers
Over nine weekly modules, participants will engage deeply with the structural roots of today’s financial crises while exploring concrete, actionable alternatives already emerging around the world. The course combines systemic analysis, ethical reflection, and visionary policy thinking—without requiring prior expertise in economics or finance.
You will explore:
· Why the ideology of “efficient markets” has made the financial system politically untouchable—and how this can change
· How central banks could be democratised, drawing on ideas such as Monetary Democracy, Positive Money, and Modern Monetary Theory
· The role of ethical banks, regional finance, and common good–oriented stock markets
· How to close the global financial casino and redirect capital towards real-life, life-serving projects
· Why limits to inequality are as essential as planetary boundaries
· How international tax cooperation can end secrecy and close tax havens
· What global monetary cooperation could look like, revisiting Keynes’ Bancor and ICU proposals
· How ethical world trade could underpin a post-colonial, post-capitalist economic order
Course Structure
Course sessions run every Monday from 28th September to 30th November 2026 at 17.00 - 19.30 GMT, across ten live online sessions, each building toward a coherent vision of an economy oriented toward the common good:
Session 1(28th Sep) - The broader picture: Towards an economy for the Common Good
Session 2 (5th Oct) - A new paradigm for the monetary and financial system: Money as a public good and infrastructure
Session 3 (12th Oct) - Democratizing central banks: “Montetative”, Positive Money and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Session 4 (19th Oct) - Ethical (commercial) banks & regional common good stock markets
Session 5 (26th Oct) - Closing the global financial casino: From trading assets to financing real-life projects
Session 6 (3nd Nov) - Limits to inequality: “Social boundaries” as twin sisters of ecological planetary boundaries
Session 7 (9th Nov) - International tax cooperation: Ending financial secrecy and closing tax havens
Session 8 (16th Nov) - Global Monetary cooperation: Revisiting and perspectives of implementing Keynes’ Bancor and ICU Plan
Session 9 (23rd Nov) - Ethical World Trade as a post-colonial and post-capitalistic order: The international dimension of an Economy for the Common Good
Session 10 (30th Nov) - Wrapping up with “Sovereign Democracy”
From the broader foundations of a Common Good economy, through monetary reform and global cooperation, to the international dimensions of ethical trade, participants will leave with both clarity and courage, able to articulate why change is necessary and how it might be realised.
Why Join This Course
While many people recognise that money should not dominate society and that today’s financial system contributes to interconnected problems, it is less clear what a fundamentally different system would look like or what concrete steps could lead to a coherent and convincing alternative.
This course is not so much about niches in the current system where you can invest your individual money and assets “responsibly” or in a “sustainable” or “regenerative” way; it is more about transforming the very system into a new order that is comprehensively ethical, human, and democratic.
The strength of Christian Felber’s proposals for the economy, trade, and finance lies in their common, holistic foundation and their alignment with widely shared ethical values: human dignity, solidarity, social justice, sustainability, and democracy. Together, these form the common good, which, in his view, should always be defined democratically.
He does not present a utopia, but articulates ideas that are practically feasible and that many hearts already sense, yet lack words for. Nothing is invented from scratch; each proposal builds on existing concepts, traditions, and regulations. Despite studies showing increasing levels of democratic support, many of these remain under-discussed publicly or are voted upon. According to Christian’s analysis, the core problem is that most liberal democracies do not enable direct voting on specific issues or citizen-led proposals.
In this course, participants will be introduced to practical tools for a more mature, participatory, and sovereign democracy, such as systemic consensus, citizens’ assemblies, and economic conventions, which can be applied in everyday life to help build stronger democracies, even in the most diverse of contexts.
Cost: £ 510
Facilitator
Christian Felber
Christian Felber is a writer, university lecturer and contemporary dancer in Vienna. He is the initiator of the “Economy for the Common Good“ and the “Cooperative for the Common Good“. Several bestsellers include “Change everything. Creating an Economy for the Common Good“ and “Money. The new rules of the game“, which was awarded the getAbstract International Book Award 2014. The “Economy for the Common Good” received the ZEIT-Wissen Award in 2017 and made it 2021 to the SPIEGEL bestseller list.
Frequently Asked Questions
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This course is for activists, policymakers, educators, economists, social entrepreneurs, and anyone who senses that something is deeply wrong with the current system—and that something better is possible. If you want to move beyond critique and engage with credible, transformative alternatives, this is a rare opportunity to learn directly from one of Europe’s leading voices in economic system change.
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Everyone is welcome to join this course. It is recommended that participants have a prior interest in future-fit economic models and come ready to face and discuss the challenges of the modern economic system. It may support your learning journey to be familiar with authors in the space, such as Donella Meadows, Joseph Stiglitz, Riane Eisler, Tim Jackson, Kate Raworth, David Bollier, Elinor Ostrom, Ha-Joon Chang, Naomie Klein, Amartya Sen, Stefanie Kelton, or Jason Hickel, to name a few.
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The expectation is to attend the weekly online sessions. Each session will last 2.5 hours, starting at 17.00 and ending at 19.30 GMT. An abundant reference list and a selected bibliography will be supplied for each module, which can be read and explored at participants’ leisure.
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It is advantageous to have basic knowledge about Positive Money (or Sovereign Money), Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), theories about money creation or the Keynes Plan from 1943 for an international monetary cooperation. You can also look up real-life ethical banks at GABV and FEBEA. Those who want to be well prepared can also read books of Christian Felber, three of them are available in English: https://christian-felber.at/en/books/
What Participants Say…
“A fascinating and eye-opening insight into one of the most underestimated global infrastructures that fundamentally affects whether we live in peace or not.”
Thomas Reichmann, Austria
