On the night of June 15, 2026, Thomas H. Greco, Jr. took his final breath and shuffled off this mortal coil. His passing has left a deep sense of loss among his wide and varied circle of friends, associates, readers, and fellow travelers around the world. It has also left an extraordinary intellectual legacy: decades of writing, teaching, correspondence, presentations, experiments, and relationships devoted to the enduring pursuit of a more peaceful, convivial, ecologically sound, and economically just civilization.
Tom’s work is part of a long intellectual and practical lineage that includes E.C. Riegel and other pioneers of independent exchange and mutual credit, the School of Living tradition, and generations of thinkers and practitioners seeking forms of economic organization rooted in human dignity, local self-determination, cooperation, and the common good.
Tom carried that lineage forward in a distinctive way. For decades, he argued that the centralized control of credit was among the greatest obstacles to genuine economic democracy, and that communities and productive businesses could reclaim their money power through reciprocal exchange, credit clearing, locally controlled exchange media, and what he coined the “Credit Commons.”
He remained remarkably active even in the final period of his life. In 2023, I had the honor of editing (and narrating) what was intended to be the 2024 revised edition of his 2009 book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, but it eventually grew into a much more substantial, final reconsideration of the work. At the same time, he was arranging for the preservation of important parts of his library, including materials destined for the Schumacher Center for a New Economics; developing Cofex, his proposed invoice-factoring and community-exchange model; assembling published articles toward another collection; and contributing a chapter to an upcoming book.
During the final phase of the revised End of Money, Tony Camero worked closely with Tom to complete and substantially expand Chapter 21. Their work brought Tom’s longstanding principles of reciprocal exchange and the Credit Commons into conversation with developments that scarcely existed when the original book appeared‚ including digital exchange systems, distributed trust architectures, artificial intelligence, and new possibilities for locally controlled systems that can nevertheless become globally useful.
Tony’s connection to this work also reaches back many years. Long before meeting Tom, he had designed and piloted community exchange systems intended to recognize contribution, mobilize underutilized productive capacity, strengthen local commerce, and give communities practical tools for pursuing their own shared goals. More recently, that work has developed toward infrastructure for trust, reciprocal exchange, community coordination, and locally governed economic systems. Tom recognized that convergence, encouraged Tony’s contribution to the final chapter, and entrusted him with an important role in helping carry the work forward.
Together with Tom’s friends, colleagues, and the wider community that has formed around his work, we are beginning the Greco Continuity Project. Its purpose is not merely to preserve an archive; we intend to complete the final revised edition of The End of Money and the Future of Civilization; preserve and organize Tom’s writings, correspondence, presentations, and unfinished work; document the intellectual lineage surrounding his ideas; invite colleagues, scholars, practitioners, critics, and new generations into the conversation; and continue exploring how the principles Tom spent his life developing might be tested and applied in the world ahead.
Throughout that work, we intend to maintain a clear distinction between Tom’s own words and ideas, later interpretation and commentary, related thinkers, and whatever new work may grow from the foundations he helped establish. Continuity does not mean putting new words into Tom’s mouth; it means preserving what he actually said, understanding it deeply, placing it within the larger lineage to which he contributed, and giving others the opportunity to carry the inquiry forward.
We will soon publish the completed Chapter 21 and provide further information about the final edition and the Greco Continuity Project.
If you knew Tom, corresponded or worked with him, were influenced by his ideas, possess materials that may belong in his archive, have relevant scholarship or practical experience to contribute, or simply wish to follow the work forward, we invite you to participate.
(Please leave a comment below to be notified of the Greco Continuity Project launch).
Tom spent much of his life explaining that healthy alternatives need not conquer the old order; they can emerge alongside it, demonstrate their usefulness, connect with one another, and gradually make another way possible.
His life has ended; his work continues.
Sincerely,
Ken Richings
(assistant to Tom)
10 Responses
Wonderful to have Tom Greco’s work preserved and continued. I would like to keep informed of progress.
I am sad to receive the news of Tom’s passing. And I am privileged of my association with him in the recent years. He was my invited speaker at a meeting of a Centre for Future Societies Research, with a follow up invited conference talk and an article publication in Frontiers of Built Environment. The most touching moment of this association was his request to look after his mirror web site as somebody who in his words had deep understanding if his work. It is encouraging that his work continues and I would be happy to contribute if possible.
Lubo, thank you. Your note means a great deal, particularly knowing that Tom trusted you with the mirror site and spoke so highly of your understanding of his work.
We would very much like you involved. One of our priorities is to reconnect the people Tom trusted, worked with, and influenced so that the Continuity Project is informed by those who knew both the work and the man behind it.
I’ll reach out directly as we begin organizing that circle. And I’d especially like to learn more about the Centre for Future Societies work, the conference, the Frontiers article, and the mirror archive you maintained for Tom.
Tony
Hi Tony,
Many thanks for the prompt reply. I will respond fully when I get back from holiday from the end of this week as I don’t have my laptop to hand with all relevant details. I am glad to continue to be connected.
Best,
Lubo
Dear Succession Team, thank you so much for your message and for your determination to carry on Tom’s work and keep the momentum of positive thinking about new financial matters going. This is so important and would certainly be in his spirit.
I’d be happy to stay in the loop and wish you all the best as you continue the work.
Thank you, Jens. We really appreciate this. We hope to bring together exactly this community of people who have followed, contributed to, and carried these ideas over the years, and new people encountering them for the first time. We’d be very glad to have you stay involved as the Project takes shape.
Tony
“the centralized control of credit was among the greatest obstacles to genuine economic democracy”. Tom was somewhat correct in this. The real issue however runs a level deeper: it is the detachment of production and credit which creates distortions, and gives too much power of the imposed intermediaries, central banks and commercial banks. And yes, of course this root cause tends to increasing centralisation.
Problem is, like so many, Tom did not recognise the fundamental importance of new credit creation strictly only against value, goods produced and sold. He would create monetary credit for plausible investment projects with only speculative prospects. Thus he was siding with the ex nihilo side, those who would create currency out of thin air.
Thank you, Hubertus. This is exactly the kind of distinction we want the Continuity Project to examine carefully rather than smooth over.
Your point about whether legitimate credit should arise only against value already produced and sold, versus credible future productive capacity, gets very close to a question we’re actively examining in Tom’s writings.
If you can point us toward the particular passages where you believe Tom crossed that line into speculative credit creation, I’d genuinely like to include them in our review of the corpus. We’re trying to preserve not only what Tom argued, but the strongest critiques and unresolved questions around the work as well.
Tony
@Hubertus Tom was actually very clear about this. He distinguished between “exchange/turnover credit” (short-term interest-free credit backed by the issuer’s demonstrated capacity to supply goods & services now or in the near future; creating purchasing power to facilitate exchange) and “investment/finance credit” (long-term credit for productive investment; not issued as immediately-spendable currency but coming from existing savings or risk capital).
You can find this e.g. in the revised Chapter 14 “How Exchange Systems Succeed or Fail” of his book (https://beyondmoney.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eom-rev_ch14-final-.pdf).
@Tony Camero & Ken Richings: thank you both so much for this project – I’d be delighted to stay in the loop too.
Michel, thank you! …both for joining us and for pointing directly to Tom’s treatment of this distinction in Chapter 14.
This is exactly the kind of careful, source-grounded conversation we hope the Continuity Project can preserve and encourage: not simply agreement with Tom, but claims, challenges, clarification, and the ability to trace the discussion back to what he actually wrote.
We’d be delighted to have you stay involved. I’ll make sure we connect directly as the Project takes shape.
Tony