Community Currencies

Money is just information and we can create our own.

Defining money-as-we-know-it

Conventional, normal, central bank money, is all the same. It is created in limited supply by central authority so it can stand as something of value in itself. Hence, normal money can go anywhere, which is an asset in some functions and a liability in others.

Problem : conventional money is dysfunctional

It's a matter of design, but not deliberate design. "Money" became a commodity itself, and therefore limited in supply. This evolutionary process has left us using a money that is better as a store of value than as a means of exchange.

The origins of this problem lie in fear and greed - nobody parts with anything of value without confidence that they're getting value in return. So money has generally had to be a thing of value in itself to be acceptable in trade.

The need for a universal medium with assured value necessitated the limited issue by authority who "stood" behind the money, or backed it with gold or something similar. But this function of money as a store of value, and therefore scarce, entirely compromises its function as a means of exchange.

So when there is work to be done such as building homes or looking after children, all too often the money (the measure) is missing. People with the necessary skills to build homes and care for children remain unemployed. The money's just not there when it's needed.

Therefore, conventional money fails to service the economy effectively - it leaves pockets and sectors of deprivation. This is an inevitable consequence of a money that exists in limited quantity. Its distribution will pattern the Pareto effect - a few will have a lot and many will have little.

Our dependance on normal money generates patterns of competition, exploitation, hoarding and crime, as we are reduced to competition for survival in a truly plentiful world. And for the physical ecology on which we are totally dependent, normal money is a disastrous problem - forests are strip mined; air, water and food are poisoned; estuaries are paved; and climate is changed globally - just to make a buck.

It all comes down to money in the end. The problems of the world come from our actions, and our actions, both as a society and as individuals, are largely determined by the way money works. Many trivial and even damaging things are being done simply because some people have the money and the will to do them. In contrast, other things of real value, many essential to the survival of the planet, are not happening simply because those who have the will, don't have the money. People are working in ways detrimental to their personal health, to that of the environment, both locally and globally, and to the well-being of their community because they need the money.

For most of the planet, the money comes first - what we do to get it comes second. And this is so because money is our means of exchange - we need to earn it to keep in the game. This is a problem, since money is scarce and essentially difficult to come by.

Consider the extent to which the economy of your own community is distorted at present by its need to import money through the export of real resources, often at unrealistic prices. Communities will squander resources, pander to tourists, entice heavy industry, and accept questionable benefits from government programs simply to keep the wages rolling. And consider how your community exports money to bring in goods and services at the most "economical" prices, rendering local producers idle, at an incalculable cost to the infrastructure of the community.

Most regions are communities in name rather than reality. An effective community is a process, an ongoing collection of social patterns and continuing relationships. It used to be that towns, villages, and regions were much more self reliant than now. When transportation was slow and expensive, when much had to be produced locally as it was too perishable to travel, when moving money was itself a risky business, most of the productive work in a community was addressed to meeting its own needs with what was available locally. With the advent of "cheap" energy and transportation, technologies of preservation, and the present ease of global monetary transactions, communities everywhere have been progressively drawn into patterns of cash crop specialization and the inevitable dependency relationship.

The flight of money from a community can leave it devoid of the means to trade within itself, even when resources are available. People are unemployed, not because they lack skills or they are unwilling to work, but simply because the money to employ them has drained away from the part of the world where they live.