Integral Finance

Money is a human abstraction. Although not found in nature, it is pervasively used throughout human activities and undertakings. In so doing, it generates an array of personal and cultural responses in addition to its material manifestations. As such, it is ideally suited for an AQAL analysis. This paper constitutes the introductory theoretical overview for Integral Finance. It introduces the basic principles and presents fundamental applications of Integral principles to money, including money’s nature and its various roles in the world. Finally, I explore money’s applications to and impacts on other disciplines.

Parts 2 & 3 offer an overview of Integral Finance and examines money from a holonic perspective. This paper addresses the fundamental applications of money within an Integral context. This will include what money is as well as money’s nature and its various roles in the world. Though we spend most of our lives involved in activities with strong money referents, it is not commonly understood that money is fundamentally a symbol of agreements and beliefs. Accordingly, money is anything humans agree money to be.

RICHARD B. WAGNER, JD, CFP, has been a pioneer, visionary, and a leader in the financial planning profession for over twenty-two years. Past president of the Institute of Certified Financial Planners, founder of the Nazrudin Project, a leaderless but successful financial planning think tank, winner of FPA’s prestigious P. Kemp, Jr. Award in 2003, and successful practitioner, Dick has written seminal works of financial planning theory and aspiration. In 2002, his paper, “Integral Finance: A Framework for a 21st Century Profession” won the Financial Planning Association’s Future of the Profession award. This was the profession’s first venture into Integral theory and led to Dick becoming Director of the Integral Finance Center. Dick has his juris doctorate degree from Lewis and Clark College and a B.A. in religion from the College of Wooster. He lives in Denver, CO and is married to architect Gail Pelsue. They have two adult children and way too many animals.